Sure, ChatGPT and other tools like it can miscalculate math, the drawing of hands, and even love connections between human and bot, but they are increasingly helpful to developers as enterprises wonder how to put AI to work.

ChatGPT offers a time-saving first sketch for coders—one that can be placed into an editor, but still requires a human touch.

“One should never be copy-pasting something out of ChatGPT or somewhere else and just running that code in production; that’s just a recipe for disaster,” said Randy Lariar, practice director for big data and analytics at the consultancy Optiv. “But if you’re an experienced developer…you can certainly get a lot of acceleration.”

This is your copilot speaking. Mike Lempner, VP of engineering at the credit card and financial-services company Mission Lane, needed to move data from the project-management platform Jira to a new system.

A data-migration tool could do the job, but the developers turned to a cheaper option, ChatGPT, to get the code going.

They prompted the bot: Can you write python code that will extract tasks, subtasks, comments, and attachments from Jira.

“Within seconds, there were dozens of lines of code in Python that they were literally able to copy and paste and put it into an editor,” Lempner told IT Brew.

Read more here.—BH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

With cyber threats and ransomware lurking around every dark corner, businesses need a hero. One with resiliency. One that offers data security, data recovery, and data freedom.

That hero is Veeam Data Platform.

Veeam has a proven track record of rescuing companies from dire data situations. Just watch what happens when a hacker threatens a company dataverse. Spoiler: Action figures bring the ka-pow! to the cyberattack.

Veeam’s valiant efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. They reached #1 in IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker. And they gave all the credit to their community of data-protected pros (ahem, that could be you).

Protection promotes peace of mind. With Veeam, you’ll rest assured that your data is secure and available—always. Get started.

It’s no longer 2022, but for those focused on cybersecurity, the Log4j vulnerability that threatened systems worldwide still looms large.

The Log4j threat changed the game, Endor Labs CEO and Founder Varun Badhwar told IT Brew. The open-source nature of Log4j and its eventual exploitation using the Log4Shell vulnerability “highlighted the lack of visibility we have, the lack of governance and controls we have on this,” Badhwar said.

“Most organizations were unprepared to even understand where they were using Log4j,” he added.

Senatorial moves. One place that won’t forget the incident? The Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which on March 29, passed the bipartisan Securing Open Source Software Act with an 11–1 vote. Log4j loomed large in the bill’s passage, as cosponsor and committee chair Sen. Gary Peters noted in a statement on the bill.

“The Log4j incident demonstrated that we must work to secure open-source software against persistent and evolving cybersecurity threats,” Peters said.

Peters and cosponsor Sen. Josh Hawley are directing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to analyze open-source software used by the government and mitigate threats from the systems. Hawley framed it in national security terms, calling the legislation “a great step toward better understanding the risk associated with software deficiencies, and better defending the US government and its critical infrastructure from cyberattacks by our enemies.”

Read more here.—EH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

Up is down. Unless you’re a company, at least.

When it comes to building smart cities, the best way to access cash seems to be increasingly through corporate funding.

That’s according to an analysis from Mercom Capital. The Texas-based financial services group released its overview of energy storage and smart grid funding, showing that funding for smart grids has increased year over year from Q1 2022, from $658 million to $1.3 billion—but dropped from the $1.9 billion raised in Q4 2022.

The biggest drop was seen in venture capital funding. Smart grid VC investment declined 66% from Q4 2022, from $846 million last year to $280 million. YoY VC funding dropped 14%, from $327 million in Q1 2022.

It was a different story for corporate funding. While funding declined to $1.1 billion in Q1 2023 from Q4 2022’s $1.9 billion, it was a sizable increase year over year from Q1 2022’s $331 million.

Smart cities are increasingly important to the tech industry. IT Brew reported on the intersection of smart cities and tech jobs earlier in April, showing that the crossover between smart city capabilities and higher levels of tech employment is real and powering local economies.

Tech capital funders are taking notice—one grid at a time.—EH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

Did you know 94% of businesses are using cloud services in 2023? In today’s digital landscape, cloud services are a must in most IT infrastructures. Cloud elasticity and cloud scalability are two of the top cloud strategies IT professionals need to be familiar with—and it’s those who understand both who can help businesses make informed decisions.

Check out this IT Brew resource to learn more about why the cloud matters, the advantages and disadvantages of cloud elasticity and scalability, and how to know which strategy is best for your business.

Today’s top IT reads.

Stat: 87% and 84%. Those are the percentages of corporate IT managers and workers, respectively, who told Wakefield pollsters their organizations have seen negative impacts from workplace surveillance. (Computer Weekly)

Quote: “This is a significant blow to the deal completing.”—Piers Harding-Rolls, a gaming researcher at Ampere Analysis, on UK antitrust regulator’s decision to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision (the New York Times)

Read: A guide to making sure your digital accounts stay secure after your mortal shell shuts off its on-prem for the last time and migrates to that big cloud in the sky. (the Wall Street Journal)

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