Today’s small and medium-sized businesses are in a unique position. They can now do business globally thanks to online sales, and they can adopt new technologies once reserved for large enterprises due to cost and simplicity. Virtualization in particular is opening up new opportunities for SMBs. But while virtualization is being adopted by an increasing number of businesses, some SMBs may still be unfamiliar with just how virtualization works, and the advantages and challenges it poses.

At its simplest level, virtualization simply creates a pool of shared resources, allowing them to be used more efficiently. Virtualization is most commonly applied to servers, which allows for environments with incompatible requirements to be run on the same server, isolated from each other....

In today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape of mobile devices, virtualization, and more data than ever, SMBs need information protection to be easy. Symantec understands the challenges that SMBs face and we are dedicated to removing the complexities of information technology so that they can focus on what they do best.

We are on a mission to create offerings that are fast, simple to deploy and use, are cost-effective, and provide the best customer experience possible. As we work towards that goal, we’re not only providing the best solutions for businesses, but also sharing knowledge that helps them achieve success. Being named as one of the Top 100 Champions in the 2012 Small Business Influencer Awards demonstrates our commitment to small businesses.  

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The dramatic news that one of the U.K.’s leading financial services organisations had suffered a data outage that led to millions of customers unable to access their accounts should be a wake-up call for every CIO. The event tells them that their operation is entirely dependent on IT and in particular on the IT resources they have to run their systems.

It was once said that financial services can be thought of as a technology business with a financial domain of expertise. Whether or not that is the case, every bank—indeed every business—needs to have in place a watertight disaster recovery that ensures data is continuously available, whatever the scenario. As that major U.K. financial institution is now finding to its cost, the aftermath of a service stoppage can be...

Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report Volume 17 showed that 2011 saw an increase in targeted attacks, and  18 percent of these targeted attacks were directed at businesses with 250 or fewer employees. Now that we’re halfway through the new year, how do things look for SMBs? According to the latest Symantec Intelligence Report – not good.

Targeted attacks still increasing

After reaching a record high in December of 154 attacks per day, daily attacks dipped briefly in January before returning to similar levels in February. For the most part, the daily attack average remained around this level for the first half of 2012 resulting in an average increase in targeted attacks per day of around 24 percent for the first half of 2012.

Attacks against SMBs double

Over the last six months, the number of attacks against SMBs has doubled, jumping to 36 percent compared to the 18 percent we saw just...