Chances are if you are in IT management or providing IT services you have had to deal with virtualization hosts. When it comes time to retire your old hardware and move to a new host, there are a number of different ways to go about it. One in particular for ESXi lets...
Data Engineering
Exploring Java 8’s New Feature: Lambda Expressions
Recently, Oracle announced the release of Java 8. This latest edition has some interesting new features, most notably the inclusion of lambda expressions and the ability to do multiple inheritance through default methods. We’ll spend the bulk of this article exploring...
Security and Compliance – What Your Company Needs to Know Part 2: MBSA
You need more than just an antivirus and security suite to keep your system safe. You need multiple, non-redundant solutions covering various aspects of network security. In our last blog, we discussed the role of whitelisting in keeping your network secure. Now we’re...
Security and Compliance – What Your Company Needs to Know Part 1: Whitelisting
Security in the 21st century is a complicated game. The good guys are always playing catch up with the bad guys. Security is particularly important for medtech companies due to their specific compliance needs. Banking and fintech likewise have a high bar for security...
Podcast: How Secure are AWS and Azure Cloud Solutions?
Hybrid cloud brings you the best of on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure. But how does it stack up in terms of security and compliance? Two of the biggest vendors in the cloud space, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, have kept pace with one another in...
Despite Being Second Fiddle, Azure Steadily Gains Market Share
Last time, we talked about why engineering loves AWS so much. Now we’re going to look through the other end of the telescope: Why does IT have such an affinity for Azure? Microsoft’s Cloud Market Share Is Growing While Azure has long played second fiddle in the cloud...
Engineering Inefficiency is the Enemy of Innovation
I was intrigued by the information and conclusions presented in OnShape’s recent report, “The State of Product Development and Hardware Design 2019.” However, I was not as surprised as they were to hear that the biggest problem in R&D is still complex processes,...
Clients + SPK Expertise And Skills = R&D Business Results (Q2 2018 Newsletter)
It's been SPK and Associates' privilege to support all our clients’ varied engineering and systems integration needs for over two decades. This quarterly newsletter is our way of signaling that we're fully aligned with their mission to rapidly innovate and improve...
How Azure Became the Second-Largest Cloud Platform
Azure first became associated with IT for one simple reason: It’s a Microsoft product. Since the majority of organizations are running some kind of Microsoft application (be it Windows or Office), it was an easy sell because of ease of integration. However, this alone...
Four Steps to Securing Your Company’s Medical Devices
Connected medical devices offer enormous opportunity for manufacturers and consumers alike. They also carry the burden of increased risk due to cybersecurity flaws. Think about the dangers of having your email or bank account hacked. Now consider the damage hacking a...
Multi-Cloud Is the Future of Infrastructure… For Now
Does this sound familiar? Your organization has settled into its cloud migration. You’re enjoying the increased security and resiliency. You feel like you’ve just climbed a mountain and you want to spend some time gazing out from the summit. Then you read about...
Solving CAD File Data Corruption By Looking Beyond the Obvious
One SPK client’s design engineering team was required to email CAD files to a technician to perform 3D printing. However, the CAD files were too large for regular email transmission. The designers manually converted each CAD file into a ZIP format for sending in one...