This has also put tremendous pressure on funding for startups. During the second quarter, venture capitalists (VCs) struck 24% fewer deals on a quarter-over-quarter basis, according to PitchBook. And the IPO market is having its worst year in a decade, further hurting startup funding.

“VCs are definitely getting more selective,” said Muddu Sudhakar, the CEO and founder of Aisera. “The bar is much higher now.”

As for his own firm, Sudhakar was able to raise $90 million in a Series D round. The lead was Goldman Sachs and other investors included True Ventures, Zoom, and Khosla Ventures.

It helped that Aisera has a unique platform that leverages predictive AI for managing customer service, IT and sales. The technology has shown to be effective in lowering operating costs.

Also read: 5 Top VCs For Data Startups

Getting Funded in a Down Market

So what are some other enterprise software startups that have been able to buck today’s tough environment? What are the factors for success in current markets?

Let’s take a look at a few success stories.

CleverTap: AI-based User Engagement

“The best way to attract investors is to build a growing and sustainable business,” said Sunil Thomas, co-founder and executive chairman of CleverTap. “Focus on unit economics, growth, cash efficiency, and profitability.”

The strategy has worked out quite well for him. In August, CleverTap announced a Series D funding for $105 million. The lead on the deal was CDPQ, which wrote a check for $75 million. Other investors were Tiger Global and Sequoia India.

CleverTap software leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to engage and retain users. Since the launch six years ago, the company has amassed a customer base of 1,200 brands.

“The overall funding environment has gone back to basics,” said Thomas. “Funding is definitely available for great ideas — at the early stages — and sustainable businesses at the growth stage.”

See the Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software for 2022

airSlate: Document Automation

airSlate raised $51.5 million in June. The lead investors were G Squared and UiPath. The valuation of the round came to $1.25 billion.

Founded in 2008, airSlate has created an automation platform that allows for e-signatures, PDF editing, document management and workflow solutions. There are over 100 million users.

“So what attracts investors?” said Borya Shakhnovich, CEO of airSlate. “Put simply, financials that speak for themselves. This means breaking even early on in the company’s journey, procuring impressive revenue figures, and demonstrating growth of the customer base.

“Touting solid financials for venture capital interest might sound painstakingly intuitive, but it’s not always that simple,” Shakhnovich added. “I often liken investors to shoes — there’s a lot of them to choose from, and some will fit better than others. A lot of founders feel like their purpose is to win every investor, but that’s not always possible. Many investors demand brand recognition and a firm customer base over financial stability. The best approach is to stand by your organization’s strength and identify like-minded investors.”

Also read: Top RPA Tools 2022: Robotic Process Automation Software

Tropic: Procurement Analytics

Earlier in the year, Tropic raised $40 million in a Series A round that Insight Partners led. The company’s software allows for better procurement. Keep in mind that the average company overpays by 30% for software.

Some of the customers are Vimeo, Zapier and Qualtrics. The company manages over $300 million in spend.

“At Tropic, we have a unique vantage point in that we can see how businesses are truly performing based on the purchasing behaviors of hundreds of companies,” said Dave Campbell, CEO and co-founder of Tropic. “We power these purchases, which gives us line of sight into who is performing well, who is churning, and who is struggling to get traction.”

Campbell points out the following learnings for those companies getting funding:

• They offer something that thrives in a downturn like cost-cutting and efficiency-improving approaches.
• They emphasize retention over growth. Companies raising now are in the 120% NRR (Net Revenue Retention) range, even if they are only growing 50% year-over-year. 300% growth with 50% NRR won’t attract investors.
• They have strong efficiency. Sales efficiency of over 1 and CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) payback of less than 12 months.
• They power a mission-critical service. Nice-to-haves are out.
• They are willing to discount their valuation.

Lightning AI

In June, Lightning AI announced a Series B funding of $40 million. The lead was Coatue and other investors included Index, Bain, First Minute Capital, and the Chainsmokers’ Mantis VC.

The company has an open source platform to build AI models. It has been downloaded more than 22 million times since 2019 and used by 10,000 organizations across the globe.

“These latest changes in the funding environment have made it more important than ever for businesses to make it explicitly clear how they create value for their users and customers,” said William Falcon, CEO and co-founder of Lightning AI. “We expect to see an increasing amount of focus placed on the ability to synthesize what a business does into clear and well-articulated value propositions and a larger focus on efficient growth backed by strong unit economics.”

Falcon stresses that founders need to find investors that align with the vision of the company. True, in a rough funding environment, it can be difficult to say “no” to an offer of millions of dollars. But for the long-term prospects, this may be the right choice.

“While there’s no shortage of MLOps products today, it was important to us from the beginning that we found investors who understood that Lightning AI is not building simply another machine learning platform, we are building the foundational platform that will unite the machine learning space,” said Falcon.

Read next:

• 10 Top Data Companies
• 8 Top Data Startups

The post Enterprise Software Startups: What It Takes To Get VC Funding appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Choosing RPA software for your business

• What Is RPA software?
• What Are the Benefits of RPA?
• Best RPA Tools
  • UiPath
  • Blue Prism
  • Automation Anywhere
  • Kofax
  • Pega
  • Microsoft
  • NICE
  • Rocketbot
• Other RPA tools to Consider
• RPA Product Comparison
• RPA Buying Considerations

What is RPA Software?

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a type of software that allows companies to automate business processes and allow employees to focus on higher value tasks. Using the software, organizations can build and implement software “robots” that mimic human actions. These robots can identify and process information on a screen, extract data, and perform the right actions to navigate through systems. 

RPA software has many applications and can automate tasks as simple as processing online transactions and as complicated as performing routine security audits. By automating repetitive processes, organizations can lower their operating costs and turn their attention to improving business operations.

Also read: Top Automation Software 2022: Managing Your IT Processes

What are the Benefits of RPA?

RPA software offers companies a variety of benefits, including better productivity, faster digital transformation, higher employee engagement, and more accuracy.

Improved productivity

With RPA, employees don’t have to perform the repetitive tasks that can monopolize their day. This leaves them with more time to focus on high-value work, and it offers them the opportunity to innovate their processes. This not only leads to higher productivity in their day-to-day work, but it can also allow them to improve productivity for the company as a whole. And that productivity isn’t just limited to individual contributors. Even 20 percent of a CEO’s workload could be automated with RPA. Focusing employees on higher-value tasks results in much greater value per employee for the organization too.

Faster digital transformations

RPA software also enables businesses to speed up their digital transformations. The software robots can perform automated tasks faster and more accurately than humans, and they don’t need breaks. This means that automation can run in the background or overnight while employees spend their in-office time performing more complicated activities. According to a survey by McKinsey, 83 percent of decision-makers in IT say that automation is a critical part of digital transformation. 

Also read: The Growing Relevance of Hyperautomation in ITOps

Higher employee engagement

When employees don’t have to spend their days performing repetitive tasks, they’re more likely to be engaged with their work. Automating the duller work gives employees the ability to focus on more interesting and rewarding work, leaving them with a larger sense of accomplishment. A recent Forrester study found that 57% of companies saw higher employee engagement with RPA software. Improving employee engagement reduces turnover and keeps businesses running smoothly.

Fewer errors

Machines tend to produce fewer errors than human employees, even while working faster. By giving repetitive work to RPA software, organizations don’t have to worry about their employees “zoning out” during boring but important work and accidentally inputting the wrong information. Instead, RPA handles these mundane processes and ensures the necessary accuracy. In fact, the same study by Forrester also found that 57 percent of organizations say that RPA solutions reduce manual errors in their work.

Also read: Finding Value in Robotic Data Automation

Best RPA Tools

The following vendors provide some of the best RPA solutions on the market, based on the features they offer and their user reviews.

UiPath

UiPath is an impressive and user-friendly RPA tool that efficiently and quickly allows users to automate their manual processes, created with the purpose to simplify, speed up, and optimize digital transformation for enterprises.

UiPath uses AI to automatically scan a business’s processes and determine the best ones to automate. It not only automates monotonous activities like data entry, email marketing, and web scraping but also routine duties like notifications, documentation, and scheduled follow-ups. In addition to automation that’s easy to set up, UiPath has capabilities such as encryption and role-based access control as well as the ability to handle processes regardless of their count or complexity.

The solution also includes a submission hub where employees can submit requests for processes they’d like to have automated. It includes options for no-code, low-code, and full-code, enabling users of any expertise to apply automation to their department. UiPath also offers a Task Capture feature, so businesses can automatically document their processes and ensure every employee is performing them the same way. It also includes both attended and unattended automation, giving companies control when they need it and a hands-off approach when they don’t.

Key Differentiators

• Workflow Drag and Drop: UiPath offers users the ability to build visual path processes through its drag-and-drop functionality upon the graphical interface and convert these processes into visual workflows.
• Advanced Screen and Data Scraping Options: UiPath’s Screen Scraping scrapes or extracts structured data from applications or web pages. Through data scraping, users can scrape data from tabular content, search queries, and other repetitive structures.
• Image and Textual Automation: Where UI automation is unfeasible in virtual machine contexts or where usual approaches are not enough to find selectors, image and textual automation steps in through UiPath’s tools that support it.

Cautions: It can be costly to coordinate and scale multiple robots, and the solution can be resource-intensive.

Blue Prism

As a global leader in enterprise RPA and intelligent automation, Blue Prism is transforming how its users work in over 170 countries and 70 industry verticals by eliminating inefficiencies and enabling its customers to focus valuable hours of work on their businesses.

The low-code automation platform combines RPA with artificial intelligence (AI) and expanded cognitive abilities to give customers an AI-equipped digital workforce.

Key Differentiators

• Intelligent Automation Platform (IAP): Blue Prism uses a combination of the power of AI and machine learning to provide digital labor that takes over mundane and repetitive tasks that plague human workers, which allows these workers to focus on initiatives that drive value for their organizations.
• Design Studio: Blue Prism’s Design Studio offers users a drag-and-drop approach to process automation building and allows users to reuse events and actions that create processes across the organization.
• Digital Workforce: The digital workforce offered by Blue Prism enables customers to automate their enterprises through autonomous software robots and clever technologies that imitate and learn business processes akin to humans.

Cautions: Blue Prism lacks a multi-tenanted cloud version, and the user interface (UI) feels slightly dated.

Also read: Blue Prism vs UiPath: RPA Tool Comparison

Automation Anywhere

Automation Anywhere uses intelligent software bots that carry out repetitive, tedious, and manual tasks to yield drastic productivity gains, improved employee engagement, and optimized customer experience. It analyzes a company’s processes and highlights the ones that would see the highest ROI from automation, allowing the organization to prioritize its transformation efforts.

The platform empowers customers to automate their end-to-end business processes by offering a cloud-native and web-based automation platform that combines RPA, AI, machine learning, and analytics. The extensibility of the platform, Automation 360, ensures it is easily integrable with enterprise technologies offered by Automation Anywhere’s technology partners.

Key Differentiators

• Bot Store: Automation Anywhere turbocharges customers’ automation journey through Bot Store, the largest RPA marketplace. The vast selection of prebuilt intelligent automation solutions helps users shorten their time to value.
• RPA Workspace: Automation Anywhere automates all repetitive digital tasks and processes through the automation engine at the core of Automation 360. It bridges technology islands and transforms disconnected processes into automated and unified operations.
• IQ Bot: IQ Bot automatically classifies, extracts, and validates information from business documents and emails through a combination of AI technologies like machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and fuzzy logic.

Cautions: Some modules lack the flexibility of similar products. Conceptualizing and debugging Automation Anywhere has a steep learning curve.

Also read: UiPath vs Automation Anywhere: RPA Tool Comparison

Kofax

Kofax provides intelligent automation solutions to empower customers to transform their information-intensive business workflows to improve employee efficiency and smoother customer experience. Kofax delivers automation in two products: Kofax RPA and Kofax TotalAgility.

Kofax RPA enables end-to-end automation, so employees can focus on higher-value work. Kofax TotalAgility provides an integrated platform for the automation of content-intensive workflows, combining low-code process design, AI-driven document processing, and more. It is also integrable with Kofax RPA for task automation.

Key Differentiators

• Low-Code Design Environment: Kofax RPA provides a modern robot design studio for professional and citizen developers to design robots that visually recognize objects, applications, and screen areas in real time.
• Analytics and Process Intelligence: Kofax TotalAgility enables users to enhance decision making, reporting, and workflow optimization through comprehensive analytics across workflows. Kofax RPA has out-of-the-box dashboards to provide insights into robot operations and system performance.
• Intelligent Screen Automation: Kofax RPA’s intelligent screen automation empowers robots to capture screen images and locate and identify user interface elements like buttons, labels, and text boxes within application environments such as Citrix.

Cautions: The user interface is dated.

Pega RPA

Pega RPA combines artificial intelligence, customer engagement, and intelligent automation capabilities to enable digital transformation. It empowers employees to make the most out of their time and focus on the customer by letting bots automate repetitive work.

The tool also bridges the gaps between different systems, as the time taken to navigate multiple applications is eliminated. Pega RPA removes silos and integrates its users’ legacy systems. It also speeds up processes, eradicates errors, and gets work done efficiently.

Key Differentiators

• Attended RPA: Pega RPA enables humans and bots to work side-by-side, as its Attended RPA gives employees the ability to provide the outcomes that customers require faster and with greater accuracy.
• Unattended RPA: Pega’s unattended RPA bots provide optimization and alignment toward digital transformation, as they break through the barriers of legacy systems and old user interfaces.
• Auto-Balancing: To make the most of digital workforces, Pega RPA Auto-Balancing enables users to automatically optimize their robot resources. It ensures users derive value from their process automation investments.

Cautions: The tool is not as intuitive to use as some competitors.

Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft Power Automate enables its users to create automated processes using flows, drag-and-drop tools, and prebuilt connectors in the hundreds to automate repetitive and monotonous tasks easily.

Power Automate provides Process Advisor to record and visualize end-to-end processes and provide recommendations on automation opportunities. Microsoft Power Automate’s RPA capabilities empower customers to connect legacy and new systems and use UI-based automation with desktop flows to lessen repetitive tasks.

Key Differentiators

• Attended and Unattended RPA: With Microsoft Power Automate, users can execute desktop flows or respond to prompts on their Windows devices as well as execute desktop flows autonomously on virtual machines or Windows devices.
• Auto-Scaling With Hosted RPA Bots in Preview: Power Automate enables the preview of hosted RPA bots. Users can use basic parameters to create a group of bots and use it to automatically scale virtual machines for their unattended RPA scenarios.
• Ready-to-Use RPA Examples: Microsoft Power Automate for desktop provides users with an ever-growing library of ready-to-use desktop flows to increase the momentum of adoption and innovation. Users can launch examples and explore their logic and customize them as their own.

Cautions: Microsoft Power Automate comes with a steep learning curve, as some of its aspects require the users to have coding ability.

NICE

NICE RPA unlocks employees’ potential to deliver outstanding customer experiences by bringing people and robots together to enable intelligent process optimization. Through a single platform, NICE manages and develops its RPA portfolio.

NICE also holds some of the largest scale automation projects and drives enterprise-wide digital transformation. NICE’s RPA bots work consistently and effectively as workforce multipliers, since they increase throughput capacity and empower organizations to hit their return on investment (ROI) goals faster.

Key Differentiators

• NEVA: NICE Employee Virtual Attendant (NEVA) brings together people and robots to help employees satisfy their key performance indicators (KPIs) and their service operations business goals. Employees can use NEVA attended bots for attended RPA.
• Automation Finder: Automation Finder, NICE’s attended automation solution, is a task mining solution that uses unsupervised machine learning algorithms and accurate scientific approaches to assist enterprises in determining automation candidates.
• Automation Studio: NICE offers a cloud-based environment for the development of robust attended and unattended process automations known as Automation Studio.

Cautions: The UI may come off as unintuitive. Additionally, users may have to write more code than expected for a tool serving no-code developers.

Rocketbot

Rocketbot is an impressive RPA platform that not only democratizes access to process automation but also delivers ROI optimization. Regardless of the size of its users’ organizations, Rocketbot is designed to be flexible and compatible with all its users’ environments.

Rocketbot’s RPA solution is an agile tool and can simultaneously execute multiple different processes in parallel in the same environment. Rocketbot RPA is also scalable to enable employees and other users within an organization to build robots by themselves.

Key Differentiators

• Rocketbot Studio: Rocketbot Studio provides users with the ability to robustly and reliably build robots. It offers a drag-and-drop editor for users to intuitively design robots.
• Rocketbot Orquestador: Rocketbot Orquestador is Rocketbot’s orchestrator that provides users with everything they need to manage and control their robots at any time. This orchestrator enables users to run processes, workflows and more.
• Rocketbot Telescope: Rocketbot Telescope teaches robots to read documents. As a result, users can extract text from images and documents. It is also easily integrable with Rocketbot Studio.

Cautions: Drag-and-drop can be unintuitive.

Other RPA Tools to Consider

We’ve highlighted the RPA solutions that we think are the market leaders, but there are many others out there that may be a good fit for your needs or use cases. Those vendors include:

• WorkFusion
• SAP
• Salesforce MuleSoft
• Appian
• Cyclone
• Nintex
• IBM
• Laiye

Comparing the Top RPA Tools

Choosing RPA Tools

When evaluating RPA tools, there are some questions to keep in mind to ensure you select the best tool for your use case.

First, how does the prospective tool discover and define process steps and rules? Do the manual steps, if any, have an impact on the overall efficiency of your use case?

Several RPA vendors market their tools under the promise of the simplicity of creating bots. But how easy is it to create bots using the tools under consideration? Are the low-code or no-code platforms truly low-code or no-code?

You should also evaluate how well the prospective solution does bot deployment, management, and maintenance. And of course, always remember to ensure the tool in consideration is aligned to your use case and business goals.

Article published July 20, 2021 and revised Aug. 24, 2022 by Collins Ayuya

The post Top RPA Tools 2022: Robotic Process Automation Software appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Unfortunately, Match had challenges in making the strategy work. In the latest shareholder letter, Match CEO Bernard Kim noted: “I’ve instructed the Hyperconnect team to iterate but not invest heavily in metaverse at this time. We’ll continue to evaluate this space carefully, and we will consider moving forward at the appropriate time when we have more clarity on the overall opportunity and feel we have a service that is well-positioned to succeed.”

This is not a one-off. Even the giant Meta has had its own problems. This is despite the company’s enormous resources and global user base. During the past year, the stock price has plunged from $378 to $178.

The metaverse clearly faces some challenges.

See also: How Revolutionary Are Meta’s AI Efforts?

First-mover Opportunities in the Enterprise?

The metaverse’s early challenges should come as no surprise. It’s never easy to launch new technologies.

But for the metaverse, the first-mover opportunities may actually not be in the consumer space.  Surprise: They may emerge in the enterprise.

“Businesses today are already leveraging the metaverse to drive new interactions,” said Matt Barrington, Principal of Digital & Emerging Technologies, EY. “These experiences are driven by both existing technology stacks and Web 3.0 technology stacks, bringing in new business models and ways to create, store, and exchange value. We are seeing mass experimentation across the market as companies explore business-relevant use cases and assess the impact of the metaverse on their business and customers.”

So let’s take a deeper look at the enterprise opportunities in the new virtual world of the metaverse.

Metaverse Applications

When it comes to the consumer metaverse, the types of use cases are limited. It’s really about gaming-type experiences. In terms of monetization, there is the purchase of digital items, subscriptions, and sponsorships. Interestingly enough, there are various brands that have purchased virtual real estate on the metaverse.

But as for the enterprise, there are seemingly endless applications. In fact, each industry can have its own set of metaverses.

“Consistent with the findings of our recent Metaverse surveys, using metaverse environments for purposes of delivering new experiences to the workforce for training, onboarding or recruiting are immediate use cases,” said Emmanuelle Rivet, Vice Chair, U.S. TMT and Global Technology Leader, PwC. “In addition, metaverse environments provide a place for connecting and engaging with a dispersed workforce including front line workers who may feel detached from the ‘center’ or ‘corporate.’ This is interesting but it also provides the opportunity for employees to be exposed to the metaverse, get familiar with it and effectively be up-skilled by experimentation, providing a platform for innovation and development of more use cases for companies.”

There are also interesting use cases with digital twins of physical environments that can be made hyper realistic and physically accurate.

“The physical environment to be replicated may be natural, or it may be something that was constructed, such as a building or other type of structure, an industrial operation, or a transportation network,” said Andrew Blau, Managing Director, U.S. Leader, Eminence & Insights, Deloitte Consulting. “Humans, robots, and AI agents can work together inside these digital twins to plan, design, and test—accelerating innovation and planning cycles for a variety of business needs.”

Also read: The Metaverse: Catching the Next Internet-Like Wave

Metaverse Strategies

The playbook for the metaverse is still in the early stages. Mistakes will be inevitable. But there are some guidelines that will help.

“Employees and customers are both looking for new experiences in the metaverse – and that means ensuring that virtual avatars, augmented reality and other forms of interaction are user-friendly enough to make collaboration and training simpler than it is in real life,” said Adrian McDermott, CTO of Zendesk.  “You need to prioritize immersion.”

And yes, there will need to be much due diligence of the tech stacks. They can be expensive and complicated.

“Firms need trusted technology partners that build, or vet and collaborate with, the best-in-class technology, as well as the means to plan, deploy and manage the technology so solutions that accelerate business today don’t become a roadblock tomorrow,” said Vishal Shah, General Manager of XR and Metaverse, Lenovo. “This also requires an open solution to always make the best hardware and software components for the use cases. … The fact is ‘Open’ always wins and will again in this new world.”

Another part of the strategy – which can easily be overlooked – is finance transformation.  Without this, the chances of success decline precipitously.

“Organizations will need to develop completely different approaches to finance, accounting, risk and compliance processes to sustain all of the major innovations coming with the metaverse, including monetization and metaverse economy innovations such as crypto currency and NFTs,” said Brajesh Jha, SVP & Global Head of Media, Publishing and Entertainment, Genpact.

Don’t Get Left Behind

The temptation for enterprises, though, is to take a wait-and-see approach with the metaverse.  But this could mean falling behind competitors. And it may be extremely tough to catch up.

“The metaverse presents a significant opportunity for business,” said Mike Storiale, VP, Innovation Development, Synchrony. “This is potentially a new dimension of commerce that we haven’t seen since the late 1990s with e-commerce.”

Read next: The Value of the Metaverse for Small Businesses

The post Metaverse’s Biggest Potential Is In Enterprises appeared first on IT Business Edge.

There are huge obstacles to creating a larger world that spans individual virtual platforms, so for now it’s perhaps best to view the metaverse as a challenge for businesses to create more virtual, interactive customer experiences.

The metaverse potentially offers small businesses a way to reach new markets and  customers that they wouldn’t be able to reach in the physical world. Small businesses  can create their own virtual spaces and use them to promote their products and services. They can also use avatars (virtual representations of themselves) to interact with potential  customers in a way that is not possible in the physical world.

Training and customer service are other potential applications for the metaverse, areas many companies come up short in now.

Also read: How Revolutionary Are Meta’s AI Efforts?

Metaverse Benefits

For now, the metaverse’s benefits for small businesses are largely theoretical, but they could be significant:

• Increased visibility: Small businesses can use the metaverse to increase their visibility  and reach a wider audience.
• Improved customer engagement: The metaverse provides an immersive and  interactive environment that can help small businesses improve customer  engagement.
• Lower costs: The metaverse can help small businesses lower their costs by reducing  the need for physical infrastructure. 
• Greater flexibility: The metaverse offers greater flexibility for small businesses,  allowing them to experiment with new business models and strategies. The metaverse presents a unique opportunity for small businesses to gain a competitive  edge. By leveraging the advantages of the metaverse, they could potentially level the playing  field with larger businesses and compete on a global scale.

Metaverse Use Cases

The metaverse has a number of potential use cases for small businesses. Here are three examples:

• Marketing and advertising: Small businesses can use the metaverse to create  immersive, 3D marketing experiences that grab attention and engage potential customers in new ways – ways customers are ready to embrace.
• Training and education: The metaverse can be used to create training simulations  that allow employees to learn new skills in a safe and realistic environment.
• Collaboration and networking: The metaverse provides a unique platform for small  businesses to collaborate, as well as network with potential partners and customers. 

One example of the metaverse in action is Hyundai’s campaign for the Roblox platform. A bit of experience programming games can go a long way in the metaverse.

See the Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software

How Businesses Reach Customers in the Metaverse

So how do businesses actually reach customers in the metaverse? There are as many ways.

• Hosting events, conferences, meetings, and meetups in virtual spaces
• Connecting with potential customers through social media, discussion forums, and blogs
• Leveraging virtual reality (VR) to create interactive, immersive and engaging marketing campaigns
• Creating digital versions of familiar physical products that can be consumed in virtual worlds
• Creating virtual locations and marketplaces for products and services
• Prioritizing customer feedback and rewarding customer engagement with virtual coupons and promotions

Businesses should choose the type of metaverse they integrate with based on what it was created and intended for, its use cases. As an example, a metaverse created for retail may not work well for an outdoor fitness niche business.

Preparing for the Metaverse

There are a few things companies should be doing to prepare for the opportunities the metaverse will bring. First, they should start thinking about how they can use the 

metaverse to improve their customer experience. Second, they should begin to  experiment with creating metaverse applications. And third, they should think about how the metaverse can be used to create new business models and revenue streams.

The good news is that metaverse opportunities should work their way down market quickly, as often happens with technology.

One example of IT vendors coming together to make this happen is last week’s announcement from Capgemini and Unity to create “use cases where the digital customer or employee experiences will benefit most.”

The companies cited a number of industries where they’ll be focusing their efforts: consumer goods & retail, manufacturing, life sciences, telecommunications, media & technology, energy & utilities, financial services, and public services.

“Metaverse and immersive experiences open a whole universe of possibilities for our clients across industries, from enabling more emotional connections with consumers, and reinventing employee experience and collaboration, to optimizing engineering, manufacturing and operations using digital twins,” stated Pascal Brier, Chief Innovation Officer at Capgemini. “Shaping sector-specific use cases and developing them at scale will require expert technical and operational capabilities. We are thrilled to partner with Unity, one of the major engines of the metaverse, to enable our clients to realize its real business value.”

“Unity’s real-time 3D solutions will bring many new companies into the next generation of the internet, or metaverse, helping them achieve greater engagement with their customers,” said Marc Whitten, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Unity Create Solutions.

Opportunities for Service Providers

For service providers like Capgemini, there’s a big opportunity to help clients navigate the metaverse and get ready for this new way of doing business. Some of the ways they can help include:

• Helping companies create avatars and 3D representations of their products and  services
• Training employees on how to use the metaverse and its various features
• Creating custom applications and solutions that help businesses take advantage of  the metaverse
• Providing support and maintenance for companies using the metaverse
• Helping customers navigate the many platforms and options for creating metaverse experiences

Metaverse Cautions

When exploring the business value of the metaverse, businesses should be mindful that the metaverse is still in its early stages of development, so there is a lot of potential for change and uncertainty. There is a learning curve associated with the metaverse, so businesses will  need to dedicate time and resources to learn how to use it effectively.

Despite the uncertainties, the potential benefits of the metaverse for small businesses are significant. In addition to providing a new way to interact with customers and  employees, the metaverse can also be used to create immersive experiences that can promote your brand and drive sales, so time spent understanding the metaverse and developing applications may turn out to be a great investment.

Read next: What’s New With Google Vertex AI?

The post The Value of the Metaverse for Small Businesses appeared first on IT Business Edge.

“Observability goes beyond traditional monitoring and is especially relevant as infrastructure and application landscapes become more complex,” said Joseph George, Vice President of Product Management, BMC.  “Increased visibility gives stakeholders greater insight into issues and user experience, reducing time spent firefighting, and creating time for more strategic initiatives.”

Observability is an enormous category. It encompasses log analytics, application performance monitoring (APM), and cybersecurity, and the term has been applied in other IT areas like networking. For example, in terms of APM, spending on the technology is expected to hit $6.8 billion by 2024, according to Gartner.

So then, what makes observability unique? And why is it becoming a critical part of the enterprise tech stack? Well, let’s take a look.

Also read: Top Observability Tools & Platforms

How Observability Works

The ultimate goal of observability is to go well beyond traditional monitoring capabilities by giving IT teams the ability to understand the health of a system at a glance.

An observability platform has several important functions. One is to find the root causes of a problem, which could be a security breach or a bug in an application. In some cases, the system will offer a fix. Sometimes an observability platform will make the corrections on its own.

“Observability isn’t a feature you can install or a service you can subscribe to,” said Frank Reno, Senior Product Manager, Humio. “Observability is something you either have, or you don’t. It is only achieved when you have all the data to answer any question about the health of your system, whether predictable or not.”

The traditional approach is to crunch huge amounts of raw telemetry data and analyze it in a central repository. However, this could be difficult to do at the edge, where there is a need for real-time solutions.

“An emerging alternative approach to observability is a ‘small data’ approach, focused on performing real-time analysis on data streams directly at the source and collecting only the valuable information,” said Shannon Weyrick, vice president of research, NS1. “This can provide immediate business insight, tighten the feedback loop while debugging problems, and help identify security weaknesses. It provides consistent analysis regardless of the amount of raw data being analyzed, allowing it to scale with data production.”

Also read: Observability’s Growth to Evolve into Automation Solutions in 2022

The Levers for Observability

The biggest growth factor for observability is the strategic importance of software. It’s become a must-have for most businesses.

“Software has become the foundation for how organizations interact with their customers, manage their supply chain, and are measured against their competition,” said Patrick Lin, VP of Product Management for Observability, Splunk. “Particularly as teams modernize, there are a lot more things they have to monitor and react to — hybrid environments, more frequent software changes, more telemetry data emitted across fragmented tools, and more alerts. Troubleshooting these software systems has never been harder, and the way monitoring has traditionally been done just doesn’t cut it anymore.”

The typical enterprise has dozens of traditional tools for monitoring infrastructure, applications and digital experiences. The result is that there are data silos, which can lessen the effectiveness of those tools. In some cases, it can mean catastrophic failures or outages.

But with observability, the data is centralized. This allows for more visibility across the enterprise.

“You get to root causes quickly,” said Lin. “You understand not just when an issue occurs but what caused it and why. You improve mean time to detection (MTTD) and mean time to resolution (MTTR) by proactively detecting emerging issues before customers are impacted.”

Also read: Dynatrace vs Splunk: Monitoring Tool Comparison

Observability Challenges

Of course, observability is not a silver bullet. The technology certainly has downsides and risks.  

In fact, one of the nagging issues is the hype factor. This could ultimately harm the category.  “There is a significant amount of observability washing from legacy vendors, driving confusion for end users trying to figure out what observability is and how it can benefit them,” said Nick Heudecker, Senior Director of Market Strategy & Competitive Intelligence, Cribl.

True, this is a problem with any successful technology. But customers definitely need to do the due diligence.

Observability also is not a plug-and-play technology.There is a need for change management. And yes, you must have a highly skilled team to get the max from the technology.

“The biggest downside of observability is that someone – such as an engineer or a person from DevOps or the site reliability engineering (SRE) organization — needs to do the actual observing,” said Gavin Cohen, VP of Product, Zebrium.  “For example, when there is a problem, observability tools are great at providing access and drill-down capabilities to a huge amount of useful information. But it’s up to the engineer to sift through and interpret that information and then decide where to go next in the hunt to determine the root cause. This takes skill, time, patience and experience.”

Although, with the growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), this can be addressed. In other words, the next-generation tools can help automate the observer role. “This requires deep intelligence about the systems under observation, such as with sophisticated modeling, granular details and comprehensive AI,” said Kunal Agarwal, founder and CEO, Unravel Data.

Read next: AI and Observability Platforms to Alter DevOps Economics

The post Observability: Why It’s a Red Hot Tech Term appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Therefore, stakeholders need to learn how to motivate their development teams to encourage both personal and professional development without driving them toward burnout. In the age of the Great Resignation, it’s more important than ever to keep key employees content.

Also read: How to Choose a Software Development Methodology: 6 Approaches

4 Tips for Communicating with Your Dev Team

Communication with your developers involves creating a mutual understanding based on empathy and respect. Just as with any new employee, it’s important to learn how each member of your development team best communicates.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to bridge the communication gap between developers and stakeholders (or anyone else for that matter).

1. Share your expertise without condescension

While some developers may have industry-related experience or education, most come to the team armed only with the requisite technical expertise. Let them know the areas of your business most affected by technology. Explain workflows and business processes in plain but logical terms.

2. Ask for translations

When developers start using words, phrases, or concepts that are confusing to you, ask what they mean. Don’t wait until days or weeks later. Many developers tend to focus on the work being done at that moment, and having context can make it much easier to explain what is meant, both for better communication and to avoid wasting precious dev time.

3. Know what you need to know

While there are times that it’s important to know all the details, it’s not always necessary to know exactly how development is done at a granular level. What matters is that the work gets done according to the specifications provided.

If there are specifics that need to be known, be sure to let developers know ahead of time that they should record the given details and be prepared to share that information.

4. Ask instead of making assumptions

When troubleshooting an issue, it’s not uncommon that developers can’t replicate the error. Rather than assume they don’t believe the error is occurring, be sure to ask how they would like to approach the issue. For example, would they rather receive end-user screenshots of the error, or would they rather shadow the user to see the process being followed?

If you want the developer to fix the issue, let them take the lead and tell you what resources they require to best do that.

Also read: Identifying Software Requirements Using 5 Whys and 5 Hows

5 Tips For Retaining Developers

We covered communications, which can be no small challenge when working with a highly technical team, but that’s only part of the challenge. These next two sections will deal with retaining your dev talent – and keeping them from burning out.

1. Set clear and measurable goals in cooperation with developers

Feel free to set deadlines, but always treat these as collaborative tasks. Projects can be affected by unforeseen events, scope creep, and other external factors. Encourage developers to speak up when something happens that could impact a previously set deadline, and be prepared to ask questions to see what may get things back on track.

2. Provide the support developers actually ask for

Nothing is more frustrating than being given help that doesn’t actually help. Empower developers to ask for the support they need, and listen to their requests.

Hiring extra developers when what’s really needed is training won’t make the project move faster. But, if slow hardware is guilty of stalling development efforts, it won’t matter how much training your team has.

3. Give developers power over their own environments

Every employee is different and has different needs. Moreover, the research varies, but it’s commonly understood that refocusing after being distracted can take 20–30 minutes.

Therefore, you should work together with your developers to design an environment that helps to relieve some of the pressures to be innovative, creative, and productive while supporting your business goals.

4. Provide recognition

Everyone loves to feel appreciated, and developers are no different. Consider ways to celebrate or recognize your developers when they work long hours or put in extra effort to reach project milestones. However, be sure to communicate with your developers their recognition preferences—some may be more receptive to private recognition versus public.

5. Don’t micromanage

It can be hard for non-technical team members to understand, but sometimes developers can go days without producing demonstrable results, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been productive.

It’s okay to ask whether tasks are on track, but avoid making these check-in points spontaneous or too frequent. This can result in reduced productivity since developers will be spending this time defending their progress rather than working toward project milestones.

See also: Using Whiteboards to Streamline Development Team Collaboration

6 Tips for Preventing Developer Burnout

Writing code can be very stressful and demanding work. As such, developers can face overwhelming mental fatigue, putting them at higher risk for burnout.

Support developers and their mental health with these six suggestions for preventing developer burnout:

• Encourage vacations, even when timelines are tight: Being able to clear the mind can be just what is needed for a fresh perspective.
• Provide flexible scheduling: Development work can often rely on inspiration, which doesn’t always happen in an 8-hour, 9–5, workday. Forcing developers to knock off at 5 p.m. and remember what they were doing at 8 a.m. the next morning isn’t always realistic, so be understanding if, for instance, developers are on a roll and choose to work a 10-hour day followed by a shorter day.
• Destigmatize asking for help: Speaking up about signs of burnout should never be met with shaming or suggestions that it is due to personal failure.
• Clearly define team hierarchy, roles, and responsibilities: Don’t make it an exhausting task to get sign-off for completed items. Make it easy to know who will answer specification or requirement questions.
• Allow remote work: Give developers the option to work remotely, even if it isn’t 100% of the time.
• Break large projects into smaller modules: Sometimes being able to celebrate milestones, recognize progress, and move on renews energy and enthusiasm.

Also read: 10 User-Centered Software Design Mistakes to Avoid

Make Your Developers Feel Valued

It doesn’t matter how many clients you gain, how many ideas you brainstorm, or how much analysis you perform if you don’t have the developer talent to bring each project to life. Build teams that understand and accept everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and take the time to mention and celebrate successes. Agile development and DevOps require the management skills to help your team navigate all obstacles, personal and team-related.

Sometimes a task as simple as taking notes when having discussions with developers or learning their acronyms and phrases can go a long way toward making them feel heard.

Happy employees are more productive and perform at a higher level, and they are more likely to stay with the company as it grows.

Read next: Using Swim Lane Diagrams to Improve Software Development

The post Motivating and Retaining Your Development Team appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Whether a team uses whiteboards to brainstorm, demonstrate an answer, diagram a solution, or talk through complexities with requirements, whiteboards can be a valuable collaboration tool.

Understanding Whiteboards

Simply stated, whiteboards are visualization tools. Content added to a whiteboard can be as permanent or temporary as each situation requires.

Online whiteboards bring this process to a digital space, providing the opportunity for collaboration amongst team members that don’t share the same physical space as well as providing shared documentation that can be more easily accessed for future use.

In addition, whiteboards are intended to be organic, inviting users to participate in content creation and the resulting discussion. Other functions of whiteboards include the ability to:

• Brainstorm, explore, and share ideas.
• Solve problems, strategize, and perform analysis tasks.
• Create high-level design diagrams to walk users through functionality or proposed solutions.
• Plan projects and resources.
• Teach and learn new concepts.
• Plan sprints and group tasks.

Whiteboard Coding

In the development process, it can be helpful to temporarily abandon the constraints of an IDE (integrated development environment) and think through the necessary logic required. Taking a step back from strict syntax and formatting can offer fresh inspiration on how to tackle the next stages of development.

In more complex situations, illustrating the situation can make it easier to solicit feedback or advice, particularly from team members who may be familiar with the project but are not also developers.

Whiteboards should supplement and support development efforts, and care should be taken to ensure they don’t negatively impact productivity. Whiteboards aren’t intended to be a primary coding method. 

Also read: The Importance of Usability in Software Design

Common Whiteboard Application Features

Whiteboard applications share a number of features, including:

• Taking the form of a native application (desktop or mobile) or being browser-based.
• Unlike physical whiteboards, space isn’t limited and can scale as needed.
• Depending on the device being used, content can be added using a keyboard, mouse, digital pen, stylus, or fingertip.
• Whiteboards can include shapes, pictures, images, and other interactive media content.
• Participants are able to select, move, resize, edit, and delete content.
• Voting sessions allow participants to decide on the importance and priority of various ideas, features, or functionality.
• Commenting allows contributors to provide feedback, introduce additional questions or considerations, or to encourage additional discussion.

Also read: Using Swim Lane Diagrams to Improve Software Development

Top 5 Whiteboard Applications

There are a large number of whiteboard applications available, but five stand out as the top choices.

Note that the costs included below may not be inclusive of the price for applications needed by mobile or desktop devices when not accessing the whiteboard using a web browser. 

Miro

Pros:

• Miro includes several useful templates to get you started.
• The versatile user interface (UI) allows organizations to customize their whiteboards to best suit their processes, workflows, and objectives.
• Hand-written notes can easily be integrated into your whiteboards.

Cons:

• With the considerable number of features and functionality offered by Miro, the UI can feel cluttered and confusing to new users.
• Administrative functions such as moving boards between teams can be difficult.
• Large boards can be slow to load to the viewer’s screen.

Platform Compatibility: 

• Miro is compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

Cost:

• Basic plans are free.
• Team features are available with plans starting at $16 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plans are available with custom pricing and include enterprise-grade security and compliance, centralized account management, and additional data governance functionality.
• Plans paid annually receive a 20% discount.

Microsoft Whiteboard

Pros:

• The familiar Microsoft layout and interface design reduces the learning curve.
• The ability to easily embed other Office documents and work seamlessly within Teams makes Microsoft Whiteboard ideal for organizations using the whole 365 ecosystem.
• The pen experience within Microsoft Whiteboard is applauded as being the most like an actual pen.
• The artifact is not lost when a whiteboard is shared, making it easy to go back and make revisions or additions.

Cons:

• Microsoft Whiteboard often tries to turn ink into computer text, which isn’t always ideal.
• For organizations with users accessing whiteboards using a variety of endpoints and platforms, Microsoft Whiteboard doesn’t always provide an equivalent experience for everyone.
• There is a lack of useful connectors for products like Visio.

Platform Compatibility:

• Microsoft Whiteboard is compatible with Windows, iOS, and Android.

Cost:

• Microsoft Whiteboard is free with a Microsoft account, and additional functionality is available with a Microsoft 365 subscription.

MURAL

Pros:

• MURAL integrates easily with the software already being used by your organization, including Teams, Asana, Azure AD, Adobe Creative Cloud Library, and more.
• Users can easily work with collaborators in real time or asynchronously.
• Projects can be started using templates.
• Interactive elements allow for things like summoning collaborators back after a break.

Cons:

• The visual interface tends to lag when larger numbers of users are making modifications simultaneously.
• Private boards require premium plan subscriptions.

Platform Compatibility:

• MURAL is compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

Cost:

• The Free plan is best for organizations only needing a maximum of 3 whiteboards.
• Unlimited whiteboard plans with additional privacy controls for teams are available for $9.99 per user, per month.
• Business plans with SSO and advanced integrations (Jira and GitHub) are available for $17.99 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plans with centralized administration and enhanced security are available with custom pricing.

Explain Everything

Pros:

• Explain Everything is celebrated for piecing whiteboard content together into explainer videos, making it ideal to use as an educational tool.
• Whiteboards are designed to be more of a teacher-student classroom-style collaboration tool, with built-in functionality for guiding others through lessons or content.

Cons:

• The drawing features are not as sophisticated as those found in competing whiteboard applications.
• While the user interface makes easy tasks very easy, more complex tasks are almost impossibly difficult.

Platform Compatibility:

• Explain Everything is compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

Cost:

• The basic single-user plan is free, and team plans begin at $11.99 per user, per month.
• Education plans are also available for students, teachers, and other educators.

Zoom

Pros:

• The whiteboards are available to all Zoom users who are already engaged in a familiar, collaborative, online meeting application.
• Finished whiteboards can be saved as images and shared.

Cons:

• Whiteboards can only be initiated by the meeting host, who can then transfer the sharing rights to other participants.
• The function is only intended for brief collaboration sessions during Zoom meetings and not ongoing, long-term whiteboarding.

Platform Compatibility:

• Zoom is compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux.

Cost:

• The cost for whiteboard functionality is included with Zoom membership pricing.

Tips for Using Whiteboard Applications

There are as many ways to use a whiteboard as there are items pinned to your tried-and-true bulletin board. That said, there are a few best practice tips and tricks that should be considered. 

• Practice makes perfect. Feeling empowered and free to contribute to a whiteboard is an expertise that takes time to develop.
• Give your content meaning. If you want something to stand out, write it in red. If you want to show the flow of a process or idea, use an indicative arrow. Taking some time to standardize your whiteboarding strategy will pay off with more meaningful and easier to understand whiteboards.
• Make good use of space. Knowing users may be accessing and contributing to your whiteboards using a variety of devices and endpoints, means screen sizes and resolutions can vary tremendously. Make choices regarding font and shape size carefully, and try to minimize the need to scroll for the most important information.
• Brainstorm first, edit later.

Turning Ideas into Tasks

There are reasons why so many offices have physical whiteboards hanging on the walls, usually covered in sketches and jot notes that are tied together with lines and arrows, sometimes circled, often with question marks or additional notes added on later. They may even have a sticky note or two. 

Unfortunately, these physical whiteboards have limitations. Even when you disregard their need for members to be in the same location, content isn’t dynamic. You can’t add screenshots, images, or other multimedia. Everything must be recreated or described. Plus, it can be difficult enough to organize our own thoughts, let alone share them in a clear and meaningful way with others.

By contrast, whiteboard applications are always accessible, living things. We can ask questions and see how they get sketched out. We can send our creations to peers and experts for advice or suggestions. We can make note of things to remember or add reference points for later consideration.

Whiteboards don’t have the permanence of documentation. They don’t need to be beautifully formatted or proofread. They often come with the understanding that they may not even be technically accurate or current. They are collaborative tools, allowing teams to think out loud together in a functional way.

Read next: Identifying Software Requirements Using 5 Whys and 5 Hows

The post Using Whiteboards to Streamline Development Team Collaboration appeared first on IT Business Edge.

What is Configuration Management and Why is It Important?

Configuration management is the set of processes that systems engineers use to create consistency when they’re building or repairing hardware and software. It tracks changes and helps keep systems more stable over their lifetimes, even when the systems are complex or granular. Configuration management may track metadata, including:

• CPU and RAM allocations
• Passwords
• Encryption keys
• Endpoints with external connections

Configuration management creates a single source of truth for this information, improving organization and minimizing downtime.

What is a Configuration Management Tool?

A configuration management tool is a type of software that manages and tracks the changes that happen during configuration management. It can also automate some of the change and deployment procedures, carrying them out faster and with less potential for human error. Configuration management tools track resource usage, prevent duplicate work, and identify where problems are coming from within the system.

Get your free copy of the Configuration Management Software Buyer’s Guide.

Benefits of Software Configuration Management Tools

Software configuration management tools lower the likelihood of human error, make systems more scalable, and reduce the volatility of software systems.

Fewer Human Errors

Because configuration management tools can automate tasks during systems engineering, they lower the likelihood that human error will occur. It also tracks changes in the software, meaning it’s easy for organizations to roll back to an earlier version if someone does make a mistake or the system malfunctions.

Also read: Top Automation Software: Managing Your IT Processes

Improved System Scalability

Employers are struggling to fill their technology roles, meaning they can’t rely on more personnel in order to scale their systems. Instead, configuration management tools can improve an organization’s operational efficiency, allowing it to create more scalable systems without enlarging its staff. Configuration management also prevents unnecessary duplication, so tasks can get done faster.

More Stable Software & Hardware

Configuration management provides a defined set of processes, meaning developers and IT staff should be handling the same tasks in the same way each time they perform them. It can also help teams identify and solve problems faster due to the detailed audit trails. Stable software and hardware results in less downtime and fewer unplanned resource expenditures.

Top Configuration Management Tools

The best configuration management tools should make it easy to track software changes and enforce organizational policies. Businesses looking for configuration management tools should consider the following platforms, chosen for their high user ratings and the features they offer.

Ansible

Ansible by Red Hat is an automation platform that provides businesses with the framework they need to automate critical processes. IT managers can set rules for how different teams apply automation, preventing processes that will interfere with current procedures. Ansible can automate tasks for infrastructure, applications, networks, cloud, security, and containers. 

Admins can standardize how users deploy, initiate, and audit automation in the network to keep their systems stable. There are two pricing tiers available, but actual pricing information is not available on the website.

Key Features

• 24/7 support available
• Comprehensive dashboards
• Real-time updates
• Scheduled automation
• Role-based access control
• Audit trails

Pros

• Easy to set up and use
• Helpful and responsive support team
• Requires less memory and storage than similar products

Cons

• Requires deep knowledge of infrastructure
• May not check all dependencies

Also read: Ansible vs. Terraform: DevOps Tool Comparison

Rudder

Rudder is an IT infrastructure automation platform that provides a centralized management console for all of an organization’s systems. The lightweight agent connects directly to the central server, ensuring application security and reliability. Organizations can use Rudder to manage a variety of devices and network types, including laptops, cloud environments, and industrial physical servers. 

There are three pricing tiers available that charge on a per-node, per year basis. Users will have to upgrade from the basic tier to get support service level agreements (SLAs) and longer maintenance periods. 

Key Features

• Shareable dashboards
• Multiplatform agents
• API integrations
• User-friendly configuration builder
• Drift management
• Custom security policies

Pros

• Clear pricing structure available on the website
• Simplifies communication between technical and non-technical employees
• Clear and intuitive interface

Cons

• Users cannot control the execution order of tasks
• Small user community

Salt Project

The Salt Project, formerly SaltStack, is an open-source infrastructure management tool that enables configuration management, remote execution of hardware, or automation. It’s based on the Python framework, and users can easily add custom modules for more features. Additionally, it executes processes in a consistent manner to keep hardware and software stable. 

The platform is free to download thanks to its open-source nature, although that may mean that businesses will not have access to live support. There is, however, a robust knowledge base available, featuring tutorials and documentation.

Key Features

• Web-based user interface
• Role-based access control
• CIS and DISA STIGS compliance
• Enterprise API
• Customizable reporting
• LDAP, SAML, OIDC, & Active Directory integration

Pros

• Easy to design infrastructure and deployment architecture
• Documentation is well-written
• Frequent updates

Cons

• Immature compared to similar tools
• May not integrate as well with complex systems

Puppet

Puppet is IT automation software for infrastructure management and improved workflows. It includes both model-based and task-based automation capabilities to help organizations easily scale their infrastructure. Users can automate tasks on the operating system layer all the way out to the application layer. 

Puppet helps eliminate silos and deploy changes faster and with fewer inconsistencies. There are several options available for Puppet, but interested parties will have to contact the company for pricing information. Support packages also seem to come at an additional cost.

Key Features

• Single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Customizable reporting
• System health checks
• Multiple options for cloud integrations, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform
• Compliance tools
• Self-service automation

Pros

• Offers a high level of flexibility and functionality
• Supports multiple operating systems
• Easy to use and implement on cloud infrastructure

Cons

• The learning curve can be steep
• The ecosystem is fairly complicated

CFEngine

CFEngine provides automation and visibility into an organization’s infrastructure, helping them improve their security and meet compliance requirements. With standardized patching and update procedures, businesses can quickly roll out changes to their infrastructure to keep it running smoothly. 

CFEngine gives businesses a single source of truth for their networks, allowing them access to critical information quickly. Users can also customize their reports for better insights. There is a free version for open-source projects, but enterprises will have to pay for a business license. Pricing information is not available on the website.

Key Features

• Pre-built and customizable reports
• Performance monitoring
• Real-time updates
• Compliance tools
• Customizable and shareable dashboards
• Dedicated support available

Pros

• Easy to scale and has fast execution times
• Helpful user community
• Isn’t very resource-intensive

Cons

• The learning curve can be fairly steep
• Customizing the configuration is difficult for some users

Chef Infra

Chef Infra is configuration management software that allows organizations to manage all their disparate systems at the same time. It prevents configuration drift, automatically returning a system to its desired state if it diverges. Users can define their configurations once and then deploy them across a variety of systems, including Linux, Mac, or Windows. Plus, DevOps teams can define repeatable and reusable processes for these different types of systems. Pricing isn’t available on the Chef website, but interested organizations can also purchase Chef from the AWS or Azure store if they want to use it with their cloud environments.

Key Features

• Scheduled updates
• Resource management
• Data aggregation and validation
• Secrets management
• Full stack visibility
• Agile development practices

Pros

• Easy to use and scale
• Users can manage large environments with continuous monitoring
• Good technical documentation

Cons

• Lengthy setup process
• Steep learning curve

Auvik

Auvik is cloud-based network management software that offers configuration management and IT asset management. Automated discovery tools identify the devices connected to an organization’s network and track changes to keep the business secure. 

Auvik provides automated security and performance updates and encrypts data with AES-256 bit encryption. It scans the network for configuration changes every hour, backing up new changes and logging old versions. There are two product tiers that businesses can choose from, but pricing information is not available on the website.

Key Features

• Real-time updates
• Version control
• Backup and recovery automation
• Network traffic analysis
• Remote access
• Audit logs

Pros

• Easy remote deployment
• Helpful and responsive customer support
• Intuitive user interface

Cons

• Can require a large amount of management labor
• Some users complain about incorrect alerts

Juju

Juju is an open-source application modeling tool with support for both Go and Python coding languages. It supports application development for Windows and Linux as well as public and private clouds on AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle, OpenStack, or VMware. Developers get a detailed application graph model which tells them how applications should integrate with each other, simplifying large deployments. 

Due to its open-source nature, Juju is free to download and use, but users may not be able to get live support. However, there is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) option available for a fee.

Key Features

• Pre-built modules
• Kubernetes cluster deployments
• Command line and graphical user interface (GUI)
• Public or private cloud deployment
• 24/7 monitoring and alerting
• Script bundling

Pros

• Not very resource-intensive
• Customer-centric development
• Easy integrations

Cons

• Installation can be complex
• Some users complain about inconsistent commands in the command line

Is Configuration Management Software Right for Your Business?

Configuration management software is key for businesses that build a lot of their own applications or have a complex technology infrastructure. For these organizations, they’ll need a way to manage all of their systems from a single console and ensure they can track changes and restore previous versions. 

Open-source software is great for companies who don’t need live support, but they should make sure the user community is active before downloading the software. Otherwise, organizations should consider tools that come with dedicated support.

Read next: The Impact of Container Architecture on IT Development

The post Top Configuration Management Tools & Software 2022 appeared first on IT Business Edge.

Enterprise applications form bigger and bigger attack surfaces, but often it’s the APIs where the real vulnerabilities lie. While many attacks may be detected and thwarted through standard firewalls and SIEM tools, attacks through APIs move more stealthily, as they often leverage the access privileges the API already allows. These vulnerabilities extend well beyond the enterprise realm, and are even potentially affecting your personal vehicle. So ubiquitous are insecure APIs, that they’re even being used to hack Teslas. 

Here is how to  adopt a more rigorous security posture with APIs by implementing the following strategies.

1. Build For Future Users, Not Present Ones

When APIs are in their infancy, they are often designed to satisfy the needs of a small team of developers working together. These developers know each other, maybe even share an office space, and may feel little need to implement authentication protocols to establish that everyone is who they claim to be. Why should they? Before long, a particularly useful API finds its way out of the team, and it crawls its way to a broader network of users than was originally intended. The appropriate security measures should be in place before the genie gets out of the bottle, rather than long after. 

2. Limit Users

Speaking of future users, plan for many but control for fewer, if possible. Authorize access on a strictly need-to-know basis. More users means a greater attack surface, particularly if privileges aren’t clearly and thoroughly defined. 

3. Limit Data

The Equifax data breach represents the sum of all fears, as the company housed private financial information for nearly 150 million Americans. Fortunately, not every company’s business model necessitates the collection of social security numbers, driver’s licenses, addresses, and so on. Narrowly tailor data collection so only the most necessary data is required. Uncollected data is safeguarded.

4. Encrypt Data

Ensure that communications pathways are using the appropriate encryption protocols such as SSL or TLS. Similarly, data at rest should be encrypted. This may seem like obvious advice, but all too often a data breach occurs because accounts and passwords were stored in plain text. Simply having encryption isn’t enough, it also has to be used correctly. Some protocols such as TLS allow for encryption verification to be disabled on the server or the client side, resulting in a potential exposure for internet traffic to be intercepted. Ensure that APIs conform to the latest security best practices to ensure that communications are safe and secure. 

Read more about API security: 7 Trends in Network Management APIs

5. Enact Pagination Limits

Without proper API pagination, server queries can return one result or one hundred billion. The latter scenario would quickly devour system resources and bring applications to a halt. Even worse, it doesn’t require a malicious actor to cause harm—an innocent user might frame a query too loosely, and receive a staggering response. Fortunately, pagination is easy to implement. The easiest form of which is offset pagination, which provides users with a predefined window of records that they can retrieve. Other forms of pagination include keyset and seek, which have their own benefits and disadvantages.

6. Use Prepared Statements in SQL Queries

SQL code injections are incredibly prevalent attacks, giving attackers the ability to pose as other users, damage databases, or steal data. As is implied by the name, the attacker sneaks SQL code into a database query, often through the abuse of escape characters that a properly configured server should have filtered out. Prepared statements inhibit an attacker’s ability to inject SQL code by blocking them with placeholders that are only able to store specific values, and not SQL fragments. Another method of preventing SQL injections is to ensure data inputs match what is expected. For instance, phone numbers should register as integers and not contain strings. Names should contain letters but not numbers.

7. Strengthen End User and Application Authentication

For users accessing applications, implement routine password reset policies in accordance with the latest security best practices. For the applications themselves that interact with APIs, use unique credentialing for each version of the application, making it easier to root out out of date versions.

8. Impose Rate Limits

Brute force attacks happen when an attacker sends high volumes of login credentials to a server in an effort to make a successful match through sheer chance. A basic rate limit can thwart these attacks, by preventing more than one query from occurring within a reasonable time frame. Would a human being be capable of entering their password four hundred times in a minute? Likely not. So why would an API accept such an unreasonably high number?

Managing Risk

Security is the art of managing risk, not eliminating it. No fortress is impregnable, but attackers tend to move in the path of least resistance and target victims with poor security standards. Ratchet down your API security, and be the target attackers know to avoid.

Read next: Application Security Code Reviews: Best Practices

The post 8 API Security Measures to Implement Now appeared first on IT Business Edge.

What is DAST?

A DAST tool is an application security (AppSec) solution that in essence uses similar techniques that a cybercriminal would use to find potential weaknesses in web applications, while they are in use. A DAST tool is also referred to as a DAST test or a black box test, as it is performed without a view into an application’s architecture or internal source code.

The vulnerabilities DAST software can look for include configuration mistakes, application-specific problems and input/output validation issues, which could render a web application vulnerable to SQL injections or cross-site scripting. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cybercrime is up 600% and the need for AppSec tools to help developers create secure code is evident.  

SAST vs. DAST: What is the Difference?

Listed below are the key differences between static application security testing (SAST) software and DAST software:

Also read: Application Security Code Reviews: Best Practices

Top DAST Tools and Software

Veracode Dynamic Analysis

Veracode Dynamic Analysis is Veracode’s flagship DAST tool. The solution enables you to discover runtime vulnerabilities in web applications and application programming interfaces (APIs). 

Key Differentiators

• The Veracode Dynamic Analysis engine crawls and audits hundreds of web applications and APIs at the same time, thereby enhancing performance and reducing time to results.
• You can scan web applications and APIs from a single interface and behind a firewall.
• Orchestration of pre-release or post-production scans is possible. You can scan critical web applications and APIs in test or staging environments. 
• Veracode’s purpose-built API user interface (UI) eradicates scan tool re-training.
• You can schedule scans for specific time frames.
• With the DAST software, you can simply set up authentication for web applications and APIs.
• Obtain in-depth remediation guidance for web applications and APIs to escape the scan noise and focus on critical matters.
• Tickets in JIRA with patch recommendations — no PDFs.
• The tool empowers security teams to roll-up reporting by individual applications, teams and business units to view trends and deficiencies. 

Pricing: Schedule a demo today by filling out a simple form. 

Burp Suite Professional

Burp Suite Professional by PortSwigger is a fast and reliable web security testing toolkit. With the software, you can automate repetitive testing procedures, test for OWASP Top 10 web application security risks and modern web hacking techniques. 

Key Differentiators

• Expert-designed manual and semi-automated security testing tools enable smart automation. You can optimize workflows and thereby save time. 
• The DAST tool enables you to scan feature-strewn modern web applications, JavaScript and APIs for security vulnerabilities and record complicated authentication sequences. 
• Minimize false positives with out-of-band application security testing (OAST) to find ‘invisible’ vulnerabilities.  
• Productivity features like a powerful search function and project files enhance reliability and efficiency. 
• You can produce reports and share findings with end users. 
• Access hundreds of pre-written BApp Store extensions and create your own extensions with access to the DAST tool’s core functionality. 
• You can customize scan configurations with Burp Suite Professional. 

Pricing: You can purchase a 1-year Burp Suite Professional subscription for $399 per user. The subscription cannot be shared between multiple users, even if a single user is using the software at a time. 

WhiteHat Sentinel Dynamic

WhiteHat Sentinel Dynamic by NTT Application Security is an industry-proven DAST tool. The Software as a Service (SaaS) platform helps you discover vulnerabilities in your websites and web applications quickly and accurately. 

You can test for OWASP Top 10 web application vulnerabilities and 28 in all, including injection, SSL injection, SQL injection, application misconfiguration and content spoofing.   

Key Differentiators

• As WhiteHat Sentinel Dynamic is a cloud-based SaaS platform, you can scale rapidly and easily to meet security needs. 
• You can safely scan on your production server—you do not need a separate test environment. This saves time and capital.
• Continuous and on-demand risk assessments allow you to scan for vulnerabilities on the go.
• The solution is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology to enhance the efficiency of false-positive discovery and reduce verification time. 
• Obtain verified remediation advice from the NTT Application Security Service Delivery team.
• A Security Index score helps you determine the overall state of web application security.
• Combining the DAST tool’s AI technology with Service Delivery advice ensures near-zero false positives. 
• You can leverage reporting and analytics capabilities for in-depth visibility into the security of websites and web applications.  

Pricing: Reach out to the NTT Application Security team for product pricing details and to request a demo.  

Qualys Web Application Scanning

Qualys Web Application Scanning (WAS) helps discover and remediate security gaps in web applications and APIs. The fully cloud-based DAST solution is simple to employ and manage and scales to thousands of assets.

Key Differentiators

• The solution discovers and catalogs all web applications in your network and scales to thousands of applications. 
• You can tag web applications with your own labels and use those labels to limit access to scan data and control reporting.
• Qualys WAS dynamic deep scanning covers all web applications and APIs in your information technology (IT) infrastructure and gives you real-time visibility of OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities like SQL injection and cross-site scripting. 
• With the solution, you can continuously detect code security issues early and regularly, test for quality assurance and produce detailed reports. 
• The DAST tool scans websites and identifies and reports malware infections for immediate remediation. 
• From a central dashboard, you can initiate actions directly from the interface and view malware infection trends, infected web pages and scan activity. 
• You can integrate with other security and compliance systems such as IDS, ERM and SIEM via extensible XML-based APIs. 

Pricing: You can schedule a demo or contact the Qualys sales team for pricing information. 

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Acunetix

Acunetix by Invicti is an all-encompassing web application security scanner that enables you to speedily discover and remediate the vulnerabilities that place your web applications at risk of external attack. 

Key Differentiators

• Acunetix combines DAST and interactive application security testing (IAST) to detect over 7,000 vulnerabilities, including OWASP Top 10 risks, exposed databases and out-of-band vulnerabilities. 
• Obtain actionable scan results that reveal your vulnerabilities in minutes. The solution automatically prioritizes high-risk vulnerabilities. 
• You can scan multiple environments simultaneously and schedule recurring or one-time scans.  
• With Acunetix, you can eliminate false positives and pinpoint vulnerability locations.
• Acunetix experts provide remediation advice so that your developers can resolve security flaws themselves.  
• You can run automated scans almost anywhere, including unlinked pages, multi-level forms and complex paths, password-protected regions, JavaScript and HTML5 and single-page applications (SPAs).

Pricing: You can get a demo or quote by reaching out to their sales team.   

Choosing DAST tools

Through simulated outside attacks, dynamic application security testing tools gauge the security of web applications. The application security solution is a must-have in an increasingly unsafe IT space, which (unfortunately) houses several cybercriminals and cybercrime organizations. 

In this guide, we delved into the top DAST tools available today. Dive deeper into their utilities by visiting their product pages, exploring their features and pricing plans and analyzing peer-to-peer (P2P) reviews on leading research and review websites. Purchase a DAST software only after having performed due diligence. 

Read next: Best Encryption Software & Tools for 2022

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