By Jim Hietala, The Open Group
One of the real benefits of working for The Open Group is the opportunity to meet with leading organizations around the world, and to hear their views and concerns around architecture, IT and security issues. I had the great pleasure of participating recently in The Open Group Conferences in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) and in Chennai, Hyderabad, and Pune (India).
From a personal standpoint, The Open Group team had nothing but great experiences in both India and UAE, and The Open Group partners in each region (Shift Technologies in Arabia, and Capgemini in India) did an outstanding job of organizing the events and providing real value to attendees.
It was interesting to engage with customer organizations in both countries, and to hear their pressing concerns around IT security, enterprise architecture, and Cloud Computing. While there are differences between regions — including adoption rates for Cloud Computing and other factors — I was struck to a much greater degree by how similar the concerns are.
Specific to IT security, the world is indeed flat, and the threats being faced as well as the security concerns and approaches in India and UAE mirror those in the US, Europe, and elsewhere. The combination of ubiquitous, global network access and highly motivated cyber-adversaries has brought new meaning to the old security maxim “there’s no security in obscurity”.
Security will be a major topic of discussion at The Open Group Conference, London, May 9-13. Join us for best practices, case studies and the future of information security, presented by preeminent thought leaders in the industry.
Thanks to Jim Hietala, contributor of The Open Group Blog’s 50th post!
An IT security industry veteran, Jim is Vice President of Security at The Open Group, where he is responsible for security programs and standards activities. He holds the CISSP and GSEC certifications. Jim is based in the U.S.
