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TOTAL
MOBILITY
Crucial Mobile Strategy
Advice For Organizations
Large & Small
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IN THIS ISSUE
Table Of Contents
XXXQDUPEBZDPN 7PMVNFt*TTVFt'FCSVBSZ
ON THE COVER
10 40
➤ Essential ➤ Mobile
TOTAL
Business Tech Office
MOBILITY
for executives, make the most of
professionals, mobile devices
and entrepreneurs and services
58 64
➤ Personal ➤ Business
Mobile productivity is no longer just an experimental tool or some- Electronics Travel 911
thing reserved for executives, salespeople, or frequent travelers. With
each new generation of products, mobile devices are getting closer to Electronics, Highly useful
becoming our primary personal computers. They enable workers to services, and information
get information and make things happen anywhere, any time, and helpful advice for conducting
quickly. Turn to the Essential Business Tech department to find out for home business on
how your organization can benefit from embracing mobility. and leisure the road
© Copyright 2014 by Sandhills Publishing Company. PC Today is a registered trademark of Sandhills Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of material appearing in PC Today is strictly prohibited without written permission.
IN BRIEF
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
35%
45.6% 30.6%
52%
60.8% 58.8%
STARTUPS
Total Mobility
Advice For Organizations Large & Small
Whether the organization is a purposes, mobility in general intro- types of devices to allow in a BYOD
10-person shop or a multi-national duces new challenges for SMBs (small (bring your own device) scenario, is
corporation with thousands of em- and midsize businesses) and larger to “take a look at your workforce and
ployees, implementing a strong mo- enterprises alike. And to fully support try to understand what the jobs are,
bile strategy has become a major this mobile evolution, you need to what the requirements are for that
factor in driving future success. determine what devices you want to job from a technology perspective,
Whereas desktop and laptop com- support (whether company-issued or and where mobile fits into that,”
puters used to be the primary tools consumer-owned), how you plan to says Christian Kane, an analyst with
for workers, smartphones and tablets manage those devices and control ap- Forrester Research (www.forrester.com).
are now blurring the performance plication usage, and what you need to Kane stresses that having a mobile
lines and proving they can handle do to properly secure the devices and device “isn’t going to have the same
almost any task you throw at them. data that flows through them. value for every employee” and that,
While this is a great thing for em- for instance, “the needs of someone
ployees who either prefer a mobile DEVICES on an oil rig will be different from
office approach to business or want The first step in choosing what de- those of a salesperson or home health-
to use their personal devices for work vices to offer employees, or which care worker.” Start by determining
which employees in your company and software than it is to ensure the de- says, “probably have some leverage
will benefit most from having a mo- vice has the newest bells and whistles. as they’re transitioning into a BYOD
bile device and then go from there. Mike Battista, Ph.D., senior consulting model because they already know
David Willis, chief of research, mo- analyst at Info-Tech Research Group they’re going to pay for this person’s
bility and communications, and se- (www.infotech.com), says the “most im- phone, but not [that] person’s phone”
nior research board leader at Gartner portant features center around produc- based on previous reimbursement
(www.gartner.com), adds that while tivity, security, and manageability. Can policies. But he also adds that SMBs
companies used to only have to worry the applications enhance users’ ability “are usually a bit more flexible in
about the functionality of devices for to do their jobs run on the device? That’s their policy and are a bit less stringent
the business, now, “with the rise of where it comes down to the size of the than in larger organizations.” For that
BYOD, employees have an expecta-
tion that they will have some choice in
the device they’d like to use.” The con-
sumer market is built on variety and
“Start with a few popular devices eligible for BYOD.
giving users options, so now “compa- Limit support to connecting enterprise apps
nies have to offer a wider range of op- to enterprise resources.”
tions to employees,” whether it’s part
of a BYOD or company-issued ap-
proach, Willis says. He recommends app store associated with the platform.” reason, smaller companies may not
focusing on flexibility so that a mobile Fortunately, as Battista points out, it have to worry as much about in-depth
device is “able to work with a number may not be as big of a headache to give management tools and can instead
of different third-party cloud services” your employees options. In fact, he says, focus on employee education programs
and to make sure the device is secur- “supporting any or all of the top 10 or more than potentially limiting tech-
able “with native capabilities built into 20 devices from the last few years will nology. Still, larger companies do have
the OS or with containers . . . layered cover 95% of what users want and 95% to worry about this issue and will have
on top of it with software.” of what IT needs.” to come up with a strategy for what
When it comes to device specs, it’s types of devices to allow.
more important to make sure the device BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE “One of the top risks with BYOD is
will support your chosen applications While many companies still struggle that support cost and complexity get
with the question of whether or not to out of control,” says Battista. “More
allow employees to bring their own variety means more support, so or-
devices into the workplace for business ganizations with limited resources
IS THAT DEVICE use, the fact of the matter is that the can either reduce variety or reduce
SECURED? decision should primarily come down support. I usually recommend mod-
to how heavily regulated your orga- eration in both variety and support.
According to Juniper Research,
nization is and whether or not your Start with a few popular devices eli-
80% of enterprise and consumer
geographic region will let you have gible for BYOD. Limit support to con-
smartphones are currently not
enough control over the devices. For necting enterprise apps to enterprise
protected by security software.
instance, Kane says, companies in the resources. If that works out, expand
Number of mobile devices with
financial industry that have credit card the BYOD program to more devices.”
security software installed, ac-
payment information on file may not
cording to Juniper:
be able to properly institute a BYOD DEVICE MANAGEMENT
policy because they can’t risk a data Company-issued devices are rela-
1.3 billion leak. And, he adds, some countries in tively easy to manage because you can
the European Union “have very strong have as much or as little control over
workers’ protection rights, so you can’t them as you need. You decide what
do things like location tracking, which applications go on those devices and
would change some of the policies you configure them to be used specifi-
you have in place and how effectively cally for business purposes. BYOD, on
you’re able to monitor and maintain the other hand, is throwing a wrench
325 million those policies.” into the management approach of many
The amount of control you require organizations. By taking on the develop-
2013 2018 may also depend on the size of your ment and implementation of a BYOD
company. Larger companies, Kane policy, organizations have to deal with
a wide variety of devices and keep in “. . . take a look at your workforce and try
mind that employees also configure
those devices for personal use away
to understand what the jobs are, what the
from the office. requirements are for that job from a tech-
This is where MDM (mobile device nology perspective, and where mobile fits
management) comes into play. MDM
solutions give you “some policy con-
into that.”
trols on the device, like security mea- Christian Kane
sures, whitelisting and blacklisting analyst, Forrester Research
applications, and that sort of thing,”
says Willis. However, he adds, many
vendors are moving away from sim- “. . . with the rise of BYOD, employees
pler MDM setups to focus on adding have an expectation that they will have
more EMM (enterprise mobility man-
agement) capabilities, such as con-
some choice in the device they’d like
tainerization. Containers essentially to use.”
let you provision a mobile device so David Willis
that the business and personal aspects
chief of research, mobility and communications, Gartner
are separated. This is a great way for
companies to implement security and
management policies on certain appli-
cations and data sets while leaving the
rest of the device free for personal use. can “give you a security baseline” in to snuff, too,” says Battista. “It doesn’t
Kane agrees that MDM solutions, or addition to management. This can help need to be a full enterprise container
more feature-rich EMM alternatives, you make sure that regardless of what for everything, though. For simpler
are a great place to start because they device an employee uses, you can en- needs, it can just be making sure com-
force a “4-digit PIN” or make it so that pany email is secure, then branching
the device can be “locked or wiped out from there.”
if they’re found to be lost or stolen.”
COMPANIES THAT That’s one of the biggest benefits of an SECURITY
USE BYOD MDM solution, but one you need to In addition to basic management ca-
adequately explain to your employees, pabilities, companies also need to focus
According to Gartner’s 2013 especially if you support BYOD. If you on security. MDM is still a good start
CIO survey, the percentage of do, it’s important to ensure that every because it can give you those remote
companies worldwide with employee understand that the com- wipe capabilities and let you block or
BYOD (bring your own device) pany is willing to support his device allow certain applications, but it may
policies will increase dramatically and let him use it for business as long not be enough for every company. For
in the next two years. as he agrees to the remote wipe pos- example, you may have employees
45% sibility. That way, employees will re- that want to use file sync and share
member to back up their personal data programs where you essentially up-
38% in case of loss or theft. load documents to the cloud and then
Battista recommends taking a step- have the ability to access them any-
by-step approach to things such as where with almost any device. While
MDM and containerization specifically. this is a great features for the indi-
He says that “companies have some vidual, it opens up major security vul-
obligation to keep their own data safe nerabilities for the company.
without messing too much with using Kane says that because of file syn-
the device for other purposes,” but if chronization and file sharing solutions,
you can meet your separation goal, “data protection is definitely a big
6%
you can then move on to other aspects piece.” He says that a lot of companies
of device management. “Keeping that are thinking about providing an enter-
company data safe necessarily involves prise version of a file sync and share
2013 2016 2020 getting security, app management, de- option so employees can still get the
vice management, and policies all up benefits of that but the organization can
manage and monitor the files and have “Start with a few popular devices eligible
a little more control in that department.”
This is an example of a company
for BYOD. Limit support to connecting
understanding the needs of an em- enterprise apps to enterprise resources. If
ployee, determining that a certain that works out, expand the BYOD
service simply isn’t secure enough,
and then making strides to offer
program to more devices.”
something similar to improve em- Mike Battista
ployee effectiveness and produc- Ph.D., senior consulting analyst, Info-Tech Research Group
tivity. “Many companies have come
to this place where pretty much all of
the applications they want to deliver
need to not only be aware and take
into account security needs of the but you have “strong authentication.” applications they want to be able to
company, but also have a great expe- However, he says this should be a use and then determine whether or not
rience so that employees are willing last resort because “it’s very rare” those fit into your business strategy. If
and want to use them and are not that a virtual desktop experience is you’re open with your employees and
willing to circumvent IT to get some- actually good. Instead, you should let them use applications, as long as
thing from the app store that they focus on supporting devices that are they’re safe, then you shouldn’t have
like better,” says Kane. more securable, so “you can have a to worry about implementing a private
Battista adds that email applica- lot of policy controls for native ap- app store or something similar.
tions should also be an important plications” from the start, Willis says, Larger organizations that have to
focus and that integration with the and then take other third-party apps manage hundreds or thousands of de-
company’s email and sync solutions on a case by case basis. vices, all with unique operating sys-
“is critical.” The company should be tems and applications, may not be able
able to enforce encryption policies for APPLICATION USAGE to fully trust app stores. Such organi-
emails and have control over what Another major part of manage- zations could opt instead for building
data is synced, downloaded, or up- ment and security is determining a private app store where they can cu-
loaded to and from a device. Once what types of applications should rate applications and only offer secure
again, an MDM solution will provide be allowed on the device. Willis says software for their employees to install.
most of these features, but it’s up to that companies “certainly would Private app stores are also great for
the organization to properly imple- want application policy controls on enterprises that frequently build their
ment them and explain to users why the device,” especially if they are own apps and need a delivery model
they are so important. using more open operating systems for their employees. You can also con-
For Willis, the most important that are traditionally more vulnerable figure your company app store so that
thing to recognize when it comes to to security breaches. Some app stores you can deliver updates to devices au-
security is that “not all devices are have in-depth classification and vali- tomatically.
equal.” Some devices “are more dation processes that ensure applica-
easily and natively securable, and tions are safe to use and don’t contain STRIKE A BALANCE
others have such a bad security viruses or other malicious software In the end, the key to proper ap-
profile that you wouldn’t want to hidden underneath the surface. plication control is balance. You have
allow for any applications to run on For smaller companies, the app to make sure that your employees
them,” he says. If for some reason store verification process may be have access to the apps they need to
your employees need to use devices enough for security purposes, es- properly perform their job. If an ap-
that aren’t easily securable, Willis pecially if employees only use basic plication is safe to use, increases pro-
says, then you may want to opt for applications, like email, calendars, ductivity, and fits into your business
a “virtual desktop type model where contacts, etc. You can always listen plan, then it is worthy of your organi-
nothing at all is on the device itself,” to your employees to find out which zation’s support efforts. ●
“For smaller companies, the app store verification process may be enough for security
purposes, especially if employees only use basic applications . . .”
Few, if any, technologies in recent VMware (www.vmware.com) didn’t technologies promise to only play
years have had a more positive in- invent virtualization (as the Palo Alto, a greater role in helping companies
fluence on data centers (and argu- Calif.,-based company even points out add more flexibility, efficiency, and
ably on enterprises as a whole) than on its website), and it isn’t the only proficiency to their business opera-
virtualization. The technology is provider of virtualization solutions. tions, including where data usage,
redefining how enterprises operate What VMware has done, however, cloud computing, applications, au-
and set themselves apart from the through numerous advancements, tomation, and other possibilities are
competition, in part by revamping partnerships, acquisitions, and other concerned.
the very data center infrastructure accomplishments since its founding in
(servers, networks, storage, etc.) upon 1998, is to make the name “VMware” COMPANY ORIGINS
which companies build their busi- practically synonymous with “virtual- VMware may not have originated
nesses. Virtualization also makes it ization” in the minds of many people. virtualization but it was the first
possible for businesses to acquire re- Despite this fact, VMware (and company to deliver the technology
sources and launch new initiatives virtualization) is far from reaching for x86 platforms in 1999; it did so
more quickly, with greater ease, and its apex. In coming years, the com- with VMware Workstation, a product
more efficiently than ever. pany and its virtualization-based that essentially enabled users to run
Since the company’s A current VMware VMware has more VMware’s flagship product is
founding in 1998, the focus area is the SDDC than 2,200 partners it VMware vSphere, a platform
Palo Alto, Calif.,-based (software-defined data works with to certify for constructing cloud infra-
company VMware has center), which enables their products to run structures. Other solutions
grown into the market a completely automated with VMware vSphere, target cloud management,
Key leader in the server virtu- infrastructure for appli- which is certified on storage, and desktop virtual-
Points alization arena. cations and hardware. 1,500 server models. ization.
multiple operating systems on one an x86-based computer to run more any hardware, now and in the fu-
PC. In addition to producing prod- than one OS and one application ture.” In terms of addressing business
ucts aimed at personal desktops, simultaneously. So, rather than challenges, Adams says an SDDC
VMware’s current array of products having to dedicate one server to provides efficiency, control, agility,
covers data center virtualization, data just one application—an inefficient and choice to customers by “virtu-
center and cloud management, IaaS approach that underutilizes much alizing all infrastructure,” which is
(infrastructure as a service), desktop of the server’s overall capacity— delivered as a service and enables
virtualization, mobile computing, virtualization allows for essentially automated control of the data center
and cloud-based data management, doing more with less. The benefits, via software.
among other categories. according to VMware, include up to SDDC differs in numerous ways
Through its virtualization technol- 80% greater utilization per server, from the hardware-based ap-
ogies and products, VMware’s reach which reduces CAPEX and OPEX proach enterprises have tradition-
over the years has spread to include expenses by half with yearly sav- ally taken. Where delivering “the
legions of companies spanning a di- ings of $1,500 or more per virtual- true promise of the cloud” is con-
verse array of industries. In fact, the ized server, and acquiring robust cerned, for example, Adams says
company claims that 100% of Fortune and affordable availability. the traditional hardware-based ap-
100 companies and 98% of Fortune While VMware is generally consid- proach alone isn’t sufficient. “We
500 companies use VMware technol- ered to have pioneered server virtual- regularly see customers that look
ogies. Overall, says VMware, more ization, the company products have at the hardware approach solely
than 500,000 customers use its prod-
ucts and solutions in some capacity.
Mike Adams, VMware director of
A current strong area of
product marketing, says virtualiza-
focus for VMware is the
tion provides these customers with a
SDDC (software-defined
“tried and true formula.”
data center), an approach
“Virtualization became main-
that seeks to virtualize the
stream between 2011 and 2012 when
entire data center.
it crossed the 50% penetration mark
across our customers’ environments,”
Adams says. Typically, companies’
initial virtualization efforts involve
consolidating and virtualization
servers. Adams says that as cus-
tomers continue to expand beyond
their core virtualization initiatives
and move into cloud computing
implementations, virtualization en- expanded in scope through the years. running into two key issues and
ables achieving “large savings” in Presently, Adams says VMware’s challenges,” he says. The first is in-
terms of CAPEX and OPEX. Further, core business model revolves around efficiency, including in terms of
in addition to the true costs savings three key areas. These include SDDC CAPEX and OPEX costs that are too
virtualization makes possible, the (software-defined data center), hy- high, the existence of too much com-
technology helps deliver a competi- brid cloud computing, and end-user plexity and too many silos, and the
tive advantage, Adams says. computing. Each of these areas con- presence of operational inefficiencies.
tains various solutions and/or ser- The second issue and challenge
HOW VIRTUALIZATION HELPS vices that are focused on helping is downtime. Here, traditional
VMware describes virtualization companies meet and solve key busi- hardware-based infrastructure can
as something that helps IT confront ness challenges. produce challenges in meeting SLA
its most difficult challenge: “the in- SDDC in particular is an area that (software license agreement) terms,
frastructure sprawl that compels IT has been generating significant buzz identifying and resolving problems
departments to channel 70% of their of late due to the considerable poten- in a timely fashion, and addressing
budget into maintenance” and thus tial it promises. VMware describes security and compliance issues,
leaves few resources to focus on SDDC as architecture that “enables a Adams says. “Our software-defined
developing business innovations. fully automated, zero-downtime in- data center strategy breaks free of
Specifically, virtualization enables frastructure for any application, and these issues by focusing on four main
components: compute virtualization, or acquire solutions without official au- efforts model that’s less compatible with
network and security virtualization, thorization. Fourth, Adams says, SDDC existing applications and less reliable
software-defined storage and avail- provides the benefit of choice, which, he to operate, VMware provides a trusted,
ability, and management and auto- says, “can be instantiated as a private, high performance, and resilient hybrid
mation,” he says. hybrid, or public cloud and the freedom cloud platform leveraging the same
Via these components, an SDDC to use multiple hardware or software tools and processes organizations use
can extend virtualization efficiencies stacks, which leads to IT having the today,” he says. “Organizations can ex-
from compute to all domains of the choice to have any app on any platform tend to the cloud with confidence, lever-
data center and enable automating op- or cloud.” aging VMware enterprise support and
erations; deliver control via abilities a robust ecosystem of trusted partners.”
that provide the right availability and ADAPTING TO THE TIMES VMware partners include more than
security for every application or service VMware’s flagship product is 2,200 server, processor, storage, net-
with policy-based governance; become VMware vSphere, a platform that en- working, software, peripheral, and con-
agile through abilities that automate ables constructing cloud infrastruc- sulting companies that VMware works
application provisioning and enable tures; it contains vSphere ESXi, the with so that their products are certified
self-service on diverse platforms; and “virtualization layer that abstracts to run with VMware vSphere. Overall,
provide IT choice by offering the ability server hardware resources” to enable VMware states its technology works
to run new and existing application multiple virtual machines to share with more guest OSes than its competi-
across multiple platforms and clouds. them. VMware has expanded beyond tion. vSphere, meanwhile, is certified
“These capabilities are the ingredi- VMware vSphere, Adams says, to de- on more than 1,500 server models, and
ents that deliver the transformational liver solutions designed for cloud man- more than “2,000 software vendors have
benefits of the software-defined data agement, storage, availability, desktop explicit support statements for 3,500
center,” Adams says. virtualization, and more. “Most product applications” that run on vSphere, the
Adams says businesses can de- lines are updated annually in order to company states.
rive benefits from VMware’s SDDC provide innovative capabilities to cus- In terms of mobility and enterprises’
products and technologies in four pri- tomers on a continual basis,” he says. increasing focus and reliance on it,
mary ways. First, by bringing together Over the years, VMware has continu- VMware is making it easy for IT ad-
virtualized compute, storage, net- ally worked to enhance and broaden ministrators to support mobile workers
working, and security with analytics- its product lines by ensuring it stays fo- and BYOD initiatives through innova-
based operations management, SDDC cused on how the market and customer tive, proven technologies included in
offers efficiency. Second, SDDC “de- needs evolve, Adams says. “Our recent VMware Horizon Suite, Adams says.
livers control by enabling the highest acquisitions and the advent of cloud Focused on workforce mobility, the
levels of application uptime through computing are clear examples of this platform connects end users to their
automated business continuity along attention to detail when it comes to the desktops, data, and applications via
with virtualization-aware security market,” he says. “In particular, cloud any device and does so without sacri-
and compliance,” Adams says. This computing has changed how we deliver ficing IT security and control, Adams
helps reduce the downtime of Tier 1 our products and also how we look at says. Overall, VMware Horizon Suite
applications and enables a cloud in- the overall infrastructure market.” “simplifies operations by turning dis-
frastructure that runs on IT’s terms in VMware vCloud Hybrid Service is parate operating systems, applications,
the sense IT can define availability and the company’s secure IaaS hybrid cloud and data into centralized services de-
security for each application. offering and is built on a vSphere foun- livered on any device; helps manage,
Third, SDDC provides agility by dation. The service supports existing secure, and back up end user assets and
enabling on-demand, policy-driven workloads and third-party applications, applications from one place to protect
deployment of IT services. This helps as well as new application develop- against compliance risk with policy-
increase IT productivity, which leads to ment. Those abilities give IT a common driven access; and empowers end users
“production of apps and services at the platform on which to seamlessly extend by delivering a consistent, intuitive, and
speed of business”; increased customer their data center to the cloud, Adams collaborative computing experience
satisfaction; and less risk of “shadow says. “Unlike public cloud services that across all devices anytime, anywhere,”
IT,” or workers bypassing IT to build provide a commodity platform in a best Adams says. ●
VMware
Cloud Infrastructure
vSphere Offers More Than Just A Standard Cloud Environment
Public cloud offerings sometimes machines on certain systems based on failures as soon as they happen, prevent
don’t give companies all of the fea- available resources and storage capacity. data loss from system crashes, and repli-
tures they need, and it can be time- vSphere also supports thin provisioning, cate data without a third-party solution.
consuming and expensive to develop which is another way to ensure your VMware also provides a variety of
an internal private cloud indepen- data and applications utilize physical security tools built to protect every as-
dently. For companies in this situation, resources in the most efficient way pos- pect of a cloud environment. vSphere
VMware offers something of an all-in- sible. You have complete control over prevents the installation of unauthor-
one cloud infrastructure solution that ized applications, provides a firewall
provides complete control over how that prevents access to vSphere hosts,
resource are used, where virtual ma- and more. The main component of the
chines can and should be stored, and vSphere security approach is the vShield
who has network and storage access Endpoint, which consolidates and cen-
privileges. Instead of leaving it up to tralizes endpoint security for virtual ma-
you to put the pieces together, vSphere chines, simplifies antivirus monitoring,
equips you with every tool you need to and logs all malware activity.
build a proper cloud environment, pro-
tect it, and maintain it for years to come. VOLKSWAGEN IMPROVES ITS
MANUFACTURING PROCESS
VMWARE VSPHERE Automobile factories can’t afford
VMware’s vSphere comprises six pil- downtime because they are expected to
lars: computing, networking, storage, produce a massive amount of vehicles
security, availability, and automation; over a set period of time. Volkswagen
these are designed to work together to India is no different and is capable of
provide the most reliable virtualized building up to 150,000 vehicles per
and cloud environments. On the com- your storage with easy-to-use migration, year. But with technology changing
pute side, vSphere ESXi Hypervisor provisioning, and I/O control tools. And so quickly, the company was having
provides a virtualized layer to improve to help alleviate stress on your IT team, trouble keeping up, so it turned to
the utilization efficiency of your phys- vSphere features automation tools for VMware and vSphere.
ical hardware resources and make them patching, updating, and tracking all of Using vSphere, Volkswagen India
available to as many virtual machines your vSphere hosts. was able to take advantage of the vMo-
as you’re able to support. vSphere also For networking, vSphere enables your tion and High Availability tools to avoid
helps with load balancing, preventing organization to control what resources application downtime during server
application downtime with scheduled are available to what users based on in- maintenance or system failures. The
server maintenance and virtual machine ternal policies. You can also manage and plant is able to add virtual machines
migration, and implementing big data monitor the network using a centralized, when necessary to help support demand
platforms such as Hadoop. distributed switch. To make sure you without needing to add any extra phys-
VMware understands that fast and always have access to your network, ap- ical resources, which has also aided in
reliable storage is the backbone of any plications, and storage, VMware built consolidation. In fact, Volkswagen India
cloud environment, which is why high availability tools into all of the now has a one-to-eight ratio in terms of
vSphere has a tool specifically purposed vSphere service. This empowers you to server consolidation and has driven utili-
for load-balancing and placing virtual detect application and operating system zation rates from 10% up to 80%. ●
VMware
Operations Management
Get A More Holistic View Of Your Physical & Virtual Infrastructure
In addition to using more indi- vital information much more quickly. manage your company’s virtual ma-
vidualized solutions, you should also vCenter Log Insight enables you to ana- chines with ease.
consider the big picture of your busi- lyze data from more traditional sources VMware’s vCloud Director helps
ness. You need to implement systems as well as gain insight into unstructured you take control of your software-de-
designed to give you a more holistic data flows and log files. And if you al- fined services and provision them as
view of your infrastructure and help ready have VMware solutions in place virtual data centers so you can main-
automate operations-based tasks as or have built an extensive VMware tain your virtualized assets and im-
much as possible. Doing so not only prove the efficiency of your resource
frees up resources for your IT team allocation. Each virtual data center can
and speeds up operations processes, it only be accessed by users with proper
also helps remove human error from administrative rights. It’s a great way
the equation. VMware provides the to further provision your virtual ma-
management products you need to chines and helps you break larger
monitor and control your infrastruc- implementations down into more
ture and everything attached to it. manageable portions.
VMware
Desktop Virtualization
The Control Companies Require & The Flexibility Employees Demand
Employees today demand a lot Where Horizon View provides Workspace lets you separate corpo-
from their technology and want the the virtual desktop itself, Horizon rate data from personal data to en-
freedom to work from home or on Mirage helps protect it and make the courage employees to use their own
the road just as efficiently as they migration process as seamless as pos- devices while accessing their virtual
do at the office. However, this can sible. You can grab desktop images desktops. The company maintains
cause some problems for compa- or take snapshots of your endpoints control over the users, regardless of
nies that require more control over and use those to either partially or what device they’re using, and de-
their resources and aren’t comfort- cides whether or not certain files can
able with sensitive digital assets be shared.
being stored in multiple locations. The Horizon Suite brings all of
VMware has a solution for these is- these separate solutions together in
sues that offers employees the flex- one platform, and adds the VMware
ibility they want while providing vCenter Operations Manager
companies with the control they re- for Horizon View. The vCenter
quire. Operations Manager enables compa-
The VMware Horizon Suite con- nies to monitor the efficiency, perfor-
sists of the Horizon View, Mirage, mance, and health of their VDI, and to
and Workspace solutions. These are make sure it is always functioning at
all designed to enable companies to peak efficiency.
provide a secure and reliable VDI
(virtual desktop infrastructure) for USING VDI TO IMPROVE
their employees. HEALTH CARE
The Gangnam Severance Hospital
SEAMLESS VIRTUAL in Seoul, South Korea, is a large health
WORKSPACE FOR EMPLOYEES fully recover a desktop or to trouble- care organization that is home to 804
Horizon View is the backbone shoot a problem. You can also use treatment rooms that are part of 36
of the Horizon Suite and defines Horizon Mirage to push updates distinct departments, as well as mul-
the user experience for employees. out from your central location to tiple specialized treatment facilities.
Companies can centralize manage- branch offices. And Mirage makes by using VMware’s Horizon View,
ment over their applications and it easier for companies to move GSH was able to get a grip on the
data and control how much access from Windows XP to Windows 7 or ever-changing privacy laws affecting
is given to employees. On the em- to migrate a user profile from one health care facilities, and also to de-
ployee side, the user experience is Windows 7 machine to another. liver medical information to devices
designed to give employees a full vir- Horizon Workspace is another in a much more efficient manner.
tualized desktop much like the one important part of the Horizon Suite GSH claims that its VDI performs just
they would use in the office. Instead because it lets you take application as well on older devices as it does
of taking work computers home or and data from a variety of places new ones, which has allowed the fa-
on the road, they can take almost any and bring everything together into cility to reduce hardware expenses.
device, connect to the cloud, and ac- a single space for easier access. And Using VMware’s solution saved
cess their virtual desktop to complete to help companies overcome poten- valuable disk space for GSH and im-
tasks and meet deadlines. tial security and control concerns, proved mobile functionality. ●
VMware
Software-Defined Storage
Virtualized Resources, Centralized Management, Data Protection & Recovery
Software-defined storage follows be able to load balance and provision event of a disaster, you can get the
its technological cousin, software- as needed; they can also set up certain ball rolling as quickly as possible.
defined networking, as a way of fur- automation configurations to monitor Long before a disaster occurs, you can
ther virtualizing server resources in and manage the capacity and perfor- perform recovery tests to make sure
order to achieve maximum efficiency mance of each individual data store. you’ll hit your recovery time objec-
and improve overall storage manage- Virtual SAN helps prevent downtime tives and minimize downtime. And
ment. Instead of going from server to due to hardware failures; instead of with the VMware vSphere Replication
server to manage capacity and manu- solution, you can make sure that
ally determine where every applica- every single virtualized application
tion or piece of data should be stored, in your environment will be properly
you get a centralized view of your backed up and available for recovery
entire environment and have access when necessary.
to every disk as needed. Fortunately,
this technology is as easy to im- DISASTER RECOVERY FOR
plement as it is to use thanks to VIRTUALIZED SYSTEMS
VMware’s many solutions designed QIC is a large financial services
specifically for software-defined institution in Brisbane, Queensland,
storage purposes. Australia, that already used multiple
VMware solutions to help virtualize
FOUR-PRONGED APPROACH its data center infrastructure. In fact,
VMware’s vSphere Storage Appli- 95% of the company’s test and devel-
ance makes it possible to turn you opment environment and 80% of its
existing server storage into virtual- Windows Server systems are virtual-
ized data stores without the need of ized. Prior to implementing VMware’s
any additional hardware. Installation a single drive failure or even multiple vCenter Site Recovery Manager, how-
is quick and easy with the included drive failures bringing down the en- ever, disaster recovery took hours and
wizard, your virtualized storage tire system, failed hard drives can be a large number of staff just to get 50
will be highly available and resilient replaced on the fly without impacting servers back up and running.
with mirroring capabilities, and the the rest. Balancing storage utilization Understanding that this figure
vSphere Storage Appliance supports a also unlocks secondary benefits, such wasn’t good enough and that re-
wide range of hardware and applica- as improved cooling and energy ef- covery time objectives were not
tions, so it’s a fit for most businesses, ficiency, which saves money. being met, QIC opted to begin using
including small and midsize busi- To ensure that your virtualized vCenter Site Recovery Manager. This
nesses with relatively few resources. storage is always available to you, solution has given QIC the ability
Similar to how software-defined vSphere Data Protection Advanced to fail over 100 virtual machines in
networking centralizes management, and vCenter Site Recovery Manager an hour as opposed to the previous
VMware’s Virtual SAN (storage area work hand-in-hand to provide re- figure of 50 machines in several
network), which is currently in Beta, liable backups and fast disaster re- hours. But perhaps more importantly,
is intuitive and versatile. With Virtual covery. The vCenter Site Recovery QIC is able to fully recover without
SAN, your IT team will have full con- Manager provides administrators impacting the experience of its cus-
trol over your virtualized storage and with one-click recovery, so in the tomer base. ●
VMware
Application Virtualization
Platform-As-A-Service & Data-Intensive Application Support
It can be difficult to manage ap- virtualized and up and running, you caches frequently used data and
plications and make them easily ac- can continually monitor their health makes it accessible to every in-
cessible to the employees that need to know whether the application is stance of a given application; this
them, but virtualization can provide running as intended or has crashed. is another example of how the so-
those benefits and also give you the In the case of a crash, you can quickly lution improves speed of perfor-
opportunity to optimize your appli- restart the application or create an en- mance. The vFabric Suite also offers
cations for virtualization and help tirely new instance, if necessary. the VMware Application Director,
you better utilize available resources. which makes it much easier to con-
However, a move to application figure and deploy applications for
virtualization can be a significant more efficient implementation. And
change for both the company itself if you use Web applications, vFabric
and the IT team in charge of imple- Hyperic lets you monitor them,
menting it. To help improve this pro- whether they are physical, virtual,
cess, VMware offers the Pivotal CF or hosted in the cloud.
and vFabric Suite solutions, which
are designed to provide an applica- HELP FOR THE CITY OF
tion platform customized to your CHICAGO’S WEBSITE
needs as well as support particularly & APPLICATIONS
data-intensive applications. The City of Chicago used a va-
riety of individualized networking
PLATFORM-AS-A-SERVICE and monitoring solutions to manage
& INCREASED JAVA SUPPORT its website and monitor applica-
Pivotal CF is a PaaS (platform as tion usage. Since all of the solutions
a service) solution that makes it sim- weren’t well-integrated, however,
pler to develop and deploy appli- For companies that use data-inten- the city couldn’t develop any auto-
cations. Because it’s built on Cloud sive applications that require quite a mated processes to determine a per-
Foundry and runs on vSphere, orga- bit of resources, either in the cloud or formance baseline and gain more
nizations can scale applications up on premises, VMware also offers its insight into how users were inter-
or down depending on their present vFabric Suite, which consists of mul- acting with applications.
needs. In terms of everyday use, one tiple components designed to build To overcome these challenges, the
of the major benefits of Pivotal CF and manage such applications. The City of Chicago deployed a vFabric
is its intuitive user interface, which vFabric Suite is optimized to work Suite implementation with a strong
helps IT employees implement up- with the Java Spring Framework, focus on the Hyperic solution. Using
dates and upgrades quickly, as well which translates into speedier inte- this product, the city was able to
as create hundreds of instances of gration. And Java virtual machines improve application and website
virtualized applications in a matter can actually share memory and availability, as well as overall per-
of seconds. resources without impacting indi- formance; offer a better end user ex-
Pivotal CF is also a standardized vidual performance. perience; and make it much easier to
platform, which makes integration In addition to Java support, the plan ahead through the use of per-
and management less of a headache. vFabric Suite features the GemFire formance baselines and application
And once you have your applications Application Cache Node, which monitoring. ●
BI & Security
Take Caution Of The Looming Dangers
Better use of resources. Enhanced privacy concerns with BI solutions the decisions and form better business strat-
decision making. Greater cost sav- data types involved, and more. egies, and BI solutions expand greatly
ings. More opportunities to generate on the abilities of spreadsheets to do this.
revenue. For these benefits and others BI EXPLAINED Michael Lock, vice president and
increasingly more businesses are im- BI solutions are gaining steam for nu- principal analyst with Aberdeen Group
plementing BI (business intelligence) merous reasons, including the ability to (www.aberdeen.com), says if we accept that
solutions. Still, despite the promises improve customer service, increase sales, all companies regularly make impor-
solutions offer in terms of extracting, reduce costs, enhance operating efficien- tant decisions and are fueled partially
analyzing, and using data better in plot- cies, and explore new opportunities. by data, BI helps to ultimately improve
ting strategies and decision-making, Using the technologies, tools, processes, business outcomes. There’s much to
trepidation remains regarding security methodologies, and applications that BI gain, he says, from basing decisions on
and privacy concerns related to com- involves, companies can dive into their cleaner, more relevant data that you can
pany data, including the risks associ- raw business data, pull out and analyze access and transfer faster, all of which
ated with cloud-based solutions and what’s applicable, and present the anal- makes data analysis easier and more
mobile components of BI solutions. The ysis in ways a spreadsheet can’t. The aim intuitive and displays key insights in a
following explores such security and is to use what’s presented to make better more visually engaging way.
BI solutions provide The types of data that Security and privacy Security has become a key
businesses numerous companies are using risks associated with focal point of BI solution
benefits, but dealing with BI solutions are mobile BI tools and vendors. In general, many
with security and pri- expanding to include cloud-based BI solutions concerns businesses have
vacy issues concerning numerous external are often cited as a top always had with sharing
Key company data is data sources, including concern when adopting data still exist with BI
Points a trade-off. social networks. a BI solution. solutions.
“As soon as you start allowing BI content varying levels of data access needed
and data to and not to share.
to be accessible via a smartphone, you Aberdeen’s research in recent
need to be sure to have a formal plan for years consistently shows where safe-
mobile authentication. User ID and pass- guarding sensitive data is concerned,
several general steps related to top
word security may not be enough.” performance surface. They include
Cindi Howson identifying and classifying data, prior-
founder, BI Scorecard itizing security control goals for data,
setting consistent policies within an
overall approach for protecting sensi-
tive data wherever it stems from, and
determining the controls each classifi- hosts, storage, and applications in com- enacting appropriate security controls
cation level requires. Controls can in- panies’ server rooms or data centers. per classification level.
clude the assurance level required for It now also refers to virtualized IT in- What are appropriate security con-
end-user authentication, the rules or frastructure, whether on-premises or trols? Brink says there’s no single an-
roles that govern end-user access, and cloud-based. Similarly, “networks” swer. In fact, he says, there are at least
the protections to implement or obtain now also refers to social connections six high-level strategies toward pro-
appropriate confidentiality, integrity, and collaborating, and “endpoints” tecting sensitive data that may be ap-
and availability levels, Brink says. encompasses both devices that IT propriate. These strategies include doing
centrally procures, provisions, and nothing because “not all data is worth
MOBILE & CLOUD CONCERNS manages and the distributed, highly protecting”; controlling access to the
Often cited as being specific con- mobile devices employees are increas- data; and monitoring and filtering data.
cerns among businesses where privacy ingly procuring, provisioning, and The strategies also include protecting
and security are concerned risks as- managing themselves. The result is the data (via encryption in the back-end,
sociated with cloud-based BI solutions confidential data and intellectual prop- encryption/decryption at endpoints);
and mobile BI components. A 2012 erty companies are trying to protect is substituting data (replace or trans-
study related to the cloud BI market increasingly likely to flow from back- form sensitive data so it can be used
that Dresner Advisory Services con- end systems the company doesn’t con- in existing business processes without
ducted, for example, found that 59% of trol through networks it doesn’t control being exposed); and protecting actions
respondents named security and pri- to endpoints and end users it doesn’t on data (a “persistent” control, say,
vacy issues as being major issues with control, Brink says. Thus, while privacy rights management, travels with the
adopting cloud BI solutions. and security issues might be the same data, governing what’s possible after
Wise, however, says most BI solu- as always, the underlying infrastruc- someone accesses the data). Which
tion vendors have developed their ture is much more complex, making strategies to adopt, Brink says, “is
platforms with security first in mind, data protection more difficult. a function of security, privacy, audit,
meaning many concerns businesses compliance, and business value on one
have “don’t have much merit any- TAKE PRECAUTIONS side and the cost and productivity im-
more.” Overall, the same worries (lost Prevention is one means of ad- plications of the controls on the other.”
devices, data breaches, etc.) that com- dressing security and privacy worries As for BI vendors, Howson says
panies typically have concerning data related to using BI solutions. In the BI they provide their own user ID and
sharing still apply to BI usage. world, Howson says, “as soon as you password security. Where mobile de-
With cloud solutions and mobile start allowing BI content to be acces- vices are concerned, most vendors
components, Howson says, it’s about sible via a smartphone, you need to be assume the company has a separate
who controls the data and where. sure to have a formal plan for mobile MDM (Mobile Device Management)
Mobile apps on users’ devices in par- authentication. User ID and password solution, she says. Additionally, she
ticular can introduce many security security may not be enough.” Instead, says few BI vendors provide addi-
holes in a BYOD world, she says. she says, consider specifying unique tional device-based authentication.
Individually, users should take cau- mobile identifiers and be able to selec- Wise adds that most vendors “de-
tion with apps they download and note tively wipe remote data. Elsewhere, un- velop their platform with security in
who created them and what security derstand compliance requirements and mind. This can include user group or
permissions the app is granted. ensure the BI vendor supports required user restrictions or making sure that
Increasingly, Brink says, “back-end compliance levels and associated regu- compliance requirements are met de-
systems” refers to more than networks, lations. Additionally, understand the pending on the industry.” ●
Every business would love to protect where a cybercriminal researches which not have a complete understanding
its network with the best possible set SMBs work with larger companies, and or may misclassify a security event. In
of security tools, but for SMBs (small then targets the SMB as a way to cloak some cases, they might have thought
and midsize businesses), business func- himself and sneak into the larger busi- that a threat has been fully remediated,
tions are sometimes more important ness. In this fashion, the hacker can pro- but it hasn’t.” He says this is a problem
than the security setup. And without duce a series of advanced persistent especially with such things as advanced
the proper tools or technology, there attacks that fly under the radar of the persistent threats where the bad guys
may be vulnerabilities within your com- larger enterprise’s security. “In the last are using entry points through small
pany’s network or PCs that a hacker year and half, we’ve seen a lot more of companies to reach big companies. “For
could use to steal sensitive information advanced persistent attacks that have example, if the ultimate target is a de-
or cause a computer virus outbreak. The been going down market,” says James fense contractor, they’ll find a vendor
latter could be almost as bad as a net- McCloskey, senior research analyst at that works with the contractor and
work breach because of the downtime Info-Tech Research Group (www.info enter through the vendor’s system to
associated with the afflicted computers tech.com). “The large companies, which get into the primary target,” Ponemon
and servers. We explored some of the had traditionally been targets, have says. “We are seeing companies that are
common threats you may face and pro- better security defenses, so there are completely unaware that they were con-
vide tips for affordably preventing such opportunities in SMBs for hackers to stantly attacked.”
break-ins. move laterally.” Tips for prevention. To prevent
Larry Ponemon, founder and chair- vector attacks, McCloskey says it is im-
VECTOR ATTACKS man of the Ponemon Institute (www portant to understand what the threat
Cybercriminals are well aware that .ponemon.org), says, “A big difference landscape looks like. “This will help
SMBs often have a security infrastruc- in a middle market is that security you to determine if you are potentially
ture that’s not as strong as what is in doesn’t always have proper governance, a target for these persistent attacks,” he
large enterprises. A vector attack is one and the IT people in the trenches may says. “If you are, then you’ll really need
Social Strategies
Enough With 10-Step Social Media Plans! Learn What Works & What Doesn’t
Not long ago, businesses didn’t con- DO GET STARTED of the overall marketing strategy and
cern themselves with social media A seemingly obvious but vital point brand.” Depending on the breadth of a
Today, the thought that any business is to simply realize social media can’t social strategy, this may require adding
hasn’t at least contemplated a social be ignored. Maribeth Ross, Aberdeen technology to the marketing tech stack to
media strategy, let alone enacted one, Group (www.aberdeen.com) senior di- enable social activity, listen socially, and
seems almost ludicrous in light of the in- rector of research, marketing effective- plan and analyze social activity, she says.
creasingly celebrated benefits afforded ness and strategy, says the monumental
to organizations that wisely leverage impact social media has had on the B2B DO SCRUTINIZE
social media opportunities. The long and B2C spaces has produced a new Dave Ensing, Ph.D., vice president of
list of positives includes enriching re- sector of supportive social technology. voice of customer integration for Maritz
lationships with existing customers Customers, she says, now expect brands Research (www.maritzresearch.com), says
and reaching new ones, as well as pro- to be engaging via social media, and most companies that collect social media
moting new products and initiatives at this isn’t going to change. “The time has data for research purposes obtain a lot of
the speed of light. come for the holdouts to jump on the information that doesn’t pertain to the
For some companies, however, social bandwagon, if they haven’t already; it’s question they’re trying to answer. “This
media has not met expectations. Maybe a marketing non-negotiable,” she says. information not only dilutes real find-
they didn’t accurately forecast the ings, it can also lead companies in the
amount of time, effort, and resources DON’T SKIP THE STRATEGY wrong direction,” he says. For example,
social media would involve. Or they Closely related to embracing social a company might conclude that con-
didn’t provide enough relevant content media is addressing it with a strategy, siderable social media activity around
to engage customers. Or they failed to Ross says. “Social isn’t as easy as asking a product currently being advertised
thoroughly define their objectives. In all your employees to tweet, like, or proves that consumers are responding
any case, it might be time to rethink and share content,” she says. “Social needs well to the marketing campaign. A
refocus your efforts. to be tied to thematic messaging as part closer look at relevant data, however,
could reveal that the company’s own “Social needs to be tied to thematic
social media marketing activities are
generating the social response and not
messaging as part of the overall
consumer interest. Ensing recommends marketing strategy and brand.”
companies set social media filters to be Maribeth Ross
very specific to the information they’re
senior director of research, Aberdeen Group
trying to collect, and scrutinize and
clean the data before analyzing it.
DON’T LOSE PERSPECTIVE social media represents the largest with customers based on empathy,
Ensing says companies should stop source of consumer data in the history trust, and positive emotional connec-
viewing social media as “the world’s of the world.” Still, most companies tions. This isn’t easy because most
largest focus group.” Social media and haven’t scratched the surface in terms corporations operate in a traditional,
focus groups are very different, he of using the information to improve segmented structure, he says. “Yet the
says. “In particular, compared to focus consumer loyalty, “which is the ulti- recent focus on big data and its impact
groups, social media is extremely un- mate goal of any company.” Bryars on business has opened the doors for
focused,” he says. “Not only do people recommends marketers keep in mind C-suite executives to look across the
talk about anything and everything in that people “have attitudes, emotions, table to form collaborative, mutually
social media, much of social media isn’t beliefs, ideals, and values that com- beneficial partnerships that will move
made up of ‘people’ at all. It consists prise who they are, how they behave, the entire business forward,” he says.
of advertisements, marketing material, and which brands they trust,” he says. “CMOs especially, given their prox-
spam, etc.” Information shared in social Emotion drives behavior, he says, and imity to the consumer, can implement
media is also much “shallower” than “strong, positive emotional connections a ‘center of intelligence’ that aggre-
that shared in focus groups. create loyalty.” gates various social data . . . and dis-
“A lot of social media contains cus- Customers that differentiate their tributes actionable insights across the
tomers’ views about a product, com- brands by strengthening emotional organization.” While the process can
pany, or service, but no reason for these bonds with customers earn true loy- be complex, he says, it’s doable, and
views is given.” Often, he says, “we see alty, Bryars says. A first step is under- “executives are taking note.”
rants like, ‘I hate XXXX company,’ but standing the complexities of the brand’s
that is all. Information like that is dif- audience and the gaps between how the DO USE LOCAL LANGUAGE
ficult to act on, except by following up audience perceives the brand and how John Yunker, Byte Level Research
with the specific customer,” he says. A the brand wishes to be perceived. Social (www.bytelevel.com) co-founder and pres-
more apt analogy for using social media media intelligence companies can help ident, says many companies cling to
to glean business insights is “mining for here by using social data and natural a notion of using “global English lan-
gold,” Ensing says. “There are probably language processing tools to “extract guage” in Twitter and Facebook feeds.
some valuable nuggets in there some- emotions from conversations to help Though such feeds may be effective
where, but you’re going to need to sift inform brands on where to focus,” he with English speakers located globally,
through a lot of stuff you don’t want to says. “This intelligence drives strategy, he says, the feeds “can only go so far.”
find [the gold].” messaging, and helps benchmark and One large retailer, for example, manages
measure future campaigns.” more than 30 Facebook pages that are
DO GRASP THE COMPLEXITY country- and language-specific, Yunker
Michael Bryars, senior vice presi- DON’T WORK IN SILOS says. “While the number of ‘likes’ may
dent and general manager at evolve24 The most-loved brands, Bryars says, be considerably lower than the global
(www.evolve24.com), a Maritz Research are developed by businesses that are English page, the level of engagement is
company, says “it’s no secret that capable of strengthening connections generally quite higher,” he says.
platform, you risk being held hostage “With ‘social,’ brands can have conversations
to that one platform and less able to re-
spond to new and emerging platforms.”
with their customers and even competitors.
Instead, he advises a more opportunistic Honesty can win over customers . . .”
approach to social activity, particularly Alan Lepofsky
when going global, that takes advantage
vice president and principal analyst, Constellation Research
of networks that dominate respective
countries, which aren’t always Twitter
and Facebook.
DO FOCUS off with one-tenth the fans/followers
DO BE OPEN Charlene Li, Altimeter Group (www but doing 10 times more with them,
Alan Lepofsky, vice president and .altimetergroup.com) founder and man- she says.
principal analyst with Constellation aging partner, says based on her orga-
Research (www.constellationrg.com), says nization’s research the most important DON’T OVERLOAD
one thing companies should do differ- thing companies should do differently Brian Blau, Gartner, research di-
ently is “be open about things, even regarding social media strategy is shift rector with Gartner (www.gartner.com),
when something has gone wrong.” focus away from managing social says the point of social networking isn’t
Sometimes, companies mistakenly media channels (Facebook, Twitter, bombarding customers with updates
consider social media a “channel for LinkedIn, etc.) to managing relation- or marketing campaigns but rather
cheerleading about their brand” in- ships with customers and employees, becoming a participant and informa-
stead of a place for open dialog. wherever they’re located. “Given the tion channel in their daily lives when
“That’s what makes ‘social’ different great diversity of what you can do they’re online. “This means a broad-
from print or television marketing,” these days in social media, it’s easy to reach strategy that has your efforts fo-
he says. “With ‘social,’ brands can get sucked into the mechanics,” she cused on where your customers are,
have conversations with their cus- says. “What we see needed is a re- and that will entail using as many so-
tomers and even competitors. Honesty focus on what’s really important: the cial and community sites as necessary,”
can win over customers and build relationships that can be created and he says. Rather than restrict a “multi-
lasting relationships.” deepened through these social tech- channel” approach to marketing, use it
nologies.” Doing so, she says, can also to help with customer support, product
DON’T ARGUE introduce more flexibility in what’s development, or communication that
Something companies should stop possible. reaches customers and helps keep
doing is engaging in arguments on- them engaged.
line, Lepofsky says. “There are always DON’T MEASURE
going to be people who have nothing Li encourages companies to not DO EXPERIMENT
but negative things to say,” he says. focus only on measuring how many Today, Blau says, there are many
“These people are often referred to as fans or followers their social media new social networking and commu-
‘trolls,’ and the advice goes ‘don’t feed outlets have. “If relationships are nications apps and services. While
the trolls.’” Instead, take the high road what’s important, then what are the some messaging platforms are quickly
by factually addressing concerns once, metrics that you should be using to becoming the next go-to ones, new
not letting emotion get in the way, and measure the depth and strength of ones will always rise up and become
then moving on, he says. “Don’t get those relationships? Volume metrics, popular. “While these new platforms
into a ‘have to have the last word’ type like the number of fans, will be less don’t yet support standard adver-
of banter, as these folks have too much important than what you’re doing tising, they are a hotbed of activity,
time on their hands, and they will not with those relationships,” she says. and with careful planning and a bit
back down,” he says. Arguably, companies would be better of experimentation they can become
valuable resources, and learning from
them will help you better understand
“. . . what’s really important: the relation- why these services are becoming pop-
ships that can be created and deepened ular,” he says. He recommends man-
through these social technologies.” aging these efforts, preparing for any
level of success, and use your experi-
Charlene Li ences to help guide efforts to “contin-
founder and managing partner, Altimeter Group ually find and attract and interact with
your next new customer.” ●
When companies look to maximize cooled properly, your company may not to determine baselines, so it can be
their ROI (return on investment) for necessarily benefit from the upgrade. nearly impossible to know whether a
various purchases or projects, they Fortunately, improving your cooling purchase has the desired financial effect
often explore things such as consolida- system doesn’t always require further if you don’t know where you started.
tion, virtualization, or implementing equipment purchases. In fact, you may “You can’t manage what you don’t mea-
more efficient servers. While it’s true be able to maximize efficiency, as well sure,” says Darin Stahl, lead research an-
that these approaches will lead to sav- as your ROI, with a few changes to your alyst at Info-Tech Research Group (www
ings, you should also consider your cooling philosophy. .infotech.com). “About 25% of the orga-
cooling system before making wide- nizations out there that are customer-
spread upgrades or refreshes. After all, MONITOR & MEASURE based do not know their total data center
you could implement the most efficient When measuring the ROI of any capacity and couldn’t describe it, and
servers in the world, but if they’re not given purchase, some companies forget about 73% don’t have any visibility into
Don’t go overboard on Don’t be afraid to con- Take time to monitor The cooling industry is
cooling. Only add the sult a professional for your data center’s evolving right alongside
cooling capacity you guidance. As your data environment so you servers and storage solutions.
need to maintain operat- center changes, you can get a baseline and Research the newest cooling
ing temperatures and cut need to change your spot potential prob- techniques and implement
Key unnecessary costs out at cooling approach, as lem areas that require what works best for your
Points the beginning. well. improvement. company.
the energy bill, specifically for the data “Many people think that adding . . . cool-
center, and especially at the rack and
row level.”
ing capacities to a data center will fix hot
Stahl says the numbers only get spots. This is not necessarily true and
worse from there; however, there is a many times heat buildup can be addressed
simple approach companies can take
to improve these odds. “When we ask
by simply managing the heat that is creat-
about success around metrics and bet- ed without adding any additional cooling.”
ter ROI for investments in standby Matt Burkle
power, cooling, or any of that kind of
national IT channel manager and sales engineer, HM Cragg
stuff, what we find is organizations that
actually use efficiency metrics and per-
form cheap and cheerful monitoring
are 35% more successful in terms of
“Data centers have two main issues today:
costs and satisfaction,” he adds. Those how to increase the cooling capacity of old
companies don’t simply implement a centers to take higher densities, and how to
cooling system with a 10- to 12-year
refresh rate and just assume they’re
construct new data centers to be environ-
getting the highest possible efficiency. mentally friendly whilst still pushing the
Instead, they put monitoring solutions envelope of design with increased density,
in place that provide hard evidence.
“It is vital to have environmental
reduced space, increased resilience, and
monitoring where it is critical, which is low power usage effectiveness.”
at the inlet of the IT equipment,” says Simon Davis
Matt Burkle, national IT channel man- director of engineering, Q Cooling
ager and sales engineer at HM Cragg
(www.hmcragg.com). “A lot of changes can
happen to the temperature of air from
the point where it is supplied to the front thrive in their respective industries, mission-critical nature. Those compo-
of the rack. Having a grasp on the exact that shouldn’t necessarily extend to nents may be able to “run at a hot tem-
state of the air where it enters the server the cooling space. “Think about ‘just perature,” but the one “mission-critical
allows you to both eliminate problem good enough’,” Stahl says. “Often, box can’t,” which essentially “erodes
hot spots, and to set the temperature cor- we’ll want to buy the newest, fastest, any potential savings that those seven
rectly at the air conditioning unit.” and shiniest piece of hardware ever, hotter boxes could have given me.”
Burkle adds that companies can also but meanwhile the workload doesn’t The piecemeal approach to up-
utilize the features of DCIM (data center require it. If we can actually work on a grading equipment and cooling sys-
infrastructure management) solutions, server that will run at a little less perfor- tems stretches out to other areas, as well.
which “give a graphical state of the data mance, because that might be a trade- Stahl says some companies may want to
center and allow information gathering off for the additional heat based on implement a closed rack cooling system,
and trend analysis.” Using DCIM tools, ASHRAE [American Society of Heating, where the back door of a rack is kept
you can evaluate environmental data to Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning closed to prevent cool air from escaping.
get a more in-depth view of your data Engineers] guidelines, then we should However, he says while some equip-
center and adapt to changes during dif- do it.” ment will fit in a standard 19-inch rack,
ferent processing cycles. This plays well into maximizing ROI they may stick out of the back. This is
because if you can keep servers and a situation where innovation in one
MATCH COOLING CAPACITY other pieces of equipment for longer area diminishes innovation in another.
TO EQUIPMENT periods of time without negatively af- That’s why it’s so important to plan
Stahl says some companies have the fecting performance or efficiency, then ahead with your refreshes and consider
mind-set to always buy the newest, you can push refresh times further out cooling at every step along the way.
most-advanced technology without and match them up across the board. The key is to match your cooling
stopping to think about whether it ac- Stahl explains further, giving an ex- capacity with the equipment you use
tually matches their workloads. While ample of a company that upgrades most. Stahl says data centers need to
there are some larger enterprises that seven components inside a rack while move away from the “flood-the-room
require the biggest and best servers to keeping one component due to its approach” where you just “slap a unit or
two in there and flood the whole place and hot air is vented out into the room air mixing isn’t necessarily a new idea,
with cold air.” Instead, he says compa- and returned to the air conditioning but it’s one that helps counteract those
nies need to consider a precision-based unit where it can continue the process. challenges of “unprecedented power
model, such as rack and row cooling, By “supplying the exact temperature of densities due to technologies like blade
so they can “more discretely cool par- cool air to the front of the rack with no servers and virtualization.” And those
ticular racks of equipment.” With this air mixing,” it “allows you to set the air power densities are affecting new and
approach, you can provide more cooling conditioning unit to a precise tempera- old data centers alike, which makes it a
for network gears, for example, that run ture set point,” Burkle says. And by much more fundamental design issue.
constantly and almost always at peak improving the accuracy of your air con- According to Simon Davis, director
temperatures. You can also provide vari- ditioning system and airflow cycle, you of engineering at Q Cooling (www.qcool
able cooling for servers that have peaks can make sure all of your equipment is ing.com), a Rackmount Solutions (www
and valleys in their operations. Proper running at peak efficiency and proper .rackmountsolutions.net) partner, data cen-
cooling efficiency, which leads to better operating temperature. ters have duel challenges of meeting
ROI, depends entirely on balance. It’s important to remember that high-density cooling demands and
even though you may have the perfect doing so in the most environmentally
FOLLOW COOLING BEST system in place for your existing config- friendly way possible. Data centers are
PRACTICES & SEEK ADVICE uration, things will change. That’s why simultaneously trying to consolidate
WHEN NECESSARY Stahl says “it’s not a bad idea to bring in their infrastructure, while still trying
Burkle says that even though there professional firms to review your room, to provide the highest level of perfor-
are a variety of new cooling systems perform some kind of computation of mance. This approach obviously creates
and techniques out there, some of fluid design, and look at the airflow.” some cooling challenges that require
which are rather futuristic, it’s always An expert can help validate your ROI new ways of thinking.
a good idea to follow some of the basic findings and show you more ways to One example of newer technol-
tenants of proper cooling. For instance, improve your overall cooling efficiency. ogy designed to improve data center
he says it’s always a good idea to “have “Don’t hesitate to do that because it’s cooling is Q Cooling’s ColdLogik sys-
rows of racks arranged with hot and not that expensive to bring them in for tem. Not only can the ColdLogik
cold aisles,” because “if all the racks a short engagement with a tightly de- solution provide backdoor cooling
are facing the same direction, hot air signed scope,” says Stahl. “Those sorts at the rack level, but it can also “op-
exhaust from row one will feed the inlet of activities might seem . . . trivial, but erate at temperatures of up to 80 de-
of row two, thus creating a potential it’s a month after month benefit that grees Fahrenheit,” Davis says. Plus,
heat buildup issue.” continues to grow.” ColdLogik can be used with a tradi-
In addition to hot aisle/cold aisle tional air conditioning system or as part
containment, Burkle recommends that INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY of a free cooling approach. It’s just one
data centers consider the path that the REQUIRES INNOVATIVE way to improve your ROI while also
hot air follows. The idea is to create a COOLING keeping the environment in mind.
cycle where the coldest air enters the Burkle’s recommendation of creating But data center cooling innovation
rack to maintain the ideal temperature a hot air/cold air cycle that prevents doesn’t stop there. For instance, Stahl
says there’s a company developing a
liquid-cooling system where instead
of using air or water, “you take your
“You can’t manage what you don’t servers and essentially dunk them in
measure. About 25% of the organizations goo.” The liquid is treated in a way that
prevents damage to components, but
out there that are customer-based do not
Stahl admits that even with this caveat,
know their total data center capacity and “there’s still a big psychological barrier
couldn’t describe it, and about 73% don’t to that.” Just because futuristic solu-
tions like this are available doesn’t nec-
have any visibility into the energy bill,
essarily mean you need to implement
specifically for the data center, and espe- them. The best approach is to keep an
cially at the rack and row level. And the open mind and do your due diligence.
You never know when a company
numbers just get worse.”
might introduce a new cooling ap-
Darin Stahl proach that’s inexpensive and delivers
lead research analyst, Info-Tech Research Group a solid ROI. ●
Companies essentially have two op- 277 global companies in nine countries, security posture” in place when the
tions for approaching data breaches. provides some evidence. According to incident occurred and having a CISO
One, they can bury their heads in the the study, the average consolidated cost (Chief Information Security Officer) or
proverbial sand and hope the day of the countries per compromised re- someone in an equivalent position to
never comes when they might face cord in 2012 was $136. The United States, take overall responsibility for data pro-
lawsuits, fines, hefty blows to reputa- meanwhile, had the highest total av- tection. After a breach, quickly notifying
tion, customers and partners forever erage cost per data breach at more than victims and engaging consultants to help
lost, and potentially paying millions $5.4 million. the company respond and resolve the
in costs. Two, they can accept the fact Heavily regulated industries (health breach were other factors.
a data breach occurring is entirely care, financial, pharmaceuticals, trans- The first order of business for compa-
possibly and do everything within portation, and communications), the nies following a breach is containing the
their means to prevent it but be able study reveals, had “per capita data leak “by taking the vulnerable system
to act promptly and responsibly if breach costs substantially above” that offline and locking down affected sys-
one should. $136 mean. Primary root causes of tems” to avoid further damage or loss,
breaches, meanwhile, included ma- says Michela Menting, ABI Research
HOW TO REACT licious or criminal attacks (more than (www.abiresearch.com) cyber security se-
Perhaps the best motivation a com- 37%); human errors, such as negligent nior analyst. Depending on the type
pany can have to begin putting itself in employee and contractor mistakes of data lost and compliance require-
a position to ably react to a data breach (35%); and system glitches, such as IT ments involved, companies may need
is to know exactly what could happen and business process failures (29%). to inform regulatory authorities, such
if it doesn’t prepare. Statistics from the The survey identified several factors as HIPAA. “Notification is extremely
recent Ponemon Institute (www.ponemon. that influence the cost of data breaches: important in these cases, as failure to
org) “2013 Cost of Data Breach Study,” whether a business had an incident notify the relevant authority could result
based on the data breach experiences of management plan and “relatively strong in significant fines for the organization,”
Menting says. Additionally, companies “I think that timely, updated, and continuous
should immediately inform employees
of breaches to ensure they’re aware of
information-sharing about the breach and the
a threat and don’t exacerbate the situa- next steps [for affected parties to take] is very
tion, she says. important in mitigating negative perception
Eric Ahlm, Gartner (www.gartner.com)
research director, believes there’s a cor-
and preserving good reputation.”
relation between data security practices Michela Menting
(or incident response and investigation), senior analyst, cyber security, ABI Research
and corporate risk reduction (or how
not to lose additional money after a
breach), but these entities are “distinctly A good incident response practice should
different” and typically managed by dif- generally include resources (or partner net-
ferent company teams.
A good incident response practice
works) required to “technically determine if
should generally include resources (or a significant breach has occurred and deter-
partner networks) required to “techni- mine the magnitude and scope of the event.”
cally determine if a significant breach
has occurred and determine the mag-
Eric Ahlm
nitude and scope of the event,” he research director, Gartner
says. This includes determining how
much data was lost, in which countries,
among which users, and more. After the steps they may need to take in order Ultimately, the more transparent
incident response team pinpoints the to deal with potential fallout from the companies can be with clients, af-
scope and magnitude of a breach, he data loss,” she says. Failing to inform af- fected parties, employees, national
says, “the next steps really come from fected parties in a responsible timeframe agencies, and others, the better the
legal or corporate risk managers.” and manner can result in devastating reaction will tend to be, Menting says.
Overall, Ahlm says the data breach consequences for a company. “I think that timely, updated, and con-
isn’t the real loss for a company that has Ahlm says in addition to helping tinuous information-sharing about the
lost data. “The loss comes from class- companies determine the impact of a breach and the next steps [affected
action lawsuits from those affected or breach, providers of breach services parties to take] is very important in
from various state/federal fines or in can help organizations “cater to af- mitigating negative perception and
brand devaluation,” he says. fected users with credit monitoring preserving good reputation.” This
services and set up notification and doesn’t mean companies must reveal
ASSESS THE DAMAGE help desk operations to meet the expe- all technical details about a hack, she
Following a breach, Menting ad- dient notification timelines that tend says, but they must indicate to those
vises companies attempt some form to be state specific.” Additionally, involved what they’re doing, how
of digital forensics. While smaller some providers can assist companies they plan to fix the problem and pre-
companies may lack resources to con- with public relations and other efforts vent future leaks, and “above all be
duct a full investigation, there are “to ideally help reduce further losses able to respond in a timely manner to
third-party services to help with this. due to a data breach.” requests for information.”
“Collecting and going through log in- Menting says the “affected party”
formation . . . can be extremely helpful in data breach incidents first and fore- LEARN FROM THE PAST
in finding out relevant information most is the organization and employees. The worst thing a company can do
about the breach,” she says. Secondly, depending on the data lost, if after a data breach is do nothing to
Often, companies will need to the breach relates to clients, other orga- remedy the cause, whether that means
remedy a faulty system involved, Men- nizations, individuals, or other external readdressing and improving policies
ting says. If the fault is technical in parties, the organization should inform and processes or implementing new
nature, the remedy might include ap- them of the breach and the steps they security technology. In short, companies
plying patches. If social engineering was should take to pre-empt any backlash. that simply pick up the pieces and carry
involved, the company will need to in- If regulated data is involved, she says, on without analyzing the root causes,
form employees. “Then there is dealing “the competent national authority needs fixing them, and then continually evalu-
with the fallout—notifying external to be involved and sometimes even law ating their preparedness, may very well
clients if they’re affected and what enforcement.” see history repeat itself. ●
Spam refers to any unwanted online through, your company needs email overall cybersecurity policy. Even the
communications that show up as unso- software that’s capable of detecting and most thorough spam filter will occasion-
licited email, text messages, instant mes- filtering spam. Many of the commercial- ally let a few messages slip through,
sages, robocalls, and social networking grade email programs feature some which is why it’s vital to educate em-
messages. Spam is a daily occurrence form of automated spam filtering, so just ployees about how to spot and handle
for businesses and individuals alike; make sure those features are enabled for spam that appears in their inboxes. Tips
much of it amounts to poorly worded every account your business supports. to emphasize include never opening
and utterly random sales pitches that, Ideally, spam should never show up in unsolicited emails in HTML format
while annoying, pose no real threat. an employee’s inbox, but if it does, it’s (plain text only), never responding to or
Some of these unwanted electronic mes- important that he be able to access the forwarding suspected spam, avoiding
sages, however, are designed to steal junk mail folder to catch false positives, using the “unsubscribe” link, and never
your identity, breach the network, which are safe messages mistakenly clicking or visiting URLs listed in poten-
force servers to go offline, and spread flagged as spam. The ability to add safe tial spam messages.
malware far and wide. Only when or- senders to a white list can also reduce It is possible to disseminate email
ganizations accept that any spam has the number of false-positives that occur. addresses and phone numbers in such
the potential to risk corporate data and One effective way to combat spam is a way as to prevent data harvesting
threaten the bottom line will they have a to only display emails as plain text. This bots from being able to access that in-
chance of stemming the tide. way, the sender of a spam message can’t formation from websites, social net-
determine whether the recipient opened working sites, profile pages, forums,
REIN IN EMAIL the message. chat rooms, and blogs. On the phone
A majority of the spam that crosses a side, for instance, you can eliminate
network’s threshold comes through the BASIC TRAINING robocalls effectively by having an au-
email inboxes of individual employees. Teaching employees how to handle tomated call router that prompts the
To slash the amount of email that gets spam should be part of a business’s caller to press a number to access his
desired department or dial up an em- grammar, disguised hyperlinks, and direct email and phone numbers of
ployee directory. Spambots scan the absurd premises. your employees harder to access from
Web for any text that surrounds the the public-facing website without the
@ symbol, so another effective way BE B2B WARY potential customer first initiating a
to thwart spammers can be to spell If possible, it’s important to deter- secure session.
out the symbol, for instance, john- mine how the organizations you and You may also want to institute strict
smithatbusiness.com. This may not your employees do business with access control mechanisms that priori-
work against a cybercriminal bound handle sensitive information such as tize sensitive data, track when and how
and determined to collect email ad- mailing lists and payment data. If an employees access that data, and can
dresses, but it will keep you and your organization can’t deliver proof of com- pinpoint a breach the moment it oc-
employees from becoming the low- pliance or doesn’t live up to your ex- curs. This is particularly important for
hanging fruit that a vast majority of pectations, or if you can’t find out how organizations that deal with payment
spammers and their automated tools safely it stores your sensitive data, then card information or areas of the busi-
actively seek out. you might consider taking your busi- ness that have a high potential for theft
Assuming your organization has an ness elsewhere. A firm that requests from external sources or from a dis-
email application that includes spam- that you sign up for an account of some gruntled current or former employee.
blocking technology, you’ll need to kind but does not have an easily acces- It’s critical that the software (par-
teach employees the ins and outs of sible privacy policy should throw up a ticularly security software and a fire-
red flag. However, wall) running on PCs, notebooks,
don’t just blindly and any other devices with network
trust those that access remain as up-to-date as pos-
do post privacy sible. Spammers regularly find and
policies; read the exploit software vulnerabilities, and
policies with a crit- all they need is one outdated device on
ical eye. Some less the network to get a foot in the door.
scrupulous firms Popular software targets for spammers
may even regularly and cybercriminals are those software
sell their mailing utilities that update frequently and
lists to spammers are most likely to be ignored by indi-
for profit, and they viduals. Web browsers and operating
get away with it by systems are also common attack vec-
stating clearly in tors, so make sure they’re always up-
An effective spam filter will intercept potential spam but still let their privacy poli- to-date.
you examine the message in plain text. cies that they may
share your infor- LAYING TRAPS
mation with “part- Organizations with websites that
adding senders to the blocked lists and ners.” As you develop standards for suffer from frequent spambot attacks
disposing of emails they suspect are the businesses you interact with, make can create a spider trap that works
spam. The latter task involves dropping sure your firm also acts in good faith kind of like a reverse DDoS (distrib-
suspected spam messages into a desig- regarding the private data that others uted denial-of-service) attack. It con-
nated junk mail folder. share with you, posting policies and sists of a series of pages and links that
Individuals can avoid risking expo- remaining compliant with regulations force the spammer’s Web crawler
sure to spam by using disposable email where applicable. to attempt an infinite number of re-
addresses expressly for the purposes of quests, often slowing down and some-
logging into sites that have less-than- LOCK DOWN THE NETWORK times even crashing the spambot.
stellar spam-prevention policies. As we previously mentioned,
Another important topic to cover is spambots are constantly trawling the COMMUNICATION IS CRITICAL
spoof detection; spammers are willing Web for email addresses and phone In short, the best way to protect your-
to pretend to be any organization (in- numbers, and any hits they get will self and your organization is to become
cluding the FTC) that they think will show up on the doorsteps of orga- critical of all communications that come
get you to fall into their traps. Being nizations with questionable sales into the network. Blind trust is the
able to determine if emails are genuine tactics and criminals with nefarious enemy. As long as you and your em-
can be tricky, but there are usually tell- intentions alike. To prevent this from ployees learn that lesson, spam is much
tale signs, such as misspellings, poor happening with your data, make the less likely to become a problem. ●
ENERGY-CONSCIOUS TECH
Sometimes the traits that work- services also make it easy to access about them? The following explores
ers want most from the applica- those files anytime and anywhere the issue.
tions they use are ease of use and and share and collaborate on them
convenience. Especially in this with others. WHY EMPLOYEES DO IT
age of mobility and BYOD (bring Despite the definite productivity- Research concerning employees’
your own device), when employees related benefits that these ser- use of cloud file-sharing and doc-
perceive IT departments can’t or vices can offer workers, they also ument-collaboration services often
won’t provide applications with introduce numerous security and points to a common conclusion:
these abilities they’ll go outside the data-loss worries for businesses Many employees believe that to do
organization and search for alter- in terms of files potentially con- their jobs today, they need access
atives. Consumer-oriented cloud taining sensitive company infor- to their documents away from the
file-sharing and document-collabo- mation (customer data, marketing office. Couple this with so many
ration services are prime examples. plans, intellectual property, etc.). employees now using their own
Beyond making it easy to store Given the large number of workers smartphones and tablets for work
personal and work-related files in that are using these services, what and it’s logical they turn to familiar
personal cloud containers, these can and what should businesses do consumer-friendly apps.
Keep in mind that employ- On the other hand, recog- More popular cloud- It’s important to implement
ees often use consumer- nize that employee usage based file-sharing and policy that clearly states
oriented file-sharing and of consumer-oriented file- document-collaboration acceptable use of file-sharing
collaboration services sharing and collaboration vendors are focus- and document-collaboration
because they’re easier to services for work purposes ing increasingly on services and the ramifica-
Key use and more convenient can pose security risks for security features for the tions that non-compliance
Points than enterprise tools. the company. enterprise. carries.
According to a 2012 SkyDox “Once your users turn to these cloud ser-
study involving roughly 4,100 re-
spondents, 77% indicated they re-
vices, the enterprise control over data is
quire access to documents away largely gone, and you’re entrusting your
from the office, and 66% reported security to the users and their choice of
using free file-sharing platforms to
share corporate-related documents.
service. So there’s a tremendous amount
Employees in professional and fi- of risk in that.”
nancial service fields reported the Jeff Boles
highest usage. A Harris Interactive
senior analyst, Taneja Group company
2013 study involving about 2,000
U.S. adults, meanwhile, included
findings worrisome to businesses,
“Cloud-based storage is encountering a
including that 27% of file-sharing
service users indicated having push-pull between an individual user’s
access to documents from a pre- convenience and need for security and
vious employer, and 38% of pre-
regulatory compliance,” he says. “IT
vious and current users reported
they’d moved sensitive files via managers are going to have to make some
non-IT file-sharing service at least very difficult decisions about privacy this
once and 10% more than six times.
forthcoming year, given recent events.”
Additionally, 46% reported taking
sensitive documents to another Tim Banting
employer would be easy via a file- principal analyst, Current Analysis
sharing service.
Beyond their ease of use, says
Apoorv Durga, senior analyst with
Real Story Group (www.realstorygroup devices, such as their own tablets “really ahead of the curve on mo-
.com), consumer-oriented file-share or smartphones. Thus, they’re bility access,” he says.
services are fast and available any- circumventing IT departments (and Jeff Boles, Taneja Group (www
time, everywhere, and on employees’ security and policy mandates) to .tanejagroup.com) senior analyst,
device of choice. Because employees make their lives easier. “Tradition- describes the “fairly innovative
are already using these services, he ally, teamwork solutions have been level of data access to unstruc-
says, they are a natural choice for fairly complex to work with,” Ban- tured file data” that cloud services
work. Many employees simply prefer ting says, including for reasons in- have unleashed as a “far departure
tools that make file-sharing simple. volving checking documents in and from what the enterprise has typi-
However, says Bud Porter-Roth, out; version control; and accessing cally enabled in the past.” A tra-
principal consultant of Porter-Roth files through VPN (virtual private net- ditional enterprise infrastructure
Associates (www.erms.com), many work) connections, which may only be in which file access is probably
enterprise-level “legacy” systems possible on company-owned devices, limited to on-premises or perhaps
aren’t simple. Further, they don’t pro- such as laptops. remote access or VPN, he says, is
mote collaboration and don’t make Ben Dickie, Info-Tech Research a world away from having file ac-
collaboration easy outside the com- Group (www.infotech.com) senior cess at your fingertips via multiple
pany. Online storage services “make consulting analyst, sees the gravita- platforms. Boles says companies
it happen quickly with virtually no tion of employees to these services should realize that whether they’ve
learning curve on either end,” he says. as a form of backlash against tra- formally implemented BYOD or
“Second, the user is in control and can ditional content-management-type not, many users are operating in a
avoid the typical IT ‘No, we don’t sup- tools that are more complicated BYOD manner and know how to
port that’ or ‘Yes, but it will take two and that alienate users. Mobility is use services to enable data access
months to program.’” another factor, he says. Although to get their jobs done. “We’re in a
Tim Banting, Current Analysis traditional enterprise-type applica- global workplace, and 24/7 work
(www.currentanalysis.com) principal ana- tions or network file shares made is going on around most of us. So
lyst, says that workers sometimes just file access from mobile devices dif- it’s not a malignant behavior but
want to access a file from alternative ficult, consumer-type services were an empowerment behavior, and
An ever-increasing amount of TABLETS VS. THE FIELD tablets (or hybrid, dockable devices
workers are bringing their personal There’s no question the popu- functioning as tablets and laptops).
tablets into the workplace, and larity of tablets is swelling among Forrester expects business-owned tab-
many who aren’t want their enter- consumers and businesses. Forrester lets to increase to make up 18% of the
prises to deploy them. Despite this, Research (www.forrester.com) data from tablet market by 2017.
some executives have doubts about late 2013, for example, predicted a Still, a belief lingers that tablets
what tablets can offer their compa- global installed base of 327 million lag behind PCs in certain busi-
nies. Some also question whether tab- tablets by the end of 2013 (905 million ness-specific respects, including
lets can provide more services or give by 2017), with 39 million being tab- when performing processor-inten-
users the tools necessary to complete lets enterprises purchase. Key drivers sive tasks, working with complex
more tasks. include portability, ease of use, end data, and creating original content.
Plenty of experts believe that tablets user preferences, senior executives’ Andrew Borg, Aberdeen Group
definitely deserve consideration from desires, enhanced productivity, and (www.aberdeen.com) research director
executives, including in terms of even better customer experience. Forrester for enterprise mobility and collabo-
potentially temporarily or permanently states some verticals, such as health- ration, says there are caveats to such
replacing PCs throughout a company. care, are supplanting laptops with generalizations. How we discussed
Currently, tablets can Tablets possess several Due to compatibility In 2014, tablets should
provide an ideal tool for features that many ex- reasons and technical be lighter and thinner and
certain positions and perts find advantageous capabilities, some provide more powerful
departments, but many over smartphones (screen experts view Microsoft processing abilities, more
experts don’t view them as sizes, content, etc.) and tablets as being able to integrated memory, and other
Key being able to replace PCs laptops (weight, portabil- provide several enter- abilities that make them more
Points companywide yet. ity, battery life, etc.). prise-related benefits. business-ready.
“Only if there are supporting applications to justify tablets is like buying a lake
in order to have a glass of water.”
and apps that make the tablet relevant to Tablets do integrate well, Egan
a task or job will tablets become effective.” says, in such areas as the boardroom
to replace paper, for presentations, to
provide “roving” IT support, for sales
Bob Egan departments, and audio/video/pre-
CEO and founder, Sepharim Group sentation conference calls.
“personal device." Sharing content There will come a point when “we
with one person is difficult, he says,
but “forget about sharing content
have to talk about what comes after
in person with more than one per- tablets.”
son. You can’t.” Tablets are ideal for
Andrew Borg
collaboration and sharing, he says.
research director for enterprise mobility and collaboration, Aberdeen Group
“Two, three, or even five people can
gather around a tablet and actually
get a lot of work done” in terms of
sharing information, viewing data software. Egan says a big challenge tablet platforms, cost-effectiveness,
analysis, and consuming media, with iOS and Android tablets is nei- and other factors playing roles. Still,
he says. ther have a solid file management while iPad dominates the U.S. busi-
Compared with tablets, Borg system, “especially one that meets ness market currently, Borg says, there
believes Ultrabooks present some the generally accepted principles of will come a point when “we have to
benefits (sleekness, long battery legal and audit compliance trails.” talk about what comes after tablets.”
life, business-ready qualities, etc.) Brett says with some changes (“cur- Other form factors will surface that
although they’re a bit pricey cur- rently Windows 8 devices remain too will “matter as much or more” than
rently. “They’re definitely an exec- large, too heavy, and too landscape in tablets, he says.
utive toy,” he says. “The question orientation”), the financial and prac-
is, for the majority of your workers, tical advantages of using Windows TABLETS IN 2014
are you going to buy an Ultrabook tablets could be significant for enter- Moving into this year, Borg sees
for a premium price or a tablet?” prises in terms of “using the same two extremes developing for the
Executives may get both, but it’s infrastructure, applications, and de- tablet market. At the low end, he
doubtful the rest of the organiza- velopment skills without having to expects tablets to follow a trend now
tion will get two pieces of hard- adopt iOS and Android ones.” occurring with smartphones in that
ware to replace a laptop, he says. From a technical and capability low-end models are becoming very
If Ultrabook pricing comes down, perspective, “Microsoft’s strategy affordable. At the very high end,
however, a true three-tier ecosystem is probably the most well thought Borg says tablets could emerge with
could develop in 2014, he says. out, most tightly integrated strategy a minimum of quad-core processing,
Brett sees Ultrabook and tablets for both OS and business applica- more integrated RAM, longer bat-
on a probable collision course, “at tions available on any tablet,” Borg tery life, higher resolution displays,
least until a tablet has Ultrabook pro- says. Although Surface Pro is stable even thinner and lighter form fac-
cessing requirements.” Essentially, technology that’s business-oriented, tors, as well as more mature enter-
the devices fill a similar space, he well-integrated, and offers tremen- prise ecosystems to support and
says, though Ultrabooks are more ex- dous potential, Microsoft’s initial manage them.
pensive but with better processing technology integration and its recent Borg says while initial tablets were
ability. “Remember that PCs already marketing and evangelism “has been dismissed as not having business-
work and thus may be cheaper for lacking,” he says. ready tools available, “with security
obtaining short-term benefits. This Borg says current Windows tablet ecosystems and cloud effectively
is the Ultrabook’s real advantage,” business adoption is “miniscule" built into tablets, that argument is
he says. vs. Apple and Android adoption. dissipating, if not dissolving. With
Aberdeen Group research, however, high-end tablets widely available
THE MICROSOFT EFFECT indicates when asking business-re- in 2014, we should move past the
Although sales of Microsoft tab- lated respondents of their plans and argument that tablets aren’t busi-
lets have trailed those of Apple and budgets for tablets for 2013, “the ratios ness-ready,” he says. For compa-
Android tablets, many pundits be- involved almost invert themselves.” nies facing, say, a three- to five-year
lieve that at least from a business Specifically, 35% of respondents indi- laptop refresh cycle in 2014, Borg
and IT outlook, Microsoft tablets cate plans to adopt Windows Surface says the question is “are you going
provide a few notable advantages tablets. Adjust for the “Microsoft mo- to buy all your users laptops or may
over the other two platforms. One bile reality factor,” or viewing over you buy tablets for field sales, execu-
advantage is compatibility, because past years what respondents indi- tives, and applicable groups?” He ex-
a vast number of businesses already cated vs. actually acquired and the pects we’ll start to see “tablets begin
run Microsoft OSes and business, 2013 projected adoption drops to 4%, to replace laptops in their normal
productivity, enterprise, and other with employee demands for other acquisition cycle in 2014.” ●
In a “Future of Work” report out- “empowered employees are self-se- THE NATURE OF BYOS
lining enterprise trends to watch for in lecting applications on their own de- Rob Enderle, principal analyst with
2014, research firm Ovum (www.ovum vices and using cloud services to get Enderle Group (www.enderlegroup.com),
.com) quotes Canadian philosopher the job done.” says BYOS essentially plays to an idea
Herbert McLuhan, who died in 1980, Generically, employees bringing “that certain employees need their
as saying “our age of anxiety is, in software into the workplace is known own unique tools.” Years ago, secre-
great part, the result of trying to do as BYOS (bring your own software/ taries brought or demanded the word
today’s jobs with yesterday’s tools. services) or BYOA (bring your own ap- processing program they needed, for
We shape our tools, and thereafter plications). A component of the larger example. “I used to use my own presen-
our tools shape us.” Fast-forward to “consumerization of IT” trend that also tation software in the 1980s, and it’s not
2014, and those words echo with what includes BYOD (bring your down de- uncommon for designers and graphic
many enterprise employees currently vice), BYOS is picking up considerable artists to bring their own software tools,
feel. As Ovum puts it, “employee frus- steam but holds positives and nega- as well,” Enderle says.
tration and operational latency are in- tives that enterprises, whether they Today, says Avni Rambhia, Frost &
creasing” as workers try to perform want to or not, must decide what, if Sullivan (www.frost.com) digital media
their jobs using old tools. As a result, anything, they must do to address. industry manager, BYOS involves
Often, employees bring While BYOS might BYOS can introduce Security and data loss are
their own software into seem a new occurrence several benefits both among more obvious risks
the workplace because much like the BYOD for employees and associated with BYOS,
they feel an applica- phenomenon, it’s not. enterprises, including as third-party apps that
tion is the tool that best The practice actu- enhancing collabora- employees install may store
Key helps them perform ally dates back several tion, innovation, and company data in public
Points their jobs. decades. productivity. cloud space.
“There’s also the risk of ongoing main- this innovation trend but need to do
it the right way.”
tenance. If a BYOS title gets locked into Crocker adds that IT managers can
company workflow but the vendor and use BYOS to their advantage by un-
company don’t have an SLA agreement, derstanding what consumer software
employees are using and seeking ways
there’s a real risk of downtime or data loss in which to support and integrate the
should the third-party vendor flounder.” software. If some employees are more
Avni Rambhia productive using consumer software,
it’s likely others may also benefit, he
digital media industry manager, Frost & Sullivan
says. For this strategy to work, IT man-
agers and users must understand and
take responsibility for the risks/ben-
of IT governance, business risk, or in- Those risks, she says, include data efits and make decisions case by case.
dustry/authority compliance.” files covered by regulations or NDAs For example, he says, storing sensitive
Dickie’s security advice to CIOs or other contracts “exiting the pur- company data in a consumer cloud file
and CTOs is to not act in a knee-jerk view of data leakage prevention or sharing service vs. enterprise solution
manner. “I think that’s a trap that a other security systems and potentially is a different scenario than using an
lot of CIOs fall into,” he says. After leaking.” Less obvious risks include enterprise-oriented social network to
discovering an employee is using her inconsistent document formats, such find new leads vs. using the corporate
own application without formal IT as when an employee creates docu- customer management system.
authorization or support, they may ments using a third-party app in a As a security purist, Rambhia be-
view it as something that needs to be format the company-wide standard lieves BYOS is never a good idea,
locked down, he says. Instead, look at can’t effectively leverage. “There’s especially on platforms where sensi-
the underlying reasons employees are also the risk of ongoing mainte- tive data, code, designs, etc. reside.
bringing in apps, he says. Often, it’s nance,” she says. “If a BYOS title gets “From a practical perspective, how-
because they aren’t getting the sup- locked into company workflow but ever, BYOS is unavoidable,” she says.
port needed for existing applications or the vendor and company don’t have “Acknowledging that BYOS will be
aren’t successfully enabled to complete an SLA agreement, there’s a real risk present and ensuring employees are
their jobs with existing applications. “I of downtime or data loss should the well educated in safe ways of using
think the senior IT leaders need to do third-party vendor flounder.” and sharing data is critical,” she says.
almost a little bit of soul searching,” Ultimately, Rambhia adds, “security
he says, by finding where the gaps are WHAT TO DO is nearly always a person problem,
in the software they’re providing and Edwards sees two angles for BYOS and it’s best solved with person-cen-
then looking at formal licensing or for enterprises. One, BYOS can pro- tric solutions.” While it’s incumbent
formal support of BYOS-type apps. vide a useful but generic/commodity on managers to get IT to buy in “be-
Rambhia says while the cloud and service for all employees, such as file cause breaks will happen, and they will
devices are changing how people sharing/syncing abilities they aren’t happen at the worst possible time,” she
think, interact, work, and store data, currently provided. Two, BYOS can says, IT should look at what software
companies are often slow to incorpo- provide a useful LOB (line of busi- is being installed most often and de-
rate new technologies into the range ness) application that IT might con- termine if it can bring it under a com-
of devices their employees use. A com- sider too low-priority to source or pany-managed umbrella.
pany, for example, might use a corpo- develop, such as an app that lets an Ultimately, Edwards advises CIOs
rate chat client that doesn’t support engineer view CAD files on a tablet. and business managers to determine
smartphone use. Thus, an employee Crocker points out that much in- the motivation behind BYOD/BYOS
either sacrifices connectivity with team novation in technology markets and react accordingly. “The consum-
members on a group conference call originates in the consumer segment erization of IT is being driven by
when he’s on the smartphone or he because of enterprise adversity to ubiquitous, consumer-friendly, com-
installs a third-party app that interfaces risk. Many consumer-grade apps are munication and computing capabili-
with the corporate client. While IT may entering enterprises via “new hires ties. This is unprecedented,” he says.
be understandably worried about this, out of school who have limited at- “As a result, we are likely to see more
she says, it’s a calculated risk on the tachments to legacy software and change in the remaining six years of
employee’s part that brings about secu- thrive on trying new things,” he says. this decade than in the 30 years that
rity risks. “Enterprises can take advantage of preceded it.” ●
Whether it’s a desktop, laptop, the limit. Some vendors offer hard Whether you are contemplating
tablet, smartphone, or camera, drive enclosures that can be used to the purchase of a hard disk drive or
you’re bound to reach a time when transform internal hard drives into an SSD, another consideration is data
the device gets dangerously close external ones, and some enclosures transfer speeds. Determine what in-
to reaching maximum storage ca- support multiple hard drives. For that terface the device uses and the speed
pacity. And while you may use the reason, you could conceivably hit ca- it provides before buying. The most
opportunity to clean off your hard pacities of up to 20TB or more in the common interface is USB (Universal
drive to free up some space, it isn’t future, which would almost amount Serial Bus), with most current products
always possible or convenient to do to a portable server. supporting USB 2.0 (with speeds up to
so. Fortunately, there are quite a few In addition to hard drives, which 480 megabits per second) or the newer
portable storage options available are great for mass storage, many ven- USB 3.0 (up to 5 gigabits per second).
that can give you the extra capacity dors are also releasing portable SSDs Why you need it: External hard
you need without having to upgrade (solid-state drives), which provide drives are great for storing media,
your device. faster read and write speeds and typi- like videos, music, and photos, be-
cally more capacity than hard disk cause those files often take up a quite
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES drives. SSDs, and portable models a bit of space on your device’s internal
External hard drives are a fit in particular, have historically been memory. Then, you can either choose
for people who want a lot of extra more expensive than hard drives, to view or play the media straight
storage capacity, but also need but prices are dropping every year. from the hard drive or move it back
something portable that doesn’t re- Still, in order to buy a 1TB SSD, for in- onto your desktop momentarily, if
quire internal installation. You will stance, you could end up paying up- necessary. If high speed is important
most commonly find external hard wards of $1,000. So, for mass storage (as is the case if you intend to install a
drives in sizes ranging roughly from purposes, hard disk drives remain the program on a portable drive), an SSD
160GB to 2TB, but that certainly isn’t most affordable option. is likely the best choice.
USB FLASH DRIVES Memory cards also have different ➤ Ruggedization. External hard
External hard drives do have read and write speeds that will affect drives and USB drives may be built
a larger capacity, but sometimes a performance. For instance, a Class 2 for harsher conditions and have
smaller storage device might be the memory card will have a minimum ruggedized features for better du-
solution to your problem. USB flash speed of 2 megabytes per second rability. SSDs and flash drives don’t
drives are often much more compact and a Class 10 memory card will have moving parts, so ruggedized
than external hard drives and are also have a minimum speed of 10MBps. versions of those devices will have
quite a bit less expensive, depending If you’re mainly aiming for addi- quite a bit of durability. But if you
on the capacity. As with SSDs, the tional storage capacity, these num- really want the mass capacity of an
higher you go in capacity, the bigger bers might not concern you. But if external hard drive and need to pro-
the price jump will be. The sweet spot tect it from the elements, you can
for flash drives in terms of a cost- always purchase an enclosure for
benefit analysis is often in the 4GB to extra security.
64GB range. ➤ Security. Many hard drives,
But where they lack in mass storage USB drives, and memory cards fea-
potential, they make up for in design ture encryption settings to protect
innovation. The typical flash drive is your data. Some portable storage
about the size of a pack of gum, but solutions will let you encrypt the
there are also super compact alter- entire drive or select certain files
natives that are about the size of a on the device you want to protect
quarter or even a memory card. And more than others. It’s also pos-
you can also find USB flash drives that sible to partition or segment a hard
attach to a key chain or are part of a drive into separate parts and put
Swiss Army Knife. sensitive information in a container
Why you need it: Because USB away from other data. You can
drives are more portable than hard then encrypt or even hide that part
drives, they offer a few different use of the drive while leaving the rest of
cases. For instance, you could use a USB you’re buying a memory card to re- it unencumbered.
flash drive as a short-term backup solu- cord HD video or take high-quality ➤ Wireless. Another feature that
tion or to transfer small datasets from pictures, the faster read and write external hard drive, flash drives, and
one computer to another. You could speeds will translate into signifi- now even memory cards share is the
also upload an entire presentation to the cantly better performance. ability to connect to other devices
drive and access it on any computer due Why you need it: In addition to via a Wi-Fi connection. This allows
to its plug-and-play functionality. using memory cards for cameras, you you to transfer data from one loca-
can also use them to expand memory tion to another without requiring
MEMORY CARDS in a mobile device. Many smart- a physical connection. But perhaps
Memory cards are about as small phones and tablets have memory the most common use for Wi-Fi in
as it gets when it comes to portable card slots and can support additional portable storage is to stream content.
storage. Traditional SD (Secure memory of 16GB, 32GB, or more. For instance, you could load a video
Digital) cards themselves are ap- Memory cards can be used in a va- onto a hard drive, connect it to your
proximately the size of a quarter, but riety of other devices with slots as wireless network, and then stream
there are also much smaller microSD well, including printers, televisions, it to any connected computer or Wi-
cards. The price-to-capacity ratio for Blu-ray players, and more. Fi-capable television. This is particu-
memory cards is similar to that of larly useful for business travelers
USB drives. 1GB and 2GB cards are SHARED BENEFITS because it provides the ability to
often less than $10, whereas 64GB While every portable storage solu- stream a video presentation or slide-
high-capacity cards can cost around tion has its unique traits, they also show without requiring the user to
$60 to $200 or more. have a lot in common. install it on the host computer. ●
Consider a portable storage device that uses the USB 3.0 interface
in order to enjoy super-fast data transfer speeds.
Internet Tracking
How Websites & Companies Glean Information From Your Web Browsing Activity
Nearly every website you visit visitors to its website had stopped and other football-related products.
uses cookies or some other form of at the site previously. “At that time, Websites can also use cookies to
Internet tracking technology to store there was no such technology to do store passwords or track browsing
information about your browsing that, so the website companies devel- history and user behavior.
history and your Web behavior. oped cookies to track users and their However, traditional HTTP cook-
Although this sounds potentially activities,” says Alan Tang, senior con- ies are limited to a degree because
nefarious, the reality is that many sulting analyst at Info-Tech Research they can only store about 4KB of
websites simply use this data to help Group (www.infotech.com). HTTP or data. For companies that want more
you save time and provide you with browser cookies are simply “small storage space to keep as much infor-
relevant information the next time pieces of data sent from a website mation as possible about the people
you visit. Internet tracking has grown and stored in a user’s Web browser,” visiting their websites, there are
much more sophisticated over time, Tang says. Each time the user visits the Flash cookies. Created in 2000, Flash
however, as companies try to use website, Tang explains, “the browser cookies, also known as local shared
the technology to gather more data sends the cookie back to a server to objects, take advantage of the Flash
about customers and their online ac- save information about [his] previous technology that some websites use,
tivity. It’s important to not only know activity.” and they are capable of storing as
where this phenomenon is going, but HTTP cookies are commonly much as 100KB of data. This gives
also how and why it originated. used by online retailers for person- websites the ability to not only store
alization and customization pur- more data at once, but to also get
HTTP & FLASH COOKIES poses. For instance, if you visit an more context from that data.
The use of cookies traces back to the online store and search for books You can store Flash cookies on
1990s when Web browsing became about football, the next time you your computer rather than your
prevalent. A computer services com- visit that online store, you may see Web browser, and some websites
pany wanted a way to check whether recommendations for more books will even back up traditional HTTP
Smartphone Tips
A Roundup Of Helpful Advice
WINDOWS PHONE
SPECIAL CHARACTERS PRESERVE YOUR CHARGE, SHUT DOWN OPEN WEB PAGES
WITHOUT SWITCHING ➤ You might be among the many Windows Phone users who don’t know that
KEYBOARDS opening Web pages and not closing them means those pages are maintaining an
➤ If you’re typing and need Internet connection (and sapping your device’s battery charge) in the background.
to insert just the occasional In Internet Explorer, tap More (three dots), tap Tabs, and then tap X however many
special character, you can times is necessary to close every open tab. If you wish to clear all open Internet con-
do so without switching to nections in one fell swoop (that is, connections that exist in the background for various
a different keyboard. Press mobile apps), you can do that by accessing the Start screen, swiping left, tapping
and hold the Numbers And Settings (gear icon), tapping Wi-Fi, and sliding the Wi-Fi Networking switch to the
Symbols (&123) key and, Off position.
without removing your finger
from the screen, move your ADD SOCIAL NETWORKING ACCOUNTS TO YOUR WINDOWS PHONE
fingertip until it lands on the ➤ Windows Phone integrates social media functionality into multiple areas of the
character you wish to type. operating system, primarily in the People hub but also (depending on the social net-
The Numbers And Symbols work) in the Photos hub, the Me card, and elsewhere. To add a Facebook account
key is also helpful when you to your phone, tap Settings, Email + Accounts, Add An Account, and Facebook;
need to enter an email ad- enter the required login information; tap Sign In; and, if you would like to link your
dress or website URL and Facebook and Microsoft accounts, tap Connect. There are similar steps for adding a
the .com and @ keys are not LinkedIn or Twitter account: tap Settings, Email + Accounts, LinkedIn or Twitter, and
present on the keyboard. Connect; you will then be redirected to a mobile Web page to log in.
ANDROID
BLACKBERRY
iOS
D I G I TA L
Protect Your
Privacy Online
Minimize The Risks Of Using Social Networking Services
If you use online services, social privacy, keep the following recom- r Verify and change account and
networking sites, or search engines, mendations in mind when registering privacy settings—many sites de-
your privacy is at risk. The more in- for online services: fault to less private options
formation you make available online, r Use strong passwords and secu-
the easier it is to compromise your r Enter the minimum amount of rity questions that are not easy
privacy, your identity, or even your personal information necessary for others to guess
computer. Today, there are very few and do not provide information r Employ antivirus and spyware
consumer protections for online pri- useful to identity thieves such as software on your computer and
vacy, but there are steps you can take your birth date or Social Security keep the software updated
to help minimize the risk. number r Be wary of installing software or
r If email account information is toolbars, downloading items, and
GENERAL ONLINE required, don’t use your work using add-on applications
PRIVACY TIPS or home email account—create r Look for and opt-out of receiving
Many online services and social a separate email account to use notices or special offers
networking sites request personal solely for online activity r Decline options to import your
information. Knowing how your r Read the site’s privacy poli- email contacts into the service
information is used and shared is im- cies—they can reveal a lot about r If you receive a personal email
portant. However, privacy and secu- how your information is used invitation to sign up for an on-
rity settings can be difficult to find and how you can take additional line service, contact the sender to
and understand. To help protect your steps to protect it verify its authenticity
r Use common sense—if the site these are default actions that you can GOOGLE+
or service doesn’t seem like it’s change with each post you make be- Google+ represents Google’s own
on the up and up, don’t register fore it goes live. stab at connecting all of its users
to use it Under the heading Who Can (and potentially all Web users) under
Contact Me?, click the appropriate one social umbrella. Whether or not
FACEBOOK Edit link to define who can send you use Google+, there’s a good
To access Facebook privacy op- you friend requests (the choices are chance you have noticed its features.
tions, click the Settings (gear) icon in Everyone and Friends Of Friends) Google has integrated Google+ into
the top right corner of the page and and what type of message filtering all of its software and services, in-
then select Privacy Settings. Under you prefer (choosing Strict Filtering cluding search. The network’s seem-
the top heading, Who Can See My instead of Basic Filtering is more ingly ubiquitous feature is the little
Stuff?, you can establish the basic about filtering messages to certain +1 button that graces countless on-
overall default privacy setting for locations than it is about privacy). line articles, websites, and search re-
your future Facebook posts. Here you Under the heading Who Can Look sults. It’s akin to the Like and Tweet
can make your updates and photos Me Up?, you can manage the ways buttons for Facebook and Twitter,
open to the public, accessible
only to friends, or completely
private by making the corre- You can set Facebook to
sponding selection from the make your posts com-
drop-down box under the pletely private by default;
heading Who Can See Your you still have the option
Future Posts? each time you make a post
The typical non-public set- to make it available to
ting is Friends, meaning that everyone, friends, or a list
only friends will see what of specific people.
you post; however, as with
email messages, those who
receive them can always
share them with others, so
any post you make avail-
able to all of your Facebook
friends can potentially be more in which other Facebook users and respectively, and often appears
widely shared (or even made public) other Internet users can find (or not alongside them.
by any of those friends. If you are ex- find) your Facebook profile. Google+ operates on the
tremely concerned about privacy and Next, carefully examine the pri- premise that in real life people
sometimes wish to make posts only vacy preferences under the Apps share information with indi-
for your own reference, it’s safest to and Ad sections. These setings affect viduals and groups, and that on
choose the Only Me setting; this may the information that other Facebook the Web users want more nu-
seem extreme and perhaps the an- applications and websites can access. anced sharing options than the
tithesis of why you would want to and it controls the information that basic three—“private,” “everyone
use Facebook to begin with, but keep your friends’ applications can access in my network,” and “the whole
in mind that even if you choose this about you. Click Edit to open the world”—when it comes to posting
setting, you can choose to make any settings for each item; you might be information about themselves. To
post public, for friends’ eyes only, or surprised to learn what information that end, Google+ lets users create
private at the time you make the post. is available to others by default. “circles” of other users to “follow.”
For more precise customiza- Finally, click to access the A circle can include an individual
tion options, select Custom from Timeline And Tagging section to re- or any number of users.
the drop-down box under Who Can view these additional settings, and After you have created circles, you
See Your Future Posts?, and choose also look over the information in- can share posts, links, photos, and +1
whether you would like your posts cluded in your profile. Note that you clicks with those circles. How you
to be viewable to friends of friends cannot prevent Facebook from dis- choose to share posts and similar
or specific individuals, and whether playing your profile photo, name, information amounts to one of the
you want posts to not be shared gender, and networks if you provide fundamental privacy controls within
with other specific users. Remember, this information. Google+: You can, on a post-by-post
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PowerPoint Tips For
ADDING CHARTS & GRAPHS
The scenario is familiar to traveling text and figures you can replace with colors by selecting options from the
professionals: your PowerPoint presen- relevant data. When you finish entering Chart Styles section on the Design tab.
tation is all set when new and relevant information, click File and Close to open When you’ve fashioned a chart you’d
information comes to light and must the finished chart in PowerPoint. like to reuse, click the Save As Template
be added. If you’re on the road or in button on the Design tab. Name the
the sky and find yourself having to ➤ SAVE & MANAGE chart and PowerPoint saves it with
add charts or graphs to a PowerPoint CHART TEMPLATES the .CRTX file extension, which indi-
presentation, this article will help. We If you want to adjust the look of an cates it is a chart template.
include tips designed for PowerPoint existing chart, click the chart in the
novices and adept PowerPoint users PowerPoint slide and the Chart Tools ➤ HIGHLIGHT IMPORTANT
seeking specific chart-making advice. contextual tab appears. Keep in mind DATA IN A POWERPOINT CHART
Chart Tools will only appear when Whether you’re presenting numerous
➤ CREATE A BASIC you select a chart. Open the Design tab charts or need to add emphasis to spe-
CHART OR GRAPH and you can manipulate the overall cific data within a chart, sometimes it’s
To insert a colorful chart or graph il- layout of a chart, adjust its style, beneficial to call out key points. Locate
lustration into your PowerPoint presen- and save it as a template for future the Drawing pane in the Home tab and
tation, locate the Insert tab and select presentations. To adjust the orienta- expand the Shapes menu. Select one that
Chart. Next, look through the available tion, size, or spacing of a chart’s data is appropriate for emphasizing informa-
chart types, select the design that best and graphical elements, expand the tion in your chart, and then click any-
represents the information you want Charts Layouts pane and choose one where in the chart to place the shape. To
to share, and click OK. A Microsoft of the nine layout options. You can also customize the shape, select it and click
Excel chart will open with placeholder change chart elements and background the Shape Fill, Shape Outline, Shape
➤ INSERT A CHART
THAT’S 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 com-
pile data and create a chart for use in
PowerPoint. Start by entering values
in an Excel workbook. Highlight all nec-
essary 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.
Microsoft PowerPoint’s Design tab in the Chart Tools contextual tab lets you modify the
Open a current or new PowerPoint slide
layout of your chart and adjust its style. These settings help you create one-of-a-kind charts
and find the Clipboard pane. Click the
and graphs that illuminate important statistics or values.
Paste drop-down 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).
Olds says. “It can delete data files and other programs are running in the If a user suspects a rootkit, he
then rewrite gibberish on the hard background. Menting advises checking should first disconnect the system
drive to ensure that the data can’t be the Task Manager to detect which ap- from the Internet to cut off possible
recovered, or it can quietly work in the plications or processes are running and remote access and prevent data from
background and log user keystrokes, using significant memory. “For the leaking, Menting says. Next, remove
eventually capturing workplace, ecom- non-tech user, it may be difficult to un- data from the infected computer and
merce, or banking usernames and pass- derstand,” she says. “But users should scan it for malware on another de-
words.” Ultimately, a rootkit can route familiarize themselves with how their vice. (Menting notes that if the data
that data to a hacker “to plunder ac- Task Manager looks when it’s running contains unknown [or zero-day] mal-
counts or gain access to a corporate net- on a clean system so that when it actu- ware, this step may not guarantee the
work,” Olds says. ally is infected, the user can spot some malware is eradicated.) Finally, “the
Beyond software-based rootkits differences when looking at the tasks.” computer should be purged—wipe
there are hardware-based rootkits, says That said, detecting a rootkit is still the hard drive and reinstall every-
Hadnagy. “These, like software root- generally difficult. This is due to how thing,” she says. O’Gorman, in fact,
kits, give the attacker full admin access adept they are at installing themselves says starting over is the only real solu-
to a machine, compromising everything and hiding their presence in a way that tion, because “really, you can’t trust
on it and even at times the network is “virtually undetectable by your sys- cleanup methods, as you are never
it’s connected to,” he says. For users, tem software,” Olds says. “In this case, really sure if they worked.”
O’Gorman says a rootkit “destroys the only way to find the rootkit is to
➤ HOW TO
PROTECT YOURSELF
The first defense against rootkits (and
Rootkits give an attacker free reign to perform any task malware in general) is keeping the
desired, include installing software; deleting files; modi- OS and all software—especially secu-
fying programs; transmitting data; and using spyware to rity software—up-to-date and fully
patched. Completely relying on anti-
steal credit card numbers, passwords, keystrokes, etc. virus software is a mistake, however.
As O’Gorman says, there’s always
a lag between the time a new threat
all trust with the computer. You can’t boot the system using a CD/DVD or pops up and the point at which anti-
know what is private, what is not. All thumb drive that has special diagnostic virus software can detect it. “The best
integrity is gone.” routines designed to find and remove way to avoid issues is to not engage in
rootkits.” Hadnagy says if a system’s risky activities,” he says. “Run trust-
➤ HOW YOU’LL KNOW OS is compromised, it can’t be “trusted worthy, current software that’s kept
There are several ways a rootkit can to find flaws in itself.” In this event, it patched. Don’t go to shady sites with
find its way into a computer. A down- may be necessary to boot a self-con- out-of-date browsers and plug-ins.
loaded program file a user believes to tained OS running from a CD/DVD Don’t run software that doesn’t come
be legitimate, for example, may have or USB drive and run malware de- from trustworthy sources.”
a rootkit embedded within it. Menting tection and removal software from a Unfortunately, “the likelihood of
says rootkits generally enter a system “clean” environment. being hacked or unwittingly down-
through existing vulnerabilities and are loading malware on a computer is
loaded by malware, which can infect ➤ WHAT TO DO extremely high,” Menting says. “Es-
computers via downloads, email at- For typical users, arguably the worst pecially in the network-connected
tachments disguised as genuine com- news concerning rootkits is that getting environment of a company—even if
munication or documents, websites rid of one can be beyond their scope. you take all precautions necessary—
with unpatched vulnerabilities, USB Olds says, in fact, most users should someone else may not have and you
thumb drives, or mobile devices. probably seek an expert’s help if they get a virus from them internally.” She
To the average user, abnormal com- suspect a rootkit infection. Though suggests using different passwords for
puter behavior is the best indicator a some security programs can detect and all logins, encrypting sensitive and con-
rootkit might be present; warning remove specific rootkits, Menting says, fidential data, constantly being on the
signs include files spontaneously dis- “there are so many variants that it can lookout for odd system behavior, and
appearing or appearing, a sluggish be impossible to detect and remove securing mobile devices if connecting
Internet connection, and slow-loading them all.” Often, she says, getting rid of them to a company network or busi-
programs. Such behavior can indicate a rootkit “requires a radical solution.” ness computer. ●
If you have a device running one of Also keep in mind that some apps you could set up an account with a
the latest versions of Windows Phone, are more flexible than others. Apple’s major online storage provider to use
you can sync documents stored on your Notes app in iOS, for example, can with only a handful of files that are
device with Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud keep your notes on the device only or necessary for a specific trip. Providers
storage solution; you can also retrieve on both the device and in the cloud, offering this type of service typically
documents from SkyDrive that were depending on how you set it up. also offer a mobile app that makes the
uploaded from a different source. To service more useful on your mobile
sync all of the photos, audio files, and ➤ BE CAREFUL device. And some major storage ser-
videos stored on your Windows Phone WHEN TRAVELING vices also sync with productivity apps
device, you must install Microsoft’s If you travel frequently, you probably you might already have installed on
Zune software on your computer and have quite a few travel-related routines. your devices.
connect the mobile device to the com- When it comes to keeping all of your Another stop-gap alternative is
puter via USB. data intact, though, it’s important to re- to use a Web-based email service to
member that travel disrupts the rou- email documents to and from a cor-
➤ DON’T FORGET tines you’ve established at the office. porate account. Doing this ensures
YOUR APP DATA For example, if you regularly sync your that a copy of the document is main-
“App data” encompasses a broad range tablet and smartphone with your com- tained on the corporate network even
of digital information, but in our con- puter but typically leave the computer after you delete the associated email
text it means third-party apps and the behind when traveling, the backup from the Web email account.
content you create using those apps. that otherwise occurs with every phys-
Consider, for instance, note-taking ser- ical sync won’t take place during your ➤ PHYSICAL BACKUP
vices that exist as both cloud services travels. If you keep that sort of thing Finally, you can’t sync a certain amount
(where all of the information associ- in mind while traveling, you will re- of valuable device data to the cloud
ated with those services is stored in the main aware of what data resides in (or to your main computer via the
cloud) and applications (where your the “danger zone” (i.e., stored on your cloud), so be sure to back up that data
app-related information is stored lo- device, but not backed up anywhere as often as possible to a second device
cally). As you take notes with the app, else) in the event your device gets lost (such as a laptop) or storage solution
it stores those notes locally and in the or stolen. (such as a microSD card or portable
cloud simultaneously and in real-time. hard drive). ●
Such an app-service combination is dif- ➤ USE CLOUD SERVICES,
ferent from a note-taking app that does AT LEAST TEMPORARILY
not have an associated cloud service; If you’re reluctant to sync key data
with this type of app, everything you to a cloud backup or storage service
add is stored only in the device and is on a regular basis, consider using an
therefore vulnerable to loss. Make sure alternative cloud solution—at least
you know how your apps work so you temporarily—to meet specific require-
don’t get caught unawares. ments while traveling. For example,
➤ To locate the
Storage & Backup
menu on your iOS
device, tap Settings,
iCloud, and Storage
& Backup. From this
screen you can view
available storage
and switch iCloud
off and on.
➤ You can customize which apps are backed up in iCloud by toggling the
ON/OFF button next to each app. Be sure to activate the Find My iPad
feature in case you need to locate a lost iOS device.
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