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Archive for December, 2010
Friday, December 31st, 2010
by Lucas Mearian
Expanding its reach into the medical IT services market, Dell announced Wednesday that it has agreed to buy medical archive services company InSite One Inc.
Dell did not disclose the finances behind the deal.
InSite One is a private company based in Wallingford, Conn., with about 40 employees. The company offers cloud -based health-care applications that archive medical records and share images.
Last year, Dell paid $3.9 billion to acquire IT services giant Perot Systems , which focuses on the government and health-care sectors.
InSite’s cloud -based archive software and storage services will be complementary to Dell ‘s Unified Clinical Archive service. Combined, the products will offer hospital and private practice customers the ability to access and share images regardless of the medical applications they’ve employed, Dell said in a statement.
InSite’s storage -as-a-service product archives digital content as objects, meaning it stores information and the meta data describing it together so that it can be indexed and retrieved regardless of where it is stored in a virtualized, grid-based infrastructure.
InSite’s customers use the service on a subscription or pay-as-you-go basis. Dell’s strategy is to provide its customers, “open and scalable solutions with deployment options that dramatically reduce the complexity and cost of storage and data management.”
“Our customers have told us that managing the growing demands of both digital images and patient records is one of their greatest concerns,” James Coffin, vice president of Dell Healthcare and Life Sciences (LSR), said in a statement. “We are dramatically simplifying archiving and retention of clinical data, both medical images and electronic medical records. This … actually simplifies access to the information when it’s needed by clinicians.”
Dell said InSite’s data migration and recovery/backup services will also simplify the transition to the cloud for customers and ensure that information is managed safely and securely.
InSite said it manages nearly 55 million clinical documents, more than 3.6 billion medical images and supports almost 800 clinical sites. InSite’s cloud archival service supports all brands of picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) and data sources. InSite’s service also gives clinicians Web-based access to radiological images and provides rapid indexing and sharing of data across disparate systems., the company said on its Web site.
Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com .
Tags: disaster recovery planning, financial it support, financial technology support, healthcare it services, healthcare it support
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Friday, December 31st, 2010
 A smart-home automation system using Fios, Verizon’s fiber-optic communications network, is about to be tested in some New Jersey homes, the company announced yesterday.
The management system, which Verizon simply refers to as Home Monitoring and Control, enables real-time access to view and make changes to a home’s lighting, security cameras, locks, and thermostats, as well as appliances and consumer electronics devices connected to the home network.
The software application that offers the real-time monitoring and control can be accessed by smartphone, computer, or Fios TV.
Verizon will be demonstrating the smart-home system at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early in January, and says the system should be widely available within the first half of 2011.
In the meantime, the company is looking to N.J. homes to test it out.
“The homes selected for the program will be outfitted with an energy reader, smart appliance switches and thermostats, a smart power strip, a smart door and window locks, motion sensors, an advanced pan-and-tilt camera, and a fixed indoor and outdoor camera,” Verizon said in a statement.
Verizon has long been anticipating a possible foray into home automation, as it sought to expand what services could be offered using its existing high-speed Fios broadband network. But the telecommunications giant is not alone in attempting to be in on the early side of smart home services.
In July, Microsoft began offering Microsoft Hohm in conjunction with PowerCost Monitor for managing home electricity use. That same month GE began offering a smart-grid home-monitoring system that can also be tied to using a home electric vehicle (EV) charger. In 2009, Google began offering PowerMeter home-monitoring system to U.K. residents, and is now using the “white space” spectrum of the broadcast system left open by TV’s switch to digital for smart-grid communications in Plumas-Sierra County, Calif.
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Thursday, December 30th, 2010
Hewlett-Packard has won a contract from NASA worth up to $2.5 billion.
The contract was awarded Monday and calls for Hewlett-Packard to provide and manage up to $2.5 billion worth of PCs, software, peripherals, and associated end-user and IT services for the space agency over 10 years, according to a NASA press release. Specifically, HP will offer services to support NASA personnel in business, science, research, and computation.
HP beat out longtime NASA contractor Lockheed Martin to pick up the lucrative project.
“Our team is disappointed that NASA selected another solution,” Sheila Collins, a spokeswoman for Lockheed, said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg. “We submitted a ‘best-value’ solution based on our knowledge of the program and our understanding of NASA’s mission. We continue to serve NASA on other contracts.”
This isn’t HP’s first contract with the space agency. In 2007, the company took home a seven-year contract worth up to $5.6 billion to provide PCs, printers, and other hardware to any federal agency through NASA’s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement program.
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Tags: computer network support, it services, IT Support, pc, Percento, software
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Thursday, December 30th, 2010
 For as long as I can remember, whenever I’ve needed to reboot my computer, I’ve always shut it down, counted off 15 seconds, and then started it back up.Why? Because at some point in the distant past, someone somewhere told me that to avoid damaging them, computers need a minimum of 15 seconds of downtime whenever they’re rebooted. Whether or not that was true, I’ve followed the advice ever since, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve powered down, counted off “one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand…” for 15 seconds and then powered back up.
Not long ago, I started thinking about that habit. Why did I do that? Even if it had once been a necessity, was it still? Or was that 15-second “rule” nothing more than a myth. And that, in turn, got me thinking about what other great myths about technology are floating around our geared-up world?
So, in no particular order, what follows is an anthology of sorts of some of the best myths about tech that my friends, my Twitter followers, my co-workers, and I could come up with.
You must wait 15 seconds before rebooting your computer
Since this is the myth that got me started on this, it’s the first one I’ll address.
I decided that since this was a hardware question, the best place to turn was to the Geek Squad, those hearty IT folks in the black and white VW Beetles. Last week, I spoke with Ismael Matos, a Geek Squad deputy field marshal, and asked him about the 15 seconds myth, as well as several others having to do with hardware.
Matos said that the question of how long to wait before rebooting a computer has to do with the health of the plates of the hard drive. Since the plates are spinning at speeds of up to 10,000 rpm, and need to come to a stop before rebooting, “it’s definitely good that you wait just a little while” before restarting the machine.
But 15 seconds? That might be overkill, Matos suggested, though it certainly couldn’t hurt.
“I’d say 5 seconds is [OK],” Matos said, “but 15 seconds to be on the safe side. If you want peace of mind, then 15 seconds is OK, but it’s not a rule that’s set in stone.”
Size matters (in megapixels)
If you’ve listened to any camera marketing, you’ve probably had it pounded into your head that with megapixels, more is better. And of course, the more megapixels you want, the more you have to spend. What a coincidence.
But the reality may not back the camera companies’ marketing.
As photographer and self-described photography expert Ken Rockwell puts it, “sharpness depends more on your photographic skill than the number of megapixels, because most people’s sloppy technique or subject motion blurs the image more than the width of a microscopic pixel.
“Even when megapixels mattered, there was little visible difference between cameras with seemingly different ratings. For instance, a 3-megapixel [photo] pretty much looks the same as a 6-megapixel [photo], even when blown up to” 12 inches by 18 inches.
The Geek Squad’s Matos would seem to agree. While he says that megapixels might matter if you’re trying to put together a mural–or its cousin, a billboard–the average camera user would almost never see the difference between photos taken with most lower-megapixel and higher-megapixel cameras.
“You really start noticing the differences when you blow the picture up,” Matos said. But “it really depends on the size of the image, and how much you plan on blowing it up…If you blow it up to 16 by 20 [inches], you’ll still maintain the quality, and you won’t notice any difference in quality” with fewer megapixels.
You have to run your nickel-cadmium battery all the way down before you charge it
This is one I’ve heard for a long time, especially when you’re talking about what to do when you first get a new battery-operated gadget.
And while it’s not that hard to imagine running the juice on a new device all the way down before charging it the very first time, that’s not at all an easy thing to do on an ongoing basis given that we often find ourselves fearing being away from a power source and, therefore, charging up as a precautionary measure.
But Matos said that the best possible thing you can do for your device’s battery is, in fact, to run it down to zero before re-charging, each and every time.
“If you start plugging an AC adapter in while it’s half-charged,” Matos said, “components in the battery start to settle, and so it doesn’t maintain its ability to re-charge, and so you end up weakening the battery a lot quicker.”
Matos said that, ideally, we’d all run our batteries down all the way every time, but he acknowledged that’s not realistic for most people. So he nods to reality: “It’s recommended, so whenever possible…just let the battery drain completely before you charge it up.”
You can put a keyboard you’ve spilled coffee on in the dishwasher
Though this might be a myth that would get you to shake your head in pity at anyone who believes it–let alone practices it–Matos said that, in fact, it’s true.
It only applies to wired keyboards, though; Nothing with a battery, or wireless components in it will keep operating after being run through your dishwasher.
But Matos said that as long as you don’t use soap or warm or hot water, a cycle through the Kenmore will wash away the coffee and get you pounding away at the QWERTY before you know it.
Anything stored digitally will last longer than that on analog media
It’s a lovely idea that once you’ve put something on your hard drive, or some other form of digital backup, you can depend on it being there in perpetuity. It certainly seems like it should be true. After all, digital seems impervious to the passage of time, right?
But counting on ever-lasting storage of your crucial 1s and 0s may well be a fool’s game. According to the Associated Press, many important digital recordings are “at risk of being lost much faster than older ones on tape, and many are already gone.”
The problem, the study cited by the AP reported, is that digital files run the risk of being corrupted, and some physical forms of digital media, such as CD-R discs, can begin breaking down in as little as three years.
And the same seems to be true of online recordings. “I think we’re assuming that if it’s on the Web, it’s going to be there forever,” Sam Brylawski, the co-author of a Library of Congress study on sound, told the AP. “That’s one of the biggest challenges.
One part of the dilemma surrounding digital storage of audio and other important records, is that we’ve become trained to use such media given its ubiquity and its ease of use. “But the problem,” Brylawski told the AP, “is they must be constantly maintained and backed up by audio experts as technology changes. That requires active preservation, rather than simply placing files on a shelf.”
Turning a computer on and off regularly is bad for it
Another myth I heard when I canvassed my social networks was that a computer can be damaged over time by being regularly turned on and off.
In fact, said the Geek Squad’s Matos, it’s specifically recommended that you do power your machine off on a daily basis, for example at the end of each work day.
According to Matos, “Every computer needs its rest time,” in part to be sure that if you’re away from it and there are power fluctuations or surges, it isn’t damaged by them.
As well, he said, it’s recommended that if you’re going to be away from your computer for small periods of time, you let it go to sleep while you’re gone. But in any case, he said, a regular on/off pattern is definitely good for the computer, not bad.
Macs are immune to viruses
This myth is one that is pushed relentlessly, both overtly and subtly, by Mac fans, and, of course, by Apple. Everyone knows that Windows machines are constantly being bombarded by malware and that keeping them secure is a never-ending task.
But you rarely hear about such things from Mac users, and the common theory is that it’s because Apple’s computers are simply safe from being attacked.
Not so fast. It does seem, as has been well-reported, that that are far fewer exploits hitting Macs than their Windows-based cousins. But it’s hardly because Macs are immune from attack. Indeed, according to security researcher Nitesh Dhanjani, it has much more to do with market share–there simply aren’t anywhere near as many Macs out there as there are Windows machines.
“If we were to flip the market share, we would see a lot more exploitation in the wild,” Dhanjani told my CNET colleague Elinor Mills earlier this year. “More specifically, browser security is one of the more important items to consider today from a risk perspective. I know Internet Explorer has had a considerable share of vulnerabilities, but the Safari Web browser also has a lousy reputation in the security community–it almost seems a child’s play to locate an exploitable condition in Safari. Apple really needs to get its act together with Safari since OS X is enjoying a healthy market share climb at the moment.”
Other security experts seem to agree that Macs’ relative lack of virus problems has much more to do with the computer’s market share than any kind of actual fortitude against attack. As Halvar Flake, head of research and CEO of Zynamics, told Mills, “Vista/Win7 has more extensive countermeasures against attacks and a codebase with presumably fewer security issues. But it’s the operating system of the majority of users, hence making it profitable to attack. Attackers will therefore spend lots of time bypassing the countermeasures. Mac OS has fewer countermeasures and lots of easily exploitable bugs, but the market share is low, making it a less likely target.”
Then again, the market share dynamic does, in fact, mean that Macs are less likely to get hit, so in that sense, they are safer. “For an everyday consumer that just wants to use a computer and not worry about getting owned with every click of the mouse, I’d go for a Mac,” Joe Grand, president of Grand Idea Studio, told Mills.
Your ISP is tracking everything you do
This may not be something most people are thinking about, but for those constantly worried about digital privacy, it is a signature concern, since, if true, everyone would be subject to tracking because we almost all have to get online through an Internet service provider.
Your ISP “is your local link to the worldwide computer network known as the Internet,” Dave Roos wrote on Get Stuff. Every page request you make and every e-mail you send must travel through your ISP’s routers first. It would seem, therefore, that your ISP has the power to scan and save every piece of data that flows through its system.”
But before you get alarmed, Roos also wrote: “The truth is that it does have the power. Fortunately for us, it doesn’t have the money or the desire to archive every bit of information that comes its way. ISPs in the United States don’t routinely save the Web surfing histories and e-mail conversations of their users. It would simply be too expensive to save all of that data and the public outcry from privacy rights and civil liberties organizations would be deafening.”
Girls don’t play video games
The stereotype of gamers is clearly a teenage boy sitting in front of his Xbox, pounding away at one Halo or Call of Duty game or another for hours and hours on end. And while the industry certainly brings in many, many, many millions of dollars because of that pimply-faced teen, he’s by no means the only face of the gaming community.
Indeed, women and girls make up a very large bloc of gamers–they just are a little more quiet about it.
“Girls and young women are a ‘pot of gold’ for the [video game] industry,” George VanHorn, a senior analyst at market research firm IBISWorld, told Reuters. “The gaming industry has market characteristics that many would die for.”
Reuters reported that in an IBISWorld study, “38 percent of U.S. gamers are female, up from 33 percent in just five years. From January through August of 2008, females ages 18 to 45 made up 28 percent of the total industry revenue, ranking second to males ages 18 to 45, who made up 37 percent.”
So while they may not be the largest group of gamers, it’s clear that women and girls are spending their fair share of time playing.
Anything you delete from your hard drive is gone forever
Given that we lay our lives bare on our computers–what with doing personal banking, storing family photos, researching our medical conditions, and so forth–it would be comforting to be able to believe that if we erase something on our computers, we don’t have to worry about that data being available to anyone who might want to access it later.
Sadly, that would be a naive assumption. The truth is, it’s very difficult to permanently get rid of your data. And if you want to do so, you probably need to go get a drill.
That’s the advice of the Geek Squad’s Matos, who said that, “When you delete [data], yes, [its] icon may be gone, but that information is still intact on the hard drive. The only thing the computer does is [mark] that section to be overwritten. It just gives the operating system the OK to write over that area.”
So if the operating system isn’t actually removing the data from your hard drive, how can you get rid of it?
Matos said it’s not so easy, and you may not ever want to just hand an old computer off to someone else if you’re worried about them accessing your private data.
The only way to ensure that no one can ever access it is to bring tools to bear. “Let’s say you’re getting rid of an old computer,” Matos said. “You’re going to want to take the old hard drive, take a drill, and drill 10 to 12 holes through the drive–and not in a straight line. Scatter the holes and make sure they go straight through.”
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Tags: computer, Computer Failure, computer network, computer network consulting, Computer-driven, computers, Managed IT Services, managed it support, Technology
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Tuesday, December 28th, 2010
DUBAI, UAE — Senior business and technology leaders will convene at InterContinental Dubai Festival City from 21-22 February 2011 for CACS in Dubai, an internationally respected event that features governance, security, assurance and risk management experts from around the world.
Hosted by ISACA, a global information technology (IT) association of 95,000 IT professionals, CACS (Computer Audit, Control and Security) will include a keynote presentation by Neeraj Kumar, Senior Vice President of Internal Audit and Chief Audit Executive of Emirates Group. Neeraj Kumar will explain how to use technology to improve proactive risk-focused auditing and continuous monitoring.
CACS in Dubai will also offer educational sessions on key IT security and governance issues facing enterprises today, including:
- Implementing COBIT: A Public-sector Case Study, presented by Naveed Ahmed, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, Dubai Customs, UAE
- IT Governance to Support Corporate Governance: A Case Study, presented by Avinash Totade, CISA, CGEIT, Dubai Aluminium Company, UAE
- E-government Security: Threats and Challenges, presented by Abbas S Kudrati, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, eGovernment Authority, Kingdom of Bahrain
- Metrics and Indicators for a Changing Security Landscape, presented by Ramsés Gallego, CISM, CGEIT, Entel IT Consulting, Spain
- Social Media: Business Security, Governance and Assurance Perspectives, presented by Urs Fischer, CISA, CRISC, IT GRC Consultancy, Switzerland
- Designing Next Generation Security and Audit for Cloud Computing Environments, presented by Eddie Schwartz, CISA, CISM, NetWitness Corp., USA
- The Future of Information: Real Challenges and Opportunities, presented by Norman Marks, SAP, USA
- Automating IT Risk and Compliance to Reduce Costs: A Series of Case Studies, presented by Anil Jogani, CISA, CGEIT, Milan Solutions Limited, UK
ISACA chose Dubai as the location for the conference because it is an important city in the global economy as well as the region’s crossroads, serving as a center of business and technology. ISACA’s United Arab Emirates Chapter was established in 1997 to bring together business and information technology leaders in the region. The ISACA UAE Chapter is a strong network of professionals from all the emirates of the UAE: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah.
“CACS in Dubai will help attendees add value to their enterprise by providing them with practical guidance on critical IT-related issues facing organizations worldwide,” said Vatsaraman Venkatakrishnan, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CRISC, Vice President of IS audit at Emirates Airlines and Chair of ISACA’s Conference Development Task Force.
Attendees who register by 12 January 2011 will receive an early-bird discount. Registration forms for the conference and two pre-conference workshops–Using COBIT for Effective IT Assurance and the Risk Management Workshop: Featuring ISACA’s Risk IT Framework and Guidance–are available at www.isaca.org/cacsindubai.
About ISACA
With 95,000 constituents in 160 countries, ISACA® is a leading global provider of knowledge, certifications, community, advocacy and education on information systems assurance and security, enterprise governance and management of IT, and IT-related risk and compliance. Founded in 1969, the nonprofit ISACA develops international IS auditing and control standards, which help its constituents ensure trust in, and value from, information systems. It also advances and attests IT skills and knowledge through the Certified Information Systems Auditor® (CISA®), Certified Information Security Manager® (CISM®), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT® (CGEIT®) and Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control™ (CRISC™) designations.
ISACA continually updates COBIT®, which helps IT professionals and enterprise leaders fulfill their IT governance responsibilities and deliver value to the business.
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Information Technology Professionals: Percento Technologies International
Tags: information technology leaders, it assurance, it compliance, it consulting, it enterprise, it governance, it management, it professionals, it risk and compliance, it risk management, IT Security, Managed IT Services
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Friday, December 24th, 2010
 Venture capitalists are bullish about the information technology sector in the new year, with investments expected to be on the rise.
But technologies focused on energy efficiency and medical devices — two areas that have gotten a lot of buzz in recent years because of Washington’s policy focus — are not the subject of as much optimism as in previous years, according to a survey released Tuesday by the National Venture Capital Association and Dow Jones VentureSource.
Despite a lot of interest from lawmakers, the clean tech industry has suffered from a lack of action by Congress. Venture capitalists are also concerned about uncertainty surrounding the health care reform law and cumbersome agency approval processes. As a result, investment forecasts for the clean tech, medical device and pharmaceutical drug sectors are lower than the predictions for other markets, such as consumer Internet technologies.
“The link between government and the success of venture capitalists’ portfolio companies is becoming more and more acute every year,” NVCA President Mark Heesen told POLITICO. “The reality is that the government’s role is increasing.”
According to the report, 82 percent of venture capitalists expect increased investment in the consumer Internet space, including software and websites, in 2011.
By contrast, only 38 percent of venture capitalists expect increased investment in the energy sector. In the medical devices sector, only 35 percent expect investments to rise, and only 33 percent are optimistic about the biopharmaceuticals sector in the coming year.
The lack of concrete legislative and regulatory action, as well as uncertainty about what the incoming Congress will do, have in part contributed to the weaker forecasts, several Silicon Valley-based venture capitalists told POLITICO.
While administration officials have lauded the value of clean tech innovation, for example, no major energy legislation has passed. Though the cap and trade bill passed the House in 2009, it faltered in the Senate earlier this year. With Republicans assuming control of the House in January, it’s unlikely that energy legislation will be considered again in the near future.
While investors credit the Department of Energy for introducing programs that support the clean tech sector, such as the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program, they say venture-backed clean tech companies are setting their sights on opportunities abroad as U.S. energy policy still hangs in the balance.
“Now is actually a renaissance time in the clean tech sector, but the opportunity is a more global opportunity and what remains in question is the degree to which the U.S. will capitalize on this opportunity,” said Ira Ehrenpreis, general partner at Palo Alto-based Technology Partners venture capital firm. ‘‘If the U.S. government doesn’t continue to support the clean tech sector, then the great innovation coming out of the venture-backed clean tech opportunity will ultimately be deployed around the globe.”
Venture capital investors in the medical industry blame their less-than-stellar 2011 predictions on a combination of how long it takes the Food and Drug Administration to approve a pharmaceutical drug or medical device and the large amount of money venture-backed companies in the sector require.
“It really is getting to the point where decision making at FDA is really becoming a major obstacle to VCs committing more money to the life sciences sector,” said Jack Lasersohn, general partner at The Vertical Group.
Lasersohn said the FDA focuses too much on the risk rather than the benefit of a drug or device, “and as a result, it’s taken much longer to get things approved by the FDA. And in some cases, you can’t get things approved by the FDA.”
NVCA has been pushing for FDA reform to simplify the process by which the agency approves new technologies and drugs. The organization argues that innovators can more easily get their new devices and therapies approved by foreign governments, giving companies incentives to do business overseas rather in the United States.
To a lesser degree, the health care reform bill also has played a role in the sluggish investment expectations, Lasersohn said. Republicans’ threat of trying to repeal the new law left some investors and companies in limbo.
“That health care reform has certainly created uncertainty, and uncertainty is generally something that VCs don’t like.”
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IT Consulting and Outsourcing Services
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Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Microsoft last week pulled an update for Outlook 2007 issued just two days earlier, citing connection and performance problems for the unusual move.
The update was issued mid-day on December 14 as part of the monthly Patch Tuesday. Within hours, users reported trouble with retrieving e-mail and major delays when switching folders.
“This latest update results in Outlook 2007 being very slow in changing folders and the archiving functionality appears to have been removed,” said someone identified as “alspar” on a Microsoft support forum early Wednesday morning. “Is this an error or by design?”
Others said they couldn’t send or receive e-mail, including Gmail messages, through Outlook after installing the update.
Ironically, Microsoft had billed the update, which didn’t patch any security vulnerabilities, as one that contained “stability and performance improvements.”
By Thursday, support forum moderators were telling users to uninstall the update.
Microsoft made that official late Friday in a post on the Outlook team’s blog . “We have discovered several issues with the update and … as of December 16, this Outlook 2007 update has been removed from Microsoft Update,”
According to Microsoft, the Tuesday update contained three flaws related to Secure Password Authentication (SPA), a Microsoft protocol used to authenticate mail clients like Outlook to a mail server; sluggish folder switching when Outlook wasn’t configured to grab mail from an Exchange server; and a broken AutoArchive feature.
Microsoft urged users who had installed update during its three days of availability to remove it, and spelled out the necessary steps.
The company also issued a mea culpa.
“We apologize to our customers for not discovering these issues before releasing the update and for any inconvenience we have caused,” the Outlook team wrote on its blog. “We failed to meet our own and our customers’ expectation for quality with this update release. We are working to fix these issues and will post a release date for those fixes, and link to download them, as soon as that information is available.”
Microsoft has yanked updates before. In April, it pulled a patch for Windows 2000 — which at the time was still being supported — over what it called “quality issues.”
In early 2008, Microsoft retracted an update designed to prep Windows Vista for Service Pack 1 (SP1) after users flooded support forums with tales of endless reboots.
Microsoft has not set a timetable for releasing a re-patch for Outlook 2007.
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Monday, December 20th, 2010
The year 2010 has been one of slow recovery and rebuilding following the economic meltdown, a year in which investment into infrastructure and upgrades was slow and many companies focused on weathering the storm and tightening budgets to reduce excess spending.
However, the year has ended on a positive note as companies have reached the bottom of the curve and are beginning to take a definite upturn in terms of both business and infrastructure spend.
During the downturn, outsourcing became a particularly attractive option for many businesses as it enabled access to specialised skills and expertise at a fraction of the cost of keeping these resources in-house. As we move into a more stable economy, this trend will not change, however, as organisations are still wary of hiring internal resources, due to ongoing financial constraints.
The ongoing skills shortage in many specialised IT areas also affects this, as finding and hiring some of the scarce resources needed can be a costly process, not to mention the difficulty in removing these resources should they not fit company culture or should they become unaffordable. As a result, even though the economy is recovering, outsourcing will remain a growing field in 2011 and organisations will continue to outsource certain functions and skills.
However, the outsource market will not remain static by any means, as the growing popularity of cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) can be expected to influence this market as well. For the outsource provider, as a result of cloud computing, the client base will no longer be a bank of individual clients but rather a service provider who then has all of the clients on board.
Cloud computing ultimately will enable offices to become virtual, as service providers will host applications and services for the clients. While this vision is still some years or even a decade or more off, the first steps towards a truly virtual office will be taken in the next year or two. A word of caution, however: precedent has shown that with any new technology that enters the market there will be a flood of new service providers, who inevitably fall away or are acquired by others, leaving the market with only a few players and the potential for this market to become a monopoly if one player emerges as the strongest.
Driven by the increase in cloud-based technology comes a need to be more proactive when it comes to monitoring. A proactive monitoring solution in the cloud can help service providers to fix issues before they become problems, before the client even finds out there was anything wrong. This is particularly valuable in high availability environments, as high levels of uptime can be assured by identifying and fixing problems before they do damage or cause downtime.
One of the other trends that will see an increasing interest in the next year or so is that of open source software. Driven by the persistent need to maintain tight IT budgets while at the same time increasing levels of flexibility, scalability and customisability – there is an increase in the number of businesses looking at migrating to open source solutions, a trend which will continue and grow in 2011 and beyond.
From an outsourcing perspective, outsource providers will begin offering a greater selection of open source solutions that work with proprietary licensed products to offer customers a far greater range of options than ever before. The perception that open source is inferior to licensed products has begun to break down and hopefully this will continue in the future.
As stated previously, outsourcing is a developing model and use of this type of service has started to grow in various industries across South Africa, something which we can expect to continue in the next few years. The telecoms industry is one which will see growth in the outsource area as the need to provide more and more services and applications through cellphones will necessitate greater databases and storage capability, which will in turn spur growth for outsourced providers of these.
Mining too will see an increase in the use of outsourced IT as there is a major drive within this industry to standardise on platforms to enable faster decision-making from a centralised data repository. This is one scenario where the cloud model will fit perfectly, as all data can be stored centrally in a virtual or cloud database for access by disparate and geographically distributed mines. The investment in technology in this industry is being driven very strongly by the need for cost savings as well as intelligence from data to make smarter decisions.
The last few years have been characterised by a lack of growth and investment into IT infrastructure, and while 2010 was the beginning of the end of the recession, spending remained slow. The global economic climate has, however, begun to recover, albeit slowly, and 2011 will see the beginning of the upswing once more, with new technologies coming to the fore.
The lessons of the downturn will not be forgotten and budgets will remain tight, as IT managers look to invest in smarter technology and tools that use open source software to reduce costs and improve service and support.
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Monday, December 20th, 2010
 The United States government is falling behind in making critical and productive investments in research related to networking and information technology (NIT), a government panel reported Thursday.
Federal agencies have used funds designated for direct pioneering research and development in NIT for alternative purposes, such as the creation of information technology products and infrastructure expansion in support of research in other fields, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) noted.
This failure to properly prioritize NIT research and development “could seriously jeopardize America’s national security and economic competitiveness,” the Council cautioned.
“We’re investing less than we think and less than we need,” said PCAST member David Shaw, chief scientist at D.E. Shaw Research. “If America is to retain its historical position of international leadership, its funding priorities must include high risk, high reward research with the potential for producing unanticipated, truly transformative advances.”
More Transparency
The report was based on the performance of a coalition of 14 agencies participating in the federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program (NITRD). These agencies target US$4 billion annually for NIT research and development. However, much of that spending goes to NIT-related projects that support research and development in other fields.
One example cited by PCAST is the National Institutes of Health (NIH): Less than 12 percent of its top 100 funding awards totaling $600 million was spent directly on NIT research and development. The remainder went to NIT components of biomedical research projects.
The panel concluded that the absolute level of federal NIT research should be boosted by at least $1 billion per year over the current level on a variety of initiatives that would benefit such sectors as energy, healthcare, transportation and national security. Some of that funding could come from redirecting the current pattern of investment to more cutting-edge purposes, both in hardware and software, according to the report.
One reason for the imbalance in research funding is that the agencies themselves have flawed systems for properly tracking expenditures. However, a program is under way to monitor funds better.
“We committed in February of this year to improving the transparency of these programs, and we will have that up and running by next February,” Aneesh Chopra, the federal government’s chief technology officer, told TechNewsWorld at a briefing on the report.
The improved transparency will lead to better analysis and better investment decisions, he said.
Public and Private Sector Roles
The report triggered a discussion about the role of the public and private sectors in IT research. Several panelists at the briefing stressed that federal-level spending for NIT research is essential for the future development of appropriate technologies. While private sector firms can contribute somewhat in the research effort, they are not geared to investing in pioneering research and are interested in more practical research investment in NIT, they contended.
The crossover between public and private sector investments in IT research actually involves more of a balance between the two, according to one business observer.
“There is a constant challenge in finding the synergies between government and private sector research. Private companies invest a lot in IT research and most of it is related to applications whereas government has the ability to go beyond that,” Mark White, chief technology officer at Deloitte Services, told TechNewsWorld.
“But there is a connection between the two in that the private sector can utilize the results of government research, which enhances the return on investment,” he said. “The value of the NITRD program and the report is that helps to create an awareness of the roles of each sector for the greatest benefit.”
Another close observer of the federal IT research program agreed that government investments have an impact far beyond the government agencies that direct those investments.
“The private sector benefits from these investments,” Peter Harsha, director of government affairs for the Computing Research Association, told TechNewsWorld. “First, the research helps to advance technology generally — and the support to academia helps to develop the workforce needed by the IT businesses.”
Whatever the direct role is for the private sector in funding IT research, the government values the contributions that business can make in shaping the direction of research, Chopra said.
“There is a significant role for the private sector here, just as there is for the reforms the administration is initiating in information technology and procurement across the federal government,” he said. “We will be conducting outreach and seeking feedback from the private sector on the future direction of NIT research.”
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Friday, December 17th, 2010
The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.
Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil.
At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would to attempt to create global standards for policing the internet – specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.
The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for an “takeover” of the internet.
India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.
However, Australia, US, UK, Belgium and Canada and attending business and community representatives argued there were risks in forming yet another working group that might isolate itself from the industry, community users and the general public.
“My concern is that if we were to make a move to form a governmental-only body then that would send a very strong signal to civil society that their valuable contribution was not required or was not being looked for,” an un-named Australian representative told the meeting.
Debate on the creation of a new inter-governmental body stemmed from a UN Economic and Social Council resolution 2010/2 of 19 July.
The resolution invited the UN Secretary-General “to convene open and inclusive consultations involving all Member States and all other stakeholders with a view to assisting the process towards enhanced cooperation in order to enable Governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities in respect of international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet but not of the day-to-day technical and operational matters that do not impact upon those issues.”
Much debate concerned the meaning of “enhanced cooperation” and whether a new inter-governmental body was required. Participants also debated the roles of existing organisations – such as the Internet Governance Forum, ICANN and the ITU.
The IGF – an organisation that informs the UN but makes no decisions – is running close to the end of a five-year mandate, due to expire at ?the end of the year.
The likes of ISOC, ICANN and more recently the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) have recently expressed concerns that a working panel to decide on the future of the IGF has been limited to representatives from member-states.
“Australia is a very strong supporter of the Internet Governance Forum,” the unidentified Australian UN representative said at the New York meeting this week. “That is very much due to the multi-stake-holder approach of the IGF. It is an inclusive process.”
Australia’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy said that Australian Government welcomed the resolution of the Second Committee of the United Nation General Assembly (UNGA) to extend the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) for a further five years.
The DBCDE said it would like to see the organisation retain an open and participatory membership.
“Australia has always supported the participation of civil society and the private sector in the IGF and regards their participation as being integral to the IGF’s success,” a spokesman told iTnews.
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