It’s time to speak up
Cyber-Security: How Sea-Worthy is our Digital Ship?
20 July 2009
How severe can the impact of the Conficker worm virus be on a single city council that has (apparently) not implemented basic security solutions?
Pretty severe according to a recently released report entitled "Service interruption resulting from ICT disruption in February 2009", which details the financial costs of a Conficker incident affecting Manchester City Council's network - 1.5 million pounds in clean up costs and lost revenue from downtime.
To read more, click here.
Cyber-Security: How Sea-Worthy is our Digital Ship?Why you need IPv6
08 July 2009
The impending exhaustion of IPv4 addressing is an issue that should be considered by all organisations that provide services over the Internet. There have been many estimates of when ‘D-Day', the date that IPv4 addresses are no longer obtainable, will arrive. The current best guess is 2010/2011.
What does a scarcity of IPv4 addresses mean for your organisation? Will there be a ‘Y2K effect' where businesses potentially may cease to operate? Will it affect day-to-day operations or will the effects just be felt for new Internet based services?
This paper from Voco looks at the issues surrounding dwindling IPv4 resources and discusses whether there is a business case for the consequent coexistence, then migration to IPv6. The last section covers practical first steps an organisation can take to start implementing IPv6, at least in test networks or labs.
On Tuesday, 7th July, Voco held an IPv6 Forum at Confidential on the Terrace, Wellington. The IP Version 4 address depletion issues and IPv6 Business Case were covered in this presentation .
Why you need IPv6TUANZ Innovation Awards
06 July 2009
Voco is delighted to be the major sponsor of this year's TUANZ Innovation Awards. Sure the recessionary conditions are making business generally tougher, but the telecommunications industry must be a cornerstone of a thriving New Zealand in an increasing global economy and now more than at any time must over-perform.
We see, and are fortunate to work with, a lot of smart people doing smart things across the telecommunications user spectrum and that reinforces our belief that it is innovation, that smart stuff, that will see "NZ Inc." come out of the global recession in a stronger position than when we went in.
Our hats are off to TUANZ and IDC for keeping this signature event on the industry calendar. This is THE time when our industry needs to have a future focus. This is THE importantant stuff, and it needs to be encouraged, recognised and celebrated!
TUANZ Innovation AwardsitSMFnz Wellington
01 July 2009
Every 3rd or 4th Wednesday of the month, members of IT Service Management Forum New Zealand (itSMFnz) in Wellington meet to hear and discuss developments in the area of IT service management.
Case studies, and the effective use of tools by customers are always popular, and of late, increasing attendance means standing room only for late comers!
The meeting is free to members, non-members are welcome to join us, we we do ask that they join itSMFnz if they become regulars to the monthly meetings we plan to hold. To attend a session, please send an email to itSMF Administrator.
Sunit Prakash of Voco and Terry Barwick of Integriti organise and run the sessions. If you are interested in attending, presenting or hosting, please contact Sunit (Sunit Prakash).
Upcoming itSMFnz Wellington Events:
- A Layman's View of COBIT as More Than Just an Audit Tool
Rob England
Wednesday, 22 July 2009 at 4:00pm - What is this Cloud Computing Thing
Mike Riverdale
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 at 4:00pm - The Multiple Considerations of Multi-Sourcing
Lauren Morrison of Voco
Wednesday, 23 September 2009 at 4:00pm - Introduction to Business Service Management (BSM 101)
Jonathan Chivers of BMC
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 at 4:00pm
For more details, please visit:
itSMFnz Wellington1st Tuesday Club - McAfee
11 June 2009
The next 1st Tuesday Club is on Tuesday 7th July.
We're delighted to announce that McAfee (Secure Computing) are sponsoring July's 1st Tuesday Club. Roly Smoldon will be explaining to us the impact of Secure Computing's recent acquisition by McAfee and how this will affect things going forward. Roly will also be taking to us about recent developments in security.
What is the 1st Tuesday Club?
The 1st Tuesday Club NZ was founded in 2008 by Paul Hortop, Security Consultant from Voco and Kendra Ross, Director at Duo, as a strictly no sales, informal gathering for NZ’s senior professionals in Information Security, IT Risk, IT Audit and law enforcement.
Complimentary tapas, wines, beers and soft drinks are served throughout the evening courtesy of our sponsor, who this month is Symantec.
Admission to the 1st Tuesday Club is by invitation only so if you know of someone who should be invited along, please let Paul Hortop know.
1st Tuesday Club - McAfee
1st Tuesday Club - Checkpoint
17 May 2009
The next 1st Tuesday Club is on Tuesday 2nd June.
Hamish Soper, Checkpoint's country manager, will cover off IPS on the gateway and advancements in this area as well as an overview of where Checkpoint is going with their End Point offering, They will no doubt throw in a couple of real life examples of where these technologies are being used. You'll also have the chance to test Wellington's Checkpoint expert, Dan Swan, with your technical questions.
What is the 1st Tuesday Club?
The 1st Tuesday Club NZ was founded in 2008 by Paul Hortop, Security Consultant from Voco and Kendra Ross, Director at Duo, as a strictly no sales, informal gathering for NZ’s senior professionals in Information Security, IT Risk, IT Audit and law enforcement.
Complimentary tapas, wines, beers and soft drinks are served throughout the evening courtesy of our sponsor, who this month is Symantec.
Admission to the 1st Tuesday Club is by invitation only so if you know of someone who should be invited along, please let Paul Hortop know.
1st Tuesday Club - CheckpointConsidering a Multi-Source Model?
06 May 2009
There are a number of reasons why an organisation might consider a Multi-Source model for the provision of their ICT products and services. For example:
- To retain or obtain higher visibility of products and services being provided, and the components that comprise these
- To unbundle products, services and costs to identify areas for saving and improvement
- To improve customer ownership, governance and control of their architecture, products, services and vendors
- To enable customers to more easily remove, replace and reorganise existing products, services and vendors to obtain the best return for investment and delivery of service
- To enable vendors to be responsible for the effective and efficient delivery of their products and services only, and therefore they are not disadvantaged when sub-vendors or contractors do not perform to an acceptable standard
But ...
There are a large number of considerations and issues that need to be addressed if this model is to be implemented and work effectively for your organisation.
If this is a topic you would be interested in finding out more about, Lauren Morrison from Voco will be presenting at the itSMF 5th Annual Conference which will be held in Wellington from 11-13 May 2009.
For more information regarding this conference, visit ITSMF or contact Voco directly.
Considering a Multi-Source Model?1st Tuesday Club - Symantec
29 April 2009
The next 1st Tuesday Club meeting is on Tuesday 5th May.
Paul Grealish, Symantec’s Government Manager, will be speaking about 'Keeping the Bad Guys Out & the Good Stuff In'. Paul will look at the underground economy using the latest research from Symantec. He will also update us on the threat landscape, share some case studies and talk about Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in the real world. You'll also have the chance to test Wellington's Symantec expert, Ferdie Gomes, with your technical questions.
What is the 1st Tuesday Club?
The 1st Tuesday Club NZ was founded in 2008 by Paul Hortop, Security Consultant from Voco and Kendra Ross, Director at Duo, as a strictly no sales, informal gathering for NZ’s senior professionals in Information Security, IT Risk, IT Audit and law enforcement.
Complimentary tapas, wines, beers and soft drinks are served throughout the evening courtesy of our sponsor, who this month is Symantec.
Admission to the 1st Tuesday Club is by invitation only so if you know of someone who should be invited along, please let Paul Hortop know.
1st Tuesday Club - SymantecJust Been Hacked?
21 April 2009
A number of New Zealand domains were defaced today following an attack, thought to be by Turkish hackers, against Domainz , a local domain hosting company. NZ pages from Coca Cola, HSBC, Sony, Xerox, F-secure and Microsoft were all defaced according to Zone-H, the archive for Internet defacements.
So what do you do if your company has just been hacked? We recommend that:
- You take enough time to work out what is really happening before making major decisions such as isolating networks.
- Involve stakeholders in key decisions but act swiftly.
- Identify and secure information that will help identify who the attackers are and what they did.
- Call in external experts for incident response, computer forensics, and post incident analysis.
Just Been Hacked?
A Call to Action for the Government!
30 March 2009
Through involvement in many public and private sector ICT initiatives over the past 8 years, Voco has observed market and sector dynamics that both government and the market have failed to address or leverage in a manner that is beneficial, either tactically or strategically, to ‘New Zealand Inc'.
The National-led government has a stated focus on both economic development through infrastructure investment and public spending that is more outcome-targeted.
Voco urges the government to inject fresh thinking and positive action into areas of opportunity. Based on our observations, the following areas would be a good start.
Wastage in the Core Public Service
An unintended consequence of the style of public management system that prevails in NZ, founded as it is on principles of individual accountability fora gencies, is a significant duplication of ICT assets, particularly at the infrastructure and skills layers. Shared services initiatives are not new, and there are significant assets that have already been created at significant cost, but the ‘each way bet’ by the Labour government has resulted in the effective stranding of these assets as agencies continue to ‘do their own thing’. This has been reinforced by the supplier community that naturally has a revenue protection interest in continuing to deal with silos of government.
Call to Action: Adopt a leadership stance from the centre to drive deliberate and focused leverage across public sector agency silos.
Joining up the Health Sector
Successive attempts to join up elements of the vast health sector so as to better leverage scarce resources and direct them towards clinical outcomes have failed. This is due to both the governance structure of the sector (21 DHBs and the Ministry each separately accountable to the Minister who has limited directive powers) and the shortfall in infrastructure capability. There are sector participants who ‘get it’ and these can be harnessed to create much-needed beach heads of productivity.
Call to Action: Initiate a critical assessment of cross-sector leverage opportunities in both core ICT (removing duplication) and targeted health delivery processes that can be enabled by ICT (enabling better cross-sector access to scarce resources). Accelerate initiatives that demonstrate shared service/capability targeted at health outcomes.
Targeting of Broadband Infrastructure Investment
FTTH across NZ (even 75% of homes) is a great aspirational vision and one that Voco fully supports, but tactical investment/deployment needs to accelerate in areas that will underpin economic growth both nationally and in the regions. This needs some urgent planning in respect of both where to target end-user connectivity (geographies, sectors, etc) and how to most effectively fill the gaps in the ‘national grid’. This planning needs smart heads and not just the traditional vested interests.
Also, the mix of investors in infrastructure is changing – this is a worldwide shift. Broadband infrastructure is no longer the preserve of the telecommunications carriers. In NZ there are willing investors with well targeted initiatives that simply need a national strategy context and a level of certainty in the regulatory environment to push the ‘GO’ button.
Call to Action: Ensure that whatever process is undertaken to prioritise broadband infrastructure investment balances a critical assessment of regional and national economic development growth projections enabled by the investment, with ROI potential for the infrastructure investors.
A Call to Action for the Government!
