Volume LV, Issue 11

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In This Issue

Presidential Hopefuls: Where’s Your Cybersecurity Platform?

Excerpted from CBS News Report by Michael Fey

Although our presidential candidates dwell regularly on national security, few pay more than glancing lip service to cybersecurity — although it is surely among the most ominous and vexing defense issues of the new century.

It is high time they did.

On the stump in New Hampshire February 3, Hillary Clinton told a questioner “we will not tolerate” cross-border attacks on cyber-infrastructure.

But she did not say what official intolerance might look like. Ben Carson called last month for a new National Cyber Security Administration.

But no top contender — not Clinton, nor Donald Trump, nor Senators Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio — gives the topic so much as a sentence in online issue-position summaries.

Fifty-five percent of information security professionals believe cybersecurity should be a key issue in the 2016 election, and the next president will face a swarm of cyber questions.

Informed voters may not find it acceptable for presidential aspirants to dodge the subject… Read More

What Israel Could Teach US about Cybersecurity

Excerpted from Yahoo News Report by Rob Pegoraro

The first day of the recent CyberTech 2016 conference on cybersecurity in Tel Aviv, Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources, dramatically demonstrated the urgency of the matter at hand.

He admitted that the state electric authority itself was currently “facing a very serious cyber-attack.”

His government agency had identified the malware and isolated the infected computers.

And the attack affected only a regulator of the electric industry, not the actual power generation or transmission systems.

But Steinitz’s point still stood: “This is a fresh example of the sensitivity of infrastructure to such attacks.”

Or, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it during an address earlier that day: “In the Internet of everything, everything can be penetrated. Everything can be sabotaged, everything can be subverted.”

Israel knows this better than most countries. It has been on the receiving end of numerous online attacks of varying levels of competence and it has launched some particularly advanced and effective assaults of its own… Read More

Meet the Industrial Internet of Things

Excerpted from Kollontrak Blog by Kathrin Brekle

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been around now for a few years.

Every single device in the IoT is uniquely identified by an individual Internet address (URL), can be accessed via the Internet and can interact with connected information systems.

Basically, a distinction should be made between consumer concepts and industrial concepts.

This project of the future is usually known as Industry 4.0 in Germany, while the term Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is habitually used in the United States.

While in the case of consumers, this has to do with domestic appliances, entertainment electronics, automobiles, computers, and many other items of daily life, Industry 4.0 concerns factories, machinery, production facilities, or entire sensor networks.

IIoT is a concept intended to support the optimization of operational effectiveness and industrial production, thus creating further growth and improved international competitive conditions for businesses.

Leading voices in industry see the trend towards digitization, including intelligent interconnection of individual machines… Read More

Report from DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty

Click Here for Video.

Please join us this week at the first of the DCIA’s co-sponsored events with the we.CONECT Group: the brand new Industry of Things World USA.

The focus of this inaugural event is the industrial Internet, which has the power to dramatically alter the competitive landscape for several industries during the coming year.

Industry of Things World USA takes place this Thursday and Friday, February 25th and 26th, at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, CA.

Over 500 industrial Internet ecosystem participants will attend, many of whom are deploying first-generation solutions that are creating valuable user case-studies.

Among the shared challenges that these pioneers are addressing are the lack of current standards, security concerns, as well as data and system integration issues.

Overcoming these in early Industrial Internet deployments will lead to first-mover opportunities for distinctive operational, strategic, and competitive advantages.

We developed this new conference based on learning from Industry of Things World Europe, which brought together more than 700 leading industry innovators from 264 companies representing 38 countries.

We’re pleased to share with you feedback, statistics, and interviews from that event in the conference review and post-event report.

Industry of Things World USA features four tracks covering the core issues affecting the industrial Internet: strategy, operations, data, and technology.

More than eighty speakers will present status updates, ranging from visionary keynotes to vertical market case-studies to technology spotlights.

There will be a start-up lounge showcasing the latest and most promising innovative new businesses in the industrial Internet space.

In addition to extensive networking opportunities, the event will also offer training sessions and workshops to maximize your opportunities to learn in a highly interactive environment.

You can download the event brochure here to see the full program and special features we have in store for you.

And you can access the list of confirmed speakers here to see who else will be there. Please register here with the discount code DCIA2016.

We hope to see you this week at the Industry of Things World USA. Share wisely, and take care.

Ways IoT Will Improve Energy Sector

Excerpted from Energy Digital Report by Robert Spence

In 2016 and beyond, the Internet of Things (IoT) will greatly change the way we consume energy.

loT will empower users with actionable insight to better understand their energy consumption in real-time, down to the small appliance level — to create personalized recommendations for users based on data gathered.

“I’m pretty confident that the IoT is going to have net negative power consumption,” said Urs Holzle, Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure at Google.

“If you control lights, heat, and cooling in a smarter ways, that’s really substantial.”

While trimming home energy use can bring big energy reductions, the true future lies in an integrated system, a smart grid.

As of right now, the flow of energy in a normal grid is one way, with energy flowing from power plants to homes and businesses.

With a smart grid, it would flow multiple ways — allowing people to control their own energy, including selling the energy they make. A smart grid would allow customers to preset how and when their home or business uses energy… Read More

IoT: Manufacturing Game Changer

Excerpted from Packaging World Report by Pat Reynolds

The jury may be out on precisely how the Internet of Things (IoT) will bring benefits to manufacturing and operations.

But because IoT will transform operational technologies and more tightly integrate them with enterprise information technologies (IT), analysts and observers all agree that IoT is a game changer in the world of manufacturing.

While many readers of this newsletter are perfectly well versed in all things IoT, I’m guessing plenty of others are still looking for clarification.

Fortunately, a primer of sorts is readily available from Hilscher, the Germany-based developer of networking and connectivity solutions to the automation industries.

Actually it’s a white paper written by Hilscher Business Development Manager Armin Puhringer.

It’s titled “How ‘Industrial Cloud Communications’ Delivers the Benefits of Internet-Connected Manufacturing.”

Highlights include the following:

A useful definition is always a good starting point, though Puhringer is quick to observe that IoT can mean anything to anybody… Read More

IoT Offers Insights to Retail and Other Industries

Excerpted from BizTech Report by Melissa Delaney

Many of the far-out technologies in the movie “Minority Report,” such as customizable billboards, aren’t so far off today, points out Mike Fratto, principal analyst at Current Analysis.

All sorts of IoT applications are being used to improve the customer experience and target ads and commercial opportunities to customers.

Beacons, which are Bluetooth modules, can recognize customers when they walk into a store, tapping into data about interests, shopping history and purchasing behaviors to customize coupons and advertisements sent to smartphone apps or wearable devices.

Beacons can also help businesses analyze foot traffic patterns in stores, so they can determine peak hours and where customers congregate, as well as what they do and do not pass, says Fratto.

Retailers can use that data to manage shift schedules, organize displays and target ads toward individuals. They can even use that data to charge more for displays in high-traffic areas.

“If they didn’t know that, they couldn’t charge those differentiated prices,” he says… Read More

Internet of Things Gets Business Leg-Up

Excerpted from Channel Web Report by Sara Yirrell

A whopping 94 per cent of UK businesses are investing in initiatives to prepare for the Internet of Things (IoT), according to research commissioned by Webroot and data center firm IO.

The cybersecurity specialist asked research house OnePoll to survey 500 CEOs and senior decision makers in the UK for a report entitled “IoT: Risk or Reward?”

According to the results, 60 per cent of those questioned are increasing their investment in IoT projects and by an average of 42 per cent.

They also revealed this investment was to gain increased revenues and greater competitive advantage.

Half of those businesses (54 per cent) said they plan to employ a chief IoT officer in the coming year, with the highest-scoring verticals being education (63 per cent), retail (63 per cent), and telecoms (64 per cent).

In addition, 68 per cent of those questioned said they expect to reap benefits from their IoT investments this year, up from one in five that claimed to be seeing benefits today.

The bulk of the investment is going on network infrastructure, with 71 per cent agreeing that this is a primary focus area… Read More

Emerging Business Models in Enterprise IoT

Excerpted from IoT Tech Report by John Bates

There is an opportunity for today’s businesses to grow exponentially smarter through the explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT).

As the IoT develops, it will usher in the next wave of innovation, which will utilize existing technology and take it to the next level — interoperability and optimization.

For example, in the future all cars will communicate with each other, as well as with smart roads and smart cities, to co-ordinate and optimize journey times and avoid collisions.

However, this is only one tiny example of how the IoT will shape our world.

The IoT is on course to change everything, with the same force that the original Internet did, and will have a similar domino effect.

This is supported by a drop in the price of sensors and connectivity solutions, paving the way for more and more viable use-cases to be realized

In fact the IoT represents the new industrial revolution… Read More

Smart Cities Need Secure IoT

Excerpted from The Next Silicon Valley Report by Nitin Dahad

Smart cities with Internet of things (IoT) connected sensors and devices enable local governments and public service providers to deliver better information to their citizens and therefore improve the quality of living.

Just like in London, UK, where Transport for London (TfL) is looking to utilize the IoT to improve services.

According to Computing, the organization’s CIO, Steve Townsend is looking at how best they can use data from a range of new sources to help improve services.

He told the magazine, “We are looking at data from IoT and how it could mean we work differently in London.”

“We’re looking at how data can maximize every inch of tarmac in London, how we can solve congestion problems, how can we maintain our fleets of vehicles better, how can we use digital monitoring to do maintenance in a more efficient way to maximize our rolling stock, whether it be DLR or Underground or trams, and how we can utilize our internal data from IoT.”

Sensors would be to deployed capture data on passenger behavior.

Tfl already has some trials where they have put sensors on some lifts and escalators so it is possible to predict when they might malfunction… Read More

Verizon Joins HyperOffice in Cloud Collaboration

Excerpted from LearnBonds Report by Lindsay Taylor

Verizon Communications has partnered with HyperOffice, a Rockville, MD-based leading global vendor of cloud-based collaboration and communication services, to distribute and promote its innovative Share.to communications application using Verizon Cloud infrastructure.

Share.to suite is a solution that allows users to conference, share ideas and chat using any collaboration system in their individual workspaces.

The suite enhances other HyperOffice’s collaboration, content and communication software product offerings.

Pankaj Taneja, HyperOffice’s Marketing Director, says the software can be used together with HyperOffice Social suite.

Put concisely, Share.to doesn’t replace other existing tools, but instead, it augments them.

Extended teams that use Share.to, which easily integrates with file storage apps such as Google Apps, Dropbox, Office 365 and Box, can easily pick up an image, document or file into the conversation within seconds.

Verizon Cloud allows users to access or make changes to their content using various devices via its sync and back up feature… Read More

Telefonica Offers Cisco Collaboration Cloud Portfolio

Excerpted from Press Announcement

Telefonica Business Solutions, a leading provider of a wide range of integrated communication solutions for the enterprise market, has become one of the first service providers to offer the Cisco portfolio of collaboration cloud services as a fully integrated service.

Telefonica’s new offer brings together best-in-class and market-leading business collaboration applications such as Cisco Unified Communications, virtual contact center, Cisco TelePresence, Cisco WebEx, and Collaboration Meeting Rooms, all delivered “as a service” to end-users over mobile and fixed connections.

Telefonica customers can take advantage of all the features and functionality of Cisco collaboration solutions as if they were installed on-premises, without incurring major capital expenditures and platform updating costs, using a flexible consumption model.

Telefonica offers its own branded collaboration services based on Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (Cisco Unified Communications, customer collaboration and telepresence as a service) and connects it to Cisco conferencing services from the Cisco Collaboration Cloud (WebEx, Collaboration Meeting Rooms, and WebEx Cloud Connected Audio).

Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) is deployed in Telefonica’s data centers across the globe… Read More

Gearing Up for Cloud, AT&T Tells Workers: Adapt

Excerpted from NY Times Report by Quentin Hardy

Thirty-four years ago, Kevin Stephenson got his younger brother, Randall, a job with the telephone company.

Kevin, then 23, and Randall, 22, had tried selling cattle feed with their father near their home in Moore, OK, but that didn’t pan out.

Kevin was hired to do accounting at a local Southwestern Bell office.

Randall, who was in college, needed a bit more help. “He had trouble getting hired,” Kevin said. “I talked to someone I knew in personnel.”

The brothers had different tastes.

Kevin liked to be outside, and now, at 57 years old, he works in Norman, OK, fixing the decades-old copper lines that still connect to landline telephones in most homes as well as to modern Internet conduits like high-speed fiber optics.

Randall liked numbers and stayed indoors, rising through the management ranks.

Southwestern Bell became SBC Communications and took on the old AT&T name through an acquisition in 2005… Read More

Verizon Accelerates SDN Portfolio with New Viptela Platform

Excerpted from Press Announcement

Verizon and Viptela are joining forces to deliver a new software defined networking (SDN) solution using Viptela’s Software Defined WAN Platform.

Viptela also entered into an exclusive managed services arrangement with Verizon in the United States.

By joining forces, the duo is addressing the market’s pent-up demand for managed hybrid networking solutions that enable enterprises to securely, reliably, and simply access their applications from the cloud or on-premises from any device or desktop while better managing the ever increasing volume of data.

The new Verizon service, powered by Viptela, allows enterprises to “mix and match” private and public IP connections such as MPLS, wireless LTE, broadband, and Ethernet to meet an organization’s unique application requirements based on geographic location, bandwidth, and application service availability needs.

The new managed service is being offered in the US, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region.

“SDN is the wave of the future,” said Shawn Hakl, VP of Enterprise Networking and Innovation, Verizon… Read More

Ericsson and Telefonica Deploy First Cloud-Based VoLTE

Excerpted from Vanilla Plus Report by Sheetal Kumbhar

Telefonica Colombia and Ericsson are deploying the country’s first commercial virtual network for voice over LTE services.

Ericsson is becoming the sole supplier and is bringing the Ericsson Cloud Manager, Ericsson Cloud Execution Environment and virtual network function IMS core to enable commercial voice over LTE.

Implementation, integration and support services are also included to enable this virtual network.

Hernan Felipe Cucalon, CTO, Telefonica Colombia, said: “Telefonica is aiming for a robust, carrier-grade, fast time-to-market launch and thus speeding new services to our customers.”

“Ericsson took on the challenge by providing us with a complete solution, and is now deploying VoLTE over a virtualized network environment.”

Enrique Blanco, Global CTO of Telefonica Group, said: “Network virtualization brings huge opportunities for efficiency and agility; we aim to have a common and complete solution for Telco, IT and Enterprise Services.”

The flexibility of a virtualized network will allow Telefonica to more rapidly introduce new services to its subscribers… Read More

NetApp Reports Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2016 Results

Excerpted from MarketWired Report

Net revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 were $1.39 billion.

GAAP net income for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 was $153 million, or $0.52 income per share, compared to GAAP net income of $177 million, or $0.56 income per share, for the comparable period of the prior year.

Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 was $206 million, or $0.70 income per share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $238 million, or $0.75 income per share, for the comparable period of the prior year.

NetApp ended the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 with $5.0 billion in total cash, cash equivalents and investments and generated $355 million in cash from operations.

During the third quarter of fiscal year 2016, the Company returned $137 million to shareholders through share repurchases and a cash dividend.

The next dividend in the amount of $0.18 per common share will be paid on April 27, 2016, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 8, 2016.

“NetApp’s third quarter results demonstrate good progress in advancing our strategy,” said George Kurian, CEO… Read More

Coming Events of Interest

Industry of Things World USA — February 25th-26th in San Diego, CA. A new international information exchange forum featuring four concurrent tracks covering business model generation, technology and infrastructure, data management, and security.

IoT Asia 2016 — March 30th-31st in Singapore. IoT Asia returns in 2016 with fresh insights on Internet of Things (IoT) developments around the world. The 3rd edition aims to further advance conversations and ideas on IoT and how it will impact our lives by delving into the real issues.

Delivery of Things World — April 25th-26th in Berlin, Germany. DevOps specialists, continuous development strategists, architect newbies, development geeks, and cloud geniuses from across the spectrum of DevOps transformation come together at this stimulating and innovative event.

DataCloud Europe 2016 — June 8th-9th in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The 2016 conference will focus on cloud computing advances and changes in data management, with a stellar line-up of speakers including global infrastructure leaders and subject matter experts.

Cloud and DevOps World Forum 2016 — June 21st-22nd in London, England. Now in its eighth year, C&DWF is firmly established as the leading content-led exhibition for the European Cloud and DevOps community and the premiere meeting place for CIOs.

Security of Things World — June 27th-28th in Berlin, Germany. Topics include securing cyber physical systems for IoT, expanding IT security with intelligence-led ops, business continuity management considerations, data privacy in an interconnected world, and security strategies.

Industry of Things World Europe — September 19th-20th in Berlin, Germany. IoT business models, new IoT markets and strategies, product lifecycle management, next generation data handling and value assessment, IoT organizational impacts, and IoT security issues.

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