Okay – this is easy… or is it? Lots of people continue to perpetuate the idea that the AWS APIs are a de facto standard, so we should just all move on about it. At the same time, everybody seems to acknowledge the fact that Amazon has never ever indicated that they want to be a true ...

Overuse tends to a suck a phrase of meaning, and the same may be said of “collaboration”. As an executive, you’ve probably been inundated with articles on “collaboration software” and its business possibilities. But it seems to mean different things at different times. Sometimes it mea...

When it comes to building new cloud services, there is a large opportunity for new services built around Big Data. So when you look at consulting firms that provide application development and integration services, are there opportunities for them to leverage Big Data in their servi...

Early adopters have been evaluating TwitPolls for the last several weeks. I’ve tested it out with our @CTOvision account and see great promise for this easy to use engagement tool. TwitPolls is powered by the technologies and leadership team of WayIn, so it is based on a great/scalab...

Throughout history there has been a cycle that ebbs and flows where new technology makes production more efficient and reduces the need for manpower in a particular space, thus forcing those in charge into the difficult position of deciding who stays and who goes. This is normally re...

As I mentioned in my last blog post, the promise of cost reduction is compelling many enterprises to move their workloads into the Cloud but many IT leaders are reluctant to do so, for fear of compromising the security and availability of their services. These concerns are well-founded...

Edward Burman recently sent me a very interesting email in response to my article about the 50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. So I bought his 2003 book Shift!: The Unfolding Internet – Hype, Hope and History (hint: If you buy it from Amazon, che...

Four CEOs in five years! Yahoo was a symbol of innovation and success in its first few years of life. Founded by two Stanford Ph.D. students (Yang and Filo), Yahoo defined the Internet era of communities and sharing. It still has an enviable community using various services like email,...

As the role of cloud computing is growing around the globe, many CIOs and other senior IT decision makers are facing challenges with their existing network infrastructure -- to support the migration of their business applications to the cloud. A new international study by Cisco Systems...

Major changes have taken place in the network in the past 15 years. The type of data that users are passing across the pipes is significantly different in size and composition. And, the coming “data explosion” promises to put even the most robust networks to the test. When you add in ...

Like cloud two or three years ago, SDN and OpenFlow is dominating the discussions. During a show that’s (in theory at least) dedicated to networking, this should be no surprise. Is it making networking sexy again? Yes, insomuch as we’re at least talking about networking again, which i...

Of late patents around mobile technologies have been in the news. Four high profile news items are (1) Oracle suing Google for Java patent violation, (2) Apple and Samsung fighting each other in different parts of the world, Microsoft, Apple, Rim and others jointly buying Nortel patent...

There are many great use cases for Apache Hadoop, the open source framework for scalable, reliable, and distributed computing on commodity hardware built around Hadoop Distributed File System and MapReduce, such as delivering search engine results, sequencing genomes, and indexing enti...

ACIS are a specialist in the Microsoft FAST Search engine, and offer technical and consulting expertise that enables it to be used for the best practices described in our white paper – Microsoft Cloud 2.0 – FAST Social Computing. Their SPM module enables FAST to be used in a ‘Hybrid...

Like many people, the other week I downloaded and installed Google Drive. This is the long-awaited competitor to services like Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, offering free online storage with the ability to upgrade to higher capacity at a cost. Dropbox and the various other lookal...

When developing your security architecture, look to the 500 year old medieval castle model to create layers of protection. And this best practice extends itself to the cloud as security-as-a-service. One of the true benefits of the cloud is the ability to reconfigure and create a stro...

It is a fact of modern life: We all run the risk of getting too distracted by our IT, especially IT connected to our social media. Today, for example, my priority is finishing a White Paper for a favorite client, and I promise I will do that, but I just saw this really cool clip on You...

OpenStack gets one of the most crucial endorsements as HP goes into the public beta on May 10th. I got the private beta access a couple of months ago and I tried a few scenarios. Though it has a long way to go, HP Cloud looks complete in its approach and is ready to take head on! Soon...

It has been more than two years since the European Commission published in January 2010 its pioneering report about the Future of Cloud Computing. A group of experts was established with the aim to evaluate the state-of-the-art and develop future research directions in cloud computing....

Has Apple, by filing so many patent / IPR violation suits against Samsung in so many countries, marked Samsung as its equal? For those of you who read Harry Potter, here is the parallel. Remember the prophecy? … “…The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Born to th...

For the past several years, companies have been making use of cloud computing solutions. Cloud solutions offer agility and scalability that are often hard to duplicate in-house, and they offer a way for companies to meet specific business functions without large capital investments. Cl...

Mobile management and security vendor Good released its quarterly device activations report. The report states that iOS dominate Android four to one in the enterprise. This is in spite of Android devices having an equal or slightly larger market share compared to iPhone. Is it because...

It is great to see more conversations and coverage around storage metrics that matter beyond simply focusing on cost per GByte or TByte (e.g. space capacity). Likewise, it is also good to see conversations expanding beyond data footprint reduction (DFR) from a space capacity savings or...

I’m a huge fan of context-aware networking. You know, the ability to interpret requests in the context they were made – examining user identity, location, client device along with network condition and server/application status. It’s what imbues the application delivery tier with the a...

RPost’s latest integration with Esquire is called iScrub. This new product removes metadata from important “reusable” documents such as loan application forms. One of the questions raised by using a product like this is what effect metadata cleaning would have on evidence used in the...

In this article in the optimizing .NET code series, we’ll discuss “Iteration and Looping”. Non-optimized code within loops can lead to performance issues, ranging from increased memory consumption to CPU exhaustion. This section summarizes guidelines that will improve iteration and loo...

Using Amazon web services for elasticity and scale to build cloud applications. Traditional IT environments that are built using physical servers can only scale and grow by buying new hardware and software and taking time to install and rack the hardware, configure the software and th...

Has the world changed more between now (2012) and 1962 that is the last 50 years or the 50 years prior to that (1962-1912)? Wait a minute! What does this have to do with “Consumerization of IT”? Believe me, there is a connection – just hold your skepticism – humor me – and read on! ...

The introduction of virtualization and cloud computing to data centers has been heralded as “transformational” and “disruptive” and “game changing.” From an operational IT perspective, that’s absolutely true. But like transformational innovation in other industries, such disruption is...

If you were happily running your IT system but needed some additional performance, chances are you turned to some kind of SSD caching solution to improve performance at a lower cost point than adding more servers or storage. You went on what I am calling a “cache diet” (no, not the “cr...

Much has been written about how tablets are not “needed,” but are rather just fun toys. I must say I agree with this, to a point. I feel that there are many great use-cases for tablets. They are lighter and more portable than any laptop (yes, even the MacBook Air) and last longer. Devi...

It’s unlikely there’s anyone in IT today that doesn’t understand the role of load balancing to scale. Whether cloud or not, load balancing is the key mechanism through which load is distributed to ensure horizontal scale of applications. It’s also unlikely there’s anyone in IT that doe...

This follows the first of a two-part series on my latest experiences with Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDD's) and Solid State Devices (SSDs). In my ongoing last momentus moment post I discussed what I have done with HHDD's and setting the stage for expanded SSD use. I have the newer HHDD'...

You probably recall years ago the old “Tastes Great vs Less Filling” advertisements. The ones that always concluded in the end that the beer in question was not one or the other, but both. Whenever there are two ostensibly competing technologies attempting to solve the same problem, w...

According to the PCI SSC, there are 12 PCI DSS requirements that satisfy a variety of security goals.  Areas of focus include building and maintaining a secure network, protecting stored cardholder data, maintaining a vulnerability management program, implementing strong access co...

According to the PCI SSC, there are 12 PCI DSS requirements that satisfy a variety of security goals. Areas of focus include building and maintaining a secure network, protecting stored cardholder data, maintaining a vulnerability management program, implementing strong access contr...

Anyone who’s involved with web application performance – either measuring or addressing – knows there are literally hundreds of RFCs designed to improve the performance of TCP (which in turn, one hopes, improves the performance of HTTP-delivered applications that ultimately rely on TCP...

If you are preparing for TOGAF certification here are links to pages containing free sample practice questions. TOGAF 9 Foundation Level Certification – Question set 1 TOGAF 9 Foundation Level Certification – Question set 2 TOGAF 9 Certified Level Certification – Question on topics ...

According to the PCI SSC, there are 12 PCI DSS requirements that satisfy a variety of security goals. Areas of focus include building and maintaining a secure network, protecting stored cardholder data, maintaining a vulnerability management program, implementing strong access control...

If you believe that you've had to learn more about the safe online operation and ongoing management of your PC than you ever wanted to know, then you'll be pleased to discover that there's relief on the horizon. According to the latest market study by Gartner, the reign of the personal...