Category Archives: Uncategorized

Architecting IoT: Notes, Concepts & Ideas!

Leave a reply

What is IoT?

“Internet of Things (IoT) is an integrated part of future Internet and could be defined as a dynamic global network infrastructure with self-configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication protocols where physical and virtual ‘things’ have identities, physical attributes, and virtual personalities and use intelligent interfaces, and are seamlessly integrated into the information network”

What is IoT NOT?

  • Ubiquitous passive computing: this does not require object or internet infra
  • IP: not linked to a specific protocol
  • Communication technology: IOT requires communication but it not prescribes how it must be done
  • Embedded device (like RFID): there must be a information infrastructure backend
  • Applications: combination of hardware and software
  • The internet of people: objects are an important aspect
  • Intranet or Extranet of Things: not limited to a small group of stakeholders (=closed-loop instead of open-loop)

In this presentation following topics are coffered

  • What is IoT?
  • What does IoT Architecture looks like?
  • What is Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS)?
  • What is Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge (Azure Edge)?
  • What is Open Platform Communication’s Unified Architecture (OPC-UA)?
IoT Architecture notes concepts ideasDownload
Share this postSave this post

12 KPI’s for Every Start-Up!

Leave a reply

Running a start-up requires an obsessive focus on KPI’s. Phil Nadel identified 12 key KPI’s.

12 KPI’s for every start-up:

  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC). CAC is the amount of money you need to spend on sales, marketing and related expenses, on average, to acquire a new customer. This measures marketing efficiency.
  • Customer retention rate/churn rate. Retention rate is the percentage of paying customers that remain a customer. High retention rate indicates the product’s stickiness with customer to converse is the churn rate.
  • Lifetime value (LTV) is the measurement of the net value of an average customer to your business over the estimated life of the relationship with your company. Measures the sustainability of the company.
  • Golden metric or CAC/LTV ratio. How much investment does it take to acquire a customer compared how much revenue will that customer generate. Measures business efficiency.
  • CAC recovery time.  How long it takes for a customer to generate enough net revenue to cover the CAC. CAC recovery time has a direct impact on cash flow and, consequentially, runway.
  • Overhead. What the companies fixed costs and reflects the capital efficiency. How many expenses have no direct link with the good sold.
  • Monthly burn or burn rate. This is simply the net amount of cash flow for a month when net cash flow is negative. How much cash is flowing out the company in the early investment period.
  • Runway. Runway is the measure of the amount of time until the company runs out of cash, expressed in terms of months. Expressed as remaining cash over burn rate. Preferably in the range of 12-18 months.
  • Profit margin and Return on Investment (ROI). How much profit is generate. This is an indicator of scalability and sustainability.
  • Conversion rate. How many prospects are turned into customers. How many marketing contacts are turned into sales. Measures business process efficiency.
  • Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV). GMV is the overall dollar value of sales of goods or services purchased through a marketplace. Measures the companies growth potential.
  • Monthly Active Users (MAU). MAU is the number of unique users who engage with the site or app in a 30-day period. Helps to determine the revenue potential. How good is the company in the monetization of its business.
Start-Ups-KPIs-and-CSFsDownload
Share this postSave this post

Innovating is not Easy, Preparation is Key!

Leave a reply

Four reasons why innovation fail!

No Execution Power:

  • Execute ideas, do not just gather ideas!
  • Not only brainstorm on ideas but being empowered to realize ideas!

Missing Institutionalization of Innovation

  • If we are working 9:00 – 19:00 at the client, when are we going to innovate?
  • Make innovation part of the yearly business cycle: marketing – sales – finance!
  • If people only can work on the short term performance there will be no attention to the long term innovation?

No Continuous Innovation Process:

  • Not invented here syndrome: innovation often forgets to look from outside-in to apply insights from the outside!
  • Speed and momentum are important: hackathons, innovation Fridays … focus on less ideas but realize them and expand when maturity is reached!

Missing Flexibility for Innovation:

  • Unpredictability means nobody can’t predict the outcome. Sometimes great ideas lead to bad or unexpected results!
  • Be able to deal with continuous change. Being able to let go and not want to control everything. Pivot to the next thing!
Share this postSave this post

Concepts of Application Security

Leave a reply

Confidentiality

  • Definition: Confidentiality means that sensitive information should not be readable by unauthorized persons.  For a part, confidentiality can be achieved by authentication and authorization.  In this chapter, we discuss other confidentiality measures you can take to keep private information private.
  • Remediation: SSL + Cryptography, browser settings: disable browser features, directory listing on web-server, cached data + cookies.

Integrity

  • Definition: Integrity means that data should not be able to be changed during data transmission.  If data is tampered with, this should be detected.
  • Remediation: SSL + Cryptography.

Authentication

  • Definition: Authentication means we should assure that only legitimate persons are able to access the application.  During authentication, the identity of a user is established, and his credentials are checked.
  • Remediation: Authentication + Access Control, caching authentication tokens, account locked out after retries, hard-coded credentials in code, difficult and encrypted session ID’s, limit number of sessions, session timeout, no default passwords, secure kept open channels, secure administrative interfaces, apply patches, secure DB connections.

Authorization

  • Definition: Authorization means we should control access to application resources by authenticated users or code.
  • Remediation: Code-access security, role based security, secured DB accounts, secure DB admins to avoid direct data manipulation bypassing the system.

Non-repudiation

  • Definition: Non-repudiation, in its simplest form, means that proof should be provided about the fact that a certain message has been sent by a certain party.  Non-repudiation of this kind can be obtained by using cryptography: digital signatures assure that a certain message is sent by the owner of a certain private key, and that the message has not been tampered with. 
  • Remediation: SSL + Cryptography

Availability

  • Definition: Availability means that we should prevent attacks that try to make the application unavailable for legitimate users of the application.
  • Remediation: Input Validation, HTTP request validation, input length validation, unsupported characters, character set validation.

More details in the following overview slide deck:

Application Security OverviewDownload
Share this postSave this post