EMA Research Blog: Navigating IT and Security Horizons

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by HelpSystems on February  2, 2016.

Greg Ferro recently blogged about how attempts to define software-defined networking (SDN) are a waste of time. He wrote:

[Author’s Note: This post is sponsored by Edgeworx. The content is entirely mine.]

The Evolution of the “Endpoint”
Over the past few years, the perception of what an “endpoint” is, and therefore the definition, has changed. The original perception was a user workstation independent of operating system. With the expansion of functionality, data persistence, Internet connectivity, and ultimately the threats against them, that definition no longer applies. Laptops became included, then smartphones, servers, tablets, internal file shares, and dedicated or special function devices such as point of sale terminals and processors.

Ahhh, the annual resolutions list! A time-honored tradition when we all look at the new year as an opportunity for a fresh start.

Review of Statistics Done Wrong by Alex Reinhart

Since the advent of the big data era, organizations have been crying out for data scientists. Initially it was finding the true data scientist. But as these resources were considered scarce, it was a search for people who could hand-code analytical models in a Hadoop environment.  As statistical tools such as R, Alteryx, and RapidMiner augmented Hadoop environments, we started to include traditional tools such as SAS and SPSS. These data scientists, or data scientists in training, were asked to take large amounts of data and divine the nuggets that would create a “cross-sell/up-sell” recommendation engine that would launch the next Netflix or link two disparate data sets that explain how markets interact and find the next groundbreaking investment opportunity.

The ability to execute in a low latency time frame is a core component of the concept of next generation data management architectures such as the Enterprise Management Associates Hybrid Data Ecosystem (HDE). One of the key business drivers of the HDE is speed of response,  which stems from an organization’s drive to execute faster than their competitors to create an advantage or to be on par with those competitors to simply “keep up with the Joneses.” You see this in workloads such as cross-sell/up-sell opportunities for revenue generation. You see this in opportunities to limit costs with asset logistics and labor scheduling optimization. You see this in opportunities to limit exposure to risk in fraud management and liquidity risk assessment.