Brent Reeman, General Manager, Local Government Association of Queensland

Organisations, and their directors and officers, need to have a clear understanding of the ICT risks that the organisation faces. They must ensure that procedures are in place to deal with and manage ICT risks – whether from events such as the floods, or from a failure to effectively implement a business-critical IT system.

In this seminar, hosted in conjunction with the Australian Computer Society, Senior Associate Michael Morris and Associate Hayden Delaney from HopgoodGanim’s Intellectual Property and Technology team will discuss:

• Policy arguments for better ICT governance
• The legal implications of failing to implement proper governance
• Mechanisms to effect ICT governance, including ICT governance charters and disaster recovery plans

Special guest speaker Jock O’Keeffe, Director of Pacific Technology Group, will differentiate between IT governance and strategy, and outline the practices and strategic efforts of IT-committed Boards. Given the recent flood, cyclone and fire events, Jock will walk through active case studies of successful and unsuccessful governance programs. ]]> http://www.pactecgroup.com/pactec-info-evening-ict-governance/feed/ 0 http://www.pactecgroup.com/jobfit-systems-inaugural-conference/ http://www.pactecgroup.com/jobfit-systems-inaugural-conference/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:41:12 +0000 scott http://www.pactecgroup.com/?p=388 Continue reading →]]> PacTec has an extensive IT & marketing relationship with multi-award winning Australian software company, JobFit Systems International, who has announced their inaugural Conference to be held on Hamilton Island in October 2010.

JobFit System’s unique software objectively compares worker capabilities to job demands to assist employers, health providers and consultants and give them (and the worker) peace of mind when making decisions regarding job placement, suitable duties programs, health surveillance and risk management strategies. With clients like Xstrata, Cadbury and BHP, the Jobfit System is at the forefront of creating safe, productive workplaces.

With the theme of “Health, Productivity and Sustainability”, the Conference will focus upon providing technical, legal and operational insights to JobFit System’s key stakeholders and clients and is expected to allow them to retain their edge over any competing systems. OH&S and provisions require the “best possible solutions” to be employed by utilized by employers, which is why the Jobfit System is sought by employers, unions, healthcare providers and insurance companies.

Further details about the Conference can be found at: www.jobfitsystem.com

To be fair, we expected to see this in some of our more progressive clients, but not necessarily in some of the more conservative verticals. Right now, we feel like we’re in a mad dash to determine how to use this opportunity to directly communicate on a 1-to-1 and 1-to-many basis.

Recent broad-based research has indicated that 95% of businesses in Australia allow or encourage their employees to use Web 2.0 applications.

However, while Web 2.0 brings many opportunities these applications were designed at the consumer level, raising multiple security and other issues in the enterprise 2.0 environment.

With the blurring of lines between professional life and personal life, new policies and procedures must be established:

• To prevent the massive quantum of confidential information which is “lost” via the web we need to implement real time security measures which analyse traffic bi-directionally;
• There must be real time content analysis & classification to appropriately deal with the amount of user created content, mashups and multiple frames;
• Detailed policy and scrutiny of access and use of message boards and social media;
• We must control the use and access to individual applications ie. whilst using an iPhone is acceptable do we really want to open iTunes and thousands of applications to the enterprise environment?

At the moment, we’re assisting our clients with policy framework before strategic work starts. Don’t underestimate the scale of the opportunities, threats and time involved.

The research breakdown of such issues as:

• Data protection and integrity
• Vulnerability and identity management
• Physical, personnel and application security
• Incidence response
• Compliance
• SLAs and liability’
• End of contract coverage

… are well worth reading and considering.

As always, the naysayers and vested interest groups will delay the move to the cloud for as long as possible while the acolytes continue their march toward corporate IT salvation.

1. The price of cloud computing and SaaS continues to be slashed – discounting was the norm as major vendors and developers aggressively build scale. Recent examples include Amazon EC2 cut prices up to 15% in November, Google cut its Picasa photo storage pricing from $20 to $5 for a year and Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite, which includes the SaaS versions of Exchange, went from $15 a month per user to $10.
2. The main inhibitor to cloud adoption continues to be security – in March, a broad range of companies, both vendors and cloud users, formed the Cloud Security Alliance to create a consensus regarding security. Users can also expect to see technologies that enable cloud providers to meet different customer security requirements. There may also be a push for regulatory changes that take into account cloud services.
3. Simpler, more complete management – look out this year for simple sets of tools to manage all of your applications
4. Blaming communication breakdown for Cloud failure will no longer be acceptable
5. Simpler Pricing: 2010 may see a proliferation of “all-you-can-eat pricing models,” where a user contracts for a set number of hours that includes a range of services, said Ahmar Abbas, senior vice president of remote infrastructure management at CSS Corp., an IT services and consulting firm in San Jose, Calif.

Lets see what develops…..

Much of the debate about cloud computing focuses on operational and financial benefits but recent questions have developed regarding data security.

While we at PacTec believe we have the most security conscious enterprise grade solution in the Australian market, we recently read an intensive and encompassing article by Chenxi Wang Ph.D of Forrester Research which we believe that all participants can utilise.

The research breakdown of such issues as:

• Data protection and integrity
• Vulnerability and identity management
• Physical, personnel and application security
• Incidence response
• Compliance
• SLAs and liability
• End of contract coverage

… are well worth reading and considering.

As always, the naysayers and vested interest groups will delay the move to cloud for as long as possible while the acolytes continue their march toward corporate IT salvation.