It's finally May and the Sun is shining in West Michigan but "Clouds" will be in the future.

This has been a real virtual week for me. I have been to several meetings over the past months in coffee houses throughout West Michigan. I recently had the pleasure of attending a meeting at the "home office" of an executive of a local business that like many enterprises does not lease or own any commercial office space. Although the meeting was technical in nature, we did discuss the benefits of having a virtual organization composed of both full time and virtual (part time and as needed) staff, geographically dispersed. Not only does it save both the employer and employee expenses, (and provides the world with a greener environment) it provides the enterprise the ability to have their talent strategically located in diverse areas that can better respond to the business. We had a face to face meeting but it could have been done using any one of several web conference tools such as Webx (c) and Go To Meeting (c).

This brings me to one of the most powerful capabilities of the Internet. That is the ability to provide services to business and consumers that at one time required a dedicated computer. Google is offering an "Office" package to users and many firms are offering core business packages such as Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management. Today, the term we use is Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS). Years ago, prior to the advent of the PC, several companies offered services over phone dial up. One of the major time sharing vendors was General Electric’s Information Services Business Division, who many consider the founder of this concept. Time sharing companies provided many of the features we see today in Cloud Computing (but lacked Graphical User Interfaces and speed).

Today we can "rent" specialized services over the Internet, paying for what we need, when we need it. We can be certain that we will have virtually 24 hour availability and that our data will be secure. Many of these applications can be customized to the needs of the users. These applications can interface to in house systems via “web services”. Since these systems are offered on monthly and annual fee structures, they may afford the users the opportunity of procuring the services using Operating rather than Capital Budgets.

Implementing these systems is best done with the assistance of an independent technical consultant such as Ada Business Technology who has expertise in SaaS and Cloud Computing. Please visit our web site at http://wwww.adabustech.com/ . Please feel free to contact me at support@AdaBusTech.com .

....Mark

A Visit to the Henry Ford Museum - A look at American Ingenuity

This weekend we visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MI. It is a huge museum that showed America's manufacturing creativity from the mid 1800’s to the present. I am always amazed how Mr. Ford developed the first real assembly line. For $500 one could buy a model T Ford and get it in any color, as long as it was black. Talking to the museum folks I learned that the Mr. Ford had wanted to offer other colors but each color took different times to dry and that would impact production.

It was also interesting to learn about patent issues that Mr. Ford and others faced, such as a patent challenge over Gasoline Engines (he won). The need to keep the details of the product designs confidential was also evident throughout the tour.

That brings me to a great lecture I attended this week at the Grand Rapids Information Security Systems Association given by Steve Lassig on Data Loss Protection. Today we still face many of the same challenges that Mr. Ford faced when he as making the Model T. There is technology available today to assist in the identification and prevention of data loss, but it all starts with the need for management awareness and commitment. In many ways we are lucky that state and federal requirements are bringing this awareness to the forefront.

Many organizations today require the support of an independent consultant, such as Ada Business Technology to assist in the creation a comprehensive security plan and provide their leadership in the implementation. The question that each enterprise must ask themselves is: What is the cost of not implementing a comprehensive security plan?

Please feel free to contact me at mshurr@AdaBusTech.com and visit our site at http://www.adabustech.com/

Thoughts of Spring and a recovering economy

It has been a great week for us here in West Michigan. Our family from Long Island was up here to spend the week with us. It looks like it is finally spring time and maybe for the economy as well. The Wall Street Journal was actually somewhat optimistic about the economy. On the downside it looks like our Electrical Grid has been hacked and it will take a lot of work to fix that.

That brings me to the point of Information Security. It has been statistically shown that most of the damage done to organizations has been done by people working for, or who have worked for an organization. The Electrical Grid issue shows us the importance of good Intrusion Detection and Intrusion Prevention systems. It is a good time for all enterprises to take a second look at their network and computer security.

With the economy apparently starting to recover this is a great time for business’s to review their Information Technology needs and work with consultants such as Ada Business Technology to uncover how Information Technology can provide them the competitive edge whether it’s a new ERP system, Customer Relationship Management System or integrating manufacturing process with back end systems to gain better control of the manufacturing process and optimize production.

I hope everyone enjoys the warmer weather and the less gruesome financial news….Mark

http://www.adabustech.com/
mshurr@AdaBusTech.com

The Snow Train and Security

Last weekend we traveled north to take a ride on the Sault Ste. Marie Snow Train. It was a wonderful 9 hour trip from the town to a site 114 miles north of the town. We passed through snow covered terrain with beautiful white lakes and mountains. We were so far from civilization that after mile 30 there was no cell phone service.

Crossing the border to Canada we were briefly stopped and asked a few casual questions. Going back into the U.S. we underwent a brief but much more comprehensive screening. I was pleased to see that the security procedure included the basic tenants of a good security plan including, people, process and technology.

This was indeed a week of security. I attended a presentation at the Grand Rapids AimWest technology organization given by the acting CIO of the State of Michigan, The speaker spoke about the impact of Integrity Theft. This was clearly an issue that affects anyone that uses a computer and as the speaker stated, may impact the work place more then Identify Theft.

The next security presentation on the agenda was back in one of my favorite areas the IBM mid range server community. At the West Michigan Systems User’s Group a presentation on securing the IBM i (aka. iSeries, AS400) was given. The speaker covered the basics of locking down the mid range server and basic forensics.

Information Security is not only an IT issue it is an issue that everyone must be cognizant of. All of the speakers had similar messages. Only a few years ago the hacker was someone who wanted to show their technical expertise. Today it is individuals that want to illegally profit off of others. We all must do our part to protect our data and the information of our organizations we work fo

Thinking of enterprise security while it snows in Ada

Throughout most of the month of February there has been little snow; however, today that has changed. As I am writing this entry into the blog I am watching the snow cover the beautiful pond outside.

Yesterday I attended my first ISSA meeting in Grand Rapids. The guest speaker was discussing the security challenges that face us with in the virtual machine and network world. The greatest fear is from malicious attacks we may face from unknown threats. I was extremely impressed by the members attending the presentation. These are security experts but everyone seemed to be realistic in their approaches.

Each organization must decide for itself what threat avoidance and detection steps (such as software, appliances etc) they must take to reasonable defend their organizations. I believe that the major enterprises (both business and governmental) are taking reasonable steps. My concern is with the small to mid sized organization (under 500 employees). These organizations may need an independent evaluation by someone who has both the technical and managerial skills to make the right decisions.

An exciting week for Ada Business Technology

It has been an interesting week in West Michigan for me (and very little snow). I had the opportunity to attend two technology sessions and visit several great organizations in the Grand Rapids area.

One of the technical sessions was a discussion by CIO's of major enterprises discussing the future of IT at their organizations. These organizations continue to prosper during this challenging time and they believed that this was due, in part, the their respective organizations reliance on IT as a strategic asset. Additionally each CIO stated that they expect their teams to understand their businesses and use technology, not for technology's sake but as a tool to better their organizations. To me, this re-enforces the corporate theme of "Understanding the Business of Business" .

This week my article entitled Master of disaster: Basic primer offers step-by-step recovery planning for the SMB was published by Manufacturing Business Technology.

We are preparing a presentation for ARMA entitled “Geek Talk 101 – communicating RM concepts in an IT language” that will be given on February 5th at Farmer/Foremost in Caledonia.

Coming back from Long Island

Just returned from Long Island where it was snowing. Wow is it cold here. Our pipes in the laundry room froze, and this is a relatively new house. The plumber came with an old battery charger and heated the lines.

Working on several exciting items including a presentation entitled “Geek Talk 101 – Communicating RIM Concepts in an IT Language” that will be given on Feb 5th to ARMA.

Making a few changes to the web page and delving into Salesforce.com. Created VB application that interfaces via their API.

Will be attending the Aimwest and the Fourth Friday Technology meetings this week.