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Upcoming articles for Computer Weekly

For Computer Weekly, I am researching the following features:

Disaster recovery: on-premises vs as-a-service

In this piece, we will look at cloud and at a service offerings for disaster recovery, and how they compare with on premises options.

  • Why is disaster recovery increasingly critical for enterprises, and how is DR measured?
  • What are the benefits of cloud and as a service DR?
  • What are the pros and cons of on-premises implementation?
  • Are there industries or workloads that suit one format more than the other?

Deadline: Tuesday 15th July

How to consolidate storage during M&A 

Is there a template for storage consolidation following M&A? Or else, what best practice should organisations adopt?

The piece will cover:

  • The benefits from consolidating storage after M&A?
  • What benefits come if you leave infrastructure as-is?
  • How can cloud storage help in such situations?
  • What are the key tasks when approaching potential storage rationalisation after M&A?

Deadline: Tuesday 22nd July

Please pitch any interviews, or send any information, by email with details in the first instance noting the deadlines above.

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Upcoming articles: compliance for AI projects

I am writing two features for Computer Weekly looking at AI and compliance.

The first is AI and compliance: What are the risks? (deadline for contributions: 1200hrs, Friday 25th April).

This piece will spotlight some of the most common compliance risks around AI projects in the enterprise and will look at:

  • what are the most common AI deployments in the enterprise right now?
  • what potential problems exist with source data for AI?
  • how important is data quality and data verification?
  • what potential problems exist with outputs from AI?
  • what issues do enterprises face, around the right to move data to where it is being trained, or where it is used?

The second article is AI and compliance: How to stay the right side of laws and regulations? (deadline for contributions: 1200hrs, Thursday 1st May).

The piece will look at:

  • the context of enterprise AI deployments, and the compliance and regulatory framework around this
  • the laws and regulations that govern AI (focused on UK/EU)
  • likely future legislation and regulation
  • the key steps an enterprise can take to ensure AI compliance

To contribute to either piece, please email with details in the first instance noting the deadlines above.

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Computer Weekly features: AI storage options

I am currently researching the following two features for Computer Weekly, and I am keen to receive background information on deployments and use cases as well as vendor-neutral comments:

NAS vs SAN for AI storage   – deadline 11/04/25 12:00 BST         

  • What kind of data – file, block, object – makes up data processed in AI workloads?
  • What implications are there for the storage used?
  • Is AI data mostly stored on NAS or SAN?
  • Why does file storage dominate in AI?
  • Can you store AI data on a SAN, and when is that likely to be better?
  • Is it always better to store file data on a NAS?
  • What other options are there besides NAS and SAN for AI data, such as object storage

Cloud storage for AI – pros, cons, options – deadline 18/04/25 12:00 BST

  • What kinds of storage does AI generally require, in terms of performance, protocol etc?
  • What kinds of storage are available in the main clouds?
  • What kinds of cloud storage are required for AI processing in the cloud?
  • What kinds of cloud storage can be used for AI processing on prem? And in what situations?
  • Looking at the different kinds of cloud storage available, what are the pros and cons of each?

To contribute to either piece, please email with details in the first instance noting the deadlines above.

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Upcoming article: Small Language Models

For an upcoming piece for Computer Weekly, we’ll be covering small language models.

We’ll look at the emergence of AI at the edge and how a new breed of hardware and software powers AI inference applications on any devices. And discuss now SLMs are developing. Large language models attract most of the attention, but could SLMs be more useful to enterprises?

The focus of the piece will be on actual or potential use cases, so I’m very keen to hear from businesses that have implemented them – or even replaced LLMs with SLMs.

Deadline for all contributions is Friday 21st March.

Please email with details in the first instance.

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Upcoming articles: third party cloud storage and VMWare backup alternatives

I am writing the articles below for Computer Weekly, to appear early in January.Article 1: third party cloud storage options

This piece will cover:

  • The third party – storage vendor – products and services that are available in the big three clouds
  • The use cases for these third party offerings

We will then look in turn at the offerings from GCP, Azure and AWS identifying each of the above, as well as performance / tier options and links, if any, to on-site storage infrastructure.

Article 2: VMware alternatives and backup

This article will explore changes in the backup market, following changes to VMWare licensing, and what options enterprises have if they are moving away from VMWare.

We will cover:

  • What has happened to VMware licencing and why are organisations seeking alternatives?
  • How the backup market has responded?
  • What customers should look for in terms of backup solutions when migrating to a VMware alternative?
  • Brief details on backup providers offering virtualisation environments / VMware alternatives.

For both articles, due to the holidays and our publication dates, I am looking for leads by 1700hrs on Tuesday 17th December and any submissions or interviews to be completed by Thursday, end of business London time.

Please email with details in the first instance.

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Upcoming article: AIOps and storage management

In this Computer Weekly article we will look at AI ops tools, and what they do.

The piece will focus on the main storage vendors (Dell, HPE, Hitachi, Huawei, IBM, NetApp, and Pure). It is largely a follow on to this piece from a while back.

For each vendor we will be covering:

  • What the vendor’s AI ops tools are called
  • What they work with the vendor’s storage product range
  • How they work and the functionality they offer

This is a short article, and I am looking for written contributions, or specific links to vendor material, no later than 1700hrs GMT on Friday 22 November.

To contribute to this piece, please contact me by email.

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Additional Sept 2024 article: Data centre cooling

For this Computer Weekly feature, we are looking into the state of the art for data centre cooling.

What ticks the boxes for effectiveness, efficiency, cost and energy use? Which solutions are easiest to fit into current data centres, and which improvements bring the greatest benefits?

The rise of new workloads like AI means that datacentre operators need to consider how to get more power in, to support large GPU clusters, and the cooling requirements of these chips.

So how will operators tackle those new power and cooling requirements?

The focus will be on the technologies currently on the market, and which can be applied to existing data centres. We can touch on emerging technologies and those that work with new-build locations, but the focus of the feature is on practical options CIOs and data centre managers can buy now.

I am keen to hear from data centre owners/operators — including CIOs — industry consultants and analysts. Due to the nature of the feature, we are unlikely to quote equipment vendors directly, but happy to receive information on their solutions.

To contribute to this piece, please contact me by email in the first instance. The deadline is Friday 23rd August.

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Upcoming articles: September 2024

I am writing the following pieces, to appear in Computer Weekly in September.

Please note the earlier than usual deadlines, due to the Bank Holiday weekend.

How to succeed at cloud repatriation 

Deadline for input: 1700hrs, Friday 16th August

In this feature, we will look at how to make cloud repatriation work. This will include:

  • Which data are best suited to cloud repatriation?
  • Which workloads (and applications) benefit most from moving back on premises?
  • How should you prepare your private infrastructure tfircloud repatriation? What are the potential pitfalls? What could you overlook?
  • How do you make your data / infrastructure future-proofed if you repatriate from the cloud? How do you ensure you will remain cloud-native
  • How do you ensure you can reverse the decision and smoothly transition to the cloud, if the need arises, or use it for burst use cases?

I am looking for CIOs, analysts or consultants’ views for this piece.

What you need to know about Kubernetes DR 

Deadline for input: 1700hrs, Wednesday 21st August

With Kubernetes becoming more widely used in enterprises, the question of how to ensure it can survive an outage or systems failure is ever more critical. We’ll look at the points below; note this is different to K8 backup, which we have covered before.

  • Why do we need DR for Kubernetes?
  • What are the challenges to doing DR for Kubernetes clusters? 
  • What are the infrastructure requirements of DR for Kubernetes?
  • What are the risks to Kubernetes environments that need to be mitigated by DR; how do these differ from other environments)?
  • What key points would a DR plan for a Kubernetes environment contain?
  • What kind of products can help with Kubernetes DR? 

Again the preference is for analyst and consultant views, not vendors.

Data centre cooling

For this feature, we are looking into the state of the art for data centre cooling. What ticks the boxes for effectiveness, efficiency, cost and energy use? Which solutions are easiest to fit into current data centres, and which improvements bring the greatest benefits?

The rise of new workloads like AI means that datacentre operators need to consider how to get more power in, to support large GPU clusters, and the cooling requirements of these chips.

So how will operators tackle those new power and cooling requirements?

The focus will be on the technologies currently on the market, and which can be applied to existing data centres. We can touch on emerging technologies and those that work with new-build locations, but the focus of the feature is on practical options CIOs and data centre managers can buy now.

I am keen to hear from data centre owners/operators — including CIOs — industry consultants and analysts. Due to the nature of the feature, we are unlikely to quote equipment vendors directly, but happy to receive information on their solutions.

To contribute to any of these pieces, please contact me by email in the first instance.

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New commissions: Computer Weekly, July 2024

For the storage section of Computer Weekly, I am writing a feature on hybrid multicloud storage.

The piece will cover the following points:

  • What is hybrid/multi-cloud storage? 
  • What are the benefits of hybrid/multi-cloud storage?
  • What pitfalls does hybrid/multi-cloud storage bring? 
  • What workloads can most benefit from hybrid/multi-cloud storage?
  • What customers / workloads are a no-no for hybrid multi-cloud storage? 
  • What technical solutions can help make best use of hybrid/multi-cloud storage?

I am happy to receive technical briefs on this topic from vendors, as well as input from analysts or consultants. Any real-world examples of hybrid multicloud storage in use are also welcome.

The deadline for submissions is 1700hrs Tuesday 9th July.

To contribute, please contact me by email in the first instance.

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Computer Weekly: how to create the best hybrid cloud storage strategy

This feature will set out the key points IT directors need to consider when developing a hybrid cloud data storage strategy.

Key points we will consider are:

  • Key strengths of cloud storage
  • Key strengths of on-site data storage
  • How to decides which data goes where?
  • What does an optimal cloud storage strategy look like?
  • Some examples, including those that are primarily cloud based and primarily on-premises
  • Use cases that drive the decisions

I am keen to have real world examples and commentary from analysts or other experts.

Please note, the focus is on storage deployments, not compute.

The deadline for submissions is 1700hrs Thursday 23 May (due to the UK bank holiday weekend).

To contribute to either piece, please contact me by email in the first instance.

Note: if possible please don’t change the email subject line (or by all means append the source’s name to it, eg CW May 2024 – Our Client). It just helps ensure I can find all submissions.