Our Thoughts on IT Matters

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Hidden Costs in Your Technology Agreements: Beware the 'I' Word

Inflation impacts the cost of nearly all your supplier agreements. Look closely at your IT agreements (especially your Cloud agreements). Even though the cost of technology goes down over time, and technology advancements make processes less manual, less error prone, less expensive, and more automated, many of your agreements still have antiquated clauses allowing your suppliers to *increase* your costs on an annual basis by an amount equal to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) amount, and generally include an accelerator above that amount; something like CPI + 3%, which would provide a contractual right of your supplier to increase your costs ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Seven: Spot Pricing

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). Our seventh chapter in the series: Use Spot Pricing Spot Instances are spare compute capacity at a steep discount (up to 90%) to On-Demand Instances. Spot Instances can go down with very little notice. While they are frequently used to supplement On-Demand Instances, they aren’t meant to ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Six: CloudWatch with Autoscaling

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). Our sixth chapter in the series: CloudWatch with Autoscaling AWS CloudWatch (Azure Monitor, GCP Monitoring) enables you to collect consumption metrics and set up alarms to invoke actions. These tools collect these metrics, allows you to visualize them and to define alarms with the ...

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The Top 25 Cyber Security Suppliers for 2021

Dave Young
Jun. 24,2021 | Cyber Security

Call them what you will, but hackers, cybercriminals, and identity thieves, as well as some notable nation states, are an increasing threat to enterprises of all industries and sizes across the globe. The recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident is only the most recent and noteworthy because it impacted an important supply chain: gasoline. However, hundreds of similar breaches are playing out every day and it really goes without saying that Cybersecurity continues to be a top concern among businesses across industries, particularly as work environments have shifted from the office to the home. While Cybercriminals are attempting to ...

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Top 5 Reasons Why the Bloomberg Empire Will Fall

Preface As a follow-up to our previous blog, “Can the White Walker Ghouls at Bloomberg Be Stopped”? We outline NET(net)’s Top 5 reasons why we believe the Bloomberg empire are ‘the walking dead’ and will soon fall. Intro Since 1982, Bloomberg has enjoyed a virtual monopoly on Wall Street, with a stranglehold on the information and technology needed to be a viable securities buyer. That virtual monopoly is coming to an end, but the folks at Bloomberg have not realized it yet. This is why we are reaching out to you folks who spend the massive amounts of money to pay for those Bloomberg devices and services, which are now outrageously ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Five: Size it Right

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 12 here). Our fifth chapter in the series: Size it Right! Once you have deployed resources for a while, you have to check that your instances are optimal. For most clients, instances are set with the right configuration at time of the launch. As your consumption and business environment evolve, ...

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Microsoft Wants To Be Your Sole Solution Provider for Security and Compliance. Do You Really Want That?

The news has constant reminders of the risks of an unsecure infrastructure. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware event recently caused blood pressure spikes in boardrooms and C-Suites all over the world. Microsoft continues to expand their security and compliance offerings, with a dizzying and confusing array of services, bundles, and add-ons to your 365 subscriptions. As we come into June, the end of the Microsoft fiscal year, clients are getting heavy pressure from management to “do something” about the very high-risk security and compliance requirements in today’s enterprise – and Microsoft is happy to sell “solutions”. But are they really ...

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12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series - Number Four: Power-Cycle It

Cloud spend is anticipated to continue its massive growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. However, the spend does not have to match that same growth curve! To help our Clients maintain sound Cloud Optimization programs, we've assembled a series of articles and tips called: 12 for '21 Cloud Optimization Series (note: request a download of all 21 here). Today we review the fourth installment in the series: Power-Cycle It. A large portion of the cloud waste originates from idle and low utilization instances. This is particularly relevant for non-production (e.g. development, testing, QA, etc.) instances and applications with consumption ...

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Top 10 HCM HRMS Suppliers for 2021

Introduction: The WFA (Work from Anywhere) dynamic has challenged the traditional mission of HCM professionals. With these changes come new and unique ways that HCM and HRMS providers should be engaged and negotiated with. As you read through our top 10 providers, some strategic imperatives to keep in mind: Innovation: Shifts to WFA models require rapid, nimble, innovation focused providers. Keep this in mind when researching your renewal and or new agreements. Ensure the agreement’s terms and conditions meet YOUR expectations and projected business requirements – not the providers sales and margin goals. Return of the niche providers: HCM ...

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Top 4 (of 100) Technology Review Platforms for 2021

Clients often ask how we can stay on top of the market due to its constantly changing nature, and our answer is simple. We are constantly researching and analyzing the market in real-time, availing ourselves of a variety of resources. First among those is our own FMI (Federated Market Intelligence) gathered from thousands of executed deals since 2002. It’s a luxury to have that kind of data to inform Client strategy and optimization. However, we do also frequently vet our own understanding of the market by using a variety of resources, including the major Technology Review Platforms. If you can imagine, there are literally hundreds of ...

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