May 28, 2014

Oracle Weaves Fabric for MySQL Clustering
MySQL Fabric can help solve two pressing problems within the enterprise: increasing the reliability of the database service, which Oracle calls high availability, and scaling a database beyond a single server, to improve performance of the database server. For high availability, the user can elect to have one or more database servers act as a replicated backup to the main server. When the master database goes down, MySQL Fabric detects the outage and reroutes requests to the designated replicated database server, or servers. The application does not see the switch over.


FAST Leadership
It looks to answer the questions what, how, who and how far, which are related to the task, service or project that is to be delivered, or goal to be achieved. Focus is about the WHAT, what we’re doing, what is our objective, and what does success look like. Accountability is about the WHO, who is going to do the work, who will be accountable and how will we hold them accountable. Simplicity is about the HOW, what is the solution, how are we planning to deliver success. Is our solution simple or have we over complicated it. Transparency is about How Far, How Far we have come and How Far we have to go in order to be successful, it’s also about our honesty about our progress and capability.


Data-Driven Insurance Pricing: Not Gouging
The big lesson from the Great Recession is that insurers can't rely, or at least shouldn't rely, upon investment income. Today all insurers are looking to underwrite profitably. This may seem like an obvious goal, but for anyone who has lived through cash flow underwriting or worked for an insurer who looks to expand market share at any cost, underwriting profitability hasn't always been a top priority for insurers. Price optimization will be leveraged to not only anticipate what the price points are for insurers but will be leveraged to further segment markets into finer and finer slices. All of this will be leveraged to try and turn each segment into a profitable segment.


Ask Cisco, VMware if their SDN interoperates
It's important for us as administrators to consider a change in vendor messages carefully. The stakes have changed as the offered stacks from each company have become larger and affect more parts of the infrastructure. Extricating yourself from a non-optimal solution in your environment could be time-consuming and expensive. To be clear, I think both companies offer advantages depending on the network you're planning to SDN-enable. But some of the messaging now seems to be that they're both the best solution for any network and that's unlikely to be true.


How CIOs Can Lead Their Company’s Information Business
Senior IT leaders not only are well equipped to lead and shape these activities but also have a huge part to play in accelerating change across the enterprise. To lead this transformation, CIOs must reimagine their role, seeing themselves—and encouraging others to see them—as chief executives of an information business. Like any chief executive, the CIO should bring vision, direction, and organization to the company’s big data investment priorities. That means engaging internal customers on their biggest challenges while attracting the best talent and suppliers; most important, it means being accountable for execution and results. The CIO’s mission encompasses both internal demand and supply


Cloud creep: Is your business in control?
It might be tempting to think you can use technology to defend against cloud creep the way some organisations block access to social media, but it can be an uphill battle, and it will take work and money — work and money you could be putting towards more important IT needs. "You can use internet proxy policies to block certain categories of traffic, like file storage and sharing tools," says Pierre-Olivier Blu-Mocaer, Asia-Pacific head of IT for asset management firm Schroders. "Those categories and their lists of sites are managed by third-parties, and some blacklisting can be done internally. You can also implement desktop policies to prevent users from installing or using unauthorised software."


The smart insurer: embedding big data in corporate strategy
Could big data and advanced analytics be disruptive for the whole insurance industry? Insurers are looking at their data-driven business capabilities and trying to improve how they use existing and new data and analytics. Current efforts are focused on areas such as pay-as-you-go pricing, customized and individualized products (for example one-time insurance), enhanced customer insights and improved fraud detection. However a vicious cycle is slowing insurers’ efforts to innovate and grow. Based on client experience and leading-edge research, BearingPoint Institute has defined the foundation for success in terms of speed, partnerships, open data, skills and governance.


How big data supports your digital insurer strategy
Insurance organisations need to source data that enables analysis of customer behaviour, contrasting with the traditional or needs-based information that has historically been used. This behavioural information can then be used to develop propositions that fit with the consumer’s lifestyle and preferred behaviours. Insurance businesses will need to invest in mobile and interactive technologies for multimedia content creation and product distribution across multiple digital platforms. PWC research suggests that the role of the intermediary sales channel will reduce, and customers will demand a direct relationship using their own online and offline trusted network to guide their choices.


Data Stewards versus Subject Matter Experts and Data Managers
We need to understand how these three roles fit together. Either we should justify them as separate roles or recognize that they boil down to the same thing. The fact that many enterprises have only a fuzzy grasp of what these three roles involve is a major risk for the successful operationalization of data governance. This is because individuals will be assumed to have accountabilities that they have not been formally assigned, and which they are not equipped to carry out. To the extent that these accountabilities are assigned by a data governance program, it is data governance that will be blamed for lack of results.


Microsoft’s Nadella on ‘Post-Post PC’ Vision
“It’s time for us to build the next big thing,” Nadella said. “If along the way we have to buy things that’s fine, but we have to build something big.” He didn’t disclose precisely what that big thing might be. But he described a wide-ranging array of new programs and services in development at Microsoft during the hour-long interview, from new search technologies to a live translation service for Skype calls demonstrated onstage at the event. As computing moves beyond desktop computers, he said, Microsoft will work on technology that encompasses more than mobile devices–the products that caused people like Steve Jobs to talk about a “post-PC era.”



Quote for the day:

"Any experience can be transformed into something of value." -- Vash Young

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