Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

October 10, 2012

Breaking Through Development Project Barriers
Barriers, real or imagined, are constructed and prevent progress toward solving problems. ... You can't always break down the barriers around you. But you can learn to recognize them and ask questions. The "5 Whys"technique can help get to the root cause, allowing you to solve the underlying problem(s) that created the barrier in the first place.

Analyst: Microsoft to price Surface RT tablet at $400 to $500
"With a launch set for later this month, speculation has intensified, with some sources stating a price less than $399 for the RT version. Let's get to a more educated estimate of the BOM cost and pricing for the Surface RT and Pro."

Google upgrades Search Appliance for enterprises
Google Search Appliance 7.0 was unveiled today and will be available Oct. 16 for sale or for customers to download. The new version would help employees in large enterprises find stored information whether they're using a desktop PC, a tablet or a smartphone.

Why Doesn’t Governance Lead to Data Freedom?
The business needs speed and agility and wants to get the job done. It does not want to be hampered by process, development timelines, and certainly does not want to hear “no.” Data governance needs to evolve to develop policies that are not just about what you can’t do, but what you can do.

Complex and non-transparent Oracle licensing costing firms millions
“We are seeing an increasing number of global customers failing to remain compliant with Oracle’s licensing schemes amid growing virtualisation and this is largely because of Oracle’s non-transparent and complicated licensing policy,” said Judica Krikke, solicitor at European law firm Stibbe, at the VMworld Europe 2012 event in Barcelona.

5 Leadership Approaches for Knowing, Being and Doing
Do my leadership practices include aligning people toward common goals, enlisting both their heads and their hearts, and then empowering them to act? If not, in what areas do I need to do better?

PC passwords exposed by flaw in Apple-owned fingerprint software
A security flaw in fingerprint reading software, now owned by Apple, which has the potential to leave millions of Windows PC users' passwords exposed, has been independently verified by security researchers.

Softbank to launch 110Mbps mobile router next week
The soap-bar size modem from Huawei provide download speeds of up to 110Mbps on its LTE network and can provide a Wi-Fi connection to up to 10 devices at the same time. It has a 3,000mAh battery and can also be used as a network drive via memory cards plugged into its microSD slot, which supports cards up to 64GB in size.

Procuring IT from startups offers benefits, but beware risks
Purchasing IT from startup vendors, instead of bigger and established companies, can allow access to benefits such as more innovative technologies and greater negotiating leverage. However, customers must note and prepare for risks such as the potential issues in scalability and support.

The Internet2 experiment goes global
The takeaway from keynote speakers Sam Pitroda and John Sexton is that we need global resources to solve local problems. Advanced networking infrastructure spreads intellectual capital and offers opportunities to improve quality of life;

Quote for the day:

"No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched." -- George Jean Nathan

October 09, 2012

What exactly is a "post-PC device" anyway?
Technologists, and I include myself in this, sometimes struggle to think outside of what they themselves use and need in a separate way to what a "normal" human being needs. As a result, most technologists tend to think of tablets as a "PC Plus" - i.e. a tablet that because it runs Windows you can do more with.

Decision time: Automated data integration tools versus manual coding
Writing SQL integration scripts can be straightforward and seemingly inexpensive -- but data integration might be one case where handmade is no longer best, Sherman says in this interview with SearchDataManagement.com

Creative firms are variance- centric
Productivity orientation brings with it predictability, certainty and hence complacency, which may not be a good recipe when the change outside is rapid. On the other hand, variance- centric firms deliberately infuse outliers, experimentation and hence learning and innovation, quintessential elements to cope with rapid change.

Another Week Another In-Memory Big Data Analytics Platform
ScaleOut software is the new entrant to provide an in-memory powered data analytics platform that integrates map/reduce functionality enabling organizations to achieve near real-time data analytics.

World Can Be Your Oyster
For majority of us who are well into our 30’s and 40’s, this implies significant effort in re-training and re-skilling. It requires changing our mind-sets too, as many of us have resisted being hands-on with technology as we have moved up the ladder.

Clas Neumann: Customers Inspire Innovation
The Indian development centre of SAP located in Bangalore has contributed about 20-25 per cent to HANA development, says Clas Neumann, Senior Vice President, Global Head, SAP Labs. In a conversation with Manu Sharma, he discusses some of the innovations in the enterprise apps space and how IT managers are leveraging them

Can MySql Be Used For BigData With TokuDB?
TokuDB in its recent release scales MySql and MariaDB from Giga Bytes to Tera Bytes while improving overall performance for Flash drives. This helps many applications which run on MySql and MariaDB databases boost their performance.

Will the Future be Written Entirely in Javascript?
No popular language may be as maligned as JavaScript. But its migration to the server side opens the possibility it may become all-pervasive.

BYOD Is Not About Devices
It is about providing secure access to applications and data from any device, anywhere. That is, BYOD is about device agnostic access. The solutions to BYOD are solutions to providing mobility for a number of enterprise scenarios, BYOD included.

Cloud ROI: Of the people, by the people, for the people
The true cost of cloud is greater than many realize. While the cloud removes the burden of paying up to 10 times the amount for self-hosted applications, it is a mistake to think that there are no costs beyond the purchase of licenses and consulting services. Additional factors influence the true cost of cloud investment, including ongoing innovation, governance and adoption.

Quote for the day:

"The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow." -- Rupert Murdoch

October 08, 2012

Software testing could use non-IT grads' fresh perspective
Non-IT graduates may be put off from IT jobs due to a lack of technical qualifications, but the area of software testing is a plausible option, because they can offer a different yet complementary approach, particularly if the apps are meant for everyday, regular users.

Enterprise Data Architecture and Big Data
By treating big data as a “one-off” project, rather than an ongoing foundation that provides the context, environment, and capabilities to enable value creation and delivery to the organization…we might be sowing the destructive seeds for another crisis.

Big data matters – except when it doesn’t
If you’re ready to skip past the paradigm-shifting, game-changing clichés about big data and get to the stuff that matters – how it can help you improve what you’re doing today – we’ve developed a guide to help get you started. It’s really a guide for anyone contemplating big data investments.

Predictive analytics go to work
"Eighteen to 20 months ago, we knew virtually nothing about predictive analytics," says Anthony Perez, director of business strategy for the National Basketball Association franchise. While his team members were in fact working on predictive analytics well before that, Perez adds, their tools weren't powerful enough to give them the insights they needed, and the group had to scale up its efforts. So Perez brought in new, more powerful software from SAS and began climbing the learning curve.

Haswell Performance and Power: A Deep Dive
To provide useful insight for both hardware and software developers, Intel CPU Architects Robert Chappell and Bret Toll and Sr. Principal Engineer Ronak Singhal give a detailed tour of Haswell’s key features and improvements upon past architectures.

The No. 1 Enemy of Creativity: Fear of Failure
If you're an MBA-trained manager or executive, the odds are you were never, at any point in your educational or professional career given permission to fail, even on a "little bet." Your parents wanted you to achieve, achieve, achieve — in sports, the classroom, and scouting or work. Your teachers penalized you for having the "wrong" answers, or knocked your grades down if you were imperfect, according to however your adult figures defined perfection.

Politics, not security, behind Huawei, ZTE allegations, say analysts
The investigation's findings could tarnish the reputations of both Huawei and ZTE, which have faced repeated accusations that the companies' equipment could be used by the Chinese government to spy on U.S. telecommunication networks.

AMD posts parody teaser video: Another tablet in the works?
AMD posts a 'spooky' Paranormal Activity-like teaser video to YouTube suggesting that the processor and GPU giant is preparing to announce a tablet or hybrid system on October 9.

5 (more) key cloud security issues
In particular, I see five security-related issues with cloud computing that are critical to the success and security of a cloud-based project--and that are not always getting the full consideration they deserve.

Kiss up, kick down boss
Senior executives are the face of the organization. When selecting them, you need to be careful that they radiate the values of your organization. Your brand image is at stake. One bad hire in a senior position can be harmful to a corporate reputation.

Quote for the day:

"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes" -- Peter Drucker

October 07, 2012

CIO Priorities for the Next 3 Years
We’ll see more CIOs who are entrepreneurial, adapting to and initiating major business shifts, and carrying equal responsibility with the CEO. These executives will no longer be measured primarily by the scope of their innovation; they will also be held responsible for the same financial metrics of the other C-level execs.

First Key to Agile IT Governance: Stakeholder Satisfaction
Future generations of sophisticated employees are growing up in an untethered work environment where they feel entitled to having all the tools they need to maximize productivity wherever they are, whenever they want. It can be frustrating for them to have tools that they feel constrained their productivity.

Big Data skills gap needs filling says tech industry
LinkedIn employs around 100 data scientists, he said, but the industry needs many more and there are job vacancies aplenty. His concerns were echoed on Wednesday with the release of a report on big data use in government from the non-profit TechAmerica Foundation's Big Data Commission.

IBM’s Big Data Analytics Empire
When you think of Big Data Analytics, you might think of startups. Think again. IBM has the space covered, perhaps better than any other company.

Big Data Vendors Need To Embrace Data Unification and Scaling Challenges
All of the industry’s largest enterprise-focused vendors have made numerous acquisitions over the last two years to fill out their Big Data solutions portfolio. However, when organizations are challenged with the task of unifying and analyzing massive amounts of data culled from a variety or structured, semi-structured and unstructured data sources, a big vendor solution is not necessarily better.

Cloud Will Never be Cheaper Than On-Premise: Claranet
Deploying applications in the cloud is never going to be cheaper than deploying on-premise infrastructure, but the service benefits of cloud computing make the cost of adopting it worthwhile.

Microsoft, Barnes & Noble Launch E-reading Joint Venture, Rename it Nook Media
Previously called NewCo, the joint venture was initially announced in April when Microsoft said it would invest US$300 million in the formation of the new company with Barnes & Noble. The company will deliver digital reading products to users of Microsoft products, including the Windows Phone and upcoming Windows 8 and RT operating systems.

Users Finding Relief From Wireless Data Sticker Shock
In an era when wireless data and phone service can cost a U.S. contract customer more than $1,200 annually, some lower-cost pre-paid options are emerging.

Why Apple Should Buy Nokia
Journalist and technologist Tristan Louis has a reasonable argument here for why Apple should buy Nokia, now that the former has driven the latter to the brink of dissolution. His case is built on several points:

Mobile workers increasingly dare IT to rein them in: survey
Third annual Unisys-Forrester study of consumerization of IT shows that a super-connected class of 'mobile elite' workers is injecting organizations with more innovation, but at the same time defying IT policies and creating risks.

Quotes for the day:

"To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone." — -- Harry Truman

"Two elements of successful leadership: a willingness to be wrong and an eagerness to admit it." --Seth Godin

October 06, 2012

Cybercriminals plot massive banking Trojan attack
In an advisory Thursday, RSA said it has information suggesting the gang plans to unleash a little-known Trojan program to infiltrate computers belonging to U.S. banking customers and to use the hijacked machines to initiate fraudulent wire transfers from their accounts.

Swedish websites down after Anonymous threats
A handful of Swedish websites remained down Friday evening there after hacking group Anonymous threatened earlier this week to attack the nation for a police raid on a hosting service that was once home to The Pirate Bay.

NetSuite Announces Two-Tier ERP For Oracle
NetSuite Two-Tier ERP for Oracle is designed to enable multinational enterprises to drive global expansion by deploying the NetSuite to run subsidiaries and divisions while preserving headquarters' investments in Oracle.

A New Degree of Analytic Learning
In an interview with Information Management, Wixom discussed the evolving program for the Congress, the growing responsibility shown by vendors and where U.S. universities stand in closing the skills gap for business data analysts and more niche positions like data scientist.

Intel unveils personal cloud platform for SMBs, consumers
Intel is diving into the personal cloud storage space with a new Atom-based platform targeted towards both consumers and small businesses.

Education, Training Key to Federal Big Data Adoption
Education and training are key to bringing the benefits of big data to the federal government, according to a group of industry leaders who recently met in Washington, D.C.

Apple, Microsoft may be forced to reveal internal documents
The parliamentary committee investigating IT pricing disparity in Australia may look to force Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) to reveal documents used in creating their submissions to the inquiry, as the three tech giants have continued to resist appearing before the committee.

IT Leadership and Career Development
IT spent has to be treated as an Investment which should fuel the growth or contribute to the bottom-line in the form of savings. This can be possible only when IT leaders are also financially literate.

4 outcomes of character-based leadership
There is a difference between attempting a triathlon and becoming a triathlete. There is a difference between teaching a lesson and being a teacher. And there is a huge difference between leading some group or activity and being a leader.

Leadership Truths That Every Leader Needs To Know
Great leaders all share common characteristics which make them successful. They operate based on truths which underpin all of their behaviors and actions. Here are 5 truths that every great leader knows

Quote for the day:

"Innovation has to be ingrained in an organization's DNA, not in a plaque on the wall that displays their corporate mission."--John Miziolek, CEO of Reset Branding

October 05, 2012

Finally the World Wide Web Gets an Update
“It's official: We're working on HTTP 2.0," wrote IETF Hypertext Transfer Protocol working group chair Mark Nottingham. According to IETF, the update will be primarily based up on the SPDY Protocol (pronounced "SPeeDY"), which was developed by Google for a faster internet service.

Gamification
Gamification is the use of game design techniques, game thinking, and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts. It has proved valuable in several contexts. However, most efforts in applying it in practical terms, whether led by academia or industry, have focused on solving the second of the two challenges ...

Getting Data In: Answering the Challenge of Growing Sources of BI Data
Attend this webcast to learn about the new architecture for a modern BI environment, the critical architectural pieces that ensure successful access to & deployment of BI data assets and about the best practices for providing easy access to data sources ...

Building and Maintaining a Lean and Effective IT Governance Board
Building a Lean and effective IT governance should not be transformational but transitional. It is a major shift for an organization whose only governance is the command and control of the organizational chart. Simply implementing a PPM tool is not the answer

LTE patent pool brings together technologies from AT&T, ZTE, HP and others
Via Licensing organized the patent pool as an independent administrator and announced it on Wednesday. Patent pools are designed to make it easier for companies to license the technology they need to implement a given standard, in this case LTE, and to prevent costly patent litigation in the future.

Load Testing with Custom Performance Counters
Tracking down performance problems in your application can be a frustrating experience. Reduce your stress levels with custom counters.

AMD & Oracle Team Up on OpenJDK 'Sumatra' for Heterogeneous Computing
A newly announced OpenJDK project aims to extend the recent trend of offloading compute cycles from CPUs to Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) with support for a native Java Virtual Machine (JVM), APIs and the Java language. Dubbed "Sumatra," the project is a joint effort of AMD and Oracle.

When IT Services are Free, Guess the Consequences
What do some diners do at an all-you-can-eat buffet? They gorge themselves. What might you do if there are free items at an exhibitor booth at a conference? You might take more than one. It is human nature that, when something is free, one is less attentive to how much one consumes (perhaps even to the point of not caring), no matter what the item or service may be.

Quantifying Cybersecurity Risk in $$$
Register for this free webinar to know more on The Open Group Risk Taxonomy Technical Standard, which is based on Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR) and is a proven quantitative analytic model that has been used effectively to analyze cybersecurity risk and express annualized loss exposure in economic terms

Automagic site optimization with mod_pagespeed 1.0!
Catch up with Joshua Marantz, the tech lead of the project at Google and talk about the history of mod_pagespeed, its fast growing adoption (130K+ sites!), technical architecture and how it works under the hood.

Quote for the day:

"The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity" --Tom Peters

October 04, 2012

3 Emerging Innovations for BI and Analytics
As 2013 gets closer, what are some of the more exciting and impactful technology innovations that we are likely to see? Here are three that are likely to capture your attention.

EMC CEO Defines “Killer App” for Cloud
Tucci said EMC believes the next big step in infrastructure and cloud computing is the “software defined data center,” which will bring what virtualization did for the server to the realms of storage and networking.

Google Maps to insert Street View into mobile Web app
In what will most likely attract iPhone users disgruntled with Apple's map app, the tech giant plans to announce this week the addition of Street View to its Google Maps Web app.

Microsoft's Windows Server implementation of Hadoop is in private preview
Microsoft officials have been saying for a while that it wasn't just the Hadoop framework which Microsoft planned to support. There are lots of other related components in the works, like the Excel Hive Add-in, Sqoop, Apache Pig, Hive ODBC and more, as this slide notes.

How customer-centric project management processes evolved
Putting customers – and by that we mean internal colleagues or third party partners who take a service from another department – at the heart of how we work is a worthy aim. Companies spend a lot of time on focus groups and surveying end customers – consumers who buy products – but not a lot of time looking at how departments within the company serve each other.

7 Things Your Small Business Can Learn From Mythbusters
In each episode, five engineers (two lead engineers and three “junior” engineers) take on a common myth or urban legend and seek to either bust it or confirm it. What could your business possibly learn from a show about exploding cars, strange robots and electrical shocks? A lot actually.

Windows 8 's Rookie Security Mistake
While it sounds like Windows 8 has a lot going for it when it comes to securing your system, it's recently come to light that Microsoft has made the fatal error of storing login passwords in plain text. This news comes from security firm Passcape Software, a company knows a thing or two about retrieving passwords. And if stored in plain text form, the firm's job is that much easier

A boot camp for hacking electric vehicles
From altering the dashboard to breaking in, an EV electronics system is likely to be a prime target for hackers. Wired reports that recently, a team of cyber security experts tested an EV’s defenses — finding that it was easy to break in, eavesdrop on conversations, turn off the engine or cause havoc to the braking system.

Apple hunts for System-on-a-Chip Architect for A6 successor?
An Apple job posting gives us a tantalizing glimpse into what the Cupertino giant might have in the pipeline over the coming months and years. Is Apple planning to dump Intel? Are OS X tablets in the pipeline?

UK to spend £2m a year on advising other countries about cybersecurity
A UK-based cybersecurity 'centre of excellence' will help other countries defend themselves against cyber-attacks, according to foreign secretary William Hague, who also hinted at the establishment of 'hotlines' between rival countries to stop potential cyber-war situation getting out of hand.

28 Pieces of Computing Advice That Stand the Test of Time
Just because computers are one big exercise in evolutionary progress, that doesn't mean certain computing maxims ever go out of style. Take, for example, the nuggets of wisdom in the following list. All of these things are as true today as they were 2, 5, and in some cases even 10 or 20 years ago.

Quote for the day:

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -- Thomas A. Edison

October 03, 2012

Windows Server 2012 Delivers Data Virtualization in Delightful Ways
Microsoft describes Windows Server 2012 as something that was “built from the cloud up.” Many of the design decisions are a reflection of fundamental shifts on how IT operates while aligning to a strategic grand unification of the Windows core that has been going on for over a decade.

How to Prosper During Change
Contrary to how many people view and respond to change in the workplace, it’s been my experience that periods of organizational adjustment typically represent big fat beach balls of opportunity for those willing to pitch in and help.

The Day the QA Department Died
Many QA Engineers are moving from Software Quality Assurance to quality checking positions involving programming and developer testing. The QA team is changing and integrating into a cross-functional team. The walls are coming down.

Why you may want to consider how much you compliment
“What we are saying,” Stern explains, “is that with CEO status, the greater the status, the more flattery and opinion conformity will be directed towards the CEO. And the more flattery and opinion conformity directed at the CEO, the greater the CEO’s self-enhancement.

Decade of the CSO
So on the 10th anniversary of CSO's launch, let's raise our glasses and toast the Decade of the CSO. Security leadership existed before us, and it will continue after, but this has been a magnificent decade to have front-row seats to watch security mature and fight for its place.

Microsoft TypeScript: Can the father of C# save us from the tyranny of JavaScript?
This isn't one man's vision of how to change the products of one company with the objective of selling more of that one company's product. This is about how to change JavaScript - a tool that reaches way outside of Microsoft's sphere of influence and into the heart of the open development community.

Startup unveils cloud-based IPv6 service
Using the software-as-a-service model, 6connect offers IP address management, DNS and Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) functionality typically purchased in the past as a special-purpose appliance or server-hosted software package.

Building a JavaScript WebSockets Client
Create a JavaScript client that works with a WCF 4.5 WebSockets service to receive continuous, ongoing updates from the service.

Big Data's Biggest Obstacles
Big Data can allow us to see and predict human behavior objectively. What starts small for instance, seeing through data how people really eat and move can become massive such as overhauling the health care system to address real behavior. But, there are many obstacles to getting to a good place with it. Here are some of them:

Oracle finally releases pricing for cloud software offerings
While not giving a public price for every one of its cloud products, Oracle's website now has pricing for its on-demand database and Java development service, as well as for some applications.

Quote for the day:

"Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself." -- Richard M. Nixon

October 02, 2012

5 dysfunctional IT relationships -- and how to repair them
Why can't they all just get along? In many cases it's the tension between conflicting demands on the same systems -- say, DBAs who complain about network performance but refuse to streamline their storage needs or business users who want to roll out new apps quickly, blissfully unaware of the effect they could have on other critical systems.

Ultrabook sales fall short of expectations
IHS iSuppli, in a forecast earlier this year, said 22 million ultrabooks would be sold this year. However, the analyst firm lowered its forecast and said the industry is on track to ship 10.3 million ultrabooks worldwide in 2012.

Exit the mouse, enter the touch pad
While all the touch talk is going on, there's another trend gaining steam in the background. The standalone touch pad, once a very obscure computer accessory (even the Apple Magic Trackpad failed to make much of a splash at launch) is getting a shot at the mainstream, at least if you judge by the recent uptick in systems that include it.

Here’s what Google+ needs to do to kill Facebook
Even with its improved apps, the acquisition of Instagram – which added to Facebook’s already very large mobile user base, although there is of course overlap – Facebook is still very vulnerable in mobile for one very clear reason: it doesn’t have its own mobile OS on hundreds of millions of phones like Google or Apple does.

Data Compression: An Opportunity and a Dilemma
The technology compresses data as it is written to a storage device and decompresses it when it is read without there being any need to change applications in any way. This is, by the way, unique patented technology that is baked into IBM's own Storwize devices, but will happily work with competitors’ storage technology as well.

Philippine cybercrime law under fire, 6th petition filed
Another temporary restraining order against the country's Cybercrime Prevention Act has been filed, as Filipinos protest against its vague definition of online libel and violation of personal rights.

CIO Guide to Mobility
As people come to rely on their mobile devices and apps for more and more of life’s - and work’s - essential functions, IT must develop the strategic thinking and acquire the background knowledge not only to manage, but also take optimal advantage of this mobile revolution.

Why It Could Make Sense To Get Rid Of Patents Entirely, Even If They Work In A Few Cases
While this may sound similar to Boldrin and Levine's earlier works, this one goes further, and is definitely worth the read. In effect, they argue that not only do patents rarely help innovation, but, even worse, the existence of patents (even where they help) will only lead to the system being expanded to where they do more harm than good:

7 Tips to Offshore Agile Development
Distance, it seemed, would only make agile methods of close-working, collaborative teams, self-governance, and rapid, time-boxed development more difficult.

Opera 12.10 beta brings new APIs for extension developers
The new version of the browser adds the SPDY standard for faster webpage downloads and offers support for Windows 8 touch and the Mac's Retina Display. But the really intriguing changes are under the hood.

Quote for the day:

"Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish." -- Anne Bradstreet

October 01, 2012

The Professionals: thoughts from Dave Butler
Here is a featured Q & A from Dave Butler, Director, Corporate Affairs for Grainger plc. on shared services, outsourcing and realted matter.

What’s The Leadership Parachute That Helps You Escape Disaster?
From a leadership perspective, I was left wondering about parachutes. Parachutes are often used in the financial planning world as an analogy to financially protect oneself or ones family from disasters that could hurt them.

Executives go big on learning Big Data Analytics skills
“I need to hire a PhD in statistics or machine learning to make sense of all this new data about my customers”. This is probably what many executives think when faced with the amazing opportunity of big data in their businesses.

Oracle sets sights on an all-Oracle cloud
Oracle has unveiled an ambitious cloud strategy built around an all-Oracle IT stack, but has failed to give evidence that this gives greater performance or cost advantages than clouds operated by rivals.

Data Markets: The Emerging Data Economy
There is also a trend where companies can outsource certain aspects of data management, especially around reference or canonical datasets, to a third party that specializes in assembling and curating datasets or creating value from data in other ways.

Top 10 issues eroding cloud confidence
A collaborative project by ISACA and CSA, the Cloud Market Maturity study provides business and IT leaders with insight into the maturity of cloud computing and will help identify any changes in the market.

Reassessing the role of QA in IT
There are strong arguments that CIOs should reconsider QA’s “back seat” role. This is what’s happening in testing now–and here are some steps progressive shops are taking.

MySQL users caution against NoSQL fad
"A lot of people think they have a big data problem, and a lot of times they don't," said Daniel Austin, who is the chief architect for PayPal. "They have an urge to find a big data solution to a problem, because it looks good."

FreshBooks turns up heat in small-business cloud accounting space
Born as an invoicing solution, the cloud service is finding loyal followers with those seeking an accounting application that it doesn't require an accounting degree.

Testing in the Cloud: Exploring the Practice
Despite benefits, other costs are less obvious and more difficult to evaluate: testing in the cloud requires special technical skills to generate test cases and scripts, and providing and monitoring security might also incur additional costs. In this article, we propose a practical roadmap for adopting cloud-based testing.

Quotes for the day:

"Sandwich every bit of criticism between two thick layers of praise." -- Mary Kay Ash

"When a thing is done, it's done. Don't look back. Look forward to your next objective." -- G.C. Marshall