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LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 00 Hot Topics Forum - Client Forum Program Brochure

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:03:13 -0600

This annual update of hot topics in IT reflects the whirl of activity going on at the platform level, key movements in the application arena, network monitoring (do you know what's really happening on your network?) and perhaps the "hottest" of the hot topics, green IT and what the IT organization can do to enable a greener enterprise.

Client forums are intimate, 2-day programs that give you an opportunity to explore important technology issues in depth with industry leaders, CSC experts and clients from government and commercial sectors.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 01 The Linux Desktop: Ready for Prime Time - Guy Lunardi, Novell

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:15:09 -0600

The Linux desktop has finally emerged as a serious contender in the enterprise. Not only is it more secure, stable and open than a Windows desktop, but the Linux desktop is now available preloaded on laptops from the leading hardware manufacturers. Today's Linux desktop comes with all the key software required by today's end users: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail, Web browser and instant messenger and is priced at less than 10% of a comparably equipped Windows suite. Because it is built using open source development models, the Linux desktop is able to incorporate new features much more quickly than traditional desktop operating systems (e.g., new three-dimensional graphics and integrated desktop virtualization).

Using real customer examples, Guy Lunardi, will cover how Linux desktops are being deployed in enterprises around the globe, and where the Linux desktop is going tomorrow

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 02 Microsoft Vista - Think Platform, Not Operating System - Rick Muñoz, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:20:13 -0600

With the release of Microsoft Windows Vista, the IT industry intensified its discussion of what Vista means to enterprise IT. This presentation takes a long-term view of Vista as well as the overall Microsoft technology stack, and it examines how Microsoft is planting the seeds to dominate the software space, consumer and enterprise, well into the next decade.

Starting with Vista, Microsoft is positioning to be something we haven’t seen in over 20 years: a complete end-to-end (full stack) software technology provider for businesses. The last time a single vendor was able to claim a complete set of solutions and technologies was many decades ago, when IBM dominated the mainframe hardware, software and applications market.

Rick Muñoz will discuss the importance for business and IT leaders of seeing Microsoft’s potential impact on the enterprise far into the future and the challenges facing Microsoft from Web 2.0, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and open source.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 02a Microsoft Vista - Think Platform, Not Operating System - Rick Muñoz, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:45:26 -0600

Grant report on Microsoft Vista

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 03 Road to Fusion: Complete and Standards-Based Architecture - Jason Williamson, Oracle

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:25:15 -0600

"Road to Modernization and SOA" is an Oracle program to make all of its applications SOA/business process enabled and truly plug-and-play so they not only work together, but can be extended into any enterprise that adopts a modern, standards-based architecture. Oracle achieved the vision of developing a standards-based business platform through acquisitions and internal development investments. This modernization exercise allowed Oracle to better understand and help its customers modernize their own IT applications and infrastructures and prepare for Fusion.

Oracle created a modernization program to assist customers in defining their modernization requirements, justifying their business case, prioritizing their projects and working with Oracle partners like CSC to deliver their personalized modernization programs.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 04 Intelligent Enterprise: Leveraging On-Stream Analytics and Terabytes of DataXUsing the Appliance Advantage - Jim Baum, Netezza

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:28:29 -0600

Organizations today need to do more than just collect and analyze large stores of data. To really perform well, they need deeper insights into their operational data, allowing users across the extended enterprise to make better and more timely decisions, and to not only understand past trends but better predict future patterns. Further, as data volumes explode, the standard architectures applied to such analytical requirements limit the ability of organizations to execute according to those pressing requirements.

Jim Baum will describe how Netezza and its unique architectural approach puts those analytical performance requirements within reach of any organization, and empowers the organization to advance them even further. By moving the analytics on stream, Netezza removes the performance compromises, reduces time-to-results and allows organizations to view massive data sets as strategic assets, not as technical liabilities.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 05 Virtualization for Today's Enterprise - Dane Smith, VMware

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:30:54 -0600

Virtualization is an abstraction layer that allows multiple virtual machines with heterogeneous operating systems to run in isolation side-by-side on the same physical machine. By decoupling the physical hardware from the operating system, virtualization also allows the enterprise to:

1) Create fully configured, isolated virtual machines with their own set of virtual hardware to run an operating system and applications

2) Rapidly save, copy and provision virtual machines that can be moved from one physical server to another for workload consolidation and zero downtime maintenance

Dane Smith will discuss how VMware solutions simplify IT so companies can leverage their storage, network and computing resources to control costs and respond faster.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 06 Application "Fabrics" for the Most Demanding Business Applications - Bob Lozano, Appistry

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:32:45 -0600

Organizations constantly push the boundaries for large-scale, mission-critical applications: more scale, higher performance, lower cost and easier operation. Whether using service-oriented, event-driven or some other overall architectural approach, organizations must invariably grapple with the traditional "-ilities" (i.e., reliability, scalability and agility).

Bob Lozano will explore an emerging solution to these challenges for the most demanding applications: application fabric software. By providing a framework that abstracts applications from the infrastructure on which they run, fabric-based approaches are enabling high-quality service for demanding tasks such as extreme volume data and transaction processing and real-time data analytics.

Bob will discuss:
1) Challenges faced by organizations seeking to deploy mission-critical, service-oriented, event-driven applications on a large scale

2) A survey of traditional technology approaches as seen in practice, as well as Google’s commodity-based approach to deploying its application portfolio

3) A technical overview of application fabric technologies

4) Case studies outlining fabric-based applications in practice, from both a technical and a business perspective, offer a glimpse into the likely evolutionary path of these important new enterprise application platforms

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 07 Green IT: Moving Beyond the 2% Solution - Doug Neal, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:35:13 -0600

CSC’s LEF Executive Programme has been working with Yale Professor Dan Esty, author of Green to Gold, to develop a holistic view of the challenges and opportunities of this new corporate social responsibility frontier. In reviewing numbers with Dan and his team, the Executive Programme realized that even if we could wave a magic wand and reduce computer power use to zero, we would be dealing only with 2% of the overall environmental problem.

While there is certainly money on the table for firms that clean up their data centers, the longer-term issue is how to use IT to help address the other 98% of the problem. This creates a wide range of opportunities for IT executives to demonstrate leadership inside the firm and in collaboration with partners.

Doug Neal will review the findings from the Executive Programme’s recent Green IT study tour and discuss how firms should proceed.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 07a EPA Report on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:46:04 -0600

On August 2, 2007 and in response to Public Law 109-431 the U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR Program released to Congress a report assessing opportunities for energy efficiency improvements for government and commercial computer servers and data centers in the United States.

Watch energy star podcasts and download reports by clicking on this feed.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 08 Excellent Visibility: The Visualization of the Physical Enterprise and Operations Workflow - Dan Munyan, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:51:25 -0600

Successful global organizations are extending their infrastructure, installations and workforce. Governments are reacting with increased regulation to ensure the safety of strategic assets as well as the health and safety of their citizens working for multinational organizations. Shareholders and directors are demanding a greater degree of accountability and responsibility across their global organizations. News media throughout the world report on a 24/7 schedule on failures of due diligence and due care. What each entity is looking for is greater visibility into the operations of large-scale organizations.

Visibility is defined as the ability to detect, classify, identify, track and assign attributes to a person, vehicle, fixed asset or infrastructure. Visibility can be expressed as a location, position, presence or identity. Visibility can be acquired through a host of sensor systems, location technologies and communication systems. Visibility gains business value through the integration of physical presence data with historical attributes and current context from dynamic real-time information about the people, vehicles, assets and infrastructure being visualized.

Dan Munyan will discuss companies taking advantage of the dynamic changes in geospatial technology, video analytics, international radio frequency standards and integration toolsets to visualize their organizations, workflows and business processes.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 09 Mashups: What Value Do They Bring to Enterprises, and How Do You Do Them Safely? - Dan Malks, JackBe

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:53:08 -0600

Described by Gartner as a Top 10 Enterprise Technology for 2008, enterprise mashups can provide a valuable solution to solving critical business problems quickly and easily. Can you define a mashup? To which problem areas do enterprise mashups apply best? How do you implement mashups safely and securely? Who else is implementing them? Dan Malks will address these questions through case studies, live demos and practical technical discussion.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 10 Knowledge Management in a Web 2.0 World - Pablo Bermejo García, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:56:30 -0600

With Web 2.0, a new collaboration culture has emerged that must be embraced by the enterprise to improve current knowledge management (KM) systems. Traditional KM focuses on capturing knowledge in document repositories and sharing it through groupware tools and corporate portals, fragile environments that can frustrate users.

Companies need to mitigate this demise of KM by taking advantage of Web 2.0 technologies (e.g., blogs, wikis, RSS, social bookmarking and mashups), building a new strategy focused on social networks and the flow of knowledge between people in those networks. Web 2.0 tools solve this by means of sharing, pulling, subscribing to and publishing knowledge. Above all, they connect knowledge workers, who are more willing to share knowledge, collaborate and innovate using tools they already know and like. The new enterprise strategies based on Web 2.0 technologies form Enterprise Web 2.0.

Pablo Bermejo García will present the results of his LEF Grant research on adopting an Enterprise Web 2.0 solution for KM, analyzing business values, benefits and risks and providing recommendations for security, governance, legal regulations and best practices. He will also demonstrate a proposed solution for an Enterprise Web 2.0 strategy for KM at CSC.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 10a Knowledge Management in a Web 2.0 World - Pablo Bermejo García, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:53:23 -0600

Grant report on Knowledge Management in a Web 2.0 World

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 11 Network Monitoring 2.0: What's Really Happening on Your Network? - Joe Loiacono, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:57:47 -0600

The stakes for network availability and performance at modern enterprises are huge and growing. Customers, partners and employees expect the network to be available and responsive 24 hours a day. In today’s world of global e-commerce, the lifeblood of business courses through the network. Many network managers still rely almost exclusively on SNMP to monitor network bandwidth. But while SNMP facilitates capacity planning, it does little to characterize traffic. The real power behind understanding a network lies in the ability to exploit NetFlow data. NetFlow data is exported freely from network devices and is a gold mine of information about the use of the network. Today, this data is readily available but hard to analyze without significant investment.

This was the challenge facing NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) network in 2005. CSC was tasked to capture and provide the ability to analyze the network’s NetFlow data. CSC responded by developing FlowViewer, a NetFlow analysis tool that enables EOS network engineers and managers to easily, flexibly, thoroughly and inexpensively analyze their network. FlowViewer, now available as an open source network management system tool, has been downloaded over 1,000 times around the world. CSC provides installation and consulting services for NetFlow data and FlowViewer, which earned the CSC Award for Technical Excellence in 2007.

LEF Forum - Apr 2008 - Hot Topics - 12 Digital Disruptions: Throwing Business Models into Turmoil (Preview) - Alex Fuss, CSC

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:00:12 -0600

If you thought the Industrial Revolution was disruptive, "you ain’t seen nothin’ yet." With the advent of ubiquitous and inexpensive digital capability and capacity, the world, argues Harvard professor Yochai Benkler in his book, The Wealth of Networks, is rapidly exiting the industrial information economy. This economy merely placed an information layer atop the hard goods-based industrial economy. The world is now hurtling fullforce into a networked information economy, where value is found predominantly in the production, enhancement and sharing of informational and cultural content.

Alex Fuss will preview CSC's thinking on digital disruptions that are rapidly impacting today's business models and will continue to do so at accelerating rates. These disruptions include new media, virtual worlds, social power, information transparency, digital spectrum, new platforms and smart(er) everything. Don't be caught unprepared.

Note: The full report on digital disruptions will be presented at the LEF Client Forum in October 2008.

LEF Grants - 2008 - SOA Frameworks - R.Raju

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:33:51 -0600

Service-oriented architecture is increasingly becoming the IT architectural paradigm of choice for many organizations in the commercial and government sectors. A large number of SOA frameworks, methodologies, and models are emerging to help address the need for managing the complexity of an SOA implementation. This session, based on research conducted under a CSC Grant, explores some of these approaches to evaluate how they could potentially help clients with SOA adoption.

LEF Grants - 2008 - Distributed Development Solutions - H.Liang

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:34:03 -0700

As more and more companies locate processes and teams around the world, it becomes increasingly important to refine processes for working with distributed teams. This in itself is not new. Before, users might have been located on the third floor, project managers on the sixth, and programmers in the next building. Now, more often than not, software development teams are spread around the world, with users in London, management in Chicago, and programmers in Los Angeles, Hyderabad and Beijing.

The scattering of team members and functions around the world introduces barriers to productivity that transcend mere distance. Time zone differences can wreak havoc on project schedules. Cultural and language differences can lead to understanding of requirements. Isolation can hamper effective project leadership and management. The failure of distributed project teams to work together results in late nights, extra hours, schedule delays, cost overruns, and sometimes outright failure of the project.

A host of tools has recently emerged to help address the problems of coordinating software development across distributed teams. Major industry trends, from open source software to agile methods to Web 2.0, have all contributed to the growth and evolution of tools available to distributed teams.

This grant conducts a landscape review of major tools and techniques for managing and executing distributed software development projects. The briefing begins with an overview of major industry trends that have shaped the current landscape of tools for collaborative development. The report provides an overview of the major types of tools available for coordinating and managing distributed development teams, as well as tools designed to streamline or enrich communication among development teams in general.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2008 - Digital Trust - Vol 7

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:54:13 -0700

"Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often," said oft-misquoted Mark Twain. We learn at a young age that trust is earned through deeds, not empty promises. But there’s also that intangible "though not infallible" gut feeling that either draws us toward someone or warns us away.

As difficult as it is to gauge the trustworthiness of a person standing right in front of you, it is nearly impossible to accurately determine which of the millions of online claims are valid. Lacking any kind of specific metrics, how do we calculate the weight of digital trust?

That’s the question put forth by Transparency and Assurance: Putting a Measure on Digital Trust, the seventh of eight volumes in which CSC’s Leading Edge Forum (LEF) examines digital trust, a strategy for enhancing business value with security services and technologies while still addressing information risks.

LEF Grants - 2008 - Emerging SOA Security Standards- A.Wilson

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:35:56 -0700

The flat world has a dark side. There is a rogue's gallery of hackers, virus authors, phishers, unscrupulous competitors, industrial spies, cyber terrorists, unfriendly nations and scam artists. They are ready to take advantage of any vulnerability that an organization may inadvertently expose to the world in the process of implementing a service-oriented architecture to join the flat world.

In this briefing, Andrew Wilson reviews his CSC technology grant project. Topics he addressed during his research included:
1) SOA security, including message-level security, security as a service and declarative and policy-based security.
2) Recent developments in cryptography and denial of service attack mitigation, and how SOA can allow organizations to adapt to these developments to provide "algorithm agility."
3) Recent developments in standards for Web services security, including WS-Federation and the Liberty Alliance ID-WSF.
4) The relationship between SOA security and Event-Driven Architecture and Model-Driven Architecture, and the crucial topic of secure service composition. The fruitful cross-fertilization happening between SOA security and recent security developments in related areas of computing including the Semantic Web, aspect-oriented programming, multi-agent systems, bio-networking, autonomic computing, ubiquitous computing and grid computing. SOA security in general can benefit from the rich variety of innovations that have been developed in these subfields to address security requirements.

The current embryonic state of design patterns for SOA security.

The impact of developments in Identity 2.0 and government identity federation initiatives on SOA security, including the move toward a more user-centric view of identity.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 00 Digital Trust - Client Forum Program Brochure

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 16:09:59 -0600

In the business world, the handshake is a symbol of trust and acceptance. Similarly, in the digital world a context of trust must exist for business to thrive. This forum will explore technology’s contribution to trust. How is digital trust becoming more and more important to the value chains that operate over the networked enterprise? How are enterprises using digital trust to increase value and capture value potential, going beyond the traditional emphasis on reducing the risk of loss for value that already exists?

This forum probes key issues in digital trust, reflecting over a year of LEF research that has culminated in the newest LEF report, Digital Trust. During the two-day forum, digital trust approaches and outcomes in the key issue areas of identity management, intellectual property protection, compliance management, liquid security, eThreats and countermeasures, and assurance and transparency will be examined, and the growing importance of a digital trust technology strategic roadmap will be discussed. The reality of digital trust is unmistakable. The forum concludes with how digital trust is best used, opening the way for organizations to "shake hands" with their digital enterprise and generate business value with digital trust.

Client forums are intimate, two-day programs that give you an opportunity to explore important technology issues in depth with industry leaders, CSC experts and clients from government and commercial sectors. The forum will be small and highly interactive. You will be able to explore and share ideas with speakers and participants during all sessions.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 01 Digital Trust Overview: Ron Knode, CSC

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:11:31 -0600

In the business world, the handshake is a symbol of trust and acceptance. Similarly, in the digital world a context of trust must exist for business to thrive.What is technology’s contribution to trust? How is "digital trust" becoming more and more important to the value chains that operate over the networked enterprise? How are enterprises using digital trust to increase value and capture value potential, going beyond the traditional emphasis on reducing the risk of loss for value that already exists?

Ron Knode will explore key issues in digital trust, reviewing the results of his research as presented in the newest LEF report, Digital Trust. During the two-day forum, digital trust approaches and outcomes in the key issue areas of identity management, intellectual property protection, compliance management, liquid security, eThreats and countermeasures, and assurance and transparency will be examined, and the growing importance of a digital trust technology strategic roadmap will be discussed.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 02 Border Control: Alberto Buonocore Caccialupi, CSC

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:11:31 -0600

Biometrics deliver substantial digital trust for identification. But for some situations, trusted identities are only part of the problem. One country, a signatory to the 1985 Schengen Agreement in Europe about border control, needed a way to verify immigrant and tourist populations at several hundred border posts. International passports, European Union visas and national "permit of stay" verifications had to be handled quickly for millions of travelers, many of whom could have entered the Schengen region, which includes all EU countries and many other countries in Europe, in places other than this particular country.

CSC solved the problem by joining two digital trust techniques: RFID for passport protection (intellectual property protection) and fingerprints for person authentication (identity management).When integrated with various forensic and threat databases, and united with an intuitive user interface and workflow engine, the result is the Border Control System. Now border control agents can concentrate on traveler behavior, with digital trust delivering the required data about the authenticity of the document and the person’s identity in just seconds. Because of this combined application of digital trust, the border crossing decision is made more quickly and accurately. The Border Control System earned the CSC Award for Technical Excellence in 2007.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 03 Trade Secret Protection at Dupont: Larry Brock, Dupont

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:11:31 -0600

The world of information security must radically change to keep up with a new class of threats.These threats are primarily coming from trusted insiders who are misusing their access rights to steal intellectual property or personal information for their own gain. It does not matter how strong a company’s perimeter defense, network access control, or intrusion prevention solution is. These types of controls do little to protect some of the company’s most valuable assets, its intellectual property, from people who have been granted access to those assets.

The challenge of protecting intellectual property goes well beyond IT and information security; it requires a holistic approach with collaborative efforts from functional groups and business units. Larry Brock will discuss a recent intellectual property incident at DuPont and the broad protection program that has since been initiated to reduce risk.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 04 Information Protection 2.0: Joe Fantuzzi, Workshare

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:11:31 -0600

Information protection is now a consumer mandate.When it affected anonymous people, few of us cared. But when the loss of intellectual property or privacy became personal, as it has for over 200 million people worldwide as reported over the past two years, we all started to care.

Early approaches and solutions in information protection focused on two areas: securing network perimeters and blocking risky behavior. Those approaches were flawed in two ways. First, more than 80 percent of real losses occur at endpoints, not the network. Second, most risky behavior can only be determined by senders of the information, who should be entitled to, and held accountable for, their actions.

Information Protection 2.0 is a vision that incorporates information worker productivity. In addition to not letting bad people do bad things, the vision protects good people from inadvertently doing bad things, and enables good people to do good things and become more productive in an increasingly unproductive and compliance laden environment. Joe Fantuzzi explores this new vision through the lens of reality.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 05 Getting Business Value Out of IT Security: Dennis Heretick, U.S. Department of Justice

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:11:31 -0600

In a world laden with IT compliance requirements, how can the enterprise both comply and generate business value from information security efforts? Dennis Heretick is on a mission to derive business value from FISMA, the Federal Information Security Management Act standards his organization not only complies with but has become a leader in.

The U.S. Department of Justice is one of two federal shared service centers for FISMA reporting, attracting federal customers to use its FISMA reporting solution, called the Cyber Security Assessment and Management (CSAM) system. Dennis will talk about this unique solution, created under his leadership, and how to parlay compliance into greater returns for the enterprise.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 06 Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance at ETS: Jim Moran, Educational Testing Service

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:11:31 -0600

PCI compliance is getting lots of press these days, but what is it really all about? Compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is now mandated for all large processors of credit card data. Educational Testing Service (ETS) was oneof the earliest companies to achieve PCI compliance as a large credit card merchant.

Jim Moran will present ETS’s approach to PCI compliance and discuss how the organization is changing to respond to rapidly increasing security and compliance mandates. Jim will explore the intersection of compliance and security (not always the same thing!), the specifics of PCI compliance, and perhaps the most important measures of successful risk management: customer trust and brand protection.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 07 LivePCs - Providing Liquid Security with Machine Virtualization: Monica Lam, Stanford University

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:39:16 -0600

Machine virtualization, a proven breakthrough for server consolidation, is poised to revolutionize endpoint computing. LivePC, a technology based on virtualization, allows companies to deliver fully managed virtual machines (any x86 operating system and applications) on a USB drive or over the network. These virtual machines are ready to be run on any Windows or Linux PCs, online or offline. The simplicity and convenience of LivePCs allow companies to keep up with best security practices and regulation compliance without the cost and disadvantages of thin-client computing.

Monica Lam will explain the concept of LivePCs and show how it is used for telecommuting, mobile computing, remote office administration, and even quick recovery from disasters.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 08 eThreats and Countermeasures: Johnny Long, CSC

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:39:16 -0600

Why is it that serious security problems emerge, and persist, in the digital enterprise despite an investment in digital trust technology that seems substantial and well-targeted? What does digital trust have to offer against the electronic threats (eThreats) that plague even the best built and operated systems and sites?

Using examples of four kinds of eThreats, Johnny Long will illustrate the insidious nature of eThreats and the limitations of a purely digital trust response. Peering into the dark side, he will examine cross-site scripting, phishing, public source data gathering and no-tech hacking to show why organizations must be ever-vigilant in monitoring and understanding these eThreats (and others).

Enterprises need to be aware of how attackers think and infiltrate so that countermeasures can be planned and deployed. Digital trust technologies can be applied but must be used in concert with other trust-reinforcing techniques.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 09 Monetizing Trust: Deriving Value from Digital Trust Actions and Evidence: Nigel Ravenhill, ScanAlert

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:39:16 -0600

How can claims and representations of digital trust affect value? How can organizations generate value by implementing security? What form(s) can these claims take and how can organizations measure the value(s) generated? Is there value beyond traditional metrics such as sales? Are some organizations more likely or able to generate value through security than others?

Nigel Ravenhill will explore the relationship between security and privacy issues and online consumer behavior, discussing his original research on digital window shopping behaviors. He will present case studies describing the effect of ScanAlert’s HACKER SAFE certification service as a backdrop to the larger issue of how organizations can benefit from trust.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 10 Common Criteria for Digital Trust: Charles Nightingale, CSC

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:39:16 -0600

Successful evaluation under Common Criteria (CC) standards is one way to generate evidence that a system or software has been designed and implemented to function "as advertised." Such a successful Common Criteria Testing Laboratory (CCTL) evaluation provides a form of "trust mark" for any hardware or software product completing an evaluation.

The CC is the only mutually recognized IT security standard around the world, so it represents the only current technique for digital trust in systems and software that provides a uniform structure for value generation across national boundaries. Although hard data on the ultimate value of the CC is scant, use of the CC process and evaluation at the very least can speed negotiations between parties building joint systems (e.g., different countries building joint NATO systems).

Charles Nightingale will describe the CC and CCTLs, examining the value generated from the digital trust gained from a CCTL evaluation. He will draw on a government example CSC is active in, for which the CC is being used as a qualifier for successful systems development.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 11 Identity in a SOA World: Dave Edstrom, Sun Microsystems

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:11:31 -0600

Identity management is the tail that wags theWeb services dog.Today, most people think of people or asset provisioning and access control when they think of identity management. In a Web services world, SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) has become one of the most abused buzz words around. Most people do not understand what SOA really means or what it takes to make it real.

Cutting through the fluff and over-blown promises of SOA, Dave Edstrom will provide a pragmatic way to think about and address enterprise identity management in a SOA world.

LEF Forum - Nov 2007 - Digital Trust - 12 Digital Trust Roadmap: Ron Knode, CSC

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:39:16 -0600

The reality of digital trust is unmistakable. After over 200 pages of research report, more than 800 citations of research references, and nearly two days of first-hand descriptions of experiences with digital trust and the effects of a digital trust strategy, the evidence of digital trust in the real world encourages new ways of identifying and using security technologies and processes for value generation in the enterprise.

Ron Knode will recap highlights of the forum, give us his short list of "favorite things" from digital trust technologies, and review the strategic conclusions about digital trust that cross all the volumes in the Digital Trust report. Finally, Ron will outline how digital trust is best used, and reinforce the importance of a digital trust technology strategic roadmap. This reflection will conclude the forum, but it will open the way for organizations to "shake hands" with their digital enterprise and generate business value with digital trust.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2007 - Digital Trust - Vol 6

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:03:50 -0600

eThreats and Countermeasures: Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Out (Volume 6)

You eBay. They phish. You Google. They Google hack. You surf with free Wi-Fi. They shoulder surf, gleaning confidential information from your laptop.

It's inevitable: As long as people use the Internet, others will think of new ways to exploit and profit from it. And, some of these ways defy technical security countermeasures, even those that are perfectly applied. That's the nature of the "eThreats" discussed in this report, which looks at four specific eThreats: cross-site scripting, phishing, public source information gathering (a.k.a. Google hacking) and no-tech hacking. There is no failsafe digital trust solution to these eThreats, but digital trust techniques can definitely relieve some of the pain.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2007 - Digital Trust - Vol 5

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:54:01 -0600

Liquid Security: Digital trust when time, place and platform don't matter (Volume 5)

The digital enterprise is becoming liquid. When the fixed or predictable dimensions of time, place and information technology (IT) platform become variable, the digital enterprise changes character and becomes more agile, efficient and prosperous. Work can happen around the clock, from all sorts of locations, on all manner of computers and mobile devices. This new character of the enterprise reflects the liquid properties of time, place and platform. In taking advantage of these new properties and freeing itself from traditional constraints, the liquid enterprise demands that digital trust be equally liquid to sustain value generation without making assumptions about the clock, geography or equipment involved.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2007 - Digital Trust - Vol 4

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:49:49 -0600

Compliance Management: The Business of Keeping the Business in Business (Volume 4):

This report focuses on digital trust in support of the requisite rules and regulations that govern enterprises today. Digital trust for compliance strengthens compliance itself (where the payoff is typically avoiding non-compliance) as well as the other digital trust value dimensions (intellectual property protection, identity management, liquid security, and ethreats and countermeasures). "The value propositions for digital trust in all these key areas speak more loudly because of digital trust in compliance," says Ron Knode, LEF Associate and primary contributor to the Digital Trust series.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2007 - Digital Trust - Vol 3

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:40:37 -0600

Intellectual Property Protection: Minding Your Mind Power (Volume 3):

This report examines how digital trust can be used to generate as well as preserve value in the enterprise's intellectual property. This is big business given that intellectual property represents a substantial portion of enterprise assets today.

Digital trust in systems protecting IP has become crucial to realizing and preserving value for these precious assets. Since 1999, more than 90 percent of all documents have been created in digital form. This means that the vast majority of IP is being generated, stored and protected with digital systems and software. Without digital trust, this value is in jeopardy. With digital trust, this value can be created, preserved, realized and even grown in a business model that takes full advantage of ultra-connected, high-velocity networks and systems.

LEF Technology Briefing - 2007-08-16 - Novell - Carl Drisko/Guy Lunardi

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:02:17 -0600

Open Source products and solutions are continuing to be created and mature, and collaborative development models are continuing to gain acceptance. Enterprises of all types are increasingly adopting open standards based technologies to run their businesses more efficiently and effectively.

What are some of the more innovative and emerging open source technologies? Are all open source products mature enough for all types of enterprise environments? For which specific environments does it make sense to deploy open standards based solutions? For which environments are proprietary solutions a better choice? Can both open source and proprietary products not just peacefully coexist, but work together in an integrated fashion for a company's longer term competitive advantage?

Novell is a technology leader and billion-dollar global company with a 20+ year history of delivering enterprise-class software. Novell today offers SUSE Linux Enterprise, the best-engineered, lowest-cost and most interoperable platform for enterprise computing. From the desktop to the data center, SUSE Linux Enterprise offers you a complete Linux solution for the mission-critical applications that drive your business.

Learn how Novell has reinvented itself around open source platforms and systems infrastructure software services. Learn more about our mixed source strategy. Join Carl Drisko, Director, Systems and Resource Management, and Guy Lunardi, Senior Product Manager, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, as they talk about:

- Novell's mixed source strategy
- Data Center innovations in Linux and systems and resource management
- Linux desktop innovations and adoption

LEF Technology Briefing - 2007-07-19 - Lombardi - Scott Hussey

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:53:01 -0600

Business process improvement has become a top priority for companies in 2007. In a recent survey of 1,400 CIOs by a leading analyst firm, business process management was listed as the top business priority for CIOs. This has led to a renewed focus on core business processes – how they are performed today, how they can be improved and how quickly they can be changed.

Leading companies are recognizing that enabling their business and technical teams with Business Process Management (BPM) technology and skills is the best path to driving process improvement. The ability to discover process problems, deploy new processes rapidly and drive constant process improvement delivers competitive advantage. BPM provides a new set of capabilities for organizations, but it also serves as a perfect complement to existing Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) initiatives.

Lombardi is a leader in business process management (BPM) software for Global 2000 companies. Lombardi offers award-winning technology, know-how and services to help its customers become process driven.

Lombardi offers two products to help companies plan, prioritize and execute process initiatives. To address the planning and prioritization issues organizations are challenged with today, Lombardi offers a SAAS-based process discovery and business-centric process modeling tool called Blueprint. To facilitate process execution, Lombardi's TeamWorks® is built on open standards and provides ongoing visibility and control of business processes, increasing the speed and flexibility with which organizations can manage their process activity and decision-making. Lombardi customers include Allianz Life, Aflac, Dell, Hasbro, National City, Pfizer, Pulte Mortgage, Renault F1 Team, Sprint, T-Mobile, Universal Music Group, and Wells Fargo, to name a few.

Learn how CSC and Lombardi Software are working together to realize the promise of BPM and SOA. The briefing will include

- an overview of the CSC and Lombardi Alliance
- how BPM is being used today
- an overview of Lombardi Software
- an overview of the Blueprint and TeamWorks® BPM products
- how to identify BPM projects and understand their revenue potential
- customer case study example

LEF Grants - 2007 - New Frontiers in Location Awareness - D.Munyan

Thu, 9 Aug 2007 11:42:59 -0600

Human beings have been trying to map their place on the earth for over 8,000 years. Today we navigate by satellite, pinpoint our homes on Google Earth, and know where our packages are going next. Cameras everywhere record presence, location and movement throughout our urban environments.

Yet fire fighters run in to empty burning buildings to rescue people who are not there. Healthcare systems kill 50,000 people per year by mixing up or losing track of patients. Incident commanders at natural and man-made disasters cannot account for first responders on the scene. Alzheimer's patients and unattended children wander off and are lost. Coalition commanders lose track of where troops on foot are in the fog of war, resulting in unnecessary deaths. Cars are stolen and somehow disappear from our overly mapped world. Improvised Explosive Devices are planted along roads in public view in troubled areas without any record of the crime.

Dan Munyan will examine the integration of a growing family of location awareness technologies to solve the major problems of our time. Implementation of these technologies in an innovative, integrated and economical fashion is the objective. Doing so in a way that does not jeopardize civil rights or turn us into a world of voyeurs and stalkers is the challenge.

[CSC is currently demonstrating a beta version of its innovative location tracking solution at the 2007 Tour de France cycling race, beginning on July 26, when the 17th stage of the Tour departs from Pau, and ending on July 29, as the riders roll down the Champs Elysees in Paris. www.cscomnilocation.com]

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2007 - Digital Trust - Vol 2

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:05:15 +0200

Who are you on the Net? What makes a good digital identity?

Identity Management: Digitizing Your DNA (Volume 2), addresses these questions and more as the next installment in the Leading Edge Forum's Digital Trust report series. Identity Management examines identity for human and non-human subjects (e.g., devices, bots), and explores three approaches to identity management and digital trust: the walled garden approach, federated identity management, and the open garden approach.

Unfortunately, there is no digital equivalent to DNA. The longtime search for one digital identity that works for all kinds of subjects in all contexts will probably continue, says Ron Knode, LEF Associate and primary contributor to the Digital Trust series. However, it seems neither possible nor really desirable." On the bright side, though, Ron believes "identity convergence, faster trust negotiations and the promise of Identity 2.0 'open garden' initiatives guarantee that we will need many fewer digital identifiers than we use today.

LEF Grants - 2007 - Enterprise Digital Dashboards as Rich Internet Applications - S. Shek

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:35:31 -0600

Enterprise digital dashboards are recognized as an effective tool that enables managers to make rapid and informed decisions as they provide current information about their business in real time and in a concise, easy-to-comprehend format.

In theory, Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are an ideal technology base for these dashboards, as RIAs support background data refreshes to ensure dashboards are kept up to date, and RIAs have improved visualization and interactivity features versus traditional Web applications.

This grant explores the applicability of RIA technology and various user interfaces to the development of effective digital dashboards. This was done by selecting an RIA technology, Adobe Flex, and using it to create three dashboard prototypes that tested various RIA interfaces and data feed options. The grant also aimed to develop an RIA digital dashboard platform and supporting reusable modules.

LEF Grants - 2007 - Using the ESB with e4 - E.R. Canal

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:32:15 -0600

Nowadays, if a technology consultant is asked what is cool in today’s integration marketplace, we are not surprised to hear SOA, ESB or JBI words mentioned. The once well-known EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) technology has fallen into disgrace. It is commonly associated with proprietary products, complex platforms, expensive consultants and neverending project plans. However, SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) has risen as a revolutionary way to integrate disparate applications within the enterprise; it means flexibility, uncoupled business, open standards, rapid delivery and fast return of investment.

In this integration environment, the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) is defined as the middleware infrastructure that provides the foundational services for more complex SOAs. Although the ESB is very different in its foundations than the classical EAI approach, the lead traditional integration product providers now claim their products are Enterprise Service Bus, offering the best infrastructure for Service-Oriented Integration.

This strategic movement towards the "service-oriented" label has already occurred with the major product providers. There is no time to lose, and although their products may have not changed much since they became EAI-enabled, integrators must adapt themselves to this important change.

This grant covers the different SOA visions of diverse software providers and system integrators, showing their diversity by definition and benefits provided. It also analyzes the current ESB market, suggesting categorization criteria and a reference model to fit them in. Finally, it covers the CSC e4SM architecture framework and its relationship with the ESB concept (the suggested reference model), and the diverse alternatives offered by the market.

LEF Grants - 2007 - RIA Flex and J2EE - D. Lowe

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:27:31 -0600

Web 2.0 presents the technologies and Web applications that may deliver "the promise of the Internet" and help Internet users realize what that promise really means. One characteristic of Web 2.0 applications is their rich interactive capability. These applications are commonly referred to as Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).

RIA technology is being adopted across many industry segments: finance, defense, health and retail, where companies attempt to reach customers and partners and improve internal business processes. The business benefits experienced have included highly qualified lead generation, increased sales, increased brand loyalty, more frequent revisits, longer stays on sites, reduced bandwidth costs, reduced support calls and improved presentation of enterprise data leading to better decision making by management.

The Web 2.0 movement will drive companies to evaluate their Web application strategies and will result in the increasing adoption of e-business software applications based on RIA technology. CSC has an opportunity to participate in its customers’ adoption of Web 2.0 and guide them to a best-of-breed technology that complements their overall IT strategy. Under the banner of Web 2.0 are RIAs developed using AJAX (Asynchronous Java and XML) and Flex-type technologies. RIA applications developed using Flex appear to be more compelling and mature compared to AJAXbased solutions.

This grant involved the development of a prototype Flex application, with the aim of investigating the available mechanisms for integrating rich Flex-based client applications with a J2EE back-end infrastructure, and the architectural impact of deploying such applications within the J2EE infrastructure.

LEF Grants - 2007 - An Evaluation of SOA Frameworks - R. Raju

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:25:21 -0600

As organizations continue a major transition to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), which promises greater agility and lignment of IT assets with business, they are also realizing the complexity of achieving an SOA. Many SOA frameworks, methodologies and best practices are emerging to help address these challenges in the path to SOA. This grant examines emerging SOA frameworks to evaluate how they can help charter a successful journey to SOA..

LEF Grants - 2007 - Distributed Development Solutions - H. Liang

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:22:07 -0600

As more and more companies locate processes and teams around the world, it becomes increasingly important to refine processes for working with distributed teams. This in itself is not new. Before, users might have been located on the third floor, project managers on the sixth, and programmers in the next building.

Now, more often than not, software development teams are spread around the world, with users in London, management in Chicago, and programmers in Los Angeles, Hyderabad and Beijing. The scattering of team members and functions around the world introduces barriers to productivity that transcend mere distance. Time zone differences can wreak havoc on project schedules. Cultural and language differences can lead to misunderstanding of requirements. Isolation can hamper effective project leadership and management. The failure of distributed project teams to work together results in late nights, extra hours, schedule delays, cost overruns, and sometimes outright failure of the project.

A host of tools has recently emerged to help address the problems of coordinating software development across distributed teams. Major industry trends, from open source software to agile methods to Web 2.0, have all contributed to the growth and evolution of tools available to distributed teams.

This grant conducts a landscape review of major tools and techniques for managing and executing distributed software development projects. The report begins with an overview of major industry trends that have shaped the current landscape of tools for collaborative development. The report provides an overview of the major types of tools available for coordinating and managing distributed development teams, as well as tools designed to streamline or enrich communication among development teams in general.

LEF Grants - 2007 - Architecture Blueprint for Leveraging Identity Federation - S. Gjesse

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:09:47 -0600

The handling of identity information in computer systems is challenged by a growing number of applications, the composition of applications through services, increased cooperation between business partners and increased use of Web technologies.

Identity federation is becoming more and more important given the current direction of application infrastructure. Applications are becoming more modular, and with Web portals in front of an application portfolio, the application boundary is becoming less distinct. At the same time, applications are available from various sources on the Internet, making the application portfolio for an individual user quite broad.

With this in mind, identity federation will be part of the next wave of application integration. Most applications need to know the identity of the user in order to grant access. On top of that, some applications might even be able to communicate user details between themselves to enrich the user experience. Having a growing number of identity islands floating around is not an option.

This report describes technologies for identity federation. It focuses on defining the concepts of identity federation in general to establish a framework for understanding the area. Using this framework, the report covers a number of current standards and specifications. Finally, the report touches on current identity federation products and open source projects.

LEF Grants - 2007 - Emerging SOA Security Standards - A. Wilson

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:05:06 -0600

The flat world has a dark side. There is a rogue’s gallery of hackers, virus authors, phishers, unscrupulous competitors, industrial spies, cyber terrorists, unfriendly nations and scam artists. They are ready to take advantage of any vulnerability that an organization may inadvertently expose to the world in the process of implementing a service-oriented architecture to join the flat world.

Topics covered in this grant include: 1. An overview of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) security, including message-level security, security as a service and declarative and policy-based security.
2. Descriptions of a set of motivating use cases for SOA security.
3. Consideration of recent developments in cryptography and denial of service attack mitigation, and how SOA can allow organizations to adapt to these developments to provide algorithm agility, including changes in federal IT security policies such as the key size and algorithm changes to occur in 2010 as specified in the cryptographic requirements for the implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12.
3. Summaries of recent developments in standards for Web services security, including WS-Federation and the Liberty Alliance ID-WSF.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2007 - Digital Trust - Vol 1

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:00:36 -0600

In the business world, the handshake is a symbol of trust and acceptance. Similarly, in the digital world, a context of trust must exist for business to thrive. What is technology’s contribution to digital trust?

The newest LEF report, "Digital Trust: Shaking Hands with the Digital Enterprise," answers this question by examining digital trust as a technology strategy that plays both offense and defense, generating business value and reducing risk exposure. Digital trust is "the other side of the coin" of traditional information risk management, taking a more positive and value-enhancing point of view.

First in a multi-part series on Digital Trust, this report (Volume 1) provides an introduction to digital trust and the key topics the series will explore: identity management, intellectual property protection, compliance management, liquid security, ethreats and countermeasures, and transparency and assurance.

LEF Technology Briefing - 2007-05-17 - Black Duck - Jim Berets

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:25:35 -0600

"Know Your Code" is a watch phrase heard increasingly within legal and software development circles. By knowing what might lurk within your company’s software intellectual property (IP) you can maximize the advantages of software reuse, mitigate business risk, control your software IP, manage compliance, expedite business deals, and assure that outsourcers deliver code that complies with your contractual obligations.

Although the benefits of knowing your code may be clear, knowing how to act on that knowledge is not so obvious. At Black Duck Software we see that firms recognize the need to identify open source and third party software within their code base, but are at loose ends about how to do it.

The protexIP/development system, the core of Black Duck's protexIP software compliance management suite, helps companies accelerate software development by enabling the more effective use of licensed software assets. It reduces business risk, avoids costly product delays, efficiently identifies and resolves software IP issues.

During this briefing with Jim Berets, Senior Director of Product Management of Black Duck Software, you will learn how protexIP can enable your organization to gain competitive advantage by improving your software development processes and by protecting and leveraging your valuable software IP assets, all while ensuring license compliance.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 01 CIO as Chief Innovation Officer: Bill Koff, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:44:48 -0600

Today’s marketplace is demanding a new breed of Chief Information Officer. These CIOs are expected to lead innovation efforts for their organizations, harnessing the potential of technology to drive change and create new competitive options. Although their primary focus is on business process innovation, CIOs are also expected to contribute to market, product and service innovation. This requires the CIO to nurture innovation from concept or identification through to implementation. It also requires him or her to manage and master the IT budget to ensure that the portfolio is multidimensional and encompasses room for innovation.

Bill Koff will explore the new breed of CIO as Chief Innovation Officer and discuss how today’s CIOs should position themselves to fulfill this challenging new role, a role that puts them firmly on the CEO’s agenda. Bill will include some of the key technology trends and tools that CIOs should be knowledgeable about and have in their kitbag.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 02 Thinking in Other Boxes - Innovation Frameworks: Pascal Gambardella, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:46:59 -0600

How much innovation does a firm need? Is the innovation strategy to win, to not lose, or a mixture? Will the firm have a top-down, deliberate strategy or a bottom-up, emergent strategy? How will the firm leverage its innovation process?

Pascal Gambardella will address these questions as he surveys current innovation approaches, the result of his LEF grant to study innovation. Pascal will describe concepts critical to understanding the structure of innovations, including innovation dimensions, degree, effects and sources. He will discuss the role of key approaches, including technology brokering, open innovation, disruptive innovation and system dynamics, as well as the importance of the business model in creating successful innovations. Pascal will conclude with a demonstration of a system dynamics simulation model on leveraging innovation.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 03 Thinking Different for Different Results: Dan Himmerich, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:49:02 -0600

"Thinking is hard work, which is why you don’t see a lot of people doing it." This quotation, attributed to novelist Sue Grafton, underscores a key factor that either enables or impedes innovation in organizations. In order to achieve different results (change!), people and companies have to do things differently (innovate!). In order to do things differently, one first must think differently (thinking precedes doing!). Before one can think differently, one first must spend some time thinking about thinking (otherwise, how will you know you’re thinking different?).

Dan Himmerich will introduce some of the models and tools used to help people better understand their own preferences for thinking, innovation and change; as well as demonstrate the connections between people and their preferences, teams, organizations and innovation. Through the use of frameworks related to thinking, creativity and change, it is possible to better predict the kinds of innovations that a target group (team, organization, market) is most comfortable with, and then to design teams that are more likely to produce innovative outputs (products, services, solutions) at the level preferred by the target group. Be prepared to develop new insights into your own thinking style and your preferences for innovation, and perhaps glimpse a dynamic that can radically alter your company’s capacity to change.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 04 Business and IT Co-Evolution - A Period of Paradoxes: David Moschella, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:51:06 -0600

These are unusual times in the world of business and IT. Consumers seem empowered, but corporate power is on the rise. Companies are making record profits, but there is no money for IT. IT matters more than ever, yet enterprise IT is often in the doghouse. There is an IT skills shortage, even while societal IT knowledge is exploding.

In this session, David Moschella will explore these and other current paradoxes to show how business and IT are evolving together, often in inseparable and surprising ways.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 05 Optional Lunch Session - Enabling Business Agility by Simplifying the Application Portfolio: J.J. Foster, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:30:01 -0600

Applications are the engines that fuel businesses and are the means by which business rules can be rapidly changed. Complexity is a major barrier in the ability of organizations to respond to the need for change. That is why CSC developed Enterprise Complexity Management, a holistic and flexible approach to improving business effectiveness through the reduction of application portfolio complexity. J.J. Foster will discuss the approach and give examples of how it can be implemented.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 07 Enabling Strategic Innovation Via Advanced Collaboration Technology: Jim Petrassi, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:32:00 -0600

Research indicates that innovation plays an increasingly critical role in today’s competitive global market. Companies gain competitive advantage by sharing best practices and allowing quick innovation and improvement of products, services and processes. To date, the focus of IT has been to systemize repetitive processes (e.g., accounting, procurement, back office). This focus on operational effectiveness has served business well, increasing scalability and efficiency.

However, in today’s competitive marketplace, accelerating the pace of strategic innovation has become a key business objective. Strategic innovation refers to the complex and dynamic processes through which a company develops and introduces new ideas, goods, services and practices. Case studies indicate that innovation employing advanced collaboration technologies has the potential to significantly impact business. Based on research conducted for a CSC client, Jim Petrassi will explore strategic innovation, the enablers that make it possible, real world success stories and potential opportunities.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 06 Pragyan - A Collaborative Open Innovation Network: Srinivas Polisetty, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:34:29 -0600

As India continues to rise in the global marketplace, developing its technical talent is key. CSC has embarked on a new partnership with engineering and technical colleges in India with states like Andhra Pradesh (AP). CSC India and AP are setting up CSC Virtual Innovation Centers at various technical and engineering colleges across AP, forging an industry-academia alliance that seeks new levels of innovation in software development.

This new initiative, called "Pragyan" (which means supreme knowledge in Sanskrit), is a Collaborative Open Innovation Network. This initiative is backed by AP’s Institute of eGovernance, which is committed to developing a solid and open approach to innovation by providing mentors and access to its resources for driving CSC’s key research and development projects.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 08 A Voyage of eDiscovery: Tom Knapp, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:36:33 -0600

When courts are imposing punitive damages on reputable corporations and attorneys are flocking in their thousands to seminars and everyone wants to talk to the CIO, then the topic of discussion is likely to be eDiscovery.

eDiscovery, the process by which electronic data of corporations is sought for use as evidence in civil or criminal court cases, has been identified as the number one compliance issue for US corporations in 2007. Costs of complying with an eDiscovery order are significant and recent changes to the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (which now require input from a corporation’s IT department) may cause that cost to rise further. And, with over ninety percent of a corporation’s records now stored electronically, the race is on to understand how and where the information is stored and what is retrievable.

Tom Knapp will present on the global trend of eDiscovery, how legal systems from various continents are addressing this issue and what it means to you and your company.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 09 Hubble Space Telescope - Out of the Ordinary...Out of This World: Dr Matt Mountain, Space Telescope Science Institute

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:37:56 -0600

For the last 16 years the Hubble Space Telescope has been challenging our view of the universe. CSC and the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) started this journey together in 1981. By the time of launch in 1990, we had ambitious goals:What is the age and size of the universe, where do today’s galaxies come from, and are there such things as black holes? Of course, Hubble’s first steps were mired in controversy and disappointment, but the story of NASA’s "come back kid" telescope is a great one.

The Hubble Space Telescope and the Space Telescope Science Institute have become the icons of how a modern science facility should operate: transformational yet accessible. Today AURA’s and CSC’s partnership in the Space Telescope Science Institute serves an international community of over 7,000 astronomers and is building a data and public legacy that will have a life beyond the original mission of a now 16-year-old satellite. Today, one third of Hubble’s results come from scientists mining Hubble’s data archives, and what K-12 school in the United States doesn’t have a Hubble image on its walls or screen savers?

Matt Mountain will show some of Hubble’s greatest pictures and discoveries to illustrate how our perspective of the cosmos, and our place in it, has been transformed. In addition, now that we are planning and building Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope,Matt will discus how this incredibly powerful telescope will take the next steps on our journey of cosmic exploration and discovery.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 10 New Frontiers in Location Awareness: Dan Munyan, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:40:30 -0600

Human beings have been trying to map their place on the earth for over 8,000 years. Today we navigate by satellite, pinpoint our homes on Google Earth, and know where our packages are going next. Cameras everywhere record presence, location and movement throughout our urban environments.

Yet fire fighters run in to empty burning buildings to rescue people who are not there. Healthcare systems kill 50,000 people per year by mixing up or losing track of patients. Incident commanders at natural and man-made disasters cannot account for first responders on the scene. Alzheimer’s patients and unattended children wander off and are lost. Coalition commanders lose track of where troops on foot are in the fog of war, resulting in unnecessary deaths. Cars are stolen and somehow disappear from our overly mapped world. Improvised Explosive Devices are planted along roads in public view in troubled areas without any record of the crime

Dan Munyan will examine the integration of a growing family of location awareness technologies to solve the major problems of our time. Implementation of these technologies in an innovative, integrated and economical fashion is the objective. Doing so in a way that does not jeopardize civil rights or turn us into a world of voyeurs and stalkers is the challenge..

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 11 Business Service Management -The Next Wave of IT Management: Eric Evans, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:47:47 -0600

Business Service Management enables the delivery of IT service guarantees to business units, giving CIOs and IT service managers the ability to maximize IT's contribution to business success. In a BSM model, IT services become fully aligned with business objectives, metrics and results.

Eric Evans will characterize why BSM matters, why BSM should be thought of as a service, and how BSM enables IT to align its daily activities, prioritize the distribution of IT resources, and guide future investments according to business-significant metrics. Eric will explore how to understand the business impact of IT-related failures, how to proactively identify critical IT-dependent business service issues before a service disruption, and how to integrate multiple management tools that lack a consolidated view into the IT services that support the business.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 12 Making Web 2.0 Meaningful and Achievable: Dan Malks, Jackbe

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:50:04 -0600

With all the buzz around topics like Software as a Service (SaaS), Service Oriented Architecture,Mashups, Ajax, and "Web 2.0," enterprises need to take a step back and put these technology pieces together in a way that is meaningful to them.What are the practical considerations of these technologies and how does an organization take advantage them?

Dan Malks will discuss the evolution and state-of-the-art of the "Enterprise Web" from both conceptual and practical perspectives.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 13 EPA’s BPEL: Chris Clark, EPA, Glenn Tamkin, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:52:50 -0600

CSC contributed to the realization of a true Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) called the Exchange Network. This SOA is an Internet and standards-based secure data exchange between partners. It is built on the principles of integrated information, secure real-time access, and the electronic collection and storage of accurate information. By facilitating the efficient exchange of environmental information among interested parties at all levels of government and the public, the Exchange Network revolutionizes the way information is sent to and received by EPA and its state, tribal and industrial partners.

The Exchange Network has matured since going live in 2003. Now, the EPA is looking to Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) as a means of orchestrating its Web services. The goals are to: - Decrease the cost of deploying new environmental data flows
- Simplify the redesign of complex existing data flows
- Improve quality of service
- Provide visibility into existing flows
- Enforce better process control through standardization

Chris Clark and Glenn Tamkin will share lessons learned regarding BPEL in an industrial-strength setting.

LEF Forum - Apr 2007 - Practical Innovation - 14 Preview of LEF's Research Project on Digital Trust: Ron Knode, CSC

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:54:37 -0600

LEF Grants - 2006 - Securing Soldier-borne battlefield technology with new biometrics - D. Munyan

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:03:04 -0600

The modern battlefield has become dependent on electronic technology. Protecting soldier-borne communications, targeting, and GPS devices from use by opponents is a priority for the U.S. military. To advance this protection effort, CSC has managed development of vitality or "aliveness" technology for anti-spoofing in fingerprint readers for the U.S. Intelligence Community.

CSC provided this grant to conduct additional research work with this technology and explore the possibility of using it as a form of biometric identification. Multi-spectral imaging of a small area of skin provides continuous multi-depth samples to enable continuous identification of the subject to the soldier-borne electronic devices. Should the subject be killed or the electronic devices detached from the sensor, those devices would be incapacitated. This technology has application in transportation and first responder markets.

The grant work primarily investigated the capability of multi-spectral skin imaging (MSI) to provide a continuous biometric identifier. The potential of MSI is that it could be performed by a small device under clothing or body armor where it would not impact the capabilities of the wearer. Because MSI does not require user interaction, identity could be verified continuously or periodically. MSI also has the capability of determining vitality the state of "aliveness." Unattended, non-invasive identification and vitality determination could be used to create a circuit bridge between users and their electronic devices.

The grant included research work with multiple skin locations and multi-spectral wavelengths across many subjects to determine whether the conditions for a biometric identifier could be met. Data gathered in the test cycle has indicated a sufficient amount of data demonstrating key factors of universality, distinctiveness, permanence, and collectibility for enrollment and verification. In the areas of Performance, Acceptability, and Resistance to Circumvention, MSI technology truly shines. Current post-grant focuses on self-enrollment techniques and miniaturization of the skin sensor to cigarette pack size. A. prototype encrypted key system for controlling a military grade radio will be completed in 2006. Integration work with the U.S. Army will include the creation of a digital signal processor (DSP) to bring the sensor, processor and encrypted key for soldierborne electronics to the size of a matchbox for use in the Land Warrior or Future Soldier initiatives.

LEF Grants - 2006 - RFID and SAP - J. Gregory

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 10:00:42 -0600

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology provides unprecedented volumes of data, which brings the capability to collect detailed data about individual assets. Industry and venture capital is understandably focused on concrete solutions for enterprise resource planning (ERP) that will streamline existing processes.

Brian Zrimsek, Gartner research Vice President for ERP, recently warned that mere evolutionary enhancements, such as enhancing existing business processes, are missing the power and potential that the RFID technology offers. He asserts that RFID is a revolutionary technology because it can redefine business processes but is being sub-optimized to fit into evolutionary projects. For example, the Wal-Mart diktat requiring suppliers to ship product with RFID tags is a "tactical rather than strategic" solution, he says, because it is only a better labeling system.

The grant work began with an investigation of the technical tools that cross the chasm between the RFID data collection world, with its vast sums of continuously flowing low- level data, and the ERP environment, which enjoys transactional data exchanges in lower volumes. The grant research then focused on a paradigm shift to enable a revolutionary means of managing assets in light of the significant investment and central importance of core enterprise systems. The resulting model employs concepts and technologies such as intelligent computing concepts, object-oriented programming, complex event processing and message-based architecture to deliver an asset-centric computing model. This strategic infrastructure offers a scalable, extensible and holistic means of asset data collection and management, which builds on core ERP-defined business processes.

LEF Grants - 2006 - Multimedia Mining - D. Shalvi

Thu, 10 May 2007 09:57:52 -0600

Multimedia data is increasingly prevalent in everyday life. These data forms are manifested in a wide variety of applications, such as online video and image search,Web camera and video blog (vlog) viewing, image analysis, event detection and video surveillance. Ongoing improvements in hardware and software in general and data storage capacity and network bandwidth in particular are fueling advances in the availability of massive datasets and data streams. Both businesses and consumers increasingly need improved technologies to integrate and analyze these wide variety of data forms, including video, audio, and image, as well as more traditional data forms, such as numeric and text data.

This grant investigated recent advances in and approaches to multimedia mining, the process of conducting knowledge discovery on multimedia data. Key areas of this process involve the representation, integration and analysis of multimedia data. Representation standards are improving at both the syntactic level (XML schema, MPEG-7, and MPEG-21) and the semantic (i.e., semantic Web ontology) level. Integration challenges are increasing because of the size and diversity of multimedia data and the many competing representation standards and standards technologies. Analysis algorithms and tools are making steady improvement and are moving from research projects to project or domain-specific applications. Even with these advances, the semantic gap - the difference between low-level features (data) and high-level concepts (knowledge) - still looms large.

The grant report is intended for managers, architects and technologists interested in understanding the latest issues and advances in obtaining knowledge from multimedia data. The report reviews the nature of multimedia data and describes the purpose for and method by which applications obtain knowledge from this data. Recent and evolving standards for data representation and current approaches for analyzing the data are described in the grant report. The report discusses available tools that can assist in multimedia mining and presents applications of the technology

LEF Grants - 2006 - WiMax - C. Wu

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:52:56 -0600

Limited bandwidth, distance and, more important, lack of security and Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities have confined the use of Wi-Fi networking to residences, small businesses and areas such as airport lounges and Starbucks.WiMAX technology, IEEE 802.16, overcomes the limitations of Wi-Fi; it can transmit up to 75 MBps and reach a maximum distance of 30 miles. IEEE standards 802.16-2004 for fixed wireless and 802.16e for mobile wireless were ratified in 2004 and 2005. Interoperable products are now available from many vendors.With superior capabilities and business-critical features, including QoS and security, WiMAX technology is expected to complement Wi-Fi as a backhaul application and/or serve as a standalone wireless application.

This grant presents a high-level overview of the following:

1) WiMAX technology
2) Physical layer, MAC layer, QoS, Security, and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
3) Standards IEEE 802.16-2004, 802.16e and future standards
4) Spectrum landscape
5) License and license-exempt bands, and issues associated with deployment of WiMAX services
6) Market forecast
7) Market sizes for equipment and subscribers

The grant paper will show how WiMAX can enhance other wireless services, such as satellite and RFID, and will discuss some of the issues and challenges associated with WiMAX usage. It will compare the technological differences and capabilities between WiMAX and Wi-Fi, how the two technologies can co-exist, and opportunities in which WiMAX can complement 3G and potentially set the foundation for 4G. The paper explores practical applications in commercial, municipal and law enforcement industries.

LEF Grants - 2006 - Ruby on Rails - M. Vorwaller

Thu, 8 Feb 2007 09:49:12 -0600

Ruby on Rails is an open source Web application framework that makes assumptions about the tasks required to create a Web application, then makes those tasks simple. Ruby on Rails has only existed since 2004 and has gained rapid market acceptance, especially from Java, .NET, PHP and Perl Web developers.

This grant evaluates the potential use of Ruby on Rails an enterprise environment to develop Web applications more quickly and less expensively while maintaining scalability to support the demands of an enterprise application. Specifically, the grant work covers the following key points about Ruby on Rails:
1) An overview of the philosophies and functionality behind the framework
2) How it scales demonstrating real-world enterprise-level applications built on it
3) Specific examples of how it increases productivity in comparison with other frameworks and programming languages
4) Resources available for learning, analyzing, and obtaining commercial support for it

Ruby on Rails is a new, open source framework whose many innovations and features that increase productivity make it an important consideration when creating a Web application.

LEF Grants - 2006 - Pricing and Revenue Optimization Intelligence - P. Marthi

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:41:07 -0600

Each day companies are constrained to face a more complex and changing environment that includes a chaotic, highly demanding market, competition with new low-cost enterprises, well-informed and exigent stakeholders, and the ecommerce/ business/procurement explosion. This external entropy makes executives struggle in the center of an unpredictable and incomprehensible storm of events that can result in companies quickly losing revenue and market position. As a result, internal entropy emerges leading them to an unaffordable stress.

One of the most effective ways to enhance revenues and profits is to improve the effectiveness of pricing and availability of products. Price and revenue optimization intelligence (PROI) has become useful as an alternative to focus on growth rather than reduction and to address the external market rather than internal issues. Airlines have been the first industry to implement PROI to automatically handle inventory to optimize revenue. Over time, business modeling and simulations have demonstrated that PROI techniques can be used in almost any business.

This paper discusses PROI as an innovative long-term solution to ensure revenue maximization. It describes PROI’s key concepts and implementation approach. It also provides guidelines to recognize PROI opportunities with the objective of helping CSC clients to adopt innovative solutions to enhance their business results. The paper proposes guidelines to identify a PROI opportunity and its possible risks and constraints and shows how to develop a practical case, clarifying the steps and information that lead to PROI value-proposition individuation.

LEF Grants - 2006 - Tailoring Protection with Data Proximate Security - M. Walker

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:35:55 -0600

Since 2000, industry trends toward collaboration, outsourcing and information sharing have increased pressure on computing entities to extend and interconnect their computing networks to levels never seen previously. As businesses have come to rely on networks and computing assets to achieve business results, the potential impact of disruption to those networks and assets has increased exponentially at the same time risk of a disruption has increased.

This grant work involved development of a holistic approach to protection of business- critical secure zones based on:
1) Placement of controls at the closest possible point to protected assets
2) Restriction of traffic to only that needed to support the data or application to be protected
3) Separation of administrative and user traffic
4) Authentication and authorization of all access to the environment
5) Examination, identification and mitigation of risk presented by applications
6) Strict adherence to operational standards that protect the integrity of these secure zones

The over-arching goal of this work is to create environments tailored to reduction of risk to commerce. CSC supports many customers who are engaged in diverse businesses with multiple connections to trading partners, suppliers, customers and service providers using every computer and network configuration imaginable across widely dispersed geographic locations. Each customer has business-critical data and applications that are vital to its survival and are increasingly subject to risk through exposure to malware, operational errors and application defects.

This paper presents an approach to evaluate the exposure to risk and potential mitigations to enable organizations to quantify the level of risk present in the environment and thus develop risk acceptance and mitigation strategies.

LEF Grants - 2006 - Innovation Frameworks Report - P. Gambardella

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:33:14 -0600

Innovation is more than invention or discovery. It is the value added through applying creative ideas to a problem and implementing these ideas in the marketplace. Firms need to innovate to survive.

The grant work surveyed and synthesized some current innovation approaches. It examined the background information on innovation needed to support two perspectives: (1) identifying and managing innovation opportunities within a firm, and (2) assisting other firms in identifying and managing innovation opportunities in their industry.

This grant work covered key concepts critical to understanding the structure of innovations, including innovation dimensions, degree, effects and sources. It discussed the role of key approaches, including technology brokering, open innovation, theories of disruptive innovation, and system dynamics. It indicated how these approaches lead to and are supported by innovation strategies and processes. Finally, it covered the importance of the business model in creating successful innovations.

LEF Grants - 2006 - Infrastructure and the Future Enterprise - Kenneth Betts

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:22:57 -0600

Over the past few years organizations have desired to consolidate midrange computing and storage environments to optimize the use of existing infrastructure, thereby reducing the overall cost of computing. The majority of this work has been performed as backward consolidation or consolidation of existing infrastructure on to fewer, standardized devices.

This paper focuses on providing a futures-based consolidation methodology, which includes the examination of existing technological advances in consolidation and virtualization technologies across today’s most widely used platforms. It will explore how these technologies can be utilized to best perform new consolidation efforts and to augment, manage and maintain any completed backward consolidation efforts to ensure new applications exploit the consolidated infrastructure.

The specific topics explored are:
- Achieving maximum utilization
- Today’s enabling technology
- Maintaining maximum utilization today
- Creating a self-optimizing enterprise
The projected evolution and implementation of the technology and process described provide a view of the future direction needed to make an optimized, agile enterprise and utility computing a reality.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2003 - Architecture rEvolution

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:51:03 -0600

The Architecture rEvolution: Exploring the Network Effect on Infrastructure, Applications and Business Process explores the three levels of the Architecture rEvolution, examining each level's array of drivers, strategies, technologies and standards.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2004 - Open Source

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:49:46 -0600

Open Source: Open for Business examines 10 trends defining the open source movement, the legal and business issues, and recommendations for getting started on an open source journey.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2005 - Extreme Data

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:48:06 -0600

Extreme Data: Rethinking the "I" in IT report explores four dimensions of extreme data: data everywhere, time and place, social connections and meaning and urges organizations to leverage the opportunities presented by extreme data.

LEF Emerging Technology Reports - 2006 - Connected World

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:44:35 -0600

Connected World - Redefining the geography of business and how we work and play examines eight connectedness trends supercharging business opportunity. The report helps organizations understand connected world technologies and business changes and how they might apply in their industry. The report also provides a roadmap for assessing an organization’s business connectedness.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 01 LEF Overview & Forum introduction: Bill Koff, CSC and Paul Gustafson, CSC

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:05:28 -0600

Welcome, LEF Overview and Connected World program introduction.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 02 Connected World Overview: Dominique Purcell , LEF Associate, CSC

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:33:34 -0600

The connected world places business on an entirely new landscape, a global business geography that can be traversed in two seconds.We have at our means a broadband gateway to new strategies, partnerships, human centers, financial centers and business systems. Every business needs to rethink itself in terms of delivering products, services and processes for a connected world.

Dominique Purcell will introduce the Connected World trends and insights, the result of a year of in-depth research and analysis. The first four trends explore changes at the core of connectedness: the all-IP enterprise, industry crossovers, bandwidth at the edge, and networks in new places. The next four trends examine drivers from the edge: new things being connected, "liquid time and place," pervasive presence and location, and mobility in the enterprise. The trends lay the foundation for the rest of the forum topics and urge organizations to assess their own level of connectedness.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 03 A Business View on Convergence: Carol Costantino, Marriott International

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:04:35 -0600

Convergence is an area of intense focus for many companies trying to adapt their workspace to IP telephony technology with the lowest cost and least disruption possible. Marriott International is also examining opportunities with convergence in an effort to increase associate productivity through the use of technologies such as portals, VoIP, instant messaging, presence and collaborative software.

Regardless of the type of company or complexity of its current technology, the approach to solving the business and technical issues of convergence starts with a strategy. Carol will address the peaks and pitfalls in developing a strategy and prioritizing opportunities, including assessing the impact on business processes and people, moving enterprise mountains, and completing a financial assessment. She will also highlight the principles behind the creation of a sound strategy and the necessity of building a consensus vision, as well as the critical role that a formal strategy plays as a reference point for consistent decision-making and evaluation in communicating with business leaders.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 04 Innovation and the 21st Century Network: Bringing it All Together: Chuck Pol, BT Americas

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:00:03 -0600

BT’s 21st Century Network (21CN) is globally recognized as the most radical, ambitious and far reaching next-generation network transformation program in the industry. The goal was to create a flexible foundation for new services that would support BT’s growth and meet customers’ needs for at least the next 50 years. Now in its third year, 21CN is becoming a reality.

21CN is designed to empower the end-user with control, choice and flexibility like never before providing BT’s customers in 170 countries with communications from anywhere to any device, anytime. It will replace a complex network and systems infrastructure ensuring the delivery of next-generation converged services faster, more efficiently and more cost-effectively than ever before. BT will be the first incumbent operator in the world to switch off its PSTN and go all IP end-to-end. And it’s actually happening today. 21CN is radical. It’s real. And it’s now.

But 21CN is more than a network transformation. It is part of BT’s larger business initiative to enhance the end-to-end customer experience in all markets served. The environment created by IT-centric IP communications and open standards will create new businesses and new ways of working, which will enable business transformation and have profound effects on products, technology, processes, systems, organizations and business culture. Convergence and innovation will be the twin engines that drive the future and commercial success. Chuck Pol will provide insight into the strategic business drivers behind BT’s 21CN transformation program and share highlights of the company’s transformation journey.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 05 Crossovers and the Change Function: Pip Coburn, Coburn Ventures

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:21:42 -0600

After decades of success, the technology world has been lured into believing that supplying technology is not just a necessary condition of technology adoption but a sufficient one as well. However, The Change Function suggests that end users have always been the final arbiter of what is adopted. By considering why end users change habits, we will be far more successful in both identifying and creating technology crossover points effectively.

In 1965, the Series 360 family of computers was sold to a small group of technology-centric folks. Today the audience for technology is six billion people on the planet. The user community itself is going through a critical Digital Demographic Revolution. Users are more insistent that technology meet their criteria of extreme mobility, extreme personalization and extreme virtualization. The user community will become far more savvy in its demands as well as far more skilled in the basics of editing, storing, transferring, sharing, stealing and manipulating data. Users will have higher digital acumens.

After establishing the tenants of The Change Function, Pip Coburn will weave the Digital Demographic Revolution into the conversation to provide a backdrop for technology adoption during the next 10 years. He will cite specific examples of what has worked and why, and what will and will not work going forward.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 06 The Next Wireless Wave - Exploring WiMAX Technology: Carl Wu, CSC

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:27:38 -0600

Limited bandwidth and distance and, more importantly, lack of security and quality of service (QoS) capabilities have confined the use of Wi-Fi networking to residences, small businesses, and areas such as airport lounges and Starbucks. WiMAX technology (IEEE 802.16) overcomes the limitations of Wi-Fi; it can transmit up to 75 Mbps and reach a maximum distance of 30 miles. IEEE standards 802.16-2004, for fixed wireless, and 802.16e, for mobile wireless, were ratified in 2004 and 2005. Interoperable products are now available from many vendors.With superior capabilities and business-critical features including QoS and security,WiMAX technology is expected to complement Wi-Fi as a backhaul application and serve as a standalone wireless application.

In this session, based on research conducted for a Leading Edge Forum Technology Grant, Carl explores the possibilities of WiMAX.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 07 Dual-Mode Wireless -Cellular/Wi-Fi Convergence: Tony Rybczynski, Nortel

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:36:46 -0600

Cellular/Wi-Fi convergence enhances productivity by enabling just-in-time communications across the virtual enterprise, whether the user is a campus worker or road warrior. It opens the door for seamless roaming between private and public domains and delivers a consistent user experience wherever the user is and whatever the device he or she uses. It ensures business continuity at the end-user level and provides the means to maximize price-performance of telephony, data and multimedia applications across private and public networks. In this industry overview Tony will discuss three aspects of cellular/Wi-Fi convergence: secure enterprise telephony heading towards unified communications, public-private roaming and different deployment models, and managing price-performance.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 08 Wireless Mesh Networks - Bringing Big Benefits to BP Industrial Sites: David Lafferty, BP

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:40:10 -0600

BP’s first-mover stance deploying innovative mesh networks is bringing real business benefits in safety and operations. David Lafferty will explain how new mesh technology has enabled BP to wirelessly monitor pipeline corrosion in the harsh environment of the North Slope in Alaska, monitor equipment health wirelessly in dense metal environments from tankers to refineries, and increase automation of tracking and management of complex maintenance overhauls at plants and refineries. He will describe how wireless approaches save money over traditional hard-wired approaches, allowing more measurements to be taken; enable more frequent monitoring compared to manual measurements, where wiring is impossible or impractical; and enable real-time information and in-the-field task sign-off for overhauls, increasing accuracy as well as speed of information flow.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 09 Rethinking the Non-Connected Spaces: Mark Goodman, Crossbow Technology

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:44:38 -0600

In the film Annie Hall (1977), Rob called his office to indicate where he was and how long he would be there. His connectivity, limited by wires, was essentially defined by his physical space.

Wireless technology has broken the bonds of physical space in the human space. But what about the realm of non-human communications? Today, virtually every device processes information. Connectivity is but one form of information processing. In the past, machines have in large part depended on wires. Mark Goodman will discuss rethinking non-connected spaces.

What will it be like when multiple devices synchronize to create networks in five minutes? Mark will explore environments where nodes can arrive and connect in an ad hoc manner. The devices themselves decide when and how to sample, process and transmit information. What are the barriers to operating fully within this realm? How will we overcome them? Mark will draw parallels from his experience with cellular phones, the Internet and ecommerce, and his current efforts in promulgating wireless mesh networks.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 10 Connecting Travelers to the Information Highway: Jason Westra, CSC, and Rod Mead, Colorado Traffic Management Center, Colorado Department of Transportation

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:52:36 -0600

The safety of the traveling public relies on more than good roads and bridges; it relies on technology to connect travelers and keep them informed wherever their final destination may be.

Colorado Transportation Management System (CTMS) is a CSC Technical Excellence award winner (2006) for its innovative use of systems integration technologies to connect hundreds of disparate traffic devices into a single platform that improves traffic management operations and public safety.
CTMS connects hundreds of traffic devices across wireless, fiber-optic and land line networks. It can manage devices in complex scenarios and allows the traveling public to view traffic-related information on dynamic message signs or the Web (via browser, PDA and Web-enabled phones). In this way, people can make well-informed decisions about when to travel and which routes to take.

Jason Westra and Rod Mead will explore the challenges faced by CDOT’s traffic management center before CTMS and how the award-winning CSC solution solved them while moving CDOT into the forefront of transportation technology. The session will also cover innovative ways the solution can be used across a variety of applications.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 11 The Real-Time Internet - How Presence is Shrinking the Half-Life of Information: Peter Saint-Andre, Jabber Software Foundation

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:55:18 -0600

Life and work are moving faster and faster. Technology is driving an ever-quickening pace of communication and decision-making. Organizations that adapt to this brave new world will gain competitive advantage. Those that don't will fall behind, wither away and die. We don't have to like it, but these are the inescapable facts.

A primary catalyst for this emerging real-time Internet is presence: the ability to see which people and things are available for interaction at any moment. Presence first gained prominence in instant messaging services but is now being applied to a full range of devices and applications. The implications for work and play are enormous.

Peter will help organizations envision the presence-enabled future, lay the groundwork for building real-time organizations (citing many cutting-edge examples), discuss privacy and security implications, and share approaches for maintaining personal productivity in a connected world. May you live in interesting times!

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 12 The Evolution of Enterprise Mobility,Your Organization and Motorola : Steve Raseman, Motorola

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:58:35 -0600

Enterprise Mobility is evolving even faster than the last significant technology-driven revolutionary business event - the Internet. In this presentation, you'll learn about the challenges of building an enterprise wide mobility solution, and how you can improve productivity and enhance customer service through enterprise mobility.

LEF Forum - Oct 2006 - Connected World - 13 Towards Sustainable Mobility: Fred Chavez, CSC and Jeff Kleban, Syclo

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:01:08 -0600

At CSC, a new mobile solution is being used to improve CSC’s field service productivity for one of CSC’s large outsourcing customers. By using handheld devices running the CSC Mobile Field Technician solution, the amount of time technicians spend filling out requisite paperwork has been reduced from 30-60 minutes per day to mere seconds.

The solution is based on Syclo’s Agentry mobile development platform, which makes it easy to create a simple front-end mobile interface that feeds multiple backend systems and databases. The solution enables asset and customer information to be scanned or entered once and populated throughout the application, and combines information from what were once two distinct systems: the customer system and the technician system.

Using the CSC solution as an example, Fred and Jeff will discuss how the Agentry platform can provide sustained mobility for multiple coordinated mobile implementations, in contrast to independent short-term projects.

LEF Technology Briefing - 2007-02-15 - EMC - Avi Fogel

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:39:57 -0600

In June of 2006, EMC acquired ProActivity, to complete its BPM Suite. ProActivity brought to EMC the tools needed in the process life-cycle, catering to business analysts now the Documentum Business Process Analyzer and Business Activity Monitor. Catering to on-demand computing and real-time enterprises (i.e.the rapidly changing nature of core business processes to reflect changes in market conditions or customer needs, which SOA among other technologies also aims to address) requires rapid discovery capabilities of existing complex business processes, analyzing them with a very flexible meta-model and extensive analytics, including simulation, and rapidly being able to transition to the new business process design.

The EMC Business Process Analyzer does just this - it includes features such as:
- a very friendly user interface
- an unlimited meta-model
- ad hoc and very extensive analytics report generator for use by business users
- cross-enterprise hierarchical process review and navigation and many other unique capabilities.

Building its Business Activity Monitor on the foundations of the Business Process Analyzer provides the EMC solution unique real-time process analytics and prediction capabilities.

In this briefing, Avi Fogel, former ProActivity CEO, and currently Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at EMC Software and Dr. Laury Verner, former CSC consultant, ProActivity CTO and current Director of Product Management at EMC Software, will discuss and demonstrate these exciting solutions. Also to be presented is a solution based on these technologies and implemented by CSC.