To the uninitiated, the term dark data may evoke images of mysterious stores of data tucked away in an obscure location—hopefully, distant enough from your company’s hard drives so that they are no threat to online security. The reality however, is that there’s nothing ominous at all about dark data, it’s closer to you than you think, and more importantly, it can even bring value to your business when used right.

In this article, we define what dark data is and where it comes from, discuss ways to harness the value that it holds, and understand the challenges that may come with its management.

IT infrastructure, technology hardware, and data centers are playing a huge role in the current business landscape, and now form part of the key capital investments that companies allocate substantial budgets for. As such, businesses are looking to maximise on their techn investments and wish to extend the life of their hardware pieces for as long as possible.

When it comes to servicing and maintaining data center products and IT equipment, businesses have 3 choices: stick to maintenance contracts of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), partner with Third Party Maintenance (TPM) providers, or adopt a combination of both. In this post, we learn more about the difference between OEM and TPM, and evaluate which option could offer better IT support London services for data center equipment.

London-based small businesses that outsource their IT functions to a managed IT support London provider can improve cost efficiencies, reduce downtimes, improve cybersecurity capabilities, and gain several other major benefits. But what exactly is managed IT support and what are the benefits this type of service can offer?

Remote working has been both a boon and a bane for many organisations and employees. A boon because it has allowed work to carry on even as a global health crisis continues; and a bane because it has given rise to employees’ struggles with time management and work prioritisation when doing their jobs outside of the physical work space.

That said, however, the availability of technology, tools, and remote IT support have been instrumental in making remote working the best option to keep employees in service and businesses, well, in business. The numbers indicate as much.

As one of the key underlying technologies that enable cloud computing, virtualisation is largely responsible for many of the innovations and digital transformations in businesses over the last two decades. While you can certainly leverage virtualisation through cloud computing, you can also gain substantial benefits if you choose to use virtualisation directly, i.e., in your on-premises data center. Here are 6 ways you can do that.

Some businesses would like to think that doing things the traditional way is best. Well, this may be true for certain tasks, but in general, technology has allowed processes to be done much faster and more efficiently—and that’s with the help of business automation.

Automation strategies have proven to be very effective for many enterprises, so much so that Gartner, Inc. speculates that 69% of managers’ current workload could be fully automated by 2024. If your organisation is not yet making full use of automation tools, this post should enlighten you on how your business can benefit from an automation strategy.

Technology has always moved rapidly –even more so in today’s cloud-centric world where the next major feature is an automatic update away. Needless to say, the companies that can make the most of the technology available to them are likely to enjoy a competitive advantage over their peers.

How can businesses stay ahead of the technology curve – making maximum use of the technology available to them, while ensuring that competitors never gain a competitive advantage due to their greater ability to harness the latest technology? Let’s take a look.

Technology has become an integral part of every organisation today, and business executives have learned that IT investments allocated wisely pay off in spades. But just as technology is essential to ensure effective business operations, IT support services play an integral part to that efficiency as well.

Reliable tech support helps your employees and customers deal with the everyday challenges that they may encounter, particularly those concerning digital hardware, IT solutions, and tech products. If your business is located in the UK, a secure and smoothly-running system, thanks to good IT support in London, allows you and your staff to focus on the core tasks at hand.

Managed services is a sector that’s growing rapidly – according to a MarketsAndMarkets metric, managed services will grow from a global value of USD 223bn in 2020 to USD 329bn to 2025. This is clearly outsize growth, which indicates the growing popularity of outsourcing IT – for businesses large and small.

But why is managed IT embraced by so many companies around the world – and at such a scale? In this article we will look at some of the various benefits of managed IT services, showing why, when seeking IT support London companies often choose managed services.

We also cover some of the things you should watch out for when hiring managed IT services and point to a possible compromise that may fit companies that have unique IT requirements: augmenting in-house IT with managed services.

Organisations wouldn’t change their IT support provider if they can help it, thinking that putting up with the subpar quality of service is better than being left in chaos with the absence of tech support. After all, finding out that your managed services provider (MSP) is not as dependable as their service level agreement (SLA) would have you believe is something that you would rather not act on because changing providers could mean significant business disruption.

Still, staying in a disadvantageous partnership with an unprofessional service provider will do your business more harm than good in the long run. Whether it’s your MSP’s lack of concern for cybersecurity, slow response to reported issues, unwillingness or inability to adapt to your changing needs as a company — and everything else in between, these incompetencies are costing your business time, money, and opportunities.

But what shortcomings should you consider as ultimate deal breakers in IT support London or elsewhere? If you’re not quite sure whether it’s still worth waiting for your service provider to improve their service, here are 5 signs that will tell you that yes, your business deserves better quality IT support.