GET YOUR TICKETS! Charity Golf Tournament benefiting the American Cancer Society Relay for Life - April 21, 2017

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MANAGED SOLUTION 3RD ANNUAL CHARITY GOLF TOURNAMENT

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Friday, April 21, 2017 : Arrowood Golf Course (Oceanside, CA)

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ONLINE SILENT AUCTION LIVE NOW!

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TO BENEFIT THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY

RELAY FOR LIFE

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The American Cancer Society’s mission is to save lives, celebrate lives, and lead the fight for a world without cancer.

Help Finish The Fight Against Cancer

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SECURE YOUR SPONSORSHIP

$5,000 PRESENTING SPONSORS (2)

Eight playing spots (Two PowerUp foursomes and four additional reception tickets)
Company name as presenting sponsor on signage and all marketing materials and one dedicated, post-event e-blast.
Choice of hole sponsorship with contest (Hole In One, Putting, Closest to the Pin)
Custom speaking and branding opportunities

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$2,000 Beer Hole Sponsor (2)

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$1,500 Hole Sponsor with staffing (5)

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TICKETS SOLD OUT

Traditional Foursome: $150 per player

All players enjoy a complete program of special events: 18 holes of golf (including cart), lunch, raffles, silent auction, exciting awards and reception dinner including cocktails. (PowerUP! For $25 more per player we’ll include 2 Mulligans, 1 Grenade, and one String It Out per player!)

Small Biz Foursome: $125 per player

All the same fun stuff as the traditional foursome, just for companies with 250 employees or less. (PowerUP available)

Awards Reception Only: $35

Not a golfer? Join us for our lively awards reception after the tournament. Includes dinner, cocktails and silent auction.
*Awards reception tickets included for foursomes, single golfers, and select sponsors.

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Get an EDGE

Mulligans: $5 (4 Max)

Grenade: $12 (2 Max)
Throw the ball one time, instead of hitting it with a club.

String it out: $15
A four-foot string may be used during play to improve your lie or avoid a stroke. Cut the amount of string you use and use what’s left until it’s gone.

PowerUP! $25
2 Mulligans, 1 Grenade, and one String It Out

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Play for Cash & Prizes!

50/50 Helicopter Ball Drop: $10 per ticket
A cash prize goes to the winner of this raffle. Tickets for the helicopter ball drop are on sale until SOLD OUT!

Orange Ball: $5 per player
Entire team must enter to play. Each team that plays receives an orange golf ball that must be used by a different golfer in the group on every hole. The ball must rotate consecutively amongst all golfers. Don't lose the ball for the entire 18 holes. Any teams that complete the round with the ball still in possession are entered into a mystery drawing.

Pro Play: Our pro drives for you, if your team gets an Eagle you’re headed to Pebble Beach for three rounds of golf.

Ring Around the Pin: Double or nothing cash wager on teeing off and landing inside a ring on the green of a par 3.

Multiple Pin Birdie: Double or nothing cash wager on your team getting a birdie on one of three pins on a par 3.

Longest Drive & Closest the Pin: Dinner for two at Karl Strauss.

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Get the WIN

FIRST PLACE
First place trophy + $200
18 holes at Arrowood & paid entrance for San Diego’s own Randy Jones Invitational.

SECOND PLACE
18 holes at Arrowood and paid entrance for Randy Jones Invitational.

THIRD PLACE
Paid entrance for Randy Jones Invitational.

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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

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Q: 858-429-3067 dhamra@managedsolution.com

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8 retail technology predictions for 2017

8 retail technology predictions for 2017

By Sharon Goldman as written on www.cio.com
Consumer confidence reached new heights in 2016, technology contributed mightily to the retail and ecommerce success. Here are the top tech predictions for retail in the coming year.

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Shoppers opened their pocketbooks wide over the holidays in 2016, pushing retail growth estimates (the Wall Street Journal reported the fastest growth rate since 2005) and consumer confidence to new heights — with ecommerce a particular bright spot with over $110 billion in sales, according to Forrester Research. Technology contributed mightily to that retail success, at every stage and angle of the shopping journey, both in brick-and-mortar stores and online — from browsing, point-of-sale and shipping to checkout, supply chain, payments and much more. That won’t change in 2017, as top retailers have already long-planned their technology priorities for the coming year. Here, experts weigh in on some of their top technology predictions:
1. Alternative checkout methods will continue to grow.
With a smartphone in every pocket and the expansion of advanced barcodes and imaging technologies for scanning products, faster alternative checkout methods will continue to grow across the retail sector, says Tony Rodriguez, CTO of digital identification solutions provider Digimarc. “Sam’s Club already offers in-aisle checkout, while Amazon gained attention for its vision of grocery shopping sans checkout lines, so anticipate that other grocers and retailers will seek shortcuts for shoppers that they hope will breed brand loyalty,” he says. “We expect retailers and brands to lead the way with enhanced product packaging and other options for easy checkout.”
2. The store associate will become a high-tech hub.
The No. 1 investment in retail will be the store associate and how to turn them into a beacon of knowledge and relationship builder, says Bill Zujewski, executive vice president of marketing at mobile platform Tulip Retail. Retailers have begun investing in mobile solutions that give access to the entire product inventory and product details, but that’s no longer enough — instead, store associates need to be able to anticipate and surpass customer expectations.
“When a customer comes into the store, sales associates will be notified and ready with product offerings based on valuable data they have at their fingertips including the customer's recent purchases, loyalty rewards level, online browsing history, activity log and shopping preferences,” he says.
3. Chatbots will become a priority retail channel.
[This year] will be a foundational one when it comes to applying AI-powered chatbots that are improved with new data streams and integration across channels, says Dave O’Flanagan, CEO and co-founder of cloud platform Boxever. “Chatbots are only as valuable as the relationships they build and the scenarios they can support, so their level of sophistication will make or break them,” he says. A recent survey found consumers aren’t yet as excited about responsive chatbots as brands think — so retailers will need to focus their attention on improving their messaging applications to establish more meaningful connections between their brand and customer, he adds.
4. The internet of things (IoT) will boost supply chain efficiency.
IoT is helping retailers connect physical and digital worlds and to facilitate real-time interaction with consumers both inside and outside the store, says Andrew Hopkins, IoT lead for retail at Accenture Mobility, part of Accenture Digital. “Connected devices and products will enable retailers to optimize operations in the face of a more complex supply chain, increasingly important digital channels, and evolving customer demands,” he explains.
Some examples: Managers could use smart tags to adjust pricing in real-time; IoT-enabled sensors would allow store managers to monitor and adjust lighting and temperature settings; businesses could use sensors to automate manual functions such as tracking inventory or changing prices. “This would give sales associates more time to spend interacting with customers, further improving the in-store experience,” he says.
5. Social media will continue to become more shoppable.
Retailers have learned to love consumer-generated content, with photo sharing and hashtags turning into word-of-mouth marketing that works. Now, we’ll begin to see more retailers investing in technology that makes those content experiences more shoppable, says Jim Rudden, CMO of Spredfast. “Instead of having to leave the page or site to search and buy the products they see in photos, consumers will be able to easily click on the content, and purchase the products within, during that moment of discovery,” he says. “Those consumer-generated pieces will take on a whole new life.”
6. Digital convergence will be a big buzzword.
The ecommerce of 2017 and beyond will be all about starting to focus on the convergence of a variety of digital technologies — using voice interfaces, the power of AI and realistic, personalized avatars that support the shopping experience, says Shirley Romig, global retail strategy lead of digital marketing consultancy SapientNitro. “Imagine talking to your personal shopper on the phone and instantly seeing an assortment of dresses you are looking for to wear to your daughter’s graduation,” she says.
“You digitally ‘try on’ the dress using your exact, 3-D image for fit, tell your shopper to size up and check out via voice command.” Ecommerce will evolve to include AI-powered online, personal shoppers that are trained to know preferences, like a favorite store sales associate: “Instead of onerously sorting through pages of product, soon you’ll be able to talk to your AI via your mobile phone and ‘she’ does all the leg work.”
7. 2017 will be the year of the retail API.
APIs have revolutionized industries by bringing consumers apps such as Uber, Google Maps and Pandora — now, retail has started to catch on, says Jett McCandless, CEO of supply chain technology provider project44, though he adds there are still strides to be made in the industry’s widespread understanding and implementation of APIs.
“Retail CIOs will need to understand the impact this technology has on inventory optimization; setting — and meeting — customer delivery expectations; adhering to the demands of today’s always-on consumer and driving real-time visibility across the entire supply chain network,” he says. “Web-service APIs empower retailers to compete in the new on-demand reality by delivering goods in the shortest timeframe possible with the highest level of transparency and operational efficiency.”
8. Mobile payments UX will become more seamless.
Retailers know consumers want a seamless shopping experience — and mobile payments technologies are struggling to bridge the gaps. Look for greater consistency in UX across payment platforms in 2017, as well as increased security measures and the introduction of digital verification solutions, says Cody Winton, CEO and co-founder of personal identity platform Credntia.
“There will be efforts to create a more cohesive payments process, and ease fragmentation across platforms and solutions in the FinTech space,” Winton says. “For example, the introduction of a digitally-scanned license or passport at point of sale will create a seamless user experience by allowing consumers to conveniently switch between the mobile wallet or banking app and a digital credential management app, instead of needing a physical wallet.”

Complexity Will Drive Demand For Managed Services Providers

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Complexity Will Drive Demand For Managed Services Providers

By Mike Kavis as written on www.forbes.com
Technology has changed a lot over the years. Back in the mainframe days we had very standard architectures that were driven by a few vendors and managed by a few people. Developers had few choices when it came to infrastructure and programming languages. When we moved to the client server era, infrastructure configurations became much more dynamic and many enterprises adopted a three tier architecture. Developers could now choose from a variety of programming languages and specialists emerged within each layer of the architecture (web, application, database, middleware, etc.). This increase in complexity came with trade-offs. We now had greater flexibility in the types of applications we could build and the ability to deliver software with more velocity and at a lower cost. However, managing these n-tier architectures created more operational overhead and required a diverse set of skills to support the various layers.
As we enter the cloud era, complexity is at an all-time high and our trade-offs are more extreme than ever before. We can build incredible solutions at amazing scale. Both the software and infrastructure components of our architectures can be highly automated. We live in the world where everything can be delivered as a service and is available online, all the time.  In order to support the “always on” and auto scaling requirements that users have come to expect, the underlying architectures have become extremely complex.

IT_Complexity

Balancing agility and complexity

At the same time our architectures are increasing in complexity, the business is demanding speed to market like never before. Large ecosystems around cloud computing, mobile computing, big data solutions and the Internet of Things allow us to connect highly abstracted building blocks together and build highly available and extremely robust solutions in a fraction of the time. The architectures of cloud, mobile, and big data are highly distributed and the underlying infrastructure is both virtual and immutable. That is a radical change from when previously large, inflexible, physical architectures supported the software we built.
Today’s distributed architectures are made up of many moving parts. These architectures are elastic, meaning that they scale up and down horizontally by adding and subtracting virtual resources automatically. Building architectures of this nature is much more involved than in the vertical scaling world of mainframes and client server architectures where scaling meant adding bigger physical machines and components. Many engineers within today’s enterprises have years of experience dealing with vertical architectures, but very little experience in building horizontal architectures. Enterprises are traditionally very good at managing back office applications and building n-tier software. But when it comes to architectures that require high scalability and massively parallel processing, very few enterprises have the experience required to build those types of applications.
This creates the following dilemma.  The business sees an opportunity, whether it is a new revenue stream, a competitive advantage, or possibly a competitive threat, and requests that IT implements a new cloud, mobile, or big data solution. IT has very little expertise in this space yet still decides to build it themselves. They go through a long period of prototyping and learning. Many of these enterprises will fail to deliver or will deliver something subpar or very late. While IT is trying to wrap their arms around these new technologies, the business opportunity sits there idle and the opportunity costs start accumulating rapidly over time. To make matters worse, IT is spinning their wheels and consuming valuable time and money just to stand up clouds, mobile platforms, or big data databases before they can even begin to focus on building the applications and services that will provide the greatest value to the business. Much of the work that IT is trying to figure out is already a commodity that a whole host of vendors already provide out of the box as a service, or even as a completely managed service.

Giving up control to acquire value

IT traditionally wants to be in control of everything. Developers frequently want to build many things that are not a core competency. The problem I see in IT is they prioritize things like control and manageability far more than things like speed to market, customer satisfaction, agility, etc. We live in an era where time to market is one of the most critical value propositions in business. Get something to market quick, acquire customers, learn from those customers, and advance the product or service based on customer feedback. Going dark for 12-18 months as IT ramps up its skillset for the new technologies is not a winning formula. IT needs to understand that they should focus on delivering business value instead of trying to control every technology under the sun.

Where does IT add value?

The real value of IT is its deep understanding of the business and enabling business partners by providing them with cost effective technology solutions that can be delivered quickly and adjusted frequently. Building and managing commodity technologies adds time and costs to each project and ties up precious IT resources on tasks that add little to no value to the business. No wonder IT is often considered a cost center! My advice is to take a step back and build a business architecture diagram that lays out the core business services that your company offers. Then draw up a reference architecture that depicts all of the different IT services that are required to support those business services. Then, identify which of those IT services are core to your business and build those. Everything else should be outsourced to managed service providers or to various external services and products.

Summary

IT needs to stop being a control freak and figure out how to add value by quickly delivering on the company’s core services. IT should be focusing on being the best provider of the services that their customers demand. If that service happens to be providing data center services, then by all means focus on that. If not, don’t spend time building datacenters. The same goes for big data, mobile, and IoT. If the company’s core service is to be a provider of database services, mobile platforms, or sensor technology, then build those technologies. If not, find the vendors who deliver those services as a core competency and spend your time building your business services on top of it

 

Looking for a partner in your business' managed services needs? Call us at 800-790-1524 to learn about all that we offer!

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Golf pro breaks down barriers to becoming a golfer with Microsoft Technologies

Golf pro breaks down barriers to becoming a golfer with Microsoft Technologies

By Gregg Rogers as written on blogs.windows.com

Windows 10, Surface and Azure transform golf lessons  

When I was a kid, I developed a huge interest in golf. I was a good athlete who could play all traditional sports well but golf was different. I quickly developed a passion for the game and had a strong work ethic, but like many people, I found golf to be an elusive riddle. Despite non-stop practice, my progress was not as fast as I hoped it to be. I knew that if I wanted to get better, I needed detailed feedback on my game. After a few years of trying to play professionally, I discovered that I spent more time helping others to play better and that my skill was to teach people how to improve their golf game. I earned my PGA of America membership and began to focus on ways to teach more efficiently and with better feedback using technology. Eventually, I opened the Gregg Rogers’ Golf Performance Centers which focuses on the latest golf teaching technologies to give aspiring and advanced golfers more personalized and effective instruction to help them become better golfers.

As an early adopter of technology, I’ve long relied on tech to help me run and grow nearly every aspect of my business. Everyone from our golf instructors to club fitters use Windows 10 Pro powered devices and Office 365 to schedule lessons and develop custom orders, as well as analyze costs and revenue.
As a golf instructor, I use advanced tracking technologies to analyze swings and movement which allows me to pinpoint exactly what needs to be focused on to improve performance. Technology simplifies the learning process and makes improving fun. One of the challenges is many of my students have trouble remembering the lesson when they get to the golf course and may become frustrated. And, tracking their progress is something that is also difficult without the supporting data. As a teacher, I know that feedback and practice is key to improving, and with the right data, video content and a supportive coach, we can make it easier for people to learn golf and have more fun. I turned to Microsoft and the app-development firm Taqtile, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, to create a Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform (UWP) training app and student portal that takes golf instruction to a level not used before.  We created “The Gregg Rogers Golf Performance” solution in less than four months.  The solution empowers our instructors to not only provide deeper analysis and more personalized recommendations, but also places the data at our students’ fingertips so they can improve and track their progress every time they practice — with or without their instructor.
To use the app, our students hit shots in our controlled, indoor, simulated golf environment at one of my performance centers. The app integrates with these high definition golf simulators that use Doppler radar, ultrasound and high-speed video to record data from the shot such as body mechanics, club-head speed and swing angle. In fact, we capture over 26 pieces of data from each swing. The simulators instantly calculate where the ball will go, analyze the swing, and capture the data and video images. Our instructor and the student then use Windows 10 powered devices including Microsoft Surface Pro and Surface Book devices at the swing bay to provide immediate replay and feedback. Our students often pick up 10 to 15 yards of distance and significantly improve accuracy and consistency within just a few lessons. The impact of the Golf Performance app has been dramatic as our students can now see exactly what their instructor is trying to teach them anywhere they go or practice. This has not only eased potential frustration for golfers, but also improved comprehension, progress and fun!
What I’m really excited about is how our instructors can also annotate and add voiceover recommendations to the recording, and then upload it to our student portal hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Through the power of the Microsoft cloud, our students can access all the data and images anytime from any computer or mobile device – during a lesson, on the golf course, at home or even while traveling. Over time the app can provide comparative analyses to show where students are improving and where they need more work, so our instructor can create customized lessons. Overall, we’ve been able to eliminate trial and error and make a bigger impact on our students’ golf game, leading to greater enjoyment whether at the driving range or golf course. Because we are now able to track their improvement, our student retention and referrals have also increased by double digits as they frequently share their progress with friends.

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Ultimately, we’re not a technology company. We’re a golf improvement facility and small business that happens to specialize in helping people achieve their desired potential and have fun. Microsoft provides the technology that we use to help our customers have more fun on the golf course – and take our business to the next level.

Cloud Data Remains Your Responsibility

Cloud Data Remains Your Responsibility

shutterstock_589420679By Richard Blanford as written on www.infosecurity-magazine.com
Security has always inhibited the take-up of cloud. I believe in most cases fears are overstated, but data security in the public cloud cannot be taken lightly. Data remains the responsibility of the organization that owns it, regardless of where it is stored. Your data may be held in an external cloud, but you cannot abdicate your own security responsibilities.
Your choice of cloud service should be based on what your organization can do and your appetite for risk. If you have limited resources, you will be more reliant on your cloud provider, but it is up to you to ensure they offer the security you need and continue to provide it throughout the contract.
When choosing a service, be aware that different types of public cloud include different levels of security. Very simplistically, with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the service provider will secure access to the underlying host and provide good general security up to and including the host and hypervisor patching.  They may also provide proactive infrastructure security monitoring, often as a chargeable additional service, but you will still be responsible for securing access to the instance(s) and everything inside them, plus security of integration between instances unless you contract the provider or another third party to do it for you.
With Platform as a Service (PaaS) you also get a secured OS and service platform, plus normally patching of this, but you have to take responsibility for access and authentication to the service plus application patching and code updates for your service running on the platform.
With Software as a Service (SaaS) the provider is responsible for overall security of the service including securing any data hosted in their environment, so your responsibility is primarily authentication to the service and data transfer between service providers.
If you have very specific security needs, public cloud may not be right for you. The major public cloud providers have defined, standard processes and services, which is one of the major benefits of cloud and key to its cost effectiveness. If you need the provider to tailor its processes to suit you, you will be better off talking to private and virtual private cloud providers.
Having chosen public cloud, you need to find the right provider – which I believe is more about risk management than security. You must carry out effective due diligence, evaluating potential cloud providers as you would any other supplier and seeking independent verification of their capabilities and financial security.
It is the cloud provider’s responsibility to ensure your data is secured and protected within their environment, and their SLA should offer appropriate guarantees. However, it is your responsibility to ask them to deliver the appropriate levels of information security, and you must measure and audit them yourself to ensure they apply what has been agreed.
Agreements do not normally include backup unless you specify it in the contract, but all data you host with the provider should be recoverable and returnable at the end of the agreement.
To ensure data sovereignty, you should ask the cloud provider where it will be stored. You need to ensure this is in a jurisdiction with the correct safeguards in place and which does not contravene the Data Protection Act (GDPR from May 2018) or comparable legislation in other jurisdictions. Many providers who previously hosted offshore are setting up UK data centers to meet this requirement. Remember to ask where both primary and backup sites are located. If the provider cannot guarantee this, walk away.
I recommend asking your potential service provider:
Organizations should check this information for themselves and manage it as they would for every other corporate risk.
Finally, consider how to manage your cloud supply chain. In many cases the organization you contract with is not the ultimate provider of the service, so you need to ensure they have suitable underpinning agreements or back-to-back contracts with their providers. Multiple providers may be necessary to deliver core services.
Risks arise when it is not clear where responsibility lies, which can lead to a blame culture. I recommend developing an operational agreement whereby suppliers commit to a code of conduct designed to remove any barriers to effective relationships and interworking and which operates alongside SLAs. This helps suppliers work together and removes any gaps or overlaps between contracted boundaries of responsibility, with mechanisms to resolve disputes in a collaborative and effective manner. It can be formalized in a Customer Service Charter.
Looking for a partner in your business' managed services needs? Call us at 800-790-1524 to learn about all that we offer!

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Achieve IT infrastructure cost savings of at least 50%

Call Southern California’s most trusted name in cloud at 800-208-3617 for real time pricing and a cost benefit analysis for Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS.

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Introducing Azure AD Pass-Through Authentication and Seamless Single Sign-on

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Introducing #AzureAD Pass-Through Authentication and Seamless Single Sign-on

By Alex Simons as written on blogs.technet.microsoft.com
Howdy folks,
Today’s news might well be our biggest news of the year. Azure AD Pass-Through Authentication and Seamless Single Sign-on are now both in public preview!
When we talk to organizations about how they want to integrate their identity infrastructure to the cloud, we often hear the same set of requirements: “I’ve got to have single sign-on for my users, passwords need to stay on-premises, and I can’t have any un-authenticated end points on the Internet. And make sure it is super easy”.
We heard your feedback, and now the wait is over. I’m excited to announce we have added a set of new capabilities in Azure AD to meet all those requirements: Pass-Through Authentication and Seamless Single Sign-on to Azure AD Connect! These new capabilities allow customers to securely and simply integrate their on-premises identity infrastructure with Azure AD.

Azure AD pass-through authentication

Azure AD pass-through authentication provides a simple, secure, and scalable model for validation of passwords against your on-premises Active Directory via a simple connector deployed in the on-premises environment. This connector uses only secure outbound communications, so no DMZ is required, nor are there any unauthenticated end points on the Internet.
That’s right. User passwords are validated against your on-premises Active Directory, without needing to deploy ADFS servers!
We also automatically balance the load between the set of available connectors for both high availability and redundancy without requiring additional infrastructure. We made the connector super light-weight so it can be easily incorporated into your existing infrastructure and even deployed on your Active Directory controllers.
The system works by passing the password entered on the Azure AD login page down to the on-premises connector. That connector then validates it against the on-premises domain controllers and returns the results. We’ve also made sure to integrate with self-service password reset (SSPR) so that, should the user need to change their password, it can be routed back to on-premises for a complete solution. There is absolutely no caching of the password in the cloud. Find more details about this process in our documentation.

Seamless single sign-on for all

Single sign-on is one of the most important aspects of the end-user experience our customers think through as they move to cloud services. You need more than just single sign-on for interactions between cloud services – you also need to ensure users won’t have to enter their passwords over and over again.
With the new single sign-on additions in Azure AD Connect you can enable seamless single sign-on for your corporate users (users on domain joined machines on the corporate network). In doing so, users are securely authenticated with Kerberos, just like they would be to other domain-joined resources, without needing to type passwords.
The beauty of this solution is that it doesn’t require any additional infrastructure on-premises since it simply uses your existing Active Directory services. This is also an opportunistic feature in that if, for some reason, a user can’t obtain a Kerberos ticket for single sign-on, they will simply be prompted for their password, just as they are today. It is available for both password hash sync and Azure AD pass-through authentication customers. Read more on seamless single sign-on in this documentation article

Enabling these new capabilities

Download the latest version of Azure AD Connect now to get these new capabilities! You’ll find the new options in a custom install for new deployments, or, for existing deployments, when you change your sign-in method.

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The fine print

As with all previews there are some limits to what we currently support. We are working hard to ensure we provide full support across all systems. You can find the full list of supported client and operating systems in the documentation, which we’ll be updating consistently as things change.
Also, keep in mind that this is an authentication feature, so it’s best to try it out in a test environment to ensure you understand the end-user experience and how switching from one sign-on method to another will change that experience.
And last but by no means least, it’s your feedback that pushes us to make improvements like this to our products, so keep it coming. I look forward to hearing what you think!
Best regards,
Alex Simons

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Talk About Tech Trends: Local Information Executives Discuss Emerging Strategies and Tactics From a Technology Perspective

Talk about Tech Trends

To download the full magazine and read the full interviews, click here.
Featured on www.sdbj.com
About These Excerpts
— Local Information Executives Discuss Emerging Strategies and Tactics From a Technology Perspective
Excerpts were selected for publication by the San Diego Business Journal from interviews conducted with local industry experts as part of a survey by Managed Solution, a San Diego-based full-service technology firm. These excerpts have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Alex-Bates_t180Alex Bates
CTO Mtell
On leveraging big data: Some customers are more paranoid about hoarding their own data and others are more open to sharing it because they get greater benefits.
Offloading a lot of the IT support, I think that everyone is warming up to the idea in the industrial realm. For big data, the costs are still a little bit high, to truly host that in the public cloud. The best scenario would be to use public cloud for elastic computing, scale it back down, figure out how to transfer the data.
But I definitely think it’s the wave of the future.
On customer-focused solutions: For us, our customers, we travel out and get a whole new appreciation for the challenges they face. When you meet them on a drilling rig, you get a whole new appreciation for what they face.
The movie Deepwater Horizon showed how their lives are on the line. People are responsible for many lives, and for us, our software is supposed to help reduce risks and predict catastrophic incidents. For us to deliver value, we have to have state-of-the-art monitoring capabilities and integrate with their work so things don’t slip through the cracks. We have to deliver value for improving efficiency with equipment.
Joe-Beery_t180Joe Beery
SVP & CIO ThermoFisher Scientific
On the role of IT in corporate strategy: My CEO is looking to move to cloud strategy faster. The CEO never thought we would say this, but we’re the competitive advantage for the company. It’s an incredibly target-rich environment because we can do things better than we’ve done before.
In the next five years it’s going to be drastically different. You won’t have silos. The question is what do we go after first that’s going to drive the best amount of value?
The speed we can move is so much faster, you don’t want to make mistakes; you want to invest in the right things.
We are connecting all of our sales force around lead management. We did a lot of work crunching our CRM data and systems to better enhance our sales agents to manage leads. As we continue to roll out the cloud it gets us closer to the customer.
On real impacts: When you look at what we do, the mission is to make the world healthier, cleaner, safer, and that is all digital. So this is going to change the way we live.
I have two kids alive today because of what the company does. They were both born with a rare genetic disorder, and because of our instruments (the rare genetic mutation was found and treated). (The kids) take medication three times a day now, and it was this digital answer.
When I think of the future of big data, you see a future that is really different for everyone.
Johnathan_B_t180Jonathan Behnke
CIO City of San Diego Department of Information Technology
On what IoT means to operations: We hear from a lot of vendors in the technology sector and when we talk about it as a local government, IoT is discussed alongside Smart Cities. There is a lot of discussion about improvements to transportation, development, and energy.
We see a lot of potential for the city and surrounding governments to partner and make life better for our residents, neighbors, and community members. The city announced a partnership with Google Waze, and we are looking at how we can use that data to really improve transportation. Our traffic engineering department can take that data and potentially implement changes.
The city also has a project to deploy LED streetlights, and some will have sensors to generate new data and drive analytics that the city can make improvements from.
If the regional governments can take advantage of IOT and aggregate that information into a single source, there are some great possibilities. You can take analytics and data from multiple organizations and aggregate it and put up a heat map, and so some really cool things.
The city has an open data portal releasing a lot of data sets to the community. As we look at IOT, we really look at a lot of future potential, data and analytics, which could ultimately bring improvements to the everyday life of citizens.
Ken_Lawonn_t180Ken Lawonn
SVP & CIO Sharp HealthCare
On how IT is helping drive revenue through the company: We are looking at taking our current assets to expose those services to more through things like telehealth, video-based, online services which allow us to extend services without having to build new buildings or have people come to us.
Using technology makes things more convenient for individuals. We use technology to understand if we are providing the best treatment, and make sure we are not penalized or making sure we are effectively leveraging our payment process. That’s how we are effectively leveraging technology to help increase
On the role of IT in corporate strategy: We’ve gone from IT being a back-end service to being partners with the business. It is the engine for business transformation and growth.
There is hardly anything we look at that doesn’t have technology involved in some way. There is so much technology available, pick the right technology and hold people accountable to leverage it and provide value.
We have to think about how we bend the cost curve. We can’t keep increasing the spend if there isn’t some return. Everyone likes to add stuff, nobody likes to take things away.
CIOs are becoming more like change agents and transformational leaders. The message is we’ve got to be nimble, faster, more accessible.
Todd-Stewart_t180Todd Stewart
VP, Global Infrastructure and IT Operations Western Digital
On the public cloud: Public cloud is one of several tools for corporate computing, but not one
that solves every need — or will ever solve every need. This is a hybrid world.
Public cloud isn’t cheap. Some things run cheaper on premise. Sometimes you have capital to spend, and public cloud is only OpX. Fit the right tool to the right job.
On the role of IT in corporate strategy: Our company views IT as a key enabler for marketing, sales, manufacturing, business intelligence, supply chain, and productivity.
This change occurred because our CIO and his team set out to understand every facet of our business, and then focused on delivering innovation at every opportunity. “Keeping the lights on,” low-value work was moved to SaaS and cloud, allowing our internal resources to focus on innovation and delivering value.
Patrick-Tinkleberg_t180Patrick Tinklenberg
VP of Information Technology Sycuan Casino
On how IT is helping drive revenue through the company: A lot of people think of IT as being a cost center. We really tie every initiative we do in IT to some business initiative. Sometimes those initiatives are not specifically a revenue target. We don’t always look at return on investment, sometimes the focus is return on objective.
When it comes to truly revenue focused goals we do a lot of projects for marketing and for finance that drive revenue back into the casino.
We also take some of the things we do really well that other casinos don’t do and commercialize them. As an example, we are commercializing a process we developed in-house for transferring data in real time to analytics providers. We are the only casino that does that for this provider, and now they want to commercialize the product and offer it to other casinos.
On IoT: We are expanding, so we’re looking at smart building technologies. You’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of end points, from lighting, to fans, to temperature sensors, to valves for sprinkler systems, all can be tied together and integrated to a system that controls everything.
We have a little over 2000 slot machines on our floor. Each of them sends us all kinds of data, being able to mine all of that data, being able to grab all of that useful data, and process it with streaming analytics is going to be very important for us.

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How male allies can support women in technology

How male allies can support women in technology

By Jennifer Manry and Mike Wisler as written on techcrunch.com
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing couldn’t be more aptly named: It truly is a celebration of the technical innovation, inclusive focus and relentless drive of women in tech.
We were thrilled to be a small part of the celebration this fall, along with 15,000 other women technologists and male allies. You’ve hopefully heard a lot about the movement around women in tech, raising awareness about the challenges that women face in the tech industry and the importance of hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. A part of that dialogue is about gender allies — the concept that men need to be a part of the solution to reach gender parity in technology fields.
There are so many reasons that men should get involved and be true allies to women in tech: It’s the right thing to do. It’s good for business. Diverse teams that reflect the end user create better results for customers. Male allies respect and appreciate their female teammates. They believe in equality.
According to a study conducted by the National Center for Women & Information Technology, gender diversity benefits businesses in several ways, including better financial performance and superior team dynamics and productivity in gender-balanced companies. Studies report that gender-diverse technology organizations and departments produce work teams that stay on schedule and under budget and demonstrate improved employee performance.
So, how do men become allies and be part of the solution that will so obviously make us as an industry and a society more successful? For starters, it’s not a label that you can self-appoint. The title “ally” is earned. Being an ally is an action, not a noun. If you’re on the sideline thinking about how sensitive and aware you are, you’re not an ally. You have to take action, and drive impact.
And really, you’re not a male ally until women in tech identify you as one.
It was just over a year ago that we learned this lesson together. We attended a conference where women and men delved into the issues that women in tech face, how men impact them and what change really looks like. It involved uncomfortable conversation, awkward moments and even some jaw-dropping confessions.
The crucial component was honesty in a safe space where everyone assumed positive intent. We talk a lot about positive intent at the office because it’s one of our core values. If you start with assuming whomever you’re talking to is coming from a place of positivity, everyone involved benefits from seeing multiple sides of an issue and not jumping to conclusions.
That was when we decided to become part of the solution together.
Armed with the tools and tactics we learned, we started a Women in Tech Male Allies initiative with the goal of raising awareness about the challenges women face, identifying ways men can be a part of the solution, providing education about unconscious bias and training men and women to call out and work through bias issues. We both learned more about the issues and how we could take this newly formed partnership back to our teams to amplify the dialogue.
The partnership element is crucial: Having a woman in tech and a man who is actively working to be a better ally meant we were able to show — rather than just say — how having a trusted partner is invaluable to the process and to making progress.
Being a gender ally isn’t easy. In fact, we can guarantee that you’ll make mistakes just like we did. The thing to remember is that we’re all human. We will inevitably make mistakes. But, if you have a partnership and a trust that grants permission to be imperfect, those mistakes become learning opportunities and teachable moments.
And to be clear, it’s not just the male allies who will fall short from time to time. Women in tech have a lifetime of experiences of receiving bias that may have been unconscious or outright explicit. Extraordinarily valid feelings stemming from that can be a barrier to accepting help or support from men who genuinely do want to help. Both sides have ample opportunities to misstep. Just like in tech, the “fail fast” mentality works. Do everything you can to get it right, but when you don’t, learn from it and make the next time better.
Through our work at Capital One, we’ve found that men can help by serving as allies and contributing to a culture of inclusion. They don’t do this by charging in to save the day; instead, male allies play a supportive role in addressing the challenges that women face in the tech industry. Women in tech can invite men into the conversation and be a trusted partner to start and continue the dialogue. Gender parity isn’t going to be achieved by a single group. We’ll get there faster together.