Data the key ingredient for restaurant chain success

Businesses have more data than ever about their operations, supply chains and customers. The problem is often they can’t see it, don’t know where it is, and don’t have an easy want to pull it all together and analyze it. So, they are unable to make smart decisions and can lose thousands of dollars a year. It’s a challenge restaurant franchisors such as CraftWorks Restaurants and Breweries Inc. face. CraftWorks has found a solution, though—OnDemand software from ArrowStream. + Also on Network World: 8 big data predictions for 2017 + OnDemand does the “dirty work” of collecting data from food distributors, cleaning the data, analyzing it and putting the information front and center for supply chain restaurant managers, said Jeff Dorr, chief customer officer of ArrowStream. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ultimate guide to strategic tech partners

The IT vendor landscape is constantly in flux, with mergers, acquisitions, new technology developments and the growth of the cloud having a huge impact on which companies might be the most strategic partners for organizations looking to enhance their technology infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Ultimate guide to strategic tech partners

The IT vendor landscape is constantly in flux, with mergers, acquisitions, new technology developments and the growth of the cloud having a huge impact on which companies might be the most strategic partners for organizations looking to enhance their technology infrastructure. Consider some of the major technology merger and acquisition activities just over the past year: Microsoft acquired LinkedIn, Oracle acquired NetSuite, Broadcom acquired Brocade, HPE is buying Nimble Storage, and Dell acquired EMC.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Ultimate guide to strategic tech partners

The IT vendor landscape is constantly in flux, with mergers, acquisitions, new technology developments and the growth of the cloud having a huge impact on which companies might be the most strategic partners for organizations looking to enhance their technology infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Review: Manage desktops remotely with these 5 tools

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) can be a great way to keep tabs on workstations, servers, and other IT infrastructure and also automate some maintenance and remediation tasks. This can help save time and resources in the IT department.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New products of the week 3.20.17

New products of the weekImage by SolarWindsOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Asavie Industrial IoT Accelerator KitImage by asavieTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 3.20.17

New products of the weekImage by SolarWindsOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Asavie Industrial IoT Accelerator KitImage by asavieTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 3.20.17

New products of the weekImage by SolarWindsOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Asavie Industrial IoT Accelerator KitImage by asavieTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bdrive secures files in the cloud with fingerprints and fragmentation

Maximum privacy seems to be the goal for the new enterprise authentication and cloud storage services Bundesdruckerei is showing at Cebit this week.The 250-year-old state printer has moved far beyond its origins as a printer of banknotes and, later, passports, offering all sorts of secure digital authentication services.At the exhibition in Hanover, Germany, this week it's showing Bdrive, a way for businesses to securely and reliably store important files in the cloud.Unlike services such as Dropbox, Bdrive doesn't store the files themselves, just metadata about them. The task of storing the files is left to other public cloud storage services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Candy-bar’ phones will get smartphone features with new Qualcomm chip

The Nokia 3310 phone, a replica of its iconic namesake, took Mobile World Congress by storm last month. It was a surprising show of enthusiasm for so-called candy-bar phones, which remain popular in developing countries because of their rock-bottom prices.Qualcomm believes there's an untapped opportunity in such feature phones and believes it can bring smartphone-like capabilities to these handsets. So it made the 205 Mobile chip, which will bring LTE capabilities, better graphics, and more responsiveness to candy-bar phones.There is a big need for a chip like the 205, especially when you look at the limited features of the new Nokia 3310. The Nokia 3310 offers only 2G connectivity capabilities for texting and calling, while newer candy-bar phones with the 205 chip will be LTE capable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

GelTouch adds a new dimension to touch-sensitive controls

The problem with a lot of touch-sensitive controls is that the communication is one-way: They can feel you, but you can't feel them. With touch-screen displays it's easy enough, as the button does what it says on the screen. Not all buttons are designed to be looked at as they are pushed, though. Take video-game controllers or car entertainment systems, for example, or some industrial controls. The user's attention is typically elsewhere when these are operated. Manufacturers can mold raised blobs into the surface to show where to press, perhaps even using the shape of the blob to identify the button's function, but that means that, unlike a touch-screen, the number and function of the buttons is fixed from the moment the device leaves the factory.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why Didn’t We Have Leaf-and-Spine Fabrics a Decade Ago?

One of my readers watched my Leaf-and-Spine Fabric Architectures webinar and had a follow-up question:

You mentioned 3-tier architecture was dictated primarily by port count and throughput limits. I can understand that port density was a problem, but can you elaborate why the throughput is also a limitation? Do you mean that core switch like 6500 also not suitable to build a 2-tier network in term of throughput?

As always, the short answer is it depends, in this case on your access port count and bandwidth requirements.

Japan looks beyond Industry 4.0 towards Society 5.0

Declining birth rate, aging population, natural disasters, pollution: Do these sound like issues the IT industry can deal with? Japanese businesses say yes, and a number of them are at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, to explain why. Industry 4.0 -- the building of "smart factories" in which machines monitor one another and make decentralized decisions about production and maintenance -- has been a theme of recent Cebit shows. Now, under the banner Society 5.0, the show's partner country for 2017, Japan, wants to take the transformation beyond industry, making "smart society" one of the show's talking points. Behind the drive are some very real societal problems. Japan's population is falling, but the average age of its citizens is increasing. A consequence of a low birth rate and extreme longevity, this is leading to an imbalance between young, active workers and those needing care. But with the country in a seismically active area, and having an ageing industrial infrastructure, this shrinking workforce is likely to deal with natural disasters and incidents of pollution.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cebit showcases security after Snowden

It's almost four years since Edward Snowden leaked U.S. National Security Agency documents revealing the extent of the organization's surveillance of global internet traffic, but he's still making the headlines in Germany.At the Cebit trade show in Hannover, Germany, he'll be looking back at that period in live video interview from Moscow on Tuesday evening.There have been a lot of changes on the internet in those four years, but one of the biggest is the growth in the use of encryption.In 2013, the NSA had free rein and could listen in on almost any communication it wanted. Now, it's commonplace to encrypt traffic to webmail services and even popular websites such as Microsoft.com or Google.com using the https protocol. And you don't have to be an enemy of the state to use an end-to-end encrypted messaging system such as WhatsApp simply to chat with friends.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cebit showcases security after Snowden

It's almost four years since Edward Snowden leaked U.S. National Security Agency documents revealing the extent of the organization's surveillance of global internet traffic, but he's still making the headlines in Germany.At the Cebit trade show in Hannover, Germany, he'll be looking back at that period in live video interview from Moscow on Tuesday evening.There have been a lot of changes on the internet in those four years, but one of the biggest is the growth in the use of encryption.In 2013, the NSA had free rein and could listen in on almost any communication it wanted. Now, it's commonplace to encrypt traffic to webmail services and even popular websites such as Microsoft.com or Google.com using the https protocol. And you don't have to be an enemy of the state to use an end-to-end encrypted messaging system such as WhatsApp simply to chat with friends.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

McDonald’s India asks users to update app after data leak report

McDonald’s India operation asked users to update their McDelivery app as a 'precautionary measure' after a security firm said it had found that it was leaking personal data of over 2.2 million users.The Indian operation of the food chain, which is owned and managed by franchisees, said in posts on Facebook and Twitter over the weekend that its website and app do not store any sensitive financial data of users.The operation did not admit or deny that there had been a breach, but urged users to update the online ordering app as a precautionary measure. “The website and app has always been safe to use, and we update security measure on regular basis,” according to the post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

McDonald’s India asks users to update app after data leak report

McDonald’s India operation asked users to update their McDelivery app as a 'precautionary measure' after a security firm said it had found that it was leaking personal data of over 2.2 million users.The Indian operation of the food chain, which is owned and managed by franchisees, said in posts on Facebook and Twitter over the weekend that its website and app do not store any sensitive financial data of users.The operation did not admit or deny that there had been a breach, but urged users to update the online ordering app as a precautionary measure. “The website and app has always been safe to use, and we update security measure on regular basis,” according to the post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Gearhead Toolbox, second opening. Tools for diagrams and gauges.

Web-based information displays such as dashboards, have become a popular way to present summaries of complex data and in this issue of the Gearhead Toolbox I have two killer JavaScript libraries for creating and editing diagrams, and another equally great library for creating gauge displays. Enjoy ... Mark Gibbs GOJSTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 may actually be called the ‘iPhone Edition’

Apple's rumor mill sometimes works in mysterious ways. With Apple's next-gen iPhone, for example, a sketchy report that surfaced in mid-2016 claimed that Apple's upcoming iPhone was such a huge upgrade that Apple was going to skip the iPhone 7s nomenclature and simply call its 2017 iPhone the iPhone 8. And from there, the iPhone 8 naming convention stuck.More recently, reports surfaced indicating that Apple was still planning on releasing three brand new iPhone models, an iPhone 7s, an iPhone 7s Plus, and a newly redesigned iPhone dubbed the iPhone 8. This of course never made much sense given that releasing an iPhone 8 alongside an iPhone 7s would not only cause widespread confusion, it might also stifle overall iPhone sales. After all, who would want to buy an iPhone 7s when an iPhone 8 is already out on the market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 Rumor Rollup: Gentler curves and facial recognition security

Apple just might whet our appetites for a September unveiling of the iPhone 8 (or iPhone X) with an event later this month or early in April regarding some new iPads and maybe some low-end iPhones. But we won’t be distracted: On to the iPhone 8 rumors! KINDER, GENTLER CURVES The word is that Apple and Samsung are going to hogging up most of the shiny, energy-efficient OLED displays being pumped out this year, leaving poor Huawei and others on the outs. And after all that, it turns out that Apple’s OLED displays on its anticipated 5.8-inch iPhone 8 will have a “gentler” curved screen than that found on the rival Samsung Galaxy S7 (and likely, the S8). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here