Oracle Demonstrates Leadership in Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management

Oracle Database 10g Scalability Features

Oracle scales without disruption, allowing business to upgrade across various Oracle 10g database editions. In addition to the grid computing capabilities in Enterprise Edition, Oracle 10g can include a number of optional modules designed to enhance scalability while optimizing performance.

Microsoft adds access controls for SQL Azure online database

On Infoworld, Eric Lai writes: "Microsoft adds access controls for SQL Azure online database"

Microsoft is creating technology to give businesses more fine-grained control over access to data stored in the company's upcoming SQL Azure database cloud service, a senior engineer said today. Code-named Vidalia, the technology will provide "trustworthy data collaboration for highly sensitive business data across disparate trust domains," said Microsoft technical fellow Dave Campbell in a talk at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference 2009 (PDC09) in Los Angeles.

Translation: Companies will be able to define and enforce policies controlling who can see what data at a very detailed level.

That will be through what Campbell called a "capability generation center" that will protect data inside the database (at rest) and when it's moving through the network (in motion).

Other features are coming to SQL Azure, which will go into production when Windows Azure does on January 1.

In the first half of next year, it will bring a "database clone" feature for administrators, said Tony Petrossian, principal program manager for SQL Azure.

By the second half, Microsoft plans to release continuous backup of SQL Azure databases. Users will be able to restore their databases to any point in time, he said.

Microsoft is also working on making it easier for users to grow and shrink their databases, so that they are not constricted in size or overpay for storage they don't need, Petrossian said.

Other related features include the ability to dynamically split or merge databases, and build tools to manage large groups of schemas across databases, he said, as well as query multiple databases at a time.

These improvements are aimed at both enterprise department users, as well as software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based resellers of SQL Azure, he said.

Microsoft ships preview of Windows 7 embedded OS

We Found latest news on SD Times, "Microsoft ships preview of Windows 7 embedded OS", By David Worthington

Microsoft delivered a community technology preview (CTP) of Windows Embedded Standard 2011, the embedded version of the Windows 7 stack.

The CTP, released today, is the first of Microsoft's Windows 7-based embedded offerings to be announced; the company will announce more products later this month at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, said Ashwin Kulkarni, senior product manager for Windows Embedded.

The Windows Embedded product family also consists of Windows Embedded Compact, which is based on Windows Embedded CE, Windows Embedded Enterprise (which is fully application compatible with desktop Windows), and Windows Embedded POSReady, a solution for point-of-service systems.

Windows Embedded Standard 2011's new features can be segmented into four categories: core platform technologies, power management, systems management, and user interface development.

Technologies included from the Windows 7 platform wave include Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol 7.0, Windows Media Player 12, and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. Sixty-four-bit hardware support has been added as well.

Developers can create solutions that deploy Windows 7's, Windows Touch (multi-gesture touch interfaces and context-aware applications) and Windows Flip 3D navigation technologies, in addition to the Windows Aero user interface and Windows Presentation Foundation interfaces. Microsoft's input and display technologies will help OEMs differentiate their devices, said Kulkarni.

Windows Embedded also inherits Windows 7's power management APIs. Customers can build solutions with improved CPU idle time and lower power consumption rates that are Energy Star compliant, Kulkarni added. "Customers are using lower power to save money on infrastructure."

For systems management, the Windows Embedded team has added Active Directory group policies from Windows Server 2008, said Kulkarni. It also has support for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, Microsoft Terminal Services and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.

Devices can seamlessly hook into existing enterprise infrastructure, Kulkarni noted. He explained that group policies created for PC servers and other devices can automatically be applied to specialized devices that are then managed like any device on a network.

General availability is slated for the second half of 2010. No pricing details have been announced. Microsoft will offer Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist certification and other training prior to its release.

About Synergetics India's Speaker

Ashvini Shahane is a leading member of the Technology Transformation Group in Synergetics. She has a cumulative Experience of 15+ years in the Software Industry. As part of Synergetics current engagement with Microsoft ISV's, she is engaged in providing Architecture level solutions using .NET Technologies and MOSS. She is MCAD & MCT certified. She has executed Workshops for Accenture, CSC, Cap Gemini, Cognizant, Infosys, Microsoft, TCS, and Wipro.

Autodesk Announces Support for Windows 7

From ITVN Network, Autodesk Announces Support for Windows 7,

Autodesk, 2D and 3D design, engineering and entertainment Software Company, has announced support for Windows 7. Autodesk will support customers using nine products including AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD LT 2010 and the Autodesk Inventor 2010 family of software, on Windows 7.

Windows 7 was designed with the customer in mind, said Mark Relph, senior director for Windows Product Management at Microsoft Corp. We are pleased to have the support of Autodesk to offer our mutual customers an easy way to do the things they want on a PC.For the 2010 product line, Autodesk will support nine products on Windows 7.  These products are Autodesk Inventor 2010, Autodesk Inventor LT 2010, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD LT 2010, AutoCAD Architecture 2010, AutoCAD Electrical 2010, AutoCAD Mechanical 2010, AutoCAD MEP 2010 and Autodesk Algor Simulation 2010 software.  Autodesk will support Windows 7 for most of its other products as updated versions are released.

Autodesk is committed to delivering software that meets and exceeds our customers functionality requirements, while providing them the broadest possible choice of operating systems, said Chris Bradshaw, Autodesk chief marketing officer. Autodesk and Microsoft share a goal of making the tasks our customers perform every day easier and faster. We look forward to extending support for Windows 7 across our portfolio so all our customers can benefit from the improvements in this robust new operating system.

Windows 7 is the next version of Windows client operating system from Microsoft built on the core fundamentals of Windows Vista. Windows 7 offers greater reliability and performance with an improvement in the Security features that were already available in Windows Vista. Windows 7 offers improved navigation, a new taskbar and a streamlined UI so that common tasks done in Windows are done easier and more quickly. These are some of the topics that will be demonstrated in the seminar: New Taskbar, Libraries, Ribbon, Background Processes-Services and Tasks, Multi-Touch.

CSC Launches Cloud Assessment Service

From ITVAR News, CSC Launches Cloud Assessment Service,

Expanding on its current Cloud service offerings, CSC announced it will launch a Cloud Adoption Assessment Service to help companies across the world identify the right business process and IT services when moving to the Cloud.

CSCs Cloud Adoption Assessment gives businesses a head start in understanding the complexity of the Cloud Computing ecosystem. The new service performs a process-centric analysis of a company’s existing technology set-up using a Suitability Scorecard. By focusing on business processes, rather than on infrastructures or architectures, CSC creates a top-down assessment that maps to the companys strategic objectives. Originally developed in the UK, the service will be made available to companies across Europe, Australia and the USA beginning in late November.

The CSC Cloud Adoption Assessment helps businesses reach the right decisions to make the shift to Cloud Computing a successful experience. At the end of a three-week assessment, businesses will receive a tailored Cloud adoption roadmap for the target processes and a high-level benefits assessment. A  They will also receive an understanding of:

• How to align their Cloud Computing strategy with their business strategy
• Which parts of their business are suitable for moving to a Cloud-based delivery model
•  How much of each process they should put into the cloud: whether they should retain control in house, but use Cloud-based infrastructure, buy the entire process in as a service, or something in between
•  Which services are enterprise-ready and offer the right levels of security and governance for their business
•  The impact on procurement and what to consider before signing on the dotted line.

Cloud computing is here. Running applications on machines in an Internet-accessible data center can bring plenty of advantages. Yet wherever they run, applications are built on some kind of platform. For on-premises applications, this platform usually includes an operating system, some way to store data, and perhaps more. Applications running in the cloud need a similar foundation. The goal of Microsoft’s Windows Azure is to provide this. Part of the larger Azure Services Platform, Windows Azure is a platform for running Windows applications and storing data in the cloud.

Cloud Computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. To deploy a new solution, most of your time and energy is spent on defining the right infrastructure, hardware and software, to put together to create that solution, Cloud Computing allows people to share resources to solve new problems. Cloud Computing users can avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware, software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use.

Using Business Intelligence for better governance

On Network Computing News, Using Business Intelligence for better governance.

The Aarogyasri Healthcare Trust is a unique initiative by the Government of Andhra Pradesh to ensure quality healthcare for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.

BPL families are connected to over 350 network hospitals through primary health centers and medical camps. The network hospitals, along with third-party insurance agencies ensure cashless diagnosis and treatment of ailments for BPL families.

Availability of real-time critical information for all stakeholders is a critical factor for the success of this mission. While the previous application helped Aarogyasri gather critical data from the various stakeholders and made this data available centrally, Aarogyasri was unable to rapidly transform this data into actionable information.

To ensure that the scheme delivered the desired results, the firm specifically required details on critical information such as occupancy records, expenses, fund allocation, repeat cases and yearly insurance reports. Finding actionable data in this flood of information was difficult and proved ineffective when it came to tracking results.

To meet its information needs, Aaragyasri selected IntelliVIEW, a business intelligence solution from Synaptris, that could help users who had minimal computing skills, to easily find actionable information with minimal training.

Post deployment, the solution has made actionable information available to all stakeholders, with estimated savings of over 90 percent for report development time and effort. As a result of deploying the solution, the firm now has accurate information on key parameters such as people covered, people screened, cases registered, surgeries done and amounts claimed. In effect, the solution has enabled the members to serve BPL families better, providing instant access to critical information.

A Business Intelligence Versatilist :

The Business Intelligence Versatilist candidate would be someone who:

Has one or more technical specialties (e.g. application programming, Project Management, Database Administration).

Has at least a general knowledge of software development lifecycle.

Has at least a general knowledge of the business domain in which they work.

The Versatilist program for Business Intelligence Professional will enhance and empower the candidate with the following skills:

An overview of Business Performance Management

A clear understanding of Business Intelligence Application Development Lifecycle

Architecting a Business Intelligence Solution

Designing & Implementing Data Warehouses

Designing & Implementing Data Integration Requirements

Implementing & Enabling Data Analysis

Administering a Business Intelligence Infrastructure

Infosys unveils its Global Education Center at Mysore

On iTVoir News, Infosys unveils its Global Education Center at Mysore, writes Piru Mandal.

Infosys Technologies has announced the expansion of the Infosys’ Global Education Center at its Mysore Campus. Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, UPA and President of the Indian National Congress inaugurated a world-class training facility - GEC II, created to consolidate learning activities across Infosys at its Mysore campus.

Given its infrastructure and size of operations, Infosys’ Global Education Center is the largest corporate education center in the world. Located in the 337 acre Infosys Mysore campus, the total capacity of the center has been enhanced to educate 14,000 Infoscions. Infosys' total investment in the Mysore center is Rs. 2,055 crore of which Rs. 350 crore has been invested in construction of Software Development Blocks and related services and Rs.1,705 crore on education and training related infrastructure.

Infosys’ Global Education Center.

With a total built-up area of 1.44 million sq. ft, the Infosys GEC I and II can train 14,000 employees at any given time. The facility has 147 training rooms, 485 faculty rooms, 42 conference rooms, five assessment halls, an induction hall, a cyber café and two state-of-the-art libraries which can house over 140,000 books.

With a built-up area of 440,735 sq ft., GEC I has 52 training rooms, 183 faculty rooms and a state of art library that can accommodate 60,000 books. The Global Education Centre which is inaugurated today has a built up area of 1,002,095 sq. ft. GEC II has eighty four 100 seater, three 200 seater, six 60 seater and two 36 seater class rooms,5 examination halls and 302 faculty rooms.

It also has an induction hall which can seat 400 trainees, state of art library which can accommodate 80,000 books, MC room with a capacity of 40 seats with acoustically designed walls. The seating capacity of the cyber café is 236. The campus is home to participants of the foundation program. There are seven food courts that can cater to approximately 10,871 people at any given time. These multi-cuisine food courts offer various cuisines ranging from South Indian to continental food.

Synergetics is a premium brand in the Indian IT industry in the area of  people competency development engaged in delivering it thru  its training and consulting interventions; primarily focusing on their productivity with regards to the project and deliverables on hand . Its primary differentiator has been its solution centric approach and its comprehensive client focused service portfolio.

Microsoft creates open-source CodePlex Foundation On SD Times, Jeff Feinman writes

On SD Times, Microsoft creates open-source CodePlex Foundation, Jeff Feinman writes:: In its latest effort to embrace open source, Microsoft has created an open-source foundation of its own. Microsoft today launched the CodePlex Foundation, a non-profit foundation focused on the exchange of code and knowledge among software companies and open-source communities. It is an extension of Microsoft’s Codeplex.com open-source project hosting site, but Microsoft said the two are independent from one another. Sam Ramji, who will be serving as the CodePlex Foundation interim president, called the foundation a “culmination” of what Microsoft has been working toward as an open-source strategy. He noted that Microsoft has increased its open-source participation, pointing out the company’s funding and code donations to the Apache Software Foundation, as well as Microsoft’s Open Source Technology Center’s (OSTC) cooperation with the PHP community.

“The increasing participation in open source at Microsoft led to internal discussions about initiating a new open-source foundation that would be sensitive to the needs of software developers who don’t always participate in open-source community projects,” Ramji said.

“Existing open-source foundations are mostly targeted at particular projects, such as the Mozilla Foundation. The CodePlex Foundation will complement the activities of other open-source foundations by addressing a full spectrum of software projects.”

When asked how an open-source foundation could have so much Microsoft involvement, Ramji said Microsoft and open source are no longer “antithetical, but work closely together.” The foundation hopes to increase its independence with funding from sources outside of Microsoft, he said.

The CodePlex Foundation will be different from other open-source foundations because it will focus on the contributions of copyrights along with code from individuals who work for software companies, Ramji said. The focus is to make sure it’s easy to grant software use rights on behalf of a company to a community.

“It’s a different dimension from what other foundations are focused on, where when we think about an open-source license, we really think about the specific copyright license,” Ramji said. “That’s just a copyright on the code itself, but some of the challenges in the practices between software companies and community projects have been how to clearly treat what’s contributed and who can use it. We hope to bring some clarity and coherence to that.”

Ramji added that one benefit of the foundation is that developers can work through the legalities to contribute to active open-source projects.

Ramji will also be leaving Microsoft effective Sept. 25 for what he said are personal reasons. However, he said that the OSTC, which he oversaw, will continue on under the leadership of Tom Hanrahan, who was formerly the director of engineering at the Linux Foundation and currently the OSTC's director.

The CodePlex Foundation is license, platform and technology agnostic. Microsoft gave initial funding for the CodePlex Foundation of US$1 million.

After the first hundred days of the foundation’s existence, a new executive director will be hired and new board members will be brought in. Microsoft and open-source community members will create a charter to help guide how the foundation will be run.

Google PC Will Start In 7 Seconds Or Less

Google PC Will Start In 7 Seconds Or Less,

New Google Inc. software will start up a computer as fast as a television can be turned on, the search company said on Thursday as it showed off its Chrome operating system designed for PCs that do their work on the Web. Google gave the first public look at its Chrome OS four months after declaring its intention of developing the PC's main software, a move that pits it directly against Microsoft and Apple. The software will initially be available by the holiday season of 2010 on low-cost netbooks that meet Google's hardware specifications, reports Reuters.

Indian IT firms should seek big acquisitions, Gartner says

On CNET News, Indian IT firms should seek big acquisitions, Gartner says Steve Ranger writes,

Indian outsourcing companies need to make big acquisitions if they are to challenge the existing world order of global IT services companies, analyst firm Gartner says.

The top six India players: Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and HCL--collectively referred to as "Switch"--accounted for 1.9 percent of the total $672 billion IT services market in 2006. That compares with 0.5 percent in 2001, according to figures from Gartner.

Gartner said these companies are making inroads into "key" clients, often beginning with smaller, project-based work. Despite their smaller size, Gartner added, they are making "significant strides" to challenge the market share leaders' positions, by showing strong annual revenue growth far exceeding the rest of the market.

The average annual growth rate for the Indian companies was 42.4 percent in 2006, compared with a 4.3 percent growth of the market leader during the same period, the analyst group said.

Partha Iyengar, a Gartner vice president, said companies are re-evaluating their preferred vendor rankings to include Indian companies. "If the India-centric IT service providers continue to grow at the current pace, at least two companies will be a part of the top 10 companies globally," he said in a statement.

But Gartner said it will still take a number of years for Indian companies to challenge the top service providers or appear among the top three market share leaders--unless they make a major acquisition. And the analyst group said that if market share leadership in the top three is a goal, these companies would need to pursue acquisitions of "considerable size."