LS Filter Coffee

M y friend who is a security expert showed me his new  Apple iPad 2 fully loaded with  64GB  RAM; I wondered with such a large global fan following "Are Apple devices secure from cyber spying ?". A search on the web did throw out a number of security issues with Apple devices, I share some of the concerns raised in the last quarter of 2011. a.  Why You Shouldn’t Use H1Siri http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/12/06/why-not-to-use-h1siri/ b.  GERMAN LEADERS QUESTION APPLE’S MOTIVES OVER USE OF CARRIER IQ http://www.idevicenews.org/german-leaders-question-apples-motives-over-use-of-carrier-iq/225018/ c.Jailbreak 5.0.1 Untethered (iOS 5) – iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad, iPod Touch 4G, 3G http://www.jailbreaknation.com/jailbreak-ios-5-5.0.1-untethered-iphone-4-3gs-ipad-ipod-touch-4g-3g d. Here are some important concerns of NIST before the US Government adopts Apple Devices 1.NIST Tests Ways To Secure iPhones, iPads http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/2313000...

Seasons Greetings and  Good Luck in 2012. [caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Like a Lotus may you have peace, transcendence, enlightenment, rebirth, beauty, and fertility in 2012"] [/caption] If you are a smoker or want to help a smoker keep up one's New Year Resolution to Quit Smoking then you need help from WhyQuit. I have never been a smoker but I have seen many friends succumb to the joys of tobacco, somehow of them have quit but many quit the habit only when the God Lord decided their time in this world was over. In later November I was invited as a motivational speaker in Chennai when one of the participants Prince Rajarathinam came up to me and told me he had quit smoking after many failed attempts thanked the Why Quit site for motivating him to quit the habit finally. I am sure this site will be useful to help you to  Quit Smoking which you may want add to your New Year Resolutions. Here is the link ...

Seasons Greetings and  Good Luck in 2012. 1. Many Financial Exchanges will declare bankruptcy in 2012 creating a flurry of transnational merger of exchanges. 2. Financial Exchanges will move their trading engines to a shared technology infrastructure like cloud computing to bring down their technology cost. 3. Rating Agencies will play a major role by stabilizing global equity markets after the regulator tames their independence by introducing reforms in their rating methodologies. 4. Cloud will be predominantly used for algorithmic and similar computer driven trading, which will make markets  operations  cost effective and profitable.  5. SAAS (Software as a Service Models) will emerge for financial exchanges to use as a service, though it may face resistance from regulators, but this paradigm shift will make technology solutions for financial trading engines a commodity with a Opex budget and will find large scale adoptions by exchanges globally...

Cloud forecast for 2012  Cloud Computing will spread like this Banyan Tree Nourishing Computing Globally.  1. Amazon and Microsoft will lead, and Cisco, HP, IBM and others will have a tough fight for the third place in the Cloud Computing Business.  2. Thousands of SAAS Mobile Applications will be launched using the cloud in 2012, you could even have applications for monitoring your dogs health and diet, including posting photos and similar applications. 3. There will be a number of outages among smaller cloud service providers and this will lead to tighter regulation of cloud computing and also trigger a wave of Mergers with stronger cloud service providers. 4. Cyber Attacks will increase many fold using the cloud as the base for launching these attacks, Security professionals will need to gear for many sleepless nights in 2012 to stay ahead of the cyber criminals. 5. Business Leaders will aggressively bring cloud adoption mainstream and it will be a great year for ...

Cloud Computing provides Agility, Economy, Speed and much more but it cannot be adopted with the Regulator's support. Lack of guidance for compliance has choked Cloud Adoption and has made cloud adoption similar to  climbing a steep Rock with no guidance. . Cloud Adoption is like Climbing a Steep Rock ! It is time for the Regulator to understand the Cloud Benefits, overcome its fears on Privacy and Security and provide guidelines for Adoption. Let 2012 be the year when Regulators support cloud adoption by providing compliance guidelines and may business and the customer benefit by Cloud Adoption. Are the Regulators Listening ? Let  healthcare, banking, insurance, financial service and other regulated business benefit and server it customers better with the Regulators support and guidance for Compliance in the Cloud.

These days Rating Agencies seem to be more the story of the Boy who cried Wolf,  here is the story  http://www.storyarts.org/library/aesops/stories/boy.html The Rating Agencies today are like the Squirrel in this picture - Insignificant   There was a  time when even a sniffle by the rating agencies would send a chill down the spine of nations and financial institutions. But thanks to a few mistimed moves the rating agencies are seen more as Squirrels burrowing away rather then Messengers of Risk. Last month the Rating Agencies threatened to downgrade the rating of the European countries, but surprise was the European Markets rallied back with scant disregard to the threats of the rating agencies. It is time for the Rating Agencies to act and cry Wolf only when required rather than like the Boy in the story. Else when financial catastrophe descends the rating agencies would not have Rung the Alarm Bells on Time or even if they did everyone would ignore ...

Our life's lessons are learnt when we learn to ride a bicycle in our youth. We start with someone helping us to balance by supporting us and then we learn to balance the cycle and then Bang we fall down. We have  bruised shins and a few scrapes but our enthusiasm put us back on the saddle and we are back to learning to cycle. Life too is a cycle, we make mistakes and we fall, but we must never be scared to pull ourselves up and get back into the game of life. Sometimes the cycle wobbles, so is life, we are not always on a steady course, but we learn to hold our head true and travel through the rough roads in our life. The Rally of life too holds its challenges, but never give up, sometimes we need an overhaul  like a bicycle, take time off to pull yourself together and start your journey again. Remember how we used to pedal furiously to climb a hill and the sheer joy of rolling down with hands free and legs in the air, Tribulations in life too are hills which when surmounted bring ...

The Business will lead cloud computing adoption in 2012 and beyond. Just like ERP adoption was led by business and not the EDP manager , cloud computing adoption will be led by the Business and not the CIO/CTO. If you do not learn how to ride the cloud computing horse, then you are doomed to be trampled under their hooves, learn to adapt to business. Unless Technology leaders learn to change their stripes quickly and improve their trust and knowledge on cloud computing they stand to be drowned in the cloud computing deluge which is waiting to be unleashed in the coming years. CIO/CTO/ Die Hard Technology non believers, convert and repent and adopt cloud computing else you will be swept away into insignificance like the old EDP Manager . Welcome 2012 with the belief and conviction that Cloud Computing and Business will tango together just like the two horses in the picture. Add Cloud Computing Adoption as the No 1 item in your TO DO list for 2012!

Today's Times of India newspaper, Mumbai, published an article " Common KYC for all financial products" . http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Common-KYC-for-all-financial-products/articleshow/10788805.cms I share my thoughts about the need for KYC Bureaus in India. Need for KYC Bureaus in India L.S.Subramanian Summary: This article justifies the immediate need for Centralized National KYC Bureaus in India and proposes an outline for their operations and regulations and deliverable. It also recommends that the Government of India bring KYC Bureaus into operation through The Reserve Bank of India by allowing the existing four licensed credit Bureaus namely CIBIL, Experian Credit Information Co. of India Pvt. Ltd, Equifax Credit Information Services Pvt. Ltd and High Mark Credit Information Services Pvt. Ltd. to also operate as Centralized and Automated National KYC Bureaus. It is also proposed to mandate use of two fingerprints for Biometric identific...

Choosing cloud vendors is like finding a white bird in the picture, it needs skill, knowledge and passion to find the best solution.\You need to be sure the vendor has the ability to provide a solution that blends with your business needs. Cloud computing without value does not add value to the business or to the technology leader. Irrespective of what you want to do in the cloud, you need ot remember it is a shared service and you will have to compromise. Using cloud services is like riding a Tandem cycle, all riders need to balance to get the tandem cycle moving and remember you will reach your destination based on the ability and needs of all the riders. In dedicated data centers you rode your own bicycle and you called the shots, but in the cloud you need to be malleable and ductile and ever amorphous when needed and metamorphise into a tandem rider :-). This is a qualatative change in handling vendors, it is first important for you to understand what the vendors cloud services can...

[caption id="attachment_184" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Namma Metro Logo on the left hand top corner of this picture at MG Road station."] [/caption] Last Sunday (10/30) I took my first ride in the Namma Metro (Bangalore Metro),  "Namma" means "ours" in Kannada. I reached the Indiranagar Metro station on day with cloudy skills and a chill in the air. The security staff at the station were polite and helpful. After climbing a flight of stairs instead of the elevator  (part of the fitness regime) I reached the ticket booking counter. The woman at the counter was polite and efficient and I got an electronic token for  12 rupees to reach M.G.Road. The ticket costs  were clearly displayed at the booking in counter in English, Hindi and Kannada. The station was spick and span and it will win hands down against any Singapore metro station. [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" ca...

Last week I was in Bangalore again and was on the 100 feet road Indiranagar before day break on a walk with my sister. The weather was beautiful and with a good amount of chill in the air after the earlier nights rain. Nature had taken upon herself to clean the roads and remaining trees on the 100 feet road, everything was looking freshly minted. The pavements are not fit for walking, was surprised to see such poor engineering in India's  Silicon Valley. So most walkers walk on the road and we too decide to follow in a single file, which meant limited conversation with my sister. My sister showed me the site where some early morning walkers were mowed down by a speeding car a few months ago. The positive was the presence of policemen patrolling the area, this was reassuring, kudos to the Bangalore Police for their constant vigil. A young  biker skidded on a T junction and within minutes the police came on a motorcycle and began investigations. There were more stumps of the  chopped...

Earlier this week I was at my brothers birthday celebrations and I counted 20 digital cameras in a crowd of 60 people, and maybe an equal number of cameras on the mobile devices . The shutterbugs were busy creating digital footprints of their presence in the party and also recording the event for posterity. Set the clock back by three decades when we had the Kodak Instamatic as the camera of choice with 16/24/32 photos on film, subsequently the polaroid and then the SLR cameras. Photography needed patience, money and expertise and was not a shutterbug activity. Photos were an art of craft and photography was an expensive hobby. These days you can click as many photos as you can, there are no limits, you can also shoot digital videos until you run out battery or memory in your camera (not film :-). I would estimate about fifty digital photos in each camera and there were 20 cameras, which adds up to about 1000 digital photos. Each digital photo is about 20kb in size, so 20,000 KB of d...

Sunset of Public Cloud Adoption Public cloud computing adoption has slowed down especially in Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS). The big hardware and data center companies have been aggressively pushing private and hybrid clouds to retain their marketing share. Fewer data centers are being closed and the Board is informed that the organization is already using cloud computing. The private and hybrid cloud allows the IT leader to maintain status quo, declare to the world that the cloud adoption is complete in a secure environment. Bigger and more efficient data centers will be built for private clouds, when you have your private cloud you are more secure, the public cloud means you have delegated your data and security to a third party. The CEO is delighted now he has a private jet and also a new technology acquisition one's own Private Cloud :-). The Compliance and IT Governance teams will continue to push for private clouds, it keeps everyone employed the IT Team and the compli...

The global economy will bounce back by end of this year, and it will be business as usual in the financial markets. Many jobs will be shed and a lean and mean workforce will bring back normalcy in the markets by end of this year. There is no alternative, if business as usual is not achieved in financial markets the world will plummet into a self destruct mode. Political leaders across the world will bury their differences and make concessions and compromise their economies to put back the financial markets and the global economy back on track. The good days will be back again for the survivors in the financial sector, for those who have been annexed it will be a new career, though many will return as the markets gain momentum. The Bulls are the Losers , the Bears are the Winners.

The past decade has seen major upheavals in the financial markets especially Banks, Rating Agencies and Hedge Funds and also in internationals organizations like the IMF. It has been a bloody cocktail of greed, power and sex. Many financial leaders have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, some have hired the best lawyers and have set themselves free, the regulators struggle to bring order given the clout of the players in the Financial Markets. Financial Markets have had numerous bailouts all across the world from governments and political leaders who have supported the status quo instead of stepping in to stem the rot that has set in the financial markets. Suddenly free markets and capitalism do not seem sexy, rather We the people have stepped into the streets and are advocating Socialism again. The global Occupy Wall Street Protests highlight the anarchy being faced by common citizens and highlight the divide between the haves and have not. Suddenly America which exported A...

Blackberry has become the standard for business mobility today be it a SOHO, SMB or Enterprise.There are many outstanding features that make Blackberry Business's favorite mobile device a few key features are: a. Innovation b. Reliability c. Security d. Business Applications e. Ease of Use. BB eats breathes and lives Business in its phones and also provides awesome compliance which has resulted in Bond based on TRUST between RIM & Business. This weeks BB outage would not have affected Business that had reliable Business Continuity Plans; rather  the BB disruption has been a good test of their business continuity planning and technology resilience in adversity. BB has gone beyond messaging, the BB devices today support some of the most intuitive business applications for quick deployment and acclimatization. Business leaders will return to their Blackberry Phones with a vengeance this weekend and those that deserted Blackberry in...

I had an opportunity to explore SAP Business ByDesign the new offering from SAP which bundles agility, adaptability and on demand deployment in the cloud. It was wonderful to see the new avatar of SAP and to discuss their strategy in delivering business solutions from the cloud. The  Agile and Different Avatar of SAP will rain in prosperity for Business.  (Photo courtesy Ajay Kumar)  Surprise was there was no reference to ERP in their brochures or by their sales people. the SAP Business ByDesign is a business collaboration tool, which is flexible and can be customized and rolled out in weeks rather then in months.  This is really fresh breeze blowing from Germany in the month of Oktoberfest. Accelerated adoption by business of this solution will bring business agility and strategic advantage to them. 

India lives in its villages" - Mahatma Gandhi. Background This is article espouses the need for building a “Bharat Badal” a national cloud computing infrastructure for India which will benefit the rural India and bring the information technology within its grasp. Cloud Computing Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal Management effort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing transforms computer processing, data storage, and software applications, allowing them to be delivered as a utility. Just like people tap into existing infrastructure for water or power, companies can now tap into a variety of services - applications, platforms, raw computing power and storage - all via the Internet.  Key Drivers of Cloud Computing The key drivers of cloud computing are: –  ...

As the global economy continues its roller coaster ride the VC has become selective in their funding.  The one category which the VC will fund are Saas Solutions in the Cloud. What is the criteria to attract the VC's interest and get the funds you badly need to grow your business. Photo Courtesy Ajay Gopal. 1. You need a running application which is a SaaS solution in the cloud. 2. You must have an monthly income on the use of your solution with a projected growth of 50% quarter to quarter.  3. The solution must be unique and if possible you must have a few patents or IPR on some processes. Thus creating a barrier for replication.  5. It could be in any industry vertical or any consumer/corporate segment.  If you meet the five criteria above the VC will be calling at your door with the cheque and for their share in growing your business. You need a great SaaS solution idea which can be developed in the cloud and a credit card to buy cloud services and ...

Cloud Appliances A cloud appliance is an off the shelf computing  equipment delivered fully assembled and tested, with the software stack loaded and configured. When the appliance is connected to the power and network and turned on, it works. This is one of the easiest methods to build a private cloud as an IAAS deployment, so if you had three cloud appliances in three data centers and a network, all you need is to plug in the three cloud appliances and Presto you have an enterprise (private)  cloud.  Cloud Appliance the Boat for Enterprise Cloud Computing all photos in this blog courtesy Ajay Gopal (aj2z on Twitter) Today's cloud appliance are more matured and can be deployed for connecting to the public cloud thus creating a hybrid cloud. So now you have your enterprise private cloud and you can connect to the large and powerful public cloud using the cloud appliance.  This allows the the enterprise to use the cloud appliance as a boat to the public cloud and when ...