Cloud technology is nothing new. In fact, today’s largest cloud platform provider, Amazon Web Services, was founded way back in 2006 – just a year after YouTube.

Since those early days, cloud has made businesses’ IT infrastructure more flexible, powered remote working, and helped many organisations adapt to change – especially this year. These benefits have, however, created significant hype and cloud now dominates the IT conversation like nothing else.

More people than ever are enjoying the benefits of connected working – where the latest technology tools are used to allow employees to do their jobs smoothly and productively, no matter where they are located.

But as individuals, connected working means different things to different people, depending on the specifics of the task at hand. For employees performing creative or admin roles based primarily at home, it might mean flexible access to office systems, using multiple devices, wherever they are in their house. For a field engineer, meanwhile, it might be more about having a single point of contact to log their completed jobs while out on the road. The common thread, whatever the circumstances, is giving people the right tools to do their job - anytime, anywhere.

For organisations looking to empower connected working, it is important to remember that there is no standardised approach to deployment. IT departments can be guilty of attempting to impose blanket technology solutions on workers, even if they are not suited to the needs of the end-user. It is far better to take a more dynamic approach to connected working, supported by flexible device ownership and evergreen management techniques, to ensure that employees are fully equipped for the task at hand with intrinsic intuitive security embedded.

A lax approach to cyber security can result in enormous disruption to your enterprise. Get it wrong, and damage to finances, operations and reputation can occur in an instant.

Edge Computing, seen by many as the next revolution for processing data, extends network boundaries and takes computing power to where data is created, collated and acted on.

It delivers processing power to everyday objects and deep analytics capabilities to the core. Edge Computing will enable organisations of all sizes across every sector to develop new ways of working and innovative propositions that are more efficient while delivering better user experiences.

Ashminder Ubhi (Ash), CDW Category Lead for Core Data Centre and Pete Hulme, CDW Practice Lead for Hybrid Infrastructure, discuss four fundamental questions on how to get the most from Edge Computing.

At CDW, we pride ourselves on being a team of diverse interests and skills – but even among such diversity, Solutions Specialist Aaron Morgan’s racing career is unique. We’ve been privileged to discuss Aaron’s racing journey with him over the past few weeks. On October 10^th, Aaron and his team came an impressive 4^th in class in the first and 3^rd in class in the second race at the Britcar Endurance Championship at Silverstone. We caught up with him after the race to discuss his work as a Solutions Specialist here at CDW.

Understanding Device-as-a-Service: how simplified hardware management can give workers the tools they need

One of the biggest challenges facing IT departments today is how to manage the wealth of devices used across an organisation. Selecting, configuring, deploying, supporting, maintaining, recycling and upgrading equipment such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops can feel like a full-time job for IT teams. This process becomes even more complicated when employees bring personal devices in the workplace, and individual departments start making ad-hoc technology purchases.

This uncoordinated approach to device management also costs money. Failure to adequately track IT assets often result in redundant devices, potentially creating a risk, and can lead to unnecessary and unplanned purchases. And as a result, IT teams can spend much of their time on hardware management, and not enough effort on more strategic, value-driven projects in areas such as digital transformation or security.

Choosing the right path: how to establish a best practice journey to hybrid/multicloud adoption

Cloud has undoubtedly transformed the way that we consume IT.

Hybrid strategies have proved popular to date as organisations look to maintain a mix of cloud services and on-premise IT. However, the last couple of years have seen the rise of the next iteration of cloud consumption: multi-cloud.

With the shift to increased levels of remote working, it’s critical that we assess new risks and threats targeting your users, devices, applications and data, says Richard Enderby - Practice Lead, Cyber Security, CDW UK.

The past months have been unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed. All of us – both in our personal lives and at work – have had to adapt to a set of challenges no-one could’ve predicted at the start of the year.

Looking back from the perspective of September, those weeks at the end of March and early April marked an unprecedented mobilisation of people and resources. The vast majority of coworkers and teams at CDW UK rapidly moved to home-working while simultaneously making sure our customers had the end-to-end IT services and support to do the same. During that initial period, all coworkers had to navigate a rapidly changing environment, while our COVID-19 Incident Management Team actioned plans to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our coworkers and communities.

We’re now at a different stage, with organisations exploring the future of work and a path of pandemic recovery. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss this topic in a recent webinar with Cisco’s Jenn Gormley and Rich Gore and we agreed that workplaces and the coworker experience is going to evolve considerably over the coming months and years. The pandemic has placed culture, wellbeing and flexibility in the spotlight and these elements will be key as businesses strive for future successes.

The world of esports is growing fast. There are predictions that the sport might get a spot in the 2024 Olympics. This growth extends into educational institutions. With student interest growing educators see esports as a chance to motivate students academically and provide opportunities to attract talent. For today’s student's esports facilities are becoming much more influential in their academic choices.

As the British Esports Association notes, participating in esports can spark or strengthen students’ interest in emerging, technology-driven careers. There are numerous other esports-related occupational opportunities such as working as a referee, coach, product manager or event manager. Esports opens up prospects in marketing, sales, web development and design. Esports isn’t just gaming; it develops skills for STEM opportunities and career growth.