The new ControlUp IT Service Management (ITSM) Connector, an integration with ServiceNow which combines physical device and unified communication real-time metrics from ControlUp Edge DX is available in the ServiceNow Store and delivers faster remediation and automated ticket generation within ServiceNow to solve IT issues before users are aware of a problem.

ServiceNow’s expansive partner ecosystem and partner program is critical to support the $220 billion market opportunity for the Now Platform^®. The revamped ServiceNow Partner Program recognizes and rewards partners for their varied expertise and experience to drive opportunities, open new markets, and help joint customers in their digital transformation efforts.

As a Registered Build Partner, ControlUp is offering the ITSM solution to help increase Level One efficiency in data presentation, reduce Level One ticket handling via ControlUp Edge DX automation, and align ControlUp Edge DX with existing workflows.

The addition of ControlUp monitoring and remediation services drives significant benefits for ServiceNow customers, including:

• Incident Management – ControlUp Edge DX is purposely designed to provide a better desktop experience for employees, boosting productivity and reducing downtime.
• Problem Management – ControlUp Edge DX accelerates root cause resolution with synthetic testing for automated problem identification and remediation before the user is aware of the issue.
• Service Operations Workspace – ControlUp Edge DX reduces ticket generation with automated problem identification and resolution, minimizing service disruptions for a better employee experience.

“The addition of ControlUp monitoring and management services within the ServiceNow Store allows IT organizations to offer a significantly improved user experience,” said Jon Wallace, CTO, ControlUp. “Our DEX platform simplifies the delivery of high-performing workspaces and delivers  physical and virtual monitoring along with proactive network and device testing, automation, and access to a global community of IT professionals sharing insights and solutions.”

“Partnerships succeed best when we lean into our unique skills and expertise and have a clear view into the problem we’re trying to solve,” said Erica Volini, senior vice president of global partnerships at ServiceNow. “ControlUp’s integration extends our reach well beyond where we can go alone and represents the legacy and goals of the Now Platform. I am thrilled to see the continued innovation we will achieve together to help organizations succeed in the era of digital business.”

“Our partnership with ControlUp’s integration into ServiceNow is a win-win for our customers,” said Andy Whiteside, President and CEO, XenTegra. “It streamlines IT operations, enhances the digital employee experience, and reflects our dedication to innovation and client satisfaction. We’re excited to partner with our clients for the initial integration and even more excited to add even more capabilities in the future.”

More details on the ControlUp IT Service Management (ITSM) Connector integration with ServiceNow are available in this product overview blog HERE.

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Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis finds the changing landscape and significant surge in cyber threats have contributed to the high demand for endpoint security solutions globally. Endpoint security is the practice of using host-based software products to secure computing devices such as laptops and smartphones. The global endpoint security market will likely reach $31.1 billion by 2026 from $17.4 billion in 2021, registering expansion at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3%.

“With the rise in the volume of cyber threats due to the pandemic and remote working requirements, the world witnessed a significant increase in endpoint security needs,” said Sarah Pavlak, Security Industry Principal at Frost & Sullivan. “To mitigate attacks, endpoint security solutions —endpoint protection platform (EPP) and endpoint detection and response (EDR)—are vital as they help identify unprotected assets.”

Pavlak added: “Adopting an artificial intelligence (AI)-based protection approach allows the identification of endpoints in need of updating and their associated risk levels. Further, wider AI adoption will incorporate self-healing endpoints and become more comprehensive during the next few years.”

To reap the benefits of the growing endpoint security industry, market participants should:

• Develop an effective strategy for detecting and mitigating zero-day attacks. This should include a defensive plan with prevention technology and a response method for potential attacks.
• Consider implementing on-device AI/ML (machine learning) capabilities on endpoint agents to support detection capacity and deliver collective intelligence competencies.
• Focus on cloud-based endpoint security. It offers opportunities to extend product services, either on-demand or fully managed, and leverage Big Data for high-fidelity advanced threat detection.
• Incorporate mobile threat defense into endpoint solutions to secure endpoints and track device behavior to detect and stop malicious activity.

Global Endpoint Security Growth Opportunities is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan’s Security research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.

For further information on this analysis, Global Endpoint Security Growth Opportunities click here.

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As a result of this agreement, Whitehat Virtual is the preferred virtual desktop services partner for BOXX. An expert in solving even the most challenging Citrix and VMware VDI issues, Whitehat Virtual has cataloged over 1,500 optimizations for virtual environments, making them perform better and deliver an optimal user experience. Whitehat Virtual is also a proven service partner for NVIDIA vGPU environments ensuring vGPU enables the best possible performance.

“The arrival of new virtual GPU (vGPU) technologies places heightened demands on virtual desktop technology,” said Val King, President and CEO, Whitehat Virtual. “For users of high-performance graphic applications that want the ability to work from anywhere there is an Internet connection, virtual desktops (VDI) must be paired with vGPU technology and optimized to deliver the performance and user experience digital workers need. At Whitehat Virtual, we’ve seen and solved it all when it comes to high-performance computing on VDI. We are pleased to bring our expertise to the BOXX community of power-computing users and we look forward to bringing BOXX innovations and high-performance hardware to Whitehat Virtual customers.”

As a result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, work from anywhere means new demands on environments, including rich multi-media content delivery for remote training and facilitating team member communication. Overall, VDI environments struggle to deliver this level of content since most were not designed to support robust visual content.

NVIDIA vGPU software enables powerful GPU performance for workloads ranging from graphics-rich virtual workstations to data science and AI. This enables IT to leverage the management and security benefits of virtualization, as well as the performance of NVIDIA GPUs required for modern workloads.

“All VDI systems host multiple users on a single server,” said Tim Lawrence, Founder and VP of Engineering, BOXX Technologies. “Only BOXX has the experience and product portfolio to provide engineers, architects, and 3D artists with bare-metal performance in a virtual environment. With Whitehat Virtual managed services and support, we are extending our expertise in high-performance computing with a VDI services partner we trust.”

Whitehat Virtual’s partnership with BOXX Technologies was recently finalized and services options from Whitehat Virtual are available now through BOXX.

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I Want to Work From Home, or I Quit: Meeting New Employee Expectations

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For many organizations, this preparation has paid off. 61% of IT professionals feel they are consistently providing the same level of service working remotely and 47% said their quality of user experience has not suffered because of remote work.

These are among the findings of the Ivanti study which also assessed the value of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) tools during the recent influx of remote workers. ESM, which extends the use of IT service management (ITSM) processes to also address business-centric use cases in departments including HR, facilities and customer service, is proving to help organizations remain productive during this time of dramatic business change. The new study found that 65% of IT professionals say efficiency is ESM’s top benefit.

The cross departmental support of ESM contributes to its benefits. Nearly half (48%) of the survey respondents said ESM workflows crossed two departmental processes 25% of the time. In fact, when it comes to the number of non-IT services, workflows or requests IT helps with per quarter, respondents replied:

• 31% – said 1-2 non-IT services, workflows or requests
• 30% – said 3-5
• 17% – said 6-10

This has resulted in business departments also seeing ESM’s value, with 64% finding efficiency to be the top benefit, followed by productivity (53%), improved experience (43%) and better alignment between department and end user expectation (42%).

When asked which departments IT professionals collaborate with the most on ESM initiatives, the survey found:

• 60% – Customer Service
• 53% – HR
• 40% – Facilities

The adoption of ESM isn’t new for most organizations. According to the survey, 29% of IT professionals reported they have been working on ESM initiatives for anywhere between three and five years, 34% reported the process has taken one to two years, and 23% said less than a year.

Since implementing their ESM program or solution, IT has realized valuable benefits, including:

• 55% – process improvements
• 47% – improved IT experience
• 44% – streamlined operations
• 42% – staff productivity
• 42% – automated processes
• 41% – reporting

“By hyper-automating processes and empowering users with self-service technologies such as chat bots, ESM technology has risen to support efficiency and user productivity demands in the face of our new remote-working world,” said Ian Aitchison, senior director of product management, Ivanti. “By bridging cross-departmental workflows, ESM is not only empowering IT to be more proactive and responsive, but also helping businesses remain productive and resilient in the face of changing workplace dynamics.”

The study surveyed 385 IT professionals. Research was generated online by Ivanti during May and June of 2020.

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In a survey conducted by The Conference Board in September, more than 330 HR executives at primarily large US companies weighed in about remote work and hiring, productivity and well-being, workforce cost-reduction actions, and plans for returning to the workplace. This online survey is a follow up to one conducted in April.

The new findings also reveal that, after six months of adapting to the pandemic, many organizations continue to expect taking cost-reduction actions including layoffs and restructurings. On the upside, many companies have been able to fully or partially reverse some of the cost-cutting measures taken at the beginning of the pandemic, specifically around reducing salaries and wages. Key findings from the new survey include:

Companies are now three times more willing to hire remote workers from anywhere in the US or the world.

36 percent say they are willing to hire 100 percent remote workers anywhere in the US or internationally. Just 12 percent were receptive to that approach before COVID-19.

Warming up to remote work

Compared to before the pandemic, companies are now far more willing to hire remote workers (52 percent willing before COVID-19 vs. 88 percent now). However, half still prefer that employees live within commuting distance to the office location.

Post-pandemic, working primarily from home is more likely for many workers.

More than one third of respondents expect that 40 percent or more of their employees will work remotely (at least three days per week) 12 months post-pandemic. That is up from 5 percent prior to the pandemic.

Finding qualified workers remains a challenge, despite high unemployment and a willingness to hire remotely.

In the case of companies that employ mostly industry and manual services workers, almost twice as many organizations say it is now very difficult to find qualified workers compared to pre-pandemic (19 percent now vs. 10 percent pre-pandemic).

However, the percent of respondents who reported that it was somewhat difficult to find qualified workers decreased (64 percent pre-pandemic vs. 56 percent now), resulting in about 75 percent reporting difficulty overall both pre-pandemic and now.

“High unemployment typically means many job seekers per job opening. But so far in this crisis, that appears not to be the case,” said Frank Steemers, a report co-author and Economist at The Conference Board. “Many people listed as unemployed are not actively looking for a job at this point in time. Possible reasons for this pause in the job search include being furloughed and hoping to regain their old jobs, fears about being exposed to COVID-19 at work, or lack of available child care. As a result, many organizations are reporting that finding qualified workers is still a challenge.”

Nearly half of companies report a productivity increase…

In September, almost half of respondents (47 percent) believed that productivity had increased for their workforce, compared to only 23 percent in April. This productivity increase could be due in part to employees working longer hours since the COVID-19 outbreak.

More meetings and working hours

Many surveyed companies report that their employees are experiencing increased work hours (60 percent) and spending more time in meetings (63 percent), as well as suffering more burnouts (42 percent), decreased work-life balance (46 percent), and more mental health problems (40 percent).

“These sobering statistics beg the question of whether increased working hours are sustainable in the long term,” said Robin Erickson, PhD, a report co-author and Principal Researcher at The Conference Board. “To further support the health and well-being of their workers, companies can consider implementing quiet periods without email, mandating use of vacation time, or even offering more benefits related to health and wellness to mitigate stress.”

Despite some wage and salary restorations, cost-cutting measures are still planned for 2020’s final months.

From October through December 2020:

• • 13 percent of surveyed companies plan to restructure the organization
  • 11 percent plan to cut bonuses
  • 9 percent plan to conduct permanent layoffs
  • 8 percent plan to defer pay increases and bonuses

One quarter of companies that implemented salary/wage cuts during the pandemic had fully reversed this action by September.

Companies were likely to reverse wage cuts as quickly as possible; one quarter had fully reversed them by September, and another 23 percent had partially reversed this action.

A plurality of companies is planning to return to the workplace by March, but significant uncertainty remains.

About sixty percent of companies have either already returned or are currently planning to return to the workplace by March 2021. However, this date could change based on the severity of the second COVID-19 surge. A quarter of respondents are more uncertain, either awaiting a vaccine or noting other determining factors, such as trends in COVID-19 cases in the geographic area.

Only 19 percent of companies had remained open or returned to the workplace by the end of September 2020.

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Some 78% of U.S. respondents and 63% of non-U.S. respondents said they expect flexible work policies to be a talent differentiator, according to the report “The Future of Work Arrives Early: How HR Leaders Are Leveraging the Lessons of Disruptions.” However, more than half of U.S. respondents and 38% of non-U.S. respondents said that establishing a culture that supports remote employees will be one of the top three challenges when the pandemic subsides.

The report also found that despite employee readiness to learn new skills, few HR leaders are planning to invest in learning programs for reskilling and upskilling over the next 12 months. Outside of the United States, only 38% of respondents plan to invest in these programs. That drops to 22% among U.S. respondents.

“While HR leaders across the globe ranked maintaining productivity as their biggest challenge, it’s critical that we not lose sight of long-term strategies around learning and reskilling, and diversity, equity and inclusion,” SAP SuccessFactors President Jill Popelka said. “The urgency for more agile processes, easier access to data and the ability to support remote work is accelerating digital transformation. It’s critical that leaders develop a culture of continuous learning and inclusion. This will enable workforces to drive needed transformation projects, even during a period of unprecedented change.”

More than 80% of U.S. respondents said they were likely to recommit to corporate culture and value, and practice inclusive hiring and promotion. However, when compared with other countries, commitment in the United States to take specific actions toward these goals is less than other countries. For example, only 46% of U.S. respondents said they are likely to adjust wages or salaries to address pay inequities, compared with 85% in China and 64% in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, only 47% of U.S. respondents said they are likely to change structure or benefits to foster inclusion, compared with 73% in Mexico and 67% in Spain.

Additional key findings from the report include:

Challenges to Maintain Productivity Could Delay Long-Term Planning in Reskilling

• Maintaining productivity given new ways of working is ranked as the biggest challenge for HR leaders. In Brazil, China, Mexico and Spain, more than 60% of HR leaders cited this as the biggest challenge.
• Remote collaboration tools will see the most investment, ahead of analytics, technologies to ease the return to work, such as testing and tracing, and learning programs for reskilling.
• Additionally, organizations are taking a buy-versus-build mentality, with most hires in the coming months expected to be new to the organization, rather than promoted within.

Remote Work Persists, Creating a Two-Tiered Workforce

• Overall, organizations globally agree that remote work will be a talent magnet in the coming years and is viewed by many as a long-term investment. For example, 64% of U.S. respondents and 57% of UK respondents say they expect to have greater flexibility regarding remote work as a result of COVID-19.
• However, respondents in China, India, Mexico, Spain and Germany face different circumstances and were most likely to say their employees can work from anywhere but do not have the technology or environment they need. In these countries, respondents were the most likely to say they are investing in remote collaboration tools and mobile platforms.
• Service and field workers, general staff and customer service workers are also less likely to have the environment or technology to work remotely, compared to functions such as HR, sales, marketing and finance.

“This has been a year of dramatic challenges for organizations around the world, and human resource executives have been at the forefront of navigating their organizations through this unprecedented time,” said SHRM President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr., SHRM-SCP. “To realize the future of work, human resource executives and their colleagues on the leadership team must accelerate their efforts to establish culture, invest in talent and address diversity, inclusion and equity to drive their organizations forward. While HR executives continue to work through these difficult times, there is a great opportunity to lead meaningful change for the workplace and beyond as the report shows.”

The report surveyed HR leaders across 10 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Mexico, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom. The full report, “The Future of Work Arrives Early: How HR Leaders Are Leveraging the Lessons of Disruption,” and the U.S. country report are available to download.

Image credit: Unsplash.

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In this project, Technostacks client wanted to build and implement an innovative concept with IoT enabled remote monitoring solution. The client with this IoT solution concept wished to transform the face of beekeeping with a straightforward and pesticide-free approach. Using this IoT solution, they wanted to get rid of Varroa destructor mites in beehives and make the solution highly accessible to end-users through a simple to use application.

So, the client company needed to enable an innovative and game-changing technology, code-named “MiteNote,” which seeks to sterilize mites, thus removing them, however, also ensuring that the bees are not harmed with their approach.

The project involved a compostable circuit board that precisely applied heat right to the honeycomb cells by having a sense of the reproductive cycle of the bee broods. And further, sterilize mites by using a precise temperature range. Additionally, the board had sensors and heaters, facilitating the temperature patterns in each of its thirty-two zones. Identifying a specific design and practice, the solution turned on the heating in the picky zone for a definite period of time, which killed the mites that used to kill the bees.

The client wanted an application that can facilitate users to get better visibility into the circuit metrics and make temperature changes utilizing the iOS app. Here, the critical focus had to be on the application’s user-friendliness as most of the involved users would not be technology savvy. The UI and UX had to assist users in optimizing the application features and functionality in a trouble-free manner.

Technostacks development teams enabled the “MiteNote” circuit board to interface with the application over Bluetooth. Once the Bluetooth connection was made active, the application needed to scan the board to showcase and display the metrics. The development and design team had to collaboratively build a display with 32 elements (boxes) on it, with every box showing the related temperature.

Creating an app reading values from every sensor on the circuit board and showcasing it, with the change in the color on the boxes based on the temperature, was not a big challenge for the Technostacks team. Further, the app required functionality where the user could click on the heater component to increase or decrease the temperature and decide the time duration of the temperature changes. The scope also included creating software that constantly logs the temperature patterns to keep the user informed about the diverse variations.

The Technostacks team enabled all the essential requirements and further built an integrated Core Bluetooth Framework for scanning, connecting, reading, and writing the MiteNote circuit board through the application. This requirement facilitated the user to search for BLE devices, pick MiteNote, and connect to the board.

Other functionalities included wherein the app could display temperature values right from the MiteNote circuit and facilitated that the temperature was displayed in diverse colors. The mobile app development team at Technostacks built an integrated solution utilizing Objective C that catered to all client needs and turned the app easy to use. They further used iOS technologies to make the application iPad compatible. A step further, Technostacks developers even crafted a functionality wherein users can set-up temperatures for MiteNote boards right from the application.

“Our teams brought in the right functionalities with needed app features in swift time,” said Hansal Shah, Managing Director of Technostacks.

Technostacks team delivered an extensive series of features and functionalities to enable the app users and the client to use the company’s specialization in IoT software development and IoT hardware firmware development to successfully enable and launch the IoT based Remote Monitoring Solution.

Image licensed from Unsplash

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In addition, 28 percent of respondents admitted they’re using personal devices for work–related activities more than their work-issued devices, which could create new opportunities for cyberattacks. This figure becomes more problematic next to another survey result, which indicated that 61 percent of respondents’ organizations did not urge employees to use antivirus solutions on their personal devices.

“Our fundamental shift to working remotely has dramatically underscored the need for comprehensive security, as well as IT guidance and training to avoid breaches. Many organizations failed to understand the gaps in their cybersecurity plans when transitioning to a remote workforce, experiencing a breach as a result. The use of more, often unauthorized, devices has exposed the critical need for not just a complete, layered security stack, but new policies to address work from home environments. Businesses have never been more at risk and hackers are taking notice.” – Marcin Kleczynski, CEO and co-founder of Malwarebytes

On the threat landscape, Malwarebytes observed that cybercriminals have adapted to take advantage of improperly secured corporate VPNs, cloud-based services, and business email—all which could be used for infiltration of corporate assets. There has also been a surge in phishing emails that use COVID-19 as a lure to cover up malicious activity. These emails contain commercial malware, such as AveMaria and NetWiredRC, which allow for remote desktop access, webcam control, password theft and more. Malwarebytes data showed that AveMaria saw a bump of 1,219 percent from January to April 2020, an enormous increase from 2019. According to Malwarebytes telemetry, AveMaria mostly targeted large enterprise businesses. Similarly, NetWiredRC observed a 99 percent increase in detections from January to June, primarily targeting small- and medium-sized organizations.

“Threat actors are adapting quickly as the landscape shifts to find new ways to capitalize on the remote workforce. We saw a substantial increase in the use of cloud and collaboration tools, paired with concerns about the security of these tools. This tells us that we need to closely evaluate cybersecurity in relation to these tools, as well as the vulnerabilities of working in dispersed environments, in order to mitigate threats more effectively.” – Adam Kujawa, director at Malwarebytes Labs.

Despite this, companies appear to have a high level of confidence about the transition to working from home, with roughly three quarters (73.2 percent) of those surveyed giving their organizations a score of 7 or above on preparedness for the transition to WFH. A majority of companies with less than 700 employees (84.1 percent) moved more than half of their workforce, but not all (61–80 percent). On the other hand, companies with at least 700 employees opted to move almost all their workforce home (81–100 percent). In the wake of this shift, 45 percent of respondents’ organizations did not perform security and online privacy analyses of software tools deemed necessary for WFH collaboration. And frightfully, while 61 percent of respondents’ organizations provided work-issued devices to employees as needed, 65 percent of respondents’ organizations did not deploy a new antivirus solution for those same devices.

The report combines Malwarebytes telemetry with survey results from 200 IT and cybersecurity decision makers from small businesses to large enterprises to unearth new security concerns in remote work environments.

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