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Fog computing, also known as edge computing, has begun to take off. Fog computing is an intermediate layer that extends the cloud layer. As Giti Javidi, Ehsan Sheybani, and Lila Rajabion write in Focusing in on Fog Computing’s Implications for Business, “simply put, fog is a cloud close to the ground.” With fog architecture, some of the computing is moved to the edges, away from centralized data centers and cloud solutions, allowing data to be processed locally on smart devices rather than being sent to the cloud for processing.
Why are companies are turning to fog computing? According to Javidi and her coauthors, they are doing it for higher efficiency, better security, faster decision-making processes, and lowered operating costs. Internet of Things devices, in particular, can put a huge strain on the internet infrastructure. In their report, Javidi et al describe a case of fog computing that reduces that stress: A jet engine can create about 10 TB of performance and condition data in 30 minutes. Transmitting that data to the cloud and getting the response data back takes a lot of time and bandwidth, which introduces latency. Using a fog environment, the processing can take place on a local router, resulting in data that can be acted on in just milliseconds, in addition to sending data on to the cloud for historical analysis and longer-term storage.
While there are many benefits of fog, there are still also risks. For example, a major disaster could wipe out individual processors in a city, resulting in catastrophic data losses. However, suggests the research team, using fog and cloud computing in concert — getting efficiency from fog computing while storing data in the cloud to enable recovery from disruptions quickly — helps to allay this risk.
Fog computing is especially beneficial for applications that require a <1 second response time. Consider medical wearables, where a real-time response can be a literal life or death action. It’s also useful in less urgent cases, as Javidi et al describe:
A good example is found in the airline industry. When a plane lands, data from its engines is downloaded and analyzed. If any anomalies are discovered that could indicate trouble with the engine or any potential cause of failure, the problem must be remedied, usually by procuring and installing a new part. The entire process typically takes several hours. With fog computing, airlines have the capability to do all the analytics in-flight, on the plane, and to transmit any anomalies to the destination airport while still in the air. Then, when the plane lands, the needed part can be waiting, reducing downtime to 15 to 30 minutes rather than hours.”
You can see how industries with a lot of preventative maintenance needs could embrace fog computing to improve safety and efficiency.
Cutter Research: Cutter Consortium clients can read Focusing in on Fog Computing’s Implications for Business, as well as Fog Computing: A New Space Between Data and the Cloud (also by Giti Javidi, Ehsan Sheybani, and Lila Rajabion) to learn more about the ways fog computing enhances and complements the cloud by bringing the processing closer to a cluster of IoT devices, resulting in faster analytics.
As a Citrix Ready partner, Stratodesk has been pioneering the cause of helping Citrix’ customer base enhance the user experience with endpoint devices. Today, I am pleased to bring you a guest post by Joseph Anderson from Stratodesk. Read on …
Hello Citrix community! Welcome to the December 2017 edition of Citrix Knowledge Center Highlights. This is a collection of new and updated articles, trending articles, and other updates from the Citrix Knowledge Center team.
We have organized …
There are several key benefits associated with having profiles other than your own branded social media accounts share your company’s content. It increases brand recognition, helps improve brand loyalty, provides more opportunities to convert, and often results in higher conversion rates.
According to Ambassador, 71% of customers who have a good experience interacting with a brand on social media are likely to recommend it to others. And research from UMass Dartmouth shows that 77% of millennials make purchases both online and in-store after viewing posts on Facebook.
But it takes a lot of effort to make that happen. Marketers go through a great deal to get people to share their content online, including running contests and promotions, employee advocacy initiatives, paid advertising campaigns and more.
So how do you know whether or not your efforts to get people sharing your content are paying off? How do you know which tactics and sharers are the most profitable? Here are some things to think about that can help maximize your social media ROI.
An underutilized attribution solution, UTM parameters are nothing more than tags you add to the end of a URL. When the link is clicked, the tags are sent back to your Google Analytics and tracked. This way you can see how much traffic is coming from each of the influencers you’re working with, so you can tell which ones are providing the best value.
This is helpful when deciding who to work with on future campaigns, and it can also give you the information you need to ensure you’re seeing proportionate value from the influencers you’re currently paying.
You’ll have to create separate URLs for each influencer, and make sure they are different enough so you can see which traffic is coming from influencer A, B, and C, but similar enough that you can tell it’s all part of the same overall campaign. You may even want to get really specific and give each influencer separate UTM URLs for each of their social media platforms, so you can see which of their platforms provide the highest ROI.
The more unique URLs you have, the better a system you’ll have to use to manage which URLs belong to whom. It’s a good idea to build them all and list them in a spreadsheet until Analytics data starts coming in.
Compare your share volume, sharer audience size, and engagement data with what you would have spent to achieve the same impact with promoted social posts. A good way to do this is with a simple “earned media value,” or EMV, formula.
Just take the number of sharers in your brand advocacy team and multiply it by the number of shares per influencer/employee. Then, multiply that by the number of clicks generated per share, and multiply that by the cost per click.
So as an example, let’s say you have 10 influencers who are sharing your content with five tweets each, and each of those posts gets 10 clicks, at an estimated $3 value per click. In this case, your EMV comes to $1,500. You’d have to spend that much on advertising to get the same impact. This method allows you to see what you’re getting for free, and allows you to use your advertising budget to amplify the results even more.
The problem with this method is that you’re often paying influencers to share the content, so the promotion isn’t always free. On the other hand, if your company has a vibrant employee advocacy initiative underway, then you’re paying them regardless of whether they share your content or not, so in this sense, it’s free.
When you merge your channel referrer with your sales data, you can see how many customers and how much revenue is coming to your business as a result of clickthroughs from social media.
This method specifically attaches traffic referrers to your sales data so you can see how many customers and how much money come from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora and whatever other social networks you’re on, allowing you to see which networks are the most popular with your customers, so you can adjust future campaigns accordingly.
Many CRMs make it easy for you to run reports like these once your data sources are synced up properly, but the setup work can be complex if you’re not a data professional, so you may need some help to get started.
Content distribution can be both costly and time-consuming. That’s why it’s critical to go beyond the ROI of the content itself and see how much money each piece makes you from the shares it gets on social media.
Of course, the content share will likely most often originate with your company page, but the more people you get sharing it – either through employee advocacy, a brand ambassador program, or as a result of organic fan engagement – the better the ROI of your content marketing efforts will be.
The post How to Calculate ROI When People Share Your Content appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.
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This post CenturyLink announces two additional leadership appointments appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
MONROE, La., Jan. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) today announced the appointment of two additional executives reporting to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Storey. Executive Vice President Gaurav Chand has been named executive vice president – marketing, effective today.
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EDT is more closely related to UDP than TCP …
This post 5 Wishes for the New Year: That organizations will end the debate around cloud v. on-premise appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
5 Wishes for the New Year In the spirit of all that’s holly and jolly, I’m sharing my top five cloud industry-related wishes for 2018: Wish #1: That GDPR will be as anticlimactic as Y2K With all the hype around
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This post Using No Electronics, 3D-Printed Objects Can Now Connect to Wi-Fi appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
3D-Printed Objects Can Connect to Wi-Fi The vast collection of 3-D-printed products in existence is impressive enough to inspire people of all ages and interests. However, a team recently made 3D-printed items that are remarkable in their own right — they
This post Using No Electronics, 3D-Printed Objects Can Now Connect to Wi-Fi appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
By Gregory Pings
It doesn’t surprise me, but seeing it on a spreadsheet is a heckuva reality check that answers the question: What do my readers want?
Based on the pageviews from the past year, Xerox products and our direction top the list of your favorite articles. Rounding out the list (out of more than 100 published in 2017) your favorite topics include corporate social responsibility, information security, innovation, people and popular culture.
Here’s a look at some your favorites.
“New beginning” might be redundant, but there’s no other way to put it: On January 1, 2017, Xerox became a new company. Again. “New Year, New Xerox” announced the official start of a new path for Xerox and our revitalized strategy and expanded opportunities.
No surprises here, our top-performing article for 2017 featured Brother Dominic, updated for the 21st century, who pulled-off yet another Xerox miracle. “40 Years: Then and Now” takes a look at how Xerox (and the world) has changed since the first Bro-Do commercial that aired during Super Bowl XI.
“Set the Page Free – It’s What Xerox Is All About” describes how Set the Page Free nods to our heritage, reflects our present, embraces our future, and allows us to convey the essence of the value that Xerox has always provided in the world.
14 world renowned writers and artists produce a story of the modern workplace. “Speaking of Work: A Story of Love, Suspense and Paper Clips” is filled with passion, suspense and absurdity. Go to SetThePageFree.com for your copy of the free eBook. You may also peruse this site for excerpts from these remarkable writers, as well videos and podcasts that feature their insights on work and the workplace.
CEO Jeff Jacobson caught your attention. Articles by or about him regularly perform well, whether he discusses our direction (“CEO’s Letter to Shareholders: This year is all about execution”) or a new product line (Save the date: Xerox CEO to discuss the future of work).
One of more popular articles for 2017 was published in 2016. Lasting change must come from a thousand decisions made differently every day by thousands of our colleagues — their ideas, their passion, and their leadership. Read “Xerox’s strategic transformation: 8 things you don’t know” from Xerox chief transformation officer Cathy Nadeau.
More links
More top-performing articles are available on these pages: Advertising, Brand, Brother Dominic, CEOs, Set the Page Free.
We launched 29 new products on March 29. “Xerox ConnectKey: Our Biggest Technology Launch in 110 Years” lifted the veil and led the way to more articles about the products, features and – especially, the apps.
“The Problem with Printers, and How Xerox Solved Them” shows how our product development team took the lessons and insights about smartphone app design and applied them to our printers.
Five Apps to Boost Workplace Productivity highlights five printer apps that meet the evolving needs of your customers and your business.
From Bottle Caps to Basketballs, Xerox Came to Play at Retail’s BIG Show reminds us that “the page” is anything that holds information and data. Our Direct to Object inkjet printer takes us way beyond paper, and shows how applied innovation can change shopping experiences, and uncover new opportunities for retailers.
Working on the Go Just Got Easier takes a look at a customized Xerox self-service printer we developed for Staples. It improves the customer experience for mobile workers and small businesses that rely on Staples for their printing and office work needs.
More links
More top-performing articles are available on these pages: ConnectKey, Office Printing, Print Beyond Paper, Workplace Solutions
The Question Is, What Is Xerox? showcased a Jeopardy! question about Xerox. This pop culture reference gave me an excuse to write about Horace Becker, one of the more irrepressible personalities in Xerox history.
5 Lessons from My Internship advises fellow students to get out of their comfort zones if they want great experiences and a good challenge.
Beyond Ink & Paper is part of a series of articles that that examine the modern workplace, the technology we use to get our work done, as well as the places where we get our work done. These articles feature insights from Xerox employees, partners, and customers who work in various functions.
Millennials Mentor Xerox Executives reports on a reverse mentoring program that creates a safe space where our young people can share ideas and connect with the leadership.
More links
More top-performing articles are available on these pages: Chester Carlson, Employee Engagement, Set the Page Free in the Modern Workplace, Xerography]
How to Secure Documents and the Devices that Print Them looks at an often-overlooked area for information security: documents, and the “endpoints” that produce them. It features a guide that offers checklists and discussion points to help you make smart choices about information security.
We’re Fooling Ourselves: There is No Cybersecurity Talent Gap questions whether unfilled cybersecurity positions require fulfillment at all. Sergio Caltagirone, director of threat intelligence and analytics at Dragos, looks at opportunities chief information security officers may have overlooked.
Learn more
Read more top-performing InfoSec articles.
Gary Starkweather Invented the Laser Printer Over 40 Years Ago is part of a National Inventors Day series that looks at several innovative ideas that came out (or are coming out) of our laboratories.
Tech and Your Job: Changes Ahead PARC CEO Dr. Tolga Kurtoglu says the question is not “will artificial intelligence take my job?” Rather, you should ask “how will the nature of work change?”
Learn more
Read more top-performing articles about innovation at Xerox, PARC, and the Xerox Research Centre of Canada.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
This section is deceptively brief. That’s because The Things That Matter Most to People and Communities included a roundup of CSR articles when we announced that Xerox was named to the 2017 Just 100 list. Give it a read; I think you’ll like the Marley’s Ghost reference. The Just 100 list is a survey conducted by Forbes and JUST Capital, a nonprofit that ranks the largest publicly traded corporations in the U.S.
Learn more
Read more top-performing articles about Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, Earth Day, Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability, and Environmental Protection.
Thank you for a great 2017, and I look forward to more great stories in the new year.
An American health care system is notifying 29,000 patients of a privacy breach that might have exposed their medical records. On 29 December 2017, SSM Health published a statement about a security incident it had learned about two months earlier. The not-for-profit organization, which employs 1,600 physicians and 33,000 other individuals in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Illinois, […]… Read More
The post Health Care System Notifies 29K Patients of Privacy Breach appeared first on The State of Security.
The new tax law contains a major benefit for many freelancers. It allows them to deduct 20% of their revenue from their taxable income.
This is the "pass-through" provision. It provides this deduction to sole proprietors, LLCs and and other entities that pass-through their business income to their personal taxes.
There are some caveats. There are limits to who can take this deduction and who can and can't will be unclear until the final IRS regulations are issued. This deduction also phases out starting at $157,500 of individual income and $315,000 of income for couples filing jointly.
But most freelancers who make less than these phase out levels will likely be able to take this deduction.
This is a major change from the original House bill. That proposed bill tightly limited who could take advantage of the pass-through provision. It's also more generous than early versions of the Senate bill.
But in the end the Republicans decided to greatly broaden who would get this deduction.
This deduction, coupled with new, lower tax rates means most freelancers should pay less in Federal taxes in 2018 than they would have under the former tax code.
While the tax code changes are good news for freelancers, the bill also repeals Obamacare's individual mandate. This is not good news.
The current administration seems determined to undermine Obamacare, even though they don't have an alternative. The repeal of the individual mandate will make health insurance more expensive and harder to get for those outside of traditional corporate insurance plans - meaning freelancers and the self-employed.
Older freelancers and those earning relatively low incomes will likely be hurt the most.
We'll also see an increase in health insurance "job lock" as people choose to stay with traditional jobs so they're covered under corporate health plans. This will be especially true for older Americans.
Because of the complexity of the new legislation, we urge freelancers to get help with their taxes in 2018. The leading tax software providers will be a good source of information as well as accountants and tax lawyers.
As for health insurance, all we can offer is the hope that congress will fix the mess they are creating by undermining Obamacare and the health insurance markets.
We are heading into an era which embraces the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial Intelligence (AI), and machine learning (MI) that have immensely overturned the tech world. With particular reference to IoT, it has profoundly impacted global commerce and lifestyle. If this existing pace remains consistent, then it wouldn’t be onerous to predict the trends […]… Read More
The post Internet of Things In Healthcare – What to Expect in 2018? appeared first on The State of Security.
Last time, I had the honor of speaking with Tiffany Gerstmar. Her work with the US Navy led to her become a cybersecurity policy professional. In this final interview of the current series, I got to speak with Roselle Safran. Not unlike Tiffany, work in US government agencies also helped her to get where she […]… Read More
The post Women in Information Security: Roselle Safran appeared first on The State of Security.
This post Happy New Year! 2018 appeared first on CloudTweaks Connected CloudTweaks.
Happy New Year and Seasons Greetings! We'd like to share our warmest holiday greetings to all our readers and followers through the years. Your dedication, loyalty and support has been very much appreciated. In 2018, we will continue to offer
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