HDS offers 3D scaling to better manage data storage

KUALA LUMPUR: This year global data volume is expected to rise to a whopping 1.5 exabytes, or about 1.5 billion terabytes, according to Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Ltd. This is equivalent to about 75,000 years of DVD-quality video data.

The vendor said the volume of data generated by businesses and other organisations is growing at a rate of about 50% year-over-year, with unstructured data such as e-mail, images, as well as audio and video files, amassing at 10x the rate of structured data.

HDS senior vice-president and general manager of Asia Pacific Kevin Eggleston said that data drives the world and that information is the new currency.

"How an enterprise manages its data, can determine the success of its business," he said, warning that businesses can fail if the company doesn't have fast access to vital information at the time it is needed.

Also, rapidly rising operational costs to manage the increasing volume of data have caused many IT departments to realise that yesterday's strategies of simply adding more storage - or increasing computing capacity - in the datacentre, doesn't cut it anymore.

"Today's datacentres must evolve into something that is more agile, scalable and efficient, to quickly adapt to changing business needs," Eggleston said.

And, that's just what HDS is providing to its customers with the recently launched Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) and Hitachi Command Suite (HCS) comprehensive management software, he said.

Both products are designed for a shared infrastructure that will enable applications and servers to scale beyond their typical limitations, while still providing confidence that the data is secure.

The secret behind this unique capability is a 3D scaling architecture and 3D management suite of tools. By providing 3D scaling in its storage and management platforms (not just capacity) Hitachi is enabling servers and applications to scale to new heights in consolidation, availability, agility and ease-of-use.

According to Eggleston, the VSP sets a new industry benchmark for virtualised, enterprise-class IT solution because it is the only storage architecture that can dynamically and concurrently scale up, scale out and scale deep for performance, capacity and support of multivendor storage.

Enterprises can scale up to support a large VMware cluster with thousands of virtual machines, or scale out to support hundreds of application servers with safe multi-tenancy.

The solution can also scale deep to include external storage as lower-cost tiers of storage, or to provide non-disruptive migration for technology refreshes or lease expiration, he said.

With more than 30% less power consumption for capacity stored than its competition, the VSP is also the most efficient enterprise storage platform to date, Eggleston claimed.

Meanwhile, the HCS offers multi-threading capability and has consolidated management databases so that it is simpler and more efficient to use, and has the ability to scale up to five million objects.

It also scales out with the ability to manage all data, and scales deep to provide closer integration with software and server APIs (application programming interfaces).(Tuesday October 19, 2010)

RHB Bank unveils new PayPal services

KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Banking Group is collaborating with online payment platform PayPal to offer two new payment services to its customers.

Called Top-Up and Send Money, the services can be accessed via RHB's Internet banking site and is available for all its users.

Like the name suggests, Top-Up will allow customers to top-up their PayPal account via funds in their current or savings account.

Top-Up for RHB customers happens in real-time, making it fast and convenient for customers to get online and start shopping, the bank said.

The bank's customers will also enjoy special PayPal merchant deals using WorldMart, an exclusive RHB online marketplace where users can browse products from over a hundred different online merchants selling a variety of products including electronic items, fashion and cosmetics and toys.

The Send Money service allows RHB Internet banking customers to send funds securely from their bank account to friends, family and businesses using only an e-mail address.

Upon receiving the e-mail from the payee, the receiver can then deposit the funds immediately into their PayPal account or open a PayPal account to accept the transfer if they don't already have one. The receiver can then either use the funds for their next online purchase or withdraw the money from RHB Bank or any supported bank for a fee.

PayPal says the service will support both domestic and international payments to 76 countries.

The Top-Up service is available now while the Send Money service will be available from Oct 26 onwards. (Wednesday October 20, 2010)

Maxis launches Pocket Doctor health portal

Maxis Berhad recently launched its new health portal, Pocket Doctor, which offers Maxis customers a one-stop information centre on a wide range of health topics.

The health reference mobile service is offered on multiple platforms including the internet, WAP and SMS and is powered by a reputable firm based in the United Kingdom and local medical sources of information.

Pocket Doctor offers services such as daily tips, special features, health news, health encyclopedia, health polls, symptoms analyser, first aid information, sexual health information and a body mass index (BMI) calculator.

Customers may enjoy the Pocket Doctor on their mobile phones by typing "ON DOC" and sending to 26100. They benefit from a 30-day free trial after which they will be charged RM3 every 30 days.

Published Date : 30 September 2010 The Star

Avaya aims Flare at videoconferencing market ( The Star on Wednesday September 22, 2010 )

KUALA LUMPUR: Avaya (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd has unveiled a family of videoconferencing products and services under the Avaya Flare Experience name, aimed at corporate customers.

The products enable Internet users - especially those with low bandwidth, i.e. less than one megabit per second (Mbps) - to enjoy high-definition (HD) videoconferencing with ease.

This is possible because the Avaya solution supports Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a signalling system used to initiate, manage and terminate interactive sessions between one or more users on the Internet.

"Employees who work from home, for example, do not have to worry about lag time or other troublesome issues during video-conferencing sessions with the offices," said Teh Chai Peng, country director of Avaya Malaysia.

Furthermore, the Flare Experience reduces the complexity of setting-up a videoconferencing session, thanks to easy-to-use features and an intuitive user interface.

One of the main components of the system is the Avaya Desktop Video Device, a Tablet PC that runs on the Android operating system. It has an 11.6in HD touchscreen, HD 720-pixel camera, Harman Kardon speakers, and built-in dual microphones.

Teh said the Desktop Video Device also has an intuitive user interface. Users only need to drag-and-drop icons to enable voice and video calls or to initiate a videoconferencing session.

"Users can even choose to take a call separately for sidebar interactions via voice, e-mail or instant messaging. They can later rejoin the group without interrupting the in-progress videoconferencing call," she added.

With the Desktop Video Device, a participating employee's contact information - everything from phone numbers to Facebook account to Twitter name - is made available to the other participants.

The users can easily contact the person with whom they want to collaborate, check on his or her availability, select the preferred mode of communication, or invite him or her to a videoconferencing session.

Other components of the Flare Experience include the Avaya collaboration server, Avaya 9600 Series deskphones, and Avaya videoconferencing software.

The solutions are available for videoconferencing on desktop PCs and full-scale setups in conference rooms of all sizes.

Avaya also provides consulting services to its customers to ensure that the videoconferencing systems are working smoothly.

Also available is Avaya web.alive - a software-as-a-service platform which enables a virtual reality meeting space for businesses to conduct training sessions across great distances.

The price of Avaya's Flare Experience solutions depends on the configuration of the videoconferencing system.

For example, a combination of its Desktop Video Device and One-X Communicator videoconferencing software retails at US$3,700 (RM12,000). The solutions will be available in Malaysia from November.

How the Data Can Be Stored for a Long Time?

Many different forms of storage, based on various natural phenomena, have been invented. So far, no practical universal storage medium exists, and all forms of storage have some drawbacks. Therefore a computer system usually contains several kinds of storage, each with an individual purpose. The computer system is the main data storage and commonly used by people to store the data for a long time. The most common unit of storage is the byte, equal to 8 bits. A piece of information can be handled by any computer whose storage space is large enough to accommodate the binary representation of the piece of information, or simply data. For example, using eight million bits, or about one megabyte, a typical computer could store a short novel.

Traditionally the most important part of every computer is the central processing unit (CPU, or simply a processor), because it actually operates on data, performs any calculations, and controls all the other components. In practice, almost all computers use a variety of memory types, organized in a storage hierarchy around the CPU, as a trade-off between performance and cost. Generally, the lower a storage is in the hierarchy, the lesser its bandwidth and the greater its access latency is from the CPU. This traditional division of storage to primary, secondary, tertiary and off-line storage is also guided by cost per bit.

The first hierarchy of storage is primary storage (or main memory or internal memory), often referred to simply as memory, is the only one directly accessible to the CPU. The CPU continuously reads instructions stored there and executes them as required. Any data actively operated on is also stored there in uniform manner.

Then, followed by secondary storage (or external memory) differs from primary storage in that it is not directly accessible by the CPU. The computer usually uses its input/output channels to access secondary storage and transfers the desired data using intermediate area in primary storage. Secondary storage does not lose the data when the device is powered down—it is non-volatile. Per unit, it is typically also two orders of magnitude less expensive than primary storage. Consequently, modern computer systems typically have two orders of magnitude more secondary storage than primary storage and data is kept for a longer time there.
In modern computers, hard disk drives are usually used as secondary storage. The time taken to access a given byte of information stored on a hard disk is typically a few thousandths of a second, or milliseconds. Some other examples of secondary storage technologies are: flash memory (e.g. USB flash drives or keys), floppy disks, magnetic tape, paper tape, punched cards, standalone RAM disks, and Iomega Zip drives.

After that, the tertiary storage or tertiary memory provides a third level of storage. Typically it involves a robotic mechanism which will mount (insert) and dismount removable mass storage media into a storage device according to the system's demands, this data is often copied to secondary storage before use. It is primarily used for archival of rarely accessed information since it is much slower than secondary storage (e.g. 5–60 seconds vs. 1-10 milliseconds). This is primarily useful for extraordinarily large data stores, accessed without human operators. Typical examples include tape libraries and optical jukeboxes.

While in the flow of hierarchy is an off-line storage is a computer data storage on a medium or a device that is not under the control of a processing unit.The medium is recorded, usually in a secondary or tertiary storage device, and then physically removed or disconnected. It must be inserted or connected by a human operator before a computer can access it again. Unlike tertiary storage, it cannot be accessed without human interaction.
Off-line storage increases general information security, since it is physically inaccessible from a computer, and data confidentiality or integrity cannot be affected by computer-based attack techniques. Also, if the information stored for archival purposes is accessed seldom or never, off-line storage is less expensive than tertiary storage.

In modern personal computers, most secondary and tertiary storage media are also used for off-line storage. Optical discs and flash memory devices are most popular, and to much lesser extent removable hard disk drives. In enterprise uses, magnetic tape is predominant. Older examples are floppy disks, Zip disks, or punched cards.

Based on the hierarchy of storage, the data are able to keep in longer time period which is the data will be store in the each of example of the four types hierarchy of storage either primary, secondary, tertiary or offline storage.

MIS750

Information Technology Management (MIS750)

Course Description

An information system (IS) collects, processes, stores, analyzes, and disseminates information for a specific purpose “Application”. ( according to textbook)

Information Technology Management is concerned with exploring and understanding Information Technology as a corporate resource that determines both the strategic and operational capabilities of the firm in designing and developing products and services for maximum customer satisfaction, corporate productivity, profitability and competitiveness.

IT Management is a different subject from Management Information Systems. Management Information Systems refer to information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making. IT Management, as stated in the above definition, refers to the IT related management activities in organizations. MIS as it is referred to is focus mainly on the business aspect with a strong input into the technology phase of the business/organization.(according to wikipedia)

Education's memories

My memories during degree level in UiTM Campus Dungun.......

My degree's classmate in UiTM Dungun