TechUpdate

Summary

October 2015Blue Mountain Data Systems

For CTOs, CIOs & CISOs

Visit Blue Mountain Data Systems https://www.bluemt.com

For CTOs, CIOs & CISOs

Every business day, we publish a Daily Tech Update for Federal & State CTOs ,CIOs & CISOs on the

Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog. We hope you will visit our blog for the latest information.

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Here’s the summary of the Daily Tech Updates for October 2015. Hope the information and ideas prove

useful.

Best,Paul VeselyPresident and Principal ArchitectBlue Mountain Data Systems Inc.

Cloud Security

SURVEY: Shows Little Accord On Responsibility For Cloud Security. Many industry experts agree that cloud security has to be a shared responsibility between cloud providers and the businesses that use these services to host and manage their data and applications. But there’s less agreement over just how much responsibility each side has for ensuring data security in the cloud. Read more[DARKREADING.COM]

AWS: Cloud Security Tools Thwart Attacks on AWS Infrastructure. Before Amazon Inspector, AWS Config Rules and even VPC, third-party cloud security tools stood guard over AWS — and for a number of reasons, IT pros will continue to rely on them. Read more[TECHTARGET.COM]

Cloud Security

MOBILE & CLOUD SECURITY: A New Archetype for Mobile and Cloud Security. No longer is it possible to establish an unbreachable perimeter because people and data are constantly flowing into and out of various networks and applications. To deal with this new reality, an improved security model that can handle the challenge is needed. Otherwise, users will continue to go it alone and organizational data will have a high risk of exposure. Read more[SECURITYINTELLIGENCE.COM]

SHADOW IT: IBM Tackles ‘Shadow IT’ with a New Cloud Security Tool for Enterprises. If there’s one thing that can strike terror into a CIO’s heart, it’s the security implications of the cloud. If there’s another, it’s the “bring your own” technology trend. Combine the two, and you’ve got the motivation behind IBM’s new Cloud Security Enforcer. Read more[COMPUTERWORLD.COM]

Security Patches

ADOBE FLASH: Adobe Patches Critical Flash Vulnerability. A few days back Adobe posted a security bulletin on its website through which it confirmed that it was aware of a “critical vulnerability” in some versions of Flash player, with the vulnerability affecting users on Windows, Mac and Linux. It could cause their systems to crash and even let attackers remotely take control of the system. Adobe has now confirmed that the vulnerability has been patched. Read more[UBERGIZMO.COM]

MICROSOFT & APPLE: Microsoft’s Latest Update For Office 2016 For Mac Still Doesn’t Fix El Capitan Crashes, Hints Apple Is At Fault. While Microsoft updated Office 2016 for Mac on Tuesday, Oct. 13, with security fixes and minor feature changes, the software giant failed to release patches on the recurring glitches on OS X El Capitan. Read more[TECHTIMES.COM]

Security Patches

WINDOWS: All Versions of Windows Affected by Critical Security Flaw. Even Windows 10 wasn’t left out of the trifecta of monthly security patches. Microsoft said in its monthly security bulletin as part of its so-called Patch Tuesday that Windows Vista and later, including Windows 10, require patching from a serious remote code execution flaw in Internet Explorer. Read more[ZDNET.COM]

GOOGLE: Embraces Security Shaming To Answer Android’s Security Problems. Following the security scares this year, Google has introduced plans to provide a monthly security patch for manufacturers and carriers to push updates out as quickly as possible to users’ handsets. Unfortunately Google has to rely on the goodwill of its partners to push out these patches through over-the-air updates. Read more[FORBES.COM]

Customer EngagementCONNECTED THINKING: 89% See IoT Impacting Customer Engagement ‘Very Significantly.’ When it comes to the impact of the Internet of Things on customer engagement, the marketers leading the charge see a totally different picture than those behind. And the leaders are looking to leverage new connections with customers, who expects highly personalized engagements, based on a new report. Read more[MEDIAPOST.COM]

MOBILE MIND SHIFT: When Enterprises And Carriers Get Together, The Result Is A Happy Customer. More millennials enter the consumer marketplace each year and their effect is drastically influencing a multitude of industries. Millennial consumers are mobile driven and hate not being able to engage with businesses on their terms. With the increased adoption of mobile devices, there has also been a fundamental change in consumers’ business expectations. Read more

[RCRWIRELESS.COM]

Customer EngagementATTRACT MOBILE READERS: Publishers’ Latest Mobile-Engagement Trick — The Truncated Article Page. s sidedoor visits continue to dominate publishers’ traffic, many are coming up with new ways of holding onto — or at the very least extracting more value from — their mobile readers. For the likes of The New York Times, Huffington Post and Quartz, one successful tactic is the “read full story” button, which appears within articles after a few paragraphs for mobile readers. Visitors who want to actually finish the articles they’ve started reading need to click the button… Read more[DIGIDAY.COM]

SALESFORCE AUTOMATION: Making CRM Part Of Your Customer Engagement StrategyCustomer relationship management (CRM) tools and strategies play an increasingly important role in the success of most, if not all, organizations today. The best way to determine whether your organization can benefit from CRM tools is to evaluate your process for finding, catching and retaining good customers — not just today, but over time.. Read more

[TECHTARGET.COM]

For the CTO, CIO & CISO

SECURITY LEADERSHIP: CISOs Facing Boards Need Better Business, Communication Skills. As information security becomes a more important topic of interest for corporate boards, CISOs are increasingly asked to step up and brief boards on cyber issues — which means they need to become better communicators, and have a broader understanding of business needs. Read more[CSOONLINE.COM]

PROJECT PLANNING: 20 Ways Your IT Team Makes You Look Like a Hero. One of the disturbing realities of working in IT is that most of your non-IT coworkers don’t know what you do. That’s good because it offers a certain level of freedom, but it also means you often don’t get credit for great work. Read more[CIO.COM]

For the CTO, CIO & CISO

NEWLY-APPOINTED STATE CIOS: Meet the Class of 2015. Thanks to administration changes, retirements and new legislation, a dozen states appointed new CIOs this year and in late 2014. It’s a group that includes few true outsiders. Most of these new IT chiefs — but not all of them — have been in government before, and many bring a mix of public- and private-sector experience to the job. Read more[GOVTECH.COM]

FITARA PLANS: Federal CIO Gives Agencies B-Plus. Agencies have submitted action plans for implementing the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) and, while not perfect, the Office of Management and Budget’s top IT official is generally pleased with the results. Read more[FEDERALTIMES.COM]

For the CTO, CIO & CISOGOVT CONTRACTS: Why Federal CIO Tony Scott Hates The End-Of-Year IT Spending Spree. The end-of-the-year spending spree — in which agencies cram contract spending into the last quarter of the fiscal year — is a time-honored tradition in government contracting. And Tony Scott, one of the Obama administration’s top tech officials, hates it. Read more[NEXTGOV.COM]

BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT: Want Faster Deployments? Shift Left. The office of the CIO exists to enable the business to do business! That mission is achieved through the design, delivery and operation of the innovative systems and solutions that each business requires. The challenge CIOs face is keeping up with exponentially increasing demands and the business expectation to deliver solutions fast, at a lower cost and with higher quality. You’re already doing all you can, right? Read more

[CIO.COM]

For the CTO, CIO & CISOTECH TRENDS: Pentagon Is Funding New High-Tech Venture. Defense Secretary Ash Carter [announced that] the Pentagon is funding a new venture to develop cutting-edge electronics and sensors that can flex and stretch and could be built into clothing or the skins of ships and aircraft. The high-tech investment could lead to wearable health monitors that could be built into military uniforms or used to assist the elderly. Read more[CIO-TODAY.COM]

DEPT OF THE NAVY: New CIO Brings Acquisition Focus. The Navy earlier this summer installed a new Navy CIO, a year after the last permanent leader in the job was promoted to Defense Department CIO. Rob Foster arrived at the Navy Department in mid-June, with near-term plans to focus on employee productivity, including mobility, cybersecurity, and using business analytics to drive decision-making within the service. Read more[C4ISRNET.COM]

For the CTO, CIO & CISOGOVT CONTRACTS: Why Federal CIO Tony Scott Hates The End-Of-Year IT Spending Spree. The end-of-the-year spending spree — in which agencies cram contract spending into the last quarter of the fiscal year — is a time-honored tradition in government contracting. And Tony Scott, one of the Obama administration’s top tech officials, hates it. Read more[NEXTGOV.COM]

BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT: Want Faster Deployments? Shift Left. The office of the CIO exists to enable the business to do business! That mission is achieved through the design, delivery and operation of the innovative systems and solutions that each business requires. The challenge CIOs face is keeping up with exponentially increasing demands and the business expectation to deliver solutions fast, at a lower cost and with higher quality. You’re already doing all you can, right? Read more[CIO.COM]

For the CTO, CIO & CISOTECH TRENDS: Pentagon Is Funding New High-Tech Venture. Defense Secretary Ash Carter [announced that] the Pentagon is funding a new venture to develop cutting-edge electronics and sensors that can flex and stretch and could be built into clothing or the skins of ships and aircraft. The high-tech investment could lead to wearable health monitors that could be built into military uniforms or used to assist the elderly. Read more[CIO-TODAY.COM]

DEPT OF THE NAVY: New CIO Brings Acquisition Focus. The Navy earlier this summer installed a new Navy CIO, a year after the last permanent leader in the job was promoted to Defense Department CIO. Rob Foster arrived at the Navy Department in mid-June, with near-term plans to focus on employee productivity, including mobility, cybersecurity, and using business analytics to drive decision-making within the service. Read more[C4ISRNET.COM]

For the CTO, CIO & CISOCLOUD-ENABLED SAAS: SEC CIO Leads Efforts To Move Agency To The Cloud. Pamela Dyson is shepherding a determined, if incremental, effort to move her agency’s applications to the cloud. Dyson was named the CIO at the Securities and Exchange Commission in February, after having joined the agency in 2010, when she joined an ambitious initiative to modernize and improve efficiencies in the SEC’s IT infrastructure. Read more [CIO.COM]

SECURITY AWARENESS: 5 Reasons Why Newer Hires Are The Company’s Biggest Data Security Risk. A study on U.S. mobile security by Absolute Software shows that Millennials – many of whom are now joining the workforce — hold the greatest risk to data security over other age groups. Shorter-tenure and younger respondents tend to have lower expectations of their own responsibility for corporate security, according to the study of 762 U.S. workers who use employer-issued mobile devices, including laptops, smartphones and tablets. Read more[CSOONLINE.COM]

Document ManagementINDUSTRY NEWS: How Advanced Scanning and Archiving Can Help Academic Institutions Streamline Workflows. Scanning and archiving has become essential – and sometimes legally necessary – to keep pace in today’s business world. Document scanning is an efficient way to store building, engineering, and architectural drawings as well as your everyday business files in a secure and searchable location. However, scanning and archiving of large format technical documents and drawings is still an often underutilized process. Read more[THOMASNET.COM]

E-DISCOVERY SERIES: Document Automation Helps You Sleep Better At Night. Attorneys who understand how document automation works and the benefits it brings are well positioned to develop a strong business case for introducing the technology to their organization. The first article of this three-part series offered an overview of the basics of document automation. Read more[INSIDECOUNSEL.COM]

Document ManagementPRIVACY BREACHES: How Private is Your Private Data When It Comes to eDiscovery? Home Depot, IRS, Chase, and Ashley Madison — no one is safe anymore from security breaches or data privacy leaks. It is not a matter of ‘if’ but generally a matter of when some form of your private data will be compromised. A breach always truly reveals how private that ‘private’ data really is. Let’s take a moment and discuss some of the potential privacy breaches when it comes to eDiscovery. Read more[BNA.COM]

LAWSUIT: Appeals Court Upholds FTC Authority Over Data Breaches. Any organization that’s been the victim of a cyber attack has a host of stakeholders to deal with, not the least of which is the applicable regulatory authority, either state or federal. Any businesses hoping that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would lose some of its authority in pursuing companies following cyber breaches have been sent a clear signal by an appeals court. Read more[PROPERTYCASUALTY360.COM]

AuthenticationSTATE OF CYBERCRIME: How to Defend Against Insider Threats. In the real world, the person behind an organization’s next security breach might be much closer than anyone realizes. A recent PwC survey on the state of U.S. cybercrime found that nearly 30 percent of all security incidents were triggered by insiders, which include employees, trusted contractors and partners. Read more[EXECUTIVEBIZ.COM]

IMPLEMENTING AUTHENTICATION: Cyber Sprint Laggards Tell Their Stories (Anonymously). Some agencies started at zero but rocketed upward during the federal governments sprint to improve two-factor authentication levels. Some agencies started and stayed high. And some agencies, somehow, saw their two-factor authentication levels actually drop during the sprint. Read more[FCW.COM]

AuthenticationPROLIFERATED MFA: 5 Big Changes To Computer Security. Now almost all malware is created to steal money or corporate secrets. The script kiddies are almost gone, pushed out by the professional hacker gangs that make millions of dollars each day victimizing home users and corporations with almost no threat of being caught or prosecuted. Malware has gone from innocuous, funny viruses and worms to identity-stealing programs and ransomware. Read more[INFOWORLD.COM]

STILL EVOLVING: How Does Facial Recognition Technology Work? Facial recognition technology is not exactly a new phenomenon, for all the recent headlines. The first experimentations with the technology can be traced back to the 1960s, although, back then, the research going into its development was kept quiet. Whereas today the science behind the software is much more mathematical, automatic and underpinned by sophisticated computer power, the early models required a greater level of human input and were therefore semi-automated. Read more[WELIVESECURITY.COM]

Business Process IntegrationCUSTOMER-FACING PROCESSES: BPM and CRM — Better Together. CRM is all about managing sales and marketing interactions with customers and potential customers. Business process management (BPM) is about optimizing workflows and business processes. So what have they got to do with each other. Read more[ENTERPRISEAPPSTODAY.COM]

GLOBAL MARKET REPORT: BPM To See Anticipated Compound Annual Growth Rate of 14% By 2019. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the need to improve productivity and gain a competitive advantage. The Global BPM market has also been witnessing the increased demand for cloud-based solutions. However, the high implementation costs could pose a challenge to the growth of this market. Read more[MOBILECOMMERCEPRESS.COM]

Business Process IntegrationBETTER TOGETHER: Geolocation And Mobile BPM Are A Natural Extension. For all that has been written about the impact of mobile devices on business process management (BPM), relatively little attention has been lavished on what, to me, is one of the more exciting aspects of the technology: geolocation. Read more[TECHTARGET.COM]

PLAN AND STRATEGIZE: How to Implement BPM in Your Organization. Business Process Management, or BPM, can be a fairly broad term. It encompasses a whole set of tools and techniques that enhance how you run your business, no matter what that business may be. Using BPM, those who run a business can better serve the customer and meet the organization’s goals. One secret of BPM’s success is that it does not just apply to management or to regular employees or to a particular department. The best kind of BPM is a company-wide implementation. Read more[SMARTDATACOLLECTIVE.COM]

SharepointHYBRID CLOUD: Microsoft Pushes SharePoint Server 2016 to Preview. Microsoft rolled out the IT Preview of SharePoint Server 2016, along with the new cloud hybrid search offering for SharePoint 2013 and 2016. The tech giant is gearing its new releases to the realities of enterprise IT, by including features for device responsiveness, simplified and intuitive controls, and hybrid cloud environments. Read more[THEWHIR.COM]

UNSUPPORTED WORKAROUND: Removing On-Hold Items From Exchange And SharePoint. On the face of it, the request to remove some items from a mailbox or SharePoint library that are subject to a compliance hold seems odd. After all, you place items on hold to retain them. But situations do arise when you might be compelled to remove some items, probably due to a law suit or similar directive, and if so, the question then arises as to how best to meet this need. Read more[WINDOWSITPRO.COM]

SharepointENTERPRISE SOFTWARE: SharePoint 2016: What Do We Know? As you’re probably aware, SharePoint Online and Office 365 run SharePoint 2013, but at a massive, multi-tenant, global sort of scale. The product group develops new features, tests bug fixes and uncovers and fixes other issues and conditions while running this software in production for hundreds of thousands of customers. Read more[CIO.COM]

ON-PREMISES COLLABORATION: The Future Of SharePoint 2016 Is Hybrid. The beta preview of Microsoft Exchange 2016 shows it to be more of a service pack for Exchange 2013 than a full server release. The message is loud and clear that in keeping with Microsoft’s “cloud first” strategy, the real innovation would happen in the cloud version, and eventually the product will become cloud-only. Read more[INFOWORLD.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT: New JavaScript-Based Language Brings The Speed. The list of languages compiling to JavaScript is about to welcome newcomer Imba, a speedy language for the Web. Currently in a late-beta stage, Imba is the brainchild of developer Sindre Aarsaether, of Oslo, who sees tags and selectors in the language as a key differentiator. Read more[INFOWORLD.COM]

REACT JAVASCRIPT LIBRARY: Netflix.com Adopts Universal JavaScript, Drops Java From Rendering Pipeline. To decrease the time users spent waiting, Netflix has removed the Java server-based renderer and reduced the amount of HTML sent down the wire. In a post describing the change, Kristofer Baxter, said that by not rendering pieces of the app that the user will never see (among other changes), they’ve been able to speed up the time til interaction by 70%. Read more[INFOQ.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

JERRYSCRIPT: Another JavaScript Engine For Embedded Devices. JerryScript is a lightweight JavaScript interpreter intended to run on a very constrained devices such as microcontrollers and proclaims itself as “A JavaScript engine for the Internet of Things”. Read more[I-PROGRAMMER.COM]

ANDROID NEWS: Chromium Team Shows Improved Input Responsiveness On Some Sites That Rely Heavily On JavaScript Timers. A dedicated app typically provides a better experience than a mobile site, but there are still plenty of instances where we end up inside the Android version of Chrome. Heck, that’s one of the major benefits of owning a smartphone—the entire web is accessible to you throughout most of the day. Read more[ANDROIDPOLICE.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

POWERSHELL: Why You Will Never Go Back to Cmd.exe Batch Files. Scripts have a long history on the Windows OS platform. In Cmd.exe most people call them batch files, but they are scripts nonetheless. The command-line parsing rules that Cmd.exe uses mean that some commands you enter on a Cmd.exe command line behave differently than when you put the same commands in a batch file. Read more[WINDOWSITPRO.COM]

NEW CODING TOOLS: Eve Aims To Change The Way Programming Works. There’s been a tremendous amount of focus on teaching the world to code in the last couple of years, but Eve—out in public for the first time this week—takes a different approach. Rather than turning us all into computer programmers, it wants to change what programming is and create “a better way for us to interact with computers.” Read more[READWRITE.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

PROGRAMMING AND PREJUDICE: Computer Scientists Discover How To Find Bias In Algorithm. Software may appear to operate without bias because it strictly uses computer code to reach conclusions. That’s why many companies use algorithms to help weed out job applicants when hiring for a new position. Read more[PHYS.ORG]

GALLUP NEWS: Standardized Tests May Be Holding Back The Next Generation Of Computer Programmers. s computer science as important as English, history or math? Most parents, teachers and students in schools today would say yes, according to a study recently released by Google and Gallup. Read more[WASHINGTONPOST.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

JAVASCRIPT: Why Tungsten.js Is Not Like Other JavaScript Frameworks. Created at an e-commerce site, the JavaScript technology lets users build Web UIs with high-performance rendering on both client and server. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill recently spoke with Wayfair’s Matt DeGennaro, the primary developer of Tungsten.js, about the framework and what separates it from other JavaScript options. Read more[INFOWORLD.COM]

FAYDE: Silverlight In JavaScript. Fayde is an implementation of Silverlight as a JavaScript compiler. It is not so much a reimplementation of Silverlight, more an XAML engine in JS. It can be used to port existing Silverlight projects, but not without some work. Read more[I-PROGRAMMER.INFO]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

PROGRAMMING SKILLS: Now Would Be a Great Time To Get Into Creative JavaScript. Daniel Shiffman, an associate professor with NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, has written a textbook, The Nature of Code. It’s about modeling natural systems with programming, generally, but in the process it makes a lot of possibilities in game development, artificial intelligence, the absolutely exploding world of creative coding, and beyond suddenly really clear and accessible. Read more[MOTHERBOARD.VICE.COM]

JAVA & MACS: What Causes the Java Installation Dialog to Appear in OS X? A few ideas for getting rid of this annoyance. Read moreMACWORLD.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT: 9 Bad Programming Habits We Secretly Love. Breaking the rules can bring a little thrill — and produce better, more efficient code. Read more[INFOWORLD.COM]

NEW CODING TOOLS: Eve Aims To Change The Way Programming Works. There’s been a tremendous amount of focus on teaching the world to code in the last couple of years, but Eve—out in public for the first time this week—takes a different approach. Rather than turning us all into computer programmers, it wants to change what programming is and create “a better way for us to interact with computers.” Read more[READWRITE.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

PROGRAMMING AND PREJUDICE: Computer Scientists Discover How To Find Bias In Algorithm. Software may appear to operate without bias because it strictly uses computer code to reach conclusions. That’s why many companies use algorithms to help weed out job applicants when hiring for a new position. Read more[PHYS.ORG]

GALLUP NEWS: Standardized Tests May Be Holding Back The Next Generation Of Computer Programmers. Is computer science as important as English, history or math? Most parents, teachers and students in schools today would say yes, according to a study recently released by Google and Gallup. Read more[WASHINGTONPOST.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

RESPONSIVE APPLICATIONS: Learning SynchronizationContext, Async, And Await. Asynchronous programming is a form of parallel programming that enables you to execute tasks separate from the main application thread and then notifies the thread when its execution is over. Asynchrony helps you to execute tasks sans the need of holding up the execution flow or responsiveness of your application. Read more[NEXTGOV.COM]

WEB PROJECTS: ng-admin Can Add an AngularJS Admin Interface to Any RESTful API. Since almost every client wants a backend for their applications, an admin panel from where they can view and control their data, developers need to either craft one on their own or deploy an open-source or commercial solution written for that peculiar programming language. Read more[SOFTPEDIA.COM]

Programming & Scripting Development Client & Server-Side

SLIDESHOW: 5 Legacy Technologies Still In High Demand Today. f it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as the saying goes. While technology continues to evolve and new languages and technologies like Ruby, Hadoop and cloud containers dominate headlines, proven legacy solutions continue to work quietly behind the scenes, powering much of the digital world. Here are five legacy technologies and skills we still rely on in 2015. Read more[CIO.COM]

APP DEVELOPMENT: Building The Next WhatsApp? An Idea And Two People Is All You Need. Foofys said it takes at least five people to work on an app full time — the user interface/user experience person, an Android developer, a tester, a coder (who works on Ruby on Rails, Java and related technologies) and a project manager (in case of services firms). There is no step-by-step approach or a hand-over phenomenon. Read more[ECONOMICTIMES.COM]

Cloud Computing

CLOUD ADOPTION: Five Reasons for Leaving Your Data Where It Is. As cloud adoption continues its meteoric ascent, the number of access points to enterprise data also increases. And while keeping data on premise is no guarantee of security, it does drastically reduce the number of access points. But the case for keeping data on premise goes far beyond a common sense security and risk mitigation play that tells us the fewer servers our data runs through, the safer it is. Read more[DATANAMI.COM]

SAAS NEWS: Oracle Commerce Cloud Aimed at Building Fast, Responsive Business Sites. Oracle Commerce Cloud is the latest addition to the cloud application vendor’s Oracle Customer Experience portfolio and is built for the Oracle Public Cloud, according to the announcement. The company expects the solution to help businesses develop their own e-commerce sites on a relatively small budget with simplified IT management. Read more [TALKINGCLOUD.COM]

Cloud Computing

NAAS OFFERINGS: Explore The Role Of Network As A Service In Cloud Computing. The growth of cloud computing has introduced a series of advances to virtualization and on-demand resource allocation. Starting with Amazon’s release of S3 object storage, cloud providers have enabled an array of IT services. And, although it gets less attention than compute, storage and higher-level software services, networking is no exception. Read more[TECHTARGET.COM]

SERVICE-LEVEL AGREEMENTS: Managing Expectations Is Everything With Cloud Computing. As more enterprises adopt more cloud for important applications, they’re finding they’re dealing with new types of relationships, unlike anything they’ve encountered before. Unlike software purchases in the past, there’s no longer an up-front installation, followed by tech support as needed. Instead, the relationship is more akin to a marriage in which the spouses not only live together, but also work together all day long — 24×7. Read more [FORBES.COM]

IT Workforce

PODCAST: Cracking The Code To A More Diverse Tech Workforce. The giants of Silicon Valley — Google, Twitter, Facebook — report that just three to four percent of their workforce is black or Hispanic, and men outnumber women by more than two to one. Now, tech companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to address the imbalance. In New York, one camp is training such a new generation of software coders. Read more[PBS.ORG]

IT MGMT: How Gender Impacts The Tech Job Search. Although professionals in tech have worked hard to erase the stereotype that IT is a man’s field, these beliefs still exist among men and women in tech. A study published in March 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), found that when employers had to hire a professional for a mathematical task, both male and female recruiters were twice as likely to hire a man over a woman. Read more [CIOINSIGHT.COM]

IT Workforce

RESEARCH STUDY: On-Demand Workforce To Include 7.6 Million People By 2020. Neither regulatory battles facing Uber and Airbnb nor mounting pressure on tech startups to convert their independent contractors to employees will slow the rapid-fire growth of the on-demand workforce, according to a new study. Read more[SILICONBEAT.COM]

TALENT ANALYTICS: Machine Learning 2.0 — What’s Old Is New Again. Forget about big data. The latest analytics buzzword HR leaders should be tracking is actually a blast from the past: machine learning. The term has been around since the early 1960s, but over the past two years human resources tech vendors across the industry have infused it with new life. Read more[WORKFORCE.COM]

Enterprise SecurityRESEARCH SURVEY: Most Apple Devices Lack Proper Security For The Enterprise. Nearly half of all U.S. employees use at least one Apple device at work, but most of those gadgets lack common security protocols required by many enterprises, according to a new survey commissioned by Centrify, a company that sells enterprise security and management software for Apple products. Read more[CIO.COM]

CHECK POINT SOFTWARE SECURITY REPORT: Enterprise BYOD May Be A Double-Edge Sword. Check Point Software recently released its 2015 security report which found that mobile devices have become the biggest threat for today’s enterprises. I like the fact that more vendors are doing their own studies and sharing the findings. Cybersecurity has so many facets that it’s very challenging for IT departments to understand where to focus their energy, so surveys like this help. Read more[DELL.COM]

Enterprise Security

DOWNLOAD: Hype Cycle for Enterprise Mobile Security. Mobile technologies are changing the rules of enterprise IT security. The new 2015 Gartner Report on Enterprise Mobile Security* is a comprehensive review of critical trends driving mobile security decisions in today’s enterprises. Read more[INFORMATIONWEEK.COM]

WINDOWS 10: Microsoft May Offer Some Patch Notes To Enterprises. IT administrators may get more information than originally planned about Windows 10 patches, as Microsoft ponders how much to tell business customers about modifications to the new OS. Read more[PCWORLD.COM]

Business IntelligenceSLIDESHOW: Best Practices for Choosing a Business Intelligence Dashboard. As far as business buzzwords go, the terms Big Data, data visualization, data structure, predictive analytics and business intelligence all get thrown around with the frequency of a used car salesman putting together his best customer pitch. In fact, when it comes to acquiring a business intelligence tool, you might hear the mention of these terms ad nauseam. Read more[ITBUSINESSEDGE.COM]

TWO-TIER ANALYTICS: Reimagining the User Experience for Business Intelligence. Software applications have historically been built with a very specific purpose in mind. Word processors are designed for writing and editing documents, while spreadsheets are for working with numbers. Today’s more modern tools allow you to copy a portion of a spreadsheet and paste it into your written document, or even perform some basic calculations. Read more[ENTERPRISEINNOVATION.COM]

Business IntelligenceAZURE MARKETPLACE: Yellowfin And Microsoft Launch Free Cloud BI Environment. Microsoft and Yellowfin have launched a business intelligence (BI) offering that will be available for free from Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace. The product will help businesses deploy an enterprise-grade BI environment in just a few clicks, allowing organisations to start analysing the information they hold straight away and helping them make sense of the large, complex data issues they face every day to create real insights. Read more[CLOUDPRO.CO.UK]

CLOUD PORTFOLIO: How Microsoft Is Floating An Intelligent Cloud. Windows 10 just launched, but Microsoft’s head already is back in the cloud. he software giant shares its strategy for getting enterprises on the cloud with advanced analytics, machine learning and support for developer-friendly application containers. Read more[EWEEK.COM]

Federal AgenciesBUDGET: Debt limit to arrive 2 days early, Treasury secretary warns Congress. The federal government will reach its borrowing cap on Nov. 3, two days earlier than the Treasury Department first anticipated, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wrote Thursday in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Treasury has moved the date up because the government’s resources declined $4 billion-$6 billion more than expected during the past two weeks, he said. Read more[FEDERALNEWSRADIO.COM]

DRONES: Federal Government Tests Technology to Find Illegal Drone Operators. The Federal Aviation Administration has signed an agreement to test technology that could locate the operators of small drones that are flying illegally near airports, as the government tries to crack down on near-collisions with manned aircraft. Read more[MERCURYNEWS.COM]

Federal AgenciesWEB DESIGN: U.S. Government Issues New Web Design Standards To Make Federal Websites Easier To Use. The U.S. government has new guidelines to make federal websites easier on the eyes, helping users navigate and find what they’re looking for. When accessing a federal website, it’s of the utmost importance to have all the information clearly at hand. Many government websites are cumbersome, however, and the U.S. Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council wants to change that. Read more[TECHTIMES.COM]

SECURITY: A New Way for Tech Firms to Fight Orders to Unlock Devices. Although the federal government recently backed down on its efforts to compel tech companies to install backdoors on their electronic devices, it doesn’t mean the government has given up on getting access to protected phones and other devices. Read more[WIRED.COM]

Federal AgenciesSECURING GOVERNMENT: Lessons From The Cyber Frontlines [DOWNLOAD]. Nearly every state experienced a government network breach during 2014, while simultaneously managing disruptions in commerce caused by hacks of companies such as Home Depot, Staples, and Target. Even localities were not exempt — Rapid City, N.D., and Napa, Calif., are just two cities whose websites were hacked. Read more[GOVLOOP.COM]

STRONG AUTHENTICATION: OMB Cites Progress With Hardware-Based Verification. Agencies have made significant progress instituting hardware-based personal identity verification cards or alternative forms of strong authentication for access to cyber systems, OMB has said. Read more[FEDWEEK.COM]

Federal Agencies

IG NEWS: Lack Of Cybersecurity Staff, Technology Left USPS Vulnerable To 2014 Attack. A lack of properly trained cybersecurity workers and a comprehensive cyber strategy were major reasons why the U.S. Postal Service experienced a data breach late last year, a new report found. Read more[FIERCEGOVERNMENTIT.COM]

MEANINGFUL USE: Critics Warn Of $11 Billion Pentagon Health Records Fiasco. As the Pentagon prepares the biggest federal IT contract announcement since Healthcare.gov, critics are warning of an even bigger fiasco, a record system that’s obsolete before it’s even finished.Read more[POLITICO.COM]

IT - State & Local Governments

CALIFORNIA: Obama Admin Announces New Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Hub. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the seventh of nine new manufacturing institutes underway will invest $171 million in advancing next-generation flexible hybrid electronics manufacturing, fostering American leadership in manufacturing technologies from smart bandages to self-monitoring weapons systems to wearable devices. Read more[WHITEHOUSE.GOV]

MINNESOTA: State, Local Officials Preparing For Drones. flood of new flying tools and toys is forcing local and national officials to prepare new policies to keep everyone safe in the sky. They’re called drones, unmanned aerial vehicles or systems, and they’re a booming business, but the new technology is not without friction. Read more[SOUTHERNMINN.COM]

IT - State & Local GovernmentsMULTI-STATE: Public Assistance Fraud Pilot Shows Promise. A consortium of five states were able to thwart cross-border, dual participation in the food stamp (SNAP) program by detecting fraud in real time. The U.S. budget for SNAP exceeds $80 billion annually and the program serves more than 45 million Americans. Read more[GOVTECH.COM]

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Smart Cities of the Future. Federal and local governments around the world are expected to spend $475.5 billion on technology products and services by 2019. From New York to Chicago to Rio de Janeiro, metropolitan centers around the world are looking for new ways to be “smart” – to become more sustainable, improve the efficiency of public services and citizens’ quality of life. Read more[THEHILL.COM]

IT - State & Local Governments

TECHNOLOGY TAXES: States Eye Taxes on Streaming Video and Cloud Computing. With sales of DVDs, videogames and traditional packaged software slumping for years, more state and local governments are eyeing technologies, such as streaming video subscriptions and cloud computing, to help make up for hundreds of millions of dollars or more in lost revenue. Read more[WSJ.COM]

AUDIT: California Agencies Vulnerable to IT Security Breach. Many California state agencies are not complying with the state’s information technology standards, leaving them vulnerable to a major security breach of sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, health information or tax returns, the state auditor reported recently. Read more[TOPTECHNEWS.COM]

IT - State & Local Governments

JOINT STUDY: Many State Financial Agencies Struggle to Go Digital. Many state financial agencies say they are having a tough time transitioning to the digital revolution, citing a culture that often impedes innovation and collaboration and purchasing rules that make it tough to adapt to technological changes. Read more[GOVTECH.COM]

SOUTH CAROLINA: Officials Canvassing Ashley Madison Data For Government Email Addresses. State officials have begun canvassing data from the Ashley Madison computer breach in search of email addresses belonging to state government employees. But State Inspector General Patrick Maley says it is too early to say what will happen next. Read more[MYRTLEBEACHONLINE.COM]

IT - State & Local GovernmentsTECHNOLOGY TAXES: States Eye Taxes on Streaming Video and Cloud Computing. With sales of DVDs, videogames and traditional packaged software slumping for years, more state and local governments are eyeing technologies, such as streaming video subscriptions and cloud computing, to help make up for hundreds of millions of dollars or more in lost revenue. Read more[WSJ.COM]

AUDIT: California Agencies Vulnerable to IT Security Breach. Many California state agencies are not complying with the state’s information technology standards, leaving them vulnerable to a major security breach of sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, health information or tax returns, the state auditor reported recently. Read more[TOPTECHNEWS.COM]

IT - State & Local GovernmentsJOINT STUDY: Many State Financial Agencies Struggle to Go Digital. Many state financial agencies say they are having a tough time transitioning to the digital revolution, citing a culture that often impedes innovation and collaboration and purchasing rules that make it tough to adapt to technological changes. Read more[GOVTECH.COM]

SOUTH CAROLINA: Officials Canvassing Ashley Madison Data For Government Email Addresses. State officials have begun canvassing data from the Ashley Madison computer breach in search of email addresses belonging to state government employees. But State Inspector General Patrick Maley says it is too early to say what will happen next. Read more[MYRTLEBEACHONLINE.COM]

IT Security | CybersecurityCONTINUOUS MONITORING: Are You Competitive With Black Hats? Continuous monitoring is becoming a very popular term, both among security vendors and CISOs. In a constantly changing and hostile network environment where new zero-day exploits appear almost every couple of days, continuous monitoring of your organization’s infrastructure is vitally important. The main role of continuous monitoring is to keep your security team constantly aware of newly detected vulnerabilities, weaknesses, missing patches and configuration flaws that appear to be exploitable. Read more[CSOONLINE.COM]

PRIVACY RIGHTS: Cybersecurity Legislation May Face Tough Road. When the Senate left town in early August for a monthlong recess, it abruptly stopped debate on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which would encourage the voluntary sharing of cyber threat information among private companies and between companies and the government. Read more [USATODAY.COM]

IT Security | CybersecurityATTACKS/BREACHES: FBI Sounds Alarm Again On Business Email Compromise Threat. Over the past two years, cybercriminals have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from US businesses by compromising their official email accounts and using those accounts to initiate fraudulent wire transfers. Read more[DARKREADING.COM]

NAMED IN A LAWSUIT: Do CIOs and CISOs Get Covered in Cybersecurity Litigation? In today’s rapidly changing legal landscape, global companies confront a litany of cyber security issues domestic and international. One issue quickly rising to the top is Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Information Security Office (CISO) cyber security liability. Read more[BOL.BNA.COM]

IT Security | CybersecurityNAAS OFFERINGS: Explore The Role Of Network As A Service In Cloud Computing. The growth of cloud computing has introduced a series of advances to virtualization and on-demand resource allocation. Starting with Amazon’s release of S3 object storage, cloud providers have enabled an array of IT services. And, although it gets less attention than compute, storage and higher-level software services, networking is no exception. Read more[TECHTARGET.COM]

SERVICE-LEVEL AGREEMENTS: Managing Expectations Is Everything With Cloud Computing. As more enterprises adopt more cloud for important applications, they’re finding they’re dealing with new types of relationships, unlike anything they’ve encountered before. Unlike software purchases in the past, there’s no longer an up-front installation, followed by tech support as needed. Instead, the relationship is more akin to a marriage in which the spouses not only live together, but also work together all day long — 24×7. Read more [FORBES.COM]

Enterprise Security

EXPERT ADVICE: Four Enterprise Scenarios For Deploying Database Security Tools. Database security tools are incredibly versatile, offering benefits for security, compliance and even operations. These products, available from third parties, provide a level of database security well beyond what relational database management system (RDBMS) vendors offer customers. Read more[TECHTARGET.COM]

PRIVACY: Companies Averaging 4 Insider-Threat Attacks Per Year. When it comes to insider IT security threats, the third time is definitely not the charm. In fact, the typical organization now experiences 3.8 insider security incidents on an annual basis. Read more[FIERCECIO.COM]

Enterprise Security

SURVEY FINDINGS: Most Enterprises Don’t Fix 60 Percent of Security Vulnerabilities. Waratek, the application protection and management company, announced the results of a survey conducted at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit 2015. Two-thirds of senior security professionals polled said they remediate 40 percent or less of the security vulnerabilities discovered by software application security testing tools. Read more[DARKREADING.COM]

BREACH PREVENTION: Big Security Breaches and How Big Data Can Prevent Them. In the abstract, network and systems security is easy. We all agree that keeping bad actors out of your electronic world is a no-brainer. We also all agree that there are different rights levels that should be assigned to different user groups. Finally, we all agree that certain systems contain more valuable data than others. Read more[ENTERPRISENETWORKINGPLANET.COM]

Business Continuity

CRITICAL PLANNING: Systems Are Changing And Business Continuity Must Keep Up. Today, IT systems are at the center of the successful operation of many business processes. As we move into higher levels of automation, data collection through the IoT and more use of compute power than we’ve yet to even image, the importance of our systems becomes critical to revenue generation and cost control. This is true across every business. Read more[DIGINOMICA.COM]

FILL IN THE GAPS: Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery and Data Centers. To mitigate a wide range of business risks, including those involving data centers, many organizations establish business-continuity (BC) or disaster-recovery (DR) plans. Fewer, however, write plans that focus on specific threats, keep those plans current or even test them. To ensure success, companies need to do better. Working with the right advanced data center is one way to fill those gaps. Read more[DATACENTERJOURNAL.COM]

Business ContinuityAVOID COMPLACENCY: Time Matters When It Comes to Disaster Recovery. Disasters can strike at any time. They may be caused by human error, cyber-attacks or by natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, floods and hurricanes. Even so it’s quite tempting to sit back and relax, to not worry about the consequences of these upon one’s business — perhaps for cost reasons, but investments in business continuity are like an insurance policy. Read more[CLOUDCOMPUTING-NEWS.NET]

VIRTUALIZATION: Disaster Recovery Is Not Dead Yet. One doesn’t need to look very far to find hypervisor vendor marketing materials, analyst opinions and even a few trade press articles declaring the death of disaster recovery planning. Most are following a line of reasoning from the server virtualization evangelists to make the case that building server hosts with high availability (HA) in mind — using active-passive failover clustering models, for example — obviates the need for disaster recovery planning. Read more [VIRTUALIZATIONREVIEW.COM]

Personal Tech

MORPHOTRUST: Iowa Begins Testing Digital Driver’s Licenses On Your Smartphone. Last year, we told you about Iowa’s interest in launching digital driver’s licenses, a move that might begin the phasing out of plastic licenses currently in use nationwide. As a result, the state recently announced live testing of what it calls the Mobile Driver License (mDL) in a number of settings, but that testing will be limited to hundreds of Iowa Department of Transportation employees. Read more[MASHABLE.COM]

CONNECTED SIGNALS: Tech Startups Want To Change the Way You Drive. It’s no secret that technology is changing the car industry. The major automakers, as well as tech giants such as Google and possibly Apple, are laying the groundwork for the first driverless cars. Meanwhile, a number of engineers and entrepreneurs have started their own companies to tackle other automotive challenges. Read more[TOPTECHNEWS.COM]

Personal Tech

TOUCH TAIWAN 2015: This Smartphone Is Actually Supposed To Bend. Remember when the iPhone 6 Plus was released last year, and some users reported that the phone was so big, it was actually bending after they put it in their pockets? This even became a bit of a controversy, so much so that the ordeal got its own name, Bendgate. Read more[TECHTIMES.COM]

MICROSOFT: 10 Things You Should Know About Upgrading To Windows 10 [VIDEO]. Even if your computer or tablet is eligible and can run Windows 10, there’s a good chance you might not be able to upgrade to the new OS for a while. But don’t fret — if you need to know when you might get it, how to install it, system requirements, what’s new and more, we’ve got you covered. Read more[COMPUTERWORLD.COM]

Technology NewsWIFI EXPLOIT: Security Flaw Lets Attackers Cripple Your iPhone And There’s No Way To Stop Them. Wondering how difficult it is for attackers to cripple your iPhone? The answer isn’t going to make you happy — in a nutshell, all the have to do is create a Wi-Fi network. That’s right, thanks to a newly detailed security flaw in iOS, malicious hackers can send an iPhone into an endless reboot loop simply by creating a Wi-Fi network. Read more[BGR.COM]

ADD-ONS: Disney Is Using Ultrasonic Sound-Waves To Develop Next Generation Smartphone Accessories. Companies and researchers are always trying to find innovative ways to expand the smartphones and tablets we use everyday, whether it’s a new app or some kind of hardware accessory. And now, a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research are leveraging ultrasonic audio coming from our devices in order to develop new kinds of interactive mobile controllers. Read more [CSOONLINE.COM]

Technology NewsTECH AND PAY: How Technology Has Affected Wages for the Last 200 Years. Today’s great paradox is that we feel the impact of technology everywhere — in our cars, our phones, the supermarket, the doctor’s office — but not in our paychecks. Read more[HBR.ORG]

TECH JOBS: Why People Who Put Data Scientist On Their Linkedin Profiles Earn More Money. As the White House’s first chief data scientist, Patil — widely credited with coining the term “data scientist” — has become a high-profile champion of the Obama administration’s open data efforts. The possibilities are seemingly endless for data science, Patil explained during his speech. And a lot of that has to do with ambiguous nature of the role. Read more[NEXTGOV.COM]

Technology NewsSTRATEGY: How A Jacksonville Tech Firm Doubled Its Workforce In Less Than A Year. What do you do when you’re a Jacksonville tech company competing in the same niche space as a Panama City tech company that’s going under? Read more[BIZJOURNALS.COM]

Search Engines & ServersSTRATEGY & PLANNING: How To Save On SEO Without Being Cheap. A wise person once said that if you think search engine optimization (SEO) is expensive, you should see how expensive cheap SEO gets. There are few shortcuts when it comes to sustainable search engine optimization. As with any other professional service, quality SEO comes at a price — and premium services are more likely to deliver desired results. Read more[SEARCHENGINELAND.COM]

GODADDY INTERVIEW: Educating Teams About SEO and Getting Things Done. At SEJ Summit Silicon Valley, SEJ Founder Loren Baker had the opportunity to hang out with Jim Christian to talk about educating teams within the workplace about SEO. In this video, he discusses how really getting to know your people can help get things done. Read more[SEARCHENGINEJOURNAL.COM]

Search Engines & ServersCHOOSING AN SEO AGENCY: Personal Referrals Drive Nearly Half Of Selections. Referrals are leading driver of hiring decisions for search engine optimization (SEO) companies, but do not always produce good results, according to new research. The study, from Clutch, a source of reviews on SEO companies, indicates that company attributes such as knowledge, customer service, and transparency were the next largest influence, mentioned by 43% of companies. Read more[NETIMPERATIVE.COM]

SEO: Taking a Backseat to Social Media? It seems like such a short time ago, that changes in the Google algorithms could send a company that relies on search engine optimization to help market its products into a frenzy. Having the right keywords, placed carefully in web pages, was the key and aim of everyone looking to get on the first page of a Google keyword search. Read more[BUSINESS2COMMUNITY.COM]

Enterprise NewsUSABILITY: Enterprise Software Companies Need to be Customer Centric. Many enterprise software firms are working at improving the usability of their solutions. Further, many enterprise software firms, have embraced the cloud. Read more[FORBES.COM]

UX NEWS: 4 Consumerization Trends That Are Changing Enterprise Software as We Know It. Enterprise software is in the midst of a revolution. In the early 2000s, businesses were the primary users of technology, and they set the rules for how it should be built. The result was clunky, feature-rich software that no one apart from a few power users knew how to use. Read more[ENTREPRENEUR.COM]

Enterprise NewsGOOGLE’S SCHMIDT TO DEVS: Challenge Legacy Enterprise Software. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt believes there is a big opportunity for software developers building enterprise solutions that combine mobility, ultra-fast connectivity, and true cloud-based services. Read more[PCMAG.COM]

TRANSFORMATION: Connecting Architecture to Business Strategy. Enterprise Architecture, when done well, is a business transformation practice. Transforming a business is not about slogans, mission statements, slick PowerPoints or in-depth strategy documents. It’s about execution and actually changing business operations. Read more[COMPUTERWORLD.COM]

Enterprise NewsBIG DATA: Much Ado about Hyperscale Architectures. Many organizations are looking forward to the future of hyperscale networking. Even if you are not a cloud-scale enterprise like Amazon and Google, you can still capitalize on the ability to manage and manipulate large data stores over a highly commoditized, distributed architecture. Read more[ENTERPRISENETWORKINGPLANET.COM]

IT BUDGETS: The Enterprise Technologies To Watch In 2015. It is impressive how much the enterprise technology landscape has changed in just a year. While some priorities remain unchanged, important new players have emerged that business and IT leaders must consider in their plans this year. Read more[ZDNET.COM]

Enterprise NewsC-SUITE GOALS: New Battleground In Enterprise Technology. Businesses today are grabbling with the challenge of using new technologies and new sets of data to improve performance, create excellent customer experiences, and empower their staff to innovate and collaborate more fluidly, says Vishal Barapatre, CTO In2IT Technologies South Africa. Read more[IT-ONLINE.COM]

Enterprise ArchitectureMODERNIZATION PROGRAM: DoD Portfolio Managers Critical of Business Enterprise Architecture. DOD’s business enterprise architecture and process reengineering efforts are not fully achieving the intended outcomes described in statute, GAO has said after interviewing 24 military department portfolio managers and interviewing other officials. Read more[FEDWEEK.COM]

MySQL ALTERNATIVE: What’s Available And What’s Missing In Amazon Aurora. Amazon is targeting AWS customers running large database workloads to drive the adoption of Amazon Aurora, which became generally available on July 28, 2015. At the database’s launch in November 2014, Andy Jassy, Senior VP, AWS claimed that Amazon Aurora was at least as available, durable, and fault tolerant as the enterprise editions of the proprietary commercial database engines and high-end SANs available at a 10th of the cost. Read more[TECHREPUBLIC.COM]

Enterprise ArchitectureENTERPRISE MOBILITY: Is It A Promise Unfulfilled? Despite the ascent of mobile devices in the workplace, fewer than 25% of companies have built or bought a mobile app beyond PIM apps. Despite the high demand from employees to access corporate systems from mobile endpoints, enterprises are woefully unable to deliver the “consumer-like” user experiences their employees expect. Read more [SDTIMES.COM]

RED HAT SURVEY: Enterprise Mobility Hiring Demand Favors Developers. Time to update those resumes. Mobile developers looking to land a new job have chosen their career path wisely, suggests a new study from Red Hat. As a result, half of all companies will be hiring mobile-savvy IT workers this year — and developers have an edge. Read more[CNET.COM]

Website Development

WEB DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT: Learn How Two Different Disciplines Work Together. Many people often lump web design and web development together as if they were the same thing. They certainly sound similar enough to mean the same thing, but they’re actually vastly different disciplines. Read more[BIZCOMMUNITY.COM]

MOBILE DESIGN & SEO: Is Responsive Design A Ranking Factor? It could be said that true success in Google is synonymous with having a successful mobile presence. But what kind of mobile presence? When it comes to designing a mobile website, there are three choices: responsive, adaptive and traditional “m.” mobile sites. Read more[SEARCHENGINELAND.COM]

Website Development

DYI DESIGN: 9 All-Purpose, Super-Easy Online Web Builders Let You Tell A Story Or Sell Your Stuff. With all the Facebooking, Tumblring and tweeting, it’s a wonder personal Websites still get built at all. For most people, short bursts of communication with friends and family seem to be enough to satisfy most common messaging impulses. Read more[THENEXTWEB.COM]

UX-FOCUSED APPROACH: Be Sure To Balance SEO And User Experience In Your Web Page Design. On Google’s list of philosophies, the very first one is “focus on the user and all else will follow.” But in the past, many SEO professionals have ignored this advice, crafting web pages designed primarily for Web crawlers, and crammed with keywords. Read more[ENTREPRENEUR.COM]

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Three-Dimensional Governance for the CIOhttps://www.bluemt.com/three-dimensional-governance-for-the-cio

7 Reasons to Take Control of IT Incidentshttps://www.bluemt.com/7-reasons-to-take-control-of-it-incidents/

Breach Mitigation Response Time Too Long, Survey Sayshttps://www.bluemt.com/breach-mitigation-response-time-too-long-survey-says/

Six Tactics for Cyberdefensehttps://www.bluemt.com/six-tactics-for-cyberdefense/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Feds Report Mixed Responses to Shared Serviceshttps://www.bluemt.com/feds-report-mixed-responses-to-shared-services

Federal Employees Are Not Security Expertshttps://www.bluemt.com/federal-employees-are-not-security-experts

Survival Guide for Network Administratorshttps://www.bluemt.com/survival-guide-for-network-administrators

DBaaS: OpenStack Trove Changes DB Managementhttps://www.bluemt.com/dbaas-openstack-trove-changes-db-management

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Help Wanted: Certified Cybersecurity Professionalshttps://www.bluemt.com/help-wanted-certified-cybersecurity-professionals

Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center Previewhttps://www.bluemt.com/cyber-threat-intelligence-integration-center-preview/

Cloud Moves in 1-2-3https://www.bluemt.com/cloud-moves-in-1-2-3/

Change Management for Disaster Recoveryhttps://www.bluemt.com/change-management-for-disaster-recovery/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Jeffersonian Advice For C-Suite Career Advancementhttps://www.bluemt.com/jeffersonian-advice-for-c-suite-career-advancement/

Ways To Survive The “Mobile-Pocalypse”https://www.bluemt.com/ways-to-survive-the-mobile-pocalypse/

Microsoft Cloud Services Receive FedRAMP Authority to Operatehttps://www.bluemt.com/microsoft-cloud-services-receive-fedramp-authority-to-operate/

Hiring Pentesters? Here Are 10 Things You Need to Knowhttps://www.bluemt.com/hiring-pentesters-here-are-10-things-you-need-to-know/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Home Router Malware Alerthttps://www.bluemt.com/home-router-malware-alert/

Threat Model Deconstructionhttps://www.bluemt.com/threat-model-deconstruction/

Business Email Scam Nets $214 Millionhttps://www.bluemt.com/business-email-scam-nets-214-million/

How to Prevent Unauthorized Software from Taking Over Your Organizationhttps://www.bluemt.com/the-cios-guide-to-happy-end-users-2/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Digital Marketing Predictions for 2015https://www.bluemt.com/digital-marketing-predictions-for-2015/

SDN: Network Administrator’s Friend or Foe?https://www.bluemt.com/sdn-network-administrators-friend-or-foe/

Mobile Payments: A Must for Federal Agencieshttps://www.bluemt.com/mobile-payments-a-must-for-federal-agencies/

Soft Skills Are A Must-Have For Careers In IThttps://www.bluemt.com/soft-skills-are-a-must-have-for-careers-in-it/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Security Risks Most Prevalent in Younger Workershttps://www.bluemt.com/security-risks-most-prevalent-in-younger-workers/

The Security World’s Maturationhttps://www.bluemt.com/the-security-worlds-maturation/

Data Breach Concerns Keep CISOs Up At Nighthttps://www.bluemt.com/data-breach-concerns-keep-cisos-up-at-night/

Personalized Govt Equals Instant Gratification for Citizenshttps://www.bluemt.com/personalized-govt-equals-instant-gratification-for-citizens/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

People-Centric Securityhttps://www.bluemt.com/people-centric-security/

Pentagon Tries BYOD To Strike Work/Life Balancehttps://www.bluemt.com/pentagon-tries-byod-to-strike-worklife-balance/

Open Source Model Considered for MS Windowshttps://www.bluemt.com/open-source-model-considered-for-ms-windows/

Open Internet: To Be or Not to Be?https://www.bluemt.com/open-internet-to-be-or-not-to-be/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems BlogMalware Stays A Step Ahead Infecting One Third of Websiteshttps://www.bluemt.com/malware-stays-a-step-ahead-infecting-one-third-of-websites/

Machine-Generated Data: Potential Goldmine for the CIOhttps://www.bluemt.com/machine-generated-data-potential-goldmine-for-the-cio/

Government Legacy Programs: Reuse vs. Replacementhttps://www.bluemt.com/government-legacy-programs-reuse-vs-replacement/

It Takes a Whole Village to Protect Networks and Systemshttps://www.bluemt.com/it-takes-a-whole-village-to-protect-networks-and-systems/

From the Blue Mountain Data Systems Blog

Governance For the CIOhttps://www.bluemt.com/governance-for-the-cio/

Help Desk Consolidation – Lessons Learnedhttps://www.bluemt.com/help-desk-consolidation-lessons-learned/

One Year Later, Companies Still Vulnerable to Heartbleedhttps://www.bluemt.com/one-year-later-companies-still-vulnerable-to-heartbleed/

Federal Projects Cultivate Worker Passionhttps://www.bluemt.com/federal-projects-cultivate-worker-passion-2/

ABOUT US

Blue Mountain Data Systems Inc.

Blue Mountain Data Systems Inc. is dedicated to application and systems development, electronic document management, IT security support, and the automation of workflow processes.

Read more about our experience here:>> http://bluemt.com/experience

Recent Experience

U.S. Dept. of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration

1994 to Present

Responsible to the Office of Technology and Information Systems for information systems architecture, planning, applications development, networking, administration and IT security, supporting the enforcement of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act — ERISA. Within the EBSA, Blue Mountain is responsible for design, development and support for its various enforcement database management systems, as well as all case tracking and customer service inquiry systems. Blue Mountain also provides IT security services to the EBSA, in the form of FISMA Assessment and Authorization, System Security Plans, Risk and vulnerability assessments, monitoring and investigation support.

MANAGEMENT

Paul T. Vesely Founder, President, CEO and Principal Architect

Mr. Vesely is a recognized thought leader in systems architecture and delivery, having designed and delivered many enterprise wide information and document management solutions. Mr. Vesely’s history includes 33 years experience in the information systems industry, with Unisys, Grumman, PRC and a host of clients in both government and private sectors.

CONTACT US

Contact Us Today to Discuss Your Next IT Project

HEADQUARTERS366 Victory DriveHerndon, VA 20170

PHONE 703-502-3416

FAX 703-745-9110

EMAILpaul@bluemt.com

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