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response. Seventy percent of respon- Another dents say poor communications is a barrier and 68 percent of respondents SUBSCRIBE divide believe organizations do not have the appropriate leadership in place to t’s a bit disappointing these days to deal with data breach incidents. think that executives still don’t get This report was released shortly Ihow serious a data breach can be. after the annual SecTor IT secu- But that’s what a Ponemon Institute rity conference in Toronto, which survey for Hewlett-Packard suggests. – again featured hair-raising ex- The survey of just under 500 ex- amples of incompetence. One of my ecutives of 300 global organizations favourites was the cash machine in- found 79 per cent believe executive stalled in a mall with its IP address involvement is necessary to have an still taped to the outside. effective response to data breaches. As keynote speaker Kellman But 70 per cent of respondents think Meghu, Check Point Software’s their organization only partially Toronto-based head of North Amer- understands the information risks ican security engineering, said "this they’re exposed to as a result of a is embarrassing. IT pros should breach. Only 45 per cent of executives know better." believe that their own enterprise’s He blames IT pros that become incident response process is either enamored with speeds and feeds of proactive or mature. Yet 57 per cent of individual pieces of hardware and CEOs admit they haven’t been trained software they buy, rather than fitting on what do after a data breach. pieces into an overall security strategy There’s an interesting inference According to IDC Canada, annual IT here: Execs think they get the mes- security spending here will soon hit $2 sage, but the people under them billion. But firewalls and DPI applianc- don’t. Maybe this stems from the es, endpoint software and compliance intense publicity certain breaches suites won’t help when someone (in IT get (Target, Revenue Canada, Home or the general staff) is careless. Depot) or they have low confidence Sooner or later, pros say, there will staffers who insist on clicking on ma- be a breach. So executives have to licious links. Maybe execs surveyed have a plan to minimize loss and have been quietly told about a few restore IT service. breaches in their firms. Maybe they CIOs/CSOs can take care of the like pointing fingers. technical part, but, as HP says in a re- Certainly they are willing to admit port, the executive team’s leadership that poor communications, lack of will help guide the entire enterprise leadership and lack of board over- response. Start planning now. sight are barriers to effective incident — Howard Solomon

ITWorldCanada.com I NOVEMBER 2014 I 3 AGENDA OPINIONS AND COMMENTARY

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4 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com Stuck in traffi c. Ideas still moving forward.

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Every month bloggers on ITWorldCanada.com sound off on a wide range of issues. If you missed their columns, here’s excerpts from a few, with links to the complete blog:

CIOS AND SUPPLIERS: BEWARE OF THE VIRTUAL MAKING THE MOST OF THE EXTREME RELATIONSHIP BY DAVE O’LEARY BY GARY DAVENPORT Have we swung the While all suppliers pendulum too far to usually want to be the side of virtuality a “partner”, it can vs face-to-face inter- be an overused and action? And what does abused term. Strategic this mean for business? ... Virtual interac- supplier relationships are few and far be- tion takes travel time and cost almost com- tween. Those relationships that are of the pletely out of the picture. The bottom line greatest value to CIOs are often built on impact of this combination is a hard lure to principles that do enable a true “win/win” resist, particularly for companies with mul- for both sides versus the traditional adver- tiple locations. It is efficient for sure. But sarial approach. what about the impact on effectiveness? In a world of unending competition and faster innovation cycles, CIOs need every Read the entire blog here advantage that they can get and leveraging their best and most strategic relationships to help with those challenges does make eminent sense for all concerned. WELCOME TO DIGITAL BUSINESS 101 Read the entire blog here BY JORGE LOPEZ By 2020, there will be five times more things connected than just personal devices. Moore’s Law will continue to make computing cheaper and cheaper, which means we will find sensors in many of the objects we use, wear and interact with each day. They will all communicate – with each other, with you, with businesses. They will even place orders and buy items on your behalf. In the digital business, things have enough intelligence to negotiate with each other, as well as with people and busi- ness, in a manner never before achieved.

Read the entire blog here

6 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com FROM OURCASE BLOGGERS STUDY

FUNDING YOUR INNOVATION ALIGNMENT OF IT AND BY MICHAEL ISSAEV BUSINESS DOESN’T MAKE I see over and over SENSE again that CIOs like BY MICHAEL GLADSTONE to be focused on new The fact that and sexy initiatives, there is still is a such as cloud and big discussion on the data, but tend to overlook less exciting topic of business- parts of our job, such as cost control, or IT alignment must other mundane things. But these mundane mean that there are IT teams aspects of your job could benefit you more that are not aligned with their than you’d like to realize. Often, a relatively businesses. Why? Experience tells me minimal effort in cost optimization will that this situation stems from IT teams yield enough savings to finance your next that compartmentalize projects as “IT “sexy” project. projects”, instead of “business” ones. All projects are business projects; there is no Read the entire blog here such thing as an exclusive IT project ... This situation demonstrates suboptimal IT leadership that does not put enough of the right focus on business problems. IS YOUR PROJECT RED, YELLOW Rather, such leadership is content to run OR GREEN? IT in a vacuum. BY YOGI SCHULTZ Too many Read the entire blog here project managers view the PMO project review as torture, as a distraction from more important work or as an administrative hoop-jumping exercise. If this statement accurately describes your organization, it’s time to adjust the attitudes of project managers or the content of PMO project reviews. A well-conducted review can actually be an excellent, additional communication channel for the project manager to engage management in addressing project issues.

Read the entire blog here

ITWorldCanada.com I NOVEMBER 2014 I 7 NEWS IN BRIEF FREE TOOLS • DataNumen's EMC EXPANDS IBM plans to offer sq. ft. of data centre Outlook Password CLOUD Twitter data as part capacity. Recovery 1.0 recov- EMC Corp.'s Enterprise of select cloud-based The latest acquis- ers passwords from Hybrid Cloud Solution services, including tion, previously man- encrypted Outlook integrates hardware, its Watson Analytics, aged by BlackBerry, files. Recovering software and services which brings predic- was built a Tier 3 a small number of from EMC and VMware tive capabilities to standard, has 4.8MW password-protected to help enterprises business users, and of power, N+2 availabil- files requires simply leverage private and a cloud-based data ity of generators and is dragging and drop- public clouds. refinery service so potentially expandable ping the file names, The package enables application developers by an additional 1,600 and clicking a single CIOs to offer IT-as-a- can embed data ser- square feet. button. service in as few as 28 vices in applications. TeraGo also has two days with the help of Developers will also data centres in Van- GET IT HERE EMC consultants, the be able to integrate couver. company says. Twitter data into new • Hewlett-Packard Initially, the capabil- cloud services they RUKUS AIMS has created an ity comes in a pack- are building with Wat- AT SMBS executive breach age called Enterprise son Developer Cloud Ruckus Wireless has response playbook Hybrid Cloud Federa- or Bluemix platform- released the Xclaim to help executives tion Software-Defined as-a-service. Wi-Fi system for orga- create a plan for Data Center Edition IBM and Twitter will nizations or branches dealing with a data with VMware. Versions also deliver a set of en- where staff have little breach. The 11-page for Microsoft’s Cloud terprise applications. or no IT expertise. No PDF includes a Platform and Open- The first will integrate controller — physical checklist for what Stack will be available Twitter data with IBM’s or virtual — is needed do do before, during next year. As a result ExperienceOne cus- for the APs. They are and after an inci- EMC Hybrid Cloud tomer engagement managed by a mobile dent.. will be interoperable solutions, allowing app called Harmony, with VMware vCloud sales, marketing, and which allows the net- GET IT HERE Air, Microsoft Azure, customer service staff work to be configured Amazon Web Services to map sentiment and and running in min- • Paessler has (AWS) and other EMC- behavior utes, the company enhanced the free powered cloud service says. The app takes a edition of its PRTG providers. ANOTHER staffer through steps Network Monitor TERAGO DATA to discover and con- software, tripling the IBM, TWITTER CENTRE figure LAN settings. number of measur- TEAM TeraGo Networks Then the dashboard ing points/sensors IBM has formed a has added a fourth shows important data it can monitor — partnership with Twit- Canadian data centre like traffic volumes and there’s no trial ter to help enterprises — the second in and number of clients period. analyze feeds from southern Ontario — on the network. Avail- the network in hopes to its porfolio. able in 802.11n and GET IT HERE it will get them closer The wireless access ac models. Pricing to customers, markets and cloud service pro- ranges from US$89 to and trends. vider now has 40,000 US$300.

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Nor should the Tips for awareness name of a company employee be used to security testing add authenticity to to become the lure. And don’t do aware. Also, what someone in the the program U.S. military did: Try shouldn't to get people to click make people on a link in a message feel if they alleging problem in fail once their pension plan. (It they will caused chaos because be publicly word spread). humiliated To start a phishing (see above) test, send a simple or lose email that should be their easy to spot — jobs. like “See more of the world. BY HOWARD “A lot of times I see But they have Click here to get SOLOMON awareness metrics to know there 12,000 bonus s an IT secu- programs fail not be- will be conse- miles.” The clue rity awareness cause of technology, quences for is no airline is Aofficer, Lance numbers. It’s because regularly fail- Spitzner: mentioned. Spitzner once found they forgot people ing a test. At Don't Before doing embarrass himself part of team have feelings,” he told one large U.S. a test, let senior staff. that embarrassed a the SecTor 2014 se- government de- managers know member of a board of curity conference last partment, for example, it’s coming. directors. month in Toronto. “The on the first failure the For phishing, there Up on a wall flashed whole idea behind a person has to re-take always has to be a the names of all who metrics program is not a training course. On way for a viewer to created unsafe pass- have people resent it ... the second consecu- determine it’s a phony. words. One was the but to actually like it.” tive failure their boss At first make it obvi- board member. His An organization can is told. On the third ous, with misspelling, password was his sec- protect itself with a consecutive failure or a message that retary’s name – who workforce well-trained the boss has to have has sense of urgency he was having an affair to not engage in risky a talk with the staffer. (“This offer only good with. behavior, hence regu- A fourth consecutive for 12 hours”), asking It’s one of the les- lar awareness testing. failure is reported to for information the sons Spitzner, now an One of HR. reader shouldn’t have awareness program Spitzner’s rules The test also access to. Then over trainer with the SANS is always tell has to be well- time make it trickier Institute, says he’s staff the com- thought out. For — when the number learned over the years: pany has an a phishing test, of victims drops, or, RELATED If someone fails an awareness test- CONTENT don’t send out when IT gets email like awareness test, tell ing program: Forgetting the links for free “That message was them privately. You want staff basics Viagra. too easy.”

10 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com ANALYSIS Getting hyper on hyper-converged infrastructure BY HOWARD The Nu- SOLOMON antix appli- hree years ances aren’t ago a startup inexpen- Tcalled Nutanix sive — they surprised the infra- start at structure world by US$50,000. releasing a 2U-sized The latest integrated appliance two-node with an x86-based model VMware server, net- starts at working and storage, US$110,000 that could expand a node. as easily as plugging As Granic another node. said in an in- It was the first of terview, the the so-called hyper- idea is to use converged systems. commodity hardware a single rack. Scale released two Con- Others followed: with direct attached Computing just up- vergedSystem 200 ap- SimpliVity, Pivot3 storage, with a dis- dated the HyperCore pliances: One runs its and Scale Comput- tributed file system software that runs StoreVirtual software, ing. Major equip- that allows Nutanix to its HC3 appliances the other EMC’s EVO ment manufactur- escale. to add near-instant platform. ers including IBM, “You don’t have to VM-level snapshots, Is it for everyone? Hewlett-Packard and buy these massive virtual machine thin “This is the heart of VMware are getting refrigerators to scale cloning and the abil- the software-defined into the game. up. You can start very ity to import and ex- data centre environ- The idea of adding small … you can grow port VMs to a backup ment that everybody’s infrastructure like as needed.” file server. Cisco trying to build,” says building blocks has Systems has teamed Forrester Research “upset the apple cart,” 100 customers with SimpliVity, analyst Fischera. says Forrester Re- After 18 months of which is providing “The notion of be- search analyst Rich- being in Canada, its OmniStack Inte- ing able to flexibly ard Fischera. the company has over grated Solution with provision storage and In the accompa- 100 customers here, Cisco’s UCS C-Series processing power nying video, Anton he said. Rack-Mount systems. together without Granic, Nutanix’s se- Pivot3 recently IBM has its Pure- having to buy a large nior director of Cana- released its vSTAC Flex system, while array is very power- dian operations, talks HCIA blade-based EMC has just released ful to a lot of people about the company appliance for VDI de- its EVO:RAIL system because there are and why its approach ployments, which can for partners, which significant price- can work for some support up to 10,000 runs its vSAN tech- performance advan- enterprises. virtual desktops in nology. HP has just tages.”

ITWorldCanada.com I NOVEMBER 2014 I 11 CAREER WATCH

ing more than they did Put IT security in hands two years ago. But, Fernandez said, of a , says money isn't enough: “It needs to be a top- Canadian expert level led effort” anti-virus software over Many researchers a four month period on and vendors are look- 50 laptops given to a ing for solutions to random number of us- the increasing num- ers. Among the findings ber of reported data was that the software breaches, but he said on 19 PCs were able to the fallacy is trying to detect and stop infec- find a silver bullet –one tions, but on 10 viruses solution, one piece of were able to penetrate software or hardware. defences. “We in society, in BY HOWARD “This is not a tech- Researchers also industry and govern- SOLOMON nology problem,” made some interest- ment have to start rganizations Fernandez said. “IT ing findings on user giving this problem a must take IT security is a business behavior, including priority. At the same O security away problem, and until we that computers used time the actions we from the information view it that way then by men were no more can take can mitigate technology department it’s going to grow and likely to be infected the problem quite and put it in the hand of will start taking down than women, nor was a bit. These actions a chief risk officer, says large corporations.” age a factor. But one are a combination of a security expert. The risk officer in finding that surprised technology, but more “Something that his view has to report him was that users importantly user important shouldn’t either to the board of who had some com- awareness and putting be left to the techies directors or the CEO. puter expertise were incentives in the right – and I am a techie,” A CRO must have more likely to have place” – such as crimi- Jose Fernandez responsibility over all their laptops infected. nal and civil sanctions, (above), associate departments, he said, “It’s almost a little as well as rewarding professor of computer to make sure users knowledge is a danger- those within corpora- engineering at Poly- “aren’t doing stupid ous thing,” he said. tions for making the technique Montreal things like going to More likely is that right decisions. and co-investigator at Web sites and get- these people are less He described the cur- the Smart Cybersecu- ting infected” and are risk adverse, he said. rent state of IT secu- rity Network (SERENE- managing corporate The Globe and Mail rity as “the next global RISC), said in an inter- information cor- recently report- warming crisis.” It view. The network is rectly. ed that more C- needs to be taken more a group of academic, Fernandez suite executives seriously because the government and indus- was part of a are taking cyber potential for cyber at- try researchers trying group that did security seri- tacks to shake not only RELATED to help governments a pilot study in CONTENT ously, with 60 the global economy and the private sector 2011-2012 on the Firms taking per cent saying but also democracy “is manage online risks. effectiveness of shortcuts they are spend- quite great.”

12 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com CAREER WATCH

Group pushes framework to help CIOs better manage technology

BY HOWARD SOLOMON concerns. Based on a value stream group of vendors is promoting the model, capability architecture, ontol- emerging IT4IT open standard ogy, and systems architecture, the Aand reference architecture for framework provides a comprehensive managing information technology. RELATED architectural view of IT management. The Open Group said its new IT4IT CONTENT An IT4IT industry standard to truly Forum will be an online place where Steps to enable the business of IT “is long IT executives can meet to learn about successful ITIL overdue,” Rick Ancona, Pricewater- and lead development of this new architec- houseCooper’s chief technology officer, said ture for portfolio management. in a statement. “The industry is ever chang- The reference architecture — which pro- ing and IT needs to evolve to meet the needs ponents say will complement process frame- of the business while effectively managing works like ITIL, CoBit, SAFe and TOGAF the IT services provided both internally and — “will enable the provision of data-driven externally. insights that help IT organizations focus on By driving an industry standard at the business outcomes while delivering solutions reference architecture level, we will truly faster and with reduced cost and risk,” the achieve interoperability among our software Open Group said in a release. vendors providing the strongest IT environ- Hewlett-Packard, one of the original ment availabl12e, thus allowing us to focus backers of IT4IT, says it “enables IT to our energies on differentiating the business achieve the same level of traceability, pre- services instead of focusing on how best to dictability, and efficiency that supply chain manage IT.” management delivers to most businesses.” Separately, HP said it has in- corporated the IT4IT reference architecture in its IT management software portfolio.

Blueprint “The IT4IT open standard pro- vides vendors, service providers, and businesses with a common blueprint to guide a ll products and solutions for interoperabil- ity, compliance and business insight,” HP said in a statement. IT4IT is described as a frame- work specifically targeted to architects who find themselves supporting IT management, IT service management, Agile de- velopment, DevOps, and similar

ITWorldCanada.com I NOVEMBER 2014 I 13 TELECOM WATCH A new UC solution debuts Unify is off ering a 60 day free trial, and enterprises that sign for a year get the fi rst fi ve months free. Salvatora said IT administrators don’t need training to sign up staff for the service, just add a user’s name and email. In fact, she added, the company believes Circuit is so intuitive it won’t be off ered with a staff manual or training (although tips are available when a cursor hov- ers over a menu). It’s a big bet for a company that has historically sold offi ce desktop and wireless phones, soft clients and its OpenScape Enterprise unifi ed com- BY HOWARD SOLOMON munications suite. echnology companies sometimes have to Circuit has its own file repository for shar- overhaul themselves and their products to ing documents; for the moment it can’t reach Tbecome more relevant to customers. into enterprise stores. However, Salvatora Unify Inc. – formerly Siemens Enterprise said it is developing APIs so the suite can Communications – performs its biggest overhaul integrate with other business applications. by releasing its long-awaited Web-based unifi ed Unify also hopes vendors will also create communications suite, called Circuit. links to their apps. It’s a cloud application that allows teams to Forrester Research analyst Art Schoeller said easily fi nd members and pull them in for ad in an email that Circuit is aimed at the trend of hoc meetings over voice, video or instant mes- integrating business applications, social net- saging, allowing them to share and save docu- working, and unifi ed communications. ments. Users can also shift from one device to “Unify understands that they need to shift to another – say, start a meeting on a smart phone a more indirect (sales) model and to the cloud. and then shift to a laptop to take advantage of This aligns with long term trend of the con- a larger screen – and not lose the session. sumerization of IT.” Unify sees with Circuit But users need a WebRTC-capable browser. that they have an opportunity to sell to indi- So far, that’s only Firefox and Chrome. vidual lines of business, he added. The service is launching in the U.S., Britain It does face a number of competitors includ- and Germany. Canadians can sign up for a trial ing enterprises that have already invest in UC registration, although the suite is only available solutions like Microsoft Lync. in English In an interview Diane Sal- “This is a fi rst release and Unify needs vatora, the company’s vice-president of to deliver on a future roadmap that North American portfolio management, should include a strong set of API’s, said a bilingual version might start “after SDK’s” said Schoeller. “It is critical for the (December) holidays.” Circuit to be an attractive platform for RELATED It’s priced at US$14.95 a user per CONTENT developers so Unify can support an month, regardless of the number of Unify looks ecosystem of business applications and devices each user has. To lure customers ahead extensions into vertical markets.”

14 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com TELECOM WATCH

MITEL NETWORKS EXTENDS M2M will bring CONTACT CENTRE government SOLUTION FOR LYNC BY HOWARD SOLOMON regulation: When Microsoft added enterprise voice capabilities to Lync 2013 Serv- er, many partners created contact BY HOWARD tion — like mandatory centre solutions with it. SOLOMON data breach notification They include Ottawa-based Mitel Net- ecause the so- — is necessary. But regu- works, whose MiContact Center is one called Internet of lation done wrong could of its premier products. B Things will touch slow down the industry, Now MiContact Center has been so many devices, some and possibly cut into boosted with three new features for security professionals startup financing. “It has its Lync-based system takenk from its wonder if government to be done properly,” he enterprise voice system: regulation will be need- said. “Standardization • call-in customers can now use email, ed to prevent needless but not regulation.” Web chat or social media through the deaths. Gord Taylor, a Toronto- contact cente in addition to voice; That was hotly debated based independent secu- • an interactive voice response (IVR) sys- at the annual SecTor con- rity consultant argued tem gives organizations the ability to offer ference in Toronto last that regulation would be customers a self-service option, taking month, with Ottawa con- self-defeating. The Inter- some of the load off call centre staff; sultant Brian O’Higgins net has been built on 20 • contact center supervisors can use a predicting regulation is year-old code, he said, tablet instead of a PC. coming. whose vulnerabilities are “We’ve taken a single channel capabili- The car industry is only now being discov- ty (voice) and turned it into a multichan- working on a standard ered. nel capability," said Chris Courneya, for self-driving cars with Industry self-regulation general manager of Mitel’s contact anti-collision sensors will be far more success- centre solutions, that wirelessly talk to ful than imposed regula- “In the same way we handle voice in- each other by 2020, he tion because if vendors teractions to service customers, we can told a panel. But Gen- have a vested interest in also bring other methods into the contact eral Motors isn’t waiting making sure a product is centre. If someone’s visiting your Web site — it wants to have the secure they’ll do it bet- and they’re having trouble, we can pop technology in a Cadillac ter. “It won’t be checkbox up a chat and ask, ‘Would you like some by 2017, before a safety security,” he said, mean- help on that?’ If they post a Twitter feed standard is set. “The ing “the government says or Facebook post we have the ability to opportunity for abuse is I have to do this. Check.” gather that and bring it into the contact huge," without regulation. “No industy is stand- centre. But he didn’t ing up and saying “If someone said something nice have much sup- please regulate me about you on Twitter you could take port. David Senf, more,” O’Higgins that into the organization to figure vice-president of acknowledged, out how to monetize it and spread the IDC Canada’s in- “but it will happen. good news. If someone said something RELATED frastructure solu- CONTENT There will be more against the brand you could diffuse the tions group, said Interoperability and more regula- situation and publicly address it and some IT regula- standard tion” turn it into a positive thing.”

ITWorldCanada.com I NOVEMBER 2014 I 15

RELATED Interoperability standard http://www.itworldcanada.com/post/97528 FEATURE

LINUX IN THE ENTERPRISE More than two decades after its debut, the open source operating system has expanded beyond the desktop and into networking and the cloud By Howard Solomon

16 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com Vancouver is the centre ry, Pixar — have applications that run on Linux. of the country’s digital “In our industry we’ve never gone Win- animation industry, with dows because Linux is faster, we can tune hundreds of studios of all the kernel, we can configure it to our needs, it’s more flexible and robust. And sizes based there. when you’re talking about hundreds and Since technology isn’t a differentiator they thousands of servers, the cost would kill us collaborate, with 10 studios sharing a data in Windows.” centre for rending images and swapping hundreds of virtual servers as needed. Debut in 1991 The operating system of choice is Linux. It’s been 23 years since Linus Torvalds As Ron Stinson, director of IT and opera- distributed the first Linux kernel. By some tions at Rainmaker Entertainment details, estimates there are over 600 free and com- dark fibre runs from his in-house data cen- mercial distributions, tre, where he has about 400 servers, to the Linux can be found on enterprise and high shared data centre, where Rainmaker has performance computing servers, desktops another 100. These are plugged into switch- and networks. Keeping up with the times, it es dedicated to his operation, so there’s an runs many cloud service providers. air gap between him and the other studios. Looking to create a private cloud using If he wants to give up half of his unused OpenStack? The underlying operating sys- servers, they are wiped, plugged into an- tem will be Linux. other studio’s switches, which re-images Google is a prodigious user: Android on them for its use. When they are turned smart phones, Googbuntu on its corporate back to him they are re-imaged with Cen- desktops and Chrome OS for Chromebooks. tOS Linux and the rendering applications (One 2009 article had a headline “The fu- Rainmaker uses. ture of Linux is Google.”) Even Microsoft’s Azure offers developers 'A great model' the ability to create Linux virtual machines. “For us it’s a great model," Stinson says. What Linux hasn’t been able to do is push It allows cost recovery — so when I’m not Windows out of the enterprise, although it using my servers I’m not paying for them may do so as cloud services squeeze out on- — and I’m renting them out at a higher rate premise software. So far, though, there isn’t than I’m paying for them, so I’m generating a Linux equivalent of big enterprise applica- revenue. In the past two years I’ve recovered tions like those from SAP, Oracle, IBM or 40 per cent of my lease expenditures. That’s Hewlett-Packard. a huge difference for someone in my position On the other hand, Linux is behind the where I need hundreds of servers at a time.” increasing number of Hadoop frameworks “Linux provides a few advantages: One, of being used for processing large data sets course, is cost: It doesn’t cost us any licenc- across clusters ing fees. That’s why I’m running CentOS as Interestingly, Al Gillen, IDC’s program opposed to Red Hat, for example. There’s a vice president of enterprise server research, big user community for support, so it isn’t notes that the number of physical servers that hard any more to find trained techni- running Linux in the enterprise is increas- cians I can hire and bring in-house. ing as the number of virtualized Windows Also all his vendors — AutoDesk, Found- servers goes up.

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Putting your hands around the amount SINCE I STARTED of Linux in the enterprise isn’t easy be- cause it can be hard to measure the use of WORKING ON IT free Linux, but IDC estimated in 2013 that 16 YEARS AGO among paid server operating systems Linux accounted for 24.9 per cent of shipments, IT'S GONE OFF IN (up from 22 per cent the year before). An- other 18.9 per cent were unpaid, giving it a DIRECTIONS WE total market share of 43.8 per cent. NEVER THOUGH OF By comparison Windows paid and unpaid had a total share of 57.3 per cent. What that doesn’t count are Linux distri- butions downloaded online. “One of the trends I think has favourably In fact Gillen say’s Linux’s biggest com- impacted Linux is that it has been seen as a petitor is free Linux. natural and ideal platform for those service Jim Elliott, a Linux ambassador in IBM offerings that need the infrastructure”, says Canada’s systems and technology group, has Mark Coggin, the company’s senior director been working with Linux for over a decade. of marketing. “When we released Linux for the mainframe (Red Hat’s PaaS offering is called Open- I was the product manager, and no one Shift, its cloud management platform is thought at the time it would be where it is called CloudForms). today (30 per cent of IBM mainframes are “Linux has become a very common devel- sold with Linux), “ he said in an interview. opment platform, there’s a lot of comfort “In the 16 years since I started working on in the skills-set area,” he said, compared to it, it’s gone off in directions we never though smaller operating systems. “Third, Linux as of,” such as smart phones. a distribution is comprehensive and flex- Increasingly customers are running Linux ible — it ships with multiple file systems, on IBM Power servers instead of its Unix- it ships with multiple supported run time based AIX operating system, enough that libraries, it’s flexible in the way you can it has backed the creation of an OpenPower write scripting languages and Linux shells.” Consortium to allow other companies to And it’s forced to be an open standards exploit the architecture, Google is a partner. platform, he said. In addition, Elliott noted, all of IBM’s core products have Linux versions, including the Acquisitions DB2 relational database, the WebSphere fam- “We think OpenStack and (Linux) containers ily, Domino, Connections and WorkLight. will be squarely in the middle of cloud archi- For private cloud, he adds. the OS of tectures moving forward,” he added. choice of IBM customers is Linux. Red Hat’s recent acquisitions are also telling about where Linux is heading. They Red Hat range include FeedHenry, which providers mobile Red Hat, the best-known commercial back end as a service. “One of our of strate- distribution, has broadened its portfolio gies overall, especially as we evolve to this ‘as- and now offers in addition to RHEL server a-service’ model is, to create micro-service a range of Linux-based OpenStack infra- offierings that can be offered up in concert structure for building private and private with our application platform, and therefore software-, infrastructure- and platform-as- a developer who is working on an application a-service clouds. that needs to hosted service for mobile inte-

18 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com FEATURE gration or other things can do affordable and easy to deploy. that very easily through Open- His model? Google (who he Shift.” Another acquisition was used to work for). EDITORIAL SALES Editor Vice-President Inktank, a developer of open- Version 2.5 of the OS in- Howard Solomon and Associate Twitter: @cwceditor Group Publisher source storage systems. cludes validated solution Brad McBride Contributing Editors The other big commercial guides for using it with auto- Jeff Jedras Senior Account Brian Jackson Executive distribution is SUSE Linux, mation tools from VMware, Desere Ross Senior Account which just released version 12 Mirantis for OpenStack and CREATIVE SERVICES Executive of its enterprise suite. It now in- HortonWorks for Hadoop. Senior Wayne Prihoda Graphic Designer cludes full system rollback and Where Linux goes from here Mel Manasan CORPORATE Creative Director live kernel patching, as well as is, well, if you think about cloud Jeff Coles Chairman support for IBM Power Systems computing the sky’s the limit. Michael R. Atkins CIRCULATION President and and System z mainframes. IDC Gillen notes that the Group Publisher Circulation Manager Fawn Annan There are also new high three use cases for cloud com- Cheryl Patfield Controller availability and geo clustering puting — software as a ser- Rob Novorolsky extensions, as well as a vir- vice, infrastructure as a ser- tual machine driver pack for vice and platform as a service boosting Windows VM per- — impact the spread of Linux formance on Linux hosts that in different ways. HOW TO CONTACT COMPUTING CANADA now supports more Windows IaaS lets CIOs lift an entire Telephone: (416) 290-0240 Fax: (416) 290-0238 operating systems. OS and workloads to some- Mail: Computing Canada, 55 Town Centre Court, Suite 302, Scarborough, Ontario M1P 4X4 one else’s data centre. That Employees may be reached using a combination of their first initial and last name, Network OS doesn’t change the number for example: [email protected] One of the latest places to find of instances of Linux. Buying Online: ITWorldCanada.com Subscription inquiries: Linux is on the network. Com- a SaaS service will, though, tel: (613) 475-3217 or 1-800-565-4007 fax: (416) 290-0239 or 1-800-565-8148 panies like Cumulus Networks because the chances are good e-mail: [email protected] make a Linux-based network the underlying OS is Linux. operating system that runs on As for PaaS, that’s the “great PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40063800 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES bare-metal switches. Users hope” for cloud computing in TO CIRCULATION DEPT — IT WORLD CANADA INC. 302-55 TOWN CENTRE COURT can then add Linux applica- general, where an organiza- SCARBOROUGH ON M1P 4X4 E-mail: [email protected] tions and automation tools tion writes an application to a Published by: IT World Canada such as Chef and Puppet for framework (Java, Spring, PHP,

Computing Canada is published 12 times a year by more agility and scalability Perl and others) and the orga- IT World Canada Inc. a unit of Laurentian Media Group, Michael R. Atkins, Chairman. IT World Canada Inc. also in the data centre by building nization rents time on a server publishes Canadian CIO, Computer Dealer News and Direction Informatique. Computing Canada is distributed free of charge to the following job categories in Canada software defined networks. to run the app. That’s where only: company executives, public servants responsible for computing,management/computer consultants, IT “We bring together the best of there’s potential for OS market managers/supervisors, systems analysts, programmers, operators and computer field engineers. networking in terms of proto- share shift, Gillen says. Subscription rates outside of Canada: in the U.S. US$75/year; other countries US $95/year. Available to non-qualified readers in Canada at $2.50 per single copy. All rights reserved. cols features and functions, in There’s no guarantee that The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in part or in whole without the consent of the copyright owner. the context of a Linux operat- Linux, despite its cost advan- ISSN #1484-9089. GST Registration #R122605769 IT World Canada Inc. is an affiliate of International Data Group, ing environment, and provide tage, wins, he adds – Micro- the world’s largest publisher of computer-related information and the leading global provider of information services on information technology. International Data Group publishes hardware acceleration on top soft’s Azure is showing it can over 300 computer publications in 85 countries. Ninety million people read one or more International Data Group of industry standard switching run a cost-effective and reliable publications each month. hardware,” says Cumulus CEO service. But PaaS hasn’t taken and co-founder JR Rivers. off yet. “That’s about the next The idea is “to help custom- generation of applications,” he We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical ers build very high capacity says, “many of which have yet Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. network fabrics that are both to be written.” CMCA AUDITED

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All Hands on Tech Smart spectacles like Google Glass and Epson Moverio might be just an interesting gadget to many, but a number of companies think they have application in the enterprise. Virginia-based APX Labs has created a platform called Skylight developers can use to brings data from a company’s backend systems to the device. Workers in the field can then use hands-free wearable technology to call up information with the flick of an eye or hand. In this video CEO Brian Ballard talks to ITBusiness.ca editor Brian Jackson about how it can integrate with Salesforce, which recently announced a Salesforce Wear developer pack to help developers leverage the technology.

20 I NOVEMBER 2014 I ITWorldCanada.com MOBILE MOBILE PRODUCTS

Nano Router Watch Motorola Big Nexus Don’t like dragging wireless Motorola’s Moto 360 is By the time you read this gear around? TP-Link is now available at Telus and the Motorola-made Nexus selling what it says is the FutureShop, Using the 6 should be available for world’s smallest router. AndroidWear operating pre-order through Google Smaller than a puck, the system, it comes in a Play. Canadian carriers Wireless N Nano router is light metal case with a haven’t said when they’ll be said to be ideal if you want stone-coloured leather off ering the device, though. to relay a hotel room’s Wi-Fi band, or a dark case with But while you wait, think to a number of wireless a black leather band. For about its almost 6-in screen, devices. Like any 802.11n your health it includes a and that it will run Android device, it can off er speeds pedometer and an optical 5.0. Powered by a 2.7 GHz of up to 150 Mbps under heart rate monitor. The Qualcomm quad-core ideal conditions. It off ers battery on the water- Snapdragon 805 CPU, it has QoS, easy setup, advanced resistant device is said to a 13 MP, f 2.0 camera with security and fi rewall, and last all day, and can charge optical stabliization. 4K UHD fi ve operational modes: overnight. Syncs with video capture and either 32 Access Point (AP), Router, any Android 4.3 or higher or 64 GB of memory. A big Client, Bridge or Repeater device. Priced at $280. handset with a big price: In mode. List $24.99 the U.S. it’s $750.

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STICKY APPLICATION There is a reason the Supreme Being inspired someone to create the geo- graphic information system (GIS) solu- tions: To keep our streets clean. That’s the take away from the announcement by Toronto’s Esri Canada that its GIS solution was used to analyze more than 7,100 km of the city’s sidewalks to find more than 2,000 tons of gum for a documentary on litter. The film is called the Dark Side of the Chew. Esri partnered with filmmaker Andrew Nisker, who said in a statement that “mapping and quantifying gum pollution has never been done before.” We hope new Toronto mayor John Tory appreciates. Esri is also developing an upcomingthe Gum Shoe Application aimed to raise awareness about gum pollution. Users can snap a photo of the residue, which will be located by the GIS system. The data is then uploaded to a world map. The film will be shown Nov. 9 as part of the Planet in Focus environmental film festival, Hopefully before they roll out the red carpet the sidewalk will be scanned and cleaned.

aimed at showcasing release, including a SITTING the company’s tech- bathroom Mirror TV PRETTY nologies. that can be turned into Electric Mirror has Electric Mirror a wireless stereo sys- won a design award makes lighted mirrors tem smart phone pari- for a chair that in- and mirror TVs for ing, and speakers that cludes a TV, touch homes and hotels. can create vibrations in controlled LED ligh- The chair, which cost any surface to generate ing and Bluetooth. $10,000 to design and premium sound. Built on Ikea’s Iva build, was “glammed But it doesn’t recline. wooden frame chair, and swaged in full- Nor is there a cup hold- and designed by Steel- angled mirror dress,” er. Or a USB port. What man Partners, it’s according to a news were they thinking?

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