. Updated Daily.

Editions

All Issues

COVER STORY: Unified Communications – Keeping the Customer in the Equation

Issue: June/July 2008

Unified Communications – Keeping the Customer in the Equation

Everyone is talking about unified communications (UC). But, how this is defined and why companies are considering implementing it varies from enterprise to enterprise. Many unified communications strategies only focus on using applications such as voice integration and collaboration to improve employee productivity. In fact, unified communications can be used for much more than this – to take full advantage of such systems, enterprises should be focusing on communications and enabling customer facing processes such as services, collections and sales. This will ensure that they are utilising all the advantages and benefits provided by unified communications.

INTERVIEW

WiMax -- Not Just Fluff but a Commercial Reality, Q&A with Tang XinHong, Vice President of CDMA&WiMAX Product Line Huawei Technologies

On October 18, 2007 the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly in Geneva officially adopted the inclusion of WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) into the IMT-2000 family of technologies, setting the relatively new wireless technology on a level global playing field with the more well-known GSM and CDMA families of technology, ensuring that carriers are free to implement technology based on user requirements rather than being limited by regulatory fiat. A recent study done by In-Stat has revealed that when given a choice between WiMax, WiFi and 3G, majority of consumers showed a “significant preference” for the long distance WiMAX protocol. This market looks set to intensify with the world expecting more than 133 million users to adopt WiMax by 2012. SDA Asia had the rare chance to catch up with Mr. Tang XinHong, vice president of the CDMA &WiMAX Product Line at Huawei Technologies to find out the hype surrounding WiMax, future trends the industry can expect and the pressing question on everyone’s mind -- will the emergence of WiMax spell the eventual demise of other 3G data technologies?

ENTERPRISE SECURITY

The Attack of the Mac

As the Macintosh platform reaches critical mass, hackers are slowly turning their attention and skills into exploiting its security vulnerabilities. These guys are no longer the “script kiddies” who write viruses just for fun, but rather criminal organizations who write malware for profit. So, what does this mean for Mac users and with the Mac donning the Gray Flannel Suit, is it time for the enterprise to be sensitive to such issues as well?

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: Green IT

The Green IT Revolution: Energy Efficiency Strategies for Modern Data Centers

It is impossible to miss the flurry of activity and visibility recently around the multitude of “Green” initiatives being developed and unveiled. Almost every industry is pushing for the reduction of energy consumption and subsequently, the reduction of carbon emissions. Regardless of how anyone feels about global warming, the fact remains; as the consumption of fossil fuels increase, so too does the amount of carbon emission being released into the atmosphere. It is a destructive domino effect.

E-Corporate Responsibility - Warming up to Green IT

With the increasing number of personal electronic devices distributed world-wide, the need for an organized effort to assess and manage their impact on the environment is imperative. Regulatory agencies around the world are not the only ones who have begun to work on addressing this issue. Industry leaders such as Motorola are also serious about using the resources of its global business to benefit people and communities not only through great and innovative products but through a holistic, green approach in doing the right thing in all aspects of our business.

Applying Green Principles in Network Equipment Purchase & Management

Of the many trends the IT industry has endorsed, Green IT has drawn strongest attention and support, not only from within the industry but across a broader audience encompassing the business sector, the private sector, governments and communities around the world. This is because Green IT, or the commitment to the production of IT products and services that reduce wastes, control pollution, save energy and resources, impacts not only IT users but the earth as a whole. The IT industry’s involvement in green computing principles is inevitable given the pervasive use of IT equipment in business and homes.

Energy Efficiency- A New Standard for Managing Business

Environmental issues have become a top concern in China as they are affecting China’s economic and social sustainability. In today’s world of global interconnectivity, companies that remain in an environmentally unfriendly mode of operation are not going to reach full potential. Recent tightening up of government compliance requirements, economic considerations including rising energy, raw materials and waste disposal costs, and rising attention of stakeholders, including not only customers but also employees and investors, are advancing the need for

Green IT Using Server Virtualization

Rising energy costs and consumption in datacenters is a hot topic whether you care about saving money, deploying new IT services, keeping the datacenter running or sparing the environment. As saving energy climbs the list of corporate priorities, green IT solutions are seemingly everywhere. Prioritizing potential fixes is not easy amidst this flood of information. There is no silver bullet, but server virtualization often tops the list because it downsizes the largest culprits of energy over consumption – underutilized x86 servers. This is only part of the story, however. You might be surprised to learn that several VMware innovations are further reducing energy demands and driving a revolution in the datacenter.

Going Green, Building Green

Rising oil prices and drastic climate changes have been driving green movements in various industries around the world, and the building industry is no exception. In Asia, green buildings are still few and far in between, but the benefits they bring are starting to make an impact on building owners. Take for instance, the Xilinx Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore. Xilinx leapt at the chance to go green when the opportunity arose for the provider of programmable logic solutions to build its own six-storey headquarters building in Singapore’s Changi Business Park. Not only does the building aim to cut down on energy usage by the company, it also improves the health of the building and hence the employees, promotes recycling and generates savings for the company.

NEWS & TRENDS

Storage Expectations

What CIO’s Want

The Hidden IT Revolution

Viewpoint: Ensuring the Trust Fabric of the Knowledge Capital Society

Compliance: A Retailer’s Challenge

CHANGE OF GUARD

Itzhak Weinreb as Vice President of Sales for Check Point Software APAC Region and Japan

Clara Lim is the new Regional Director for WatchGuard Technologies Southeast Asia

Ashley Wearne as Managing Director for Adobe Systems South East Asia

Edmund Looi as ASEAN Manager for Proofpoint

Joe Ong as new Singapore Country Manager for EMC Corp.

Monty Venkersammy as Vice-President of Global Sales for BoxSentry

COVER STORY: Transforming the Enterprise with High-Performance Computing

Issue: March/April 2008

Transforming the Enterprise with High-Performance Computing

Two formerly separate technology worlds have collided in recent times. The once distinct line between ubiquitous “computing” and its powerful cousin, “high-performance computing”, has noticeably blurred High-performance computing was once relegated purely to scientific research and engineering applications. Today, many organizations in a variety of industries have a need for that much computing power, whether it is a banking firm evaluating financial risk or an entertainment company creating digital media. The irony is that they do not perceive their needs as ‘high performance computing’, even through they struggle with scalability and processing requirements every day.
INTERVIEW

Project Indiana: The Best of Linux & Solaris -- Q&A with Ian Murdock, Chief OS Platform Strategist, Sun Microsystems

The community first caught wind of Project Indiana when Sun Microsystems President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz casually mentioned it in his blog in May 2007. But as quickly as he had mentioned it, he put an equally swift cap on it because, according to him “Ian [Murdock] said it was a secret we couldn’t reveal”, at that time. A good half a year later, Sun is finally willing to spill the beans on Project Indiana, which bears upon its shoulder the overarching goal of encouraging the growth of the OpenSolaris eco-system by combining the best features of Linux and Solaris whilst at the same time making Solaris more readily comprehensible to Linux-aware developers. SDA Asia had the opportunity to sit down with Ian Murdock, Chief OS Platform Strategist of Sun Microsystems, better known as “the man behind the mission” of materializing Project Indiana to learn more about the project, its implications on enterprises, the trends and challenges of open source adoption in Asia and why open source is the way to go should enterprises want to stay competitive in the future.
Data & Storage

Easing the Pain of Disaster Recovery

It cannot be emphasized enough how imperative a good disaster recovery (DR) solution is to the well being of an organisation when it comes to protecting against data loss and site disasters, whilst maintaining the availability of critical IT services and ultimately the organisation’s reputation. However, as transparent as it may seem, there are many organisations that still side step this issue citing complexity and difficulty in managing such solutions as their main concerns. This is especially true in cases with organizations moving up the maturity curve, including Small and Medium Businesses that often rely entirely on their internal IT staff to learn and deploy new technologies, which means they need to be particularly conscious of choosing solutions that achieve results without putting a strain on budgets and staff resources. A recent trend sees vendors responding to such demands by providing simple, pre-bundled DR solutions that are tailor made - as opposed to the archaic “onesolution- fits-all” business model of the past—and capable of satisfying the various requirements organisations may have.

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: IT in Education

Education and IT: The opportunity for Developers and the Software industry

The World Health Organization estimates that 10% of the world’s population has a disability, making them the world’s largest minority. Within this group, 80% of the disabled population will remain unemployed and unable to support themselves. Education remains a key to enabling the disabled communities to engage in meaningful work for their livelihood. Every child with a disability can, and should, be given an equal opportunity to attain a good foundational education. While in the past, those with disabilities inevitably fell behind their peers because they lacked in good educational opportunities, things have changed today. The emphasis on knowledge over manual work and skilled labor means that physical disability is less of a handicap today, than it was in the agricultural and industrial age where dexterity and strength were vital vocational attributes. But while today’s knowledge workers no longer need to possess completely functional physical faculties, a gap still exists between the user interfaces of modern educational systems and the physical limitations of the disabled.

Accelerated Performance Boost with WAN Optimisation

Today, the Internet serves as an indispensable educational tool as it offers an almost limitless resource, transcending physical boundaries, allowing educators and students to communicate and share knowledge seamlessly. As with most companies and organisations, globalisation has pushed the educational sector to embark on new capabilities and technologies to stay competitive. With more opportunities for long distance teaching and knowledge sharing, educational institutions are using the Internet to provide for wider and easier accessibility. Unfortunately, enabling easy public access can pose some significant challenges for school officials and IT administrators.

Demystifying Internet Content Filtering for Schools and Libraries

As Internet use grows in business, so do the risks of uncontrolled access. When students inadvertently or deliberately access sites containing inappropriate, illegal, or dangerous content, schools expose themselves to legal liability, and in some cases experience degraded network performance. There are also a growing number of security risks from Trojans and worms that can be introduced into the network causing serious damage. An effective filtering solution can help solve these problems by blocking access to inappropriate Web sites. Students who visit pornographic or racist/hate sites represent a major legal liability concern. Another source of liability exposure is peer-to-peer networking and file sharing, which have opened the door to charges of copyright violations and highprofile litigation.

The Integral Role of IT in Singapore’s Education System

Information technology (IT) is a critical element in education, especially in Singapore. Not only is the management of an institution’s IT infrastructure important to ensure that organizational needs are met while costs are kept to a minimum, but including relevant IT courses in the curriculum is key to providing students with essential IT skills and knowledge that they will require when entering the workforce. With these basics in place, Singapore will then be well-placed to develop an infocomm-savvy workforce to drive national economic competitiveness and succeed as a leading IT hub in the next millennium.

Support Tools to Enrich the Learning Experience

Education is a dynamic and fast moving field, the landscape has changed rapidly, especially with the rapid developments in technology causing the traditional modes of learning to reshape and diversify. Globalization has put educational institutions all around the world in direct competition with each other to produce quality, top notch students. This has amplified the need for changes to the existing cultures and infrastructures. Discerning students too are expecting the higher institutes of learning to adept quickly in the mobilization and use of technology in teaching modes. They want to access their information online, real time and expect their schools to promote student mobility tools such as making lectures available through podcasts, submitting assignments and holding consultation with lecturers via

HP Eases IT Services Woes for Central Queensland University

Students at Central Queensland University (CQU) enjoy a world class education – many are drawn to northeastern Australia’s unique natural attractions, such as “walkabouts” of the area’s 100 national parks, “fossicking” for precious metals and gems, or snorkeling along the Great Barrier Reef. In just 32 years, Australia’s Central Queensland University (CQU) grew from a single campus in Rockhampton to a multi-campus, national, and international university serving more than 24,000 students. The university takes prides in its diverse and farflung learning environment. One of the keys to maintaining its position as Australia’s fastest-growing university is CQU’s use of advanced information technology (IT) to deliver outstanding educational services to a globally diverse campus network. Yet, the same qualities that make it such a powerful educational force also place tremendous strain on the school’s IT resources.

NEWS & TRENDS

SAP’s Acquisition of Business Objects-- What Does This Mean for Businesses and Customers?

Looking into the Crystal Ball: What is in Store for Asian IT in 2008?

The Evolution of Employee Monitoring 10 Technologies: For Email and Beyond

Compliance — a blessing in disguise!

CHANGE OF GUARD

Louis Corrigan as Chief Technical Officer of Acision

Jonathan Lee as Head of Channels & Alliances integration software and services for SAS Malaysia

Mark Gibbs as President & CEO, SAP North Asia

Yoichiro Yatsurugi as President and CEO of SAP Japan

Lee Yee Shiean as new Regional Product Marketing Manager for 3Com Asia Pacific.

Herbert Leung as Chief Executive Officer of Atos Origin Asia Pacific

Vol 21. December 2007

Issue: December 2007

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT: IT IN TELECOM: Evolution not Revolution -- Organisations today depend on instantaneous communication between geographically dispersed departments. If departments cannot communicate, businesses cannot operate – or at least not to optimum performance. When building global business operations, organisations face new challenges that can seem daunting. Developing an effective supporting infrastructure is often the key concern. However, this must be approached in the context of the wider, global business environment and, more importantly, the challenge of running seamless 24/7 global operations in different locations and time zones.