Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: HP.

The next edition of the HP Discover Performance podcast series highlights how cloud infrastructure and hosted IT services provider Savvis has been able to automate out complexity and add deep efficiency to its operations.

Using a range of performance, operations orchestration and Business Service Automation (BSA) solutions from HP, Savvis has improved its incident resolution and sped the delivery of new cloud services to its enterprise clients.

To learn more about how they did it, we're joined by Art Sanderson, Senior Manager Enterprise Management Tools at Savvis. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: HP.


Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.

Our next VMworld case study interview revisits a unique vertical industry cloud -- NYSE Euronext's Capital Markets Community Platform -- to take stock of how mission-critical cloud services are being delivered.

We'll learn about how this innovative cloud and groundbreaking business model targets the needs of Wall Street IT leaders, how the business of the financial services industry has received them, and explore how providing cloud services as a business has evolved.

This story comes as part of a special BriefingsDirect podcast series from the 2012 VMworld Conference in San Francisco the week of August 27. The series explores the latest in cloud computing and software-defined datacenter infrastructure developments.

Our guest is Feargal O'Sullivan, the Global Head of Alliances at NYSE Technologies. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.


Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.

The latest BriefingsDirect enterprise user IT adoption story centers on how global legal services leader Foley & Lardner LLP has adopted virtual desktops and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) to enhance end-user productivity across their far-flung operations.

We'll see how Foley has delivered applications, data, and services better and with improved control -- even as employees have gained more choices and flexibility over the client devices, user experiences, and applications usage.

Learn more here about adapting to the new realities of client computing and user expectations with Linda Sanders, the CIO, and Rick Varju, Director of Engineering & Operations, both at Foley & Lardner LLP. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.


Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.

In advance of next week's VMworld conference in San Francisco, I recently sat down with Steve Herrod, Chief TechnologyOfficer and Senior Vice President of Research & Development at VMware.

Our discussion hinges on the intriguing concept of the software-defined datacenter. We look at how some of the most important attributes of datacenter capabilities and performance are now squarely under the domain of software enablement.

A top technology leader at VMware, Herrod has championed this vision of the software-defined datacenter and how the next generation of foundational IT innovation is largely being implemented above the hardware.

For example, those who are now building and managing datacenters are gaining heightened productivity, delivering far better performance, and enjoying greater ease in operations and management -- all thanks to innovations at the software-infrastructure level.

Join the discussion here and further explore how advances in datacenter technologies and architecture are -- to an unprecedented extent -- being driven primarily through software. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.


Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Quest Software.

The benefits of server virtualization are clear for many more companies now as they reach higher percentages of workloads supported by virtual machines (VMs). But the complexity impacts on other IT functions can also ramp up quickly, in some cases jeopardizing the overall benefits.

When it come to the relationship between increasingly higher levels of virtualization and the need for new data backup and recovery strategies, for example, the impacts can be multiplier of improvement when both are done properly and in context to one another.

The next BriefingsDirect enterprise IT discussion then focuses on how virtualization provides an excellent on-ramp to improved data lifecycle benefits and efficiencies. What's more, the elevation of data to the lifecycle efficiency level also forces a rethinking of the culture of data, of who owns data, and when, and who is responsible for managing it in a total lifecycle.

This is different from the previous and current system of data management as a fragmented approach, with different oversight for data across far-flung instances and uses.

Here to share insights on where the data availability market is going -- and how new techniques are being adopted to make the value of data ever greater -- we're joined by John Maxwell, Vice President of Product Management for Data Protection, at Quest Software. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Quest Software.


Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.

The latest BriefingsDirect end-user case-study uncovers how outerwear and sportswear maker and distributor Columbia Sportswear has used virtualization techniques and benefits to significantly improve their business operations.

We’ll see how Columbia Sportswear’s use of deep virtualization assisted in rationalizing its platforms and data center, as well as led to benefits in their enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. We’ll also learn how virtualizing mission-critical applications formed a foundation for improved disaster recovery (DR) best practices.

Stay with us now to learn more about how better systems make for better applications that deliver better business results with Michael Leeper, Senior Manager of IT Engineering at Columbia Sportswear, and Suzan Frye, Manager of Systems Engineering at Columbia Sportswear, in Portland, Oregon. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.


Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: HP.

This edition of the HP Discover Performance podcast series examines the future of security in the enterprise. As the need to protect and manage assets extends beyond the four walls of the organization -- with the adoption of cloud and mobile -- how should the thinking about traditional security adjust?

I recently had a chance to sit down with Raf Los of HP Software to gather his perspective on the answer to that question. Los has an interesting personal perspective on the concept of “enterprise resiliency,” which I initially heard about through his blog, Following the White Rabbit. He's also on Twitter at @wh1t3rabbit

BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, unpacks with Los the concept of enterprise resiliency as the natural maturity direction for IT security in general.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: HP.


Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.

A fascinating global ocean studies initiative helps best define some of the IT superlatives around big data, cloud computing, and middleware integration capabilities.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) and its accompanying Cyberinfrastructure Program aims to provide an unprecedented ability to study the Earth's oceans and climate using myriad distributed data centers and literally oceans' worth of data.

The scale and impact of the science's importance is closely followed by the magnitude of the computer science needed to make that data accessible and actionable by scientists. In a sense, the OOI and its infrastructure program, a major undertaking by the National Science Foundation, are constructing a big data-scale programmable and integratable cloud fabric for oceanography.

We’ve gathered three leaders to explain the OOI and how the Cyberinfrastructure Program may not only solve this set of data and compute problems, but perhaps establish a path to how future massive data and analysis problems are solved.

They are: Here to share their story on OOI are: Matthew Arrott, Project Manager at the OOI Cyberinfrastructure; Michael Meisinger, Managing Systems Architect for the Ocean Observatories Initiative Cyberinfrastructure, and Alexis Richardson, Senior Director for the VMware Cloud Application Platform, as well as a co-founder of the CloudCamp conferences, and a co-chair of the Open Cloud Computing Interface at the Open Grid Forum.

The panel discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Find the podcast on iTunes/iPod. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: VMware.