Gamification and Rewards Programs Utilizing the IoT Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Most people haven't heard the word, "gamification," even though they probably, and perhaps unwittingly, participate in it every day. Gamification is "the process of adding games or game-like elements to something (as a task) so as to encourage participation." Further, gamification is about bringing game mechanics - rules, constructs, processes, and methods - into the real world in an effort to engage people. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Robert Endo, owner and engagement manager of Intrepid Data, discussed how wearables, analytics, and geospatial technologies can be combined to transform the world into the ultimate game board. Organizations can grasp consumer, employee, or client intrinsic interest by setting up cool, collaborative, and rewarding systems using the IoT. Download Slid... (more)

Everything Azure | @CloudExpo @HanuSoftware @Azure #IoT #DevOps

Empowering the Enterprise to Take Full Advantage of Everything Azure The cloud era has reached the stage where it is no longer a question of whether a company should migrate, but when. Enterprises have embraced the outsourcing of where their various applications are stored and who manages them, saving significant investment along the way. Plus, the cloud has become a defining competitive edge. Companies that fail to successfully adapt risk failure. The media, of course, continues to extol the virtues of the cloud, including how easy it is to get there. Migrating to the cloud is a simple affair - just call up a cloud provider and your wishes come true. The reality is quite different, however, as enterprises struggle with a wide variety of migration issues, from security to overtaxed IT teams and everything in-between. In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Collin Steele, ... (more)

Announcing @GoogleCloud to Sponsor @CloudExpo | #IoT #AI #ML #DX #DigitalTransformation

SYS-CON Events announced today that Google Cloud has been named "Keynote Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Companies come to Google Cloud to transform their businesses. Google Cloud's comprehensive portfolio - from infrastructure to apps to devices - helps enterprises innovate faster, scale smarter, stay secure, and do more with data than ever before. For more information, please visit https://enterprise.google.com/chrome/. Why Connected Companies Win: Your Roadmap to Cloud Success Coca-Cola's Google powered digital signage system lays the groundwork for a more valuable connection between Coke and its customers. Digital signs pair software with high-resolution displays so that a message can be changed instantly based on what the operator want... (more)

Choosing Your First Programming Language

By BryanHalfpap Many new programmers struggle when it comes to selecting their first language to learn.  Which is easiest, the most professionally useful, the most newbie-friendly?  Lets find out by showing you a range of options, their strengths and weaknesses, and some information about the most common programming languages in demand today.  At the end, we’ll make some recommendations and you’ll understand a bit more about why they were chosen. The Task At Hand Every job requires the right kind of tool, and each programming language can be thought of as a separate tool.  Just like some tools are good for hammering nails, driving screws, and leveling screws, some programming languages are innately more suitable than others for tasks like designing a website, interpreting text, or reacting to user input. Lets go through a few common use cases: Language Typical Us... (more)

Virtual Machine Awareness | @CloudExpo @Tintri #DataCenter #IoT #DevOps

"Tintri was started in 2008 with the express purpose of building a storage appliance that is ideal for virtualized environments. We support a lot of different hypervisor platforms from VMware to OpenStack to Hyper-V," explained Dan Florea, Director of Product Management at Tintri, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. 20th International Cloud Expo, taking place June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. Cloud computing is now being embraced by a majority of enterprises of all sizes. Yesterday's debate about public vs. private has transformed into the reality of hybrid cloud: a recent survey shows that 74% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy. Meanwhile, ... (more)

Designing a Java Cryptography Header

Designing and implementing a hybrid encryption application is a big challenge but without a supporting infrastructure it's almost impossible. There are open source libraries that allow you to encrypt a file but only provide the translation technique. After the information has been encrypted, how do you know what algorithm was used, who you encrypted it, what version did you used, etc. In order to decrypt the protected message or file, a well-defined cryptographic header provides all the information required. This also applies if the encrypted data is digitally signed and the recipient wants to validate the signature. This article will address one of the critical components of a support infrastructure by providing a design of a cryptographic header used to precede encrypted and/or digitally signed messages and files. The header is used within an application known as... (more)

Cloud Data Management By @Commvault at @CloudExpo New York | #Cloud #BigData

Cloud Data Management and Beyond with Commvault Simpana As organizations shift towards IT-as-a-service models, the need for managing and protecting data residing across physical, virtual, and now cloud environments grows with it. CommVault can ensure protection and E-Discovery of your data - whether in a private cloud, a Service Provider delivered public cloud, or a hybrid cloud environment - across the heterogeneous enterprise. In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Randy De Meno, Chief Technologist - Windows Products and Microsoft Partnerships at CommVault, will discuss how to cut costs, scale easily, and unleash insight with CommVault Simpana software, the only singular data and information management solution for cloud data protection and beyond. Speaker Bio Randy De Meno joined CommVault in 1994 and initiated CommVault's direction into the heterogeneous Data Man... (more)

The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem

In the run-up to the next Cloud Expo, 7th Cloud Expo (November 1–4, 2010) being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley, it's time to give my earlier list a complete overhaul. Here, accordingly, is an expanded list of the most active players in the Cloud Ecosystem. I have increased it from the 'mere' 150 I identified back in January of this year, to 250, testimony – as if any were needed! – to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites of the companies themselves. Omissions to this Top 250 list should be sent to me via Twitter (twitter.com/jg21) and I will endeavor to include them in any future revision of this newly expanded rou... (more)

SoftLayer @CloudExpo Gold Sponsor | #DataCenter #Storage #IoT #DigitalTransformation

SYS-CON Events announced today that SoftLayer, an IBM Company, has been named "Gold Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 18th Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York, New York. SoftLayer, an IBM Company, provides cloud infrastructure as a service from a growing number of data centers and network points of presence around the world. SoftLayer's customers range from Web startups to global enterprises. Products and services include bare metal and virtual servers, networking, turnkey Big Data solutions, private cloud solutions, and more. SoftLayer's unique advantages include the industry's first Network-Within-a-Network topology for true out-of-band access, and an easy-to-use customer portal and robust API for full remote-access of all product and service management options. SoftLayer was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texa... (more)

Announcing @HanuSoftware to Exhibit at @CloudExpo New York | #Cloud

SYS-CON Events announced today that Hanu Software will exhibit at SYS-CON's 18th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Leveraging best-in-class people, processes, and technologies, Hanu provides high-quality, high-value software development and business process outsourcing services to independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprises. Founded in 2002, Hanu is dedicated to developing effective outsourcing partnerships with clients in order to accelerate time to market, reduce operational cost, and empower them to devote more time to their core business. For more information, visit http://www.hanusoftware.com. @ThingsExpo - The World's Largest 'Internet of Things' Event, June 7-9 2016 at New York City's Javits Center! Secrets of Sponsors and Exhibitors ▸ Here Secrets of Cloud Expo Speakers ▸ H... (more)

BPEL Processes and Human Workflow

Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), one of the key technologies for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), has become the accepted mechanism for defining and executing business processes in a common vendor-neutral way. Companies ranging from Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and BEA to smaller organizations such as Fuego and Lombardi have committed to BPEL as a building block for SOA. BPEL, which has been designed specifically for defining business processes, supports typical interactions such as synchronous and asynchronous operation invocation, sequential and parallel flows, message correlations, fault and compensation handlers and activities triggered by events. Business processes often require human interactions as well. Since the BPEL specification doesn't address them, you might think BPEL isn't suitable for business processes that involve people. But that's n... (more)