Thebuzzmarch2014 new

the

talking tech trends

Autumn/Winter 2014

Cloud

To infinity and beyond Get the capacity you need whenever you want with on-demand hybrid cloud

Data

Software

Mobility

Collaboration

Security

The tips, tricks and technology to turn information into a new source of revenue

As applications move to the cloud, you will never be caught with out-of-date software

Cutting through the multitude of devices to find the best tech to suit your business

Get to know the sophisticated options to bring together a remote workforce

Organisations must remain at the cutting edge to stay one step ahead of scammers

Toshiba recommends Windows 8.

Tablet? Or notebook?

Now you can take both for a test drive.

The Portégé Z10t is a leading edge Ultrabook™ and a best-in-class Tablet. Either way, you get the performance of an Intel® Core™ i5 processor, 128GB or 256GB solid state drive and a Full High Definition (1920 x 1080) Touchscreen. Add in the active digitizer pen, the option of 4G mobile broadband, and the Portégé Z10t is a tool that offers unrivalled flexibility.

Want to see how it performs? Book a test drive today.

BOOK NOW! WWW.THEBUZZMAGAZINE.COM.AU/TOSHIBA-TESTDRIVE Intel, the Intel Logo, Intel Inside, Intel Core, Ultrabook, and Core Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

talking tech trends

Cloud

To infinity and beyond Get the capacity you need whenever you want with on-demand hybrid cloud

Autumn/Winter 2014

Data

Software

Mobility

Collaboration

Security

The tips, tricks and technology to turn information into a new source of revenue

As applications move to the cloud, you will never be caught with out-of-date software

Cutting through the myriad devices to find the best technology to suit your business

Get to know the sophisticated options to bring together a remote workforce

Organisations must remain at the cutting edge to stay one step ahead of scammers

Managing Director Dave Stevens Publisher Robin Marchant Brennan IT 1300 500 000 www.brennanit.com.au With thanks to John Biviano, Autodesk Zohar Cohen, Cisco Vaughan Klein, Cisco Justin Cooper, CommVault Andrew Hillman, CommVault David Carless, HP Australia Dr Roger Kermode, HP Australia Barry Lerner, Huawei South Pacific Isabel Boniface, Microsoft Thomas Hansen, Microsoft Peter Papaioannou, NEC Australia Nick Bourke, RSA Dean Frye, Sourcefire Justin White, Toshiba

At Brennan IT, our goal is to make technology work harder for your business. From managed services, cloud & infrastructure, networking and collaboration, through to IT security, software development, hardware procurement and software licensing, we take the time to thoroughly understand your business goals and challenges. Services are then tailored to meet your specific requirements. We pride ourselves on delivering the right business outcomes, not just delivering a technology. Operating 24/7, 365, with the benefit of a local Australian service desk, our technology solutions provide all the services you would expect from an internal IT department – and more – at a fraction of the cost and with a far greater depth of knowledge of the fast-moving IT industry. Find out more: www.brennanit.com.au

Best of both worlds

C

loud has gone mainstream – very quickly. Until recently, we were still hearing stories about barriers stopping organisations from moving to the cloud. They were worried about risks. Wary of a perceived lack of control. Unconvinced of cost benefits.

Thankfully, we’ve seen these concerns rapidly dissipate. As cloud technology has become ever-more sophisticated, more organisations have put their faith in hosted options. Smart organisations are assessing the cloud based on what is right for their needs – sound business decisions based on fact, not fiction.

While cloud has a viable role in a company’s mix, it is not the whole answer. Cloud often wins in terms of cost, service, flexibility and ensuring the best, most-up-to-date technology. This is where we see organisations opting for offsite capacity at a private cloud provider such as Brennan IT. Other workloads are best hosted on-site.

It is about getting the best of both worlds, on-demand, and with ease and scalability. It is called hybrid cloud.

It could be a case of some mission-critical applications remaining on-premise within an organisation’s own data centre, with offsite backup and disaster recovery. We see users running their own processing and storage in-house while also provisioning capacity to ‘cloud burst’ into our data centre when the need arises.

At Brennan IT, we feel that customers deserve the widest possible array of choices and flexibility, which is why we have made significant investments in our hybrid cloud offering.

Hybrid cloud is a major focus for Brennan IT, and a major focus in this issue of The Buzz. You can read more about our plans in the cover story on p8. We also have articles looking at the ways cloud is affecting software delivery, with applications such as Office 365 (p24), and telecommunications such as hosted unified communications (p42). We hope you enjoy the read.

Welcome

the

the BUZZ

talking tech trends

Autumn/Winter 2014

The Buzz is a custom publication produced for Brennan IT by nextmedia Pty Ltd Editor Steven Kiernan (02) 9901 6194 skiernan@nextmedia.com.au Designer Dave West

Dave Stevens Managing Director, Brennan IT

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

1

fast becoming the top priority

8 To infinity and beyond

18 Classification conundrum

10 Make your business more agile

20 A vision for a smarter city

36 The personal touch 38 No quick fix for BYOD 40 Sleek, speedy self-contained solutions

26 Rental market 29 Big issues for all businesses

42 How the cloud is transforming collaboration in the workplace

46 The unified generation 48 Light up the network 51 A stylish solution

Security

right device is just the first step in becoming truly mobile

to suit every user

23 Leading the way

Collaboration

32 Choosing the

24 Simple solutions

Contents

holds for the domestic cloud market

12 Welcome to the cloud revolution

Mobility

14 Data analytics is

Software

Data

Cloud

4 What the future

52 Privacy, hackers and scammers, it pays to be prepared

56 Get a clear understanding 58 Smart adaptation 61 Putting security first

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

3

Cloud everything as a service

Governments map out a new route

A

ustralia’s governments are looking to the cloud both to cut public outlays on technology, as well as to help deliver new services faster. State governments have led the way, but increasingly the federal government is in the market.

Suzanne Campbell, chief executive of the Australian Information Industry Association – the key lobby group for the IT sector in Australia – said that cloud computing is one of those areas where the change of government is expected to usher in a change to the government’s cloud engagement.

Inside

> To infinity and beyond p8 Get the capacity you need whenever you want it with on-demand hybrid cloud

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

In fact, cloud was already taking hold in the Commonwealth prior to the election, as the Data Centre-asa-Service panel launched in August last year revealed.

There are already over 80 suppliers on that list offering 1,340 cloud services to government agencies, including collaboration, virtualisation and disaster recovery solutions. There are restrictions however; contracts can’t be worth more than $80,000 and they can’t run for more than one year.

Already the Federal government agency has issued almost 30 contracts worth $1.3 million; a

> Make your business more agile p10 Taking a hybrid approach to cloud is a fluid solution

small start, but from little things big things grow.

State governments are probably more advanced in their move to the cloud. The Queensland government for instance is looking to save $20 million annually from cloud computing. The talk north of the Tweed is that the government is eyeing off a whole of government email-as-a-service deal.

For its part, the Victorian government is moving aggressively towards a cloud-first approach based on a number of principles, such as minimal customisation and a cloud preference for replacement systems.

> Welcome to the cloud revolution p12 The hybrid cloud is truly the best of both worlds

Cloud In Brief

NSA scandal to drive buyers towards on-premise hosting Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels says fears prompted by revelations of government spying are likely to increase the demand for on-premise licensed software.

And though the impact might not be felt by specific vendors, according to the Forrester analyst it is likely to be significant on the sector, who says on-premise sales will increase by as much as six percent.

Bartels said his clients are voicing concerns about putting their client’s data in the cloud. In the same report he forecast a strong rebound in on-premise licence sales outside of the US, especially in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

The report, however, does not suggest a reversal in cloud’s fortunes. Instead, it predicts the market will still grow at a healthy clip of about 20 percent per annum

with applications such as marketing and HR being early candidates for cloud service provisions.

Bartels was also quoted in the tech press saying that US companies, who had previously benefited from telling international clients they had a better data security story than local incumbents, suddenly found their pitch had a few holes in it.

However, he downplayed the overall impact of the revelations on the total revenues of major vendors.

Of course, there is another alternative – non-US cloud providers are turning the NSA revelations to their competitive advantage. One security vendor, for instance, says its fortunes have ballooned since the NSA revelations, with its customer numbers almost doubling in just a few short months.

6 trillion Potential economic value unlocked by cloud computing.

Source: McKinsey and Company

35.7% Buzz readers looking to invest in hybrid cloud in the next 12 months.

Source: The Buzz IT Maturity Index

50% Enterprises that will use hybrid cloud by 2017.

Source: Gartner

Domestic cloud market speeds towards $2.5bn Australia’s domestic cloud market will be worth almost $2.5 billion by 2017, according to IDC. Australia’s CIOs are increasingly looking to the cloud to deliver greater flexibility and cost savings. Those savings are significant; KPMG for instance puts the figure at $3.3 billion over the next 10 years.

While the headline savings numbers stack-up well compared to capital expenditure, the cost advantages can start to degrade over a three- or five-year capex cycle.

However, the trick is to manage the infrastructure once it’s in place.

Companies have the opportunity to satisfy peak periods of user demand by throttling up and down the capacity as required. Of course the fact that this can be done

without having capital locked up in physical IT assets which sit idly for most hours of the day is one of the key attractions.

It’s a message that resonates with the Queensland government. On its business and industry website it notes, “Your business can scale up or scale down your operation

and storage needs quickly to suit your situation, allowing flexibility as your needs change. Rather than purchasing and installing expensive upgrades yourself, your cloud computer service provider can handle this for you. Using the cloud frees up your time so you can get on with running your business.”

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

5

Cloud

Software-as-a-service surges towards 15% of all app spending Software as a service (SaaS) is growing at over 20 percent per year according to a new study by Forrester Research.

On its blog site, the researchers say that, “Traditional licensed, on-premise software has suffered, especially in the slow-growth economies of 2012 and 2013, but will revive in 2014, especially in Europe, Asia and emerging markets.”

They attributed the turnaround to “a combination of strong growth in new software categories and restored growth in older categories [that] will help make software the leading tech category.”

The US tech market is likely to be the big winner as it already has about 60 percent market share of SaaS and analytics spending.

“The revival of on-premise software will also be good news for IT consulting and systems integration services in 2014 – because SaaS leads to much less integration services spending than on-premises software,” say the researchers.

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

48%

Buzz readers who are looking to invest in cloud technology in the next year, versus just 28% who said they weren’t.

Source: The Buzz IT Maturity Index

$36bn Gartner meanwhile provides further evidence of the strength of the SaaS market with a recent survey revealing almost three quarters of CIOs saying they were investing in the technology and that the primary driver was not cloud’s well-documented cost savings, but rather its ability to provide more agile environments.

The researcher believes that SaaS applications now account for up to 15 percent of application spending, and that its share is likely to grow strongly in the coming years due to the popularity of services such as Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps and Salesforce.com.

Building apps in the cloud What's the outlook for platformas-a-service providers? Pretty bleak, according to a study last year

by Research 451 which suggests PaaS will eventually merge with infrastructure-as-a-service and software-as-a-service.

Companies like Salesforce.com are already offering the facility for customers to build their own apps in the cloud. And according to the study they are not alone, with other providers taking a similar approach.

However, according to the report, PaaS is not set to disappear from

In Brief

Amount the US cloud industry will lose due to the revelations of NSA spying activities Source: IT and Innovation Forum

37% Growth rate of the global infrastructure-as-a-service market. Source: 451 Research

80.9% Of Buzz readers chose the cloud for its scaleability, the most popular option.

Source: The Buzz IT Maturity Index

17%

CAGR of the SaaS market until 2016 by which time the enterprise cloud market could be worth $32 billion.

Source: PWC

the market altogether. It will simply become part of a wider portfolio of service provided to IT groups focused on more efficient outcomes.

$107bn Global spending on public cloud by 2017. Source: IDC

www.brennanit.com.au

Cover Feature Hybrid Cloud

To infinity and beyond Get the capacity you need whenever you want it with on-demand hybrid cloud

F

or many organisations keen to keep a lid on costs while they grow or change direction, hybrid cloud solutions are an increasingly attractive option.

The advantages of a hybrid solution that combines an organisation’s equipment with rapidly scalable resources offered by a service provider are resonating with a wide cross-section of Australian customers, says Nicholas Hollings, Brennan IT Cloud and Infrastructure Director.

“Hybrid cloud connects an on-premise system with a cloud system, so it doesn’t have to be one or the other,” Hollings says.

“Traditionally, we would have a conversation about how to use cloud or on-premise, but hybrid cloud is about how to use the best of both to achieve a business outcome.”

Customers can manage their hybrid cloud or have Brennan IT fully manage it for them. A big advantage of hybrid cloud is companies can ‘sweat’ their IT – running it for longer and at full capacity – and spill over into the cloud. Delaying major capital

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

spending often leads to big cost savings.

Hollings says this approach means that hybrid cloud is a destination in its own right and not just a way to transition between onpremise and cloud delivery.

“When you deploy hybrid cloud you start thinking less about the infrastructure and more about the applications you want to deliver, the business processes you want to enable and the level of customer service you want to achieve.”

Hybrid cloud appeals to organisations who may already carry big capital investments in on-premise equipment as well as those approaching limits of their IT infrastructure.

Large organisations are moving more rapidly than small businesses to hybrid cloud solutions, although for savvy SMBs, hybrid is a quick way to provision services typically only available to big companies without huge capital outlays.

Because hybrid clouds run in tandem with on-premise equipment, they are especially attractive to organisations that can’t afford a moment of downtime. Forwardthinking organisations can replicate

critical servers in the cloud that will take over from on-premise services in times of distress.

Take for example a financial services firm that operates in a flood zone. Such businesses create

Hybrid cloud is a destination in its own right, not just a transition between on-premise and cloud delivery Nicholas Hollings, Brennan IT

huge amounts of data in real time and for reasons of latency and bandwidth are poor candidates for public cloud solutions. A hybrid enables the business to burst into

Hybrid Cloud Cover Feature Bursting cloud myths Myth: Only unmanaged, public cloud is true cloud.

Fact: Cloud is about providing capacity on demand, scaling up and down as business needs and cashflow dictates.

Myth: I need to know what lies under the hood to have faith in the cloud solution.

Fact: Although Brennan IT welcomes customers to our state-of-the-art Australian data centres, when provisioning cloud services, attention to service contracts and agreements is where the CIO or IT manager should be focusing their attention so they ensure the best business outcomes.

Myth: Cloud is just hosting by another name.

Fact: Cloud is an infinitely scalable, flexible solution that improves organisational resilience and allows extra capacity to be pulled down on demand. A true cloud solution uses management tools found in a portal to allow IT to make changes to their environment.

the cloud at peak times with the added benefit of being able to continue operating without missing a beat should disaster strike.

“They can move workloads that don’t need that proximity of data into the cloud to boost their resiliency and then use hybrid cloud management tools to maintain control over the data,” Hollings says. “Hybrid cloud gives you more than disaster recovery; you can leverage the additional power in the cloud to accelerate your business.”

Simple point-and-shoot portals accessible through a web browser or even a mobile device such as a smartphone enable the customer to reconfigure its cloud infrastructure on the go. This may include

replication, backup and recovery or to configure services and applications.

For daily use, less data-heavy services such as email and collaboration can find their way into the cloud, relieving on-premise equipment for activities that demand they stay physically close to the user. In a sector such as financial services and insurance that experiences peaks and troughs in demand, this is especially attractive because mailboxes and applications can be added or deleted.

The financial services firm’s mobile workers also benefit from the hybrid cloud strategy: “They have offices and professionals on location scattered about the place so no one is reliant on coming into head office any more to do their work.”

Hybrid cloud: Safer, more secure Businesses in highly regulated industries are also turning to hybrid cloud for reasons of governance, risk and compliance.

Keeping data inside national borders is of special importance to financial services and insurance firms or those with sensitive contracts where their client stipulates where data is to be held.

In situations where a public cloud is unsuitable owing to it scattering data across the map, and the capital spending too prohibitive to spin up on-premise storage, a hybrid solution steps in to fill the breach, says Hollings. This tends to be the case when working with not-forprofit organisations, or state or local government agencies that can put major projects or campaigns into the cloud. But to ensure services are there when needed, customers must know upfront about the provider’s service-level agreements and other contractual arrangements. Customers should also audition the management tools that cloud providers offer to ensure they are robust and easy to use, Hollings says.

Want to know more?

More information can be found by visiting www.brennanit.com.au/hybrid-cloud

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

9

Cloud HP

Taking a hybrid approach to cloud is a fluid solution that doesn't force organisations to splash the cash

T

here’s no question that virtualised computing has revolutionised the way businesses manage their IT infrastructure. The ability to provision resources dynamically has enabled the kind of organisational agility that IT managers could have only dreamed of a decade ago.

For most organisations, however, the infrastructure-as-a-service private cloud is not the endgame.

Gartner has predicted that by 2017 50 percent of enterprises will have moved beyond the private cloud into the “hybrid” cloud.

The hybrid cloud is a scenario where a business fuses their private cloud resources with public cloud services. Extending their cloud using public services provides

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

organisations with the kind of flexibility that a fully private cloud system cannot provide. It enables easier disaster recovery and failover services, allows for “cloud bursting” where the public cloud is used to provide extra performance during peak loads, and provides a fast way to provision new services without having to invest in additional capital expenditures.

“There are two key reasons that businesses are looking to make the move to hybrid cloud systems,” says HP Cloud specialist David Carless.

“Number one is agility. Rather than the old waterfall method of provisioning, businesses can deploy compute resources quickly and when needed without having to maintain enough local resources for peak loads. The second is cost.

Organisations are increasingly saying ‘I only want to pay for what I use’ and a hybrid cloud lets them deploy additional resources on a cost-per-use basis, without having

Organisations are increasingly saying ‘I only want to pay for what I use’ David Carless, HP

to worry about idle resources and over or under-provisioning.”

Moving to the hybrid cloud If you’re looking to move to a hybrid cloud model, the good news is that current service provider offerings and tools are making that transition easier than ever before.

“For companies already running a

HP Cloud

Fast facts Hybrid cloud is expected to become the dominant cloud paradigm within the next few years.

For most businesses it’s not really about compute but about agility; the ability to resize your virtual data centre dynamically provides rapid response to changes in demand.

With the right set of tools, the management and administration platform is transparent across private and public clouds.

private cloud, the barrier to entry is not high,” says Carless. “With an infrastructure-as-a-service solution, you’re essentially still performing the same tasks as before, and in a lot of cases with the same tools. You still get to manage everything above the hypervisor layer, including compliance, access and management, and depending on your solution, you get to use the same tools.”

HP’s Converged Cloud solution, for example, is built upon the increasingly popular OpenStack management platform. That platform lets you manage your private and public clouds transparently; you use the same set of tools for apportioning compute and storage resources as well as for user authentication and telemetry.

In effect, the public cloud simply becomes a dynamic extension of your private solution.

When it comes to finding the balance between public and private, Carless notes that there is no one-

We’re seeing cloud partners creating compelling platforms for particular industries David Carless, HP

size-fits-all solution. “Of course it depends on the capacity left in your data centre and the economics of providing services internally, which is different from business to

While infrastructure-as-a-service is often what draws organisations to hybrid cloud models, don’t ignore platform-as-a-service solutions.

Some service providers have started offering highly specialised solutions on their cloud platforms.

business,” he says. “But it’s worth talking to a provider, even if you don’t have immediate infrastructure needs. While infrastructure services are where most businesses start, more are looking past this to business and productivity tools via the same medium. We’re seeing platform-as-a-service becoming a more and more compelling solution for businesses looking to maximise productivity,” Carless says.

Want to know more about HP? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/hp

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

11

Cloud Microsoft

Including cloud as part of an IT position is no longer a vague possibility, it is a business imperative

T

he cloud revolution is here – and it’s only going to accelerate according to Isabel Boniface, the Small and Medium Business Marketing Lead for Microsoft Australia.

“The progression will speed up even more as cloud-delivered IT matures and becomes a proven and accepted method of consuming software services. Businesses are getting more comfortable with putting their data in data centres that are not owned by them,” says Boniface.

“We will see cloud acceptance going beyond double-digit growth to exponential growth,” she adds.

“This is really driven by access to very mature and sophisticated technology which has been too expensive for small businesses.

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

They can now get it for the cost of a cup of coffee per month.”

Will businesses move everything to external service providers? Or is there a right way to choose what to move to the cloud and what to keep inside your own walls?

“There isn’t a specific template that we should all be following.

Every company has a different set of challenges, and for every company there’s a different solution,” says Boniface.

Like all successful IT projects, the process starts with knowing the business requirements.

“Once you’ve decided what problem you need to solve, you can decide how you want to solve that problem and then how you’re going to deliver that solution.” As far as the solution goes, Boniface says

that there’s no need to make an ‘all or nothing’ move.

“In the majority of cases, it will be a hybrid solution. Companies will retain some servers on their premises because they need to deliver the return on investment for the hardware, or they might

We will see cloud acceptance going beyond double-digit growth to exponential growth Isabel Boniface, Microsoft

need it to store large files or sensitive workloads. In other cases, they might decide to make use of the cloud in either a hosted environment or public cloud to get the lower cost of delivery or lower cost of management and support.”

Microsoft Cloud

Five steps to cloud success 1. Find a partner who is solution agnostic. If someone comes in “knowing” the answers before they ask you the right questions, then they probably don’t really know.

2. Review each workload and evaluate its suitability for public or private cloud, or on-premises operation.

3. Don’t commit to an all-or-nothing strategy. While a cloud solution might be best for one of your applications, it might not be best for others.

4. Understand the risks and challenges. No IT project is without risk – particularly when it comes to migrating important applications.

5. Migrate services to your preferred solution, as the business is ready. Bring the business along the journey at their pace.

Boniface cited the example of the broadcaster SBS. The team there evaluated all of the workloads that they needed to deliver.

“They made the decision to go with a hybrid scenario and moved their email to the public cloud, which was previously sucking massive man-hours from IT support. However, they felt more comfortable moving their SharePoint implementation to a hosted cloud provider.”

The aim is to choose the delivery method that best suits each workload. “Some of our customers who are highly cautious are nervous about where their data is and what controls are in place. They can proceed at the speed they’re comfortable with. They don’t need to worry about being committed

to a delivery method that you can’t get out of,” she adds.

So, how does a company maximise its chances of a successful cloud migration? One

Make sure you choose a partner that has a proven track record and is neutral around the delivery method Isabel Boniface, Microsoft

way is to look at projects that haven’t succeeded. Boniface says that there are some common elements of failed cloud projects.

“The problem is that their planning

hasn’t been done properly. The company hasn’t worked with a partner with good experience in assessing the current environment and understanding the business needs. They were driven into a delivery method that wasn’t the best fit. It comes down to bad planning in the beginning phases of the project.”

Boniface’s advice is quite straightforward. “Make sure you choose a partner that has a proven track record and is neutral around the delivery method. If a partner comes in and dictates a delivery method then they’re probably not the right partner for you”.

Want to know more about Microsoft? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/microsoft

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

13

Data business intelligence opportunities

Data analytics tops the agenda for CIOs and CMOs

Fast and furious flash

F

lash is one of the most disruptive ideas to hit the storage industry in years.

Before its emergence as a mainstream technology, storage vendors relied on processing power and miniaturisation to increase the efficiency of storage systems.

With flash, IT departments are able to achieve a 10 to 1000 times improvement in throughput and with the added benefit that there are no moving parts, so maintenance is also improved.

Its proponents argue that it is highly reliable, cost effectively scalable and also cost effective to maintain, especially in cloud environments. And as it offers significant performance

Inside

> Classification conundrum p18 it is vital that organisations categorise, analyse and leverage business intelligence

14

The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

improvements along with the reliability and efficiency dividend over traditional approaches, it is also regarded as a critical component of big data infrastructures.

But flash comes at a cost – quite literally it is more expensive. While it is certainly cheaper than HDD on a cost performance basis, it is significantly more expensive on a cost capacity basis. Some estimates suggest it is five to 10 times more expensive.

Practitioners say that applications such a backup and archives simply don’t require the performance firepower of flash. The issue for IT departments then is to work out where flash fits in the overall stage architecture.

> A vision for a smarter city p20 The Smart City concept is a unified solution for the cities of the future

Data analytics is the top priority for CIOs according to Gartner and the fastest growing budget item on the CMO’s wish list, according to Exact Target.

Yet it didn’t feature as a top three priority for either of these executive groups as little as a year ago.

According to the ExactTarget study, “It makes sense that data and analytics top the list, as marketers noted increasing conversion rates and collecting behaviour-based data as two of their top three 2014 [priorities].

Likewise, the second greatest budget increase is for marketing automation, which will play a key role as marketers act on the data they’ve collected to power 1:1 customer experiences and enhance their brand relationships.”

Anna Russell, director of Sydney based data science outfit Polynomial said the findings make sense, “That data analytics is high on the priority list for both CIO and CMO doesn’t surprise me – these two areas of business are working increasingly closely to drive business performance, and analytics is the connection point that allows marketing and technology to work effectively in tandem.”

To futher prove the point, a study of 330 leading US businesses by the MIT Centre for Digital Business revealed that the companies who lead on data driven decision making had four percent higher productivity overall and six percent higher profits.

Data

Data strategy must be on target Data is very big business, especially when it bites you, as giant US retailer Target learnt to its cost last year when it was revealed that 70 million of its customer accounts where compromised.

The business impact was immediate – its reputation as measured by the YouGov Buzzscore rating dropped 35 points the day after the news broke and a further 19 points over the next week.

But there was even more pain reflected in the bottom line.

Management flagged the breach as a big contributor to the 40 percent decline in profitability in the final quarter of 2013.

It couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the retailer as many consumers felt forced to cancel credit cards just weeks out from the busiest shopping period. Some estimates suggest that Target lost 4.6 million customers directly as a result of the breach.

27%

Decline in robberies in Santa Cruz after the launch of PredPol – a predictive analytics program that flags impending criminal hotspots.

Source: Polynomial

Things only got worse for the company, the victim of what was described as the biggest corporate data breach in US history, and it had to admit in a Senate hearing that it was unaware of the breach until contacted by the government.

Interestingly most consumers gave Target a pass rating in terms of its responses. Surveys showed that over 90 percent of consumers felt satisfied once the leadership admitted the breach of an inexcusable break with customer faith.

Big data brings increased ROI Big data can improve marketing ROI by 20 percent, but measurement is crucial. Today’s consumers are a demanding lot. They expect companies to know everything they can about them and to only provide them with information and offers that are relevant to them in the moment. There is little patience for companies who can’t provide this level of intimacy across all channels.

In Brief

57k

The number of mentions of big data in 2013 by Australia Twitter users.

Source: Which-50.com

$50bn Value of the big data market by 2017. Today it’s worth $18.6 billion.

Source: Silicon Angle

To answer this, organisations are increasingly investing in marketing technology platforms, CRM and in particular in data analytics. These are big bets but according to analysts the benefits are clear.

Gains of up to 20 per cent are likely from the return on investment in big data when it is applied to the trillion dollar global marketing spend through better application of big data technologies, says McKinsey & Company.

Furthermore McKinsey says that their research demonstrates that big data leaders in business delivered five percent more productivity and six percent higher profits than their peers.

Despite this, they say few companies are yet taking advantage of the opportunity.

90%

Number of companies that lack the systems and processes necessary to address the problem strategically.

Source: Teradata

20.9m

Gigabytes Amount of data Google Street View had stored by the middle of 2013.

Source: Whoishosting this.com

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

15

Global open data initiative creates new opportunities In June last year, the governments of the eight largest economies in the world adopted the Open Data Charter which formally introduced the concept that governments should aim for the open publication of their data by default.

Australia is already developing its open data initiative via data.gov.au, having launched a new look in April 2011. In fact, the first initiatives kicked off in 2009.

According to Government CTO John Sheridan, “A lot of momentum has built around open data in Australia, including within governments around the country.”

Globally, the opportunity is huge. Across both the public and private sector it is estimated that up to five trillion dollars worth of economic activity could be unlocked over the next 10 years. A third of that gain will come from establishing benchmarks to identify process improvement.

The winners from open data won't simply be the providers of the data. Instead, according to management consultants

McKinsey & Company, a nascent ecosystem of entrepreneurs has already emerged to build value by helping incumbents segment markets, define new products and services, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations, say the authors.

The digitisation of government is creating new opportunities within government as well.

Over the next few years, Gartner expects to see the emergence of chief digital officers to manage and develop the government data assets.

Andrea DiMaio, managing vice president at Gartner said: “Digital government strategies issued in several jurisdictions during the past 12 months, as well as the continued momentum of open government, are bringing new leadership roles to the fore. In government, as well as other industries, roles like chief data officer or chief digital officer are emerging in response to the increasing importance of enterprise digital assets.”

In Brief

40%

Number of C-Suite executives globally who say they are integrating internal and external data for deep insights.

Source: IBM

7

Petabytes

Amount of extra storage Facebook adds each month, just for photographs.

Source: Allfacebook.com

<100 Number of Hadoop jobs advertised in Australia in November. There were also 46 in Hong Kong and only 11 in New Zealand.

Source: Hadoop 360

Data scientists: highly skilled, highly paid and in short supply Research released by the Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia (IAPA) earlier this year revealed that the average salaries paid for data scientists in Australia has surged to almost $110k a year.

IT companies are the biggest payers, typically outlaying $124,000 for the role, while transport is the highest paying vertical market where a typical data science salary caps out at $114,000.

According to IAPA chairman and director, insight solutions at

16

The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

Deloitte, Doug Campbell, “The global trend of demand hugely outstripping supply is also true in Australia with 50 percent of industry managers reporting difficulty filling analytics professionals’ positions.

“The business analytics field is still relatively young and developing, however, significant demand for analytics professionals is being driven from the increasing pervasiveness of digital, impacting organisations’ costs, processes and customers,” he said.

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Simpana software requires far less time, labor and money to operate, giving IT organisations the ability to do more with their data. Advanced automation capabilities can cut support costs by 35%.

With one platform to protect, manage and access enterprise data, Simpana 10 offers more than modern data protection with scalability for tens of thousands of workers; it enables you to transform enterprise data into an accessible, valuable asset.

That’s why both Gartner and Forrester have positioned us as Leaders in the Gartner 2013 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery Software; and The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Backup and Recover Software.

Download these reports and learn more at www.commvault.com.au/efficient-data-management

backup & recovery > replication > analytics > archive > search & ediscovery www.commvault.com 2 Crescent Place Oceanport, NJ 07757 Regional Offices: Europe Middle East & Africa Asia-Pacific Latin America & Caribbean Canada India Oceania n

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© 1999-2014 CommVault Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. CommVault, CommVault and logo, the “CV” logo, CommVault Systems, Solving Forward, SIM, Singular Information Management, Simpana, Simpana OnePass, CommVault Galaxy, Unified Data Management, QiNetix, Quick Recovery, QR, CommNet, GridStor, Vault Tracker, InnerVault, QuickSnap, QSnap, Recovery Director, CommServe, CommCell, IntelliSnap, ROMS, CommVault Edge, and CommValue, are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems, Inc. All other third party brands, products, service names, trademarks, or registered service marks are the property of and used to identify the products or services of their respective owners. All specifications are subject to change without notice.

Data CommVault

With data growing at an unimaginable pace, it is more important than ever that organisations can categorise, analyse and leverage this business intelligence

C

orporate data is growing at exponential rates.

Upcoming research from IDC suggests that almost half of Australia and New Zealand organisations see their data growing by 20 to 50 percent year on year. For some businesses it’s growing even faster. Cloud-based solutions can provide a more cost effective means to manage those rapidly increasing data sets.

The challenge faced by a majority of CIOs in ANZ is identifying and classifying the data stored across the entire organisation. It’s no longer acceptable or affordable to treat all data as equal. This limits the opportunity for organisations to implement enterprise class data management solutions, which incorporate elements such as

18

The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

cloud-enabled search, archiving, compliance and disaster recovery.

Your corporate data has the potential to be your most valuable and strategic business asset, but not if you simply view it as a regulatory requirement. It needs to be managed efficiently, analysed thoroughly and proactively leveraged, says CommVault’s Justin Cooper – ANZ Director of Channels, Managed Service Providers, Partners and Alliances.

In preparation for this market shift to public cloud infrastructure, CommVault continues to invest in its Simpana software as the most open cloud data management platform available in the market today. CommVault is integrated across a comprehensive range of storage technologies, cloud

infrastructure platforms, operating systems, hypervisors and enterprise applications – all from a single platform that provides consistent management and reporting tools.

“You no longer need to be locked into a single storage or server vendor

You no longer need to be locked into a single storage or server vendor relationship Justin Cooper, CommVault

relationship,” Cooper says. “In turn this means service providers can implement a mix of low, medium and high performance storage services across multiple vendors to best suit their customers’ needs.

“This lets service providers

CommVault Data

Fast facts Breaking down data silos makes it easier to expand data management beyond backup and restore

concentrate their resources on driving business value, rather than getting bogged down in the infrastructure. When data can be pooled into a centralised , virtual repository – like CommVault ContentStore – it becomes much easier to look beyond backup and restore, to embrace a full data protection and information management strategy, controlled from a single console.”

A CommVault Simpana approach to cloud enabled services makes it easier for providers to expand their offerings without needing to add any additional layers of management and reporting tools, says CommVault’s Andrew Hillman, Managed Service Provider accounts manager.

“Once you’ve established a single

platform for data protection and information management, you have the capability to seamlessly integrate with the widest range of hypervisors, operating systems and enterprise apps. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about physical or virtual resources, or whether they’re on-premise, or distributed,” Hillman says.

“From a service provider point of view, reducing infrastructure costs and boosting staff productivity lets you accelerate time to revenue.”

The multi-tenancy and selfservice capabilities enabled by cloud solutions drive down costs, letting end users easily provision

A platform-agnostic approach to cloud storage allows you to mix and match according to specific requirements Self-service is a key component of efficient cloud management

and deprovision services, as well as determine appropriate policies.

“Web-based self-service portals and workflow automation are key components of the cloud,” Hillman says. “As a service provider you can’t have masses of people behind the scenes just to keep everything up and running. A well-rounded management solution looks to selfservice to help drive down the cost of cloud for the provider and then of course to the ultimate end user as well.”

Want to know more about CommVault? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/commvault

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

19

Data Huawei

The Smart City concept provides a unified solution to building technologically advanced cities of the future, and places a strong focus on wider public benefits

H

uawei’s Smart City vision exemplifies its end-to-end approach to technology solutions, building on underlying communications infrastructure to create the digital cities of the future.

While Huawei is better known for its large-scale networking projects, Smart City is a portfolio of Huawei ICT-enabled solutions which sense, analyse and integrate key information from a city’s core operating systems. The concept is broken into three major components: Smart Government; Smart Life; and Smart Industry.

Smart Government extends from city-wide environmental and energy management to command centres

20

The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

designed to connect government departments, emergency services and other important amenities such as hospitals and schools. Such interconnectivity makes it easier for government agencies to offer a coordinated response to natural and environmental disasters.

Smart Life builds on this with e-health and education initiatives, well-suited to nations like Australia which must overcome the tyranny of distance to provide such services to the far reaches of the country. Smart Life also extends to cover real-time smart building management – such as environmental and security controls – as well as transport and traffic flow management.

Smart Industry incorporates manufacturing, mining, agriculture,

finance and support for small businesses. It also covers e-tourism, providing an interconnect between travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, tour groups and other key aspects of the tourism economy.

Get the big picture done and then you can go ahead and look at the commonalities Barry Lerner, Huawei South Pacific

Huawei is a key player in the largescale national broadband networks of the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, but it’s also an end-to-end solutions provider, which is well-placed to handle every aspect of the Smart

Huawei Data

City concept, says Barry Lerner – regional chief information officer, Huawei South Pacific.

Rather than building isolated smart projects, Lerner believes cities and nations should first focus on building the underlying networking infrastructure in order to support and interconnect smart initiatives.

“Some cities embark on smart projects and then realise they could deliver these things more easily if they had one foundation and one complete interconnect.

So they end up working their way down,” Lerner says.

“I think the best way to approach it is to do what they’re trying to do in Singapore, get the big picture done and then you can go ahead and look at the commonalities as you

build on this foundation. These days we duplicate processes, we duplicate infrastructure, we duplicate data, we duplicate governance, we duplicate organisations – instead of looking for a unified solution.”

Rather than focus on smart precincts, which can exaggerate the digital divide, smart project deployments can find more traction if they focus on wider public benefits such as improving health, education and the tourism economy. Wider projects can also offer a great boost to national GDP. The Smart Cities concept isn’t just the domain of the major capitals,

says Lerner, as it also offers regional cities a chance to retool for the 21st century and play a more significant role on the national stage.

“Times are changing, governments are starting to get more involved in industries – particularly in regional areas where specific industries and companies are particularly important for the local economy.

In Australia, Newcastle is a good example of a regional city that is looking to broaden its horizons and embrace the smart economy. Others will follow as the Smart City model gives them a chance to lead the way into the future.”

Want to know more about Huawei? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/huawei

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

21

Case Study Data

CASE STUDY

Leading the way Like many not-for-profits, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT is moving to the cloud to access greater support and reduce IT demands The situation Guide Dogs NSW/ACT provides an invaluable service to the vision impaired, training dogs to help them function in society with greater safety.

In 2012, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT suffered a major outage that took far too long to resolve, an incident that would become the catalyst for Nick Shaw, CFO, Guide Dog NSW/ ACT, to look for an alternative IT infrastructure. The solution from their previous provider involved a big capital outlay on new technologies, something, as a notfor-profit, could not be justified, Shaw began to evaluate the value that cloud technology could bring.

With a view to improving communication, marketing and the mobility of its people, Shaw modernised Guide Dogs NSW/ ACT’s approach to technology, giving its people the ability to work more efficiently and achieve goals more effectively.

The solution After the evaluation process, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT discovered that it could successfully outsource its entire IT infrastructure to the cloud. Where some organisations would limit its cloud investments to relative non-technical applications such as Exchange, Shaw said that the team made the decision that a complete outsourcing model would

The greatest benefits were the managed IT services and the additional technical capabilities Nick Shaw, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT

make more sense to the business.

“Guide Dogs is a relatively small organisation and we didn’t have many in-house IT resources; I wanted someone else to look after all those things,” Shaw said.

Looking for technical expertise and a partner that would go out of its way to understand client needs, Shaw put the cloud outsourcing project to competitive tender. The plan to outsource all of the critical functions to the cloud also meant that Guide Dogs NSW/ ACT needed a partner with rich capabilities across a diverse range of technology fields. Shaw needed a partner with proven expertise in mobility, security and communication, as the solution also needed to benefit the not-for-profit’s many remote offices.

At the conclusion of the tender process, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT selected Brennan IT, based on its proven track record for intense partnership and technical expertise.

The benefits The move to the cloud has succeeded in taking the strain in managing the IT infrastructure out of Guide Dogs NSW/ACT’s internal business, Shaw said. The organisation immediately found the cloud environment a real benefit to the organisation.

“In addition to gaining a partner to manage infrastructure and reduce the need for Guide Dogs NSW/ACT to buy and manage its own hardware, one of the greatest benefits from the partnership was the managed IT services and the additional technical capabilities that the partnership with Brennan IT has brought into the charity,” Shaw said.

With cloud hosting, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT was able to roll out a Citrix-based environment to their remote offices, and now the environment operates with far greater stability.

“It was one of the best things we’ve ever done,” Shaw said. The change allowed Guide Dogs NSW/ACT to focus on the part of its business that counts most to its clients; its dogs and training courses.

Client profile Client Guide Dogs NSW/ ACT Industry Not-for-profit Country Australia Challenge Lack of IT resources leading to challenging day-today infrastructure and complex disaster recovery Solution Outsourced IT infrastructure to the cloud enabling a more reliable and secure IT solution

Want to know more?

To find out more about Guide Dogs, visit www.guide dogs. com.au.

For more information on Brennan IT and how it can benefit your business, visit www.brennanit. com.au or phone 1300 500 000

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

23

Software software asset management Inside

24

Simple solution to suit every user

I

t’s been 17 years since Microsoft entered the SaaS business with Hotmail. Since then they have improved and expanded their SaaS offering to the point where the full suite of office productivity – and not just email – can be delivered to businesses large and small through a web browser.

Office 365 delivers a huge range of applications that go way beyond email. Today, customers have access to a comprehensive set of fully functional productivity tools including Word, Excel and PowerPoint – the heart of the Microsoft Office suite.

Unlike other SaaS options, Office 365 allows customers to use the service as a natural extension of their corporate network.

Integration, via Active Directory, is relatively straightforward. That

> Rental market p26 Moving to a software-as-a-service model lets users skip high upfront costs and choose flexible contracts

The Buzz | Winter/Autumn 2014

means businesses can use the email services in Office 365 with their own corporate domain.

OneDrive, Office 365’s online storage system, works as an extension of the filesystem and can be used on Mac and Linux clients as well as on iOS and Android smartphones. Although Windows Phones are slowly gaining market traction, Microsoft is supporting heterogeneous environments that don’t exclusively use Microsoft products.

Communications aren’t left out of the productivity equation. Over the years Microsoft has developed its own communications and acquired some others. Lync delivers VoIP and conferencing. Yammer is a social networking service for businesses and Skype is a very popular VoIP service.

The Skype integration that was

> Big issues for all businesses p29 Businesses should ensure mobile devices are secure and running the latest software

recently demonstrated will allow Skype and Lync users to call each other directly for both voice and video calls. This is a huge leap as it opens up the world of unified messaging to a wider range of businesses.

These three services are now integrated into Office 365 and can work together. And, even though they were all developed independently, they can be accessed through a single sign-on so there’s no need to remember multiple passwords.

Last year, Microsoft showed the world their new suite of business intelligence and self-serve data mining tools for Office 365. PowerBI works with Excel and allows users to use public and private data through the Power Query tool. They can also perform geovisualisation with Bing Maps data using the Power Map tool (formerly known as GeoFlow).

These new data analysis tools allow users to create complex reports and perform natural language queries.

Software In Brief

Using dodgy software could come back to bite It’s easy to think that using software without paying the full price has no ramifications. After all, by the time an application reaches a computer it will have passed through several parties.

As a result, you might have some staff that think it’s OK to use unlicensed or pirated software. It’s possible they don’t realise that they are breaking the law.

What can you do about it?

Make sure the business knows the correct process for ordering software to be installed on their computer.

We’ve seen cases when users have sourced applications from unofficial channels themselves, expecting that the company’s licensing agreements will automatically cover them.

Ensure that the process is responsive. That way, the incentive to circumvent IT and source their own applications is negated.

2020 Enterprise wearables will be mainstream by 2020, says analyst firm Forrester.

Carry out an audit of all your workstations and reconcile that against what you expect to have installed. If you find any unexpected applications, use the discovery as an opportunity to educate users about software licensing.

The vast majority of people understand the importance of paying for software once they understand the value chain that brings software to them and the potential impact of not complying with licensing obligations.

Three steps for keeping your software licensing legal Software licensing is serious business. While it’s tempting to think of using unlicensed software as a victimless crime, that’s not the case. Software developers are skilled professionals who deserve to be paid for their work. And there are legal ramifications for not maintaining licensed software.

So, what can you do about keeping your software licensing legal?

1

Keep Good Records

Chances are, your company maintains an asset management system for physical equipment like computers, furniture and other equipment. Software is an asset that needs to be tracked with the same rigour.

Establish a Software Asset Register and make sure it is regularly kept up-to-date.

2

Use a Tool to Help

Even with the best of intentions, it can be

difficult to manage all the different software licensing regimes your company may be subject to. For example, you might use some SaaS that has a per user/per month licence cost, productivity applications might be covered under a special licensing arrangement, and other applications that are used by just a few people are covered by one-off licences.

There are tools that can query your network, find all the software that’s running and match that with licensing information that you provide. This kind of auditing helps you stay on top of your licensing obligations.

3

Education is Key

You can have all the best systems and processes in place to manage your software licensing but they will not work unless you educate the entire business about why it’s important to keep your software legal and the ramifications of breaching software license agreements.

42.1%

Buzz readers who run customdeveloped software that they developed in-house.

Source: Buzz IT Maturity Index

$309bn

Revenue associated with the Internet of Things will exceed US$309 billion per year by 2020, according to Gartner.

Smart software developers take Agile approach Agile is the big thing in software development. Rather than using the traditional waterfall approach, where the development cycle moves through design, development and testing, to implementation and maintenance, agile takes a more iterative approach where the end users and development team work very closely with shorter bursts of development activity interspersed with client or user interaction.

But how do you switch to agile?

Start by choosing a small, low risk project and use this to try out the techniques. Assuming the project succeeds, your developers will have gained some valuable experience and insight. And you’ll have some advocates in the business for the technique and its ability to deliver quick outcomes.

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

25

Software Autodesk

Fast facts Subscription software allows customers to smooth out cash flows, reducing risk when launching new businesses and projects.

Moving to a software-as-a-service model lets users skip high upfront costs and choose flexible contracts

T

he traditional software market has undergone a major upheaval in recent times. There’s been a move away from perpetual licensing towards the subscription model, along with new delivery platforms such as online software-as-a-service.

The new approach to software lets businesses turn an upfront capital expense into a more manageable ongoing operational expense.

Renting software rather than buying it lets customers ramp up or scale down as required without the restrictions of a long-term contract. While some software vendors are switching completely to the subscription model, Autodesk offers the choice of paying upfront for a perpetual licence or on a term basis for a pay-

26

The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

as-you-go access to some software, called Desktop Subscription.

A high percentage of Autodesk customers purchasing under the perpetual licensing model also opt for Maintenance Subscription, which entitles them to new versions, technical support, flexible licensing rights and cloud services.

Software users can further extend their workflows from the desktop into the cloud through a broad selection of cloud services available through Autodesk’s Cloud Service Subscription, says John Biviano, Director, APAC Media & Entertainment Sales.

“At Autodesk we’re not moving 100 percent to the rental model, we’re giving customers choice,” Biviano says. “But if you think about the types of companies that

Autodesk is retaining perpetual licensing and Maintenance Subscription, while adding pay-asyou-go access to some software through Desktop Subscription, and access to cloud services through Cloud Service Subscription.

Subscription software changes cash flow for vendors and channel partners, but also creates opportunities for channel partners to broaden their engagement with customers.

are using our software – from a multi-disciplined engineering company through to a visual effects company – these customers work

We’re not moving 100 percent to the rental model, we’re giving customers choice John Biviano, Autodesk

on a project basis.

“The pay-as-you-go model obviously makes it easier to add and remove licences, so if your project is ramping up and you need

Autodesk Software

to throw more designers at it, you can rent those licences rather than buying perpetual seats. You can start to align your licence usage to your real business requirements so people aren’t sitting on licences which aren’t being used.”

With lower upfront costs, software subscription gives users greater confidence to launch a new business or a new project whilst reducing risk.

While the move to subscriptionbased services helps smooth out cash flow for end customers, it naturally presents challenges for software vendors and channel

partners founded on the perpetual licensing model. Biviano sees the shift as an opportunity for channel partners to play the role of trusted advisor and strengthen their relationship with customers.

“In the short term, the channel will have to manage itself through those changes in terms of cash flow. With the move away from perpetual licensing, channel partners need to consider other ways to continue to add value to

their customers – perhaps through services or through training,” Biviano says.

“That’s the advantage that reseller partners bring to any vendor; it’s not just about the software, it’s also about the services, the consulting, the training and the add-ons. I think the channel is in a good position to handle the change if it uses this as an opportunity to broaden its engagement with customers.”

Want to know more about Autodesk? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/autodesk

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

27

Transformation is coming As of February 1st 2015, upgrades from previous releases will only be available with Subscription, our most effective way to accesss software upgrades.

Get current and subscribe now to save even more and gain the benefits of our most advanced software.

Talk to Brennan IT today about discount offers available throughout 2014, and ensure you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss this opportunity. www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/autodesk

Microsoft Software

Modern businesses should ensure mobile devices are secure and running the latest cloud-based software

M

obility is a huge challenge for modern businesses. While it often starts with a discussion about devices, the reality is that mobility permeates every element of IT from software to security.

For some, there’s a perception that a mobile workforce may not be as collaborative or productive as one that spends more time in the office. For example, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer cancelled the workfrom-home policy at Yahoo!.

Thomas Hansen, the Vice President for SMB Worldwide at Microsoft, believes that workforce mobility is actually extremely important to small and medium-sized business success.

“Mobile technology enabled by

the cloud boosts productivity and collaboration by providing realtime access to colleagues, apps, files and data from anywhere,” he said.

“It enables people to connect in real-time and collaborate regardless of geographic location, which is especially critical for a business that might be trying to extend its presence into other markets or source global talent.”

One of the key issues faced when tackling mobility is security.

Although the physical security of the hardware is important, protecting data is probably even more critical.

“It’s critical that SMBs are using modern technology to protect themselves against unwanted security and data breaches.

Malware and viruses are constantly

emerging, and Microsoft has the expertise to ward off these threats with sophisticated security technology that is built into today’s modern software. Older systems aren’t able to take advantage of the security enhancements that are now available,” said Hansen.

It’s critical that SMBs are using modern technology to protect themselves against unwanted breaches Thomas Hansen, Microsoft

This is another way in which cloud-based solutions are beneficial.

“Solutions based in the cloud like Office 365 will update automatically as new versions are available, instead of needing to make updates

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

29

Software Microsoft

Three-step Mobility Plan 1. Get modern – Ever-changing security threats require a more modern operating system to keep businesses protected. It is important that small businesses migrate to a current, supported operating system and productivity suite, such as Windows 8.1 and Office 365, to receive regular security updates and protect their computers and more importantly, their crucial business data from malicious attacks.

2. Determine a set of approved devices – Having one approved set of devices is more efficient and reduces guesswork, cost and protracted deployment timetables associated with making different devices work together.

This says nothing of the cost of teaching your employees new skills – or the risk of introducing new security threats to your network.

3. Find a trusted IT expert/partner – By working with a single provider, companies can establish security, privacy and compliance with single-sign on access that help organisations give workers the flexibility to perform responsibilities across devices and platforms.

manually,” Hansen explained.

A significant part of the mobility discussion focuses on BYOD – where employees use their own hardware as part of their toolkit.

But Hansen says that this is not without challenges.

“Many SMBs’ unmanaged BYOD policies have not embraced the security and management requirements to protect their company assets. Companies embracing a mobile transformation succeed when their devices and management of those devices are designed to transform the way they conduct business, and it empowers employees with the right information access and devices that meet their individual business needs,” he said.

30

The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

Businesses also need a clear plan for employees as far as the separation of personal and private data. These will differ depending

Empower your workforce through training and by providing clear guidance around compliance Thomas Hansen, Microsoft

on the business situation. There are implications that come with monitoring an employee-owned device and businesses should understand these.

Hansen offered this advice to companies setting out on their mobility journey.

“Empower your workforce through training and by providing clear guidance around compliance.

The reward will be opening new doors by giving employees the tools they need to do what they need to do, the moment they need to do it, and engage customers in new and better ways to drive revenue. All this without compromising security, connection to the business, productivity or data, and thrive in the mobile transformation.”

Want to know more about Microsoft? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/microsoft

HP recommends Windows.

Finally, a tablet with a work ethic.

Introducing the HP ElitePad. Unleash your productivity. Built for business with Windows 8 Pro and

enterprise-class security, featuring Intel Inside®. And thanks to a suite of productivity-enhancing accessories like Smart Jackets, you can have a desktop PC experience when you’re in the office or a nimble and light tablet when you’re anywhere else.

The new HP ElitePad – it works in all the ways you do. To learn more, go to hp.com.au/elitepad

HP Expansion Jacket1

HP ElitePad Rugged Case1

HP ElitePad Docking Station1

1 Optional accessories. Sold separately.

Ultrabook, Celeron, Celeron Inside, Core Inside, Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Atom, Intel Atom Inside, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Intel vPro, Itanium, Itanium Inside, Pentium, Pentium Inside, vPro Inside, Xeon, Xeon Phi, and Xeon Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Not all features are available in all editions of Windows 8. Systems may require upgraded and/or separately purchased hardware, drivers and/or software to take full advantage of Windows 8 functionality. See www.microsoft.com. © 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice

HP ElitePad Tablet Case1

Mobility business on the move Inside

What’s what?

Smartphone Screen sizes: 3-inches to 4-inches Operating systems: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry Main uses: Content consumption, messaging, phone calls, some videoconferencing

Phablet

Choosing the right device Do you need a phablet, tablet or smartphone?

S

it on a train and look around. Wander around the office and observe what people are doing. There was a time when, if you wanted to look busy, you made sure you had a clipboard and pen in hand. Today, it’s all about mobile computing devices – the kinds of things the busy people on Star Trek used to carry.

The best thing about the mobile revolution is also the worst thing.

We can now choose between a massive range of different devices.

That makes it challenging to make a decision as there are several different operating systems and myriad different form factors to choose from.

It’s tempting to simply follow the crowd and go with the best selling

> The personal touch p36 The next phase of wireless technology is about more than just access

32

Screen sizes: 4-inches to 7-inches Operating systems: Android Main uses: Content consumption and data entry, messaging, phone calls, some video-conferencing

The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

Tablets

or the most aggressively marketed devices. But smart business decisions don’t start with a solution – they start with questions and requirements.

Look at who is going to use the device, what they are actually going to do with it, where they will use it and how it’s going to be supported.

Armed with that information you can start critically evaluating different devices on the market for what suits you best.

In general, if your needs are focused on messaging and reading information, a smartphone or phablet (a halfway device that is larger than a phone and smaller than a tablet) will fit the bill.

If you need a device for data entry then you’re probably going

> No quick fix for BYOD

p38

The best remedy for BYOD comprises many ingredients including mobility, collaboration, security and networking

Screen sizes: 7-inches to 10-inches Operating systems: iOS, Android, Windows 8.1 and RT Main uses: Content consumption and creation, messaging, video-conferencing

to be more interested in a phablet or tablet. If that’s where you are, you’ll also need to consider whether a device with a pen or stylus is a better fit than one that is 100 percent finger driven.

For content creation, you’ll probably start leaning towards a tablet. Many come with a keyboard accessory, which doubles as a protective case, and also support pen/stylus input.

> Sleek,speedy and self-contained p40 New range of notebooks offer in-built 4G wireless for on-the-go workforce

Mobility

BYOD isn’t always the answer Just about every technology management magazine, blog and analyst has been trumpeting from the mountain tops about how BYOD is going to make business better and make users happy.

Yet according to a recent report by Gartner, one in five BYOD projects will fail. The key reason being an inability to find a balance between mobile device management applications, policies and security protocols, and the need to develop and deploy new mobile applications that drive profits and productivity.

Businesses need to work out where they are when it comes to mobility and maturity before jumping down the BYOD rabbit hole.

Companies without mobile interfaces that have significant investment and business process tie-ins with legacy systems will need to firstly work at getting their systems mobile-ready before they

In Brief

$140bn

Value of global enterprise mobility market per year by 2020 Source: NASSCOM

can contemplate a BYOD regime.

For companies that have relatively modern systems or have embraced SaaS solutions, the likelihood of BYOD success is far greater. Typically, those applications have been built for a multi-platform world where the operating systems and form-factor of the end point is irrelevant.

Before embracing BYOD with the expectation of instant success, carry out a critical analysis and see if your business is ready for it.

25% 50% IT budget used on app testing Source: CIO Insight

Half of employers will require employees to use their own devices for work by 2017 Source: Gartner

How to turn your organisation into a truly mobile business Businesses are no longer locked into specific places. Customers can come from anywhere and access your shopfront from anywhere on any device, and your staff needs the same access. So how do you get to this state of complete mobility?

Start by looking at what your customers need and how they access your company. Assuming you have a website, review your site’s analytics to determine what web browsers and devices your customers and potential customers are using. If mobile traffic is increasing you need to ensure that your website and online store are mobile friendly.

Although it might seem that what you really need is a mobile app, this can be more costly in the long term than getting your website right.

With your staff and systems it can be a little more complex. A business application that works well on a computer may not be as user-friendly on a smaller, touchscreen-based device. Look carefully at what applications you want to make mobile. But, more importantly, think about the data those applications use.

The modern approach to risk management is less about patching and managing vulnerabilities and more about focusing on specific data and systems, understanding what is at risk when they are made mobile and how to manage data loss and unauthorised access.

So, what do you specifically need to be a truly mobile business?

Get your systems browser friendly and make sure that they work appropriately on different sized screens. Where it’s appropriate, invest in mobile app development so that either your staff or customers get the best possible experience when working with you. Make sure you look at the risks and make plans about what you’ll do if data is accidentally lost or stolen and test those plans out.

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

33

Mobility

Why the Microsoft Surface 2 is a game changer

In Brief

$181bn

Value of BYOD market by 2017. Source: Markets and Markets

80% People using personal devices for work. Source: CIO

When Microsoft released the original Surface tablet back in 2012 they were given a pretty hard time.

Apple and Google had lots of very successful products on the market and breaking their hegemony was going to take something special.

Specs Surface 2

Surface Pro 2

Dimensions: 10.81 x 6.79 x 0.35 in

Dimensions: 10.81 x 6.81 x 0.53 in

Storage: 32GB-64GB

Storage: 64GB-512GB

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

System memory: 2GB RAM

System memory: 4GB, 8GB

The market spoke – Surface 1 was not special enough.

Surface 2 changes that significantly. Although processor speed was given a welcome boost, the Surface 2 is faster, lighter and easier to use thanks to the arrival of Windows 8.1.

The Surface 2 is definitely a game changer. What it’s done is proven to the market that a computer running Windows can be powerful and easy to carry. It’s proven that it’s possible to run all of your corporate applications on a mobile device that supports a keyboard, mouse and touch without the need to significantly re-engineer them.

Get the most from your telco Businesses spend a lot of money on mobile communications with their telco. But how do you know if you’re getting the most from yours?

Start by reviewing your bill every month. Look for accounts that overspend on monthly call and data caps, thus resulting in costly extra charges, or underutilise their allocations.

Schedule a time each year for reviewing your total communications spend. Telcos change their pricing matrices regularly. You might find that the

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

super plan you signed up for last year has been superseded by one that now offers a different balance of features. But don’t automatically move to a newer plan, assuming that it will automatically be better.

Establish a regular line of communication with your account representative.

You’ll find that a solid business relationship will help out at times when you get an unusually high bill, have a dispute or need to change something.

18x

Growth of global mobile data use by 2016. Source: Cisco

12%

Total IT expenditure on mobility by 2020.

Source: Chief Mobility Officer

Š2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Everything is keeping the goods from going bad. Because when every warehouse and road sign connects, the supply chain really hums. The Internet of Everything is changing everything. Is your network ready?

Everything is keeping the goods from going bad. Because when every warehouse and road sign connects, the supply chain really hums. The Internet of TOMORROW starts here. cisco.com/tomorrowstartshere Everything is keeping the goods from going bad. Because when every Everything is changing everything.

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TOMORROW starts here.

rything is keeping the goods from going bad. Because when every Everything is changing everything. Is your network ready?

house and road sign connects, the supply chain really hums. The Internet of cisco.com/tomorrowstartshere thing is changing everything. Is your network ready?

.com/tomorrowstartshere

TOMORROW starts here.

TOMORROW starts here.

Mobility Cisco

The next phase of wireless technology is about more than just access

F

iring up Wi-Fi in Copenhagen airport is a unique experience. iPhone users that connect to one of the airport’s 600-odd Cisco wireless access points can download and opt-in to an app that provides GPS-style navigation around the airport on their mobile.

Much more than that, however, they can use their iPhone camera to scan the surrounding area and an augmented reality service will point them to check-in desks, shops, restaurants, gates and other points of interest. Getting around the terminal has never been easier.

At the Fernbank Natural History Museum in Atlanta, meanwhile, visitors who wander around with their mobile will get a personalised tour. It’s not just a navigation tool;

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

as they wander near specific exhibits information and specialised media will appear on their phone related to that exhibit.

This kind of personalised experience is made possible through Cisco’s new Connected Mobile Experience technology, a suite of tools that make Wi-Fi more than just about access. It provides personalised experiences, location (upon opting-in), and real-time analytics on top of the usual features of Wi-Fi. “We originally launched Cisco Connected Experiences about a year-and-a-half ago, and it has really come a long way since then,” says Zohar Cohen, Cisco Wireless Sales Specialist for Australia and New Zealand. “Our goal was to deliver better services to the end user,

and deliver advanced analytics to organisations that help ensure an optimised Wi-Fi experience.”

Powered by Cisco’s Enterprise Networking Architecture, the Cisco Mobility Services Engine is available as either a physical appliance or as a software solution that runs on a virtual appliance.

At its core, it provides a trinity of capabilities: presence

Our goal was to deliver analytics that ensure an optimised Wi-Fi experience Zohar Cohen, Cisco

detection and location using Wi-Fi antenna triangulation; guest Wi-Fi connectivity; and a personalisation engine where, once

Cisco Mobility

Fast facts Cisco’s Mobility Services Engine is a platform that helps organisations increase visibility into the network, customise location-based mobile services, and strengthen security. By monitoring Wi-Fi radio signals within a building, you can get visual historical data on customer and employee movement patterns and linger times.

If they choose, users can connect to the Wi-Fi network and get a personalised experience. That experience can change based on that person’s role or detected location.

people have decided to opt-in they can be engaged in a meaningful, personalised fashion.

“There are three stages: detect, connect, engage,” says Cohen. “As soon as a person with a Wi-Fienabled device enters a location, the Wi-Fi network will be able to detect the device and collect anonymised information such as ‘how many devices visited the venue,’ ‘what the dwell time was in certain areas,’ and ‘what are the most pathways in the venue’.

“The second phase is connect, where people are offered the opportunity to join the Wi-Fi network and engage with the venue (the third phase), take advantage of discounts and sign up for loyalty programs for a meaningful and personalised experience.”

Cisco already has a huge variety of installations. Including the aforementioned airport and museum applications, it has also installed the system in hospitals, where it’s used in conjunction with RFID to locate staff and equipment as well as provide personalised role-based work environments for employees.

It has been deployed by MGM Resorts; where it’s used for fast check-in, hotel navigation, visitor identification, as well as providing personalised information on activities and amenities for conference attendees based on location. “It’s not just for retail

and public environments,” says Cohen. “For instance, in a hospital or university you might have a mix of employees as well as guests, and you can deliver personalised access for each.”

When it comes to personalisation, Cisco provides a full API and SDK for app developers. The Mobility Services Engine enables customers to extend information into thirdparty apps. For example, an airport may invite its travellers to download an app that takes the traveller’s current location in the airport from Mobility Services Engine to add a “you are here” pointer, as well as provide customised elements such as airline lounge directions based on their location and registered identity. For people who don’t want to install an app, the Wi-Fi network can customise their experience by redirecting them to the airport’s welcome web page during the connect process.

Recently, Cisco has inked a deal with Facebook, enabling a quick and simple way to access Wi-Fi by checking in on Facebook. It also provides businesses with more likes and check-ins for their Facebook Page, increasing the demographic data on their customers, so they can better serve them.

Want to know more about Cisco? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/cisco

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

37

Mobility HP

The best remedy for BYOD comprises many ingredients, including mobility, collaboration, security and networking

B

ring your own device (BYOD) is here and it’s not going away. It’s time to start looking for a solution for your business.

Without question one of the biggest challenges for IT managers in 2014 is the inevitable transition to BYOD environments, with an increasing number of workers demanding the opportunity to use their own mobile devices in the work environment.

A February survey by IDC found that 63 percent of Australian information workers say they use personal devices and applications because they need them to do their work. Gartner, meanwhile, has predicted that 70 percent of all mobile professionals will be using personal smart devices by 2018.

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

Given that AIMIA’s 2013 Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index showed that some 88 percent of Australians use smartphones, a number that continues to rise, it is reasonable to expect that BYOD figures will also continue to increase.

“The era of the SoE-only model is coming to an end,” said HP’s chief technologist for Communications, Media & Entertainment, Dr Roger Kermode. “An effective mobile strategy that addresses BYOD is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ for organisations. It’s absolutely essential to have a strategy that taps into the productivity and growth potential of mobile devices used by employees, corporate customers and consumers. For many organisations, challenges around infrastructure, liability, support and security have

only been given a cursory thought and still need to be addressed.”

Kermode noted that this transition will not be easy for many IT managers. “The transition that’s taking place spans all device security and application development,” he said. “You have to look for solutions that provide a broad spectrum of application and cloud services that help clients

Ensure that your business can work fast and coinnovate with partners Dr Roger Kermode, HP

determine which applications are right for mobile devices. You have to be able to deliver a scalable, simple and, most importantly,

HP Mobility

Moving to BYOD Work with an experienced partner.

Integrating ad-hoc devices into your business IT is a complex endeavour with many potential points of failure. Work with someone who knows what they are doing.

Run a pilot program and involve key stakeholders. Don’t try and do it all in one hit. Choose a division and open up BYOD to a handful of devices at a time, monitoring how people use their personal devices.

Use analytics to understand what people are doing. The user experience employees have when using apps on the device will determine whether or not they continue to use them.

Training is important. According to the Ponemon Institute, 77% of employees haven’t received education about risks related to BYOD. Educate people so that they know what the risks are as well as the benefits.

secure network to support your BYOD initiatives. And you have to find a solution that combines open standards with context-aware

Fast facts One of the biggest challenges of 2014 for IT managers will be the inevitable transition to bring your own device (BYOD) solutions.

63% of Australian information workers say they use personal devices/applications because they need them to do their work, and the company did not provide an alternative.

According to Forrester Research, 31% of organisations do not have sufficient tools to enforce policies for employee-owned smartphones and tablets.

collaboration. For most companies, the best way to do this is to partner with a company that can provide a full spectrum of tools to help you achieve these goals.”

For HP, those tools involve a large suite of products and services, including cloud and hybrid cloud services, flexible connectivity options including integrated workplace Wi-Fi, Software Defined Networking (SDN) & Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), mobile printing solutions, endpoint security that extends beyond the PC, and a team of 50,000 application specialists with expertise in integrating ad-hoc

Plan for the future. Look for mobile device management solutions that use open source, flexible technology. Mobile device turnover happens quickly, so you need to be ready for it by having systems in place that allow devices to be revoked and data to be transferred with minimal fuss.

mobile platforms with corporate systems. “There isn’t a single magic bullet that will solve the security and management issues associated with having a variety of worker controlled platforms accessing your network,” said Kermode, “but a measured, full spectrum approach can bring big worker productivity gains in the long run.”

Want to know more about HP? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/hp

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39

Mobility Toshiba

The new range of Toshiba notebooks offer in-built 4G wireless for an on-the-go workforce

W

hy 4G? Justin White, Product Marketing Manager at Toshiba, has the answer.

“Everyone these days is time poor, and we want an instant response,” he says. One way of getting it is through the use of 4G wireless broadband. It is significantly faster than 3G: speeds in excess of 60Mbps mean a download that would have taken minutes can now often be completed in seconds. This is faster than most home and many office internet connections, so users accessing an in-house fileserver by VPN over 4G may get the same or better experience as they would in the office. And virtual desktops can fly across a 4G connection,

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

providing there’s adequate bandwidth at the server end.

“Once you get used to 4G, it’s hard to go back,” says White. “You can get the same amount of work done in less time, or more work in the same time.” Either way, that’s a productivity gain.

In practice, people tend to do more, meaning they will consume more data per month on 4G than 3G. Fortunately, a 3GB data plan is not much more expensive than a 2GB plan, White says.

There are also group plans available that allow a pool of data to be shared by several users, thus reducing ‘wasted’ data allowances – with heavier users consuming their more prudent peers’ leftovers

without incurring extra charges.

If data consumption is a concern, a sensible first step is to teach people to monitor their own use via the monitor utility that carriers provide for exactly that reason,

Once you get used to 4G, it’s hard to go back Justin White, Toshiba

and there’s always the option of installing filtering software if unsanctioned uses are the problem.

4G has security benefits, as it means mobile employees are a lot less likely to use open Wi-Fi hotspots because 4G is faster and easier to use.

Toshiba Mobility

Fast facts 4G provides mobile users with the fast connections they are accustomed to on their own premises, allowing them to work productively when away from base.

External adaptors come with the risk of loss or damage, whereas the integrated 4G modules offered by Toshiba are safely tucked away inside the notebook’s chassis.

Integrated 4G is easier to set up and use than external adaptors.

Wireless broadband support offers security advantages as it discourages the use of open Wi-Fi hotspots.

Why integrated?

Building 4G connectivity into a notebook has several advantages over an external dongle or a mobile broadband Wi-Fi router, but they boil down to “one less thing to worry about,” observes White.

It removes the risks of forgetting an external device or causing damage if you forget to remove the dongle before sliding the computer into a case.

Integrated connectivity eliminates driver issues and the need to worry about keeping a mobile router’s battery charged, and depending on the notebook’s operating system, it may be able to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, sharing the connection with other devices just

Computers with integrated 4G need not be any more expensive than equivalent models with integrated 3G.

like a mobile router (Windows 8.1 has this capability).

Setting up integrated 4G is almost as easy as it gets: insert the SIM, and then confirm a few details via a browser.

But White points out “there’s no one approach that’s right for everyone,” noting that integrated wireless broadband cannot be upgraded (eg, from 3G to 4G) for regulatory reasons.

The good news is there’s effectively no price premium for Toshiba notebooks with 4G rather than 3G, as they take advantage of component changes that reduce the cost of other subsystems.

“A lot of people are starting to expect integrated 4G in notebooks as they have become used to having constant connectivity via smartphones and tablets,” says White.

Want to know more about Toshiba? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/toshiba

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

41

Collaboration simplifying unified communication Inside

Communicating via the cloud

T

he cloud is transforming collaboration in the workplace and according to a global survey conducted by Forbes Insights, of 527 senior executives from a range of industries, a cloud-based approach has played a significant role in accelerating business results.

Eighty-two percent of leaders (CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, CFOs and other department heads) surveyed believe that business initiatives such as management and technological changes are implemented faster when the business is integrated with cloud collaborative technologies.

Respondents specifically highlighted cloud-based collaborative tools ability to transcend geographies,

> The unified generation p46 Collaboration tools are especially important among younger members of the workforce

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

functional boundaries, time zones and organisational borders as key drivers in accelerating business results.

Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said that cloud delivery of collaboration tools have transformed the way that businesses collaborate.

“It enables a broader array of capabilities in areas such as information sharing, communication, product and service delivery and group problem solving,” said respondents.

Confidence in the technology is sky high amongst top level executives with 90 percent of respondents believing that cloud based collaboration has the potential to improve virtually all core areas of a business including

> Light up the network

p48

Cloud-based unified communications can be rolled out on demand to help your workforce collaborate brighter and better

marketing, sales, technical support, manufacturing and purchasing.

According to the survey, video conferencing, meetings with virtual teams, providing multichannel customer service, the ability to access collaboration tools within business applications and enabling mobile workers with access to collaboration capabilities “as if in the office” were cited as the key uses of cloud-based collaboration tools.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents believe cloud-based collaboration is a key enabler in stimulating innovation. The ability to harness a wider range of functional and geographic resources has meant that more connections are made and as a result, “better ideas germinate” said respondents.

“Collaborative tools can easily connect different innovators to cultivate ideas. These ideas have a greater chance of reaching the best position to make things happen.”

Collaboration

Gear up for greater growth by setting your applications free Mobilising enterprise apps is an essential cog in the wheels of a collaborative workforce but a recent survey of 300 CIOs and IT decision makers by research firm Vanson Bourne has revealed major roadblocks that have kept companies from mobilising apps.

The average company has a portfolio of 400 custom applications, but only 22 percent of those applications can be accessed from mobile devices.

Sixty-five percent of CIOs said that the biggest barrier is mobile development costs while 63 percent cited security concerns. Forty-eight percent had said that the ongoing support and maintenance costs were also a stalling factor.

The collaboration potential of enabling employees access to enterprise apps on mobile devices

33%

Office software users who will be using cloud-based systems by 2017.

Source: Gartner

is not lost on a large number of CIOs, however, with 36 percent of respondents saying that they expect an increase in productivity if critical enterprise apps were mobilised.

Nine out of ten respondents said they are in the planning stages of making their applications available on mobile.

Apps for sharing top the business list Companies are placing a bigger emphasis on collaborative applications than ever before and, according to a recent survey from Constellation Research, they are now equal in priority to other bigticket enterprise applications such as HR and CRM. Of the 244 companies surveyed from around the world, 31 percent said that both CRM and collaboration applications were investment priorities while only 25 percent indicated interest in ERP (enterprise resource planning) and accounting systems.

Cloud-based delivery of collaborative applications were highlighted in particular, with respondents specifying the speed of implementation followed by reduced IT infrastructure,

In Brief

scalability and easier upgrades as key drivers, according to the survey.

However, subscription-based pricing of cloud-based services were not ranked highly amongst respondents list of benefits.

“Cloud vendors argue that subscription pricing also turns software from a capital expenditure to an operating expense, which for some companies provides a more favourable tax treatment,” said Constellation Vice President and Principal Analyst Frank Scavo.

“However, vendors of traditional on-premises software also can easily provide the same benefit, turning a capital investment into an operating expense by financing the software license purchase as an operating lease.”

Changing business models and the impact of enabling factors such as faster broadband will make cloud-based deployments the preferred model for new contact centre deployments in Australia Source: Frost & Sullivan

90%

Leaders who told Forbes Insights that cloud-based collaboration has the potential to improve virtually any set of processes.

30% The adoption rate of unified communications by 2017.

Source: Telsyte

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

43

Don’t get left behind in the move to unified communications Unified communications is central to any collaborative workforce but its adoption among Australian businesses remains below 10 percent, according to a survey conducted by ICT research firm Telsyte.

The survey, which included responses from over 300 Australian IT decision makers, revealed the barriers to entry for many organisations looking to integrate real-time communication services across their entire line of desktops, smartphones, soft-phones, tablets and video conferencing equipment.

According to the survey, the key barriers were: • Return on investment and cost (36 percent) • Reliability concerns (29 percent) • Complexity (28 percent) • Lack of in-house skills (24 percent) • Complexity integrating with existing systems (20 percent) • Inability to integrate with other applications (19 percent) The findings are perhaps unsurprising as a large number of businesses use existing on-premise architectures such as IP-PABX and, as a result, Unified Communications capabilities are often sold as a premium add-on or as a completely new system that requires the old system to be replaced.

However, Telsyte cites the rollout of cloud-based delivery as a means of overcoming the barriers identified in the survey. As a result, the research firm estimates that by 2017, the adoption rate for Unified Communications will reach over 30 percent.

“Telsyte believes the cloud delivery model represents the best opportunity for UC to become a mainstream business service.

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

In Brief

65%

Percentage of firms prioritising providing mobile access to unified communications and collaboration systems.

Source: Forrester

As cloud services mature, UC will become much closer to what people expect from business communications, rather than a premium add-on,” said Rodney Gedda, Senior Analyst, Telsyte.

An example of a cloud-based delivery solution is NEC’s Cloud Collaboration (powered by Cisco’s Hosted Collaboration platform), which provides clients the option to selectively migrate telephony and communications to the cloud.

In addition, cloud-based UC&C platforms such as NEC’s Cloud Collaboration solution offer businesses a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Organisations can also opt to retain on-premise or hosted deployments in a third-party data centre under a hybrid on-premise cloud deployment model.

“The new service provides customers with the option to ramp-up capacity and capabilities as they’re required. It also provides an alternative to the high upfront costs, capital investments and often costly integration work associated with on-premise deployments.”

Today’s Australian UC&C landscape is dominated by on-premise only deployments Source: NEC

38.8% Buzz readers who plan to invest in collaboration tools in the next year.

Source: The Buzz IT Maturity Index

40% of mobile workers spend more than 20% of their time away from their desks – a situation that will drive demand for video collaboration tools Source: Avaya

• • • • • •

Brennan IT and Cisco are offering Starter Kits from just $19,900 and Upgrade Bundles from just $11,600

Collaboration Cisco

Collaboration tools are especially important among younger members of the workforce

B

usiness video conferencing used to be the domain of the boardroom, where executives would have scheduled chats with other executives using big screens. That’s changing fast: personal business video conferencing is taking off, and it’s changing the way knowledge workers communicate and collaborate.

In January, research group Gigaom released a report on business video titled ‘Why video conferencing is critical to business collaboration’. Among other things, the report found that 87 percent of remote users felt more connected to their team and processes when using video conferencing. It also concluded that the level of

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

engagement in video call is much higher than a voice call, increasing productivity.

Cisco is one of the leading providers of business video conferencing solutions, and according to Cisco regional manager of collaboration, Vaughan Klein, the growing awareness of personal video conferencing has been borne out in both sales and customer feedback.

“When we began the video journey five to six years ago we were focused on fi xed environments,” said Klein. “But now we’re seeing the higher rate of uptake is in ad-hoc video conferencing; people at their desks using video conferencing as naturally as making a phone

Why is video better than voice?

Greater levels of participant engagement; people are less likely to be reading emails, eating, browsing or performing other activities while on a conference call.

65% of communication is nonverbal; picking up on those cues can help avoid confusion in the long run.

Staff get to know each other and become more comfortable with each other, leading to more productive relationships.

call. In Cisco itself more than 50 percent of staff uses personal video communications. People have become so comfortable with it, and

Cisco Collaboration

Fast facts Pervasive business video has seen massive growth in the past two years, with Cisco reporting a doubling of sales in 2013.

61% of young executives expect to rely heavily on video for communications in the next decade.

Video has numerous advantages over voice, but it does take some time for users to become comfortable with it.

The smallest to largest businesses can benefit.

There are cloud-based solutions for small environments to hardware and hybrid cloud solutions for larger environments.

Using open standards-based technology means that video can easily be worked into a BYOD (bring your own device) environment.

now they have a level preference for it.”

Sales of Cisco’s own personal business video products have doubled year-on-year, said Klein, and the breadth of their product portfolio now extends to include lower priced options.

“There are now options in our portfolio for customers who are looking to do web conferencing and include video for as little as $50 per person per month.

Dedicated room installations, on the other hand, can go from $2,000 to $80,000 or more for a multi-screen environment,” he said.

According to a 2013 Global Attitudes survey by Cisco, video is becoming particularly

important to the younger generation of knowledge workers.

The report found that three out of five executives under

We see a higher rate of uptake in ad-hoc video conferencing, using video as naturally as a phone call Vaughan Klein, Cisco

the age of 34 say they will rely more heavily on business-class video during the next five to 10 years, while 87 percent of them

said that pervasive video has a positive impact on productivity, telecommuting and attracting top talent to an organisation.

The biggest barrier to the introduction of pervasive video in business, according to Klein, is a lingering level of discomfort that some users feel. People worry about their personal appearance, messy offices and have a desire to eat and multitask. “We had one large customer with post-it notes over the cameras,” he noted, “but people got over it pretty quickly, and now it’s how people prefer to communicate.”

Want to know more about Cisco? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/cisco

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47

Collaboration NEC

Cloud-based unified communications can be rolled out on demand to help your workforce collaborate brighter and better

U

nified Communication supports innovation and business transformation, says Peter Papaioannou, General Manager of UC solutions, NEC Australia. A phone call from a customer might previously have ended with the employee saying, “I’ll have to consult my colleagues and get back to you.” Instead, UC allows them to use presence to find someone with specialist knowledge and then perhaps apply screen sharing and video conferencing to bring the right people within the organisation together to achieve an immediate and satisfactory outcome for the customer.

Various NEC customers have seen a 20-35 percent improvement in productivity following the introduction of

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

UC. Even something as simple as both parties being able to see the same document during a phone conversation can be a real benefit.

Efficient collaboration via UC helps get things done more quickly.

For instance, someone working on a spreadsheet may run into a technical problem. Being able to quickly and easily start a screensharing session with a support specialist is likely to result in more rapid resolution.

“This type of efficiency gain is the most common evidence to support UC,” says Papaioannou, “and a net cost saving between 10 and 15 percent from using UC rather than individual communication products is very common.”

Furthermore, streamlining communications can allow

innovation in business processes.

People want – and particularly in the case of younger staff are coming to expect – to work how, where and when they like. A good unified communications (UC)

NEC customers have seen a 20-35 percent improvement in productivity following the introduction of UC Peter Papaioannou, NEC Australia

system helps make that a reality, and can help attract and retain people who can make a valuable contribution to the business, but who are not in a position to work conventional hours.

Offering access to UC functions from mobile devices is an

NEC Collaboration

Fast facts UC systems do not merely improve communication; they also support innovation and business transformation.

Substantial performance benefits have resulted from the introduction of UC. Staff increasingly expect the greater flexibility that UC delivers in comparison with traditional systems.

UC in the Cloud means you only pay for what you use, with no big capital investment and with faster rollouts.

A progressive introduction of UC works best, but should be carried out in parallel with process improvements.

important part of this flexibility.

UC can also deliver better information sharing, increased motivation and (by reducing the temptation to use external services) better security.

UC in the cloud NEC’s cloud-based UC allows organisations to buy what they require in terms of features and the number of seats, so there is no reason to pay for anything you don’t need. Some organisations adopt NEC’s cloud UC even though they initially only use voice communications.

A cloud deployment is also highly scalable and simplifies the network and other infrastructure changes required on your premises to support a UC rollout.

And that rollout is a lot faster with UC in the cloud – the biggest sticking point is arranging for your telecommunications carrier to provide the necessary VPN connection between your premises and NEC’s data centre.

Not having to run the software on premises yields a saving of up to 50 percent on management and operations costs – all you do is the routine management of adds, moves and changes, while NEC looks after everything else.

NEC’s approach also makes it easy to overlay UC on an existing PABX setup. In the case where an organisation has a PABX at each

of five sites and plans to open a new location, that new site can go straight to UC in the cloud with voice links to the existing PABXes. How to introduce UC Avoid a ‘big bang’ rollout, recommends Papaioannou. Instead, identify specific areas where UC facilities will solve problems or improve outcomes, and start by introducing it in those areas.

Don’t implement features before users are ready for them, and don’t simply drop UC on top of existing processes. Rather, introduce it in parallel with process improvements.

Want to know more about NEC? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/nec

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49

HP Technology Services

Hardware is only half the story Your hardware has an influence far beyond the server room, affecting every aspect of your business. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why you need technology support that understands your hardware, your business and its changing requirements.

Learn more about the HP support services portfolio and how it is backed by a global ecosystem of experts, tools and technology to keep your business running smoothly, despite challenges Contact Brennan IT to get the complete story on HP support services View www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/hp to know more.

Hardware is only half the story

Case Study Collaboration

the decision to engage with the company, Keays said.

Following the first migration, the next stage of this multi-stage project involved the migration of all Forever New Australian stores to be fully provisioned on Brennan IT’s MPLS. After the success of the project, Brennan also encouraged Forever New to trial Infrastructure-asa-Service (IaaS) Keays added. “Now we’ve got one service provider being able to provide us both cloud applications and communications,” he said. “That has freed up internal IT resources to work on other business value-added projects.”

CASE STUDY

A stylish solution Brennan IT helped this fashion chain deploy new technological infrastructure that was fit for purpose The situation When boutique women’s fashion chain Forever New experienced a period of rapid growth in 2012, they quickly discovered that their IT infrastructure wasn’t up to the challenge. The IT team was spending more time on reactive support rather than looking for ways to use technology for competitive differentiation.

The solution To resolve the crisis, Matt Keays, general manager, information technology at Forever New, initiated a multi-site cloud and WAN managed services contract to Brennan IT. The goal was a flexible, cost-effective and robust solution that would enable the retailer to consolidate its IT vendors and ensure a consistent environment across all sites.

The first job for Brennan IT was to assist Forever New in migrating its ecommerce platform

to Brennan IT’s infrastructure.

“Brennan IT was more than proactive in helping Forever New in the migration project. It was a complex migration involving multiple incumbent vendors,” Keays said. “The Brennan IT project lead was instrumental in getting that cut-over completed in time for peak trading through Christmas. It helped immensely

Now we’ve got one service provider being able to provide us both cloud applications and communications Matt Keays, Forever New

that Brennan IT had local presence in Melbourne and Sydney for this particular project.”

The ability for Brennan IT to be flexible around the length of the contract was critical in

The benefits The services offered by Brennan IT have achieved all the business objectives that Keays was looking for. The new IT environment at Forever New is more robust, lower cost, and more flexible, and the internal IT team has been released from chaos to help drive innovation.

According to Keays, the solution has been so comprehensive that it has essentially given him and his team the equivalent of an extra team member in time and availability. Management of the technology across all retail outlets is now much easier and responsive, making the previous major issues that the IT team experienced no longer of concern. “The proactive MPLS alerting has been a major plus for our help desk in being able to proactively manage the process of getting stores back online with minimal disruption in the event of an outage,” Keays said.

“Looking forward, the MPLS that we put in is scalable too, which gave us other opportunities that we’re considering, such as video in store.

There’s the ability for real time interaction which is going to be a big advantage for us in the future.”

Client profile Client Forever New Industry Retail Country Australia Challenge Consolidate an IT infrastructure that involved disconnected applications and technologies Solution Provide multisite cloud and WAN managed services, ensuring a consistent environment across all sites and enabling internal IT team to focus on driving innovation

Want to know more?

To find out more about Forever New, visit www. forevernew. com.au For more information on Brennan IT and how it can benefit your business, visit www.brennanit. com.au or phone 1300 500 000

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

51

Security safeguard your infrastructure Inside

Are you prepared for the new Privacy Act?

R

eforms to the federal Privacy Act have set the stage for the nation’s biggest shake up to information security across the corporate world. Every organisation with a turnover of more than $3 million a year and all healthcare providers must comply to the new reforms introduced to bolster the safeguarding of customer data.

The guidelines are necessarily broad and non-prescriptive; organisations with sensitive customer data like names, addresses, and date of birth information must take “reasonable steps” to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

The guidelines apply to that data irrespective of where it is held and who is holding it meaning that, in the eyes of the Privacy

> Get a clear understanding p56 Australian organisations are facing tougher privacy requirements. Time to get smart

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

Commissioner, an organisation who hires a contractor in Malaysia to handle their customer records will be effectively deemed to have an office there, and the organisation will be held to account.

There are exceptions and exemptions, but on the whole, “reasonable steps” seems fairly reasonable. Yet there is a vast expanse between regulation and reality, caused by the inability of security to deliver return on investment, the complexities of the dynamic science, and the impossible task of defending against hackers.

The Commissioner rightly says that organisations can’t be allowed to spend money on buttons, bells and whistles to attract customers and their data, and scrimp on buying the digital walls and

fences to keep hackers at bay. Big businesses are often those with the biggest security budgets, and for them the requirements may not be onerous. Australia’s banks, for example, far exceed any security regulations. But the small end of town may fall foul of the reforms, or worse, be unaware of it.

Yet despite all of this, Australia’s Coalition Government has torpedoed an important bill that would have forced organisations to report data breaches. Without it, there is now little stopping hacked businesses from smothering news of a security breach. Moreover, scores of breaches will never be reported simply because organisations will never know that hackers have silently pilfered their sensitive data and slipped away without a trace.

> Smart adaptation p58

> Putting security first p61

Open source software can adapt and change to keep up with ever-changing security threats

Symantec discusses its manifesto to help protect organisations against the rise of cyber-security threats

Security

The reality of a hack-maggedon The day is about to get worse for millions of Sydneysiders. Showers are running dry. News websites are inaccessible. And every traffic light seems to be flashing, causing traffic jams from Pyrmont to Penrith. Hollywood and war-hungry governments alike would have us believe hackers could pull off this attack. But is this so-called ‘firesale’ conceivable?

In a word, yes; though you won’t fi nd a security professional worth their salt who will talk at length about it. Th at’s largely because, whilst each attack may be pulled off individually, chaining the many links in this Die Hard scenario together, and then managing to push the many red launch buttons without being noticed, borders on the absurd.

Hackers in the real world would

need to gain intelligence for years about what vectors existed to attack. They would need to know the physical infrastructure, the systems that control it and how to attack them, and the organisations who are in charge of those systems.

But paid professional hackers – penetration testers – have pulled off what would otherwise be doomsday scenarios. Contracted to demonstrate how to hack critical systems, they have gained access to the core of a nuclear plant, opened dam gates and even spoiled mass amounts of cheese at a major Australian factory.

The most infamous real attack was Stuxnet, the United States’ super sophisticated, ultra-expensive and highly tailored cyber weapon that physically destroyed part of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Security scams, delivered hot Sometimes bad security means free pizza. During the recently-concluded NFL season, a security researcher discovered how to gain unlimited free pizza by exploiting a giveaway by large US food outlet Papa Johns.

He detailed how to scam a host of giveaway offers from free Pizza coupons to Dropbox storage credit thanks to basic but prolific flaws in the way the schemes are compiled.

The hacks worked for scores of giveaways and competitions because the websites lack the means to validate that entries were legitimate and untampered.

Attackers needed, at most, only basic programming skills to write automatic attacks that would continually submit entries to competitions and giveaways, and bypass any CAPTCHA checks sites may run. Other attacks could be done without programming skills.

Attackers could score free Dropbox

In Brief

400 Gbps

The world’s largest DDoS hits in February Source: SC Magazine

$68m Estimated cost of recent massive data breach incurred by Target.

Source: iTnews

55%

Number of Buzz readers who have two-factor authentication as part of their security posture.

Source: The Buzz IT Maturity Index

10,000 storage, gain free tickets and stuff ballots due to levels of security described as “terrible” that would be largely incapable of detecting the attacks. Scores of simple yet successful attacks could be launched for a few dollars by purchasing empty email addresses.

The researchers behind the projects said that human verification checks would, if implemented properly, stop most attempts at scamming additional prizes and coupons from the schemes.

The number of asylum seeker details accidently exposed by the Federal Government.

Source: iTnews

$1.7

MILLION The maximum penalty for serious or repeat breaches under the Privacy Act.

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

53

Security

Skyborne attack out of sci-fi You’ve been told to secure your endpoints, harden your access controls and keep logs on everything.

But what about the rooftop? It’s not science fiction; researchers have developed a novel method of hacking into wireless networks using recreational drone aircraft.

The drones contain hardware that hackers can use to break into wireless networks – a feat that grants attackers a potentially weaker entry point into businesses which would otherwise be unavailable.

The drone dubbed AirDeck was developed for penetration testers to add some fun and silver screen bling to their security reports.

By launching either vertically or like a plane, the drone can carry an on-board penetration testing and forensics program up to an office running on the mini BeagleBoard line of computers.

The MeshDeck module supports an armada of devices which can hack into networks from nearly two kilometres away.

In Brief

Five years Xpaj.B remains the world’s most stealthy and sophisticated file infector since surfacing in 2009.

Source: Virus Bulletin

44.5% Buzz readers who are planning to invest in security solutions in the next year.

Other surreptitious hardware and slippery hacking techniques exist. Those same networks targeted by AirDeck could be broken into by small devices attackers; they need only take to Facebook to discover staff who are on leave, meaning the device could sit as a silent sentinal in the mail room.

Source: The Buzz IT Maturity Index

Three The number of attempts by the Federal Government to push ISPs to police copyright infringement.

Source: iTnews

Cash drives the real online criminals

Game of DDoS

Anonymous, hacktivism, and Distributed Denial of Service attacks are so common they are part of public discourse. But these groups and their attacks are mere sparks in the firestorm of damage caused by the criminal underground. These crackers and carders – the real cyber criminals – stay out of the limelight while they rob the public blind.

Unlike the people of Anonymous – the online revolutionaries of various political stripes – these criminals are motivated by money, not politics.

Some researchers go even further and claim the noise of Anonymous and highly public hacking groups like LulSec actually masks the many millions of dollars stolen

Distributed Denial of Service attacks are part and parcel of the modern internet. Everyone is a potential victim, and there are many ways to fight the threat. But Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks now targeting the Network Time Protocol is a never-before-seen devastating threat that has seen Goliath gaming companies and their contests knocked offline by Davidsized attackers. Unless companies prepare in advance, they could be the next victim. These NTP Reflection attacks exploit a timing mechanism that underpins a way the internet works to greatly amplify the power of what would otherwise be a small and ineffective assault.

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

in these underground attacks because it distracts executives and IT and security teams from the real dangers. The best criminals attack quietly using new vulnerabilities bought and sold within private and vetted underground forums where they may sell off the products of their crimes.

Security RSA

Australian organisations are facing tougher privacy requirements. Time to get smart, says RSA’s Nick Bourke

T

he Australian Privacy Act has come into effect, forcing organisations across Australia to comply with tighter security privacy requirements. Those which fail to do so risk fines and, worse, opening their doors to government auditors.

Unsurprisingly, the state of security across affected organisations with annual turnovers of more than $3 million has not universally, or perhaps magically, improved; small business remains blind to many security threats and risks, while some enterprises continue to run projects based on compliance and therefore continue to put out spot fires rather than locating and addressing underlying problems.

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The Buzz: What is intelligencedriven security?

Nick: Intelligence-driven security is about applying your security resources at the right place, at the right time. How many alerts do organisations actually look into?

If you knew they were attacking

Intelligence-driven security will give you context and visibility into your business Nick Bourke, RSA

your ‘Crown Jewels’ would you react differently?

Business and information contexts are vital to stopping the advanced

attacks of today. Traditional security tools provide lots of information rapidly, but by harnessing the power of big data analytics, we can gain insight into anomalous activities.

The Buzz: What organisations does intelligence-led security best serve?

Nick: Every organisation that handles customer information needs to adopt an intelligencedriven security practice. Primarily, retail, financial services, healthcare and government are the initial industries with large amounts of personal information (PI).

Demystifying the Australian Privacy Principles is just one way I envision intelligence-driven security working in Australian

RSA Security

Fear the auditor The Privacy Commissioner has new powers to fine and audit businesses that fall foul of the more security savvy reformed guidelines. But while the office can, through the courts, pursue a $1.7 million fine for repeat or serious breaches, that’s not the driving force for compliance among big businesses.

“We fear the auditors,” one security chief at a large Australian retailer told The Buzz. “Imagine having a bunch of hostile government guys crawling over you for a couple of years. The fines for us are nothing.” The security veteran has a point. He cites the plight of Google which has faced court action, years of auditing, and harsh public criticism from governments and privacy authorities around the world for its Street View feature which, while pushing privacy boundaries, also inadvertently collected information about Wi-Fi networks. “We couldn’t handle that,” he said.

organisations. Understanding how PI is stored, handled and processed will help businesses minimise the costs associated with the changes.

Intelligence-driven security will give you context and visibility into your business.

The Buzz: Security programs tend to be compliance led.

What holds organisations back from moving to intelligence-led security?

Nick: Compliance-led programs don’t answer a key problem: Is this control actually working?

Intelligence-driven security almost assumes the worst: If this is compromised, what do I need to do about it? Information, people and processes influence what security

controls can be used to react to any given situation.

The biggest factor holding organisations back is the perception of cost of change. An intelligencedriven approach can actually remove costs from an organisation, ensuring only the needed technology is employed. We see a vital role in this shift in the security industry being played by managed service and cloud providers, as they can provide the advanced expertise without the additional expense of hiring.

The Buzz: The Privacy Act is all about taking reasonable steps

and finding balances between access and security. Are these concepts at odds?

Nick: I don’t see these being at odds, but with the adoption of the mobility, big data, and cloud services, people’s expectations of privacy are rapidly changing. People expect to have access to their information and the changes to our privacy laws reflect this reality.

Security does not serve a cross purpose here. In fact, it enables the organisation to provide access to their own data and manage it themselves, while still maintaining security that people desire.

Want to know more about RSA? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/rsa

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

57

Security Sourcefire

Open source software can adapt and change to keep up with ever-changing security threats

B

y granting access to the code running under the bonnet, open source software can help organisations close security gaps faster.

Open source and Proprietary “closed source” software both have their security challenges. One isn’t inherently more secure than the other, but the open source model does offer some benefits when it comes to addressing new threats, says Dean Frye – technical director of Sourcefire, now part of Cisco.

“What if your car’s engine was locked so only the manufacturer could ever open the bonnet to look at it – would this benefit the owner of the car in any way? No. It’s the same with software, there is no

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

user benefit to closed software, it only really benefits the person who has sold you the software,” Frye says.

An open software architecture facilitates the sharing of real-time threat intelligence and protections across a vast community of users.

This form of collective immunity is one of the key strengths of the open source approach.

“Just as open source offers businesses the agility to more easily integrate complementary applications and services, it also offers business the agility to quickly respond to security threats rather than waiting for patches for proprietary software,” Frye says.

“In an open software environment, organisations can

close security gaps faster, with the ability to create protections on their own, work with their partners or apply shared best practices and tools.”

Cisco’s new OpenAppID platform builds on this concept by harnessing the power of the wider community. It allows organisations

In an open software environment, organisations can close security gaps faster Dean Frye, Sourcefire

to detect and identify applications, and to report on application use.

It also provides application-layer context with security-related

Sourcefire Security

Fast facts The open source software model lets users address new threats faster and leverage the resources of the wider community.

OpenAppID offers application detection, identification and reporting, with the advantage of an open library.

While the software might be “free”, open source still creates significant services opportunities for channel partners.

events in order to improve analysis and remediation.

OpenAppID includes a library of detectors for new and custom applications. This allows users to create, share and implement custom application detection, so that they can address new appbased threats as quickly as possible.

“When you consider the vast array of open source software, it’s an impossible task for one vendor to keep abreast of them all,” Frye says.

“Initially, a library of more than 1,000 OpenAppID detectors will be available at no charge.

Any community member may contribute additional detectors to that library, including end user organisations with custom

applications that are not commercially available.”

The concept of “free” software can present challenges for

The concept of ‘free’ software can present challenges for traditional business models Dean Frye, Sourcefire

traditional business models but it does create significant opportunities for managed service providers and other

channel players, Frye says. “Even if the software itself is free for download, there are the aspects of maintenance and support along with areas like training. It moves from being a one-off sale to an ongoing relationship with customers, based on services and generating ongoing revenues,” he says.

“Commonly, a channel partner has the role of a trusted advisor to the customer. They have a closer relationship and better understanding of the challenges customers face than a vendor has.

This enables partners to provide value-add services to the solution – in an Intrusion Prevention System context this could be developing protection for the customer’s specific risks and applications. With the release of OpenAppID this can also mean developing custom application detection.”

Want to know more about Sourcefire? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/sourcefire

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

59

Symantec Security

Symantec discusses its manifesto to help protect organisations against the rise of cyber-security threats

O

ur digital lives are protected by the thinnest of veneers. As we move more of our lives online, this veneer becomes a gossamer, stretching across mobile devices, online commerce and social networks.

Now more than ever our digital worlds are at risk. There are more avenues of attack and more criminally-motivated hackers willing to exploit the vast wealth moving around the internet.

These threats at a personal level undermine our identity and privacy. On a global level, they threaten the stability of government and banking systems.

Private and public sector leaders need to understand that technology is as important as energy, water,

food and other essential resources, – digital security should be a right, not an afterthought.

No top-down edict will succeed here because technological innovation moves too fast. Only a grass roots movement, informal but flexible, has a glimmer of success.

We know that the 15 percent internet traffic sent from five billion mobile devices is growing exponentially, and we know that 500 million photos are shared by mobile phone users who check their phones 23 times a day.

We also know that every year the record for the amount of malware discovered is broken, new hardware and software vulnerabilities are revealed, and attacks by criminals and government agencies are discovered. This hotbed is

estimated to claim 1.5 million victims every day, causing up to $122 billion in losses each year.

Malware attacking laptops and desktops increased by a third last

We know that every year breaks the record for the amount of malware discovered year while viruses targeting the smaller mobile devices base surged by 139 percent. In two-thirds of these cases, these threats were foisted on users from hacked legitimate sites.

Enterprises are obvious targets for attackers because of the large amounts of money, intellectual property and customer data

www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au | The Buzz

61

Security Symantec

they hold. For this reason, these organisations tend to be the best prepared for attacks, but they are by no stretch impenetrable.

Rather than target the goliaths of the economic world, about a third of online attacks target the many vulnerable small businesses.

Many of these organisations, which are usually made up of less than 250 employees, lack the resources and knowledge to defend against online threats. Therefore, they are easy and bountiful picking for criminals and are often hacked en masse. Australia’s largest breach, in which 500,000 credit and debit cards were plundered from 100 of such businesses, took place in 2012.

These small outfits as part of a supply chain are also an easy entry point into larger organisations.

Hackers infi ltrating payment

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter 2014

terminals across Target stores in the US this year had gained access in partly due to an air-conditioning services firm which had access to parts of the retailer’s network.

About a third of online attacks hit the many vulnerable small businesses Cyber resilience is the way forward. There is no silver bullet for security, the IT shop is not the centre of technology deployments and that ‘security through obscurity’ is an obsolete concept.

A cyber-resilient organisation is

one in which security is conveyed to all staff in layman terms, so that even an average joe would be able to understand such concepts easily. It is one where staff is educated on the ways they and their organisation may be attacked, and is regularly tested for their resilience under mock attack scenarios.

Cyber resilience does not mean cyber immunity; instead, it raises the bar in terms of the amount of time and resources criminals will need to spend if they wish to attack such an organisation.

For all but the most dedicated attackers, the cyber resilient organisation will be passed over for one which is not.

Want to know more about Symantec? www.thebuzzmagazine.com.au/symantec

FOR AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS

In an age when the right decision at the right time can make or break a deal, are you armed with the latest information? itnews has been the leading online portal for Australian IT business decision makers for more than 14 years, meeting the needs of IT professionals who demand trusted, factual authoritative coverage of the sector

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Autodesk is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers in manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment use Autodesk software to design, visualise and simulate their ideas. Autodesk continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-ofthe-art 3D software for global markets.

Read: “Rental market”, page 26

At Cisco, customers come first. Cisco has shaped the future of the internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners and has become the worldwide leader in networking.

Read: “The personal touch”, page 36 Read: “The unified generation”, page 46

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Read: “Make your business more agile”, page 10 Read: “No quick fix for BYOD”, page 38

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The Buzz | Autumn/Winter

Huawei is a multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company. As the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, Huawei exists to serve customers, focusing on customer market challenges and needs by providing excellent ICT solutions and service. Committed to “enriching life through communication” Huawei passionately pursues customer-centric innovations, believing that business success is the ultimate measure of the value of any technology, product, solution or process improvement.

Read: “A vision for a smarter city”, page 20

Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realise their full potential, find creative solutions to business problems, develop breakthrough ideas and stay connected.

Read: “Welcome to the cloud revolution”, page 12 Read: “Big issues for all businesses”, page 29

NEC specialises in communications solutions and services in multi-vendor environments, including systems integration, specialist communications solutions, data networking, and unified communications and collaboration.

Read: “Light up the network”, page 48

RSA, the security division of EMC, is the premier provider of security, risk and compliance management solutions for business acceleration. RSA helps organisations solve complex and sensitive security challenges.

Read: “Get a clear understanding”, page 56

Focused on its mission to be the leader in intelligent cybersecurity solutions, Sourcefire is transforming the way mid- to large-size organisations and government agencies manage and minimise network security risks. With solutions from a next-generation network security platform to advanced malware protection, Sourcefire provides customers with Agile Security ™ that is as dynamic as the real world it protects and the attackers against which it defends.

Read: “Smart adaptation”, page 58

Symantec is one of the world’s largest software companies with more than 18,500 employees in more than 50 countries. We provide security, storage and systems management solutions to help customers secure and manage against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently than any other company.

Read: “Putting security first”, page 61

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