HOW MONITORING CAN HELP TO ENSURE THAT YOUR BUSINESS STAYS HEALTHY

You can only run a business successfully if you understand what’s happening. In the past that’s been relatively easy, but as organisations become larger and more complex and rely increasingly upon technology, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with information to the point where you can’t see the important parts. Many applications, such as ERP systems and customer information systems offer insight into parts of the business, but it’s difficult to…

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RETAIL AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INFORMED

In the modern world, no business exists in isolation. In the retail sector, perhaps more than any other, this means that information from customers, suppliers and distributors is vital to delivering effective services. Business to Business In order to succeed, retail and consumer companies are forging ever closer ties. This allows them to make better decisions, get goods to stores in a timely manner, and market them effectively. All of…

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Remove the Barriers and You can Close the Digital Divide.

You might think that as we become increasingly reliant upon technology in our everyday lives, any business would be keen to embrace the technological future in order to communicate better with its customers and improve profitability. However, research last year from the CBI and IBM (http://www.cbi.org.uk/news/digital-divide-among-uk-business-is-holding-back-the-economy/) reveals that there’s a growing digital divide emerging in the UK economy with a little over half of all companies embracing the digital economy…

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Closing the Digital Divide

Closing the Digital Divide – Seven things you need to get right in order to take advantage of the digitised supply chain. More than ever before, commerce today relies upon close collaboration between businesses at all stages of the supply chain. This enables suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and ultimately customers to benefit from a boost in performance, reduced time-to-market and lower costs. Ultimately this means bigger profits, but it also gives…

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Open-Source Testing Tools for API development – Part 2

Author: John Ormerod, W3Partnership Limited Date: January 2017 Introduction In part 1 of this series, I covered my experience with: API Definition Unit Testing. In this (part 2), I cover: Calling APIs: Test Clients This will be followed by two more: Part 3 Function and Load Tests SoapUI JMeter Part 4 Mocking back-end services Some of the tools were recommended by colleagues on projects, some I discovered and the rest…

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How black was your Friday?

From being a purely American phenomenon, the idea of Black Friday sales has rapidly caught on elsewhere in the last few years. 2016 saw Black Friday sales in the UK reach their highest level for two years (AUTHORITY URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4007712/Black-Friday-sales-reached-highest-level-two-years.html) with more than £1.2 billion being spent online alone) Black Friday represents a pre-Christmas boost for retailers and a useful extension to the holiday shopping period. But the success of their…

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Data, data, everywhere, Nor any insight to see

IoT is everywhere, but what do you do with the data? The Internet of Things (IoT) has opened up a whole new world of information for many businesses. Data collected by smart devices and sensors is telling us more about customers and how products are being used than ever before. From fitness trackers and domestic appliances to connected cars and industrial machinery, IoT devices are appearing in many areas of…

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Bourne or Bond. Which one are you in the API world?

The two best known spy film genres are Jason Bourne and James Bond. The two on the face of it do a very similar job, but the way they go about it are subtly different. James Bond is suave, sophisticated, independent. Yet if you drill a little deeper, James is very dependent on the whole of MI6 to deliver his service. After all where would 007 be without Q &…

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Creating an IBM MQ H/A Cluster using a Multi-Instance Queue Manager

Creating an IBM MQ H/A Cluster using a Multi-Instance Queue Manager   Introduction When building a Production environment, one of the most important aspects for any client, is to ensure that the environment is resilient, efficient and long-lasting. At the same time the administration of the environment should be as easy as possible, as well as effective. What is High Availability (H/A) H/A clusters are groups of two or more…

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