In-house IT Research Articles

A Concept towards Automated Data-Driven Reconfiguration of Digital Assistance Systems

Constantly changing assembly tasks and reduced production cycles increase the risk of cognitive stress of operators. A large number of digital assistance systems implemented in assembly lines contribute to operator’s stress reduction. However, small and medium sized companies confront major challenges in implementing digital assistance solutions due to high investment costs and high customization effort. In addition, technological risks are mainly summarized as i) choosing the right assistance system, ii) realizing suitable interfaces within the in-house IT landscape for machine-to-machine and machine-to-human communication and iii) creating assembly instructions and configuring data systems in terms of supplying specific and adaptable information. Considering the aforementioned challenges and related technological risks, this paper presents a concept for automated data-driven reconfiguration of digital assistance systems. We discuss its impact on certain use cases defined in the TU Wien Pilot Factory Industry 4.0. Finally, we outline learning design principles for students and industrial stakeholders to implement automated reconfigurable digital assistance systems.

Key Issues for the Successful Adoption of Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing constitutes an alternative for organizations who do not intend to invest in in-house IT resources. It offers a service model on the premise that the consumer has at its disposal the means for manipulating information, over the internet, according to its current needs. However, outsourcing IT poses various challenges, such as the effective control of IT, attention to an increasing number of threats posed by the Internet ecosystem and concerns regarding the efficient use of resources. Hence, the uncertainties about the migration to Cloud Computing can have a negative impact on the adoption of this technology. In order to better inform the decision process launched by organizations considering the alternative of Cloud Computing, this study presents a list of key issues compiled from literature that could assist IT managers steering the organization towards the path of adopting Cloud Computing solutions efficiently and securely. In addition, to better understand those issues and rank them in terms of importance, interviews were conducted with IT directors of enterprises that use and provide Cloud services, endowing the list of issues with the views of practitioners that successfully experienced the migration to the Cloud environment.

The development of service provider’s BPO-IT framework

PurposeThe decision to operate BPO-IT organisational model by a business process outsourcing (BPO) service provider has far reaching benefits. The purpose of this paper is to develop a service provider’s BPO-IT framework that provides in-house IT function (software) required to process client services.Design/methodology/approachThe multi-case study adopted an exploratory sequential mixed method research approach. In the first instance, seven BPO service provider organisations were investigated in the qualitative phase and 156 in the quantitative phase, respectively.FindingsThe adoption of the developed framework indicates that it could reduce failures in BPO relationships through reduced turnaround time in processing client services, improved quality of service, reduced cost, improved client and provider’s competitiveness, and confidentiality of client operations. Outsourcing clients could lay the foundation for a successful relationship by adopting a selection process that could choose the right provider.Originality/valueThe paper reveals BPO-IT organisation’s operation towards in-house provision of software required to process client services. A research exploring BPO service providers from a top outsourcing destination like India could provide offshore outsourcing clients the information to move towards onshore outsourcing.

Identifying Key Steps for Developing Mobile Applications & Mobile Websites for Libraries

Mobile applications and mobile websites (MAMW) represent information systems that are increasingly being developed by libraries to better serve their patrons. Due to a lack of in-house IT skills and the knowledge necessary to develop MAMW, a majority of libraries are forced to rely on external IT professionals, who may or may not help libraries meet patron needs but instead may deplete libraries’ scarce financial resources. This paper applies a system analysis and design perspective to analyze the experience and advice shared by librarians and IT professionals engaged in developing MAMW. This paper identifies key steps and precautions to take while developing MAMW for libraries. It also advises library and information science (LIS) graduate programs to equip their students with the specific skills and knowledge needed to develop and implement MAMW.

Security and privacy preserving approaches in the eHealth clouds with disaster recovery plan

Cloud computing was introduced as an alternative storage and computing model in the health sector as well as other sectors to handle large amounts of data. Many healthcare companies have moved their electronic data to the cloud in order to reduce in-house storage, IT development and maintenance costs. However, storing the healthcare records in a third-party server may cause serious storage, security and privacy issues. Therefore, many approaches have been proposed to preserve security as well as privacy in cloud computing projects. Cryptographic-based approaches were presented as one of the best ways to ensure the security and privacy of healthcare data in the cloud. Nevertheless, the cryptographic-based approaches which are used to transfer health records safely remain vulnerable regarding security, privacy, or the lack of any disaster recovery strategy. In this paper, we review the related work on security and privacy preserving as well as disaster recovery in the eHealth cloud domain. Then we propose two approaches, the Security-Preserving approach and the Privacy-Preserving approach, and a disaster recovery plan. The Security-Preserving approach is a robust means of ensuring the security and integrity of Electronic Health Records, and the Privacy-Preserving approach is an efficient authentication approach which protects the privacy of Personal Health Records. Finally, we discuss how the integrated approaches and the disaster recovery plan can ensure the reliability and security of cloud projects.

Optimal selection of application loading on cloud services

There is a need for identifying computing power hours and storage utilisation along with total cost optimisation. The present paper focuses on optimal selection of application loading process on the cloud services considering relevant factors. Using this model, small companies that plan to develop applications and use cloud services may determine cost and optimal selection of service by taking into account its own as well as provider’s perspectives into consideration. The paper consists of four stages. First stage deals with the estimation of required computing power hours in the planned duration. Second stage relates to the calculation of storage capacity. Third stage corresponds to the formation of multi objective goal programme to prioritise computing power hours and storage utilisation requirements of applications and optimise total cost of usage. Finally, fourth stage deals with the mixed integer non-linear programming to minimise total cost considering other variable factors. For small application developers who cannot afford in-house IT infrastructure, we find an optimal framework for allocating number of applications on cloud services such as Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service. For ease in planning, the user company can quickly decide corresponding number of applications at appropriate services, and at the same time can reduce overall usage cost. With the help of proposed method, the service provider may keep a suitable inventory of cores to provide backup computing power and storage capacity. This adds value to developers also, as company can plan for their operations corresponding to the business growth.

Abstract A15: Development of a cloud-based histology database for collaborative cancer research

Abstract Background. HistoWiz is a histology company that process cancer research tissue samples and digitizes the resulting glass slides for scientists. This process produces a “virtual microscope” which dramatically extends the reach of traditional physical glass slides and microscope. Even though a growing number of slides in cancer research are digitized, multiple technological obstacles exist which hinder scientific discovery using these data: These gigapixel, gigabyte image files are unwieldy, located on local hard drives where IT solutions such as storage and retrieval are poorly scalable, limiting access and speed. Lack of centrally-located data leads to repetitive, redundant research and makes it difficult for cancer researchers to work synergistically and collaboratively by limiting widespread access and image sharing. Method. HistoWiz is building WizBaseTM, a Cloud-based virtual slide database platform served by a proprietary image-tagging web application for storing and evaluating histology data. Users will be able to instantly view and compare slides at high resolution on virtually any internet-connected computer or mobile device anywhere in the world. In addition, this web application would enable metadata tagging within these images improving scientific annotation, classification and most importantly, search. WizBaseTM can be regarded as the scientific hybrid of a product with the viewing power of Google Earth combined with the search and crowd-sourcing of Flickr. Development of a virtual slide database on a scalable IT infrastructure will improve histology data viewing and searching resulting in enhanced global scientific collaboration, allowing cancer to be fought cooperatively instead of individually. Results. We have built HistoWiz Viewer, the first online viewer on the Cloud powered by AWS using an HTML-based Deep Zoom viewer. HistoWiz Viewer allows users to instantly view their virtual slides on any internet-connected PC, Mac, tablet or smartphone without the need to download the virtual slides or install software or plug-ins. HistoWiz Viewer enables faster access to WSIs, more flexible browser choice, and greater scalability of computing power compare to currently available viewers. In addition, using AWS saves users thousands of dollars by avoiding the expenses of purchasing and maintaining an in-house IT storage system. Conclusion. As the first component of WizBase, we have developed HistoWiz Viewer on the Cloud powered by AWS to allow more flexible and faster viewing of WSIs compared to current technologies. Image acquisition, processing, storage and online viewing features of WizBase have been successfully implemented on a scalable IT infrastructure. Citation Format: Ke Cheng Cheng, Gerald Chu, Ruslan Sivak, Dee Dao. Development of a cloud-based histology database for collaborative cancer research. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference: The Translational Impact of Model Organisms in Cancer; Nov 5-8, 2013; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Res 2014;12(11 Suppl):Abstract nr A15.

MCSAuth: A New Authentication Mechanism for Cloud Systems

Cloud Computing has attracted a lot of attention in both academia and industry lately. With its focus on scaling, collaboration, agility, availability and cost reduction, cloud computing offers a compelling alternative to in-house IT solutions. However, by “outsourcing” the computing infrastructure, it introduces a number of security issues. Specifically, since cloud computing is a shared computing platform, it needs to provide strong mechanisms for authenticating it’s users and ensuring that no confidential information stored on the cloud is compromised. This paper addresses a number of vulnerabilities in existing authentication mechanisms and proposes enhancements to mitigate these vulnerabilities. In addition, the paper studies how these enhancements affect performance. The results show that the existing vulnerabilities can be overcome by the proposed mechanisms. However, this results, in the worst case, in a six-fold increase in execution time. This can be considered relatively small when security is prime important.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER: NETWORKING HERITAGE INVENTORIES IN ENGLAND

Abstract. This paper will look at the requirements for a future vision of networked, digital heritage inventories to support heritage protection in England. The present loose network presents several challenges for multiple organizations maintaining similar datasets on disparate IT software: Duplication of content; ownership of content and different approaches to recording practice and standards. This paper will discuss the potential use of the Arches Heritage Inventory and Management System as part of the vision for better operation of this network. Arches was developed by the Getty Conservation Institute, World Monuments Fund and Farallon Geographics as an open source web-based geographic information system (GIS) to help inventorize and manage immovable cultural heritage. The system is based around internationally recognized standards from both the heritage and IT sectors. These include: ISO 21127: 2006, commonly referred to as the CIDOC-CRM (Conceptual Reference Model); the CIDOC Core Data Standard for Archaeological and Architectural Sites; Core Data Index to Historic Buildings and Monuments of the Architectural Heritage as well as Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. The proposed use of Arches as a data collection and exchange platform would provide effective and useful recording systems for small heritage projects lacking in-house IT support and the finances and skills to support their development. In addition it would promote standards to support cross-searching, data exchange and digital archiving and through its use of open source a community of IT developers, standards developers and content specialists can be developed to sustain the network.

Responsibility Agreements Ensure Accountability Under 80001

Mike Papa, BS, CBET is the supervisor of biomedical engineering at St. Luke’s Health Network in Bethlehem, PA. E-mail: papam@slhn.org As traditionally isolated medical device networks migrate in design and functionality onto more converged enterprise IT networks, hospital-based clinical engineers and IT personnel are faced with managing an increase in associated risks. The newly approved voluntary standard IEC 80001-1: Application of risk management for IT-networks incorporating medical devices, addresses what healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs, or hospitals) can do to manage such risks. 80001 provides a structure for HDOs to manage the risk of converged network(s). A key part of this structure calls for the HDO to establish and manage the roles and responsibilities among all stakeholders that take part in the formation of the medical IT network. Stakeholders include the HDOs, the medical device manufacturers (MDMs), and the IT manufacturers. Within 80001, roles and responsibilities are established and managed in the form of a contractual agreement called a “responsibility agreement.” This article takes a closer look at the establishment of responsibility agreements and their importance to implementing 80001.

A framework of the use of certifications by hiring personnel in it hiring decisions

IT certification represents a common and growing practice with significant implications for managing in-house IT workers and outsourcing contracts. Prior research is of limited value in understanding its use in common personnel decisions, such as hiring, and its role in the IS profession because of possible sponsor bias, conflicting findings, and inattention to the hiring process or the value of certification from the perspective of hiring personnel. Using an inductive approach, we developed a framework for understanding the use of IT certification in hiring. Contextual and proximate factors are identified, as are the various ways that IT certification is used. Our study provides a bridge between the beliefs of hiring personnel and existing theories to better understand a phenomenon of growing importance. Research questions for further empirical investigation are explored, showing that our conceptual framework provides a base for future research.

Taking a flexible approach to ASPs

Introduction In 2001, subscription-based application service providers (ASPs) represented the new paradigm for application deployment. It was anticipated that ASP spending would reach $7.8 billion by 2004, and a 2001 survey conducted by PMP Research revealed that 23% of respondents said they would likely use an ASP in the future. However, this turned out not to be the case. By 2004, spending on ASPs had increased only to $4.2 billion. Over the past few years, there has been a revival of the ASP model through the notion of cloud computing and "software as a service." The market for cloud-based services was $16 billion in 2008, and projections estimate the market for spending in this area will reach $42 billion by 2012. However, this still only would represent 9% of overall IT spending. These services have traditionally targeted larger companies instead of small or medium-sized businesses (or SMEs). Companies like Oracle, Siebel, and Ariba claim that nearly 60% of their business comes from companies that have annual revenues exceeding $1 billion. However, the ASP model provides the same or greater benefits to SMEs, including lower costs, greater choice, simpler installation (and no related fees), and the ability to access applications from any internet-connected computer. ASP subscribers also often receive "24 by 7" technical support. This access to IT expertise (without maintaining an in-house IT staff) results in further savings for businesses. Despite the benefits, small businesses have not readily adopted ASPs. The reasons for this lack of adoption include the reluctance of SMEs to replace their existing systems with untried ASPs and the inappropriateness of the "one-size-fits-all" approach that doesn't take in to consideration specific industry or firm requirements. This makes the SME a significant untapped market for companies operating in this space. The purpose of this article is to more fully understand the SME market for ASPs through an analysis of the factors that are most important to likely adopters. While previous work has broadly investigated adoption by SMEs and the general adoption of ASPs, this study combines both perspectives and proposes the new construct of "flexibility" as influential in the adoption decision. We surveyed 101 SMEs that had not yet adopted ASPs and asked them to rate the importance of several factors that would affect their decision. Correlating likelihood of adoption with the importance of those factors yields several important insights into how ASP vendors should position their product offerings.

Security with Michelin-star service

As if understanding and responding to the evolving threat landscape wasn't a challenging enough task, the other equally troubling consideration for in-house IT security professionals, IT managers and indeed business owners is exploring the wealth of solutions apparently best-suited to deal with them. Thinking like a blackhat may be the best way to stop them from attacking your network. How can security staff take a blackhat-like view of their networks to seal off the holes before others exploit them?

Architecture & Design for Application Agility

The extremely dynamic, competitive, and global business environment has dramatically increased the rate of change in businesses resulting in mergers and acquisitions, building of alliances, increased pace of product and service development, and marketing innovation. To succeed in this hyper competitive environment corporations are increasingly focusing on design, architecture, optimization, and management of their intra and inter organizational business processes. They are also looking for capabilities to dynamically monitor, change, integrate and fine tune interand intra-organizational processes in a very short period of time without significant efforts and involvement of their IT staff. Unfortunately, in this environment IT is often looked upon more as a road block than the enabler of change. One of the major reasons for this is the slow pace and high cost of integrating and changing IT applications. These problems are inherently rooted in the way IT applications are architected and designed. Advances in component based development (CBD), Web Services technologies, and the concepts like Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are significantly impacting the whole paradigm of application development. These technologies and concepts have significantly improved the interoperability at hardware, operating system, development language, and data levels. This allows radically different approaches and business models to be used for application architecture, design, and development. Started as a cost effective approach for integrating intra-firm and inter-firm applications, SOA is increasingly becoming an approach for architecting and developing applications using many vendor provided services. According to Gartner, by 2008, 80% of software development projects will be based on service-oriented architectures. Additionally, existing legacy applications and packaged applications are being re-factored and delivered as service-oriented business applications. Many major corporations are in the midst of implementing significant initiatives to re-architect their IT through service centric computing to help meet fast changing business requirements. This is expected to significantly change the application development approach from either custom application development or package implementation (including ERP) to more of a solution assembly approach. In this environment the central role of in-house IT is to be very closely aligned to business, help shape the corporate strategies and relationship with customers and suppliers, improve productivity through automation and control of operation and production environment using real time information, and determine system requirements based on business strategy. In spite of the significant interest in the business community in architecting and designing applications for agility, the processes and methodologies for designing, architecting and developing such applications are in their infancy. Numerous interesting research issues related to application agility definitions, business value of agility, agility measurement, agile application development approaches, design models, project team organization, communication within and across project teams, and governance need to be addressed. Many additional issues related to organizational implementation, adoption, impact of these changes on IT organization and IT education need to be studied. H. Jain Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA e-mail: jain@uwm.edu

Pricing Utility Computing Services

Utility computing is the emerging term for the delivery of information technology in a “payas-you go” model. It has attracted considerable attention as a means of delivering lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and more predictable service levels for in-house IT. At its heart, utility transformation allows IT consumers to switch from capital-based procurement of IT assets to operational cost procurement of IT services. Unsurprisingly, the change is closely linked with the adoption of service oriented architectures (SOA) and service oriented infrastructures (SOI). In fact, utility transformation often provides the overarching business and financial framework for driving a move to SOA. It defines the IT chargeback environment and the resulting compelling business context.Key to the success of utility transformation is the implementation of appropriate service pricing models. A variety of innovative pricing models can be used to improve service predictability, to create incentives for certain behaviors, and to manage the flow of notional revenue to the IT organization (ITO). They are invaluable to the SOA business case. This article examines several such models.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Until they are certain that outsourcing IT management is the best possible option, firms would do well to maintain and invest in their own in-house IT assets.

An integration model for organizing IT service management

To develop an architecture for information technology service management (ITSM) and design integrated solutions, it is necessary to establish a common understanding of the key conceptual domains involved in delivering IT services—organization, process, tools, and technology—and how they interrelate. This paper presents an integration model for ITSM practitioners. The model is a framework for organizing the assets that constitute an ITSM design. Using this framework, an organization can document the available set of IT services offered and understand how they are composed from finer-grained services delivered by internal or external providers. Different service designs are supported, depending on the service requirements and organizational context. This integration model is applicable to both in-house IT organizations and IT service providers, regardless of industry or size of enterprise. It may be used by management software vendors to describe the capabilities of their ITSM offerings and to align those with the needs of different customers, by consultants and integrators to develop engagement materials and solution offerings, and by IT service delivery organizations to document their service designs.

Anatomy in Oman: Can we transplant a curriculum?

About six years ago West Virginia University Health Sciences Center agreed to assist with development and start-up operation of the new Oman Medical College in the Sultanate of Oman. A private school, it was created with government encouragement to increase output of Omani physicians. We are involved as faculty in planning and implementing some of the Medical School’s first preclinical experiences (Human Structure and Neurobiology). The initial intention was to “export” our WVU preclinical curriculum intact, to provide Omani students with a “Western” medical education. Pre-medical students with three years of intensive English and science courses began medical school in the 2004–’05 academic year; we are now in our second year of service as visiting faculty (1–2 month terms) while permanent faculty are recruited and trained. One key to curricular “transplantation” was transfer of our in-house IT delivery system (SOLE) to Oman, where students with (required) laptops and wireless access can use appropriate curricular materials generated for our WVU courses. OMC is well equipped for lectures and small group activities, has adequate IT support but is deficient in lab facilities. Restructuring gross anatomy instruction with much reduced hands-on lab work has been a major challenge, particularly as we are integrating new faculty and are only present for brief time periods. Creating effective instruction across substantial barriers of language, culture and distance has proven to be a stimulating challenge. This report will summarize approaches, preliminary results and complications of our initial efforts.

Just plug-in and go [utility computing

The big-iron computer suppliers do-not agree on many things, but they have all decided to pull in the same direction: to a place where the IT service is something you just dial into and rent. The suppliers believe the time is right to get technologies in place that reassure customers their data will not somehow get mixed up with someone else's and that the business models are now there. Paul Marsh looks at what is happening in utility computing and whether all the components are there to make it work, this time around. Utility computing has been with us for a while. 'Service-centric' IT arrived with some fanfare with the emergence of the first generation of application service providers (ASPs) and storage service providers (SSPs). The term 'utility computing' is being applied to both inhouse and outsourced IT capabilities. The benefits of using a utility hardware infrastructure hinges mainly on the cost savings that can be made from deploying hardware in an on-demand fashion. Software on-demand offerings appear to make most sense to small-to-medium sized companies.

A Case of an IT-Enabled Organizational Change Intervention

This case study documents an organizational change intervention concerning the implementation of a novel information technology at a university-owned research foundation (URF). It evidences the disparate expectations and reactions by key actors toward the change event, marking a mismatch between a new paradigm required by the new technology and existing information technology practices. Drawing upon change management and management information systems (MIS) literature, we discuss the perceived change management issues hindering the change process at URF. Our discussion is tempered by a theoretical lens that attempts to integrate the literature bases drawn upon in this research. In particular, resistance from in-house IT specialists was observed as the strongest force obstructing the novel IT implementation. This study offers a forum to stimulate both researchers and practitioners to rethink the necessary elements required to enact change, especially with respect to novel IT implementations.