Moving to the Clouds

Organizations worldwide are eyeing their existing data centers and wondering what it would take to turn them (or some part of them) into Private Clouds. Install virtualization? Check. Are we a Private Cloud yet?

Nope(sorry to burst your bubble on this one). OK, then, what else?

1. A Cloud orchestration platform like OpenStack or Eucalyptus.

2. Automated provisioning, configuration, and management, using a Toolchain based on Chef, Puppet, and associated tools.

3. Add a liberal dose of governance: operational policies that support the elasticity, automated
metering, user provisioning, and other essential Cloud characteristics.

Are we there yet?

Maybe. You may have overlooked some odds and ends, and you need to make sure you start with the
appropriate equipment. But yes, the list above mostly covers what it takes to build a Private Cloud.

OK, jump five (or ten?) years into the future. Your mission on this day is to build out an on-premise data center. There is no particular requirement to make it a Private Cloud. What's the best approach?

On the list:

1. Virtualization

2. Cloud orchestration

3. Automated provisioning, configuration and management.

Once these tools and technologies mature, there will be no reason whatsoever to build out a data center as anything but a Cloud.

At that point, all modern data centers will be Clouds. Once we get there, will we even need to talk about Cloud Computing? Or will we just call it…computing?

If you have any cloud specific needs or want to build some awesome apps , please feel free to reach us http://www.recrosoft.com

The Connected World: A future which is not that distant

Recently I was going through some articles on Internet of Things and came across a wonderful  article from IDG. The article talks about how IoT will play a major role in the connected enterprise. So just read on ......


When people talk about the Internet of Things (IoT), the most common examples are smart cars, IP-addressable washing machines and Internet-connected refrigerators. But IoT is coming to the enterprise as well, and CIOs should already be thinking about the ways it will shake up the corporate network.“Products and services which were previously outside their (CIOs’) domain will increasingly be under their jurisdiction,” says Daniel Castro, senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a US-based research and educational institute.

So, what are these devices?

Castro says that companies increasingly will be operating in “smart buildings” with advanced HVAC systems that are connected to the rest of the corporate network.

Many utility companies will be deploying Web-connected smart meters at customers’ facilities to allow for remote monitoring.

Companies are tying their physical security to their network security, so that data from security cameras and authentication readers are coming under the purview of enterprise IT. Most of the retailers already use RFID and other tracking technologies to manage supply chain logistics, says IDC’s Michael Fauscette. IoT is therefore a natural next step.

Then there’s operational technology (OT), where enterprise assets such as manufacturing equipment, fleet trucks, rail cars, even patient monitoring equipment in hospitals become networked devices, says Hung LeHong, research vice president at Gartner.

“Those types of assets are becoming Internet-enabled,” LeHong says. And even though they are managed by field operations or hospital services, they could become end-points on the corporate network.

Other examples of OT might include companies deploying vending machines that are connected to the Internet, so that they can be automatically restocked when certain items run low.

Another key area where IoT is making an appearance is what Gartner calls the digital supply chain. That’s when a company’s end-products, such as consumer electronics or large machinery, are Internet-enabled so that the manufacturer can keep track of maintenance schedules and other such aspects.
Besides, IoT is also showing up in consumer offerings such as home automation and smart grid. IT executives in industries such as gas and electric utilities will need to stay abreast of developments such as how smart meters and other types of data-generating solutions will affect IT and the corporate network.

And finally, IoT is emerging in so-called smart cities, where all kinds of devices and assets such as traffic lights, parking meters and garbage truck fleets are gradually being connected to the Internet. Municipal government IT executives will need to be aware of how these assets tie in to the network.

IT and OT Convergence

What will likely happen is a convergence of OT and IT. “As these machines go onto the corporate network, CIOs need to start talking together about what the future will look like when traditional IT and OT overlap on the network,” LeHong says.

“Who is responsible for providing security, for example,” LeHong asks. “There are existing IT skill sets that are very developed, but are at the same time, new or not a prime focus for the operations guy. There can be some synergies.”

IT executives will need to prepare themselves for situations such as when an IP-based vending machine is creating software replenishment orders for out-of-stock items using an ERP application, he believes.

“When it creates the replenishment order, does the vending machine need a user license for the ERP application?” LeHong asks. “CIOs need to get an understanding of this. Even if they are not going to own the vending machines, they need to worry about things like these. That’s what we mean by convergence. OT and IT need to discuss things like governance, security, software licensing and maintenance.”

In terms of networking technology and strategies at enterprises, IoT will have a significant impact. According to a report on IoT trends published by Gartner in 2012, things will be connected, but not necessarily in the ways most familiar to companies today. “Wi-Fi, 3G/4G cellular and Bluetooth are the wireless connectivity technologies we are most familiar with. However, they will not be the only way things connect to the Internet,” the report says.

These network technologies and protocols consume lots of power and are designed for higher-bandwidth applications, the firm says, but many things (for example, a temperature/humidity sensor in a remote agricultural setting) will require low bandwidth, long range and very low power consumption.

Looking ahead to the next few years, growth of the IoT will probably be greatest in areas such as inventory tracking and supply chain management, says Castro from ITIF. But given the way technology is developing, it’s likely that the IoT will be pervasive in many aspects of business.

Source:  http://www.connectedenterprise.in/feature/internet-things-coming-network-near-you#front

For experiencing IoT in real life please do reach us at http://www.recrosoft.com

Bluetooth Low Energy and Android

Bluetooth low energy or Bluetooth LE or Bluetooth Smart  is basically a wireless personal area
network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group aimed at novel applications in the healthcare, fitness, security, and home entertainment industries.

With Android 4.3 (API Level 18)  the support for Bluetooth Low Energy comes built in the platform and also the multiple APIs have been made available which the apps can use to discover devices, query for services, and read/write characteristics.

When compared to Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart considerably reduces the power consumption  and the maintenance cost  while maintaining a similar communication range.  This allows Android apps to communicate with BLE devices that have low power requirements, such as proximity sensors, heart rate monitors, fitness devices, and so on. The fields for which these apps can be build are endless , but to start with I am listing down a few areas where BLE based apps are picking up at a very fast pace:

a.       Health Care

b.      Sports and Fitness

c.       Notifications and Messaging Alerts

d.      Proximity sensing

This video from google provides a great overview of how Android is leveraging this technology to spread joy among the  android community and preventing  battery drain..

For experiencing and discussing awesome apps  please do reach us(Recrosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. ) at  http://www.recrosoft.com

Android Lollipop : A Developer's Perspective

We have been hearing a lot about Android Lollipop these days. Google claims it to be one of their most ambitious release . The developer preview has been in the market for some time and recently Google has also announced about the general availability of Android L, so we thought of sharing a quick preview for developers about this latest iteration in the Android world.

From our experience it looks like that with this set of API Google wants to provide a seamless experience across devices  ( no matter whether it’s a phone, tablet , a wearable or a Television). Some of the interesting features that we would like to mention about Lollipop are:

a.       Material Design : Android 5.0  brings Material Design to Android and also provides a toolkit to bring in the latest UI Patterns in your code. Material Design is based upon 3 principles:

        i.      Material is a metaphor:  The design uses  attributes of real material (tactile attributes, effect of light, motion etc)

      ii.      Bold , Graphic , Intentional: Using the foundational elements of Print Design

    iii.      Motion Provides a Meaning: Primary user actions are inflection points that initiate motion, transforming the whole design

Those who are new to Material Design can refer to the following link for details about Material  Design

http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html#introduction-principles

Also the built in transitions and the ability to use shared visual elements takes the user experience to another level

b.      More Juice: Android 5.0 provides a faster, smoother and more powerful computing experience. Android now runs exclusively on the new ART runtime, built from the ground up to support a mix of ahead-of-time (AOT), just-in-time (JIT), and interpreted code. It’s supported on ARM, x86, and MIPS architectures and is fully 64-bit compatible.

Android 5.0 also  offers enhanced A/V sync. The audio and graphics pipelines have been developed for more accurate timestamps, thus making video and games run much smoother.

c.       Enhanced Notifications:  In Android Lollipop the Notifications are more visible and a lot configurable. Different notification details may be made available on the lock screen. Then amount of content ie. None, some or All can be made available on the lock screen as configured  by the user.  In coming calls and other key notifications appear as head up notifications and can be responded without making the user leave current app. A fair amount of meta data can also be added to notifications as developers can now collect associated contacts, category and priority. The media notifications is also juiced up and supports upto 6 action buttons also  custom controls like “Thumbs up” are now available

d.      The Big Screen Experience: For developers targeting the big screen, Android 5.0 has something stored in the kitty. Android TV provides a TV platform to maximize the big screen experience of the app and allows user to easily discover content  along with providing voice based search and recommendations. Developers can now also support game controllers and other input devices. Leanback UI framework provided with android  can be leveraged to build cinematic 10-foot UIs for TVs. The TV Input Framework  provides access to a wide range of live TV input sources and mingles them with in a single user interface for users to  relish the content.

e.      The redesigned “Recents” space: Android 5.0 introduces a redesigned Overview space (formerly called Recents) that’s more flexible and useful for multitasking than available in the predecessors. New APIs allow developers to show different activities in an app as individual documents alongside other recent screens. The developers can also leverage the concurrent documents to provide users instant access to more of content or services. 

f.        Next Generation Connectivity :   The connectivity has also got a boost in Android Lollipop , three key areas where we see significant improvements are:

              i. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE):  Supports concurrent operation allowing both central and peripheral modes

                   ii.  Multi Networking: Supports querying of network for features

                 iii.  NFC API: Allows apps to register an NFC app Id dynamically and card emulation

g.        Godly Graphics:  High performance 2D and 3D graphics are now possible by support of Khronos OpenGL ES 3.1. Android 5.0 also introduces the Android Extension Pack (AEP), a set of OpenGL ES extensions that give you access to features like tessellation shaders, geometry shaders, ASTC texture compression, per-sample interpolation and shading, and other advanced rendering capabilities

h.      Support for sensors:  Tilt Detector for activity recognition, Hear Rate Sensor for analyzing Hear rate and various Interaction Composite Sensors for wake up, glance and pick up gestures are now supported

i.    Chromium Webview:  Chromium for Webview  based on Chromium M37 adds support for WebRTC , WebAudio and WebGL. Native support for all Web Components is also available

j.    Efficient Battery Management: With the newly introduced  job scheduling APIs developers can optimize battery life by deferring jobs for the system and schedule them to run at a later time or under specified conditions, such as when the device is charging or connected to Wi-Fi.

k.  Capture and Share Screen: Android 5.0 lets you add screen capturing and screen sharing capabilities to your app. With user permission, you can capture non-secure video from the display and deliver it over the network if you choose.

l.   Enhanced Sounds: A new audio-capture design offers low-latency audio input. The new design include a fast capture thread that never blocks except during a read; fast track capture clients at native sample rate, channel count, and bit depth; and normal capture clients offer resampling, up/down channel mix, and up/down bit depth. Multi-channel audio stream mixing allows professional audio apps to mix up to eight channels including 5.1 and 7.1 channels.

Apps can expose their media content and browse media from other apps, then request playback. Content is exposed through a queryable interface and does not need to reside on the device.

Apps have finer-grain control over text-to-speech synthesis through voice profiles that are associated with specific locales, quality and latency rating. New APIs also improve support for synthesis error checking, network synthesis, language discovery, and network fallback.

Android now includes support for standard USB audio peripherals, allowing users to connect USB headsets, speakers, microphones, or other high performance digital peripherals. Android 5.0 Lollipop also adds support for Opus audio codecs. There also are new MediaSession APIs for controlling media playback to make it easier to provide consistent media controls across screens and other controllers.

m.    Lights, Camera, Action

Android 5.0 introduces all new camera APIs that provide the ability to capture raw formats such as YUV and Bayer RAW, and control parameters such as exposure time, ISO sensitivity, and frame duration on a per-frame basis. With the new fully-synchronized camera pipeline developers can capture uncompressed full-resolution YUV images at 30 FPS on supported devices.

Along with images, there is the option to capture metadata like noise models and optical information from the camera. Apps sending video streams over the network can now take advantage of H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) for optimized encoding and decoding of video data.

Android 5.0 also adds support for multimedia tunneling to provide the best experience for ultra-high definition (4K) content and the ability to play compressed audio and video data together.

Reference: http://developer.android.com/about/versions/lollipop.html

For experiencing and discussing awesome apps  please do reach us(Recrosoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. ) at  http://www.recrosoft.com