Computing Canada May 2015

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VOLUME 31, NUMBER 3 I MAY 2015

ALL ABOUT TECH JOBS

PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE THE ICTC NUMBERS. AN EXPERT EXPLAINS

LEARNING TO DIG THE CLOUD

Cloud computing is transforming the IT department.

GoldCorp's IT exec describes his journey

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Clouds and silver linings Mining is a business that has seen a lot of disruptions and yet has stayed relatively the same for thousands of years. Basically, it's still all about extracting precious minerals from the ground.

The team led by Luis Canepari, vice-president of IT for Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc., however, also digs for precious data that can help them help their company uncover efficiencies and cut cost. In this month's issue of Computing Canada, Canepari talks about how his team is employing cloud-based solutions to automate processes and make time consuming tasks simpler and faster.

While the cloud promises a lot of benefits there is growing concern and uncertainty among IT pros as to how recent cloud trends will impact their jobs.

Analyst firm IDC Canada reports that 57 per cent of IT staff in SMBs are not so sure what the future will look like as cloud technologies continue to reshape their world. Some 52 per cent of large companies are already redeploying IT staff because of cloud adoption.

Cloud technologies are enabling all sorts of organizations to accomplish things they could not do before or drastically improve and speed up the tasks and projects. However, the roles of everyone in the IT department are also being redrawn as businesses shift from on-premises to automation and cloud based solutions.

David Senf, program vice-president of IDC Canada's information solution group, likens the shift towards automation to that seen in the manufacturing industry in the 1980s. I suspect some workers fear the disruption will be something closer to how the automobile made horsewhip makers obsolete.

It's not all doom and gloom. Senf and Shawn Rosemarin, executive director of VMware Canada, also discuss what possible career paths IT professionals can take in order thrive in the new environment.

If you're really into self-improvement, you can also check out our slideshow on the 15 IT certifications that pay the big bucks.

Danny Bradbury, our Vancouver-based correspondent, reports on continuing gender imbalance in the IT industry and how companies can alleviate their talent shortage problems by hiring more female IT professionals.

Howard Solomon reports on the police takedown of the Simda botnet which infected hundreds of thousands of computers around the world.

And we have an interesting story about some staff members of a B.C. municipality who slipped a spyware into their new mayor's computer because they were afraid he would discover un-resolved security vulnerabilities in the district's IT system. 窶年estor Arellano

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CONTENT CLOUD: MAY 2015 Follow the tag reference to the indicated page. In our electronic version, simply touch or click the tag to be transported to the story.

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IS THE WD MYCLOUD DL4100 THE NAS FOR YOU?

SLIDESHOW

15 IT CERTIFICATIONS THAT PAY THE BIG BUCKS Some IT managers say they don't pay much attention to certifications when it comes to hiring people. That said, many IT professionals pursue certifications as a means to enhance their skills and expertise and, of course, increase their salary.

Randy Muller, an instructor with IT and business training firm Global Knowledge Canada, has compiled 15 top-paying certifications. The list is based on Global Knowledge's recently completed annual IT skills and salary report.

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NEWS I

TORONTO IS LOOKING FOR BIG DATA EXPERTS TO TACKLE CITY'S TRAFFIC PROBLEMS Toronto is looking to hire a data expert to lead a big data team that will be tasked to solve the city's traffic problems.

The city has also posted a request for information (RFI) for vendors that have proven products for monitoring and measuring travel and traffic in urban environments.

Interested vendors took

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part in an event on April 14 and April 15 to showcase their technology.

Earlier, Mayor John Tory announced that he is creating a big data team. The team is expected to come up with strategies on how to use the flood of data the city collects in a way that will ease traffic congestion along city streets.

"The availability of travel data has improved dramatically over the past few years and is at a point where the city can and should be using it to better understand travel

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patterns, evaluate the city's investments and monitor performance.

With this information, we can get Toronto moving smarter," Tory said. "This will be a game-changer and will establish Toronto as a leader in running a truly smart city."

The team will be spending the first few months developing a strategy for how the city can and should use travel data to improve travel by all modes. The city is also holding a hackathon in September that will allow people to view the

data the city has and perhaps find ways that the information can be used.

The team will be building on some of the current big data work of Transportation Services, including: • Partnering with McMaster University to analyze historical travel data on city expressways and streets • Working with the Toronto Transit Commission to closely analyze surface transit data to identify operational improvements to further improve streetcar service ITWorldCanada.com I MAY 2015 I

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NEWS I

• Releasing a report from the Cycling Unit of Transportation Services evaluating cycling travel patterns based on data collected from its cycling tracking app • Developing a Big Travel Data strategy for Transportation Services to determine ways to make this type of information available, and • Vetting products and services that might be useful in assisting the city in better decision-making and investments.

OPENTEXT TARGETS CONTENT CAPTURE, INTEGRATION, COMPLIANCE FOR EIM EXPANSION

By March next year, OpenText customers will find new capabilities covering content capture, compliance management and business-to-business integration in the company's enterprise information management suite (EIM).

Muhi Majzoub, senior vice-president of engineering for OpenText, announced the Waterloo, Ont.-based 6 I MAY 2015 I ITWorldCanada.com

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software company's plans during the Toronto leg of the OpenText Innovation Tour, where partners and customers took in workshops dealing with EIM current upgrades.

The recently released EIM Service Pack 1 is part of the "last strands" of OpenText's Red Oxygen strategy which was started in 2012. Red Oxygen resulted in the development of software suites for enterprise content management (ECM), business process management (BPM), customer experience management (CEM) and information management (IM).

With the release of SP1, OpenText is now ready to work on its Blue Carbon strategy, said Majzoub.

He said enhancements under the Blue Carbon strategy will go on beta in December of this year and will be available by March 2016.

"Blue Carbon is all about processes,"said Majzoub. "We are looking to further lower the cost and improving the ease of installation and management."

Here's a quick rundown of three major flows OpenText is

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working on: • Content capture: OpenText is developing full automation for content capture. "We want to fully automate management from the information capture stage to the archiving it,"said Majzoub."This will involve developing automated features that will tackle single page documents to reading metadata, classification, group loading into a content server and managing the document lifecycle until it is time to destroy it or archive it."

• B2B integration: OpenText will work further in mining the full capabilities of GXS Grid. OpenText purchased GXS for $1.065 billion in 2014 for its B2B cloud integration technology.

"Through our grid and through our shared software-as-a-service apps, we want to give our customers and their supplier network full automation of the procurement process as well as mobility applications,"Majzoub said.

• Compliance: With the growing amounts of data that corporations are collecting and

managing being on the right side of the various industry and government regulations have become more important than ever, according to Majzoub.

He said, OpenText is committing to building four new applications to handle: • Incident management • Vendor management • Policy management • Threat management ― Nestor Arellano

NETWORK BREACHES NOT BEING CAUGHT FAST ENOUGH, SAYS REPORT Despite huge amounts of money spent on network defence, organizations are still lagging in the time it takes to detect breaches, according to Verizon Communications' annual data breach report.

The report, which compiles information from a number of security vendors, service providers and governments around the world, is one of the most comprehensive looks at cyber crime trends.

Among the findings is that in 60 per cent of reported cases, at-

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tackers last year were able to compromise an organization within minutes.

"Unfortunately, the proportion of breaches discovered within days still falls well below that of time to compromise," the report says. "Even worse, the two lines are diverging over the last decade, indicating a growing ìdetection deficitî between attackers and defenders. We think it highlights one of the primary challenges to the security industry.

"If you're desperate for good news," it adds, "you'll be happy to see that 2014 boasts the smallest deficit ever recorded and the trend lines appear a bit more parallel than divergent. We'll see if that's a trick or a budding trend next year."

On the other hand, figures from 100,000 organizations showed that half of them experienced 35 or fewer days of caught malware events during an entire calendar year — that is after they had been winnowed down by controls like firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS)/ intrusion prevention systems (IPS), spam

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filters, etc., will have already reduced the raw stream of malware.

The sometimes cheeky report tries to spot trends from reported incidents from its many contributors, but can't quite claim to be scientific: For example, it notes that last year's report included incidents in 95 countries, but only 61 this year. That should not be interpreted as meaning 34 countries were incident-free, it warns. ― Howard Solomon

IBM PARTNERS WITH APPLE, CANADIAN FIRM MEDTRONIC, J&J IBM Corp. is collaborating closely with Canadian medical technology and services firm Medtronic Canada Ltd., Apple Inc., and Johnson & Johnson to form a new health unit.

Big Blue is using its super computer-based Watson Health Cloud platform to develop new health-based offerings that will use information collected from millions of personal health, medical and fitness devices built by Apple and Medtronics. The new

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unit will be called the Watson Health Unit.

Medtronic, a company headquartered in Brampton, Ont., will use the Watson health Cloud to deliver new highly-personalized solutions for people with diabetes.

The solutions will receive and analyze patient information and data from various Medtronic devices including insulin pumps glucose monitors, according to a statement from IBM. The data will be used to come up with personalized diabetes management strategies for patients and their care providers.

According to IBM, each person generates one million gigabytes of health-related data throughout his or her lifetime. The information generated is equivalent to more than 300 million

books. The task of the new unit is to help patients, doctors, researchers and insurers find a way to use that data to provide better care for the patient.

The Watson Health Cloud to provide a secure cloud platform and analytics for Apple's HealthKit and ResearchKit. This will support health data entered by customers in iOS apps and also arm medical researchers with a secure, open data storage solution with access to IBM's most sophisticated data analytics capabilities.

Johnson & Johnson will collaborate with IBM to create intelligent coaching systems centered on preoperative and postoperative patient care, including joint replacement and spinal surgery, the company said. ― Nestor Arellano ITWorldCanada.com I MAY 2015 I

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F ROM OUR BLOGGERS

Every month bloggers on ITWorldCanada.com sound off on a wide range of issues. If you missed their columns, here’s excerpts from a few, with links to the complete blog: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO CONSIDER ABOUT WINDOWS SERVER 2003 MIGRATION

BY TAMER MARZOUK

With the end of Windows XP-support still fresh in our minds, the end to WS03 EOS seems to be coming too soon. But along with this event, we should expect a change in the dynamics within the IT industry, with the greatest significance around the security issues that accompany the support withdrawal.

Read the entire blog here

DO YOU NEED BIG DATA FOR BIG RESULTS?

BY YOGI SCHULZ

Big data is all the rage in IT and in business publications. Supposedly producing big business results from big data requires big upfront investments. But is that really true?

Is there no way to start small and simple with modest investments before making big data investments that may be risky and may not produce the expected big business results?

Read the entire blog here

THE IMPACT OF NET NEUTRALITY ON CLOUD COMPUTING

BY DON SHEPPARD

Net neutrality has been in the news a lot lately, but there's much less discussion of its relationship to and impact on cloud computing (or, for that matter, the Internet of Things) The implications of net neutrality touch on a wide range of networking, broadcasting, and telecommunications topics.

Read the entire blog here

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MOBILITY ALLOWS ORGANIZATIONS TO REALIZE MAJOR OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES BY: BRIAN CLENDENIN

IT World Canada conducted a survey seeking to understand strategic issues facing Canadian CIOs and IT leaders. If you haven't yet reviewed the results, it is worth spending the time digesting the information.

Given the current economic environment, forward-thinking companies and IT leaders will look at this time to put new strategies in motion to distance themselves ahead of the competition.

Read the entire blog here

HOULIN ZHAO OF THE INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION TALKS ABOUT THE FUTURE

BY STEPHEN IBARAKI

ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is the powerful United Nations agency governing ICT (Information Communications Technology) with over 190 governments and 700 corporations/organizations as members. Does what they think and do matter to you? Houlin Zhao the new secretary general wants to work with you Read the entire blog here

ETHICS SAY IT SHOULD TRACK AND MEASURE PROJECTS

BY DONNA LINDSKOG

Ethics is often seen as being about what should NOT be done. The CIPS code of ethics says we should avoid conflict of interest. But it also says we should behave with integrity.

How can we show integrity?

Read the entire blog here

C A S E S T U D Y:

Architecting Effective Infrastructure EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Customer Name: The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group Industry: Insurance Offices: Lindsay, Alexandria, and Perth, Ontario Employees: 167 The Challenge: Complete a complex integration of three separate IT infrastructures within two months and simultaneously enhance disaster recovery, agility and scalability.

The Solution: Cisco and NetApp’s Flexpod, including Cisco Unified Computing System servers, Cisco Nexus Switches and NetApp Unified Storage Systems.

The Results: · New solution - Flexpod implemented in 60 days · Disaster recovery time reduced from 24 hours to 15 minutes · Enhanced agility · Reduced IT time · Increased utilization of storage capacity by 30 to 50 percent · Cost savings of over $70,000 per year.

HighVail helps The Commonwell implement a completely new, agile and scalable infrastructure across a newly-integrated company — in record time.

As challenges go, the integration of three IT systems, each from a separate entity onto one highly-efficient platform, might be a little intimidating. For the team at HighVail, this represented an opportunity to further demonstrate their abilities to translate business goals into technology requirements and architect cost-effective IT infrastructures.

On October 25, 2013, three prominent, Ontario mutual insurance companies got the green light from the Financial Services Commission of Ontario to amalgamate and become The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group (The Commonwell). With a resultant stronger market position, The Commonwell recognized that the previously separate systems — phone, firewalls, servers, security, LAN and VPN connectivity, and storage — also needed to share one common platform in order to streamline operations, gain efficiencies, and drive a competitive edge.

THE CHALLENGE From an IT perspective, moving data from three separate legacy IT infrastructures onto one new platform, represents a complex project. In this instance, that complexity intensified with completion of the project required within a 60 day timeframe. Key considerations for successful completion included ensuring effective communications between the different locations of the newly-formed entity; setting up a back-up site to help reduce disaster recovery time to 15 minutes; and providing a scalable solution to accommodate future growth.

Unfazed by the scope of the project or the challenging deadline, Toronto, Ontario-based IT solutions integrator, HighVail Systems Inc., looked first to learn more about The Commonwell’s IT environment. Two technical profession-

C A S E S T U D Y:

Bringing three strong companies together was a huge undertaking that has never really happened in the mutual insurance world. At the same time, we wanted to bring as much of the IT infrastructure in-house as possible and expand our expertise here. We wanted more control over our systems, as opposed to outsourcing many aspects of IT, and our CEO wanted to make sure we had the right groundwork in place to accommodate future growth.”

—Brad Waller

Manager of Infrastructure and Services, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

als visited the Lindsay, Ontario site to do a rapid systems assessment in advance of bidding on the project. The visit helped them understand The Commonwell’s business issues and which technologies might best address them — an approach that ultimately differentiated them from other vendors.

HighVail began implementation on November 1, 2013, with the primary goal of completing the project by January 1, 2014, the day The Commonwell would officially open its doors for business.

Fundamental to this initiative was creating a stable backup site that would ensure The Commonwell was up and running within 15 minutes following any incident or disaster which led to downtime. This alone was ambitious as the current recovery time of any of the three pre-merger companies was 24 hours.

In addition, the ability to share data easily and effectively communicate among the three sites was seen as a key driver of desired efficiencies as well as the ability to enhance the company’s competitive market positioning. A further goal of the infrastructure was to also reduce the amount of time IT spent managing the system.

Once HighVail was brought on board, the company’s CEO, Bradley Brodkin, and Senior Account Manager, Peter Dozzi, met with The Commonwell’s President and CEO, Tim Shauf, at the Lindsay, Ontario site underscoring HighVail’ commitment to The Commonwell’s success.

THE SOLUTION With deployment speed and ease of implementation being key factors, HighVail recommended using Cisco and NetApp’s Flexpod solution, which comes configured, tested and validated — out of the box. This ready-to-use solution translated to saving weeks of time which would otherwise

C A S E S T U D Y:

Bradley and I made sure The Commonwell understood that HighVail is committed to being partners in their success. We saw opportunities for The Commonwell to leverage their new IT environment further, rather than just taking care of their core competencies. We guaranteed we would meet the Group’s deadline for the implementation, and that we would continue to partner with them to deliver on their business objectives now and for the longer term.”

—Peter Dozzi

Senior Account Manager, HighVail Systems Inc.

be spent building a system from the ground up or bringing together different products to create an appropriate solution.

Flexpod’s components, including servers, storage and switches are pre-certified to work together— another time-saving feature. As well, use of Flexpod streamlined and simplified The Commonwell’s support mechanism, combining support agreements under one umbrella.

As part of the overall project management, HighVail deployed onsite professionals balanced with others working remotely, and dedicated additional people to the project as necessary. The experience level and dedication of HighVail’s people, from the CEO to onsite technicians are what helped make the project a success.

In fact, HighVail’s CTO, Krys Armatys, worked behind the scenes ensuring that all the resources and talent needed to execute the implementation schedule on time, on budget, and in a way that provided the greatest value to The Commonwell were made available.

THE RESULTS Significantly reduced deployment timeframe – HighVail was able to complete the implementation and meet The Commonwell’s deadline of 60 days.

Reduced recovery time objective (RTO) to 15 minutes – Implementing a combination of NetApp SnapMirror technology, Flexpod Express, NetApp SnapVault software and VMware vCentre Site Recovery Manager helped reduce the RTO to 15 minutes from 24 hours. Bringing back up and recovery in-house is also saving the company $70,000 per year.

Reduce the time IT spends managing the infrastructure – With the flexibility and agility that Flexpod’s Unified

C A S E S T U D Y:

HighVail have excellent people who really know what they’re doing and will definitely go out of their way to help you and put in the time required. They were quickly able to adapt to the changes that we were making often from week to week because we were trying to implement so many new technologies.

Sometimes things happen that cause you to have to rethink and redesign, and HighVail’s response was always to focus on making it work for us.”

— Justin Davidson

Infrastructure Architect, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Computing System delivers, The Commonwell is now able to deploy new systems in a matter of minutes rather than hours or even days, freeing up IT’s time to focus on more strategic projects.

Conserve storage space – The new infrastructure’s NetApp hardware uses deduplication to increase the utilization of storage capacity by 30 to 50 percent.

ABOUT THE COMMONWELL MUTUAL INSURANCE GROUP The Commonwell is a P&C Mutual company with a strong sense of community and solid grass roots in Ontario since 1895. With offices in Lindsay, Alexandria and Perth, The Commonwell offers residential, commercial, farm, auto and watercraft coverage to customers throughout the province.

ABOUT HIGHVAIL SYSTEMS INC. Founded in 2003, HighVail empowers technology transformations. We architect, integrate and evolve IT infrastructure. Our experts deliver advice that empowers and technology that enables.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.highvail.com

Case study written and produced

by ITWC www.itwc.ca

©Copyright 2015. ITWC. All rights reserved

A NA LYSIS

Is your IT job under a cloud?

Cloud computing is transforming the IT department. Here's how to survive and thrive in the new environment

BY NESTOR E. ARELLANO

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t's the end of the IT department as we know it. As more Canadian companies adopt cloud technologies, there's a growing sense of concern among IT pros that their jobs may be in danger.

It's no surprise says Dave Senf, program vice-president for the infrastructure solution group at IDC Canada.

The phase of cloud adoption in the country is growing at a rapid rate. Last year companies invested $2 billion in the cloud, and that number is expected to double by 2018.

According to the analyst firm, 57 per cent of IT staff in small businesses are uncertain about their future as the cloud reshapes their world. As many as 57 per cent of large organizations are redeploying IT staff because of cloud adoption.

"By 2020, IDC Canada expects up to half of IT jobs will look different than they do today," says Senf. "Many tasks that admins do today won't exist in five years — in part because of cloud, but also because of automation tools now being deployed."

From administrators to developers, the role of the IT pro is being "redrawn." Senf likens the current shift to automation to that seen in the manufacturing industry in the 1980s and in the retail industry more recently.

Automation and more DevOps collaboration is coming to IT in the form of many new tools and platforms such as Chef, Ansible, Vagrant, Puppet and OpenStack, he says.

"Private cloud tends to be one of the major impetus for using automation tools."

It's a reality that Luis Canepari, vice-president of IT for Goldcorp Inc., is experiencing first hand as the Canadian mining firm moves forward with its software-as-a-service SaaS program.

"Before, we had a lot of technical people. My

David Senf, IDC Canada

Shawn Rosemarin, VMware

staff was made up of technicians, people working on servers, engineers and data analysts," he says. "Now some of them have to be knowledgeable about account management, project management and even HR." As line of business departments gain more say in the technologies used and deployed by their staff, the IT department is evolving into a technology broker for the company rather than a group focused on "keeping the lights on."

This, according to Canepari, means his staff needs to be familiar with how other departments work, systems development lifecycle and requirements gathering.

"Before, IT just configured software. Now my guy understands the HR department so well, I think he can work in the department if he wanted to."

Does reliance on the cloud and automation mean IT departments will start shrinking?

Not necessarily, says Shawn Rosemarin, executive director of engineering to VMware Canada.

"I do believe there will be some reduction in tasks that are manual in nature but there will be a larger demand than ever for IT architects," he says. "It's going to be a shift in focus rather than an elimination of positions."

Rosemarin foresee a growing demand for IT professionals that understand systems architecture, application stacks and various platforms.

IDC suggests Canadian firms take a planned approach towards the cloud and the oncoming changes in infrastructure Senf says.

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CA R EER WATCH

ADDRESSING CANADA'S WOMEN IN IT PROBLEM

BY DANNY BRADBURY e celebrated International Women's Day just two months ago. It's edifying to take a day to remember the female struggle for equality, but when it comes to the Canadian IT sector, there is still much more work to be done the whole year round.

The Information and Communication Technology Council (ICTC) found that the percentage of women in ICT is 24 per cent. Only one in four IT workers are female north of the border.

That's a problem for Canada's IT sector. In late 2013, Canada's Information and Communications Technology Council argued that there is a significant IT skills shortage in Canada, which is something that CIOs tell us today.

"One thing that is top of mind here in Vancouver is worker shortage," said Ron Stinson, CIO of Vancouver-based visual effects house Rainmaker Entertainment. He has had open positions for four months that he eventually filled using internal candidates that he had to train. "There's a significant lack of experienced IT people out there, especially in Linux and in media and entertainment, which is my industry," he said.

The ability of education courses to keep up with industry developments is a perennial issue for CIOs, but the lack of female graduates must surely also be a factor. According to Statistics Canada, there is a lack of female graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in Canada. Most of the candidates for technology careers are male.

Women made up two thirds of university graduates in non-STEM programs in 2011, but only 39 per cent of STEM graduates were female. Things were no better when it came to computing.

Women made up just one in three graduates from mathematics and computer science programs.

Melissa Sariffodeen is the co-founder of Ladies Learning Code, a non-profit digital literacy organisation for women. The organisation puts

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on workshops that encourage women who want to study technology, and runs coding workshops for women.

Catching women early on in the education process is important, because it encourages girls to get interested in technology and then stay interested, say experts. If girls are only exposed to technology learning opportunities in later childhood, it becomes harder to get involved, because the space is already heavily male dominated.

This is one reason why Sariffodeen's organisation launched a program specifically targeting young girls.

"We realized that there was a huge gender imbalance," she said. "That's when we started looking into it more and launched a Girls Learning Code program. That's the exciting part of what we do, really focusing on providing friendly technology education for women."

By not building an education system that welcomes and encourages girls into technology programs at a very early age, we're leaving a huge amount of talent off the table.

CA R EER WATCH

Why Canada has an 182,000 IT talent shortage while lots of tech professionals are out of work

BY NESTOR E. ARELLANO “LoL this is a good one…I have been searching for work in ICT since I graduated late in 2013…and I have not seen an iota of shortage!…182,000? Maybe they meant 182!”

“I also have not seen good propositions yet! All offers are with small wages. I’m Java developer (Play framework or J@EE and frontend Angular JS or JQuery), 4 years of exp., intermediate French and English. If it’s true, please send me more information privettoli@gmail.com.” “…I have a friend with over 25yrs experience working for small and big companies like Nortel, BlackBerry, he has been looking for over 1.5 yrs he has not been able to locate a suitable job.”

These are some of the comments we got when we posted an article based on a report by the Information Communications Technology Council (ICTC) which states that Canada will have to fill 182,000 positions for information systems analysts and consultants, computer and network operators, Web technicians, software engineers and others by 2019.

ICTC, which is a government-funded labour market intelligence and industry skills standard body, also projected that homegrown ICT talent will not be sufficient to meet these upcoming hiring requirements.

We asked Rowan O'Grady, president of professional recruitment firm Hays Canada, to shed a little more light on the data.

The fact is, he said, the existence of a skills shortage in a certain industry does not mean everyone looking for a job in that field will find a job or that every single one of

those positions will get filled if there is a surplus of job seekers.

"Some employers will always have difficulty finding a candidate with the skill sets, experience, outlook or whatever requirement they are looking for," said O'Grady.

There will also be instances where certain locations will have a shortage of skills where another has more than its share.

He identified three main categories of IT professionals that have a difficult time landing job: • Junior level employees: Those who are just out of college or university who have not yet chalked up enough years of "related" work experience • Newly arrived immigrants: People new to the country but may have some or a substantial amount of experience in their field • Seasoned professionals: Who have accumulated substantial skills and experience but may be nearing retirement or may specialize in technology or programming languages that have fallen out of favour.

With regards to IT skills shortages related to the first two categories, the onus can be placed on many employers. As for potential job seekers, the onus is on them to ensure they are working hard to keep track of and identify the skills with which they need to stay current.

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CA R EER WATCH

Microsoft Canada chief JANET KENNEDY talks career, leadership and innovation

BY STEPHEN IBARAKI

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recently got the unique opportunity to gain some insights from a very successful leader who tripled the MS enterprise business to $3 billion, led the transformation to the cloud with Office 365 and prior to that enjoyed a series of wins for IBM before being tapped to be Microsoft Canada president.

Quite a journey for this Toronto resident and self-proclaimed “device geek” who enjoys playing with apps, trying the latest exercise trend, and enjoying movies — both box office and obscure!

She is a global star and model in the need for diversity at the highest levels.

I had a chance to talk with Janet Kennedy in an engaging chat. To listen to the full podcast (a dynamic exchange based upon and adding to the Q & A below), click on this MP3 file link.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation: Q: Janet, your outstanding contributions in innovation and executive leadership have significant global impact.

Thank you for sharing your consider16 I MAY 2015 I ITWorldCanada.com

able expertise, deep accumulated insights, and wisdom with our audience.

A: “Thank you so much, it’s a pleasure to chat with you today.”

Q: Janet, can you profile your extensive education and corporate background from Purdue University to IBM and Microsoft? How is your prior work still impacting today and into the future?

A: “I’ve been in the tech industry for almost 30 years and it’s been a wild ride — particularly for a woman that came out of engineering school. I graduated from Purdue University in Industrial Management and Industrial Engineering. As you might imagine, at that time there weren’t a ton of women doing what I’m doing today. I’ve been really fortunate because tech is an industry that’s always changing. There’s always something new and exciting to learn. In my early career at IBM I actually started as a Job Control Language (JCL) Programmer but quickly decided I preferred the customer and the client side, learning about how technology can help solve business needs for our customers. I later came to Microsoft and I just finished my 13th year here with the company.”

Q: As a top notable leader, what are five or more tips for strong leadership?

CA R EER WATCH

A: “I’ve learned a lot along the way — sometimes by making mistakes and sometimes by getting lucky. I would probably say that first of all, make sure that you step outside of your comfort zone. There were times along the way when perhaps I was very comfortable with the customer-facing side and was challenged to take a strategy role. For example, in the early 2000s, I moved out of a customer-facing role and helped work on the retail and hospitality strategy for Microsoft at our headquarters.

Then I was challenged again to take a full P&L role so I could understand the end-to-end operations. Each time that I did that it gave me a new experience that I could gain, allowing me to be ready for my dream job — which is being the president of Microsoft Canada.

I would also add that you don’t always move with a promotion. People often agree to take a move and try something different if they get promoted. But I like to use the phrase ‘your career is a jungle gym’. You often have to go lateral to get to where you want to be. That’s true in my case. I’ve had six different jobs at Microsoft and people might be surprised hearing the different moves I took. Only one was a promotion, the other ones I had to earn my way by getting different experiences. I would really challenge people to look at their career that way.”

Q: Are there specifics you can share about new upcoming Microsoft innovations that will be transformational?

A: “Absolutely. This is a very exciting time in the tech industry. In my career I often talk about how I’ve been able to see three big tech innovations. I got to see Bill Gates talk about a PC in every desk and every home — of course, that clearly happened. The second in my career has been the Internet, and ‘what always-on, always-connected’ meant for consumers.

The third one is happening now and that's the transformation to the cloud. That’s part of the reason I was brought to Canada — I did have some deep expertise in my past role when I was

working with Fortune-100 customers, helping them move to cloud-based solutions and transform their businesses. Canada was actually a little bit late to the market in this area but the last two years, it’s exploded. It’s fun to be leading a team at the very early part of the transformation for this country and there are lots of things happening that are exciting.

I love to work with the tech start-up community, because just a few years ago if you were in Communitech, MaRS, Notman House or Launch Academy, the big incubators across our country, these entrepreneurs would start a company, need some funding that then they would leave to Silicon Valley. Today with cloudbased solutions, with companies like Microsoft offering them free compute power to get their company started, we’re seeing new start-ups all over the country on cloud-based solutions. You can literally set up, go through the development cycle, get storage and a network without having to go get a multi-million dollar investment.

I’m really excited about some of the new capabilities that we’re seeing that are using the cloud, things like machine learning, business intelligence, disaster backup; there’s many things you couldn't do just a few years ago.

Finally, the thing that’s just fun for me in this role running Microsoft Canada is that every single person in Canada is a customer in some way. We’ve talked a lot about cloud computing for start-ups and commercial customers, but I also get to spend time with those passionate about gaming, Xbox Live, and Minecraft — there’s just a lot going on in this country that Microsoft is excited about.”

Q: How can corporations and nonprofits such as CIPS and the ACM work together?

A: “We do a ton with non-profits - I think the number last year was we did almost 46 million dollars of software grants and cash grants. We offer our software to the non-profits, particularly Office 365, for their use. We’ve been offering Office 365 for universities and colleges but we just ITWorldCanada.com I MAY 2015 I

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CA R EER WATCH

announced for kindergarten to grade 12 that we’ll be doing the same. We’re trying to help people understand that we want to help our students and the non-profits to become more productive.

Something that was surprising to me is that I recently saw a presentation at a CEO dinner down at Communitech in which it was discussed that Canada’s productivity is not strong compared to the rest of the world - I think we’re 22nd in the latest World Economic Development Forum. It’s really an opportunity for us to use the benefits of productivity and software not only for companies and government but most importantly for our students and their future. Big announcements in the education area, I think you’re going to see a bunch more coming up later this year.”

Q: You choose the topic area. What do you see as the three top challenges facing us today and how do you propose they be solved?

A: “Considering what I think about in my role, I would probably say firstly, innovation.

Our CEO likes to talk about growth-hacking which is that anything you do in whatever role you have, there’s always ways you can get together as a team and find new ways to stream productivity, grow top line revenue and bring innovation to the marketplace. Innovation is big in our company and in our industry.

From my personal perspective it’s about leading through transformation. We’re a hundred billion dollar company and are about sixto-seven years into this transformation to the cloud, yet only about seven billion of that hundred is from the cloud. I would tell you we’re at the very beginning of a journey. There’s almost 2,000 people that work for Microsoft Canada, so how do you lead a culture so that people understand what we’re going through, which is shifting to an entirely different business model than we were in the past.

The third one for me is the chase for talent, and how do we find the right people with the right energy and the right mindset to make 18 I MAY 2015 I ITWorldCanada.com

sure that we can best serve our customers here in the country?”

Q: Do you have any advice to give to encourage diversity and increase participation across the board in STEM? A: “There are actually multiple ways to increase diversity and participation in STEM fields. I think about how our company is working hard to do so. I know you got to participate in our recent YouthSpark Live event in Vancouver, but we’re trying to get students to understand the opportunity they have if they invest in STEM - science, technology, engineering and math. In particular, I have a passion for showing these possibilities to young women - many of them have the technical and math aptitudes but they hit middle school and high school and then suddenly it’s not cool anymore for them to invest in those areas that they’d need to get a good job in this industry.

We have programs like YouthSpark, we also do DigiGirlz camps and we’ve done Hour of Code. There are many areas we support in order to help show youth the path to these careers, such as taking the right classes in university to come out with a strong job in the Canadian marketplace.

It doesn’t stop there, though, the next piece of it is BizSpark, which is the piece where we help start-ups and Independent Software Vendors to start their businesses. It’s very exciting to me to be part of a company that really is giving back, both to our students and the entrepreneurs that start here in the country.

There’s so much opportunity if they can get their arms around what the potential is.”

Q: Janet, with your demanding schedule, we are indeed fortunate to have you come in to do this interview. Thank you for sharing your substantial wisdom with our audience.

A: “Thanks for chatting with me - it’s been a wonderful conversation!”

C A S E S T U DY

Implementing ERP the right way Lynch Fluid Controls needed certainty over budgets and timelines, and found it with strategic partner CONTAX

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A RY Customer Name: Lynch Fluid Controls Inc. Industry: Manufacturing Description: A Canadian manufacturer and distributor of manifolds, valve systems and electronics for the automotive, mining, plastics, logging, military, medical and entertainment industries.

Offices: Mississauga, Ontario, with a US point of presence in Michigan.

Employees: 95 The Challenge: Implement a more powerful, integrated and scalable ERP system to meet the expansion needs of the company; provide companywide integration and visibility; increase reporting capabilities; streamline invoicing process; and enhance customer service.

The Solution: SAP Business All-in-One and SAP Business Objects.

The Results: Integration between sales and distribution, accounting, production, and shipping/warehouse; more accurate material and inventory management; cost savings and reduced accounts receivable cycles due to introduction of e-invoicing; enhanced customer interactions and service.

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With a clearly defined strategy and dedicated focus on customers, Lynch Fluid Controls decided to implement a global ERP system. Their research convinced them of two factors: the need for a robust, scalable system that could deliver innovative features and functions — and the need for an experienced solution provider that could implement flawlessly.

For close to 20 years, Lynch Fluid Controls had been using several legacy systems that controlled sales orders, work orders, inventory and accounting functions as well as some in-house solutions and third-party software.

Lynch determined that they needed the functionality and scalability of a Tier 1 system, but needed to find a partner who could give them certainty over costs, timelines and results. Lynch selected SAP Business All-inOne and CONTAX as the implementation partner. Key to this decision was the support model offered, both at the outset of implementation and in looking ahead five and ten years.

Lynch recognized the complexity of the project and had heard tales of implementations gone wrong, of budget overruns and lengthy delays. It seemed that for many companies a successful ERP implementation was elusive. From their research it didn’t seem to depend so much on the software itself as the implementation partner, the methodology and the commitment from the organization itself. So was it really possible to implement a Tier 1 software solution successfully, on time and within budget?

Lynch’s Chief Information Officer, Gavin Lynch, contacted SAP Canada to find a vendor they could speak with.

“CONTAX was among the top of their list for recommendations,” he says, “and now we know why.”

©Copyright 2015. ITWC. All rights reserved

I M P L E M E N T I N G E R P T H E R I G H T WAY

Lynch was a good candidate for SAP because they could adopt the solution’s manufacturing best practices to improve their business, which they saw as key a key objective and an integral part of their growth strategy as a company.”

— Alex Thomas

Director, Professional Services, CONTAX.

THE CHALLENGE Lynch’s vision for the new ERP encompassed several elements – from establishing new enhanced processes and enabling real-time reporting to facilitation of best practices. Tying all this together was one fundamental premise: improve customer service, that is, use IT as a tool to enhance customer interactions.

With the existing legacy systems, many departments worked in silos, with little or no visibility into other areas of the business. Company-wide integration, enabling a clear line of sight to needed information was essential to achieving customer focus. For example, allowing sales to see available inventory in real-time would result in more accurate fulfillment of customer orders.

Similarly, Lynch was encumbered with manual operational processes and heavily paper-based. Part of their vision for the new ERP included eliminating paper as much as possible, thus saving on costs and increasing the accuracy and efficiency of operations.

Another challenge which Lynch was looking to resolve involved real-time reporting. Finance needed access to enhanced accounting and forecasting capabilities to better manage and plan for the growth of the company.

Overall, Lynch required a solution that could grow with them, one which provided clear lines of sight between departments, people, and information and would drive customer focus. They also wanted a system that did not necessitate any bolt-on functionality and eliminated reliance on third parties to update software. SAP provided the solution with all the appropriate modules already built in to meet their needs including industry best practices. It was an obvious choice.

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©Copyright 2015. ITWC. All rights reserved

I M P L E M E N T I N G E R P T H E R I G H T WAY

We were very cognizant of the fact that a lot of failed ERP implementations happened because companies tried to do more than they should in one shot. We wanted to work with a company that was as committed to our success as we were. We didn’t want to have a situation where we were dealing with contractors who became less and less available the further out the project got.”

— Gavin Lynch

Chief Information Officer, Lynch Fluid Controls Inc.

THE SOLUTION Before moving ahead with an ERP project, Lynch wanted to ensure they would have the right partner to assist with the implementation. Through their own research, including anecdotal information acquired from other companies, Lynch understood that selecting the right partner was key to the success of the project. Detailed and comprehensive plans, a staged approach, and depth of experience were all important factors.

With CONTAX, Lynch knew they had the right people supporting them. CONTAX’s resources on the project were dedicated full-time employees. Additionally, CONTAX had resources in several offices across North America to draw from, providing added assurance that the right people would be involved at every stage of the implementation.

Lynch and CONTAX decided to roll out the SAP solution in stages, starting with four key modules: sales and distribution, accounting, production, and shipping/ warehouse, with plans to move on to other areas of the business, such as HR and CRM, in later phases.

The implementation was completed in approximately seven months, which was in line with expectations. The change management component of the implementation also included training key individuals to become in-house experts and who could then, in turn, train other users in going forward.

THE RESULTS IT integration and visibility across the business: Every department from sales to warehouse to finance have access to integrated data. This means customer service can provide realistic production and delivery dates.

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©Copyright 2015. ITWC. All rights reserved

I M P L E M E N T I N G E R P T H E R I G H T WAY

We weren’t afraid of implementing something as powerful as SAP once we found the right partner. CONTAX was an instrumental part of our successful implementation.

Their portfolio of full-time consultants and specialists was a unique and welcoming benefit, in addition to their transparent and flexible support models. We are very happy to have CONTAX as a vendor and are looking forward to working with them in future implementations of SAP modules and features.”

More accurate material and inventory management: With greater access to more data, Lynch has fewer warehouse or picking inaccuracies, which translates into happier customers.

E-invoicing creates cost savings: By converting customers to electronic invoicing, Lynch was able to save thousands of dollars a year. Eliminating paper and stamps also helps with the company’s accounts receivable aging because customers are getting their invoices three to five days sooner than if they had been dropped in the mail.

Lynch proved that implementing an ERP system can be done with control and certainty over costs, timelines and outcomes, by: maintaining tight control over scope, adopting best practices instead of customizing the software, and working with the right partner.

— Gavin Lynch

Chief Information Officer, Lynch Fluid Controls Inc.

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©Copyright 2015. ITWC. All rights reserved

I M P L E M E N T I N G E R P T H E R I G H T WAY

The amount of knowledge and training we received from CONTAX during the implementation has made us very selfsufficient. We’re not in the position where we have to keep going back to them for every question or support issue. Now we use CONTAX for the strategic, big-picture items, looking out months and years ahead.”

— Gavin Lynch

Chief Information Officer, Lynch Fluid Controls Inc.

ABOUT LYNCH FLUID CONTROLS INC. Established in 1987, Lynch Fluid Controls Inc. is a manufacturer and distributor of high quality fluid power, hydraulic and pneumatic components, such as manifolds, valve systems and electronics. With 95 employees and one manufacturing facility in Mississauga, Ontario, Lynch products are used in the automotive, mining, plastics, logging, military, medical and entertainment industries.

Website: http://lynch.ca Phone: 1 (888) 626-4365

ABOUT CONTAX INC. CONTAX is a Gold Level SAP Channel Partner, and one of the fastest growing SAP partners in the world. CONTAX specializes in providing high quality, cost-effective SAP solutions using services delivered by staff from offices around the world.

Website: www.contax.com Phone: (416) 927-1913

For more information: Case study written and produced

by ITWC www.itwc.ca

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©Copyright 2015. ITWC. All rights reserved

SECUR IT Y WATCH

Simda botnet taken down by police

BY HOWARD SOLOMON midst all the bad news about breaches and new variants of viruses comes one small ray of sunshine: The Simda botnet, a passwordstealing menace believed to have infected 770,000 computers around the world, has been taken down by the combined efforts of police and a team of security vendors.

Interpol said recently that 10 Simda command and control servers were seized by police April 9 in the Netherlands, with additional servers taken down in the U.S., Russia, Luxembourg and Poland.

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit provided forensic intelligence to Interpol and other partners after its big data analysis found a sharp increase in the latest variant, Simda.

AT, around the world, the international law enforcement co-ordi-

A

nation agency said in a news release.

The Interpol's Singapore-based Digital Crime Centre (IDCC) worked with Microsoft, Kaspersky Lab, Trend Micro and Japan's Cyber Defense Institute to perform additional analysis of the Simda botnet resulting in a "heat map" showing the spread of the infections globally, and the location of the command and control servers.

IDCC is part of Interpol's new innovation complex in Singapore, which was also opened today. The third of Interpol's third digital control centre for co-ordinating investigations, it includes a forensics laboratory to support digital crime investigations.

"This successful operation shows the value and need for partnerships between national and international law enforcement with private industry in the fight against the global threat of cybercrime," IDCC director

24 I MAY 2015 I ITWorldCanada.com

Sanjay Virmani said in a statement. "This operation has dealt a significant blow to the Simda botnet and Interpol will continue in its work to assist member countries protect their citizens from cybercriminals and to identify other emerging threats."

In the first two months of this year some 90,000 new infections were detected in the U.S. alone.

The Simda botnet has been seen in more than 190 countries, with the worst affected including the U.S, Canada, the U.K, Turkey and Russia.

The operation involved officers from the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit, the FBI, the Police GrandDucale Section Nouvelles Technologies in Luxembourg, and the Russian Ministry of the Interior's Cybercrime Department K supported by the Interpol National Central Bureau in Moscow.

According to Micro-

soft, the Simda family of malware has been active since 2009.

Simda.AT, seen since 2012, is the current version, which usually compromises websites with embedded or injected JavaScript. Microsoft said it has seen about 128,000 new infections a month for the past six months.

Compromised sites were used to redirect users' traffic to another website, or gate.

This gate website redirects a browser to the exploit landing page. In one example Microsoft gives, the exploit can be the Fiesta Exploit kit, which can deliver malicious Shockwave Flash files, malicious Java applet files, and malicious Silverlight files.

Many antivirus scanners will catch Simda. Microsoft has developed a free cleaning agent for Simda. See Microsoft Safety Scanner, Microsoft Security Essentials or run Windows Defender.

Kaspersky Lab has set up a self-check webpage where the public can see if their IP address is part of a Simda botnet: https://checkip. kaspersky.com

SECUR IT Y WATCH

How B.C. district officials bugged their mayor's computer staff "observed that the software had been e was ridiculed configured to record and dismissed the activities of Disas paranoid for trict employees, inclaiming that district cluding recording and employees had inretaining screenshots stalled a surveillance of computer activity software in his office at 30 second intervals computer to spy on and every keystroke his online activities. taken on a workstaIn the end, Richard tion's keyboard, and Atwell, mayor of the retaining copies of District of Saanich in every email sent or British Columbia, is received." vindicated and gets to The 35-page report say "I told you so." revealed that the Recently Elizabeth bugging of Atwell's Denham, the Informachine stemmed mation and Privacy from concerns of Commissioner of B.C., district directors that released a report casbecause of Atwell's IT tigating the district for background, the new installing monitoring mayor would be able software on employto uncover outstandees' computers with ing security issues little regard for priin the district's IT vacy rights covered by infrastructure. These laws that have been in were issues IT secuplace for 20 years. rity shortcomings reDenham said her vealed by an IT audit

BY NESTOR E. ARELLANO

H

back in May 2014.

It all began shortly after Atwell was elected mayor November 15 last year.

In January, he raised concerns that his computer and possibly those of other Saanich employees were being bugged.

A former debugger engineer for Motorola and later a member of Apple's iPod and special projects team, Atwell said he discovered that IT department employees installed Spector 360 on his work computer. Spector 360 is an employee monitoring software that logs and monitors user email, chat and instant messages, Web activity, programs, keystrokes, documents, file transfers and network activity.

Atwell went to the police, but they found no signs of wrongdoing. The district said it was just following through on a recommendation from a security audit, which recommended the software.

"Public agencies, including municipal governments, have been subject to these comprehensive privacy laws for over 20 years," Denham's report said. "Yet the District went ahead and installed monitoring software, enabling automated screenshots and keystroke logging and other intrusive monitoring tools, without considering how these actions would measure up to their privacy obligations under the law."

ITWorldCanada.com I MAY 2015 I

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F E ATUR E

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F E ATUR E

GOLDCORP'S IT BOSS LOOKS UP TO THE CLOUD The vice-president of information technology for one of Canada's biggest mining company is not one to bury his head in the sand

BY NESTOR E. ARELLANO

The way Luis Canepari sees it, in many ways the business of mining has changed very little in the last 4,000 years.

People still dig a hole in the ground, pull out rocks and extract the gold and other minerals from the rocks, according to Canepari, vice-president of information technology for Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc. Only today, we use bigger shovels and more sophisticated machines to do the work.

With a global workforce of more than 16,000 people worldwide and assets including 10 mines in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Central America and South America, Goldcorp is the world's fourth largest producer of gold.

Much like their predecessors thousands of years ago, companies like Goldcorp are continually evaluating the way they do things to improve efficiency.

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F E ATUR E

Canepari: Although not a die-hard cloud component proponent, this was one case where SaaS made sense.

28 I MAY 2015 I ITWorldCanada.com

The huge quantity of gold stored above-ground compared to the annual production has made gold prices more sensitive to changing sentiment (demand) rather than annual production or supply. Things don't really look all that good for the yellow metal these days. With a strong U.S. dollar and world's strongest economy humming along just fine, investors find little need to park their money in gold.

Thus finding efficiency in production has become more critical for companies like Goldcorp to boost the bottom line.

The only thing we can control is our cost of production and software-as-a-service (SaaS) is helping us get more value out of the technology we are using, says Canepari.

The IT executive admits he is not a big proponent of putting the infrastructure in the cloud but SaaS-based solutions from German software company SAP SE have been instrumental to his department achieving many savings.

The enterprise resource planning solution used by Goldcorp for the last five to seven years has been an on-premises solution and was a gigantic pain point, according to Canepari.

The company had multiple and de-centralized ERP implementations across its various locations around the world and they were a challenge for the IT department to manage and maintain.

For example, if you one engineer was transferring from one Goldcorp location to another on-boarding was a brutal process because to move information across different systems, Canepari explains. It was something that could take a couple of days.

F E ATUR E

EDITORIAL Editor Nestor E. Arrelano Twitter: @cwceditor Contributing Editors Shane Schick Brian Jackson

CREATIVE SERVICES Senior Graphic Designer Mel Manasan Creative Director Jeff Coles CIRCULATION Circulation Manager Cheryl Patfield

'If your one engineer was transferring from one GoldCorp. location to another, onboarding was a brutal process.

It could take a couple of days.'

Some two years ago, Goldcorp adopted SaaS-based solutions from SaaS. These included the cloud-based, human capital management software SuccessFactors; corporate spend management analytics solutions, Ariba; performance management, planning, reporting and analysis tool Business Objects; and SAP's HANA in-memory, relational database management system.

Moving ERP to the cloud has helped Canepari optimize the IT personnel time. Rather than being bogged down by day-to-day tasks that are hampered by de-centralized systems, his staff are able breeze through many of the routine work and move on to more value-added projects.

For example, on-boarding new or transferring employees now take mere seconds with SuccessFactors as opposed to days with the previous on-premises solution.

Goldcorp is also able to cut down on the cost of supporting systems. For example, up to four IT professionals were required to support the older system.

Today, only one to two personnel are needed to do the same work.

SALES Vice-President and Associate Group Publisher Brad McBride Senior Account Executive Desere Ross

CORPORATE Chairman Michael R. Atkins President and Group Publisher Fawn Annan Controller Rob Novorolsky

HOW TO CONTACT COMPUTING CANADA Telephone: (416) 290-0240 Fax: (416) 290-0238 Mail: Computing Canada, 55 Town Centre Court, Suite 302, Scarborough, Ontario M1P 4X4 Employees may be reached using a combination of their first initial and last name, for example: sschick@itwc.ca Online: itwc.com Subscription inquiries: tel: (613) 475-3217 or 1-800-565-4007 fax: (416) 290-0239 or 1-800-565-8148 e-mail: circulation@itworldcanada.com

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MOBIL E

All Hands on Tech: Meta augmented reality glasses

BY BRIAN JACKSON

R

ight now the divide between the real world and the digital world is pretty clear cut. You're either looking around your physical environment, interacting with people and objects. Or you're staring at a screen. It's sort of a mutually exclusive relationship.

Meet the company that could change that.

Meta has created an augmented reality headset. Unlike virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift, which totally immerses you in a digital world, augmented reality glasses allow you to view the physical world around you with a virtual overlay.

Here's how it works: Two different cameras - one colour, and one infrared - map out the real world in front of you. The lens contains two transparent glass screens that sit right in front of your eyes. Meta's software projects the digital content onto these screens. Stereo

30 I MAY 2015 I ITWorldCanada.com

microphones and an inertial measurement unit round out a suite of sensors that record your environment and track your movement through it.

Meta was founded just last November. It already has a developer's kit out on the market. And it's completed a Series A fundraising round. Meta might be based in California, but it's got a Canadian connection.

Meta is moving quickly, but this hardware is in its early stages. It's focused on building a developer community that can help create solutions for specific markets. One early adopter of the AR headset is likely to be manufacturers in the aerospace industry. When the margin for error on the parts you're designing is zero, having the ability to simulate a part before you make it could save a lot of time and money. Any other profession that requires a lot of tinkering in Auto CAD will probably be interested in this. w

MOBIL E

HP RE-DESIGNS THE TONER CARTRIDGES ON NEW MFP PRINTERS

TANGERINE CLOUD BANKING POPS UP IN UNEXPECTED LOCATED

Hewlett-Packard has to change as much as 70 per cent of the technology sitting in the toner cartridge to come up with the other technological advances found in the company’s new line of multi-function laser jet printers.

Much of the re-engineering had to do with the machines’ toner cartridges.

The toner cartridges also come with a chip that allows the machine to identify if the cartridge being loaded is genuine, counterfeit or a refilled one. Users have the option of "locking-in" cartridges so that they work only with a certain machine to prevent cartridge theft.

HP also had to go down to the toner particle level to achieve faster printing speeds while keeping down energy consumption.

The new ColorSphere 3 toner is more durable, lasts longer and requires a lower temperatures to get ink on the page.The printer doesn't need to heat up more, so it saves power and is able to start printing right away.

This means the printers won’t need to heat up more. It is able to save power and start up faster.

Tangerine is a leader in online banking. Years and years ago when it was still known as ING Canada, the company was already offering customers banking services in the cloud ― even before it was fashionable to use the term cloud.

The company operated several lounge-type locations called ING Direct Cafes for its face-toface contact with customers, but much of the transactions were carried out online or via ATMs. That's why it was a surprise when a big orange cargo container with the Tangerine brand splashed on its side appeared in the parking lot of the Centerpoint Mall in North York popped up early this year.

It's the Tangerine Mobile Pop-up, according Charaka Kithulegpda, CIO of Tangerine. It's part of the banks new campaign to provide a "bricksand-mortar" feel for would-be customers who are not yet familiar with Tangerine.

The Mobile Pop-up is being rolled out along with Tangerine's new Sign Me Up mobile app that allows bank personnel to rapidly identify a potential customer by simply taking a photo of their driverís license or passport. The iPadbased technology allows a customer to open up an account with Tangerine in about 10 minutes.

ITWorldCanada.com I MAY 2015 I

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SH A R K TA LE S

.sucks really bad

I

f there's something you really hate, like having to wake up early on weekends or people who cut the line at the grocery or going to the beach and getting sand in your bag of chips, there are a number of ways to express your feelings on the Internet.

However, come June this year, you can now also snap up a domain name like sandinmybagofchips.sucks from Canadian Internet registry company Vox Populi. Vox Populi recently gained control of the paid domain name generic top level domain (gTLD) .sucks.

Domain name regulator Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), however, is worried that the .sucks domain name would be used to "shake down" large companies and famous individuals. ICANN has even gone as far as to ask the Canadian Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA) and the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to determine if the Canadian Internet registry firm 32 I MAY 2015 I ITWorldCanada.com

Vox Populi is doing anything illegal.

It's not hard to imagine how a .sucks Web site could be a major headache for ICANN down the road. Vox Populi is reportedly charging $3,146 for a .sucks Web site name before it goes public in June. Typical Web site registration only costs about $12 to $31.

So far, bing.sucks, youtube.suck, visa.sucks and a host of other dotsucks have reportedly been bought. It's called "defensive registering," an attempt to protect a brand by preventing other parties from creating an online presence that would attack that brand. Some media reports indicated that Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are among the large companies as well as singer Taylor Swift, have bought up the domains to exercise their trademark priority rights.

Of course ICANN has itself partly to blame for its troubles. After all, the regulator fueled the digital vanity plate craze and Vox Populi paid ICANN some $232,000 to apply for.sucks and won the domain name in a private auction against bidders. And that sucks.