IDG Contributor Network: Why 2017 is the year that changed Windows management forever
2017 was a truly transformative year in the history of corporate IT. I would even go so far as to say that, in my 25-year history working with Windows in large organizations, I think this has been the single most significant year yet.
The transformation has been the realization that the way we think about every aspect of Windows management, from minor change to full-scale migrations, has to change. It’s worth repeating that the instruments of this collective revelation were WannaCry and NotPetya, which caused some of the worst damage I have seen in my career, so much so that I now think disaster planning must take such attacks into account.
For most CIOs, CTOs and even CFOs, the penny likely dropped in the time it took to discover that a significant proportion of the UK’s National Health Service’s IT infrastructure had been compromised – because of an outdated operating system and the fact that NHS ignored simple security best practices.