Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

The past ten years have seen rapid growth in the number of start-ups within Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Yet, CEE faces various barriers, some of which are not related to funding or access to capital, to fully realise its potential as a global hub for innovation. Despite widespread assumptions that founders are held back by small markets, political risks or limited funding, the real obstacles lie elsewhere. IT entrepreneur Serhii Tokarev explains what is slowing down the region's growth.

Artificial intelligence is no longer limited to data scientists or enterprise teams with large development budgets. Over the past few years, a new wave of no-code AI tools has emerged, allowing marketers to automate tasks, generate insights, and optimize campaigns-without writing a single line of code. For digital marketers, this shift is transformational. No-code AI tools reduce execution time, lower costs, and empower teams to focus on strategy rather than manual work. More importantly, they level the playing field, allowing small and mid-sized businesses to compete with larger brands.

DDoS attacks are no longer exotic weapons used only against banks, governments, or global tech giants. Today, a small online store, a SaaS startup, or even a personal blog running on a VPS can become a target. The barrier to launching an attack has dropped dramatically, while the damage such attacks can cause has only grown. Any server connected to the internet is exposed by default - the only real question is how prepared it is.

Operational downtime has become one of the most expensive risks modern organizations face. A single system failure can halt workflows, expose security gaps, and drain revenue within hours. And as businesses in Long Beach & beyond grow more dependent on digital systems, the margin for IT failure keeps shrinking. Yet many operations teams still rely on reactive IT models, fixing issues only after they cause disruption.