Emerging specs for hybrid clouds and converged datacenters promise to interrupt vendors’ proprietary hold. The word “standards” evokes images of combative committees taking six months to choose where to carry a gathering after which letting dominant industry players hold down superior technology. Vendors blamed delays with the 802.11n spec for his or her going rogue with proprietary implementations that always didn’t interact; eventually the Wi-Fi Alliance needed to expend money and energy on a certification program. And while the Open Networking Foundation begs to vary, Cisco CEO John Chambers recently asserted that advanced networking “cannot be done in software.” His unstated pitch: “Why anticipate messy SDN standards to gel? Just cut a check for Cisco ONE.” Going with proprietary technology is tempting. But standards remain important, especially within the era of convergence and cloud, with its “just make it work” culture. Particularly, standards are critical for shuttling workloads between on-premises and multitenant systems. A well-considered design that uses stock components, protocols, and interfaces wherever possible... Read More »

Smartphone Theft Protection Act will require cellular telephone makers to incorporate how to disable communications devices remotely to discourage theft. Android Security: 8 Signs Hackers Own Your Smartphone (click image for larger view) A week after California State Senator Mark Leno (D-CA) proposed a bill requiring a kill switch for smartphones sold within the state, federal lawmakers have recommend an analogous bill. On Thursday, US Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) introduced national legislation to require the way to disable smartphones remotely. The goal is to discourage theft and protect consumers, but this defense against thieves might include greater vulnerability to hackers, in accordance with a mobile industry trade group. Certainly, cellular phone theft is a major problem. Cellphone thefts account for 30% to 40% of all robberies in major cities nationwide, consistent with the FCC, and that figure is claimed to be as high as 50% in markets like San Francisco. In step with Consumer Reports,... Read More »

Leveraging cloud-delivered services would have helped inside the overall stability and success of the HealthCare.gov website, and doubtless still can going forward. Glitch (noun) \ˈglich\: an unexpected and frequently minor problem; especially: a minor problem with a machine or device (consisting of a pc) Source: m-w.com It is tough to show at the news lately without some mention of the HealthCare.gov website. There are various of folk talking who do not know lots about complex systems, occasionally punctuated with smart commentary from an industry expert. The various conversation centers on how “unbelievable” it really is that the center-piece of the Affordable Care Act doesn’t work. In reality, it isn’t that arduous to believe. Study after study has shown that almost all of complex IT projects either fail or don’t meet expectations. Some of the explanation why these projects fail are embodied in what we’ve got heard about HealthCare.gov: Late changing requirements Poor design choices Inadequate project risk management Insufficient QA/system testing ... Read More »

Former Homeland Security CIO Richard Spires says the main to running big IT programs — and recovering once they fail — is first-class program management. Few CIOs understand the scope of disciplines had to manage large-scale IT projects quite like Richard Spires. He led probably the most largest business IT modernization efforts ever undertaken by the government. This eventually landing him the pinnacle IT spot on the IRS, and later, a deputy commissioner role accountable for operations. The lessons he learned on the IRS (particularly the significance of program and project management capabilities) were sharpened when he became CIO of the dept of Homeland Security — a position he held for just about four years before leaving this year to begin his own consulting firm. For Spires, the core principles for recovering from an IT project failure are the identical ones he would use for shepherding a major IT project within the first place: having the correct program management talent and talents in place.... Read More »

20 Great Ideas To Steal In 2013 (click image for larger view) Simple, flexible and highly visual products are what’s selling within the business intelligence and analytics arena, and MicroStrategy is hoping to leap on that bandwagon with free cloud and desktop versions of its product designed to be easy to apply. MicroStrategy has established its reputation as one of the crucial innovative business intelligence vendors — early to adopt mobile, in-memory, and cloud. The product is legendary for enterprise scale, but in addition for complex implementations. It is not lots that the product itself was harder to implement than comparable BI platforms, but rather, that it required a clean data model, with conformed dimensions. Customers who did not have an enterprise data warehouse usually sought alternatives from more flexible BI platforms or newer visual-data-discovery vendors. Webcasts More >> White Papers More >> Reports More >> With MicroStrategy’s latest release, the seller has gone far to enhance ease of use and deployment, setting its sights... Read More »