Cyber 08

Published on May 2016 | Categories: Types, Instruction manuals | Downloads: 68 | Comments: 0 | Views: 582
of 72
Download PDF   Embed   Report

Cyber 08

Comments

Content

AUGUST 2015 VOL. 13 ISS. 08
CYBERTREND.COM

PROACTIVE
ENERGY
EFFICIENCY
FIND THE BEST
GREEN TECH
OPPORTUNITIES
FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Volume 13 : Issue 8 : August 2015

10

50

PROACTIVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY
FOR YOUR BUSINESS
10 COVER STORY
we examine some of the latest trends in
energy efficiency for saving power, cutting
emissions, and improving ROI
14 BUSINESS
insights into Accenture’s digital strategy, and
how to use social media to promote events
20 CLOUD
how your company can benefit from adopting
hybrid cloud computing
24 MOBILITY
advice for finding the most appropriate mobile
collaboration tools for your employees
28 COMMUNICATIONS
put an end to jittery audio streams and other
common VoIP issues

CONTACT US
P.O. Box 82545
Lincoln, NE 68501
or
120 W. Harvest Drive
Lincoln, NE 68521

IMPROVE EMPLOYEE
SECURITY AWARENESS

30 DATA
a quick executive overview that explains what
big data really means
33 ENERGY
the latest news and research into
energy-conscious tech
36 IT
what to look for in a data center colocation
provider, why DevOps matters to businesses,
and how to prioritize when it comes time to
upgrade computers company-wide
42 NETWORKING
why VPN is essential for your mobile
workforce, and what security issues lurk
within the Internet of Things

48 SECURITY
best practices for spreading the word on
security awareness, and whether you should
invest in endpoint encryption
53 WEB
an introduction to the issues surrounding
net neutrality
56 ELECTRONICS
the latest in premium consumer electronics,
and a look at artificial intelligence trends
60 TIPS
advice for mobile professionals

Advertising: (800) 247-4880
Fax: (402) 479-2104
Circulation: (800) 334-7458
Fax: (402) 479-2123
www.cybertrend.com
email: [email protected]

© Copyright 2015 by Sandhills Publishing Company. CyberTrend TM is a trademark of Sandhills Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of material appearing in CyberTrend TM is strictly prohibited without written permission.

4

Executives To Increasingly
Drive Key Cloud Decisions

Security Appliance Market
Grows In Q1

❯ “Visionary developers” have most commonly pushed their organizations toward
cloud adoption, and they have had a primary role in choosing cloud platforms for
those organizations, according to a new
Technology Business Research report.
“Developers are a critical part of cloud
ecosystems, expanding, customizing, and
filling in portfolio gaps,” explains Jillian
Mirandi, senior analyst at TBR. However,
cloud decisions are increasingly becoming
a team effort, says TBR, with IT bringing
security, compliance, and budgetary concerns to the table, and executives looking
at the cloud in terms of long-term strategy
and business objectives. “Over the next two
years,” says Mirandi, “executives and IT
will get more involved, ultimately driving
group decisions.”

❯ Both factory revenues and unit shipments for
security appliances grew in the first quarter of 2015,
according to a new report from IDC. In fact, this
year’s first quarter marked the 22nd consecutive
quarter of growth in worldwide vendor revenues,
which increased 7.5% year-over-year to $2.3 billion.
Unit shipments grew by 9.4% year-over-year.

Cloud IT Infrastructure Spending
To Reach $33.4 Billion This Year

IDC Says Businesses Should
Focus On Consistent Experience

CoreSite Joins Verizon
Secure Cloud Interconnect

❯ Businesses worldwide are spending
more this year on servers, storage, and
other equipment to build up their cloud
IT infrastructure. Total spend will reach
$33.4 billion this year, according to IDC, or
one-third of all IT infrastructure spending
compared with 28.1% last year. “End users
continue to evaluate various approaches
to adopting cloud-based IT, says Natalya
Yezhkova, research director with IDC,
adding that some integrate public cloud
service while others use private clouds or
hybrid strategies. IDC expects non-cloud
IT spending to hold in 2015 at $67 billion.

❯ For its “2015 Experiences Survey,” IDC
asked 799 senior decision-makers about
their companies’ efforts in key channels—i.e., with business partners, suppliers, customers, and employees—and
found that companies are placing a great
deal of focus on their customers (81%
use surveys to measure customer satisfaction) and not so much on their employees (69.4% don’t measure employee
experience). IDC views this disconnect as
problematic, and suggests that business
modernization now necessitates engagement across all categories.

❯ With Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ SCI
(Secure Cloud Interconnect), customers
can use Verizon’s network to connect with
SCI’s cloud service providers to quickly
scale their capabilities. Data center colocation provider CoreSite recently joined the
SCI ecosystem, which includes Amazon,
Equinix, Google, HP, Microsoft, and
Salesforce. “With Verizon’s SCI solution,
our customers can tap directly into the
leading enterprise-class cloud networking
service to meet their performance and reliability objectives,” says Ben Green, VP of
network and mobility for CoreSite.

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

The U.S. made up
42.9% of worldwide
revenue in first
quarter, and it was
also the fastest
growing market, up
15.6% and gaining
3.0 share points
year-over-year.

The Western Europe
market grew 9.8%
year-over-year with
strong results in
the U.K. (24% of
regional market
share) and Germany
(21.4% regional
market share).

Latin America revenues grew 4.8%
year-over-year and unit shipments
increased 8.8%.
Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) made
up 18.2% of worldwide revenues.
Japan accounted for 3.9%
of worldwide revenues.
Canada accounted for 3%
of worldwide revenues.

Big Data Realities Demand Organizations’
Attention, Researchers Say
❯ The amount of data organizations are continually
generating and saving is growing rapidly, and as that
data grows in size and potential, it becomes more imperative that organizations implement big data projects to deal with that information. The alternative is to
incur the costs of data storage, lose out on the benefits
that would be gleaned by using an analytics solution,
and create more work for employees who devise their
own methods for organizing and benefiting from accessible data. In “The State of Big Data Infrastructure,”
a report crafted by market research firm Vanson
Bourne for CA Technologies, the average amount
of data organizations acquire has risen 16% over the
last two years and will increase another 24% over the
next two years. Of the users and technology managers
surveyed for the report, 94% say they already analyze
structured data with analytics tools or have established
plans to do so. The accompanying charts illustrate additional findings from the report.

What is the state of
big data project
adoption?
None yet; plan to adopt a
project within 2-3 years

6%
10%

55%

None yet; plan to adopt
a project within 1-2 years

Have already
adopted a
project

29%
None yet; plan to adopt
a project in the next year

Bad Investments In Emerging
Markets Can Be Costly

Mobility “Not Just About
Smartphones” Anymore

Infosys Introduces Financial &
Business Management Solution

❯ More than 80% of U.S.- and Europeanbased multinational companies have
suffered significant losses to emerging
markets since 2010, according to a recent
report by FTI Consulting. The report indicates that the average cost per incident
is a staggering $325 million, and the average loss per year to revenue was $260
million. Of the 99% of reported incidents
involving a loss, the emerging market was
derailed by a fraud, regulatory, or reputational issue. Over the course of five years,
poor investments cost the average company $1.38 billion.

❯ Research from Gartner shows a growing
interest in mobile broadband devices in
general, with sales of non-smartphone
cellular-connected devices such as tablets
and laptops expected to reach 112 million
units this year, up 5.6% over 2014. “Mobile
access is not just about smartphones,” says
Tracy Tsai, research director for Gartner.
“There is also potential for accelerated
growth in this market. Gartner predicts the
price gap between cellular and noncellular
devices will narrow to less than 10%, or
$20.” That, Tsai says, could result in “more
than 600 million units in 2019.”

❯ Infosys Finacle recently launched a new
service designed to help banks improve
their services and support for SME (small
to midsize enterprise) customers. Called
SME Enable, the service offers real-time
account access, financial management
alerts and analytics tools, and enterprise
setup, among other features. “Convenient
banking services as well as agile and costefficient operations are key growth drivers
for [SMEs],” says Michael Reh, senior vice
president and global head of Finacle. Reh
adds SME Enable will help banks gain customer loyalty via relevant digital solutions.

CyberTrend / August 2015

5

6

Consumers Are Investing Fewer
Dollars In Personal Storage

Most Americans Believe They’re Always Under Surveillance,
Don’t Control Data

❯ Noteworthy for cloud service providers,
storage device manufacturers, and those
tracking trends in how consumers interact
with media content and data in general,
IDC’s latest “Worldwide Personal And
Entry-Level Storage Tracker” report indicates that personal and entry-level storage
shipments are down 11.6% compared
with last year. Jingwen Li, research analyst
with IDC, says “the size of this market has
changed little over the past 2.5 years. This
is partly due to competition from public
cloud offerings and partly due to a fundamental shift of media consumption preferences.” Li adds, however, that the personal
and entry-level NAS (network-attached
storage) market “would benefit greatly
from an increased level of marketing programs focused on building awareness.”

❯ The majority of Americans say it’s very important that they’re “able to maintain
privacy and confidentiality in commonplace activities in their lives,” according to a
survey conducted earlier this year by Pew Research Center. More than 90% of respondents in two categories say that they care a great deal about who is in control of their
data and what information an entity collects. The following results are in responses to
questions about privacy in both daily online and offline interactions (not comprehensive, but highlights from the survey).

Digital Signage To Lead The Way
In IoT Growth

Envisioning A Landscape Of
Wi-Fi Roaming

1&1 Internet Launches
Next-Gen Cloud Servers

❯ The global IoT (Internet of Things)
market is growing by all measures. IDC,
for one, anticipates the market to grow
19% this year, particularly in such areas
as health care monitoring, smart appliances, and connected vehicles. It’s the
growth of digital signage, however, that
IDC forecasts will lead the way, growing
from a $6 billion market in 2013 to $27.5
billion within five years. In the U.S., the
research firm points to connected vehicles as the strongest market, expecting
34.8% growth in that market this year
compared with 2014.

❯ What if you could talk into your phone
or browse the Web on a laptop with no
interruption of service as one Wi-Fi network hands over your connection to the
next, and cellular networks pick up the
slack in between? That’s a possibility as
some of the world’s wireless carriers plan
to deploy their own public-access Wi-Fi
networks (known as Hotspot 2.0), according to Infonetics. The research firm
surveyed global carriers and found that,
if plans hold true, 26% of their access
points will support this kind of seamless
roaming within a year.

❯ U.S. businesses, particularly small and
midsize companies, can now take advantage of 1&1 Internet’s newest Cloud Server.
Designed for quick and easy setup—1&1
says its customers can deploy a cloud
server within 55 seconds after configuration—the 1&1 Cloud Server solution uses
SSD (solid-state drive) and SAN (storage
area network) storage for fast, steady performance. A dashboard allows for managing servers, storage systems, firewalls,
load balancers, backup, and more. Other
benefits, says 1&1, include 1-click configuration adjustments and affordable pricing.

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

Very
Important

Somewhat
Important

Not Very
Important

Being in control of who can get info about you

74%

19%

3%

Being able to share confidential matters
with someone you trust

72%

21%

2%

Not having someone watch you or listen
to you without your permission

67%

20%

8%

Controlling what information is collected about you

65%

25%

5%

Having individuals in social/work situations
not ask you things that are highly personal

44%

36%

13%

Not being monitored at work

28%

28%

22%

STARTUPS

8

Security Startup Cautions
About E-commerce Malware

TrapX Security Helps Companies Thwart
Attacks By Trapping Incoming Malware

❯ E-commerce companies might be
losing 15% to 30% of their traffic to a
new type of attack called CSIM (clientside injected malware), according to
Namogoo, a startup based in Israel
with offices in New York and London.
Consumers can unknowingly install
CSIM when downloading bundled apps
or browser extensions. The malware
then resides on the consumer’s computer, serving fake ads that look like
they’re part of an e-commerce site but
in fact lead customers away from the
legitimate site to potentially purchase
products elsewhere. “CMOs, CTOs, and
heads of e-commerce need to understand that just because they don’t see
it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” says
Chemi Katz, CEO of Namogoo.

❯ The enterprise security market
seems to grow more crowded by the
minute, with new companies offering
new angles on defeating digital threats,
and corporate customers hungry for
peace of mind following numerous
high-profile data breaches, DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, and
malware infiltrations. TrapX Security,
a startup based in San Mateo, Calif.,
offers a product called DeceptionGrid, which combats APTs (advanced persistent threats), or continual malware attacks, and zero-day events, which are
attacks that are so new that most security products aren’t yet aware of them.
As TrapX explains it, the key to its product’s success is that it places “traps” on
a company’s network that mimic valuable IT assets. Whenever a new attack
enters the system, targeting such assets, the traps recognize the attack—even if
the attack is brand new and slides past other security measures—and produces
an alert. TrapX Security recently announced it had raised $9 million in Series B
investments, which the company plans to use to continue its global expansion.

Colabo Seeks To Connect
CRM With Social Media

Startup Promotes Enterprise Use
Cases For Artificial Intelligence

Canadian Startup Raises $30.5M
For Advocate Marketing

❯ For many (if not most) companies,
social media efforts have developed
alongside existing CRM (customer relationship management) systems. The
problem is that social and CRM could
benefit significantly from integration,
but they rarely communicate with each
other. San Carlos, Calif.,-based startup
Calobo is striving to bridge this gap with
a solution that brings LinkedIn, Meetup,
and other services into the CRM fold
for better prospecting and customer engagement. The company recently raised
$7 million in Series A funding.

❯ What if your organization’s systems
could “learn” how to recognize potential data breaches? Or how to predict
how your customers will react to new
products? Those are some of the many
use cases Neokami is touting to promote
the practical, cost-saving solutions its
AI (artificial intelligence) technology
can deliver. The Munich-based company recently announced $1.1 million
in a seed round of funding. The funds
will undoubtedly further the growth of
Neokami, which is currently expanding
its employee base.

❯ Advocate marketing is an increasingly
popular form of spreading brand awareness that involves companies using customers as product, brand, or company
advocates. Toronto-based Influitive has
successfully capitalized on this trend
with its AdvocateHub software, which
is designed to help B2B companies generate awareness and bring in more referral leads. Its $30.5 million in Series B
funding arrived on the heels of a “37X
increase in recurring revenue” since
raising $7.3 million in December 2012,
according to the company.

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

Proactive Energy Efficiency
CONSIDER GREEN INITIATIVES & TAKE ADVANTAGE OF POTENTIAL INCENTIVES

KEY POINTS
• Companies with or without
data centers can focus on energy efficiency even if they approach it in different ways.
• When buying products, seek
out vendors that offer clear information as to why their solutions meet your standards.
• Take advantage of potential
government and utilities incentives for greater efficiency.
• Large enterprises and SMBs
should both consider green
initiatives and energy efficiency
programs because even though
the scale may be different, they
can both have an impact.

10

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

MOST BUSINESSES, whether they have
sizable data centers or not, are looking
to improve energy efficiency throughout
their facilities and save money in the process. Fortunately for them, the market
in this area is thriving. Some companies
are encouraged or obliged to adhere to
certain green initiatives, while others have
to go somewhat out of their way to incentivize their workforce to carry the energy efficiency torch. Regardless of your
reasoning or motives, however, there are
multiple clear paths to reach your energy
efficiency goals.

Establish A Baseline
& Discover Problem Areas
As with any project, you won’t know
what to change or how to measure results if you don’t know where to start.
This requires a combination of monitoring tools that cover as many bases
as possible, and employees who under-

stand how to use these tools effectively.
The tools that are most relevant to you
depend on your company’s infrastructure, but in any case it’s important to
employ a monitoring tool to measure
efficiency in areas that impact your
company the most.
For example, a company with a
major data center presence should look
for DCIM (data center infrastructure
management) solutions, which help in
managing the facility and the resources
within it, as well as capacity planning
tools to ensure the data center runs as
smoothly as possible. Another type of
tool that fits loosely in this category but
also applies to businesses that simply
want to have a more efficient building is
a BMS (building management system).
These solutions enable you to monitor
everything from power and energy
sources to lighting and other buildingwide systems.

Jack Pouchet, a board member of
The Green Grid, an open-industry consortium focused on driving resource
efficiency in data centers and the IT industry, recommends that companies
“monitor everything.” He says companies need to monitor “all the energy and
water inputs and outputs, the IT stack,
servers, storage, and networking.” But
Pouchet cautions that it’s also important
to keep it simple when it comes to spotting problems and implementing solutions. He recommends that companies
“look for big signals” such as “hot spots,
failed devices, network bottlenecks, etc.”
Once you do that, you can “identify
trends, fix [issues], revise your operational model, monitor upstream, and repeat,” Pouchet says.
Pouchet also points out that companies can go beyond analytics and metrics
by having a “non-data center individual
walk [through] the building once a
week” and point out potential issues.
“Let them ask all the ‘stupid’ questions
like, ‘why are there floor tiles in this area
where there is no equipment?’ Or ‘why
are those racks half empty?’ You want to
bring a fresh set of eyes, ears, and body
temperature to walk the facility and feel
the sensation of the data center in operation. They will spot the obvious that data
center professionals live with every day
and walk right past,” Pouchet says.
Sophia I. Vargas, an analyst at
Forrester Research, agrees that monitoring is the key to establishing a baseline and finding potential issues, but she
adds that companies should seek out
publicly available information around
reporting guidance. “Something like
the Green Growth Best Practice (www.
ggbp.org), a research consortium that
publishes things you could consider or
processes that help you do these types
of initiatives holistically,” Vargas says.
You can also find resources from the
Global Reporting Initiative, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, and
other organizations that will give you an

“Get a handle on asset management, specifically servers,
accurate inventory inclusive of owner, use case, and performance characteristics. We want to know if the asset is still
being used, how often, and its relative performance per watt.
Can servers be shut off? Are they even being used? If so, can
the workload be virtualized and/or migrated to a new, more
powerful and vastly more efficient platform?”
JACK POUCHET
Board Member
The Green Grid

idea of what other businesses are doing
to go green and be more energy efficient
across the board.

Reduce Internal Data Center
Energy Consumption
If you’re looking for an area to make
major efficiency upgrades and your company has a sizable data center facility,
then that’s an excellent place to start.
Within that data center, focus first on
servers and whether or not they are running as efficiently as possible. One way
to do this, according to Richard Fichera,
vice president and principal analyst at
Forrester Research, is to “pay attention
to power usage effectiveness [PUE].”
This is a metric The Green Grid developed to help users determine how much
power their computers and servers use
relative to the amount of energy used by
the entire facility. It helps set a baseline
so companies can work toward lowering
PUE as much as possible.
Fichera also points out that cooling
can be a major energy efficiency problem
in data centers, especially if they start
to bring in more energy efficient equipment but don’t adjust their overall
cooling approach. “As you change these
new servers, in addition to worrying
about overcooling areas that no longer
have any heat being thrown out, you
want to look at tailoring the air temperatures where possible,” he says. “If you
have a corner of the data center that no

longer has heat being thrown out into it,
you may be able to just turn down some
vents, or seal up some perforated floor
tiles to cut down the airflow in those
areas.” Fichera admits this can be difficult if your data center wasn’t originally
designed to handle such changes. This
is why it’s useful to keep flexibility and
modularity in mind if you’re planning a
new build.
In fact, Vargas recommends that all
companies look into modular infrastructure as a way to “build data centers out
in smaller components,” which sometimes means having “walled off components that are container-sized [and]
either indoor or outdoor.” Vargas says
that while “there aren’t that many definitive studies that will show this,” she
feels “that being able to manage and operate a much smaller space around your
rack environment will help you achieve
power and cooling efficiency.” It’s essentially the difference between trying
to cool an entire building vs. focusing on
individual rooms and fine-tuning your
cooling strategy.
In addition to focusing on servers,
power, and cooling, Vargas offers a few
other approaches data centers can take.
For example, companies should consider using virtualization to not only improve overall efficiency, but also aid in
consolidation efforts to make the data
center footprint as small as possible. And
if there is any way to get out of the data

CyberTrend / August 2015

11

center business to some degree and outsource some systems to a colocation provider or cloud provider, that may also
help with efficiency. It’s possible, Vargas,
says, that “taking advantage of someone
else’s more efficiently run, lower PUE facility will help you achieve some savings
or reduce energy costs on that side.”

“There are a lot of [incentives and credits] available and
there are a lot that are locally available that are potentially
harder to know about. It’s just going out and putting this on
the legal folks to understand what’s required and what’s
available. There is stuff out there, but it’s just not wellknown or publicized.”
SOPHIA I. VARGAS

Implement Corporate-Specific
Efficiency Programs
If you don’t have a data center or
prefer to put more business-oriented
efficiency programs in place, there are
numerous opportunities to pursue. For
example, a fleet management solution
can help “manage all of your individual
assets, which includes your personal
computing fleet, printers, and other technology assets throughout the organization,” Vargas says. This helps you better
manage the tech life cycles and keep track
of power management for PCs and other
devices used in the workplace.
Another approach is to implement an
employee engagement program, such as
WeSpire (www.wespire.com), which gives
enterprises a means for providing incentives to employees who take on greener
mindsets. “It’s a way to socialize that
into a broader community,” says Vargas.
“Everyone has their own goals. I can say,
‘hey, I used compost instead of storing everything in waste’ or ‘I made sure to turn
off all of my assets when I left work today
or did that at work.’ It’s the gamification,
community, and socialization aspects of it
that really encourage the community side
to get involved in these things.”
Vargas also recommends that businesses look at their overall energy supply
change, including renewable energy vendors, and work with partners and suppliers to ensure “they’re holding to your
level of standards through SLAs [servicelevel agreements].” Whether you keep
everything onsite, bringing energy in
through utilities, or utilize colocation and
outsource some services, it’s important
to make sure that if energy efficiency and

12

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

Analyst
Forrester Research

green methods are important, you seek
out vendors that support those ideals.

Adopt Smart Technologies
To Slash Energy Costs
Every time you plan to buy a new
product, it’s best to do your research and
focus on vendors that offer information
about the energy efficiency approach they
use when designing and building their
solutions. Vargas says you should be able
to say, “My priority is to make this as efficient as possible,” and the vendor should
be able to explain how their products
“help customers achieve those goals.”
Vargas says there is an internal battle
with many technology vendors as they
try to decide whether they should make
all of their products more efficient and
potentially raise prices a bit across the
board or give customers the opportunity the choose between standard and
more efficient products. But in the future, Vargas thinks that certain sustainability issues will move to the forefront
and make it easier for companies of all
sizes to find energy efficient alternatives
to their existing equipment.
“I think within the next few years
we’re going to see more and more of
these things coming out for industries
and potentially across enterprises on
the whole,” says Vargas. “In terms of
new products, categories, and feature
prioritization, we’re going to see energy efficiency and just general carbon
and sustainability issues get pushed up

closer to the top as folks are pressured
on their footprints and reporting on
those footprints.”

Take Advantage Of Government
Incentives
If you’re looking for a reason to go
green and make your entire business
more energy efficient, or if you need
to convince others within your organization to support such projects, try
pointing out that the government and
some utilities offer tax breaks or pay
incentives to companies that go green.
Vargas says if companies take up initiatives they find on Energy.gov or if they
follow ASHRAE and LEED guidelines
when building and running their facilities, “there are definite correlations to
these types of government incentives
that go along with these certifications.”
Vargas adds that, unfortunately, these
types of incentives aren’t taken advantage of nearly enough because a lot of
companies are purely focused on energy
efficiency from a cost-saving perspective
rather than one that focuses on overall
sustainability. “If it’s the same price to
have a more efficient version of it, they’ll
obviously go with that, because they
get savings, and if they’re using energy
more efficiently it’ll reduce their power
bill,” says Vargas. “But there isn’t a lot
of incentive to spend a little bit more on
something because it’s more energy efficient when your total cost of ownership might look roughly the same vs. a

cheaper alternative where you would save
money on the front end.”
If your company is dedicated to going
green and being more energy efficient,
however, there are plenty of ways to do
that. You may want to “invest in self
generation with solar and wind,” says
Pouchet, or you may want to “invest in
nearby renewable technologies” if you
don’t want to handle that responsibility
yourself. He also jokes that you should
“go to lunch with [SpaceX CEO and
CTO] Elon Musk and pick his brain,”
because “he has benefited from more tax
dollars than almost any other individual
in tech.” But seriously, it doesn’t hurt to
look at larger corporations to eye their
green initiatives.

How SMBs Can Improve Efficiency
The problem with some of these strategies is that they don’t necessarily apply to
small or midsize business in the same way
or, of course, at the same scale. Larger organizations are often pushed to go green
because of “scrutiny from the average
consumer,” Vargas says. Some major tech
brands often “go above and beyond to invest in initiatives to improve their overall
sustainability” because, “for them, they’re
committing from both an R&D standpoint but also as a branding mechanism
for their organization.” Smaller businesses
often don’t have that level of scrutiny
and so may not truly feel the incentive to
make such initiatives priorities.
Still, there are many ways SMBs can
improve efficiency across the board, regardless of how small or large an impact
those changes make. For example, SMBs
can focus on “better change management,
better processes, and more automation,”
Vargas says. And they can also think
about using third-party sources, such as
for cloud computing, to offload certain
assets and lower their onsite technology
footprint as much as possible. This is especially a fit for newer small business or
startups that can essentially build from
the ground up with the cloud in mind.

“You want to operate [servers] fully utilized. For most servers, that means you can’t push utilization past 60% to be
safe, but most non-virtualized servers are operating at a
pitifully low average. . . . 5% to 15% and sometimes even
lower. No. 1 is to virtualize your workloads and pack your
[virtual machines] as efficiently as possible on the servers.”
RICHARD FICHERA
Vice President & Principal Analyst
Forrester Research

Vargas also points out that major
vendors, such as those that offer DCIM
and BMS solutions, are finding ways to
“break down these large platforms into
more manageable sizes.” That means
that instead of having to buy a fully featured DCIM, BMS, or asset management suite, you can pick and choose
which tools fit your business and get the
monitoring and management solutions
you actually need. “They’re essentially
breaking it down into smaller components to make it a little more financially
feasible for smaller organizations,”
Vargas says.

Vargas warns that making major progress in energy efficiency among SMBs
remains somewhat of an uphill battle,
especially since “they don’t have as
many dedicated folks that are going out
and evaluating these types of tools, and
they’re more strained from a resource
and employee perspective.” This causes
problems when it comes to education
and exposure because these bigger initiatives often target larger organizations.
Still, if you seek out these programs and
incentives on your own, there are ways to
make a difference regardless of the size of
your business.

DEMAND RESPONSE PROGRAMS
In addition to government incentive and energy efficiency programs, Sophia I. Vargas, analyst at
Forrester Research, recommends
that companies, particularly enterprises, look into demand response
programs. These programs allow
you to “participate with utilities so
when the grid is essentially at peak
or stressed. If you bring down your
energy consumption a bit, they will
credit you back for helping relieve
the stress on the grid.”
These programs require some
help from the IT management side
because they need to figure out

how to run high-volume workloads away from peak grid hours
in order to participate effectively.
Fortunately there are platforms
available such as EnerNOC, “which
is an energy management platform
that integrates with the utility and
real-time activity on the grid and
will help you participate in something like this,” Vargas says. “It’s
probably only of interest to those
that have very large and substantial footprints that will actually
make a difference to the grid by
turning something down by [a certain percentage].”

CyberTrend / August 2015

13

Interactive, Mobility & Analytics
ACCENTURE HELPS COMPANIES EMBRACE DIGITAL ACROSS THE BOARD

KEY POINTS
• Accenture Digital focuses
on both customer and enterprise, and offers ways to help
companies better interact with
customers across multiple communication channels.
• Accenture Digital’s Interactive
pillar focuses on customer engagement, social networking,
and digital marketing.
• Accenture Mobility Services
help customer develop new mobile experiences for customers.
• Advanced Analytics provides insight into customers,
financing, risk, HR and talent, IT
operations, and much more.

14

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

ACCENTURE REFERS TO itself as a “professional services company,” which is
an important distinction because many
people know Accenture as a consulting
firm, even though its range extends far
beyond its management consulting services. In fact, Accenture’s services can
be broken down into five different categories: Accenture Strategy, Accenture
Consulting, Accenture Technology,
Accenture Operations, and Accenture
Digital. Each of these focus areas offers
a unique perspective on how to best run
a business and what strategies to put in
place to achieve company goals.
Accenture Strategy, specifically, is all
about looking toward the future and determining precisely how employees, technologies, operations, and other aspects of
doing business can work better together
to reach established goals. Accenture
Consulting is a dominant pillar and focuses on five major coverage areas:

Products and Resources, Health and
Public Service, Financial Services, Media
and Technology, and Communications.
All of these services are designed to not
only help businesses succeed, but to also
form a strong bond between Accenture
and its clients. It’s through these consulting services that Accenture takes advantage of its many years of experience
to build strategic partnerships and ensure all parties are working to achieve the
same goals.
Organizations looking to not only
improve the development of new applications but also to better leverage
Accenture software turn to Accenture
Technology. Solutions in this category
also help organizations better deliver
technology across the board, making
sure all necessary capabilities are easily
accessible across the business.
The Accenture Operations category
of services goes hand-in-hand with

Accenture Technology but focuses more
on improving efficiency and productivity
in the operations area. This category includes infrastructure consulting; process
and infrastructure outsourcing; and the
company’s cloud services, including the
Accenture Cloud Platform.
This article focuses primarily on
Accenture Digital, which brings together digital marketing, analytics, and
mobility to help businesses take full advantage of the Internet, where there
are now more communication channels than ever before. Before diving into
Accenture Digital, however, it helps to
understand Accenture’s origins and
how the company continues to leverage
its past experiences to help its customers today and in the future.

An Interesting Backstory
When an enterprise reaches out to a
consulting firm for guidance, the first
thing it looks for is expertise in a given
subject matter. This usually means that
the consultants or analysts on staff previously worked in marketing, for example, or around servers and storage
solutions, depending on the area in
which the enterprise is trying to improve. It’s rare for a consultancy firm
to not only have experts on staff, but
to also have organization roots buried
deep in the IT industry. That’s what
makes Accenture unique in this space;
to be sure, the company retains on-staff
experts and has made concerted efforts
to add more experience through rigorous hiring programs, but the company that is now Accenture got its start
in 1951, so Accenture also brings to the
table decades of cumulative experience.
Originally called Administrative
Services, the company made a big
splash in the tech world in 1951 when
it unveiled the “Glickiac” computer
from Joseph Glickauf. In 1954, the company would install its first computer
system at GE Appliance Park. From
1955 to 1962, the company branched

out internationally, opening its
first offices outside the U.S. in
Mexico City, London, Oslo, Paris,
Millan, Brussels, and Tokyo. Also
during this time, Administrative
Services helped build the technological foundation behind Bank of
America’s BankAmericard, which
would go on to become VISA.
In the mid-1960s the company made its first foray into
Accenture’s Silicon Valley Technology Labs are home
consulting while simultaneously to research focused on improving both customer and
making further strides in the tech workforce engagement.
business. In 1965 the company
held its first consulting courses
for employees, and in 1967 developed
Strategy was built with a Strategic
the Base V operating system, which was Services pilot program launched in San
used in System/360 IBM computers.
Francisco, Chicago, and New York. The
And in 1969 the company worked with
name of this practice was changed in
Zenith to develop an online data access
1988 to Andersen Consulting, and in
system that was essentially the start of
1989 partners voted to make Andersen
what we know today as an ERP (en- Consulting a distinct business unit.
terprise resource planning) solution.
Since then, the company has conThis is particularly important because tinued to expand, offering BPM (busiERP remains one of the many things
ness process management) services
Accenture offers its clients today.
and opening technology labs among
Showing its inclination toward connumerous other prominent changes,
sulting, the company released a data
and acquiring the Accenture name in
dictionary called Lexicon in 1972,
2001. The period from 1995 to 2014 saw
which could be used by businesses growth at an exponential pace, as the
to better understand their computer company went from 33,000 employees
systems. And in 1976, Administrative and $3.2 billion in revenue to 305,000
Services also established its Technical employees and $30 billion in revenue.
Services Organization department to
Through various global expansions and
help focus on improved understanding
acquisitions, Accenture built a strong
of technology. All of this work on better
portfolio of products and solutions that
educating employes culminated in the are all based on “the Accenture Way,” a
1979 release of METHOD/1, an inforcompany-wide philosophy that ensures
mation planning technique designed to
a focus on working with clients to help
help companies more efficiently design,
them succeed today and well into the
install, and support the technology they future. A big part of this philosophy,
used within the business.
and one that helps companies wade
Acknowledging its shift from tech through today’s largely digital waters, is
vendor to more of a consulting firm, Accenture Digital.
Administrative Services changed its
Accenture Digital
name to Management Information
Accenture tends to think about
Consulting Division in 1980, and
digital from an enterprise perspective,
throughout the 1980s the company unbut also from the point of view of the
derwent additional significant changes.
customer. This two-pronged approach
In 1986, the foundation for Accenture

CyberTrend / August 2015

15

ensures that every digital project and
program is designed from the ground
up to serve every person involved in
a given interaction or transaction. On
the customer side, it’s about providing
an easy-to-use, interactive experience,
whether Accenture’s clients are trying
to connect with customers, students,
or even patients. Regardless of an enterprise’s target market, Accenture has
a solution or strategy to help best serve
everyone involved.
On the enterprise side, Accenture
helps companies relearn how to collaborate internally, but also how to best reach
out to customers through digital marketing initiatives, social outreach programs, and other strategies. The ultimate

successful when trying to reach your
customer base and what channels you
should use to reach them.
For example, social media is a major
platform that companies need to focus
on because many existing and potential
customers use Facebook, Twitter, and
other networks to not only keep up with
friends, but also as ways to follow brands
and learn about new products. A perfect
example of how Accenture helps its clients better understand marketing from a
social media perspective is to look at the
company’s reports, such as “Unlocking
Value From Social Data,” in which
Accenture outlines how to use data collected from social media and transform
it into actionable insights.

WHEN YOU DEPLOY SOFTWARE OF SOME
KIND, IT SHOULD JUST WORK. ACCENTURE
HELPS ORGANIZATIONS ACCOMPLISH THAT.
goal of Accenture Digital is to bridge the
gap between businesses and customers,
establish clear lines of communication
that don’t get lost in the fray, and generally improve those customer interactions, however large or small, to make the
experience as positive as possible. And
it all starts with Accenture’s Interactive
and Digital Marketing services, which are
specifically designed to improve the core
business-customer relationship and give
enterprises more ways to get their message out into the world.

Interactive & Digital
Marketing Services
In order to make sure all of your
interactive programs and digital marketing initiatives are properly received,
you have to develop an across-theboard strategy that covers your business’s overall digital strategy as well as
its strategy for customer interactions
and marketing. It’s also in this digital
marketing arena that you determine
the types of programs that will be most

16

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

The report explains how companies
can use collected social data to develop
stronger digital marketing campaigns.
Based on findings from social data, businesses can, for instance, build customized websites and applications; offer
personalized product recommendations;
and post sales, special offers, or coupons
for specific products. Accenture uses an
example of a grocery store that can use
social data to help specific customers
better understand dietary needs and how
to fit related products into their budgets.
In this example, the grocery store can
also offer personalized recipes, recommend certain types of food, and provide
other services. The possibilities are seemingly endless, and the larger idea could
be applied to businesses of all sizes in
any industry.
Other services within the Interactive
portfolio of Accenture Digital Services
include those for digital content, digital
commerce, customer experience, and
sales. Acceture makes every digital solution and service easy to understand and

track. Also included in this category are
“Annual Trends” reports from the design and innovation unit called Fjord.
This reports give companies insights
into the trends Accenture expects will be
most transformative in a given year.
For example, one trend Accenture expects will grow further in 2015 is “digital
dieting,” whereby customers who feel
“overwhelmed and stressed by continuously being online” are driven to seek
out more tangible interactions, or experiences that are natively offline but still
offer an option for connectivity. One
way to account for trends such as this is
to refocus on mobile initiatives, which
can be tailored to offer both offline
and online experiences depending on
what the customer requires at that time.
Fortunately, Accenture offers quite a few
Mobility Services that can help companies better understand these trends and
use mobile channels to reach out to customers in new and unique ways.

Mobility Services
Accenture’s Mobility Services are
crucial for enterprises because mobile
devices are more prevalent than ever,
and the trend toward increased mobility
isn’t likely to wane. In fact, having a fully
featured mobile company website that
works well on touchscreen devices, if
not a dedicated mobile app, is expected
to become a baseline requirement for
customers. For that reason, companies
need to make sure they are crafting truly
worthwhile mobile experiences that grab
the attention of potential customers and
keep existing customers engaged.
Accenture breaks down its mobile service offerings into industry-specific categories—among them financial services,
health and public services, and communications and media—to help companies
better serve their customers via mobile
technology. Accenture offers mobile
strategy and consulting services as well as
specific advice for developing and implementing mobile business solutions, which

includes advice for app development, app
testing, and providing ongoing support.
With an understanding that connected
devices and embedded software are
widely used in the digital business world,
Accenture offers engineering, testing, and
maintenance consulting services designed
to help clients customize applications and
other mobile solutions for specific devices and platforms. These offerings are
based on the premise that when you deploy software of some kind, it should just
work, because that’s what the customer
expects. And for businesses that need
help managing their mobile strategies,
Accenture also offers Mobility Managed
Services, which takes some of the burden
off of internal IT staff and places relevant
systems in the hands of professionals dedicated to mobile.
In its “Growing the Digital Business:
Accenture Mobility Research 2015” report, Accenture outlines what companies can expect to gain from putting
digital initiatives in place in general
as well as focusing on mobile as a
major communication and interaction
channel. Accenture points out that the
most successful digital-focused companies don’t simply focus on one platform or one delivery method for their
messaging; it’s in “combining multiple
digital technologies” that companies get
the most benefit.
According to Accenture, companies
that combine multiple digital technologies are 48% more likely to create revenue opportunities, 46% more likely
to increase product or service development speed, 46% more likely to increase
customer engagement, 45% more likely
to enable rapid responses to customer
demand, and 45% more likely to enable
penetration of new markets. However,
basic marketing programs or mobility
alone won’t get the job done. Accenture
says organizations also must include
analytics to gather data and gain actionable insights. Accenture offers services
in this area, as well.

Advanced Analytics Services
While some platforms only focus on
analytics from a specific point of view,
Accenture’s analytics services portfolio covers multiple facets at once,
from marketing and consumer analytics to talent and HR analytics. Using
this approach, customers can develop
a company-wide analytics project that
incorporates data and insights into the
decision-making processes in all areas of
the business. This enables companies to
embed analytics into everything they do,
making it a natural extension of most
business processes.
In addition to its customer-focused
analytics solutions, Accenture offers analytics services in areas such as fraud and
risk, operations, and finance and enterprise performance. With its fraud and risk
analytics services, Accenture aims to help
companies create an environment of risk
awareness and avoidance. The goal is to
make it possible for companies to focus
more time on innovation and growth and
less time on worrying about risk.

In the area of operations, Accenture’s
analytics services help identify ways to
make processes more efficient and deliver products and services more quickly.
In finance and enterprise performance,
Accenture’s analytics solutions help
companies meet internal growth projections and fulfill stakeholder expectations.
Taken as a whole, these services help
companies formulate business plans that
ensure every program is aligned across
the organization, moving the company
forward and promoting future success.

The Big Picture
Accenture’s services not only work
well on their own, but in concert with
each other, potentially filling all gaps
within a company. Accenture’s goal is
(and has always been) building partnerships with clients to ensure mutual success. As a global organization that covers
virtually every industry and geographic
region, Accenture’s decades of experience and on-staff expertise could benefit
most companies.

INCREASING THE VALUE FOR TELEFÓNICA’S CUSTOMERS
Telefónica is a communications company
focused primarily on
the Latin American
market. The company
came to Accenture with
the ultimate goal of
improving the customer
experience, bringing
down engagement barriers, and doing so while
meeting budget and
time constraints, dealing
with complex legacy
systems, and fully embracing the digital world.
In 2011, Telefónica
went on to implement
Accenture’s Digital

Diagnostics, Digital
Optimization platform,
Web Evaluator, and
Accenture Technology
Labs Social Network
Analytics Platform. The
key with this project
was that the two groups
worked together as a
team to make Accenture
Interactive more serviceoriented. This made it
easier to implement and
manage.
With the help of
Accenture, Telefónica
was able to meet every
single one of its technical and customer

experience objectives.
And in addition to those
goals, it was also able to
increase sales optimization by 70%, increase
organic Web traffic
by 37%, and improve
overall sales conversion
rates by 66% across all
of its market regions. In
the end, Telefónica was
able to meet all of its
preset expectations and
actually chose to extend
the partnership in 2012
and expand the program
to 10 other countries
outside of its initial pilot
program.

CyberTrend / August 2015

17

Promoting Events With Social Media
WHY SOCIAL MEDIA IS KEY TO HOSTING A SUCCESSFUL EVENT

HOW DO YOU MEASURE the success of a
company event? Is it in the number of
attendees, participating partners, and
exhibitors? The amount of buzz leading
up to the event? Receiving high marks
on post-event satisfaction surveys?
People wanting to come back for more?
It takes more than the event itself to deliver all of these outcomes.
It’s easy (especially for those not directly involved in event planning) to
view an event as a self-contained promotional vehicle: put the word out, welcome everyone to the event, and there
you have it. But there’s more to it than
that. In the same sense that you retain
a recruiter to hire the best employees
for your company, marketing experts
and ad agencies to generate positive
exposure, and support specialists to
make sure customers remain happy, it’s
vital that your event engage as many of
the right people as possible and create

18

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

positive buzz before, during, and after
any event. Otherwise, why hold the
event at all?
Social media continues to emerge
as an important means of achieving
these and other event goals, just as social avenues are showing their worthiness in many other key areas of B2C
(business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business) engagement. With
“everybody doing it” (Facebook counts
1.44 billion monthly active users,
LinkedIn 364 million registered members, and Twitter 302 million monthly
active users), social is not just hard
to avoid, it’s something that has to be
done right lest you appear socially inept
or behind the times.

Why Use Social For Events?
This spring, Maximillion Events,
an events management firm based in
Edinburgh and serving mainly the U.K.

but also the rest of Europe, surveyed
more than 1,500 event organizers from
Europe (93%) and the Americas (7%) to
find out how they use social media and
what kinds of results they get. Among
the findings: 58% reported using social media to increase awareness of an
event, and 44% said using social media
helped them meet their event awareness
goals. More broadly, 75% of those surveyed said they consider social media
“very important” for marketing, with
just 10% saying it isn’t important and
15% remaining neutral. And in the specific area of promoting future events
via social media, 82% said they plan to
increase their social activity level while
a mere 2% said they plan to do less.
But here is the best thing about social
media: unlike installed software and most
cloud services, it doesn’t cost anything to
use. “It’s a free resource, so there’s no excuse not to use it,” says Deborah Spencer,

director of events and marketing for
The Castle Group, a PR, digital/social
media, and events agency that counts
CDW, HP, Pega, and Symantec among
its many clients. “It’s a great way to make
things interactive,” Spencer adds, “to give
the audience a voice.” What’s more, social media is also integrated into many
people’s lives. Spencer points out that
many use Twitter or Facebook as a news
source, so “making sure you are promoting your event and having the right
people share it as well is valuable.”
There is little to lose in this endeavor.
The only true pitfalls are not using social
media for event promotion at all, and not
using it to its full potential. Companies
that don’t use social media, Spencer cautions, “miss out on a younger audience
and potentially miss the opportunity to
create a ‘community’ around an event,”
showing others who else is attending, and
sharing ideas. Using event apps can help
in this regard, she says, as they “can pull
feeds from various social media sources,
giving you a controlled environment for
these interactions.”

So Who Should Handle Social
Media For Event Promotion?
Companies have many options when
it comes to using and managing social
media, but they boil down to three basic
categories: do it in-house, outsource it,
or use a combination of the two. When
deciding who should take charge of social
media for events, Spencer says companies
should determine whether they possess
the necessary time, resources, and experience to do it right.
Spencer suggests that if you’re handling social media in-house, the marketing or communications department
should create the copy, and adds that it’s
important to involve all pertinent areas of
the company to ensure the copy meets everyone’s approval before going live. And
whether it’s others within the company
or a third-party service provider, “it always helps to have a second set of eyes on

“It always helps to have a second set of eyes on what
you’re sharing publicly. What you share on social media is
a reflection of the organization as a whole. The two cannot
be separated.”
DEBORAH SPENCER
Director of Events & Marketing
The Castle Group

what you’re sharing publicly,” she says.
“What you share on social media is a reflection of the organization as a whole.
The two cannot be separated.” Spencer
says there are tools available to make this
and related tasks easier to accomplish.
“Platforms like Hootsuite make it easier
to have one person set up the content you
want to share at the beginning of the day
and then adjust it if need be,” she says.

How Third-Party Expertise
Can Help
When considering social media strategies relative to an upcoming event, it’s important for the company to make sure the
personnel who regularly manage social
media or event planning have the time
and experience required to tap into all of
the social opportunities before, during,
and after the event. If there’s any question that this is the case, it’s worthwhile to
consider hiring a third-party service provider to help, lead, or completely manage
the social media aspects of the event.
“It is most likely more efficient and
cost-effective to have an external agency
driving the entire logistical and communications process,” says Spencer. “Just
putting together the programmatic elements of your meeting or event—
speakers, forums, breakout sessions,
etc.—is very time consuming. Using an
external agency gives you more time to
focus on the actual program.”
In terms of managing the event-specific social feed, companies can also benefit from outside assistance. “It can be
helpful to assign an internal member to
respond to eventgoers and filter the feed,”

Spencer says, “but a third-party can help
decide who to target, what content so
share, and when to share it in order to
be most effective in getting a response or
interaction from your attendees.” There
is a multitude of things to consider, she
says, such as maintaining Twitter walls
and feeds, using Facebook to obtain a
general sense of interest in and interaction with the event, posting event images
to Instagram while the event is underway,
and employing event-specific hashtags.
This, and directing events in general, is The Castle Group’s specialty.
“Depending on the client’s needs and the
event,” Spencer says, “Castle will write
the event promotion content and then
repurpose it for a variety of communications vehicles, including the Web, email,
tweets, Facebook posts, e-newsletter
content, LinkedIn, etc. The event promotion strategy is always added into our
communications timeline so everyone
is on the same page and opportunities
don’t get missed.”

Social Media After The Event
Just as important as promoting interest
leading up to an event and facilitating
shares, likes, and interactivity during the
event, social enables companies to extend
conversations beyond the event. For example, companies can obtain feedback
through surveys and share the results on
social media, Spencer says. And there’s
also the next event to look forward to.
“People will look for the event on social
media the next year,” she says, “and know
where they can find updates and information on their social platforms.”

CyberTrend / August 2015

19

Hybrid Cloud Computing
DISCOVER THE TRUE BENEFITS OF A HYBRID APPROACH

KEY POINTS
• The goal of hybrid computing is
to give businesses more agility and
scalability in terms of performance
and access to resources.
• Hybrid cloud environments let
you keep your sensitive data and
workloads onsite while moving
other workloads to the public cloud
for less expensive storage and
equal or better performance.
• IT needs to establish a centralized process for managing and
monitoring the hybrid environment.
• Cost savings are possible, but
you need to consider the other
major benefits of the hybrid cloud
first when making a decision.

20

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

JUST AS COMPANIES ARE starting to get a
better understanding of public and private
cloud environments, the concept of hybrid
cloud computing is growing in popularity
and changing the way companies view the
cloud in general. The hybrid cloud aims
to blur the line between public and private
as well as on-premises or off-premises, but
it can be difficult to determine what that
actually means and how adopting hybrid
cloud computing will impact your business. It helps to revisit the technology at its
core, try to understand it at a foundational
level, and then discover the many potential
use cases and benefits of implementing a
hybrid cloud computing strategy.

Hybrid Means Different Things
To Different People
Given how popular cloud computing is today and how many companies
are using the hybrid variation of technology, one would think there would be

a well-established definition that clears
up any potential confusion around how
hybrid can benefit businesses. But the
fact of the matter is that as more vendors
and providers enter the market, the definition of hybrid cloud computing only
gets . . . cloudier.
Amy DeCarlo, principal analyst at
Current Analysis, for example, says that
her company follows the NIST (National
Institute of Standards and Technology)
definition of hybrid cloud, which is “a
composition of two or more distinct
cloud infrastructures that remain unique
entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that
enables data and application portability.”
In other words, if there are two separate
cloud environments that allow you to
migrate data from one to the other or
access resources using certain tools and
solutions, then it’s probably a hybrid
cloud arrangement.

Ed Anderson, research vice president
at Gartner, agrees with DeCarlo on this
definition. He adds that the explanation
of hybrid being “an on-premises private
cloud combined with an off-premises
public cloud” is actually a “limited definition” and “is only a subset of a broader,
cross-vendor hybrid cloud definition that
is more aligned with the way most organizations are constructing hybrid clouds.” In
addition to being separate clouds that can
work together, Anderson considers a situation where “you take two or more cloud
service offerings and combine them . . . to
function as if they were a single cloud service” as hybrid cloud computing, as well.
These definitions of hybrid cloud, in
which at least two separate cloud environments must be involved, are not the
only ones. In fact, Dave Bartoletti, principal analyst at Forrester Research, says
that Forrester’s definition of hybrid cloud
is “very direct” and involves a situation
where a public cloud service is connected
to any other type of system or service. This
definition opens itself up to quite a few
other potential hybrid scenarios that aren’t
covered in the “two or more cloud environments” alternative.
“To us, it means any public cloud service connected to anything else,” says
Bartoletti. “That could be another public
cloud service. [Or] a private cloud service. Or it could be connected back to a
data center application or database that
is not in a cloud at all. We take that approach because what we mean by ‘hybrid
cloud’ is not descriptive enough. What’s
important for people to talk about is:
What is the hybrid application use case
you’re trying to solve? Hybrid could be
private and public, it could mean multiple public clouds, and it could also
mean a public cloud resource connected
to something in your own data center.”
Bartoletti explains further that there are
different definitions for the hybrid cloud
because they come from “a consumer
standpoint, a vendor standpoint, and a
service provider standpoint.” For example,

“Most of these implementations are too new to really
derive good numbers yet, but, anecdotally, I think, today
the movement to the cloud is as much about agility as
cost. Businesses expect to save on capital expenses and
maintenance in managed cloud environments, but they
also may incur some steep design and migration costs.
There are also concerns about commoditized IaaS
[infrastructure as a service] pricing. . . .”
AMY DECARLO
Principal Analyst
Current Analysis

when app and software developers look
at the hybrid cloud, they see it as an opportunity to gain access to resources they
wouldn’t normally have in a data centeronly environment. Bartoletti says a developer “might not be able to put certain data
in public cloud,” but in a hybrid arrangement, he could at least put some resources
in the cloud and still get that level of elasticity without jeopardizing the other, more
sensitive aspects of the project.
When vendors, particularly those who
offer software or cloud management platforms, look at the cloud, they see the hybrid cloud as a way to “manage resources
across multiple locations from one location,” Bartoletti says. For instance, you
could be gathering monitoring data from
one environment and performance data
from another, but then you have one central platform or console to see all of that
information. “Their view of ‘hybrid’ would
be to bring it together into a single location, but the service could live in a bunch
of different clouds.”
And finally, when a cloud provider
looks at the hybrid cloud, it often sees it as
a way to “offer multiple flavors of cloud.”
Instead of simply offering a pure public
cloud, a hosted private cloud, or managed
private cloud services, they can also bring
in the ability to combine multiple clouds.
Regardless of which definition you follow,
the key to the technology is the same. It’s
a way to combine multiple environments;

increase flexibility, scalability, and elasticity; and gain access to resources as you
need them.

Unique Problem-Solving
Benefits Of Hybrid
When it comes to the benefits of implementing a hybrid cloud strategy, first
and foremost is the ability to run related
workloads in two separate operating environments without there being a major
performance disadvantage. It also allows
companies to take advantage of the public
cloud without jeopardizing mission-critical data. “Hybrid cloud computing allows
some sensitive application workloads to
run in a more secure and protected environment while making it possible for
the business to run other applications in
lower-cost cloud multi-tenant cloud infrastructures,” says DeCarlo.
Another unique benefit of the hybrid cloud is that because companies can
put different data and apps in different
locations, they can actually “pair application and workloads scenarios with the
cloud environment that best address their
needs,” Anderson says. This gives companies a best-of-breed approach that ensures
the highest possible level of performance,
regardless of where the workload is hosted.
Anderson does warn, however, that hybrid models can introduce complexity, but
that “when good hybrid cloud tools are
used and when organizations plan for and

CyberTrend / August 2015

21

“Hybrid clouds can be implemented by either IT organizations or by providers. . . . Whether an organization decides
to implement a hybrid cloud environment, or use a third
party to do it for them, is really a function of what role they
want to play and what responsibilities they want to retain.”
ED ANDERSON
Research Vice President
Gartner

implement a hybrid cloud framework, this
complexity can be addressed.”
Bartoletti agrees that perhaps the best
benefit of using the hybrid cloud is that
ability to match workloads with different
environments, but he offers a specific
example of how this might work. “Let’s
say I’m building a mobile application
and I want the elasticity and the scalability of the cloud,” he says. “[The cloud
is] a great place to host a mobile application back end, but the mobile application
might require data from a customer database that I have inside my data center.
I could extract that data, directly connect the mobile service to that database
with an API [application programming
interface] to get to the data, or I might
extract some of that data and put it in
another cloud where I’m doing big data
processing.” In other words, with a hybrid approach, the application you build
could be developed and hosted in the
cloud but still have access to all of the information it needs from your on-premises data center infrastructure.
Bartoletti says that the hybrid cloud “lets
development and application teams get
to market faster with new features,” but it
also means “they have to think very differently about how they architect and design
applications.” You can’t take a traditional
application designed for physical infrastructure and simply migrate parts of it
over the cloud. You have to redesign that
application from the ground up so it can
be naturally split into different components that can be hosted in different types
of environments.

22

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

“In a typical three-tier application, you
have the data tier, the application server
tier, and the Web front-end tier,” says
Bartoletti. “You want to make sure you
have strong decoupling between those
components so that you now can easily
move the Web tier out to a public cloud
for elasticity, but keep everything else inside. If you have very strong coupling between those components and don’t have
well-defined API interfaces between them,
then it’s going to be hard to decouple those
apps. The hybrid cloud really lets you build
modern style applications because you
now have the freedom to chop them up
into bits and run each piece on exactly the
right cloud that gives you the right security,
performance, and other profiles.”

How Hybrid Impacts Your IT Team
In addition to impacting your application development teams, the hybrid cloud
will also impact your IT team as a whole.
Anderson stresses that “the role of any IT
department is to deliver the technology
solutions needed to support business operations.” And in the same way developers
can put different components of their
apps into different cloud environments,
“adopting a hybrid cloud approach gives
IT departments the flexibility to seek out
and incorporate the right cloud technologies for any given scenario,” he says.
With this added flexibility and access to
resources comes a potential role change for
the IT team as they work to “manage the
uneven handshake,” Bartoletti says. As you
move different workloads or, at a more
granular level, different components of

applications, your IT team needs to communicate with the cloud service provider
or cloud software vendor to determine the
lines of responsibility. This fundamentally
changes the way IT has to look at its company-wide infrastructure. “The challenge
for hybrid cloud from IT’s standpoint is
to start building a consolidated view of IT
operations that spans public, private, and
hybrid infrastructures,” Bartoletti says.
To help with these monitoring and
management challenges, Bartoletti recommends that a company develop a “monitoring framework” and then have all of
its cloud vendors contribute to that. This
means taking an independent view of operations, instead of focusing on one cloud’s
monitoring and management offerings.
You have to develop a game plan and then
find cloud providers that will fit with that
plan. “IT teams should take a look at the
current tools they use to manage their data
center infrastructure, and talk to those tool
vendors about whether or not they support
hybrid today,” he says.

Cost-Saving Potential
& Other Benefits
Anderson says that the two main reasons most organizations adopt cloud
computing is for “agility benefits and cost
reduction.” And while you can certainly
see an increase in agility and flexibility
with a move to the hybrid cloud, it’s the
cost savings aspect that is more elusive,
unless you put a strong foundation in
place and use it in the right way. “Most organizations realize that cloud computing
may not result in cost savings, but will
produce other types of benefits, agility
being the primary benefit,” says Anderson.
“Hybrid cloud environments can be part
of the solution for recognizing cost savings
but can also produce the other benefits I
mentioned [previously].”
DeCarlo agrees that, anecdotally, the
movement in the hybrid cloud space today
is “as much about agility as cost,” but says
that “most of these implementations are
too new to really derive good numbers” in

terms of concrete savings. She warns that
“businesses expect to save on capital expenses and maintenance in managed cloud
environments, but they also may incur
some steep design and migration costs.”
There’s also a potential in the future for
the price of commoditized IaaS offerings,
which DeCarlo says is “dirt cheap, today,”
to potentially skyrocket, so you have to be
careful with how you implement hybrid
cloud computing to get the most benefit
out of it, cost-related or otherwise.
Ultimately, how much money you
save with a move to hybrid cloud depends entirely on how you plan to use
the technology as well as how you’ll incorporate it into your overall business approach in the future. Bartoletti says that
some companies see the hybrid cloud
as transition technology where they can
move part of an application to the public
cloud now with the long-term goal of
moving everything to the cloud later on.
These companies have the potential to
benefit more from the migration than
those that only justify cloud usage based
on cost savings.
In the case of the hybrid cloud, companies may not see as much savings as
they would in a public cloud arrangement because it’s still necessary to host
some infrastructure onsite. “If you have
an application that requires 100 virtual
machines to run it and at first you can’t
move the data tier out of your data center,
or decide you don’t want to and you only
move 50 VMs [virtual machines] to the
public cloud, you’re probably going to save
money paying for only what you use in the
public cloud for those 50 as opposed to
moving the whole thing to the public cloud
right away,” Bartoletti says.
Bartoletti stresses that determining
whether to use a hybrid cloud model based
solely on cost savings is too limiting and
too general. It’s true that companies will
likely save money by moving certain workloads to the cloud “because the cloud platforms are so much more efficient than
data centers are,” but this is only one part

“. . . if you’re justifying a move to hybrid cloud, just like
public or private, justify it first on benefits to the business
in terms of shorter release times, faster provisioning of
infrastructure, and the cost savings for operations team
members not setting up and installing servers anymore.
You’re going to get those raw cost savings, but that
shouldn’t be at the top of your business case.”
DAVE BARTOLETTI
Principal Analyst
Forrester Research

of the puzzle. Instead of focusing on cost
alone, you have to look at the benefits you
are receiving from the cloud from a performance, agility, and flexibility standpoint.
With a proper hybrid setup, you should be
able to realize performance gains and cost
savings at the same time, but you might
also have a situation where you only break
even. You have to weigh the potential cost
savings against the benefits.
“It’s important when you’re building
your business case for cloud—whether it’s
public, private, or hybrid—that you try to
attach value to time-to-market, new feature releases, and gaining a competitive
advantage,” Bartoletti says. “Don’t just try
to justify your cloud journey on infrastructure cost savings. Justify it first on benefits
to the business in terms of shorter release
times, faster provisioning of infrastructure,
and the cost savings for operations team
members not setting up and installing
servers anymore. You’re going to get those
raw cost savings, but that shouldn’t be at
the top of your business case.”

Hybrid Cloud Continues
To Evolve & Grow In Popularity
The reason why there are different definitions for hybrid cloud, and why there
are more hybrid cloud vendors and providers than ever before, is because the
technology is becoming more popular in
the business world. Anderson says “organizations are realizing that one single
cloud environment is unlikely to meet all

of their needs,” and with this realization,
those organizations have discovered that
“implementing a combination of cloud
services, configured as a hybrid cloud, is
most likely to meet their needs.” In fact,
Anderson says that according to Gartner
survey data, nearly “75% of organizations
believe they will eventually implement a
hybrid solution.”
In addition to the popularity growth
spurt, the way companies are using the
cloud is changing, as well. “Many organizations began their cloud deployments with
private cloud implementations that might
from time to time require additional resources from an external third-party public
cloud, such as during cyclical or seasonal
periods with an extraordinary number of
transactions,” DeCarlo says. She adds that
many businesses and government entities
are also looking at the hybrid cloud as a
way to “allow different applications running in different clouds to tap into highly
sensitive data [that] might be running in a
private cloud environment.”
As these use cases continue to grow in
popularity and new ones are introduced,
even more providers will enter the market
and offer hybrid solutions for businesses.
The key is to not lose sight of what hybrid cloud computing is supposed to be
about. As long as you are finding ways to
spread out workload, gain access to new
resources, and use the right cloud environments for the right tasks, then you are on
the right track.

CyberTrend / August 2015

23

Improve Mobile Collaboration
GIVE EMPLOYEES THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO BE PRODUCTIVE & WORK AS A TEAM

KEY POINTS
• Employees often seek out
third-party collaboration apps
because voice, email, and text
don’t meet their needs.
• A company may choose to
limit third-party apps because
they introduce risk.
• Put a collaboration advocate
in place to determine employee
needs and choose appropriate
apps and solutions.
• Make sure IT is as transparent as possible with employees to ensure there is
proper communication about
potential risks and how to
avoid those risks.

24

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

COLLABORATION plays a major role in
the success of any organization. If your
employees work together like a well-oiled
machine and lines of communication
are always open, regardless of where coworkers are located, then you’re sure to
reap the benefits in terms of better productivity, more customers, and higher revenues. However, if there are any disconnects
between co-workers that result in projects
not getting finished on time, then it could
cause a domino effect that negatively impacts the business.
The concept of collaboration is pretty
well-established in organizations as far
as desktop-based solutions go, but it’s increasingly important to include mobile
devices, because they are becoming a dominant platform for business users. For that
reason, an enterprise needs to look closely
at the types of mobile collaboration apps
its employees are using and how it can
offer fully supported solutions that increase

productivity and communication without
introducing unnecessary risk.

Email, Text & Voice No
Longer Enough?
For many years, it was enough for employees to have voice, email, and text messaging on their mobile devices as means of
collaborating with co-workers, and those
tools still have a place in today’s business
world. Email, for instance, is a good way
to document conversations and “to keep
a trail of certain lines of communication,” says Mark Bowker, senior analyst
at Enterprise Strategy Group. Texting still
works for those quick and short questionand-answer situations where you just need
to touch base with a co-worker regarding
an issue, Bowker adds.
But the one capability of smartphones
that Bowker still touts is voice, which he
deems “invaluable and irreplaceable.” He
says “some people look at voice and think

“Mobile devices have become as powerful as full PCs,
and PCs are taking lessons from the simplicity of mobile
devices. Because of this convergence, it’s no longer
enough to think of smartphones as simple devices for
which email and text are good enough. There is both a
desire and a capability to collaborate using a full set of
tools that can even exceed what has traditionally been
possible with PCs.”
MICHAEL BATTISTA
Senior Manager
Info-Tech Research Group

it’s just part of what the smartphone does,
but voice is an application.” Instead of it
being an afterthought, employees should
view voice as another tool in their collaboration toolbox and a reliable means
of communication.
Although voice, email, and text remain
crucial tools for business employees, they
may not be sufficient, especially when
you realize “the line between a mobile device and a traditional computer becomes
fuzzier every day,” says Michael Battista,
senior manager at Info-Tech Research
Group. “Mobile devices have become as
powerful as full PCs, and PCs are taking
lessons from the simplicity of mobile devices. Because of this convergence, it’s no
longer enough to think of smartphones
as simple devices for which email and text
are good enough. There is both a desire
and a capability to collaborate using a full
set of tools that can even exceed what has
traditionally been possible with PCs.”

Third-Party Solutions
As some business workers find basic
mobile device capabilities are no longer
suitable for what they are trying to accomplish, they turn to third-party applications
to get the job done. Battista says, “there
is often a third-party app that performs a
specific function much better than a general-purpose enterprise app can,” and it
can actually be “a step backwards to be
stuck with a less capable app at work.”

He uses document editing, which is
primarily a desktop-focused activity, as
an example. If the company-supported
platform doesn’t have mobile editing capabilities, then an employee may turn
to a third-party app or service. In fact,
many of those third-party services offer
“mobile-friendly collaboration features,
such as real-time editing by multiple
users,” Battista says. If these features are
inherently better and easier to use than
a company’s in-house solutions, then
employees will turn to third-party apps
without IT’s consent.
However, this issue could be avoided
by educating employees. “While there
are a lot of off-the-shelf consumer-grade
collaboration applications out there that
people may use in their personal lives,”
Bowker says, “the collaboration tools for
business really have to tie in to business
processes and existing business systems.”
This is especially important to remember
when it comes to integration and compatibility because a third-party app may not
be able to support your internal solutions
and processes in a mobile manner.
The key for the business and the IT
team is to properly communicate to employees what built-in capabilities their
in-house and supported platform can
offer them. In fact, employees may not
even know those functions exist, which
may be what led them to search for a
third-party solution. If you can convince

your employees that the fully supported
option is a better alternative to the thirdparty solution, then you can reduce risk
and limit the use of outside applications.

Limit Use Of Third-Party Apps
Battista stresses that “there is nothing
inherently wrong with employees using
their own apps, but it can quickly lead
to issues if it is happening behind IT’s
back.” When this occurs, though, it’s best
for IT to look at the use of third-party
apps as an opportunity to fulfill a need for
employees. IT has to properly explain to
workers the risks associated with the use
of third-party applications, “especially if
sensitive data is involved,” Battista adds.
If you want to allow the use of thirdparty apps, which may be a fit for some
organizations, then Battista recommends
looking into tools such as MAM (mobile application management), which are
often part of a broader EMM (enterprise
mobility management) suite and “can at
least give IT some visibility into which
apps are being used.” But this is a baseline
solution, because to have control over
those apps, you’ll need MDM (mobile device management) or other tools that let
you reduce risk as much as possible.
For some companies, it’s simply not
an option to let employees choose which
mobile collaboration apps they use, so
a written policy may need to come into
play. “It’s very difficult in a business environment that’s been around for years
to just randomly introduce new tools and
processes into the business,” says Bowker.
“Usually, there’s more of a foundation
built inside that business that they need to
think about. These are corporate-installed
and corporate-deployed applications.”
However, Bowker points out that there
are more corporate applications available
now than ever before that offer collaboration capabilities. Even if it’s for a specific
vertical, such as health care or education,
there are collaboration tools built-in to
existing corporate platforms that should
meet employee needs. “While there’s

CyberTrend / August 2015

25

no question you can go out and search
the app stores for collaboration tools, I
still think using corporate-approved collaboration applications is a must,” says
Bowker. “You can’t create the Wild West,
but at the same time you do want to enable communication and collaboration in
the organization.”

“That is very valuable when I can not only speak during
a meeting, but see, as well. . . . Now I not only have that
voice connection, but I also have that ability to show and
tell based on those other parties in the meeting.”
MARK BOWKER
Senior Analyst
Enterprise Strategy Group

Choose The Right Solutions
If you do go the route of almost total
control and want to limit the use of thirdparty apps, then you need to look at your
staff and what roles they play in your organization. This is crucial because it will
help you decide what types of collaboration solutions will benefit your workforce.
For example, if you have a salesperson
who needs to collaborate with co-workers
in the office and on the road, then you
need a desktop and mobile version of
your CRM and sales platforms they can
use. “We see this very often is inside a
sales organization,” says Bowker. “You
have someone looking at pipeline and
sales campaigns tied into marketing, and
there’s a good opportunity to have collaboration tools in place. You see companies really building those collaboration
capabilities into the application.”
Once you understand the roles of
your employees, in their departments
and as part of the company, you can
start looking at the types of apps they use
most and what the benefits would be with
better mobile collaboration. For an engineer, “there may be some specific development environment where collaboration
is important,” Bowker says. For a project
manager, collaboration is especially important because she works with teams of
co-workers and handles every aspect of a
given project.
You have to consider what business
groups exist within your business environment and truly understand their collaboration needs in and away from the
office. Everything needs to have a mobile component to ensure employees can
work together on projects regardless of

26

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

location. Offer employees these types of
multifaceted, easy-to-use solutions and
it’s less likely you’ll have to deal with unsupported third-party applications.

‘this is better,’ and that’s not new, but at
the end of the day it’s the business that
has to make this decision.”

In-House Collaboration Advocate

Don’t Go Overboard With
Blacklisting Third-Party Apps

To ensure your mobile collaboration
program is a success, you should consider
appointing someone to a collaboration
advocate role within your organization.
This person needs to “really see the benefits of having collaboration being pushed
out to the mobile workforce and understand where that collaboration is valuable,
what business process it fits into, and how
IT can still maintain control but still have
the flexibility to have those tools out at the
endpoint,” Bowker says.
In today’s mobile-focused world, business employees have thousands of applications at their fingertips, many of
which offer some sort of collaboration
component. The job of the collaboration
advocate is to sort through these applications, look at what’s available internally,
and guide employees to use the tools that
make the most sense for them. In the end,
the advocate has to determine which departments will embrace the use of such
collaboration solutions and which ones
simply don’t need them. This will save
the IT team from having to manage more
solutions than necessary and possibly save
money if a limited number of deployments are necessary.
“You have to have an advocate or
leader within the organization that truly
understands what the company’s collaboration needs are,” says Bowker. “You’re
always going to have employees that say,

The important thing to remember
when determining whether to allow the
use of third-party apps among employees
and how much control you want to have
over those applications is that “there is
a danger of stifling productivity for no
reason other than tradition,” Battista says.
It’s true, there may be certain situations
in which there are considerable security
risks associated with introducing thirdparty apps into the organization, but that
may not always be the case. “As always,
it’s about the age-old battle between
freedom and security,” he says.
The first step in bridging this gap between IT and employees is to be as transparent as possible. MAM and EMM tools
can help throughout this process to give
IT more peace of mind and control. In
the end, however, all of these groups need
to work together to come up with solutions to the collaboration problems at
hand without putting the business at risk.
“Once IT knows what users are doing,
and users know about IT’s concerns,
they can work together to identify the
best ways to collaborate,” says Battista.
“Extremes from either side aren’t productive. A user demanding to use the beta
version of a consumer app for collaboration probably needs a dose of security,
and a CIO having a freak-out over any
use of Dropbox whatsoever could probably better focus efforts elsewhere.”

GO DEEP
If quality time with the latest, fastest home computing technologies is your

idea of well-spent leisure time, CPU is the magazine for you. Each month CPU
serves up how-to articles, interviews with tech industry leaders, news about
cutting-edge research, and reviews of the newest hardware and software.

Check out the latest edition right
now at www.computerpoweruser.com
or on your iPad via the iTunes Store.

Solve Common VoIP Issues
WHETHER HOSTED OR IN-HOUSE, MAKE SURE THE CONNECTION IS STABLE

VOIP (VOICE OVER Internet Protocol) is a
good way to remove the shackles of landline phone systems and give employees access to voice communications in-house or
on the road with mobile clients. However,
the potential complexity of VoIP systems,
especially for workers who may have little
experience using such a system, can be
overwhelming for your IT team. For that
reason, it’s important to become familiar
with some of the common issues that can
arise while using a VoIP system and learn
how to troubleshoot those problems.

A Common Complaint: Jitter
If you’ve ever been on a VoIP call and
heard the other person’s voice cutting out,
then you’ve experienced jitter, which is
due to occasional packet loss. Other issues,
such as echo and delay, also impact the
quality of a VoIP call and are often caused
by network-related issues. These problems
can be compounded if you use a hosted

28

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

VoIP service that’s made available over a
public Internet connection.
As Jon Arnold, principal of J Arnold &
Associates, explains it, Internet connections have public and private options. “If
you don't give it a lot of thought and let
price make the decisions for you, you’ll end
up going with a VoIP service that’s probably running over the public Internet,” he
says. “The higher-end VoIP services from
a tier-1 carrier have their own network
infrastructure and it’s more like running
it over a private internet connection.” The
solution to this problem is to understand
the type of connection your VoIP system
is running on and determine whether it
meets your requirements.

assumptions,” says Dan Conde, Enterprise
Strategy Group analyst. When your network was built, he says, you perhaps only
had regular landline phones and “were not
set up properly for VoIP.”
The key here is to put a network monitoring solution in place that lets you keep
an eye on your network as well as upload
and download speeds. You may find that
your network is more than capable of handling one-time uploads and downloads but
struggles with real-time streaming content.
If this is the case, then your network administrator and IT team will have to come
up with a solution to add more capacity
and update the network accordingly.

Manage Bandwidth & Traffic
Older Networks Could Be To Blame
If you run your VoIP system in-house
over your own network and encounter
performance issues, then it's possible your
current network was set up “using older

Another way to ensure your internal
network is up to the task of handling
VoIP is to monitor bandwidth allocation
and traffic prioritization. For example,
if multiple people on your network are

hogging bandwidth with their simultaneous video streaming, which also drags
down the network, the inconsistency
in the connection could be enough to
impact VoIP performance. This idea
also applies to important tasks, such as
backups and archiving, that tend to tie up
networking resources. Avoiding these situations requires communication across
departments to determine when is the
proper time for those processes.
“If you’re a data center manager or network manager who’s focused on voice,
and you’re working in a different silo than
people working in backups, make sure
you’re talking to each other,” says Conde.
“Make sure you have a center of excellence
or collaborative type of meeting every once
and awhile so that people that are setting
up backup windows are making other
people aware that there are certain times in
the day or evening when you’re going to be
sucking up a lot of bandwidth.”

Take Advantage Of Free Tools
& Trials
When possible, take advantage of free
network tools for an analysis of your network or your VoIP solution. That way you
can identify problems beforehand and
avoid going around tweaking different systems unnecessarily. Conde says there are
many open-source tools available that will
help you get a baseline understanding of
what’s going on, but you can also “graduate to a more vendor-supported tool,”
which usually comes with free trials. These
tools are not only ideal for finding software- or network-related issues, but also
physical problems, such as pinched network cables, faulty networking equipment,
and so on.

Don’t Let VoIP Be A Point Of Entry
To Network
Even if your VoIP system is running
well and there are zero complaints from
users, the network administrator or IT employee in charge of VoIP should not let his
guard down. Security is a major issue to

“The main thing to understand is that voice is a real-time
communication mode, and that makes it different from
most forms of data traffic that go over the network. When
you go from legacy telephony to VoIP, you’re shifting it
from a voice-only dedicated network to sharing it with
everything else that goes on the network, because it’s a
form of data.”
JON ARNOLD
Principal
J Arnold & Associates

“Make sure that new devices are not overwhelming
[your network]. Good access point control systems for
your Wi-Fi systems will let you know whether or not your
access points are being overwhelmed, which will affect
your voice and data traffic.”
DAN CONDE
Analyst
Enterprise Strategy Group

consider because the VoIP line or phone
can be an easy entry point to your network for hackers. It isn’t like a traditional
landline, where a malicious person would
have to physically tap into the line. It’s all
network-based, and sometimes even WiFi-based, which means a hacker can use
that connection as a way into the private
corporate network.
“Once [hackers] get into your phone
system, one thing they can do is abuse your
phone service,” says Arnold. “They can
take over calls, reroute calls, redirect calls,
and intercept voicemails, and then really
escalate to things like toll fraud where they
rack up giant phone bills for you. It’s a
business for them because they make that
money and keep a portion that they extract
from you.”
Arnold says that businesses don’t
often think about VoIP as an entry point
into their networks and instead focus on
changing email passwords and other more
obvious security strategies. Companies
must think about their VoIP systems in

the same way and make sure that every
connection from the phone to the Internet
and vice versa is properly monitored and
protected. This means digging into the
configuration of your VoIP system and not
relying on the default settings to do the job.

Make Sure Your Staff Is
Well-Versed In The Ways Of VoIP
It is important that your IT team has
experience using VoIP systems and understands how they are unique. “The data
world and voice world are like two realities
in terms of how people are educated and
what’s important to them,” says Arnold.
“Generally speaking, people in the data
world don’t understand the complexities
and nuances of voice in a data network.
That’s a big issue. Usually, the telecom is
managed by a team of telecom guys that
understand voice, but when that goes away
and voice gets added to your bucket of
things to do and you don’t understand it,
then you’re going to overlook the things
that affect the quality.”

CyberTrend / August 2015

29

Big Data Executive Overview
A QUICK RUNDOWN OF WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

THE TERM “BIG DATA” has come to be
both widely used and widely misunderstood. This FAQ is designed to clear up
some of the most common questions
surrounding big data and analytics.

What’s the difference between
“big data” and “ordinary” or
“small” data?
Broadly speaking, there is more data
(structured, semi-structured, and unstructured types) than ever. And the
amount of data is expanding faster
than ever because there are so many
more sources of data. Mobile devices,
social networks, and Web-connected
machines and sensors that have come
online in recent years have collectively
played a huge role in this data explosion. “Big data” refers to the massive
data sets these sources are generating,
which businesses, government agencies,
and others want to capture and use.

30

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

The data sets involved in big data are
so large and complex that capturing,
processing, so analyzing the data using
traditional data management and analytics tools can be problematic. Newer
data analytics solutions offer improved
efficiency and greater depth in terms of
discovering all of the data that is most
relevant to businesses and employees,
and delivering that data in a useful and
productive way. The goal of these solutions is to discover the data that matters.
The terms “volume,” “variety,” and
“velocity” are commonly used to encapsulate the noteworthy traits of big data.
“Volume” indicates the huge amounts
of data involved, “variety” denotes the
numerous types of data and sources of
data involved, and “velocity” describes
the extremely quick rate at which the
data is created. The word “venue” is
sometimes included as well to identify
where the data resides.

Although big data can consist of
“structured,” or “ordinary” or “small,”
data such as customer invoices, billing
records, employee pay information,
etc., which have been traditionally managed in spreadsheets and databases,
it largely consists of “unstructured”
data, such as photos, videos, social
network updates, blog entries, remote
sensor logs, and other diverse types of
information that are more difficult to
process, categorize, and analyze with
traditional tools.

What is a “big data solution”?
Although “big data” and “big data
analytics” are often lumped together
as one, they mean different things. As
mentioned previously, big data refers
to the massive data sets being generated
globally. Big data analytics essentially
describes the process of analyzing the
various data types within a data set in

order to, say, uncover particular customer patterns that were previously
unseen, thereby gaining the ability to
make better marketing decisions that
the business will prosper from.
A “big data solution” can broadly
be thought of as the various storage,
database, analytic, and other tools and
technologies, along with possibly subscription services, that a company collectively uses to capture, store, process,
and perform analysis on big data to
forge strategies and decisions. Though
not always the case, these tools and
technologies are generally more sophisticated and differ from traditional data
warehouse and analytic tools used with
structured data.

in manufacturing, shipping, helpdesk, and other areas; drive innovation; create new products; streamline
processes; decrease operating costs; increase and generate new revenue; and
develop better, more targeted strategies. In terms of customers, big data
analytics solutions have helped organizations gain a more in-depth and encompassing view of their customers,
predict buying behaviors and choice,
and produce better recommendations.
Some companies are also obtaining
security-related benefits, including in
terms of fraud detection and cyber security monitoring and analysis.

What types of organizations use
big data analytics?

Perhaps the most commonly cited
cost benefit related to using big data
solutions is the ability for a company
to improve efficiencies and cut costs in
various areas across the organization.
This could include improving a supply
chain or creating more efficient routes
and routines for a delivery system.
Using a big data solution, a large floral
company, for example, could use the location-based tracking data generated by
sensors on delivery trucks to devise the
fastest, safest routes based on various
conditions (such as weather and time of
day), thereby reducing fuel and insurance costs.

Retailers often use analytics to explore their data (including possibly
real-time social network updates,
tweets, blog posts, and other activity)
to discover customer trends, produce
customer recommendations, and more.
Larger organizations and government
agencies of all kinds use big data analytics. One notion is that only large
companies can benefit from big data
analytics due to the generally greater
availability to resources and big data
they possess. Some experts, however,
point out that it’s possible for smaller
companies to receive big data benefits,
including through the use of free tools
available and various service providers
offering analytics and big data services.

How can organizations benefit
from using big data analytics?
Overall, organizations stand to
learn more about their data and gain
deeper insight from it than ever before, meaning theoretically they are
able to make smarter decisions, as well.
Specifically, big data analytics solutions have helped companies improve
and develop more efficient processes

What is the cost benefit of using
big data solutions?

semi-structured and unstructured data,
through a distributed computing approach that potentially could involve
thousands of nodes. Currently, opensource and commercial Hadoop solutions are available from vendors.

How can big data analytics
provide a competitive edge?
Proponents claim big data helps
companies know more about their operations and customers, thus helping
them make better-informed and
faster decisions (getting product to
market, for example) than competitors not using a big data solution. A
Forbes article published last fall cited
a study in which 400 large companies
were examined and revealed that the
early adopters of big data analyitics had
“gained a significant lead over the rest
of the corporate world.” Companies
with the most advanced analytics abilities were found to outperform competitors “by wide margins,” with leading
companies being twice as likely to be
in the top quartile of financial performance per given industry; five times
likelier to make faster decisions vs.
market peers; three times likelier to execute decisions as intended; and twice as
likely to consume data very frequently
when making decisions.

What is Hadoop?

Are there any pitfalls to avoid
when it comes to employing a
big data project?

Traditionally, companies have used
RDMS (relational database management systems) to handle structured data
(customer records, product purchase
totals, and other data that’s easy to
format and categorize). RDMS, however, isn’t well-suited for the large sets
of unstructured data that companies
are increasingly obtaining. Hadoop
is an open-source technology framework that is. In short, Hadoop simplifies the storage, management, and
analysis of various data types, including

For some companies, a hurdle to
getting started with a big data solution
is simply possessing the right kinds of
data. Another impediment for some
organizations is their lack of personnel
who have big data experience and
who possess top-flight analytic skills.
Further, acquiring such individuals can
be difficult and expensive. Elsewhere,
having personnel on-hand who are experienced with transitioning from a traditional RDMS approach to a Hadoop
framework can pose problems.

CyberTrend / August 2015

31

Certified Piedmontese® beef tastes great: lean and tender, juicy and delicious.
But there’s more to it than just flavor. Certified Piedmontese is also low in fat
and calories. At the same time, it’s protein-rich with robust flavor and premium
tenderness. Incredibly lean, unbelievably tender: It’s the best of both worlds.

piedmontese.com

Greenovations
ENERGY-CONSCIOUS TECH

The technologies
that make our
lives easier also
produce some
unwanted side
effects on the
environment.
However, many
researchers,
manufacturers,
and businesses
are developing
solutions that are
designed to keep
us productive
while reducing
energy demands
to lessen our impact on the environment. Here's
a look at some of
the newest such
initiatives.

Google’s 14th and newest data center will be built on the current home of the Widows Creek coal
power plant in Jackson county, Alabama, and will be powered by renewable energy.

Google Transforms Coal Power Plant Into A Data Center
❯ Google, with an appetite for computing space commensurate with the insatiable Internet demands of its billion-plus users worldwide, is no stranger to
opening and expanding data centers. But for its 14th and newest data center,
located in Jackson county, Alabama, Google is doing something new: building
on the grounds of a coal power plant, which will shut down before Google sets
up shop. The new data center plans dovetail with Google’s ongoing efforts to buy
large quantities of renewable energy. According to the company’s official post on
the subject, Google will look for new renewable energy opportunities in the area,
work with the Tennessee Valley Authority to bring that electricity onto the TVA’s
power grid, and use the old plant’s electric transmission lines to draw power for
the new data center. Google says that to date it has bought more than 1.5% of all
installed U.S. wind power capacity.

Bill Gates Plans To Invest $2 Billion In Renewable Energy
❯ In an interview with the Financial Times published in its June 25 edition,
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he had already invested around $1 billion in
free air carbon capture (removing CO2 directly from the air), next-generation nuclear plant technology, battery storage, and other renewable energy initiatives, and
now plans to double that. Gates says he plans to invest $2 billion more over the next
five years, and he urged governments to join him and treble their investments. Gates
told the Financial Times that he currently finds nuclear recycling the most promising technology, one in which he has invested “several hundred million dollars.”

CyberTrend / August 2015

33

A Speedy Charge
For Every Business
❯ As support grows for electric vehicles, one dream for drivers and businesses alike is to be able to quickly top
off a vehicle’s charge at different locations throughout the day. This would
give drivers more power for extended
range (no more worrying about making
it home on just a little bit of juice), and
it would benefit businesses offering the
service by drawing in more customers
looking for a fast charge. ChargePoint is
one of the companies working to make
this dream come true.
The Campbell, Calif.,-based company
recently added the ChargePoint Express
100 to its lineup of EV (electric vehicle)
charging stations, which includes commercial and residential models. “With
Express charging, drivers can run errands, shop or stop for a cup of coffee
while they quickly top off their battery
to extend their car’s range,” ChargePoint
CEO Pasquale Romano, said in a
press release for the new product. The
ChargePoint Express 100 allows drivers
to charge their vehicles in as little as 20
to 30 minutes and provides up to 100
miles of RPH (range per hour), according to the company.

Used Chevrolet Volt batteries are going to good use at the new General Motors Enterprise Data
Center in Milford, Mich. (Photo by John F. Martin for General Motors, © General Motors.)

Old Chevrolet Volt Batteries Get New Life In A GM Data Center
❯ General Motors has figured out a way to repurpose a few first-generation
Chevrolet Volt batteries (five of them, to be exact): put them to use in its new
Milford, Mich., data center. “Even after the battery has reached the end of its useful
life in a Chevrolet Volt, up to 80% of its storage capacity remains,” said Pablo
Valencia, senior manager, GM Battery Life Cycle Management, in a press release.
“This secondary use application extends its life, while delivering waste reduction
and economic benefits on an industrial scale.” The batteries will join forces with
a 74kW (kilowatt) solar array and two 2kW wind turbines, which will help power
the data center’s circuit breaker panel. The used Volt batteries will deliver zero-net
energy use annually, says GM, providing a parallel power supply to the facility and
also providing four hours’ worth of backup power in the event of an outage.

World’s Largest Solar Plant Goes Online

The new ChargePoint Express 100, already
available at 144 locations, provides 24kW of
quick-charge power for electric vehicles.

34

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

❯ Co-located in Kern and Los Angeles counties in California, the Solar Star PV
(photovoltaic) power plant project was recently connected to the California ISO
(Independent System Operator) grid. The plant, a joint effort of SunPower and BHE
Renewables, will reportedly have a 579MW (megawatt) capacity, 29MW more than
the two 550MW facilities (Topaz Solar and Desert Sunlight, both in California)
that formerly tied for first place as the world’s largest solar plants. SunPower says
electricity from the plant will “displace approximately 570,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, the equivalent of removing more than 2 million cars from highways
over 20 years.” SunPower is a solar company based in San Jose, Calif., and BHE
Renewables (which until recently was MidAmerican Solar) is a Berkshire Hathaway
Energy company based in Des Moines, Iowa. The Solar Star project got underway in
2013 and, according to SunPower, will be finished by year’s end.

GENERATORS

AUTOMATIC TRANSFER SWITCHES

UPS

PRE-OWNED GEN SETS
20-3000KW
LOW HOUR WITH WARRANTY

We buy and sell complete systems.
CALL FOR PRICING AND SPECIFICATIONS.
w w w. e m p i r e - c a t . c o m

INQUIRIES
Kris Davenport: 602.622.5619
[email protected]

Why DevOps Matters
HELP DEVELOPERS & IT OPERATIONS WORK TOGETHER TO IMPROVE APP QUALITY

FOR YEARS, and maybe even decades,
there has been a fundamental disconnect
between application/software developers
and IT operations teams. The status quo
has often been for developers to build their
apps somewhat in a silo and then hand
them off to IT to manage and monitor
once they’re deployed and in production. The philosophy behind DevOps (a
portmanteau of “development” and “operations”) is to bridge the gap between the
two entities to make sure that the entire
process, from creation to deployment and
ongoing support, applications run at the
highest level and end users get the best
possible experience.

What DevOps Is
& Where It Came From
Although the issues between developers and IT operations has existed for
quite some time, the actual term DevOps
and the philosophy behind it is relatively

36

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

new one. In fact, Stephen Hendrick, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group,
says he started getting questions about
it around 2009 and since then the issue
has “gotten better over time as the tools
have improved.” But, he adds, some issues
still remain in terms of companies actually taking the necessary steps to properly
implement the DevOps methodology.
Hendrick says DevOps is traditionally seen as a way to better initiate the
developer-to-IT-operations hand-off that
occurs once an application is about to be
deployed, but that certainly isn’t the only
function of the method. He recommends
that companies also include decisionmakers and policy-makers in the process
because they are the ones responsible for
laying out the needs of the organization
and making sure applications and software meet the guidelines of established
corporate policies and business processes.
DevOps goes beyond bringing developers

and operations together, because it can also
include the quality assurance team and ultimately ensure software and applications
meet every possible requirement.
“There is the functional constituency
that says ‘this is our corporate policy and
these are our corporate processes,’” says
Hendrick. “It’s the developer constituency that’s responsible for bringing that
to life in the form of software. And the
IT operations guys are responsible for
monitoring and managing it when it’s in
operation. You have these three constituencies and you want to make sure you
have the highest level of quality associated
with the process of moving it through this
life cycle.”

DevOps Is All About
Roles & Responsibilities
Remember, DevOps is designed to
streamline the development, deployment,
and ongoing support processes associated

with software and applications as well as
to establish the roles for developers and IT
operations. A key thing to keep in mind
is that if your company uses software as
a way to improve processes or policies
within the organization, then you are
bound to run into DevOps-related issues at
some point. How you handle those issues
depends on the people who are responsible
for developing the applications themselves
and who is tasked with managing them
once their actually in production.
For example, if everything is handled
in-house, then it’s relatively clear that your
app development team builds the apps and
your IT operations team manages them.
But as soon as you introduce SaaS (software as a service) applications and other
third-party solutions, some things—especially the management responsibilities—
get a bit foggier. The key difference here is
that if you have an application or service
coming from a third-party provider, then
that provider becomes the entity IT must
deal with rather than with an internal development team. There still needs to be a
clear line of communication between these
two groups, even though one is in-house
and the other is external.
“The issue exists, but it’s just a question
of whether or not you’re responsible for
dealing with it,” says Hendrick. “Any company has to be aware that there has to be
unification and alignment between what’s
happening in the ranks of developers, be it
their own or third parties that are building
assets for them, and what happens in operations. You need to identify who has to
be involved if there’s an issue, and then you
have to make sure there is close coordination in this process of moving the software
assets through the life cycle, from development to test and into production, that you
closely monitor and manage.”

Increasing Agility
& Decreasing Cost
The ultimate goal of DevOps is to
shorten the time-to-market of applications
without sacrificing quality. This means that

“In the past, enterprises tried to force this alignment of
developers and IT operations and it wasn’t necessarily
easy, because developers would do their thing and throw
the stuff over the fence to operations, and then operations
would have to just deal with it. There really wasn’t a lot of
communication and there really wasn’t any explicit activity
that went on to bring those two constituencies together.”
STEPHEN HENDRICK
Principal Analyst
Enterprise Strategy Group

developers can create new applications or
build on existing ones quickly, get them
tested and approved by QA (quality assurance), and then hand them over to IT
for deployment and ongoing management
within an acceptable time frame. “If you
have this close alignment and a way to
bring the developer and IT ops constituencies together, then you have much more
flexibility when it comes to practicing continuous deployment,” Hendrick says.
In addition to agility and flexibility, potential cost savings is another major benefit
of DevOps. Hendrick points out that the
deeper you get into the application development process, the more costly it becomes to discover and fix a defect. “If you
have an application that goes down once
it’s in production, there’s a huge cost associated with that,” says Hendrick. “This is
all about trying to ensure that the quality of
the software gets better. The more you can
do to evolve and adopt a sophisticated software development life cycle, the better prepared you are to not only recognize faster
time to market, but also reduce your cost.”

The Cloud Can Help
One surefire way to improve application
deployment across the board is to consider
taking advantage of PaaS (platform as a
service). Using PaaS tools, application developers can build software in the cloud,
test it in the cloud, and then deploy it from
the cloud with the help of IT. Deploying
applications from the cloud also makes

it much easier to support multiple platforms because many cloud vendors offer
the ability to keep an app in the cloud or
essentially export it to a desktop, mobile
device, or other platform.
Some companies may be hesitant to
use PaaS for app development and/or deployment because they either don’t use the
cloud at all, don’t trust it, or simply don’t
feel comfortable enough with it yet. But the
key thing to remember is that just because
something is cloud-based doesn’t mean
that it has to be hand-off. You actually
have quite a few options available if you
want to take full advantage of DevOpsrelated cloud options.
“Leveraging the act of deployment as
a way to unify developers and IT operations suggests a couple things to the enterprise,” says Hendrick. “One is that it has
to take PaaS seriously and has to do some
adoption of technology there. PaaS has a
distinct cloud orientation to it. You can
do it in your own data center, publicly, or
do a virtual private thing. There are different options for how you do it, but you
have to get to the point where you understand what PaaS is and be ready to roll that
technology out inside of your enterprise,
and use that as a way to bring everybody
together and solve your DevOps issue,”
Hendrick continues. “That’s a big part of
the story. If you’re going to embrace this
idea of DevOps, in order to do it well, you
also have to embrace cloud principles and
bring PaaS into the enterprise.”

CyberTrend / August 2015

37

PC Upgrade Priorities
WHEN TO REFRESH, WHAT DEVICES TO BUY & HOW TO MEET EMPLOYEE NEEDS

ALTHOUGH SMARTPHONES and tablets
are more prevalent in enterprises than
ever before, there is still a place for desktops and laptops. And while it’s true
that tablets are closing the gap in terms
of price and performance, there are still
certain job functions that will require the
power of a dedicated PC. For businesses,
there is a delicate balance to strike between deciding when it’s time to refresh
the PC fleet and determining what types
of devices are right for employees. Quite
a few factors will play into this decision,
but the best place to start is to look at how
employees in specific roles actually use
their computers, and at what devices best
fit their needs.

Match The Device To The Job
If your company comprises multiple
established departments, you have a
relatively clear place to start when deciding which employees need what

38

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

devices. For example, employees in administration or customer support may
only need computers that can run basic
internal programs, CRM (customer relationship management) systems, email,
and other productivity programs. On the
other hand, employees in programming,
video editing, or engineering may need
more powerful PCs and wouldn’t be able
to perform their jobs adequately using,
say, ultraportable laptop PCs or tablets.
Ultimately it’s the job function of the employee that will determine the type of devices that’s needed, and it doesn’t hurt to
ask a given employee what he would like
to see in the next PC refresh.
It may be the case that you can reasonably purchase the same system for all
of your employees. If you don’t have inhouse developers or designers, or others
who use resource-intensive applications,
then it’s likely you can deploy the same
device across the board. This will greatly

simplify IT support and management.
The opposite scenario may occur if your
company is more widely varied in terms
of workforce responsibilities. In this case,
you may need multiple device types for
different departments, and employees
in some departments may require more
than one device. This can make IT support more challenging, but it will ensure
that every employee in the organization
will have the opportunity to be as productive as possible.

Desktops & Traditional Laptops
vs. Hybrids & Other Alternatives
If years have passed since your organization upgraded its PCs, you may be
in for a shock at the number of options
available today. But as your existing fleet
of computers reaches the end of its life
cycle, there should be a plan in place so
you aren’t caught off guard by up-front
acquisition and deployment costs.

Your employees might be best served
by desktop or laptop computers that are
similar to what
you already use,
but newer and
faster, not to
mention capable
of handling future Windows or
other operating
system releases.
Other options
include ultraportable laptops, laptop/tablet hybrids,
and tablet computers. While employees
relying on resource-intensive applications
may need more traditional desktops and
laptops, others may be best served by devices that offer basic productivity and a
high degree of mobility.
There are a few things to keep in
mind about desktop/laptop alternatives.
Ultraportable laptops, for example, vary
depending on the model; just because
they are small and lightweight they don’t
necessarily lack the punch required to
handle office tasks. The same is true for
laptop/tablet hybrids and tablets. Laptop/
tablet hybrids, by the way, typically consist of a tablet computer that can be
attached to a base to offer more performance and a traditional keyboard.
Some traditional tablets are catching
up to laptops in terms of performance.
Most don’t come with a keyboard, however, so that can come at an added cost.
But the line is a bit blurry between tablet
models; for every iPad or other tablet
that needs a separate peripheral, there
are products such as Microsoft’s Surface
Pro, which is technically a tablet but may
(depending on the model) include a keyboard case that essentially turns it into a
laptop-like solution.
If you simply can’t find one solution
that fits all the needs of your employees,
then you may have to go with multiple
devices. The upsides of this approach are
that you can find one device that works
perfectly in the office and another that

works perfectly in more mobile settings.
The downsides are that you’ll have to
spend more money
up front and IT will
have more devices to
manage and support.
Once again, it’s a balancing act between
giving employees the
tools they need to be
productive and not
breaking your budget
or putting more responsibilities on your IT team than it can
realistically handle.

Life Cycle Management
There are dozens of potential signs
that your computers are starting to reach
the end of their life cycle, at which point
they can truly cause productivity bottlenecks for your workforce. For example, if
newer versions of applications won’t run
properly, or if they regularly crash, then
your existing PCs may not have enough
memory to run them. Another example is
“sluggish performance,” one of the most
common employee complaints about
aging computers. The problems start
small, perhaps with a program taking a
little bit longer to load than usual, and can
eventually result in certain software being
completely unusable. The key is to not let
it get to this point and to put a solid life
cycle and refresh plan in place.
In a report entitled “Replacing
Enterprise PCs: The Fallacy Of The 3-4Year Upgrade Cycle,” J. Gold Associates
points out that while the common refresh cycle for enterprise PCs has been
three to four years, it actually makes
more sense for most companies to move
to a two-year refresh cycle. The research
firm found that every department in a
business, from the administrative pool
to the IT staff, spends a majority of its
time using a PC, with the lowest figure
being 75% for administrative employees.
Comparing current PCs to two-year-old
models, J. Gold Associates also found that

every department within an organization
stood to benefit from an upgrade in terms
of productivity, with business analysts
seeing a near 5% improvement at the low
end and administration employees seeing
a near 12% improvement on the high end.
J. Gold Associates also researched
productivity gains in terms of ROI and
equivalent work days gained per worker
per year, and in nearly every study, the
group found that the two-year life cycle
yielded the higher return and the biggest
benefit for both the employee and the
business. Of course, this study may not
be a perfect analog for every organization out there, but it’s certainly a baseline
to consider, especially if your company
is heavily IT-based and nearly every
employee uses a PC in some capacity.
Ultimately, it’s important to understand
that even if it costs a bit more up front,
you’ll see those short- and long-term
productivity gains.

P.S. DON'T FORGET
ABOUT UPGRADEABILITY
Another factor that may play into
your PC-buying decision is whether
or not it can be easily upgraded
to increase performance. This
partly depends upon resources and
expertise—i.e., whether it makes
financial sense to upgrade individual
components rather than buying new
PCs, and whether your IT team has
the time and experience necessary
to perform such upgrades.
For most enterprises (especially
if they adhere to the two-year refresh cycle), it won’t be worth the
hassle to prioritize products with
upgradeable components. Instead
of thinking so long-term, enterprises can focus on what they’ll
need over the next two years or so
and then reevaluate when it’s time
for a refresh.

CyberTrend / August 2015

39

Find The Right Colocation Provider
CAPACITY, UPTIME & SECURITY SHOULD BE FOCUSES IN YOUR SEARCH

COLOCATION IS CAPTURING the attention of more and more enterprises as
it promises to help relieve some of the
burden associated with managing and
maintaining a large number of servers
and other IT equipment onsite. Often,
colocation is used for offsite backup and
recovery purposes as well, where a colocation facility is geographically separate
from the company’s own data center.
Before your organization can reap all of
the benefits colocation has to offer, however, you must decide which provider is
best suited to meet all of your requirements. This article can serve as a basic
checklist for your selection process.

Space
One of the most important factors to
consider when comparing data center
colocation providers is the amount of
available space. The last thing you want
to do is move crucial equipment into a

40

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

colocation environment and begin to
rely on that facility only to find that it
isn’t able to handle your needs as your
business grows.
You also don’t want to end up in a
situation where the facility itself is so
compact that your equipment is sitting
right next door to another company’s
equipment. This may be suitable for
some small to midsize businesses with
smaller implementations, but if you
hope to add more servers in the coming
months or years, they are going to need
room to breathe. Make sure the colocation provider in question will either leave
you some space for potential growth or
has multiple facilities to accommodate
future expansion.

Power & Cooling
Power and cooling go hand-in-hand
with space because the colocation facility needs to have the right amount

of capacity to support your current and
future needs. When it comes to power,
you not only need to make sure the
provider has adequate power supplies
in the racks themselves, but also that
the energy utility coming into the facility is capable of handling the necessary load of your equipment and every
other piece of equipment the provider
is hosting.
In addition to power, it’s also best to
speak with the provider about the types
of cooling approaches they use in their
facilities. Do they simply flood the room
with cold air to keep all of the equipment cool or do they offer such things as
hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment or spot
cooling to focus more on your specific
footprint within the facility? This is especially important if you are responsible
for paying the cooling bill for your area
within the colocation facility. Your section could be highly efficient, but if the

rest of the facility doesn’t meet those
standards and it’s a flood-the-room approach, you could end up paying more
than necessary.

Uptime & SLAs
Uptime should be a major talking
point with any colocation provider candidate. There is always the potential
for outages and downtime at a facility,
but the key is determining how many
9s of uptime a provider guarantees and
whether or not they are truly capable of
meeting those needs. (If a provider offers “four 9s,” for example, that means it
claims 99.9999% uptime.) This is where
doing your due diligence on space,
power, and cooling really come into
play. By understanding how much capacity a facility can support, you should
be able to determine whether or not that
location has a potential for overutilization and outages.
Aside from doing your own research,
you also need to make sure that everything about uptime is properly addressed
in the SLA (service-level agreement). In
the SLA, the provider should specify its
uptime guarantee (99.999% is usually
a good yardstick), but it’s also important that power, cooling, and any other
factors that play a role in uptime are
included. In other words, watch out for
any language that blurs the guarantee.

Track Record
Find out how established the colocation provider is and get an idea of its
track record. Compare providers and, if
possible, look for recommendations and
referrals. Indeed, the best way to gauge
whether a certain provider will meet
your needs is often to find out whether
it met the needs of other companies past
and present, particularly if those companies are in your industry.This should
provide peace of mind that the provider
is familiar with your type of implementation and has proven it can accommodate your needs.

Security
When it comes to colocation facilities,
there are two types of security to keep
in mind: software-based and physical.
Colocation typically means that the provider gives you the space, power, and
cooling to handle your offsite infrastructure, but you are typically responsible
for securing the data and applications
stored on that equipment. This provides
you with a degree of control so you can
implement your own choice of security

COLOCATION
BY THE NUMBERS
The following information is from a
Q1 2015 report from 451 Research.

$22.8 billion - current
annualized revenue of the global
colocation market.
$36.1 billion - projected
annualized revenue for the global
colocation market by 2017.
74.8% - portion of current
revenues from local colocation providers with <$500 million in annual
revenues.

solutions, but there are some colocation
providers that offer network security solutions if you prefer outsourcing.
When it comes to physical security,
the colocation provider is in control, so
it’s crucial to learn what systems they
have in place and how much access
others have to your hosted physical infrastructure. Look for providers that require badge access or even biometric
scanners not only for building access,
but also for getting into your section of
the facility. Colocation providers typically have multiple security measures
in place at every level of the facility, but
you have a degree of control over what
security methods are in place in the cage
where your equipment is housed. If, for

example, you plan to store highly sensitive data and require biometric (fingerprint or retina) scanners for access,
speak with the provider to make sure
that’s possible.

Additional Services
In addition to the baseline colocation
services you might expect, some providers go above and beyond to make
sure your experience is as positive as
possible. This can include service offerings, such as private or hybrid cloud
hosting; physical offerings, such as multiple sites to choose from in order to
achieve geographic separation; or simply
the opportunity to take advantage of onsite experts to ensure your infrastructure
is maintained in the best possible way.
With so many colocations vying for clients across the U.S., it’s important to
look for and compare these additional
service offerings to identify which ones
stand out from the crowd.

Contracts & Pricing
After you’ve narrowed down the list
of potential colocation providers, it’s
time to look at pricing structures and
contracts. Decisions in this area depend
on how much equipment you plan to
move into the colocation facility and
how long you plan to house it there.
Most, if not all, colocation providers
offer monthly plans with costs that are
tied to the number of servers you have.
Additional costs, such as those for power
and cooling if applicable, need to be factored into your decision as well.
The key is to make sure everything
is clearly stated in the SLA or contract
when you make your final decision. Ask
if discounts are available for longerterm agreements, and build in wording
that will account for potential growth
so expansion-related costs don’t get out
of hand. This is the part in the process
where you must take strides to protect
yourself and your equipment not just
now, but well into the future.

CyberTrend / August 2015

41

The Dark Side Of The Internet Of Things
WHY CIOS & SECURITY PERSONNEL MUST ADDRESS VULNERABILITIES & RISKS NOW

KEY POINTS
• The billions of devices involved
with the IoT will introduce a bevy
of security concerns enterprises
will need to address.
• IoT devices used in relation
to critical infrastructure environments, such as the oil and gas industry, are considered particularly
enticing targets for hackers.
• As OT and IT networks/systems
increasingly combine and share
information, employing new, more
holistic security approaches may
be needed.
• Although the IoT is still relatively
new, security vulnerabilities already exist.

42

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

THE IOT (INTERNET of Things) is one of
the most talked about and exciting new
technologies, primarily due to its massive
scope, potential, and opportunities. Take,
for example, Gartner’s recent forecast that
there will be roughly 5 billion connected
“things” (devices and sensors) in use this
year, up 30% from 2014. Other projections
call for upwards of 29 billion connected devices by 2020, not to mention hundreds of
billions in revenue for suppliers of related
products and services.
One estimate states the enterprise
sector will make up roughly 40% of
these connected devices near decade’s
end. In terms of business transformation, Gartner hails the IoT a “powerful
force,” stating it will have a disruptive
impact “felt across all industries and all
areas of society.” Manufacturing, utilities,
and transportation, Gartner projects, will
top the verticals using IoT this year, combining for 736 million connected devices.

Still, not everything concerning IoT is
a positive. The vast number of connected
sensors, machines, devices, corporate networks, intervening hardware, embedded
OSes, and other entities involved with IoT
promises to introduce a steady stream of
security concerns enterprises will have
to address. Here we examine the issues
CIOs, CEOs, and digital security personnel
should prepare to deal with.

Inside The IoT
IoT is largely about devices: a steadily
growing number of them, each of which
possess a unique address that enables it to
connect with the Internet. IoT also pertains to the interconnections these “things”
share, including with corporate networks.
Thus, beyond traditional computers and
mobile devices, IoT devices can include
wearables; thermostats; manufacturing
equipment; and sensors in automobiles,
oil rigs, trains, and jet engines. Broadly, the

“As IoT spreads into areas such as facilities
management and physical security automation,
the definition of what constitutes ‘digital security’ will
change and become much more holistic than it is today.”
EARL PERKINS
Research Vice President, Systems, Security & Risk
Gartner

IoT enables connecting energy grids, transportation systems, smart homes, manufacturing facilities, and more to the Internet.
For a 2013 summit on the Internet of
Things, the SANS Institute described IoT
as enabling “any-to-any connectivity,”
noting three waves of connectivity, including a first wave of homes and offices
connected to business buildings via wired
connections and a second involving mobile devices connecting to businesses and
other mobile devices via wireless connections. The third wave, though, entails
“things” connecting to users, businesses,
and other “things” via wired and wireless connectivity. Examples include automobiles, airplanes, medical machinery,
personal medical devices, windmills, and
environmental sensors.
The SANS Institute notes that most IoT
devices will be used in either critical infrastructure (power production, generation,
and distribution; manufacturing; transportation; etc.) or personal infrastructure
(medical devices, automobiles, etc.) areas.
Critical infrastructure in particular is an
attractive target for national and industrial
espionage, DoS (denial of service), and
other disruptive attacks. Devices associated with personal data are also enticing
targets. Therefore, both critical and personal infrastructure will require adding
new security approaches to legacy security processes and technology, the SANS
Institute says.
At the CyberMaryland conference held
in October 2014, Admiral Michael Rogers,
commander of U.S. Cyber Command, reportedly said that securing IoT is a huge
issue for everyone. “Literally every person

on earth is a sensor. We have billions of
devices. It’s a daunting task,” he said. “How
are we going to make this work? How are
we going to secure them all? That’s for all
of us to work toward,” Rogers stated.
In a recent blog post, Peter Sondergaard, Gartner senior vice president,
stated that CEOs are shifting from heading
companies that produce cars, toasters, elevators, construction equipment, washing
machines, etc. to companies that basically
produce Internet-connected devices. This
fundamental change means CEOs will face
the same challenges IT has dealt with since
the Internet’s arrival, namely securing devices and networks from malicious attacks.
Gartner projects that by 2017’s end, more
than 20% of enterprises will have digital security services aimed at protecting business
initiatives that use IoT devices and services.

Should You Worry?
In many respects, IoT is still relatively
new. So why should CIOs and security
personnel be turning an eye toward IoTrelated security concerns now? Because in
other respects, the IoT isn’t a “tomorrow”
thing, says Mike Krell, Moor Insights &
Strategy analyst. Vulnerabilities exist now.
“Newly connected IoT devices, such as
thermostats, vending machines, HDTVs,
and wearables, are being added daily and
create some of the largest potential security gaps in the IT infrastructure,” Krell
says. A massive security breach involving
a well-known retailer in 2013 “came
through the HVAC system,” he notes.
Further, as users’ demands for mobility,
cloud-based applications, and collaboration binside and outside of organizations’

firewalls continue, Krell says, “the threat of
a malicious attack or industrial espionage
is around every corner.”
Earl Perkins, a Gartner research vice
president specializing in security, says
much like how the Web revolution of
the late 1990s and early 2000s began in
business units with IT later supporting it,
the IoT revolution has started in business
units seeking “incubation” projects that
use different devices to enhance business
processes or initiate processes to support
IoT devices their clients or partners carry.
CIOs and IT must heed IoT security worries now or risk being caught flat-footed,
similar to how many were with the Web
and mobile revolutions.
“They must also be concerned because
IoT brings the aspect of the physical into
their enterprise security strategy,” Perkins
says. Similar to how business strategies
evolved to support mobile and BYOD
(bring your own device), he says, more
devices requiring physical and digital security controls will demand strategies to
further evolve. “As IoT spreads into areas
such as facilities management and physical security automation, the definition
of what constitutes ‘digital security’ will
change and become much more holistic
than it is today,” Perkins says. “Just ask
those involved in industrial automation
and control enterprises. They know exactly what this entails.”
Rahul Vijayaraghavan, Frost & Sullivan
senior research analyst, industrial automation and process control, says while there’s
considerable focus on IT security now, not
as much is targeted at OT (operational
technology) and control systems or other
critical infrastructures. Within the oil and
gas industry, if a criminal hacked a system
and changed a valve position, “the magnitude of impact would be huge,” he says.
Another issue enterprises face is the
general blurring of lines between IT and
OT, Vijayaraghavan says. Concepts such
as digital oil fields, smart factories, and
other factories of the future will require
streamlined integration among enterprise

CyberTrend / August 2015

43

“As we continue to be mobile, we open holes in the
enterprise to data, hardware, and software. These holes
are natural entries for malicious attacks. As we connect
more devices to the enterprise, there are just naturally
more avenues we need to protect.”

systems, assets, and workforces, he says.
Factor in the IoT and the scads more assets, devices, etc. involved and “there’s
going to be an increase in the number of
attack points. Hence, security should be a
prime focus for most of these companies,”
he says.

MIKE KRELL

The Connections
Examples of how corporate networks
are now connecting to networks that involve machines and sensors are numerous.
HVAC and lighting systems are common
ones. These systems, Krell says, connect
to the same networks that tap into company data. “Also, let’s remember that ‘all
networks are connected’ to the Internet,”
which in turn is connected to various machines and sensors, he says. Printers and
multifunction devices, for example, are
often overlooked in terms of IoT and vulnerabilities, even though remote workers
frequently connect to them outside the
corporate network.
Perkins says asset-intensive industries with automation production or
engineering-oriented infrastructures and
services are the best examples of how corporate networks connect to machines and
sensors. These include electric utilities,
oil and gas companies, manufacturing,
and automotive industries. Within commercial-oriented industries in retail and
facilities management, examples include
the production use of sensors, robots, and
process control.
Perkins uses electric utilities, which for
decades “had two personalities involving
technology,” to illustrate IoT’s influence
on security. Generally, corporate IT network and systems served business units

Analyst In Residence
Moor Insights & Strategy

primarily involved with information processing, while OT systems served operations and production environments. Some
OT and IT technologies were and are similar, but other unique OT technologies, IT
may know little about. This is changing,
however, Perkins says, and IoT technologies and architecture are having an impact.
While many OT and IT systems were
once strictly separated in their daily functions, they’re increasingly sharing information and opening up to other networks
and the Internet, Perkins says. The result
will be a sea change in how digital security
is handled for these converged environments. In general, as more proprietary,
closed systems that OT used are replaced
with more traditional IT and in some cases
IoT systems, the “sins of IT security are
visited upon OT,” he says. To offset the
increase in network connections and IT
usage, digital security teams must establish
better and more structured security. This is
also true for physical security automation
systems. “Everyone is starting to join the
party,” Perkins says.

The Impact
The extent to which the Internet of
Things might impact how large businesses

“There’s going to be an increase in the number of attack
points. Hence, security should be a prime focus for most
of these companies.”
RAHUL VIJAYARAGHAVAN
Research Analyst, Industrial Automation &Process Control
Frost & Sullivan

44

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

view digital security could be significant
depending on the company and industry.
Vijayaraghavan says a big challenge for
enterprises is simply having a willingness
to change and not hold on to an “If it’s
working fine, why change?” mentality.
Enterprises will need to view security
in a more holistic manner and consider
areas and scenarios they haven’t previously. In short, areas that need to be secured within enterprises are much broader
than before, and security can’t be a secondary thought, Krell says. At the network
level, Perkins says enterprises must look
at all options for network segmentation
or separating the flow of data. “That will
be one of the most significant concerns.
While many think we have solved such
a problem already through firewall technology, that isn’t true and is incomplete
anyway,” he says. Like other experts,
Perkins says possessing a more holistic
approach to strategy, frameworks, and architecture is key. This includes reviewing
requirements for such areas as identity and
vulnerability. Enterprises that don’t do this
will find “an asset management nightmare
as they struggle with keeping up with network links, data flows, and access,” he says.
As with other initiatives, addressing
IoT-related security concerns will largely
boil down to devising and executing a
well-thought-out strategy. Enterprise CIOs
must accept that vulnerabilities already
exist and will proliferate in the future, Krell
says. Two significant challenges include the
mobility of today’s work environment and
workers’ desire to bring and use personal
devices to access work data.

Why You Need VPN
GIVE EMPLOYEES REMOTE NETWORK ACCESS WITHOUT SACRIFICING SECURITY

REGARDLESS OF SIZE or industry, most
companies today are searching for ways
to give secure network access to employees, whether they’re in the office,
on the road, or working remotely. They
need flexible solutions that not only enable employees to be more productive,
but also make sure any data and applications are properly protected. VPNs
(virtual private networks) can give companies these capabilities, and they come
in a variety of flavors designed to meet
the needs of any enterprise.

What VPN Is & What It Does
A VPN, at its core, is a secure connection between an endpoint (such as
a desktop, laptop, or mobile device)
and an organization's internal network,
which is usually a direct connection to a
VPN server. This connection is achieved
by installing a VPN client on the endpoint that gives that device permission

to connect to the network and access
internal corporate resources. As information passes through the VPN from
the endpoint to the internal network and
back again, the data is encrypted and
decrypted to ensure that none of it can
be accessed or stolen during the session.
VPNs are particularly beneficial for
enterprises because they can be finetuned to restrict access to certain assets
within an organization and to certain
users. For example, an HR representative may need to have access to personally identifiable employee information,
but the same rights shouldn’t be extended to sales or call center employees.
A solid VPN client will give you the
tools necessary to allow or deny access
to important internal systems and only
give employees access to the data and
applications they truly need.
If your company employs a fair
number of remote workers or frequent

business travelers, then a VPN is the
easiest way to give them secure access
to your internal network. The same
goes for companies in highly regulated
industries, because you have to make
sure that every incoming connection is
properly encrypted, especially for employees working with sensitive data. The
key to setting up a successful VPN and
knowing which type of VPN to choose
ultimately depends on what devices you
need to support and which solution offers the features necessary to ensure the
best and most secure connection.

Different Types Of VPN
There are quite a few different types
of VPN protocols out there, each with
its own strengths and weaknesses. You
have to look at what types of data and
applications your employees will most
need to access via VPN and then determine what level of protection your

CyberTrend / August 2015

45

network will require. For some companies, it may make sense to choose the
simplest form, which is called PPTP
(Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol),
while for others it will make more
sense to go with something more advanced, such as IPsec (Internet Protocol
Security) or SSL (Secure Sockets Layer).
PPTP is one of the most widely supported types of VPN, but that by no
means makes it the best. This protocol
was developed by Microsoft in cooperation with other remote networking
groups and can be used on almost any
operating system or device in use today.
The problem with PPTP is that it isn’t
as secure as SSL or IPsec, and it has numerous exploitable security vulnerabilities. It’s widely used because it is quite
easy to set up and it might be a good
place for newcomers to dabble, but most
organizations will want to opt for SSL or
IPsec instead.
IPsec is often considered to be one
of the most secure types of VPN available today, and it is also quite flexible
and extensive. IPsec protects data from
inside the Internet layer, which is the
part of the network where data packets
are transferred back and forth. Because
IPsec is implemented deeper within
the network stack, it can be used to encrypt and protect any data or application traffic that goes through the VPN.
This protocol is also supported on most
operating systems and devices, which
is a reason why IPsec and SSL are so
common in enterprises today.
SSL VPN is singular relative to PPTP
and IPsec in that it doesn’t require a
dedicated client on the endpoint device
to connect to the network. In fact, a user
can connect to the network via VPN
using any supported Web browser. SSL
VPNs are highly customizable, and with
SSL network administrators have the
option of only giving employees access
to Web-based data and applications or
they can open it up to other internal
resources. There is also an open-source

46

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

version of SSL VPN, called OpenVPN,
so administrators have the option of
going that route if they need features
that aren’t available from vendor-specific solutions.

How To Set Up A VPN
There are a few different ways to
implement a VPN and some of them
require more effort than others. Some
computers and devices have VPN support built-in, so all you have to do is
set up the actual VPN server or VPN
connection on the company side and
allow access from those devices. If you
want to establish a fully managed and
potentially customized VPN, then you
can purchase a VPN solution from a
vendor, which usually consists of the
internal system you need as well as the
clients that can be installed on endpoints. Some vendors offers applications that employees can download
from app stores and then use those to
connect to the network.
It’s also important to keep in mind
that VPNs don’t actually have to be
implemented and managed internally.
Most major cloud providers give clients VPN solutions that are built into
their cloud environments. Cloudbased VPNs are especially beneficial
for companies that use the cloud to
store data and host applications, because employees can access those
cloud resources from anywhere using
almost any type of device and operating system. This may not be the best
solution for all companies, especially
for those that use non-cloud-enabled
legacy applications that may still require an internal VPN to access.

Why It’s Important For
Remote & Mobile Workers
In addition to working well for desktops and laptops, VPN is also useful for
enabling mobile and remote personnel
to do all of their work while away from
the office. Because information passing

over a VPN never needs to be stored
on the device in question, it is more
feasible for employees armed only with
mobile devices to perform tasks while
away from the office.
Depending on the type you select,
VPN can give network administrators the ability to see and manage external endpoints as if they were wired
directly into the network at the office.
This is an excellent solution for companies that want to support BYOD (bring
your own device) policies or allow
more flexibility for employee devices.
If implemented properly, VPN can help
enterprises strike a balance between
protecting sensitive corporate data and
giving employees access to the data and
applications they need to be productive
wherever they are.

VPN TERMS TO KNOW
PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling
Protocol) VPN is widely supported
but is also simplistic and less secure
than the more recent IPsec and SSL.
L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol)
extends some of the functionality of
PP2P and can be used with PPTP.
IPsec (Internet Protocol Security)
and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
are the most commonly used forms
of VPN today and are more secure
than PPTP. IPsec and SSL operate
on different network layers. IPsec
is considered more complex and
flexible, SSL easier to use.
OpenVPN is an open-source VPN
program built on SSL/TLS. Its aim
is high security. It uses OpenSSL
encryption.
MPLS (Multiprotocol Label
Switching) is a type of network; a
variety of MPLS-based VPNs can
be established on these networks.

Is Endpoint Encryption In Your Future?
LEARN WHAT’S INVOLVED IN ENCRYPTING LAPTOPS & MOBILE DEVICES

ENTERPRISES HAVE LONG employed
endpoint security for desktop and laptop
systems. Increasingly, though, CIOs and
security administrators are turning their
attention to securing the smartphones and
tablets their employees use to connect to
corporate networks and access company
data. This will likely continue as more enterprises embark on mobility initiatives;
implement BYOD (bring your own device) programs; and enlist cloud-based
applications that enable accessing data, collaboration, and other functions that help
workers do their jobs.

The Importance Of Encryption
Regulatory obligations are strong motivators for implementing endpoint encryption for many companies, including
those subject to HIPAA (Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act) regulations and that deal with PCI (Payment
Card Industry) data. More broadly, James

48

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

McCloskey, Info-Tech Research Group
director, advisory services for security and
risk, says companies that experience a loss
of personally identifiable customer-related
information have a duty to report it to affected customers, and potentially to law
enforcement, if the data wasn’t encrypted.
Thus, while a state’s regulatory requirements regarding such data may not require
encryption, best practices effectively “lead
you to a situation where encrypting endpoints that hold that kind of information is
really in your best interest,” he says.
Beyond regulatory requirements, companies also encrypt endpoints to protect
intellectual property. An engineering firm
that uses secret processes, for example,
doesn’t want that information residing unencrypted on a stolen laptop. Deploying
endpoint encryption throughout the workforce can make sense.
Notably, for organizations contemplating whether endpoint encryption is a

viable option, a key first step is getting a
firm grasp on the data it possess and what
value that data has. “Not all data needs
to be encrypted, and encryption comes
at a cost,” says Rob Bamforth, Quocirca
principal analyst. Therefore, he advises
companies apply discrimination based on
business value and risk.

The Approaches
Encryption in general can be classified
into hardware- and software-based categories. Michela Menting, ABI Research
practice director, says both are valid for
endpoints. The former includes hardwarebased full-disk encryption and can involve
usage of external hardware such as USB
dongles or flash drives that essentially contain a random number generator that creates an encryption key. Hardware-based
encryption can be more efficient and uses
less power, but it is more expensive than
software-based encryption, Menting says.

“Importantly, the security of an encryption system
relies just as much on the secrecy of the keys as on
the algorithm.”
MICHELA MENTING
Digital Security Practice Director
ABI Research

Software-based data encryption doesn’t
rely on external hardware and is typically
easier to implement. Further, the approach
enables protection of data in transit and
at rest. “Yet, this can increase processor
overhead and reduce data-transfer times,”
Menting says. Overall, while no encryption
technology is inherently more secure than
any other, Menting says, AES (Advanced
Encryption Standard) is currently considered the most secure cryptographic
scheme. “Importantly, the security of an
encryption system relies just as much on
the secrecy of the key as on the algorithm,”
she says.
Where laptops are specifically concerned, widespread enterprise encryption
deployments once carried a considerable
pain factor in terms of long and involved
installations. Self-encrypting solid-state
hard drives have greatly turned this on its
head, reducing encryption times “down
to a minimal state,” McCloskey says.
Elsewhere, some organizations take advantage of embedded encryption technologies
on laptops to obtain encryption benefits,
though lack of manageability can be an
issue. To combat this, many organizations
seek out endpoint encryption solutions
that add a management element but also
enable using embedded technologies.
Endpoint encryption for mobile devices
is “substantially different,” McCloskey says.
Unlike full-disk encryption with laptops,
typically MDM (mobile device management) or EMM (enterprise mobility management) solutions are used to create a
container that’s encrypted on the device.
An application using the container will
require additional authentication to access
the encrypted data. The approach isn’t as

heavy-handed as full-disk encryption, as it
targets specific data, McCloskey says. For
example, an MDM solution might enforce
encryption on contact data in an email calendaring application or on data associated
with VPN (virtual private network) access
into the corporate network to access files.
In both cases, encryption is tied to specific
applications a worker will use.
McCloskey says Info-Tech is seeing interest developing among companies for
consolidated endpoint protection suites
that cover antivirus, anti-malware, host intrusion, host firewall abilities, and encryption. “The concept is this approach gets
you down to having a single management
console associated with the security that’s
deployed on those endpoints,” he says.
Organizations with BYOD and mobility
programs should consider EMM/MDM
platforms as a tool for general policy, security enforcement, application delivery, and
encryption, he says.

The Market
Beyond health care companies and financial sectors, any organization dealing
with considerable personally identifiable
data is a good candidate for endpoint encryption. Insurance companies and some
educational entities where FERPA (Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act)
comes into play are examples. McCloskey
advises organizations that deal with sensitive or valuable IP (intellectual property)
information to consider endpoint encryption for at least a portion of the user base.
That said, while encrypting every laptop
may not be necessary, McCloskey’s perspective is that companies are better off
deploying encryption more broadly than

missing someone who has an unencrypted
database or spreadsheet on his laptop that
gets stolen and creates “a huge mess for
the organization.”
Similarly, for companies with high
BYOD participation, imposing encryption on every device may not be costor effort-effective. Key is targeting data,
which may possibly involve keeping
critical data encrypted and separate via
containerization, which McCloskey says
is still not as widely known among IT as
it should be.
Broadly, in addition to encryption
strength, cross-platform usability is in
demand. Generally, organizations are
seeking solutions with minimal configuration requirements, ease of use, and simple
management. Other features that add
value include protection for mobile devices and portable storage media and an
ability to shred original files after they’ve
been encrypted.
To date, software-based encryption
has dominated the market due partially
to lower price points, Menting says, although increasingly cheaper hardware
costs should lead to more development of
hardware-based encryption equipment.
“The competitive advantage for vendors
of encryption software lies essentially on
the variety of features and add-ons for the
software,” she says.
Vendors of software-based encryption solutions are numerous and highly
competitive, Menting says. “Open-source,
freeware, and permissive license software
litter the lower-end market and compete
against similar low-cost, high-value offerings,” she says. Standalone solutions are
particularly popular with SMBs (small and
midsize businesses). More comprehensive
software-based solutions, meanwhile, are
available for larger organizations in the
form of DLP (data loss prevention) and
key management offerings, Menting says.
Generally, the larger the organization, the
more data and users exist within it, and the
greater the demand for centralized management and authentication services.

CyberTrend / August 2015

49

Improve Security Awareness
EDUCATE EMPLOYEES & CONSIDER IMPLEMENTING TRAINING PROGRAMS

NETWORK BREACHES, data theft, and
other security risks impact businesses
of all sizes, not just the largest enterprises. Whether your company employs
10 or 10,000 people, make sure your
staff understands the many security
risks that face them in today’s business world. In some cases, awareness is
enough to build a more cautious work
environment, but there are times when
formal or informal training is necessary. Regardless of which path you take,
it never hurts to give employees a refresher on what they can do to better
protect the business and themselves.

General Awareness
If your company isn’t in a highly regulated industry and would like to give
employees a heads up as to potential
risks, then awareness may be enough to
get the job done. Andrew Walls, managing vice president at Gartner, warns,

50

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

however, that “awareness is not always
achieved through the use of computerbased training or classroom training approaches.” He recommends looking at
awareness like an internal advertising
or marketing campaign rather than a
specific training program. Awareness
campaigns need to be ongoing and
consistent, because employees can’t be
expected to keep up with the newest
threats on their own, especially if that
isn’t part of their day-to-day work.
“Rather than focus on monolithic,
once-a-year training sessions, these enterprises produce multimedia programs
that span the entire working year,”
says Walls. “Employees are provided
with information as well as motivation
through the use of computer-based
training, live events, coaching, and a
variety of print materials. Building a
successful security education program requires focus and investment.

Materials must be refreshed on a regular basis to keep them fresh and entertaining. CISOs must anticipate this
increased investment—and the skills
required to develop effective training—
and budget appropriately.”

Implement Training Program
When Awareness Isn’t Enough
For some organizations, awareness
simply won’t be enough and they will
need to create a training program. It’s
important to remember “that technology alone will not mitigate all of our
risks” and that “employees hold all the
cards when it comes to security of corporate information,” Walls says. You
can have all of the top-end security in
the world, but if an employee accidently
sends something in an email or opens
the corporate network to hackers via
their personal connection, then nefarious folks are bound to get through.

To properly develop a training program for your employees, you need the
help of an expert that has experience in
the areas of behavior influence and education. Walls says that too often companies will blame the failure of security
education on its employees rather than
on its own incompetence as training
developers. He understands that some
companies simply don’t have this experience in-house, but “they need to gain
access to those skills through engaging
vendors or other teams within their
own enterprise that are responsible for
other forms of training.” If you can get
your employees on the right track in
terms of security training, then there’s
a better chance that they’ll think twice
before putting the company at unnecessary risk.

Training Programs Live Or Die
By Clearly Defined Objectives
Not only do you want to have a
knowledgeable person leading your
training program, but you’ll also want
clearly defined objectives. While the
ultimate goal of any security education program is to protect a business and its corporate data, that isn’t
specific enough to guide the training
strategy in any meaningful way. Walls
adds that the lack of specific objectives “means that it is impossible to
demonstrate a return on investment
for the program,” which will make it
difficult to get support for such programs in the future.
The goals you establish for your
workforce from a security awareness
perspective will ultimately determine
what shape your program takes and
whether it is successful. “Clearly defined objectives enable an organization to more readily define their
options for training content and delivery methods, as well as their needs
for capturing employee performance
in the training process,” says Walls.
“Your objectives define your methods

“Changing an employees’ habits permanently requires a
sustained effort and oversight that very few organizations
consider worth the payoff. Unless you are a cybersecurity
vendor, a national defense organization, or a highly, highly
critical business unit ,then general employee security
training is just a bit of a lost cause, in my opinion.”
KYLE PRIGMORE
Associate Analyst
Enterprise Strategy Group

and the quality of your results. If you
don't have objectives it really doesn't
matter what you do.”

Informal Or Formal Training?
Sometimes an internal training
program may not be enough, which
is typically the case for companies in
regulated industries. For instance, you
may need to get an employee certified
in a specific security area and update
that certification on a regular basis.
Walls explains that there are formal
and informal certifications. Formal certifications are typically for employees
working in government or military organizations or possibly those that work
for HIPAA- or PCI-regulated businesses. Informal certifications that are
“indicative of higher skill levels” can
also be used as a way to “motivate employees to participate in the security
training program,” Walls explains.
It’s also important to keep in mind
that some specific technologies and
security solutions have their own
training programs, which is another
angle you may want to consider. “There
are many vendors that offer professional certifications in various security
topics,” says Walls. If you’re worried
about a specific solution being used incorrectly or just want to make sure your
employees understand how to use that
solution, it won’t hurt to get in touch
with your vendors to see if they offer a
training program.

Training May Not Be An Option
Security awareness is a must for most
organizations. However, training programs simply won’t be an option for
some companies due to the time and
effort such programs require. This is
especially true for larger enterprises that
are forced to keep track of hundreds or
thousands of employees and can’t waste
resources checking up on employee security habits on a consistent basis.
“If it ever worked, it would be huge,”
says Kyle Prigmore, associate analyst
at ESG (Enterprise Strategy Group).
“An enterprise where everyone made
sure their machines were patched [and]
hardened, [where] they used best practices for things like password management and phishing prevention, and
[where they] only used the appropriate
devices, channels and networks to access company data? They’d be as close
to bulletproof as is possible. Sadly, it
will never happen at the enterprise
scale,” he says.
The key to implementing security
awareness programs that work is to
focus on the biggest risks to your business. You can’t cover every possible
base and remove every possible vulnerability, because in the end, you are
dealing with human beings that are
prone to error. In some cases, it’s a
matter of just doing your best to educate employees when you can and creating an environment that tries to put
security first in everything it does.

CyberTrend / August 2015

51

Missing CyberTrend when
you’re on the go? View or
download the digital edition at

STAY AHEAD
OF THE CURVE

www.cybertrend.com to get up
to speed on the latest technology news and information about
products for your company.

Net Neutrality Primer
HOW THE IDEA OF A FREE & OPEN INTERNET AFFECTS BUSINESSES

NET NEUTRALITY HAS become a hot
topic in recent years, and it entered
the worldwide lexicon so strongly that
Merriam-Webster officially added the
term to the latest edition of its unabridged dictionary. If you haven’t been
following the issue closely, you may be
unaware that there has been an ongoing
debate regarding the concept the term
describes. In this article, we explore the
main ideas behind net neutrality and
explain why ISPs (Internet service providers) and Internet users tend to fall on
different sides of the issue.

Net Neutrality At Its Core
The principle behind net neutrality is
that ISPs should handle all network traffic
in an unbiased manner. What this means
is that someone streaming video over the
Internet shouldn’t be treated as being any
different than a person sending an email
message. The term was introduced in 2003

as a way to verbalize the concept that the
Internet needs to be free and open as a
delivery model for network-based services.
As of late, the term “net neutrality”
has taken center stage in a debate among
businesses and users trying to use the
Internet for various purposes and the
ISPs essentially serving as gatekeepers
to higher Internet speed. Perhaps a
more prominent example of this was
the recent dispute between Comcast
and Netflix. When users began reported
slower streaming, Netflix suspected
Comcast was throttling Internet speeds.
Netflix paid Comcast for a period of time
to have priority over other traffic and
deliver a better experience for its users,
which runs contrary to the idea of net
neutrality and an open Internet.
Data throttling doesn’t only happen to
businesses, as some ISPs have throttled
individual connections and IP addresses
as a way to curb the network activity of

some of its most intense users. For the
last few years, Internet users and companies alike have fought against ISPs in
the media and in court to ensure that
network speeds aren’t throttled on either
side. Until recently, this seemed to be a
difficult battle, because ISPs held most
of the leverage, and even a popular company such as Netflix caved to demands.
However, the tide has started to turn in
favor of those who would uphold the
ideals of net neutrality.

The FCC’s Past & Current Stance
The Federal Communications Commission has played a major role in the
net neutrality fight, especially since
2010 when it introduced rules aimed
to prevent ISPs from limiting speeds
or outright blocking certain websites.
This marked the first time in the FCC’s
history that it established official regulations regarding Internet access. This

CyberTrend / August 2015

53

NET NEUTRALITY
ORIGINS
The term “net neutrality” was
coined by Tim Wu, a professor
at the Columbia University Law
School, in an article called
“Network Neutrality, Broadband
Discrimination.” This article
was published in the Journal of
Telecommunications And High
Technology Law in 2003. In it,
Wu introduced the idea of broadband providers discriminating
against certain users or types
of network traffic as far back as
the early 2000s, which shows
just how long this issue has
been around.

small victory was short-lived, however,
as a major federal lawsuit and challenges
from some of the largest ISPs led the
Federal Appeals Court to overturn that
ruling in 2014.
A short time later, a White House platform called “Restore Net Neutrality By
Directing the FCC to Classify Internet
Providers as ‘Common Carriers’” created
a petition. When the petition collected
more than 100,000 signatures, President
Obama’s administration responded by
saying it supported net neutrality but it
didn’t have the authority to force rules
on the FCC. The FCC took notice and
opened itself up to the public in search of
comments and suggestions regarding how
it should handle net neutrality and those
that oppose the principle. Over a fourmonth period, close to 4 million people
submitted comments to the FCC, making
it the largest response the FCC had ever
received to an open forum on any issue.
Earlier this year, the FCC again sided
with net neutrality supporters and voted
to introduce new rules and regulations.
The rules went into effect on June 12
and covered Internet access across all

54

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other Internetenabled products. The policy introduced
a variety of rules, with the three key rules
being no blocking, no throttling, and no
paid prioritization.

ISP Reaction To New FCC Rules
Although net neutrality appears to be
a consumer-friendly concept that most
people and companies would support,
it does have its opponents. In fact, some
larger ISPs are against net neutrality and
specific FCC regulations. For example,
there are corporations and ISPs that
think net neutrality rules will stifle their
potential growth and make it financially
infeasible to expand their broadband
footprints. The rationale behind this idea
is that if these organizations cannot recoup costs by introducing more widespread and faster Internet, then it doesn’t
behoove them to expand.
Another pillar in the argument
against net neutrality rules is that it will
cause overutilization of network bandwidth to the point where it could negatively impact the experience of all users
across the board. The idea here is that
if the biggest users of bandwidth aren’t
limited or throttled in some way and all
users are able to use as much bandwidth
as they want, the network will ultimately
be overtaxed and could result in worse
performance or even outages.
Many of these corporations continue
fighting against the FCC in an effort
to overthrow these rules, but they are
still in effect. Since they’ve only been in

around for a short time, the FCC has yet
to enforce these rules in response to a
user complaint. Some argue the regulations are too strong and others argue
they aren’t strong enough and won’t
have any tangible impact, but the true
success or failure of these policies remains to be seen.

How Net Neutrality Impacts
Businesses
Net neutrality may impact your business in one of two ways: if you’re an ISP
or corporation that is now regulated
by the FCC and can’t throttle Internet
speeds or give paid prioritization, or if
you’re a business that uses that Internet
and should be able to offer products
and services over the network in the
same way your colleagues and competitors do. Your opinion on the matter
most likely depends on your business
type and Internet usage, and how you
weigh the pros and cons offered by supporters and opponents.
Hopefully, for most businesses, net
neutrality won’t become an issue and
they’ll be able to use the Internet in the
same way they have previously. Net neutrality rules will often only affect larger
organizations and individuals that use
the most bandwidth, but that doesn’t
make it unimportant by any means.
Ultimately, a free and open Internet
could make it so that businesses can
compete on a level playing field and
give customers the experience they want
without fear of being throttled or charged
more than other businesses.

EARLIER THIS YEAR, THE FCC AGAIN SIDED
WITH NET NEUTRALITY SUPPORTERS AND
VOTED TO INTRODUCE NEW RULES AND
REGULATIONS. THE RULES COVERED
INTERNET ACCESS ACROSS ALL DEVICES,
INCLUDING DESKTOPS, LAPTOPS,
TABLETS, SMARTPHONES, AND OTHER
INTERNET-ENABLED PRODUCTS.

CORPORATE TRAVEL?
NEED A VACATION?
Let our #missionbird take you where you need to go.
Our diverse fleet of 22 aircraft offers a travel experience above the rest.

Ready when you are

STAjets exclusive membership program allows our members
to earn cash in addition to flying at an industry discount.
It requires no complicated contracts, deposits, hidden fees,
or blackout dates.
We offer our exclusive members discounted flights
while earning cash rewards on every flight.

IT’S THE LOWEST COST MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM IN THE INDUSTRY
AND THE ONLY PROGRAM THAT PAYS BACK!

949.756.1111 | [email protected] | www.stajets.com

THE LATEST PREMIUM ELECTRONICS

Gigabyte’s Newest Compact Computer
WWW.GIGABYTE.US
Tired of having a computer that takes up so much space on (and below) your desk? You’re far from alone, which partly
explains the continually growing popularity of mobile computers. But for those who need to save space and still get desktop
PC performance, there are low-profile systems such as Gigabyte’s BRIX. What makes the BRIX line a little different is that
it’s a barebones compact system designed for those who are at least slightly technically inclined, so it can be customized
to meet each user’s needs. The GB-BXi3H-5010 model includes a 2.1GHz 5th-generation Intel Core i3 processor, Intel
HD Graphics 5500, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and ports for every occasion: USB 3.0 (x4) for peripherals, HDMI for multimedia, Mini
DisplayPort, and more. You choose and install your own memory (up to 16GB), 2.5-inch SSD or hard drive, and operating
system. Other BRIX models are available, so make sure you choose one with the processing power you need.

56

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

High Capacity
& Lightning Quick
WWW.PNY.COM
Whether you're a photography enthusiast or
a professional photographer, you'll appreciate
PNY's Elite Performance SDXC Class 10 Memory
Card for its incredibly fast data transfer rates: up
to 95MBps (megabytes per second). This read
performance is perfect for continuous shooting,
action shots, and high-definition video, as well.
The card uses the SDXC standard for reliable
performance, so make sure your camera is
SDXC-compatible. The card is available in 64GB
($49.99), 128GB ($79.99), 256GB ($169.99), and
512 GB ($399.99) capacities. The card is magnet
proof, waterproof when submerged up to 1
meter in salt water, shock proof up to 1,500Gs,
and capable of withstanding temperatures
ranging from -13 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit.

This Tablet Does More
WWW.VERIZONWIRELESS.COM
Looking for a different kind of tablet? One
that has a full-sized USB port, perhaps?
Or one that can be paired with an Android
smartphone so it can alert you to incoming
calls and messages? The LG G Pad X8.3 from
Verizon Wireless has these features as well as
a 1.5GHz 8-core processor, LTE cellular connectivity, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1,
and an 8-megapixel camera. The tablet has
16GB of built-in storage and includes a microSD Card slot for adding up to 128GB more.
It runs Android 5.0 (aka Lollipop) and includes
an 8.3-inch full HD touchscreen. The USB 2.0
port works with many USB devices (USB 3.0
devices are compatible), such as flash drives,
keyboards, and mice. The G Pad X8.3 is now
available through Verizon Wireless.

CyberTrend / August 2015

57

Trends In Artificial Intelligence
ADVANCEMENTS THAT MAY IMPACT YOUR BUSINESS

AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) has often
been a popular topic in science fiction,
but there’s real reason to believe that AI
will be a reality for business services in
the not-too-distant future. Apple’s Siri
and Microsoft’s Cortana are examples
of basic AI tools that can answer simple
questions, but newer forms of AI could
be much more powerful and could
take advantage of big data resources,
advanced analytics capabilities, natural
language processing, and adaptive reasoning. The combination of technologies will allow AI to manipulate diverse
information, so data doesn’t have to reside in a structured database, and the
AI can use reasoning (based on such
things as trend analysis or link analysis)
to reveal patterns and discover relationships that would be difficult for a person
to unearth.
In this article, we look at some of the
many ways AI might be used in the future.

58

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

AI Trends
One of the biggest reasons to be excited about AI is that there are several
well-funded programs throughout the
United States that are focusing on developing AI technology and software.
“A number of companies . . . are actively
working on neurocomputational hardware technologies,” says Dan Kara, practice director, robotics, at ABI Research.
Neurocomputing is a field of study that
uses computers to simulate the human
brain and perform specific tasks, such
as improving operational efficiency or
automating repetitive activities. “There
is a sizable effort dedicated to developing commercial neuromorphic hardware (neuromorphic computing), and
the ability [to] perform massively parallel
processing on low-power, embedded processors, makes possible a wide range of
new, dramatically more powerful, devices
and applications,” says Kara.

Neurocomputing isn’t the only path
to AI. There are also AI tools that use
machine learning techniques where
computers can perform tasks that are
not explicitly programmed. Machine
learning takes advantage of a special set
of algorithms that can discover useful
patterns via a given set of data, such as
images, sound, or text. Michele Goetz,
principal analyst at Forrester Research,
says, “The first wave [of AI] seems to be
based around early commercialized cognitive solutions that utilize a combination of deep learning and decision forest
algorithms.” Deep learning is a form of
machine learning that can work with neurocomputing to let the computer think
without as many input examples as you’d
see with traditional machine learning.
What types of practical things can AI
accomplish with deep learning? Goetz
cites an example of a company that uses
this approach to create applications that

“AI techniques are being used successfully every day
for manufacturing, healthcare, [and] communications,
[among other things].”
DAN KARA
Practice Director, Robotics
ABI Research

analyze profiles and transactions to not
only expose behavior and transactional
patterns, but also provide transparency
in the factors that are contributing to
these insights for areas in technical support, purchasing, and financial risk.”
This way, the AI can help you to understand the risk level of a given borrower
or how likely it will be that a person
could repay a loan on time, and the AI
can list the unique features of the individual in question, which can be used to
help mitigate risk.
Another factor that’s helped to break
down AI barriers is that computers now
have access to digital infrastructures and
general knowledge bases that weren’t
easily available in the past. When you
combine big data with smart algorithms
and fast computers, you have the technology in place to make AI impactful.
Mike Battista, senior manager at InfoTech Research Group, says, “With screens
everywhere, it’s easier to imagine AI
having a face. With sensors everywhere,
it’s easier to imagine AI having eyes, ears,
and other senses. We’re at a point where a
lot of pieces that could make advanced AI
more viable—and useful—are part of our
everyday lives already.”

AI Use Cases
The advancements in AI have started
to move into the realm of the business
world and commercial systems. “As a
whole, the AI community is more focused on providing working, practical
solutions, and solving problems as opposed [to] emphasizing theory,” says
Kara. “AI techniques are being used successfully every day for manufacturing,

health care, [and] communications,”
among other things.
In a recent report entitled “Cognitive
Engagement: A New Force Of Creative
Destruction,” Forrester identifies three
ways in which cognitive systems (those
that can listen, learn, and respond using
natural language and symbolic reasoning) can benefit companies.
In one instance, cognitive engagement
can augment peoples’ capabilities; such
as with digital assistant tools. A good
example of this is Google Now, which
scans information on your Google account (such as calendar entries and your
current location) to recommend events
or activities. The system could also send
a text message informing you to leave
the office a bit early to beat traffic and
make an upcoming appointment.
Another benefit, according to the
Forrester report, is the potential availability of tools that can improve business
operations by scaling knowledge capacity.
This involves human-like uses of AI that
can provide advice for a given situation.
For instance, AI could help a customer
service agent quickly resolve complex
problems, such as what insurance plan
is right for the client. “Where big data
mostly resonated and made sense to IT
and analytic professionals, artificial intelligence is demonstrating possibilities
that nontechnical individuals and business
leaders understand,” says Goetz.
Lastly, AI technology could lead to
automation of a repeatable activity.
Forrester reports that when a cognitive
engagement system can process input,
make decisions, and act autonomously—
in milliseconds—“new categories of

capability open up.” Just imagine all
of the Internet-connected devices that
could become automated with the use
of AI. Your house could start cooling
down or warming up as soon as you
leave work. More powerful AI could
further automate manufacturing lines,
warehouses, and distribution centers,
among other things.

What’s Next
“Great strides are already being made
in many areas such as perception and
language understanding,” says Kara.
“For example, machines are now nearly
as good as humans at recognizing images. Imagine when these same machines will have global, pervasive access
to distributed, indexed repositories of
the world’s images [and] databases, by
the way which will continue to grow exponentially.” Extra help may come from
big companies that are researching AI
technology. Battista says that “these large
companies have access to a whole lot of
raw digital data about people, and about
the world, that may be necessary for AI
to flourish.” He also notes that “Perhaps
even more importantly, they have the
resources to try an expensive idea, fail
miserably, [and] then try another.”
In terms of effects of the business
market, AI experts are working to help
people make better decisions. Goetz says,
“The next wave will be to move expert
systems to interactive problem solving
platforms.” He explains, “they are
working on how to connect today’s corporate silos of analytic competency centers to operational competency centers
and reduce the bottleneck to corporate
knowledge and fast time to scalable business value.” Kara echoes those thoughts,
saying, “In the near term, the greatest
benefit will be to industries that can benefit from drawing ‘understanding’ from
massive amounts of data. Health care,
retail, and logistics provide examples.”
All in all, it looks like a bright future for
AI technology.

CyberTrend / August 2015

59

Images, clockwise from top left, courtesy of Apple (1), Samsung (2), Sony (3), Microsoft (4, 5), and BlackBerry (6)

Smartphone Tips
GET MORE OUT OF YOUR DEVICE . . . OR SWITCH TO A NEW ONE

BLACKBERRY

60

Send A File With NFC

Transfer Data From An Old BlackBerry To A New One

❯ To send a file directly to another
nearby device without sending it over
the Internet, you can use NFC (near
field communications), a short-range
wireless technology, if both devices
support NFC. On your BlackBerry, tap
Settings, Network Connections, and
look for NFC to see if the device has
it. Tap NFC and make sure the NFC
Connectivity switch is turned on. As
long as NFC is turned on in the other
device as well, you can share a file. Open
the file (or locate multiple files and tap
to highlight the ones to be sent), tap
the Share icon, and tap NFC. Place the
BlackBerrys back-to-back. The file(s)
may be sent automatically at this point,
or you may be prompted to tap Send.

❯ If you have a BlackBerry smartphone running BlackBerry 7 OS or later
and wish to transfer data from that phone to a newer model that’s running
BlackBerry OS 10, you can use BlackBerry Link to accomplish that. BlackBerry
Link software lets you transfer contacts (including BlackBerry Messenger contacts), calendar entries, task items, memos, messages (as in text and multimedia
messages, but not email messages), Password Keeper entries, and various settings from one device to another. To complete this process, you will need to
have a media card installed in the old device as well as the password you use
when backing up your BlackBerry.
To begin, tap the Search icon on the older device, type device switch in the
search field, and tap Search. This should display a setup screen. Select Setup,
Device Switch, Using A Media Card, and Save Data. Uncheck the Save Emails
checkbox. Select Continue, and the Device Switch program will transfer all of
your information to the device’s media card. Remove the media card and insert
it in the new device. When the Device Switch interface appears on-screen, enter
the password and tap Transfer to complete the process. To obtain email messages on the new device, select Settings, Accounts, and Add Account, and then
enter your email address and password; this links the account to the device.

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

ANDROID
Keep Private Events Private

Multitask With Multiple Windows

❯ If you have added an event to your
calendar, the entry can be public or
private depending on the setting used.
If there is an event in your calendar
you would like to keep private, launch
Calendar, access the event, tap the event
name to open it, press the Menu key, tap
Edit, and make sure the event is set to
Private rather than Public.

❯ Your Android smartphone’s screen may be small compared to a desktop
display, but it can handle a modicum of multitasking in the form of a customizable split screen. All it requires to get started is to activate the Multi Window
feature, which you can do by touching the Status bar, dragging open the
Notification screen, tapping the Open Grid (four squares) icon, and tapping
Multi Window. Once activated, you can use Multi Window by pressing and
holding your smartphone’s Back key and opening the panel with the Window
Tab (partial circle, in some cases containing a right arrow) icon that displays
on the left side of the screen. That Tab icon is key to doing different things with
the Multi Window feature. You can tap it to open the Apps panel and view all
of your app window options, and you can press and hold the Window Tab icon
to reposition it. Also, when you tap the icon to display the Apps panel, you can
also create a customized Multi Window view or tap the Edit button to access
additional options.

Say “OK Google”
❯ If you’re in a location where your
Android smartphone’s microphone can
determine what you’re saying (that is,
someplace without a lot of loud background noise) and you don’t mind
talking to your phone when a live
person isn’t listening on the other end,
go to your smartphone’s home screen
and say “OK Google.” Doing this in
Android 4.4 launches the operating system’s voice search feature, which you
can use to search the Web, contacts, or
anything on your phone.

Turn Location Tracking On/Off
❯ By default, there are a few apps that
track and record location data. And
while many apps request permission
from the outset, you may decide at a
later date that you want to turn this feature off. On your Android device, go to
Menu, Settings, Privacy And Accounts,
and Manage Location Settings. From
this menu, you can turn off the location
settings of Google Maps and also turn
off location reporting to prevent your
data from being sent to (and stored by)
the company. But if had location services turned on, that means there is still
some data stored on Google’s servers.

Put Chromecast To Work
❯ If you’re using an updated
Android smartphone (i.e., running Android 4.4 or later) with
the Chromecast app installed and
a Chromecast streaming media
device, you can use this combination of hardware and software
to display presentations, photos,
and videos (and anything else that
can display on your smartphone,
for that matter) to a TV screen.
This is possible now that Android
permits mirroring, provided that
the television has a USB port for
the Chromecast device and that it
shares a Wi-Fi network to which
your smartphone also has access.
With the TV set and Chromecast
connected and turned on, access the settings on your Android
smartphone and tap Cast Screen. Android permits mirroring, so you can share a
Choose the Chromecast device to presentation on a nearby television.
which you want to mirror content. Enter display settings when
prompted or dismiss the notification, and you should see the same image on both the smartphone and the TV
set. Use the Cast Screen button to change settings or disconnect.

CyberTrend / August 2015

61

iOS
Turn Off Wireless
❯ Airplane Mode might be a thing of
the past someday soon with airlines
easing their restrictions on in-flight device usage, but if you find that you need
to turn off wireless connectivity quickly,
your iPhone gives you a few options.
To turn off just Wi-Fi (not your cellular
connection or GPS), tap Settings, WiFi, and slide the Wi-Fi switch to disable
Wi-Fi. To prevent location-based applications (including Maps) from using
your iPhone’s wireless capabilities to
track its location and find other locations, tap Settings, Privacy, Location
Services, and slide the switch to disable
the services. To turn off only cellular
data, tap Settings, Cellular, and slide the
Cellular Data switch to the “off” position. If you need a total wireless shutdown, though, simply access Settings
and slide the Airplane Mode switch to
the “on” position.

Revoke App Access To Your
Microphone
❯ If you’re uncomfortable with apps
accessing your iPhone’s microphone
or you don’t intend to use the mic
for any purpose other than perhaps
to talk to Siri, you can reject an app’s
request to access your mic. If you have
granted permission to an app at one
time and wish to turn it off, or if you
want to see all of the apps that currently have permission to use your
microphone, you can do that, too. To
control which apps have permission
to use the microphone, access Settings,
tap Privacy, tap Microphone, and review the list of apps that have access to
your iPhone’s mic. Switch off permission for any app(s) you don’t want to
access the microphone.

62

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

Modify Restrictions To Control What
Can & Can’t Happen On Your iPhone
❯ If your iPhone settings are such that you can freely make purchases, use Siri
and location services, connect your photo albums to a social media account, and
similar things (basically, do anything your iPhone is capable of without getting
a message that the desired action is not allowed), then some (if not all) of the
iPhone’s restrictions are disabled. If you would prefer to rein in some capabilities (one popular choice is to restrict in-app purchases), you can enable any
number of restrictions.
Enable restrictions. To
gain more control over
what actions are permitted
on your iPhone, access
Settings, scroll down,
tap General, scroll down
again, tap Restrictions, tap
Enable Restrictions, and
enter a passcode when
prompted. You can flip
the switches to allow or
disallow the actions mentioned above, as well as
iTunes Store access, app
deletion, and FaceTime
activity, among other
things. You can also place
limits on the type of content (movies, TV shows,
books, apps, etc.) that
are permitted on your
iPhone. Further down the
screen, under the Privacy
heading, you can control Enabling restrictions lets you prevent occurrences such as
in-app purchases.
whether changes can be
made to many iPhone features, including Location
Services, Advertising, Bluetooth Sharing, Photos, and social media integration.
Tap General, tap Settings, and exit Settings when you’re done making changes.
Modify existing restrictions. To change the controls currently in place, access Settings, scroll down, tap General, scroll down again, tap Restrictions, and
enter the passcode you established when you initially enabled restrictions (This
may be the passcode that was in place for the iPhone at the time you enabled
restrictions.) Scroll through the options to make all desired changes. If you’d
prefer to turn off all restrictions, just tap Disable Restrictions at the top of the
screen and enter the required passcode. When you’re done, tap General, tap
Settings, and exit Settings.

WINDOWS PHONE
Find Nearby Wi-Fi Hotspots

Move Your Contacts To An Android Phone

❯ Windows Phone makes it incredibly easy to connect to available Wi-Fi
hotspots (which is why you should be
careful which hotspots you try to connect to, lest you choose one that’s set
up by a crook aiming to steal logins,
passwords, personally identifiable information, and other data). As long as
your device’s Wi-Fi is turned on (tap
Settings, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Networking
to make sure that it is) and as long
as it’s set up correctly (tap Settings,
Wi-Fi, and Advanced; then turn on
Automatically Connect To Wi-Fi Hotspots), all available Wi-Fi networks
will automatically be indicated onscreen; if prompted, simply tap and
follow the prompts to connect. You
can also perform a broader search for
nearby hotspots by tapping Settings,
Wi-Fi, and Find Nearby Wi-Fi.

❯ If you’re moving from a Windows Phone device to an Android smartphone
(or if you’re adding an Android device to your collection), you can download
your contact information from the Windows Phone to a PC and then upload
it so the Android phone can access it. Start by syncing your contacts with your
Microsoft account (typically this is set up to automatically stay in sync) and then
open Outlook on your PC. Click File, Open & Export, and Import & Export.
Select Export To File, click Next, select Comma Separated Values (Windows),
click Next, select your Contacts folder, click Next, choose a location for the exported document, click OK, click Next, and then click Finish.
Now, launch a Web browser and navigate to your Gmail account. Click Gmail
(on the left side of your Gmail page below the Google logo), select Contacts,
click the More button, select Import, and click Choose File. (If you are using the
preview of the new Google Contacts version, you will have to select Go To Old
Contacts before you will be able to choose a file.) Navigate to the CSV file you
just exported from Outlook and click Open. Choose whether to add the new contacts to a specific group using the checkbox, and then click Import. If you chose
to add your new contacts to a new group, you’ll be prompted to name that group.
Gmail will provide you with a report of how many contacts were added and
how many of the new contacts were merged with existing contacts. Click OK to
dismiss the report, click the Find Duplicates button, and then click OK to merge
as many repeated contacts as possible. Now, syncing your Android-based phone
with Gmail will bring your new contacts over.

Fix A Smartphone Photo
❯ After you have snapped a photo
with your Windows Phone 8 device,
don’t scrap it if it doesn’t immediately
meet your approval. Instead, try using
the operating system’s built-in photo
editing tools to improve the picture.
Open the Photos app, find the photo
you want to edit, tap to open it, tap the
More (three dots) icon, and tap Edit.
If the photo’s orientation or borders
are the problem, tap the Aspect Ratio,
Crop, or Rotate icon, as appropriate,
and follow the on-screen prompts to
trim or transform the picture as you
wish. If the photo simply looks as
though it needs a good touch-up, tap
the Fix icon and a correction will automatically be applied. If the correction
doesn’t look quite right, either delete
the photo or tap the Undo Fix icon.

When your Windows
Phone is connected to
your Microsoft account,
your contacts are kept
in sync online and with
your connected desktop
Outlook application.

Use Foreign Language Keyboards
❯ Windows Phone 8 supports more than 40 languages with separate on-screen
keyboards for each. Of those, Windows Phone 8 provides automatic text suggestions while you type for more than 30 languages. By default, Windows Phone 8
smartphones sold in the U.S. market will come with the U.S. English keyboard
active and ready to use. If you add one or more foreign language keyboard, a
language button will be added to the keyboard, allowing you to switch quickly
between keyboards for different languages. To add a keyboard, access Settings,
tap Keyboard, tap Add Keyboard, select each keyboard you would like to add,
and tap the Add button. To remove a keyboard, follow the same steps but tap
Remove at the end.

CyberTrend / August 2015

63

Data Usage & International Travel
HOW TO AVOID RACKING UP UNEXPECTED CHARGES

ASIDE FROM A FEW exceptions, such as
the lack of 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) network availability outside of the
United States, advances in communication technologies are making it easier to
use your mobile devices when traveling
abroad. There’s one common problem,
however: American travelers using cellular services beyond U.S. shores can
easily get stuck with hefty wireless bills.
Whether you use a smartphone, tablet,
laptop, portable hotspot, mobile broadband modem, or other device, if it relies
on cellular communications, it could cost
you. We explain how to fend off excessive
charges, regardless of the device.

Understand Roaming
Roaming occurs whenever a wireless carrier other than your own provides your device with a cellular signal.
International roaming rules and rates are
typically different from those that apply in

64

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

the U.S., so here’s the No. 1 roaming rule
to keep in mind when traveling abroad:
Never assume anything. If you think that
an “unlimited” plan doesn’t change if you
travel outside the U.S., that isn’t so. Or
if you believe that roaming charges will
skyrocket if you only use the Internet and
that exchanging a few simple text messages or checking voicemail won’t add up
very quickly, you will be mistaken because
roaming rates often apply to anything you
do with your device when it involves a
cellular connection.
Also, depending on your device’s carrier and settings, you may or may not
receive an obvious notification when
roaming, so you won’t necessarily be
prompted when the tally of charges starts
to rise. On the flip side, you might not be
able to roam internationally unless you
enable roaming before you travel. It is imperative, then, that you fully understand
how your wireless plan’s roaming features

and rates work before you leave the States.
Barring that, bring your carrier’s toll-free
customer service phone number with
you; if you have any doubt as to how your
plan’s roaming rates work when traveling,
use a local phone to call that number and
find out.

Know Your Phone
& What It Can (& Can’t) Do
When it comes to frequencies, wireless
carriers, and foreign cellular networks,
there are few absolutes. It’s imperative
that you determine what frequencies your
device uses and whether those frequencies
match the networks available in your destination countries, because if they don’t
match, your device won’t work at all for
voice, messaging, or data transmissions.
Devices that use CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) cellular networks are very limited in terms of
international use. You need one that

works with GSM (Global Standard For
Mobile Communication) networks
if you want it to work in the largest
number of countries. And if you have
a device that uses 4G, research whether
your destination supports the technology
before you take the device abroad. When
identifying what frequencies your device
supports, find out the exact frequencies—
don’t settle for simply “GSM” (because
there are multiple GSM networks) or brochure verbiage that suggests the device
will work anywhere you go.
Some devices only function on one or
two frequencies. Some CDMA phones
work only on CDMA networks, while
others include added support for two
or more GSM frequencies. In general,
the best devices for international travel
are those labeled “world” (as in “world
phone”) or “global.” These are typically
quad-band GSM devices, which means
they operate on all four GSM frequencies
(850/900/1800/1900MHz), and sometimes
on CDMA and 3G/4G frequencies as well,
and will therefore work in most locations.

Unlock Your Device
It might be necessary to unlock your
smartphone or other cellular device before you travel so that it will work not
only with networks, but also with wireless
carriers, in other countries. Call your carrier to find out if this is necessary and to
receive a code or other means to unlock
the phone.

Get A New Device Or Plan
If your device or wireless plan is presenting you with limitations or potentially excessive fees, consider switching to
a new device or a new plan. This might

involve replacing your current device
with one that operates on frequencies
commonly used worldwide. Or it may
involve switching your wireless plan to a
“global roaming” or similarly named plan
or adding a special Internet data bundle
that will allow you to travel internationally and roam all you want for a relatively
affordable price.

Track Usage To Avoid Surprises
If you know your device’s international
roaming rates and you wish to keep expenses down, it can help to track voice,
messaging, and data usage on your device.
Most smartphone and tablet operating
systems include settings that let you view
data usage, and they may include options
for setting self-imposed limits on usage.

Use VoIP On Wi-Fi
One inexpensive (and sometimes free)
method for placing voice or video calls
while traveling is to connect to a Wi-Fi
hotspot and use a VoIP (voice over IP)
app. Don’t rely on this method, however, as common VoIP services can be
blocked in some countries and by some
hotspot providers. And, as always, make
sure that any Wi-Fi hotspot you connect
to is secure so that technically inclined
eavesdroppers can’t listen in on your conversations, view your data transmissions,
or nab your website passwords.

Limit Data Usage
It used to be simple to limit data usage
on mobile devices: go into settings and
switch Data to Off. While this (or something like it) is still possible on many
phones, tablets, and other devices, there
are now—thanks to a plethora of mobile

YOU CAN CALL YOUR WIRELESS CARRIER
ANYTIME TO . . . FIND OUT DETAILS ABOUT
YOUR PHONE’S CELLULAR CAPABILITIES,
YOUR WIRELESS PLANS, AND HOW THOSE
THINGS WORK TOGETHER IN THE PLACES
YOU’RE GOING.

apps—multiple changes you can make to
various device and app settings without
shutting off data transmissions entirely.
In the device/OS settings, look for options with phrases that relate to fetching
new data, using packet data, and roaming
that you can switch off. Devices differ, so
experiment with these settings; assuming
you want to continue to use the device
on international networks but want to
limit unnecessary data traffic, the idea
behind changing these settings is to turn
off only those features that work in the
background, searching for new data on an
ongoing basis.
Additionally, review any apps installed
on your device. You may want to change
the settings within individual apps so that
they will only update on demand (when
you manually tap a “Sync” button, for
example) rather than searching for updated data in the background. You may
also find that some apps only work with
an active wireless connection, so you may
want to install different apps (at least temporarily) that work offline or only when a
Wi-Fi connection is present.

Use A Temporary Device
If you prefer to forgo all of the steps in
this article, consider picking up a rental
or pay-as-you go smartphone. These are
available in many international airports.

Remember, You Have A Lifeline & A
Panic Button
Keep in mind that you can call your
wireless carrier anytime to speak with a
customer service representative and find
out details about your phone’s cellular
capabilities, your wireless plans, and how
those things work together in the places
you’re going. If you’re already overseas,
though, use a local phone to call customer service so you don’t rack up additional charges. Finally, if all else fails,
use your device’s airplane mode setting
as a form of “panic button” to ensure that
you won’t be charged for wireless services
while you figure everything out.

CyberTrend / August 2015

65

Office In The Cloud
LEVERAGE THE WEB

JUST AS THERE ARE now virtual or
cloud-based versions of software
and storage solutions that used to be
firmly entrenched in physical servers
and desktops, there are now Web
versions of Microsoft’s widely used
Office products. Word, Excel, and
other Office programs are included
in a hosted service called Office 365
(office365.microsoft.com). But as familiar as you may be with the functionality of traditional Office products,
there are plenty of new capabilities, features, and collaborative possibilities to
explore in the Web-based version. We
offer some practical tips and how-to
steps that will help you advance from
novice to experienced Office 365 user.

Customize Your Public Website
If your company uses SharePoint
Online, you can update or add pages
to your Public Website whether you

66

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

are in the office or on the road. Click
the Page tab and select Edit to start
making changes to an existing page—
say, to add new information and
photos for a new product, update a
schedule, or post to a blog. Use the
Page tab to change layouts, the Insert
tab to add content, or the Format
Text tab to work with text. Or click
the Page tab and select New to create
an entirely new page for the Public
Website.

Create Personal & Team
Websites
When you become an Office 365
user, you can activate a My Site website where you can manage and share
docs hosted by SharePoint Online. A
similar feature exists for team project
management in the Team Site, where
you can create a Team Site for syncing
calendars, developing projects, and

working offline. To start a team-accessible home base site in SharePoint, go
to the Site Actions menu, choose New
Site, and then click the Featured Items
or Browse All tab. Assign your team
site a URL and title and click Create.

Add Shared & Private Notes
During A Lync Meeting
Many times the records, lists, and
important items you save in OneNote
(Microsoft’s digital note-taking software) turn into meeting agendas and
tasks for colleagues, so it’s convenient
that Lync lets you save private notes
or share notes for collaborative discussions. To start a note during an in-session Lync meeting, click the OneNote
tab in the conversations window after
you pause the presentation. Then select My Notes to start typing private
notes or click Share Notes and choose
a section for note-taking.

Share A Presentation
Lync not only lets you share your
Desktop, a program window, a whiteboard, or a poll, but it also lets you share
PowerPoint presentations. When you
start an IM (instant message) conversation, click the Share drop-down menu
and select the PowerPoint Presentation
option. After the presentation uploads,
you can enable restrictions, such as
who can join the presentation, who
presents, and who is allowed to annotate
the presentation.

Send Documents Via
Instant Message
There are two ways to send a document as an attachment using Lync:
from the document itself or through
an open IM window. Within the document you intend to send, click File,
click Save & Send, and then select Send
By Instant Message. In the Address
Book window add the recipient names
in the To field, and then make sure
you can see the attachment in the IM
window. Alternatively, you can start an
IM conversation with a recipient, click
the paper clip icon (for sending attachments), choose a file, click Open, select
the item you intend to share, and send.

a contact or group of people who may
access your schedule. Enter Calendar
view, click Share, and then choose Share
This Calendar. Next, insert the individual or group who will receive the
shared calendar.

Stay In Touch With Colleagues
Via Mobile App
If your company uses Microsoft
Lync, try using the mobile app when
you are away from the office. The
Lync app is available for a variety of
mobile platforms and provides you
with capabilities similar to those of
the desktop version. Log in and start
connecting with colleagues directly
via IM, or use the app to place calls,
start an email message, or participate
in a videoconference. As with the
desktop Lync, you can use the app to
let others know your present availability, as well.

Use Your Mobile Device To
Share Docs
Microsoft recommends two sharing
methods from a mobile device: sharing
with recipients you invite to your site and
sharing via a guest link. Both methods
may require you to switch from mobile

to PC view through the Settings
menu. To share with site invitees,
tap More in the document library, and
then tap Share. Next, type the appropriate names or email addresses of those
with whom you’re sharing the document.
Next, select Can Edit or Can View and
select the Require Sign-In check box. If
you would like to add a message, choose
Show Options and tap Send An Email
Invitation. If you opt to send a guest
link, simply deselect the Require Sign-In
check box.

Record Collaboration Sessions
Using Lync
Lync helps you document current
multiuser conversations, calls, and
meetings so you can easily reference
pivotal conversations when necessary.
To do this while you’re in Lync, direct your pointer to the conversation
window and click the More Options
menu (two arrows on the right side
of the window). Next, click Start Recording. You can access saved recordings by navigating to the Microsoft
Lync Recording Manager. Click Start,
select All Programs, and then click
Microsoft Lync. Open the Manager and
choose your preferred recording.

Edit Or View Docs In Real Time
Another advantage of SharePoint is
the ability for multiple users to work in
the same documents simultaneously.
To access a document that’s available
for team editing, find the document link
in your SharePoint website’s document
library, hover over and click the arrow
(if you’re asked to select Read Only or
Edit), and choose View In Browser or
Edit In Browser. Accessing documents
in this way requires that the corresponding Microsoft Web App (Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, or OneNote) is installed.

Share Your Calendar
Office 365 Outlook includes calendar sharing options that let you select

There are plenty of helpful features built into Office 365 to keep you organized. For example, you can
customize your Outlook calendar Web app as you plan meetings and work toward deadlines.

CyberTrend / August 2015

67

Ease Travel Headaches
THESE DEVICES CAN HELP

IF YOU DO ENOUGH traveling, you quickly
learn tricks to eliminate some of the stress
and headaches that come with being on
the road. Technology can often help, as the
following travel-friendly devices prove.

Bluetooth Finder
$20+
Ever set down the keys to your rental
car or your own vehicle on a restaurant
table only to get up, walk away, and leave
them behind? Many of us have done
this. One way to prevent the aggravation
that typically follows is to attach a small
Bluetooth dongle-like device to the key
ring. These devices communicate with
a smartphone, warning you when the
phone moves out of range of the dongle.
Typically, such devices cost about $20 or
more and have a smartphone app that
sounds an alarm, emits a beep, or even
provides a visual indicator that lets you see
when you get closer or move farther away

68

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

from the key ring or other object to which
you attached the device.

Bluetooth Keyboard
$60-$100+
No matter how adept or comfortable
you are typing on a mobile device’s touchenabled keyboard, there are times when
a full-fledged keyboard would be a better
choice. Some tablets bundle a Bluetooth
keyboard. For those that don't, there are
plenty of third-party options available.
Nearly all Bluetooth keyboards are thin
and light enough to make an ideal travel
companion, and some double as a protective tablet cover as well as conveniently
fold into a stand to present a laptop-like
form factor. Depending on the model, a
particular Bluetooth keyboard may include
backlighting and specialty keys, integrate
a rechargeable battery, and provide a carrying case. Pricing generally ranges from
$60 to $100 or more.

Device Charger
$40-$100+
If there’s one certainty about mobile
devices it’s that they don’t hold their
power forever. Further, an outlet isn’t always available for recharging. Thus, it’s
a good idea to pack your own portable
power supply so you can keep using your
device. Though price, size, and weight
can vary, general portable charger options include battery packs that are solar
powered and/or integrate a rechargeable
battery. Typically, models bundle multiple
device adapters, and some models may
include multiple connectors to charge several devices simultaneously. Some packs
also function as a cover for a smartphone.
Other power-related products worth considering include USB power adapters that
plug into power outlets to provide a USB
port for charging, solar backpacks, power
adapters for overseas travel, and mini
surge protectors.

Luggage Tracker
$50-$100
Some people would pay a small fortune to know where their luggage is at
all times. Anyone who has experienced
lost luggage understands why. The good
news is you don’t have to pay a fortune to pinpoint the exact location of
your baggage. For somewhere in the
neighborhood of $50 to $100, you can
acquire a device (perhaps even an FCCcertified and FAA-compliant one) that
uses GPS (Global Positioning System),
GSM (Global System For Mobile Communications), and other technologies
to provide tracking abilities for luggage. These devices are small enough to
easily fit in a bag and can do such things
as email or text you a verification that
your luggage arrived at its destination.
If your luggage is lost, the devices let
you pinpoint the bags’ locations on a
Web-based map.

Multi-Tool Knife
$25-$100+
While you still can’t carry a pocketknife onto a plane, you can take one with
you when traveling by land, and having
a multi-tooled knife on hand can get you
out of a fair number of jams, including
in a storage sense. That’s because beyond
packing an actual blade (as well as possibly a screwdriver, scissors, wine opener,
pliers, etc.), some multi-tool knives integrate a USB memory stick for storing and
transferring several gigabytes’ worth of
document, image, video, audio, and other
files. Thus, even if you lose your notebook
or tablet, you’ll still have important files
handy. Depending on the storage amount
and model, prices of multi-tool knives can
span from about $25 to $100 or more.

Noise-Canceling Headphones
$50-$100s
Whether in a plane, shuttle bus, taxi, or
room in a not-so-quiet hotel, noise seemingly always surrounds a traveler. Noisecanceling headphones provide an escape

from the din by using battery-powered
technology to essentially match and
cancel external sound swirling around.
Alternatively, less bulky and non-battery
charged sound-isolating earbuds offer
comparable results by fitting into a user’s ear canal to isolate sound rather than
cancel it. Depending on the mechanics,
engineering, sound quality, and materials
in use, headphone and earbud prices can
stretch from $50 for an acceptable pair to
into the hundreds of dollars.

Portable Hotspot
$50+
Staying Internet-connected while traveling is an absolute necessity for business travelers, but doing so via Wi-Fi
isn’t always easy. Although public Wi-Fi
hotspots are available, they’re not always
free and security can be an issue. An alternative is to use a portable hotspot device
(costing about $50 or more) that uses a
mobile broadband connection (a 4G LTE
network, for example) to form a wireless
hotspot for multiple devices. Another option is to use a portable router. Plug an
Ethernet cable into, say, a hotel room’s
wired Internet port, plug the cable’s other
end into the router, and you’ve created a
wireless network with multiple-device support. Elsewhere, various companies provide private Wi-Fi services for a monthly/
annual charge that provide a welcomed
layer of security when connecting to a
public Wi-Fi hotspot.

Portable Monitor
$75-$200+
In some office environments today, you
may see two (or more) monitors on an
employee’s desk. This setup allows users
to easily switch among open programs,
keep tabs on continually updating information in a Web browser, and perform
other multitasking chores. Travelers can
get this same second-screen ability away
from the office by bringing along a USBbased portable monitor. Such screens
(generally $75 to $200 and more) connect

and draw power from a notebook via USB
cable. Typically, the screens support landscape and portrait modes, bundle a stand
to prop them up, and are light enough you
likely won’t notice when you’re toting one
around. Depending on the model, touch
abilities might also be included.

Storage Device
$10+
One thing you can’t have too much of
is storage, including for reasons tied to
accessing and backing up data. Packing
an extra memory card, USB thumb drive,
or external drive on which you can grab
or offload photos, videos, and other files
is smart. (Just make sure not to lose the
storage device on which that data resides.)
If you’re expecting rugged conditions
where you’re going, some external drives
and USB memory sticks offer water- and
shock-resistant features to provide protection against the elements and drops.
Overall, storage continues to be an excellent value. Memory sticks, for example,
can start at around $10 depending on the
storage capacity.

Video Streamer
$35-$100+
It’s possible you already have a set-top
box-like device attached to your HDTV
at home to stream on-demand TV programs, movies from subscription services,
and audio from Internet radio stations. A
nifty aspect of these devices is that travelfriendly sizes (some are essentially a glorified USB stick) means they can easily stow
away in a suitcase. Unpack it once in your
hotel room; connect it to the TV’s HDMI,
USB, or AV port; configure the Wi-Fi settings; and all the content you have at home
is now available for watching in your hotel
room. Should you forget to pack the remote control the device bundled, many
streamers have compatible apps that enable a smartphone or tablet to function as a
remote control. With prices ranging from
about $35 to $100 or more, these devices
are an entertainment steal.

CyberTrend / August 2015

69

PowerPoint Tips
ADD CHARTS & GRAPHS TO YOUR PRESENTATION

THE SCENARIO IS FAMILIAR to traveling
professionals: your PowerPoint presentation is all set when new and relevant
information comes to light and must
be added. If you’re on the road or in
the sky and find yourself having to add
charts or graphs to a PowerPoint 2013
presentation, this article will help. We
include tips designed for PowerPoint
novices and adept PowerPoint users
seeking specific chart-making advice.

Create A Basic Chart Or Graph
To insert a colorful chart or graph
illustration into your PowerPoint presentation, locate the Insert tab and
select Chart. Next, look through the
available chart types, select the design
that best represents the information
you want to share, and click OK. A
Microsoft Excel chart will open with
placeholder text and figures you can
replace with relevant data. When you

70

August 2015 / www.cybertrend.com

finish entering your data, close the
spreadsheet to see the completed chart
in the slide.

Save & Manage
Chart Templates
If you want to adjust the look of an
existing chart, click the chart in the
PowerPoint slide and the Chart Tools
contextual tab appears. Keep in mind
Chart Tools will only appear when you
select a chart. Open the Design tab and
you can manipulate the overall layout
and style of your chart via the options
in the Chart Layouts and Chart Styles
panes. When you’ve fashioned a chart
you’d like to reuse, click File, select
Save As, and choose the location in
which you want to save the slide. In the
Save As dialog box, type a name for the
template in the File Name field, select
PowerPoint Template from the Save As
Type drop-down menu, and click Save.

Highlight Important
Data In A Chart
Whether you’re presenting numerous
charts or need to add emphasis to specific data within a chart, sometimes it’s
beneficial to call out key points. Locate
the Drawing pane in the Home tab and
expand the Shapes menu. Select a shape
that is appropriate for emphasizing information in your chart, and then click
anywhere in the chart to place the shape.
To customize the shape, select it and
click the Shape Fill, Shape Outline,
Shape Effects, and Quick Styles options
in the Drawing pane.

Insert A Chart
Linked To Excel
If you’re used to working in Excel
and prefer to construct the skeleton
of your chart first, you can use Excel
to compile data and create a chart for
use in PowerPoint. Start by entering

values in an Excel workbook. Highlight
all necessary data cells, click Insert,
and apply a preferred chart style in the
Charts pane. Next, select the newly created chart and click Copy in the Home
tab. Open a current or new PowerPoint
slide and find the Clipboard pane on
the Home tab. Click the Paste dropdown arrow and choose Keep Source
Formatting & Link Data (to maintain
the appearance of the Excel file) or
Use Destination Theme & Link Data
(to match the chart appearance with
the presentation).

Edit & Add Labels
A chart that includes a lot of numbers or a detailed legend may require
some editing, especially because you
want it to look polished for presentation purposes. These fine-tuning tools
are located in the Add Chart Element
drop-drown menu in the Chart Layouts
pane of the Design tab on the Chart
Tools contextual tab. If you notice
that your chart is missing a title, you
can add one by selecting Chart Title
and clicking Centered Overlay Title or

Microsoft PowerPoint’s
Design tab in the Chart
Tools contextual tab lets
you modify the layout of
your chart and adjust its
style. These settings help
you create one-of-a-kind
charts and graphs that
illuminate important
statistics or values.

Above Chart—this displays a title at the
top of the chart. You can browse the remaining label options to add axis titles,
insert legend variations, and manipulate data.

pane let you apply fill colors, outlines,
and effects to chart text. To view every
part of your chart (such as depth, floor,
horizontal axis, side wall, and so on),
click the drop-down arrow at the top of
the Current Selection pane.

Adjust Style & Text
To put the finishing touches of
color and contrast on a chart, start by
clicking the Format tab in the Chart
Tools contextual tab. You can enhance
backgrounds, category shapes, and 3D
chart elements when you use options
on the Shape Styles pane for each feature. Options on the WordArt Styles

Modify Data In An Existing Chart
Regardless of whether you created
your chart in Excel or PowerPoint, you
should be able to modify data without
much hassle. In PowerPoint, click the
chart you intend to change and select
the Design tab in the Chart Tools contextual tab. Next, click Edit Data in the
Data pane. Excel opens the data sheet in
a new window, and from here you can
click and edit individual cells. Simply
closing the Excel file will refresh and
save the new content.

Add Animation

You can outline a graphical element, change its color, and add unique effects to a chart or graph all
within PowerPoint. In addition, applying WordArt Styles will change the fill color, shade, and outline of
selected text.

If you want to emphasize a particular data group, you can add animations to a graph or chart. Under the
Animations tab, the Animation pane has
a variety of animations you can apply
to a chart. Explore extra effects by expanding the pane and clicking More
Entrance Effects, More Emphasis Effects,
or More Exit Effects at the bottom of
the menu. To stagger the animation of
individual objects, click Effect Options
in the Animations pane and select one of
the following functions: As One Object,
By Series, By Category, Be Element In
Series, or By Element In Category.

CyberTrend / August 2015

71

Sponsor Documents

Or use your account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Forgot your password?

Or register your new account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link to create a new password.

Back to log-in

Close