CIPS News

Featured I.T. Jobs

JonathanElias — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:19:27 +0000

Assistant General Manager and Chief Information Officer for Information Technology and Telecommunications, Nova Scotia

Business Process Analyst (SAP), Edmonton, Alberta

Application Analyst, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

IT Project Manager, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Database Administrator, St. Albert, Alberta

See more Job Postings and Upload your Resume at: http://jobs.cips.ca

CIPS Saskatoon June 13 Luncheon: "Anatomy of a Disaster Recovery Project"

JonathanElias — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:56:02 +0000

Date:

Thu, 06/13/2013

SASKATOON Luncheon

Presenter: Geoff Cole, (SIGA) and Simon Gadd, ESTI Consulting Services

Title: Anatomy of a Disaster Recovery Project

Date: Thursday, June 13, 2013

Venue: Parktown Hotel

Register at: http://www.picatic.com/saskatoonjune13

Fees on site include processing fee

Registration deadline: Monday, June 10th, 2013

Presentation Overview

SIGA and ESTI recently worked together to develop a disaster recovery site and data/system recovery strategy. This presentation will outline the goals of the project, walk through the key steps involved in developing and executing the project, and describe the outcomes for SIGA.

Speakers' Biography

Geoff Cole is Director of IT Operations at SIGA. Geoff has worked at SIGA for 9 years in a variety of roles and currently oversees the areas of Service Desk and Technical Operations.

Simon Gadd is a Partner at ESTI Consulting Services and has filled a number of roles at ESTI since 1989. Currently, Simon's primary role is as Client Account Manager.

FEES FOR CIPS SASKATCHEWAN LUNCHEONS

(does not include processing fee and applicable taxes)

CIPS Members $25 Non-Member $30

CIPS Student Member $20 Student Non Member $25

Corporate Table (8) $200 Sponsor Corporate Table $250*

Sponsor Corporate Table (8) $250*

*Benefits: Public Recognition & Table Signage

Agenda

11:30am Registration, Networking & Buffet lunch

12:00pm Welcome, Announcements and Introductions

12:05pm Presentation

1: 00pm Questions & Adjournment

For questions or comments please email us at saskatchewan@cips.ca

These events qualifies for 1.5 Education Credit

For questions or comments please email us at saskatchewan@cips.ca

CIPS INTERVIEWS: Chat with Sanjay Ghemawat ACM Infosys Foundation Award recipient in 2013 (Computing's Top Prize for young innovators); World-renowned researcher — Part 1

JonathanElias — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:40:06 +0000

INTERVIEWS by STEPHEN IBARAKI, FCIPS, I.S.P., ITCP/IP3P, MVP, DF/NPA, CNP, FGITCA

Chat with Sanjay Ghemawat ACM Infosys Foundation Award recipient in 2013 (Computing's Top Prize for young innovators); World-renowned researcher — Part 1

This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Sanjay Ghemawat.

Sanjay Ghemawat has been at Google since 1999. He is currently a Google Fellow in the Systems Infrastructure Group. He has worked on many distributed systems (MapReduce, BigTable, GFS, Spanner), performance tools, indexing systems, compression schemes, memory management, data representation languages, RPC systems, and other systems at Google.

Prior to Google Sanjay was a researcher at Digital Equipment Corporation's Systems Research Center, where he worked on Java virtual machines, optimizing compilers, and profiling systems. He has a PhD and M.S. from MIT, and a B.S. from Cornell, all in Computer Science.

ACM Infosys Foundation Award announcement: http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2013/infosys-award-12

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

The latest blog on the interview can be found in the IT Managers Connection (IMC) forum where you can provide your comments in an interactive dialogue.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/cdnitmanagers/

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic
:00:48:		When did you hear of this extraordinary honour, recipient of what is widely considered the top prize in computing for younger researchers, the 2012 ACM Infosys Foundation Award? How did you feel at the time? What was the reaction from your colleagues and from your family? "....I know some of the past winners and I was honored to be associated with them. I also feel very grateful especially to my co-recipient Jeff who has been responsible for a lot of the hard work behind this award and all of our colleagues who wished us well and worked well with us over the years and helped us with all the systems we have built. My family was very excited, especially my parents...."
:01:47:		How will the ACM Infosys Foundation Award impact your work, your influence and your thinking into the future? "....My biggest hope is that I will continue to get the chance that I've already had to work on great problems with great colleagues and hopefully more interesting problems in the future...."
:02:16:		What are your personal life or career goals that you want to achieve and how will you achieve them? "....I hope I can continue building systems, programming, working with Jeff and finding challenging things that require a lot of thought behind them to work on in the future...."
:03:06:		How did your 2004 research paper MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clustersresolve the core computing challenges of scale in keeping up with the demand for a search service? "....What MapReduce does is that it takes all of the common pieces out of writing a problem and kind of abstracts things away so that the programmer can actually focus on the bits of the problem that they're interested in, and MapReduce takes care of all of the mechanics of partitioning the data and having it be processed on hundreds of computers in parallel...."
:04:23:		In what way can software solutions solve what seem to be hardware problems? "....Hard drives will crash sometimes, computers will stop working...what our higher-level software does is hides those problems from the programmer by managing failures internally...."
:05:59:		What are the underlying designs that hide the complexities of managing enormous clusters of computers from programmers? "....What should happen is that the software system should provide an abstraction which hides the details of that location from the programmer and internally manage it....This is very helpful because once you provide this level of location independency you can solve a whole bunch of other problems...."
:07:30:		How has your work led to the advent of cloud computing, where computing power is provided as a utility to consumers, with all the hardware and implementation details abstracted away? "....I think a lot of things have come together which have made now the right time for cloud computing to take off. Where our work has contributed a fair bit is that our work has focused on providing practical access to large computing resources such as large amounts of storage, large amounts of computation for dealing with very large data problems...."
:09:11:		How do these abstractions make it easy for programmers to take advantage of large-scale computational resources by automatically parallelizing computations across machines and transparently handling failures? "....Proportionally complicated as the complexity of the problem that the programmer is focusing on goes up, MapReduce itself takes care of the other work, the common work across all of these problems (which is partitioning the workup, collecting the results, handling failures, managing I/O, etc.)...."
:12:30:		Can you share the thinking behind a file system that allows huge files to be efficiently distributed across thousands of servers? "....What GFS (the file system work that you mentioned) was designed to do was to automate the placement and management of the data replicas....We took some shortcuts — we said let's take all the metadata for all of the files that is going to fit into one memory into the memory of one machine, have that machine handle the placement of all of the files on other machines...."
:15:06:		You already talked about some of the concepts behind MapReduce. Can you drill even deeper about what are some of the underlying design concepts behind it? "....Some of the concepts, the Map and Reduce function go back to functional programming many decades ago. The similar functions have been present in functional programming languages for a while and people have explored using them for parallelism before...."
:16:24:		You also worked on something called BigTable. Can you share the design concepts behind it? "....Our earlier file system work was focused around a relatively small number, say a million large files, and we would manage the metadata of these files in one machine. BigTable was motivated by places where this assumption fell down....So now what we have done is we have taken a large collection of very fine-grained pieces of data and spread them across a lot of machines, and have a system take care of management of the read and write operations we want to support for these pieces of data...."
:18:19:		What is the impact of scale on otherwise easy problems (e.g., failures, performance)? "....Suppose your program is going to have to scale up to run on a thousand machines. At some point you can't ignore failures anymore just because they happen enough in a large cluster of machines that your program will never finish if your strategy with dealing with failure is to restart everything from scratch when anything fails....What happens is that even though the average machine responds very fast, the slowest machine for any given query is going to be much slower so your total query-handling time, as far as the client is concerned, is going to be pretty poor because it’s going to be gated by the performance of the slowest machine...."
:20:28:		How does your close relationship with real products influence your research decisions? "....The big challenge here is to make sure that the research you do, the systems you build to handle these problems are not too focused on the immediate problem. You have to step back and abstract a little bit so what you design for this particular product or problem that you are running into is that the design itself is more general and is longer lasting than what you need for just this product...."
:21:56:		You've talked about this relationship between real products and your research. Can you name some of the products that you've influenced and in what way? "....One of the key pieces of web search is the query serving system....We took a step back and said what are the patterns that are in all of these programs that we are writing, and the result of that was the MapReduce programming model. We were able to formalize the common parts away so that the problem specific parts could be extracted into simple Map and Reduce functions and everything else could be written once and then reused for different combinations in the Map and Reduce functions...."
:23:44:		You've touched on this but let's drill further. Why are failures the hard part of distributed systems? "....Let's go back to MapReduce....You run the computation for A on one machine, you run B's computation on another machine. You don't allow them to communicate with each other directly and if one of them fails you can restart it without having to worry about restarting other pieces of work. Of course there are other mechanical things you will need to add to MapReduce to deal with failures....All of these things add up and they add a fair bit of complexity to a system like MapReduce, but one of the goals of MapReduce is to take on all of that complexity and at least remove it for the programmers who are using it...."
:27:01:		Your co-winner of the award is Jeff Dean. What is your working style when the two of you collaborate? "....Jeff and I have been working together for many years and I love working with him. What we do is we typically sit at the same desk and we program....We argue the pros and cons of different approaches, spot mistakes that might be creeping in....very, very fast communication and back and forth...."
:28:48:		In what ways does internet growth change what you do? "....The systems we've been building are fairly practical systems, practical in the sense that we will make tradeoffs based on reality and assumptions about different numbers....You build systems for one scale, then a few years down the road the scale has changed by a factor of 10 or 20, and at that time you start having to think again about whether we should redesign, re-implement or if we can extend the lifetime of our system...."
:30:40:		You talk about this updated system; can you talk about the concepts behind this updated system? "....This updated file system is not my work. I was busy working on some other systems, but the design was in some sense fairly similar to GFS design....The metadata for Colossus (the new file system), is also spread across many machines so therefore now you can scale the system up so that it can handle hundreds and millions of files easily...."
:33:00:		How does the work you've done extend to other domains (for example other fields even beyond computing)? "....This is the thing that we had to be a bit careful about when we were designing it, to make sure that we took enough of a step back away from the search specific problems that we were trying to solve to come up with something which could extend to other places. It has been very helpful to us to have done that...."
:35:07:		What are the practical applications and implications of your work influencing our daily lives? "....Most of the systems we build are never directly exposed to end users....But there are some impacts that we can point to. For example, when Gmail was initially launched many years ago, it guaranteed a gigabyte of storage per user. It was launched on April 1 and most people thought this was an April Fool's joke because people couldn't believe that we would be able to afford giving a gigabyte of storage to each user....This was made possible because we had worked hard on the infrastructure to manage this large amount of data efficiently...."
:36:44:		Can you additionally profile your extensive research history, its lasting impact and any valuable lessons you wish to share from your top research areas? "....It kind of goes against something people often say which is 'don’t reinvent the wheel', but sometimes if you are having problems with your wheel you have to step back and think about how do I fix the problem, and sometimes reinventing the wheel is the right thing to do...."
:39:25:		What are current research interests? "....If you look at Google and all of the services that Google provides, behind them there are a whole bunch of other internal services. User-facing services are composed out of these lower level services, thousands of them....I'm trying to figure out what is a good way to simplify the deployment of such a collection of internally related services. There really isn't anything concrete there yet....Some compression schemes, some domain-specific data that we have but again it's preliminary work and there's not much more to say at the moment...."
:40:59:		Can you extrapolate some of the broader implications and applications of your current work? "....We are running into complexity and management issues and we are trying to figure out a simple way of dwindling the burden of this management for people...."
:42:22:		Both as part of this Google team, but also if you were able to go in any direction, what would be your future research interests? "....It's a tough question for me to answer because I've always had a tough time formulating and working on a problem in abstract. I am much better if I can look at problems that either I'm encountering or people around me are encountering and take a step back from that and have the research fall out of the real problems that we are running into...."
:43:52:		The Knowledge Graph....Google Now....Google User Research Labs....What is your thinking on these areas? "....You mentioned a whole bunch of interesting stuff that is going on at Google and at other places too. I'm not personally working on any of them at the moment but I'm really excited about what people are working on....Promising things are happening and I suspect that five years down the road we'll be in a very different place than we are today, especially when it comes to interactions of computers and how much they understand about what we are asking them...."
:47:00:		What are your most difficult challenges in research and what valuable lessons do you wish to share? "....One challenge is managing complexity....Other challenges....when thinking of designs for systems, it's really good to be able to work them out with pencil and paper and to toss out a whole bunch of designs and see which ones will work out...."
:52:04:		Are there areas of controversy in the areas that you research? "....One of things is we are moving into a multi-core world — most processors that people have, even on phones, have 2, 4, 8 processors in them. It's up in the air as to what is the best programming model for multi-core...."
:53:27:		Describe the types of research being created or updated that will drive our experiences in five or ten years? Can you paint a picture for our audience what this experience may be like? "....I think you did a really good job of answering this question just a few minutes ago when you starting describing the vision of a Star Trek computer....Five, ten years down the road I suspect that most people will not be interacting with computers using keyboards....Moore's Law is still going. We are squeezing more transistors into chips. People who know better than I tell me that's not going to continue for much longer either, and that's going to cause us to make significant changes in how we build systems...."
:55:55:		What specific challenges in your education at Cornell and MIT were catalysts to inflection points in your lifetime of contributions and how/why did this happen? "....The thing I remember most from Cornell was I was taking a distributed systems class and really enjoyed the thinking and the papers that we were reading there, and that is what got me interested in distributed systems....I find myself fortunate that I lucked out at going into the right places where I could develop the skills that I needed and found the people that I had a chance to work with...."
:57:28:		What specific challenges in your work were catalysts to inflection points in your lifetime of contributions and how/why did this happen? "....One of the catalysts for research on different projects that Jeff and I worked on were hard problems we were running into. Let me mention GFS....There's a similar story behind MapReduce — as I mentioned already we were working on stuff that looked very similar to programs that we had written before and we were kind of writing the same thing over and over again. The catalysts were the pain we were dealing with...."
:59:21:		Sanjay, you laid many of the foundational pillars in your pioneering work. Distilling from your experiences, what are the greater burning challenges and research problems for today's youth to solve to inspire them to go into computing? "....There's a tension here today, you might say that we should highlight the great research problems in computer science and that might draw young people to be interested in computer science. There's an alternative path that you can show people that computer science or software programming at least, is about building things. It's a good idea to get people involved in building things and show them how much fun it is....I really like building things and communicating that to young people might be a good way to get them interested in computing...."
:01:01:34:		Past, present, and future — name three who inspire you and why is this so? "....The first person I'd like to mention is going pretty far back when I was growing up in India, my uncle....The other person is Professor Liskov who was my advisor when I in grad school, I learned a lot both directly from her and being part of her group....The third person I'd like to mention is Jeff Dean who is the co-winner of this award. We have had an amazing production relationship for the last fifteen or sixteen years since before we joined Google, we worked at the same lab...."
:01:04:00:		You choose the topic area and it could be in any domain. What do you see as the top challenges facing us today? "....I think we could have a huge impact on the world if we can figure out how to make computing more accessible to more people. This is not a challenge about computing, it's more about infrastructure and availability and so forth...Another interesting challenge that's coming up is in the field of biology....I suspect that in the next 10 years or so, there's going to be huge opportunities in the combination of computing and biology in terms of improving our health...."
:01:06:24:		Sanjay because you have had such a long and distinguished career, do you have any lessons that you want to share with the audience? "....I have one important lesson which was important for me....Find something you like to do, find people you know you like working with and then work with them...."
:01:07:15:		Sanjay, with your demanding schedule, we are indeed fortunate to have you come in to do this interview. Thank you for sharing your substantial wisdom with our audience.

Music by Sunny Smith Productions and Shaun O'Leary

Windows Server 2012: More Than Just Virtualization (via Microsoft TechNet)

JonathanElias — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:00:24 +0000

via Microsoft TechNet

This past April, Mitch Garvis put to paper the advantages Windows Server 2012 brings to the table beyond its virtualization prowess. While yes great lengths were put forth to ensure the Hyper-V 2012 virtualization offering was on par with other virtualization offerings in market, it would be a disservice to not make mention of the other benefits brought forth by Windows Server 2012.

Microsoft has taken great steps forward to further evolve the server offering to provide better manageability of the data that matters most to your organization. Through input provided by IT managers and administrators worldwide, Windows Server 2012 provides a new cornerstone in terms of your organizations data. Windows Server 2012 features, outside of virtualization, include:

Server Manager – A newly revamped dashboard tool allowing for multi-server management providing administrators a broader view of the health of their organizations server infrastructure.

PowerShell 3.0– With the inclusion of nearly 10 times more cmdlets than previously available, Powershell 3.0 provides a powerful scripting environment to help quicken administrative tasks.

Storage Spaces / Storage Pools – Provides the ability to build your volume from multiple disks of equal or disparate size, on similar or disparate architecture. Other added benefits include the ability to seamlessly add drives on the fly and the ability to volume protected storage through mirroring or parity.

Dynamic Access Control– In conjunction with Rights Management Server, Dynamic Access Control provides expression-based access policies to secure your organization’s pertinent information.

Data Deduplication – Built directly into the operating system, Data Deduplication, provides storage conscious organizations tools to reclaim wasted storage space.

Software iSCSI Target– Previously an exclusive feature found on Microsoft Storage Server, it empowers IT with the ability to create a software SAN device on your server with all of the functionality of most hardware SANs, but at a fraction of the cost.

This list only showcases a few of the new features provided in Microsoft’s new server offering. Download and evaluate Windows Server 2012 in your lab environment to view how your organization can benefit from the newly provided functionality.

Anthony Bartolo | Technical Evangelist (IT PRO)
Twitter| Facebook| LinkedIn

CIPS expresses our sincere condolences as Pat Hume passes away at the age of 90

JonathanElias — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:55:59 +0000

CIPS would like to express our sincere condolences to Pat Hume’s friends and family. Pat, who designed the CIPS logo, passed away on May 9^th at the age of 90. Pat’s contribution to CIPS will forever be greatly appreciated and he will be certainly missed.

via thestar.com

JAMES NAIRN PATTERSON (PATT) HUME
JAMES NAIRN PATTERSON (PATT) HUME Patt died peacefully at his home in Toronto with his family at his side on May 9, 2013 at the age of 90. Survived by his devoted wife Patricia Anne Hume (nee Molyneux). He leaves behind children Stephen (Lisa), Philip (Janet), Harriet and Mark. Beloved grandfather to Jeffrey, Stephanie, Ian, Tristan and Elliot. Dear brother of Mary Seedhouse. His cousin Donald MCQuarrie was like a brother. Born in Brooklyn, NY and raised in Goderich, ON. Attended University of Toronto where he received his BA, MA, and PhD in Physics. He was instrumental in founding the Department of Computer Science in 1964, having worked since 1952 in the development of software for Canada's first electronic computer: the FERUT. He was the Associate Dean for Physical Sciences in the Graduate School 1968 - 72, Chair of the Department of Computer Science from 1975 - 80, and Master of Massey College from 1981 - 1988. Patt is a Member of the Order of Canada, an ACM Fellow, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He was recently awarded the Diamond Jubilee Medal. He holds a Silver Core Award from IFIP, a Distinguished Service Citation from the American Association of Physics Teachers, and an Award of Merit from the City of Toronto. He was the recipient of the Sandford Fleming Award in 2001. In 2002, he was inducted into the C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame. In 2006 he was granted a Doctor of Science from Queen's University. A longtime member of the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, President 1976 - 1978, and delighted in his many years directing, writing, and performing in the annual Spring Review. His painting was a lifetime passion. A groundbreaking educator writing and performing many movies including Edison Award winning 'Frames of Reference' and many live TV shows including the first 'Nature of Things'. Author of numerous computer science and physics textbooks. "Pat & Patt" were in their 60th year of marriage and enjoyed many years of cottage, travel, family events and many wonderful friends from the university, the cottage and The Discussion Group. Visitation will be at Morley Bedford Funeral Home, 159 Eglinton Ave. W., Toronto (416-489-8733) on Tuesday, May 14th 6-8 p.m. Funeral service on Wednesday, May 15th at 11 a.m. in the Chapel. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Massey College.

[Click Here to Read More]

via University of Toronto

James Nairn Patterson Hume:

Admin. history/Biographical sketch:
Professor James Nairn Patterson (Pat) Hume is recognized as a pioneer in the field of computer science. Born in 1923 in Brooklyn N.Y., his familymoved to Goderich, Ontario when he was seven which is where he received his early education. In 1941, he entered Math and Physics at the University of Toronto and graduated with his B.A. in 1945. He went on to earn both a M.A. (1946) and Ph.D. (1949) in Physics from the University of Toronto. After graduating he spent a year teaching at Rutgers University before returning to the University of Toronto to become an Assistant Professor of Physics and in 1963 Professor of Computer Science with a cross appointment to Physics. Throughout his career, he also held various administrative positions in the Department of Computer Science including Chairman from 1975-1980. He was also Associate Dean (Physical Sciences) for the School of Graduate Studies and from 1981-1988 was Master of Massey College. Prof. Hume was one of the first faculty members at the University of Toronto to work with the FERUT computer (Canada’s 1st electronic computer). This work led to the development of some of the earliest software world wide including TRANSCODE, a forerunner to modern computer programming language. Prof. Hume co-authored with R.C. Holt nine textbooks on programming language used by high school and university students throughout Canada. Other areas on which he has written papers include, batch scheduling, data security, software engineering, and computer systems analysis. Throughout his career, he has played an active role in professional organizations that promote computer research such as the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP). Prof. Hume is equally well known for his role in physics education through his partnership with Prof. Donald Ivey of the Department of Physics. Together they were pioneers in Canadian educational television, writing and performing in over 70 television programmes and four films on physics between 1958 and 1966. Many of these programs were for the CBC’s programs “The Nature of Things” and both men have been internationally recognized for their work. Awards include two Ohio State Awards each for best television program in Natural and Physical Sciences (1962), a silver medal for the film Random Events from the Scientific Institute in Rome and the prestigious Edison Award for best science education film of 1962 for Frames of Reference, now considered a classic in its genre.

[Click Here to Read More]

Featured I.T. Jobs

JonathanElias — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:44:16 +0000

Director, Technology Architecture, Regina, Saskatchewan

Application Solution Architect , Regina, Saskatchewan

Security Administrator, Regina, Saskatchewan

Director of Information Technology, Vancouver, British Columbia

SAP Administrator, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Analyst, IT Governance and Compliance, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Analyst, IT Security, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Technical Platform Analyst, Regina, Saskatchewan

See more Job Postings and Upload your Resume at: http://jobs.cips.ca

Calgary June 6th Luncheon: "Show Me The Money !!! ... Managing IT Portfolios, Benefits, and Value"

JonathanElias — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:42:46 +0000

Date:

Thu, 06/06/2013

Event Location:

(Calgary)

Location	Westin Hotel, 320 - 4 Avenue SW, Calgary
Start Time	6/6/2013 11:30 AM
End Time	6/6/2013 1:00 PM

Glen Purdy

Show Me The Money !!! ... Managing IT Portfolios, Benefits, and Value

For the past 15 years IT has increasingly being faced with demands of providing, and demonstrating, more value. IT research & advisory companies, best-practice organizations, and consultants have all promoted the need for IT organizations to identify, quantify, and manage the benefits being delivered through IT initiatives.

When version 3 of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) was released in 2007, it added service-oriented content for a more business-focused approach to IT; and launched an evolutionary step toward aligning IT processes with business processes. ITIL® 2011 added some new processes (including strategy management and business relationship management) aimed at better integrating the IT strategy with that of the business.

Leveraging all of these best practices, this presentation will provide a cohesive (yet pragmatic) approach for IT organizations to partner with their business peers; in a way that prioritizes, manages, and delivers the results and outcomes that these stakeholders are seeking.

Glen Purdy is a Director & Management Consulting in the Calgary office of Fujitsu Consulting, and has been a member of itSMF Canada since its inception in the year 2000.

As an early adopter of the ITIL® framework, Glen has over 25 years of experience as an ITSM practitioner in both insourced and outsourced environments, and is certified as an ITIL® ‘Master’. Most recently, Glen has also achieved his Practitioner Certification for Management of Benefits (MoB) from APMG.

Register Now!

CIPS Alberta Meets With The Alberta's Deputy Premier

JonathanElias — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:10:22 +0000

Two of CIPS-Alberta's Directors (Brian Brandon, VP and Pat Glenn, Secretary) had a meeting with the Government of Alberta (GoA) Deputy Premier/Minister of Enterprise and Advanced Education on May 1 in Edmonton. With the Deputy Premier were David Peace, the Executive Director of Innovation and Advanced Technologies and Percy Cummins, Executive Director of Immigration Policy & Programs.

We talked about IT as one of the fastest growing sectors globally and the role of ICT in productivity. We pointed out that if Alberta was to grow its IT sector and use ICT for gains in productivity, more ICT practitioners would be needed and we would need to be able to upgrade skills of people currently available but not employed or underemployed.

We also pointed out that Canada is 16th of 17 peer nations in productivity and if we closed the productivity gap with the USA, it would return $66B to the bottom line of the Government of Canada. Extrapolating that, it could return $6.6 B to the bottom line of the Government of Alberta. This was of great interest.

In terms of development of the IT sector, we learnt of government initiatives to determine the barriers to growth from a regulatory perspective and the review of Alberta Innovates. The GoA is looking at models that have been used by other jurisdictions to develop sectors: Harvard/MIT; Silicon Valley; TelAviv...

We asked about an IT Strategy and were told that there was one done in 2008 and it was being updated with the input of stakeholders. We were told that CIPS would be included in the stakeholder group.

We also talked about our initiative with SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age) and again, this was of great interest. They asked when we would have SFIA in place and were advised that once ready, CIPS would be invited to participate in discussions around immigration.

Security Education Conference Toronto

JonathanElias — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:29:53 +0000

Date:

Mon, 10/07/2013 - Wed, 10/09/2013

Event Location:

(Toronto)

SecTor is the security education conference built by security professionals, for security professionals, and offers too much content for anyone to consume in the three days - and that's why we love it. In case you missed 2012, check out our video.

CIPS is happy to extend our 10% savings discount code 'cips-2013' or use 'cips-Expo2013' for a free expo pass! Register today!

So much value, so little time...

This is one conference you can't afford to miss.

3 Technical tracks with over 20 exceptional (no marketing) sessions
1 Management track with 7 hard hitting sessions on security inside the organization
1 Sponsor track with 10 sessions sharing lessons from the industries' top vendors
Automated Penetration Testing with Metasploit Professional and SecTor Forensics training on the Monday before the conference - GO
A coffee lounge were you can "plug-in" and recharge throughout the day
Lock picking village
Networking Reception and Party at Steam Whistle sponsored by Rapid7
4 of the best security keynotes you'll find in Canada this year
Skills contests including our Capture the Flag Competition - click for more
Earn up to 24 CPE credits

Tell your colleagues about this great deal and register before we sell out again.
We look forward to seeing you at SecTor 2013.

Conference Pricing

Early Bird	By May 15	$749
Standard Rate	May 15 to August 31	$999
Last Call	September 1 to October 8 or sold out	$1199

Groups of 5 or more get 20% off - contact Renu@sector.ca

Speaker Submissions

If you believe you have a significant discovery or new research that the security community would value, or enjoy hearing about, we invite you to submit your presentation topic for consideration - GO.

Follow us on Twitter / Facebook / Linked In

Sincerely,

SecTor Management
SecTor 2013 - Security Education Conference Toronto

Upcoming Events and New Job Postings - CIPS Connections E-Newsletter (May 9th)

JonathanElias — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:48:03 +0000

Check out the May 9th issue of the CIPS Connections e-newsletter and stay informed about CIPS news and benefits from your membership!

CIPS Connections May 9th Issue (web version)

Not a CIPS Connections subscriber? Sign up for FREE

CIPS Nova Scotia AGM 2013

JonathanElias — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:35:54 +0000

Date:

Tue, 05/28/2013

Event Location:

(Halifax)

The CIPS Nova Scotia Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday May 28, 2013 from 5:30 to 6:00 pm, prior to our monthly scheduled CIPS dinner meeting. The event will be held at the Dalhousie University Club, 6259 South St., Halifax.

In order to formally conduct the meeting and receive its reports, there is a requirement to have 15 members in good standing attend either in person or by phone. Please mark this date in your calendar and make plans to attend. The meeting will only take 15-20 minutes to complete.

Agenda for the event is as follows:

     5:00 PM       Networking
     5:30 PM       CIPS NS AGM
     6:00 PM       CIPS NS May Dinner Meeting (optional)

To register: On-line, E-mail - Patricia Landry or Phone 902-420-3070 x 2000

When registering, please provide contact information and indicate regular or vegitarian for your dinner choice. Registration deadline is Friday, May 24th

Please note that nominations for Board positions are still being considered.

Dinner Meeting

Topic:    Adaptive Technologies

Speaker:  Chris Judge
          Assistive Technology Specialist - Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) 
Time:     6:00 pm for dinner, 7:00 pm for presentation
Cost:     Members and Students - $40.00, Non-members - $50.00



          Corporate tables available, 10 seats for $400

Abstract:

Adaptive technology has come a long way in the past 20 years.

For persons living with vision loss, advancements in assistive technology have played an intricate roll in increased independence, both professionally and personally.

Today, software that provides screen magnification, and speech output means that a person who is blind or visually impaired can access most popular computer applications, such as internet, email, word processing, spreadsheets, etc. This has gone a long way towards leveling the playing field for persons living with vision loss in the labor market.

Optical character recognition solutions mean a person living with vision loss no longer has to rely on others to read personal correspondence, such as confidential mail.

Fully accessible cell phones, and the apps that are available allow the user to do a number of things such as identify banknotes, conduct banking transactions, and travel independently.

Chris will discuss the evolution of assistive technology, and demonstrate a number of devices and software that have made a huge difference in the lives of persons living with vision loss.

BIO:

Chris was born and raised in Halifax, and has been totally blind since birth. His early school years were spent at the Halifax School for the Blind. Chris integrated in to the public school system in grade 6, and attended public school ever since.

He attended St. Mary’s University from 1985/1989 and worked for Royal bank from 1990 to 1996. For the past 13 years Chris has worked for Cnib in a variety of rolls and has for the past 10 years been the assistive Technology Specialist for CNIB Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island division.

REGINA May 15th Luncheon: "Best Practices for COTS Selection & Implementation"

JonathanElias — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:46:43 +0000

Date:

Wed, 05/15/2013

Event Location:

(Regina)

Presenter: Peter Flynn

Title: Best Practices for COTS Selection & Implementation

Date: Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

Venue Delta Regina, 1919 Saskatchewan Drive, Trentino Room

Registration deadline: Friday May 11, 2013

https://www.picatic.com/reginamay15

Presentation Overview

The presentation focuses on proven best practices to make an objective assessment of COTS (Commercial-over-the-shelf) to address business and technical risk. It will then show an Agile method to implement the COTS which further reduces implementation risks. The approach and methods shown will enable organizations to select a COTS which best meets their business and technical requirements and implement this in a managed process which supports success.

Speaker Biography

Mr. Flynn is with ISM Canada based in the Regina office where he is the Manager of Business Analysis and Consulting Services. In the past 20 years Peter has been involved in both the private and public sectors. Projects range from business planning and organizational assessment to solution implementation. Peter also conducts various project management and business analyst workshops for Project Managers and Business Analysts and provides leadership in ISM on best practices and methodology.

Agenda:

11:30am Registration, Networking & Buffet lunch

12:00pm Welcome, Announcements and Introductions

12:05pm Presentation

1: 00pm Questions & Adjournment

FEES FOR CIPS SASKATCHEWAN LUNCHEONS

CIPS Members $25 Non-Member $30

CIPS Student Member $20 Student Non Member $25

Corporate Table (8) $200 Sponsor Corporate Table $250*

Sponsor Corporate Table (8) $250*

*Benefits: Public Recognition & Table Signage

These events qualifies for 1.5 Education Credit

For questions or comments please email us at saskatchewan@cips.ca

CIPS Connections E-Newsletter (May 2nd) - Stay informed about CIPS news and benefits from your membership!

JonathanElias — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:33:54 +0000

Check out the May 2nd issue of the CIPS Connections e-newsletter and stay informed about CIPS news and benefits from your membership!

CIPS Connections May 2nd Issue (web version)

Not a CIPS Connections subscriber? Sign up for FREE

Information technology training for non-IT professionals to boost Ontario’s productivity and performance

JonathanElias — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:59:10 +0000

New Project Offers Digital Competencies and Skills Training Needed By Non-IT Professionals in 21st Century Workplaces

May 2, 2013, Ottawa - A 12-month made-in-Canada competency-building and training project, "Digital Competencies and Training Modules for Non-IT Professionals", is now underway. This project is paid for in part by the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities’ (MTCU’s) Sector Initiatives Fund (SIF).

Led by ICTC (the Information and Communications Technology Council) in collaboration with CIPS (Canada’s Association of Information Technology Professionals), this project helps industries embrace innovative information and communications technologies (ICTs) to boost their productivity and performance. By developing digital competencies and training modules for non-IT professionals as they transition from mid- to senior-career roles, participants will have a better understanding of the impact and potential of technology to improve their businesses.

Helping mid-career non-IT professionals gain digital competencies, training, knowledge and experience in various areas of ICTs (for example, cloud, mobile, applications (i.e. apps) and services, and digital platforms) will better enable them to plan, leverage and advise their organizations for greater innovation, productivity and success in today's rapidly-changing, technology-enabled workplace.

"We're helping to build tomorrow's workforce today," says ICTC President & CEO Namir Anani. "We will be developing the digital competencies and training necessary for non-IT professionals to use enabling technologies in their organizations and building capacity to prepare executives to contribute to innovation and productivity."

"We are leveraging ICTC's leading digital economy research and workplace training capacity, and connecting it directly to ICT leaders with the knowledge and experience to ensure that the competencies and skills training directly addresses emerging ICT trends and opportunities," says Greg Lane, FCIPS, I.S.P., ITCP CEO, CIPS. "We see the potential that this initiative has to increase digital literacy and knowledge of ICT in organizations to improve Ontario's productivity and directly benefit from the cost-savings from exploring and implementing the emerging technologies."

Many volunteer opportunities are available throughout the project including: participating in survey research for the development of the digital competencies, learning objectives, skills training modules and the pilot launch. A pilot launch of one of the training modules will take place in Ottawa. ICTC's and CIPS' websites will share project news and information and terms of reference for volunteer participation.

About the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities (MTCU)

The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) helps Ontarians get the education and training they need to build a rewarding career. MTCU operates Employment Ontario, a one-stop source of information and services for students, job seekers and employers. Visit Employment Ontario online to learn more.

This Employment Ontario project is

Paid for in part by the Government of Ontario/Payé en partie par le gouvernement de l’Ontario

About ICTC

“Strengthening Canada’s digital advantage.” - ICTC is a not-for-profit organization that conducts research, and develops and implements solutions to help Canadians take advantage of the digital economy.

“Optimiser l'avantage numérique du Canada.” - Le CTIC est un organisme sans but lucratif qui effectue de la recherche et trouve et met en œuvre des solutions qui aident la population canadienne à tirer profit de l'économie numérique.

About CIPS

CIPS is an association of individual IT professionals. Since 1958, CIPS has helped strengthen the Canadian IT industry by establishing standards and sharing best practices for the benefit of individual IT professionals and the sector as a whole. As Canada’s Association of Information Technology Professionals, CIPS represents thousands of members across the country. CIPS offers Networking opportunities, Certification of IT professionals (I.S.P. and ITCP certifications), Accreditation of IT Post-Secondary programs, a niche IT Job Board, a voice to government, and represents Canadian IT professionals in international forums, encouraging and facilitating ongoing professional development and safeguarding the public interest.

To arrange an interview with Namir Anani, President and CEO, ICTC, please contact: Gesine Freund, Executive Assistant at (613) 237-8551 or g.freund@ictc-ctic.ca.

To arrange an interview with Mary Jean Kucerak,CAE / Chief Operating Officer CIPS, please contact Jonathan Elias, Marketing Manager at 905-602-1370 Ext 2323 or jelias@cips.ca

Canadian Cyber Defence Challenge (CDC) Recognized By Computerworld as a 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate

JonathanElias — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:27:38 +0000

WINNIPEG, MB - IDG’s Computerworld Honors Program announces Cyber Defence Challenge (CDC) as a 2013 Laureate. The annual award program recognizes organizations and individuals who have used information technology to improve public welfare, business, and to make the world a better place.

“Technology continues to play a pivotal role in transforming how business and society functions. For the past 25 years, the Computerworld Honors Program has had the privilege of celebrating innovative IT achievements,” said John Amato, vice president & publisher, Computerworld. “Computerworld is honored to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of the 2013 class of Laureates and to share their work. These projects demonstrate how IT can advance organizations' ability to compete, innovate, communicate and prosper.”

“On behalf of the CDC, we are deeply honored and humbled to receive this affirmation of the importance of investing in our youth”, said Kerry Augustine, co-chair of the CDC. "We are grateful for the many key sponsors who have contributed resources and expertise to develop this program including our three foundation professional organizations - CIPS Manitoba, ISACA Winnipeg, and ISC² Manitoba/Saskatchewan Chapter. Through their leadership and the support of the IT community, including McAfee, Merlin, Daemon Defence, Dell, MTS Allstream, Seccuris, PCGI Consulting, SkullSpace, and many others, this program has become a reality. We are fortunate to have such a dedicated team of volunteers. The entire CDC is focused and committed to benefiting our youth and securing the next generation of young leaders. Our goal is to educate and empower the local community to use the Internet safely and securely at home, work, and school, protecting the individual, the networks they connect to, and Canada's shared digital assets.”

The Canadian Cyber Defence Challenge is the first program in Canada that brings students and security professionals together with the goal of raising cyber-security awareness among Canada’s youth, as well as motivating and encouraging them to consider science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines post-secondary. Please visit: http://www.cyberdefencechallenge.ca

The Computerworld Honors Program awards will be presented on June 3, 2013 Washington, D.C.

###

For more information, please contact:
Kerry Augustine, CDC co-chair, Phone: (204) 296-4201, Email: Kerry@cyberdefencechallenge.ca
Sarah LaCroix, CDC Media Relations, Phone (204) 430-0306, Email: media@cyberdefencechallenge.ca

Click Here for the Canadian Cyber Defence Challenge (CDC) Program Overview

What is real cloud computing? (via Microsoft TechNet)

JonathanElias — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:07:09 +0000

via Microsoft TechNet

Hello Folks,

My name is Pierre Roman and I’m a Technology Evangelist from Microsoft Canada. Some of you are already working with Cloud computing. Some of you are trying to figure out where and if it makes sense for your business. And some of you may not know a lot about Cloud computing past the commercials and the buzz words.

Just so we’re all on the same page NIST defines Cloud computing as follows:

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, 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. “

(National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2011)

I use this definition because it covers all the bases for what we believe is real cloud computing. Those are:

1- On-demand self-service

2- Broad network access

3- Resource pooling

4- Rapid elasticity or as I like to call it “capacity on demand”

5- Measured service.

We’ve provided rock solid Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) with Microsoft Azure in the past, but since April 16th 2013 we are now delivering rock solid Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

That means that in an IaaS scenario, you provide and manage the OS, the middleware and the applications and we provide, support and manage the virtualization platform, the storage and the network. All of which is regulated by SLAs that cover Virtual server availability.

The great thing is that Windows Azure IaaS uses the same Hyper-V virtualization service built-into Windows Server 2012, which means that you can create and use a common set of machines to use both in your own environment and on the Cloud. That also means you manage your Cloud environment the same way you would manage your “on premise” machines, using the same tools, and skills you already have. Windows Azure becomes an extension of your organization’s IT fabric, not just a fancier way to describe hosting.

We’ll manage the Datacenter… All you need is to manage your business.

I encourage you to check it out!

Try Windows Server 2012 right now on Windows Azure

And be sure to attend The Windows Azure for IT Professionals Jump Start on May 16^th 2013 (9:00am-5:00pm PDT) on the Microsoft Virtual Academy

Learn more

· Virtual Machines Overview

· Manage disks and images

· Windows virtual machines: how to guides, common tasks, and best practices

· Linux Virtual Machines: How to Guides, Common Tasks, Best Practices, and Partner Solutions

· Microsoft server software support for Windows Azure virtual machines

Microsoft Canada wants to help you become the Cloud “go-to” guy or gal for your organization with the skills to help you get there. In the process you could win the $5000 Grand Prize!*

Simply sign-up and download the qualifying evaluation software or take the selected Microsoft Virtual Academy courses and you’re good to go.

Cheers!

Pierre Roman, MCITP, ITIL | Technology Evangelist
Twitter| Facebook| LinkedIn

*No purchase necessary. Contest open to residents of Canada. Contest closes June 30, 2013 at 11:59:59 p.m. ET. There is one grand prize of $5,000 available to be won. Skill testing question required. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries. For full rules, including entry, eligibility requirements and complete prize description, review the full terms and Conditions.

Resources, Tools and Training

Azure IaaS Update

Learn more about the new Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) update and try out the free 90 day trail for yourself.

Windows XP End of Support

With the end of extended support for Windows XP less than a year away, we've gotten some questions about what it means for and your organization. We have answers to those questions, as well as some great resources you can use to plan your migration from Windows XP. Read more >>

Now on MVA: Tuning SQL Server 2012 for SharePoint 2013

Senior Product Marketing Manager Bill Baer and MicroTechPoint CEO & Founder Brian Alderman deliver an engaging Jump Start course that is full of enlightening demos. The course, which is available on demand, covers best practices and techniques to help IT pros improve SharePoint performance, availability, and security with SQL Server. Learn More>>

April 2013 CIPS Volunteer of the Month: Jon Nightingale, I.S.P. (ret)

JonathanElias — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:51:08 +0000

April 2013 CIPS Volunteer of the Month:

Jon Nightingale, I.S.P. (ret)

President, CIPS BC

About Jon:

What is your Background?

I originally came to IT indirectly. I started my university education at UBC in mining engineering. I had several summer jobs in the far north, and during the last one got involved in a project using a software program for doing open-pit mine design and planning. At that point I decided working in the wilderness was not for me and computer programming looked interesting. I switched to computer science and graduated in the first year UBC offered a degree in computer science. Upon graduation I took a job at the UBC Computing Centre, which ended up as a 20-year career, primarily in client support areas.

In 1993 I took the opportunity of a severance package from UBC and went out on my own. A couple of years later I was back at UBC as a contractor doing some website design work. During that time I was also doing work for a small Internet start-up company and this eventually morphed into a full-time job. The main focus was web-based image collections, primarily in the museum and fine-art areas.

I cut back to part-time work a couple of years back and am now pretty much retired. For leisure these days I walk a lot to stay fit and enjoy travelling and photography.

What type of Involvement have you had with CIPS?

Over my many years in CIPS I have served in multiple roles at the local, provincial, and national levels. My CIPS career started in 1976 when my UBC boss Al Fowler, then on the CIPS Vancouver Board and later a CIPS National President, asked me to take care of the Vancouver membership list. I spent much of the next few years working on membership matters locally and nationally. Long before the Internet we actually ran the national membership system on UBC's mainframe, with the National Office accessing it via Datapac.

I was on the National Executive in the mid-80's when we had the referendum that started us on the path to our professional designations. In 1996 I joined the Certification Council which I chaired for a number of years, and I also chaired the council experience committee that reviews the experience reviews of I.S.P. applications.

In 2004 I took on the role of Chair of the Governance Committee which, over the next several years, moved CIPS to its new and current structure. Subsequent to that I served on the CCITP and am currently completing my second term as President of CIPS BC.

What value has your involvement with CIPS provided?

My early years in CIPS contributed greatly to my professional development. It provided an opportunity to interact with a variety of people at different levels in their careers, from students to CIO's. Local dinner meetings and seminars as well as the annual national conferences kept me up-to-date on the industry.

The greatest pleasure of involvement with CIPS for me has always been working with a large, diverse, and dedicated collection of individuals and this, more than anything, is the reason I have remained active so long. Through CIPS I have developed a network of colleagues and friends that extends from one end of the country to the other.

www.cips.ca/VolunteerOfTheMonth

COUNTERMEASURE 2013

JonathanElias — Wed, 01 May 2013 03:48:04 +0000

COUNTERMEASURE is Ottawa's premier annual IT security conference and training event, featuring the best of both offensive and defensive tactics. Past speakers have included globally recognized industry security researchers, Government of Canada representatives and seasoned enterprise security experts.

COUNTERMEASURE 2013, taking place Nov 7-8 2013, at the Ottawa Convention Centre, will showcase cutting edge topics in security, and include both management and technical track talks. Keynote speakers include Vincenzo Iozzo, Director of Security Engineering at Trail of Bits, presenting “A Tale of Mobile Threats” and Charlie Miller, Security Researcher at Twitter, presenting “Mobile Threats - Hype vs Reality”. Networking opportunities abound to allow you to speak with presenters one on one and make valuable new business contacts. Be prepared to be engaged and challenged!

The optional training sessions, held Nov 4-6, 2013 include industry leading IT security experts from firms such as Attack Research and Security Compass. Course topics include “Exploiting and Defending Mobile”, “Implementing Top Application Security Controls”, “Offensive Techniques”, “Rapid Reverse Engineering” and “IT Auditing with ITSG-33”. All training sessions will provide you with hands-on practical instruction you can directly apply in your enterprise.

Registration for COUNTERMEASURE 2013 is now open. Be sure to take advantage of Early Bird pricing for both the conference and training courses by registering at www.countermeasure2013.com before June 14, 2013 – don’t miss out!

CIPS Members receive a 10% discount on COUNTERMEASURE 2013 Conference Registration fees - Use the Code: CIPSCM2013

CIPS Nova Scotia now accepting applications for Dr. Stan Heaps Memorial University Scholarship In Computer Science

JonathanElias — Wed, 01 May 2013 03:37:08 +0000

Dr. Stan Heaps Memorial

UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP IN COMPUTER SCIENCE 2013

CIPS Nova Scotia is pleased to invite applications for a $1000 scholarship available to candidates meeting the general qualifications.

General qualifications:

Student about to enter either of the final two years of a 4-year university program leading to a degree with specialization in computer studies in a Nova Scotia University
Candidates must have achieved a minimum overall GPA of 2.67 (70% average)
Canadian citizen or landed immigrant

The scholarship will be awarded on the basis of overall academic merit with an emphasis on courses most relevant to computing science. Extracurricular, leadership and community involvement activities may also be considered.

Application forms are available on the CIPS Nova Scotia Website at http://local.cips.ca/cipsns/.

Applicants may submit any additional information to support their application.

May 24, 2013 - Applications and transcripts received

June 28, 2013 - Decision rendered and communicated

September 2013 - Scholarship awarded

*** The recipient of the scholarship will also receive a free one-year membership in CIPS Nova Scotia. To find out more about CIPS National, visit the web site at www.cips.ca. To find out more about CIPS Nova Scotia, visit the web site at http://local.cips.ca/cipsns/.

Winnipeg Event (May 21): "Building a Smarter Planet - Instrumented, Intelligent, and Interconnected"

JonathanElias — Wed, 01 May 2013 02:34:19 +0000

Date:

Tue, 05/21/2013

Event Location:

(Winnipeg)

Building a Smarter Planet - Instrumented, Intelligent, and Interconnected

For the first time in history, almost anything can become digitally aware and interconnected. Smart airports, smart banks, smart roadways, smart cities – with so much technology available at such a low cost, the list of possibilities is endless. New levels of global integration mean that we are all now connected – economically, technically and socially. But being connected is not sufficient. We also have to infuse intelligence into our systems and ways of working. The world has become flatter and smaller. Now it must become smarter.

Leveraging advanced analytics, asset management and collaboration tools, IBM's Intelligent Operations delivers the ability to gain insight into an organizations environment through centralized information and enables the integration of organization-wide daily operations to allow visibility into KPIs, trends, analyses, business rules and cross-organization collaboration. Intelligent Operations helps optimize operational efficiency by integrating many systems to provide insight into overall organization status with drill-down visibility into each underlying function

The presentation will look at how a number of industry's are infusing intelligence into creating the services they provide to their clients, and the technology that is assisting them..

Rudi Loepp

Smarter Cities and Governments Solutions Executive Software Group IBM Canada

Rudi Loepp is the IBM Software Group Sales Leader for Smarter Operations solutions. In this role he works with clients from all industries helping them to understand how the analytical insight provided by looking at data from operational technologies as well as from more traditional data sources can shed a whole new light on how their organizations are operating and how they should deal with events that can negatively impact their operations.. During his tenure with IBM he has seen many changes in how organizations have tried to turned information into insight, and what has worked in this area and what has not. Throughout his career he has worked with clients in virtually every industry.

Born in Winnipeg, Rudi is a graduate of the University of Manitoba. He is a resident of Ottawa, however he returns often (well... more in the summer) to visit family and friends

Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Location: Norwood Hotel, 112 Marion Street

Registration: 5:30 P.M. Dinner 6:00 P.M.

Cost:     CIPS Members:                  $25.00
               Non-Members:            $45.00
               Student Members:        $15.00
               Related Groups:                $40.00

VISA, cash or cheque accepted at the door. Those registered that fail to attend will be invoiced. Please notify us of any food allergies or diet restrictions and we will accommodate you.

Register via email to manitoba@cips.ca

Please share this information with your colleagues and co-workers. Thanks!

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Upcoming Events and New Job Postings - CIPS Connections E-Newsletter (May 9th)

CIPS Nova Scotia AGM 2013

Dinner Meeting

Abstract:

BIO:

REGINA May 15th Luncheon: "Best Practices for COTS Selection & Implementation"

CIPS Connections E-Newsletter (May 2nd) - Stay informed about CIPS news and benefits from your membership!

Information technology training for non-IT professionals to boost Ontario’s productivity and performance

Canadian Cyber Defence Challenge (CDC) Recognized By Computerworld as a 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate

What is real cloud computing? (via Microsoft TechNet)

Windows XP End of Support

Now on MVA: Tuning SQL Server 2012 for SharePoint 2013

April 2013 CIPS Volunteer of the Month: Jon Nightingale, I.S.P. (ret)

COUNTERMEASURE 2013

CIPS Nova Scotia now accepting applications for Dr. Stan Heaps Memorial University Scholarship In Computer Science

Winnipeg Event (May 21): "Building a Smarter Planet - Instrumented, Intelligent, and Interconnected"