Network optimization in order to assure an optimal user experience and firm operations.

Data traffic is extremely dynamic, reflecting the way people communicate in real life while they’re out with their friends, taking care of business, or on their way home. This lifestyle places extreme demands on the network and the technology supporting it. For an operator, wouldn't it be nice if things were more predictable? This new user behavior counts on network coverage, capacity, and performance…and users count on that.

To start with, end-user experience as well as network performance are to be measured and analyzed. The network configurations are optimized to improve End-user experience and maximize asset utilization.

Network Planning should include traffic forecasting and capacity planning to balance network investments and network performance. These services can also help the Operator to develop network strategies and action plans that will achieve business goals and provide input to subsequent design and integration of the network. The Operators' unique situation will be the guideline in packaging the relevant and beneficial service modules to meet operators’ present needs.

Network Design, a firm should set parameters for its network architecture, so it fulfills its business plan in terms of capacity, coverage, cost and quality of service. The quality of a network design has a direct impact on the performance of a network, its reliability, predictability, capacity and its potential for future expansion. Designing network correctly will deliver optimal performance and make sure a firm is ready for whatever the future brings.

Network Audit & Benchmarking, "How well are we doing?" and "Can we do better?" are two key questions even Operators frequently ask themselves. The services measure the current performance, provide recommendations and/or benchmark the network against local or global references.

Network Engineering, is a firm able to see what and where the bottlenecks are to better decide where and when to invest in network capacity.  It also supports in analyzing new revenue sources through deep understanding of the traffic trends. 

Network tuning, includes services to initially adjust the network before commercial launch. When a new network is installed or new features activated, the radio network functionality and operation is measured and adjusted. The services can also be applied after launch to improve network performance.

Cloud Computing, the new phase in optimizing enterprise IT operation

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Sounds confusing but here is it in every man's language. The practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer

Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process their data in third-party data centers.It has taken off in recent years as individuals and small businesses have been quick to embrace the new technology, but for the most part, larger corporations have lagged behind.

For large corporations, cloud technology can have its pros and cons. Cost is generally a plus, as companies appreciate the flexibility of picking and choosing which features to implement. "Cost" can be tricky to compute, though, as companies must also consider additional expenses such as upgrading their purchased technology and paying engineers to maintain their cloud services. Renting cloud applications, even for a long period of time, may be cheaper than buying them outright.
Another consideration, especially for big businesses, is security.
"For every application, we look at whether the cloud can be used, and at that moment we look at all aspects, including security," Shell IT architect Johan Krebber said. "When all criteria are met, we will launch on the cloud, and therefore we believe that the cloud is secure enough for a number of scenarios."

While security is an issue for large corporations, executives are taking measures to limit the vulnerability of their networks. For one thing, they can work only with reputable vendors in their industries, and for another, they'll use cloud services only in a single, federated system.
Another problem is the fine print in end user licenses – for those with poorly-worded licenses, minor details could lead to major unforeseen costs, according to Gartner research director Darryl Carlton. But businesses have become more savvy in their deal-making to avoid these pitfalls, and it now appears that the benefits of the cloud outweigh the challenges.

All of the above are reasons for caution, but ultimately the trend continues, and more big businesses get behind the cloud movement each day.
Along with my career i happened to snoop around some firm's cloud facility well organized  as what the cloud computing impresses. Being an intern i could not raise a tough suggestion on the same but just being a curious observer. Ihough all these the firm faced some unnoticeable challenges on the same.
Governance. The focus here was on aligning the cloud offerings with the needs of the departments. A new position, IT Manager, was to be created to ensure that departments received the functionality they needed. Heads of Departments could be given the responsibility for working with departmental units to develop the parameters need  for sourcing the IT services required, whether in-office or through the cloud.
The entire IT strategy was to be guided by an executive, handfull Technology Steering Committee (on which IT could have just two votes, although the CIO does have veto power).
The benefits of the firms large scale integration of cloud computing extend beyond cost-efficiency and IT functionality, including the speed with which it can now upgrade its capabilities and respond to new IT needs. Through the cloud, the company could also do a much better job of predicting its IT expenses, in essence shifting IT costs from capital expenditure to operating expenditure.
Reskilling IT professionals. As more and more IT services are outsourced, the capabilities of in-house IT professionals must shift from a technical emphasis to an emphasis on structuring, brokering, coordinating and integrating services.
Careful management of data, especially clients data. The question is not just one of security. Who owns the data? Does the student registrar own the registration data? Should the finance data be restricted to the finance function? In the words of Allergan Sue-Jean Lin, the data needs to be “democratized” — that is, the enterprise, and not just separate functions, owns the data.

With these three challenges keenly looked at, cloud computing can be of great help in any firm whether small or big corporates.

The next phase in virtual computing

Tracing back to the history of virtual computing in the early 1960’s IBM had a wide range of systems; each generation of which was substantially different from the previous. This made it difficult for customers to keep up with the changes and requirements of each new system. Also, computers could only do one thing at a time. If you had two tasks to accomplish, you had to run the processes in batches. This Batch processing requirement wasn’t too big of a deal to IBM since most of their users were in the Scientific Community and up until this time Batch processing seemed to have met the customers’ needs.

These hit me at my latest times but I think o got it right? Today, students and even office staff can reserve and log in to the Virtual Computing Lab anytime, anywhere from their own PCs or laptops. What's more, this remote-access system lets users choose the software they need, including industrial strength computer-assisted design (CAD) and engineering programs that take more memory than they have on their own systems. 

Virtual computing makes one computer act and perform like many computers. Through virtual computing providers, users can download and use more than one operating system and perform a multitude of functions at the same time through a single mouse click and receive all the benefits of additional programs and hardware without having to purchase or install them on their own computer. Executives can check their company e-mail on the road, students can take classes from home and managers can keep up with documents stored on internal servers from anywhere in the world. These is an amazing technology that if emblazed in the current memory intensive company and even institutional levels, with proper implementations technology will have saves a notch.

While there are many reasons for using virtual computing services, some people have gotten creative in their reasoning. Because all applications run remotely, some users log in to the Internet to do all their surfing through a virtual computer. This enables them to access files without worrying about hidden pages sabotaging their system. The added benefit is that they can surf and electronically communicate without worrying about infected files

The absolute value of transformation { Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) }

Since Oracle entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle acquired Sun common stock, The acquisition of Sun transformed the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems. Oracle up to time has been the only company that can engineer an integrated system – applications to disk where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves.

We as customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up. These is evident from the Java and Solaris.

Java is one of the computer industry’s best-known brands and most widely deployed technologies, and it is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle’s fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software. 

Oracle writes its Fusion apps in Java. Owning Sun kept Java out of the hands of a competitor (e.g. IBM who was also interested in buying Sun) and, along with its database community, further increased Oracle’s influence over developers.

The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle’s largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris.

But here comes the disclaimer: is MYSQL competing with oracle? Yes, it seems that way. I think that if Oracle gains ownership of MySQL, that might be bad for competition in the database market. But does MySQL even serve the same market as Oracle? Are the two really competing against each other? But there is an internal effort to assist Sun / MySQL customers in migrating from Oracle to MySQL by offering them a comprehensive solution that consists of Professional Services, Best Practices, and a set of approved third party migration tools and utilities that will enable them to move to MySQL in a way that is as easy as possible.

Sometimes it gets tiresome when people take shots at Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server 2008, or PostgreSQL. When I went to the MySQL for Database Administrators, the instructor mentioned a number of times how many Oracle people he’d get in his class. It was said almost as if all the Oracle customers were migrating to MySQL, which I don’t think is the case. If I’m wrong just post a comment.