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The News - November 30, 2008
"I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I fail and keep trying.” – Tom Hopkins
Top Picks
New Webinar: Governing IT in a Green World
“IT is a key stakeholder in the definition of an organization's green strategy and therefore must work to support the strategy. In order to do this, IT must be aware of the issues facing the organization and then come up with measures that make business sense. This webcast will cover a number of high-level topics for environmentally conscious organizations to consider. You'll understand the risks facing IT, such as skyrocketing energy costs, Global warming and the potential for new regulations and learn about developing and implementing "green" strategies in IT, including how IT can help the organization and what approaches are relevant to IT.”
http://solutions.internet.com/5341_default
Saving Green by Being Really Green
“Green Computing is about 80 percent process, followed by another 20 percent of random product upgrades related to eliminating obsolete equipment that already costs more to own than its worth. Unfortunately, too many companies have not taken the time to develop a real green plan. A survey by Forrester Research found that 20 percent of the companies polled said they did not have any overall approach to a green computing strategy, while another 35 percent of those surveyed said their company was considering one.”
http://blogs.eweek.com/masked_intentions/content/green_computing/saving_green_by_being_really_green.html
[ It’s no surprise really – organizations need a plan and processes that support the attainment and protection of objectives. ]
Book and Product Recommendations
George’s New Book: The Governance of Green IT
“The economy and environment have combined to create quite a challenge. On one hand, there is a push to reduce capital investment and operating expenses. On the other, organizations are implementing green strategies to reduce the environmental impacts. Within this context, information technology is struggling to provide services that support the organization. To sustain support, IT must implement processes to ensure proper value creation and protection of organizational goals. To this end, this book sets forth a Green IT process that will enable value creation and protection in the areas of data center power and cooling.”
US Page: http://www.itgovernanceusa.com/product/1827.aspx
International Page: http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/2106
Visible Ops Security, Phase 2
“Today I’m reviewing their chapter entitled, ‘Phase 2: Find Business Risks and Fix Fragile Artifacts.’ Read the latest WhitePaper - Securing endpoints by unifying essential components in a single agentThe chapter begins with a summary explaining that with infinite risks and finite resources and time, we have to focus our attention on securing critical areas of the business.”
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sec/2008/112408sec1.html?hpg1=bn
Order the VOS book at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975568612?ie=UTF8&tag=georgespaffor-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0975568612
IT Audit / Internal Audit / Compliance
Psystar case reveals Apple's questionable policy on email retention
“According to a recent legal filing (see page 7, below) in the Psystar vs Apple antitrust case, Apple employees are responsible for maintaining their own documents such as emails, memos, and voicemails. In other words, there is no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting these documents.”
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/11/19/filing-apple-employees-responsible-own-lawsuit-record-keeping
Julia Allen sent in the following resources for e-Discovery:
· The Sedona Conference:
http://www.thesedonaconference.org/
· 2007 Conference Materials from the Information Security Compliance and Risk Management Institute (ISC/RMI):
https://www.engr.washington.edu/epp/infosec/conf_2007.html
· A podcast with her and David Mathews, the Deputy CISO of the City of Seattle:
http://www.cert.org/podcast/show/20081111matthews.html
· John Christiansen’s IT Law blog:
http://informationlawtheoryandpractice.blogspot.com/2007/02/role-of-legal-counsel-in-information.html
IT Process Improvement / Quality Management
Green data center site selection: Cost versus sustainability
“Over the past two years, SearchDataCenter.com has published articles on the cheapest places in the U.S. to operate a data center. The data center site selection reports from 2006 and 2007 consistently rank states in the Midwest and the South as low-cost options for data center locations. A reader recently pointed out that we write a lot about green data centers, and that these lists of data center locations are easy on the finances, but hard on the planet.”
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/data-center-facilities/green-data-center-site-selection-cost-versus-sustainability/
How I'm Moving My Data Center into The Cloud
“The service will cost about US$16,000 per month for the whole kit-and-kaboodle. That compares favorably to the $210,000 Preferred was going to have to pay to refresh its aging Dell servers this year, plus $10,000 per month in co-location and bandwidth fees, Swartz says.”
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/112408-how-im-moving-my-data.html
Demand for Storm crashes ordering system
“While Verizon expected the BlackBerry Storm to be a hot-ticket item, it probably didn't anticipate that demand for the device would crash its online ordering portal. But on Friday afternoon, Verizon stores were unable to process any more orders for the Storm, because high traffic apparently had overloaded the system with ordering requests. A representative at the Verizon Wireless store in Framingham, Mass., said that the outage hit his branch at around 3 p.m. on Friday, with service returning one hour later.”
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/112108-blackberry-storm-demand.html?t51hb
[Poor capacity planning on their part.]
Why the Midwest can be a data center haven
“The Midwest is the dark horse of information technology and the veil is being lifted as to how much of a catalyst the region can be for high tech. A mix of plentiful, inexpensive power combined with multiple renewable energy sources, a highly educated workforce, and excellent quality of life make the Midwest an attractive destination for IT businesses to locate.”
http://wistechnology.com/articles/5248/
Microsoft Won’t Go It Alone in Massive Data Center Project
“BusinessWeek points out that Microsoft has been sharing news and ideas around its data center build-out strategy for more than a year with its industry partners (or at least with Dell, which went on record to pat Microsoft’s back). During that time, Google has been pursuing a much more closed strategy, from the level of the individual machine on up to the overarching strategy.”
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/msh/?p=229
Security and Risk Management
The role of an Information Security Council
“One of the more vexing challenges that financial services firms often face within their information security programs is obtaining sufficient input and participation from different areas within the organisation. This can be particularly troublesome when addressing complex security issues and attempting to set policy.”
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com.au/articles/27840-The-role-of-an-Information-Security-Council
Cyber-attack on Defense Department computers raises concerns
“Reporting from Washington -- Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia -- an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-cyberattack28-2008nov28,0,230046.story
Symantec Study Reveals Hackers, Online Crooks to Be Big and Rich
“You hear about it on the news every day -- criminals and profiteers have made the internet into a war zone. From bank intrusions, to assaults by massive botnets, to coordinated attacks by foreign nationalists, there seems to be no end in sight to cybercrime.”
http://www.dailytech.com/Symantec+Study+Reveals+Hackers+Online+Crooks+to+Be+Big+and+Rich/article13510.htm
Pentagon Bans USB Drives After Virus Hits Computers
“Pentagon officials admitted an undisclosed virus has hit some Pentagon and DoD computers, which has forced officials to confiscate flash drives and ban the use of external hardware drives until further notice.”
http://www.dailytech.com/Pentagon+Bans+USB+Drives+After+Virus+Hits+Computers/article13427.htm
Report Sounds Alarm Over Bioterror
“Seven years after the 2001 anthrax attacks, a congressionally ordered study finds a growing threat of biological terrorism and calls for aggressive defenses on par with those used to prevent a terrorist nuclear detonation. Due for release next week, a draft of the study warns that future bioterrorists may use new technology to make synthetic versions of killers such as Ebola, or genetically modified germs designed to resist ordinary vaccines and antibiotics.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901921.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity
Healthcare / Bio-Informatics / Care Delivery Organizations (CDOs)
Financial Crisis Hits Health Care Companies
“While in past periods of economic weakness health care was fairly resistant to downturns, given the increased influence of managed care and higher amount of cost sharing in the form of co-pays and deductibles, this appears to be less the case now. These factors have begun to ripple through the health care system, impacting hospital, medical equipment, and managed health care companies.”
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/nov2008/pi20081126_889656.htm
Discount healthcare?
“With growing numbers of people looking for healthcare solutions in these tough economic times, insurers are starting to offer low-cost options for those who can't afford full insurance.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/793195.html
U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For'
“A high-performance 21st-century health system, they say, must revolve around the central goal of paying for results. That will entail managing chronic illnesses better, adopting electronic medical records, coordinating care, researching what treatments work best, realigning financial incentives to reward success, encouraging prevention strategies and, most daunting but perhaps most important, saying no to expensive, unproven therapies.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112902182.html?nav=rss_business
Human Error / Safety / Environment
Carbon dioxide levels already a danger
“A team of international scientists led by Dr James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, say that carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are already in the danger zone. Concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere currently stand at 385 parts per million (ppm) and are rising at a rate of two ppm per year. This is enough, say the scientists, to encourage dangerous changes to the Earth's climate.”
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/11/21/climate.danger.zone/index.html
How global warming will become more dangerous
“Researchers at Toronto University here have found that global warming will change the molecular structure of organic matter in soil, thus altering its natural decomposition process and affecting fertility as well as releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Global_Warming/How_global_warming_will_become_more_dangerous/articleshow/3755029.cms
Global Warming Predictions Are Overestimated, Suggests Study On Black Carbon
“A new Cornell study, published online in Nature Geosciences, quantified the amount of black carbon in Australian soils and found that there was far more than expected, said Johannes Lehmann, the paper's lead author and a Cornell professor of biogeochemistry. The survey was the largest of black carbon ever published.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081119120155.htm
Warming to Global Warming
“The negative effects of global warming have been well-documented by activist politicians and scientists such as Al Gore and David Suzuki, but the positive effects have so far received less attention. But a group of global-warming experts, made up mainly of university economists and anthropologists, is pushing the notion that global warming might not be an unmitigated disaster, especially for certain northerly regions, such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavia.”
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=cff56e4b-5273-456c-9f31-5d3081e9aa3a
Sea Ice Growing at Fastest Pace on Record
“An abnormally cool Arctic is seeing dramatic changes to ice levels. In sharp contrast to the rapid melting seen last year, the amount of global sea ice has rebounded sharply and is now growing rapidly.”
http://www.dailytech.com/Sea+Ice+Growing+at+Fastest+Pace+on+Record/article13385.htm
Global News / Business / Economics
World Bank forecasts China economy to slow to 19-year low in 2009
“The World Bank said Tuesday China's economy will grow by just 7.5 percent in 2009, the lowest level in 19 years, as global markets for the nation's once seemingly unstoppable export machine dry up.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iAc8Ke4N1KDRdm5tLnSdKkwz370w
Global slowdown has bigger impact on China economy, vice premier says
“Zhang, who aims to learn about performance of the industrial sector during the trip, urged the local officials to give strong support to key enterprises and sectors and also small and medium-sized enterprises and labor-intensive businesses. China's annual economic growth rate slowed sharply to 9 percent in the third quarter, from 10.4 percent in the first half, because of slower growth in exports and property investment.”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/24/content_10406654.htm
China can no longer save world
“If the world was looking for China to save it, the actions of Chinese leaders in the past few weeks suggest they intend to save their own economy first.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5257439.ece
OPEC Defers Decision on Output Cut, Seeks $75 Oil
“Crude has dropped 62 percent from July’s record of $147.27 a barrel as the global recession erodes sales. Ali al-Naimi, the oil minister of Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest exporter and its de facto leader, said yesterday that $75 a barrel represents a ‘fair price’ needed to support investment in new fields.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=agy4Bz_cusnY
Nations Spend in Tandem To Stall Global Recession
“In a bid to jump-start the beleaguered global economy, countries around the world are introducing massive public spending programs aimed at creating millions of jobs, boosting the use of green energy and modernizing infrastructure in a way that could transform urban and rural landscapes.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802660.html?nav=rss_business/economy
US News / Business / Economics
The cold evidence of Cisco's hiring freeze
“Cisco's total number of job listings plummeted 93% in the last week, according to Aaran Rakers, an analyst at Wachovia Capital Markets who tracks job listings at the networking giant. The forecast, made in the World Bank's quarterly update on China, is down from a previous estimate of 9.2 percent, and would be the fourth lowest growth rate in the country since the launch of reforms three decades ago.”
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/35578?t51hb
Job Cuts, Factory Slump Probably Worsened: U.S. Economy Preview
“The recession engulfing the U.S. economy deepened this month as employers slashed more jobs and manufacturing contracted at the fastest pace in a quarter century, economists said before reports this week.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a53lCMziEuFg&refer=home
And Then There Was One
“But Detroit actually has parts worth saving. Melding them into a single entity could buff up its best brands, like Chevy, Ford and Cadillac, while leaving the clunkers (Pontiac, Mercury, Saturn, et al.) by the side of the road. It would take a healthy dose of Nietzsche's ‘creative destruction,’ but that's preferable to total destruction, especially when you're talking about an industry that supports 2.5 million jobs.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/171244?from=rss
Betting on Renewable Energy
“President-elect Barack Obama wants the nation to derive 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2012, up from 2 percent today. That comes on top of the global push for green power, making wind and solar power companies a good bet.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112900110.html?nav=rss_business
Technology & Science
Experian drills backup water supply to cool data center
“Drilling a well was costly, at a price tag of about $150,000, according to Burlew. But that pales in comparison to the cost of its data center not being up and running.”
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1339996,00.html
IBM invests in new supercomputing and green IT R&D operation
“IBM is to create 40 top-quality research positions at its operation in Ireland, as well as in Irish universities, to focus on the future of supercomputing and green data centres. The investment will be supported by the Irish Government through development agency IDA Ireland.”
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/11853/randd/ibm-invests-in-new-supercomputing-and-green-it-randd-operation
Probing the cosmos: Is anybody out there?
“From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe. Her ears are 42 large and sophisticated radio telescopes, spread across several acres, that scan the cosmos for signals of extraterrestrial origin.”
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/11/26/aliens.tarter/index.html
Do We Overrate Basic Research?
“The globalization of science and technology research, Mr. Bhidé added, should actually work to the advantage of the United States economy, so long as America remains the best place to commercialize inventions. As the rest of the world becomes a richer source of inventions, there is less need for the United States to come up with such a large share itself — and policy, he says, should reflect that reality.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30ping.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
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