Posted on Fri, Jan 27, 2012 @ 06:49 AM
People take printing for granted. The fact is, however, that printing is complex, and as MFPs move more toward computing devices, ensuring the security of your print environment is critical. Networked printers, when not secured and managed properly, may be vulnerable to hacking attacks, as recent industry headlines warn.
How can you avoid print security risks in your IT environment? Here, we outline standard MFP security options, as well as some examples of highly secure printing capabilities used in regulated industries.
Basic Printing Security
Most printers and MFPs today have built-in PIN security, requiring a user to click “print,” enter a PIN code, walk over to the printer and enter the PIN again to release the job. At the least, we recommend that organizations enable this level of print security.
In addition to helping with security, this functionality is also a great driver (pun intended) for printer consolidation. Users that print confidential documents may otherwise require their own printers, but with PIN security they can print to faster, more cost-effective, shared printers without risking confidentiality.
However, out-of-the box secure print stops there. Going beyond PIN functionality, there are several options to achieve more secure print processes and management.
The Secure Print Hierarchy
Listed below are a few considerations, ordered from least to most expensive. As is often the case, a higher price typically means the technology is more user friendly.
- Secure-Print Applications: Server software is available to enable a tracking layer on top of PIN security, which lets IT securely track print transactions by user and see who is printing what. This insight can also help to save printing costs by understanding where printers can be consolidated, even across departments, as user tracking can help split costs for one machine if needed. In addition, some settings can require user authentication prior to printing, to ensure that only authorized users have access to printing devices.
- Contact-Based Security: Thumbprint readers and ID badge scanners only release print jobs with physical contact and approval, bringing users to the machine to release and remove print jobs at once. These options are more user friendly than PIN functionality as only one extra step is needed—scan thumbprint or badge—versus having to enter a PIN twice. Contact-based options give employees mobility without needing a mobile device, as they can print to the nearest machine. This also allows for mobility between locations. For example, executives that travel from one office to another can simply scan their employee ID badges to print at any company location without having to log on, identify the proper network, and connect to print drivers.
- QR Code Reader: Using quick-response (QR) codes is another way to manage and secure print jobs, by which employees scan the printer code using a reader on their mobile devices to release print jobs. Part of the additional cost for this solution is the cost of smart devices for each employee, as well as the QR software and security behind it.
Secure Printing in Regulated Industries: Finance & Healthcare
In highly regulated industries, like finance or healthcare, print security is critical to business compliance and success. Following are some examples of what’s possible on the high end of secure print. If your organization needs higher levels of print security, you may be able to take some lessons from these markets.
Finance: Check Printing
Custom printer features and physical security are used to keep check stock safe, and ensure the validity of printed checks. Troy Group’s secure check printers for HP and other industry players offer the following security enablers for check printers:
- Locking paper trays
- Sensors inside a printer that can identify MICR toner
- Watermarking capabilities
- Secured executive signature files
Healthcare: Prescriptions
As abuse of prescription drugs continues to rise, it becomes all the more important for healthcare systems to secure their printers, and for pharmacies to ensure the validity of printed prescriptions. Pre-printed prescriptions have very distict requirements, which are enabled by industry-specific printers.
- Watermarks or pantographs
- Edge borders with text that can be read only under strong magnification
- Instructions for pharmacists on what to look for to ensure prescription validity
Your Thoughts?
How have you achieved secure print in your organization? If not, what challenges have you encountered along the way?
For more secure printing tips, see 7 Ways to Protect Your Printers, from PC World.
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Jeffrey Goldstein is Senior Consultant at MCPc and is responsible for the delivery of hardcopy and value-added services within the Lifecycle Management Group. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn.
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Posted on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 @ 11:26 AM
Your organization is going mobile (or likely, it already has). To ensure that you have the right mobile device management (MDM) processes in place, the first step is to review—or develop—your organization’s mobile use policy.
Corporate Mobile Use Policy Considerations
Start with the basics, and think about where your organization and employees are headed.
State and Local Jurisdiction
Do your state or local jurisdictions uphold texting restrictions, or other laws against mobile device usage while driving? If so, your organization may be held liable if an employee on a company device causes an accident or receives a ticket for a traffic infringement.
Know your local laws, incorporate them into your mobile use policy, and go the extra step to educate employees about rules and ramifications.
Industry Regulations
The same industry regulations that apply to current IT processes and data also apply to mobile. Develop mobile-specific policies to keep devices (and the data stored/accessed on them) in line with relevant regulations, such as:
Consistency Across Corporate Devices
Are mobile policies similar or in conflict with how users leverage other devices in the ecosystem? Often there are more regulations on mobile devices than laptops, and introducing mobile policies can be a good time to introduce other changes in the system's environment, making all device policies tougher. In the end, consistency is the best practice.
When possible, keep applications consistent, even across devices. Some MDM software allows organizations to publish a custom enterprise App Stores with recommended software, giving employees easy access to preferred tools.
BYOD
More employees are bringing their own devices into the workplace, and expecting seamless usage. Be sure to consider the following BYOD-related questions within your mobile use policy:
- Who owns the phone number that goes along with an employee-owned device? Some software allows organizations to place virtual phone numbers on mobile devices, enabling separate environments to avoid such issues.
- What is your organization is willing to pay? Consider the device, data plan, voice plan, software upgrades, device replacements, help desk and more.
- As these devices become mission-critical? Does your organization have a back-up plan in place to restore lost, broken or stolen devices?
- What standards are in place for employee-owned devices, software and applications accessing the corporate network?
Set Standards, But Be Ready to Adapt
Identify smartphone, tablet and laptop standards across your organization, including apps and operating systems.
Continual technology and device updates make it more important than ever to continually revisit your mobile use policy. The space changes quickly—it's not like Windows where you can set policies then forget them.
OS Updates
Your IT department needs to understand not only the capabilities and limitations of each OS, but also differences introduced in new versions. Updates for Android and iOS seem to be introduced every six months or so, and with them, so must your use policy be revised.
For example, when Apple introduced iOS5, it introduced the capability to backup to iCloud. Did your team react with an updated mobile use policy to keep corporate data secure?
Enlist a committee dedicated to keeping pace with the quickly changing mobile environment, and any changes that will impact your organization’s mobile use policy. Group IT managers with leaders from HR, legal and the executive team for a holistic perspective.
Help Desk Support
With your mobile use policy, clearly define what your help desk is willing to support and trained to support, including devices, connectivity, applications and more. You don't want to run a free-for-all support model with 250 different applications for your team to support and maintain.
Your Thoughts?
What challenges have you run into when updating your organization’s mobile use policy? What changes have you made recently, and how have employees responded?
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Ira Grossman, VP, Personal Systems Group, has more than 15 years of technology project management experience and is an expert in lifecycle management and mobile device management for the enterprise. Connect with Ira on LinkedIn.
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Posted on Fri, Jan 13, 2012 @ 01:58 PM
I love my iPad. It goes everywhere with me. Sees me through everything. Client presentations, email, calendar, client proposals, movies, music, photos, virtual desktop, functions as my phone—you name it. In fact, as my previous blog posts have outlined, my iPad replaced my laptop. But I just felt that there was something else out there. And boy was I right!
The Tension Builds…
It started innocently enough.
An email or text here and there announcing her presence to me. Some with a flirtatious undertone, just teasing me of what was to come. I had seen her once or twice at demos, and man, was she sexy.
Then it happened: We met in person.
She was sleek and new. Smaller than my iPad. Enchanting. Pure enterprise grade. The Cisco Cius!
Yes, I have been cheating on my iPad with the Cius.
Cisco Cius: Background and Basics
The Cius was announced in June 2010, and recently hit the market. I’ve had mine for about four weeks now.
Has it fully replaced my iPad? No. But it has become an amazing secondary device, and there are several features that have the potential to make it a serious competitor to the iPad:
- Seamless integration to the Cisco Collaboration suite—Jabber, video, presence, WebE, and Quad.
- A docking station that contains USB and HDMI ports.
- A micro SD card slot.
- Built-in micro USB and micro HDMI ports.
- The ability to connect a mouse and keyboard.
- Cisco Telepresence and endpoint interoperability.
- Cisco Communications Manager serves as the Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform.
The Bottom Line: iPad vs. Cius
For the first generation of the device, the Cius isn’t bad. I love the Cisco Telepresence integration, USB ports, and ability to use Communications Manager as the MDM.
If your organization has invested heavily in the Cisco ecosystem (voice, collaboration, video) and you’re considering a thin client for VDI deployment, then the Cius warrants a look. Or, if you’re considering purchasing the Cisco 9971 video phone, I would strongly consider the Cius instead.
However, do not kid yourself that the Cius is the iPad. In my opinion, Android is inferior to IOS as a mobile operating system.
In terms of pure tablet functionality in the post-PC world, the iPad trumps the Cius. Cisco is quick to point out, however, that the Cius is not intended to compete directly with the iPad. The Cius is a pure enterprise play, not a consumer play. It’s a video endpoint that also brings the benefits of enhanced security and VDI to the table.
So where will I end up? I believe that I will find a way to have the iPad and Cius coexist. Because at this point, I can’t live without either of them!
Do you have any questions about the Cius, and how it compares to the iPad? Fire away in the comments below.
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Darin Haines is Group President of MCPc's Advanced Technology Group, focusing on solution delivery, and has over 16 years of experience in leading the technology function in mid-sized and enterprise-level organizations. Connect with Darin on LinkedIn.
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Posted on Tue, Jan 10, 2012 @ 12:14 PM
Whether choosing a public cloud provider or setting up your own private cloud on premise, cloud technology will be as safe and secure as it’s designed to be. When outsourcing to a public cloud offering, ask yourself: “Will my provider give my data, security, access and overall environment the same due diligence that we would onsite?”
This post outlines considerations when planning your secure, cloud-based IT environment.
Stepping Stones toward a Secure Cloud
Chief security officers (CSOs) and organizations should not accept that policy alone will govern the security of their data—the only possible way to guarantee the security of your data is to practice defense in depth security yourself. Inspect what you expect.
How well secured will your moving and at-rest data be in the cloud? Multifactor authentication and a recurring review process for data access, security and penetration testing are good practices to follow for the most secure IT environment, regardless of whether the data is in the cloud or not.
Whether private or public, the following are three recommendations to consider to ensure your cloud is secure, including steps before and after cloud implementation.
Pre-Cloud:
Start planning by positioning yourself as your organization’s ‘legal team.’
Ensure that your organization and its providers have clearly defined contracts in place for existing and moving data. When hosting in a shared environment, know in writing:
- How will data be replicated? Destroyed?
- Where data will be stored? Do global locations fall outside jurisdiction or within the lines of politically unstable countries?
- How will the data be encrypted at rest? In motion?
- Who has access to your cloud and data? Who should have access?
- How frequently is the list of authorized cloud users being revised, and how frequently are requirements tested?
- What sort of penetration testing is in place, and how frequent is testing performed?
- What are the SLA’s for uptime, data loss, data theft?
Once you’ve gathered this information, review with your organization’s legal team to make sure the contract and service-level agreements (SLAs) are complete and in accordance with compliance requirements.
I strongly advise clients to consider what SLAs should look like in case of a breach, and what actions should be in place. Let’s look at the case where your organization’s master customer database is stored within a cloud solution: If, due to an error by the cloud provider, the data becomes available to competitors, does the SLA cover the leak? What if the situation is due to a flaw in the underlying operating system and is not the result of cloud provider negligence?
The security conversation you’ll need to have with potential providers is not as much about availability and whether you can access data, but more about the impact and action plans in place for potential theft or data loss. Availability is assumed… the SLA’s to govern that are readily available.
Remember that until any legislation is updated to specifically address the cloud, meeting industry compliance requirements like HIPPA, SOX and PCI is your responsibility—not your provider’s.
Post-Cloud:
- Re-analyze your security posture—both as it relates to your organization alone and now, with a cloud provider. Does the provider amplify security assets, or are there holes in security planning?
- Conduct your own internal security audits and penetration testing. Try to hack your cloud, or pay experts to do it.
There’s much more you can do to ensure your organization is securely moving to the cloud. Read on for information on the MCPc approach—Walk your way into the cloud.
Your Thoughts?
What challenges have you faced with finding security in the cloud? How have you overcome the more common obstacles?
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Andy Jones is Senior Vice President of Sales. He has more than 15 years of IT industry experience, and is an expert on cloud, virtualization and managed services solutions. Connect with Andy on LinkedIn.
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Posted on Wed, Jan 04, 2012 @ 03:48 PM
Each month our team sifts through tons of technology-related articles to compile highlights into a monthly recap for our readers. December’s top stories include a range of hot topics, such as: consumerization and the cloud, IT staffing, BYOD, and application security.
Consumerization and the Cloud
Was 2011 the year that cloud computing shook your data center? Eric Knorr (@EricKnorr) argues that it was in his InfoWorld article (requires registration).
"We're at the beginning of a very long ascent skyward, with many convoluted twists and turns along the way … Ultimately, IT's mission is to deliver applications -- either bought or built for the business.”
Gartner follows the move to the cloud in its 2012 IT predictions, and Jon Stokes’ (@jonstokes) Wired article, Gartner: 2012 Will Be the Year of Apocalyptic Reckoning for CIOs, lays out just how the move to the cloud and more consumerized IT affects business operations, processes and overall IT spending.
Speaking of consumerization, InfoWorld’s Galen Gruman (@MobileGalen) lists technology consumers have (or should have) a handle on in his article, Hands Off, IT: 5 Key Technologies Users Must Own. He argues that for IT to provide the best support to its environment, it must understand and accommodate employee control of more personal, accessible, front-end technologies, such as:
- Mobile devices
- Cloud computing services
- Social technology
- Exploratory analytics
- Specialty applications
To let end users take advantage of the above technologies, says Gruman, Forrester suggests IT shifts focus to overarching, back-end technologies, like collaboration software, file syncing, technology as a service, mobile device management (MDM) and more.
Organization Update: IT Staffing in 2012
Can You Keep Your IT Staff in 2012? According to the Network World article by Carolyn Duffy Marsan (@techoptimist), IT staff retention is poised to be a top CIO challenge in 2012, fueled by the following.
- Corporate IT hiring is on the rise, tempting current IT staff with new opportunities.
- Younger IT professionals change jobs more frequently, often with less than two years in the same position.
- Retiring baby boomers, a trend that will continue over the next couple decades.
Bill Snyder (@BSnyderSF) brings up another potential cause for the staffing challenge: while IT employment is on the rise, certified IT jobs are paying less—they’ve reached a 12-year low.
BYOD
As employees increasingly use personal devices for business purposes, the need for complete organizational network and endpoint security becomes more evident.
Ellen Messmer’s (@ellenmessmer) Network World article, Security Minefield: BYOD Will Bedevil IT Security in 2012, calls 2012 the year when IT managers “will be forced to come to grips with the security consequences of their own decisions to virtualize their networks.” Messmer lists data-loss prevention, encryption, and continual security vendor assessment as security controls to consider when assessing IT security.
For additional solutions to manage mobile devices and back-end BYOD technology in your environment, check out the following Information Week articles:
BYOD food for thought: Many consider mobile device management (MDM) and BYOD to be interchangeable, but in his Tech Target article, Jack Madden (@jackmadden) differentiates MDM and BYOD with the equation “MDM + employees paying for their own phones ≠ BYOD.” While some of the argument may be semantics, it’s still a good point that fuels discussion around BYOD policies, and should be clarified for staff and management.
Security Spotlight: Applications
Wired’s Threat Level reports: 8 out of 10 software applications fail to meet a security assessment, according to a State of Software Security report by Veracode. Enterprise desktop, web and mobile applications with loopholes and flaws are a hacker’s haven in gaining access to your corporate environment. Ensure flaws like cross-site scripting or SQL injection are tested for, and not present on enterprise apps before they’re white-listed for your end users.
Your Turn
What were some of your favorite IT reads from December? What topics are top-of-mind that you’d like to see featured in future monthly roundups? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
This post is an MCPc blogging team collaboration.
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Posted on Fri, Dec 30, 2011 @ 03:14 PM
From Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for business to CNN’s Top 10 Tech Trends geared more toward consumers, new and popular technology for 2012 is a hot topic. Most articles list the obvious trends: mobile, social, cloud, apps and analytics to name a few. But what do these trending technologies mean for your organization?
Our team of chief bloggers has weighed in with their own 2012 technology trends below. While many coincide to what we’re reading in IT industry publications, the thoughts listed here are from the field and based on market demand.
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Andy Jones, Senior Vice President of Sales
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Trends from the trenches include further adoption into virtualization and the broadening of cloud offerings, mobile device management, and collaboration with video.
- Virtualization and the cloud. As employee demand for mobility rises, we’ll see further adoption into virtual applications and virtual desktops, paving the way for the cloud. I expect we’ll also see the cloud industry gaining greater definition as adoption increases, as well as broader, varied offerings in PaaS, Saas, AaaS and IaaS.
- Mobile device management (MDM) is going to be huge. There are millions of devices out there that organizations are trying desperately to get their arms around. The need to manage, monitor and secure any device accessing the corporate network—from smartphones to Kindles to iPads—will drive growth and demand for MDM software. Expect the iPad 3’s introduction in March to fuel MDM conversations.
- Welcome the play of collaboration with video. More and more companies are starting to look at the benefits around collaboration, especially with video, and how this technology can improve organizational flexibility and mobility.
- Applications everywhere. Last year, Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) and Michael Wolff (@MichaelWolffNYC) wrote a profound article called The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet. I expect their predictions of access to information via application to come to fruition in 2012—but beyond the just the web, with heavy application development taking place for desktop, mobile and print.
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Darin Haines, Group President, Advanced Technology Group
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Mobile, big data, consumerization and video will be some of 2012’s top tech trends.
- A mobile tsunami will strike in 2012, leaving no task behind. From social media to enterprise email, print and commerce, everything will go mobile or be driven by mobile in 2012. Location-based services for business and the consumer will be more highly adopted and expected.
- Big data will get even bigger. The data explosion will drive a need for comprehensive analytics to forecast business intelligence (BI) and decision-making. Having a handle on big data, via SaaS or other forms of XaaS, will give businesses a high-demand competitive advantage.
- Consumerization on steroids. Driven by consumer mobility and networking, tablets, cloud services and BYO3 (employees not just bringing one device, but three devices to the workplace) will hit the office. The ease of consumer video and social networking will spur enterprise adoption, and IT will need to manage access and security.
- Video, everywhere. Video is now 40 percent of consumer Internet traffic, according to the Cisco® Visual Networking Index. Consumers and corporations will dive into video for personal and business communications.
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Ira Grossman, Vice President, Personal Systems Group
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Personal system mobility, access, applications and end-user segmentation will impact IT initiatives in 2012.
- Self-service IT environments. A focus on self-service for level 0 support and deployment prevails, as organizations ready their IT environment for PC choice and employee BYO3.
- MDM and policy. IT organizations will need to review mobile policies to account for device proliferation and user demands for flexibility. Out-tasking core IT functions like PC lifecycle management can free up internal resources to focus on these more strategic and impactful initiatives.
- Application development. IT priorities driven by sales and marketing business leaders leverage the near immediate availability of apps as the new and preferred way to interact with clients—delivering content, data and BI. Apps are already being rewritten and re-factored to operate natively on tablets.
- End-user segmentation. Organizations will need to take a formal approach to user segmentation as they consider IT initiatives such as thin client computing, thick client refresh, Windows 8, and tablets as a complete replacement to traditional end points.
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Jeff Goldstein, Senior Consultant, Imaging & Printing Group
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For print to survive 2012, it has to be mobile, efficient, and backed by data.
- Mobile will reduce the need to print. Mobile devices aren’t equipped with built-in print drivers. As more organizations adopt mobile strategies, and as more people become hyper-mobile, the need to print will fade. Organizations will enable mobile print using middleware, such as HP ePrint Enterprise, if needed; however, the cost of the software will prompt organizations to decide if mobile printing is truly a requirement.
- Managed Print Services (MPS) will require more creative solutions. Quickly becoming a commodity, resellers will offer more than just MPS. To provide true value to their clients—helping them become more cost effective and efficient—MPS providers will consider: data that justifies software investments, print policy regulations to cut costs, business workflows that reduce or eliminate print altogether and more.
Your Thoughts?
What predictions do you have for the year ahead, and how do industry insights and those listed above compare to your IT forecasts?
This post is an MCPc blogging team collaboration.
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Posted on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 @ 03:33 PM
During MCPc’s Modern Technology Lessons roundtable discussion on the path to the cloud, cloud security was one of the most-talked-about business concerns. Across the industry these sentiments are echoed, as security remains a top concern for organizations considering a move to the cloud.
“What’s happening to my company’s data as it’s hosted in the cloud?”
Organizations need assurance of airtight processes that will be in place for data protection, availability, user authentication and access control, and continual threat management in the cloud.
In this post, we’ll run through levels of security to expect in both the public and private cloud models, as well as considerations for engineering your own secure cloud environment.
Cloud Security: Public vs. Private
With the choice of any cloud model, there are security concerns to consider. When choosing a cloud strategy for your organization, assess the security posture you have today against the security posture your organization will need in the future.
Any cloud strategy—be it public, private, hybrid or community—affords different security posture advantages and disadvantages. Regardless of your cloud model choice, the primary concerns from chief security officers (CSOs) are how data will be protected, secured, made fault-tolerant and replicated.
Private Cloud Security
For many organizations, virtualization naturally lends itself to a private cloud model. In this model, your organization will find similar security concerns to that of moving data into a centralized on-premise environment, but lessened concern around data replication security than in a public cloud strategy.
In the private cloud, businesses realize some of the same benefits of the public cloud—such as device flexibility, sever scalability, employee mobility, increased collaboration and a greener IT environment—without the security concerns some have about “letting go” of their physical data.
However, keeping your private cloud maintained and secure may require more active in-house management.
Public Cloud Security
A public cloud model is generally thought of as less secure than the private model, largely because the organization’s lack of physical awareness breeds concerns of a “fear of the unknown” mentality. IT pros considering public cloud solutions need to address both physical and technical security with their providers, and focus on where data exists, how it’s replicated, and how it’s maintained.
For example, I met with a cloud service provider that maintained at least seven physical security layers surrounding its on-site datacenter, including actual guards and an eye scanner. The physical security of this public cloud solution is most likely markedly better than what could be provided in house by most CSOs, but the concern of data replications and access via the network remains.
An advantage to public cloud offerings is that in hosting all of your organization’s data in the cloud, a few potential security concerns may be lessened.
Take the healthcare industry as an example. When a healthcare provider moves patient records to a hosted solution, IT managers can be less concerned with records being lost on multiple local devices, and focus more on how to protect data and keep it compliant in one place—where it’s stored.
However, healthcare brings another caveat to the table: compliance. Some industry regulations may prohibit storing personally identifiable information in the public cloud.
Federal government, specifically defense, is another strictly regulated industry. However, The Defense Information Systems Agency’s Rapid Access Computing Environment (DISA’s RACE) shows how this highly regulated department can find its solution in a more secure and private cloud environment.
Final Thoughts
Regardless of whether an organization would choose a public cloud offering or maintain their data locally in a private model, vigilance is always the word of the day.
What thoughts do you have about the security advantages and implications of the private and public cloud? Is your organizations’ hybrid cloud solution a mix between multiple cloud offerings?
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Andy Jones is Senior Vice President of Sales. He has more than 15 years of IT industry experience, and is an expert on cloud, virtualization and managed services solutions. Connect with Andy on LinkedIn.
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Posted on Thu, Dec 15, 2011 @ 02:32 PM
As you evaluate technology plans for the upcoming year, be sure to bank your organization's power usage—and costs—by enforcing environmentally friendly technology best practices.
The movement toward more “green” IT has been propelled by efficient technologies like virtualization, power management, updates to print capabilities and more. Not only do innovative technologies like these reduce organizations’ overall carbon footprints, but the return on green technology investments also helps balance bottom lines. (After all, the goal of green is to reduce energy consumption, which costs.)
As you start planning for a more efficient 2012, here are our top technology trends that advance green IT.
- Power Management Software — There are IT products available that apply directly to power management and “useful work” performed by servers and data center appliances. With software like that from 1E, IT managers can view devices in waking mode, sleep mode, hibernation mode, etc., to evaluate where devices are consuming the most power, and create rules to automatically power them down when not in use.
With software management tools in place, installing power management software across the IT environment can be fairly quick (1-3 days) and painless. And, ROI on projects like this is almost instant, showing in 2-3 months.
Example: 1E's PC power management software, NightWatchman, can be utilized to shutdown desktop PCs after hours. AT&T expects to save $12M and reduce carbon emissions by 123,000 tons per year using 1E technology to save electricity on PCs at rest.
Quick Hint: Employees may think that a sleeping PC is efficient, but deep sleep is better. Management software helps illustrate this difference.
- Virtualization — Anything you can do from a server consolidation standpoint will help your organization gain returns in energy efficiency. Fewer machines require less power, cooling and so on.
Evaluate the entire network to determine server performance and most useful workloads. For example, stacks like the Cisco UCS Manager can actually pull power away from a unit to save energy. It’s similar to the Honda Eco Assist system, which shows you when you’re driving efficiently and saving power.
- Upgrade Your Technology Fleet — It’s a large undertaking, but executed with strategic technology refresh planning and management, replacing older devices can bring significant return on power usage and cost.
Even technology that’s only a few years old can likely be upgraded to deliver return on both efficiency and investment. For example, advancements in compliance ratings and available technology have made compressors more efficient than those from just two years ago; any infrastructure that’s more than three years old should be assessed.
Consider the following technologies as you prioritize technology fleet upgrades:
- Thin Clients: The typical desktop thin client consumes 6-7 watts of power, while the laptop consumes about 85 watts. Multiply this power savings across your company’s technology fleet, and it’s a return with impact.
- LCD vs. LED: Consider newer monitors. LCD monitors use old technology, while LED monitors are far more energy efficient. LED backlighting technology enables less power consumption, making it a more eco-friendly business solution.
- Print: 5-10 year-old machines are power drains; they’re horribly inefficient. Companies should look at efficiency studies around their printer fleets. Ink and toner savings are another consideration, which along with better-managed power, will also come down in usage and therefore cost.
When prioritizing a technology refresh, consider the initial time and cost investment for each upgrade (thin clients, printer consolidation, etc.) in comparison to the cost savings you’ll realize in return.
Quick Tips for the Holidays
If you’re itching to swing green IT practices into motion, the upcoming holiday season is a great place to start. Long weekends and office vacations are perfect times to cut back on your organization’s overall power usage.
Encourage your team to unplug—not just shut devices down. While powering down is great for the end of the day, chargeable devices that are still plugged in use standby power, also known as vampire power. In some households this accounts for almost 10% of overall electricity, according to Wikipedia. Think of the implications for business usage.
Final Thoughts: Return on Green
The return on moving toward green IT practices in your business is pretty clear, but it can also be calculated with this Green ROI Tool shared by IBM (registering your contact information is required). Check out your return, and feel free to share other best practices toward green IT in the comments below.
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Andy Jones is Senior Vice President of Sales. He has more than 15 years of IT industry experience, and is an expert on cloud, virtualization and managed services solutions. Connect with Andy on LinkedIn.
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Posted on Mon, Dec 12, 2011 @ 08:13 AM
New and custom applications have enabled devices like the iPad to become all an executive needs to do any task that may come up on the job.
The same is now true for multifunctional printers (MFPs)—they do much more than print and scan. Operating systems on modern MFPs allow custom applications that improve workflow efficiencies for your employees by transforming traditional MFPs into work kiosks for data convergence.
MFP + Custom Applications = The Next Information Hub
MFPs have always been able to securely integrate into corporate network servers, which helps companies save on costs by eliminating redundant printers and copiers, reduce the need for scanners, and eliminate phone lines altogether. Now, converging technology and custom software applications enable the MFP to be an onramp and offramp for corporate information.
With a modern MFP, employees can scan and upload data (onramp), choose where data is stored—connect to corporate servers and eliminate steps in the traditional business workflow process—and print selected files or information (offramp). Today’s MFP is now a data hub for all back office applications and workflows.
Take this example of where the MFP technology is going:
An employee needs to scan a document into Micorsoft SharePoint. With a modern MFP, he or she can walk over to the MFP, use his or her login information to securely access SharePoint, then browse files and scan the document directly into SharePoint. This not only eliminates the steps one has to go through when scanning, indexing and uploading a file via email, but it also enables immediate content, collaboration and workflow efficiencies for your workforce.
The same is true if an employee needed to grab literature from SharePoint. He or she would simply login, look at the files while visiting the MFP (it appears just like it does when accessing your server), then print directly from the device.
All activities are logged, audited, backtracked, and stored so IT managers can monitor data security and access, and so employees can have audited confirmation of when information was loaded, sent or received.
Is it Right for My Business?
Remember, when deciding whether investing in modern MFPs and/or custom print applications is right for your business, think about how MFPs fit into everyday business processes. Often, examining critical systems—such as accounting, sales, customer service, operations, inventory and more—shows that print, scan and custom applications are the last part of the equation. Consider:
- What component of each process includes print or information sharing?
- How can workflow digitization within critical business processes benefit the organization?
- Is there a custom application that would improve a specific business process, and is it a better value to script that application than purchase new software?
What’s Next for the Multifunction Printer?
Applications that integrate your unique business needs will be the next major phase of MFP functionality for business. For example, apps that upload hand-written service tickets into your systems, those that retrieve and print invoices, and those that process new employee information and signatures are functionalities that enable efficiency and drive business results.
How have modern MFPs improved your workflows, and what custom applications do you see in your company’s future?
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Jeffrey Goldstein is Senior Consultant at MCPc and is responsible for the delivery of hardcopy and value-added services within the Lifecycle Management Group. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn.
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image credit: honan
Posted on Tue, Dec 06, 2011 @ 01:41 PM
Each month we read hundreds of IT industry articles, then choose the highlights to share with our readers. November’s articles focus on: virtualization’s lessons learned, mobility in the workplace, security against advanced persistent threats (APTs), IT project management, and other recent industry headlines of note.
Lessons Learned in Virtualization
Charles Babcock’s (@babcockcw) Information Week article, 4 Lessons Learned from Virtualization Masters, examines organizations that are well virtualized (70–98%) and shares their lessons learned along the way. Insights to remember on your path toward a more virtualized IT environment include:
- Well-managed virtualized environments mean integration among multiple complex, moving parts.
- Expect a change in datacenter relationships, and enforce monitored chargeback systems for efficiency.
- Use transaction databases or virtual servers to isolate troubleshooting, operations, data loss and functionality.
- Pair a high-speed environment with a broad-range environment to spread workload capacity across servers.
Tech Target’s Calculating Virtualization ROI Using Unconventional Factors, by Brien Posey, reminds readers that reduced cost isn’t the only reason to virtualize. Other considerations when calculating return include high-availability metrics, reduced licensing costs and quicker provisioning times.
Mobility in the Workplace
The 2011 Cisco Connect World Survey found flexibility with mobile devices to be more important than salary for 40-45% of college students and young professionals.
But the trend isn’t just for millennials … See the blog series about our “iPad-only executive,” Darin Haines (@DarinHaines), a seasoned professional with nearly twenty years of IT industry experience. The series covers a day in the life of an iPad-only exec, winning applications that make the iPad Darin’s preferred computing device, and the software and tools we use to manage iPad-dependent employees.
IT Security Battles APTs
In Network World’s The Network Is the Security, Jon Oltsik (@joltsik) outlines how detailed network monitoring, data and analytics—including that of network behaviors, payload analysis, performance and more—can help organizations ramp up security against APTs.
In the follow-up article, Data Security and APTs, Oltsik examines ESG research on the data security tools that organizations are investing in to protect against APTs. He finds that data encryption, complete database security, mobile security and access management are the data security controls organizations will continue to look to for defense.
Project Management
Have you found The Secret to IT Project Success? In Bob Lewis’ (@ITCatalysts) Infoworld article, he discusses how completing a project is only the beginning for IT. While IT is used to ensuring that regular operations run smoothly and efficiently, the real success is when IT can bring successful business change and impact to the forefront.
What does successful business change look like? Following are Lewis’ four steps to determine the impact for your organization:
- Define success.
- Take responsibility—or make sure you clearly define who will—for both the project completion and business change.
- Incorporate business change management into each project.
- Make project implementation a milestone, and let your operational manager lead this project.
For more on bringing a business focus to IT, check out Nigel Fenwick’s (@NigelFenwick) Forrester blog post, How to Get Beyond Alignment, or the MCPc blog post, The Evolving Role of the CIO.
In the News …
Your Top Picks
What articles stuck out from your November reading? Please share your additional articles, topics of interest or questions in the comments below.
This post is an MCPc blogging team collaboration.
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