the tech stuff

Submitted by ylian-saint-hilaire (Intel) on March 8, 2016

Mesh Commander 0.1.6 was just released. This is the latest version of our next generation Intel® AMT software that is entirely built using web based technologies. In this version we made many more bug fixes but more importantly, we added Agent Presence support so that Intel AMT can now track and take actions based on applications running in the operating system. This is our first pass at Agent Presence support, so there is more features to be added moving forward. Still, this allows users of Web Commander to get stared with it.

Agent Presence allows an administrator to setup watchdogs (GUID’s) in Intel® AMT that will be tracked. When OS applications signal watchdogs at regular intervals, it indicates to Intel AMT that they are alive and working. When an application stops signaling, Intel® AMT can log and take actions based on state transitions. For this first version, we only support logging watchdog transitions, but more to come in the future.

Posted by Raejeanne Skillern in The Data Stack on Feb 24, 2016 2:52:00 PM

The rise of the digital services economy demands a new generation of data center infrastructure, one that is software-defined and provides data center-wide resource pooling for efficiency. This next-generation architecture must be ready for the data rates of 5G networks and an ever-larger flood of bits and bytes from billions of connected devices and the Internet of Things.

This isn’t just talk of the future. This is a look at what is here today in the form of next-generation data center solutions that are in the spotlight this week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona.

In one of these solutions, Ericsson used the MWC event to showcase a new strategic partnership with Quanta Computer to scale the design, development, and manufacturing of an expanded, next-generation Ericsson Hyperscale Datacenter System 8000.

This Ericsson solution is based on a software-defined architecture that leverages key Intel technologies for the next-generation data center, including alignment to the Intel® Rack Scale Architecture and Open Compute Project (OCP) specifications. Ericsson plans to offer the forward-looking solution in both existing form factors and an OCP form factor, with all designs and component alternatives managed via a common software control plane.

To further accelerate the development of the Hyperscale Datacenter System 8000 solution and open architectures for hyperscale data centers, Ericsson has joined the Open Compute Project as a platinum-level member. The company is focusing its OCP efforts on hardware design for scale-out data center solutions that will drive the adoption of the Intel Rack Scale Architecture with open form factors.

This is a very powerful mix—best practices from the Open Compute Project and Intel® Rack Scale Architecture coupled with software-defined infrastructure to deliver advanced automation capabilities for the next-generation cloud data center. Put it all together and you’re poised to help companies capitalize on the opportunities brought by lightning-fast 5G networks and billions of connected devices.

Want to make this story even better? In another MWC announcement, Ericsson unveiled its plans to extend its cloud transformation services and infrastructure portfolio to leverage Amazon Web Services. Under a new global alliance, Ericsson and AWS will work together to accelerate cloud transformation for communication service providers by driving the convergence of mobile infrastructure and cloud.

Posted by WayneWu Dec 17, 2015

Technology can solve complex healthcare problems, whether that be analysing large volumes of genomic data or allowing a specialist to see a 3D image of a beating heart, but sometimes we often overlook the simple, day-to-day tasks where technology is having meaningful impact for patients and healthcare professionals today.

Providing Efficiency in Clinician’s Workflow

I’m seeing a lot of interest and excitement here in China around the Internet of Things in healthcare. Sensors are increasingly being used to not only provide more efficiency in a clinician’s workflow in a hospital setting but also to help those patients who require care in the home to live more independent lives.

A great example in development that I’d like to share is the Intel Edison-based uSleepCare intelligent bed which is able to record a patient’s vital signs such as rate and depth of breathing, heart-rate and HRV without the need for nurse intervention. Movement sensors also help to identify where there may be cause for concern over pressure ulcers or patients may fall out of their bed for example, which may prolong a hospital stay.

Early Identification of Abnormalities

The sensors not only collect data but also use WiFi to transmit that data seamlessly to a cloud platform for analysis which can then be used in a variety of meaningful ways. The most obvious and pressing data use demand is for early identification of abnormalities which can alert nursing staff to the need for human intervention, thus reducing the requirements to have nurses ‘doing the rounds’ which is resource-intensive and costly for providers.

Additionally the archive of data helps clinicians tackle chronic diseases at the patient level, spotting trends where patients may having a worsening or improving condition. This is particularly valuable as devices such as the UsleepCare intelligent bed become available in a homecare setting. Imagine a community nurse being able to prioritise visits to those patients who are showing abnormal signs as recorded by IoT sensors via alerts, all on a mobile device in real-time. This is truly mobile healthcare, delivering the right care where it is needed and when it is needed, with the right information at their fingertips.

Data Collection Bring Efficiencies

And as this sensor technology becomes more prevalent in both the hospital and homecare setting, the data becomes increasingly useful at a population level too. It will assist providers in spotting trends which will in turn help them to become more efficient and allocate resources where appropriate.

All of which ultimately benefits the patient, particularly those with chronic conditions. They will perhaps spend less time in hospital with an improved level of care and be able to spend more time at home, with the confidence that their condition is being monitored by a healthcare professional 24/7.

Online storage is an integral part of life now, but with so many available it’s hard to decide which one to use. To help you make the right choice we’ve rounded up and tested 14 of the best cloud storage services, including Google Drive, Dropbox, Mega, Tresorit, Copy, pCloud, and OneDrive.

Dropbox is one of the only services to offer clients for Linux and Blackberry, alongside the usual Windows, Mac OS X, Android and iOS standards. There’s an official Windows Phone app too.

The free Basic account comes with a paltry 2GB of storage. For documents this is huge, but if you want to store any kind of media – photos, music, or video - it will disappear very fast. You can upgrade to the 1TB plan for £7.99 per month, but Dropbox offers 500MB of additional free storage for each friend you get to sign up to the service - with a limit of 16GB.

You can gain 1GB more by setting up a Mailbox account and you’ll get 250MB just for taking a tour of the Dropbox basics, too. Enabling the camera upload feature will gain you 3GB, and automatically backup your smartphone/tablet photos to the cloud. We’ve seen deals where you get 50GB of Dropbox space for two years when you buy certain phones and tablets.

Dropbox works by creating a local folder on your device or PC that then syncs with an online version. This means you have all your data available whether you are on or offline. This doesn’t apply to mobile devices, though: you can make select files available offline on your tablet or smartphone (they’re all offline by default), and offline editing is among the best we’ve seen.

Folders and files can also be shared with others but you can’t set permissions on the Basic account, so files can be edited (and even deleted) by other users. The Basic account isn’t a total disaster, though, as Dropbox backs up any changes to files for 30 days. So if you need an older version or want to undelete a file, it’s still there.

If you pay £7.99 per month to get the Dropbox Pro account, you will be able to enable read-only permissions as well as setting passwords and expirations for shared links.

Security features include two-step authentication (always worth turning on) and all files held on the Dropbox servers are encrypted by AES 256-bit encryption, albeit employed from Dropbox’s side rather than the user, with SSL for the data being uploaded and downloaded.

Verdict

ERP vs. Management Software The classification of a particular management software such as ERP determines that has a series of requirements and functionalities that enable differentiation. In the software market today is customary for any management suite seeks greater recognition (usually unrealistic, since it is also necessary normal management software ERP, only for different levels) because of be called as ERP software rather than management. So we can see how marketing strategies that certain management programs that have been in the market for several years, abruptly changed its name to ERP, seeking a niche top job (usually accompanied by higher pay, recognition, etc.) without increasing proportionately functionality.

The main difference is in the definition. An ERP is an application that integrates into a single system all the business processes of a company. Additionally it is intended that all data is available all the time for everyone in the company (ignoring for the moment permissions availability, etc) in a centralized manner.

This rules as those independent ERP programs based on multiple applications (commonly referred to suites) or modular duplicating information (even if the automatically link) or not centralized in a single database. It also eliminates programs that are based on database systems of independent files (without motor database).

Moreover the traditional definition tells us that the ERP are designed to model and automate all core processes in order to integrate information across the enterprise, eliminating complex connections between different systems. An ERP is a software architecture that facilitates the flow of information between the functions of manufacturing, logistics, finance and human resources of a company.

So the feature of the centralized database and ERP components that interact with each other, consolidating all operations should be added that in an ERP system data is entered once and must maintain consistency and be complete. As a side feature can be added that, normally, companies need to modify some of its processes to align with the ERP system. It is what is known as Business Process Reengineering.

These basic features should allow basically differentiate between management suite (usually composed of programs or billing and accounting modules) and a pure ERP that should include all the features that a business may need (project management, campaign management, e-commerce , phased production, traceability, quality management, decentralized management or centralized boxes (POS) electronic payment gateways, management of the supply chain, logistics, etc.) integrated and linked together. Not enough to have some of these features. You really need to have all, even if companies do not always need them at this time. But must be available internally to meet future needs.

Knowing whether or not a company needs an ERP or a simple suite of management is another matter, however the definition and characteristics of an ERP should be clear.

For example the proper management of the supply chain is vital for a company that needs an ERP (a large part of business processes depend on the supply chain and its associated logistics), but may not be for much other than only need to automate a part of their business processes. Which first must use an ERP is clear that the second is enough a suite of simple management, may be more debatable (depending on the actual needs of the company after going through a process reengineering), which it is not fair or real, is commercially called ERP management suite used by the second company.

By Roger Chandler on September 21, 2015

One of the ways we take our stewardship of Moore’s Law seriously at Intel is by sponsoring contests and challenges for the developer community. With the help of partners, we offer developers incentives and platforms that spur the advancement of technology, leading to new ways to make lives better and help real people.

I’m excited to share some details about the Intel Modern Code Challenge, a student-only contest for parallel programmers around the world, just launched in partnership with CERN openlab and Newcastle University. Entrants will use modern code principles to optimize an application to make it run as fast as possible. This faster code will then be made available to the broader research community as open source.

The code being optimized is part of a CERN openlab project that has the overall aim of helping researchers identify the causes and potential treatments for neurodevelopmental diseases such as epilepsy, autism, and schizophrenia. By optimizing this brain-simulation code for parallelization, students will be helping scientists analyze huge pools of data faster and more efficiently.

The prizes awarded in this challenge are really amazing. The student with the fastest optimized code wins the Grand Prize—a coveted nine-week internship at CERN openlab located at the CERN headquarters near Geneva, Switzerland. For context, thousands of students compete for only a handful of these internships every year. Additionally, three First Place winners receive a trip to Switzerland and a tour of CERN, while three Second Place winners attend the Supercomputing Conference 2016 (SC16).

The Challenge is sponsored by Intel’s Software & Services Group and is open now until October 29, 2015. If you or someone you know is a student programmer with experience in programming for parallel computing or an interest in learning more, come to the Intel Modern Code Challenge site for all the details.

By Rose Schooler on January 13, 2016

The Intel Internet of Things (IoT) is showing its transformative potential all around the world.  Recently I was in Japan, where we brought together industry partners from across Asia to share and showcase the latest in IoT technology and solutions. We also showcased the analytics insights generated by all that technology. IoT is entering a ‘2.0’ era in which, with much of the technology operational and the necessary enabling open standards in place, tremendous new value is being created.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Asia, where governments and enterprises are already using IoT to address challenges and create opportunities. Singapore’s bold vision to become a Smart Nation, for instance, is harnessing IoT to deliver sophisticated e-government services. India’s progress on its Unique Identification(UID) project, meanwhile, is connecting literally billions of citizens to government services in innovative new ways.

IDC’s most recent IoT Market Forecast for Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) notes the momentum toward smarter cities in Asia.  According to the firm, IoT “has matured considerably over the past year, with a number of large government initiatives across the APeJ, and China in particular, driving demand.” IDC predicts that the region’s IoT market will more than double to $583 billion by 2020.

Intel is helping create demand for Asia-based ODMs by working with large-scale systems integration (SI) partners such as Accenture, Fujitsu, Infosys, L&T, NTT, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Wipro. These SI partners have tremendous potential to scale Intel-based IoT offerings into multiple markets and industry segments around the world. Combined with major ODM partners such as Advantech, Nexcom, ECS and Gigabyte – and Intel’s own open, secure, scalable Intel IoT Platform – we believe that we offer an unrivalled value proposition for the market.

Asia is also where we see some of the most exciting customer engagements. In Japan, major technology companies such as Epson are pioneering the future of head-worn displays for use in demanding industrial environments. In Australia, an insurance company already offers an policy which features an Intel-based smartwatch as an edge sensor in a a broader IoT-based wellness program. In Taiwan, a facilities owner is targeting 30 percent energy savings by retrofitting an existing, or “brownfield” building with smart sensors. We’ve helped a government in Southeast Asia pilot IoT-based solutions that improve rice yields and water utilization. In factories across the region, industrial customers are minimizing unplanned downtime and supply chain disruption through IoT-based predictive maintenance. In one example, Fusheng developed a smart factory, based on the Intel IoT Platform, that predicts and detects maintenance needs.

Posted by David Cohen in The Data Stack on Feb 3, 2016 12:10:28 PM

There are many benefits to this new approach that pools storage resources. In lots of ways, those benefits are similar to the benefits delivered by pools of virtualized servers and virtualized networking resources. For starters, cloudification of storage enables greater IT agility and easier management, because storage resources can now be allocated and managed via a central console. This eliminates the need to coordinate the work of teams of people to configure storage systems in order to deploy or scale an application. What used to take days or weeks can now be done in minutes.

And then there are the all-important financial benefits. A cloud approach to storage can greatly increase the utilization of the underlying storage arrays. And then there are the all-important financial benefits. A cloud approach to storage can greatly increase the utilization of the storage infrastructure; deferring capital outlays and reducing operational costs.

This increased utilization becomes all the more important with ongoing data growth. The old model of continually adding storage arrays to keep pace with data growth and new data retention requirements is no longer sustainable. The costs are simply too high for all those new storage arrays and the data center floor space that they consume. We now have to do more to reclaim the value of the resources we already have in place.

Cloudification isn’t a new concept, of course. The giants of the cloud world—such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services—have taken this approach from their earliest days. It is one of their keys to delivering high-performance data services at a huge scale and a relatively low cost. What is new is the introduction of cloud storage in enterprise environments. As I noted in my blog on non-volatile memory technologies, today’s cloud service providers are, in effect, showing enterprises the path to more efficient data centers and increased IT agility.

Many vendors are stepping up to help enterprises make the move to on-premises cloud-style storage. Embodiments of the cloudification concept include Google’s GFS and its successor Colossus, Facebook’s HDFS, Microsoft’s Windows Azure Storage (WAS), Red Hat’s Ceph/Rados (and GlusterFS), Nutanix’s Distributed File System (NDFS), among many others.

The Technical View

At this point, I will walk through the architecture of a cloud storage environment, for the benefit of those who want the more technical view.

Regardless of the scale or vendor, most of the implementations share the same storage system architecture. That architecture has three main components: a name service, a two-tiered storage service, and a replicated log service. The architectural drill-down looks like this:

The “name service” is a directory of all the volume instances currently being managed. Volumes are logical data containers, each with a unique name—in other words a namespace of named-objects. A user of storage services attaches to their volume via a directory lookup that resolves the name to the actual data container.

This data container actually resides in a two-tier storage service. The frontend tier is optimized for memory. All requests submitted by end-users are handled by this tier: metadata lookups as well as servicing read requests out of cache and appending write operations to the log.

The backend tier of the storage service provides a device-based, stable store. The tier is composed of a set of device pools, each pool providing a different class of service. Simplistically, one can imagine this backend tier supporting two device pools. One pool provides high performance but has a relatively small amount of capacity. The second pool provides reduced performance but a huge amount of capacity.

Submitted by hernan-alijo (Intel) on December 29, 2015

When Appcircus launched in 2010 it set out to help developers to build better apps and to get more visibility for their innovative apps. 5 years later, the Appcircus Challenges incubated more than 400 apps addressing challenge ranging from Sanitation to Traffic, Social Inclusion and more. With now over 180 app pitching events in over 80 cities, Appcircus has given a voice to app developers from all over the world. At the end of a season, Appcircus invites the 16 best apps to come to Barcelona and pitch at it’s Mobile Premier Awards on the first day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Appcircus and Intel look back at a long and fruitful collaboration constantly seeking to bring value to developers worldwide. Our shared goal to help developers to succeed in the app industry has again brought us on an exciting journey around the world. 2015 has seen amazing emerging app talent participating in our events from Dubai to Helsinki, Lagos to San Francisco, Berlin to Bogota and many more. With it’s Appcircus engagement Intel reaches out to more than 3000 developers worldwide training them on the suite of Intel Android Tools. A part from training developers our goal this year was to also showcase great x86 Android apps to highlight the power of Intel Android Tools and the advantages of getting apps ready for x86 devices.

This year Intel is providing air tickets and MWC passes to up to 16 app developers from this Appcircus season to come to Barcelona and pitch at the Mobile Premier Awards 2016

Among the apps that are eligible for the special Intel prize we were glad to find creativity, innovation and a deep understanding of the software ecosystem. Take a look at some of them:

Guidecentral a fun and visual way to discover DIY ideas (do it yourself projects), learn new skills and meet amazing people who share your passions.

Glovo an urban colaborative delivery service (works in Madrid, Barcelona y Valencia). They buy, pick and deliver any product that you want within those cities.

Munchery an app to receive chef-cooked meals right to your door. Top Cities Served: San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Mateo, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Berkeley, and more.

App in the Air a  personal flying assistant that keeps you up-to-date with your flight: real time status, airport tips and in-airport navigation maps, flight profile with all your flights logged.

Go Flow a way to share reports, real-time notifications and photos with other outdoors lovers in the world. Available for Surfing, Boating, Cycling, Diving, Fishing, Golfing, Kitesurfing, Paddleboarding, Skateboarding and Snow Sports.

Last November, reports started circulating — stemming from a Wall Street Journal article — that Google would kill off its popular Chromebook lineup in favor of making the move entirely to Android by 2017. This maneuver made sense, given the flexibility of Android, something that’s so clearly absent from Google’s other operating system, Chrome OS. It also seemed plausible because of the recently announced, keyboard-equipped Pixel C tablet, which has been available for purchase since mid-December.

Google dismissed those allegations, likely in an attempt to retain the Chromebook’s relevance in the midst of a major product line transition. A response on the Chrome Blog refuted all claims that the company was looking to “phase out” Chrome OS, and instead, asserted that Google was “working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems,” Android and Chrome OS alike.

ERP vs. Management Software The classification of a particular management software such as ERP determines that has a series of requirements and functionalities that enable differentiation. In the software market today is customary for any management suite seeks greater recognition (usually unrealistic, since it is also necessary normal management software ERP, only for different levels) because of be called as ERP software rather than management. So we can see how marketing strategies that certain management programs that have been in the market for several years, abruptly changed its name to ERP, seeking a niche top job (usually accompanied by higher pay, recognition, etc.) without increasing proportionately functionality.

The main difference is in the definition. An ERP is an application that integrates into a single system all the business processes of a company. Additionally it is intended that all data is available all the time for everyone in the company (ignoring for the moment permissions availability, etc) in a centralized manner.

This rules as those independent ERP programs based on multiple applications (commonly referred to suites) or modular duplicating information (even if the automatically link) or not centralized in a single database. It also eliminates programs that are based on database systems of independent files (without motor database).

Moreover the traditional definition tells us that the ERP are designed to model and automate all core processes in order to integrate information across the enterprise, eliminating complex connections between different systems. An ERP is a software architecture that facilitates the flow of information between the functions of manufacturing, logistics, finance and human resources of a company.

So the feature of the centralized database and ERP components that interact with each other, consolidating all operations should be added that in an ERP system data is entered once and must maintain consistency and be complete. As a side feature can be added that, normally, companies need to modify some of its processes to align with the ERP system. It is what is known as Business Process Reengineering.

These basic features should allow basically differentiate between management suite (usually composed of programs or billing and accounting modules) and a pure ERP that should include all the features that a business may need (project management, campaign management, e-commerce , phased production, traceability, quality management, decentralized management or centralized boxes (POS) electronic payment gateways, management of the supply chain, logistics, etc.) integrated and linked together. Not enough to have some of these features. You really need to have all, even if companies do not always need them at this time. But must be available internally to meet future needs.

Knowing whether or not a company needs an ERP or a simple suite of management is another matter, however the definition and characteristics of an ERP should be clear.

For example the proper management of the supply chain is vital for a company that needs an ERP (a large part of business processes depend on the supply chain and its associated logistics), but may not be for much other than only need to automate a part of their business processes. Which first must use an ERP is clear that the second is enough a suite of simple management, may be more debatable (depending on the actual needs of the company after going through a process reengineering), which it is not fair or real, is commercially called ERP management suite used by the second company.

SRM The management of relationships with suppliers (suppliers, creditors) is a term that describes the methods and processes of a company or institution buying. This can be for the purchase of supplies for internal use, the purchase of raw materials for consumption during the manufacturing process, or to purchase goods inventory to be resold as products in distribution and retail.

The role of supply management of an organization is responsible for various aspects of the procurement of goods and services for the organization. In many organizations, acquisition or purchase of services is called “contract”, while the merchandise is called “buy” or “acquisition”.

Managing supplier performance: The application of technologies, processes, policies and procedures to support the buying process (Supplier Relationship Management). There are several companies that have the software to implement SRM.

The supplier relationship management process: a process of providing the structure of how relationships with suppliers will be developed and maintained

The economic theories of supply and demand: supply management is generally regarded as a systematic business process that includes more features than traditional purchase, such as internal coordination input and pre-production logistics and management inventory.

Remote backup service

A service of remote backups, online or managed is a service that provides the computer user of an online connection to a remote system to copy and store files on your computer. Providers backups are managed companies that provide such services.

The backup systems implement online customer service computer software usually run once a day. This program collects, compresses, encrypts and transports the data to the server of the service provider of remote backups. On the market other types of product, such as continuous data protection (CDP) tools that are capable of safeguarding every change that occurs in the data it stores the client computer there too.

The providers of this type of service is often target specific market segments. The backup systems high performance applied to local networks might offer companies services transaction level replication of files open on quasireal time. Companies online backup for consumers frequently offer beta versions of software and/or temporary services free trial of the service.

Typical characteristics

Backing up open files The ability to copy open files, as with the Outlook files (* .pst) files or databases (SQL) is very useful. This ability enables system administrators perform the work at any time of day, without requiring maintenance time for the server side. Most products require an adjunct (add-on) for this. The high-end products bearing the backup of open files natively.

Multi platform A service platform can back up multiple platforms, such as the different systems Windows, Macintosh systems family and the Unix / Linux family. Many modern systems only allow a platform like Windows XP for example.

Multi-location It is the ability to copy some services besides the main office and all remote and branch offices seamlessly.

Copies of continued security It allows you to back continuously or a preset timer. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Most backup tools are based on timer and provide the service at a predetermined moment. Some services provide continuous backup copies of data by financial institutions and retailers and online services are used. Keep in mind that normal is a continuous remote backups will be detrimental to the system’s response to the backup sacrificing much of its resources.

Online access to files Some services allow access safeguarded files remotely using any web browser or web application. Many tools remote backups do not provide this functionality.

Data compression Typically the data is compressed using lossless compression algorithms to minimize the bandwidth used.

Differential data compression An effective way to minimize network traffic is transferred to the remote only binary data changes since the previous backup, similar to what makes open source tool Rsync. The backup tools more advanced networking using these methods instead of transferring the entire file.

Data encryption Data encryption occurs while both ships as when data is stored on the server of the service provider.

Anti-Duplication Technology Advanced byte pattern analysis to detect duplicate data, thus avoiding having to back them up again. This means that files and documents are backed repeated only once, reducing the use of server space, internet and system resources.

Bandwidth used It is the possibility that the user can select the use of more or less bandwidth at all times.