Joann Starke

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When talking with customers, it is rare when I encounter one who is “all in” with private or “all-in” with public cloud.   Customers have come to realize that a single platform cannot deliver all the capabilities required by application, business and IT teams.  Developers want self-service and fast access to cloud infrastructure.  IT needs control […]

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It is nearly impossible to miss the business transformation taking place in every organization.  Multiple industry trends are combining to create a perfect storm where IT organizations need to manage...

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Customers are gaining market power and they want to interact with your organization using digital technologies.   As a result there is a plethora of automation solutions on the market.   Did you ever wish for guidance on these solutions from industry peers? Since 1986, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has recognized software and digital […]

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It is nearly impossible to miss the business transformation taking place in every organization.  As consumers, our smart devices have trained us to expect delivery of information or services at near instant speed.  But when we move from our consumer to business roles, we find service delivery anything BUT instant. Cisco has two solutions that […]

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We are living in the digital age and the effect it is having on the way we work and live are continuing to grow. IT professionals have never felt as much pressure to help their organization to move with speed and agility than today.  In response, large number of organizations are implementing private cloud.  But […]

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What do you think when you hear Hybrid IT?   Does your mind go to a 3rd kind of not quite private, not quite public cloud that your team needs to build? Fear not.  Hybrid IT is not another type of cloud but rather a strategy for your organization to quickly and cost-effectively deploy technology across multiple […]

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Data center professionals are under incredible pressure to help their business move with greater speed, offer flexible solutions and win new customers.   To achieve these business outcomes, cloud has become a core component to every organization’s strategic agenda. Cloud is not like other technology trends of the past. First, it is moving at logarithmic speed, […]

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For developers, it’s all about the experience. Easy.  Fast.  Predictable. And that’s why they are attracted to public cloud. Let’s face it, the developer experience with traditional IT is pretty miserable.  When you have a request, IT needs to make sure they have the resources, then your request goes through the corporate approval process and […]

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Private cloud automation is on the agenda of the majority of organizations today because it delivers the speed, flexibility and agility required to be competitive in today’s business environment.   There is a perception that private cloud is hard to achieve and with some solutions that may be true. Cisco has been in the cloud […]

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Digital disruption is resulting in smarter and smarter devices, an explosion of business services, and increased complexity for data center professionals.   The initial response of many organizations was to increase virtualization and headcount only to discover that this was not the way to increase organizational speed and agility.   Meeting the challenges of today’s […]

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The heart of automation is about reducing the intricacies of deploying and managing complex services and applications. Its about translating manual processes into automated workflows that deliver significant value to your business while allowing your staff to focus on more strategic projects. LightEdge is an enterprise-grade service provider and consulting company that is focused on […]

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Shadow IT is not a new topic and the threat it brings can wreak havoc on your business as well as your leaders. For years, we have known that employees and lines of business are bypassing IT departments and utilizing cloud services to get their job done.  Just how much are we using? Research brings […]

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Cloud has become a strategic component to business strategy for a wide range of businesses because it can deliver a comprehensive set of workloads as automated services.   Additionally, it allows organizations to reach new customers, stay ahead of the competition and transform the way they deliver resources to line of business and application teams. But […]

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The Industrial Revolution was a time when the world was transitioning to new manufacturing processes from the 1700’s to approximately 1820.   This transition moved manufacturing from hand to machine production and literally changed just about every aspect of daily life.    This was followed by a second revolution that scaled machine production into large-scale production […]

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Hybrid Cloud.  These two words are individually or collectively on the minds of just about every business today, regardless of size.  Why?   If you’re implementing a private cloud, you will inevitably ask yourself if you should be leveraging public cloud for dev/test or an alternative place to deploy workloads. Traditional people think of hybrid cloud […]

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Digital technology has become pervasive in our lives.   As a result tech savvy employees and customers have new expectations for interacting with your business. The problem is how do you meet these new expectations while at the same time meet your objectives of cost reduction, delivering business innovation and increasing profit? Translate your manual provisioning […]

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The world is experiencing a digital revolution that is rapidly changing your business landscape.  This revolution is not only connecting people with digital technology; but it has made this technology ubiquitous in all of our lives.  The result is tech-savvy employees and customers with new expectations how to interact with your business. Meeting these expectations requires […]

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There is no denying it cloud has moved beyond buzzword and become a key foundation element for over 40% of enterprise organizational strategies.   Making the decision to “go cloud” is the easy part.   Figuring out how to optimize and deliver on your cloud strategy is another discussion. The “first wave to cloud” was focused on operational […]

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Shadow IT is nothing new as employees and lines of business bypass IT departments to get the cloud services they need to complete their jobs.   Rogue IT has resulted in a conversation around the unintended and potentially dangerous consequences of increased security risks, compliance concerns and hidden costs. We all know that private and public […]

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Application architects and developers are the life blood of your business. They are responsible for analyzing, designing and developing commercially viable solutions to drive revenue for your business. These teams keep up-to-date on the latest technology, drive development activities and are responsible for the design and day-to-day functioning of non-production environments. What they are not […]

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Customers frequently comment that IT simply isn’t keeping pace with their needs.  Provisioning new data center resources can take weeks.  To be fair, IT professionals are doing the best they can but manual processes and organizational silos can make the process equivalent to trying to play a symphony without a conductor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc7U3VQIsk Cisco UCS Director’s […]

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Whether you call it digital disruption or the age of the empowered customer, business models are being disrupted; and at the center are our customers.  Customers are driving new consumption models that focus and align the way they want to consume technology:  faster, cheaper and with a higher degree of service.  Accommodating our customers requires […]

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The pace of business is accelerating.  As consumers, the internet has changed our expectations for how to order products, services or information as well as how fast it is delivered.  Think about it.   We access a web page, order what we want and complete the transaction.  In some cases, our orders are delivered within hours. […]

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Advanced technology assists your business on its journey to becoming more efficient and agile so it can keep serving the rising expectations of customers.  But, how can you help these advanced technologies serve your business well? Technology headlines focus on the individual tools to help you support advanced technologies; but the pivotal reality is that […]

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Application teams are the backbone of the revenue generating capabilities of all companies.  These creative people spend their off-hours working with the latest tools to keep their skills sharp.  Increasingly, these teams are going into the public cloud to develop their applications.  Why?  Developers need resources in days.  Procurement and IT quote resource delivery in […]

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Smart devices give us access to information and services at the speed of need. But they have conditioned us to expect anything and everything faster — and that includes IT services. This expectation for speed coupled with modern technology is driving IT innovation.  Yet, in most organizations, delivery of consistent infrastructure to application or business […]

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Companies’ expectations of IT keep increasing as the pace of business intensifies, creating greater demand for new services and faster access to resources and data.  If you have been reading my blogs, you know that THE way for IT to keep pace with the speed of business is automation. But buyers beware. IT automation solutions […]