Electric utility companies promoting power conservation programs discovered that simply informing consumers of their electricity usage relative to neighbors lowered overall consumption. This type of normative social comparison has produced the same effects in other domains. Why does this work? How can the idea be used in Customer Success?
Four Best Practices for Agile API Load Testing | @CloudExpo #API #Cloud #Agile
One important organizational point of Agile API delivery is the concept of a team producing a usable version – which should result in the improved alignment of development, QA, and technical operations teams. Perhaps an even larger benefit of Agile is that it allows teams to effectively manage change in both external and software functionality, while simultaneously accelerating the development of quality software. Part of the challenge with managing this change, however, is providing quick feedback on when the change in software happens, and its resulting impact.
[session] #DeepLearning, Trading & #FinTech | @CloudExpo #BigData #AI #ML
Deep learning has been very successful in social sciences and specially areas where there is a lot of data. Trading is another field that can be viewed as social science with a lot of data. With the advent of Deep Learning and Big Data technologies for efficient computation, we are finally able to use the same methods in investment management as we would in face recognition or in making chat-bots. In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Gaurav Chakravorty, co-founder and Head of Strategy Development at qplum, will discuss the transformational impact of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning in making trading a scientific process. This focus on learning a hierarchical set of concepts is truly making investing a scientific process, a utility.
Peak 10 Completes Data Center Expansions | @CloudExpo @Peak_Ten #Cloud #DataCenter
Peak 10 has announced that it has completed a 20,000 square foot expansion of its Cincinnati-area data center, a 6,000 square foot expansion of its data center campus in Charlotte’s University Research Park, and added a pair of seasoned executives to its leadership team. This further propels the company on its aggressive growth trajectory to meet the rising demand for flexible hybrid IT strategies and solutions across its enterprise customer base.
Cincinnati is home to companies like Kroger, Proctor & Gamble, and GE. The expansion of Peak 10’s facility, located in West Chester, OH, was driven by the increasing demand for its IT infrastructure solutions. Since first entering the Cincinnati market in 2008, Peak 10 has seen steady customer growth, primarily in the industries of healthcare, manufacturing and technology. The company serves hundreds of area customers, including Gorilla Glue, CareStar and Aero Fulfillment Services.
Maryland is all set to move its services to the cloud
Maryland is leading the way in moving its services to the cloud, as it has started building a cloud-based platform to upgrade its customer processes, specifically its human services technology infrastructure.
Maryland is thinking of creating a unique product called Total Human Services Information Network, dubbed as, MD THINK. This is a cloud-based repository that will offer integrated data to all the programs and projects handled by the departments of Human Services, Licensing, Regulation, Juvenile Services, Health and Mental Hygiene.
The obvious advantage with such a system is that users can get the information they want from a single repository. In the past, data was siloed in different departments and this made it difficult for one department to access the information contained in another. As a result, they were not able to make the best decisions because no department ever had the complete picture of an individual. Since everything about an individual was not known, there was no scope for contextual decisions, and this really impeded the success rate of many of its programs, not to mention the hardships it caused to the residents of Maryland.
To overcome this problem, MD THINK came into being. Gov. Larry Hogan and his administration are striving to make this project a reality by investing $14 million from the allocated budget funds for the financial year 2017.
According to experts, MD THINK will use a scalable and cloud-based platform that will streamline all the processes and consolidate it into a single repository for data storage and retrieval. The first phase will focus on children and families, so that social workers can better cater to their needs.
In addition, case workers will be given a tablet device that they can use while on field work, as a part of MD THINK. Such a move will help case workers to record information right away and even lookup for any pertinent information that can help them offer a better service.
There are many advantages that come with such a program. First off, Maryland is likely to save a ton of time and money, as it can streamline its resources and use them in a more productive manner. More importantly, it will be able to gather data analytics that can provide deep insights into the program beneficiaries, how it benefits them and what more can be done to improve the quality of life of Maryland citizens.
According to Gov. Hogan, this project will transform the way the state of Maryland deliver human services to its residents and it’ll also finally bring the process of delivering government services into the 21st century.
This cloud-based project, in many ways, reflects the power of technology and how it can be used to make our society a better place for living. Though the benefits of cloud are well-understood, not all government services are ready to move to it. This can be due to a combination of many factors such as existing legacy systems, the cost of migrating existing data and systems to a new system, budget constraints, mindset of policymakers and more.
Hopefully, this step by Maryland paves the way for other states to also follow suit and embrace cloud in a big way.
The post Maryland is all set to move its services to the cloud appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
2017 is the year when IoT gets serious: Here’s what cloud providers need to know
If you attended Mobile World Congress (MWC) last month you would have heard a lot of buzz about 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) with many vendors like HPE, IBM, VMware and others talking about their role in 5G and IoT. As iland is a V-Cloud partner, I was particularly interested to hear about the VMware IoT theatre sessions which went on throughout the show during which VMware talked about their IoT strategy and how it was helping organisations to harness IoT devices.
As you would expect there was a lot on show. There was everything from IoT-enabled safety jackets to keep people safe at sea or in the mountains to connected cars showing the latest innovations in vehicle-to-vehicle communications and autonomous driving. Sierra Wireless demonstrated a live LTE CAT-M network for smart water solutions while Huawei put the spotlight on its connected drone.
Moving away from all the hype of Mobile World Congress, I believe that 2017 will be the year where the focus turns to real deployments and the monetisation of IoT. It is fair to say that in 2016 IoT was still in its infancy in terms of revenue and deployments. Now however I think we will start to see some real live systems that increase productivity, increase customer satisfaction and develop new revenue streams.
At MWC we heard that 5G will be the panacea for IoT. However 5G is still a number of years from being realised in any meaningful way. In the meantime, telcos will have to deal with new IoT models using alternative technologies today. Telecom operators’ strategies and business models for generating revenues from IoT will continue to develop through 2017 and I think we will continue to see the battle between NB-IoT and LTE-M play out.
Regulation and standardisation will also come into focus more in 2017. On the regulatory front, I have to admit we haven’t seen much come through yet but I expect to see more government interest as IoT becomes more pervasive in smart cities, the public sector and energy.
Smart cities will lead the charge in IoT deployments. The awareness of what ‘smart city’ means is now beginning to capture the attention of residents. They value safety (smart lighting), convenience (transportation, parking) and the potential cost savings that cities can deliver (smart metres, on-demand waste pickup and so on). That said, cities will continue to be strained by the need for money to support the deployment of sensors to gather data and the integration of city-wide systems.
As business investment in cloud technologies continues, so IoT moves up the agenda. IoT data tends to be heterogeneous and stored across multiple systems. As such, the market is calling for analytical tools that seamlessly connect to and combine all those cloud-hosted data sources, enabling businesses to explore and visualise any type of data stored anywhere in order maximise the value of their IoT investment.
Equally organisations across the world will be deploying flexible business intelligence solutions that allow them to analyse data from multiple sources of varying formats. Joining together incongruent IoT data into a single pane of glass, companies can have a more holistic view of the business, which means they can more easily identify problems and respond quickly. In other words we need to extract the data from IoT devices then figure out what it all means. With the solution to the ‘last-mile’ of IoT data organisations can then start to increase efficiencies and optimise their business offering.
While the possibilities for IoT to improve our world seem endless, concerns over security are very real. As we put more and more critical applications and functions into the realm of IoT it increases the opportunity for breaches. In 2016, the market finally began to take security seriously, largely because of the increase in IoT hacks. Incidents such as the big denial-of-service attack in October and even the potential of a drone injecting a malicious virus via lights (from outside a building) caused great concern throughout the industry. As a result, we saw some solid announcements such as the Industrial Internet Consortium releasing its security framework. With all the new vulnerable devices now being put into service, hackers will continue to exploit IoT systems. I think we can certainly expect to see more large scale breaches as hackers look for newly connected devices, especially in the energy and transportation areas.
Many of iland’s top customers are working in the IoT space and they are looking to iland to provide the most secure and top of the line environments to host their applications in the cloud. Here at iland we take this very seriously and we are constantly improving, upgrading and fortifying our platform to meet the growing needs of the IoT market. This means applying on-premise levels of IT security to cloud workloads. For example two factor authentication, role based access control, encryption and vulnerability scanning which enables a protective shield for the cloud to scan all incoming and outgoing data for malicious code, regardless of the device being used. Additionally, we have just introduced our Secure Cloud Services designed to foster strategic, self-sufficient visibility and control of a cloud environment.
I believe that 2017 will be the ‘Year of IoT’ and at iland we are focused on making sure that we provide the most secure and compliant environment for our customers so that they can take advantage of the opportunities that IoT presents. Making sure your IT systems are compliant and having the reporting mechanisms so that you can prove your data is secure will be a critical success factor in order to leverage IoT devices.
Editor’s note: if you are interested in finding out more about the iland Secure Cloud™ or iland Secure Cloud Services please visit here.
2017 is the year when IoT gets serious: Here’s what cloud providers need to know
If you attended Mobile World Congress (MWC) last month you would have heard a lot of buzz about 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) with many vendors like HPE, IBM, VMware and others talking about their role in 5G and IoT. As iland is a V-Cloud partner, I was particularly interested to hear about the VMware IoT theatre sessions which went on throughout the show during which VMware talked about their IoT strategy and how it was helping organisations to harness IoT devices.
As you would expect there was a lot on show. There was everything from IoT-enabled safety jackets to keep people safe at sea or in the mountains to connected cars showing the latest innovations in vehicle-to-vehicle communications and autonomous driving. Sierra Wireless demonstrated a live LTE CAT-M network for smart water solutions while Huawei put the spotlight on its connected drone.
Moving away from all the hype of Mobile World Congress, I believe that 2017 will be the year where the focus turns to real deployments and the monetisation of IoT. It is fair to say that in 2016 IoT was still in its infancy in terms of revenue and deployments. Now however I think we will start to see some real live systems that increase productivity, increase customer satisfaction and develop new revenue streams.
At MWC we heard that 5G will be the panacea for IoT. However 5G is still a number of years from being realised in any meaningful way. In the meantime, telcos will have to deal with new IoT models using alternative technologies today. Telecom operators’ strategies and business models for generating revenues from IoT will continue to develop through 2017 and I think we will continue to see the battle between NB-IoT and LTE-M play out.
Regulation and standardisation will also come into focus more in 2017. On the regulatory front, I have to admit we haven’t seen much come through yet but I expect to see more government interest as IoT becomes more pervasive in smart cities, the public sector and energy.
Smart cities will lead the charge in IoT deployments. The awareness of what ‘smart city’ means is now beginning to capture the attention of residents. They value safety (smart lighting), convenience (transportation, parking) and the potential cost savings that cities can deliver (smart metres, on-demand waste pickup and so on). That said, cities will continue to be strained by the need for money to support the deployment of sensors to gather data and the integration of city-wide systems.
As business investment in cloud technologies continues, so IoT moves up the agenda. IoT data tends to be heterogeneous and stored across multiple systems. As such, the market is calling for analytical tools that seamlessly connect to and combine all those cloud-hosted data sources, enabling businesses to explore and visualise any type of data stored anywhere in order maximise the value of their IoT investment.
Equally organisations across the world will be deploying flexible business intelligence solutions that allow them to analyse data from multiple sources of varying formats. Joining together incongruent IoT data into a single pane of glass, companies can have a more holistic view of the business, which means they can more easily identify problems and respond quickly. In other words we need to extract the data from IoT devices then figure out what it all means. With the solution to the ‘last-mile’ of IoT data organisations can then start to increase efficiencies and optimise their business offering.
While the possibilities for IoT to improve our world seem endless, concerns over security are very real. As we put more and more critical applications and functions into the realm of IoT it increases the opportunity for breaches. In 2016, the market finally began to take security seriously, largely because of the increase in IoT hacks. Incidents such as the big denial-of-service attack in October and even the potential of a drone injecting a malicious virus via lights (from outside a building) caused great concern throughout the industry. As a result, we saw some solid announcements such as the Industrial Internet Consortium releasing its security framework. With all the new vulnerable devices now being put into service, hackers will continue to exploit IoT systems. I think we can certainly expect to see more large scale breaches as hackers look for newly connected devices, especially in the energy and transportation areas.
Many of iland’s top customers are working in the IoT space and they are looking to iland to provide the most secure and top of the line environments to host their applications in the cloud. Here at iland we take this very seriously and we are constantly improving, upgrading and fortifying our platform to meet the growing needs of the IoT market. This means applying on-premise levels of IT security to cloud workloads. For example two factor authentication, role based access control, encryption and vulnerability scanning which enables a protective shield for the cloud to scan all incoming and outgoing data for malicious code, regardless of the device being used. Additionally, we have just introduced our Secure Cloud Services designed to foster strategic, self-sufficient visibility and control of a cloud environment.
I believe that 2017 will be the ‘Year of IoT’ and at iland we are focused on making sure that we provide the most secure and compliant environment for our customers so that they can take advantage of the opportunities that IoT presents. Making sure your IT systems are compliant and having the reporting mechanisms so that you can prove your data is secure will be a critical success factor in order to leverage IoT devices.
Editor’s note: if you are interested in finding out more about the iland Secure Cloud™ or iland Secure Cloud Services please visit here.
Commodore 64 to #DevSecOps | @DevOpsSummit #APM #Agile #AI #DevOps
We all know the story: a farm, a kid, a Commodore 64, and a modem maxing out at 300 bps. A few unexpected phone bills later, and young Ian Allison is figuring out how to game the system so he can keep using his newfound gateway to the world of tech. According to Ian, that is where he began building the foundation of skills for his career in computer security. At the recent All Day DevOps conference, Ian (@iallison), now with Intuit, talked about his history of being “that” security guy. You know, the one who thinks developers don’t care about security or deadlines, and, really, are just plain “stupid.” But, don’t worry, he is enlightened now and realizes that we all have the same goal – everyone wants to build a secure system.
Measuring Browser Support for HTML5
HTML5 is the current standard for content displayed in web browsers. Your ordinary web browsing depend on how well the browser you use supports this standard. In addition, some applications have web-based versions that use features of HTML5 to provide a solution that does not require the installation of any code, so that you can […]
The post Measuring Browser Support for HTML5 appeared first on Parallels Blog.
[session] @Ford to Present Secure #IoT at @ThingsExpo NY | #IIoT #M2M #AI
With the introduction of IoT and Smart Living in every aspect of our lives, one question has become relevant: What are the security implications? To answer this, first we have to look and explore the security models of the technologies that IoT is founded upon. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Nevi Kaja, a Research Engineer at Ford Motor Company, will discuss some of the security challenges of the IoT infrastructure and relate how these aspects impact Smart Living. The material will be delivered interactively to engage with the audience and will consist of the following three parts.