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CIOs and Lawyers Must Communicate 08/25/2010 -

IT chiefs and lawyers must learn to speak the same language if they are to work together to help organisations avoid risk.  And although responsibility for IT risk management, the careful balancing act of businesses benefit against liability,must not begin and end with the IT department, it is important to run any policies past the techies.

It is vital the IT crowd is consulted, agrees with and has ownership of any policies that directly affect them, and technical teams must make the effort to try and communicate with legal eagles in a language other than IT speak. It is better to have a legal team which will tell the IT department what we need to be doing. But lawyers being lawyers, it is very difficult to work with them to understand what we want and if they could talk to us in an IT language life would be much easier.

If you express risk in the different languages make sure things are transparent and everyone does understand who is responsible for what.

Factors to Consider in a Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Plan 08/25/2010 -

The Janco Disaster Recovery Plan & Business Continuity Template takes into consideration all of  the items related to various layers of operations that most enterprises need to consider if they want to continue after a disaster occurs. These include:

• Strategy - Items related to the strategies used by the business to complete day-to-day activities while enabling continuous operations. Examples include financial, manufacturing and disaster recovery strategies.
• Organization - Items related to the structure, skills, communications and responsibilities of your employees. Examples include human resources, training, and internal and external communications.
• Applications and data - Items related to the software necessary which enable business operations, as well as the method used to develop that software. Examples include customer relationship management (CRM) applications, enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, databases and transaction processors.
• Processes - Items related to the critical business processes necessary to run the business, as well as the IT processes used to ensure smooth operations. Examples include accounts receivable, accounts payable, change manage­ment and problem management.
• Technology - Items related to the systems, network and industry-specific technology necessary to enable your applications and data. Examples include host systems, workstations and Internet Protocol (IP) networks.
• Facilities- Items related to the buildings, factories and offices necessary to house your organization and your production or service technologies. Exam­ples include data centers, office buildings and physical security operations.

Where CIOs spend their time 08/18/2010 -

In a survey of CIOs, it was found that they spend most of their time:

• Aligning IT with enterprise goals
• Cultivating the IT and enterprise relationship
• Improving IT operations and system performance
• Leading change efforts
• Implementing new systems and architecture
• Driving business innovation
• Redesigning business processes
• Controlling IT costs
• Developing the business strategy
• Looking for a competitive advantage
• Managing IT crises
• Managing security
• Selecting and negotiating with vendors
• Developing customer market strategies and technologies
• Studying and understanding market trends and customer needs

Some improvement in the job market 08/13/2010 -

A technology job board is seeing a steady uptick in technology jobs for the financial industry. After the economy’s meltdown in 2008 and 2009, it’s taken some time to see recovery in this segment. If you have technology experience in the industry, there are jobs to be had.

Programming skills are way up in terms of demand, especially the C languages with C# being the skill most sought after right now, along with skills in C and C++. In New York City and the metropolitan area, financial technology positions garner 20 percent higher salaries than the general technology population.

There is good news on the technology jobs front if you have prior banking or financial industry experience. Salaries are higher than the average tech job, especially on Wall Street.

New Policy Templates Can be Customized 08/09/2010 -

Documenting a clear set of IT policies is a resource-intensive process for IT managers, due to the research and writing time involved. And once policies are created, the next step is to communicate and gain acceptance for those policies throughout the organization. Wouldn't it be nice to start with boiler-plate templates that require only minor customization?

Janco Associates is offering you CIO IT Infrastructure Policy Bundle. This updated, time-saving package will provide you with a stocked library of over 200 pages of policy templates. Plus, you get the tools, techniques and advice you need to successfully apply these policies in your company.

CIO continue to run with tight budgets 08/02/2010 -

Overall server spending in enterprises remains weak in 2010 as companies continue to look for ways to save money following the economic downturn, according to research firm TheInfoPro.

According to the survey, which gathered data from 252 decision makers at Fortune 1000 companies, 38 percent plan to reduce server budgets this year compared to 2009, while 25 percent plan to spend more.

Though demand for server hardware has picked up, spending has flattened due to growing trends like virtualization, which helps manage a larger number of tasks on fewer servers.

What is the Chief Technology Officer's (CTO) Role 07/24/2010 -

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible for overall direction of all technology functions associated within the enterprise.  This includes Information Technology applications, communications (voice, data, and wireless), and computing services within the enterprise that impact the both the enterprise, its products and its customers.  As the top technical architect of the enterprise he or she provides a vision of how technology can be applied.  These areas include product design, customer interactions with the enterprise, IT operating systems, communications (voice, data, and wireless), transaction processing and database administration, compliance with all mandated requirements, the information center, personal computers, electronic and optical storage, and multimedia applications.

You can get more by getting the Internet and Information Technology Position Descriptions Handiguide - 2010 version.

Virtualization improves disaster planning and change control 07/13/2010 -

IT has been reported that organizations implementing virtualization often experience less server downtime than organizations not deploying virtualization, and many have taken steps to provide better disaster recovery than they could have in an unvirtualized environment.  Several surveys show  that virtualized environments experience between 35%  to 40% fewer server outage hours per year than unvirtualized environments.

The reasons often given are:

• Simplification - Virtualization allows more OS workloads and more applications per server. This results in fewer servers and more standardization, which results in easier provisioning of new or redeployed applications.
• Independence - Since the OS/application workload does not tie to a specific physical server, IT Management can migrate their workload from server to server thus becoming free a particular server. This facilitates the ability to dynamically migrate  applications from an overused or failing server to a healthy server, avoiding outage.
• Flexibility - Virtualization simplifies the process of initiating an OS/application. This enables IT management to have options for locating the OS/application on a particular physical server.  In that way IT Managers can easily suspend, relocate, and restart applications that are degrading on a server.

• Better Change Management - Virtualization makes it easier for system administrators to set up a replicate test OS image, which makes it easier to fully regression test new configurations (new application releases, new software versions, etc.). Fuller regression testing of new configurations results in fewer defects encountered in production.

I.T. hiring picks up 06/22/2010 -

Salaries and hiring are both on the rise, Janco reports.

The I.T. jobs outlook is strongest among large companies, where many chief information officers have received the go-ahead to fulfill I.T. positions that were left unfulfilled last year, Janco Associates Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in information systems technology, says in its Mid-Year 2010 IT Salary Survey report.

In contrast, technology executives at smaller companies are being more cautious about hiring out of concern that the economic recovery will not be strong enough to support increased I.T. spending, the survey found.

Nonetheless, most chief information officers who participated in the survey said in post-survey interviews that they’re planning for 2011 with the assumption that the economy will improve early next year. If that holds true, I.T. hiring and compensation should rise for more companies, Janco says

Consequences of too much social networking 06/21/2010 -

Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites make it easy to share information with friends. If you are not utilizing safety features and precautions, however, you are also sharing that information with strangers. Posting too much information on your profile can have consequences that reach all the way from your bank account to your future employment prospects.

According to Consumer Reports, in the last year 9 percent of social network users experienced some form of abuse, such as malware infections, scams, identity theft, or harassment. Many of these incidents are preventable, if you educate yourself about what to do and what not to do on social networking sites.

Similarly, an increasing number of prospective employers are turning to social networking sites to research applicants. Does your profile represent you the same way you would represent yourself in an interview?

Challenges CIOs face 06/18/2010 -

CIOs are now challenged more than any time in the past with the economic earthquake around the globe CIOs have to be smarter, creative and innovative. The only way for CIOs to survive the world economic reset in a knowledge age is to capitalize on our human capital, put their staff’s creativity to work, stoke our innovative furnace. There are many ways to fuel the creative fires - from management techniques, to team building, and effectively leveraging existing and emerging technological investments.  However, the key is infrastructure.  CIOs that have a one that address metrics, change management, version control, system development methodology, service management, and human resources have a better chance to make it through these tough times.

Preventing Data Breaches 06/10/2010 -

It is critical that organizations are proactive in their approach to mitigating insider threats. Week-after week there are disturbing, déjà vu-like stories of significant data breaches, arrests connected to insider attacks, or investigation reports emphasizing the necessity to control privileged accounts that hold highly sensitive data. With no safeguards in place, insider attacks are often very difficult to detect and block, largely because of excessive privileges granted to users, users sharing common log-ins and accounts, and privileged users such as testers, developers and even DBAs having access to sensitive data.

This Security Manual for the Internet and Information Technology is over 220 pages in length. All versions of the Security Manual template include both the Business & IT Impact Questionnaire and the Threat & Vulnerability Assessment Tool (both were redesigned to address Sarbanes Oxley compliance).   In addition, the Security Manual Template PREMIUM Edition  contains 16 detail job descriptions that apply specifically to security and Sarbanes Oxley, ISO 27000, PCI DSS, and HIPAA.

Reasons why CIOs and CTOs get Fired 05/27/2010 -

Top ten list of things that fired CIOs do

1.       Do not have a disaster recovery and business continuity plan integrated with a backup/archiving program.

2.       Ignore warning signs

3.       Do not document changes

4.       Do not use logging processes

5.       Do not install updates

6.       Save money by not purchasing upgrades

7.       Do not manage passwords well

8.       Never say no to anyone

9.       Never say yes to anyone

10.   Do not train a replacement

Project Managers are paid well 05/12/2010 -

Companies seem willing to provide solid compensation for project maagers. According to a CIO.com  article reporting results of the Project Management Institute's (PMI) 2009 Project Management Salary Survey, the median base salary for a project management professional in the United States is $100,000. Three-quarters of survey respondents take home more than $84,000 a year.

Even during the recession, between fall 2008 and fall 2009, 53 percent of American project managers got a raise. Thirty-four percent had salaries frozen, and 14 percent experienced a pay cut.  And project management pros have an optimistic outlook for 2010. Sixty-seven percent of respondents believe their salaries will grow this year, while just 4 percent think their salaries will drop.

You have several options to obtain this study.  You can get a summary for free if you participate by providing more than ten (10) data points or you have several option on how to purchase the data.

Summary Results and Changes in Demand for IT Jobs 2010

The Janco Associates, Inc.  salary survey draws on data collected throughout the year by extensive internet-based and completed survey forms sent to businesses throughout the United States and Canada.  Over 300 companies participate in the survey

CIO and IT departments are blamed for user shortfalls 05/04/2010 -

Now the CIO not only must be politically correct, but he must also be clairvoyant and understand what can go wrong, be misused, or be abused. The IT Infrastructure must be robust to address this.

When systems are abused the easiest scapegoat is the IT Department.  In the recent school webcam case at the Pennsylvania school district the IT department was blamed because they not only failed to inform school officials and administrators of the tracking capabilities of the software, but argued that telling students about the software's ability to remotely trigger notebook Webcams would "defeat its purpose" as a way to recover lost or stolen computers.

Over one third of HR executives ignore unemployment status of employment candidates 04/22/2010 -

Boston - Results from new research released by Veritude, astaffing services provider, indicate a positive sign for the New England economy. All surveyed executives in New England, and across the country, are accepting of the economy as a reason for an extended unemployment when reviewing candidates. Specifically, when it came to examining the acceptable length of time for a candidate to be unemployed, 36 percent of responding executives said they did not believe it mattered how long a candidate was unemployed given the recessionary conditions, with 36 percent indicating that six months or less was their ideal length of unemployment.

The survey also revealed that when making hiring decisions, 44 percent of executives have no preference for a candidate's employment status. In addition, one-third of New England hiring managers and human resources professionals are considering rehiring information technology (IT) employees whom they had laid off.

“According to our survey results, it appears that 2010 will be a better year for IT job seekers in New England,” said a senior vice president of Veritude. “With half of employers looking to hire back a portion of their laid off IT workers either as full time employees or contractors and employers accepting the economic downturn as a reason for an extended unemployment, IT job candidates should take heart that their employment status will not significantly bias a potential employer.”

Although in the minority, 19 percent of those surveyed do prefer candidates who are currently employed as regular, full-time employees. Candidates who are either employed full-time or currently employed as temporary or contract workers are preferred by 22 percent.

Of all hiring executives, 53 percent did not care if a candidate was laid off in a first round as opposed to a subsequent round. While the majority did not have an issue with laid off workers, 17 percent of respondents found it more acceptable if a worker was not one of the first to be laid off.

US at risk for cyber attacks according to study 04/07/2010 -

A survey released by Lumension Security Inc. states that nearly three-quarters of federal IT decision-makers who work in national defense and security departments or agencies say the possibility is “high” for a cyber attack by a foreign nation in the next year. Additionally, a third of these respondents say they have already experienced such a cyber attack within the last year.

Of about 200 IT security managers in civilian and noncivilian federal agencies surveyed, 61% said there was a "high" threat of an attack being launched by a foreign nation sometime in the next year.

• 33 percent of respondents who work for departments or agencies affecting national security say they have experienced an attack by a foreign nation or terrorist organization in the last year;
• 61 percent of respondents view the threat of a cyber attack from foreign nations against critical U.S. IT infrastructure in the next year as “high”;
• 42 percent of respondents believe the U.S. government’s ability to prevent or handle these attacks is only fair or poor;
• 64 percent of respondents identified the increasing sophistication and growth in the volume of cyber attacks as the number one IT security risk; and,
• 49 percent of respondents believe that negligent or malicious insiders/employees are the largest IT security risk.

At the same time, more than four out of 10 respondents in the Lumension survey said that they believe the U.S. government's ability to defend against the attacks is "poor" to "fair" at best.

Feds could learn from private sector IT 04/03/2010 - The federal government can learn a lot from the private sector to improve IT program management and customer service and create a more modern government, concluded attendees of a forum comprised of both federal and private-sector leaders.

The government should take a more business-minded approach to how it manages its IT projects, as well as step up efforts already in place to increase transparency and accountability, according to a recently released report about the White House Forum on Modernizing Government.

PCI DSS compliance is more than checklist managment 03/05/2010 -

PCI DSS applies to any organization that accepts, stores or processes payment cards of any type and is a comprehensive checklist of actions these organizations must take to improve the security of global payment systems. Although the adoption of PCI DSS by an organization will most likely improve its security posture, being compliant with the PCI DSS does not ensure the organization is secure.

If Enterprises mechanically follow the PCI DSS checklist and our organization suffers a data securitybreach, they are still held responsible, and the organization still gets fined, suffers brand damage and may lose its ability to process credit card transactions. While checklists are useful tools, following them can lull us into a false sense of security.
To rely solely on the PCI DSS checklists to secure cardholder data is similar to a pilot relying only on the pre-flight checklist before takeoff, then colliding with another plane during takeoff. A checklist is not enough. In reality, the goal of effective security controls is to prevent security breaches from occurring, and when they do, to allow quick detection and recovery. This requires not just following a checklist, but understanding the organization’s compliance and security objectives, understanding what the top risks to achieving those objectives are, having adequate situational awareness to identify where we need controls to mitigate those risk, and then having implementing and monitoring the correct production controls.

Cost cutting starts with simplifying operations 03/04/2010 -

Complexity produces cost, so IT departments may choose to standardize on a handful of preferred technologies or vendors. The biggest line item in IT budgets is people, so staffing must be addressed. That could mean hiring freezes, cutting back on use of consultants, replacing employees who leave with automation technologies (not another person) and similar measures to limit spending on people.

CIOs should plan proactively for spending cuts before they are mandated. That may involve rebalancing IT initiatives to focus on projects with near-term benefits while keeping momentum on longer-term, strategic projects. They also may need to align IT more closely with the business priorities, which are likely to focus on revenue.

Tax laws hamper IT independent contractors 02/25/2010 -

 Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, an obscure law, certain classes of workers, including anyone who engages as a "computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work," are considered de facto employees for tax purposes, regardless of whether they claim to operate their own businesses as independent contractors. The IRS can impose significant tax penalties on companies who hire such workers as contractors rather than full employees, a fact that can make it extremely difficult for self-employed programmers to find work.

Section 1706 was originally sponsored by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who hoped that forcing highly paid software developers to become employees would limit their ability to take advantage of tax breaks for small businesses. Ironically, it was also Moynihan who, when a study determined the law was not bringing in the desired tax revenue, tried to have it repealed a year later. He failed, and it's still on the books today.

Employees typically do not  have to pay for their own health insurance, the way contractors do. Individual health plans generally offer worse coverage than group plans, and they can be incredibly selective about who they allow to join. Those who are accepted can expect their premiums to rise every year, often by double-digit percentages. Given these conditions, developers who have families to support or preexisting medical conditions are well advised to hang on to their salaried jobs for dear life rather than run the gauntlet of the dysfunctional American health insurance industry.

And if the prospect of being bankrupted by medical bills is not frightening enough, add the increasingly hostile legal climate surrounding the software development profession. In response to all-too-common reports of software bugs and security breaches, some organizations have begun lobbying for contractual language that makes software developers accountable for any defects in their code. For example, the SANS Institute has proposed a detailed contract that would require developers to certify that they had received appropriate training, observed any and all security procedures deemed necessary, and that their code was free of defects to the best of their knowledge, among other clauses.

Windows Live Potential Data Breach 02/17/2010 -

Microsoft is looking into reports that some Windows Live customers may have gotten access to other users' information.

"Microsoft is investigating reports of a limited number of instances in which Windows Live customers may have access to other customers' accounts when accessing their account through mobile Web browser," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "Microsoft takes customers' privacy seriously, and immediately upon learning of these reports, we started an investigation."

The company added that it "will take appropriate action once we have completed the investigation."

Metrics to Manage Performance Defined by Janco 02/10/2010 -

The performance of the people within an organization determines the success of business outcomes. Without optimal performance an organization can find itself floundering in the market and eventually fizzling out. Measuring the performance of our people and our HR department is a critical function for making sound business decisions and performance management decisions. HR metrics can be valuable tools for ensuring our people practices are aligned with our organizational goals and supporting the effective and efficient use of our most valuable asset, our people.

Outsouring impact IT Service Management 02/03/2010 -

Lack of proactive monitoring threatens end-user satisfaction and application performance

To operate a cost-effective business in today’s highly competitive market, an organisation requires an extremely efficient IT infrastructure to link its data centers, business operations and globally distributed customers. All business-critical applications must run smoothly to satisfy end-users’ and customers’ service level expectations. Consequently, an enterprise's IT support services play a vital role. Many international businesses, for example, operate multiple hosted data centers and have communication rooms in many of their overseas locations. These same businesses often outsource some of their IT operations management 

However, executives are concerned about poor visibility of IT infrastructure problems, high levels of service disruption, low end-user satisfaction and the impact on application availability. Visibility of an enterprise's infrastructure’s performance and availability are often inadequate because they have very little monitoring and performance information. Thus, they are a reactive organization. Enterprises must introduce an IT Service Transformation process to improve all aspects of IT Service Management (ITSM) and act as a foundation to monitor the critical business processes, which cover multiple applications and infrastructure integrated incident, problem and asset management.

Key objectives are to manage the infrastructure and applications proactively; generate a centralized system for their outsourced service providers; and link problems to their existing help desk.

Data Breachs Costly 01/31/2010 -

The financial consequences of data breaches can be severe. Many organizations lose customers and revenue because of the violation of trust incurred from a breach. Due to the growing number of state privacy laws, most breaches require that those whose information is compromised must be notified. Most organizations now pay for credit monitoring services for several years for all those impacted by a breach -- these services typically cost about $100 per person per year. And in some cases, organizations are subject to fines for revealing personal information.

Security Policy Manual (policies and procedures template) is over 240 pages in length. All versions of the Security Manual template include both the Business & IT Impact Questionnaire and the Threat & Vulnerability Assessment Tool (both were redesigned to address Sarbanes Oxley compliance). In addition, the Security Manual Template PREMIUM Edition contains 16 detail job descriptions that apply specifically to security and Sarbanes Oxley, ISO 27000 (ISO27001 and ISO27002), PCI-DSS, and HIPAA. Data Protection is a priority and security myths need to addressed.