Daily Tech Digest - November 07, 2016

IBM hybrid storage play acknowledges enterprise realities

Systems such as file and block storage weren't designed to deal with petabytes of data and file counts that can climb into the trillions, but object storage is ideally suited for metadata capabilities and rich database capabilities needed to automate data management, said Steven Hill, senior storage technologies analyst with 451 Research. " ... what IBM has come around to understand is picking up the value of what object storage does and trying to do it better in cloud than Amazon is doing," Hill said. In some scenarios, whether regulatory or financial, it makes more sense to continue to store data on premises, so the IBM hybrid storage approach will be attractive to customers that aren't all-in on public cloud, said Patrick Harr, CEO of Panzura, a cloud storage provider based in Campbell, Calif., that partners with IBM, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others.


Digital Asset Holdings Targets Systemically Important FIs With New Blockchain Tech

The first function of the GSL is to ensure that "mutually exclusive events" are in fact unique. Or to put it another way, to ensure that smart contracts only exist in one place and that if an older contract is referenced by a newer contract, only the new one survives. Notably, the paper does away with the term "smart contract" altogether, opting instead for the more traditional term "contract." But in addition to ensuring duplicate contracts don't exist, the service works as a messaging system to inform all parties affected by a contract — perhaps thousands of them — that something has happened on the blockchain that they should know about. To do this, the contract is processed off-chain. This could include processing ranging from flows of transactional data to common models of workflow behavior.


Big banks have nothing to fear, but need to learn, from fintech, Salesforce says

Rather than regarding fintechs as disruptors out to take over their market share, banks should regard them as partners, Mahna says. “Banks have an unbelievable knowledge of products and services, really understand the regulatory landscape, not only in Canada but around the world,” he says. “Fintechs, on the other hand, are innovative, agile… they’re very complementary when you think about it. ” For her part, Drew-Lytle disagrees with Mahna’s assertion that banks could be in danger of being eclipsed by fintechs if they don’t adopt an innovation mindset; and though she agrees the two sectors should collaborate she notes that the banking industry has never considered fintechs their enemies to begin with.


Container interoperability: Do standards really matter?

A group of container loyalists believe that Docker should not become the way that the industry defines containers. CoreOS has Rocket, a competing container runtime, as well as its own container format. In addition, Google, Red Hat and VMware have aligned with CoreOS.  While Docker and CoreOS looked like they were going to battle it out in the market, that hasn't happened. Both have decided to cooperate, at least for now, and both are stakeholders in the Linux Foundation's Open Container Project (OCP).  The Docker format and runtime forms the foundation of the evolving OCP standard, and Docker, to its credit, will provide both the draft specifications and the code around its image format and runtime engine. This has jump-started the project. Now the container community is waiting to see what will come from it.


The Challenge Facing Businesses in The Machine Learning Age

Companies that look at this changing roadmap and understand its challenge are already repositioning themselves to take advantage of the new deluge of data that they can now tap into and see the new patterns it reveals. In the not too-distant past, marketing personas allowed a company sales director to create marketing campaigns that passably addressed the personality profile of the company’s targeted audience. This led to a sense that the company understood customer needs and it created a connection with its audience which is how it found its customers. The better representative of its potential customer the marketing persona construct was, the closer was the connection and relationship between the company and its public.


How to become a data-driven 'algorithmic enterprise'

"Harnessing data is absolutely crucial for incorporating the latest generation of machine intelligence, but most organisations suffer from having data locked up in legacy systems or dispersed across a variety of databases, often with poor data quality and conflicting sources of truth. "IT leaders must implement an effective data strategy to unlock, preserve and grow their data assets. Data strategy often relies on an underlying platform strategy - such as public or private PaaS - in order to manage and process data, as well as rapidly deliver applications that unlock business value. In our experience, organisations have difficulty gaining full value from cloud, often building superficial private clouds which we caution against.


The inside man: your biggest risk may be closer than you think

The business of healthcare has drastically changed in a short amount of time. As such, cyber security is fast becoming one of the biggest concerns for the healthcare industry, with more pressure than ever before to minimise the damage associated with a data breach. This can be a daunting task for digital healthcare providers in particular, given the nature of the information they deal with. While addressing the fear of coming under external attack is an important part of the puzzle, for many data breaches the risks lie much closer to home. Insider threats can result from human error or intentional theft, but both are equally damaging for health professionals that aren’t prepared. In today’s digital world, users need access to a myriad of critical systems, applications, and data in order to do their jobs.


Data Dive: Square, Ripple and Mastercard Embraces The Blockchain

Mastercard is taking a collaborative approach to leveraging the blockchain, both exploring the technology itself and encouraging developers to use distributed ledger technology to create solutions that Mastercard may want to incorporate in the future. According to Pinkham, Mastercard is looking into using blockchain for interbank payments — key to cross-border transactions — and trade finance use cases. “Mastercard’s virtues are well-appreciated by the stock market, but the evolution of mobile payment habits and the rise of blockchain ledger technology could pose longer-term challenges to the company’s wildly profitable business model,” Mastercard investor Sequoia Fund warned of the threat the blockchain could pose to operators of traditional credit card rails like Mastercard.


Flood of threat intelligence overwhelming for many firms

"Despite the fact that we have the finest tools that can defend against advanced persistent threats, we still need qualified security analysts or engineers to look at the incidents thrown out by the tools, comb out false positives, and take actions," he said. To help deal with the issue, 66 percent of companies said that they used third-party consultants or managed security service providers to develop or implement their cyber security plans. Intergration was an issue here as well, Chabra added. "Your security technology vendor isn't the same as your managed security service provider," he said. "You've got multiple vendors involved -- one vendor managing the security, another managing the technology, and there's a gap there."


Doing the Bare Minimum for Compliance Could Leave Enterprises Overexposed

When trust is lost, relationships with shareholders, stakeholders, peers, customers and employees are stressed. The impact extends beyond the enterprise or its industry. In the United States, exploited vulnerabilities cost American enterprises billions of dollars and the American economy hundreds of thousands of jobs each year. Fewer jobs translate into less tax revenues, more deficit spending, more debt, and less infrastructure spending, handicapping a superpower. The law is immature. Enterprises should turn to leading published perspectives for more timely and accurate guidance. Latent vulnerabilities are inherent in the business processes and technologies in all enterprises. 



Quote for the day:


"Every shadow no matter how deep is threatened by morning light." -- Isabel, The Fountain


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