Enterprise IT infrastructure services will need to take the lead for the transformation to the hybrid and cloud era. According to analysts like IDC and Gartner, the major change will be the automation of workload placement to reflect enterprise guidelines and compliance requirements.

Here’s a simple rule-of-thumb we use that illustrates why you need a NOC + Help Desk if you want to grow. We call it the ’30 percent rule’. Here’s how it works.

Smartphones and tablets are multiplying in IT environments like crazy, and the variety and types of devices are multiplying too, thanks to trends like BYOD (bring your own device) and CYOD (choose your own device). If mobile security isn’t at the top of your to-do list, you might be guilty of the sin of mobile negligence, which is one of the “7 Deadly IT Sins” identified by Sophos as serious risks to businesses.

The old standby block data, easily handled by said spreadsheets, is quickly being replaced by unstructured data. Driven by the growth of the 3rd platform (mobile, cloud, big data, and social) unstructured data has become a power to be reckoned with. We’re talking video and audio files, scanned images, and machine data of all kinds. In fact, there’s so much of this data floating around that close to 80 percent of all new IT storage is now devoted to managing unstructured data. And it’s doubling every two years.

Much has been said in the last five years about how security “needs a seat at the business table”. When this is uttered by a security professional, usually among other security professionals, everyone typically nods and looks at one another knowingly, as if this is a foregone conclusion. Well, it’s not.