AUSTRALIA’S START-UPS: FINDING WAYS TO FOSTER AN INNOVATIVE ICT CULTURE MARCH/APRIL 2013

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click to visit www.acs.org.au/mags CONTENTS March/April 2013 The business of bright ideas How can Australia encourage and support innovative technology start-ups?

11 Local experience: we talk to two Australian entrepreneurs. 26 The view from Silicon Beach: how do Australian start-ups compare with their global counterparts? 28 A heartfelt plea for more start-ups: why we need to encourage more young people into the software industry. CONTENTS

24 Australian War Memorial targets social media Social media is helping explain the ANZAC story to a younger generation. 30 Why MONA went mobile Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art is pioneering new ways for museum-goers to experience artworks. 34 Does your small business need a mobile app to stay competitive The app versus mobile Website debate for smaller companies. 38 Victorian Government rewires its approach to ICT Gordon Rich-Phillips, Victorian Minister for Technology and Assistant Treasurer, explains. 40 Disaster recovery: don’t forget mobile A more mobile workforce requires important new considerations for your disaster recovery plans.

42 Challenges of disaster recovery as a service 60 Hold the phone Careful planning could help you switch on your entire Mobile attacks top the list of 2013 security threats. environment in the cloud in the event of a disaster. Beyond the line of sight ANEIT: a new venture 64 44 Australian-developed vehicle accident prevention A group of researchers has banded together to better technology is set to hit the world stage. understand how ethics is taught in Australia – and how we can improve this vital part of ICT education. 66 The open-source car Go paperless or die trying! Automakers are eagerly wooing app developers to build 46 software for their in-car infotainment systems. 14 tablet apps for ditching dead trees. Study predicts data deluge Reimagining the library 68 50 By 2020, there will be 5200GB of data for every person on The University of Technology, Sydney is undertaking an earth. ambitious program to transform its library with technology. Twitter tools for power users Making it real with 3D printing 70 52 Ten Twitter tools to give you more insight into your As prices for 3D printers come down, the potential exists to network, find new people to connect with and much more. start your own mini manufacturing operation. 5 excellent uses of Windows 8 Hyper-V TV is the new tablet 72 54 Windows 8’s virtualisation layer is a great way to try all The rapidly evolving world of gesture-based computing. kinds of new things. Here’s five to get you started. 56 Patterns for peace 76 Security through obscurity How to find some common ground in the (un)civil war Six techniques to help you obscure the data and traces between Agile developers and data architects. you leave online.

4 | Information Age March/April 2013 March/April 2013

12 ACS NEWS Boost for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs ACS congratulates Glen Heinrich Skills and professional development key to cyber security challenge 2012 ACS Women’s survey results released A colourful journey of lifelong learning Profile: the ACS accreditation committee CIOs share best practice at Strategy Summit Inaugural winners of CIO Benchmark Awards announced Entries for the 2013 iAwards are closing soon! NAB uses videoconferencing to partner with the ACS

VIEWS 20 Why you shouldn’t punish employees who slack off 22 5 Tips for developing mobile apps

DEPARTMENTS 6 President’s column 8 CEO’s column 10 Editorial 19 ACS Foundation update 80 Australian answers: computer modelling to predict water pipe failure

Information Age March/April 2013 | 5 ACS PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

RISKS FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS As opportunities for ICT professionals and entrepreneurs increase, so do the risks. The ACS has stepped into this breach with a new professional indemnity offering for members.

Dr Nick Tate, FACS CP, President, ACS

elcome to the March/April edition provided many new opportunities for young developers are engaged in legal action with of Information Age. This edition entrepreneurs. It has also exposed some of each other over similar sounding names. Wcoincides with a new value offering these developers to altogether new risks. Of course, many professionals such as for ACS members for professional indemnity. In another example, nearly two years lawyers and doctors have been facing these There are details in the ACS News section ago, it was being reported that some app risks for a long time and it should not be a and on the ACS website. developers were withdrawing their apps from surprise that as the reach, importance and The ACS believes that professional US stores for fear of being prosecuted over economic impact of software development indemnity is becoming ever more critical copyright infringement. Just last year, the continue to increase so too does the risks. for ICT professionals as ICT itself increas- state of New Jersey filed an action against Big companies are likely to be able to protect ingly underpins ever more aspects of our an educational app developer over privacy themselves against these risks or simply have daily lives. The advent of app stores for concerns. In 2011, a US-based company, the necessary funding to pursue the legal smartphones and tablets, for example, has MacroSolve was reportedly suing 10 different case. However, app stores have created a provided an explosion of opportunities for apps developers. whole new class of young IT entrepreneur who programmers to develop software for this There is another interesting report may well not be fully aware of these risks. new distribution channel. It has, of course, from the middle of last year where two app Each country approaches these issues differently but in Australia, professionals can limit their liability through belonging to associations that are registered under the various Professional Standards Acts of Australian States and Territories. Providing a limit on liability is a serious business which requires a serious com- mitment by both the association and the individual. Limited liability provides a cap on the amount of money, or assets of the individual that can be under threat through litigation caused through legal infringements (whether intentional or not through ignorance of the law). There are a number of requirements of professional members of associations that are registered under the act but one of the most important of these is ethics. Profes- sionals are required to agree to adhere to a code of ethics and to be judged by their peers if they are not. The ACS is the only professional association in Australia that is registered to provide this limitation of liability for ICT professionals. It is predominantly our young IT entre- preneurs who may be at risk here as so many developers try their hand at writing apps for the new programmes. They can address this risk best as accredited ICT professionals.

6 | Information Age March/April 2013 SMARTER TECHNOLOGY FOR A SMARTER PLANET

with clients and partners, has WHY TODAY’S been turned into a pattern of expertise. An IBM PureSystem can follow this pattern to SMARTEST SYSTEMS automatically set up a database infrastructure in minutes. The system then monitors how the database is being used, The good news is IT solutions tuning it as conditions change. are now more sophisticated. The bad news is they’re also A SMARTER APPROACH TO I.T. more complicated. And all this complexity is taking its toll. IBM PureSystems have been able to achieve up to twice the business application performance and up to twice the application density as previous generation IBM systems.3

In fact, the typical IT With IBM PureSystems, department now spends up computing is not just getting to 161 days just to specify, faster and simpler. It’s taking design and procure hardware another important step for a new IT project (even longer for software).1

What goes into a PureSystem?

Built-in expertise

Integration by design Some IBM PureSystems can be up and running in under four hours.2 Simplifi ed experience HAVE BUILT-IN EXPERTISE.

Recently, IBM® unveiled a BEYOND CONVERGENCE. Take the example of a database: toward making our companies, new class of systems that Unlike today’s “converged” IT IBM’s extensive research cities and planet smarter. make all this complexity far solutions, IBM PureSystems on topics like transaction ibm.com/au/integratedsystems less complicated. We call are more than just prepackaged processing, honed through them IBM PureSystems.™ bundles of hardware and thousands of engagements software; these systems are LET’S BUILD A integrated by design, using SMARTER PLANET®. built-in expertise to balance and coordinate IT resources to create a radically simplifi ed experience for the end user.

1. Based on a 2011 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM. 2. Based upon testing of the IBM PureApplication System W1500-96 with time measured from powering on the system to when it is ready to support application deployments and based upon testing of the IBM PureFlex System Express & Standard models containing one chassis and one compute node with the time measured from powering on the system to when it is ready to support a virtual image deployment. 3. Up to 2X application density based upon simulations of virtualized applications on an IBM Flex System x240 Compute Node as compared to a previous generation IBM system. The IBM Flex System x240 Compute Node is available in IBM PureFlex System and IBM PureApplication System. Up to 2X performance of business applications based upon testing of IBM Storwize v7000 “Easy Tier” on previous generation IBM system. IBM Storwize v7000 is included in IBM PureFlex System and IBM PureApplication System. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, PureSystems, Smarter Planet, Let’s build a smarter planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. © International Business Machines Corporation 2013 All Rights Reserved. © Copyright IBM Australia Limited 2013. ABN 79 000 024 733. IBMCCA1465/EIS/IA/FPC ACS CEO’S COLUMN

A STEP AHEAD Changing times require new responses, including a new way to communicate with members.

Alan Patterson, MACS (Snr), CEO, ACS

riginally formed in 1966, the ACS has that smartphone use in Australia doubled that’s from Australian companies or global a long history of serving members in 2012, with 9.2 million Australians using brands. Oand the ICT industry. During that smartphones to access the internet. In its role as the voice for ICT profes- time, we’ve seen an unprecedented level of Of course, these changes have initiated sionals and the industry, the ACS has been technological change. From mainframes, upheavals. Over the past twelve months, for at the eye of this storm, providing essential the invention of microprocessors to the example, we’ve seen an industry grapple advice to governments, advocating for ICT personal computer and the World Wide Web, with the effects of these changes, with education and professional development, as an industry we have watched several newspaper publishers restructuring and and holding the vital role of guardians of ICT revolutionary cycles change the way we work refocusing their businesses to be more ethics. At the same time, we have not been and live. competitive in a digital world. Some indus- immune to these revolutionary changes. Now, we are entering a new era. With tries, previously considered unassailable, Just recently, we have seen some people near-ubiquitous smartphones and high like the music business, have seen their calling for change within the ACS, to make speed broadband, we are seeing more business models face increasing pressure. the Society more relevant in the face of this and more business completing the move Closer to home, retailers are feeling the new world. Our work to renew the ACS must online. A recent report by the Australian pinch as consumers shun storefronts to buy continue and we must build on the efforts to Communications and Media Authority found goods online at the best prices – whether promote certification and skills development and the refreshed image launched last year. Our next step in this process is to follow industry momentum and move this, our flagship membership publication, into the digital world. This issue of Information Age and the next (May/June 2013) will be available solely online as we explore new methods of reaching out to you, our members. Of course, this is only the beginning. Over time we will add new features to Information Age only possible in the digital format, including vodcasting and online courseware. If you have ideas about what you would like to see in the magazine, you can let us know. This is an exciting experimentation phase for Information Age and we hope you will join us in taking this step into the new world of publishing. As ICT leaders, we know you are at the forefront of technological change and will welcome this digital approach. And, as ACS members your opinions matter. For the next two editions of Information Age we are offering ACS members the opportunity to win an iPad mini. All you need to do is follow the links within the magazine and tell us what you want in an online digital edition.

8 | Information Age March/April 2013

EDITORIAL INFORMATION AGE President and Publisher: Susan Searle, [email protected] EDITORIAL Editor: Deanne McIntosh, [email protected] Production Manager: GOING DIGITAL Mike Gee, [email protected] Technology is under debate in the upcoming election, just Designer: Steven Dunbar as politics embraces new developments like big data. Photographer: Ian Sharp ADVERTISING Deanne McIntosh, editor Cherry Yumul, [email protected] (02) 9902 2756 Managing Director: Davy Adams his September, we will see a major Of course, the other trend we saw take intersection of technology and society off in 2007 – the use of social media by Contributors to this issue Tas Australians go to the polls for the politicians – is only set to continue in 2013. Hamish Barwick, Adam Bender, John Brandon, Kristin federal election. Some pollies, like Kevin Rudd, successfully Burnham, Rob Enderle, Scott Finnie, John Giles, In 2007, ICT took a major role in the used YouTube to have get their messages out, Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, Richard Lucas, Lucas Mearian, Rebecca Merrett, Colin Neagle, Drew Nelson, electoral campaign with the discussion over especially to younger voters, and tweeting Christopher Null, Thor Olavsrud, Rohan Pearce, Mary the National Broadband Network, and this is now fairly commonplace. However, 2007 K. Pratt, Matt Prigge, Paul Rubens, Philip Takken, year Labor and the Coalition continue to is an eternity ago in social media terms; so Joshua Tanchel, Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, Peter argue over how this major infrastructure much has changed with many more people of Wayner, Richard White, Serdar Yegulalp investment is being handled. various ages on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest Information Age is the official publication of the I believe the NBN will continue to be a and so on. What are your predictions for the Australian Computer Society Inc (ACT) and is point of difference for many voters. Unfortu- use of technology in the upcoming campaign? produced on their behalf by nately, a lot of the debate still seems to centre I’d love to hear your thoughts. IDG Publications. on costs rather than the opportunities and a I’m sure our MPs and senators will Australian Computer Society more nuanced discussion of the technology also have watched the US election last year Nick Tate seems lacking. for ideas on how to take advantage of new President: The Coalition says its version will be technology. One area of particular note in the CEO: Alan Patterson cheaper and implemented faster and we look American presidential election was the use of Level 11, 50 Carrington Street forward to seeing more details of how this sophisticated data analytics. Barack Obama’s Sydney NSW 2000 could be achieved. In February, shadow com- campaign appeared to use big data and social Phone: (02) 9299 3666 munications minister Malcolm Turnbull said networking to best effect, motivating sup- Fax: (02) 9299 3997 he would support an NBN scheme where resi- porters and reaching out to those wavering dents pay to upgrade the last mile of copper voters. E-mail: [email protected] to fibre. In this scenario, the NBN would build Here, of course, voting is compulsory URL: www.acs.org.au a fibre-to-the-node (fttn) network and then so the onus will not be on getting people to www.acs.org.au/infoage users could elect – and pay for the privilege – the booths, but the insights still apply for ARBN: 160 325 931 of fibre-to-the-premise (fttp). targeting advertising messages and I imagine Copies are distributed free to members of the ACS. When I talk to people outside technology, this will be most important in marginal All material in Information Age is protected under the however, the back and forth over fttn versus seats. It will be interesting to watch, over Commonwealth Copyright Act 1968. fttp doesn’t seem to be as well understood the coming months, how many politicians go as a billion-dollar price tag. Here’s hoping digital (and how successfully). we see a level of discourse above dollars and We made our own major digital leap cents, that looks at what is technologically recently, moving to an e-mag format with innovative and will take the country into the this issue of Information Age. This decision future. But perhaps this is too optimistic! was not taken lightly and follows a lengthy Environment period of review and consultation. You can ISO 14001 read more on the process in ACS CEO Alan Patterson’s column on page 8. Information Age is printed by Offset Alpine As the reading habits of media Printing under International Environmental consumers has changed over the years, pub- Management standard ISO 14001. The paper lications have sought to adapt and present used is manufactured from sustainable content in different and more meaningful plantation timber sourced from certified forests. ways. Over time we hope to build on the e-mag concept with more digital content. © Copyright 2013 IDG Communications If you have ideas on how we can improve ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Information Age in any way, you can send them Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or to me at [email protected]. In the medium without express written permission of meantime, enjoy the issue! IDG Communications is prohibited. Copyright on works submitted by ACS members is retained by the original owner. 10 | Information Age March/April 2013 ICT INDUSTRY

LESSONS LEARNT What does it take to build a successful start up in Australia? In this issue we look at the challenges facing local entrepreneurs, but first, some real life experience.

By Deanne McIntosh

Australian company, has set up its lab in San Francisco.” Another entrepreneur, Airtasker founder Tim Fung, suggests we need to reconsider one of our disadvantages: market size. “Yes, we have a smaller population,” he said. “But counter to that is our high penetration of smartphone and Facebook users. When you look at the number of credit-card-wielding people, places like Sydney compare more favourably.” But, unlike Silicon Valley, Fung said, Aus- tralia hasn’t had the example of “generations of success, with the experience of seeing start ups grow and become successful”. According to Fung, would-be start up leaders need to find a business case that is espite the difficulties of starting up a Australia”. Companies like Atlassian, he says, “monetizable in the foreseeable future. You new tech company in Australia, some show how a company can find global markets don’t have time to burn through cash”. Dhardy entrepreneurs are making a go for software and services but maintain a local He also suggests exploring co-working of it. head office. and community facilities, like the one his “The [Australian] lifestyle is lovely but However, to really nurture start ups, company Airtasker is involved with: Tank the [startup] ecosystem leaves a lot to be he said, we need to make some big cultural Stream Labs in Sydney. desired!” one entrepreneur Information Age shifts as well as structural changes like Fung says Tank Stream Labs is a spoke to, Jonathan Barouch from Roamz, R&D funding. “There’s just not the same community of around 65 technology entre- said. level of corporate engagement with start up preneurs, providing opportunities to share Barouch’s track record includes one companies,” he said. “Australian boards are knowledge and discuss solutions to problems of Australia’s first eCommerce businesses not investing in technology unless they are they’re encountering. “It’s not dog eat dog at FastFlowers.com.au, founded in 1999 and particularly far sighted. Even Westfield, an all,” he said. later sold to online rival 1300 Flowers in 2010, and now Roamz, an app that helps users find interesting destinations nearby using social media. Barouch says the problem is not just the difficulties of obtaining funding and the absence of a mature venture capitalists, but also with local environment, which compares unfavourably to places like Silicon Valley and Israel. “In Israel, angel investors can write off some of the investments,” he said. “It encour- ages investment in high risk, early stage start ups. In Australia, we have billions of dollars locked up in superannuation but there’s no encouragement for them to put that into new companies.” Barouch has spent several weeks lately in the US, but “desperately wants to stay in Tim Fung, Airtasker. Jonathan Barouch, Roamz.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 11 YOUR INDUSTRY : ACS News

Boost for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs

Alan Patterson, chief executive of the ACS, announced a new strategic alliance with OAMPS Insurance Brokers in March. Insurance terminology “OAMPS is a Wesfarmers company with over 750 employees Financial injury (professional indemnity): financial injury arising in 34 branches around Australia, serving over 120,000 clients,” from defects and deficiencies or failure to perform, including pro- Patterson said. “There were very clear synergies between tection for performances based contractual liability and liability. our organisations, both in terms of organisation values and Technology-related injury: infringement of intellectual property, commitment to supporting a strong ICT sector in Australia.” violation of a person’s right of privacy, libel and slander or breach The first initiative of the alliance is a safeguard insurance of confidentiality. policy for all members of the ACS earning less than $25,000 in General liability: bodily injury, property damage, personal injury, consulting fees. This professional indemnity and general liability product liability and pollution liability. package includes a limit of liability of $10,000,000 for each claim, Product recall expense: reimbursement of expense incurred to and $20,000,000 in the aggregate. recall and regain possession of products likely to cause physical “We are very excited about this new package and believe it injury. offers a great platform for encouraging the next generation of tech start-up and entrepreneurs,” Patterson said. “Everyone needs to get their start somewhere, and securing your first sale or consulting product recall protection, world-wide coverage (with exceptions job is challenging. The purchaser of your services needs assurance for those who reside in the US/Canada region and sanction- that not only will you deliver what you have promised, but that there affected countries), and the cover for subcontracted work. are safeguards in place protecting both of you.” “Again, we see these inclusions as a vital support to those The professional indemnity safeguards includes covering looking to establish a start-up,” Patterson said. “It is not defective work and failure to perform pursuant to a contract, uncommon to be studying while also working on your start-up idea, you pitch for a number of jobs and then find that a number come through together. All of a sudden you don’t have the capacity. Under this agreement, you can bring in support through subcontracting arrangements.” “Additionally, the world is a small place today, and we see many of our young members collaborating across international borders. This agreement recognises that IT is a global marketplace and affords protection as such.” Andrew O’Reilly, OAMPS branch manager, said the company was very excited to be working with the leading ICT professional association Australia, and was pleased with the result of securing the first initiative on behalf of the ACS with Chubb Insurance Company of Australia. “Chubb was awarded first place in IT liability in the 2012 National Insurance Brokers Association Broker Market Survey, and we feel supremely confident that the scope of these Andrew O’Reilly from OAMPS with ACS CEO Alan Patterson. safeguards will meet the needs of budding tech entrepreneurs,” O’Reilly said.

ACS congratulates Glen Heinrich

Glen Heinrich has joined other significant contribution to the Expo, which ran for 18 years. distinguished Australians Australian ICT sector. Heinrich is a life member and who have made a significant During his time at the South Fellow of the ACS and has made contribution to our nation, Australian Health Department a major contribution to the SA receiving the Medal of the Order of from 1974-2006, Heinrich branch, as chairman (1982-1983), Australia (OAM) for service to the contributed to the development vice-chairman (1981), treasurer information technology industry of IT infrastructure within the (1977-1980), as well as executive on Australia Day, 2013. SA Health Commission. He committee member since 1976 The ACS is tremendously also played a major role in the and national treasurer (1985- proud and grateful for Heinrich’s establishment of COMTEC (IT) 2004).

12 | Information Age March/April 2013 YOUR INDUSTRY : ACS News

Skills and professional development key to cyber security challenge

The ACS has welcomed the focus on cyber security in the federal national critical ICT-based infrastructure. The standards that government’s first National Security Strategy. As the government industry and the public take for granted as being integral to has noted, the number of cyber incidents have increased by 42 per the practice of many other high-trust occupations such as law, cent over the past two years, and the ACS believes it is key that we medicine, teaching, accounting, electrical, plumbing and the like as a nation work together to protect the country from cyber attacks. must also apply to ICT professionals. Besides the risk to critical infrastructure including t
All firms should be encouraged and supported to develop their banking and finance, emergency services, energy and utilities, knowledge and an appropriate cyber security plan that they can food, healthcare, IT and communications, mass gatherings respond to and effectively contain a cyber attack to minimise transportation and water, there is also a significant economic damage and financial loss. risk arising from cybercrime and terrorism. In the Society’s past “Elevating the recognition of ICT professional standards submissions to the government, it has made the case that the and skills within both industry and public spheres is a critical best form of defence is for the government to regulate and control step in the future-proofing of our national cyber security,” ACS practitioners who lead and manage Australia’s ICT-based critical president, Nick infrastructure. Tate, said. “Without Alongside the recommendations of the National Security suitably qualified Strategy, the ACS would hope to see: and certifiable t
Registration of ICT practitioners to allow trusted authorities to practitioners, our share timely updates and information about threats. These are ability to counter standards that industry and the public take for granted as being cyber attacks at any integral to the practice of many other high-trust occupations level will be greatly such as law, medicine and accountancy. hampered. t
Given the changing nature of security threats, it is critically “The ACS will important for Australia to invest in R&D in security technologies continue our work which are relevant to protecting computing systems and with the government, information infrastructures in the digital economy. These industry and ICT include secure and trusted distributed information and network practitioners systems, mobile software systems and networks and secure to further the applications and web based online services. understanding of t
Governments must establish a basis for registration and control cyber security in of ICT security professionals who work with business and Australia.”

2012 ACS Women’s survey results released

The ACS 2012 Women in ICT survey results show that across Consistent with previous ACSW survey responses, the 2012 the Asia Pacific region male-biased work cultures, a lack of ACS Women’s survey showed women in the ICT sector were highly promotional opportunities and workplace bullying remain educated, primarily worked full time and were relatively well paid constant challenges for at least half of all women who choose ICT but had little in the way of superannuation reserves. as a career and that these issues have contributed to an annual “For five years the ACS Women’s survey has shown that it decline in female participation in the Australian ICT workforce by is not women’s skills and expertise that has throttled the digital up to five per cent. economy, rather gender attitudes are killing the golden goose. ACS Women Board director Alison Orr said that with a very It’s a complex policy discussion but post-GFC our region is facing visible gender imbalance in Australian ICT, the 2012 ACS Women’s enormous pressures with a hyper-agile workforce, a hyper- survey results were an overdue wake-up call for policy makers. mobile consumer base and a hyper-cautious investment climate “Every economy in Asia from Australia to Vietnam has a where productivity is made more urgent by unprecedented national policy imperative to move into higher-value ICT service advances in storage, security, mobile and convergence,” Orr told delivery away from the ‘$2 shops’ of raw commodity export and Information Age. manufacture into value-add high tech services, and yet they “HR departments, CIO’s and policy makers need to get up to are going backwards by pre-digital workplace and public policy speed urgently about their human resources. Women are highly decisions and cultures which limit workforce participation and qualified and [in the ICT sector] prove to perform and advance in productivity,” Orr said. their profession extremely well.”

Information Age March/April 2013 | 13 YOUR INDUSTRY : ACS News

A colourful journey of lifelong learning

considering all he had on his plate at the Early on in his studies, Murphy found time, “ease” isn’t a word many would use. out about the articulation path offered While studying his first subject, by the Computer Professional Education Business, Legal and Ethical issues, Program, enabling him to gain credit for the Murphy and his family moved house and subjects he had studied towards an MBA. embarked on a renovation. The second He is now taking a few months off subject, Business, Strategy and IT, saw before commencing an MBA (Technology the arrival of his second son. During the Management) at Chifley Business School. third subject, New Technology Alignment, He will receive full credits for his Computer sleep was scarce, with his new baby rarely Professional Education Program subjects, sleeping more than two hours at a stretch and also successfully applied for a during the night. scholarship. Murphy’s final subject, the elective Chifley Business School has enjoyed Organisational Change Management, was a 15-year partnership with the ACS, and a breeze and the one he said he enjoyed the introduced the scholarship two years ago to Rory Murphy loves his job. As IT manager most – mainly because there were no major help develop the industry’s future leaders at Melbourne’s Federation Square – the life changes happening along the way. through postgraduate study opportunities. city’s popular public and cultural space Murphy also completed the Chifley’s Anthony Denyer said that attracts an average of over nine Professional Practice subject, which helped successful recipients of the scholarship million visits each year – Murphy gets to him assess his skills against the SFIA must be high achievers both academically see the difference the space makes in framework and prepare a career plan, all and professionally, and leaders in their people’s lives. He has worked in a number under the guidance of a personal mentor. workplace and community. of industries throughout his IT career in “The Professional Practice subject “[Murphy] stood out because he was both his home country of Ireland and in helped me greatly in looking ahead and clearly motivated to progress his career Australia, and knows that the straight thinking beyond the here and now,” he and promote the advancement of the IT corporate sector simply isn’t his gig. said. “I did not initially see the benefit in industry,” Denyer said. “Fed Square makes a positive impact this subject but after completing the SFIA Taking on an MBA is a big commitment, on people’s lives,” Murphy said. “Whether framework for myself and also setting out but one that Murphy is approaching with it’s a community group celebrating in the a career plan, I really believe it has helped great enthusiasm. He has also embraced square, which has an amphitheatre large and motivated me to become a better IT the career opportunities in Australia, and enough to accommodate 15,000 people, or professional.” last year became an Australian citizen. It a nervous guy proposing to his girlfriend A highlight of studying the Computer is part of a journey that will see his career via the big screen, it’s a rewarding position, Professional Education Program was the morph, change and take new directions. day in, day out.” weekly discussions and debates with fellow It took 200 years for the site of Fed Continuing to work in “for purpose” students from around Australia. Square to change from a city morgue to a organisations is where Murphy sees his “Learning from texts is one thing, fish market, to corporate offices and rail future career. but exploring the different opinions and yards, before coming into its own as one Murphy joined Fed Square in 2006, experiences of peers and being able to have of the world’s great public spaces. Murphy four years after arriving in Australia, and that regular, lively discussion was a positive is hoping his journey will not take quite as found himself moving from a completely learning aspect that I hadn’t considered long, but will be just as colourful, varied technical role into one with more before starting the course,” he said. and fulfilling. management responsibilities. He started investigating courses that would help in Details this career transition. After initially coming The ACS’s Computer Professional Education Program helps people progress their career in contact with the ACS as part of the skills and offers a stepping stone to an MBA. All subjects are run via distance learning, allowing assessment process for his permanent students to more easily balance work, family, life and study. Students are supported residency, Murphy found out about through weekly discussions with peers in small groups, a tutor, and a personal mentor who the Computer Professional Education helps students assess their skills and prepare a career plan. Program and saw it as “the perfect Students can enrol at any of three study periods throughout the year. Enrolments for solution”. the next intake close on 5 May, for commencement of studies on 12 May. With a young family, Murphy found To find out more about the subjects, electives, fees and program outline, visit www. the online learning format of the program acs.org.au/professional-development/cpe-program, email [email protected] or enabled him to fit studies around his freecall 1800 671 003. work and family life with ease, although

14 | Information Age March/April 2013 YOUR INDUSTRY : ACS News

Profile: the ACS accreditation committee

What does it mean to study an ACS- “Increasingly, we’re seeing institutions define the intended accredited course? We spoke to graduate ICT roles using frameworks like SFIA, with CBOK at the Brian von Konsky, chair of the ACS program’s foundation,” he said. “We also look at the processes accreditation committee, about the for developing, managing and reviewing courses that lead to value of this recognition. graduates who are prepared for the intended role in the ICT In Australia, a number of profession.” professional bodies work with The accreditation process documents examples of best universities and education providers to practice that are noted during the review. It also makes ensure graduates gain the necessary recommendations to assist the institution to improve its program. knowledge to work in their chosen field. These recommendations, von Konsky said, are intended to assist In the case of ICT, the ACS undertakes institutions to continually improve and adjust their courses to this important task. provide better outcomes for students and employers. Brian von Konsky, chair “Our principal role is to make sure Getting the balance right in a rapidly-changing industry is of the ACS accreditation universities produce quality graduates tricky but Australian universities are exploring new ways to committee. with the skills and knowledge required educate ICT professionals so that they are ready to start work, by ICT professionals,” von Konsky said, adding that graduation as well as capable of adjusting to shifts in the business and from an accredited ICT program is a first step on a typical pathway technology landscape. In his role, von Konsky sees these efforts to professional membership in the Society. first hand and provides some heartening news from the trenches. “Through the Seoul Accord, this professional status is For example, work integrated learning and related authentic recognised outside of Australia in other countries that are experiences that prepare graduates for the ICT profession and signatories to the Accord.” employment in the industry are important. As well as the newly appointed chair of the accreditation “The current accreditation guidelines require accredited committee (one of the committees of the professional standards courses to have a capstone unit,” he said. “Increasingly, we’re board), von Konsky – who is head of CBS Flexible Learning at seeing that this is achieved using a significant final-year project, the Curtin Business School – was also heavily involved in the or through a work placement or internship that is built into the development of the ACS core body of knowledge (CBOK), which ICT program. At one university, they’ve added an internship year provides the foundation for the accreditation process. to their ICT degree after year two. They spend time preparing According to von Konsky, the CBOK included extensive students for this placement as well as time to debrief and reflect consultation with the ICT industry. on it afterwards. This type of experience is invaluable for students. “Through a series of focus groups, ICT employers explained “There is a misconception that we should be teaching students the need for ICT graduates to possess ICT technical knowledge everything there is to know about ICT by the time they graduate. as well as equally important professional skills like the ability to More realistically, we should be teaching students basic ICT communicate effectively and to work as a member of a team,” he said. discipline skills to an appropriate depth and breadth, in addition to In its work reviewing ICT education programs, the life skills and the principles of lifelong learning so they can adapt accreditation committee evaluates whether courses produce to new technology throughout their professional career.” graduates who are ready to step into the ICT role intended by the Learn more about accreditation programs, including a institution, and that these graduates possess the core ICT skills list of accredited programs, at www.acs.org.au/careers-and- outlined in the CBOK. employment/accredited-courses.

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CIOs share best practice at Strategy Summit The third CIO Strategy Summit was hosted by SE-Corp in The three days included a number of keynote sessions from Melbourne this February 2013 and held in conjunction with the CIOs and IT leaders at Westpac, REA Group, BankWest, RMIT, ABL, iTNews CIO Benchmark Awards (see more below). and a series of hosted roundtables and think tanks covering big The opening morning of formal sessions was lead off by ACS data and deep analytics, transformational outsourcing, and near president Dr Nick Tate with a leadership panel discussing the field communication. impact of cloud computing on the future skill needs and career “The universal feedback is that we’ve improved again on what progression of CIOs. Dr Tate was joined by Michelle Beveridge was already a benchmark CIO event – and I am happy to say we CIO at Open Universities Australia, Samir Mahir CIO at Tennis already know how to improve it again going forwards,” MD of SE- Australia, and Steve Hodgkinson lead analyst at Ovum for the Corp Jim Berry said. panel. “Our 4th CIO Strategy Summit is back at the Gold Coast QT One of the hot topics identified during the session was the Hotel, 20-22 August, and the program is already solid. Meanwhile skills required for pitching game-changing tech projects to boards we found the synergy of the iTnews Benchmark awards delivered who might not necessarily have the technical knowledge to assess a great opening night – and look forward to building on this for next the proposal. year’s Summit back in Melbourne in February 2014.” Inaugural winners of CIO Benchmark Awards announced

The ACS was a proud supporter of the CIO Benchmark Awards Finalists and Winners inaugural iTNews CIO Benchmark Awards, Finance Sector CIO of the Year Industrial CIO of the Year held at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne in February. Michael Harte, CIO, CBA. Project: core Jason Cowie, CIO, Calibre Global. Project: Over 120 CIOs attended the awards banking modernisation R4 (Review, Rate, Revise, Refresh) gala dinner, which culminated in the David Gee, CIO, Credit Union Australia. Vito Forte, CIO, Fortescue Metals. Project: announcement of the CIO of the Year, Michael Project: IT transformation program New World of Work Harte, for the Commonwealth Bank’s core Andrew Henderson, CIO, ING Direct. Gavin Bills, general manager technology, banking modernisation project. Project: Bank in a Box Pacific Aluminium. Project: IT separa- Winner: Michael Harte The awards judging process began tion project – service desk Winner: Jason Cowie with CIOs nominated by the iTNews Government CIO of the Year audience, followed by a review by their Susan Monkley, group manager, DEEWR. Utilities CIO of the Year peers in a closed CIO-only LinkedIn Project: The Whole of Govt Parliamen- John Lindsay, CTO, Internode (now CTO, group. The awards criteria focused on IT tary Workflow Solution (PWS) iiNet). Project: Internode’s IPv6 project. projects delivering a measurable return on Greg Farr, group CIO, Dept of Defence. Cameron Dorse, CIO, Jemena. Project: investment, with three finalists selected in Project: Defence Data Centre Migration Electricity Outlook portal each of five categories: financial services, Project Leigh Berrell, CIO, Yarra Valley Water. government, industrial, retail, and utilities. David Kennedy, CIO, NSW DTI. Project: Project: transforming IT through The ACS congratulates all finalists, consolidation of multiple ERP systems insourcing and in particular the winners announced in into a single cloud-hosted system. Winner: Leigh Berrell each sector. Winner: Greg Farr Retail CIO of the Year Government CIO of the Wayne McMahon, CIO, Domino’s Pizza Year, Greg Farr (right), Enterprise. Project: digital solution is congratulated on migration into Telstra cloud stage by ACS president Henry Shiner, CIO, McDonald’s Australia. Dr Nick Tate. Project: ANZ employee engagement strategy Paul Keen, GM of technology, RedBalloon. Project: Amazon Web Services (AWS) migration Winner: Wayne McMahon

CIO of the Year: Michael Harte

16 | Information Age March/April 2013 YOUR INDUSTRY : ACS News

(From left) iTnews editor Charis Palmer, Commonwealth Bank regional manager Richard Porter, former Defence CIO Greg Farr, Calibre Global CIO Jason Cowie, iTnews group editor Brett Winterford, Domino’s Pizza Enterprise CIO Wayne McMahon, Yarra Valley Water CIO Leigh Berrell, iTnews senior journalist Liz Tay.

ANZTB Test 2013: Advancing Testing Expertise Hyatt Hotel, Canberra, 6 June 2013

A one-day international software testing conference

As part of its mission to advance the software refreshments, fine music, and networking testing profession, the Australia and New with fellow professionals. Zealand Testing Board (ANZTB) is bringing The conference is suitable for testing leading industry practitioners from around the professionals, IT managers, developers, world to Canberra for a unique one-day business analysts, and anyone with a conference. commitment to software quality. You’ll be inspired by their presentations, Visit our website or ring us toll free on: covering advanced testing topics including 1800 GET ANZTB (1800 438 26982) accessibility testing (WCAG 2.0), bug hunts, to find out more. preventing project failure, and becoming a Registration: $300 trusted adviser to management. And you’ll be able to talk to the experts one-on-one at an Sponsorship exclusive evening reception, while enjoying opportunities available. www.anztb.org Information Age March/April 2013 | 17 YOUR INDUSTRY : ACS News

Entries for the 2013 iAwards are closing soon!

Each year the iAwards – Australia’s premier technology awards Or if you… program – recognise and celebrate the reach and value that t
Know an ICT ‘superstar’ who you feel deserves recognition ICT delivers throughout Australia and indeed the world. It also t
Like to empower your people – and enjoy watching them achieve showcases the innovative products and services that are being and take credit developed and are driving productivity for the nation and are t
Have the ‘next big thing’ to share with the world helping to grow our economy. … then enter the iAwards, the only truly international ICT The iAwards program has a wide variety of different awards program in Australia. Winners of the 2013 iAwards will categories, divided into seven different domains – development, have the opportunity to compete with businesses from across the industry, service, society, student, professional and pioneer. Asia Pacific region at the 2013 APICTA Awards (Asia Pacific ICT Categories range from health and education to resources and Awards) in Hong Kong. mining, finance and government, as well as individual recognition If either your company or you have created an innovative ICT of CIOs and ICT professionals who lead the way. Amongst the product or service and you think you have what it takes to be an new categories added to the 2013 program are community and iAwards winner, put in an entry. If you’ve worked with another consumer, and regional and resources, which recognise the ICT company to develop a solution, you could also consider submitting innovators who are making their mark in regional and rural areas. a joint iAwards application. If you are… Alternatively, if you know an outstanding ICT professional, you t
Searching for ways to enter the market, or looking for new can nominate them for an individual achievement iAward. Enter markets to tackle today! t
Ready for new ways to market yourself or your business 2013 iAwards entrants now have until 26 March to complete t
Using technology to take your company to the next level their submissions. In order to qualify for this extension, t
Seeking recognition for your contribution to the Australian ICT submissions must be registered online by 15 March, with final industry submission details lodged by 5pm AEST 26 March, 2013.

NAB uses video conferencing to partner with the ACS

Triple bottom-line reporting, corporate social responsibility, Video conferencing is a key tool supporting sustainable sustainability and reducing ecological footprints are mantras business practice by reducing travel costs and downtime, and yet now well entrenched in management practice as organisations enabling relationship development and team engagement through recognise the need to commit to social and environmental higher definition picture capture and casting. The technology has outcomes, and not just financial performance. come a long way in the last decade both from our desktops and in corporate solutions for large business teams. The National Australia Bank was recently welcomed as the latest ACS business partner, and we appreciate NAB’s willingness to share how its world-class video conferencing facilities have been used to build the relationship with ACS. The partnership was organised with Denis Curran, head of strategy and innovation at NAB and based in Sydney. Key considerations for NAB in the partnership were access to the latest industry reports, access to an industry graduate program, additional after-hours workshops for staff on both technical and professional skills development, future staff development using the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) and access to the latest thought leadership articles in Information Age. With large work teams based in Melbourne, the national manager of the ACS Professional Partner Program, Laurie Carmichael, was invited to connect remotely via the NAB’s video conferencing facilities in Sydney rather than fly. Carmichael has since provided two sessions including formal presentations followed by Q&A for large work teams. Today NAB staff are continuing to sign up for membership of the ACS and investing in furthering their ICT careers.

18 | Information Age March/April 2013 ACS FOUNDATION UPDATE

EXPLORING CAREER ASPIRATIONS THROUGH INTERNSHIPS

hen the world is your oyster, the spectrum of career choices can While on exchange at the University of Pennsylvania, he saw the jobs be a blessing or simply confounding. market on an international scale. W Andrew Cannon has discovered that you can explore Returning to Perth in 2010, Cannon went to internship presentations inspirations and aspirations through the power of internships. Having by the larger companies with the prospect of gaining professional and taken up these highly valuable, real-world experiences during his technical insights from industry leaders. university studies, he is graduating with a clearer picture of his strengths Macquarie Bank was the first to approach Cannon with an offer for and interests – and a job offer. its 2010 summer vacation program where he was “exposed to real world That job offer is with Microsoft in the US as part of an online services professional practices, such as integrated testing, and working as part of division team that is developing tools and metrics for measuring the Bing a worldwide team”. search engine’s results. Cannon was offered the position as a result of IBM also responded with a six-month ACS Foundation scholarship the performance review of his internship with the company. in Perth. “I was introduced to the IBM mainframe paradigm, which was From an early age he was interested in computing. He progressed from a different suite of technologies than I’d encountered previously,” he says. playing computer games to, at the age of 10, looking at websites and how Microsoft’s US Online Services Division also saw Cannon as a “good they were constructed, and then teaching himself how to build his own. fit” for an assignment to a Bing search quality team. “The teamwork at Cannon’s interest in computers remained a background hobby as MS is really amazing, with people who are exhilarating to work with. I saw his high school choices focused on maths and science subjects on a path their skills and the practices of leaders.” to engineering. “Coming from Western Australia, the opportunities in Life was further, happily, complicated by the offer of an iVEC engineering, particularly the mining specialisations, were expanding,” internship for the summer break of 2011. As one of 10 interns, Cannon he says. worked for 10 weeks on a specific research project, culminating in a final His brilliant results saw him “blessed and cursed” with so many presentation, research paper and podcast. university choices, he says. Cannon was selected for a joint project between iVEC and the Inter- Cannon selected a double science and engineering program from the national Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), an organisation University of Western Australia (UWA) to ensure he had the widest range providing research in support of Australia’s bid for the Square Kilometre of subject areas and future employment opportunities. Array (SKA), which was subsequently jointly awarded to South Africa and The early computing science units rekindled his interest in ICT Australia. and he felt that this was the way to go. He completed his Bachelor of “The SKA project is pushing boundaries at every level,” he says. “The Science, majoring in pure maths, as well as an Honours year and has one internship exposed me to big data and parallelism, the central challenges semester left in his Bachelor of Engineering in software engineering. to further generations of high performance computing. But this eventful seven-year trek was interrupted by an exchange According to Dr Valerie Maxville, education program leader at iVEC, year at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; by filling two everybody wins with internships. “The students gain experience and summer ‘breaks’ with work experience at Macquarie Bank and iVEC; sometimes find new careers, the supervisors gain a new perspective and taking two semesters to experience coveted IBM and Microsoft on their research area and iVEC is able to support new approaches to internships. solving science problems,” she says.

Global opportunities and experience with a round-the-world ticket to broaden their skill crucial to producing work-ready graduates. No area of the economy can be viewed or planned set, their professional experience and network We need our innovative organisations – tech- purely from a local perspective and the ICT sector of contacts, especially in light of so many of the nology providers and companies that are under- is perhaps a prime example: the best products, entry-level jobs being offshored and graduates pinned by advanced systems – to think how they services and skilled people are sourced irrespec- finding it harder to get their career break in can use university student interns in their ICT tive of location. Australia. project teams. Internships offer the great ben- Andrew Cannon exemplifies the calibre of The quality of our universities should also be efits of providing access to the cream of the crop student attracted to Australia’s leading tertiary acknowledged, as has been recognised by com- and the ability to assess young professionals for ICT faculties and the talent that will be taking the panies such as Microsoft and Apple that recruit so potential recruitment. industry forward – in the broadest, most positive many of our graduates to work in the US. –John Ridge sense. It takes more than high quality technical theory, One government strategy for ‘the clever however, to produce young professionals. Relevant John Ridge AM, is executive director of the ACS country’ could be to provide all new ICT graduates industry experience, in the form of internships, is Foundation.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 19 Views : productivity

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T PUNISH EMPLOYEES WHO SLACK OFF By Rob Enderle

recent morning TV show segment I watched focused on what companies Awere doing to stop cyber-slackers. It seems – and this should hardly surprise any of us – that people often use their company PCs and Internet connection to do things like shop at work. Shame on them, the story said, encouraging efforts to stamp out these horrid practices and make sure people are working properly. Hang on. Many of these same people work from home on their own time, and one of the reasons they have to do things like shop online at the office is because they no longer have the personal time to get things done. Stopping the activity in those cases could actually reduce productivity, lowering their after-hours contributions or creating bigger personal issues they’ll still have to deal with at work.

Intel’s lesson: work isn’t confined to the office anymore As Intel went through some difficult times in the 1990s, management noticed that a lot of employees came in late and left early. Executives would sit in their cubes – even the CEO had a cubicle – and watch staff enter and leave at all times. The conclusion: Productivity’s not in the eye of particularly when they may actually be most people were slacking off. the beholder productive at home, the resulting policies A new policy followed. Managers logged My grandfather, the CEO of a large petro- could do more harm than good. their employees in at 8am and out at 5pm – chemical company, liked to tell me a story In today’s connected world, the only and productivity fell like it went off a cliff. when I was growing up. A big steel CEO thing that’s really important is whether an The Intel employees showing up late often hired an efficiency expert to study the steel employee is worth what he or she is being worked from home until the early hours of plant and look for potential improvements. paid and behaving within the ethical con- the morning, and those going home early The expert found a guy just sitting around struct the company and industry requires. often came in very early or worked through and drawing, and he recommended that Some employee monitoring is necessary, of the night on a project. the plant get rid of this seemingly useless course, as some activities clearly can’t be As a result, the people who had been guy. The CEO fired the efficiency expert, allowed on company grounds. working all those extra hours collectively explaining that the guy’s doodles had saved However, getting too invasive will break said “the heck with it” and started working millions and made him one of the com- the productivity advantages you’re likely regular hours, and those who had been pany’s most valuable employees. taking for granted and drive away those taking advantage of the flexibility came If employee metrics focus on what is who are the most productive. in but slacked off. It was quite literally important to the firm – that is, what people one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen actually accomplish – then most everything Rob Enderle is president and principal analyst of a company do. Thankfully, some smart works itself out. On the other hand, if the Enderle Group. Previously, he was the senior people ran Intel, and the policy was reversed metrics focus on how long someone is in the research fellow for Forrester Research and the once management saw the results. office or what they do on company property, Giga Information Group.

20 | Information Age March/April 2013 The Future of Higher Education & Skills Training

‘MOOCs & Digitisation’

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This one day event will explore what trends will have a real impact on education, vocational and corporate training in the Australasian Region and India over the next few years.

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS INTERACTIVE PANEL MEMBER FEATURING PRACTICAL SESSIONS FROM THE Prof. Anant Andrew Thomson, FOLLOWING ORGANISATIONS Agrawal, Executive Director HIGHER EDUCATION President, eDX AsiaPac, Cisco (online Joint Grattan Institute Venture between UNSW Harvard & MIT) Macquarie University Hong Kong Polytechnic University Ernst & Young INTERACTIVE PANEL MEMBER INTERACTIVE PANEL MEMBER School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Prof. Arun Iain Martin, Vice Engineering, UNSW Sharma, DVC, President and Smart Sparrow Queensland Deputy Vice University of Chancellor SKILLS TRAINING Technology (Academic), University of NSW Academies Australasia GTT, India Educomp, India INTERACTIVE PANEL MEMBER INTERACTIVE PANEL MEMBER Peoplebank Australia Ltd Prof. Pip Pattison, Prof. Uday Desai, Freelancer Deputy Vice Director, Indian Bondi Labs Chancellor Institute of (Academic), Technology, TECHNOLOGY University of Hyderabad, India Cisco Melbourne Education Services Australia Google Australian Computer Society

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5 TIPS FOR DEVELOPING SUCCESSFUL MOBILE APPS By Scot Finnie

he initial rush to build mobile apps any apps you develop in the future are more That’s why delivering your content, cre- is settling down, and none too soon. intriguing to users: ating a marketing brochure or engaging TThe world has endured the release of 1. In order to succeed, a mobile app must in e-commerce are not especially useful a whole lot of mediocre, or even useless, solve a problem, deliver important func- benefits for a mobile app to deliver. Bottom mobile apps. App stores everywhere are tionality, save time or money, entertain or line: don’t start building an app until you chock-full of them. Many companies were enlighten, or offer a novel service. To put it have a rock-solid idea. gripped by a burning need to create mobile another way: successful mobile apps deliver 2. Focus on one thing and do it well. My apps for little more than bragging rights, useful benefits to the user. experience on more than one planning and what such apps did for users was often My favourite example of an app that committee for mobile apps leads me to an afterthought. As a result, many corpo- does something useful comes from Bank believe this may be the most important rec- rate apps have languished in app libraries of America. Available in Android and iOS ommendation. It’s far too easy to go feature with very few downloads. versions, the software lets you deposit a crazy, which could wind up derailing your Some organisations will probably let paper cheque by taking pictures of both project later in the process. Brainstorming it rest there, but others may learn from sides of the cheque. The entire process is good – let the ideas flow – but when you their mistakes and set out to create better takes about two minutes. have exhausted that process, pare the ideas apps. Here are some best practices that As a rule of thumb, anything the Web down to the best one or two. your company can employ to ensure that already does well doesn’t need an app. 3. If you build it... nope, they probably won’t come. App stores aren’t a direct channel to everyone who has a tablet or smartphone. In fact, unless you’re in the business of developing software, you’re probably better off spending your business development dollars in some other fashion. If lots of downloads are important to you, you’ll have to do a good deal of promotion. 4. Apps need optional user notifications. With most mobile apps, the user must launch the application to check on new developments. Notifications aren’t appro- priate for every app, but when it makes sense to add them, don’t miss the oppor- tunity to do so. 5. Don’t force users to run your app instead of visiting the corporate website, and don’t make them go to the mobile version of the site (but do make a mobile version avail- able). Tablets in particular don’t need a dumbed-down mobile version of your website. Mobile browsers are improving. Instead of thinking that you can build an app that replaces your website, concentrate on improving the user experience and utility of the mobile version of your website.

Scot Finnie is US Computerworld’s editor in chief. You can follow him on Twitter (@ScotFinnie).

22 | Information Age March/April 2013 IN AUSTRALIA, WE SPELL I.T. WITH THREE Is. INNOVATION. IMAGINATION. IMPACT.

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www.lockheedmartin.com.au Social media : case study

Australian War Memorial targets social media

24 | Information Age March/April 2013 Social media : case study

ocial media networks such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are helping the Australian War Memorial (AWM) to communicate the Australian Sexperience of war to young people, the memorial’s web manager, Liz Holcombe, says. The AWM’s YouTube audience is predominantly 35 years and older, although other social media networks such as Facebook have a more even spread across the age ranges, with almost a third of its followers aged 24 and under. Holcombe says social media is a great tool to communicate with younger people who may think they already know the story of Gallipoli, the legendary series of battles in which Australian and New Zealand soldiers fought their Turkish counterparts during WWI. It will also give them a fuller view of Aus- tralia’s military history, she says. The AWM makes use of analytics tools to keep track of social media statistics as it also has accounts on Flickr, Instagram and Flickr Commons. “Our most popular video on YouTube is one called Anatomy of the Mark IV, which shows conservators working on a British World War I tank,” she says. “Most views [of this video] are coming from the US and UK.” However, other footage on the YouTube channel, which ranges from the funeral of famous German WWI fighter pilot the Red Baron to a recent piece made by the AWM that describes the process of printing from glass plate negatives, ensures a broad range of content for viewers. The AWM has been on Twitter since January 2009 and has since gathered 4405 followers. Holcombe says it uses the social media site as a marketing and educational tool, as well as showcasing the museum’s collection in a different way. “We take part in a [hashtag gathering] called #collectionfishing, which a lot of cultural institutions are involved in now,” she says. “We can showcase our collection based around a different theme every week. “Our tweets about what happened on this day in history are always popular and allow people to expand their knowledge of Australia’s military history past Gallipoli.” The AWM also engages with patrons through its own website by presenting them with resources they need to access Australian military history research and to start doing their own. Holcombe says the family history section of the website is very popular with visitors and in the lead up to the centenary of WWI in 2015, more and more people are looking to connect with their family military ancestry. “On Facebook, we engage directly with our patrons by posting stories from our collection and events from around the memorial,” she says. “We are able to get immediate feedback about what type of content that audience is interested in, and we can answer The Australian War their questions and help them discover their own personal connection to Australia’s military Memorial has turned history.” to social media in a bid This feedback has been used in a new feature on the AWM’s website where patrons to explain the ANZAC can add comments to the images in the recently story to younger opened exhibition Remember Me: the lost Diggers of Vignacourt. Visitors to the AWM exhibition generations. in Canberra can also add comments using a touch screen. By Hamish Barwick In addition to engaging with patrons on social media and its website, the AWM has a monthly e-newsletter which is sent to over 6000 subscribers. The email provides information about up-coming events, including exhibition openings, battlefield tours, talks, tours and other activities.

Hamish Barwick is editor of CIO.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Information Age March/April 2013 | 25 Industry : innovation

The view from Silicon Beach Does Australia have potential as a capital of digital innovation?

By Philip Takken and Joshua Tanchel

n November 2012, Deloitte issued a study called ‘Silicon Beach: either created in Australia or have an Aussie founder). In other Building Momentum’, which we co-authored with Pollenizer, words, while some venture capital is available, Australia is currently IAustralian start-up publication From Little Things, Vivid Sydney under capitalised. and the global Startup Genome Project. This study provides Å Australian start-ups are more risk-averse compared to their peers insights into the Australian start-up ecosystem and compares in the US, not as ambitious and tend to tackle much smaller markets. Silicon Beach (the combined start-up hubs in Sydney, Melbourne, In addition to these factors, Australian start-ups need to deal Brisbane and Adelaide) with other start-up hubs, primarily in with some macroeconomic factors that negatively affect growth such the USA. as high salary costs (particularly compared to its Asian neighbours) A few interesting findings were highlighted in this study: and the Australian dollar that continues to be at historic highs, Å Australian start-ups struggle to reach scale stage: only five per making the country less competitive in the global economy. cent of the start-ups in Sydney and Melbourne are successfully All in all, Australia’s ecosystem does not seem to provide a scaling, which is much less than scaling percentages in New York favourable outlook and one might wonder what the future of start- and Silicon Valley of seven per cent and eight per cent respectively. up activity in Australia will look like: can we expect an increase in This means that Silicon Beach is currently less mature compared activity in the coming years and can Australia play an active role to other centres of start-up activity. in the global digital community? Å Start-up entities do experience significant issues obtaining Considering the relatively small population and therefore finance, which is one of the primary reasons for a move overseas limited potential client base in Australia, we think it is safe to (currently at least 65 start-ups in and around Silicon Valley are assume that successful start-ups will not be active in Australia

26 | Information Age March/April 2013 Industry : innovation

only. For most entities, expansion across borders will prove to be Use the potential of the National Broadband necessary to grow, and (at least partial) development of certain Network applications might need to be off-shored due to competitive reasons, Significant funding is currently going to the actual roll out of the such as high salaries in Australia and our strong dollar. National Broadband Network (NBN). However, relatively limited However, keeping headquarters in Australia should be a major effort goes to the development of applications that will ultimately focus of the government to ensure a continuing contribution to define the success of the NBN to end users and make the advance- the development of the Australian (digital) economy and to help ments that the NBN can bring to the nation become reality. keep the country competitive. We think the government should The NBN could be used as a great test base for the development play a proactive role to provide the right conditions that help such and roll out of applications developed by successful entrepreneurs entities succeed by playing on the strengths of certain (already in Australia. existing) policies as well as (future) infrastructure, including the Reaching out to certain Australian entrepreneurs who could National Broadband Network. become relevant to the deployment of the NBN in the near future and providing them with assistance in the development of their Facilitate finance opportunities including crowd- products would give support to the start-up community. Also, it funding would help maximise the use and capabilities of the NBN as it In August 2012, the Australian Securities and Investments Com- continues to be rolled out. mission (ASIC) issued guidance to promoters of ‘crowd-funding’ to clarify which arrangements may be regulated by ASIC under Encourage entrepreneurship at universities the Corporations Act 2001 and Australian Securities and Invest- Promotion of entrepreneurship at universities is a great step to ments Commission Act 2001. ASIC has also highlighted some encourage an innovative spirit in our society. risks for operators of Some Australian uni- crowd-funding websites versities, such as the Uni- and people considering versity of Adelaide, already participating in crowd- offer advanced entrepre- funding projects. A proactive use of the potential neurship programs that The risks highlighted provide students with by ASIC should not be of the National Broadband knowledge and practical ignored, but given the skills required to assess absence of significant Network could give a push to and implement new ideas. venture capital in Aus- Further promotion of tralia, the apparent enthu- the start-up community those types of programs siasm for crowd-funding at universities, including here and the importance mentoring of students who of innovation to our eco- actually start their own nomic goals, we think it makes sense for the government to take venture as well as an effective use of alumni networks, would a more proactive role by further investigating crowd-funding as help increase the innovative capabilities of the country. part of its National Digital Economy Strategy and develop relevant Last but not least, keeping Australia’s academic credentials at guidance. This would potentially decrease the need for start-up high levels (in combination with favourable tax regimes) would entities to go overseas. encourage foreign entrepreneurial talent to make Australia their With the “JOBS Act” that became effective April 2012, the home. This would benefit Australia when they become part of United States introduced law that is specifically targeted at crowd- the national workforce. funding. Although the introduction of the JOBS Act didn’t go without debate, elements of this piece of legislation might be relevant Conclusion to the Australian environment as well. The Australian start-up ecosystem has its challenges, mainly as a result of its relatively limited scale and certain macroeconomic Minimise initial investments factors it has to deal with. However, the government also has a While entrepreneurs should be able to make their own money, the unique opportunity to provide the right conditions that help such government could help to further minimise the initial financial entities succeed by playing on the strengths of certain already burden associated with the start up of a company. existing policies and infrastructure, such as the NBN. Not only According to the study mentioned above, it appears that only would a proactive approach help the start-up community in Aus- 39 per cent of companies surveyed have applied for a govern- tralia, it would benefit the country as a whole. ment grant of some kind. While certain schemes are being used (e.g. the Research and Development Tax concession), others are Philip Takken is a senior director in Deloitte’s technology, media and telecom- under-exploited. munications (TMT) audit and assurance practice in Sydney. Joshua Tanchel is Given the failure of Australian companies to scale, possibly partner at Deloitte Private in Sydney and has worked with a variety of start-up through the lack of capital, there seems to be more work to do in and fast-growing companies, with a focus on technology, media and telecom- terms of the promotion of grant schemes. munication (TMT) companies.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 27 Opinion : industry

One formed every minute We need the brightest young minds Australia has to offer to seize the opportunities offered by the ICT revolution.

By Richard White

y the time you’ve finished reading this article, several thousand creative, motivated, innovative and intelligent Bentrepreneurs around the world will have registered a new tech start-up. Some of these will be located in Australia and many more of them could be, and we should all be doing more to make sure more of them are located in Australia. Here’s why. Some of these start-ups will go on to reinvent and then totally restructure the way industries function and may ultimately kill the industry giants that currently look unassailable. Take Amazon as an example. No one in 1995 would have predicted that a software company would ultimately take down the world’s largest retail chains, not until Borders bookstores started to look shaky in 2008, held strong for an extra couple of years, only to collapse in 2011. Unlike Borders, Amazon wasn’t created to sell books. Amazon is a software company. It started out using software to do things better, focusing first on books, then other goods, then on server space and so it goes on. Amazon was able to attract customers to its new model of retail because of the creative way it uses software to offer a service. Like Amazon, some of these new companies will attract cus- tomers to their new model or idea because of the creative way they offer a service or solve a problem. They might then be bought out by a larger company and integrated into a larger software suite. Take SpringSource, which was founded almost by mistake in 2005, offering a suite of software products to build, run and manage enterprise Java applications, and was then bought four years later by VMWare for $US420 million. Others will seem fabulous for a while but lose their own market position to a better or more sophisticated response to the same market need. We can see this currently happening between the various software companies that offer web-based service exchanges like freelancer.com, odesk.com, elance.com, serviceseeking.com.au and servicecentral.com.au. All offer comparable services with particular strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately there will be a process of consolidation and only one leader will survive. Then you have companies like my own WiseTech Global, head- quartered in Sydney, which is still privately held, and growing and globalising faster than ever, or Atlassian, which has taken on private equity but remains largely independent. Software companies like these will continue to grow independently and perhaps list on either the ASX or the NASDAQ and become global brands themselves.

28 | Information Age March/April 2013 Opinion : industry

More than any other, the software industry is producing compa- inexorably to the development of this software/IT skill set and its nies that seem to appear from nowhere to offer goods and services related business and management understanding. that are smarter, fresher, better made, cheaper, more appropriate, This opportunity is so vast, so fundamental and so valuable easier to access and more efficient than what is currently available. that we need to attract the best, smartest and most creative people When these companies discover a way to change a market, to work in existing software companies and to create the next the shift they bring about can be both sudden and violent. And generation of tech start-ups. even when they see it coming, existing industry behemoths find At this moment there are 50,457 students enrolled in informa- it incredibly hard to respond to the challenge thrown up by these tion technology courses at Australian universities. Not too shabby rapidly moving interlopers. at first glance – until you look a little deeper and realise that over 50 The old industry giants may hire lots of software developers, per cent of these enrolments are international, not local, students. attempt to create a web-based division or try to replicate the new And while many of these international students no doubt hope model to do what they’re already doing, but they will almost inevi- to use their degree to assist them to become Australian citizens, tably accelerate their own demise as a result. it’s a serious concern that we can’t inspire more locals to study IT at university. Mindsets Compare this for a moment to the number of students enrolled Traditional companies don’t get it. Software is not just a different in education, that stable and venerable career (although also subject industry – it’s a totally new mindset and operates on a series of to massive forces of creative destruction from software, ‘massive completely different principles from conventional businesses. Soft- open online courses’ (MOOCs) and other eLearning tools that ware companies have risk and creativity encoded in their DNA. are gaining rapid success). There are currently 109,646 students Great software businesses do not look to automate what’s already enrolled in education courses around Australia, and, of these, only being done, which is what traditional businesses do with software, eight per cent are international students. seeking to ‘optimise current reality’; software businesses look to The reality of the work situation, however, is that there is far totally rebuild the approach from the ground up in new and deeply more unfulfilled demand for IT skills in our economy than there is more effective ways. for teaching qualifications. A fairly simplistic search on an employ- This ‘creative destruction’ is a fundamental force for good, and ment website such as Seek (HR being yet another example of an is bringing about more change, process improvement and wealth industry now totally dependent on talented software engineers), creation than in any other period in history. shows that there are three times as many jobs advertised for people This is why, in the last 10 years, software companies have come with software skills as there are for teachers. to dominate most major industries. Netflix replaced thousands So why is IT still being comprehensively overlooked by students of film distributors; Spotify, Apple and others have made music when they consider what they want to study and what career they distribution largely superfluous (despite the enormous efforts of want to pursue? the recording industry to resist change); then Snapfish and others Has the message been lost or distorted? Or maybe we’re just killed Kodak. too busy building the next phase of economic growth to stop and Google, while it might look like an internet search company, tell people about what we’re doing? is actually the world’s largest advertising agency and has changed Or are we all looking backwards in order to plan for what’s the way we understand news, advertising, mapping and many coming? Are we adopting the mindset that teaching has always other things. been a great and stable career and therefore always will be? If this is the case, then we are in real, deep trouble, because whilst Forcing change you can plan for gradual evolution based on previous experience, Software is not like a gold rush or fake valuations, it’s an industry you can never predict a revolution. And the impact IT is having which is driven to continually design and redesign the underlying on culture, politics, business, economics and communications is systems which have remained unchanged and unquestioned for revolutionary. decades, and even centuries, in many industries. Great software Our main challenge right now is to ensure we attract the companies are driven to success based on their capacity to throw brightest young minds Australia has to offer so that we can stake our away everything that we believed was good, so that we can find claim and build the wealth of this nation in this rapidly expanding a better way to do things rather than just repeat old mistakes. global market before it is lost to other countries with more foresight The current generation of software companies have real busi- and focus. ness models, substantial revenues, strong profitability, fast growth, No one in IT is deluded: we know that ‘software is eating the real customers, and, as a result, are forcing the rest of the economy world’ and that there will be winners with massive global influence to change in profound and fundamental ways. and economic power, and sad-faced losers relegated to living in However, the only way these companies can continue to invent an economic backwater. and reinvent the way they operate is to have highly trained, creative What we do now will determine where we will end up. It’s and talented staff, not just in the area of software and IT but in no longer enough simply to know where you want to be. What every facet of the company. we need to do now is figure out how we’re going to get there. So why do we need to shout this message from the rooftops? Why do we need to say it to every bright, creative, innovative young Richard White is the CEO and founder of WiseTech Global, an international person we meet? Because the economic future of Australia is tied technology development company.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 29 Mobile : case study

30 | Information Age March/April 2013 Mobile : case study

Why MONA went mobile The technology behind Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art.

By Rohan Pearce

here are many things that make visiting Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art an unusual experience. The setting in the TMoorilla winery, the striking architecture of MONA itself, and the intense sensory overload that takes place within its walls, with the shocking (and wonderful) juxtaposition of antiquities and contemporary art. But beyond this, MONA also does much to change how the artworks on display are experienced by visitors. And the roots of this are simple: David Walsh, the creator of MONA, has a lot to say. And although the collection itself and the way in which it’s exhibited may do a lot of the talking, it was never going to be quite enough for Walsh. In MONA’s predecessor, the Moorilla Museum of Antiquities, the explanatory wall labels were sometimes larger than the artworks they related to. Walsh was frustrated with this standard wall label approach of museums and he also wanted MONA’s visitors to be able to rate artworks – to love or hate them.

The O Enter ‘The O’, a device that functions as a sophisticated electronic guide to MONA, complete with Walsh’s sometimes lengthy thoughts about different works and what they mean to him. When visitors enter MONA, they are each equipped with an O device: an iPod Touch running custom software and housed in a specially designed case. Touching the ‘O’ (the iPod Touch’s button) brings up a list of nearby artworks. Selecting an artwork offers details about the artist and the work, access to essays or interviews with the artist, and musings on the work by Walsh or his colleagues. Multimedia content can also be accessed through the system, such as artist interviews or the audio track of MONA’s video-based works. And, fulfilling part of

Photo: BrettPhoto: Boardman Walsh’s original vision, visitors can ‘love’ or ‘hate’ a particular work.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 31 Mobile : case study

Although the technology used for the internal location solution The museum also has one of the densest Wi-Fi environments was purchased from a third party, it took four years of research in Australia, using Aerohive controller-less wireless architecture. and development to develop the full software ecosystem that There is no manual updating of the content on the O devices: drives The O at MONA, says Tony Holzner, who worked on the the iPods check with a server located inside MONA every time O device. Holzner is now CEO and a co-founder of Art Proces- they are started up to ensure they have the latest content. Content sors, a company backed by Walsh that seeks to commercialise the is permanently cached on the iPods. systems developed for MONA. “That’s really designed to minimise network traffic because The O device enclosure includes an active RFID tag and with Wi-Fi you have limited bandwidth,” Holzner says. “No matter uses wireless sensors in the museum’s ceiling and a combination how good your Wi-Fi set-up is, if you have 1000 wireless clients of received signal strength and time-of-flight analysis to fix the pulling down heavy multimedia files concurrently, there’s no wire- location of a visitor and produce a proximity ordered list of nearby less network around that will let you do that reliably.” artworks. Minimising network traffic was one of the challenges the team Holzner says that although there are a range of internal posi- had to deal with when developing the system, he says. tioning systems on the market, it was tricky finding one that would work throughout a space that is as large as and complex, in terms What did you just look at? of internal geography and the mix of materials used in construc- Although the system was originally designed to find a less intrusive tion, as MONA. alternative to wall labels, it has had additional benefits that were Other solutions to replace wall labels were considered, such as not originally envisaged when the project started. For example, an RFID-equipped wand that visitors could wave near an artwork, the positioning system takes away a lot of the guesswork over or QR codes that could be scanned. But neither of those alternatives which artworks visitors engage with and which routes visitors take nor the traditional wall label would offer the unobtrusiveness of through the museum. the O device, which is a vital part of the MONA experience: an aid It also means that a visitor’s journey can be tracked and a record to becoming completely lost in the works and the museum itself. of their visit to MONA made available to them online afterwards. It was “quite a difficult problem to solve transparently,” Holzner It’s a way of the museum continuing to engage visitors by showing says. them which works they viewed and which ones they missed. “Obviously you could do things with RFID and wave things In order to capitalise on the years of work done to create the around the works and embed chips behind the works, [or use] QR MONA experience, Art Processors was incorporated in October codes; those sort of things. But they’re all quite clunky. And the last year, with Holzner as CEO, Walsh as director, Nic Whyte big issue with those is they get in the way of actually experiencing as creative director, Scott Brewer as CTO and Didier Elzinga the artwork so they defeat the purpose.” functioning as a mentor to the business. Holzner says they’re no better than a label, and “arguably The system used at MONA has drawn interest from within worse because you have people having to interface with the work Australia and internationally. Other museums are interested, though via an obtrusive digital mechanism that involves waving hardware Holzner says there is “some trepidation in terms of what they see as around and that’s a terrible idea. You’re going backwards from a large spend on infrastructure and supporting systems, and also the label in my opinion.” staff support in terms of maintaining a ubiquitous mobile guide”. When you enter the underground museum, there are no Part of the company’s focus is reducing costs, so they will windows as Walsh wants visitors to get lost,” Holzner says. “He be adding BYOD support so visitors can use their own iOS or wants you to forget about the rest of the world, and our technology Android-based mobile devices instead of an institution maintaining assists that in that it’s an aid to getting lost and [to] discovery as its own fleet. “We’re really positioning ourselves as the go-to for well. It’s all about new thoughts and... extending, re-inventing next-generation, premium mobile tour guides,” Holzner says. how people associate and discover art.” Art Processors will soon roll out a project at the State Library Holzner says that much of the four years of R&D was trying of NSW, based on a BYOD model with support for iOS and to find the appropriate indoor location solution. “We did find one Android. “It’s the next generation of what we did at MONA in in the end and then there was a lot of time spent adapting that to 2011,” Holzner says. our custom software system,” he says. The team has also worked at Melbourne Zoo on developing The team built a content management system that’s designed an interactive, premium audio guide system in collaboration with to incorporate spatial data. “We have a spatial mapping tool that The Border Project theatre production group. we developed as part of that, and that allows you to very quickly “In the short to mid-term, we’re very much looking at showcase and efficiently plot artworks on a 2D floor plan and assign them customers,” Holzner says. “It’s a service and product offering. So an x and y coordinate, along with all the associated interpretative a lot of customisation, a lot of consulting in terms of infrastructure material,” he says. requirements, and visitor engagement strategies within the mobile The content and spatial data is exported to a system located guide sphere. And then we have the existing software and intel- within MONA itself that services the 1340 O devices. The sheer lectual property to rapidly roll out those kinds of large scale projects. number of iPods MONA uses means that the team also developed “Longer term, the plan is to have a number of different tiers. what Holzner says are “the world’s largest USB charging hubs”. So there might be a basic tier, which is something that we can just Custom charging bays can connect to 240 USB devices at shrink-wrap and provide as an app in an app store. And then all once, and six of them are chained together to charge the fleet. the way up to the fully customised solution; like if you want to do

32 | Information Age March/April 2013 Mobile : case study

something as bold as MONA has done, then we can do that as well. We are, at this early stage, really looking to do things more on the scale of what MONA has done, and we have some exciting projects in the pipeline that we will be announcing very soon.”

Taking MONA to the world In April, the Art Processors team visited the US as part of the Museums and the Web conference and Holzner says there was a lot of interest in what MONA had done. “MONA as a whole has completely redefined the cultural landscape in this country; you can take it one step further and say across the world,” he says. “There are no parallels in terms of a museum that so beautifully [integrates] the entire digital experience with the way you arrive [at the museum], with the level of support that the staff give you there, the way they interact with the visitors, the artwork itself, the way it’s displayed, and the architecture as well. They all come together very beautifully at MONA and they’re all in harmony.” While in the US, the team talked to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (The Met) also in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Getty in California, and the Hirshhorn in Washington DC, Holzner says. “It was more a market research and fact-finding mission than a sales tour; it was too early for us to be in a sales position. But that did inform a lot of the development we’ve done in the last six months in terms of refining the product and informing where we go with the functionality and features.” There’s been a lot of interest in the Asia Pacific region as well, he says. “I think the current approach is, we want to be the leader in non-linear tours, as per MONA with the O, and we also want to be the leaders in next-generation audio tours that have high levels of interaction and go very far beyond the fairly stagnant playlist approach that everyone’s been doing since the Walkman was invented.” Holzner believes that traditional interpretive approaches to works in museums are outmoded. They shouldn’t be replaced for the sake of using technology, but for the sake of improving the experience. “There is too much token use of hi-tech these days,” he says. “Just because you have all these tools at your disposal, especially in the mobile world, which is taking off, it doesn’t mean that you have to use them. You don’t just want to use them for the sake of it.” The O device in action. Photo: AP He likens it to the dotcom boom, with people pursuing a model not because it makes sense but because everybody else was doing Art Processors is to really leverage that, and to constantly look for it. “’We’ve got to have an app’ is the cry we hear all the time. Well, better ways of doing things.” do you? What are you going to do with that? Is it just a marketing Holzner says that MONA has achieved a greater level of public enterprise? These token exercises where you have an app because engagement in a shorter amount of time than many major institu- the Joneses have an app and everyone else has an app – that’s a tions. “You have to ask: why is that?” He believes that part of the waste of money, a missed opportunity in terms of investment in reason is the way that MONA makes it easier to engage with what’s technology. on display. “And more so than make it easy, [it] makes it enjoyable “You really need to look at what you can do with that technology and empowering to the visitor,” he says. to enhance how visitors engage with your institution. I think that’s “I think that in five to 10 years’ time, there will be many more the key, and there are going to be a lot of opportunities as mobile approaches that are similar to what we pioneered at MONA. At becomes more ubiquitous, as things like the speeds that we can least, I hope so.” access data increase. “All those things are enablers to do things in a much more Rohan Pearce is editor of Techworld Australia. He can be reached at impressive and exciting way and the challenge for companies like [email protected].

Information Age March/April 2013 | 33 SMEs : mobile

Does your small business need a mobile app to stay competitive? If you listen to the growing chorus of small-business owners, going mobile is becoming a necessity.

By Christopher Null

ith more than 750,000 apps in the iOS App Store and Another thing to consider: mobile websites work universally, 700,000 available in Google Play, it can seem at times while apps do not. One phone’s Internet browser opens a Web page Wthat absolutely everyone has an app, except you. as reliably as another’s, but an Android app simply won’t work on As a small-business owner, choosing whether to join the app- an iPhone or a BlackBerry. You’ll need to create separate apps for development club can be a difficult decision. You may feel like you each specific platform, or pick and choose your platform support. have to build an app and “go mobile” to stay competitive, but you’ve probably heard that apps are expensive and time-consuming to Boldly going forward develop. More and more users are dumping desktops and laptops for That said, the argument for building an app is compelling. Mainly tablets and smartphones, so it makes sense to optimise the online it relates to the way today’s phones are designed. An app gives experience for them. But is it really worth the effort? Can’t they you much more presence on the phone than a bookmark on that just use their smartphones to access the website you already have? phone’s browser does. Rather than forcing the user to launch the It’s a tricky problem with no single cut-and-dried solution, browser and find your URL, an app is always there, front and but increasingly even the smallest businesses are saying yes to centre on the mobile desktop. Your business is constantly in mind, the mobile question. whether the person is using the app or not. The goal, of course, For those who do go forward with a mobile strategy, two is that eventually that user will hit your icon, even if by accident. approaches are commonplace: you can build a mobile-optimised That kind of thing just doesn’t happen with mobile websites. A website, or develop a full-blown, stand-alone app. ComScore study recently found that 82 per cent of “mobile media minutes” are spent with apps instead of with the browser. Is a mobile website better for your business? The other key advantage of mobile apps: your mobile-friendly Building a mobile-friendly website isn’t complex, so typically you website can’t really do anything extra that your regular website can commission one fairly cheap. In today’s world, most Web can’t also do. Mobile sites are generally streamlined versions of developers can build a mobile-optimised version of your site without the site you already have; the functionality is the same. But apps much trouble, presuming that you already use a modern, CSS-based can be designed to do anything. Want to turn your business’s design. If your site was built on older protocols, well, you have bigger products into a video game or push notifications to customers? challenges than whether to develop an app. (And you can expect Build an app, not a mobile website. to pay more for a mobile website in that scenario, accordingly.) Sarah Hudson of invention-development company Little Idea If your website runs on the popular WordPress platform, several puts it simply: “As for whether or not SMEs should develop their plug-ins, such as WPTouch, can likewise create a mobile version own apps, we think they should, but only if there’s a true use for of your existing website. Automatically generated mobile websites the app, something that goes beyond the information you can find sometimes run into conversion problems, however, and rarely look on their website,” she says. “If it’s purely informational, it might as polished as a developer-honed creation. be better to focus on a mobile website instead.”

34 | Information Age March/April 2013 SMEs : mobile

Information Age March/April 2013 | 35 SMEs : mobile

Of course, many companies hedge their bets and do both, if to code by reading off-the shelf reference books and building the budgets allow. One common strategy is to use analytics tools to app in their spare time) to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It measure how many users are accessing the website via mobile OSs. all depends on how ambitious and complex your app is, and how When a critical mass of Apple or Android users begins arriving, you go about building it. Apps tend to cost more to develop than start working on an app for that OS. mobile websites, however. Little Idea spent $4000 to create its app, using an independent Does an app really make sense? developer who Hudson says was the first person she talked to, Although claiming that apps are great for everyone isn’t prudent, and who was “on point in every way”. Work took two months to more and more small businesses are deciding that apps make complete. sense. Their reasons are varied and compelling: they want to be Or consider the app developed by MyMovingReviews, a able to reach customers 24/7, instead of website that rates and reviews moving just when customers are at a computer companies. The company’s My Move or in the store. They want to keep up app, which helps consumers plan and with the competition, or they want to tap execute a move, took $24,000 and five into new sales channels. Or perhaps they months of hard work, says manager want to streamline the way an internal Martin Panayotov. The company used process works – remember, not every an eastern European software outfit app has to be customer-facing. to build an iOS-only app, which the Before you spend the time and company initially sold for $2 a pop. resources to build an app, however, Now the app is free, and last year My consider what value a dedicated app Move was ported to Android, a much can bring to your business. If your app cheaper prospect since the legwork had doesn’t tap into the extra benefits the already been done, Panayotov says. Still, format provides to deliver a particularly for My Move, it’s an iOS world. “The unique or helpful experience iPhone app greatly outperforms to your customers, you might Any business can build an app. the Android one, no matter that be better off devoting your Apple holds about 20 per cent of resources to a top-notch mobile the smartphone market,” he says. website, which would be both All you need is a thoughtful At the far end of the spec- universal and (likely) cheaper. trum you’ll find Brightleaf, That said, while there’s no approach toward adding some which spent an estimated doubt that you can find horror $300,000 to build a mobile app stories in the app-building world, value for your customers and a back-end system for its no one we spoke to said they customers in the legal sector to regretted building a mobile app, even if they didn’t quite get the use when drafting forms and documents for their clients. It’s a results they wanted. complex system, but Brightleaf offers it to customers for free. “We give the mobile stuff away … but we make our money when Anybody can build an app lawyers want to use the full, paid version of Brightleaf to modify, This may sound like a cliché, but any business can build an app. It customise, and publish their own forms,” says Luke O’Brien, the doesn’t matter how visible you are to consumers. All you need is a company’s VP of strategy. thoughtful approach toward adding some value for your customers. If your mobile ambitions are a bit more basic, several DIY app- For example, you wouldn’t expect a small vitamin manufacturer building services are available, such as JamPot’s TheAppBuilder. to have much reason to create a mobile app, but Nordic Naturals These services take much of the hassle out of app development by did. Project manager Cecile LaRiviere says Nordic’s app lets you letting business owners create apps through a variety of what-you- find stores that sell its products, order vitamins online, and – a see-is-what-you-get templates, and the results can be surprisingly crucial addition that helps it remain “top of mind” – set reminders slick. Cost varies depending on the service: most charge one-time to prompt users to take their vitamins and to reorder pills. Plus, creation fees, and many impose monthly maintenance fees. You’ll the app is stuffed with literature about the value of omega-3s, also be on the hook for the developer-registration fees for whatever helping to enhance the awareness of and interest in its primary platforms your app resides on. Google charges a one-time $US25 product line. On top of that, app users get notifications about new fee, whereas Apple and Microsoft require a yearly $US99 developer product launches. subscription. Such services aren’t cheap, but they’re often less expensive than What does it cost to build an app? hiring a dedicated developer. Just pay attention to the recurring Sooner or later, discussions of mobile apps come down to money. monthly fees and determine whether it might make more fiscal You’ll find no easy shortcut to this one. Among the businesses sense to pay the up-front premium for a developer, to avoid being we interviewed, development costs varied dramatically, ranging bled by repeat charges over the long haul. If you have a truly unique from virtually nothing (with some businesspeople learning how app in mind, you’ll almost certainly have to hire a professional.

36 | Information Age March/April 2013 SMEs : mobile

What’s the payoff? Apps don’t always work out Small-business owners have never been much for analysing return Of course, an app isn’t a sure thing. One small business we spoke on investment, and the world of mobile apps is no different. It should to, Bella Reina Spa, had trouble from the start. “It was a very come as no surprise that unless you’re selling goods or trying to tedious process deciding who could build it,” CEO Nancy Reagan make money by selling the app directly, measuring ROI is difficult. says. She finally hired a small company to do the work for $299 Competition is fierce in the app arena, and the businesses plus monthly upkeep charges of $29. “We had tons of downloads we spoke to reminded us that success is determined by how you and people used it for information, but in the end it was not as market and promote your app. You can’t rely on being featured powerful as a mobile website.” Eventually the app was scrapped. by Apple (though it’s awfully nice if you are). You must constantly I can’t stress this enough: doing your homework before building promote your app on your website, on social accounts, and probably an app is crucial. Even the best-laid plans often go awry, as the through advertising, too. saying goes, but it is important to pin down what you expect from MyMovingReviews is one of the few companies we talked to your app – or whether you even need one – before committing your that said it could quantify the app’s value. Panayotov estimates that SME’s resources. Can you justify the extra expense of an app, or the company’s app paid for itself within a year. He gushes about could a mobile website accomplish the same goals? its success. “Creating the mobile app was one of the best deci- sions we made. Because of the exposure, we were able to increase Internal-facing apps brand awareness and help our website get more popular over time. As a final note, remember that you don’t have to share your app Having a mobile-app link on the homepage immediately makes with the general public for it to be useful. The ROI of internal apps you trusted in the visitor’s eye.” can be even harder to calculate, but their value can be immense if Another company, MyCorporation, used internal resources to they save you time and headache. Generally such apps are more build an app, which has since garnered just 500 downloads. But popular with larger businesses, or at least those with larger clients. those downloads, says social media manager Heather Taylor, have The takeaway: apps don’t have to bring in revenue to be indis- generated $50,000 in extra business. Was it worth the effort? “Most pensable. A small garage, say, might not see much return on a definitely,” she says. It doesn’t always take millions of downloads customer-facing app, but it could find an inventory-management to make significant money. app to be worth its weight in gold. IT’s personal

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Information Age March/April 2013 | 37 Opinion : Australian ICT

Victorian Government rewires its approach to ICT

By Gordon Rich-Phillips

he Victorian Government is committed to a strong and Victoria’s world-leading ICT industry. thriving ICT sector and to ensuring the best value for tax- The Victorian ICT Advisory Committee (VICTAC), estab- Tpayers’ money in delivering government services. lished by the government last year, developed a strategy that will One crucial way that we can support our ICT sector is through push Victoria to the forefront of industry advances and which the Victorian Government’s position as the state’s single largest also addresses the issues raised by the Auditor-General and user of ICT services in government departments and in public Ombudsman. service delivery. The consultation process gave us a clear roadmap for our ICT Soon after we came to government, the Victorian Auditor- strategy that focuses on delivering better services, reducing waste, General presented a report that found that Victoria’s whole of encouraging innovation and improving ICT procurement across government frameworks have not kept pace with the last decade’s government. evolution towards an increasingly central role for ICT in service While some components of the strategy deal with internal delivery. government issues, we recognise there is a strong overlap with The sector continues to innovate, with new models that offer industry. Improving how we procure ICT services will lead to exciting new opportunities. For example, cloud-based services used new opportunities to partner with the private sector more closely for business applications and infrastructure offer the prospect of and productively than we have in the past. These partnerships access to scale on a global basis, at a lower cost and with greater will encourage industry growth and innovation and deliver better flexibility than can be achieved through the development and services for the public. delivery of these services in-house. In February, the Victorian Government put in place a whole Changing expectations of government strategy that will deliver value for money, keep us The strategy has been developed in response to three major abreast of technological change and provide more opportunities drivers. The first is the change in Victorians’ expectations of to foster growth of the state’s ICT sector. A key part of developing government services and ICT use. The public expects online the strategy has been the rigorous consultation with the public and services to be easy to use and available when and where they

38 | Information Age March/April 2013 Opinion : Australian ICT

need them and they expect government to keep pace with these expectations. The second driver is advances in technology. Across Australia, underlying ICT infrastructure is being enhanced. Access to high- speed broadband is opening up opportunities for quality multi-party video conferencing and remote services. We need to look at how we can best use these channels. The third driver is current gaps in ICT leadership, govern- ance and skills within government. Demand for skilled labour has continued to exceed supply in most areas of the ICT workforce and this is projected to continue, especially as the skills required become more sophisticated. The ICT strategy responds to these drivers by addressing three key strategic areas. Firstly, improving engagement through using ICT to create easier and more personalised services at lower cost. Secondly, improving how government invests and works with the ICT industry. Thirdly, improving our ICT governance and plan- ning, building internal capability and encouraging innovation. We are putting systems and policies in place to improve the ease with which Victorians interact with government. Enhancing, expanding and personalising access to government services and information is important to improving transparency and addressing the needs of the public and businesses. With the launch of the DataVic access policy (data.vic.gov.au), government data will increasingly be unlocked in accessible formats, free or at minimal cost, allowing Victorians to innovate and find new solutions that government may not have imagined or considered. The Victorian Government’s investment in ICT infrastructure will no longer be focused on direct service delivery. A shift towards a mix of in-sourced, managed and outsourced services will be used in a way that best meets the needs of government. The state’s ICT infrastructure provider, CenITex, will play an important role in this change as a broker of services from the market. This Gordon Rich-Phillips move away from government ICT service delivery is an exciting and fundamental change to government’s approach to the ICT ICT services to government. The portal will rate suppliers and services of the past. government departments based on their engagement and service We will improve project management with a focus on the clarity delivery. The register has been developed in close consultation of scope and outcomes of ICT-enabled project business cases. And with industry and its use will be mandatory for all government we will work with the ICT industry to establish the feasibility, risk departments, to ensure a more flexible approach in assessing best and cost-effectiveness of technology solution options. value for money in government procurement, reducing the barriers for small and medium enterprises. Reducing risk Currently, ICT expenditure in the Victorian public sector is Our focus is on clearly identified business outcomes, risk minimisa- around $1.5 billion annually so it is imperative to understand tion, early industry engagement and adapting processes to make and manage this expenditure effectively. The development of the best use of existing market opportunities. For example, projects this ICT strategy provides a move to strong focus on improving with significant ICT requirements will be designed, delivered governance, implementation, encouraging innovation, and clear and measured based on clearly articulated business benefits with and accountable processes. accountability clearly defined and allocated at senior management To oversee the strategy’s implementation, and to encourage levels. Large projects will be approached in manageable stages to innovation, the government will appoint Victoria’s first Chief improve delivery timelines and reduce the risk of project failure. Technology Advocate. We will enable competition and harness market mechanisms to I am proud to be leading this exciting new approach to the deliver innovation, efficiency and productivity. By implementing government’s ICT service delivery, which will revolutionise the shorter contract terms and open standards, competition will way technology and information is used by Victorian people and increase, and significantly diminishing technology lock-in or single businesses. vendors securing a disproportionate share of government business. We are setting up an eServices register, to be launched in the Gordon Rich-Phillips is the Victorian Minister for Technology and Assistant middle of the year, for industry to more easily and efficiently deliver Treasurer.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 39 Business continuity : disaster recovery

Disaster recovery: DON’T FORGET MOBILE As the mobile workforce continues to grow, ICT execs must remember an important new piece of their disaster recovery plans: mobile devices.

By Mary K. Pratt

AP had two priorities when the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011: contact its 1000 employees there and Sascertain their needs. Given the sheer scope of the devastation, and the subsequent nuclear crisis, the task would seem herculean. But SAP manage- ment quickly connected with its Japan-based workers, most of whom had mobile devices, either company-issued or their own. The next step, says SAP executive vice president and CIO Oliver Bussmann, was getting back to work, even though the company had to temporarily close its Tokyo office. With redundant systems and its global reach, SAP was able to shift some workload out of Japan while its employees there were able to use their smartphones, tablets and laptops to access corporate assets. “There’s much more potential out there from a disaster-recovery perspective,” Bussmann says, noting that SAP in the past two years has more deeply incorporated mobile devices into its disaster- recovery and business continuity plans. CIOs like Bussmann are increasingly considering how mobile capabilities can help their companies get through catastrophes. In the 2012 AT&T Business Continuity study, 67 per cent of the 504 US-based ICT executives surveyed said that they include wireless network capabilities in their business continuity plans. Despite that high percentage, the effectiveness of those plans varies widely, ICT leaders and consultants say. Organisations using

40 | Information Age March/April 2013 Business continuity : disaster recovery

mobile devices for everyday tasks are more likely to have plans to and many people couldn’t make or receive calls, although some use them in disasters, while those that don’t are less able to rely texts were able to slowly make it through. Hurricane Sandy took on them in crisis situations. out some cell services completely and left many areas without the However, as more people use smartphones and tablets to do power needed to recharge devices. their jobs, CIOs will have no choice but to figure out how to Companies with workers accessing the corporate network effectively fit mobile into their disaster-recovery plans. To do that, from handheld devices also need to consider whether they can they must consider what data, if any, is stored on the devices, accommodate added network traffic during an emergency, says how workers access corporate systems on a regular basis as well Joe Nocera, principal in PwC’s advisory technology consulting as during a crisis, and what barriers they would encounter during practice. He says a typical VPN might be used by 20 per cent to any sort of incident. 25 per cent of a company’s employees on a daily basis, but usage That, in short, means analysing the opportunities and chal- can spike to more than 80 per cent during a disaster. lenges related to such a strategy. Moreover, Bailey and others say, workers have to be accus- “The more mobile you can make your workforce, the better off tomed to using smartphones and tablets for daily tasks before a you’ll be, so it’s certainly a tool CIOs need to think about from a disaster strikes. Executives shouldn’t assume that workers will be business continuity perspective,” Michael Porier, managing director able to easily switch from their regular desktop habits to working of consulting firm Protiviti, says. on their handhelds. Nor should they expect workers to learn on Companies are incorporating mobility into their emergency the fly how to use a VPN to access corporate systems from their plans in part so they’ll be able to send out blast messages via email, home computers. And even if they could, let’s face it: working on text and voice, an approach that increases the odds that at least a smartphone or tablet doesn’t match the ease of working with a one type of message will get through, Porier says. Companies often desktop’s full-size keyboard and screen. use such blasts to check on workers who are in harm’s way and Of course, all this talk presupposes that corporate systems will to provide information on safety programs and work processes. remain up and running during a disaster. If they don’t, that’s a From there, he says CIOs are determining which employees can whole other ballgame. use their mobile devices for work during an incident and how that “If you have a data centre that gets wiped out, it doesn’t matter will happen. Porier says ICT leaders need to have security measures if you have mobile devices,” Bailey says. in place, whether that’s mobile device management software to With that in mind, ICT needs to understand the role mobility secure, monitor, manage and support the devices or some other plays in keeping a business running as it plans its back-end recovery process that protects corporate data. And they need to determine efforts, making it a priority to restore the servers that support whether to allow employees to download data to their devices or mobile device management and applications that enable mobility, require them to access it through secure channels, such as a VPN. Nocera says. “It’s knowing where those applications are being served up and Weak links making sure you have them covered in your recovery plan,” he says. Ray Thomas, a senior associate who oversees business assurance at More CIOs are bumping that up the priority list. Buddy Cox, consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, says he and his colleagues executive vice president and CIO at Cadence Bancorp, is seeing have been weighing such issues in recent years as the firm has that first hand. According to industry statistics, 18 million people endeavoured to make its workforce more mobile. bank via mobile devices today, and that figure is expected to grow “We’ve been building mobility into how people work on a to 50 million by 2015. Faced with those kinds of figures, along day-to-day basis, and that same flexibility works to our advantage with workers’ changing work styles, he says he’s enabling more during a disaster,” Thomas says. “As long as there’s connectivity, mobile devices to handle a growing number of mission-critical our employees can continue to be productive.” applications. Booz Allen has a notification system that uses email, voice and “We looked at what our customers and [employees] need to text messaging to send out messages that workers can access via access in an event, from minor interruptions to catastrophic ones, smartphones or tablets. Employees can also access the corporate and we know who carries iPads or iPhones and what options we network with smartphones, tablets, laptops and personal desktop have,” he says. His disaster-recovery plans also include regional PCs. recovery sites where employees can work. Those sites even have Meanwhile, Thomas says employees routinely download work satellite-based communications systems. files onto their laptops, and they’re reminded to plan to take work But for now, experts agree: mobile isn’t a panacea, but rather home on their devices in advance of expected events, such as one piece of what should be a multi-layered approach that also Hurricane Sandy, so they can work even if connections with the includes land-based connections, alternative office sites and some corporate network are sketchy. redundant systems. But that approach underscores the limits of a policy that relies “We haven’t gotten to the state where [we can] just fail over to on mobile devices during disasters: power, connectivity and access mobile devices,” says Dan Waddell, senior director of IT security to corporate networks are no guarantee. “There are weak links at eGlobalTech and a member of the board of the International all over,” says Skip Bailey, director of technology, strategy and Information Systems Security Certification Consortium. “They architecture at Deloitte Consulting. should be considered, but they should not be the only option.” He points out that when a magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit the Washington DC area in 2011, cellular networks were overloaded, Mary K. Pratt is a contributing writer to Information Age.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 41 Cloud computing : disaster recovery

Challenges of disaster recovery as a service Careful planning could help you switch on your entire environment in the cloud in the event of a disaster at your site.

By Matt Prigge

42 | Information Age March/April 2013 Cloud computing : disaster recovery

y now, just about everyone is familiar with cloud-based backup This becomes a much more complicated problem to solve. services. Whether you’re using simple file-based software You effectively need to plan for your entire server environment, Btools or more complex image-based appliances, these services along with the network segments it lives on, to be transplanted ship your data into secure cloud storage where it can be accessed from your data centre to the cloud – all while leaving the rest of at a moment’s notice. your on-premises environment untouched. There are several ways If you encounter a minor disaster (such as corrupted data), to do this, but it typically involves Layer 3 segmentation of the you simply download the affected files to your premises and get on-premises network along with a site-to-site VPN configuration back to business. If you have a more severe site-wide disaster, that will involve the cooperation of your DRaaS provider. you might need to source replacements to your on-premise server You’ll also need to plan for any external network services you gear before you can do the restore. In both cases, online backup offer to be moved to your cloud-based environment. That could is in many ways similar to a traditional tape backup rotation that include simple things like ensuring your SMTP mail flow can includes offsite tape storage, except without the hassle of tapes. be redirected to your disaster-recovery environment, but it may Disaster recover as a service, or DRaaS, takes this concept a well also encompass more complex issues such as ensuring your step further. Instead of just storing backups offsite where they can DRaaS provider can implement a DMZ segment for any of your be restored to your premises, DRaaS offerings are coupled with servers or that other sites in a multisite WAN can reach the DRaaS cloud-based computing horsepower so that you can fire up your environment. environment in the cloud as virtual machines, not just restore its data. DRaaS offers both offsite backup and a cloud-based The seemingly little details that can cause DRaaS warm site. to fail However, like constructing your own warm site, the use of Even once you’ve solved all those problems, you’re still not quite DRaaS requires a significant amount of planning and preparation finished. Sometimes, the simplest items can bite you if you haven’t to use effectively in an actual disaster – often requiring substan- thought through how you’ll deal with them. For example, ensuring tial changes to your on-premises network infrastructure. All too that users running from your cloud-based disaster-recovery envi- often, prospective DRaaS customers are wooed into a false sense ronment can print doesn’t seem like a big deal – and many times of security by the capability to restore and run in the cloud, only to it isn’t – but it’s not a problem you’ll want to find yourself solving find that in an actual disaster their cloud-recovered environment in the midst of a disaster. is almost impossible to use effectively. In other cases, more complex problems such as how to allow a Windows-based server environment hosted by your DRaaS The fundamental requirements to having DRaaS provider to reach a mainframe environment that might be hosted actually work by a different disaster-recovery provider can be more difficult The first challenge of using DRaaS effectively is to make sure you nuts to crack. can actually reach your recovered infrastructure in the cloud. After No matter what you do, never assume that a DRaaS or DRaaS- all, just because your DRaaS provider can start your machines as like functionality delivered by an online backup product will be VMs doesn’t mean you or your users can get into them. Typically, useful unless you’re able to thoroughly and regularly test it. A you need to implement some kind of server-based virtual computing good rule of thumb is that the less frequently you test a backup or (such as Citrix or Terminal Services), which your on-premises disaster-recovery methodology, the less likely it is to work the way network might not have already. Additionally, you’ll need to make you expect it to when needed. Furthermore, it’s almost certain not sure your DRaaS provider can configure the necessary firewall to work if you never test it. Be especially wary of DRaaS offerings rules in its infrastructure so that you can access the resource and that do not include (or even mandate) regular testing. its Internet access capacity is sufficient for your users. Many organisations that desire warm-site functionality will Those measures alone usually suffice when your offices have find it cheaper and easier to use DRaaS than to design and build been rendered unusable, so your employees are working from home, their own warm-site data centres. However, just because someone but by no means is it the only disaster that could require use of your else is handling the work of ensuring your data is replicated off- DRaaS. Much more isolated disasters such as catastrophic storage site and can be recovered does not free you from the preparation, failures and water leaks could easily destroy your on-premises server planning and testing that would normally accompany a warm-site infrastructure while leaving the rest of your premises usable. In build-out. these cases, you have to devise a way for your server infrastructure to function in the cloud while your employees remain on-site. Matt Prigge is the systems architect for the SymQuest Group, a consulting group.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 43 Ethics ANEIT: a new venture A group of researchers has banded together to better understand how ethics is taught in Australia – and how we can improve this vital part of ICT education.

By Richard Lucas

44 | Information Age March/April 2013 Ethics

he study of ethics in the ICT industry in Australasia has, in Impact of new trends the past, been fragmentary and undertaken by individuals We know from previous research, that students report little to Tdriven by an interest in particular topics in either research or nothing in the way of ethics education in university education of education only. This can be seen in both previous Information Age ICT professionals. We would like to do what we can to change this. articles and in the only pocket of researchers into ethics and IT, We have begun an application to the Federal Government`s Office the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE). for Teaching and Learning for funding to gather empirical data on However it remains a vital professional and intellectual issue and who is teaching ethics in the ICT field at Australian universities. a structured, planned, and collective approach would seem to be The grant application, if successful, will perform an empirical a better way of tackling the issues in this field. study of the state of ethics as it is taught, analyse the results, and To better build a coherent body of educators and researchers make recommendations for the delivery of ethics education (both to address the issues in a concerted and coordinated way, a small content and pedagogy) to ICT at all tertiary levels in Australasia. working group, comprising members from the ACS, the Australian We believe that the ACS is interested in this aspect of the intended Institute for Computer Ethics, CAPPE, and a number of Australian work of the ANEIT. The results, analysis, and recommendations universities (the University of Canberra, Deakin University, and will, of course, be available to all. Charles Sturt University, amongst others) has been formed. This By way of example of what this group plans to look into, one of group has adopted the name Australasian Network for Ethics in the researchers is investigating the delay between the introduction Information and its Technologies (ANEIT). of a new term into the industry, for example, cloud computing ANEIT’s mandate is “to support the teaching of, and engage (and don’t we have just a few of them?) and when is the first time in research into, ethics concerning information, and its related it gets mentioned in an ethical context. In some fields the ethical technologies”. implications of research is discussed well before the actual research In the long term, it is our aim to reach out to all those in is undertaken. An example of this is in astrobiology where the Australia who teach, research, and generally support ethical ethics of terraforming other planets and moons is an active research matters that fall under the umbrella of information and its related areas – well before the technology exists to do so. Should the ICT technologies. industry be doing this as well? Prof. Craig McDonald, of the School of Information Systems It seems that the obvious answer ought to be yes. The next and Accounting at the University of Canberra, and I have agreed question arises: what part ought both the ANEIT and the ACS to host a collaborative site (currently under construction) for the play in this? We believe that these groups should lead the drive coordination of the network and to provide a repository of teaching, for examining trending areas such as big data for possible ethical research, and professional practice knowledge in the eld of informa- concerns as soon as they appear. The ACS is well placed to identify tion and technology ethics. We will act as coordinating agents for the new areas and these in turn could be passed on the network educators and researchers. for immediate examination. We will be providing a collaborative site for the coordination Other pressing projects that ANEIT might be able to assist and dissemination of both teaching and research knowledge and with include the development of the Code of Professional Practice; programs. We aim to create a cohort of active researchers and from the Framework for Responsible Research and Innovation in educators interested in advancing the state of knowledge and ICT – the ethics of ICT research. practice in information and technology ethics. Also active in the There are, of course, many other areas of interest where ICT early formation of this group are Prof. John Weckert and Dr. Oliver and ethics collide. Here is just one: ethics and the virtual work Burmeister of Charles Sturt University (and CAPPE), and Prof. environment (the potential for benefit and abuse is great here). The Matt Warren of Deakin University. virtual environment might be of great ethical significance (those At first glance it appears that this group is just a bunch of aca- who have modality issues might be freed from the confines of their demics. However, all of the founders are members of the ACS and a current surrounds to work). In contrast virtual environments might great many have worked in the ICT industry previously. We intend be used to blur the boundary between home and work. that ANEIT will work closely with industry groups, especially the We are keenly interested in hearing reader’s stories about their ACS and the CCE, in related work, such as the development of experiences of ethics education as part of their professional educa- the profession’s Code of Ethics and Code of Practice. tion. Also we would like to hear reader’s stories about their experi- Late last year these people pooled the collective knowledge of ences encountering ethical events in their workplace. We suspect current educators and researchers and contacted 45 individuals. that the sorts of things that make the popular press (identity theft, Of these, we have received positive responses from 20 people. This email scams, and the like) are not the sorts of things that readers, group of interested people will form the nucleus of the attempt to as ICT professionals, encounter at work yet features prominently understand the state of play in education and research and then to in their education. Let us know if our hunch is right. We hope that carry out improvements in both. Anyone interested in joining the those sending us stories would allow us to add them to a repository group may contact me ([email protected]). that would inform case studies for educational purposes and be We intend to develop Memorandums of Understanding with the source of research problems. other like groups internationally such as the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University and the Soft- Dr Richard Lucas MACS is in the School of Information Systems and ware Engineering Ethics Research Institute at East Tennessee Accounting at the University of Canberra. He is also an Adjunct Senior State University. Research Fellow at CAPPE.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 45 Productivity : tools

Go paperless or die trying!

14 tablet apps for ditching dead trees.

By Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

ost companies have yet to adopt the paperless office. MThanks, however, to pow- erful PCs, tablets and smart- phones, we’re getting much closer to reaching that dream. And in many ways, this is just a matter of modern businesses embracing tools that already exist. Carting around important papers in a briefcase is downright retro when you can now find pretty much every document-handling tool you need on a tablet. These tablet-optimised apps bring your business one step closer to going tree-free and totally mobile. With them, you can store critical documents in the cloud; get them signed, sealed, and delivered; and get rid of every loose leaf in your carry-on.

46 | Information Age March/April 2013 Productivity : tools

Evernote SkyDrive Platforms: iOS, Android, Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows 8 (all free) Windows 8 (all free) If you use Microsoft services every day, chances are SkyDrive is Evernote is the quintessential already a part of your workflow. The new Office applications save paperless app. It helps you get your documents to SkyDrive’s servers by default. You can store rid of unnecessary pieces of photos, videos, and more there, too. From a SkyDrive app, you can paper such as receipts, lists, launch the Office Web Apps in a browser to work on projects away and napkin-contracts. Take from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint on your PC. Pay $US10 to add 25GB, notes, make lists, photograph $US25 for 50GB, or $US50 for 100GB per year to your free 7GB of receipts, clip Web pages, storage. SkyDrive and Office are also a powerful combination if you and save pictures to your use a Windows phone. account using your tablet. Evernote syncs all this data across multiple devices for iFax Pocket access anywhere. It even Platforms: iOS, Android (both free) Platforms: iOS (free), Android (free) reads your handwriting and converts it to plain text. Pair You’ll never have to take a Let Grandma keep clipping it with a Livescribe smartpen baseball bat to a fax machine newspaper stories. You, on to save paper notes to the again. Use the iFax app to the other hand, should try cloud, and you can recycle the scan documents via your Pocket, formerly known as original notebook. Coming tablet’s camera, then fax them Read It Later. Save articles, soon: Evernote is building directly to real fax numbers. Web pages, and videos offline intelligence into its apps so This is similar to a document- to view later. Once content is that it can recognise the types scanning app, but you can saved, it syncs to the cloud. of documents you’re storing send to fax machines rather This is great for road trips there. than going through email. and commutes when you’re iFax is free to download, but offline; instead of spending powered by in-app payments: hours surfing cool stories US99 cents for five pages, at work, just “pocket” what Handy Scanner Pro/ $US1.99 for 10 pages, $US2.99 looks interesting and read Tiny Scan Pro for 15 pages, up to $US17.99 them on the way home. Using Platforms: iOS ($US2.99), for a one-month subscription. a Windows 8 tablet? Pocket Android ($US3.99) You can also receive faxes runs in the browser, or you Stand-alone scanners are so via iFax, though that costs can try an alternative like 20th century. Turn your tablet $US27.99/month. InstaFetch. into a document scanner using apps such as Handy Scanner Pro for Android tablets, or Tiny Scan Pro for YouSendIt Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows 8 (all free) iOS. Both of these apps let you use your tablet’s rear-facing This app offers more reason to kill the fax machine. Back in the camera to “scan” documents days before storage giants like Google Drive and Dropbox, or using by taking photos of them and email attachments, YouSendIt was the go-to tool for sharing large applying filters to maximise documents with other people. It’s very handy for one-off sharing of big readability. Then you save the files, especially with someone who’s not yet hip to other cloud services. scanned documents as PDF or You can stash 2GB of files on its servers and get 50GB of transfers for JPG files. free, or pay $US14.99/month for additional storage and security.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 47 Productivity : tools

CamCard Dropbox Platforms: iOS ($US7.99), Platforms: iOS (free), Android (free), Windows 8 Android ($US11.99) If you just need to keep personal and professional documents at your Keeping track of business fingertips, Dropbox eliminates the need for a filing cabinet. It doesn’t cards is almost impossible come with extra services (such as the Office Web Apps, the Google without a Rolodex – and Docs suite, or Evernote’s note-taking features), but it’s dead-simple really, who’s got a Rolodex for uploading and syncing up to 2GB of files across multiple devices these days? CamCard is like for free. Share files and folders with other users, and if you let it a virtual Rolodex on your sync files and videos automatically from your tablet, you get an extra tablet. This app, available for 3GB. Up that to 100GB for $US9.99/month, or check out Dropbox for iOS and Android (there’s even Teams, starting at $US795 for 5 users, offering 1TB per person. If an iPad-specific HD version), Dropbox loyalists aren’t already on your team, check out its worthy is an advanced business card competitor, Box. reader. Just snap a photo of a business card, and the app extracts relevant details, such as company name, job Expensify title, and phone number, Platforms: iOS, Android (both free) then adds them to your Expense report time is when even the most progressive companies contact list. CamCard is fairly revert to the stone age, taping receipts to a sheet of paper and filling effective at reading cards out a printed form. Expensify strives to make expense reports less and converting text, but you painful. Take photos of receipts, then upload them to your account. can also edit fields and add The app scans the receipt and extracts key details, such as the date, notes manually. (If you’re on a name of venue, and total spent, so you can add it to an expense Windows 8 tablet, we couldn’t report. It lets you track timed expenses (just enter hours and rates), find an excellent, similar app, mileage, and trips. You’ll get itineraries for flights and hotel check-in so stash your business cards times, if you forward them to an Expensify email address. For in Evernote.) Windows 8 users, Invoice 360 does much the same.

Amazon Kindle SketchBook Pro Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows 8 (all free) Platforms: iOS ($US4.99), Android ($US4.99) It’s pretty obvious that an easy way to get SketchBook Pro is billed as an artist’s app, but rid of paper is to get rid of printed books. that doesn’t mean it can’t also be effectively used Instead of lugging around textbooks, research for business. For just $US5, this app is pretty full- materials, and airplane fodder, download the featured – it even includes multiple layers, brushes, Amazon Kindle app. Sure, your tablet may not and tools, as well as extra-large canvases. It’s be an easy-on-the eyes e-Ink e-reader, but great for tablet artists, but it’s also useful for it’s easy enough for quick business reading creative types in business. SketchBook Pro can on a cross-country flight. The Kindle app lets be used for anything from creating mind maps or you access Kindle books (including library product renderings to taking notes (or doodling) books), and has several nice features including in a boring meeting. The iOS-only Paper app also different backgrounds, a built-in dictionary, and gets high marks from designers and doodlers. For adjustable text size. Windows 8 tablets, check out Fresh Paint.

48 | Information Age March/April 2013 Productivity : tools

Adobe Reader Adobe EchoSign Google Drive Platforms: iOS, Android, Platforms: iOS, Windows 8 (both free) Platforms: iOS, Android (both free) Windows 8 (all free) Adobe’s e-signature app lets you Google Drive is an essential If you deal with a lot of sign documents, send documents cloud storage app if you use PDF documents, you for signatures, get documents Google’s productivity services, should get Adobe’s signed in person, or sign including Gmail, Docs, and touch-optimised Reader documents for other EchoSign Spreadsheets. You can not only app. View, search, users. Upload documents from store and sync important files and comment on PDF your SkyDrive, Dropbox, Google across devices, but you can documents. You can even Drive, or Box account. You also create documents and annotate and comment can also upload photos from spreadsheets from your tablet. on a PDF–add text, draw your tablet (for example, if you Plus, you can share files easily freehand or add sticky happened to take a photo of with team members, who notes with comments. the document that needs to be can edit the same document This app ties in with signed). The first five contracts with you at the same time. No Adobe’s EchoSign, to let you sign per month on EchoSign more passing printed drafts you sign legally binding are free. After that, you’ll need a back and forth. On Windows documents using your subscription (between $US14.95/ 8? Access Google Drive in a finger. month and $US399/month). browser.

A key benefit for ICT business owners or contractors becoming an ACS Certified Computer Professional is that you qualify for capped liability.

This means your risk is limited to the amount of your professional indemnity insurance cover. For more information on how to get covered visit www.acs.org.au/cert

Information Age March/April 2013 | 49 Case study : information management

Re-imagining the library UTS is undertaking an ambitious program, including an underground automated storage and retrieval system, to transform its library.

By Rebecca Merrett

50 | Information Age March/April 2013 Case study : information management

tep into the library of the future, where waiting for what on a trolley, or by having a smart shelf on the trolley. seems like ages while a librarian with a trolley fills requests “That could collect data like, for example, all the science books Shas been replaced by robots that find, deliver and return are on the fifth floor but they are always used on the third floor. books on demand, and within minutes. It tells us where science people want to study. So having that data There’s a technological change happening in libraries that is helps us design the new library. RFID enables that; it allows us to transforming the way those sources of information are being used. do that data collection.” No longer are libraries only book repositories, filled with stacks When implementing RFID, Burns says there were some chal- floor to ceiling and shelves that cover most of the library floor. lenges in finding a vendor with the appropriate experience in scaling As part of a $1 billion upgrade of its city campus, the University the technology for an academic library and working within the tight of Technology, Sydney (UTS) is installing an underground auto- timeframes of a university. mated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) for its library collection. “There’s been a real challenge on the RFID front despite there The ASRS is in response to the need to house a growing collec- being a lot of talk about where RFID might be useful,” she says. tion and free up physical space for the new ‘library of the future’, “There’s not a great deal of deep experience in Australia with which is to open in 2015, so that people can be at the centre of the how we use it, particularly on this scale, so that was one of the big library rather than the books. challenges of the project.” Having the extra space will allow for more interactive learning Burns says the windows of time available to do ICT projects environments where students can work more collaboratively in for universities tend to be pretty small as major changes need to the library; for example, mixed media spaces for video editing be done while the students are on holiday. and production. “You absolutely need everything up and running before the The ASRS, which will connect to the new library, consists of start of semester,” she says. “It’s not easy to go out and educate an six 15-metre high robotic cranes that operate bins filled with books. entire student population [on the new system] so things need to be When an item is being stored or retrieved, the bins will move up very intuitive and easy to use. That is often a very big challenge. and down aisles as well as to and from the library. Items will be Projects can’t slip because you would have to [wait] for an entire stored in bins based on their spine heights. semester and you don’t want to introduce a major change in the About 900,000 items will be stored underground, starting with middle of semester.” 60 per cent of the library’s collection and rising to 80 per cent. About 250,000 items purchased from the last 10 years will be on Discovery open shelves in the library. As items age, they will be relegated to In addition to the ASRS, the university is planning to move beyond the underground storage facility. the traditional library catalogue and build smart systems to offer The ASRS uses radio frequency identification technology, more innovative ways of searching and discovering items online, with each item tagged with a unique identifier so that they can be such as crowd-curated suggestions and recommendations. These tracked for retrieval. RFID acts as a link between the warehouse are expected to facilitate more use of the library’s collection. management system for the ASRS and the library catalogue. Booth says the problem with a catalogue, which is essentially an Students will be able to request an item in the underground automated card index, is that it doesn’t allow for much discovery; it storage facility via the library catalogue and have it delivered to a can limit users’ ability to find items they don’t know about. library service desk within 15 minutes. “With the catalogue, we are stuck with taxonomies that go back UTS librarian Mal Booth, who is working closely on the project to the Dewey decimal system and the Library of Congress and with the university’s CIO, Christine Burns, says the library retrieval subject headings that aren’t always meaningful to users or library system is the first in the world to integrate RFID technology, making it users,” he says. “So we are hoping to offer something around that slightly different to Macquarie University’s ASRS, which uses barcodes. but not just by text, by visual means, by recommendations, by Booth says the system can store up to seven times the amount of social means. books in a given normal library space and can store items efficiently; “It’s a totally different process. We’re currently working on many items can be scanned at a time using RFID, whereas barcodes proper discovery systems ... not catalogue search systems, but real only allow items to be scanned one at a time. discovery systems that allow students to find books by the way people imagine things, the way people look for things in forms Deadlines other than text-based searching.” Besides using RFID for tracking and retrieving items, the university Reflecting on how the project has developed so far, Burns says also plans to use it to collect and analyse data to help design its building a relationship between ICT and the library has played new library. By tracking the location of items, Booth says it will an important part in ensuring the project runs smoothly. She says help determine how students make use of the library’s collection the two teams have developed a stronger partnership by working and where they are most likely to browse books. on the project together and have gained a better understanding of “In the second phase of RFID we want to be able to be a bit how they both operate. cleverer in tracking where books have been used, how they move “One of the really nice things about this project is that it really around campus,” Booth says. shows how well you can partner, so working with experts within “Previously, we didn’t have the capacity to collect data on how the university faculties in different areas,” she says. those books were being used. With RFID, we can more easily collect data by quickly scanning a run of books that have been retrieved Rebecca Merrett writes for Computerworld Australia and CIO Australia.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 51 Trends : 3D printing

MAKING IT REAL WITH

With a 3D printer that costs a little over $3000, you can start your own mini manufacturing operation and use open source software to create surprisingly complex designs.

By Drew Nelson

he thrill of 3D prprintinginting iiss ththatat iitt brbridgeses the virtual and sspecified by control softwaree to the actual. Based on manufacturing technologies developed draw a single layer of the object.ct. Tdecades ago, the 3D printing process begins with carefully The nozzle then deposits thehe wrought 3D design files and ends with the robotic arm of a 3D next layer on top of the previousus printer flying around to fabricate physical objects of plastic or shape. The machine repeats thishis metal. It’s the darling of hacker and steampunk communities process dozens of times untill it and the hope of many who’d love to see a boom in small-scale creates a fully formed object, readyeady manufacturing. for use. At the high end, 3D printers aimed at the aerospace market cost a king’s ransom and produce solid hunks of titanium. Cheaper, Press ‘print’ and enjoy thethe showshow more versatile laser systems fabricate objects out of melted metal What are people printing? AtAt the low end, or plastic powders. But the real excitement centres on low-cost mostly goofy stuff – everyone whoho hahass an iinexpensivene pensi e 33DD prprinterinter 3D printers that use a process called fused deposition modelling has printed their share of emblem coins, keychain dongles and (FDM), where plastic wires are melted and deposited to form USB stick covers. They’re toys, really. But sooner or later, the finished products. magnitude of being able to create just about any object smaller than FDM machines are essentially very precise hot-glue guns a breadbox begins to sink in. Then you start seeing screwdrivers, connected to robots. The printer moves its nozzle to coordinates DIY drones and all manner of more sophisticated goods.

52 | Information Age March/April 2013 Trends : 3D printing

Originally, 3D printers were invented to fill the needs of design tools into the hands of anyone interested in building physical manufacturers’ R&D departments. The traditional cycle of design, products. You can share, copy and improve upon those designs. machine by hand, and test – again and again – was time consuming 3D printing makes iterative development possible for the physical and expensive. The movement to outsource machining capability world. And it all happens on your desk, in your apartment, or in to China has simply drawn out the time delay associated with this your garage. cycle. By making the manufacture of test pieces automatic and hands-off, 3D printers result in a much more agile prototyping Tools of the trade process. The 3D printer itself is just a piece of equipment. To spit out a Increasingly, 3D printers are being used for full-time manu- physical object, a 3D printer must be fed a detailed digital rep- facturing. 3D printing turns the mass-production paradigm on resentation of that item, either created from scratch using 3D its head: instead of high start-up costs and low unit costs once modelling software or scanned in using a 3D scanner. you reach high volume, start-up costs are low and the incremental Blender, originally designed for animators, is a great open cost for each item you make is the same as that of the first one. source tool for building 3D designs. It particularly excels at organic Generally, the point where mass production becomes cheaper per shapes, such as faces and flowers. OpenSCAD, free software billed unit than 3D printing falls between 10,000 and 100,000 units. In as “the programmer’s 3D modeller”, defines objects through the fact, 3D printing can be a less expensive solution for a significant accretion of a handful of primitives (such as spheres and cubes) segment of the manufacturing market. via Boolean logic into more complex objects, which are assembled Today, there are dozens of companies vying in the personal 3D in turn into larger objects. OpenSCAD excels at building easily printer market. This includes such proprietary commercial players tweaked shapes for more engineering-centred applications. as MakerBot, Stratasys and 3D Systems, as well as open source You can create 3D models and convert them into physical upstarts such as Ultimaker and the venerable RepRap project, the objects or reverse that process and generate a 3D model from a granddaddy of the open source 3D printing market. physical object scanned using a 3D scanner. This is handy for any number of disciplines, from landscape surveying to quality Printers printing printers control. Like 3D printers, 3D scanners range widely in price and Ten years ago, open source 3D printers did not exist. You could buy capability. The most exciting segment of this market over the last a commercial machine for $20,000 and order the stock material year or two has been the expansion of consumer-grade devices. from the manufacturer. Then, in 2007, the original patents on Most notable is the flurry of activity around Microsoft’s Kinect. many of those machines expired. The Kinect, a device used as a video game input for whole-body In the spring of 2007, the first open source 3D printer came gestures, uses a pair of cameras to create a 3D model of the space it online at the University of Bath in the UK. This machine, com- watches. Some capable users tapped into the Kinect’s straightfor- posed largely of parts produced by a commercial printer, plus a ward USB communications protocol to create open source drivers few motors and circuit boards, was capable of manufacturing most for the device. Combine that with clever software, and you get a of its own components. In 2008, the first fully self-replicating surprisingly capable 3D scanner from commodity parts. rapid prototyping machine, called the RepRap, was made of parts Marry your 3D scanner with a 3D printer, and now you have a printed by another RepRap. It was open source hardware in the “Star Trek”-like replicator. That might not change the world, but purest sense: feed the open source design to a 3D printer and out it’ll almost certainly change the things we make in it. pop the parts to assemble another. Open source 3D printers are often developed in iterative cycles Set up shop driven by their user communities. The quintessential example of Are you ready to get your own yet? One of the best ways to get an open source 3D printer company was MakerBot, although it started with 3D printing, while learning some new skills, is to veered away from its commitment to open source earlier this year. check out your local hacker space. For instance, right next door MakerBot has produced four distinct models over its four-year to my workplace is SplatSpace. Hacker spaces tend to be hotbeds history, with a host of smaller upgrades incrementally introduced of 3D printing. to various subsystems. If you’re ready for the full monty of building a 3D printer from Often, these incremental improvements were designed by users. scratch or you need help selecting from the array of kits or fully The new designs were then prototyped, shared, tested and refined assembled printers now available for purchase, there’s a very good by the 3D printing community. Finally, they were incorporated chance of finding an enthusiast to help you into the ecosystem. into the next official MakerBot printer. With your 3D printing kit, your Kinect and your modelling code, This process greatly reduced the cost and complexity of the maybe you really can write yourself a minivan. machines. Today, around $US3300 will purchase a MakerBot 3D printing technology does not guarantee you’ll be able to Replicator 2X, which outperforms the commercial machines of make great stuff. You need creativity, design skills and the diligence 2007 at a tenth of the price. to learn how to model complex objects in three dimensions. But One of the benefits of open source software is that if something with push-button fabrication, 3D printing has made the transition is broken or if you want to adjust functionality, you can implement from bits to atoms far less onerous. those changes and share them. What makes 3D printing special is that it can be used to bring the open source philosophy to the Drew Nelson is an associate developer for Open Software Integrators. He is physical world. It democratises the means of production and puts OSI’s leading expert on radiation, lasers and things that rotate slowly.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 53 Trends : navigation The TV is the new tablet How gesture-based computing is evolving.

By Colin Neagle

54 | Information Age March/April 2013 Trends : navigation

ew people watch television alone today, even when they’re Access to content by themselves. Most are gravitating toward the multi-screen Many modern televisions are equipped with media applications Fexperience, in which viewers keep a smartphone, tablet or that are accessible with these outdated remote control devices. laptop close by so they can access the Web while they watch TV. Wala suggests adapting the same mobile apps found on Apple’s But as televisions become smarter and gesture-based computing App Store or Google’s Play store for the television and making evolves, viewers may be able to mount and control everything them accessible through gesture control. The app stores could they need on the living room wall. even make themselves available in this form, enabling users to Shafa Wala is the co-founder of Tarsier, whose gesture-based purchase and download new apps directly on the TV. technology MoveEye attracted its share of attention at last year’s Once the television reaches this level of access to content, DEMO conference in the US. MoveEye enables users to navi- gesture navigation will feel as intuitive as touchscreen interaction gate a smart television with hand gestures, basically pointing to did on the iPhone, he says. and interacting with different points on the television. In a video “You want to be able to point and click on what you want to showing how MoveEye works, a demonstrator wearing connected interact with. You want to see things from your perspective and eyewear carries out common tablet tasks like accessing e-books and interact with them in a way that you would on your touchscreen-type playing Angry Birds, then moves on to more intensive functions device, and Kinect can’t do that and Wii Motion can’t do that.” like playing driving video games and Diablo III. Though impressive, the concept is hardly new. Microsoft Kinect Wide open and Nintendo Wii have made gesture-based interaction famous over Kinect and Wii Motion are more suited for capturing broader the past few years, while the highly anticipated Leap from Leap gestures, such as full-body motion or swiping from one page on the Motion touts easy touch-less interaction with the PC. Wala admits screen to the next, Wala says. Tarsier doesn’t necessarily compete that these tools are “quite viable”, but says Tarsier is specifically with them, but aims to improve pinpoint navigation for more control targeting the market for smart TV navigation. over the specific content on the TV. “Our opinion is that there was nothing that was expressive Wala says Tarsier aims to license the technology to OEMs enough to navigate a content-rich screen and to navigate media that can integrate it into televisions before shipping them. He may when we do have a content-rich screen,” Wala says. “We didn’t really be onto something; Prentice says the market for gesture-based have in our minds that we wanted to replace the remote control navigation is still entirely up for grabs. or replace the keyboard and mouse, but mainly how do we define “To be honest I think the market is wide open,” Prentice says. an expressive way to interact with your TV in the same type of “Kinect opened things up and gave people a low-cost way to get efficient way that you interact with your computer or touchscreen?” in there and experiment. We don’t yet have a sort of dominant player in that space.” Remote on notice More broadly, Prentice believes touch-less, gesture-based Nevertheless, for more intuitive navigation to become popular, computing holds significant advantages over touchscreen tech- the technology will have to work well enough to convince users nology in certain uses. In healthcare, for example, the tablet can to migrate away from traditional input devices. Wala says the be an operational godsend, but when multiple doctors and nurses television remote is already being replaced by tablet apps, such touch them in between examining patients, they can become germ as Comcast’s Xfinity TV app for iOS, which offers more efficient magnets, Prentice says. remote navigation than traditional options. Similarly, speech “A touchscreen you don’t have to touch, which sounds like recognition technology will need to evolve to the point that “you a bit of an oxymoron but you understand what I mean, makes a can just basically eliminate the need for handheld and tabletop heck of a lot of sense,” he says. input devices altogether,” he says. Still, the path to mainstream gesture-based computing has its Stephen Prentice, vice president and Gartner fellow, agrees obstacles. Prentice cites the problem of differentiating between that user navigation will need to evolve as the content available gestures meant to control the device and natural motion when users on the television grows. Prentice has followed the gesture-based are simply moving around near it. Companies like Tarsier, Leap computing field for years, and in 2008 he famously predicted that Motion and Microsoft are undoubtedly tackling those challenges, the computer mouse had just five years before it became largely racing to be on the forefront of the latest user navigation revolution. obsolete. Although he admits today that the mouse will remain Once these issues are ironed out, though, gesture-based computing applicable in certain use cases, he cites the continued decline of will follow the same path as every other technology, and artefacts Logitech when he says he got it right. like the mouse and keyboard will be relegated to history. Prentice says the role of the TV is changing inside the home, “There are challenges with it, but it’s like all these things,” and believes that before long it will become simply the largest screen Prentice says. “People will get used to it very quickly. It’ll come in the house. Because of that, he can easily see why consumers in at the high end, it’ll be taken up by the technology progressives would be interested in next-generation navigation capabilities. and within five or six years everyone will be doing it. And we won’t “Losing the remote control is so common,” Prentice says. “It’s remember anything else.” interesting to see this generation of super-smart televisions and they all come with a remote that was built in the 1990s, which Colin Neagle covers emerging technologies and the start-up scene for Network just seems kind of crazy.” World. Follow him on Twitter @ntwrkwrldneagle.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 55 ICT management : data architecture

56 | Information Age March/April 2013 ICT management : data architecture

PATTERNS FOR PEACE How to find some common ground in the (un)civil war between Agile developers and data architects.

By John Giles

ust when you seem to make some progress sorting out the The momentum has grown since. There are more books by armfuls of inconsistent and inaccessible data, along comes these two authors, plus several from the object-oriented (OO) camp. Jmore. It might not be so bad if it was a little bit of data, but And perhaps just as importantly, the experience of practitioners now it’s big data. Then there’s commercial-off-the-shelf packages applying their patterns has grown. I am a grateful and enthusiastic to try and shoehorn into the muddled mix. Heaven help us if fan of their work – it provides the ‘what’. This article builds on the company acquires another enterprise whose data has to be their foundation, and shares some glimpses of ‘how’ you might integrated. apply their patterns to start cleaning up your data mess. One solution might be to ramp up our data architect numbers I have been party to some exciting pattern-based initiatives. to sort out the mess. Or another solution might be to let loose teams Two common approaches to applying data model patterns have of Agile developers who can fix the problems by “refactoring”. But emerged. The first is a top-down Patterns-for-Planning approach these two approaches sometimes seem to be at war. (Figure 1, page 30). When ‘instant cakes, just add water’ first hit the shelves, my Maybe you’ve seen the film Groundhog Day? The main character mother told me that I had a choice. I could have good cakes (home- is caught in a loop – he keeps reliving the same day, again and made, with fresh eggs, milk and butter), or I could have fast. again. To me it sounds a bit like some enterprise data architecture Why do I tell that story? Because some perceive a good or ventures I’ve observed! They invest significant effort in getting fast war exists between the data architects and the agilists. Data the model up to date, then leave it untouched until it is so out of architects want the agilists to slow down until a good model has date it needs a major rebuild. Yet again! been developed. They may argue that instead of agilists delivering The pattern-based approach is (thankfully) different. Based solutions fast, they are speedily delivering integration problems. on published, proven, flexible patterns, an enterprise framework And agilists want to go fast and believe that given a few itera- is assembled amazingly quickly. Importantly, it’s good and fast. tions they will develop a better data architecture than the head It’s good because it is extensible and robust, thanks to the inherent office types will ever construct within the walls of their ivory flexibility in the patterns. And it’s fast because a few weeks can towers. That sounds fine until they hit what Barry Boehm and be enough to assemble a fit-for-purpose framework that delivers Richard Turner in Balancing Agility and Discipline call “architectural tangible value. Yes, like Groundhog Day, you may come back to breakers” – things that cannot be simply refactored. revisit it, but it’s just to provide more detail to flesh out bits of the Some say, “What about a compromise? Maybe do a bit of framework that are now needed, and this can be done quickly. upfront data architecture, followed by agile development?” If the Further, as part of closing the gap between the architects and outcome is a reasonably robust architecture that resulted in only the agilists, this framework can for free (well, almost for free) seed a minor delay to agile project kick-off, great. But if the compro- start-up models for use in agile projects. mise results in a half-baked architecture of little value, and the The second style is a bottom-up ‘Patterns-for-Projects’ delays to the project mean a missed window of opportunity, then approach (Figure 2, page 30). nobody’s won. If projects use common patterns, each agile project can very There is a way forward. Unlike too-good-to-be-true offers, it’s quickly assemble a “good-enough” data model to get things going. not necessarily cool, but it is pragmatic. It is built on really solid That’s the first benefit. foundations, and it has side benefits all over the place. The second benefit of this approach is that if the initial model is based on patterns that are designed to be adaptable, the start-up A way forward model is more likely to gracefully accommodate changes appearing In 1995, David Hay published a groundbreaking book on data over successive project iterations. model patterns. Rather than reinventing the wheel each time, The third benefit relates to cross-project integration. Graeme he argued that if we use proven data model patterns, they will Simsion, an authority on data modelling, used to speak of an “… stand the test of time better, are cheaper to implement and “unholy alliance” between business representatives and the funding maintain, and often cater to changes in the business not known sources. Maybe each project can justify its business case, but if about initially”. He made a fantastic contribution. Then in 2001, each one creates yet another silo, enterprise integration can suffer. Len Silverston produced The Data Model Resource Book (Volume However, a pattern-based approach can ease this pain. If each 1). He argued that you could walk into almost any enterprise in agile project is built from the same libraries of published patterns the world, and half of their corporate model needs might be met (Hay, Silverston), they have the same fundamental constructs, by “universal patterns”. and you get enterprise integration for free. (Well, again, not really

Information Age March/April 2013 | 57 ICT management : data architecture

Figure 1 Figure 2 Enterprise-wide model

Library of patterns

Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 model model model Enterprise-wide model

Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 model model model Library of patterns

for free, but it is easier.) And that’s just two approaches to using the business people as to how patterns from elsewhere may prove patterns to deliver value. helpful.

The foundations: pattern types Patterns and innovation This article isn’t meant to be a tutorial on data model patterns. Some think that using patterns will kill innovation. Conversely, It’s more about how they can be used. But let’s clear some possible the pattern authors suggest that the commodity stuff you will need misunderstandings out of the way. can be addressed by patterns, freeing you to focus on what makes Firstly, let’s state what these patterns are not. Some OO practi- you different and competitive. tioners will be very familiar with “design patterns” for programmers, but that’s not what we are talking about. And some data modellers Interoperability across partners will be familiar with what I call “elementary patterns” – the data We’ve noted that when patterns are applied to multiple projects model nuts and bolts structures such as self-referencing hierarchy within one organisation, their common foundations can facili- structures, or a pattern for resolving many-to-many relationships tate enterprise-wide integration. Coming out of Victoria’s Black – but again they are not the patterns I am talking about. Saturday bushfire tragedy was the recognition that data sharing So what am I talking about? I’m referring to the building between emergency response agencies could at times be difficult. block “assembly patterns” required to manage data about people Some initial work has been done on developing a common informa- and organisations (their names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.), tion model, based on patterns, intended to facilitate data sharing about events/tasks/calendars, about agreements/contracts and their beyond the boundaries of just one organisation. documents, about resources/assets, about geospatial locations, accounts, products, and so on. Refining an existing enterprise data model I am also talking about what I call “integration patterns” that Much of what has been shared above relates to creating an enterprise describe how these assembly patterns neatly fit together. One source data model (EDM) from scratch. But maybe you already have an for these is industry data models, though these tend to be large EDM. Can patterns help? The simple answer is yes. EDMs tend and sometimes expensive. Another source is the publications of to be dynamic, evolving over time. As refinements and extensions Silverston (Volume 2) and Hay (in Enterprise Model Patterns). are required, you may find it helpful to progressively refactor your EDM to align with aspects of published patterns. Lesson of experience: challenging the concepts One observation I have made is that highly detailed EDMs If the enterprise wants to talk about “clients”, and the modeller’s can actually be simplified as the power of generic patterns become favourite pattern calls them “customers”, I would try to politely part of their fabric. Lots of ugly detail can just disappear, and get suggest that the modeller should adapt to the common business replaced with simpler elegance. More abstract, yes, but simpler. vocabulary. I think most would agree. However, I have seen occa- sions when the generic concepts behind the “universal patterns” Analysing the approaches are catalysts for the business seeing itself in a new way that proves Two approaches shared here – the top-down use of patterns for beneficial. You may wish to consider starting conversations with enterprise models that can then contribute to individual projects

58 | Information Age March/April 2013 ICT management : data architecture

Patterns in action

Patterns-for-Planning is that where the outlines were pattern-based, the pattern books So how does this theory work in practice? Let’s take a few real-life provided plenty of options for subsequent progressive fleshing out examples of applying the top-down Pattern-for-Planning approach. of the skeleton. In the first case, a not-for-profit organisation wanted an enter- prise model to steer their strategies. It took me only three weeks to Patterns-for-Projects build a framework that was then the catalyst for several significant In another project, this time for a government agency involved in organisational changes. licensing, the client wanted model-driven development. Over several In another case, a small telecommunications company was about weeks, I developed a pattern-based logical project model and it was to kick off several projects, including a data warehouse project. subsequently used to shape the physical implementation model. An overall enterprise model was required. One of the employees Years later I bumped into one of the developers and asked about had been at a larger telecommunications company and had seen a the outcome. She informed me that there was resistance to the five-person year-long effort to produce something similar. Using generic nature of the model for the first iteration but the developers patterns, I assembled a sufficient-for-purpose model in two weeks. loved it on the second time around – much of the additional require- Even more spectacular was a bank that had initiated a massive ments were accommodated with minimal changes. business process-reengineering exercise, and then discovered one That was modelling with patterns for one project. At another client particular problem was ‘data’-centric. They needed an enterprise site, there was a need for several projects, but with an expectation data model, with drill-down into a particular problem domain. That of longer-term sharing of data. The projects were developed over job took me eight hours! Sound hard to believe? Let me qualify the a longer period of time but each was based on common patterns. results. Integration was made easier as each had elements of common data In the bank example, the ‘model’ was nothing more than hand- structure. drawn copies from a whiteboard, and several more weeks were A side note to agilists and their use of data models follows. In the required to refine and document the model but the initial, tangible foreword to The Nimble Elephant, Scott Ambler states: “Many agile values were delivered in the stated timeframe. And the few weeks developers underestimate the value of data modelling and other of initial effort to assemble the enterprise models for the telecom- data skills at their peril.” Yes, data models can be discovered and munications company was likewise followed by additional weeks extended progressively over successive agile iterations but a start- of documentation and extension. The enterprise models were just up model based on sound principles can give the team a model for skeletons with plenty of detail missing. The good news, though, the first iteration that minimises rework over subsequent iterations.

(whether “agile” or not) and the bottom-up use of patterns for Just a couple of cautionary notes. Firstly, my observations individual projects, with easier enterprise integration – end up suggest that the remaining ‘hard’ bits (often where patterns don’t with a similar overall result: an emergent enterprise model, and seem to fit) can take a lot longer. But that doesn’t devalue what pattern-based start-up models for projects. patterns can do. At least the first 80 per cent was relatively easy! A couple of comments may be in order. Secondly, I would add a caveat that the figures I quote assume Firstly, it matters little which of these approaches you begin a level of experience, not only with core data modelling practices, with. You can start with one, and swing over to another as needs but with pattern familiarity. arise. And secondly, it’s not only the enterprise data model and project A takeaway message models that can benefit from applying proven, flexible data model Finally, you may wish to encourage any parties involved in an patterns. Maybe you want a data model for an operational data agilist versus architect conflict to consider the ideas presented store. Maybe you want a class model for your OO developers. here, and see if some mutually satisfactory common ground can be Maybe you want a vocabulary for expression of business rules. carved out. Encourage them to gain familiarity with the published Maybe you want a robust structure for your XML packages within patterns of Silverston and Hay, for starters. a service-oriented architecture (SOA) framework. A logical model Encourage the data architects to roll their sleeves up and join based on patterns may contribute to any or all of these. in agile projects. Encourage the agilists to see what opportunities there may be for their contributions to be integrated with other The 80/20 rule doesn’t work data. And have fun! According to the 80/20 rule, the first 80 per cent of a task might be completed in 20 per cent of the time, and the remaining 20 per John Giles FACS is an independent consultant, focusing on information architec- cent of the task might take 80 per cent. ture, but with a passion for seeing ideas taken to fruition. This feature is based Based on these figures, if a modeller using patterns can get on Giles’ book on the subject, The Nimble Elephant: Agile Delivery of Data 80 per cent of an enterprise data model framework assembled Models Using a Pattern-based Approach. The book’s publisher is offering a in one month (20 per cent of the time), it should be finished in 25 per cent discount to ACS members. Just use the code NimbleEle25 at www. another four months. technicspub.com.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 59 Mobile : security

60 | Information Age March/April 2013 Mobile : security

Mobile attacks Hold top the list of 2013 security threats. the By Thor Olavsrud and high-risk Android apps will increase three-fold from about 350,000 in 2012 to more than one million in 2013, broadly in line with the predicted growth of the OS itself. “In terms of market share, Android may be on its way to domi- nating the mobile space the same way that Windows dominated the phone desktop/laptop arena,” Trend Micro notes in its Security Threats to Business, the Digital Lifestyle and the Cloud: Trend Micro Predictions for 2013 and Beyond report. ast year, the tech world saw a large number of high-profile “Malicious and high-risk Android apps are becoming more attacks and data breaches, and security experts say threats sophisticated. An “arms race” between Android attackers and Lwill evolve and escalate this year. BYOD, cloud and advanced security providers is likely to occur in the coming year, much as persistent threats (APTs) remain top of mind for many, and experts one occurred a decade or more ago over Microsoft Windows.” agree that those threats will continue to play a significant role One particular area of concern is malware that buys apps in the threat landscape in 2013. But will this finally be the year from an app store without user permission. McAfee points to the that mobile malware leaves its mark? What other new threats lay Android/Marketpay.A Trojan, which already exists, and predicts on the horizon? we’ll see criminals add it as a payload to a mobile worm in 2013. “Buying apps developed by malware authors puts money in their Mobile threats pockets,” McAfee Labs says in its 2013 Threats Predictions report. For years, security experts have predicted the rise of mobile “A mobile worm that uses exploits to propagate over numerous malware, and this year is no exception. Many experts expect mobile vulnerable phones is the perfect platform for malware that buys threats to escalate in 2013. such apps; attackers will no longer need victims to install a piece “We will see the first major malware on a mobile platform,” Seth of malware. If user interaction isn’t needed, there will be nothing Goldhammer, director of product management at LogRhythm, to prevent a mobile worm from going on a shopping spree.” a provider of a security information and event management IT McAfee also has concerns about the near-field communications platform, said. “There has already been malware that has made (NFC) capabilities that are appearing on an increasing number it into the Android Play Store and even Apple’s App Store. Given of mobile devices. that the large majority of mobile devices run without any type of “As users are able to make “tap and pay” purchases in more malware detection, it is inevitable that we are prone for a major, locations, they’ll carry their digital wallets everywhere,” McAfee disruptive malware possibly posing as an update for a popular Labs says. “That flexibility will, unfortunately, also be a boon to application.” thieves. Attackers will create mobile worms with NFC capabilities Goldhammer says the BYOD phenomenon, in which tablets to propagate (via the “bump and infect” method) and to steal and smartphones are outpacing laptops in sales, means it’s likely money. Malware writers will thrive in areas with dense popula- these devices are participating on corporate networks even though tions (airports, malls, theme parks, etc.). An NFC-enabled worm IT may have put up safety guards to prevent their use. could run rampant through a large crowd, infecting victims and “For enterprises, this means that IT needs greater visibility potentially stealing from their wallet accounts.” into how these devices are interacting with the environment and McAfee also reports that malware that blocks mobile devices the specific behaviour of these devices to recognise when com- from receiving security updates is likely to appear in 2013. munications alter,” Goldhammer says. “A significant deviation in communication patterns may reflect Mobile ransomware malware spread. If these devices are participating inside the cor- Ransomware – in which criminals hijack a user’s capability to porate network, this could prove to be very disruptive, not only access data, communicate or use the system at all and then forces due to the increase in network activity but malware moving from the user to pay a ransom to regain access – spiked in 2012 and is mobile to standard operating systems.” likely to keep growing in 2013, McAfee Labs says. The popular Android mobile operating system, with its open “Ransomware on Windows PCs has more than tripled during ecosystem, may prove an especially attractive target to cyber- the past year,” it reports. “Attackers have proven that this ‘business criminals. Trend Micro predicts that the number of malicious model’ works and are scaling up their attacks to increase profits.”

Information Age March/April 2013 | 61 Mobile : security

McAfee Labs says it expects to see both Android and Apple’s features do not require extensive policy or access controls. Thus OS X as targets of ransomware in 2013 as ransomware kits, similar they allow a page served from the Internet to exploit WebSocket to the malware kits currently available in the underground market, functionality and poke around the user’s local network. proliferate. “In the past, this opportunity for attackers was limited because “One limitation for many malware authors seeking profit from any malicious use was thwarted by the same-origin policy, which mobile devices is that more users transact business on desktop PCs has been a cornerstone of security in HTML-based products. than on tablets or phones,” McAfee Labs says. “But this trend With HTML5, however, cross origin resource sharing will let may not last; the convenience of portable browsers will likely lead scripts from one domain make network requests, post data, and more people to do their business on the go. Attackers have already access data from the target domain, thereby allowing HTML developed ransomware for mobile devices. What if the ransom pages to perform reconnaissance and limited operations on the demand included threats to distribute recorded calls and pictures user’s network.” taken with the phone? We anticipate considerably more activity in this area during 2013.” Destructive attacks AlienVault, provider of a unified security management solu- Experts also expect a rise in destructive attacks in 2013 by hacktiv- tion, agrees, “We will see new ransomware tactics in 2013 as a ists and state actors. result of the poor economy and the success of this type of attack Harry Sverdlove, CTO of security firm Bit9, expects to see (reportedly, cybercriminals raked in $5 million using ransomware further destructive attacks – cybersabotage and cyberweaponry – on tactics in 2012).” utilities and critical infrastructure systems this year. “We saw Shamoon wipe out the systems of a major oil company Windows still a target in the Middle East, and that company’s cybersecurity was no more On the Windows front, Trend Micro reports that Windows 8 will lax than comparable companies in the United States or Europe,” offer consumers key security improvements, especially the Secure Sverdlove says. “We know the bad guys have the ability to disrupt Boot and Early Launch Anti-Malware (ELAM) features. However, these systems; all they need is motive.” enterprises are unlikely to see these benefits this year. Analysts LogRythm’s Goldhammer agrees. “We should also expect to from research firm Gartner believe most enterprises won’t begin see an increase in nation state attacks and hacktivism. It might to roll out Windows 8 in large numbers until 2014 at the earliest. be hard for some people to believe that we’ll see an increase in McAfee suggests that attackers targeting Windows of all 2013 after so many well-documented and publicised attacks, but I varieties will expand their use of sophisticated and devastating expect we’ll see hacktivists take much more aggressive measures.” below-the-kernel attacks. While earlier attacks may have just embarrassed a country or “The evolution of computer security software and other company via website defacement or exposing their databases pub- defences on client endpoints is driving threats into different areas licly, Goldhammer says he expects that to change. “I can see splinter of the operating system stack, especially for covert and persistent cells of hackers take more aggressive means to cripple networks or attackers,” McAfee Labs says. corrupt data, or use ransom tactics, in order to financially punish “The frequency of threats attacking Microsoft Windows below or tactically weaken. In 2012, more and more evidence shows the kernel are increasing. Some of the critical assets targeted include nation states using malware or using exploits to gain information the BIOS, master boot record (MBR), volume boot record (VBR), or to attack infrastructure. GUID Partition Table (GPT) and NTLoader,” McAfee Labs “In 2013, I expect to see headlines talking about a growing says. “Although the volume of these threats is unlikely to approach number of nation states building exploits against each other, both that of simpler attacks on Windows and applications, the impact for data retrieval, data corruption and damage to infrastructure.” of these complex attacks can be far more devastating. We expect McAfee and Trend Micro both concur. “Destructive payloads to see more threats in this area during 2013.” in malware have become rare because attackers prefer to take control of their victims’ computers for financial gain or to steal HTML5 creates a greater attack surface intellectual property,” McAfee Labs says. “Recently, however, This year will see continuing adoption of HTML5. McAfee notes we have seen several attacks – some apparently targeted, others that it provides language improvements, capabilities to remove the implemented as worms – in which the only goal was to cause as need for plug-ins, new layout rendering options and powerful APIs much damage as possible. We expect this malicious behaviour that support local data storage, device access, 2D/3D rendering, to grow in 2013.” web-socket communication and more. While HTML5 offers a Whether this is hacktivism taken to a new level or just malicious number of security improvements – McAfee believes there will intent is impossible to say, McAfee says, adding that the worrying be a reduction in exploits focused on plug-ins as browsers provide fact is that companies appear to be rather vulnerable to such attacks. that functionality through their new media capabilities and APIs “As with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the – it also suggests the additional functionality will create a larger technical bar for the hackers to hurdle is rather low. If attackers attack surface. can install destructive malware on a large number of machines, “One of the primary separations between a native application then the result can be devastating.” and an HTML application has been the ability of the former to perform arbitrary network connections on the client,” McAfee Labs Thor Olavsrud covers ICT security, big data, open source, Microsoft tools and says. “HTML5 increases the attack surface for every user, as its servers. Follow Thor on Twitter @ThorOlavsrud

62 | Information Age March/April 2013 Upcoming Short Courses.

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Register now at www.acs.org.au/shortcourses In-car technology : wireless

Beyond the line of sight An Australian-developed vehicle accident prevention technology is set to hit the world stage.

By Adam Bender

64 | Information Age March/April 2013 In-car technology : wireless

n Australian-developed wireless car-to-car commu- to encourage sale of after-market devices for cars already nication system designed to prevent car accidents on the road, and that technology is also being tested in Acould soon appear in vehicles around the world, the Ann Arbor trial. and possibly in new prototypes that don’t require drivers. This August, the US plans to follow its Ann Arbor pilot The technology, which was developed by Adelaide with legislation that could result in either a mandate or a firm Cohda Wireless, gives drivers a 360° awareness of requirement that car-to-car communications technology be surrounding vehicles by broadcasting information about included in new cars to earn a five-star crash rating, he says. a car’s current position, speed and direction at a rate of In Europe, a recent €54 million trial by the German 10 times per second. government involved all the top German car makers. Last “Imagine you’re driving down the road to an intersec- October, a consortium of 12 European car makers signed tion and there’s another car approaching on the side road,” a memorandum of understanding in which the companies Cohda Wireless CEO Paul Gray says. “You have the right committed to start deploying the technology in 2015. of way, but the other car is travelling too fast and not going A smaller trial in Australia involved putting technology to stop in time.” into trains to improve safety at rail crossings. If both cars are equipped with the Cohda technology, each driver will receive a warning and can take steps to Car safety tech avoid an accident, he says. Unlike other systems that rely In most regions, the wireless technology inside Cohda’s on maintaining line of sight with the other vehicle, Cohda’s systems is based around the 802.11p IEEE standard, a technology works around corners, where a building may variation of the WiFi standard modified for low-latency, block a driver’s view of another vehicle. peer-to-peer communications. Cohda’s system also uses Gray predicts the technology could appear in Australian GPS for lane-level accuracy, pinpointing the vehicle’s vehicles from 2017. Drivers in the US and Europe will position. likely see the technology in 2015. Gray says one of the reasons for basing the technology “Work has commenced in Australia and there have on WiFi is to ensure the devices remain low cost. been a number of trials [here],” he says. Australia is “maybe On an open highway, cars can communicate within around two years behind what’s happening in the US and a range of up to 1km in any direction. In a dense city Europe”. environment, where buildings obscure view of other cars, Cohda Wireless was founded in 2006 out of the Uni- the range is about 100 metres. versity of South Australia. It will soon open sales offices As GPS signals can be lost inside a tunnel or under in the US and Europe as its technology moves closer to an overpass, the system uses map matching and other deployment, Gray says. techniques to maintain correct vehicle positioning. No car makers have put the system into production, but Cohda’s system is compatible with similar equipment since mid-2011 there have been large trials of the car-to-car built by other companies. “We build a standards-com- communications technology around the world, Gray says. pliant system that is 100 per cent interoperable with other He estimates that Cohda has its technology in about 50 systems,” Gray says. per cent of the cars participating in the trials. Cohda has recently signed major partnerships with To avoid a collision, car-to-car communications tech- Cisco and NXP Semiconductor. NXP will provide the nology must be present in both cars involved. However, silicon chips on which Cohda’s software will run, and Gray cites an estimate from the US Department of Trans- Cisco, a “new-market entrant” in the automotive space, portation that there will be a measurable impact on the will provide networking equipment, he says. number of automotive accidents once the penetration rate reaches 10 per cent of vehicles on the road. A driverless future? He predicts it will take about three years to reach that The first generation of the technology will provide warn- first 10 per cent. The long-term goal is to sell the devices ings only. However, in the future the technology could be to car manufacturers for about $100 each to encourage used for driver assistance – such as automatic emergency adoption. After-market versions may cost two or three breaking – or even driverless cars, Gray says. times that, he says. A future version of the system could take control of the “It needs to go into all vehicles to be effective, and vehicle to try and avoid the accident altogether. hence it needs to be low cost. It’s not just going to go into Google, which is testing driverless cars in California, BMWs ... Your BMW wouldn’t [just] crash into BMWs, does not use the Cohda system but may be a potential that’s probably not a common occurrence.” customer in the future. “Those driverless cars are all using sensors to steer,” Trials he says. “This is really just another sensor to bring into The US Department of Transportation is currently the mix, but quite a powerful sensor because all the other running a trial of car-to-car communications in Ann Arbor, sensors they have in the systems are all line-of-sight.” Michigan, with 2800 vehicles, of which 1500 have the Cohda technology, Gray says. The US also has a program Follow technology journalist Adam Bender on Twitter @WatchAdam.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 65 The app economy : in-car technology

The open-source car Automakers are eagerly wooing app developers.

By Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

66 | Information Age March/April 2013 The app economy : in-car technology

hen you buy a smartphone, one of the biggest draws (or vehicle, and the technology lets mobile developers design mobile drawbacks) is the platform’s app store. In the next year or apps that will work in infotainment systems, without having to Wso, the same purchasing philosophy may apply to cars, too. learn an entirely new platform. Carmakers have had fancy in-vehicle infotainment systems The CCC has announced that it will spend 2013 focusing on in their cars for years now, but they’re finally ready to open those connecting with third-party developers in an effort to saturate the closed ecosystems to third-party developers. Both Ford and GM global marketplace with MirrorLink-enabled apps. The CCC plans launched open-source developer programs for the SYNC AppLink to host a MirrorLink DevCon at Mobile World Congress 2013, and future MyLink platforms, respectively. where they will connect with app developers and explain guidelines, That’s right: the open-source car is finally here, and thank certification processes and business models for the ecosystem. goodness it’s nowhere near as dangerous as it sounds. Livio Connect: getting apps into cars, fast Ford Livio Connect also wants to help mobile developers get their apps Ford wants third-party developers to create mobile apps for its into cars in a safe, usable way. It’s similar to MirrorLink, but unlike AppLink infotainment platform. The company announced in MirrorLink, which replicates to a certain extent the mobile screen January that its third-party developer program (cleverly named on a vehicle’s head unit, Livio Connect focuses on changing the “Ford Developer Program”) was open for business. It wants third- mobile app’s interface to suit the car. With the Livio Connect party software developers to start developing mobile apps that API, developers can put Livio Connect into their apps, so that can interface with its SYNC voice-enabled AppLink infotainment apps can easily work with any car running Livio’s OEM software. platform. Livio’s main focus seems to be on getting apps into cars, quickly. Ford’s actual developer program isn’t all that unique, but its According to a Livio spokesperson, the company can get an app AppLink platform is. Unlike other in-vehicle infotainment systems, into a car that’s running its Livio software in just 30 days – not the AppLink is specifically designed to work with smartphones. So, several months to a year, which is how long it often takes carmakers. instead of developing an app for the AppLink platform, developers Livio stresses that it’s not competing with OEM software such as are encouraged to develop smartphone apps that will work with the Ford’s AppLink or GM’s MyLink, as it can work on top of these platform, once a customer’s smartphone is plugged into the car. platforms. In fact, Chevrolet is using Livio Connect to bring the Ford hopes this approach will drive innovation, because mobile TuneIn streaming radio app to its 2014 Spark and Sonic cars. developers will develop apps on the platform they prefer, rather Livio also offers over-the-air updates to both the head unit than learning an entirely new platform. Ford’s SYNC voice-enabled and the Livio-connected apps. This way, both carmakers and app technology also brings voice recognition and voice control to apps, developers can send software updates directly to customers’ cars: even if those apps don’t normally have such features. the updates are delivered via a customer’s smartphone data plan.

General Motors: let’s create a new category of The open-source car apps Ford and GM are kicking off a trend that will soon include many Just a few hours after Ford, General Motors announced its own of the world’s manufacturers. They’ve decided to take a leaf out open developer program (again, cleverly titled “GM Developer of Apple’s, Google’s, and Microsoft’s books by opening up their Program”), which links up to the new version of its MyLink infotain- platforms to third-party app developers instead of trying to create ment system. MyLink isn’t yet available in vehicles but it will roll all apps with dedicated partner companies such as iHeartRadio and out in select 2014 models. However, developers can start creating Pandora. This is a good idea, if you think about where it has taken apps for the platform right now. the mobile app stores. Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store Unlike Ford’s program, GM is looking for developers who both have over 700,000 apps, while Microsoft’s Windows Phone will create a new category of apps – apps that interface directly store has around 150,000. Even Microsoft’s newly introduced with the vehicle and help drivers know more about their car. Windows 8 store has more than 20,000 apps. By comparison, So GM is asking developers to create apps for its infotainment Ford’s AppLink system has a whopping three dozen apps. system, rather than create mobile apps that simply work with its The open-source car represents a sea change in how cars are infotainment system. GM hopes to see third-party development perceived and used. Cars have traditionally been pretty static pieces of vehicle-specific apps, such as apps that monitor fuel efficiency of technology, at least when it comes to the OEM. Aside from and vehicle health. aftermarket modifications, there aren’t really any manufacturer- Ford and GM aren’t the only carmakers interested in third-party approved updates (hardware or software) to a vehicle you’ve app development. The Connected Car Consortium (CCC), which purchased. is made up of more than 80 per cent of the world’s manufacturers, An open-source, app-driven infotainment system changes all including Daimler, Honda, Fiat, BMW, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Toyota, of that, because it essentially allows you to update your car’s head Volkswagen, Renault, Ford and GM, has created a global standard unit repeatedly. Just over a hundred years since the Ford Model T for smartphone and in-vehicle connectivity called MirrorLink. debuted, we’ve gone from getting any colour car we wanted as long MirrorLink is a technology that essentially replicates a smart- as it was black to getting (theoretically) any app we want, as long as phone screen on an in-vehicle infotainment system’s screen. Exactly it works with the car. how this is replicated depends on the individual carmaker. Mir- rorLink can be customised to fit the overall look and design of each Sarah Jacobsson Purewal is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 67 Big data : the digital universe

Study predicts data deluge

By 2020, there will be 5200GB of data for every person on earth.

By Lucas Mearian

uring the next eight years, the amount of digital data produced So far, however, only a tiny fraction of the data being produced will exceed 40 zettabytes, which is the equivalent of 5200GB has been explored for its value through the use of data analytics. Dof data for every man, woman and child on earth, according IDC estimates that by 2020, as much as 33 per cent of all data will to an updated Digital Universe study from IDC. contain information that might be valuable if analysed. To put it in perspective, 40 zettabytes is 40 trillion gigabytes, estimated to be 57 times the amount of all the grains of sand on The Digital Universe explained all the beaches on earth. The Digital Universe includes everything from images and videos To hit that figure, all data is expected to double every two on mobile phones uploaded to YouTube to digital movies populating years through to the year 2020. the pixels of high-definition TVs to transponders recording highway The majority of data between now and 2020 will not be pro- tolls. It also, naturally, includes more traditional corporate data, duced by humans but by machines as they talk to each other over such as banking data swiped at an ATM, security footage at airports data networks. That would include, for example, machine sensors and major events such as the Olympic Games, as well as subatomic and smart devices communicating with other devices. collisions recorded by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

68 | Information Age March/April 2013 Big data : the digital universe

Using business intelligence to analyse data could reveal patterns In one area, the Digital Universe study contradicted one pre- in social media use, correlations in scientific data from discrete dominant line of thinking today: that most data in the future will studies, medical information intersected with sociological data, be stored in the cloud. as well as faces in security footage. While spending on public and private cloud computing accounts “Herein is the promise of ‘Big Data’ or MapReduce technology for less than five per cent of total IT spending today, IDC estimates – the extraction of value from the large untapped pools of data in that by 2020, nearly 40 per cent of the information in the digital the digital universe,” IDC said in the study. universe will be “touched” by cloud computing, meaning that a Additionally, data that would be mined has to be “tagged” byte will be stored or processed in a cloud somewhere in its journey with meta data to give it context. That would include, for example, from originator to disposal. Yet, only as much as about 15 per cent adding a date stamp to video surveillance or geolocation information of data will be maintained in a cloud, IDC said. to smartphone photos or video – “basically, some data that puts The investment in managing, containing, studying and storing context around the data we’re creating,” says Chuck Hollis, global the bits in the digital universe will only grow by 40 per cent between marketing CTO at EMC, which sponsored the study. 2012 and 2020. As a result, the investment per gigabyte during “We’re not only going to have to tag more of it, but we’re going that same period will drop from $2 to 20 cents. to have to tag it with better information over time if we want to extract data with value from it.” Entertainment and social media That opens up a burgeoning career field for data scientists, A majority of the information in the digital universe is entertain- who will be asked to extrapolate useable information from massive ment or social media. In 2012, 68 per cent of all data created data stores such as consumer buying trends. was used by consumers watching digital TV, interacting with social media or sending camera phone images and videos between Picking up speed devices and around the Internet. Yet enterprises have liability The Digital Universe study was first launched in 2005. For the or responsibility for nearly 80 per cent of the information in the first three years, it was refreshed on an annual basis. This latest digital universe. update, however, marks an 18-month lag between study results – As a result, corporations must deal with issues of copyright, and a huge change in its predictions. For example, the last version, privacy and compliance even when the data zipping through their released in June 2011, predicted the amount of data to be produced networks and server farms is created and used by consumers. by 2020 would be 35 zettabytes, not 40. IDC’s research paper estimates that about one-third of all Hollis says the new IDC study reveals that for every physical data requires some type of protection, either to safeguard personal or virtual server corporations have today, they can plan on having privacy, adhere to regulations, or prevent digital snooping or theft. 10 times that number by the end of the decade. However, currently only about 20 per cent of data now has these “Another way to look at it is that for every terabyte of data protections. The level of security varies by region, with much less you own today, plan on 14 times more just like it by the end of protection in emerging tech markets, which include countries such the decade,” he says. “But I think most of the people I meet in IT as Brazil, Russia, India, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates. world know this is happening.” Additionally, emerging market nations will go from creating The number of servers (virtual and physical) worldwide will a minority of data to creating the majority, IDC found. In 2005, grow 10-fold and the amount of information managed directly for example, 48 per cent of the digital universe came from the by enterprise data centres will grow by a factor of 14, the study United States and western Europe. Emerging markets accounted showed. Meanwhile, the number of IT professionals is expected for less than 20 per cent. However, the share of data attributable to grow by less than a factor of 1.5. to emerging markets is now 36 per cent and will be 62 per cent Hollis, whose company is heavily promoting the cloud and big by 2020. By then, China alone will generate 21 per cent of the bit data analytics products, says that in order to manage that data streams entering the digital universe. growth, companies will have to restructure to create automated service-oriented architectures (SOAs). SOAs allow business units Bigger stakes to choose server, networking and storage capacity from online Additionally, the study found that the network is growing in catalogues that automatically provision and then charge back for it. importance. Latencies must get shorter, not longer. Data must “You can’t do what you did five years ago and scale at that be analysed, security applied, and authentication verified, all in rate,” Hollis says. real time and at levels yet to be seen. Network infrastructure will be a key investment over the next eight years. More efficiency needed The regulations governing information security must harmo- The Digital Universe study agreed with Hollis’ assessment. IT nise around the globe, though differences will remain. The report managers must find ways to drive more efficiency in their infra- said IT managers must realise that data will be requested outside structures so that IT administrators can focus on more value-add geographic boundaries, and a global knowledge of information initiatives such as BYOD policies, Big Data analytics, customer security may be the difference between approval and denial of a on-boarding efficiency and security. data request. “One way this is likely to happen is through converged infra- structures, which integrate storage, servers and networks,” the Lucas Mearian covers storage, healthcare ICT, business continuity and disaster study found. recovery and financial services infrastructure issues for Computerworld.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 69 Tips and tricks : Twitter tools

Twitter tools for power users

Here are 10 Twitter tools – some mainstays hen’s the best time to tweet? How can you find more and some newcomers – that will give you relevant people to follow? Want to track your tweets and Wretweets? While Twitter.com is a good place to start and greater insight into your network, find new dashboards such as Hootsuite and TweetDeck help you organise people to connect with and more. your stream, to get the most from Twitter you need to look outside the box. By Kristin Burnham Kristin Burnham is an award-winning journalist and blogger who covers the social media and social business landscape.

70 | Information Age March/April 2013 Tips and tricks : Twitter tools

1. Followerwonk 5. TwileShare

Followerwonk is a free Twitter analytics tool that helps you find, TwileShare is a free service that lets you upload and share files on analyse and optimise your account for social growth. The tool has five Twitter – images, documents, PDFs, e-books and more. TwileShare features: search Twitter bios, compare users, analyse followers, track gives you 1GB of storage and lets you view statistics on how many followers and sort followers. people have viewed your file. To upload a file, visit the website and allow “SearchTwitter bios” lets you target potential customers or new it access to your Twitter account. Select the file you want to upload and people to follow by keyword. You can sort the results page by the user’s share, create a message to accompany it, then click “Share It.” influence, number of tweets, how many people they follow and how many people follow them, and how new they are to Twitter. You can also 6. Twitblock follow them directly from the results page. Ever wonder how many of your Twitter followers are actually spam “Compare users” lets you compare your social graph with up to three accounts? Twitblock, a free tool, scans your account for such followers, other Twitter users, highlighting statistics such as common followers, and lets you decide whether an account is spam, lets you block the influence, average number of followers per day and how often they account or report it. Depending on how many followers you have, the tweet. complete scan could take a while to complete. “Analyse followers” helps you find out who in your network is the most influential, who’s dormant and the popular locations of your fol- 7. Twilert lowers and more. Twilert is a free web app that sends you regular email updates with The “Track followers” feature gives you statistics on who has fol- tweets containing your brand, product, service or any other keyword. lowed you and changes to your social graph. Lastly, “Sort followers” Think of it as Google Alerts for Twitter. lets you categorise who follows you by name, days on twitter, tweet To start, connect your account and enter your email address. Then, count and more. select your time zone and enter a search term and frequency into the designated fields. For more robust options, choose the “Advanced 2. Tweriod Search” option, where you can designate certain users, location and Tweriod is a Twitter tool that determines the best time of day to tweet. sentiment of the tweet. You can add or remove alerts at any time. After signing in with your Twitter account, the tool will sample up to 1000 of your followers and generate a report. 8. Slipstream When your report is ready, Tweriod notifies you via email or direct If you’re often overwhelmed by the volume of tweets in your stream, message. The more followers you have, the longer it may take to gen- or are worried about missing something important, browser add-on erate the report. Slipstream helps you deal with that. Slipstream is available only for Your report will show you the times of day and days of the week when Chrome and Safari browsers. you’ll have the most exposure. You’ll also find information on when Once you install the add-on, visit Twitter.com. Find a tweet you want most of your followers are online, which you can also sort by days of to remove, click “Hide,” then tweak the settings in the box that pops the week. up. You’ll be asked if you want to hide tweets from a specific user or For more robust statistics, Tweriod offers a premium analysis, which about a certain topic. When you’re done adjusting the settings, click ranges from $US3.99/month to $US15/month, or from $US5 to $US20 “Hide those tweets.” on an ad-hoc basis, depending on how many followers you have. 9. Twellow 3. Tweetsheet If you’re looking for new followers or want to be found more easily, Looking for a more visual representation of your Twitter activity? Twellow, or the Yellow Pages for Twitter, lets you do both. Tweetsheet is a free tool that takes highlights from your Twitter Twellow is a robust directory of who’s who on Twitter. You can search account, such as your top followers, geographic impact and most by category, such as “Society & Culture” or “Computers & Technology,” retweeted posts, and turns it into an infographic. or enter in a search term. The infographic also displays your number of tweets and retweets You can also choose to be listed in its directory. Twellow will pull your each month for 12 months, depicted by a bar graph. This tool bases its Twitter bio and show how you rank in a number of categories it believes information on the last 3200 tweets from your account. you are knowledgeable about. 4. Twitonomy 10. Twitter Counter Twitonomy is a Twitter analytics tool and dashboard currently in beta. Twitter Counter is a free tool that tracks your Twitter follower stats, The analytics features of Twitonomy track your average tweets per day, from the number of followers you have and how that number has grown the number of links you tweet, the percentage of your tweets that are over a period of time, to predictions on how many followers you’ll have retweeted, the users you retweet most often, the users you reply to in the future. You can also compare your growth to other people’s most, your top hashtags and more. Twitter accounts. In addition to analytics, Twitonomy also features a customisable Twitter Counter also offers a paid version, which gives you insights dashboard that displays your stream of tweets and the latest tweets into how many people have mentioned you, how many retweets you’ve from those you follow. You can also add modules based on a keyword had and more. The premium version ranges from $US17/month to search, list or user. $US150/month.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 71 Virtualisation : Windows 8

72 | Information Age March/April 2013 Virtualisation : Windows 8 5 excellent uses of Windows 8 Hyper-V

Windows 8’s bare-metal virtualisation layer is a great way to create an app sandbox, run a test machine, launch a VHD appliance and more.

By Serdar Yegulalp

uried under all of the clamour and kvetching about Getting started with Client Hyper-V Windows 8’s most obvious features – Metro! Metro apps! – is What exactly can be done with Client Hyper-V? In fact, there Ba new addition that hasn’t made a lot of headlines: Windows are several ways you put Client Hyper-V to work, ranging from 8’s new Hyper-V-powered virtualisation functionality. Oddly, most reproducing functionality found in earlier versions of Windows to people don’t seem to know Hyper-V even exists in Windows 8, let running operating systems that aren’t Windows at all. I’ll explore alone what it’s good for. But it’s one of the hidden pearls inside five of the most useful options in this article. the Windows 8 oyster. Before we dive in and start provisioning VHDs, Client Hyper-V The exact technical name for Hyper-V in Windows 8 is Client has a few system requirements and behavioural restrictions you Hyper-V. Microsoft picked this name to distinguish Windows 8’s should be aware of. implementation of Hyper-V from the full-blown Windows Server First, Client Hyper-V has stringent hardware requirements. incarnation, which is aimed at the server market and designed for Not every PC will be able to run it. You need a 64-bit processor more upscale, industrial-strength virtualisation scenarios. Client that can support second level address translation (SLAT). You also Hyper-V is for end-users on the desktop who want to make virtu- need at least 4GB of RAM. If you’re in doubt about your PC, you alisation work for them directly. can run a utility like Coreinfo to find out if SLAT is supported People may disagree about Windows 8’s new surface – pun on your machine. intended – but there’s little arguing that many great things have Many notebook-edition CPUs do not support SLAT, but most happened under the hood. Client Hyper-V has started to open desktop processors do. If you’re running the most recent generation up a range of possibilities – not just for experimentation, but for of Intel or AMD processors, then you’re golden. everyday tasks – that make Windows 8 a little more appealing to Second, Client Hyper-V is not installed by default in Windows the power user. 8. In fact, the set-up process for Client Hyper-V is a convenient way An inevitable question is how Client Hyper-V shapes up against to determine if the computer you’re using can support it in the first stand-alone virtualisation platforms such as VMware Workstation place. Search for “features” in the Settings section of Windows 8 and VirtualBox. If you’ve used either of those apps (or another Search, and launch “Turn Windows features on or off”. There, third-party virtualisation product), you’ll note that Client Hyper-V under Hyper-V, select Hyper-V Platform (and enable all the other offers many of the features they do: support for a broad range of management tools). If you don’t have the right kind of hardware virtualised hardware, snapshotting, dynamic allocation of memory, or if the hardware properties you need are disabled in BIOS, you’ll support for multiple virtual processors, and so on. Plus, Hyper-V get a warning to that effect. should give better performance thanks to its architecture, especially Finally, when running any instance of an operating system, when working with Microsoft operating systems as the guests – but always make sure you have the right to do so, per the licensing don’t count on it. Your usage scenario and hardware, and thus agreements for the software. Copies of Windows must be licensed for your mileage, will vary. use in virtual machines as well as physical ones. The host instance The biggest reasons to continue using VMware Workstation of Windows 8 doesn’t automatically give you the right to run guest or VirtualBox would be your existing investment in expertise and instances of any version of Windows. familiarity with them. But it’s well worth trying out Client Hyper-V If Client Hyper-V isn’t supported on your hardware, you’ll be with your existing virtualisation projects to see if there’s a major alerted when you attempt to install the components. boost in performance or if you simply like the Client Hyper-V interface better. Serdar Yegulalp is contributing editor to the InfoWorld test centre.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 73 Virtualisation : Windows 8

Use Windows 8 Hyper-V to virtualise Windows XP (or another earlier version of Windows) Much to Microsoft’s ongoing chagrin, Windows XP has become contained XP Mode. You can’t just swipe a copy from any old The OS That Just Won’t Die. Many cling to it because it runs installation of Windows 7. You also can’t use a Windows XP OEM with minimal resources. Others stick with it because they have recovery/installation CD designed to restore a specific system, applications or hardware that work with it and nothing else: since that copy of Windows XP is licensed for that particular piece all this in the face of a ticking clock that will discontinue its of hardware and no other (not even virtual machines). support forever. Another way to virtualise Windows XP without buying a full- As of Windows 7, Microsoft’s approach to prolonging backward blown licence, but only for short periods of time, is to use Micro- compatibility with XP was XP Mode. This add-on to Windows 7 soft’s Internet Explorer application compatibility VPC image. used one of the spiritual predecessors to Hyper-V, Microsoft Microsoft provides downloadable system images for Windows Virtual PC, to run an instance of Windows XP in a virtual machine. XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 that contain previous editions With the advent of Windows 8, though, XP Mode has been ditched, of Internet Explorer (IE6 in XP’s case) for the sake of backward to the distress of everyone still using it. The issues were as logis- compatibility and testing. The images in question time out after tical as they were technical: Microsoft only allowed the use of XP a certain point, typically 90 days, but they have been refreshed Mode with the Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate versions of periodically. Windows 7, because the price tags for those premium editions Again, due to the licensing restrictions involved, these system covered the licensing rights for the edition of XP in XP Mode as images are not intended to serve as full-blown replacements well. for a properly licensed copy of Windows. But if you just need If you have Windows XP installation media and the proper something running long enough for a quick test or a temporary licensing for it, you can use that to create an installation of fix, Client Hyper-V plus a compatibility image should do the trick. Windows XP under Client Hyper-V. It’s also possible to transfer You can use an Internet Explorer application compatibility the VHD (the file that contains the virtual hard disk image for image to run Windows XP under Windows 8. While not a perma- the OS) from a previous installation of XP Mode – again, as long nent solution due to the licensing restrictions on the image, it’s as you still have a valid licence for the copy of Windows that useful as a stop-gap measure.

Use Windows 8 Hyper-V to create an app sandbox or test machine Virtualisation makes it possible to sandbox apps – or even whole then have other programs start bombing because they don’t variant installations of your main OS – for the sake of testing or have storage space left. evaluation. If you have a program you want to try out but are Another thing to keep in mind about snapshots: snapshots of a leery of putting it on a production system, stick it in a Client VM reduce disk performance for that VM. Each additional snap- Hyper-V VM. One of the finest analogies I’ve ever heard for shot made of a VM creates that much more of a performance this was that it’s like a roll of paper towels: when you’re fin- bottleneck, since both the snapshot(s) and the underlying VHD ished using that app, you just wipe down the VM or roll it back have to be processed. If you’re using snapshots as a way to keep to a snapshot. You don’t even have to uninstall the program in a clean test machine, use only as many as you absolutely have question. to. This rule applies for mostly any use of Client Hyper-V where Snapshotting lets you save the state of the system image, so you’re snapshotting, too. you can revert to it after you’re finished testing, in much the Finally, using Client Hyper-V as a test platform doesn’t change same way a backup of a system lets you roll back to the point the rules about licensing. You’ll still need to have a separate when the backup was made. That said, snapshots of Client licence for the instance of Windows you’re running. An MSDN or Hyper-V VMs are by default stored in the same directory as the TechNet subscription is one good way to deal with this, since you VHD file for the VM, so taking too many snapshots can crowd can use an OS licence from the pool given to you for a testing/ out space that might be needed by the VHD as more items are evaluation install. For your yearly membership fee, you get tons added. of other software you can evaluate in the same way. This matters twice as much if you use that disk for storing Multiple snapshots can degrade the performance of your VM, other things. You don’t want to take one snapshot after another, so use only as many as you truly need.

74 | Information Age March/April 2013 Virtualisation : Windows 8

Use Windows 8 Hyper-V to run another OS pre-packaged as a VHD XP Mode isn’t the only way you can run a “pre-packaged” oper- distributions, for instance, and products like Citrix XenApp are ating system from a VHD file. Many other Microsoft operating offered as VHD downloads. systems are also available in VHD bundles, such as Windows The beauty of this kind of pre-packaging is that there’s nothing Server 2012. to set up on the host system. You only need to download the VHD, The same goes for many of Microsoft’s server-side applica- create a virtual machine to host it in the Client Hyper-V console, tions, such as SQL Server and Exchange Server. and boot it. If you’ve obtained a virtual disk in a format other than Many other vendors’ products – whether operating systems VHD, not to worry. Third-party programs can convert virtual or products that come deployed as a virtual appliance – are disks between formats, including free ones such as StarWind also being made available in VHD editions. Various Linux V2V Converter.

Use Windows 8 Hyper-V to migrate an OS from a physical machine Another nifty use of Client Hyper-V is to run a virtual machine Two details are worth noting here. First, the virtual machine made from a copy of another physical machine’s hard drive. you create should match the hardware specifications of the This is handy if the system in question is suffering from hard- original whenever possible. Otherwise, when you boot the VHD ware problems or otherwise needs to be retired from service, for the first time, the guest OS may detect major hardware but the instance of the OS on it still needs to be running in some changes and respond accordingly, including triggering the need form. to reactivate Windows. That said, Client Hyper-V can’t perform this kind of migra- Second, note that due to licensing, you can’t transfer an tion by itself. Microsoft engineers Mark Russinovich and Bryce OEM-licensed copy of Windows to a virtual machine from a Cogswell of Sysinternals fame created a tool called Disk2vhd to physical machine for production use. You can, however, do this bridge the gap. When run on a given Windows system (Windows with systems that have a full retail Windows licence or a copy of XP SP2 and later), Disk2vhd polls all the available physical Windows courtesy of Software Assurance. drives in the system and lets you create an image from them. The Disk2vhd tool generates VHD images from a hard drive, You can even convert a currently running system drive, since even one with a running instance of Windows on it. Use Disk2vhd Disk2vhd uses Windows’ own Volume Snapshot technology to to migrate physical machines; just remember the limitations of accomplish this. any licensing agreements.

Use Windows 8 Hyper-V to boot from a VHD Booting from a VHD is exactly what it sounds like: you can install Setting up a VHD as a boot volume is a two-stage process. a VHD as if it were a boot volume and boot the entire host system First, you need to attach the VHD through the Disk Manage- directly to it. ment console’s menu (Action – Attach VHD) so that it shows up Strictly speaking, this isn’t a Client Hyper-V feature, but a as a drive in the console. trick that’s been possible in Windows since Windows 7. It’s Then, in the second stage of the process, you need to add a worth mentioning here, since working with VHDs in Client system boot entry for the VHD via BCDEDIT or a similar tool. Hyper-V may give you a reason to pull this stunt as well. It Dan Stolts of TechNet has created a handy batch file to auto- comes in especially handy if you want to run the guest with as mate the process and to make it harder to mess up your boot few performance issues as possible without actually installing entries to begin with. the guest OS (although even they have their limitations). The Again, as with an OS migration from a physical machine, any whole thing can be undone just as easily, with no side effects differences in the hardware set-up for the VHD’s VM and your and no dangerous mucking around with partition tables. physical computer will be detected by the VM.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 75 ICT management : strategies Security through obscurity From Tor to steganography, these six techniques will help obscure the data and traces you leave online.

By Peter Wayner

hinking about the bits of data you leave data, corporate trade secrets, confidential busi- behind is a one-way ticket to paranoia. ness communications – if you don’t worry about TYour browser? Full of cookies. Your mobile these bits escaping, you may lose your job. phone? A beacon broadcasting your location Learning how best to cover tracks online is at every moment. Search engines track your fast becoming a business imperative. It’s more every curiosity. Email services archive way too than recognising that intelligent traffic encryp- much. Those are just the obvious places we’re tion means not having to worry as much about aware of: who knows what’s going on inside securing routers, or that meaningful client-based those routers? encryption can build a translucent database that The truth is, worrying about the trail of simplifies database management and security. digital footprints and digital dustballs filled Good privacy techniques for individuals create with our digital DNA is not just for raving more secure environments, as a single weak link paranoids. Sure, some leaks like the subtle vari- can be fatal. Learning how to cover the tracks we ations in power consumed by our computers leave online is a prudent tool for defending us all. are only exploitable by teams of geniuses with Each of the following techniques for pro- big budgets, but many of the simpler ones are tecting personal information can help reduce already being abused by identity thieves, black- the risk of at least some of the bytes flowing over mail artists, spammers or worse. the Internet. They aren’t perfect: unanticipated Sad news stories are changing how we work cracks, even when all of these techniques are on the Web. Only a fool logs into their bank’s used together, always arise. Still, they’re like website from a coffee shop Wi-Fi hub without deadbolt locks, car alarms and other security using the best possible encryption. Anyone measures – tools that provide enough protection selling a computer on eBay will scrub the hard to encourage the bad guys to go elsewhere. disk to remove all personal information. There are dozens of sound, preventative practices that Peter Wayner’s book Disappearing Cryptography we’re slowly learning, and many aren’t just smart explores various solutions in depth, and his iPad app precautions for individuals, but for anyone How to Hide Online provides interactive illustrations for hoping to run a shipshape business. Sensitive trying the algorithms.

76 | Information Age March/April 2013 ICT management : strategies

Information Age March/April 2013 | 77 ICT management : strategies

Online privacy technique No. 1: cookie management Online privacy technique No. 2: Tor The search engines and advertising companies that track our moves online One of the simplest ways to track your machine is argue they have our best interests at heart. While not boring us with the wrong through your IP address, the number the Internet ads may be a noble goal, that doesn’t mean the relentless tracking of our online uses like a phone number so that your requests activities won’t be used for the wrong reasons by insiders or websites with for data can find their way back to your machine. less esteemed ideals. IP addresses can change on some systems, but The standard mechanism for online tracking is to store cookies in your they’re often fairly static, allowing malware to browser. Every time you return to a website, your browser silently sends the track your usage. cookies back to the server, which then links you with your previous visits. One well-known tool for avoiding this type of These little bits of personalised information stick around for a long time unless tracking is called Tor, an acronym for “The Onion you program your browser to delete them. Router”. The project, developed by the US Office of Most browsers have adequate tools for paging through cookies, reading Naval Research, creates a self-healing, encrypted their values and deleting specific cookies. Cleaning these out from time to time super-network on top of the Internet. When your can be helpful, although the ad companies have grown quite good at putting out machine starts up a connection, the Tor network new cookies and linking the new results with the old. Close ‘n Forget, a Firefox plots a path through N different intermediate extension, deletes all cookies when you close the tab associated with a site. nodes in the Tor subnet. Your requests for Web Standard cookies are just the beginning. Some ad companies have worked pages follow this path through the N nodes. The hard on burrowing deeper into the operating system. The Firefox extension requests are encrypted N times, and each node BetterPrivacy, for example, will nab the “supercookies” stored by the Flash along the path strips off a layer of encryption like plug-in. The standard browser interface doesn’t know that these supercookies an onion with each hop through the network. are there, and you can delete them only with an extension like this or by The last machine in the path then submits your working directly with the Flash plug-in. request as if it were its own. When the answer There are still other tricks for sticking information in a local computer. comes back, the last machine acting as a proxy Ghostery, another Firefox extension, watches the data coming from a website, encrypts the Web page N times and sends it back flags some of the most common techniques (like installing single-pixel images) through the same path to you. Each machine in the and lets you reverse the effects. chain only knows the node before it and the node after it. Everything else is an encrypted mystery. This mystery protects you and the machine at the other end. You don’t know the machine and the Online privacy technique No. 3: SSL machine doesn’t know you, but everyone along One of the easiest mechanisms for protecting your content is the encrypted the chain just trusts the Tor network. SSL connection. If you’re interacting with a website with the prefix “https”, the While the machine acting as your proxy at the information you’re exchanging is probably being encrypted with sophisticated other end of the path may not know you, it could algorithms. Many of the better email providers like Gmail will now encourage still track the actions of the user. It may not know you to use an HTTPS connection for your privacy by switching your browser who you are, but it will know what data you’re over to the more secure level if at all possible. sending out onto the Web. Your requests for Web An SSL connection, if set up correctly, scrambles the data you post to a pages are completely decrypted by the time they website and the data you get back. If you’re reading or sending email, the SSL get to the other end of the path because the final connection will hide your bits from prying eyes sitting in wait in any of the machine in the chain must be able to act as your computers or routers between you and the website. If you’re going through a proxy. Each of the N layers was stripped away until public Wi-Fi site, it makes sense to use SSL to stop the site or anyone using it they’re all gone. Your requests and the answers from reading the bits you’re sending back and forth. they bring are easy to read as they come by. For SSL only protects the information as it travels between your computer and this reason, you might consider adding more the distant website, but it doesn’t control what the website does with it. If you’re encryption if you’re using Tor to access personal reading your email with your Web browser, the SSL encryption will block any information like email. router between your computer and the email website, but it won’t stop anyone There are a number of ways to use Tor that with access to the mail at the destination from reading it after it arrives. That’s range in complexity from compiling the code how your free Web email service can read your email to tailor the ads you’ll yourself to downloading a tool. One popular option see while protecting it from anyone else. The Web email service sees your is downloading the Torbutton Bundle, a modified email in the clear. version of Firefox with a plug-in that makes it pos- There are a number of complicated techniques for subverting SSL connec- sible to turn Tor on or off while using the browser; tions, such as poisoning the certificate authentication process, but most of with it, using Tor is as simple as browsing the Web. them are beyond the average eavesdropper. If you’re using a local coffee shop’s If you need to access the Internet independently Wi-Fi, SSL will probably stop the guy in the back room from reading what you’re from Firefox, you may be able to get the proxy to doing, but it may not block the most determined attacker. work on its own.

78 | Information Age March/April 2013 ICT management : strategies

Online privacy technique No. 4: Online privacy technique No. 5: encrypted messages translucent databases While Tor will hide your IP address and SSL will protect your bits The typical website or database is a one-stop target from the prying eyes of network bots, only encrypted mail can for information thieves because all the information is protect your message until it arrives. The encryption algorithm stored in the clear. The traditional solution is to use scrambles the message, and it’s bundled as a string of what strong passwords to create a wall or fortress around looks like random characters. This package travels directly to this data, but once anyone gets past the wall, the data the recipient, who should be the only one who has the password is easy to access. for decrypting it. Another technique is to only store encrypted data and Encryption software is more complicated to use and far less ensure all the encryption is done at the client before straightforward than SSL. Both sides must be running compat- it is shipped across the Internet. Sites like these can ible software, and both must be ready to create the right keys and often provide most of the same services as traditional share them. The technology is not too complicated, but it requires websites or databases while offering much better much more active work. guarantees against information leakage. There’s also a wide range in quality of encryption packages. A number of techniques for applying this solution Some are simpler to use, which often makes for more weak- are described in my book Translucent Databases. nesses, and only the best can resist a more determined adver- Many databases offer other encryption tools that can sary. Unfortunately, cryptography is a rapidly evolving discipline provide some or all of the benefits, and it’s easy to add that requires a deep knowledge of mathematics. Understanding other encryption to the Web clients. the domain and making a decision about security can require a In the best examples, the encryption is used to doctorate and years of experience. Despite the problems and obscure only the sensitive data, leaving the rest in the limitations, even the worst programs are often strong enough to clear. This makes it possible to use the non-personal resist the average eavesdropper, such as someone abusing the information for statistical analysis and data-mining system admin’s power to read email. algorithms.

Online privacy technique No. 6: steganography One of the most elusive and beguiling techniques is stegan- improve this dramatically. A large message like this article can ography, a term generally applied to the process of hiding a be snuck into the corners of an average photo floating around message so that it can’t be found. Traditional encryption locks the Internet. the data in a safe; steganography makes the safe disappear. To Tweaking pixels is just one of the ways that messages can be more accurate, it disguises the safe to look like something be inserted in different locations. There are dozens of methods innocuous, such as a houseplant or a cat. to apply this approach; for example, replacing words with syn- The most common solutions involve changing some small onyms or artfully inserting slight typographical mistakes into part of the file in a way that won’t be noticed. A single bit of an article. Is that a misspelling or a secret message? All rely on a message, for instance, can be hidden in a single pixel by inserting small, unnoticeable changes. arranging the parity of the red and green components. If they’re Steganography is not perfect or guaranteed to avoid detec- both even or both odd, then the pixel carries the message of 0. tion. While the subtle changes to values like the red and If one is even and one is odd, then it’s a 1. To be more concrete, green component may not be visible to the naked eye, clever imagine a pixel with red, green and blue values of 128, 129 and algorithms can sometimes find the message. A number of 255. The red value is even, but the green value is odd, meaning statistical approaches can flag files with hidden messages the pixel is carrying the message of 1. by looking for patterns left behind by sloppy changes. The A short, one-bit message can be hidden by taking a file, glare from glass or chrome in a picture is usually stuffed with agreeing upon a pixel, and making a small change in either the pixels filled with the maximum amount of red, green and blue. red or green value so that the pixel carries the right message. If a significant number of these are just one unit less than the A one-bit change will be tiny and almost certainly not visible to maximum, there’s a good chance that a steganographic algo- the human, but a computer algorithm looking in the right place rithm made changes. will be able to find it. These detection algorithms also have limits, and there are If this technique is repeated long enough, any amount of data a number of sophisticated approaches for making the hidden can be hidden. An image with 12 megapixels can store a message messages harder to find. The scientists working on detection with 12Mb, or 1.5MB, without changing any pixel by more than are playing a cat-and-mouse game with the scientists looking one unit of red or green. Judicious use of compression can for better ways to hide the data.

Information Age March/April 2013 | 79 Australian answers

TAKING THE GUESSWORK OUT OF WATER NETWORK MAINTENANCE

ustralia’s critical water mains break on average 7000 times each year, Adue to age, material, soil type and other factors. To help combat the cost of repairs to this critical infrastructure, ICT R&D organisa- tion NICTA has joined forces with Sydney Water to use machine learning capabilities to more accurately identify which pipes are at risk of failure, potentially saving Aus- tralia’s water utilities and the community $700 million a year in reactive repairs and maintenance. “NICTA’s technology was trialled in Wollongong [NSW] and was able to accurately predict breaks in the following year with twice the precision of the existing technology,” Rob Fitzpatrick, director, Infrastructure, Transport and Logistics at NICTA, said. “We have developed a new computer modelling-based approach to estimate the likelihood of pipe failure,” Dr Fang Chen, NICTA’s technical lead on the project, said. “Our approach could also be applied to other infrastructure failure prediction, such as bridges.” According to Kevin Young, managing director of Sydney Water, international colleagues are watching the project with interest.

80 | Information Age March/April 2013 Supporting Organisation driving productivity through innovation EntriesE r e foror thet e 2013013 iAwardsiAwa ds areare closincclosingo ng soon!s n Entries for the 2013 iAwards must be registered by Friday 15 March – with final submissions to be completed by no later than Tuesday 26 March.

Don’t miss out on your chance to enter. The iAwards Key 2013 iAwards Dates: program boasts the most comprehensive array of awards designed to recognise achievement made in ICT across all Entries Registration Closes 15 March facets of the economy. Entries Final Submission 26 March Companies State iAwards Winners Presentations 1 – 21 June Entries to the iAwards can come from companies National Phase 2 Onsite Judging, which have developed an innovative product or service Melbourne 5 & 6 August showcasing the value of ICT. 2013 National iAwards Gala Events &

Innovation Showccase,assee,, CCroror wnn,, Melbbournrnee 8 AuA gust Individual Achievements Nominations are also sought for outstanding individuals who deserve industry recognition for their professional EnterEn er today!today concontrio bution to the ICT sector. Collaborative Teams i AwA ards entries can also be submitted by collaborative teae ms – where two or more parties have worked coolllaboratively to turn an innovative idea into reality.

Fini d out what it takes to win an iAward, visit www.iawards.com.auwww or email [email protected]

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