Celebrating Three Years: InFocus Looks Back At Top Blogs

The technology industry has soared in the last three years, and InFocus has brought its enterprise IT audience along for the amazing ride each step of the way Since the blog’s launch back on July 1, 2011, readers have visited InFocus regularly to stay on top of the latest technology trends and major transformational advancements impacting their business and decision making every day. They come to delve into expert opinions from EMC Global Services bloggers on solutions, insight, and tips they need to stay one step ahead in the ever-changing world of IT.

Over the last three years, InFocus has grown to become one of EMC’s premiere and most popular externally-facing blog because of you – our readers. We’ve hit a number of milestones at our 3-year anniversary mark, including over half-a-million page views, more than 900 posts and over 500 comments — not to mention an average 66% year-over-year growth rate. And the best is yet to come.

As EMC and the Federation push innovation for enterprise customers every day, we can continue to look to InFocus as a reflection of that mission. We can continue to redefine and transform.

In celebration of the blog’s  third anniversary, let’s take a moment to look at the most read blog posts from each of the last three years:

2011 Top Blogs

#1. Understanding the Role of Hadoop In Your BI Environment - Bill Schmarzo

The “Dean of Big Data” looks at the 3 stages of using Hadoop as your operational data store and data staging area and explains why the benefits are just too good to ignore.

#2. Security Risks of Mobility Computing - Richard Rees

Tempus Fugit – or “Time Flies” – and now is the time to look at disrupting mobile bot nets and mobile threat modeling rather than traditional computing threat modeling. Check out the Top 10 risks for mobile security here.

#3. Five Mistakes of a Rookie Data Scientist - Frank Coleman

While Frank sits on the cutting edge of using Big Data, he appreciates and calls out his past mistakes in data analysis. Avoid these common blunders and learn how “from the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!”

2012 Top Blogs

#1: The Big Data Storymap – Bill Schmarzo

Take a moment to view this impressive journey infographic which  helps organizations understand some of the key components of a successful big data strategy. Learn the business challenges and key landmarks to visit on your Big Data journey.

#2: Virtualization vs. Private Cloud – Choong Keng Leong

KL believes in the future of a cloud-centric IT world. Here he talks about the important difference between having a private cloud infrastructure and running a private cloud. Your driver can arrive in an expensive car, but it doesn’t guarantee you excellent service, KL compares.

#3: Big Data and NoSQL: The Problem with Relational Databases – April Reeve

April, also known as @Datagrrl on Twitter, has 25 years’ experience as an enterprise architect and program manager. In fact, she was working in the industry before relational databases were commonly used. Here she talks about the Not Only SQL (NoSQL) movement and why relational databases are not the magic elixir to all problems.

2013-2014 Top Blogs

#1. Understanding Type I and Type II Errors – Bill Schmarzo

This post holds the #1 spot all time on InFocus with more than 12,000 page views. Why the popularity? Namely Bill explaining the difference between type I and type II errors in statistical testing and the reasons you should add a cost assessment to your analysis.

#2. What it takes to be a Great Consultant… The Top 10 List – Laddie Suk

These attributes are listed in no particular order, because, as Laddie’s former business associate notes, you need them all to be an effective consultant. Laddie adds commentary specific to consultants in IT today and telecom industries in the second-ranked most popularblog post on InFocus.

#3. What is Active/Active, and How Can it Improve Business Continuity? – John Linse

Learn how your company can perform maintenance on applications without disrupting service for users with active/active applications. The game is changing drastically for backup and data protection, and it’s imperative to survey the landscape to understand your best options to move forward in today’s risk-filled and pararmount uptime world we live in.

The InFocus blog works because it’s a collaborative engine. We strive to continue to increase dialogue and give you, our readers, the type of content you require to help your businesses and IT environments run smoothly. We want to continue to redefine our company, re-energize our campaigns and rethink our approach to the world.

Thank you for your continuous feedback and suggestions and please keep the comments rolling in!