Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

November 12, 2013

Scrum Master: Position or Role?
The Scrum Guide generally describes the Scrum Master role as one of teaching, coaching, facilitating, and removing impediments. And when a Scrum team is new, these things take time. A team new to Scrum tries to follow Scrum by the book and needs someone that can do a lot of teaching, coaching, facilitating and removing impediments. But what happens when the delivery team matures? Teaching lessens. Coaching lessens, though there is still need for coaching around constant improvement.

For information standards in the enterprise, XBRL marks the spot
The value of XBRL lies in its machine-readable reporting format, which details how financial performance and information must be reported to the SEC and investors. XBRL data is highly enriched with standardized mark up, and users can access XBRL information via common desktop applications such as spreadsheets and word processors for competitive comparisons and for internal governance, risk and compliance purposes.

Many IT leaders' top concerns don't jibe with organizations' priorities
“They want to optimize IT but also want to help optimize the business, and sometimes those things are in conflict,” he says. While the results initially troubled Kappelman, upon speaking to IT people and further reflecting, he believes it is natural for the IT leader’s viewpoint to differ from that of the organization in that “IT is an indirect contributor to most corporate objectives – in other words, we don’t directly increase revenue or market share, though we do all these things indirectly by doing great IT.”

How Basic Problem-Solving Skills Can Simplify Complex Tech Issues
Business leaders have categorized the problems confronting them as "complex" since the phrase "business problem" was coined. And those problems are only getting more complex. The pace of technology, new competitive landscapes (e.g. web-based business models), globalization and the general speed at which markets are changing have increased the complexity of business problems and generally reduced the time available to solve them.

The Bridge Pattern in the .NET Framework
The implementor is an interface that defines base functionality for all concrete impelementors. The concrete implementor class or classes implement the implementor interface. The abstraction class provides an interface to the client application independent of the concrete implementor being used. The refined abstraction class extends the abstraction interface.

Security is top concern in 2014 for state CIOs
IT security strategies and tools are at the forefront of discussion around the states Orgeron noted. Not only did security top the list of Priority Strategies, Management Processes and Solutions, but security enhancement tools (such as continuous diagnostic monitoring came in second among Priority Technologies, Applications and Tools. Following closely behind on the top priority list of state CIOs were efforts at consolidation and a continued transition to cloud services, Orgeron said.

Five data recovery utilities
If your hard disk fails and you don't have a valid backup, you will have to resort to a data recovery tool. Brien Posey has five suggestions. "I've lost count of the number of times over the years that I have had friends, family, and even clients contact me because a hard disk failed and no backup of the data exists. In these types of situations the only option is often to use a data recovery utility to try to get back some of the data. This article discusses five such utilities."

An interview with Vasco Duarte and Jason Little on Lean Change Management
Change agents need a “constant stream of high-quality content to support their work” as Vasco Duarte from Happy Melly states. InfoQ did an interview with him on a new publishing business that aims to connect authors with their audience in a sustainable way, and with Jason Little, an author that will be publishing about Lean Change Management.

Beyond Vision Statements: Three Steps to Successful Post-Merger Culture Integration
Newly-merged companies often shortchange cultural integration efforts by taking the traditional first step—the alignment of mission, vision and values—without doing important additional steps or following through and doing the detailed, gritty work that’s needed to back it up and create real change. Yet, cultural integration is crucial to the success of any merger. Failure to achieve it can threaten the outcome of multibillion-dollar transactions.

Designing an effective vulnerability management program for the cloud
Approaching vulnerability management as a comprehensive program instead of a series of disconnected scans allows providers to maintain accurate and current perspectives on overall enterprise security. They are then able to better execute security decisions with lasting and effective results. Balancing the configuration, coordination and communication needs of the provider's vulnerability management program is a thoughtful and measured process necessary for success.

Quote for the day:

"Be clear about your goal but be flexible about the process of achieving it." -- Brian Tracy

November 11, 2013

7 Stages for Effective Data Governance
The data governance structure is formed to ensure that authority to manage data is properly delegated from the senior-most levels, and that parties are held accountable for executing governance policies as required by their respective mandates. This authorization, in turn, is accomplished by instituting processes to understand the cause and effect of poor data in an organization. Then solutions can be developed to correct the problem and a means for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of these solutions can be adopted.

British Spies Reportedly Spoofed Linkedin, Slashdot to Target Network Engineers
Special teams from GCHQ's My Network Operations Centre (MyNOC) division identified key employees doing network maintenance and security at the targeted companies and determined which of them were users of LinkedIn or Slashdot.org. The teams then directed the targeted individuals to fake versions of those sites which contained malicious code designed to install malware on their computers, German magazine Der Spiegel reported based on secret GCHQ documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.

Emotional Intelligence Is critical to Good Leadership
The term, emotional intelligence was coined around 1995 in the popular book, Emotional Intelligence, Why it Can Matter More Than IQ. A Key take away from the book, was the fact that factors such as empathy, self-awareness and self-discipline determine both professional and personal success. In this study, Emotional Intelligence was measured with the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment OR SEI.

Portugal Telecom’s High-Concept Green Data Center
The PT facility is built to be sustainable, featuring a rain water collection system (which forms a moat around the data center building), an on-site photovoltaic solar power generation, and a garden with more than 600 trees. Portugal Telecom is seeking Gold LEED certification for the data center building, and LEED Platinum status for the attached office building. Covilhã was chosen for the location because it’s the coldest place in Portugal, with a climate that will allow PT to use fresh air cooling for 99 percent of the year, with chillers expected to be used four days a year.

CryptoLocker is Bad News
For the most part, CryptoLocker is spreading via various phishing campaigns, including some from legitimate businesses, or through phony Federal Express or UPS tracking notifications. Some victims said CryptoLocker has appeared after a separate botnet infection as well. According to Kaspersky’s Costin Raiu, this malware primarily targets users from US and UK, with India, Canada, Australia and France being second-tier targets.

Secure Integration of Convergent Technologies – a Challenge for Open Platform
Open Platform 3.0 is an initiative that will advance The Open Group vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™ by helping enterprises to use them. The survey confirms the value of an open platform to protect users of these technologies from vendor lock-in. It also shows that security is a key concern that must be addressed, that the platform must make the technologies easy to use, and that it must enable them to be used in combination.

Snowden serves up another lesson on insider threats
The latest news sheds a more light on how Snowden managed to lay his hands on what has turned out to be a staggering amount of classified information on the NSA's spying activities around the world and in the U.S. His success in getting access to the documents and spiriting them out of the agency have provoked questions about the NSA's apparent lack of controls for preventing such theft.

Working alone won’t solve our cyber security problems: NICTA’s Dr Jodi Steel
There are no silver bullets. Our adversaries are well organised and well skilled, says Steel. “You can buy malware kits online – and they have 24 hour phone support. You can buy hacking services, botnets by the hour. Yet the organisations that are under attack tend to be disinclined to share information because of embarrassment, reputation or share price – or on the solution side, because of competitive advantage," says Steel.

Embracing the Millennials’ Mind-Set at Work
Millennials are becoming more aware of their rising worth. Coupling their ability to learn quickly with their insistence on having a say, they pack a powerful punch. But rather than complaining, it’s time to embrace millennials for what they can offer, to add experience from older workers to the mix, and to watch innovation explode.

Good Governance: The Role of the Board Chair
In the face of all of these responsibilities today’s board chair has one more important job—prepare the other officers to be a good chair someday. The days of waiting until one is elected chairperson to begin studying the role are over. Board officers should be encouraged to take workshops and study the governance work on the role of board leadership before they decide to accept the chair’s job. Dedicated development of board officers is a missing piece in today’s credit union governance—it may be time to add this to the list.

Quote for the day:

"Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get" -- Ray Kroc

November 10, 2013

Gamification – don’t attempt to wear too many hats, (and avoid people who do)
One mistake is to take on people who claim to be expert across a number of areas but in the end are forsaking quality outcomes for a grab at revenue beyond their core skills. Equally, organisations who assume that internal capabilities will suffice are often left with off-the-shelf solutions that look and feel like generic attempts to win the audience over as they lack creative or technical spark.

Cisco Takes Fight to SDNs with Bold Insieme Launch
The Nexus 9000 switches can run in either standalone mode with merchant silicon, or ACI mode, with a combination of merchant and custom Cisco silicon. Merchant silicon on the Insieme Nexus 9000 switches will get you open source, OpenFlow and OpenDaylight controllers, and Cisco's onePK programmability, and other industry understood SDN-friendly hooks like decoupled control and data planes.

XBRL: How to Save a Good Idea from a Bad Implementation
However, the SEC’s XBRL adoption has been marred by the fact that the XBRL filings are not audited like the plain-text filings. As a result, investors and analysts consider the XBRL data to be more error-prone and less reliable than plain-text filings and so they still rely on the ordinary filings. Moreover, some users, such as investors and analysts, are hesitant to switch to XBRL because they lack easy-to-use analysis tools for the data, and they do not want to incur the costs of developing ad-hoc technical solutions

Linking business processes to cloud services and mobile enable them
In the new style of IT I talked about several times already, cloud is only one component of the current IT revolution. The use of mobile devices is another. Increasingly users want to address their information from a tablet or mobile phone. They download applications for that purpose and expect them to deliver all required functions. So, the real question is how we get mobile applications interacting with cloud based services. Rather than talking theory here, let me use an example to illustrate what that means and how it works.

Demand for data experts to double by 2017, say analysts SAS
“The challenge that we are facing is that six out of 10 companies last year had problems hiring the technical skills they needed,” said Karen Price, CEO of e-skills UK. As part of the study, E-skills UK analysed data from IT Jobs Watch to identify the top big data roles and skills that were in demand, splitting them into IT-focused roles and data-focused roles. It found that the top five IT roles in demand were developer, architect, consultant, analyst and administrator.

SQL to Hadoop and back again, Part 1: Basic data interchange techniques
In this series of articles, we'll look at a range of different methods for integration between Apache Hadoop and traditional SQL databases, including simple data exchange methods, live data sharing and exchange between the two systems, and the use of SQL-based layers on top of Apache Hadoop, including HBase and Hive, to act as the method of integration. Here in Part 1, we examine some of the basic architectural aspects of exchanging information and the basic techniques for performing data interchange.

Application Services Meet Up with SDN in the Cloud
F5 Networks, a major vendor of application delivery systems, has created a new architecture to make it easier to provide those services in the age of virtualization and clouds. The Synthesis architecture is based on F5's already shipping BIG-IP hardware and software and its BIG-IQ management system. It makes them easier to license and deploy for applications that may run in an enterprise data center, a public cloud, or both.

What’s the Problem with Mobile HTML5?
Many developers consider performance as HTML5’s main problem, but interviewing a number experts in the field the authors of the report consider it as a false target because performance is automatically improving by new generations of hardware, better JavaScript compilers, the option of using Asm.js, etc.. The main culprit in their opinion has to do with politics, more exactly the fact that the major browser vendors are also mobile OS vendors, interested in channeling applications through their respective app stores.

Why IT Project Governance Is Flawed - And How to Fix It
Enterprise IT projects are massive undertakings for a company, and with every large-scale project, there is inherent risk at many stages. In the current recession, many companies are reluctant to incur risk, which could cost the enterprise millions, even if the successful end-goal is a better, more integrated enterprise system. However, avoiding the enterprise IT project doesn’t eliminate risk; in fact, a well-managed IT project can save companies millions in costs and generate millions in revenues.

Testing professionals: Soft skills are key to success
Competence is the ability to do the right things. Confidence is the belief that the things one does are right. In some jobs, competence may be enough. But when it comes to software quality, Hoffman said, test professionals also need to be confident about the decisions they make. Unfortunately, people usually can't build their own confidence. "I can't see my work with my own eyes," Hoffman pointed out, "because I'm always stuck behind them."

Quote for the day:

"The most successful business people hold onto the old just as long as it's good & grab the new just as soon as it's better" -- Lee Iacocca

November 09, 2013

Saving enterprise-architecture from itself – 2: Personal background
In short, it’s a mess. I’ve written about it extensively, here on this blog and elsewhere, and I won’t bother to go into old ground here: suffice it to say that, in my opinion, the only useful we can do now with all of this IT-centric so-called-’EA’ junk is to strip it right back to the roots, and start again from scratch – it really is that bad. If we don’t do that, they will, increasingly, become far more of a hindrance than a help, for any form of EA – even more of a hindrance than they are already

Webservice Security Standards
SOA adoption is on the rise and Webservices is predominantly used for its implementation. Webservice messages are sent across the network in an XML format defined by the W3C SOAP specification. Webservices have come a long way and has sufficiently matured to offer the required tenets especially on the security domain. In this blog let us have a quick look at the available standards with respect to the security dimensions and look at how the related security requirements are addressed.

Big GRC: Turning Data into Actionable GRC Intelligence
GRC big data clearly allows the organization access to and management over a huge amount of often very sensitive information that although can help create a more risk intelligent organization, also presents numerous data governance challenges, including regulatory compliance and information security. In addition to client and regulatory demands over better information security and data protection the sheer amount of information organizations deal with the need to quickly access, classify, protect and manage that information can quickly become a key issue from a legal, as well as technical or operational standpoint.

Why Converged Communications?
From a business perspective, streamlining is also a benefit, however it is often viewed more in terms of reduced costs (due to the integration of support services) rather than the greater convenience of the support team. The cost savings go much further. Converged communications encourage a greater degree of efficiency which translates into time savings and also resource savings.

Payment card industry gets updated security standard with new requirements
The PCI Security Standards Council released version 3.0 of the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and corresponding Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS), adding new security requirements and guidance for payment-card industry organizations, including merchants, payment processors, financial institutions and service providers. The new version will go into effect on Jan. 1, but organizations will have until Dec. 31, 2014, to make the transition from PCI DSS 2.0.

How to solve operational BI problems with SOA middleware
In traditional BI, the focus is often on setting up a big data warehouse to answer any question. Operational BI, however, is about finding an answer to a specific business problem, usually for a nontechnical user. This means you don't give an analyst a tool to try out. You have to think about giving the nontechnical worker an answer, and make sure that answer is relevant and worth giving as a response on a regular basis.

MDM, MAM in the Top Enterprise Mobility Priorities among ITDMs
Of the organizations surveyed, approximately half have implemented technologies to support mobile devices, with 48 per cent using mobile device management (MDM) and 47 per cent using mobile application management (MAM). Organizations are also recognizing the need to provide Windows apps and desktop to mobile workers, with 41 per cent of businesses using or planning to use application virtualization and 40 per cent leveraging desktop virtualization.

Career advice: Where to focus? Data, data, data
While much energy and focus is put on systems development, if the systems don't operate and run effectively, they will ultimately not deliver the value needed. Since IT systems are now very integral to the core operations of many businesses, the importance of having skilled operators has grown. The best way to stay up to date on regulations that affect IT operations is to meet with other people in your company who are involved with these regulations -- representatives from legal, human resources, internal audit and risk management.

The State of Location Analytics: Ventana Research
Ventana Research’s benchmark research on trends in location analytics show growing enterprise needs for location services and a signification challenge in analyzing information in location context. Mark Smith, CEO and chief research officer of Ventana Research, shares insights from the report, “Ventana Research Business Trends in Location Analytics Benchmark Research – September 2013.”

JavaFX beats Swing: Changing RIA development platform
The change agent was Rob Terpilowski, Lynden applications architect, who chose JavaFX for its more advanced graphical user interface tools. In this SearchSOA video interview, Terpilowski described the selection process and the challenges, including a steep learning curve that came up during the Swing-to-Java migration. Terpilowski spoke about the pros and cons of JavaFX in a session at JavaOne 2013 in San Francisco.

Quote for the day:

“If we did all the things we were capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” -- Thomas A. Edison

November 08, 2013

A macro-pattern for public sector systems architecture
The pattern is able to serve shared business and technical services to a set of cooperating agencies or departments that already run the same category of services locally. This is increasingly important in public sector and a growing body of thinking emphasizes shared services. Examples are the FICAM (Federal Identity Credentialing and Access Management) standard, which uses SAML2 to federate across different department websites and determines how users are identified and authenticated for online services;

Facebook goes open source with query engine for big data
Standard data warehouses would be hard-pressed to offer the responsiveness of Presto given the amount of data Facebook collects, according to engineers at the company. Facebook's data warehouse has over 300 petabytes worth of material from its users, stored on Hadoop clusters. Presto interacts with this data through interactive analysis, as well as through machine-learning algorithms and standard batch processing.

CIOs Bullish on Cloud Benefits, But Worry About SaaS Data Silos
“Attitudes about using the cloud for business benefits are largely positive. Their biggest worry is the need to integrate their data between their different apps. SaaS solutions are just so easy to bring in, companies worry they might be creating silos of data,” Host Analytics’ CIO, Richard Broome, told IDN. The survey quantifies these concerns by noting areas where respondents said SaaS and other cloud solutions can be improved, according to Dimensional's senior research analyst and study author Diane Hagglund.

Looking Critically at the “Big Data” Revolution: Deloitte Consultants Weigh In
Biel said that “It’s interesting to see it happen,” he said. “Some of it is regulatory-driven, with the accountable care push happening. We see a lot of providers getting into accountable care,” he noted. “And we’re certainly seeing a large number of payers buying up providers, so they’ll have a certain amount of a captive audience, if you will, and from a data perspective, that’s driving the need to pull together financial and clinical data, so that you can really examine a cohort of a population and get to analytics that are meaningful.”

The Many Rooms of the Business Analytics Mansion
Business schools tend to divide their curriculum between hard quantitative-oriented courses, such as operations management and finance, and soft behavioral courses, such as change management, ethics and leadership. The former relies on a run-it-by-the-numbers management approach. The latter recognizes that people and human behavior play a substantial role. This separation of the curriculum is like the rooms in a palatial mansion.

Nasty new malware locks your files forever, unless you pay ransom
“It systematically hunts down every one of your personal files – documents, databases, spreadsheets, photos, videos and music collections – and encrypts them with military-grade encryption and only the crooks can open it,” said Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisor at Sophos. Even though it’s infected, your computer keeps working normally; you just can’t access any of your personal files. It’s scary, especially if you haven’t backed-up your data.

Understanding servers' Power-On Self-Test codes
The first few steps of a POST are critical. The POST finishes initializing the first CPU and processor cache and then performs a basic initialization of the core chipset. This includes the Northbridge chip handling CPU and memory, and the Southbridge chip for interfaces like Serial Advanced Technology Advancement (SATA) for storage and PCI Express(PCIe) for external devices.

Preventing vs. Responding to Computer Fraud
It's no secret that the increase in information technology has facilitated the perpetration of fraud in organizations. Companies who are most vulnerable include those who do not know how to identify IT-related fraud, do not have policies to prevent such fraud and do not have policies to prevent management override opportunities within financial related systems. If fraud does occur, these organizations may not have an appropriate plan in place to respond.

Security expert seeks to make surveillance costly again
"Fundamentally, this is a debate about data sharing, about surveillance as a business model, about the dichotomy of the societal benefits of big data versus the individual risks of personal data," Schneier told attendees of the Usenix LISA (Large Installation System Administration Conference), being held in Washington this week. "We might not buy [it], but the basic NSA argument is 'You must give us your data because it is keeping you safe.'"

Integrators jump on Cloudera's big data bandwagon
"Together with Cloudera, we help organizations optimize their current technology investments, exploit massive data volumes and new data types, achieving true insight and forward vision to improve operational efficiency," said Scott Schlesinger, senior vice president of Business Information Management, North America, for Cap Gemini. Specifically, Cloudera will be part of Cap Gemini's Big Data Service Center, responsible for designing, delivering and supporting Big Data solutions.

Quote for the day:

"To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way." -- Pat Riley

November 07, 2013

Is tiered storage obsolete? Yes and no!
While the economic angle for SDS is interesting, when I listen to enterprise customers and service providers talk about software defined storage, what I mostly hear is a desire to eliminate storage-specific management from application workflows. At a recent industry event, I heard from application and virtual infrastructure admins who want to provision, manage and protect appsusing terms they understand, without requiring intervention by storage professionals.

Putting the ‘Service’ Back Into IT Service Management
When it comes to ITSM, it is extremely important that you understand who your customers and suppliers are. It is equally important that you understand that in your daily job, you can be both a supplier and customer. Every interaction between a customer and a supplier is a “Moment of Truth”. In that moment, you have the opportunity to alter your customer’s entire perception of you, your company and the service you provide. So it’s important that expectations are properly set, service is delivered in a consistent manner, and that you demonstrate empathy for the client.

Different paths to cloud and SaaS enablement yield similar major benefits
The next VMworld innovator panel discussion focuses on how two companies are using aggressive cloud-computing strategies to deliver applications better to their end users. We'll hear how healthcare patient-experience improvement provider Press Ganey and project and portfolio management provider Planview are both exploiting cloud efficiencies and agility. Their paths to the efficiency of cloud have been different, but the outcomes speak volumes for how cloud transforms businesses.

How to analyze hedge fund risk with sparse data
To get around the lack of data or the short data sets, we can use factor models, exposure data or some other type of proxy mechanism. We can also support our decision making by building factor benchmarks or style factors for regression analysis using data that’s available on a daily basis – such as stock and market index data. This helps us understand equity, credit, currency and volatility exposures, as well as some style exposures such as momentum or value versus growth.

SanDisk’s wireless flash drive: A simple storage boost for your iOS or Android phone
SanDisk also makes a Wireless Flash Drive app you can download to use the drive with your phone or tablet. Once you’ve downloaded the app, simply press the lone button on the drive that looks like a Wi-Fi signal to turn it on, then connect to it as you would with any other Wi-Fi connection (it will show automatically show up in your available networks once you turn it on – the drive uses 801.11 b/g/n).

Insight-Driven Innovation
Indeed, innovation will always require risks, some that can’t be quantified, and some that will demand imagination and insight on a very human level. Data will help shape and guide risk-taking, giving direction and clarity to innovative thinking. It provides a basis for the confidence that business leaders need in order to assess viable options, select the ones with the highest probability of success, and put them into action – quickly.

OLTP Clearly in Hadoop's Future, Cutting Says
Cutting didn't don a wig or fancy robe when he made his predictions about the future of Hadoop during a speech at the Strata + Hadoop World conference last week. He didn't wave a magic wand or use a crystal ball. Instead, the plain-speaking technophile made his points by tapping into his own vast repository of knowledge on the topic. Oh, and PowerPoints. "I don't have a time machine. I can't see the future any better than you can," Cutting said. "I'm a guy who, in the past, looked at the present, looked at facts, and decided what to do next. I'm not attempting to look too far down the road."

Google security team drops F-bombs on NSA for internal Google cloud data surveillance
Even Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, said if it’s true that the NSA is spying on Google data centers then it’s “outrageous” and “perhaps illegal.” Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal, “The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people's privacy, it's not OK.” Then he added, “There clearly are cases where evil people exist, but you don't have to violate the privacy of every single citizen of America to find them.”

New server processors and the lower-power, more-memory IT roadmap
Processor designs now highlight efficiency over raw speed; an efficiently designed server processor handles workloads faster and with less power than a monolithic, do-everything processor -- a work-per-watt measurement rather than pure speed. Server processors will diversify in their purpose and functionality, with more emphasis on system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs. By tailoring processors for specific jobs, rather than putting every function into every model, chip makers achieve better performance even at slower clock speeds and lower power draw.

Gartner: Global companies should stick to only two data centres on each continent
Gartner analyst Rakesh Kumar said many firms had too many data centres as a result of business expansion, either organically or through acquisitions over many years. Kumar said, "Having too many data centres results in excessive capital and operational costs, an overly complex architecture and, in many cases, a lack of business-IT agility."

Quote for the day:

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” -- Phil Jackson

November 06, 2013

Don't Be A Hacker's Puppet
Countless servers are being converted to zombie or drone systems as part of botnets or coordinated attack machines. The risk to organizations is significant. A compromised network can result in embarrassment as you are blamed for the attacks on high-value targets and potentially massive costs from bandwidth and server utilization. Also, being blacklisted on the Internet makes it much harder to do business. Worse, if your infrastructure is used in a particularly heinous crime, it could be confiscated.

Cloud Buyers' Decision Tree
This White Paper describes a Decision Tree that could be used to help you discover where Cloud opportunities and solutions might fit in your organization. It is put forward for discussion, with the intention that this discussion, and validation in the field, will result in a practical tool for use by enterprises. In reverse mode, this Decision Tree can be used to quickly identify the types of business situations for which a particular type of Cloud offering will deliver the most value.

From EJBs to the mobile web: Re-emerging trends in enterprise Java development
If you've heard bad things about JSR 168, you'll be relieved to know that the new version of the API is much more developer-friendly. You even have a wide array of tooling options and technologies that support design and development on the server side or the client side, wherever you feel your greatest coding and scripting talents lie. It's probably a good idea to be involved in the portal development discussion starting at the architecture stage. That way, you can advocate for solutions that use more of the skills you already have...

Does technology improve employee engagement?
Given the parade of data on low worker engagement lately, commentators and analysts have come out of woodwork this year, claiming that the industrial era model of work is "broken", that that even the latest new models (such as social business, better intranets, unified communication, or fill-in-the-blank) for fixing this are "dead", and more. There's little doubt that things could be greatly improved, but what exactly is wrong is as variable as the lens being used, as is the potential range of solutions.

EMC sues startup for stealing trade secrets through staff hires
In a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, EMC has alleged that "dozens of former EMC employees have joined Pure Storage and stolen tens of thousands of pages of proprietary, highly confidential and competitively sensitive EMC materials," in violation of their employee agreements. Many of them broke their agreements with EMC by inducing team members to join Pure Storage, it added.

The business case for information governance management and strategy
The value of governed information is measured by the confidence with which business decisions can be made when relying on that information. We have developed case studies that allow companies to measure all of the hidden costs of securing complete, authentic and validated information. Those costs become new targets that investments in information governance management can successfully attack.

Intel Is Under New Management – And It Shows
Intel saw the unattractive margins offered by ARM processors and didn’t want to commit the billions of dollars required by a fab (a chip manufacturing plant) for a product that would yield profits that were well below Wall Street expectations. The prospect of bargain basement margins undoubtedly figured in Otellini’s decision to say no to the iPhone. In 2006, no one could have predicted that it could have been made up in volume, that there would be a billion smartphone sales in 2014.

5 Signs Your Leadership Style Is Outdated
The most effective leaders know they must continually reinvent themselves. Most leaders don’t. They remain satisfied with the status quo and attempt to use the same style and approach – regardless of the individual employees and /or the organization they serve. This is why they find it difficult to create and sustain momentum in their work and careers. Rather than find ways to be proactive, they find themselves just floating along and afraid to rock the boat.

How To Develop a Big Data Strategy to Outperform Your Competitors
The challenge organisations will face in the coming years is how to become information-centric organisations that make decisions based on massive amounts of data that are collected in real time. Although the number of organisations currently taking full advantage of Big Data is still small, this will change in the future. The result will be that all companies, including the SMEs, will be able to take full advantage of the benefits of Big Data regardless of their industry or location.

Gartner Says Smartglasses Will Bring Innovation to Workplace Efficiency
Smartglasses are expected to have the most impact on heavy industry, such as manufacturing, and oil and gas, because the AR glasses enable on-the-job training of workers in how to fix equipment and perform manufacturing tasks. The impact is likely to be medium for mixed industries, such as retail, consumer packaged goods and healthcare, where the benefits may mostly be looking for information via a visual search.

Quote for the day:

"Peace is liberty in tranquility." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

November 05, 2013

12 Recent Technologies That Have Yet to Live Up to Their Hype
Indeed, all too often, today's "next big thing" is tomorrow's overhyped tech trend that never took off or lived up to its potential. So what recent technologies have (to date, at least) failed to live up to the hype surrounding their release? CIO.com asked dozens of IT professionals, marketing experts and business owners and managers to find out. Here are their top 12 nominees for the most overhyped technology of the last few years.

The Rise of Flash in the Datacenter
Hybrid combinations of flash drives and mechanical disks have become a viable option for organizations of all sizes. There are many ways IT can architect SSDs into the storage mix. Many are simply adding SSD drives to the PCIe slots in the servers, which also have hard disks (or configuring new server purchases with flash drives) or adding them as direct-attached storage (DAS). Companies managing storage networks are also increasingly adding flash to their storage arrays. In a growing number of shops where performance is critical, some are stepping up to pure flash-based SSD storage.

Is There An App For That? An Increasingly Mobile World Requires Expanding Skill Sets
The ability to keep in constant contact with both co-workers and friends, access data and information in a second, and respond to emails from our desk and our couch, alike. Now more than ever, as society continues the shift toward mobile technology, mobile app developers attempt to stay one step ahead of trends and introduce the newest and best software solutions to businesses and consumers.

Why Creativity Thrives In The Dark
Turns out you need not possess a Nobel Prize in Literature to appreciate the creative confines of a dark room. Psychologists Anna Steidel and Lioba Werth recently conducted a series of clever experiments designed to measure how creativity responded to various lighting schemes. In a paper published last month, Steidel and Werth reported some of the first evidence for what creative masters know by nature: when the lights switch off, something in the brain switches on.

Cybersecurity Is the Board's Business
Computer security is no longer a mere technical challenge; it is a strategic business issue. Protecting against cybercrime has become a critical responsibility of the board, alongside succession planning and setting strategic direction. There is a fiduciary duty to protect a company’s assets, particularly those that are digital, and regulators have made clear they expect corporations to address cybersecurity.

Avoiding cloud lock-in, self-service bloat and private cloud traps
Companies are building API-driven environments. So when they talk to their internal infrastructure, they are talking to it the same way they would any other environment and can use the same tools. This is very clever, because if they ever do need external capacity, they are ready for it. That desire for interoperability drives things like OpenStack. There is a huge concern about lock-in at this point. I won't name names, but having a bunch of VMs from one hypervisor vendor doesn't necessarily lock you in to that vendor, because you can still turn on VMs from another vendor.

BadBIOS: Malware whispers via mic & speakers to PCs disconnected from all networks?
As the “badBIOS” name implies, it’s a rootkit that burrows in to infect a system’s BIOS [Basic Input Output System]. Supposedly this nasty piece of malware is platform-independent -- capable of infecting Windows, Linux, OS X and Open BSD -- has self-healing capabilities, resists erasure, and uses ultrasonic high-frequency transmissions in order to talk to other infectedsystems that are completely disconnected from the Internet and all other networks — aka air gap systems.

20/20 vision of risk
Banks need a system that can use advanced methods to accurately detect risk while overcoming the challenges associated with poor data quality and ‘noise’ generated by existing control systems. A best-of-breed approach to improving risk management is a virtuous circle of data-driven detection and exploration, with a focus on enabling banks to ingest, calculate, explore and prioritize data in a timely manner.

InfoQ eMag: API Technologies
Web APIs are driving important new business and technology models. Download the API Technologies eMag where leading practitioners share their experience on making money from APIs and on API design best practices. InfoQ discover "cloud native" architectures that scale to meet global demand and get hands on building API's from contract to go-live. InfoQ look at connected devices, mashups and consider new standards for security in this free ebook.

Preparing for Recovery: Four Strategies for Disaster Proofing Data
More than ever, robust data protection is imperative to recovery in the event of data loss. In fact, failure to safeguard company data can result in business disruption, devastating losses, and in some cases, catastrophic consequences to the business. Numerous reports and studies show that businesses that go through critical data loss often never recover. Below are the four steps organizations should take to disaster proof their data.

Quote for the day:

"High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation." -- Charles Kettering

November 04, 2013

The Integration of Agile and the Project Management Office
It would be incorrect to claim that Agile is simply a looser, less disciplined way of running projects. In fact, on the program level, Agile teams are even more tightly controlled since the progress of one or more projects is monitored and actively communicated in real-time. Unlike the traditional approaches in which reporting is done on perhaps a monthly basis, Agile reporting is in fact continuous and runs in tandem with the six defined levels of Agile planning.

SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) : Part 1
SSAS uses both client and server components to provide OLAP and data mining functionality: The Server component is implemented as a Microsoft Windows service. SSAS supports multiple instances on the same computer, so each instance is implemented as a separate instance of a Windows service; Clients communicate with analysis services using XMLA (XML for Analysis), a SOAP-based protocol for issuing commands and receiving responses, exposed as a web service.

Microsoft and Apple unleash thermonuclear war on Google and Android
The lawsuit charges the companies with a number of patent infringements, the most damaging of which may be that Google infringes patents by matching search terms to relevant advertising on mobile devices. This could have a huge effect on Google because the company's game plan with Android relies on giving away the operating system in order to make money via advertising.

Top 5 tips for using IBM Security Access Manager and Federated Identity Manager
"In this article I thought I’d take the time to summarize five of the most useful and frequently used tools of my trade. These are often references to content or advice that I’ve prepared in the past, but specifically content that I am finding re-use for all the time. Hopefully these tools and ideas are useful to both experienced and novice users of our access management and federation products, and if nothing else this article can serve to remind you they exist, and help you find them again."

SaaS & Agile Development: Made for Each Other
SaaS and agile also work together to deliver software updates in a timely manner, a process called "continuous deployment." Agile development in the cloud was discussed this month at a user conference in San Jose, Calif., hosted by Electric Cloud, which offers an agile development platform that is itself cloud-delivered. In attendance were customers such as General Motors, Qualcomm, Cisco Systems, and General Electric, but also smaller, less household-name companies.

CMOs Must Expand Their Tech Skills in the Digital Marketing Era
The balance of power in the C-suite (at least as measured by dollars spent on IT) is shifting. Where once the CIO held most of the purchasing power and the decision-making capability to determine which technology investments would drive business forward, the CMO is poised to take a much more strategic role in a data-driven business climate.

Rock your data with SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) – POC Experiences
In this blog post we will have a more detailed look on the POC experiences I made with PDW v2 and also with PDW v1. Since these POCs are under NDA I’m not allowed to tell anything about my customer or the customer background. I will purely focus on the results, which are impressive enough ... We used a SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse with 8 compute nodes. The ETL Server had 24 Cores, 96 GB of RAM and was connected to the PDW via Infiniband and Ethernet.

9 reasons why your security leader needs a hug
Security is difficult, and security people are unique. They have a different way of looking at things. We try to get away from ‘techno garble,’ which isn’t important to the business. The business needs it in black and white, no theoretical things. ... At the end of the day many of the reasons why working in security is so challenging are also why it’s so rewarding and why the community is so close. There is no expectation that any battle will ever be done. There will always be a thin line that must be held between us and them.

A Cautionary Tale of Data Governance
The financial cost was huge; all of the products had to be scrapped (their contents could not be repackaged without quality concerns), but it didn’t stop there. Advertising slots booked across print, television, radio and online media were cancelled, but refunds were few and far between. Retail customers were even less forgiving; failing to meet agreed trade promotion commitments resulted in extensive commercial penalties.

The Role of Gamification in the Contact Center and Back Office
Gamification is quickly becoming recognized as a strategic means to impact contact center and back office performance. While it may seem quite simple, it is, in fact, a practice that requires a significant amount of planning, so having a strategy is critical. Another important element is technology; real-time guidance and 360-degree customer views enable a wide variety of gamification scenarios. Finally, it's critical to gain employee buy-in and socialize your gamification plan internally to ensure success.

Quote for the day:

"High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation." -- Charles Kettering

November 03, 2013

IBM Social Business Bets on Key Application and Technologies
IBM joins up the two sides of the equation – a smarter workforce and superior customer experiences – with its platform for social business. Companies can access it through the IBM SmartCloud, a private cloud, on-premises or using a hybrid model. IBM sees SmartCloud for social business as a way to connect business users more efficiently and effectively.

HP sues seven optical drive makers over price-fixing
In a statement to Computerworld about the move, HP said it takes "price-fixing very seriously and intends to pursue its rights aggressively in this and in other price-fixing litigation." None of the companies named in the lawsuit responded to requests for comment. The lawsuit claims the conspiracy to drive up prices took place from at least Jan. 1, 2004 through Jan. 1, 2010, when "almost all forms of home entertainment and data storage were on optical discs."

Enterprise Architecture Standards
Standards can be a powerful tool to get to grips with certain aspects of our work. However, managing a standards base appears to be tricky: we see many initiatives fail, despite the best intensions of all involved. In this short recording we will discuss the necessity of standards as well as standards management, and present a simple framework for documenting and governing standards in practice. This framework was co-developed and road-tested with various customers over the last 8 years

Failure Happens. Four Rules for Doing it Well
Failure is a fact of start-up life. And sometimes, sadly, it’s the entire company that fails. As much as we don’t like to think about failure, it’s important to prepare yourself mentally for the prospect that your turn in the dunk tank may be right around the corner.Here are four crucial rules to keep in mind:

Understanding Which Investments Should Go To The Cloud
The truth is, most companies significantly underestimate the scope of change required to establish cloud services until it’s too late. In the traditional model, companies buy technology from a vendor as a capital investment, and continue to invest in maintaining and servicing it over time. With the cloud being a service, however, the financial model should be treated more like a utility, requiring the reallocation of budget from capital expenses into operating expenses.

CERN: A Case Study in "Big Science" Data Management
In light of these two factors, CERN has been proactive about preserving data for future re-use, even as it remains plagued by non-standardized, ad-hoc formats, and highly complex data models. CERN was a co-founding organization in the Alliance for Permanent Access, a European data preservation working group. Internal efforts are underway as well, although these have not yet been implemented completely.

The Art of Project Management: The Siege of Portfolio Management
But project selection is only a first step. Portfolio management is more than decision-making levers and it’s more than a portfolio management tool. To create a robust portfolio management framework, process is required and governance must be established (which includes a staged approval). With this three-part equation (levers+process+governance) an organization will be able to realize the value of portfolio management.

Big Data needs Data Science but Data Science doesn’t need Big Data
What really matters in data science is the team effort and your role as a liaison. Your company has large amounts of data and you want to make sure your queries are correct. Whatever tool you use, make sure you have your data cleansed. You want to know that it’s normalized and indexed so that things run smoother. You want to be able to give insight, which requires knowledge of your audience.

Risks and Strategies: Managing Enterprise File Data Securely
Every enterprise has secret, compliance-related, or otherwise confidential data contained in the data center. The management and control of these files especially in a distributed and mobile world is fraught with hidden dangers and risks. Encryption alone cannot solve all of these problems. So join Chris Winter and fellow data center professionals for this insightful discussion on the issues involved, and discover the preventative actions and technologies needed to manage your enterprise file data securely.

Predictive Analytics 101
Predictive models typically analyze current and historical data on individuals to produce easily understood metrics such as scores. These scores rank-order individuals by likely future performance, e.g., their likelihood of making credit payments on time, or of responding to a particular offer for services. Predictive models can also detect the likelihood of a transaction being fraudulent (Risk Detection). Predictive models are frequently operationalized in mission-critical transactional systems and drive decisions and actions in near real time. A number of analytic methodologies underlie solutions in this area

Quote for the day:

"I will listen to anyone's convictions, but please keep your doubts to yourself." -- Goethe