Enterprise file sync and sharing systems are beginning to proliferate, as vendors address IT management's desire to take back control after the widespread adoption of consumer-grade services such as Dropbox for corporate use.

File sync and sharing is just too convenient to ignore, hence the introduction of products such as EMC's Syncplicity.

HDS has entered the market with Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere (HCP Anywhere), which the company claims is the first integrated, single-vendor enterprise file sync and share product.

{loadposition stephen08}The data lives on the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) where security and compliance practices are under the control of IT, yet users get the convenience and features they have come to expect from such systems.

HCP eliminates the need for conventional backup and restore thanks to a federated model that keeps multiple copies of files, while deduplication and compression are employed to improve storage efficiency.

A new version of HCP was announced alongside HCP Anywhere.

When asked how HCP Anywhere compares with similar systems from vendors such as EMC, HDS CTO Adrian De Luca told iTWire that the difference was that HCP Anywhere was internally developed from scratch on top of Hitachi's existing content platform, so the necessary management, governance and metadata components are already in place.

Other vendors had bought in technology by acquiring smaller companies, resulting in silos of storage, he suggested.

One of the first Australian organisations to order HCP Anywhere is the Garvan Institute of Medical Research - please read on.

---

Dr Warren Kaplan, bioinformatics specialist at the Institute's Centre for Clinical Genomics told iTWire that massive amounts of data are generated by research equipment such as genome sequencers, bone scanners and new generation microscopes.

Such data is generally processed on Garvan's Dell-based HPC system, producing output documents such as images or PDF reports.

The plan is to use HCP Anywhere to provide convenient access to these outputs by researchers and clinicians.

Such a system is attractive to the Institute for two main reasons: science is inherently a collaborative effort, and HCP Anywhere will give researchers the functionality they need to share information with their peers while meeting Garvan's need for data security, patient privacy, and similar considerations.

Secondly, the Garvan community is highly mobile. There are usually around 350 active researchers from around 100 countries. They collaborate with other institutions, and almost always a handful of them will be travelling overseas.

Dr Kaplan said the Institute has traditionally used a VPN to provide travelling researchers with secure institute to in-house systems, "but it is rather cumbersome." HCP Anywhere is expected to provide a more convenient replacement for that approach.

Garvan has initially ordered 100 licences for HCP Anywhere, which will be used from Windows PCs and Macs, and from iPhones (the HCP Anywhere app can be downloaded here).

The Institute's objective is to do great science and great medicine, and to transform the treatment of patients, Dr Kaplan said. HCP Anywhere should help empower researchers as it will avoid the need for "draconian" controls without compromising the security of data.

It's not unusual to be offered an add-on purchase of carbon offsets when booking air travel, but we haven't previously heard of offsets being bundled with printers.

Ricoh Australia is now offering to acquire greenhouse gas offsets in respect of customers who rent or finance a printer if they also agree to automated meter reading and participate in the company's consumables recycling program.

The cost of the offsets is built into the contract price, a Ricoh spokesperson told iTWire.

{loadposition stephen08}One of the first customers to sign up is RMIT University.

RMIT deputy director of procurement Neil Sigamoney said "RMIT University is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and providing a safe and 'green' university for students and staff.

"The University has a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 25 per cent by 2020, based on a 2007 baseline.

"Our partnership with Ricoh Australia will help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions and foster a 'think green' culture within the University community."

Ricoh Australia managing director Les Richardson said "We are dedicated to doing our part toward a more sustainable society and through this initiative we can help our customers with their own sustainability goals."

Ricoh Australia recently achieved certification under the international carboNZero program after an independent audit of the company's greenhouse gas footprint, emissions reductions activities, and the purchase of "quality accredited" carbon credits.

Researchers of the German research institutions Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF) and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT) say they have achieved the wireless transmission of 40 Gbps at 240 GHz over a distance of one kilometre.

They say this sets a new world record and “ties in seamlessly with the capacity of optical fibre transmission. In the future, such radio links will be able to close gaps in providing broadband Internet by supplementing the network in rural areas and places which are difficult to access.”

So, even at that speed, the researchers see wireless as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, fibre.

“The changing media usage habits of modern society require the faster transmission of increasing volumes of data,” said Professor Ingmar Kallfass, who coordinated the project. ”Deploying new fibre-optic cables is expensive and difficult when there are natural or urban obstacles such as rivers or traffic junctions.

“Broadband radio links can help to overcome such critical areas, thereby facilitating the expansion of the network infrastructures. In rural areas they can be a cost-effective and flexible alternative to FTTH.”

{loadposition graeme}

The test involved transmitters and receivers operating in the 240 GHz band, which allows the transmission of data rates of up to 40 Gbps, which is the equivalent of 2,400 ADSL connections. I would enable the transmission of a complete DVD in under one second.

The test involved transmission over one kilometre between two tall building is central Karlsruhe which the KIT set up as part of the ‘Millilink’ next generation broadband project, funded by €2 million from the German Federal Government.

“We have managed to develop a radio link based on active electronic circuits, which enables similarly high data rates as in fibre-optic systems, therefore allowing seamless integration of the radio link”, said Professor Kallfass.

“Using the high frequency range between 200 and 280 GHz not only enables the fast transmission of large volumes of data,” said Kallfass, “but it also results in very compact technical assembly. Since the size of electronic circuits and antennae scales with frequency, the transmitter and receiver chip measures only 4 x 1.5 mm².”

The semiconductor technology developed at Fraunhofer IAF, based on transistors with high carrier mobility (HEMT), makes it possible to use the frequency between 200 and 280 GHz with active transmitters and receivers in the form of compact, integrated circuits.

The atmosphere shows low attenuation in this frequency range, which enables broadband directional radio links. “This makes our radio link easier to install compared to free-space optical systems for data transmission. It also shows better robustness in poor weather conditions such as fog or rain,” said KIT’s Jochen Antes.

“Up to now, radio links were not able to directly transmit the data rates of glass fibre. This might change in the future. Such a high performance system would also have the advantage of the so-called bit transparency – the signal of a glass fibre could be fed directly and without energy-consuming transcoding into a radio link. It could then be transmitted and redirected into a glass fibre.”

Antes said the record data from the test setup is only the beginning. “Improving the spectral efficiency by using more complex modulation formats or a combination of several channels – multiplexing, will help to achieve even higher data rates. Other possible applications are Indoor WLANs and intra-machine and board-to-board communication.”

The successful e-health trial has just been completed by five of Australia’s healthcare messaging vendors - Argus Connect, Global Health, Healthlink, LRS Health, and Medical Objects – in collaboration with General Practices, the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) and associated government agencies.

The trial tested the use of Secure Message Delivery (SMD) capabilities.

According to NEHTA’s Head of Clinical Leadership and Stakeholder Management, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal AO, the success of the project represents an opportunity for improved effectiveness and better health care in Australia.

{loadposition peter}“The progress that has been achieved by this project will mean any medical practitioner – be they a public or private GP, specialist or surgeon – will be able to share information over time through online secure messaging.

“We can see that this technology is available, it does work and all healthcare providers will have the ability over time to connect across a wide range of clinical information systems.

“It will increase electronic clinical information exchange between healthcare professionals, decrease the use of paper based communication and importantly provide more timely and accurate patient health information.”

Dr Haikerwal said the trial involved healthcare messaging vendors sending and receiving secure messages between one another, with interconnectivity possible “thanks to the collaboration between secure messaging vendors’ providers and NEHTA.”

To date, Argus Connect, Global Health, and Medical Objects have successfully demonstrated the technical ability to exchange messages with other messaging vendors in the general practice live environment.

Commenting on the trial, ArgusConnect General Manager, Ross Davey, said the testing that had taken place under the POD project had “demonstrated message interoperability in live medical practice situations.”

“Now we need the collaboration between vendors on shared support roles, responsibilities and service levels to ensure a consistent quality of service for customers. The Secure Message Exchange (SMX) consortium is developing and implementing these processes to ensure a sustainable operational service.”

Dr Haikerwal said successful long term adoption would require the development of sustainable business models, while the adoption of clinical software by the non GP sector was also anticipated to drive the demand for secure message delivery.

“The inter-connectivity of General Practice to other healthcare providers is vital because GPs interact and communicate with other healthcare providers, including Medical Specialists, Nurses and Allied Health Professionals. NEHTA initiated the project to pave the way to demonstrate and prove true inter-connectivity between general practice and other healthcare providers.”

Dr Haikerwal said electronic information sharing was a key milestone in the national infrastructure and adoption for eHealth in Australia.

Paragon Software Group is well known for providing support for 'foreign' file systems on a range of platforms, such as NTFS and HFS+ for Android, and NTFS for OS X.

The company's latest release in this line is a beta version of ExtFS for Windows.

ExtFS works in conjunction with the open source Dokan Library (roughly equivalent to FUSE for Linux) to provide read and write access to Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4 partitions.

{loadposition stephen08}The beta version of ExtFS for Windows is available at no charge.

It is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (and 2008 server), Windows 8 (in compatibility mode with Windows 7).

Paragon officials have not indicated a likely retail price for the release version of ExtFS for Windows. HFS+ for Windows costs US$19.95, ExtFS for Mac OS X costs US$39.95, and NTFS&HFS for Linux costs US$39.95 (the Express version of the latter is free for personal use).

CIOs say it takes an average of five months to deliver new versions of mobile applications for existing mobile device updates, confirming they cannot keep up with device vendors releasing updates every couple of months. The data comes from a global research study undertaken by research firm Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Borland.

Of the 590 CIOs and IT directors polled from nine countries around the globe, including 50 from Australia and New Zealand, the majority (79%) confirmed the teams delivering these mobile apps are a mix of in-house and outsourced support. But a third labelled their mobile development team as sluggish, middling or outpaced, showing a distinct lack of faith in their ability to develop and deliver against business requirements.

“This poses a particular challenge,” said Borland’s Jeff Findlay. “Respondents predict a 50% increase in the number of business apps that need to be made accessible on mobile devices over the next three years (from 31% in 2013 to 46% in 2016).

The ability to deliver timely mobile apps presents an even greater problem to mainframe organisations: 76% of in ANZ CIOs said that having a mainframe makes developing or implementing mobile applications that work with their existing systems more difficult. And fully 90% believe mobile application vendors and developers are more reticent to work with mainframe organisations.

{loadposition graeme}

“These findings confirm there is a real need to bridge the world of mainframe and mobile to ease the challenges for mainframe organisations,” said Findlay.

CIOs made a clear choice to back Android as their mobile operating system, with 88% of ANZ organisations developing their mobile apps for this system today. Apple iOS came a close second, with 84% in ANZ) developing for it, and Windows Phone third at 52%.

CIOs are not predicting a comeback for Blackberry OS. Lagging fourth at 28%, respondents estimate a 6% growth to 34% in two years’ time. Symbian is the clear loser with only 18% choosing to develop for the operating system.

Additional findings:

• Operational efficiency trumps customer retention as the main reason to go mobile: In order of priority, CIOs want to support mobile applications to improve operational efficiency, improve operational cost-effectiveness, capture new customers, and retain existing customers.
• Developing for the mini-tablet will more than double: Today, 31% of organisations in ANZ are developing mobile apps for the mini-tablet, 96% for smartphones and 92% on tablets. According to the survey, CIOs estimate that app development for mini-tablets will more than double over the next two years.
• Mobile development teams are outsourced and outpaced: 40% of CIOs in ANZ outsource 25%-50% of their mobile application development work. A staggering 40% of CIOs in the Asia Pacific region describe their mobile development team as middling, sluggish or outpaced.

“Mobile apps play a critical role in every organisation’s business strategy today,: said Findlay. “But the consumer in all of us is demanding more, and companies are under increasing pressure to release higher quality mobile apps faster and more often than ever before.

“With over 150 different mobile device vendors, most offering multiple operating systems, it is critical for organisations to satisfy the consumer’s experience regardless of the chosen device; this can only be achieved by thoroughly testing key transaction that support the business.

“A shift in thinking is needed when it comes to mobile quality, performance and development.  Our Silk portfolio helps prevent mobile app developers and testers from struggling to keep pace, enabling them to deliver better software faster as mobile technology demands continue to accelerate.

The survey was undertaken by Vanson Bourne in February 2013. It covered 590 IT decision makers in nine countries including UK (100), France (100), Germany (100), USA (100), Brazil (100), Australia (35), New Zealand (15), Hong Kong (15) and Singapore (25). The respondents were from mainframe organisations with 501+ employees, covering multiple industry sectors.

Windows 8 was revolutionary – perhaps too much so and Microsoft now tacitly admits it made a tactical error in forcing it on consumers. Fortunately freeware like Classic Shell bought back the Start button and the desktop and we were all happy again.

All Microsoft got wrong was that it prematurely overestimated the appeal of touch. The vast majority of Windows users have a desktop PC and touch at arm’s length is not productive – a keyboard and mouse is.

In its defence it got the touch football rolling and was very right about touch on tablets, smartphones and hybrid/notebooks. The good old Windows XP/7 interface could not cope and was being eclipsed by iOS and in danger of losing ground to Android when Key Lime Pie version 5 encroaches on the desktop space.

Windows 8 was also the catalyst needed to bring apps to Windows – there are now more than 70,000 (47,000 free) in the Windows 8 Store.

But what is a Windows 8 app really about? In the good old days we may have called these freeware or shareware but in reality an app, is a very different beast using lighter weight Silverlight, JavaScript and even HTML5 to more tightly integrate it with the touch OS and the Internet Cloud via the Windows Metro Tiled interface. So apps are purely about making them touch enabled and better for use on mobile devices – you can still run any x86 program on Windows 8 Desktop and that is where the current strength and appeal lies.

{loadposition ray}

Windows critics say that the PC is dead – no it is not but the desktop is morphing into something else entirely. The first generation of change is All-in-one that will replace the beige and black box but I suspect that this will soon become more a docking device to hook up your ‘personal’ computer to.

I am impressed with some of the new innovative designs that Windows 8 (and Intel) has spawned – Asus Taichi is a very impressive dual screen hybrid, HP ElitePad 900 is a great outside the box tablet design, Dell XPS flip-able, Lenovo Yoga, Sony Vaio, Acer W5/7 and more are taking advantage of touch. When Windows 8.1 is combined with the next generation Intel Haswell chips that will open up even more design freedom.

So back to the next version of Windows codenamed Blue. It will be called 8.1 which is significant in that it denotes an upgrade to the OS rather than an all new one. While it remains focused on touch and enabling new computing form factors it will have the old interface as well.

In future you won’t so much buy Windows but subscribe and that is important as it means the majority of devices running Windows will be all on the same OS. It is a real pain to have to support the 40% of Windows PC’s still on XP that was launched in 2001 (but not for much longer – support finishes 8 April 2014)

Windows 8.1 update will be available free to Windows 8 users via the Windows store in Q4, 2013.

Digital Realty's rollout of the EnVision data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) system to its 122 locations will begin this month and should be completed by the end of 2014.

EnVision is designed to deliver actionable information to data centre operators.

"Up until now, data has been collected, but it has not necessarily been easily accessed or arranged in an intuitive manner that is helpful to a data centre operator," said Digital Realty senior vice president of portfolio operations David Schirmacher.

{loadposition stephen08}"The goal in rolling out EnVision across our global portfolio is to give our customers a common database that is structured around the specific needs of data centre operators and can therefore manage the millions of data points that are found in today's large-scale facilities."

CEO Michael Foust said the system will give customers real-time, historical and predictive views into their operations.

The result of this collaboration is "the world's thinnest 2.5in solid state hybrid drives."

The 500GB WD Black SSHD (solid-state hybrid drive) is just 5mm thick compared with the usual 9.5mm notebook drive. This makes it suitable for thin notebooks and other mobile devices.

The company also makes 7mm and 9.5mm SSHDs.

{loadposition stephen08}"I am delighted for SanDisk to team up with WD on these exciting new hybrid products," said SanDisk senior vice president and general manager of client storage solutions Kevin Conley.

"By combining SanDisk's unparalleled flash memory expertise and technology with the hard drive know-how of WD, WD Black SSHDs offer outstanding hard drive-like capacity, and the slim form factor and the level of performance that you will only get with flash memory solutions."

WD vice president of client computing Matt Rutledge said "Working with SanDisk, WD realised our vision for products that combine the best of both technologies."

"WD's SSHDs are a significant achievement in the continuing SSHD/flash storage revolution."

The drives are shipping to OEM customers. There's no word yet about when or even if they will be offered at retail.

The 'Dick Smith Productivity Study' today revealed the white collar worker spends more than two working weeks each year grappling with technical issues and one fifth (22%) have spent a whole day trying to solve the problem. Around a third (30%) have had to re-do documents after computers have crashed, and almost one in five have been late for a meeting because of printer issues.

And it would appear that female office workers are much more likely to get stuck with the problem of tricky paper jams than their male counterparts.

It’s not just wasted time; problematic office equipment is causing more stress in the workplace. One in four have felt like smashing a computer or laptop screen when issues strike, and 7% (or one in ten) have cried due to lost documents or computer crashes.

The problem is only exacerbated by old technology. Over two thirds (77%) of Australian organisations still use a fax machine and even more worrying – this equipment is more than two years old.

{loadposition dswan}Greg Hirsch, Dick Smith’s Office Merchandise Manager stressed that technology such as laptops, printers and hard drives should be updated at least every two years.

“People are placing more and more demands on technology. For example, we’re more likely to use tablets for work and personal use which means we’re outgrowing our devices at a faster rate than we’re replacing it," he said.

“There is also a lack of understanding on how best use technological devices. For example, many people put pressure on their hardware to store data, when a more efficient ‘cloud’ storage system will get better results and prevent computer crashes and delays."

The solution is simple. An overwhelming number of office workers (88%) believe investing in new technology will save their time and ultimately, increase productivity in the workplace. Unfortunately, employers are less likely to take action with half (52%) claiming their boss is too stingy to invest in new equipment and four in ten believing their organisation will delay upgrading the technology if it still works.

Taxation expert and author Adrian Raftery believes employers could take advantage of the small business tax concessions by investing in new technology as a way of reducing office down-time.

“With 30 June just around the corner, small businesses can get the ATO to subsidise these improvements by buying new equipment up to $6,500 and get an immediate tax write-off for the full amount this year,” says Raftery, principal of Mr Taxman.

Raftery suggests small business owners could re-fit their office with new, functioning equipment by writing off new business assets rather than depreciating them over several years under the old tax rules.

“The ($6,500) concession is new to small businesses this year and includes computers, monitors, security systems and printers. There is no limit to the number of assets that can be purchased,” he said.

It seems more education is required in order to kick employers into action. Two thirds of small business owners are at risk of missing out on tax concessions because they’re unaware of what they can legitimately claim. More than half (55%) admit they don’t know the details of possible rebates or prefer to leave everything to their accountant.