Clint Boulton
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Clint Boulton
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Box moves telephony, Web conferencing to the cloud
You would be forgiven for assuming that a native cloud company -- a company whose raison d'etre is selling cloud applications and platforms -- wouldn't have a lick of on-premises software. But the reality is that for companies founded as recently as 10 to 15 years ago, SaaS analogs for every core computing operation did not exist. For that reason, migrating to SaaS solutions is still very much the mission for Box CIO Paul Chapman. Box CIO Paul Chapman.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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How Salesforce.com’s Wave Analytics helps publisher track leads
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) is leaning heavily on data to identify sales opportunities and track the status of existing accounts, both crucial activities as the textbook publisher’s business increasingly shifts from ink and paper to learning software. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt CTO Brook Colangelo. HMH CTO Brook Colangelo says the company has bet on analytics software as part of a sweeping transformation at the 184-year-old publisher designed to give sales staff more easily accessible data about leads from any mobile device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Omni Hotels’ new CIO shores up cybersecurity amid data breach
New Omni Hotels & Resorts CIO Ken Barnes is mulling how to shore up corporate defense in the wake of a cybersecurity attack that impacted 48 of its 60 hotels in North America. Barnes, who started in May, of course says he plans to improve the protection for Omni's payment processing systems. New defenses could include analytics that detect anomalous behavior suggesting that a hacker has entered or is trying to enter Omni's computer network. Omni Hotels & Resorts CIO Ken Barnes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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SDN providers nibbling away at slow-moving MPLS carriers
Switching networking providers is no small task but it wasn't really an option for Pattonair CIO Brian Long. Growing 16 percent year-over-year, the provider of nuts and bolts for airline engines was regularly adding new offices worldwide to serve its customers. It needed to have these new sites up and running quickly but its MPLS network provider Verizon was not willing to move at the speed Pattonair required, Long says. Pattonair CIO Brian Long. "It was a really good service once [the network circuit] was in," Long says of Verizon's MPLS service. "But if you wanted to be a dynamic business and quickly open up new locations and change capacities it was just a nightmare." Long says he soon got the sense that "we were an account number in their database and we just couldn't get the support that we needed."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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SDN providers nibbling away at slow-moving MPLS carriers
Switching networking providers is no small task but it wasn't really an option for Pattonair CIO Brian Long. Growing 16 percent year-over-year, the provider of nuts and bolts for airline engines was regularly adding new offices worldwide to serve its customers. It needed to have these new sites up and running quickly but its MPLS network provider Verizon was not willing to move at the speed Pattonair required, Long says. Pattonair CIO Brian Long. "It was a really good service once [the network circuit] was in," Long says of Verizon's MPLS service. "But if you wanted to be a dynamic business and quickly open up new locations and change capacities it was just a nightmare." Long says he soon got the sense that "we were an account number in their database and we just couldn't get the support that we needed."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Confusion over cyber insurance leads to coverage gaps
Assessing damage after a major cybersecurity breach is one of the most harrowing things a CIO or CISO can face. There is plenty of blame to go around but rarely enough people to accept it evenly. And when it comes to recouping money from cyber insurance claims, this blame game is further complicated by confusion.A typical corporate cyber insurance discussion goes like this: The CEO or board chairman calls the CISO into the room and tells him that their insurers is going to pay out only 38 percent of a claim because "you didn't implement encryption on the affected applications."The CISO says: "First, I didn't know we had cyber insurance. Second, the impacted apps are running our ATM machines and if we would have encrypted them you would have fired me because our customers wouldn't have been able to access them. I wish you would have talked to me before you implemented these policies."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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How auto repair chain accelerates networking with SD-WAN
Businesses needing broadband connectivity while rapidly expanding are finding an alternative to traditional wide area network infrastructure. Service King Collision Repair Centers, for example, is using software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) to support new auto repair centers, a move that has helped reduce the company's operational costs even as it grows its footprint across 23 states. Service King's CIO Derek Kramer. Service King's store locations have grown to more than 300 todayfrom 100 in 2012, necessitating rapid adoption of new network connectivity, says CIO Derek Kramer. Service King had relied on MPLS for several years but this no longer proving efficient as the chain expanded. "MPLS [Multiprotocol Label Switching] has done well, but can it grow as quickly as we're growing?" Kramer says. "We found more times than not that was a challenge."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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How auto repair chain accelerates networking with SD-WAN
Businesses needing broadband connectivity while rapidly expanding are finding an alternative to traditional wide area network infrastructure. Service King Collision Repair Centers, for example, is using software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) to support new auto repair centers, a move that has helped reduce the company's operational costs even as it grows its footprint across 23 states. Service King's CIO Derek Kramer. Service King's store locations have grown to more than 300 todayfrom 100 in 2012, necessitating rapid adoption of new network connectivity, says CIO Derek Kramer. Service King had relied on MPLS for several years but this no longer proving efficient as the chain expanded. "MPLS [Multiprotocol Label Switching] has done well, but can it grow as quickly as we're growing?" Kramer says. "We found more times than not that was a challenge."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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CIOs combat messaging overload with mobile ‘micro apps’
Thanks to cloud and mobile applications, companies have eliminated tedious paper shuffling but this has created a new problem -- application fatigue. Enterprise software is cramming email inboxes with messages prompting workers to manage expense reports, purchase orders and other business processes. The very software designed to enhance your productivity is taking more of your time than was originally intended.The situation is especially challenging for managers who oversee hundreds or even thousands of workers. On a typical work day, VMware CIO Bask Iyer approves salary increases in Workday and IT requests in ServiceNow, signs off on procurement requests in Coupa and expenses in Concur. The demand on Iyer’s attention makes him feel like a clerk and has him longing for the days of signing paper approvals by hand. “It’s become so tedious that what we did 20 years ago was more efficient,” Iyer tells CIO.com.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Chick-fil-A stays cool (and safe) with IoT sensors
Food safety was thrust into the public consciousness in 2015 after salmonella and E.coli outbreaks sickened people at Chipotle. Determined to avoid such public relations disasters, quick-service restaurants are taking extra precautions to keep customers healthy and ensure that their products comply with health inspection standards. Chick-fil-A, whose commercials feature chicken-shilling cattle, is using wireless sensors to monitor the temperature of walk-in coolers and freezers. Yes -- the Internet of Chicken has arrived. Chick-fil-A franchisee Matthew Michaels, who equipped his two Texas stores with the sensors 18 months ago, notes that several prominent incidents have underscored the importance of adhering to food safety standards, both in stores and in the supply chain. "There are stories about food safety gone wrong all over the place,” Michaels tells CIO.com. "You've got to be really careful with that stuff.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Financial services firm adopts agile for digital development
Financial services companies have traditionally shrunk from the notion of releasing applications that haven't been thoroughly baked and battled tested. But in today's digital world, companies that agonize over building the perfect app risk losing out to more nimble competitors. That's why many companies are turning to agile software development to push more products out the door and rescue other projects from oblivion. This is certainly true for Principal Financial Group, a provider of insurance, retirement planning and other asset management services for corporate employees. In 2013, the Des Moines, Iowa, (needed?) company was struggling to prioritize and complete software projects. One insurance business unit in hyper-growth mode couldn't get group benefits products to market fast enough. A services unit was slogging through a project that had gone on for too long and had no end in sight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Blockchain’s hype exceeds its grasp – for now
Blockchain has been touted by venture capitalists, technophiles and pundits as the Next Big Thing in computer science. The reality, however, is that the digital ledger software at the heart of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has a long way to go before it gains mainstream adoption.That was a key takeaway from a blockchain panel at last month’s MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. Noting that blockchain enables parties to ferry financial transactions, contracts and other digital records over the Internet, MIT professor Christian Catalini asked the panel about potential enterprise applications for the technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Blockchain’s hype exceeds its grasp – for now
Blockchain has been touted by venture capitalists, technophiles and pundits as the Next Big Thing in computer science. The reality, however, is that the digital ledger software at the heart of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has a long way to go before it gains mainstream adoption.That was a key takeaway from a blockchain panel at last month’s MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. Noting that blockchain enables parties to ferry financial transactions, contracts and other digital records over the Internet, MIT professor Christian Catalini asked the panel about potential enterprise applications for the technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why CISO is the hardest tech role to fill
Companies are under constant threat from cyberattacks and the situation is only getting worse with the rise of ransomware and whaling scams as a variant of phishing, according to recent cybersecurity reports. Yet the shortage of seasoned CISOs, inconsistent policies around compensation and a lack of proper metrics means some companies are under-investing in cybersecurity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why CISO is the hardest tech role to fill
Companies are under constant threat from cyberattacks and the situation is only getting worse with the rise of ransomware and whaling scams as a variant of phishing, according to recent cybersecurity reports. Yet the shortage of seasoned CISOs, inconsistent policies around compensation and a lack of proper metrics means some companies are under-investing in cybersecurity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Nonprofit’s cloud migrations boost business agility
The Muscular Dystrophy Association has jettisoned several manual business processes and legacy technologies in favor of cloud software as the nonprofit organization seeks greater operational efficiencies at a lower cost. The IT modernization, which includes email, CRM, human resources and several other business functions, has galvanized the organization's nearly 800 employees, says CIO Jeannine Houlihan, who joined MDA from Motorola Mobility in 2014. Muscular Dystrophy Association's CIO Jeannine Houlihan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Faux phishing scheme shows how hacks unfold
Many CIOs have implemented software that dupes employees into clicking on links and attachments that simulate phishing scams, an increasingly common educational tool to warn workers about the dangers of suspicious email messages. Security software maker Bitglass has reversed the shenanigans by leaking faked Google Apps credentials on the Dark Web, a hacker's playground for trafficking in stolen data. Then it tracked the activity, watching the many ways in which hackers wreaked havoc with supposed stolen online identities. Rich Campagna, vice president of products and marketing at Bitglass,To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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5 biggest cybersecurity concerns in 2016
Last year began and ended with a series of high-profile cybersecurity attacks, starting with the pilfering of 80 million Social Security records at health insurer Anthem and culminating with infiltrations at Starwood, Hilton and Hyatt hotel chains. Expect digital assaults, -- ranging from standard malware to more sophisticated, clandestine entries -- to continue on leading corporate brands in 2016, according to Raytheon's Websense business. The cybersecurity software maker, which analyzed threat data from 22,000 customers in 155 countries, says hackers will conjure attacks that target emerging technologies, such as mobile payments and top-level domains.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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How the NSA uses behavior analytics to detect threats
The National Security Agency has significantly enhanced its capabilities for detecting cyber-threats in the two-plus years since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden pilfered and disclosed classified information. The multi-layered capabilities, which include user behavior analytics, now protect a private cloud that provides storage, computing and operational analytics to the intelligence community, CIO Greg Smithberger tells CIO.com. Greg Smithberger, CIO of the National Security Agency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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CISO bets on cloud security services to protect data
In what could be considered an unusual move at a time when most companies choose to keep their cybersecurity tools on-premises, John Graham, CISO for Jabil Circuit, says the manufacturing services company is adopting more cloud security services. Graham says that moving to the cloud lets the company focus on its core business of making high-precision molds, mechanical tools and medical devices. More specifically, it allows his tech staff to focus on threat analytics. Graham expects Jabil’s cloud migration strategy to become the rule rather than the exception. John Graham, CISO for Jabil Circuit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here