Big Data Analytics



Do you heard about Big Data? Nowadays, the quantity of data is growing at an astonishing rate, from Terabytes to Petabytes to Exabytes. How we can track data? These strange terms have seen everywhere and we have entered in to the age of Big Data.

 

Big data refers to combinations of data sets whose volume (amount of data), variety (range of data types and sources), and velocity (speed of data in and out) make them difficult to be captured, managed, processed or analyzed by conventional technologies and tools, such as relational databases and desktop statistics or visualization packages, within the time necessary to make them useful.

The complex nature of big data is primarily driven by the unstructured nature of much of the data that is generated by modern technologies, such as that from web logs, radio frequency Id (RFID), sensors embedded in devices, machinery, vehicles, Internet searches, social networks such as Facebook, portable computers, smart phones and other cell phones, GPS devices, and call center records. In most cases, in order to effectively utilize big data, it must be combined with structured data (typically from a relational database) from a more conventional business application, such as ERP or CRM.

Big Data is much more complex than simply managing and exploring large volumes of data. It is large pools of data that can be brought together and analyzed to discern patters and make better decisions. Thus it will become the basis of competition and growth for individual enterprises, enhancing productivity and creating significant value.

IPV6 Launch - The world of internet changes

Recently, the Internet Society launched IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) to allow the internet keep on growing. The internet is basically running out of IPv4 addresses and this is why the IPv6 is necessary. The earlier IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) allows 32-bits for IPv4 address and therefor has 2³² (4 294 967 296) possible addresses.  Whereas IPv6 which was developed by the ‘Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)’ uses 128-bit addresses allowing 2¹²⁸ (approximately 3.4×10³⁸) addresses. 

This expansion can accommodate vastly more devices and users on the internet as well as providing greater flexibility in allocating addresses and efficiency for routing traffic.  IPv6 will also bring an enhanced quality of service for gaming, video/audio and IP telephony.

More details http://ipv6.com/articles/nat/NAT-Pros-and-Cons.htm

Share your files quickly around the world

There are often situations when you want to share files on your PC with friends, family or colleagues. You may know the traditional ways of attaching them to emails, or uploading them to a file sharing website. Here below explaining 2 easy ways you can share files. 

Dushare (www.dushare.com) 
Dushare is different from browser-based files sharing sites like Yousendit and Hotshare because it doesn't involve uploading of files. Therefore, there is no waiting involved; it allows direct, encrypted P2P sharing. Once you select the file to share, it gives you a URL to share with the other person to initiate the direct transfer from your PC to theirs. While the file transfers, you can also chat with the person you're sharing the file with, right in the Dushare window. No sign-in is required. 

Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) 
A little more complicated than the others, but Dropbox also offers a lot of features. Rather than just share, you can sync complete folders with multiple users by downloading the Dropbox application on your Windows, Linux or Mac machine. Any changes, additions you make in the Dropbox folder on your PC will instantly be reflected in the folders of others, as long as they are connected to the Internet. A big advantage of Dropbox is that you can also use it to share files from your mobile phone (apps available for iPhone/iPod Touch, Android & Blackberry) or iPad.

Strategic technologies for 2011

If you are interested in technology, I am sure you heard about ‘Gartner’, the world’s leading IT research and Advisory Company, delivers the technology related insight necessary for corporations, government agencies, to business leaders and professional firms.

On end of last year, Gartner published the report, that top 10 technologies and trends for most organizations in 2011.  David Cearley, vice president at Gartner said: companies should factor these top 10 technologies in their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next 2 years.

The top 10 strategic technologies for 2011 include:

1.    Cloud Computing. Cloud computing services exist along a spectrum from open public to closed private. Vendors will offer packaged private cloud implementations that deliver the vendor's public cloud service technologies and methodologies in a form that can be implemented inside the consumer's enterprise.

2.    Mobile Applications and Media Tablets. Mobile devices are becoming computers in their own right, with an astounding amount of processing ability and bandwidth.

3.    Social Communications and Collaboration.  Social media can be divided into: (1) Social networking —MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster (2) Social collaboration —wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office, and crowd sourcing (3)Social publishing —YouTube and flickr (4) Social feedback -YouTube, flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Amazon.

4.    Video.  Technology trends in digital photography, consumer electronics, the web, social software, unified communications, digital and Internet-based television and mobile computing are all reaching critical tipping points that bring video into the mainstream.

5.    Next Generation Analytics. Increasing compute capabilities of computers including mobile devices along with improving connectivity are enabling a shift in how businesses support operational decisions. It is becoming possible to run simulations or models to predict the future outcome, rather than to simply provide backward looking data about past interactions, and to do these predictions in real-time to support each individual business action.

6.    Social Analytics. Social analytics describes the process of measuring, analyzing and interpreting the results of interactions and associations among people, topics and ideas.

7.    Context-Aware Computing. Context-aware computing centers on the concept of using information about an end user or object’s environment, activities connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end user. The end user may be a customer, business partner or employee.

8.    Storage Class Memory. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. It also offers a new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them.  

9.    Ubiquitous Computing.  The work of Mark Weiser and other researchers at Xerox's PARC paints a picture of the coming third wave of computing where computers are invisibly embedded into the world. As computers proliferate and as everyday objects are given the ability to communicate with RFID tags and their successors, networks will approach and surpass the scale that can be managed in traditional centralized ways.

10. Fabric-Based Infrastructure and Computers.  A fabric-based computer is a modular form of computing where a system can be aggregated from separate building-block modules connected over a fabric or switched backplane.

Read more http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1454221

Qatar’s IT sector set to grow: BMI report

Qatar’s IT sector may be worth in excess of $400mn this year and about $600mn by 2014 given the country’s prospects in energy, banking and telecom sectors, researcher Business Monitor (BMI) said in its latest report.

Qatar may not have the largest IT market in the Gulf, but in 2010 it appears ‘better positioned’ than some other markets in the region to benefit from economic recovery, it said.

“Despite a deceleration in many market segments last year, 2010-2014 IT spending compounded annual growth forecast (CAGR) for Qatar is forecast at 10%, with opportunities in sectors such as hydrocarbon, banking and telecoms,” Business Monitor said. 

In 2010, IT managers will probably remain ‘cautious’, after some projects were scaled back last year. However, there could be a boost, particularly in the second half of the year, from computer hardware tenders delayed from 2009. The Qatari IT market has a number of ‘positive factors’ that should help it going forward, Business Monitor said. The government ‘remains keen’ to promote economic diversification and aside from oil and gas, banking is likely to be the one of the more important sectors in terms of IT investments.

Qatar’s IT sector received a boost last year when Qtel announced that broadband Internet speeds had been doubled to 1Mbps from 512Kbps. Research released by Qatar’s Supreme Council for Information and Communication Technology in Qatar (ictQATAR) showed mobile penetration exceeding 120%. The Qatari ICT authority has a number of priority policy areas, including telecoms liberalisation, online government, e-learning, e-health and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A government target is to increase utilisation of ICT by SMEs. The government is also implementing a major IT initiative in the healthcare area, namely the development of an integrated national health information platform.

BMI forecasts a software market value of $77mn in 2010, up from $69mn in 2009. With the evolution of the Qatari IT market, a stronger strategic focus on software spending is being seen, with procurement decisions often taken at a higher executive level. Software spending is expected to grow to at a CAGR of 10% during BMI’s five-year forecast period.

Growth areas include business intelligence and other information management applications, as Qatari companies seek more efficiency in both internal collaboration and relationships with international customers and partners.

Top 10 strategic technologies for 2010

Ever wondered which would be the strategic technologies that have the potential to significantly impact an organisation's growth in the next three years? The technologies that would be at the forefront of an organisation's long-term plans, programmes and initiatives. Research firm Gartner has listed top 10 strategic technologies that will help organisations transform and grow. 

1. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a style of computing that characterizes a model in which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled capabilities to consumers. Cloud-based services can be exploited in a variety of ways to develop an application or a solution. Using cloud resources does not eliminate the costs of IT solutions, but does re-arrange some and reduce others. In addition, consuming cloud services enterprises will increasingly act as cloud providers and deliver application, information or business process services to customers and business partners.

2. Advanced Analytics

Optimization and simulation is using analytical tools and models to maximize business process and decision effectiveness by examining alternative outcomes and scenarios, before, during and after process implementation and execution. This can be viewed as a third step in supporting operational business decisions. Fixed rules and prepared policies gave way to more informed decisions powered by the right information delivered at the right time, whether through customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) or other applications. 

The new step is to provide simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, not simply information, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action. The new step looks into the future, predicting what can or will happen.

3. Client Computing

Virtualization is bringing new ways of packaging client computing applications and capabilities. As a result, the choice of a particular PC hardware platform, and eventually the OS platform, becomes less critical. Enterprises should proactively build a five to eight year strategic client computing roadmap outlining an approach to device standards, ownership and support; operating system and application selection, deployment and update; and management and security plans to manage diversity.

4. IT for Green

IT can enable many green initiatives. The use of IT, particularly among the white collar staff, can greatly enhance an enterprise’s green credentials. 

Common green initiatives include the use of e-documents, reducing travel and teleworking. IT can also provide the analytic tools that others in the enterprise may use to reduce energy consumption in the transportation of goods or other carbon management activities.

5. Reshaping the data center

In the past, design principles for data centers were simple: Figure out what you have, estimate growth for 15 to 20 years, then build to suit. Newly-built data centers often opened with huge areas of white floor space, fully powered and backed by a uninterruptible power supply (UPS), water-and air-cooled and mostly empty. 

However, costs are actually lower if enterprises adopt a pod-based approach to data center construction and expansion. If 9,000 square feet is expected to be needed during the life of a data center, then design the site to support it, but only build what’s needed for five to seven years. Cutting operating expenses, which are a nontrivial part of the overall IT spend for most clients, frees up money to apply to other projects or investments either in IT or in the business itself.

6. Social Computing

Workers do not want two distinct environments to support their work – one for their own work products (whether personal or group) and another for accessing "external" information. 

Enterprises must focus both on use of social software and social media in the enterprise and participation and integration with externally facing enterprise-sponsored and public communities. Do not ignore the role of the social profile to bring communities together.

7. Security - Activity Monitoring

Traditionally, security has focused on putting up a perimeter fence to keep others out, but it has evolved to monitoring activities and identifying patterns that would have been missed before. Information security professionals face the challenge of detecting malicious activity in a constant stream of discrete events that are usually associated with an authorized user and are generated from multiple network, system and application sources. At the same time, security departments are facing increasing demands for ever-greater log analysis and reporting to support audit requirements. 

A variety of complimentary (and sometimes overlapping) monitoring and analysis tools help enterprises better detect and investigate suspicious activity – often with real-time alerting or transaction intervention. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these tools, enterprises can better understand how to use them to defend the enterprise and meet audit requirements.

8. Flash Memory

Flash memory is not new, but it is moving up to a new tier in the storage echelon. Flash memory is a semiconductor memory device, familiar from its use in USB memory sticks and digital camera cards. It is much faster than rotating disk, but considerably more expensive, however this differential is shrinking. At the rate of price declines, the technology will enjoy more than a 100 percent compound annual growth rate during the new few years and become strategic in many IT areas including consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. 

In addition, it offers a new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers that has key advantages including space, heat, performance and ruggedness.

9. Virtualization for Availability

Virtualization has been on the list of top strategic technologies in previous years. It is on the list this year because Gartner emphases new elements such as live migration for availability that have longer term implications. Live migration is the movement of a running virtual machine (VM), while its operating system and other software continue to execute as if they remained on the original physical server. This takes place by replicating the state of physical memory between the source and destination VMs, then, at some instant in time, one instruction finishes execution on the source machine and the next instruction begins on the destination machine. 

However, if replication of memory continues indefinitely, but execution of instructions remains on the source VM, and then the source VM fails the next instruction would now place on the destination machine. If the destination VM were to fail, just pick a new destination to start the indefinite migration, thus making very high availability possible. 

The key value proposition is to displace a variety of separate mechanisms with a single “dial” that can be set to any level of availability from baseline to fault tolerance, all using a common mechanism and permitting the settings to be changed rapidly as needed. Expensive high-reliability hardware, with fail-over cluster software and perhaps even fault-tolerant hardware could be dispensed with, but still meet availability needs. This is key to cutting costs, lowering complexity, as well as increasing agility as needs shift.

10. Mobile Applications

By year-end 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce providing a rich environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web. There are already many thousands of applications for platforms such as the Apple iPhone, in spite of the limited market and need for unique coding. It may take a newer version that is designed to flexibly operate on both full PC and miniature systems, but if the operating system interface and processor architecture were identical, that enabling factor would create a huge turn upwards in mobile application availability.