The industry reflects, looks ahead

Brenton Smith, managing director and area manager, Asia South, CA

	Brenton Smith, CA
	Many companies have--dangerously--subscribed to the view that virtualization is a cure-all technology that can streamline resource utilization and save costs without any drawbacks.

Q. Name three hot technologies to watch in 2008.
Smith: First, we expect keen interest in project portfolio management (PPM) solutions in 2008. These give CIOs and senior management a much-needed full view of all IT Services through a dashboard, which provides drill-down views many levels down. What is different about PPM is that it provides a business view of IT services that allows CIOs to prioritize and manage their portfolio of applications of services.

Another technology that will see strong uptake is identity and access management (IAM) as compliance pressures and the need for sophisticated security solutions become pressing issues for CIOs and CEOs alike. In particular, internal access control solutions will be a key focus as more enterprises become aware of the risks and liabilities of internal employees compared with traditional security concerns focusing on external threats. Access control is often the first step on the road to more comprehensive identity management, which entails user provisioning, audit, and web access management.

Moving ahead in 2008

 

 

1.	Socializing goes big in 2008
2.	The urge to merge in 2008
3.	New chips on the block
4.	Web threats dominate security landscape
5.	Battle for the mobile platform space in 2008
6.	The industry reflects, looks ahead

Looking back on 2007

 

 

1.	Looking back at 2007 with envy
2.	Predictions that went right and wrong
3.	2007's movers and shakers

Third, there is a growing demand for tools that automate network management, including root cause analysis and security information management. The ability to correlate ever increasing volumes of management information will be key in achieving effective control of enterprise systems that support the business. The need for automated enterprise IT management is also compounded by the fact that IT components like storage, security and applications, are all interdependent and can no longer be managed in isolated silos.

What is the biggest myth about virtualization, and why?
Many companies have--dangerously--subscribed to the view that virtualization is a cure-all technology that can streamline resource utilization and save costs without any drawbacks. The truth is that virtualization has real repercussions on your IT security. It amplifies the security risks associated with server OS platforms, because the virtualization platform serves as a single point of access to all VM images and control over many critical services, creating a vulnerable leverage point.

Thus, network managers must put in place measures to secure and manage virtualized environments. They need to centrally manage role-based identity and access, control machine-to-machine access, monitor all activities on the host operating system and guest VMs, and manage compliance and risk. Well-designed IAM methodologies are essential for these purposes.

Name up to three security trends that IT heads should look out for in 2008.
The three security trends that IT heads need to focus on can first be highlighted by asking three questions, and then planning their security deployments around those answers.
Do you know who has access to what within your company?
Do you know what is happening at any given moment?
Do you know what action to take based on this information?

From a technology perspective, these three issues can be addressed using identity and access management (IAM), security information management (SIM), and integrated threat management (ITM).

IAM helps enterprises answer the first question by managing the administration, user provisioning, policy enforcement and auditing of user identity and access. As explained earlier, IAM also helps CIOs meet compliance regulations, and guard against rising internal threats.

Security information management (SIM) tools let enterprises convert reams of security data from disparate systems and applications into meaningful and actionable business intelligence. By providing the big picture, SIM solutions increase the overall efficiency of security system management, allowing an organization to make the right decision in a timely manner. They also provide the necessary security views required to achieve regulatory compliance.

ITM solutions proactively detect, analyze, warn, prevent and remediate attacks across IT environments. They prevent interruptions to business operations, protecting the company's brand reputation and ensuring high customer service levels.

The debate on open source is...
... Healthy, because it has encouraged concrete action from both vendors and users, brought new possibilities to the market, freed companies from the clutches of proprietary software makers, and slashed costs in some application areas.

Open source technology pushes the industry as a whole to write better software. It also creates a broader choice of software for enterprise users. As one of the five largest global software companies, CA is a strong supporter of open-source solutions. In many deployments, open source has an important role to play along side commercial solutions.

Where open source is concerned, what enterprise IT managers need to be wary about are support for open standards that enable interoperability, professional support services, and determining whether the software has security designed into its architecture.

The biggest mistake I see CIOs make is...
... Dealing with increasing IT complexity in a non-holistic way, like throwing resources at new applications, more servers, higher bandwidth, bigger storage devices, and in some cases, more IT personnel. What CIOs should be focusing on is being able to get a bird's eye view of everything and then decide how best to add resources. In many cases, a reorganization of resources may be the most effective option.

That's what effective enterprise IT management (EITM) is all about. Having a simple, but powerful, unified overview of what in happening the IT organization and how it affects business processes. With that view, CIOs can then make the right decisions.

EITM is designed to do for IT what ERP did for business processes. EITM provides a path for the evolution of enterprise wide IT management from a reactive, event-driven approach to one that is proactive.

 Brocade 

Cable & Wireless  

Talkback 0 comments

• ผู้ช่วยจัดการแผนกบริหารสัญญาเช่า ( Tenant Management Information System Assistant Manager )
• Sales Executive/ Project Sales Promoter 2 Positions(พนักงานขายและส่งเสริมการขายงานโครงการ)
• Service Delivery Leading MNC Hosting Company @ Delhi NCR
• Patient Service TechnicianLocal Delivery Driver
• Configuration Manager ITD GD

TechGuides

10 open source projects worth checking out

The open source field is pretty crowded, but certain projects stand above the rest. Here are 10 tools and solutions you don't want to overlook.

Read more �

Latest from Blog Central

Do we need more delivery centers?

Read more �

Cutting-edge technology from premium sponsors

Adaptive Threat Management

High Performance Security for your Distributed Enterprise

Achieve lower TCO, agility, risk mitigation, compliance, and productivity

Webcast series: Cybercrime is a growth industry - is your organisation prepared?

More resources to optimize the security of your enterprise »

Brought to you by:

 

 

 

More Tech Showcases:

Hitachi Eco-Products

Juniper Networks