The Mighty Memo

There once was The Mighty Memo,

That you’d type nice and neat.

Telling all your colleagues,

The time and place to meet.

 

Make it look official,

With your autograph.

Walk it to the mailroom,

And find the mimeograph.

 

Make enough copies,

For each and every one.

Place it in their mailbox,

That’s how you got it done.

 

Then came email and texting,

And oh, it was a breeze.

Send it all at once,

And save a few trees.

 

Those had their own glitches,

Things that brought tears.

Reply All and abbreviations,

‘Did they read that?’ was the fear.

 

Instant and immediate,

No way to take it back.

Wishing you didn’t click it,

To avoid all the flack.

 

So here’s to the Mighty Memo,

Direct and to the point.

Delivered to those who need it,

Not to disappoint.

 

ps

 

Resources:

• D'oh! The Most Disastrous E-Mail Mistakes
• Reply All: The Button Everyone Loves to Hate

 

Technorati Tags: F5, privacy, poem, memo, Pete Silva, security, business, education, technology, blog, satire

 

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Multiscreen Multitasking

Talk about killing two birds with one stone - according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report, more Americans on their phones while watching TV.  About half of U.S. mobile phone owners use their devices while watching TV, a new study suggests.  While most (38%) are clicking away as a commercial filler, many are enhancing their viewing experience by interacting along with the program. 

About 23% of cellphone users exchange text messages with their friends about the same show they are simultaneously watching on TV; around 20% of them visit websites mentioned on TV; 22% used their phone to check whether something they heard on television was true; 11% of cellphone owners use their devices to read what others are writing online about a particular television program; another 11% posts comments on online boards using their cellphones; and 6% used their phone to vote for a reality show contestant.  Both men and women equally are glued to their smartphone while watching TV with the 18-24 age bracket leading the way (81%), followed by the 25-34 group (72%).

The massive growth of smartphones and how we use them is infiltrating every aspect of our lives.  The most basic task of making a phone call seems miniscule compared to the many other things we do with smartphones.  Our personal devices are also becoming the primary mobile device we use for work with all the BYOD initiates being implemented.  It’s also clear that with all the other tasks and activities we use our smartphones for, providing a solid BYOD policy within an organization is important to keeping corporate resources safe.  Not sure how I turned the results of a TV survey into a BYOD challenge but there you have it.  And somehow the famous words of Homer Simpson now have much more meaning, ‘Then we figured out we could park them in front of the TV. That's how I was raised, and I turned out TV.’ 

ps

References:

• More Americans on their phones while watching TV
• Cellphone usage, television watching go hand in hand
• The Rise of the “Connected Viewer”
• More Americans Are Using Mobile Phones While Watching TV
• Americans juggle phones, TV at same time: survey
• Man Watches 252 Netflix Movies in a Month, Gets Invited to Netflix HQ
• Will BYOL Cripple BYOD?
• What’s in Your Smartphone?
• Freedom vs. Control
• BYOD–The Hottest Trend or Just the Hottest Term
• Here's Help for Mobile Security
• Cellphone Surveillance Explodes

Technorati Tags: F5, smartphone, integration, byod, Pete Silva, security, business, education, technology, application delivery,ipad,mobile device, context-aware,android, iPhone, web, internet, security

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Infographic: Protect Yourself Against Cybercrime

Maybe I’ll start doing an ‘Infographic Friday’ to go along with Lori’s F5 Friday.  This one comes to us from  Rasmussen College's School of Technology and Design Cyber Security Program and shows the online risks and offers some good tips on how to better protect your computer and avoid being a victim of cybercrime.

 

ps

Related:

• The Changing Security Threat Landscape Infographic
• The Cloud Impact and Adoption Infographic
• Invasion of Privacy - Mobile App Infographic Style
• What’s in Your Smartphone?
• Infographic: How to Escape Being a Cybercrime Victim

Technorati Tags: F5, smartphone, integration, byod, Pete Silva, security, business, education, technology, application delivery,ipad,mobile device, context-aware,android, iPhone, web, internet, security

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BIG-IP Edge Client v1.0.4 for iOS

If you are running the BIG-IP Edge Client on your iPhone, iPod or iPad, you may have gotten an AppStore alert for an update.  If not, I just wanted to let you know that version 1.0.4 of the iOS Edge Client is available at the AppStore.

The main updates in v1.0.4:

• IPv6 Support
• Localization
• New iPad Retina Graphics

The BIG-IP Edge Client application from F5 Networks secures and accelerates mobile device access to enterprise networks and applications using SSL VPN and optimization technologies. Access is provided as part of an enterprise deployment of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager, Edge Gateway, or FirePass SSL-VPN solutions.  BIG-IP Edge Client for iOS Features:

Provides accelerated mobile access when used with F5 BIG-IP Edge Gateway.

Automatically roams between networks to stay connected on the go.

Full Layer 3 network access to all your enterprise applications and files.

I updated mine today without a problem.

ps

Related:

• iDo Declare: iPhone with BIG-IP
• F5 Announces Two BIG-IP Apps Now Available at the App Store
• F5 BIG-IP Edge Client App
• F5 BIG-IP Edge Portal App
• F5 BIG-IP Edge Client Users Guide
• iTunes App Store
• Securing iPhone and iPad Access to Corporate Web Applications – F5 Technical Brief
• Audio Tech Brief - Secure iPhone Access to Corporate Web Applications
• New iOS Edge Client

Technorati Tags: F5, infrastructure 2.0, integration, cloud connect, Pete Silva, security, business, education, technology, application delivery, ipad, cloud, context-aware,infrastructure 2.0, iPhone, web, internet, security, hardware, audio, whitepaper, apple, iTunes

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Dreaming of Work

Say What?!?  Instead of counting sheep, I can count how many emails I need to answer in the morning?  Sure can…at least according to a recent Good Technology survey that indicates that we are working more – an average of 7 hours more per week - but it’s on our own schedule.  More than 80% of working adults in the U.S. continue to work when they have left the office adding another 30 work hours per month.  Most say it’s to stay organized, but others feel they must due to customer needs and the fact that workers find it hard to switch to off work mode when they get home.  Half of us even take the mobile device to bed and answer emails under the covers.  Amazingly, over half of those surveyed also noted that there was no argument from the significant other about the additional home-work.  The mix of personal and work lives are blurring even more.

Our mobile, always-on lifestyle is appreciated by both organizations and workers alike.  Organizations see increased productivity while workers like the freedom to get their work done wherever and whenever.  Of course, data security is always paramount and John Herrema, Good’s SVP of Corporate Strategy said, “When it comes to supporting a ‘bring your own device’ environment, it’s important to take an approach that ensures data security without compromising the employee's privacy or personal experiences. By shifting their management focus from 'devices' to 'apps' and 'data', enterprises can allow employees to get work done on the go whenever they want, and still keep personal information private, separate and safe.”

The study also revealed:

• 68 percent of people check their work emails before 8 a.m.
• The average American first checks their phone around 7:09 a.m.
• 50 percent check their work email while still in bed
• The work day is growing – 40 percent still do work email after 10 p.m.
• 69 percent will not go to sleep without checking their work email
• 57 percent check work emails on family outings
• 38 percent routinely check work emails while at the dinner table

…and the Infographic:

 

ps

References:

• Good Technology Survey Reveals Americans are Working More, but on their Own Schedule
• 80 Percent Of Americans Spend An Extra Day A Week Working After Hours, New Survey Says
• Smartphones Add Hours to the Work Week
• 80% of Americans work an extra 30 hours a month on their own time
• Device-free Days Off: 3 Tips for Powering Down
• Work and personal life blend as people stay in the loop while on the go
• Will BYOL Cripple BYOD?
• What’s in Your Smartphone?
• Freedom vs. Control
• BYOD–The Hottest Trend or Just the Hottest Term

Technorati Tags: F5, smartphone, integration, byod, Pete Silva, security, business, education, technology, application delivery,ipad,mobile device, context-aware,android, iPhone, web, internet, security

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Cloud vs Cloud

The Battle of the Clouds

Aloha!  Welcome ladies and gentleman to the face off of the decade.  The Battle of the Clouds.  In this corner, the up and comer, the phenom that has changed the way IT works, wearing the light shorts - The Cloud!  And in this corner, your reigning champ, born and bred of Mother Nature with unstoppable power, wearing the dark trunks - Storm Clouds!  

You’ve either read about or lived through the massive storm that hit the Mid-Atlantic coast last week.  And, by the way, if you are going through a loss, damage or worse, I do hope you can recover quickly and wish you the best.   The weather took out power for millions including a Virginia ‘cloud’ datacenter which hosts a number of entertainment and social media sites.  Many folks looking to get thru the candle-lit evenings were without their fix.  While there has been confusion and growing pains over the years as to just what ‘cloud computing’ is, this instance highlights the fact that even The Cloud is still housed in a data center, with four walls, with power pulls, air conditioning, generators and many of the features we’ve become familiar with ever since the early days of the dot com boom (and bubble).   They are physical structures, like our homes, that are susceptible to natural disasters among other things.  Data centers have outages all the time but a single traditional data center outage might not get attention since it may only involve a couple companies – when a ‘cloud’ data center crashes, it could impact many companies and like last week, it grabbed headlines.

Business continuity and disaster recovery are one of the main concerns for organizations since they rely on their system’s information to run their operations.  Many companies use multiple data centers for DR and most cloud providers offer multiple cloud ‘locations’ as a service to protect against the occasional failure.   But it is still a data center and most IT professionals have come to accept that a data center will have an outage – it’s just a question of how long and what impact or risk is introduced.  In addition, you need the technology in place to be able to swing users to other resources when a outage occurs.   A good number of companies don’t have a disaster recovery plan however, especially when backing up their virtual infrastructure in multiple locations.  This can be understandable for a smaller start ups if backing up data means doubling their infrastructure (storage) costs but can be double disastrous for a large multi-national corporation. 

While most of the data center services have been restored and the various organizations are sifting through the ‘what went wrong’ documents, it is an important lesson in redundancy….or the risk of lack of.  It might be an acceptable risk and a conscious decision since redundancy comes with a cost – dollars and complexity.  A good read about this situation is Ben Coe’s My Friday Night With AWS.

The Cloud has been promoting (and proven to some extent) it’s resilience, DR capabilities and it’s ability to technologically recover quickly yet Storm Clouds have proven time and again, that it’s power is unmatched…especially when you need power to turn on a data center. 

ps

Resources

• Virginia Storm Knocks Out Popular Websites
• Millions without power as heat wave hammers eastern US
• Amazon Power Outage Exposes Risks Of Cloud Computing
• My Friday Night With AWS
• Modern life halted as Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram go down
• Storm Blamed for Instagram, Netflix, and Foursquare Outages
• (Real) Storm Crushes Amazon Cloud, Knocks out Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram

Technorati Tags: F5, cloud research, integration, cloud computing, Pete Silva, security, business, technology, cloud, aws,disaster recovery, web,internet

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