What a whirlwind May was as we attended several conferences, wrapping up with Red Hat Summit. Red Hat integrated AnsibleFest into Summit this year, providing a diverse amount of sessions, including technical, strategic, and a number of customer use case sessions, which were a personal favorite.

As companies undergo digital transformation and create hybrid workplaces, they generate more risk by extending beyond the traditional network. Adopting new technologies expands the attack surface, giving cyber criminals more opportunities to stage a breach.

When companies think of cybersecurity challenges, they may envision a risk landscape peopled with bad actors who use ransomware and other malware to stage attacks. However, many security challenges come from the way IT environments evolve. As IT infrastructure expands and diversifies, it creates weak spots that can be exploited by cybercriminals.

Now is the time to start looking into which technology conferences you want to attend this year. The spring and summer are the prime conference seasons, with some conferences already announced for the fall and next winter. The IBM Common conference in Coppell, Texas already took place on February 16, 2023. 

Please let us know if you plan to attend any of these conferences so we can stay connected while there.  

Networking and security are 2 areas of information technology that are continuously evolving. As working environments change, companies face more connectivity challenges. Cybercriminals are always developing new attack vectors to evade information security.

Migrating applications can be one of the most challenging aspects of moving to the cloud. Sometimes, applications aren’t compatible with the cloud, especially if they are legacy applications. 

Because of strict compliance regulations, healthcare organizations need to think carefully about migrating to the cloud. The migration process can be challenging. Healthcare providers need to avoid any chance of exposing patient data to unauthorized access and compromise. Healthcare organizations also can’t afford downtime during a migration because of the vital services they provide.

As pervasive as the cloud has become, cloud migration can still be risky and complicated. Applications may not be compatible with the cloud. The process of migration may lead to extended downtime that interrupts production. The worst-case scenario is a failed migration, which forces a company to move workloads back on-premises.

A few of us recently attended Red Hat’s AnsibleFest in Chicago. We heard from some big brands, such as Wells Fargo, Home Depot, and DATEV eG. It was great to hear success stories regarding their automation journey and some important lessons learned along the way.

Forbes identified automation as one of its Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends for 2023. Companies are embracing automation to replace time-consuming and error-prone manual configuration processes, promote standardization and reliability, and overcome IT staff shortages.