The KIT ─ Knowledge & Information Technology
No. 111 - 6 January 2014
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In This Issue
Happy New Year
Migrating Applications to the Cloud
Ethics in Computing
Cutter IT Journal Special Offer
Niklaus Wirth Turns 80
Electric Grid Attack Simulation
Seen Recently
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Happy New Year!
c�b� IT & Knowledge Management wishes you a successful 2014... and reminds you that we're here if you need any help making it happen!

With the (Western) New Year falling mid-week, we pushed this issue out to January 6 to give you time to get back to work. The next issue will go out on January 20, and then we will be back to normal (1st and 15th of each month, or the next weekday).

You will find 20 predictions about IT and management on the Cutter Blog, including 4 from Claude Baudoin. Please feel free to comment, or to ask for more information. We're always happy to facilitate conference calls and e-mail exchanges with other consultants affiliated with the Cutter Consortium.
Migrating Applications to Public Clouds
As we announced in the last issue, the Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) published its latest guide, "Migrating Applications to Public Clouds: Roadmap for Success." The paper's key authors (John Meegan, Claude Baudoin and Mike Edwards) will present it in a web conference on Thursday, January 16 at 11:00 Eastern US time (1600 GMT). Register here.
Ethics in Computing
A hidden benefit of the NSA controversy is that it rekindled the debate on ethics in the IT profession. Coincidentally (perhaps...) the ACM has scheduled an online talk on January 23 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern US time, entitled "Computing Professionalism: Do Good and Avoid Evil... and Why It Is Complicated to Do That in Computing." The speaker will be Don Gotterbarn, Director of the Software Engineering Ethics Research Institute. Register here.
Cutter IT Journal, 2013-2014 for $385
A one-year subscription to the Cutter IT Journal, which brings you 12 sets of in-depth discussions of key IT/business issues, normally costs $485, but for the next couple of days, until January 8, you can subscribe to the 12 issues of 2014 for a reduced price of $385 and receive the 12 issues from 2013 on a flash drive! Order here and use coupon code CITJSAVEFD.
Raise a Glass: Niklaus Wirth Turns 80
Prof. Niklaus Wirth is a computing pioneer who invented several computer languages, including Pascal, that helped bring discipline to structured programming in the 1960s and 70s. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, the Software Engineering department of ETH in Zurich is organizing a day-long celebration on February 20 with talks and a reception. At this point, you can only join the waiting list as the event is sold out, but if you are near Zurich at that time, you don't want to miss a chance for a last-minute opening. No news yet on plans to stream the event online or record it, but we will let you know if this changes.
What If...?
Risk management involves having a really fertile imagination for bad scenarios. In November, as reported by the New York Times, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation directed a simulation of how utilities across the US, Canada and Mexico might respond to a combination of cyberattacks and real-life attacks aimed at bringing the power grid down. The exercise should result in improved prevention, coordination and response capabilities, and the results are enlightening (pun intended).
Seen Recently...

"Is 'We can't accept being dependent on APIs not built internally' a sound engineering argument in an open-source project? #no."

-- Richard Paige, Prof. of Enterprise Systems

at the University of York, via Twitter