Intelligent CIO magazine for the North America region . This month ’ s cover features Kevin Waddy , IT Director , Goodwill Central Coast , a Southern Californian retailer that serves Monterey , Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo .

The organisation has scaled its services , simplified its IT infrastructure and saved time and money after implementing a Scale Computing Edge solution .

Goodwill Central Coast was in need of a virtual hyperconverged infrastructure solution capable of managing the region ’ s file systems at the Edge and databases out of a central database in Salinas . Another key benefit of the system is its backup and Disaster Recovery capability .

Waddy said : “ Not only does it save time in my backup software but it enables flexibility for Disaster Recovery and failover which is really key for someone in my position – I have to have a working backup and failover solution .

“ With Scale Computing HC3 , the time it takes to spin up a server is minutes compared to hours .” For further details turn to p56 .

In this month ’ s edition we also look at how a report from McAfee shows how cybercriminals have exploited the pandemic and caused detrimental harm to businesses for personal gain .

The McAfee COVID-19 Threat Report : July 2020 , examines cybercriminal activity relating to COVID-19 and the evolution of cyberthreats in Q1 2020 .

Raj Samani , McAfee Fellow and Chief Scientist , said : “ What began as a trickle of phishing campaigns and the occasional malicious app quickly turned into a deluge of malicious URLs and capable threat actors leveraging the world ’ s thirst for more information on COVID-19 as an entry mechanism into systems across the globe .”

For more on this please turn to p23 .

As today ’ s highly competitive and hyperconnected digital marketplace is driving new trends in networking and security , including the rapid adoption of cloud services and IoT devices , Jonathan Nguyen-Duy , Vice President , Global Field CISO Team , Fortinet , explains the importance of securing IoT and cloud connections .

“ As you develop new IoT assets and move to the cloud , your security strategies for both need to be in sync with one another ,” says Nguyen-Duy on p82 .

“ When an IoT device is compromised , your public and private clouds are at risk and this can eventually affect your core network and even your customers .”

Don ’ t forget you can read daily news updates at https :// www . intelligentcio . com / north-america /.

Once again , I ’ d like to wish you a good month ahead and please enjoy the read !

Mark Bowen Editor www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO

7