Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

October 03, 2013

What makes models interesting
George Box said that so much better than I would have. While he was referring to science and statistics, his advice applies to Enterprise Architecture rather well. What it means is this: if you have two models, both that capture the USEFUL elements needed to describe something, and one is simpler than the other, go simple. In other words, I don’t care what is “correct.” I care what is useful.

Depth-Sensing Cameras Head to Mobile Devices
The first mobile depth-sensing technology to hit the market is likely to be the Structure Sensor, an accessory for Apple’s iPad that gives the device capabilities similar to those of Microsoft’s Kinect gaming controller. Occipital, the San Francisco company behind the device, says it will start shipping its product in February 2014. A Kickstarter campaign for the device has raised almost $750,000, with more than a month to run.

Cloud Service Brokerage Expands in Canada with ComputeNext and CACloud.com Partnership
Cloud consumers can now use CA Cloud IaaS through the ComputeNext cloud brokerage platform for discovery and procurement and provisioning of cloud services such as servers, storage, and on-demand software. IT professionals looking for cloud servers and storage will now have access to IaaS locations in Canada that are geographically separated with options for West Coast and East Coast Canadian cloud servers that provide low-latency and performance solidified with a coast-to-coast network backbone.

New Red Hat Enterprise Linux licensing plan designed to unify cloud, physical environments
Socket pairs and virtual nodes are now treated as interchangeable under Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux Server license, allowing for various combinations of physical servers and virtualized machines. RHEL for Virtual Data Centers also got an update, with a purely per-socket option allowing for an unlimited number of VMs on Hyper-V, VMware, or Red Hat’s own Enterprise Virtualization.

How to Manage Big Data with a Data Governance Policy
Big data, when used wisely, can deliver tremendous value to organizations. The importance of data governance in this equation is gaining visibility. A recent report from the Institute for Health Technology Transformation, for example, indicated that a standardized format for data governance is essential for healthcare organizations to leverage the power of big data. The authors indicate that the first and most critical priority is to develop a carefully structured framework for enterprise data governance.

Building A Collaborative Culture
Companies should assess and qualify collaboration opportunities just as they qualify sales leads to decide whether a particular collaboration effort makes sense. Reducing the costs of collaboration improves the chance that a collaboration initiative will have a positive ROI.However, companies can improve their odds even further by following five guidelines for successful collaboration

CA global IT study reveals DevOps driving 20% faster time-to-market for new services
"In today's world of mobile apps and online consumer reviews, companies are under enormous pressure to deliver higher quality applications faster than ever before," says Jaco Greyling, CA Southern Africa, manager, service assurance & application delivery. "Companies which have been around for more than 20-30 years face big challenges as they have legacy systems. Those who are willing to undergo internal transformation can win the competition in fast-changing markets."

Mobile Business Application Testing: Challenges and Strategy
This unlikeness in mobile computing environments presents unique challenges in developing applications, quality assurance, and maintenance, requiring unique testing strategies. Which need to cover different types of testing such as functional, , Performance, network, compatibility, usability, installation & field testing. To address this, we have a range of options of tools and automation processes best suited to testing both mobile web and native mobile apps that can reduce complexity and time to market.

Graphene Could Make Data Centers and Supercomputers More Efficient
Graphene has a number of potential advantages over germanium, says Englund. Because of its exceptional electronic properties, devices made of the material can work at very high frequencies, and could in principle handle more information per second. Also, graphene can absorb a broader range of wavelengths than germanium can. That property could be exploited to transmit more data streams simultaneously in the same beam of light.

Creating a Culture of Learning and Innovation
A culture of continuous learning is vital to an organization that strives to be innovative. Knowledge is the foundation for new ideas, and the learning that produces knowledge is what keeps brains malleable to create innovative and disruptive solutions. So why build a culture of continuous learning in the workplace?

Quote for the day:

"When change programs fail it is because the attempt was non-systemic. Change in performance requires a change to the system." -- John Seddon

October 02, 2013

Enterprise architecture: The key to cybersecurity
A fundamental axiom of security is that we can never drive risk to zero. In other words, perfect security is infinitely expensive. We must therefore understand our tolerance for risk and our budget for addressing security, and ensure these two factors are in balance across the organization. Fundamentally, it is essential to build threats into your business model, and do so consistently.

Introducing SQL Server 2014's New Clustered Columnstore Indexes
Just like a normal clustered index, a clustered columnstore index defines how the data is physically stored on the disc. A columnstore backed table is initially organized into segments known as row groups. Each rowgroup holds from 102,400 to 1,048,576 rows. Once a rowgroup is identified it is broken up into column segments, which are then compressed and inserted into the actual columnstore.

Future Technologies
Dr. William Lafontaine shared aspects of the company’s Global Technology Outlook 2013, naming the top trends that the company is keeping top of mind, starting with a confluence of social, mobile analytics and cloud. According to Lafontaine and his colleagues, businesses must prepare for not “mobile also” but “mobile first.” In fact, there will be companies that will exist in a mobile-only environment.

Seagate, TDK show off HAMR to jam more data into hard drives
HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) uses heat delivered by a laser to help write data onto the surface of HDDs (hard disk drives). This allows drives to write bits of data closer together so more information can be stored in a given amount of space on a disk platter. At this week's huge electronics show in Tokyo, in partner TDK's booth, Seagate will demonstrate HAMR on a 2.5-inch, 10,000-rpm HDD designed for enterprise blade servers.

Healthcare orgs turn to AWS as a HIPAA cloud provider
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been marketed as a good fit for HIPPA cloud workloads over the last year, but it wasn't until June that it began signing BAAs for select organizations, according to Glenn Grant, CEO of G2 Technology Group Inc., an AWS advanced partner based in Boston. There are some design requirements for customers who want to be HIPAA-compliant while using AWS; IT pros at healthcare organizations say they are required to use dedicated instances

Bank of the West's CIO Is on a Quest for Real-Time Analytics
The bank does have real-time data for all normal banking transactions; brokerage transactions are logged in near real time. "Everything has a slight sub-second lag time," Garen observes. For the small business segment, that real-time, cross-channel data is not fully available yet. Regulation has been a big driver for many of Garen's analytics projects. But she sees this as, at least in part, a good thing. "It's one of these mixed blessings," she says. "Because we're part of a holding company here in the U.S., there are regulatory requirements that require us to do massive investment in CCAR."

Does a lack of diversity among business leaders hinder innovation?
When senior leaders have both inherent and acquired diversity ("two-dimensional" diversity), the entire chain of command tends to be more effective, we find, at both eliciting innovative ideas and securing the support and funding to develop and implement them. The top sets the tone: at companies where executives have two-dimensional diversity, leaders at all levels are 74% more likely to exhibit the inclusive behaviours that foster a speak-up culture, unlocking innovation.

FPC gives banks a year to create cyber attack plan
The FPC stressed that it wants the issue addressed by directors at the very top of the banks, rather then left to IT departments. “It was important that boards of financial firms and infrastructure providers recognised their responsibility for responding to those threats, which required a combination of continuous vigilance and investment to strengthen operational resilience,” the minutes said. Underlining the scale of concern, it stressed that the message was “a priority” and that banks would need to be able to “adapt to evolving threats”.

Gartner tells IT shops that it's 'game over' for BlackBerry
Many large companies, including some U.S. government agencies, have already replaced BlackBerry devices with Apple iPhones and iPads or Android smartphones. The trend toward BlackBerry smartphone alternatives, underway for some four years, has increased steadily in the last year. Though BlackBerry indicated Friday in its second quarter results an uptick of organizations installing or testing the latest BES 10 servers, analysts have noted a large number of organizations are also abandoning earlier versions of BlackBerry management software.

"What if the data tells you something you don't like?" Three potential big data pitfalls
As Rohit Killam, CTO at Masan Group points out: "The real bottleneck is conceptualising a value-driven big data programme with [the] right stakeholders," while Duncan James, infrastructure manager at Clarion Solicitors notes: "Understanding what the business requires is the hardest part, especially if the business can't articulate what it wants in the first place." In many organisations, whenever you want to do any project there has to be a business case before there can be any budget, says Frank Buytendijk, research vice president at Gartner.

Quote for the day:

"Success is determined by those whom prove the impossible, possible." -- James W. Pence

October 01, 2013

Transactions and SQL Server 2014’s In-Memory OLTP
Transactions in SQL Server’s In-Memory OLTP rely on a timestamp-like construct known as a Transaction ID. A transaction uses two timestamps, one for the beginning of the operation and one that is assigned when the transaction is committed. While multiple transactions can share the same start value. Likewise each version of a row in memory has a starting and ending transaction id. The basic rule is that a transaction can only read data when RowVersion.StartingId <= Transaction.StartingId < RowVersion.EndingId.

Free eBook: Graph Databases
Graph Databases, published by O’Reilly Media, discusses the problems that are well aligned with graph databases, with examples drawn from practical, real-world use cases. This book also looks at the ecosystem of complementary technologies, highlighting what differentiates graph databases from other database technologies, both relational and NOSQL. Graph Databases is written by Ian Robinson, Jim Webber, and Emil Eifrém, graph experts and enthusiasts at Neo Technology, creators of Neo4j.

Govt. Shutdown would hit tech industry
In the last shutdown, in the 1990s, government employees received backpay, but Hettinger said contracting companies aren't expecting to get back lost revenue from a shutdown. Even a short agreement to fund the government would be disruptive, Hettinger said, because companies need to be able to make decisions based on a predictable revenue stream. He urged companies to communicate with their contract employees to prevent "mass confusion" when federal agencies start closing.

Cisco, Intel push 'trusted geolocation in the cloud'
This idea of “trusted geolocation in the cloud” is of growing importance because many countries have laws about how can data about their citizens can be moved outside the country if at all, and businesses have their own reasons to restrict movement of data to certain places. Cisco solutions architect Kenneth Stavinoha and Intel senior enterprise technologist Paul Yates recently spoke on the topic during a panel discussion at the ISC2 Conference in Chicago, along with HyTrust CTO Hemma Prafullchandra.

Nokia Hits Snag in India
Nokia India's assets were frozen on Wednesday, the Finnish company said in a written statement on Monday. The Delhi High Court on Thursday freed up Nokia India's bank accounts, but its immovable assets, including its buildings and facilities in India, remain frozen. "We went to court, and got a ruling in our favor on Thursday—the bank accounts were unfrozen," Nokia spokesman Brett Young said. He declined to elaborate.

Cloud PCI Compliance: The Checklist
If your business stores, processes, or transmits payment cardholder data in the cloud, you are bound by PCI DSS. But unlike “brick and mortar” data centers that must also adhere to PCI DSS, those operating in the cloud have additional needs. For example, 6 of the 12 steps outlined by PCI DSS either require or are assisted by encryption of data. However, to securely encrypt in the cloud and comply with PCI DSS, you must keep control of the encryption keys. But as a cloud operation, can you keep your encryption keys in the cloud and at the same time keep them safe?

MoD plots new ‘laptop army' to combat cybercrime
"In response to the growing cyberthreat, we are developing a full-spectrum military cyber capability, including a strike capability, to enhance the UK's range of military capabilities," he said. "Increasingly, our defence budget is being invested in high-end capabilities such as cyber and intelligence and surveillance assets to ensure we can keep the country safe."

Redefining traceability in Enterprise Architecture
Traceable is an adjective; capable of being traced. Trying to find a definition even from a dictionary is a challenge and the most relevant one I found on Wikipedia which may be used as a reference could be “The formal definition of traceability is the ability to chronologically interrelate uniquely identifiable entities in a way that is verifiable.” In Enterprise Architecture, traceability may mean different things to different people.

7 sneak attacks used by today's most devious hackers
Today's most ingenious malware and hackers are just as stealthy and conniving. Here are some of the latest techniques of note that have piqued my interest as a security researcher and the lessons learned. Some stand on the shoulders of past malicious innovators, but all are very much in vogue today as ways to rip off even the savviest users.

Closing the IT communication gap with enterprise stakeholders
Investors look at rapid returns on investment, and IT looks for systemic changes, particularly for efficiency, but both groups have different expectations for each. David Linthicum and his guest Lisa Noon, vice president of Cloud Technology Partners, discuss how to close this cloud chasm. You'll also hear about announcements from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Joyent.

Quote for the day:

"Determination gives you the resolve to keep going in spite of the roadblocks that lay before you." -- Denis Waitley

September 30, 2013

TDoS attacks on the rise: Who is at risk and what to do under attack
Carriers are equally helpless in attack prevention and mitigation. In this online forum, a customer blames Comcast, but all the carrier can do is activate anonymous call rejection which does little to nothing. There is no way to block the source because it can be different with each call. Using a hosted provider isn't safe either. An attack on one company could even affect other unrelated firms on the same provider, in the case of shared trunking.

Forget fingerprints: Your iris is your new identity
Symantec's use of iris recognition technology for an access control system in a setting where security requirements are high and cost is no object represents a classic application of the technology. "Cost has perennially been an issue with iris, but this trend is quickly changing," as cameras, recognition algorithms and software have all improved, says Ram Ravi, a research analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

Datacentres of the 21st century
"While we own the strategy and overall architecture, we don't mandate a particular type of underlying server," Palmer explained. "We do have in our operational and service-level agreements requirements about power reduction and so on — so it is in both parties' interest to have the smallest footprint possible — but we don't mandate a particular flavour of server. "Having said that, in being virtual by default, where something can't be virtual, it will sit on a blade server inside a chassis. ..."

SDN vs Virtualisation: Where is the Synergy?
“The major difference is that network virtualisation focuses on combining a few hardware resources (from one vendor) and presenting them to the application and administrators as one common resource, while SDN abstracts the traditional networking hardware layers into software and hardware for efficient management of hardware and data flow,” says Khanna.

U.S. Agencies Revamp Standards for Cybersecurity Program
"Every cybersecurity professional that comes out of college and takes a job is a win for the government, whether they work for John Deere, Boeing, or Target," says Robin (Montana) Williams, branch chief of cybersecurity-education awareness at the Homeland Security Department. The country is at a critical juncture "as to where we go next in a world that is interconnected and in which cybercrime globally costs us $388-billion a year. We are losing intellectual property. We are losing our nation's work and our nation's vision and our nation's ingenuity because we are not able to protect it," he says.

Prepare to be dazzled
If you are familiar with Microsoft software architectures, you will be familiar with the .NET Framework. It has a complex set of hooks into the underlying operating system and provides a wide range of hooks to the applications that developers write to sit on top. By writing relatively simple code, developers can produce immensely powerful software. While they understand to a certain extent the concepts of the system hooks they are calling, they don't have to be able to write code as complex as that underneath. The OpenDaylight framework functions in a similar way.

4G cars are coming, but we won’t have much choice in how we connect them
The car will become a new type of connected device like our smartphones and tablets, and like those gadgets our 4G cars will require data plans. But unlike the smartphone and tablet, we’re not going to have a choice on what carrier we buy those plans from. It might seem absurd, but in the U.S. our 4G cars are going to be linked to a specific carrier, just as the first three generations of iPhones were tied to AT&T.

Cisco NCS enables programmable network functions virtualization
The degree of programmability supplied in this case is "stunning and opens up execution models for services that haven't really been possible before," said Paul Parker-Johnson, practice lead for cloud computing and virtual infrastructure technologies at Gilbert, Ariz.-based ACG Research. "One can easily envision localized instances of M2M or so-called Internet of Things application modules deployed as desired in a given service context at any place in the supported network."

10 best new features in Excel 2013
Almost everyone will find something to appreciate in Excel 2013. It's more functional and easy to use. Everyone's going to love Flash Fill. Experienced number crunchers will appreciate the new data model feature. Inexperienced users forced to get more out of the application than their experience really supports will appreciate Recommended Charts, Recommended PivotTables, and Quick Analysis.

Codenvy’s Architecture, Part 1
The Codenvy Platform is used as an engine to deliver Codenvy.com, Codenvy Enterprise, and Codenvy ISV. It can also be used to create other IDEs with any branding the implementer desires. This SDK is similar in structure to the Eclipse Platform, but engineered for a cloud environment. It also provides support for developing plug-ins for build, run, test, and debugging workflows, which typically operate outside of the IDE itself.

Quote for the day:

"Sometimes the best way to learn is to return to the fundamentals." -- John Maxwell

September 29, 2013

Steve Jobs Left a Legacy on Personalized Medicine
It turns out that Jobs was one of the first people—and certainly the best-known—to try this kind of all-in genetic strategy to beat cancer. As recounted in Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple CEO, Jobs spent $100,000 to learn the DNA sequence of his genome and that of the tumors killing him. Jobs was jumping between treatments and hoped DNA would provide clues about where to turn next.

Strategies for Information Governance
Information Governance is a combination of business practices, technology and human capital for meeting the compliance, legal, regulatory, security requirements, and organizational goals of an entity. Information governance provides a means to protect, access, and otherwise manage data and transform it into useful information.

The First Carbon Nanotube Computer
For the first time, researchers have built a computer whose central processor is based entirely on carbon nanotubes, a form of carbon with remarkable material and electronic properties. The computer is slow and simple, but its creators, a group of Stanford University engineers, say it shows that carbon nanotube electronics are a viable potential replacement for silicon when it reaches its limits in ever-smaller electronic circuits.

Privacy and Security by Design: An Enterprise Architecture Approach
The new paper explores the strong synergy that exists between the related disciplines of privacy and security. Privacy seeks to respect and protect personally identifiable information by empowering individuals to maintain control over its collection, use and disclosure. Information security seeks to enable and protect activities and the assets of both people and enterprises. While on the one hand, strong security is essential to meet the objectives of privacy, on the other hand, well-known privacy principles are valuable in guiding the implementation of security systems.

Data Integration: From Dark Art to Enterprise Architecture
There’s a renewed push across the industry to elevate data integration from being a series of one-off projects shrouded in mystery to the core of a multidisciplinary, enterprise architecture—incorporating new and existing approaches such as master data management, data virtualization, and data integration automation. By introducing enterprise architectural sensibilities to data integration, it can be turned into a process for innovation and delivery of productive change for organizations.

Layered Application Design Pattern
In critical application development, the most important thing is project architecture or project framework which comprises of various modules involved in request processing or business handling. If the framework is clear and robust, and completely designed with proper planning then its very easy to do the code and develop the particular requirement for business. For any application if a developer knows the project framework/architecture then 50% work is done after that we need to focus on functionality only and need not to worry about the inter connected business component involved in the project.

10 Things to Know Before Moving E-Discovery to the Cloud
Cloud computing is attractive because it enables users to do more with less; however, with this great power comes great responsibility and risk. This risk comes in the form of legal, security, business continuity and compliance issues. When e-discovery is involved, the risk considerations become increasingly complex. If your organization is considering moving data to the cloud, or transitioning e-discovery systems to the cloud, follow this checklist of the top 10 things to consider before taking the leap.

Tokenization for De-Identifying APIs
Once the PII has been identified, the data can be de-identified using tokenization or encryption (including format-preserving encryption). Or the data can be anonymized completely via redaction. This policy can be generalized to proxy several APIs and replace any PII that passes through. This works particularly well for credit card or social security numbers, both of which follow a very well-defined and relatively unique pattern.

Developing a Legal Risk Model for Big Volumes of Unstructured Data
Unfortunately, mass-deleting information carries cost as well, including the loss of data that might be important to the business, and the risk of deleting information required for regulatory compliance. But perhaps the biggest cost of unidentified data comes when a company must pay to categorize data as part of a legal electronic discovery process. Opposing attorneys can—and will—force companies to produce every piece of data that might be relevant to the case.

An Enterprise Security Program and Architecture to Support Business Drivers
An understanding of Seccuris’ approach will illustrate the importance of aligning security activities with high-level business objectives while creating increased awareness of the duality of risk. The business-driven approach to enterprise security architecture can help organizations change the perception of IT security, positioning it as a tool to enable and assure business success, rather than an obstacle to be avoided.

Quote for the day:

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make u something else is the greatest accomplishment.” -- Emerson

September 28, 2013

Some Robots Are Starting to Move More Like Humans
Mimicking human movement is ideal for a robot designed to take on human tasks. But such robots can also help researchers explore how biomechanics can give rise to more intelligent behavior, a field known as embodied intelligence or cognition. “Most people know that intelligence requires the body, but they don’t know why,” says Pfeifer. “I think [Roboy] can be a really interesting research platform for learning in systems with many degrees of freedom.”

Microsoft Creating New Office Touch Apps
The new Modern UI app, codenamed Office Reader, was demonstrated Thursday in front of thousands of Microsoft employees during a meeting in Seattle, according to a report in The Verge. Microsoft VP Kirk Koenigsbauer presented the multimedia tool, which supports Web pages, Office documents, PDFs and interactive e-books. The app reportedly will be able to recommend content and include several methods for organizing information.

IT does not know ethics
It is important that IT professionals put more focus on ethics because the business world is finally understanding how much trust and power they give us to run their IT infrastructure. The visibility of Business Ethics is increasing with online magazines by that title becoming popular as Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility continue to get focused attention. And, of course, there are all the horror stories about ethics. As Canadians, we should at least know about Bre-X.

Where Does Security Fit Into Change Management Processes?
If the course of action regarding the change is easy to identify (e.g., x will fix y), then it’s a good idea to have the risk evaluation piece completed after all other vetting for the change process. That is, once you have identified the solution, determined that it is feasible/cost effective/meats requirements, etc., you can present the change for a security evaluation. If it’s the only option, it will be the job of the evaluator to determine what risk the change might introduce to the organization.

How CIOs and IT Teams Can Make IT Matter Again
The shift in responsibilities will demand a shift in capabilities, and many CIOs would be well served by brushing up on some critical skill sets ... CIOs eyeing the future will find golden opportunities to become game-changers for their organizations. If they want to take full advantage of the opportunity, though, they need to reposition themselves within the organization, shifting from technology tactician to strategic technology visionary.

Hefty price premium awaits early DDR4 memory adopters
The adoption of DDR4 has been delayed due to the decline in the PC market and price stabilization this year of DDR3 memory, whose prices had been falling by double digits in previous years. Happy with DDR3 margins, companies like Samsung and SK Hynix shifted manufacturing capacity to make mobile memory for smartphones and tablets, which are growing markets.

RDBMS vs. NoSQL: How do you pick?
The market is abuzz with terms like NoSQL, Big Data, NewSQL, Database Appliance, etc. Often, IT decision makers can get very confused with all the noise. They do not understand why they should consider a newer, alternative database when RDBMSs have been around for 20+ years. However, many leading enterprises are already using alternative databases and are saving money, innovating more quickly, and completing projects they could not pursue before as a result.

Accidental Architectures and the Future of Intelligent Networks
There are, however, certain undeniable trends which drive the practical implementations of information systems. By no means is the challenge of heterogeneity new. Movements like the Service Oriented Architecture were focused on bringing some rhyme and reason to the otherwise scatterplot world of information and application landscapes. Today, SOA is not widely discussed, but that’s because its guiding principles now largely rule the roost.

Five Mistakes You Do Not Want to Make As a Project Manager
There are plenty of other mistakes, just waiting to be made - or avoided. Keep your eyes open and keep these five major mistakes in mind whatever project you are working on. Don’t forget that being a project manager is a constant learning exercise; gaining experience and improving your PM skills to be able to take on bigger and more complex challenges and grow your career as a project manager.

What Amazon should do: Think different. Be more like Apple
In addition to focusing on the device's design and function, Amazon will need to heavily market the Mayday feature, much like Apple did when it first unveiled Siri. Amazon wants to control how a consumer experiences its services through a device, but to achieve that it first needs people to want the gadget. Just look at how Samsung achieved its No. 2 ranking behind Apple. It used the sex appeal of its Galaxy S smartphone line, and extended it to its family of Galaxy tablets.

Quote for the day:

"Man can alter his life by altering his thinking" -- William James

September 27, 2013

Intel invests in Google Glass rival, the 'world's most advanced wearable computer'
On Thursday, Intel announced the investment, saying the "significant investment" in to wearable technology developer Recon will support product development, marketing and global sales expansion. Recon will also "benefit from Intel Capital's expertise in manufacturing, operations and technology," the company says. Intel's specific funding figures were not disclosed.

Using metro storage clusters to manage data growth, add value to IaaS
Service providers may gain significant business value by implementing metro storage clusters as well. They can use the technology to create multilayer data storage packages for customers, depending on which metro storage cluster design they chose to deploy. Requirements would dictate the design, architecture and services to be offered.

CloudPassage Extends Cloud Infrastructure Security To Large Enterprises
Unlike legacy security tools that were built for static environments and fixed perimeters that don't exist with cloud computing, Halo is the only massively scalable, portable security solution that can provide immediate visibility and control over any cloud infrastructure environment, including private cloud, virtualized data centers, public cloud, virtual private or managed clouds, and even bare-metal servers.

How to Overcome the Perils of Caring Deeply
Organizations move toward mediocrity when they silence those who care deeply. Pursue your passion or accept irrelevance. Every initiative, project, department, and product needs a champion who obsessively cares. CEO’s become champions of average when they don’t freakishly care for their organizations. Excellence is a function of caring deeply.

A glimpse into the “Making of IRCTC” apps
Half a million transactions per day, over a million enquiries every day are the facts that prop up when the word ‘IRCTC’ is discussed in the technology world. The numbers are startling and one can imagine the infrastructure that has been put in place to cater to millions of Indians on a daily basis. Be it booking tickets or enquiry on the web (individual users and through agents), IRCTC.CO.IN is a one stop shop for train reservations in India. Users of Windows 8 and Windows Phone devices are the beneficiaries as they now have a native app to look up to for their rail ticket reservation needs

Return on Ignorance: The Highest form of ROI
With each eliminated unknown, the risk-adjusted discount rate fell. Each time that rate fell, the project’s value rose. “Return on ignorance,” quipped Donald Farmer, QlikTech vice president of product management. When the laughter died, he continued, “If you decide in advance what your measure’s going to be, you’re only going to perform to that measure.”

Usage-based auto insurance found to pose privacy risks
With pay-as-you-drive plans, insurance companies typically require drivers to plug in a small telematics device into the vehicle's on-board diagnostic port. The device monitors the vehicle operator's driving behavior and records data like speed, cornering and braking patterns over a specified time period. The information is used to adjust insurance rates and to offer more customized plans for individual drivers. Insurance companies claim that such plans can help substantially lower auto insurance rates, especially for safe and low-mileage drivers.

Smartphones: Transforming society into a sea of stupid
While we can certainly point towards societal detachment with the introduction of radio and television, those were only consumptive technologies rather than interactive ones. The move towards Personal Computing starting in the early 1980s added an element of societal detachment. By comparison, radio and TV could be enjoyed in groups, whereas the PC and online interaction was by nature a single-user activity.

Will the cloud exchange be the next big ecosystem player?
German stock exchange operator Deutsche Börse is set to launch the first vendor-neutral marketplace for cloud services in 2014 when it turns up service on its Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange (DBCE). The DBCE will offer standardized products allowing accredited sellers to contract with any registered buyer in a unified market and legal framework.

Malicious browser extensions pose a serious threat and defenses are lacking
BrowserProtect, another Firefox extension, claims to protect the browser against "homepage, search provider, extension, add-on, BHO and other hijacks." This extension also fails to protect against malicious extensions, the researcher said. Browser security extensions are not really trying to protect against malicious extensions and they wouldn't be able to because by design they run with the same privileges as those extensions, Balazs said.

Quote for the day:

“We cannot change anything until we accept it.” -- Carl Jung

September 26, 2013

'Icefog' spying operation targeted Japan, South Korea
The "Icefog" hackers probed victims one by one, carefully copying select files and then exiting the systems, according to security vendor Kaspersky Lab, which released a 68-page report on the group Wednesday. "The nature of the attacks was also very focused," Kaspersky wrote. "In many cases, the attackers already knew what they were looking for."

Governance: More Than Just DataWhen an organization establishes its data governance program and the different tiers or levels of responsibility, this does not mean that other important “players” in the organization are not heard. Interviewing a number of experienced individuals across different roles regarding their views on data governance can give a unique perspective on the direction and possible initiatives where value can be added to your organization. You may find that there are similar, smaller initiatives occurring that can be leveraged.

Playing the economics game with IT lifecycle management
ITLM requires that you find out and log exactly what equipment assets are in the data center. Use an IT asset management tool. Many organizations carry out rudimentary asset management with spreadsheets with serial numbers and dates of purchase and delivery to keep track of items, but these systems rapidly become out-of-date as equipment is updated with new components.

Reduce Waste by Changing from Waterfall to Agile
The Agile Method does not attempt to “nail and freeze the requirements” all up front at one time. It assumes that the requirements will evolve and change as the customer begins to visualize their own requirements. ... Essentially, the Agile Method is a series of smaller contained waterfalls. End users and business stakeholders get to see and experience the system as it unfolds.

Enterprise security increasingly challenging, study finds
“Part of the problem is that information security professionals are typically having to take on the work and roles of two or three people,” Tipton told Computer Weekly at the (ISC)2Security Congress 2013 in Chicago. Tipton said the study indicates a shortfall of around 300,000 qualified information security professionals this year, which is evidenced by the constant poaching of the top people in the industry.

Review: Samsung's most affordable, triple-level cell SSD
The new processor boasts 400MHz clock speeds, compared with 300MHz in previous generations, so it's about 33% faster. That faster clock speed translates into a 27% increase in the number of input/output operations per second (IOPS), according to Samsung. The company has also advanced the signal processing in the controller -- a move that's designed to ensure that the higher-density drive keeps the same level of endurance and reliability as Samsung's previous SSDs.

Enhancing enterprise readiness of private clouds

SUSE today announced the general availability of SUSE Cloud 2.0, the next version of the original enterprise-ready OpenStack distribution for building Infrastructure-as-a-Service private clouds. Based on OpenStack Grizzly, it helps in setting up a mixed hypervisor private cloud environment that can be rapidly deployed and easily managed, helping enterprises increase business agility and reduce IT costs.

Oracle Channel Chief to Partners: Master Exadata
"We're rewarding partners for that behavior," said LaRocca. "And frankly, we need more partners selling Exadata. We need them invested and building competencies in the Exadata area. If you don’t have both hardware and software competencies, you wouldn’t have the confidence and ability to do Exadata." At the same time, Oracle has been driving ISVs to optimize their solutions for Exadata -- as part of a broader push called the Exastack program.

CIOs Share How They Made the Leap to CEO
The CEO job has never looked more attainable to CIOs. In today's business climate, the monster forces of social media, mobility and analytics technology are moving tectonic plates beneath traditional C-suite roles. CIOs are bumping up against fellow officers as IT becomes the number-one tool for building strategic advantage. A CIO who can make clever use of data and technology to create new revenue may be well-positioned to lead a company

Cloud Architecture: Get It Right The First Time
First, effective IT managers should map out their organization's specific goals in moving to the cloud, then search for the cloud service that seems most oriented toward meeting them. Unlike Facebook, which publishes the details of its infrastructure, Google offers little information about its own. Google Compute Engine, however, sits on the same infrastructure as Google Search.

Quote for the day:

“Put your best people on your biggest opportunities.” -- Jim Collins

September 25, 2013

How to Make Your In-memory NoSQL Datastores Enterprise-Ready
In-memory NoSQL datastores such as open source Redis and Memcached are becoming the de-facto standard for every web/mobile application that cares about its user’s experience. Still, large enterprises have struggled to adopt these databases in recent years due to challenges with performance, scalability and availability. ... This article will outline how to make an in-memory NoSQL datastore enterprise-ready, with tips and recommendations on how to overcome the top seven challenges associated with managing these databases in the cloud.

Virginia Tech breach exposes data on 145K job applicants
"The server was placed in service without our normal cyber protection protocols," thereby allowing illegal access to the data, Hincker said in an email. The university said the oversight allowed someone to illegally access the server and potentially the data it contained. "We became aware on Aug. 28 that it had been compromised," Hincker said without elaborating on how the university discovered the problem. In many cases, such data compromises go unnoticed until the breached entity is notified by law enforcement, credit card companies or victims.

Uses for Hadoop: Exploring the storage, appliance and analytics options
Hadoop can be a beneficial tool for big data environments, but according to John Webster, a senior partner at Boulder, CO-based Evaluator Group Inc., a lot of the criticism stems from a lack of understanding of the uses for Hadoop. In the first of this two-part podcast, Webster explains Hadoop's role in data storage, whether it can be used as an alternative to object storage and what needs to change to spread Hadoop adoption. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript below.

Are You a High-Performer--or Just an Overachiever?
An overachiever can ram through a new marketing strategy. They can wear down a recalcitrant team member. They will outlast a recession, explode past their competition, annihilate technical constraints. This all looks good from a distance, but up close, internally, it’s tearing muscle from bone, weakening the business. Performance-based leaders, on the other hand, deliver results while building up the business, not weakening it. Like the overachiever, they make things happen, but at the same time, they make their organization better, fitter, more growth-oriented, rather than weakening it.

Value-Based Health Care Is Inevitable and That’s Good
Data can help identify variations in clinical practice, utilization rates, and performance against internal and external benchmarks, leading to improved quality and a sustained change in culture. Last year, we established a values-based care team, which seeks to eliminate unnecessary practice variation by developing evidence-based care paths across diseases and to improve comprehensive care coordination so that patients move seamlessly through the system, reducing unnecessary hospitalizations and ER visits.

Look before you leap: Evaluating cloud migrations in high-performance LAN environments
On paper, cloud looks great. You're going to save a bundle of money, have less headaches to deal with, less systems to manage, etc. But you suspect that if you move your systems and data that run at LAN speeds to the cloud, productivity could grind to a proverbial halt. But at some point, you may need to prove it to senior management, and, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” probably won’t cut it, Han. Besides, don’t you really want to know for sure before putting up a fight?

Neural Network Data Normalization and Encoding
A topic that's often very confusing for beginners when using neural networks is data normalization and encoding. Because neural networks work internally with numeric data, binary data (such as sex, which can be male or female) and categorical data (such as a community, which can be suburban, city or rural) must be encoded in numeric form. ... This article explains how to normalize and encode neural network data from a developer's point of view. The process is conceptually simple but surprisingly difficult to implement.

Cisco reveals its Internet of Everything router
The system is not a core router like the Cisco CRS, or a successor to the CRS, the company says. Rather, it is a network fabric designed to scale CRS cores and ASR 9000 edge routers in service provider networks from centralized systems to distributed architectures able to accommodate the growth of Internet connected "things," like cars, homes and machines.

Better Agile Adoptions
Usually, the following pattern is used to implement Agile methods, usually after a small pilot test of Agile with a small team: Authority says we are all “going Agile”; Authority says we will be using a specific practice, like Scrum, or Kanban, or some other Agile practice, method, or framework. The message is that this is not negotiable; Authority selects a coach on the basis of his or her expertise with the prescribed practices. Typically, Scrum skills. The coach is imposed on the people, just like the prescribed Agile practices.

Quote for the day:

"Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be." -- Jack Welch

September 24, 2013

Microsoft's Surface 2 Tablet Follows Faithfully in the Footsteps of Failure
Despite the fresh name and a handful of helpful tweaks, the Surface 2 is still saddled with the same ho-hum value proposition and half-baked Windows RT operating system as the original Surface RT--a disaster that ended up costing Microsoft nearly $1 billion in write-downs. The Surface 2 doesn't look any more appealing.

Intel's Haswell-Y promises PC performance in tablets
Lately Intel has been focused on its Atom processor and tablets, but there’s another new chip in its family that could prove to be equally important. The latest Haswell-Y processors use so little power that they are now a viable option for tablets and 2-in-1 devices. The focus on power efficiency in Core processors is nothing new. Even before laptop shipments eclipsed desktops for the first time five years ago, Intel began working on power and it has long offered a line of low-voltage Core processors--typically rated at around 15 watts compared with 37 watts for standard notebook chips.

Using predictive analytics to make your data actionable (part 1)
Predictive analytics can only be actionable if incorporated into operational processes. Businesses do not just need the power to know, they need the power to act. If they are able to work through the challenges highlighted above, they will be well on their way to developing the crystal ball that is proven to deliver tremendous value and insight that drives growth.

Tips for Tuning the Garbage First Garbage Collector
This is the second article in a two-part series on the G1 garbage collector. You can find part one on InfoQ July 15, 2013: G1: One Garbage Collector To Rule Them All. Before we can understand how to tune the Garbage First garbage collector (G1 GC), we must first understand the key concepts that define G1. In this article, I will first introduce the concept and then talk about how to tune G1 (where appropriate) with respect to that concept.

Indifferent innovation
If only customers were smart enough to use the products in the way in which they were designed to be used, everything would be hunky-dory. What we as innovators need to understand is that instead of ridiculing customers who use products in unorthodox ways or for unintended uses, we should be asking: why? Why are people using our product in these unintended ways? What could they possibly gain from doing that? And, what could we learn if we'd simply understand that, to misquote Kotler, people don't want drills, they want holes.

Gartner: 64% of organizations looking at Big Data projects this year
“For big data, 2013 is the year of experimentation and early deployment,” said Frank Buytendijk, Gartner research vice president. “Adoption is still at the early stages with less than 8% of all respondents indicating their organization has deployed big data solutions. 20% are piloting and experimenting, 18% are developing a strategy, 19% are knowledge gathering, while the remainder has no plans or don’t know.”

Health IT Advocates Press for Interoperability
The push for greater interoperability around EHR systems was one of three "asks" the health IT advocates lobbied for in their meetings with lawmakers and staffers. They are also prevailing on members to champion a nationwide strategy for identifying patients and accurately matching them to their EHRs, citing industry estimates that between 8 percent and 14 percent of medical records contain faulty information that results from misidentifying the patient.

Selling SaaS: Operational requirements for consumers vs. businesses
The key to successfully selling Software as a Service (SaaS) across all market segments is recognizing and addressing the different operational requirements among different buyer groups, which often stem from the value propositions that drive SaaS in the consumer, SMB and enterprise market segments.

We Need a New Approach to Solve the Innovation Talent Gap
Observing this problem, I’ve begun wondering: What if there was a talent exchange model that wasn’t people and skill centric, but rather project and role centric? Said differently, I think the existing talent evaluation models should be reversed. Right now the model starts with people, then skills, then accomplishments. Validating the information is getting better (due to innovations such as LinkedIn’s endorsed skills), but most accomplishments are not vetted.

Java exploits seen as huge menace so far this year
"Of the top five most targeted vulnerabilities, four are found in the Java development, either the Runtime Environment (JRE) or the browser plug-in," according to the report, based on information about attacks detected through F-Secure's sensors and telemetry systems. The company notes that it's not surprising Java is an appealing target since "next to the Windows operating system (also a popular target for exploits), Java is probably the second most ubiquitous program in an organization's IT setup."

Quote for the day:

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless." --Thomas A. Edison