If you are a CIO, VP of IT operations or some other type of IT leader, you are under constant pressure to ensure that IT systems operate at maximum efficiency. Systems must meet increasing service-level expectations in terms of performance, availability and security. In fact, you're probably already anticipating that this challenge is only going to get bigger. After all, you must deal with skills shortages and are tasked with supporting a growing number of IT initiatives such as cloud migrations, digital transformation, M&A integrations and other strategic projects. To address these challenges, you need to think about leveraging "next practices," not best practices.

Let's face it, cancer sucks! We're sure that at all of us knows someone who is battling cancer or has lost a friend of close family member due to the perils of cancer. Given that this disease touches just about all of us, it should come as no surprise that billions of dollars are poured into researching cancer and ways to eradicate it for good. Luckily, the fine folks at Microsoft are well on their way to cracking the secret code that allows cancer to propagate in a host body. Microsoft's researchers from around the world are working together using artificial intelligence to effectively "solve" the cancer problem.