Paul Wallis's Blog Posts Tagged 'Current_Business_trends_challenges' (18)

In addressing, “Cyber Security and Global Interdependence”, Dave Clemente of Chatham House discusses the ‘security implications emerging at the intersection of cyberspace and infrastructure’.  One of his conclusions is that,

“Meeting these security challenges requires better shared understanding of what is critical between those who protect an organization and those who set its strategic…

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On New Year’s Eve 2012, late afternoon, customers of three of the UK’s largest banks were unable to withdraw cash or use internet banking - some complaining that account balances were incorrectly showing ‘00.00’.

 

There can’t be many worse times for such a “glitch” to occur, and the (further) damage to those banks’ reputations must have been considerable. The financial cost was also considerable with, for example, Lloyds Bank setting aside £125 million to “compensate…

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During July we attended the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for the formation and launch of the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) Private Sector Preparatory Group.

The group was created by the FSB in response to a call from the leaders of the G20 countries to proceed with development of a, “unique identification system for parties to financial transactions.” […

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Over at the FSClub Blog, Chris Skinner summarises a discussion he had with a senior manager in finance about bank operations.  He writes,

“...most firms struggle with enterprise management.

It is down to the very nature of fragmented structures, legacy systems, merged and acquired operations, that make the enterprise view hard.

Hard but achievable, so why is it not…

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Three assertions that I hold to be true:

1. The understanding of the flow of data is fundamental to an organization’s financial well-being. [more]
2. Business resources, including people and IT assets, are either providers of data, consumers of data, or they provide the conduit through which the data can flow. […

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The citizens of both California and Japan live in the shadow of ‘The Big One’ – earthquakes of catastrophic and devastating power that will inevitably occur, one day.

 

Before these events, numerous ‘foreshocks’ will take place, smaller earthquakes, associated in time and space with the ‘mainshock’.

 

Unless things change, the finance sector will one day suffer its own ‘Big One’ – a combination of events that will cause…

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In my last blog about data flow and the development of ‘autonomous vehicles’, I argued that,

“...while the dream of a safer, and more efficient, road transportation system is worthy, it won’t be happening on a large-scale anytime soon...

 

...computers aren’t yet intelligent enough to reliably make safe, on-time decisions about everyday driving…

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Over at Forbes.com, Dan Woods argues that,

“In every dimension, CIOs are facing an increased pace of change at the same time they are losing control over the computing environment. The number of assets they must manage is exploding. Consumerization, virtualization, cloud computing, software as a service, mobility are all increasing the complexity of the job of managing IT by orders of magnitude.”

In “The Coming Crisis of IT Management”, he…

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Chateau Margaux 1983 is one of the many things I love about France.

 

My wife lived in France for a while so I’ve picked up her appreciation of the culture, food and language.

 

The French have a great way with language; they seem to find a way to say in a word that which takes a sentence in English. “Impasse” is one. I hate that word. I get a constant feeling of déjà vu (see what I mean) every time I hear it. It reminds me of a million meetings I was involved in…

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Researchers at Ruhr University, Germany, recently informed Amazon Web Services (AWS) of security holes in the AWS cloud architecture, enabling AWS to fix them before any “customers have been impacted”.

 

The research team believes similar flaws exist in many other cloud services, potentially enabling, ‘attackers to gain administrative…

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Yesterday, the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), a global finance industry watchdog, published a report on High Frequency Trading (HFT), and other high-tech trading practices.

 

The report is a response to the financial ‘flash crash’ of 2010 (and numerous subsequent ‘mini flash-crashes’) in which HFT clearly played some…

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Zombies and oil refineries really don’t mix well.

 

So it was with some alarm that I awoke abruptly last Sunday morning and heard nearby the chuckling voice of my teenage daughter, “Dad....dad....there’s a zombie massacre down at Ineos...can we go and watch?”

 

My first thought was that my old boss must have let Health & Safety slip a little, and that his job might be at stake.  Then I remembered Brad Pitt was in the district, filming “World War Z” close to…

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Doyle Lonnegan, a ruthless New York gangster turned banker, is one of my favourite movie characters.

 

In ‘The Sting’, which is set in the 1930s, Lonnegan, (the brilliant Robert Shaw), is the victim of a sophisticated confidence trick which costs him the $500,000 he bet on a horse.

 

A con-artist convinces him he can delay the official results of races getting to…

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Dennis Howlett blogged the other day about “Cloud computing advantages”, promoting the view that cloud is ‘as safe as flying.’

 

He uses a letter to The Economist written by Prof. Milo Martin to support the point.

 

Prof Martin compares cloud computing to commercial aviation, and compares car travel to internal IT systems.  He argues that,…

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What do you think this is a picture of:

• a secret plan for the circuit board of a new '3D' games console

• the organisational structure of a mafia crime syndicate

• a Piping and Instrumentation diagram (P&ID) for part of a nuclear power…

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Christmas is just over the horizon and during a lunch-break last week I did a little online browsing, seeking much needed inspiration for the gifts I'll give this year.



My first search was for "smart clothing" - clothes that incorporate computers or digital devices. I was curious about what was available because I'd read recently that it may be possible to develop clothing fabric that generates electricity through wearers' movement and body heat.



As a bit of a geek, that kind… Continue

An architect’s blueprints show how a building is constructed. In a similar way, Piping and Instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) are schematic diagrams showing how a process plant is put together.



P&IDs are usually print-outs from a computer model. The model might be of a simple process plant. Or it might be of a large petrochemical complex. The computer model lets the industry see clearly how individual assets interact – things like pipes, valves, pumps, meters and sensors.… Continue

John Higgins is Director General of Intellect, the trade association for the UK IT industry.  Recently he wrote about, “IT’s role in avoiding another banking crisis”…

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