September 28, 2016

Data Governance: From Insight Comes Action

On average, a knowledge worker spends 36 percent of their time looking for information. If content creators can’t keep up with the amount of data across apps, how could we expect IT to protect it? This is the paradox of shadow IT: corporate intellectual property stored in many repositories must be secured and protected by IT professionals not consulted by users as they select the apps to work and collaborate on this content. The conversation needs to shift from blocking unsanctioned productivity apps manipulating this content, to intelligently protecting the content at the source (i.e. repository) itself so users who should be able to leverage their favorite apps – even when not approved by IT - but only for the content they are allowed to access to. Information governance is the industry term for having clear processes for users and IT on the secure handling of content.


The Role of Data in Digital Transformation

Disparate data sources are often a barrier to organizations looking to make use of their digital content to gain greater business insights. Only a third of those surveyed see themselves as extremely effective in managing and utilizing digital content and channels, and less than a third reported being “extremely confident” in their ability to integrate all data sources and applications. Many organizations have taken to storing data in data lakes, which, put simply, are archives that store a tremendous amount of raw data in its native format (whether structured, unstructured, or semi-structured) for as long as it needs to be held for analysis purposes. However, as the business ingests new types of poly-structured data, it can become increasingly difficult to make sense of it without accessing all of the data stored in the various sources.


73% of companies using vulnerable end-of-life networking devices

Old equipment that is no longer supported by the vendors who made it are vulnerable because newly-discovered vulnerabilities and other problems are not being patched. That puts those companies at higher risk of security breaches, network outages and higher future replacement costs. "If its an older device, there are vulnerabilities against it," he said. But companies often keep the older equipment around because it still works. "If something isn't having an issue, we tend to forget about it," Vigna said. "If there isn't pain, there isn't a reason to change a lot at companies." In addition, the companies might not even be aware that some of their equipment is past its due date.


In The “Second Wave” Of Cloud Computing, Hybrid Cloud Is The Innovator’s Choice

Hybrid is the palette they’re painting with, best expressed by the analysts at Frost and Sullivan. “At their core, successful hybrid cloud strategies support the delivery of high-value applications and services to the business, while at the same time driving cost and inefficiency out of the IT infrastructure,” the study said. Fine, but how does adopting a hybrid cloud strategy support business success, particularly as we enter the era of cognitive computing? Successful organizations provide the answer. They aren’t adopting cloud technology for its own sake. Instead, they’re pursuing a business strategy that’s equally about transformation and industry disruption.


Improve application rollout planning with advanced options

One drawback of canary deployment to consider during application rollout planning is the time it takes to complete an update, as the new version is tested and phased gradually into production. This means the application owners must manage more than one version simultaneously, and it demands careful change and version management on the part of IT operations staff. The incremental increase in usage allows ample opportunity to gather load metrics, however, allowing production IT capacity planners to see how load demands change with the updated code. And the canary process provides a relatively safe and rapid rollback process if unintended consequences occur.


BTCPoint Creates 10,000 Bitcoin-Enabled ATMs Using Spanish Bank Network

To access the service, BTCPoint users enter the amount of money they'd like to withdraw from an ATM using the application and send bitcoin to a company address. Next, users receive an SMS and a PIN code, input the PIN code into an ATM on the network and withdraw their funds. The service today is one-directional, with users only being able to withdraw cash from units, though Lopera said BTCPoint is working on solutions that diversify its service. "We are focusing on changing bitcoin into cash, and we’re also talking with different credit card processors, who could enable the buy option so you can buy at a very low fee," he said. Lopera suggested BTCPoint is in talks with US and Latin American banks as a means to expand its service.


Enabling a digital future requires smart capital strategy.

Executives recognize that digital transformation is impacting all aspects of their business — from the front - end to the back. They also know that the competitive landscape is changing rapidly as barriers to entry are eroded. Digital is a continuous form of disruption to existing (or new) business models, products, services or experiences, enabled by data and technology across the enterprise. The key challenge for many companies will be a lack of sufficient capital to meet their digital ambition. Enabling a digital future requires smart capital allocation. Selecting the right strategic investments — organic or inorganic — offers routes to growth. The key question is can companies build the capabilities required to succeed in the brave new world — or do they need to buy?


Why London will remain a global tech hub post-Brexit

London’s corporate tech base is impressive and should also help maintain its position. The presence of big global tech companies, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Yammer, provide a solid foundation for the tech sector, while fast-growing smaller companies, such as Skyscanner, Badoo, Hailo and Mind Candy, provide that drive for innovation for which London’s tech sector is renowned. Accelerator programmes to help the Capital’s tech start-ups expand and succeed are another factor why the doomsayers over London’s tech future are wrong. Currently there are around 4,000 start-ups in the Capital and about 40 accelerator programmes, such as Seedcamp, TechStars, Wayra and Oxygen, help foster these young firms and buoy their growth.


3 Big Trends in Business Intelligence and Analytics

Lack of good, consistent quality data is cited as the number one challenge organizations face to realizing the full potential from analytics (A.T. Kearney’s “2015 LEAP Study - Leadership Excellence in Analytic Practice”). Excessive time and resources are needed to manipulate and “roll-up” data before business analysts can start to use it for reports, analytics and insights. Often these challenges are compounded when analysts create work-arounds that drive “shadow” data bases and ad hoc data management processes that undermine confidence in the data. Strong business intelligence can become the data syndication traffic cop and data clearing house for enterprises that need to make better, faster decisions using good quality data and insightful analytics.


Traffic Data Monitoring Using IoT, Kafka and Spark Streaming

In order to process the data generated by IoT connected vehicles, data is streamed to big data processors located in the cloud or the data centres. An IoT connected vehicle provides real time information of the vehicle like speed, fuel level, route name, latitude and longitude of vehicle etc. This information can be analysed and data can be extracted and transformed to the final result which can be sent back to the vehicle or to a monitoring dashboard. For example, using the information collected for different vehicles we can analyse and monitor the traffic on a particular route. In this article, we’ll use Apache Spark to analyse and process IoT connected vehicle’s data and send the processed data to a real time traffic monitoring dashboard.



Quote for the day:


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur Clarke


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