Sneak Preview of my US tour next week

I'm off to the states on Monday to speak at an IBM roadshow, and talk about what good IT Security and Service Management looks like. Here's a sneak preview of the slideshow, showing what integrated service management looks like, (C) Pirean Ltd. 2010 all rights reserved.

Come see me in Minneapolis on Tuesday at IBM, 650 3rd Ave South and in Atlanta on Thursday at IBM, 4111 Northside Parkway.

More details and registration here .
See you there?

SaaS is the new TSO

Nice piece from my mate Dancing Dinosaur about SaaS on System z.

"Veteran mainframe data center managers were baffled when SaaS [...] appeared on the scene years ago. That’s what they had been doing for years, for decades, they would tell me. Only, it wasn’t called that then. How is it any different from time sharing, they would ask.

"Conceptually it isn’t very different. However, three things make it different enough: 1) the emergence of the Internet as a ubiquitous connecting fabric that everyone can use; 2) the browser as the universal client; and 3) the advent of services and service orientation. Previously monolithic code is now extracted as identifiable services and made accessible over the Internet via the browser following a requester-responder model. "

I'm not sure I would call myself a Veteran but I did raise an eyebrow or two when I read about some recent "advancements" in the fields of grid and cloud computing. DD's right, in many ways, cloud computing is very like mainframe time sharing (good old TSO), just much prettier. Which is why IBM have worked hard on System z in recent years to position it in the market as the perfect cloud provider. Even if you don't already own one.

Join Pirean at Pulse Comes To You to understand more about our portfolio for Smarter Tivoli Solutions

A message from our CEO...

Join Pirean at Pulse Comes To You to understand more about our portfolio for Smarter Tivoli Solutions. On 27th May at The Grange St. Paul's Hotel in London, PULSE comes to the UK. To celebrate we're offering you the chance to get ahead of the pack and win an Apple iPad* when you register for the event at Pirean.com! With a focus on helping organisations understand how to survive and thrive in today's difficult environment, Pulse Comes To You will showcase how you could minimise cost and drive greater efficiencies in your organisation. All facets of service management – hardware, software and services – will be covered. Join us and our clients as we share real life experiences of delivering business value with these solutions. As proud sponsors, Pirean will be on hand to showcase an award winning portfolio of IBM Tivoli services and solutions that could help make your business achieve 'Smarter' End to End IT Service Management. Hear from industry experts and share ideas with your peers Hear from some of the key speakers from the Global Pulse 2010 conference held in Las Vegas – including Al Zollar, General Manager IBM Tivoli® Software Hear what is actually happening in the UK market from an independent analyst speaker Hear the real-live experiences from clients who are driving value with Integrated Service Management solutions. Gain insight into product roadmaps and strategic direction Network with IBM experts and Business Partners Click below to join Pirean at PCTY2010 and for your chance to win an Apple iPad. We look forward to seeing you there! Yours sincerely, Stuart Wilson Pirean

*Terms and conditions apply, for more information visit http://www.pirean.com/PCTYregister © Copyright IBM Corporation 2010. All Rights Reserved. IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Smarter Planet and the planet icons, and Tivoli are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.

Staff ignore security policy to save time

Please do not change your password - The Boston Globe quotes from a Microsoft study that concludes that much of our security policy advice to users is pointless. In the article, Bruce Schneier is quoted as speculating that the employees knew following security policies would cut into their work time. They understood better than the IT department that the risks of not completing their assignments far outweighed any unspecified consequences of ignoring a security rule or three. “People do what makes sense and don’t do what doesn’t,”

This is just what I was talking about last month when I said that we should do more enabling and less eliminating. If you insist people use separate, strong passwords for them all without giving them a simple, secure means of storing and retrieving these passwords on demand wherever and whenever they are needed, then don't be surprised if they ignore the advice and/or write them down. It's gonna happen.