We use servers as an example and look at some of the aspects of the server industry you should consider, and how you can use them to work out how best to approach the market.

Discussion points include practical approaches looking at:

• Recap - what are servers?
  
• Two common server architectures and how they require very different approaches - x86 vs SPARC
  
• Other related purchases such as hardware support, administration and operating system suppoer
  
• Stakeholder interviews, alignment and management
  
• Past and expected future server spend analysis
  
• Contracts and addressable spend
  
• Understanding the server industry and it's trends
  
• Supplier and customer positioning
  
• News - the latest huge data breach - it's a big one and this data matters! [ Future tech review coming in episode 6 as a result]
  

Download or subscribe to this show at https://www.buyingtech.net

Click here to Subscribe in iTunes/your Podcast app

We use enterprise storage as an example and start to develop a list of what we need to know and understand in order to use Category Management to develop a strategy for the storage space in your company.

Discussion points include:

• What is Category Management?
  
• How can it be used to buy technology?
  
• What is storage, and what are the primary types of storage companies use?
  
• What are storage arrays?
  
• Storage spend and demand (internal) analysis
  
• Storage industry and supplier (external) analysis
  
• Understanding your internal storage customers
  

In the next episode (Category Management Part 2) we will look at the tools you can use to answer all these questions and put together the data that will allow you to create a category strategy.

Download or subscribe to this show at https://www.buyingtech.net

You bet!

In this episode of BuyingTech we talk about Relationship Management and how it can genuinely impact your IT and network systems.

Are your key relationships as good as they could be?

Listen and find out!

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We will discuss Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) including:

• What is relationship management?
• How you actually establish a genuine and balanced business relationship
• Strength beyond contracts
• Different perspectives of the same relationship
• What do you do when something goes wrong?
• Recognising you are dealing with individuals, and they also have a role representing the company they work for
• How relationships and knowledge can help with better (and easier!) negotiated outcomes
• How to improve surety of supply
• Adding value to your supplier's business
• Reducing risk with knowdlege
• Obtaining additional market advantage
• Becoming a customer of choice

It's not hard, and it can make a genuine difference when done well.

Download or subscribe to this show at https://www.buyingtech.net

In this episode of Buying Tech we talk about the safe disposal and risk management of your surplus or old technology assets including servers, storage, PCs, printers, routers, media and cell phones.

Think you are disposing of your old tech properly and minimising risk?

Listen and see!

Click here to Subscribe in iTunes/your Podcast app

We will cover risk identification and mitigation including:

• Identifying potentially risky assets
• How your contracts may create a corporate liability upon certain asset disposal
• Chain of custody
• Secure wiping for various media types
• Environmental concerns including minimising additions to landfill and unnecessary resource consumption.
• Asset sales and making money from the grey market.

We also discuss key risks and issues to consider: how to protect key company and customer data, and how to minimise environmental impact.

So do your company, your clients and the environment a favor and see how well you do!

In addition we cover two Cloud related questions that follow on from Episode 1: methods to determine what to move to the cloud, and ponder the future of cloud.

Download or subscribe to this show at https://www.buyingtech.net

Useful links:

Swedish leak

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40705473

Blancco software

https://www.blancco.com/products/drive-eraser/

Commonwealth Bank and the Cloud

2012: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/cba-saves-millions-from-cloud-services/news-story/e38dd2154c1c0cd83de14cd9d69bf73b

2017: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/public-cloud-costs-push-cba-to-openstack-464239

In this episode of Buying Tech we talk about PCs, servers, apps and virtualization - and how these concepts relate to cloud computing for small, large and enterprise/government scale IT.

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We will cover various types of cloud offerings and what they involve:

• Infrastructure As a Service (IaaS)
  
• Software as a service (SaaS)
  
• Storage as a Service (STaaS)
  
• Security as a Service (SECaaS),
• Platform as a Service (PaaS).

We also discuss key risks and issues to consider: are backups still important and what else do we need to think about if considering moving something - or everything - to the cloud? Connectivity, security, data privacy, planning for the future, contractual concerns and financial issues, as well as some of the pros and cons of cloud versus more traditional approaches to deploying and operating your IT systems.

Download or subscribe to this show at https://www.buyingtech.net

Links:

https://www.softlayer.com

https://aws.amazon.com/

https://gsuite.google.com

http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/service-desk

http://www.products.office.com

https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/

https://azure.microsoft.com

https://www.cloudflare.com/

This podcast is devoted to technology including how to buy tech for small businesses all the way through to huge scale enterprise and government tech spend.

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