December Roundup: Top IT Industry Articles
Posted on Wed, Jan 04, 2012 @ 03:48 PM
Each month our team sifts through tons of technology-related articles to compile highlights into a monthly recap for our readers. December’s top stories include a range of hot topics, such as: consumerization and the cloud, IT staffing, BYOD, and application security.
Consumerization and the Cloud
Was 2011 the year that cloud computing shook your data center? Eric Knorr (@EricKnorr) argues that it was in his InfoWorld article (requires registration).
"We're at the beginning of a very long ascent skyward, with many convoluted twists and turns along the way … Ultimately, IT's mission is to deliver applications -- either bought or built for the business.”
Gartner follows the move to the cloud in its 2012 IT predictions, and Jon Stokes’ (@jonstokes) Wired article, Gartner: 2012 Will Be the Year of Apocalyptic Reckoning for CIOs, lays out just how the move to the cloud and more consumerized IT affects business operations, processes and overall IT spending.
Speaking of consumerization, InfoWorld’s Galen Gruman (@MobileGalen) lists technology consumers have (or should have) a handle on in his article, Hands Off, IT: 5 Key Technologies Users Must Own. He argues that for IT to provide the best support to its environment, it must understand and accommodate employee control of more personal, accessible, front-end technologies, such as:
- Mobile devices
- Cloud computing services
- Social technology
- Exploratory analytics
- Specialty applications
To let end users take advantage of the above technologies, says Gruman, Forrester suggests IT shifts focus to overarching, back-end technologies, like collaboration software, file syncing, technology as a service, mobile device management (MDM) and more.
Organization Update: IT Staffing in 2012
Can You Keep Your IT Staff in 2012? According to the Network World article by Carolyn Duffy Marsan (@techoptimist), IT staff retention is poised to be a top CIO challenge in 2012, fueled by the following.
- Corporate IT hiring is on the rise, tempting current IT staff with new opportunities.
- Younger IT professionals change jobs more frequently, often with less than two years in the same position.
- Retiring baby boomers, a trend that will continue over the next couple decades.
Bill Snyder (@BSnyderSF) brings up another potential cause for the staffing challenge: while IT employment is on the rise, certified IT jobs are paying less—they’ve reached a 12-year low.
BYOD
As employees increasingly use personal devices for business purposes, the need for complete organizational network and endpoint security becomes more evident.
Ellen Messmer’s (@ellenmessmer) Network World article, Security Minefield: BYOD Will Bedevil IT Security in 2012, calls 2012 the year when IT managers “will be forced to come to grips with the security consequences of their own decisions to virtualize their networks.” Messmer lists data-loss prevention, encryption, and continual security vendor assessment as security controls to consider when assessing IT security.
For additional solutions to manage mobile devices and back-end BYOD technology in your environment, check out the following Information Week articles:
BYOD food for thought: Many consider mobile device management (MDM) and BYOD to be interchangeable, but in his Tech Target article, Jack Madden (@jackmadden) differentiates MDM and BYOD with the equation “MDM + employees paying for their own phones ≠ BYOD.” While some of the argument may be semantics, it’s still a good point that fuels discussion around BYOD policies, and should be clarified for staff and management.
Security Spotlight: Applications
Wired’s Threat Level reports: 8 out of 10 software applications fail to meet a security assessment, according to a State of Software Security report by Veracode. Enterprise desktop, web and mobile applications with loopholes and flaws are a hacker’s haven in gaining access to your corporate environment. Ensure flaws like cross-site scripting or SQL injection are tested for, and not present on enterprise apps before they’re white-listed for your end users.
Your Turn
What were some of your favorite IT reads from December? What topics are top-of-mind that you’d like to see featured in future monthly roundups? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
This post is an MCPc blogging team collaboration.
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