IoT has been present since long. But, recently this concept has achieved infinite fame with its easy to use nature and its feature of simplifying the complex devices. With IoT’s horizon widening and Microsoft being the Cloud software giant, with its program called, Azure, there are humongous possibilities of getting the benefits of both by combining their usage.

Kevin Miller, Microsoft’s Principal Program Manager for Azure IoT, has shared best practices for creating IoT solutions with Azure. They are:

• Think big. Start small
• Telemetry First
• Stream Analytics
• Don’t interrupt the fast path
• Defense in depth

Follow these guidelines and try the magic that this synergy provides.

To know more, please read the following article by Jonathan Allen at infoq.com:

http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/04/Azure-IoT

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software licensing and delivery system in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. The advantages of the SaaS model are that it is easier to manage and that all the users have the same version of the software because updates and patching is done automatically. It grants global accessibility, making remote working models easier, which reduces costs and improves performance. The SaaS industry is now maturing beyond simple, historical financial measures towards a sophisticated operational measure in the form of a new Customer Success Metrics and Predictive Analytics.
Some of the giants in the industry are Salesforce, LinkedIn and Workday and while their services vary, the most significant one remains their cloud computing applications and platforms. Read more at: http://zeendo.com/info/top-10-software-as-a-service-saas-companies/

IoT technology is not only for retailers or e-commerce, but it can be also used by critical industries like oil and production for tracking events. Let's discuss how IoT can help these industries? Traditional method of communicating and controlling operations in large industries is SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition). SCADA works by getting information from the central controller. But IoT sensitivity detectors can track information from both mobile devices and other communications. These devices not only send key messages directly to the sites, but also provide better and simpler communications along with sending information into headquarters. It provides lower cost and improved communications. To know more about, how IoT can help critical industries in better operation, please follow this link:  http://recode.net/2015/05/28/the-iot-and-the-needs-of-business/

A light-emitting, transparent and flexible paper has been created by Chinese researchers led by Yu-Zhong Wang and Fei Song (material scientists from Sichuan University) which glows and emits light at room temperature. This paper can be used for phones and tablets to make them lighter and eco-friendly. This material can bring a new thinking on future electronic displays and 3D printing papers.?Read more at:http://www.digitaljournal.com/technology/researchers-develop-light-emitting-paper-for-flexible-displays/article/433850

There are two general ways to navigate information to make a manufacturing decision. First is to use intuition, experience, and rules of thumb which helps us to take correct decisions. Second is a methodical approach which is based on analysis and objective information.  Bill Frahm (President 4M Partners LLC), writes in this article link about how metal-formers make many of their forming and die-engineering decisions based on the results of finite element analysis (FEA) simulations. Read more at: http://www.thefabricator.com/article/shopmanagement/decision-making-in-metal-forming 

The business world is eager to choose the right Digital Access Management (DAM) system so that vendors can provide the necessary technology to meet key business needs. Selection of a vendor can be a complex process and focusing on key elements will lead you to take a right decision. A successful implementation of DAM depends not only on new technology but also on sound digital strategy. This in turn ensures that assets generate revenues, increase efficiency and remain updated with emerging market trends. Digital strategy should be given the most importance. Strategy should be based on a well-established foundation. This foundation should include rich media collections, metadata, taxonomy and governance among other things. To know more, please follow the link:

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http://www.cmswire.com/cms/digital-asset-management/making-a-dam-decision-029041.php

"Your strategies and budget on business technology agenda-technologies, systems, and processes to win, serve and retain customers"- Kyle McNabb (Vice President of Research Strategy at Forrester Research). In the age of customer era, all B2C organizations need to find ways to meet the needs of the customers.  They are also forming customer-obsessed operating model which focuses on customer loyalty, innovation and growth.

In his article “Building A Customer-Obsessed Operating Model,” suggested some ways to make a customer obsessed operating model:
• Investment in new skills like analytics and big data.
• Rethink your process and try to apply agile in your entire organization.
• Re-engineer your systems.
• Modify governance.
• Transformation of organizational culture into more customer-oriented culture.
Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2015/05/26/building-a-customer-obsessed-operating-model/

According to Nitin Mehta (CIO of IT Enterprise Transforming India), Indian industries are going through technology transformation phase. Social, mobility, analytics and cloud (SMAC) are changing the way the organizations run. According to the Enterprise IT trends and investments 2015 survey report:

• 64% of the Indian CIO plan to increase their IT spending over 2014.
• Three in ten CIOs are planning to increase their IT spending by 10%.
• 25% of the IT budget is allocated to SMAC technologies.
• 50% of the respondents believe that social media is very effective in engaging customers.
• 57% of the respondents believe that cloud is being every significant.

Some observations are found, they are:

• CIO’s, IT agenda is mainly driven by internal factors, such as maturity and organization size.
• Companies IT spending is increasing.
• Social media is becoming an integral part of marketing strategy.
• Social media is transforming the relationship between stakeholders.
• Increasing usage of smartphones and internet, helping organizations in creating digital data.
• Prescriptive analytics is helping organizations in understanding the need of the customers.
Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/indian-companies-to-spend-moredisruptive-technology-ey_1391213.html?utm_source=ref_article

According to IT research firm IDC report, IoT market will grow by 19% in 2015. The increasing importance of the IoT in manufacturing and operations market, leads to the growth of the IoT by $56.6billion. Digital Signage market, which is used in the retail sector, will be the major driver for growth and IoT retail market will grow from $6billion to $35.7billion by 2018 in this market. The main reason for increasing demand for IoT is decreasing prices and technology advancement. Read more at: http://www.informationweek.com/it-life/iot-market-will-grow-19-percent-in-2015-idc-predicts/d/d-id/1320500

High speed internet network connecting villages across India; that's the dream PM Narendra Modi has been nurturing. A ministry appointed committee raised allocation for the National Optical Fiber Network. Estimated time is 3 years for laying down the fibers. It will help in linking 250,000 village clusters to the Internet which is an essential part to digitalize India. Higher spending potentially will expand opportunities for fiber suppliers and telecommunication vendors. Read more at:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-18/modi-mulls-11-billion-outlay-to-bring-rural-india-online

Do you think security questions are secure? Well think again. These questions meant to provide an extra layer of security. Google conducted a study collating hundreds of millions of these questions and their answers. It showed that these questions are neither secure nor reliable. They can be easily hacked or faked. A considerable percentage of the population could not even recall the questions. It was found in some cases that answers to some questions were similar for many people. Logic dictates that if anybody can guess the answer to a question, more security questions should be added. But this hikes up the probability that the user forgets them.  Researchers argue SMS backup codes, secondary email addresses should be used for authentication. Read more at: http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/21/google-study-shows-security-questions-arent-all-that-secure/?trk=pulse-det-art_view_ext

Researchers gave out warnings of a "full" internet or a capacity crunch which may arise as a result of exceeding the upper limit of information passed through the optical fibers. This is primarily due to the fast growth of online media consumption through YouTube, Netflix, etc.  The trick of increasing the capacity of the optical fiber by increasing the power of light beamed through them has hit a dead end as increasing the power beyond a certain point degrades signal quality. Thus, data rationing and other restrictions may be the only options if the researchers aren’t being able to commercialize the solutions they are coming up with like creating fibers with multiple cores or new techniques to compensate for distortion at high power.

Read more at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27536-the-internet-is-running-out-of-room--but-we-can-save-it.html#.VVq8ByuUcV8

IOT refers to sensors that communicate over the Internet without human intervention. According to McKinsey and the Global Semiconductor Alliance report, surveyed 30 GSA members who were senior executives at semiconductor companies, “IOT has potential, but it has several hurdles which can delay it.” These hurdles are:
• Security and data privacy
• Customer demand
• Limited consensus on standards
• Market fragmentation
• Elusive new revenue sources
• Technology shortcomings
To know more about these hurdles and how they can affect IOT implementation processes, read an article “Internet Of Things: 6 Obstacles” given in the informationweek.com by Thomas Claburn (Writer at InformationWeek) at: http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/internet-of-things-6-obstacles/d/d-id/1320434

In today's competitive world, many organizations are planning to apply DevOps. DevOps is the practice of operations. In this practice, development engineers participate together in the entire service lifecycle, from design through the development process to production support and it is also the collision of two major related trends: Agile Operations and collaboration between development and operations staff. Continuous improvement in devops can help organizations to be efficient and innovative. Here are some practices used by DevOps professionals to turn monitoring practices into an important part of their fast-paced product delivery cycles. They are: Consolidate your tool set, Enrich data with contextual information, Rethink the reporting of operational problems, Automate what doesn’t scale, Applying knowledge based algorithms for monitoring data gives you actionable result. To know more about these practices and devops, follow: http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/17/4-ways-to-radically-improve-app-monitoring-with-devops/

In Software-as-a-service (SaaS) all the data, app and app meta data is managed by the vendor. This created the feeling of dissatisfaction among customers. To make the customers satisfied, a new technology is launched "Container-as-a-service" and with some improvement in CaaS, an upgraded software (CaaSi) Container-as a service for ISV (Independent Software Vendors) has been developed. In CaaSi the data is managed by customers and, app and app meta data by vendor. CaaSi model is the mixture of on premise and SaaS benefits. For example, automatic effects, network effect, scaling ease etc. benefits are from SaaS and Accounting (include Capex and Opex), data access, cost transparency, data ownership, direct integration etc. are from on premise. Cloud service providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft added CaaS in their service list. To know more about CaaSi and CaaS, read an article "Goodbye, SaaS - hello, Containers-as-a-Service" by Peter Yared (Sapho) at: http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/09/goodbye-saas-hello-containers-as-a-service/

Cloud computing has become an essential element in the business setting. Still, there are a number of corporates, who stay away from it because lack of trust on cloud computing security. This has been caused by several myths and misconceptions.

Sue Poremba, Information Security Writer, in her article on Forbes, has tried to clear 7 misconceptions about security threats in cloud computing. They are:

• Misconception #1: The public cloud is more easily breached.
• Misconception #2: All cloud apps are created equal.
• Misconception #3: You can rely on the cloud service provider to protect your business.
• Misconception #4: The end user is powerless when it comes to securing the cloud.
• Misconception #5: The corporate network provides protection even when using cloud apps.
• Misconception #6: The real problems are the lack of security features, gotcha contracts, and no transparency.
• Misconception #7:  have strong authentication mechanisms broadly implemented.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sungardas/2015/05/12/7-common-misconceptions-about-security-threats-in-cloud-computing/

Businesses today are going through a fundamental change. Now IT sector has taken the center stage. It has become an essential part of all business processes. The state is such that all technology platforms and application architectures which were being used till now are becoming obsolete and there’s an urgent need to revamp them.

In their place, a new platform is emerging, called as The Third Platform or SMAC i.e.

• Social Media
• Mobile
• Analytics
• Cloud

According to IDC, the analyst firm that coined the Third Platform term, the platform will disrupt one-third of top incumbent firms in every industry.

Bernard Golden, Vice President, Strategy for ActiveState Software, in his article at informationweek.com has explained Third Platform innovation with the help of an example of Airbnb. He further explains that this isn’t a unique situation; every company has to work on this. For this, DevOps (integrating application development and operations, with automation throughout the application lifecycle) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) are coming into picture. They will help companies to deliver world-class applications with end-to-end automation.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.informationweek.com/interop/paas-devops-and-the-third-platform/d/d-id/1320114

“Companies are pushing more sensitive and regulated data into the cloud. But, this journey is raising questions like 'security of data'.”

Applying software-as-a-service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) add on some more risk to the organizations. Ericka Chickowshi(specializes in information technology and business innovation) in her article “10 security questions to ask a cloud service provider” at Informationweek, discussed about 10 questions to be asked by companies from SaaS service providers before applying cloud. Some of them are:

·         Do you keep a signed audit trail of which users performed what actions when, both through their UI and API?

·         What is my role and your role in the protection of my data?

·         Do you encrypt all data transmissions, including all server-to-server data transmissions, within data centers?

·         What is your termination or ‘exit process’ for ensuring successful transition from services to an alternative offering?

·         Do you allow customers to perform scheduled penetration tests of either the production environment or a designated testing environment?

Asking these questions can help you to assess the risk. To know more questions and their reason for asking, visit the following link: 
http://www.darkreading.com/informationweek-home/10-security-questions-to-ask-a-cloud-service-provider/d/d-id/1320377

Cloud Services is one of the fastest growing market segments. Be it SaaS, PaaS or IaaS, cloud solutions are offering a lucrative opportunity for growth and innovation. But, is innovation, just in the cloud service enough for customer satisfaction and retention? The answer to this question is NO. For, consistent growth, innovation in other aspects of the cloud business is also required. One of these aspects is the billing and pricing model.

Currently, many pricing models are there in existence, such as, Freemium, flat rate, subscriptions, perpetual , multi-tier packages based on functionality, per user per click and CPU power / storage used etc. And the billing models are in the form of monthly, quarterly, annual, pay as you go and pay for what you use models.

But, what these models lack is flexibility, especially in SaaS segment. This is because cloud vendors do not want to change their cash flow models from a big full pie at a time to pieces of the pie in installments i.e. by taking customer payments from fully up front license bills to smaller usage bills split down to monthly fees. Also, in flexible cloud billing and delivery, there are a lot of complexities involved like in telecom billing.

There is a need for innovation in this segment as this is what the customers desire. This need has been identified and successfully catered to by Kahootz, a British cloud collaboration vendor. More such initiatives, leading to greater transparency and comparability will be the future of cloud pricing and billing in years to come.

To know more, please read the following article by Ian Moyse, Board Member, Eurocloud UK and Governance Board Member, Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), at business2community.com:

http://www.business2community.com/cloud-computing/cloud-promised-world-utility-billing-01221718

“Transferring data from your network to cloud includes processing and storing of the database and then processing for further use.”

Gerry Grealish (Perspecsys) in her article “Protecting the Data Lifecycle from Network to Cloud” at Informationweek, discussed about three phases for transferring data from your network to cloud and risk associated with them:

Phase 1# Data in motion: It is the term used for data as it is in transit. Risk is interference by third party. Cryptographic protocols, such as Secure Sockets Layer or Transport Layer Security can be used to protect data in this phase.

Phase 2# Data at rest: Data is stored in the form of file or database. Risk is reading of data by third party. Database solution can be used for protecting data like tools offered by CSP for encryption operations and there are various techniques like block level encryption technique.

Phase 3# Data in use: It is a data which is loaded into a process and is in the memory of the program that is running. And it is not protected by cloud service provider’s techniques like in-cloud based encryption techniques.

To know more about these phases and risk associated with them, read on: http://www.darkreading.com/cloud/protecting-the-data-lifecycle-from-network-to-cloud/a/d-id/1320249