Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

February 17, 2016

Data Security – The Trends We Do Not See Coming

It is all about providing Security as a Service (SECaaS), which is essentially an outsourcing model for security management. The irony lies within the fact that SECaaS will use the cloud as a mainstream deployment platform, when part of its own reason of existence is to enhance the protection of…the cloud! SECaaS has evolved from delivery of a security software (such as an anti-virus) on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model to security management provided in-house by an external organization. Generally, large security service providers integrate their products into a corporate infrastructure on a subscription basis, making security more cost effective to large corporations.

Pros and cons of Windows 10 IoT for Raspberry Pi and Arduino builds

Windows 10 isn't open source, and that's not entirely in-line with Dexter Industries' mission of teaching robotics with open source technology. However, because of the popularity of Windows, and the fact that Microsoft has made Windows 10 on Raspberry Pi free for individuals, we were excited to see if we could bring the GoPiGo to even more developers in the world. Hopefully by growing the open source software around the Raspberry Pi and around the Windows environment, we're making robotics more accessible for everyone ... there are a couple of advantages to the new Windows Operating System on the Raspberry Pi. The first is that great interfaces are really possible. Steve took the lead on putting together a really nice looking interface for the GoPiGo example.

Half of UK businesses looking for internet of things lead roles

The report said 68% of UK business leaders expected to reap tangible benefits from their IoT investments this year, and one in five were already seeing the benefits. Overall, 94% of businesses claimed to be making preparations for the IoT ... Commenting on the report’s findings, Maria Hernandez, IoT lead at Cisco UK, said: “The first internet wave was about making information digital, then we moved into making processes digital, particularly with e-commerce. The third wave was about making interactions digital with cloud, mobility social media and video. “Now the fourth is about making everything digital – organisations, cities and even countries. We believe that this wave is going to make more impact than the previous three waves together,” she said.

Tobii eyeX review: The 'eye mouse' is magical, but just not for everyone

Tobii claims that you should buy the eyeX for two reasons: as a general input device for your computer, and as a gaming peripheral. We tried both. A third selling point—to add Windows Hello capabilities to your computer—was added as we began testing, and we can confirm that feature also works. You might think of the eyeX as an “eye mouse,” but there’s more to it than just that. Once calibrated, the eyeX allows you to assign a keyboard key as a mouse button, so that you can look at a spot on the screen, click the key, and—zip!— your cursor teleports there. (You can tell the eyeX to automatically “click” that spot as well, if you want.) You can also “clone” your mouse, warping it back and forth between two points—useful if you're jumping back and forth between two pages of text, perhaps.

Can IBM bring Bitcoin's blockchain technology to mainstream business?

"It is one more indicator that blockchain fever has struck in full force across a wide swath of the banking and financial services industry, but also now expanding the scope to other verticals," Valdes said. The next question becomes what can IBM do for blockchain that hasn't already been done. So far, many of the blockchain initiatives have been vertically focused, but Valdes said that he thinks what IBM and the Hyperledger Project are doing is trying to expand interest in the technology, creating a "horizontal fabric rather than a vertical technology." In terms of the different pieces of the announcement, the Hyperledger Project is the core value. Cuomo said that an open standards approach was critical to wide adoption of blockchain.

These IaaS examples show data centers can share the load

Most IT organizations are a mix of traditional IT and emerging digital business applications. System and application characteristics and requirements differ in this bimodal IT state, where some apps need conservative changes and others benefit from agile, fast fail processes. This second group usually includes multidisciplinary teams and is more apt to rely on cloud services such as IaaS than the first group. Whether or not you agree with the concept of bimodal IT, borrow concepts from mobile app startups by using Agile development methodologies, multidisciplinary specialists and rapid release and update cycles for new applications. Due to the ease and low cost of deployment, along with the ability to rapidly add IaaS capacity and services, new projects should start and likely remain in a public cloud.

The Internet Of Medicine Is Just What The Doctor Ordered

Innovations like these are of vital importance to another segment of healthcare — the $1 trillion-a-year pharmaceutical industry. The reason is simple: The sooner doctors can detect illness, the sooner patients can start taking the drugs they need to manage or cure their conditions. New devices are in the works that will transform the treatment of many chronic ailments that comprise a large portion of recurring revenue for drug companies. For example, Swedish drug maker Novartis is working with Google on a contact lens for diabetics that can measure blood sugar from tears. It’s a significant advancement over the uncomfortable finger pricks millions of diabetics must currently endure several times a day. The lenses will also provide continuous data about blood sugar fluctuations, knowledge that’s essential in helping diabetics avoid life-threatening complications.

Transforming Cyber and Infrastructure Security: An Interview with the DHS Cyber Chief

Cyberthreats are way-of-life threats. They can cause destruction, whether actively in attacks on the electronics that control critical infrastructure such as water and energy or passively in stealing and harvesting legitimate user credentials to use maliciously later while going virtually undetected from a flawless login. Remember this: Almost everything in our world that you can’t eat is either connected or being connected to electronic logic a.k.a. a “computer.” That means it can be controlled from somewhere else, by someone else. That control needs to be protected, and we are currently designing and innovating great new technologies faster than we can secure them. NPPD recently led an awareness campaign about malware known as “Black Energy.”

The future is modular: IoT, Microservices and music gear

Beyond the consumer sphere, it seems modularity will also be an important concept in the future of enterprise IT and software development. This is not just because much of IoT will actually exist in the “Industrial Internet” but also because of the role Microservices will play in how enterprise architectures and applications are built. Matt McLarty, Enterprise Architect & Vice President of the API Academy at CA Technologies, flagged up the importance of modularity in Microservices in a recent API Academy blog post. Modularity could also prove to be an increasingly important concept for business managers taking digital products to market. Think of the enthusiasm leading Silicon Valley figures have for “unbundling” functionality from monolithic products and services.

As phone phishing grows, can bank biometrics screen out the scammers?

Nuance Communications provides biometric authentication technology to Barclays and the ATO. Beranek adds that the industry most recently took steps to fight credit-card fraud within digital channels, but many institutions are now revisiting security on the phone channels at their contact centers. In general, consumers have less technological protection when banking by phone than by app. To access their accounts over the phone, customers most commonly answer a series of verification questions with an agent at the bank's contact center. Criminals are likely to pass this security step by gathering the correct answers through phishing emails, social media, or calling the customer directly in a telephone scam.

Quote for the day:

"If anything is worth trying at all, it's worth trying at least 10 times." -- Art Linkletter,

February 15, 2016

The Power of Location-Based Offers in Banking

The primary benefit of location-based offers is that it allows financial institutions the ability to move beyond traditional, calendar-based promotions to provide more relevant content in real time. This includes the cross-selling of banking products based on need, the offering of outside merchant offers to increase loyalty of current customers and the recommendation of services that can alleviate a potential negative event ... Additional benefits of location-based services include an additional security layer that can validate transactions by comparing the user location with the location of the transaction, and the ability to offload rudimentary inquiries such as the location of the nearest ATM or branch. Other location-based applications are the ability to book appointments at a branch location and the identification of a customer as they enter a branch.

Mobile app security should not be an afterthought

There's definitely a lot more development in mobile happening. The best practices in mobile aren't as well developed as best practices for the web. That's getting a little bit better.Consider HTTPS. What we saw for quite some time was something that on the Web is relatively straightforward, which HTTPS is. People were doing it wrong on mobile for years before anyone really noticed. There's a lot you can get wrong with HTTPS, and they were getting it all wrong. As people move over to mobile they are definitely having to relearn some of the lessons we learned over the years. Password security is another one of those. People began to make passwords on websites a lot more robust. You can't just have a four or five letter password anymore on most websites.

Fight threats to information security: Inform your people

The human element in information security often gets short shrift. For example, many still believe that training programs don’t work and aren’t worth spending time and money on. But the best security defenses in the world won’t be successful if even one employee doesn’t know a phishing email when he sees one. And today, it’s easy for business departments to order a cloud service or download an app to a corporate smartphone. People who don’t know what’s kosher and what isn’t are practically courting disaster. Everyone — from chief executives to business departments to the newest of hires — needs to be keenly aware of the threats out there, how to prevent them and how to counter them if they do occur.

Google's Unconscious Bias Training Yet To Fix Diversity Problem

Biases are shaped by our experiences and by cultural norms, and allow us to filter information and make quick decisions. We've evolved to trust our guts. But sometimes these mental shortcuts can lead us astray, especially when they cause us to misjudge people. In the workplace, for example, the halo effect can cause us to inflate performance ratings or in-group bias can lead us to overlook great talent. Combatting our unconscious biases is hard, because they don't feel wrong; they feel right. But it's necessary to fight against bias in order to create a work environment that supports and encourages diverse perspectives and people.

A Stress Test to Identify and Improve Corporate Culture Problems

The next step is collaborative -- identifying those who can carry the desired culture throughout the organization from the bottom up, not just the top down, and make systemic change to combat entropy. Finally, and this may seem obvious but is not practiced with any robustness, companies must hire people based on the identified values that align with the desired corporate culture. The adage "culture eats strategy for breakfast" is so much more than MBA jargon. Companies fail when they focus the lens too narrowly on profit and loss and allow values and behavior to run amuck. Satisfaction surveys show the extent of the problem. Putting a stress test to a company's culture offers benchmarks to fix the problem.

Dear IT Department, Why Community Management Matters

The primary issue at stake is this: Social business in all its flavors — from social collaboration and social marketing to social customer care and even social supply chain — is not just another communications technology. Instead, it’s focused on engaging people in powerful new ways that requires a new set of digital skills in, yes, an enabling new technology environment. The tools are secondary (though important), how people work in effective new ways is what matters. Most significantly, a new operational entity emerges from this, called an online community, that did not exist before and requires its own cultivation and management. The initiating business sponsors typically, for their part, are interested in connecting together people and their knowledge in more streamlined, dynamic, fluid, and actionable ways that benefits the work they are doing.

Your whole organisation needs to get real about IT security: Here's how to do it

Holman says the first step -- as simple as it sounds -- is for the business to take cybersecurity seriously. "A board must at least acknowledge the risk of a hacking incident or rogue piece of malware is clear and present," he says. Such c-level acknowledgement might include a security awareness exercise or penetration test. Even seemingly straightforward analyses can help, including an awareness of other companies in your sector and an up-to-date check whether they have been in the news lately. Second, says Holman, CIOs should encourage board members to take a few hours out of their busy schedules to conduct a security risk assessment. "The numbers soon add up, especially if we're talking about a business that relies on a critical online presence to bring in revenue."

Don't toss data center best practices when managing cloud services

Among those data center best practices are creating templates to determine how deployments should be carried out, development and test procedures and data governance polices. ... Of course, organizations already use authentication mechanisms like Microsoft Active Directory so users and computers can access systems. If they're using Azure, they can manage users directly in the cloud by having them log in to the cloud version, Azure AD, a separate directory of users that lives in the cloud. They can even add Federation Services so users have single sign-on -- access to multiple systems by entering just one ID and password. "Now you can have the same user credentials that you've always had, but they can extend in the public cloud," Cancila said.

5 myths about the Internet of Things

The true innovation of IoT comes not from simply connecting products, but rather from what we do with the data the “things” create. The companies that really come out on top will leverage this data, developing strategies around what this new connectivity allows them to do, from enhancing customer experiences to optimizing business processes and product development. Why is this so important? Believe it or not, most companies have no idea who their customers are. A garage door manufacturer, for example, might sell product to Lowes or Home Depot and once that product is out the door they have no idea who actually purchases it. IoT will fundamentally change this scenario by providing the manufacturer with the ability to connect directly to the person who uses the product to provide a personalized customer experience, support and service offerings.

The surprising truth about Facebook's Internet.org

Internet.org and Free Basics operate in countries where data use is often charged by the megabyte or by the minute. So the idea of using the Internet for free can be an attractive idea to many of these users. Facebook chooses which sites are included and which are rejected, and the local carriers may get veto power as well. Facebook has published these criteria, which are focused on the size of the data load, and has thus far not rejected any sites for reasons that are not technical. Facebook claims that any site, including competitors, are allowed to join Facebook's Internet. For example, Facebook does not enforce the "community guidelines" required of companies setting up shop on Facebook.com.

Quote for the day:

"Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority." -- William Arthur Ward

February 14, 2016

5 things we learned from Cisco’s acquisition of Jasper Technologies

From the strategic standpoint, Jasper offers a great solution for Cisco and its customers to manage, scale, and monetize their IoT services. Jasper reportedly has over 3,500 customers and 25 IoT service providers that have been using its platform across 100 countries. While Jasper can be classified as an IoT platform, it doesn’t directly compete with the IoT services provided by cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft, or IBM. Instead, Jasper focuses on managing and automating the lifecycle of IoT services and solutions. From this perspective, Jasper not only provides Cisco with an extremely relevant customer base, but also with a highly developed IoT platform that can be extended with Cisco’s native IoT services such as security, advanced analytics, enterprise Wi-Fi, etc.

Internet of Things (IoT) Predictions

“IoT remains mired in smart light bulbs, net-connected cameras and wireless speakers,” opined Andrew Tarantola at Engadget, “the same sorts of bland, iterative use cases we’ve been seeing since the term was first coined.” Pam Baker atFierceBigData complained that “IoT data products were again in overdrive, many in outright overkill, and the same problems with data deluge still existed,” and Todd Hixon offered this on Forbes: “The fundamental problem is, there is still no killer app for IOT: something a large group of customers really care about and just have to have.” So what’s the state-of-the-IoT and where is it going? Here’s a summary of data and predictions from Forrester, Machina Research, the World Economic Forum (WEF), Gartner, and IDC

Are Employees Entitled to Any Sort of Privacy in the Age of Mobility?

With BYOD and the blurred lines of mobile technology for personal and professional use, how much privacy can a company reasonably offer its employees? One would assume a standard right to discretion; however, the way we share, monitor, and store information means we likely have little real privacy any more. ... Binding contracts are an everyday occurrence in our interconnected world. Staying informed of these obligations is your best defense when it comes to protecting the company’s interest while providing employees some level of personal privacy. Sadly, data agreements are becoming common that they’re easily ignored. Employees may not take the time to read through every policy they come across—but it is important that they do so when it comes to BYOD.

Why Bitcoin Governance is a Competition (And That's a Good Thing)

Bitcoin may have some of the strongest network effects possible because incompatible versions of the software won't recognize each others' blocks, transactions, or mined coins. A miner on the "minority" side of a hard fork will mine bitcoins that are incompatible with the majority side, so those coins will be less useful and naturally worth less. And as more move to the majority side, "minority" coins will rapidly approach zero value, making switching a rational imperative, to be executed quickly. These dynamics make for a "winner-take-all" bitcoin software market, and they make it very unlikely that bitcoin will "split". If a split were to happen, it would be because the cryptocurrency market was big and diverse enough for two coins, fairly seamless exchange among the two coins existed, or both of those things.

The challenges of online payment in Nigeria

There are a number of issues that must be dealt with by the Nigerian e-payment companies which include that fact fraud must be tackled and online security improved. This should go with massive enlightenment campaign that is necessary to build confidence and this is where partnership with the media is key. ... Finally, I believe players in the financial tech ecosystem have to find a way to improve the process of reconciliation. The way things are at the moment, the banks are currently feeding fat in this whole arrangement to the detriment of start-ups. As a start-up, when a client pays you using any debit card in Nigeria; you don’t get it instantly. You must wait for x number of days before the reconciliation is done.

These 3 things are trying to kill Linux containers

The “fauxpen” threat isn’t new — we’ve seen it first with Unix and most recently with cloud computing solutions, particularly platform as a service (PaaS) and OpenStack-based offerings that are ostensibly open but layer proprietary technologies on top of open-source foundations. Linux containers, however, are early in their adoption cycle for enterprise IT; if proprietary hooks are landed into the technology now, it’s almost a sure thing that IT’s mood will sour on what should be an innovation, not a continuation of proprietary legacy systems. From closed stacks to exorbitant licenses to greatly-scaled back innovation, adding “fauxpen” code to the foundational technologies built on the blood, sweat and tears of the community can quickly dampen enthusiasm and breakthroughs around the open base.

The truth about Storage Data efficiency ratios.

We’ve all heard the marketing claims from some storage vendors about how efficient their storage products are. Data efficiency ratios of 40:1 , 60:1 even 100:1 continue to be thrown around as if they are amazing, somehow unique or achieved as a result of proprietary hardware. ... Funnily enough, one vendor even offloads what VAAI/VCAI can do (with almost no overhead I might add) to proprietary hardware. Either way, while VAAI/VCAI clones are fantastic and can add lots of value, claiming high data efficiency ratios as a result is again mis-leading especially if done so in the context of being a unique capability. ... When comparing between vendors, if done in a fair manner, the differences are unlikely to be significant enough to sway a purchasing decision as most modern storage platforms have more than adequate data reduction capabilities.

Why Agile Testing Needs Deprogramming

One of the problems for myself, I was previously a hard-core waterfall disciplinarian. As I worked on avionics, I originally thought “No way will this Agile thing ever work”. Because when I was testing avionics someone would pretty much come along with a forklift truck, drop these massive phone book size requirement documents through and say “That’s what you are going to test guys”. So you’d go through and you’d almost become like a legal eagle on these requirements going, “oh requirement x23 this requirement countermands that requirement” and you would build your testing on mapping all this preplanned complexity. When people said to me that you put together a story which is a small thing, it’s not even a requirement, it’s a slice of a requirement shocked me. How do you go around testing something that isn’t defined, my brain would say? But how? And that to me was the huge challenge.

The Hybrid Cloud and Information Management: A Practical Option for Food Manufacturers

In a hybrid cloud environment, organizations can connect private or public cloud-based solutions with on-premises systems in order to best meet operational needs and compliance requirements. A hybrid cloud can be architected and deployed in any number of ways, and this flexibility is one of many reasons it is so appealing to food manufacturers, particularly for enterprise information management (EIM) initiatives. For example, if there is a need to maintain specific content on-premises for operational or compliances reasons but the organization wants to leverage the cloud for sharing non-confidential information with suppliers, then the hybrid cloud becomes a viable option.

The Holy Grail of EA – Agile Planning

Or if the COO asks how the new mobile devices that were deployed to field personnel is impacting the customer score, you should be able to show where the mobile devices sit in the technology platforms (T-view), which application systems (S-view) are using those platforms, the operational capabilities (O-view) that are enabled by those system, and finally how all these elements are related to products sold to specific customer segments through specific channels in order to meet specific strategies and goals (B-view). The ability to do this is not a pipe dream. The BOST Toolkit is a standard offering from Informatica’s Business Transformation Services (BTS) team.

Quote for the day:

"The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing." -- John Powell

February 13, 2016

Graph API in a Large Scale Environment

REST doesn’t provide any guidelines for how authentication for the API should be done. You can use basic HTTP authentication, OAuth2 or even your own custom developed authentication method. However, most of the APIs support the OAuth2 authentication method. In addition, REST doesn’t define the format of the represented data. It can be JSON, XML or even plain HTML. A few years ago, XML was very popular and most of the REST APIs used this format to represent the transferred data. Although XML has many benefits it is more complicated compared to JSON and companies started providing JSON as an alternative. We chose REST as the architecture, OAuth2 for authentication and JSON as the resource format.

How these communist-era Apple II clones helped shape central Europe's IT sector

"Very often, it's said the products have been copied from Western companies. That's not exactly so," Boyanov writes in his paper, History of Bulgarian Computing. He explained that the goal of Bulgarian computer makers was to create products that "had to operate in the same functional way" as the Western ones. Rather than call them copies, a better term would be "analog" machines, he says. "Sometimes the parameters of our similar products were better than the Western goods," Boyanov says. Bulgarian engineers were able to correct some of the known shortcomings of the original products, he argues.

To save the iPad, Apple needs to copy Microsoft

The iPad was nice and exciting while it was new, but it never became an essential. Now compare this to the Microsoft Surface. Here is a device that excites me, and not just because of the hardware (though I have to admit that the hardware is nice). What excites me the most about the Surface is its ability to run a full operating system, which in turn gives me the freedom and flexibility to run full applications such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office, as opposed to the watered-down versions available from the app store. At the same time, it gives me the option to run cut-down apps from the Windows app store if that's what I want. It's easy to disregard Microsoft in the hardware space, especially given its dismal performance in the smartphone market.

How smart is Big Data?

In their rush to create a Big Data strategy, many companies are overlooking their existing data and not laying down the foundations that will enable the integration of all their data. Yet, this existing data is business critical data. The best analysis comes from the best data. Being able cross reference business critical data (structured or unstructured) with Big Data will deliver far more comprehensive results than Big Data alone. What companies need to consider is how to integrate Big Data with business critical data and to consider how they will integrate All the Data as early on as possible. The integration of data from all sources and all sets, is what companies need to do, to reveal the fuller picture. All the Data is this combination and integration.

Why open source can save companies from drowning in the data lake

By applying methodologies like design thinking and agile development, businesses can ensure that they focus on the right problems and develop highly viable and feasible solutions. The best way to analyse the gathered information is to build a custom analytics solution, designed to deliver the insights required. While a bespoke platform has historically required significant time and financial investment, the use of open source technology is changing the analytics landscape. Open source big data platforms offer incredible capabilities to build not only insights solutions, but also forecasting and providing predictive analytics solutions through mathematical and statistical models that have the ability to crunch through large volumes of data.

Open Source DCIM Software Project Combats Spreadsheet-Based Data Center Management

The project’s number-one goal is to take away “the excuse for anybody to ever track their data center inventory using a spreadsheet or word processing document again,” according to its website. There’s a misconception in the industry that DCIM is only necessary for companies that own and operate their data centers. In Milliken’s opinion, there’s a lot of value to using DCIM even if you’re only monitoring a single cage in a colocation facility. As more and more data center capacity is outsourced to colocation providers, it’s going to become more and more important for colo customers to be able to manage that capacity intelligently. Colo providers increasingly provide DCIM capabilities to their customers as a service, but not all of them do.

CSA: IT Perception of Cloud Services Has Increased

So how has perception about the importance of cloud services changed over the past several years? In the past, business owners accustomed to utilizing legacy storage and in-house services struggled to see the benefits of cloud computing, especially in light of recent high-profile data leaks and controversy as to the effectiveness of remote solutions. Like any new technology, cloud services were strange and different from the norm, causing those adverse to change to shy away from their use for fear of exposing sensitive information. But in recent years, cloud has become increasingly more prevalent in both consumer and enterprise use, and in doing so has demonstrated its worth as a replacement for both physical storage and traditional data center services.

7 Android tools that can help your personal security

For most Android users, the seven tools below should cover all the important bases of device and data security. Some are third-party apps, while others are native parts of the Android operating system. They all, however, will protect your personal info in meaningful ways -- and without compromising your phone's performance. Plus, all but two of them are free. ... Android's Smart Lock feature gives you the best of both worlds by cutting down on the annoyance factor while still allowing you to keep your phone secured when it really counts. You can choose to have your phone remain unlocked whenever you're in a trusted location, like your home, or anytime you're connected to a trusted Bluetooth device, like a smartwatch that's always on your arm or a stereo that's inside your car.

What Developers Want From Their Technology (But Mostly Cloud)

What’s more, developers too are also equally influenced by peers and trendiness, and the sexiness of the user experience and API, and sometimes even the prettiness of the GUI when it comes to adopting the latest tooling (remember a world before Docker?!). However, from a developer’s perspective the API is the key interaction point, and is largely the UI equivalent of an average user for judging the user experience of a new tool. This new world order dictates that if before the focus in product releases has been on core functionality and UIs, at the expense of the API’s usability - a major transgression by many software companies, that today the API is likely the most important element that will be the measure of your product’s adoption.

Ranchers guard their livestock via the Internet of Things

Cattle-Watch will incorporate Telefónica’s Smart m2m, a platform for managing IoT communications. Ranchers can observe their livestock and receive all relevant information via smartphones or other connected devices. Bulls are fitted with solar-powered collars which act as communications hubs and calves have ear tags that send status information to the collar hubs via a Bluetooth network every 30 seconds. The bull collars send back information to ranchers via cellular or satellite networks. Decisions can then be made based on the information gathered, for example withdrawing inefficient bulls or increasing the number of bulls.

Quote for the day:

"A leader is a person who knows how to act when other people don’t.” -- Eraldo Banovac

February 11, 2016

Why personal networks are tomorrow's internet of things

The other issue is that all of these IoT devices, for the most part, use public cloud services as their main integration point. They don't actually communicate with each other per se, they all go out through your router and talk to a cloud service where your data is stored, using web protocols and RESTful APIs. In the future, this problem is going to have to be solved. Unlike today's IoT devices which are fully cloud dependent, the Personal Area Network will be in essence your own hybrid cloud. Today we like to think of hybrid clouds as things cutting-edge enterprises have -- they have certain systems that run on-premises and some workloads that are bursted to public and private cloud hosted infrastructure.

Metadata-Driven Design: Creating an User-Friendly Enterprise DSL

If you’re unfamiliar with the ideas behind a DSL, I recommend viewing Martin Fowler’s dissertation3, where he describes DSLs as “limited forms of computer language designed for a specific class of problems”. In the seminal lecture, Mr. Fowler describes how XML configuration data can be utilized as a simple DSL for Java programs and frameworks. (Of course, this method of utilizing XML can now be found in various Java frameworks of today, with Spring and Struts being just two examples.) In doing so, he mentions several advantages to using such a DSL, including the lack of requiring recompilation for many cases and its approachable usability for normal business users.

Which Security Products Do Enterprises Expect Too Much From?

Companies should consider combining AI-enabled (artificially intelligent) security products such as Scorpion Computer Services’ ScenGen (other intelligent security products include examples from Lancope and AlientVault) with products that establish exhaustive baselines such as Scorpion Computer Services’ Normalizer (other baseline security products include Magna from LightCyber). Adding these into the mix with other effective products, perhaps replacing similar products that don’t measure up should sharpen an organization’s edge against intruders, helping it to better test for vulnerabilities and flag behavioral inconsistencies.

Violate Patient Data Safety At Your Peril, Warns Judge

An OCR investigation found that Lincare employees, who provide healthcare services in patients’ homes, regularly removed patient information from the company’s offices. “Further evidence indicated that the organization had an unwritten policy requiring certain employees to store protected health information in their own vehicles for extended periods of time,” the agency reported. “Although aware of the complaint and OCR’s investigation, Lincare subsequently took only minimal action to correct its policies and procedures and strengthen safeguards to ensure compliance with the HIPAA rules.” OCR reported that Lincare denied violating HIPAA, contending that patients’ protected health information was “stolen” by the individual who found the records in the home.

Put data scientists' skills to excellent use in mission-critical scenarios

you must be very selective about the actual data scientists that you assign to these roles. The reason why you don't automatically relate data scientists to high-pressure, operational roles is because you assume analytic-minded people don't function well in these roles. And you are correct. The stereotypical analytic does not like pressure. They need time to think and analyze, and they don't want someone hovering over them for answers. I was recently working with an analytic to move through some analysis, and we were running out of time. I gently nudged her by saying, "We only have 10 minutes left," and she quickly retorted, "Don't do that! Countdowns freak me out!" This is very typical.

The best desktop office suite, LibreOffice, gets better

Besides its support for Open Document Format (ODF) 1.2, LibreOffice 5.1 also boasts improved compatibility with Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format, Microsoft Office's default file format. Technically, Microsoft's OOXML format is an ISO standard. Technically. In practice, no version of Microsoft Office, including Office 2016 has ever used the "strict" version of the standard. Instead, Office saves documents using a "transitional" version of OOXML by default. As the Document Foundation's Italo Vignoli points out, this is a transition that's been going on nine years. The Document Foundation says this standard tends to change with each new release of Microsoft Office, often in big ways, making it a challenge for LibreOffice to keep up.

APIs Are the Connectors Between Your Company and the Outside World

Perfect is dangerous word, but there is definitely API design that is a “good fit” for your needs. The trick is that not everyone needs the same solution. So not everyone needs the same API design. One of the things we talk about a lot in Academy events is the process of focusing on the problem, digging up details, and then solving the problem you have on hand. Instead of just showing up saying something like “You should use a REST API or a Hypermedia API or a Reactive API” you should really spend time working through the problem from several of points of view. That leads you to the best fit for your current needs. Of course, a year or so from now, your needs might change and then you get to do some more digging and designing and implementing. The work of creating APIs is never done.

Is 2016 the year of mobility technology?

Businesses that truly want to exploit the potential for these mobile trends and reach end users in new, lucrative ways will have to think in big and bold terms if they are to differentiate themselves from their competition. To get ahead, organisations need to think carefully about how they push innovation boundaries and future-proof their mobile strategies. What’s also clear is that innovation comes in all shapes and sizes, and in many different forms. A wise CIO or CTO learns to seek best practice from many different sources, adopting and adapting as they go. ... When users are travelling, Google understands where people are and can provide relevant, personalised information, such as the local weather and advice on what to do, direct to devices.

SD-WAN: What It Is And Why You'll Use It One Day

This ease of deployment, central manageability and reduced costs make SD-WAN an attractive option for many businesses. At VMworld 2015 29% of 260 attendees surveyed by Riverbed were exploring SD-WAN while 5% had adopted it. That compares to 77% who were exploring SDN, with 13% who had deployed it. Lerner says leading adopters of SD-WAN have been retailers and financial institutions that have a large number of branch offices. So if SD-WAN is so great why isn’t it more ubiquitous? Many organizations have custom built ASICs controlling their WANs and LANs, which have long refresh cycles. Network engineers are traditionally averse to dramatic changes too, Lerner says. When the hardware is ready for an upgrade Lerner expects organizations will consider SD-WANs, but that could be a multi-year process.

The CMO is not replacing the CIO and here’s why

The transformational CIO, unlike the traditional CIO, is in high-demand. In many cases, organizations do not understand what this means or what a transformational CIO looks like let along what they are capable of. A transformational CIO, unlike traditional CIO, is far more aligned with the business of the company. They are in-tune with how the company makes and spends money. They also look for opportunities around customer engagement and business growth. Transformational CIOs are more about business and data than they are about technology. In many ways, the transformational CIO is a business leader (first) that happens to have responsibility for IT.

Quote for the day:

"The world's appetite for data is increasing and with this comes a greater need for organizations to support cloud workloads." -- Nevil Knupp