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Tag: data

  • University Community Linked By Unified Communication


    The University of Washington has sought the services of unified communication to combine its data, voice and networks as well as to build a platform that supports diverse products.

    The University of Washington finds the effective connection of data and people extremely paramount. The university serves more than 51,000 students as well as about 31,000 faculty members across 3 different academic campuses as well as 500 buildings scattered across Bothell, Wash, Tacoma, and Seattle.

    About three years ago, the communication infrastructure in the University was out of date. It was not sufficient for supporting many of the systems and applications that are needed in today’s education environment such as BYOD, mobility and video conferencing. Roland Rivera, UW's director of network strategy and telecommunications noted that better integration of data services is extremely critical and it was apparent that there is need for getting unified communications infrastructure.

    The unified communication system supports products from different vendors such as AVST, Microsoft Lync, Polycom and Cisco. With the use of a web-based management console, the IT tem can isolate different communities of use, oversee routing and dial plan management and also better manage licensing and security.

    Rivera indicates that the unified communication solution has brought the school’s infrastructure to the digital age. In the long run, it is expected to trim IT costs as well as administrative overheads while providing greater flexibility and simplicity.

  • Aress Launches Unlimited Online Data Backup Service


    Aress Software has launched an online backup solution which gives 1GB of free space and also comes with an unlimited storage option.

    Called BackupandShare.com, the service is aimed at business and individual users, and has an ability to schedule backup for PCs and Macs.

    The India-based company said the solution offers 128 bit AES encryption for secure data storage.

    At USD $49.95 for and Individual plan and $150 USD for Business plan annually, the service provides unlimited capacity to securely store files and media collections remotely and automatically.

    Aress said data is stored in an architecture that’s isolated, multi-tiered and gated in a secure data center. It also provides 24/7 customer support.

    Other features include sharing files, photo album, maintaining playlists, remote access and mobile access.

    The BackupandShare desktop application is also available for downloading to PCs.

  • INTERVIEW: Carriers' "Sea Change" Towards IP Networks, JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy

    JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy talks to voip.biz-news about the "sea change" currently taking place in the communications industry – and explains how that has resulted in JAJAH itself evolving from a consumer VoIP focus to become a global IP communications platform provider.

    Telecom operators realise their business is shifting – what they do about it is another matter.

    One company that appears well placed to offer an opinion is JAJAH – not least because it is about to sign "three or four" operators globally to use its IP platform.

    Since its launch in March 2006 it has gone from being a web-activated calling solution to a platform of choice for outsourced IP managed services, partnering with a growing number of carriers, telcos and technology companies to white label its services.

    Trevor Healy, CEO of JAJAH, said there is no doubt that mobile operators’ views have evolved over the last two to three years.

    JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy

    He told voip.biz-news that their attitude to a service like mobile VoIP has gone from ‘this is not going to happen’ to ‘it’s a problem on a small scale’ and had now reached ‘it’s going to happen and we have to be involved’.

    "When we started our business we always had these strategy debates internally about whether we should engage the operators," he said. "We knew it would take time for them to get their heads around it.

    "Now we are close to signing three or four operators globally to use our platform."

    Healy said JAJAH is offering carriers a fully serviced data communications platform, from which they can then cherry pick services such as payment and billing, fraud protection and termination engines.

    He said the carriers would use the JAJAH IP platform for a number of different things.

    "Some want to effectively capture more international call traffic, either originating or arising in their country," he said.

    "They now understand that customers are using this tool for long distance calls. But rather than build a platform themselves it’s easier for them to partner us and OEM our platform."

    Healy said operators didn’t only want to capture domestic calls but also those made by displaced internationals.

    "So, for example, it could be an Irish operator trying to capture all Irish callers in the US," he said.

    At the other end of the spectrum were operators such as Japan’s EMOBILE who are working on pure Voice over HSDPA.

    "They are right at the edge of the technology curve," said Healy. "Then there are the WiMAX guys who are coming to us saying ‘we need something to bridge the gap between now and then."

    Another "market" for JAJAH is operators that are experiencing saturation in their domestic markets and who are looking to find new sources of revenue.

    This is the case in Italy, according to Healy, where there are two mobiles for every male in the country.

    "So because of this they need to go overseas," he said. "As they go international they look at how they can build up their market internationally."

    Healy said he expected to see interest from the Tier 2 operators first, since they were facing far more competition.

    And he said the Tier 1s would probably try and integrate platforms internally initially, a process which he reckoned would see some failures and provide "pickings" for JAJAH.

    "There’s definitely a sea change in the operator landscape – and it will continue to evolve," he said.

    "We are trying to evolve a business model philosophy. The CAPEX model is not going to work.

    "If we do not put a barrier in front of these companies, we will drag them along to our vision."

    That vision has been developing for the past three years, during which time JAJAH has been shifting its focus away from just providing the mobile web VoIP model of free client-to-client calls and low-cost international rates.

    A year ago the Silicon Valley-based company began providing VoIP back-end operations to customers such as Yahoo and Match.com.

    It formed a strategic partnership with Intel to get its technology onboard next-generation PCs and offers a range of software clients to support VoIP calling on WiFi.

    However, the real emphasis has been on becoming a service provider as well as a brand for end-user calls. At the end of February, JAJAH signed a deal with BoldCall to provide online retail customers with JAJAH’s click-to-call services.

    Healy said JAJAH has effectively re-invented itself three times in its corporate life, while staying in the same core market.

    The genesis behind the changes had been seeing the flow of dollars from large companies into enterprises, which then wanted to offer new solutions to their customers – very often their employees.

    "We started as a consumer business. What we did for consumers, we did very well," he said.

    "Then other companies started saying: ‘why not open up your platform on an OEM/white label basis?’"

    The resulting evolution has seen JAJAH design its IP platform to suit three general participants in the market:

    • Enterprises – especially large multinationals such as Pfizer
    • Internet companies – such as Yahoo, that use JAJAH’s platform to carry voice
    • Operators – who want to make a platform for OEMs

    Healy said the initial part of this business model change saw JAJAH offering its services to large companies.

    Then Yahoo asked JAJAH to integrate voice into its messaging platform for its 100 million IM users.

    "More recently we re-invented ourselves again by putting it into the cloud and offering a purely managed service to companies like Yahoo with no upfront fee," he said.

    "We started to see unified communications in the cloud."

    Healy said they saw what the likes of Microsoft, Cisco and Oracle were doing in enterprises and identified a "sweet spot".

    He said they realised that enterprises had a lot of front-end applications but no connectivity.

    So large corporations with offices worldwide were having to organise and invest in UC – effectively replicating JAJAH’s offering.

    "So we reiterated our platform as a full platform for enterprises, moving into UC," he said.

    While enterprises have always featured in JAJAH’s activities – there are more than 5,000 businesses using the platform at any one time – this shift into UC on the cloud is a new niche.

    However, Healy said various factors mean the company is well placed for the change.

    He said JAJAH is global by nature, connecting into 220 countries around the world, and its consumer background means it understands what services and apps people are using outside the office environment.

    This global connectivity is device-agnostic – the company has an "anything in and anything out" philosophy of connectivity – and it has mobile solutions for a wide range of devices.

    In financial terms, the change in emphasis has meant revenues shifting in favor of infrastructure activities.

    Healy said this is increasing every quarter and is nearly at an 80-20 revenue split between the IP platform and consumer sides of the business.

    "Having said that, the consumer business is a very good one and is still important because it’s our sandbox to test a lot of our offerings," he said.

    "When we bring it to a carrier, it’s been seriously tested. A lot of companies are doing their testing in a lab environment and then testing it in an operator’s environment."

    Healy said the VoIP calling business had also proved itself on a small scale – it has more than 15 million subscribers.

    "If our consumer business was in the hands of a bigger brand and with more investment then it would be a huge business," he said. "The model works and consumers are very loyal."

    It has been necessary to concentrate on the platform side at the expense of the consumer business, according to Healy, because JAJAH is a small company and can’t afford to dilute itself too much.

    He fully expects the company to reap the rewards from this approach.

    "In the long term, enabling others to do what we do is the better strategy," he said.

  • EU Mobile Roaming Charge Caps Will "Increase Traffic and Revenue"

    INTERVIEW: As mobile operators in Europe rush to comply with legislation to protect consumers from massive roaming and SMS/MMS bills, Amit Daniel, vice president of marketing for Starhome, tells smartphone.biz-news about the challenges – and the advantages – the new rules will bring.

    One result of the European Commission’s new measures to cap mobile roaming charges will be the end of what has become known as "bill shock".

    This well publicised term describes the phenomenon of opening your mobile bill with no clue as to what the cost will be – and getting hit with massive charges for those calls made abroad.

    As a first step to ending this, new caps on roaming charges come into force in July.

    By then, carriers in Europe must ensure they have the appropriate technology in place to comply with the data usage regulations.

    Not surprisingly this has led to a significant increase in interest roaming solutions – including those offered by Israel-based Starhome.

    The company is the largest supplier of roaming solutions for mobile operators, with more than 160 clients around the world, including Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange and Telefonica.

    Amit Daniel, VP marketing, Starhome

    Amit Daniel, vice president of marketing for Starhome, told smartphone.biz-news that operators are understandably concerned about finding and implementing solutions without incurring penalties, disrupting existing operations or inconveniencing customers.

    She said that aside from the legal requirements, consumers are also demanding clear information about roaming costs to avoid becoming victims of "bill shock".

    "We are seeing extreme demand for these kinds of solutions from all over the world," said Daniel. "Data is one of the hottest topics at the moment and this coming year there will be lots of implementations."

    Two-Stage Legislation

    European mobile operators have to meet two legislative deadlines to comply with the European legislation.

    The first is the adoption of the Roaming II Regulation, which is set to commence on July 1.

    It will significantly affect the roaming industry, especially the provision limiting the Euro-SMS tariff. Subscribers sending SMSs abroad must not be charged more than Euros €0.11 cents, and those receiving SMSs in other EU countries cannot be charged.

    The Commission also proposed a safeguard limit (per megabyte) for wholesale data roaming fees.

    A second phase of Roaming II Regulation states that by March 1, 2010, operators must enable customers to pre-determine the amount they wish to spend before service is "cut-off".

    While the new rules require operators to change their systems, Daniel said her impression was that the industry realised it would be offering something of value and simplicity to users.

    She said the most obvious was control over mobile costs while roaming.

    "It’s a major issue for operators but it will eventually increase traffic and revenue," she said.

    "Consumers are reluctant to use their mobiles while roaming at the moment because pricing is too complex and they are worried about suffering from bill shock.
    "So many people turn off their handsets and only use them in emergencies.

    "The EU legislation will give customers the possibility to control expenses and determine what they want to spend in the future."

    Benefits beyond Pricing

    Another benefit of the changes, according to Daniel, is that they offer operators the potential to stand out from the competition in terms of the packages they offer.

    This extends beyond just pricing to include revenue-generating services that can be offered as part of a bundle.

    However, Daniel said carriers were having to ensure their systems – both hardware and software – were capable of determining users’ real time usage status and how much calls were costing.

    "Current systems can do calculations of usage offline after a transaction has been made and record data consumption rates," she said.

    "But it’s not in real time. The main issue is to be able to do real time billing, which most operators do not have the capacity to do."

    Daniel said that the legislation essentially requires traffic usage to be monitored and measured to keep check on how much is being consumed.

    She said this then had to be correlated with a user’s subscription package and specific billing plan.

    Operators could then, for example, send a "roaming" user an SMS telling them how much they are going to be charged for using their mobile abroad.

    Credit Limit Warning 

    For the second phase of the EU legislation, subscribers will have the option to purchase packages from operators which are then monitored by companies like Starhome.

    As part of these, users will be notified if they are going to exceed agreed credit limits when using their phones internationally.

    To do this the operators again need to be able to access real time information on users’ mobile consumption.

    "This is a solution we are providing to give roaming control, both in Europe and beyond," said Daniel.

    A benefit for Starhome’s extensive client base was that they can use their existing platforms, according to Daniel.

    These are already connected to signalling and billing systems, so there is no need to integrate a new supplier – a major project in itself.

    Starhome offers the solution in a managed service mode, a popular option since there is a high level of liability on the operators’ side of the service.

    She said the company’s global operations centre carriers out 24/7 monitoring of its clients’ networks.

    "If something goes wrong with connections and so on, we are capable of seeing that in real time and alerting the operator," she said.

    "In terms of providing a service that’s really liable and always working, this is one of the areas where we have an advantage over competitors."

    The new rules will undoubtedly make knowing the cost of using mobiles abroad much simpler for consumers – whether the operators stand to gain from the changes remains to be seen.

  • Optical Media With 1.6 Terabyte Capacity Created


    Researchers have announced they have created a "five-dimensional" optical media that can hold up to 1.6 terabytes of data.

    The team from the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia said the technology could easily be on the market within 10 years.

    In order to create the massive storage capacity the scientists used ‘nanoparticles and a "polarization" dimension’.

    The team has already signed a deal with Samsung, which says the disc could potentially hold up to 10 terabytes.

    Min Gu, a team member, said they were able to show how nanostructured material can be incorporated onto a disc in order to increase data capacity, without increasing the physical size of the disc.

    "These extra dimensions are the key to creating ultra-high capacity discs," he said.

  • Consumer Network Storage Equipment Market Growing, More Promotion Needed


    Consumer demand for data storage is expected to drive Network Attached Storage (NAS) revenues to more than USD $1.25 billion in revenues by 2011.

    That’s the conclusion of ABI Research, which says the phenomenal growth of digital photography, audio, and video have focused consumers’ minds on the need for secure storage.

    Jason Blackwell, ABI Research senior analyst, says the need to store precious pictures, music, and movies has raised the profile of backup and media server solutions.

    He said that although most consumers still rely on single-computer backup scenarios, a small but growing number are opting for NAS.

    But the market needs to be promoted more to ensure an even greater uptake.

    "In order to move the consumer NAS market forward, vendors, including leaders such as Buffalo Technology and Linksys by Cisco, need to educate and inform consumers about NAS’s advantages," he said.

    Consumer NAS equipment falls into three groups:

    • Integrated NAS drives, which include the necessary networking software
    • Network storage enclosures, for those who wish to add the hard disk themselves
    • Storage routers and bridges, which allow attachment of standard USB or IEEE 1394 hard drives to a network

    Blackwell says that integrated NAS drives comprise the lion’s share of the market, but storage routers and bridges offer vendors the greatest growth opportunity.

    Challenges in this market have traditionally included consumers’ relative indifference to data security: backups have always been considered a bore.

    So marketing and customer education will be key to success. Cost has been an issue too: while prices continue to fall, they still pose a barrier to adoption.

    Blackwell says the rise of the home media server market, however, will provide some lift: DLNA and UPnP-enabled NAS devices can act as media
    servers and are being branded as such.

    "The fact that NAS devices are becoming more like media servers will certainly help them penetrate the digital home network," he said.

    "Vendors are making a concerted effort to market NAS for these more exciting purposes rather than simply for backup."

  • IBM Expands Midmarket Express Advantage Line


    IBM has broadened its lineup of Express Advantage products for midmarket with the launch of BladeCenter Express servers, a new data protection hardware/software package.

    It also unveiled the LotusLive Meetings hosted Web conferencing service.

    Express Advantage products and services are largely sold through IBM channel partners and are frequently offered with financing packages.

    Topping the list of the new products are the BladeCenter JS23 and JS43 Express servers, which are based on the Power6 processor technology and run on AIX, IBM i and Linux operating systems.

    IBM said the servers are ideal for midsize organizations undergoing infrastructure consolidation or running applications that require scalable performance and high memory capacity.

    A new hardware/software package that IBM is calling a "comprehensive data protection solution" includes the Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack software bundled with the DS3000, DS4000 and DS5000 Express series disk systems, and the System x 3550 server.

    IBM said the package offers a complete data storage and data recovery system.

    Many companies are increasingly using Web conferencing as they impose travel restrictions to cut costs.

    The Express Advantage services now include LotusLive Meetings, a Web conferencing service added to the LotusLive online services IBM unveiled earlier this year.

  • Nanotechnology Will Be An Integral Part of Future Storage Technology


    Michael E.Thomas, president of Colossal Storage Corporation once remarked: "In 1974, I was making 5 Megabyte disk packs – the biggest at that time in the world.

    "At the same time, IBM, Burroughs, Honeywell, and other Computer professionals said no one would ever need that much storage."

    Today organizations are constantly running out of storage space and grappling with ever increasing size requirements in data storage, writes Vanitha Vaidialingam for storage-biz.news.

    It is predicted that magnetic storage technology will soon become obsolete and hard drives will reach their paramagnetic limit in a few years.

    The search for newer and more efficient means of data storage has sparked extensive research into nanotechnology and its potential in the data storage space.

    One such invention is the ferroelectric molecular optical storage nanotechnology by Thomas. Another is the recent breakthrough in self-assembling nanotech devices that provide user with amazing storage options.

    Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and University of Massachusetts Amherst have achieved a breakthrough in the creation of self-assembling nanotech blocks with immense potential to scale up indefinitely.

    These blocks consist of tightly packed polymer chains that were previously considered impossibile.

    Significantly, the polymer chains are different from each other and when bunched together, these molecules arrange themselves into a grid to form a block of co-polymer.

    The team used sapphire crystal to create the vast fields of blocks.

    The crystal does not break down when scaled up to form a large number of blocks.

    The facets of the sapphire are cut and heat treated to facilitate the formation of nano-scale sawtooth ridges, which resolve the problem of scale as the copolymer is formed on these ridges.

    The resultant arrangement of molecules can store electronic data as bits at the rate of 10 terabits per square inch or 1,250 gigabytes of data in an area that is only the size of a large postage stamp.

    This represents a storage density that is more than 15 times the capacity that is available in the market today.

    This technology is at a nascent stage but holds out promise. It is the first step in the direction of proving the hypothesis that it is possible to store large volumes of data in nano spaces.

    This breakthrough is exciting and interesting as it will address many of the issues relating to the increasing storage requirements of the modern world where electronics is being inducted into different aspects of our life.

    Conventional storage devices are proving inadequate and cumbersome.

    Moreover, this breakthrough also has several other implications.

    • It will revolutionize the semiconductor chip processes.
    • It will bypass the minimum size limits for photolithography and enable the production of transistors and chip interconnectors that will reduce the demand for power hungry processor chips.
    • It may also enable the creation of energy efficient photovoltaic cells.

    In other words nanotechnology will be an integral part of all future technology and gadgets and will be the power that operates them.

  • SanDisk Develops Tech That Allows 64GB Flash


    SanDisk has announced plans to ship an ultra-dense form of NAND flash memory that could herald a breakthrough in storage.

    Called X4, the technology uses a special memory controller that maintains data traffic speed while still fitting four bits of data per cell.

    The method allows SanDisk – and Toshiba – to place 8GB of memory on a single chip, twice as much as before.

    It does this while still maintaining a transfer speed of 7.8MB per second.

    Since it is common to find four of these chips stacked together in a single package, the technology potentially doubles the amount of storage available on a high-end flash memory die to 64GB.

    But it should remains small thanks to SanDisk’s more recent 43 nanometer manufacturing process.

    Toshiba began making 32GB packages at the end of last year.

    SanDisk expects the first X4-based products to be available in the first half of 2009, with memory cards being the most immediately recognizable offerings.

    It’s not clear if the technology will be adopted in third-party products containing the larger-capacity flash.

    Toshiba has supplied Apple with memory for the iPhone and iPod touch as well as other competing device makers.

  • HD Communications Launches All-in-one Data Port


    HD Communications has unveiled a new In-Wall Wi-Fi, Data, VoIP, and PoE device. 

    The HD27000 is an all-in-one device designed specifically for hotels, motels and the enterprise market. 

    Don Davis, president and CEO, said these types of enterprises needed good Wi-Fi, a wired ethernet connection, and the ability to plug in a VoIP phone as well as power it. 

    He said the HD27000 is a small, PoE-powered 802.11b/g access point that is IEEE 802.3af PoE-compliant and is designed for locations wired or planning to wire for Category5/Cat5e/Cat6 cable. 

    The HD27000 offers up to four SSID, so customers can set up both public and private networks. The device also has an RJ45 jack on the front that is PoE (IEEE 802.3af-compliant) that can power a VoIP phone or just provide a data port to the location. 

    It also has the latest in security available. 

    "The HD27000 is a result of over two years of working with customers with our earlier in-wall product, the HD24613," said Davis. 

    HD Communications has enjoyed healthy growth in the broadband wireless arena over the past few years, more than doubling its sales in 2008.