CSIC 2011( August ) - Computer Society Of India

Transcription

ISSN 0970-647X | Volume No. 35 | Issue No. 5 | August 2011
` 50/-
CSI Communications
Knowledge Digest for IT Community
An Overview of the
Challenges and
Promises of Autonomic
Computing 6
IT Strategy Nuances
‘What’ and ‘Why’ of
Autonomic Computing 13
Overcoming Cellular
Connectivity Limitations
with M2Blue Autonomic
Distributed Data
Caching 16
www.csi-india.org
Exclusive Interview with
Prof. Bjarne Stroustrup,
Creator of C++ 22
Programming.Learn(“Perl”)
Regular Expressions in Perl
21
CSIC August 2011.indd A
Is IT Valued ? 28
Role of HR in Mergers and
Acquisitions 31
10 Rules to Reverse the
Email Spiral 34
ICT news briefs in
July 2011 37
8/6/2011 12:44:45 PM
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CSIC August 2011.indd B
8/6/2011 12:44:49 PM
CSI Communications
Contents
Volume No. 35 • Issue No. 5 • August 2011
Cover Story
Editorial Board
Chief Editor
Dr. R M Sonar
6
An Overview of the Challenges and
Promises of Autonomic Computing
Dr. John Strassner
Practitioner Workbench
21
Programming.Learn(“Perl”)
Achuthsankar S. Nair & Parul Tyagi
Editors
Dr. Debasish Jana
Dr. Achuthsankar Nair
Resident Editor
Mrs. Jayshree Dhere
Technical Trends
13
Advisors
Dr. T V Gopal
Mr. H R Mohan
Published by
Executive Secretary
Mr. Suchit Gogwekar
For Computer Society of India
16
‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Autonomic Computing
22
Prof. Bjarne Stroustrup, Creator of C++
Debasish Jana
Ms. Shanta Rangaswamy and Dr. Shobha G.
CIO Perspective
Research Front
Overcoming Cellular Connectivity
Limitations with M2Blue Autonomic
Distributed Data Caching
Brian Dougherty, Daniel Guymon,
Douglas C. Schmidt and Jules White
28
31
IT Strategy Nuances
Is IT Valued ?
Anil V Vaidya
HR
Role of HR in Mergers and
Acquisitions
Kishor Bhalerao
PLUS
Product Showcase : Monitoring Application Delivery with nGenius® and Sniffer®
Jayadev Nair
ICT@Society : 10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral
34
Achuthsankar S. Nair
Brain Teaser
35
Debasish Jana
Ask an Expert
36
Debasish Jana
Please note:
CSI Communications is published by Computer
Society of India, a non-profit organization.
Views and opinions expressed in the CSI
Communications are those of individual authors,
contributors and advertisers and they may
differ from policies and official statements of
CSI. These should not be construed as legal or
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editors and the contributors are not responsible
for any decisions taken by readers on the basis of
these views and opinions.
Although every care is being taken to ensure
genuineness of the writings in this publication,
CSI Communications does not attest to the
originality of the respective authors’ content.
© 2011 CSI. All rights reserved.
Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated
articles for non-commercial classroom use
without fee. For any other copying, reprint or
republication, permission must be obtained
in writing from the Society. Copying for other
than personal use or internal reference, or of
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without explicit permission of the Society or the
copyright owner is strictly prohibited.
33
Happenings@ICT: ICT news briefs in July 2011
37
H R Mohan
On the Shelf! – Book review
38
Dr. Suneeta Sane
Call for Papers : National Conference on Emerging Trends in Info. & Communication Tech.
Dr. D D Sarma
Call for Papers : COMAD 2011
39
39
Balasubba Raman Guruswamy
ExecCom Transacts
41
Prof. H R Vishwakarma
Know Your Chapters
42
Sushanta Sinha
Announcements : CSI Constitution Amendment, Nomination of Dr. N L Sarda and CSI
Membership Statistics Report
43
CSI News
44
CSI Communications | August 2011 | 1
CSIC August 2011.indd 1
8/6/2011 12:44:57 PM
Know Your CSI
Executive Committee (2011-12/13)
»
President
Mr. M D Agrawal
president@csi-india.org
Vice-President
Mr. Satish Babu
vp@csi-india.org
Hon. Treasurer
Mr. V L Mehta
treasurer@csi-india.org
Immd. Past President
Prof. P Thrimurthy
profpt@rediffmail.com
Hon. Secretary
secretary@csi-india.org
Nomination Committee Members (2011-2012)
Prof. (Dr.) A K Nayak
Mr. P R Rangaswami
Mr. Sanjay K Mohanty
Region - I
Mr. R K Vyas
Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir,
Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and
other areas in Northern India.
Region - II
Prof. Dipti Prasad Mukherjee
Assam, Bihar, West Bengal,
North Eastern States
and other areas in
East & North East India
Region - III
Mr. Anil Srivastava
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,
Rajasthan and other areas
in Western India
Region - IV
Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra
Jharkhand, Chattisgarh,
Orissa and other areas in
Central & South
Eastern India
Region - V
Prof. D B V Sarma
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh
Region - VI
Mr. C G Sahasarabudhe
Maharashtra and Goa
Region - VII
Mr. Ramasamy S
Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry,
Andaman and Nicobar,
Kerala, Lakshadweep
Region - VIII
Mr. Jayant Krishna
International Members
Division-I : Hardware (2011-13)
Dr. C R Chakravarthy
div1@csi-india.org
Division-II : Software (2010-12)
Dr. T V Gopal
div2@csi-india.org
Division-III : Applications (2011-13)
Dr. S Subramanian
div3@csi-india.org
Division-IV : Communications
(2010-12)
Mr. H R Mohan
div4@csi-india.org
Division-V : Education and Research
(2011-13)
Dr. N L Sarda
div5@csi-india.org
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8/6/2011 12:45:30 PM
President’s Message
M. D. Agrawal
From
: president@csi-india.org
Subject : President’s Desk
Date
: 1st August, 2011
Dear Friends
Hope this finds you witnessing vibrancy in CSI activities. Thanks
to CSI activists and our committee members for their efforts and
passion.
A New Era for ExecCom: CSI statutory committees on Research,
Publication, Conference & Finance had deliberations in Bangalore
on 23rd July, 2011 during which they came up with innovative
strategies and made various recommendations to ExecCom,
which was planned immediately thereafter on same day. ExecCom
reflected and deliberated on key thrust areas namely, promoting
quality education, plans for introduction of short term training
programs thereby improving competency level of students,
faculty & professionals, promoting fundamentals and research
careers through symposiums, partnering with other organizations
for organizing research conferences and promoting research
journal and transactions. Partnership model for CSI certification
programs is another initiative, wherein already four proposals
are under progress. Research veteran, Prof. Shyam Sunder, Chief
Editor, CSI Computing Journal, has taken the overall responsibility
of Chairman of the Publication Committee.
ExecCom members presented detailed future plans. Worthmentioning contributors are Past President, Prof. Thrimurthy
on Academics and Awards, VP - Mr. Satish Baboo, Convener,
Research Committee – Prof. Rajeev Sangal, Publication Committee
Chairman - Prof. Shyam Sunder, Div. II Chairman - Dr. Gopal, RVP
VII - Mr. Ramaswamy, RVP VI - Shekhar Shastrubudhe, RVP I
- Dr Vyas, RVP V - Dr. Sarma, RVP VIII - Mr. Jayant Krishna, RVP
II - Dr. Dipti, ASC - Mr. Ranga Raj Gopal, Hon. Secretary - Prof.
Vishwakarma, Hon. Treasurer - Mr. V L Mehta, progress on
constitutional amendment by Mr. Sawhney, progress on revival
of defunct chapters by Dr. Bhatia, RVP III - Mr. Anil Srivastava
for CSI IT awards and new thrust in his region, Mr. Bipin Mehta
on YITP awards and Prof. Mini on skill development initiatives.
Mr. Mahalingam and Prof. Raghavan briefed ExecCom progress
on CSI transactions. On the part of ExecCom meetings, thanks
to Mr. Ramasamy, Region V and VII regional meetings were also
organized to decide plans for these regions. Sincere gratitude to
all members for their zealous efforts and painstaking participation
in discussions so as to envisage a pristine CSI. We need to build
a vibrant team structure with resourceful and committed CSI
activists for continuity of services to members. We witness now a
new vibrancy in activities of Bangalore Chapter. My special thanks
to Team & Chairman Bangalore Chapter.
India Shines: It seems befitting of CSI to participate in its limited
capacity in effective use of ICT for Nation building exercise and to
address socio-economic issues.
More than a decade ago, during Mr. Atal Vajpayee’s Government,
IT task force made around 29 recommendations, the most
important in context being the call for a national campaign for
universal computer literacy which talks about countless schemes
that will help students, teachers and schools procure computers
and promises to have computers and Internet in every school by
2003. The report talks about strengthening IT programs in various
universities and about starting SMART schools in each State. Still
a good progress is to be realized in this important area. We may
have thrust in our plans to promote Computer literary under
our Social commitment, this will be fitting contribution of CSI
for society and a good success will add pride for CSI Golden
Jubilee celebrations in year 2014.
Government is in the process
of study and formation of the
12th Five Year Plan. Innumerable
committees and sub-groups
are engaged in defining suitable
policies and plans on various
aspects of growth and prospects
in Information Technology and
telecommunication sector. After
my interaction with few senior
directors at Ministry level, some
interest has been shown, to know
CSI’s view points especially on
policies and plans for E-Innovation and R&D.
Current study group for 12th Five Year Plan under R&D calls for
recommendations in areas like: 1) Mechanism/strategies - to
promote R&D for design-led manufacturing of products, packages
and services, and also to suggest mechanisms to widen the R&D
base in the country; 2) Strategies - to support technology startup companies and to promote innovation in academic and R&D
institutes leading to eco-system for product development; 3)
Kinds of incentives and mechanism - for enhancing creation
and protection of intellectual property and to identify possible
mechanism to increase contribution of R&D exercises carried
out in the civilian sector towards specific applications in defense,
atomic energy and space. Education and R&D remain still the
major thrust areas for growth of ICT industry. Our competitors
China and western world is much ahead.
We shall consider forming few study groups to explore these areas
of thrust and come out with recommendations for government
and industry and try to extend help in limited way . An effective
collaboration between IT industries, academic and financial
institutions and Government agencies may perhaps form the basis
for these plans. One option could be that IT industry being the
real beneficiary of opportunities in last two decades and availing
benefits of good education outreach in India, could come forward
to invest heavily in R&D and development of Quality Education.
Under leadership of Mr. K V Kamat, Infosys already announced
apart from IT services thrust on New Product developments. CSI
events shall include necessarily one session on one of these Key
issues.
Corporate sector is also seeking new directions & advice
for effective deployment of technology and for deciding IT
Governance Policies and practices. Similar are the requirements
for SMEs. Government is on the lookout for effective E-Governance
initiatives. It seems feasible to study these sorts of requirements
and thus create a repository of Best Practices, which can be a
good reference for new entrants. CSI plans on Digital library
will meet these aspirations. Thanks to efforts by Prof Mini. Our
CIO members shall be requested to share best practices and
successful implementations for benefit of others. Knowledge
Management & sharing shall become Key thrust area.
SIGs and Divisions : Friends, as mentioned in my previous
letters, for determining and designing the future plans of CSI and
for generating better interest in CSI activities and membership,
8/6/2011 12:45:30 PM
our plans need to be synchronized with Nation’s priorities and
stake holders aspirations and needs. Our E-governance SIG has
taken some lead in creating knowledge repository of successful
E-governance initiatives.
Similar attempts may be done by
other SIGs. We shall first decide the relevant list of subjects
for starting SIGs. We need to invite few more experts and
resourceful persons to direct various special interest groups
which shall promote subjects of relevance and start working
on policies and standards in respective areas. Truly, healthy
functioning of SIG holds a great significance for CSI growth and
we need to identify groups and experts to lead these SIGs. These
SIGs should invite members from premier IT companies like
IBM, TCS, Wipro , Cognizant, Microsoft, premier institutions
like IIT, IIITs, major corporate and joined with expert faculty
working in Tier II institutes. All our 5 Divisions shall form subcommittees of experts from respective areas and deliberate on
new developments and their relevance to industry and thus
promote the same through independent on-line publications for
benefit of members. My sincere appeal to our Vice President to
assist in this matter.
CSI Clusters for Education & Research: CSI is having good
infrastructure at Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai,
Kolkatta, Delhi, Coimbatore, Pune, and Ahmedabad. At every
place, we have quite a few energetic & knowledgeable members,
who would like to contribute for CSI. We shall thoughtfully
identify potential areas where each centre can concentrate,
design and develop education plans, publications and promote
research. It is essential to evolve suitable revenue and partnership
model on case to case basis. We shall strive to utilize resources
at each location to develop education schemes for respective
member segment and plans, which can be replicated at other CSI
centers. Our Director Education and HQ shall provide framework
and policies for these alignments. By this, load of development
could be distributed at various centers. Currently, since Mumbai
is running various corporate level workshops, it shall endeavor
to develop well structured courses leading to certifications for
professionals and corporate users. Other chapters who are
involved in similar exercise can collaborate to develop central
repository of corporate level courses. Today a definite gap exist
for quality education for corporate users and IT professionals.
CSI shall fill this Gap. Management and Project plan needs to
be put in place. Chennai and Coimbatore Chapters may like to
get involved in development of courses for students and faculty.
We need to work out schemes for each Chapters and, after
discussing with members, equally formulate mechanism and
practices for effective governance and control. There are many
areas of excellence for these kinds of developments viz. Mobile
Computing based courses, especially for inclusive applications,
Publications on different subjects, incubation centers, workshops
for SMEs, Government etc.
Some of the Chapters, the premises of which are located far from
the vicinity of industry, it may be worth coming up with plans for
relocation in the vicinity of IT industry, so that IT professionals
find convenient to attend CSI programs, to be held in CSI
premises. For each place, a building committee shall be formed
and proposals shall be invited. We have seen benefits of this in
Mumbai, where proximity of premises to IT industry attract good
participation to technical programs.
CSI Plans for Youngsters: Ethos and passions of youngsters has
difference. They live in the most contemporary world of new
technologies and facilities. We need to capture their interests
so that they develop interest in CSI membership. I suggest that
at each chapter, we should have a sub-committee of members of
below 30 years of age and this sub-committee should be given a
mandate to design programs for youngsters. A portion of budget
in each chapter may be made available to this sub-committee.
This approach is common in most of the other professional
societies. Benefits may be immense in future. we would be happy
to prepare new leaders for CSI.
During the last 3 months, 8 no. new chapters came into existence.
My hearty good wishes to members over there. Elections for 52
no. of Chapters were completed. Dr. Bhatia and RVPs deserve
appreciations for their hard work.
My hearty good wishes to Kochi & Trivandrum Chapter for
hosting ACC-2011: International Conferences on Advances in
Computing and Communications.
Head Quarter in Mumbai will be moving to its new premises
shortly at MIDC, Andheri with new facilities of seminar and
meeting rooms. This new premises will give a boost to brand
image of CSI and offer a corporate and professional environment
to our staff and members. We need to invest more in branding
and promotion activities. Excellent efforts were put by team: Mr.
M R Datar, Mr. Suchit, Mr. Ashish, Ms. Shruti and Mr. Koshy
Abhraham to bring up this facility. A corner for CSI library shall
offer a distinctive look to facilities. Thanks to Mr. F C Kohli for this
nice suggestion.
I am happy to share the news that ExecCom has nominated CSI
Fellow Prof. N L Sarda, of IIT Mumbai, as Divisional Chairman Education & Research. He has been a staunch supporter of CSI
events and programs, and I am sure that with his vast knowledge
and involvement, CSI education and research initiatives shall get
a new meaning. We whole-heartedly welcome him in ExecCom.
Friends, let us look forward to creating a co-vision for CSI and
making CSI a vibrant professional body at service to the nation and
members at large. Your suggestions, involvement and support will
be highly appreciated.
Jai hind!
With love,
M D Agrawal
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:31 PM
Editorial
Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair, Debasish Jana and Jayshree Dhere
Editors
Dear Fellow CSI Members:
Since April 2011, as part of the rejuvenating exercise of catering
rich technical knowledge to the society, we have been presenting
you revitalized CSI Communications with changed content
and focus. Many eminent stalwarts in their respective fields of
expertise have gladly contributed to reach the proceedings of
technology blended with theory and practice to our members.
Hope you all are enjoying the power packed CSI Communications.
We welcome your thoughts and ideas to have a positive feedback
to the whole process.
We delightfully present you a new issue of CSI Communications
with focus on Autonomic Computing. Hippocrates, known to be the
father of medicine, made us believe that the human body must
be treated as a whole and not just a series of parts. According to
him, “The natural healing force within each of us is the greatest force
in getting well”. Autonomic Computing talks about self-managed
systems with the visionary notion of self-CHOP – systems that
can self-configure, self-heal, self-optimize, and self-protect
themselves.
Autonomic Computing talks about self-managed
systems with the visionary notion of self-CHOP
– systems that can self-configure, self-heal, selfoptimize, and self-protect themselves.
In the last few months, we have got exemplary insights from
researchers and practitioners on several frontiers of technology.
This month, we present some thoughts from experts in the field
of Autonomic Computing for our beloved community. We are
privileged to present the thought provoking interesting overview of
the challenges and promises of autonomic computing by Dr. John
Strassner, CTO, Software Lab, Huawei, USA. He has presented
us the way how autonomic systems attempt to automate the
management of hardware, software, and network infrastructures.
Autonomic computing alleviates the need of human intervention,
in turn resulting in reduced operational expenditures, increased
dependability and security, and easy adaptation of the resources
used to varying workloads. Our Technical Trends section is
treasured with an interesting article. This article focuses on
what and why of autonomic computing, jointly written by two
young ladies Ms. Shanta Rangaswamy and Dr. Shobha G. of R V
College of Engineering, Bangalore. One more interesting article
focussing on autonomic computing: paradigm shift for software
development has been received and we intend to bring it to you
in the next issue.
Our Research Front is cherished with a very motivating and well
written, insightful article on autonomic computing in cellular
world by Dr. Brian Dougherty, Dr. Daniel Guymon, Prof. Douglas
C. Schmidt and Jules White from Virginia Tech and Vanderbilt
University, USA. Their article “Overcoming Cellular Connectivity
Limitations with M2Blue Autonomic Distributed Data Caching”
focuses on applicability of autonomic computing in memory
constrained nature of mobile devices.
Dr. Anil Vaidya, in his series of articles on IT strategy, writes in
this issue on ‘Is IT Valued?’, discusses important concept of
‘value of IT’ and presents a value addition model. He emphasizes
that decision-making processes not just of organizations but
even of individuals have undergone major overhaul. HR plays an
important role even during the initial decision making process
in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). They say ‘if you can’t beat
them, join them’. Article in the HR column by Kishor Bhalerao of
Persistent Systems brings out this aspect on role of HR in mergers
and acquisitions.
Programming.Learn(Perl) section of the Practitioners Workbench
column deals with regular expressions in Perl. Programming.Tips()
section has third and last part of an exclusive interview with Prof.
Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++. This part of the interview
deals with C++0x Technicalities and Intricacies. As in earlier
parts of the interview, the interview texts have been augmented
with prologues and epilogues where it was considered necessary
to explain the question and the idea behind the question, for the
benefit of general readership. All the three parts of the interview
are listed in Prof. Bjarne Stroustrup’s homepage http://www2.
research.att.com/~bs .
As usual there are regular features such as ICT@Society, Brain
Teaser, Ask an Expert, On the Shelf (Book Review), Happenings@
ICT and CSI News. We thank all those, who have sent their
valuable feedback on the previous issue. Please note we welcome
your feedback and suggestions at csic@csi-india.org. And last, but
Autonomic computing alleviates the need of human
intervention, in turn resulting in reduced operational
expenditures, increased dependability and security,
and easy adaptation the resources used to varying
workloads.
not the least, we welcome your contributions in various columns
and sections for CSI Communications.
In the Product Showcase column, products of NetScout Systems
are displayed for your information. Do inform your friends,
colleagues and others in the corporate word about Product
Showcase column in CSI Communications, so that they can come
forward and make use of this subsidized column for enhancing the
reach of their ICT related products and services by writing articles
about them for the benefit of CSI community.
With warm regards,
Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair,
Debasish Jana and Jayshree Dhere
Editors
8/6/2011 12:45:31 PM
Cover Story
Dr. John Strassner, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer, Software Lab, Huawei, USA.
An Overview of the Challenges and
Promises of Autonomic Computing
The purpose of autonomic
computing is to manage the
complexity of networked
components and systems.
Autonomic computing was first
used to manage homogeneous
components; later, extensions
were defined to manage systems
having heterogeneous components
of differing capabilities.
This article provides a brief
introduction to these two types
of autonomic computing, and
reviews the challenges and
opportunities facing each type.
I.
Introduction
The proliferation of different technologies, combined with
the ever-increasing complexity of software and more advanced
business models, has led to a more complex, networked
world. In this world, heterogeneous devices operate using a
converged infrastructure to support multiple applications that
each has different requirements. Service Providers, Equipment
Manufacturers, and other actors deploy the latest technologies in
order to gain competitive advantage.
This has created a number of challenging problems. The
ever-increasing difficulty in managing multi-vendor environments
drives costs in human resources as well as software. Most systems
require manually-intensive administration and management,
which in turn mandates highly skilled, costly, labor-intensive
processes, which impact time to market. Most importantly, the
business, technical, and even social aspects of systems have
increased dramatically in complexity, requiring new technologies,
paradigms and functionality to be introduced to cope with these
challenges [1]. These increases in complexity have made it almost
impossible for a human to manage the different operational
scenarios that are possible in current, let alone future, systems. For
Autonomic systems attempt to
automate the management of hardware,
software, and network infrastructures
in order to decrease the amount of
human intervention required. This in
turn decreases operational expenditures,
increases dependability and security,
and adapts the resources used to varying
workloads.
| July 2011 | 6
www.csi-india.org
CSI Communications
8/6/2011 12:45:31 PM
Many people think of
autonomic computing
as a futuristic academic
vision that has no real
application.
example, customers want personalized
services – services that adapt to the
current context and task being performed.
This requires devices and systems to be
cognizant of the needs of the user, any
environmental, administrative, or social
restrictions on the use of certain functions,
the capabilities of the device(s) in use,
and other services that can be employed
to best satisfy the user.
II. Characteristics of Autonomic
Systems
The
purpose
of
autonomic
computing is to manage complexity. The
name was chosen to reflect the function
of the autonomic nervous system in the
human body. The analogy is not exact,
as many of the decisions made by the
autonomic nervous system of the human
body are involuntary, whereas ideally,
most decisions of autonomic systems
will be delegated to a human-designed
governance structure, such as policybased management [2]. However, it
is indicative of the general nature of
autonomics, which is to offload as many
manually intensive tasks from users as
possible in order to enable those users
to spend their time more productively.
By transferring more manual functions
to
involuntary
control,
additional
resources (human and otherwise) are
made available to manage other, more
important, processes.
IBM, HP, Sun (now part
of Oracle), and many
other large companies
have invested hundreds
of millions of dollars
each to bring autonomic
capabilities to their
products.
Autonomic systems attempt to
automate the management of hardware,
software, and network infrastructures
in order to decrease the amount of
human intervention required. This in
turn decreases operational expenditures,
increases dependability and security,
and adapts the resources used to varying
workloads.
Autonomic
computing
enables systems to self-manage their
behavior as a function of business goals,
user requirements, and environmental
conditions, resulting in the automatic (re)
configuration of systems in response to
changing context. Autonomic systems
typically exhibit properties such as selfconfiguration, -optimization, and -healing.
However, it is important to realize that
these are all benefits, and cannot be
realized without knowledge of the system,
its users, and the environment in which it
is operating.
There are two types of autonomic
systems. Autonomic Computing focuses
on the application and takes the network
for granted. Autonomic Networking focuses
on the network and takes the applications
for granted. However, the future lies in the
merging of these two paradigms, which
we will call Autonomic Systems.
Both types of Autonomic Systems
have focused on the development of highly
distributed algorithms that provide selfmanagement capabilities (as opposed to
more traditional, centralized management
approaches). Research has investigated
the
use
of
biologically-inspired
algorithms and processes. As noted in
[3], complex biological systems “tend
to exploit decentralized and uncoupled
coordination models, relying primarily on
environment-mediated local information
transfer.” Examples include homeostasis
(the property of a system to regulate its
internal environment to maintain a stable
condition) and stigmergy (a means of
indirect coordination, where the effect
of an action stimulates the performance
of the next action, enabling action to
reinforce and build on each other).
Many people think of autonomic
computing as a futuristic academic vision
that has no real application. This is not the
case. IBM, HP, Sun (now part of Oracle),
and many other large companies have
invested hundreds of millions of dollars
each to bring autonomic capabilities
to their products. While a complete
autonomic system does not yet exist, it
is important to remember that autonomic
technologies form a vital part of many
important systems in use today.
IBM WebSphere Virtual Enterprise
[4] uses autonomic management
to provide an enhanced quality of
service in dynamic operations and
extended manageability for service level
management. IBM Tivoli Change and
Configuration Management Database
[5] automatically tracks IT information,
aiding IT staff in understanding the
relationships and dependencies between
products and their components. IBM DB2
[6] provides self-configuring and self-
Sensors retrieve vendorspecific data, which
is then converted to a
normalized form and
analyzed to determine
if any correction to the
managed resource(s)
being monitored is
needed.
maintaining features, which simplifies
memory management and storage
management, performance tuning, as
well as database maintenance. IBM
Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager
automates resource accounting, cost
allocation and chargeback billing based
on usage of resources. IBM Tivoli Security
Operations Manager [7] autonomously
analyzes data center information to detect
security threats; if a threat is detected, it
can optimize and automate the process
of incident recognition, investigation and
response.
HP also uses autonomic principles
in its system. [8] describes how an
autonomic
controller
dynamically
manages the mapping of virtual machines
onto physical hosts using user-defined
policies. The advantage of this approach is
that software can monitor virtual machine
activity and optimize workload placement
dynamically, providing significant cost
savings. HP’s 3PAR Adaptive Optimization
Software [9] is an autonomic storage
solution that delivers service level
8/6/2011 12:45:34 PM
A. Autonomic Computing
Approach
The
fundamental
management
element of an autonomic computing
architecture is a control loop; an example
is defined in [13] and shown in Figure
1. Since resources have vendor-specific
differences, this architecture assumes
that any resource to be managed can be
instrumented in a standard way, so that
Sensors
Autonomic
Manager
optimization for virtual and cloud data
centers to reduce cost while increasing
agility and minimizing risk. It uses policy
rules to autonomically optimize data
storage and movement in accordance
with customer quality of service needs.
Note that the 3PAR solution has been
integrated into many of HP’s storage
solutions, enabling users to realize elastic
storage with changes in demand. In [10],
an autonomic session-based admission
control policy is described that adatively
adjust web session admission as a
function of workload burstiness in order
to meet pre-defined user service level
objectives.
Oracle 11g has several important
autonomic features. The SQL Performance
Analyzer [11] enables the user to
proactively assess the impact of SQL
execution to any change in the database.
Database Replay [11] enables production
workloads to be used on a staging system
to test its reliability before it is deployed
in production. The automatic database
diagnostic monitor (ADDM) [12]
provides a near-real-time performance
picture of the entire database. It can be
run on demand or automatically to look
for any performance-related problems.
If a problem is detected, it will identify
its root causes and make appropriate
recommendations for solving it. It has a
PL/SQL interface that enables developers
to embed ADDM capabilities into their
application. ADDM also has an Oracle
Enterprise Manager interface for remote
diagnosis.
an Autonomic Manager can communicate
with it in a standard way. This architecture
also assumes that each Autonomic
Manager governs a set of homogeneous
resources (i.e., resources having the same
functionality and programmed using the
same language).
The operation of the control loop
is as follows. Sensors retrieve vendorspecific data, which is then converted
to a normalized form and analyzed
to determine if any correction to the
managed resource(s) being monitored
is needed (e.g., to correct non-optimal,
failed, or error states). If so, then those
corrections are planned, and appropriate
actions are executed using effectors that
translate normalized commands back to
a form that the managed resource(s) can
understand.
Effectors
Analyze
Plan
Knowledge
Monitor
Managed
Element
Autonomic Networking
has lagged behind
Autonomic Computing,
both because it started
later and because it is
inherently more difficult.
Sensors
Execute
Effectors
Managed Resources
Fig. 1 : Autonomic Computing Control Loop
B. Autonomic Computing
Successes and Challenges
There have been a number of
important successes in autonomic
computing, such as its incorporation in
various commercial products, including
tools that provide autonomic capabilities
(e.g., in IBM’s DB2 [14], HP’s Systems
Insight Manager [15], and Novell’s
ZENWorks Orchestrator [16]. In each
case, autonomics has been used as one
or more technologies that have been
inserted into a specific product to provide
one or more features. However, to date,
an “autonomic server” or “autonomic
product” has not been shipped.
This reflects the difficulty in
building a truly autonomic system.
System components that used to
be homogeneous, such as CPUs or
storage, can now be packaged in virtual
machines. Different virtual machines
can use different hypervisors that run on
different operating systems. While this
heterogeneity is still orders of magnitude
less than what is found in networks, there
are a set of important limitations that this
architecture cannot meet that represent
real-world problems.
First,
current
management
approaches are technology-specific, and
do not take business needs into account.
For example, data produced by devices, as
well as commands issued to devices, are in
forms that are unable to express business
rules. This is exacerbated when workflowbased orchestration is used to automate
business processes, since this demands
dynamic translation between business
rules and reconfiguration commands that
are each defined in different languages,
having different syntaxes and semantics.
Hence, it is impossible to reconfigure
resources in response to new or changed
business requirements [1] [2] [3]. This
disconnects business stakeholders from
people responsible for managing the
resources.
Second, contextual changes must be
sensed, since new management policies
could be required when context changes.
This in turn may cause one or more control
loops to be adapted to ensure that system
functionality adapts to meet changing user
needs, business goals, and environmental
conditions. This requirement implies the
ability for the new context to interrupt
(or even terminate) the currently running
control loop; the architecture shown in
Figure 1 does not support this capability.
An important example is root-cause
analysis, where the system may determine
that a particular type of algorithm will not
work and needs to terminate it and try a
different algorithm.
Third, note that the four control
loop functions (monitor, analyze, plan,
and execute) are serial in nature. This
makes it impossible to build a governance
mechanism that depends on different
parts of a control loop interacting with
each other. A classic example of this type
of control loop is Boyd’s Observe-OrientDecide-Act (OODA) loop [17].
The goal of an autonomic
system is not to replace
human operators, but
rather to reduce their
interaction with the
system.
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8/6/2011 12:45:34 PM
Fourth, a single serial control loop is
performing two different functions. First, it
is monitoring and analyzing data; second,
it is reconfiguring one or more managed
entities. This assumption will not work
for heterogeneous environments, since
these two functions are completely
different in purpose, method, algorithm,
and most importantly, affected entities
(e.g., to solve a problem, a device different
than the one being monitored may
need to be reconfigured, which means
that the control loop starts and ends
at different places). A simple example
is the correlation of different data that
have different meanings and importance
relative to finding a solutioin.
Finally, if devices have vastly
different
functionality,
different
programming languages, and different
data and command structures, how
can such disparate functionality be
coordinated to provide appropriate
responses with minimal interaction?
Is it possible to build
a training model to
enable the autonomic
system to learn? How
many mistakes can the
autonomic system make,
and what is the degree
of mistake that can be
tolerated?
This is a common problem in networked
environments, where even standard
protocols have different vendor-specific
implementations, and consequently,
network devices from different vendors
implementing the same protocol will have
different resource requirements and side
effects.
These are some of the main
considerations that led to a more generic
version of Autonomic Computing, called
Autonomic Networking.
C. Autonomic Networking
Approach
Autonomic networking has the same
goal as autonomic computing. However,
while autonomic computing has been
focusing on managing homogeneous
Context Manager
Policy Manager
Policies control application of intelliegence
Autoromic Manager
Control
Control
Control
Control
YES
Managed
Resource
Model-Based
Translation
Analyze Data
and Events
Determine
Actual State
Current State=
Desired State?
NO
Ontological
Comparison
Reasoning and
Learning
Define New Device
Configuration(s)
Control
Fig. 2 : Simplified FOCALE Autonomic Architecture
devices
and
systems,
autonomic
networking must deal with three different
types of heterogeneity: (1) different
devices having different functionality,
(2) different devices that use different
languages, data, and commands to
represent the same concept, and (3)
different types of control mechanisms
that must be coordinated (e.g., wired
and wireless devices are managed using
different protocols).
Unfortunately, the simple system
shown in Figure 1 makes the following
assumptions that are typically not valid
for network environments. First, the
entity being managed can be directly
instrumented in a standard way. This
is not true in most network devices, as
devices define interfaces that provide a
view into data that it gathers and enable
some, but not all, software functionality
to be implemented (e.g., most network
equipment manufacturers will not provide
direct control over the operating system
used in the device). Second, network
devices consist of heterogeneous data
and languages. A network device usually
supports both Command Line Interface
(CLI) and management applications built
using the Simple Network Management
Protocol
(SNMP);
however,
the
functionality provided by CLI and SNMP
applications is usually different. These
two approaches represent the same
concept using data and commands that
are completely different for different
devices. In addition, a single device can
support hundreds of different versions of
a particular CLI release, tens of different
CLI releases, and hundreds of vendorspecific representations of data that are
in general not interoperable with how
other network device vendors represent
the same data. This means that a more
powerful and scalable instrumentation
approach is needed.
Fig. 2 shows a simplified version of
the FOCALE autonomic architecture [18],
which was designed to support these
needs. Multiple networks and network
technologies require multiple control
planes that can use completely different
mechanisms that must be coordinated.
FOCALE uses the DEN-ng [19] information
model to represent concepts important to
the managed environment, and a set of
ontologies [20] for reasoning about the
facts represented in data models derived
from DEN-ng.
Models represent facts and simple
dependencies. Ontologies represent
relationships and semantics that cannot
be represented using the Unified
Modeling Language (UML). For example,
UML doesn’t have the ability to represent
the relationship “is similar to” because
it doesn’t define logic mechanisms to
enable this comparison. Comparison
relationships enable the different
languages, programming models, and
side effects of different systems to be
modeled and inferred. A model-driven
architecture addresses this through
model-based translation [21] [22].
Second, in current environments, user
needs and environmental conditions can
change without warning. Therefore, the
system, its environment, and the needs
of its users must be continually analyzed
with respect to business objectives.
FOCALE uses inferencing to instruct the
management plane to coordinate the (re)
configuration of its control loops in order
to protect the current business objectives
8/6/2011 12:45:34 PM
of the organization [23] [24]. This is
shown in Figure 2 by the connections from
the Autonomic Manager to the different
control loop elements that are labeled
“Control”.
Automation of any type requires
a consistent way to control elements.
FOCALE uses policy rules [2] [25] defined
in the DEN-ng model to orchestrate
behavior. These rules are made adaptive
by using context [1] [24] to represent
changes in the network, or in user needs,
or even in the business; these context
changes in turn trigger a new set of policy
rules to take over control of the autonomic
system. This enables the services and
resources provided by the autonomic
system to adapt to these new needs in
a consistent, automated manner. The
autonomic manager uses these policies
to govern each of the architectural
components of the control loop, enabling
the different control loop components to
change the type of algorithm used, the
type of function used, and even the type of
data to use as a function of context.
The use of different control loops is
essential for automating different business
and management processes. In Fig. 2, the
simplified version of FOCALE defines
separate control loops for maintenance
versus reconfiguration operations. Each
control loop can spawn multiple nested
control loops to manage vendor-specific
systems. Another important reason to use
multiple control loops is to protect the set
of business goals and objectives of the
users as well as the network operators.
The implementation of these objectives
is different and sometimes in conflict –
having a single control loop to protect
these objectives is simply not feasible.
The reconfiguration process uses
dynamic code generation based on
models and ontologies [1] [21] [22].
Dynamic code generation enables the
autonomic system to adapt to changes
while managing the associated complexity
of doing so.
D. Autonomic Networking Success
and Challenges
Autonomic Networking has lagged
behind Autonomic Computing, both
because it started later and because it is
inherently more difficult. Market leaders of
many different commercial applications,
such as network management (e.g., Cisco,
Juniper, and IBM), middleware (e.g.,
IBM and Oracle) and other applications
all claim that their products contain
autonomic features. While this is true
to some degree, as with Autonomic
Computing, no network devices or
network management products that are
completely autonomic in nature have yet
been released.
The first problem to be solved is,
how can an environment be autonomic
when the majority of the network is still
manually configured? The answer is
twofold. First, the goal of an autonomic
system is not to replace human operators,
but rather to reduce their interaction with
the system. In particular, if the autonomic
system can perform manually intensive
but conceptually simple operations,
this enables human administrators to
concentrate on more complex problems.
Second, an autonomic system can
is focused on revenue, not on the type
of queuing or other traffic conditioning
functions that will be used to support
the SLA. Conversely, the network
administrator may want to develop
Command Line Interface (CLI) commands
to program the device, and may need to
have a completely different representation
of the policy in order to develop the
appropriate command changes that might
not even mention revenue. Thus, the
requirement is for policy to be treated as
a continuum, where different policies take
different forms and address the needs of
different users. Note that unless there is
an information model that can be used
to relate these different forms of policy
to each other, it becomes difficult (if not
impossible) to define a set of mappings
that transform the data between each
type of policy in the continuum.
Business View: SLAs, Processes, Guidelines and Goals
Standards are urgently
needed to ensure
the development of
interoperable solutions.
System View: Device-and Technology-Independent Operation
Network View: Device-Independent Technology-Specific Operation
Device View: Device and Technology-Specific Operation
Instance View: Device-Specific MIBs, PIBs, CLI, etc. Implementation
gather and filter data, as well as provide
detailed analysis of the data and make
recommendations to the human manager.
This reduces the workload of the human
administrator, and makes the environment
appear more “autonomic”.
Regarding the problems of Section
II.B, the problem of “current management
approaches are technology-specific,
and do not take business needs into
account” is more serious in a network,
since multiple technologies for more
administrative domains are used. FOCALE
responds to this challenge through the use
of a Policy Continuum [26], an exemplar
of which is shown in Figure 3. The Policy
Continuum is used to define a common
set of translations between different
policy rules, so that the PBNM system
can embrace multiple constituencies and
help them work together. In particular,
each view of the Policy Continuum is
optimized for a different type of user
that needs and/or uses slightly different
information, even though they interact
with the same managed entities. For
example, the business user wants Service
Level Agreement (SLA) information, and
Fig. 3 : An Example of the Policy ConƟnuum
Third, the sensing of contextual
changes, along with adapting the
functions of one or more control loop
elements, is provided by the use of
context-aware policy rules [23] [24]. This
enables policy rules that are specialized
for specific contexts to be used to govern
the functionality of the control loop.
Fourth, note that FOCALE uses
multiple control loops. In addition, any
of the control loops can be interrupted
and either be (1) suspended while other
control loops run, (2) used to spawn
nested control loops, or (3) replaced by
one or more control loops.
Fifth, the control loops are not serial;
rather, they are based on Boyd’s ObserveOrient-Decide-Act control loop [17] but
expanded to take into account work from
cognitive psychology. In [27], Minsky
modeled this using three interacting
layers, called reactive (or subconscious),
deliberative, and reflective cognitive
functions. In [28], revisions to the original
FOCALE architecture are defined to reflect
these changes.
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8/6/2011 12:45:34 PM
While FOCALE has advanced the
state of the art, there are still several
important problems to be solved. First,
since autonomic systems are based
on detailed models and hierarchical
state machines, the scale of the overall
system, and in particular, the number of
interconnecting components can become
very large. For example, hierarchical
control loops can lead to unexpected and
uncontrolled behavior. While there are
techniques available to address these
problems [29], this in general requires
advances in componentized architectures,
state automata, and most importantly,
standards to support them.
Second, work needs to be done to
federate different governance models,
and resolve conflicts in predictable and
consistent ways.
Third, metadata must be handled in a
scalable and standardized manner. Once
this problem is solved, then the larger
problem of semantic interoperability and
representation needs to be solved, first for
representative problems, and second, for
large scale deployments.
III. Future Challenges of Autonomic
Systems
FOCALE was built with an emphasis
on large networked systems. However,
with the advent of cloud computing and
other disruptive technologies, a new set
of challenges arise that require a tighter
integration between application and
network management.
One of the most important questions
is, how will autonomic systems know
when to ask for help? This is a complex
problem, as it presumes that it is possible
to verify that a self-* operation, such
as self-configuration, succeeded. The
current state of the art cannot verify this
in a generic way. For example, consider
a conceptually simple task, such as
automatic spell checking. This is, in
actuality, very difficult, as a spell checker
must be able to understand slang and
idiomatic expressions as well as formal
language. Languages such as English
have stylistic guidelines that are not
universally agreed on, making detecting
problems more difficult. If this simple
example is compared to configuring traffic
engineering in a network, or finding and
fixing the root cause of a problem, or
providing real-time analytics feedback,
it is quickly apparent that advances
must be highly constrained, and learning
mechanisms must be improved to
dynamically grow the knowledge base of
the system.
A related question is abstraction. The
goal of an autonomic system is to perform
manually intensive tasks to decrease the
amount of human intervention necessary.
However, this has several associated risks.
If the intermediate data is deleted, yet the
human knows that the recommendation
of the autonomic system is wrong, then
how will the autonomic system become
better? Is it possible to build a training
model to enable the autonomic system
to learn? How many mistakes can the
autonomic system make, and what is the
degree of mistake that can be tolerated?
These questions point to the issue of
trust. How will a human operator develop
trust in the autonomic system? Just
because it performs correctly ten times in
a row does not mean that the next time
will be error-free.
A final question concerns how
autonomic systems can be tested to
ensure that they are operating correctly.
This must include runtime testing, since
the structure and behavior of the system
can change at runtime. In [30], Zhang et
al. define the concept of a “safe adaption”,
which is a change that does not violate
the dependencies between components,
including not interrupting communications
that could result in erroneous conditions.
In [31], a framework is described that uses
safe adaptation to dynamically validate
changes in autonomic systems that
occur as a result of the self-management
process. In FOCALE, this is done by modelchecking [32].
reason about behavior, another type of
representation is needed. FOCALE has
used ontologies and first order logic;
other approaches are also possible.
Fourth, it is of paramount importance
that a knowledge representation strategy
that is capable of relating data in models
to data in ontologies is developed early
in the design of the autonomic system.
Fifth, context-aware policy rules that can
trigger the dynamic generation of code
are required in order to reduce the burden
of the human administrator. Finally, and
most importantly, standards are urgently
needed to ensure the development of
interoperable solutions.
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
IV. Summary
There are a number of important
conclusions that can be made. First, there
is a significant difference between creating
autonomic systems for homogeneous
versus heterogeneous entities, and
especially for entities that have
different functionality and use different
programming models. Second, without
the use of a shared information model that
can harmonize the different data models
that are used in management systems,
data will become isolated in separate
application silos and data coherency will
be lost. Third, since information and data
models are not capable of representing
the detailed semantics required to
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
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and Practice”, tutorial at the 12th IEEE/IFIP
Network Operations and Management
Symposium, Japan, April 2010
J. Strassner, “Policy Based Network
Management”, Morgan Kaufman, ISBN
1-55860-859-1
S. Dobson et al., “A Survey of Autonomic
Communications”, ACM Transactions on
Autonomous Adaptive Systems, vol. 1, no.
2, Dec. 2006, pp. 223-259
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/
infocenter/wxdinfo/v6r1/index.
jsp?topic=/com.ibm.websphere.ops.
doc/info/prodovr/codoemodes.html
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/
tivoli/products/ccmdb/
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/
data/library/techarticle/dm0606ahuja2/index.html
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/
pressrelease/23481.wss
C. Hyser, B. McKee, R. Gardner, B.
Watson, “Autonomic Virtual Machine
Placement in the Data Center”, technical
report HPL-2007-189, February, 2008
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/
storage/software/3par/aos/index.
html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
L. Lei, L. Cherkasova, V. Persone, M. Mi,
E. Smirni, “AWAIT: Efficient Overload
Management for Busy Multi- tier Web
Services under Bursty Workloads”,
technical report HPL-2010-65, July 2010
http://www.oracle.com/
corporate/analyst/reports/
infrastructure/dbms/ovum-realapplication-testing.pdf
http://www.oracle.com/us/
technologies/11g-embeddedwhitepaper-166560.pdf
IBM, “An Architectural Blueprint for
Autonomic Computing”, v7, June 2005
B. Bläser, W. Gaider, H,-J. Moldowan, “A
Practical Guide to DB2 Autonomic Features
in SAP Environments”, v1, November 2009
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Chris Hyser, Bret McKee, Rob Gardner,
Brian J. Watson, “Autonomic Virtual
Machine Placement in the Data Center”,
HPL-2007-189, February, 2008
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orchestrate/
17. J. R. Boyd, “The Essence of Winning and
Losing”, 28 June, 1995
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“FOCALE – A Novel Autonomic Computing
Architecture: extended version”, ITSSA
journal, 2007
19. J. Strassner, “Introduction to DEN-ng”,
Tutorial for FP7 PanLab II Project, January
21, 2009
20. J. Serrano, J. Serrat, J. Strassner, M.
Ó Foghlú, “Management and Context
Integration Based on Ontologies, Behind
the
Interoperability
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2007
SIWN
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Open Distributed Systems (CODS 2007),
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China, 22-24 July, 2007
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Jennings, S. van der Meer, W. Donnelly,
“A Model Based Approach for Policy Tool
Generation and Policy Analysis”, in Proc.
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J. Strassner, J.N. de Souza, D. Raymer, S.
Samudrala, S. Davy, K. Barrett, “The Design
of a Novel Context-Aware Policy Model
to Support Machine-Based Learning and
Reasoning”, Journal of Cluster Computing,
Volume 12, Issue 1, pages 17-43, March,
2009
J. Strassner, S. van der Meer, D. O’Sullivan,
S. Dobson, “The Use of Context-Aware
Policies and Ontologies to Facilitate BusinessAware Network Management”, Journal
of Network and System Management,
Volume 17, Number 3, pages 255-284,
September , 2009
J. Strassner and D. Raymer, “Implementing
Next Generation Services Using Policy-Based
Management and Autonomic Computing
Principles”, pages 1-15, NOMS 2006,
Vancouver, Canada
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Policy Continuum – Policy Authoring
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and Schuster, New York, 1988
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“A Semantic Architecture for Enhanced
Cyber Situational Awareness”, Secure and
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McLean, VA, October 2010
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at Runtime – Performance Benchmark and
Case Studies”, Ph.D. Thesis, March, 2011
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P. K. McKinley, “Enabling safe dynamic
component-based software adaptation”,
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Systems, pages 194–211, 2004
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Autonomic Computing Systems”, Proc. of
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Decentralized Systems, pages 41-58, 2007
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~modelcheck/
n
About the Author
Dr. John Strassner has over 35 years of experience. He is currently the Chief Technical Officer of the Software R&D Laboratory
of the US Division of Huawei, where he leads autonomic system projects for managing cloud, Enterprise, and Service Provider
environments. He has served as a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Pohang Univ. of Science and Technology
and as a Visiting Professor at Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. Before that, he was a Motorola Fellow and Vice
President of Autonomic Research at Motorola Labs. Previously, John was the Chief Strategy Officer for Intelliden and a former
Cisco Fellow. John is a Distinguished Fellow of the TeleManagement Forum, and is currently the Chairman of the Autonomic
Communications Forum. He is the past chair of the TMF’s NGOSS SID, metamodel and policy working groups, along with the
past chair of several IETF and WWRF groups. He has authored two books, written chapters for 5 other books, and has been coeditor of 5 journals dedicated to network and service management and autonomics. John is the recipient of the IEEE/IFIP Daniel
A. Stokesbury memorial award for excellence in network management, the Albert Einstein award for innovation in autonomic
networking, and has authored over 275 refereed journal papers and publications.
Congratulations to Tagline Contest Winner!
Heartiest congratulations to Mr. Sanjiv Agarwala
for winning the CSIC Tagline Contest. His suggested
tagline viz. ‘Knowlegde Digest for IT Community’ has
been selected as the most appropriate tagline for CSI
Communications. The task of selecting suitable tagline
turned out to be quite tough as response to the contest
was overwhelming. Around 250 emails were received
with number of suggested lines crossing 400 or so,
considering the entries received on or before 31st May 2011. CSI
Communications team would sincerely like to thank all those
members, who participated in the tagline contest.
About Sanjiv Agarwala
Sanjiv is MD & CEO of Oxygen Consulting Services Pvt.
Ltd., a firm based out of Pune, India and providing services in
Information Security, IT Governance and HR. Sanjiv has rich
experience in various areas of information security like
ISO27001, Application Security, Business Continuity
Management, Data Security and Privacy, Regulatory
Compliances, Training, IS audits and Governance.
Sanjiv by education is Bachelor of Engg (Comp
Science) and is a Certified Information Systems
Auditor(CISA), Certified Information Systems
Security Professional (CISSP), Certified in
Governance of Enterprise IT(CGEIT) and holds many other
certifications in security management, IT Governance, Business
Continuity, IT Service Management and Quality. He also serves
at ISACA USA in boards and committee, serves as President,
ISACA Pune Chapter and part of management committee at
Computer Society of India,Pune Chapter. He can be reached at
ska262001@yahoo.co.in
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8/6/2011 12:45:34 PM
Technical Trends
Ms. Shanta Rangaswamy and Dr. Shobha G.
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore-560059, India
‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Autonomic Computing
Upon launching the Autonomic Computing initiative, IBM
defined its four major properties as: self-Configuring,
self-Healing, self-Optimizing and self- Protecting.
Introduction:
Autonomic computing introduces a
new, interesting and promising research
field. This term “autonomic” is derived from
human biology. Autonomic Computing is
similar to the Autonomic Nervous System,
which operates subconsciously, without
any human intervention.
Fig.1 : Human Nervous System
An Autonomic Nervous System
(ANS) takes care of routine functions
like heart rate, blood pressure, hormone
production, digestion, etc. An ANS
(Figure1) monitors heartbeat, checks
blood sugar level and keeps the body
temperature close to 98.6°F without
any conscious effort on our part. In the
same way, self-managing autonomic
capabilities of autonomic computing
anticipate IT system requirements and
resolve problems with minimal human
intervention.
Autonomic
computing
proposes to achieve self-management
by replacing the human element with
software/hardware components.
Autonomic Computing (AC) is
not a new technology, but a holistic,
goal-orientated approach to designing
computer systems [1][2]. The goaloriented and holistic approach refers to
the fact that AC is not a conventional
computer systems project, which can
be planned, designed and implemented
entirely by a single developer [3], but a
visionary approach, where a collection of
existing technologies have been grouped
together to accomplish a common goal.
Therefore, to understand Autonomic
Computing, the concepts and ideas
behind its goals and holistic approach
must first be identified. The primary goal
of Autonomic Computing is similar to
that of ‘Pervasive Computing’, a concept
first proposed by Mark Weiser in 1988
[4]. According to Mark Weiser, pervasive
computing is a paradigm of computing,
where computers are designed to be as
invisible and as unobtrusive to their users
as possible. Hence, the ultimate goal of
pervasive computing is to create systems,
which are “so embedded, so fitting, and
so natural, that we use it without even
thinking about it” [5].
The holistic approach of Autonomic
Computing refers to the fact that
besides identifying pervasiveness and
self-management as its overall goals,
Autonomic Computing does not specify
what type of technology will be used
to achieve these goals. Any existing
technology that exhibits behaviors or
partial behaviors of pervasiveness and
self-management can
be
classified as
Autonomic
Computing. Thus, existing fields such as
grid computing, middleware, databases,
networking and peer-to-peer applications
have all been justified as being a part of
Autonomic Computing. Mainsah [2]
justifies the importance of this approach
in achieving Autonomic Computing by
stating that “holistic approach envisages a
far greater level of automation than can be
achieved by piecemeal advances”.
Autonomic Computing, by definition,
requires dealing with increasing level of
system complexity by replacing the need
of its human system administrators. But
as the system complexity increases, it
proportionally increases the number
of human system administrators [6].
Therefore, this method is unsustainable
at best, because as the number of IT
systems grows exponentially, it will
become prohibitively expensive to match
the number of system administrators
required to handle the complexity of
these systems. The potential solution
to this problem of increasing system
complexity and costs of maintenance
is an approach, where the ultimate goal
is to create computer systems that can
manage themselves while hiding their
complexity from the end users [6][7].
Thus, human beings can be freed from
the burden of maintenance in order that
they can concentrate on achieving higherlevel, business orientated objectives, if
the low-level complexities are hidden and
removed from the realm of human control.
Major properties of AC: IBM
introduced the Autonomic Computing
initiative in 2001, with the aim to developing
self-managing systems. Upon launching
the Autonomic Computing initiative, IBM
defined its four major properties as: selfConfiguring, self-Healing, self-Optimizing
and self- Protecting. This is represented in
figure 2.
1.
Self-Configuring:
Self-Configuration is the ability of
the system to perform configurations
according to pre-defined high-level
policies and seamlessly adapt to change
caused by automatic configurations.
Systems
adapt
automatically
to
dynamically changing environments.
2. Self-Healing:
Self-Healing denotes the system
8/6/2011 12:45:36 PM
ability to examine, find, diagnose and
react to system malfunctions. Selfhealing components or applications
must be able to observe system failures,
evaluate constraints imposed by outside
environment, and apply appropriate
corrections. Such systems discover,
diagnose, and react to disruptions.
Self
Configuring
Self
Proteching
Autonomic
Computing
Systems
(ACS)
Self
Healing
Self
Optimizing
Fig. 2 : Self CHOP CapabiliƟes of Autonomic
CompuƟng Systems
3. Self-Optimizing:
Self-Optimization is the ability of
the system to continuously monitor and
control resources to improve performance
and efficiency. Self-optimization is
the capability of maximizing resource
allocation and utilization for satisfying
user requests. The tuning actions could
mean reallocating resources-such as
in response to dynamically changing
workloads—to improve overall utilization,
or to ensure that particular business
transactions can be completed in a timely
fashion.
4. Self-Protecting:
Self-Protection is the ability of the
system to pro-actively anticipate, identify,
detect and protect itself from malicious
attacks from anywhere, or cascading
failures that are not corrected by selfhealing measures.
The other way of representing
these properties of AC could be ‘SelfCHOP’ capabilities. Developers of system
components for such systems need to
focus on maximizing the reliability and
availability of each hardware and software
product in order to ensure continuous
availability.
Autonomic Computing uses the ANS
concepts of sensory and motor neurons,
analyzing the disturbances and returning
to the equilibrium state giving more
importance to the “self-management”
factor. Sensing an internal or external
change, analyzing the change, planning
for response and finally the execution –
all these are performed by the ANS with
adequate knowledge utilized in each
phase of maintaining the equilibrium. This
self-management approach is considered
as major idea behind any Autonomic
Systems.
Autonomy provides dynamically
programmable control and management
services
to
support
autonomic
configuration and deployment in network
centric system. The environment provides
application developers with all the tools
required to specify the appropriate
control and management schemes in
order to maintain any quality of service
requirement or application attribute/
functionality. (For example: performance,
fault-tolerance, security)
Different Levels in AC:
The growing complexity of computer
systems emphasizes the need for
developing self-managing autonomic
systems. IBM has come up with a very
innovative approach to reach autonomic
computing system. According to them
autonomic computing is an evolutionary
process and consists of five levels. The
levels are Basic, Managed, Predictive,
Adaptive and finally Autonomic [12].
1.
Basic:
In basic level, an individual manages
different tasks and day-to-day operations.
It is a starting point in which individuals
or IT professionals manage different
tasks such as the setting up of the IT
environment, monitoring and making
updations.
Autonomic computing
is the migration of
knowledge into the
system. It allows system
administrators to take
the labor-intensive things
they do and encode them
in a way that the system
can do them for the
administrator.
2.
Managed:
At managed level, information is
collected from systems through some
technologies and tools; that further help
to make good and intelligent decisions.
This facilitates the system administrator
to collect and analyze information more
quickly.
3. Predictive:
In predictive level, predictions and
optimal solutions are provided making
the system more intelligent. Here, new
technologies are used which correlate
different components of a system to
initiate pattern recognition, prediction and
suggestions for optimal solutions.
4. Adaptive:
At Adaptive level, information
and knowledge are extracted to initiate
various actions automatically. The
components use the available information
and knowledge of the system to execute
different actions automatically.
Fig. 3 : Level of Autonomic CompuƟng (as depicted by IBM)
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8/6/2011 12:45:38 PM
5. Autonomic:
In autonomic level, business policies
and objectives are monitored and system
can change business policies, objectives
or both. Through autonomic computing,
we achieve minimal human intervention
with software or system; maximum use
of system resources such as processing
power, memory, storage; labor and
cost reduction for performing different
activities; real-time responsiveness by
the autonomic computing environment;
and focus by the IT professionals on high
value tasks rather than operational tasks.
This depiction of Autonomic Computing
by IBM is shown in figure 3.
Summary and Conclusion:
The Autonomic computing Systems
can
handle
routine
maintenance
tasks such as installation of software,
provisioning of new drives, configuration
changes and patch installations. These
are only a few, but the list can persistently
grow. Autonomic computers cannot
become aware but close enough to
protect themselves, and if `fallen sick’,
diagnose and take `medication’.
Autonomic computing and “self”
systems introduce a very large research
area that involves different aspects and
several facets of Information Technology.
However, this area is not well explored in
depth, not yet delineated and final targets
are not well identified. Researchers have
different and contradictory opinions
and ideas about autonomic computing.
Autonomic computing is the migration
of knowledge into the system. It allows
system administrators to take the laborintensive things they do and encode
them in a way that the system can do
them for the administrator. Autonomic
computing systems have the ability to
manage themselves and dynamically
adapt to change in accordance with
business policies and objectives, enabling
computers to identify and correct problems
before they are noticed by IT personnel.
Software industry and IT vendors have
large departments devoted to identifying,
tracing, and determining the root cause of
failures in complex computing systems.
Serious customer problems can require
teams of programmers to spend several
weeks to diagnose and fix, and sometimes
the problem disappears mysteriously
without any satisfactory diagnosis.
Incorporating
self-managing
capabilities into an IT environment is
an evolutionary process. It is ultimately
implemented by each organization
through the adoption of self-managing
autonomic technologies, supporting
processes and skills. Moreover, autonomic
computing will free IT staffs from detailed
routine tasks, allowing them to focus
on managing business processes. Thus
Autonomic computing is all about shifting
the burden of managing systems from
people to technologies.
Autonomic computing is a grandchallenge of the future in which computing
systems will manage themselves in
accordance with high-level objectives
specified by humans. It is an “Evolution”
not “Revolution”. The IT industry
recognizes, that meeting this challenge
is imperative. Otherwise, IT systems
will soon become virtually impossible to
administrator. But meeting this challenge
is also extremely difficult, and will require
a worldwide collaboration among the best
minds of academia and industry.










References:


R. Sterritt, D. Bustard, “Towards
Autonomic Computing: Effective Event
Management”, Proc. 27th Annual NASA
Goddard/IEEE Software Engineering
Workshop (SEW-27’02), 5-6 Dec. 2002,
pp40-47.
E. Mainsah, “Autonomic computing: the
next era of computing”, IEE Electronics
Communication Engineering Journal, Vol.

14, No. 1 (Feb), 2002, pp2-3.
IBM, “An architectural blueprint for
autonomic computing”, April 2003.
M. Waldrop “Autonomic Computing:
The Technology of Self-Management”
(available www.thefutureofcomputing.
org/), 2003.
M. Weiser, “Creating the Invisible
Interface.” Symposium on User Interface
Software and Technology, New York, NY:
ACM Press, 1994.
P. Horn, “Autonomic computing: IBM
perspective on the state of information
technology”,
IBM T.J. Watson Labs, NY, 15th October
2001. Presented at AGENDA 2001,
Scottsdale, AR. (available http://www.
research.ibm.com/autonomic/), 2001.
J. O. Kephart, D. M. Chess. “The Vision of
Autonomic Computing.” Computer, Jan.,
2003, pp41-50.
Horn P. Autonomic computing: IBM
perspective on the state of information
technology, IBM T.J. Watson Labs, NY,
15th October 2001. Presented at AGENDA
2001, Scottsdale, AR (available at http://
www.research.ibm.com/autonomic/);
2001.
Kephart J, Chess D. The vision of
autonomic computing. IEEE Computing
2003;36:41–50.
Ganek AG, Corbi TA. The dawning of the
autonomic computing era. IBM System J
2003.
Christian M. Garcia-Arellano, Sam S.
Lightstone, Guy M. Lohman, Volker
Markl, and Adam J. Storm,“Autonomic
Features of the IBM DB2 Universal
Database for Linux, UNIX, and Windows”,
IEEE Transactions On Systems, Man, And
Cybernetics—Part C: Applications And
Reviews, Vol. 36, No. 3, May 2006
G. Candea, E. Kiciman, S. Zhang, P.
Keyani, A. Fox, “JAGR: an autonomous
self-recovering application server”, Proc.
Int. Conf. on Autonomic Computing
(ICAC’03), 25 June 2003, pp168-177. n
About the Authors
Ms. Shanta Rangaswamy, Assistant Professor, Department of CSE, R.V. College of Engineering is pursuing her
Ph.D. from Kuvempu University. Her research areas of interest are Autonomic computing, Self optimization of
systems, Data mining and storage centre, Performance Evaluation of systems, Cryptography, and System
Simulation.
E-mail: shantharangaswamy@rvce.edu.in
Dr. Shobha G., Dean, PG Studies, (CSE & ISE) is associated with R.V. College of Engineering since 1995. She has
received her Masters degree from BITS, Pilani and Ph.D (CSE) from Mangalore University. Her research areas of
interest are Database Management Systems, Data mining, Data warehousing, Image Processing and Network
security.
E-mail: dean_pgcs@rvce.edu.in
8/6/2011 12:45:39 PM
Research Front
Brian Dougherty1, Daniel Guymon1, Douglas C. Schmidt2 and Jules White1
1
2
Virginia Tech, {brianpd,dguymon,julesw}@VT.edu
Vanderbilt University, schmidt@dre.vanderbilt.edu
Overcoming Cellular Connectivity
Limitations with M2Blue Autonomic
Distributed Data Caching
The memory constrained nature of mobile devices, such as smartphones, limits
the amount of data that can be stored locally. As a result, mobile devices often
rely on cellular connections to retrieve application data. Environmental factors,
however, can partially or completely restrict cellular connectivity. Autonomic
distributed caching mechanisms can be used to allow mobile device networks to
self-heal by storing data needed across multiple devices, but cannot be applied
without a means to determine if devices are within a given range. Moreover, it is
hard to identify the best way(s) of mapping application data to device memory to
allow devices to self-heal in spite of limited cellular connectivity.
This article provides the following contributions to the study of autonomic selfhealing mobile communication: (1) we present a Bluetooth-driven localization
technique that determines the quantity and configuration of devices present within
a given range, (2) we provide a system for mapping data across nearby devices
allows mobile computing environments to self-heal in response to limited cellular
connectivity, and (3) we show this autonomic system can be augmented to handle
the dynamic nature of devices entering and leaving ad hoc mobile networks.
1.
Introduction
Current trends and challenges:
Mobile computing devices, such as
smartphones, use cellular connections
to retrieve information needed by
applications.
Unfortunately,
cellular
connectivity can be lost or restricted
by environmental factors, such as
physical barriers, or by a lack of cellular
coverage [1], [2]. A promising means for
constructing reliable mobile computing
environments
therefore
involves
implementing
autonomic
devices
[10] that can self-heal in response to
environmental changes, such as slow or
unreliable cellular connections.
Autonomic computing is computing
paradigm in which systems have the ability
to self-manage without intervention by an
outside entity [6]. One potential benefit
of autonomic systems is the introduction
of self-healing properties. Systems with
self-healing capabilities are able to remain
functional by reconfiguring or repairing
themselves in response to system faults,
potentially increasing their fault-tolerance
and reliability.
Memcached [5] is a promising
mechanism that could be applied to
create an autonomic mobile computing
environment in which devices can selfheal in response to limited cellular
connectivity. Memcached is a distributed
data caching mechanism that uses
hashing to map data to multiple
computing nodes. When data stored with
Memcached is needed, a requesting node
can use the hash function to retrieve data
either locally, if a local copy exists, or
from another node that it has been stored
on. Fig. 1 shows how mobile computing
environments could use autonomic
distributed caching mechanisms like
Memcached to implement self-healing
communications [1].
Introducing autonomic properties,
such as self-healing, can allow mobile
networks to continue to function in spite
of limited cellular connectivity by storing
application data on the device. Resourceconstrained mobile devices, however,
often cannot store the complete set
of data needed by applications. Since
multiple devices often use the same
application, data could be distributed
between devices so that collectively, most
or all application data is stored across
devices. This approach can reduce the
need for data requests across the cellular
network, thereby allowing devices to
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8/6/2011 12:45:39 PM
Fig. 1 : Overcoming Weak Cellular ConnecƟvity with Mobile Autonomic Distributed Data Caching
execute autonomically in the absence of
cellular connectivity.
Open
problem

Applying
autonomic distributed caching to add
self-healing communication in mobile
computing systems. There are several
issues that currently prevent the use of
Memcached to implement self-healing
communication in mobile networks. First,
Memcached must know the devices
available in a distributed system[12],
which is relatively simple in environments
where stationary devices are added/
removed before execution. A mechanism
is therefore needed to autonomically
determine the profile of devices that
are present in a mobile network so
Memcached can execute.
Moreover, the devices present in a
given mobile network change over time.
Devices may physically enter a network
by coming in range of other devices or
exit the network by going out of range,
crashing, or running out of power [8].
Any autonomic distributed caching
mechanism that allows a mobile network
to function despite limited connectivity
must self-heal in response to new devices
entering or exiting the network.
Solution approach  Autonomic
mobile distributed data caching with
M2Blue This article presents Mobile
Memcached with Bluetooth (M2Blue),
which is an autonomic distributed data
caching mechanism aimed at mobile
computing environments with limited
or no cellular connectivity. M2Blue uses
Bluetooth, or if available, a wireless
network, to automatically detect devices
present within a predefined range in the
event of reduced cellular connectivity.
An augmented version of Memcached
is then applied to map application data
across devices. Devices use Bluetooth
or a wireless network to read cached
data instead of transmitting requests
to a cellularly connected server,
thereby minimizing the need for cellular
connections.
autonomously
supporting
the
dynamic entry or exit of devices from
mobile networks despite limited
cellular connectivity.
2.
Challenges of Applying
Autonomic Distributed
Caching Mechanisms to allow
Mobile Networks to Self-heal
This section summarizes the
challenges of implementing self-healing
communication in autonomic distributed
caching mechanisms to allow mobile
computing environments to self-heal in
A promising means for constructing reliable mobile computing
environments therefore involves implementing autonomic devices that
can self-heal in response to environmental changes, such as slow or
unreliable cellular connections.
This article provides the following
contributions to autonomic self-healing in
mobile distributed systems:

We provide an innovative approach
for
automatically
determining
the profile of distributed mobile
computing environments,

We present an algorithmic technique
for applying autonomic distributed
data caching to mobile computing
environments so systems can selfheal in response to limited cellular
connectivity, and

We provide mechanisms for
periods of limited cellular connectivity.
Data transmission between devices
cannot require the use of a cellular
connection. Even if the profile of a mobile
device network is known, devices must be
able to exchange data with each other to
take advantage of autonomic distributed
data caching. Transmitting data over a
cellular connection, however, may not
be possible due to increased latency as
a result of diminished signal strength.
An alternative communication protocol,
therefore, must be used to transmit data
wirelessly. Ideally, this protocol would not
require additional hardware.
8/6/2011 12:45:39 PM
Autonomically determining devices
present within a physical range must be
done at runtime. Unlike stationary nodes,
the number of mobile devices in a network
within a range can be hard to predict.
Determining which devices are present
is exacerbated when locations where
cellular connectivity becomes weak or
limited are not known a priori. Memcached,
however, requires knowledge of devices
available for storing data to determine
an appropriate hash function. Autonomic
mechanisms must be developed that
can routinely determine the profile of
mobile device networks autonomically so
Memcached can be applied.
Devices that later enter/exit
the mobile network should be able to
participate in autonomic distributed
data caching. Many factors can cause the
number of devices in a mobile network
Any autonomic distributed caching mechanism that allows a mobile
network to function despite limited connectivity must self-heal in
response to new devices entering or exiting the network.
is preloaded with a background service
that
periodically
checks
cellular
connectivity. As devices move away from
cellular towers and signal fades, cellular
connectivity becomes incrementally
weaker and drastically increases in
latency. Once a predefined threshold of
reduced connectivity is reached, a device,
referred to as the initiator, will begin the
self-healing process by autonomically
invoking the begin command.
The initiator uses Bluetooth to detect
the presence of nearby devices and then
transmit a packet containing its device
ID and a list of detected device IDs to
The devices present in a given mobile network change over time.
Devices may physically enter a network by coming in range of other
devices or exit the network by going out of range, crashing, or running
out of power.
to change, e.g., devices may move out of
range with each other, crash, break, or
run out of power and turn off, removing
any previously cached data. Devices
entering the network, however, should be
able to access previously cached data on
the devices that remain. Any autonomic
distributed caching mechanism must
therefore be augmented to handle the
dynamic nature of mobile networks.
3.
Using Mobile Distributed
Caching with M2Blue to Selfheal in Response to Limited
Cellular Connectivity
Mobile Memcached with Bluetooth
(M2Blue) is an autonomic distributed
data caching mechanism we created to
(1) allow mobile devices continued access
to data by using autonomic distributed
caching to self-heal in the event of limited
cellular connectivity and (2) provide a
mechanism for caching data that can selfheal to function despite the entry/exit of
devices from the network. This section
describes the sequence for preparing,
securing, and commencing autonomic
distributed caching with M2Blue.
3.1 Autonomically Preparation of
Devices to Self-heal
the server over the cellular connection.
Upon receiving this information, the
server will reply to the initiator with a
packet containing the public key and a
hash function. The initiator will then use
Bluetooth to broadcast the public key and
hash function to all discovered devices,
creating a mobile network profile that can
be used in conjunction with autonomic
distributed caching to allow self-healing in
the face of limited connectivity.
3.2 Secure Self-healing with Public/
Private Key pairs
Upon receiving packets from all
devices, the server begins the server-side
M2Blue protocol. First, when a request
for data is received, the server uses a
predefined policy (i.e., request frequency)
to determine if the data associated
with the key should be written to the
distributed cache by the device. If so, the
server produces a string, referred to as the
data tag, that concatenates the key sent
by the device, the data associated with
the key from the server, and an expiration
timestamp for the data. This string is then
encrypted with the server’s private key
and transmitted to the device with the key
and requested data. If the data should not
be cached then only the key and data are
transmitted to the device.
3.3 Autonomic Device Modes:
Read/Write/Store
For the M2Blue protocol, a device can
perform 3 different caching operations–
write, read, and store–as described below.
3.3.1 Write Operation
The write operation defines how data
is written into the autonomic distributed
cache when the key, data, and data tag are
received by a device from the server. First,
the key is applied to the hash function
received from the initiator to determine
the destination device ID and memory
location for storage. Each device also
receives an alias table listing all device IDs
from the initiator during preparation. The
alias table is used to determine if another
device is now handling the storage of
the data for the device ID determined by
hashing the data key.
Once a request to store data is
received by the destination device, the
data and the data tag is stored in the
appropriate location. If the destination
device is not detected, then the request
is forwarded to the initiator. If the initiator
cannot detect the device, then the device
is removed from the alias table of the
initiator, which is then broadcasted to all
other devices.
For example, consider a mobile
network consisting of four devices. After
the preparation and data caching begins,
Device 2 leaves the network. Upon
attempting to store data to Device 2,
the requesting device will not be able to
detect the device and will forward the
request to initiator device. The initiator
will attempt to detect the device, fail to
detect it, and then update its alias table so
that all data being stored to Device 2 will
now be stored to another specific device,
such as Device 3, and then broadcast the
table to all other devices. Upon receiving
Relative localization with Bluetooth is the process of determining which
mobile devices are present within a certain physical range.
Prior to being fielded, each device
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:42 PM
Providing mobile networks with the autonomic ability to self-heal in
the event of limited cellular connectivity is hard. The dynamic nature
of mobile networks, with devices entering and exiting unpredictably,
makes it hard to apply self-healing communication with autonomic
distributed caching mechanisms.
the new alias table, the requesting device
will now look up Device 2 in the alias table
and determine that Device 3 is the new
location for data intended for Device 2.
3.3.2
Read Operation
The read operation allows a device
requesting data to access autonomically
cached data, thereby potentially avoiding
additional requests to the server
across the cellular network. When the
requesting device requires a data, the key
representing that data, such as a variable
name, is applied to the hash function
received from the initiator to determine
the destination device ID and address
where the requested data would be stored
in the distributed cache.
The destination device ID is checked
in the alias table to determine if another
device is now handling the storage for
that device ID. A request is then sent over
Bluetooth to the appropriate destination
device for the requested data which then
transmits the data and data tag stored at
the requested location back to the device.
The data tag is then decrypted using the
public key to determine that the data
corresponds to the correct key and has
not expired.
If the device is not detected the
request is forwarded to the initiator. The
initiator either forwards the request to the
destination device and replies back with
the data and data tag or determines the
device is no longer present, updates the
alias table accordingly, and broadcasts
the table to all other devices. If the data
is not retrieved from the distributed
cache, the device must hold until a cellular
connection can be made.
3.3.3 Store Mode
While all devices should be able
to read from and write to the cache, all
devices are not always used to store
cached data. This state is represented as
Boolean variable named store mode. Each
device involved in the preparation phase
of M2Blue has store mode set to true by
default, allowing it to store data. New
devices that join the network after data
has been cached may cause the network
to grow larger than specified in the hash
function generated during the preparation
phase. These devices, however, could be
used later to store data in the event of
other devices leaving the network.
For example, the hash function
generated by the server accounts for 5
different devices. If a new device joins
and increases the number of devices to
6, the new device by default will not be in
store mode, but will be able to read and
write to the cache after making a request
for the hash function, public key, and
alias table from the initiator. If one of the
other devices leaves the network, the new
device can change store mode to true,
update the alias to take the exited device’s
place, and then broadcast the new alias
table to all devices. Anytime the alias
table is updated any data cached to the
original device is no longer available.
4. Related Work
This section compares our distributed
caching technique for mobile devices with
Memcached and Bluetooth localization.
Distributed caching techniques.
Memcached is a distributed memory
object caching mechanism designed to
accelerate dynamic web applications by
using a shared hash table to distribute
data between multiple processes so
that changes made by one process can
be simultaneously seen by another [5].
Lerner tested the fusion of Memcached
and Ruby on Rails by showing Memcached
could reduce unnecessary server traffic
[9]. Harris demonstrates Memcached
execution time consistency in [7] by
showing that the execution time of onethousand consecutive cache accesses
are relatively equal. Many websites, such
as Live Journal, Twitter, and Wikipedia,
use multiple instances of Memcached on
multiple servers to handle hundreds of
website visits per second [5].
Our M2Blue mechanism differs from
Memcached in several ways. In particular,
Memcached is designed for cache
handling on servers for websites, whereas
M2Blue is used for mobile devices.
Likewise, M2Blue provides self-healing
properties for autonomically responding
to periods of time where there is a
decrease in cellular connectivity, which is
a useful feature in autonomic computing
where distributed systems must adapt to
unpredicted changes.
Relative localization with Bluetooth.
Relative localization with Bluetooth is
the process of determining which mobile
devices are present within a certain
physical range. Cheung et al. [3] present a
Bluetooth localization technique that uses
beacons and smartphones to determine
the location of the smartphone. These
beacons dynamically change signal
strength based on the physical layout of
an environment. Fisher et al. used off-theshelf Bluetooth beacons and a mobile client
device to achieve +/- 1-meter accuracy by
using phase difference calculations of the
beacons and running the received beacon
signals through a low-pass filter [4].
Our M2Blue mechanism uses
Bluetooth to determine devices that
are present, allowing us to execute the
distributed caching algorithm without
requiring additional hardware. Further,
M2Blue is designed to autonomically
apply distributed caching in response
to limited cellular connectivity. This
autonomic feature of self-healing in
response to service availability allows
M2Blue to remain robust despite limited
connectivity.
5.
Concluding Remarks
Providing mobile networks with the
autonomic ability to self-heal in the event
of limited cellular connectivity is hard.
The dynamic nature of mobile networks,
with devices entering and exiting
unpredictably, makes it hard to apply selfhealing communication with autonomic
distributed caching mechanisms. Our
M2Blue autonomic distributed caching
mechanism helps mobile networks
overcome these challenges and self-heal
Mobile devices are excellent platforms for using sensors, such as
GPS and accelerometers, to capture physical data, making them ideal
for location-specific applications. New cache-based removal policies
should be investigated...
8/6/2011 12:45:42 PM
despite limited cellular connectivity.
Based on our work with M2Blue thus
far, we have learned the following lessons
pertaining to self-healing, autonomic
mobile computing environments:

Detecting
the
presence
of
nearby devices does not require
additional hardware. Knowledge
of the number and type of devices
available is essential for autonomic
distributed data caching. The
M2Blue technique uses Bluetooth to
effectively determine the presence
of surround devices. Since Bluetooth
comes preloaded on the majority of
smartphones, such as the Google
Android and Apple iPhone, no
additional hardware is required to
begin caching with M2Blue.

Responding to fluctuating network
size is hard. M2Blue uses Bluetooth
to detect the presence of devices and
alias tables to alter the destination
of read-/write operations as devices
leave the network. The impact of
deciding which device to handle the
exited devices cache responsibilities
should be investigated.

Mobile networks use geo-location
specific data. Mobile devices are
excellent platforms for using sensors,
such as GPS and accelerometers,
to capture physical data, making
them ideal for location-specific
applications. New cache-based
removal
policies
should
be
investigated and applied to M2Blue
that take into account the geographic
origin of cached data.
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
G. Anandharaj and R. Anitha. A distributed
cache management architecture for
mobile computing environments. In
Advance Computing Conference, 2009.
IACC 2009. IEEE International, pages 642–
648. IEEE, 2009.
Y. Chen and H. Kobayash. Signal
strength based indoor geolocation.
In IEEE International Conference on
Communications, volume 1, page 436, 2002.
K. Cheung, S. Intille, and K. Larson. An
inexpensive bluetooth-based indoor
positioning hack.Proc.UbiComp06
Extended Abstracts, 2006.
G. Fischer, B. Dietrich, and F. Winkler.
Bluetooth indoor localization system.
In Proceeding Workshop onPositioning,
Navigation and Communication, pages
147–56, 2004.
B. Fitzpatrick. Distributed caching with
memcached. Linux journal, 2004(124):5,
2004.
A. Ganek and T. Corbi. The dawning of the
autonomic computing era.IBM Systems
Journal, 42(1):5–18, 2003.
A. Harris. Distributed caching via
memcached. Pro ASP. NET 4 CMS, pages
165–196, 2010.
D. Johnsort. Routing in ad hoc networks of
mobile hosts. In Mobile Computing Systems
and Applications, 1994. WMCSA 1994. First
Workshop on, pages 158–163. IEEE, 1994.
R. LERNER. Memcached integration in
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»
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rails.Linux Journal, 2009.
F. Saffre, J. Halloy, M. Shackleton, and
J. Deneubourg. Self-organized service
orchestration
through
collective
differentiation. Systems, Man, and
Cybernetics, Part B: Cybernetics, IEEE
Transactions on, 36(6):1237–1246, 2006.
K. Wong. Geo-location in urban areas
using signal strength repeatability.
Communications Letters, IEEE, 5(10):411–
413, 2001.
P. Xiang, R. Hou, and Z. Zhou. Cache and
consistency in nosql. In Computer Science
and
Information
Technology(ICCSIT),
2010 3rd IEEE International Conference on,
About the Authors
Dr. Brian Dougherty is a Research Scientist in the Bradley Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. He received his BS
in Computer Science from Centre College, his MS and PhD from Vanderbilt
University. Dr. Dougherty’s research investigates the development of mobile
cyber-physical applications, automated techniques for configuring DRE
systems and automatically scaling cloud computing applications to meet
quality of service guarantees.
Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt is a Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt
University. He has published 10 books and more than 475 technical
papers covering a wide range of software-related topics, including
patterns, optimization techniques, and empirical analyses of objectoriented frameworks and domain-specific modeling environments that
facilitate the development of distributed real-time and embedded (DRE)
middleware and mission-critical applications running over data networks
and embedded system interconnects. In addition to his academic research, Dr. Schmidt
has led the development of ACE and TAO, which are are DRE middleware frameworks used
successfully by thousands of companies and agencies worldwide in many domains, including
national defense and security, datacom/telecom, financial services, medical engineering, and
massively multiplayer online gaming. Dr. Schmidt received B.S. and M.A. degrees in Sociology
from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in
Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in 1984, 1986, 1990, and
1994, respectively.
Dr. Jules White is an Assistant Professor in the Bradley Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. He received his BA
in Computer Science from Brown University, his MS and PhD in Computer
Science from Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on developing
mobile cyber-pysical systems using smartphones, designing power-efficient
communications middleware for smartphones, and applying search-based
optimization techniques to the configuration of distributed, real-time and embedded systems.
Daniel Guymon is a Research Assistant for the Mobile Applications, Genetic
optimizatioN, and cloud coMputing (MAGNUM) group in the Bradley
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. He
received his BS in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2010. Daniel’s
research examines mobile cyber-physical system development, smartphone
security, and localization techniques for mobile devices.
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:42 PM
Practitioner
Workbench
Achuthsankar S. Nair* & Parul Tyagi**
* Editor, CSI Communications
** Centre for Bioinformatics, University of Kerala
Programming.Learn(“Perl”) »
Sharp string matching is a core strength of Perl. The following
code snippet finds “me” in “Welcome”
$a = “Welcome”;
if ($a =~ /me/) { print “Found”; } else { print “Not Found”; }
If the standard name $_ is used instead of $a, the matching can
be done without specifying the string name. This is of course a bit
odd and takes time to adjust to !
$_ = “Welcome”;
if ( /me/) { print “Found”; } else { print “Not Found”; }
An ‘s’ gets substitutions done. “color” get substituted with
“colour” in the following snippet
$a = “The rainbow is colorful. How beautiful are those colors !”;
$a =~ s/color/colour/;
print $a;
A ‘g’ at the end of the command as in $a =~ s/color/colour/g
gets all instances of color substituted. An ‘I” can be used to ignore
case,
as in $a =~ s/COLOR/colour/i. Of course you can combine them
as in $a =~ s/COLOR/colour/ig
The translation feature, tr, can be used in the same way as in ‘s’.
In addition, it permits regular expressions in the substitution.
This makes it powerful. A case conversion can be achieved
by a tr statement that calls for substitution of all lower case by
uppercase, stated in a standard manner:
$a = “To be or not to be”;
$a =~ tr/[a-z]/[A-Z]/;
print $a;
What is the standard manner ? Well, here is a list:
Here is a program that you can tinker with to learn regular
expressions. It picks words from an array @a, which match a given
pattern.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
@a=( ‘abc123’, ‘a’, ‘aa’, ‘aaa’, ‘aaab’, ‘arabia’,
‘1964’, ‘the truth’, ‘specialise’);
foreach $i (@a)
{
if ($i =~ /a/) {print “$i\n”}
}
You can modify this easily to read from a text file (You may also
convert it into a counting program which will count the instances
of all words matching a particular pattern). All the examples
given below may be tried out using this program: /aa/; /aaa/;
/a.a/; /^a/; /^ar/; /a$/; /a*/; /li[s/z]e/; /
[0-9]/; /[a-zA-Z]/; /[az]{3}[0-9]{3}/; /[a-z]+/;
/a./; /a?/; ^$; a
You can just paste these expressions one by one in place of /a/
in the code snippet above. Ideally you should predict the result
before running the programs.
Match Pattern Explanation
.
Match anything
[ ]
Match with anything inside the [ ]
|
OR
[a-z], [0-9] etc Match anything in the range
*
Match zero or more times the preceding char
+
Match one or more times the preceding char
?
Match one or zero times the preceding char
{n}
Match n times the preceding char
{n,}
Match at least n times the preceding char
{n,m}
Match at least n, but not more than m times
the preceding char
^
Match the beginning of the line
$
Match the end of the line
What is your “regular expression”? Here we see “regular
expressions” from Kathakali: Tranquility (Shaantha),
Surprise (Adbhutha), Disgust (Bheebhatsa), Compassion
(Karuna), Fear (Bhayaanaka) and Courage (Veera) Courtesy of Krishna Mohan, http://www.drkrishi.com
n
8/6/2011 12:45:44 PM
Practitioner
Workbench
Debasish Jana
Editor, CSI Communications
Prof. Bjarne Stroustrup, Creator of C++
Prof. Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of the most popular programming language, C++. He is the living
legend, he is the maestro. His book “The C++ Programming Language” is the most widely read book of its kind
and has been translated into 19 different languages around the world. In addition to his five books, Stroustrup
has published more than a hundred of academic and popular papers.
Bjarne was born in Aarhus, Denmark in 1950. He received his Candidatus Scientiarum (Master’s degree) in
Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Aarhus, Denmark in 1975. He obtained his Ph.D. in
Computer Science from University of Cambridge, England in 1979 for work on the design of distributed systems.
He designed and implemented C++ while a researcher in AT&T Bell Lab’s Computer Science Research Center
and was the head of AT&T Lab’s Large-scale Programming Research department, from its creation until late
2002. Stroustrup was elected member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004.
He is a Fellow of the ACM and an IEEE Fellow. He currently works at Texas A&M University, United States, as a
Distinguished Professor where he holds the College of Engineering Chair in Computer Science.
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:45 PM
Part 3 of 3
C++0x Technicalities and Intricacies
Prelude
C++0x (pronounced “see plus plus oh ex”) is the new standard for the C++ programming language (earlier
and existing standard is C++98 or ISO/IEC 14882, published in 1998 and minor amendment was done in 2003
as C++03). In their March 2011 meeting, the C++ Standards Committee voted C++0x (N3290) to Final Draft
International Standard (FDIS) status. The final specification is expected to be published sometime in mid-2011
The implementation of the new standards (to be known as C++11 or C++2011) is already well underway in the
GCC, Visual C++, and other C++ compilers.
C++ is a general-purpose programming language with close-to-machine fundamental semantics, suitable
for kernel and systems programming with a mission of being a better C, supporting data abstraction, object
oriented programming and generic programming. C++ is used in a very wide range of applications and for
systems programming: http://www2.research.att.com/~bs/applications.html. C++0x aims to improve C++ as a
language for systems programming and library building with ease of learning while at the same time remaining
fully backward compatible. C++0x is going to have nice features like uniform initialization, move semantics,
lambda’s as first-class elements, automatic type deduction, and a simplified for statement. Also there are atomics,
a defined memory model, and support for thread-level concurrent programming.
On concurrency support in C++0x
Prologue (Debasish Jana): With heterogenerous and varied
platforms (both hardware architecture and operating systems),
writing portable programs remains a challenge. As of C++98
and its ammedment as of C++03, C++ faced varied portability
issues. For example, size of integer (int) type data was 2 on 16-bit
machine, 4 on 32-bit machine, 8 on 64-bit and so on. Also, for
character strings, the size of a single character could be one or
two bytes depending on the language of character set (English,
Japanese) it represents. Added to that, for parallel processing,
concurrency support, threads, semaphores used to depend on
infamous posix libraries or platform dependent operating system
specific calls making a source code written in C++ not portable
across platforms. One way to make portable code was to define
platform specific calls within the block of #ifdef for example
#ifdef WIN32
// win32 specific code
#else
#ifdef LINUX
//linux specific code
#endif
#endif
Also, web support, multicore architecture support all cause
problem to support portability.
Debasish Jana: Earlier C++ standards did not have language level
portable support for concurrency, multicore, web development, how
do the new standards aim to cope up with this?
Bjarne Stroustrup: We have to distinguish between the various
application areas: Concurrency is used in many forms and in
many contexts. For example, C++11 provides direct support for
system-level concurrency, but does not provide direct support
for web development; that’s the domain for libraries and domain
specific languages. I would have liked to provide standard support
for distributed computing, but we did not have the resources to
get such facilities into the standard, so (as ever) C++ provides
support for programming in a single address space. What’s new is
that the support for threads, locks, etc. is standard and type safe.
Also, we now have a precise specification of the memory model.
There is also a set of primitives for lock-free programming so that
programmers can build their own libraries to support alternative
views of concurrency.
Most of the concurrency parts of the new standard are already
available today.
... C++11 provides direct support for systemlevel concurrency, but does not provide direct
support for web development; that’s the domain
for libraries and domain specific languages.
On threads in C++0x
Prologue (Debasish Jana): In C++98 and C++03, threads were
8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
supported not as part of the language but part of the operating
system calls available with the operating system specific libraries.
Multithreading and concurrency helps to run multiple portions
of code in parallel to the execution of the other portions of code.
In case we have the hardware support for multiple processors
(multicore) or just a single CPU (single core), then in the former
case, the code can run in parallel in true sense, and in later case,
oerating system uses a concept of time sharing where mutiple
tasks are interleaved within same processor to offer a pseudo
form a multiple tasking. Whatever be the case, we have to identify
the function that should run concurrently as part of a thread
executing in parallel.
C++ supports threads in a single address space.
Anything involving multiple address spaces
must be done with higher-level libraries that
are not part of the standard.
Threads are considered as lightweight process, where a two
threads share the same address space within the parent process.
This means, the code area, heap area, global memory area are
all shared, and the stack area are different for each thread so as
to separate the execution control and local data that gets stored
within stack.
Debasish Jana: How will the new C++ support threads running on
different address spaces and on different processors in muticore
machines? Will we be able to run multicore threading yet portable
across platforms?
Bjarne Stroustrup: C++ supports threads in a single address
space. Anything involving multiple address spaces must be done
with higher-level libraries that are not part of the standard. There
is no standard mechanism for exchanging data between threads
in different address spaces. For that, you’ll have to use one of the
existing inter-process communication libraries and probably each
system’s native processes.
Bjarne Stroustrup: Obviously, we must avoid data races in both
cases. My best advice is to avoid shared data whenever possible
and use locks when we have to share data. So, rely on data passed
as parameters to threads, local (stack) memory, and non-shared
free store. When that’s not feasible, the standard provides
mutexes, locks, and condition variables, so that all the usual
techniques can be used. For example:
X my_data;
mutex my_mutex; // mutex used to avoid
// data races for my_data
void my_fct() { // potentially running in
// several threads
lock lck(my_mutex);
// acquire mutex
my_data.foo();
// use the shared data
} // lck’s destructor implicitly
// releases my_mutex
We use RAII (“Resource Acquisition Is Initialization”) to minimize
errors leading to non-released resources. The standard provides
several kinds of mutexes (e.g. recursive mutexes and timed
mutexes) and an operation to simultaneously acquire several
mutexes.
Epilogue (Debasish Jana): To avoid racing and surprises in
accessing shared variables, any access (read or write) to the
shared variables must be mutually exclusive so that no two
threads can access the same variable in read-write mode. This is
done by locking through mutex semaphores. Earlier, semaphore
support was through the operating system specific library, now
the support is given in the language level for increased and
enhanced portability across platforms.
C++ has a bias towards systems programming:
It combines a direct and efficient model of
the machine with very flexible and general
abstraction mechanisms, allowing zerooverhead abstraction.
On thread-safe synchronization in C++0x
Prologue (Debasish Jana): In C++98 and C++03, threads running
in same address space share the global data area of the parent
process. As such, all static data and shared variables are shared
across threads of same process as well. This puts a challenge on
the synchronization of the shared data, because while one thread
may try to acess the shared variable, the other thread may try to
modify this, resulting in a race condition.
My best advice is to avoid shared data whenever
possible and use locks when we have to share
data. So, rely on data passed as parameters to
threads, local (stack) memory, and non-shared
free store.
Debasish Jana: How will the new standard deal with synchronization
of thread-safe dynamic concurrent initialization and cleanup of static
variables as shared variables?
On passing value or exception from dying thread in
C++0x
Prologue (Debasish Jana): The execution of a thread may
terminate normally when the execution reaches the end of the
function, irrespective of the execution point of the other threads.
The scheduling of threads is always unpredictable, as it depends
on the operating system, thus, we have no clue to know how far
the thread has executed. The thread may not have been started, or
may have been midway during execution, or it could have finished
normally, or worst case, the thread has terminated abnormally
when the thread has been abruptly stopped.
Debasish Jana: If a thread abnormally terminates because of a
runtime exception, how do the other threads know about this and
cope up (in new C++0x standard)?
Bjarne Stroustrup: You can “transfer” a value or an exception
from one thread to another. The mechanism for that is called a
future. This is the one C++0x mechanism that is not part of the
conventional threads and locks system level of concurrency.
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8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
Say that I have a task (function or function object) f that I’d like to
invoke with arguments x1 and x2 so that it will run concurrently
with my thread. This can be done like this:
future<double> x = async(f,x1,x2); // run f(x1,x2) concurrently
// do other work
double d = x.get();
late, making it hard to give decent diagnostics, but at least they
are caught before the program starts running.
Here, I have assumed that f returns a double; if it doesn’t, the code
won’t compile. The get() potentially waits for the task to finish
and if f fails and signals that failure by throwing an exception, then
the call to get will throw that exception. The async function is one
of the ways that the standard library provides to invoke a function
to run in a separate thread and return its value or exception to a
caller.
On language features and design philosophy of C++ in
general
When I write a program of any size it is not
a choice of OOP vs. GP vs. C-style; for the
most appropriate abstractions and the best
performance, I have to use a set of features
and techniques that cross those classification
boundaries.
On allowed types in templates in C++0x
Prologue (Debasish Jana): Templates are nice things in C++ to
provide generic programming support. Through template, we
provide parameterized classes or functions so that we write the
class or function be supported for a variety of data types, and
the data type passed as an argument. For example, to support
vector<int> or vector<char>, we write the class vector as a
parameterized class or template. However, in many cases, we see
that the generic program may fail to a specific case because of the
fact that a particular function or operator is not provided for that
particular type making it fail to support for a particular type.
Debasish Jana: One major problem with generic programming is
that the templates don’t tell about the permissible or allowed types
that can be passed. Any suggestion on that?
Bjarne Stroustrup: We worked hard to solve that problem, but
didn’t come up with a sufficiently good solution. We need an
easier-to-use and faster-to-compile design than the one we had
for C++0x. I’m trying to do a thorough re-think of that, but I’m not
ready to commit to even a definite direction for a design. Look for
my research papers over the next couple of years. I suspect that
semantic requirements will play a bigger role than they did in the
past.
One of the historic strengths of objectoriented programming was exactly that it
was an attractive label – sometimes hiding
irreconcilable differences among its proponents.
Please also remember that even though the error messages
caused by mistakes in generic code can be spectacularly bad,
templates support real-world uses of generic programming
rather well – spectacularly well in some cases as compared to
alternatives in other languages. Also, type errors may be caught
C++11 does improve the support for generic programming
significantly despite our failure to address that specific important
problem.
Debasish Jana: Every language has its own philosophy which
also evolves and adapts over time. However, C++ preaches about
philosophy very tightly blended in the applicability of the language.
That philosophy includes more object orientation, also procedural,
more so in terms of programming with proper algorithmic footprint.
Your views on that.
Bjarne Stroustrup: Language features exist to support design
philosophies. However, a language designer cannot anticipate all
programmer needs, so a language design has to aim for generality.
In particular, I am strongly against deliberately crippling features
to prevent “bad code.” In general, we don’t know what will be “bad
code” in a few years or in an unanticipated application area. The
advantage of specialized languages is that their designers can
make far stronger assumptions about the use of their languages
and the background of their users than designers of generalpurpose languages. What I say on this topic is primarily relevant
to general-purpose languages and in particular to C++. C++ has
a bias towards systems programming: It combines a direct and
efficient model of the machine with very flexible and general
abstraction mechanisms, allowing zero-overhead abstraction.
...the main point is that we cannot classify this
program as “object oriented”, “generic”, or
“traditional” even though it uses the classical
characteristic language features for using each
“paradigm.” What we see here is a synthesis
that elegantly and efficiently incorporates all.
I want to get beyond the “multi-paradigm”/hybrid view of C++.
When I write a program of any size it is not a choice of OOP vs.
GP vs. C-style; for the most appropriate abstractions and the best
performance, I have to use a set of features and techniques that
cross those classification boundaries. I still don’t have a snappy
label for what I do, but the central idea is to provide a direct and
efficient mapping of my application ideas to machine resources.
That was also the aim of the pioneers of object-oriented and
generic programming; it was only later – in the hands of less
thoughtful and less experienced people – that the distinctions
between techniques became characterized in terms of language
features and simplistically discussed in terms of good vs. bad.
I’m working on getting from philosophical statements like those in
the previous paragraph to practical rules and good examples. You
can actually find a fair bit of that in TC++PL3, PPP, and my articles
and interviews about style over the years, but I must develop a
clearer and more consistent statement and find a simple label.
One of the historic strengths of object-oriented programming
was exactly that it was an attractive label – sometimes hiding
8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
irreconcilable differences among its proponents.
So, consider the following C++11 program:
struct Point { // traditional C-style struct
int x, y;
// …
};
struct Shape { // traditional OO abstract base class
virtual void draw() = 0; // pure virtual function
virtual void move(Point to) = 0;
virtual pair<Point,Point> box() = 0; // bounding box
// …
virtual ~draw() {};
};
// classical class hierarchy
class Circle: public Shape {
public:
Circle(Point,int);
// data, overriding functions, …
};
// classical class hierarchy
class Triangle: public Shape {
public:
Triangle(Point,Point,Point);
// data, overriding functions, …
};
constexpr Point Origo {0,0};
constexpr Point P2 {50,100};
constexpr Point P3 {100, 30};
// classical parameterized container type
vector<Shape*> vs {
new Circle{Origo,20},
new Triangle{Origo,P2,P3},
new Circle{{-10,200},20},
new Triangle{{-400,0},P2,{-200,200}},
// …
};
int main()
{
sort(vs.begin(), vs.end(),
// generic algorithm
[] (Shape* p, Shape* q)
{ return p->box().first.x <q->box().first.x; }
);
for (Shape* p: vs)
delete p;
}
How would I know (without likelihood of
mistake) what is a suitable type to hold the sum
of elements from U and V? With auto, I don’t
have to know because the compiler already
does.
Here, I’m showing off a few C++11 features. Note the initialization
of the vector of Shape pointers, the range-for loop, and the lambda
specifying the sorting criterion. However, the main point is that
we cannot classify this program as “object oriented”, “generic”,
or “traditional” even though it uses the classical characteristic
language features for using each “paradigm.” What we see here is
a synthesis that elegantly and efficiently incorporates all.
On auto detection of a type from an initializer
Prologue (Debasish Jana): C++ is based on strong type theory
where every data defined within the program must have a valid
type with strict compile-type binding. For example, we have
int i = 5;
to declare and define a variable i as integer (int) initialized to 5.
We may have void * pointer which can point to any typed pointer,
for example,
char ac[10]; // array of 10 characters
void *ptr = NULL; // placeholder pointer
ptr = (char *) ac; // ptr points to start address of ac
I think we should look serious at a simpler-touse and simpler-to-implement concept design
as the premier way of improving our support for
generic programming.
We may have also a superclass (or base class) pointer pointing to
a subclass (or derived class) pointer, such as,
class A{};
class B: public A{};
A *pa;
pa = new B(); // left side is a base class pointer
// right side is a derived class pointer
C++0x is bringing out a nice feature of deducing of a type from
an initializer. Earlier, in C (but not ISO C++), we had the concept
of “implicit int,” i.e. if we dont provide return type of main or any
other function, for example,
g(){} // implicitly means int g(){}
However, implicit int was not supported for declaring of data in
any place within the program, not even while passing arguments.
But, now we have auto in C++0x, lets explore.
Debasish Jana: C++ 0x is supporting a feature of determining the type
of a data automatically from the initializer or usage. For example,
auto x = 5;
will automatically determine that x is of type int, from its initializer.
What is the advantage of this feature? Is it because of the fact the
type is either difficult to write in specifically or it is a mean to support
generic programming in a better way?
Bjarne Stroustrup: The key strength of auto is that it allows you to
avoid redundancy. Consider
int x = 5;
Here we say that x is an int and that we initialize it with the int with
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8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
the value 5. Here, that’s only a minor convenience, but consider:
void f(map<string,pair<int,int>>& m)
{
for (map<string,pair<int,int>>::iterator p =
m.begin(); p!=m.end(); ++p)
// ...
}
This is pretty ugly compared to
{
for (auto p = m.begin(); p!=m.end(); ++p)
// ...
}
The compiler knows the type of m, so we don’t need to tell it again
(and possibly get it wrong). The compiler also knows the value_
type of the map, so we could even write:
{
for (auto& x: m)
// ...
}
The pressure for change should come from the
community rather than from within the standard
committee.
And these are examples where we actually know the type. In more
complicated generic code, knowing the type isn’t always easy.
Consider a somewhat simplified example:
template<class U, class V>
void f(U& u, V& v)
{
for(int i=0; i<u.size(); ++i) {
auto tmp = u[i]+v[i];
// …
}
}
How would I know (without likelihood of mistake) what is a
suitable type to hold the sum of elements from U and V? With
auto, I don’t have to know because the compiler already does.
Please remember that sometimes redundancy is a good thing: it
helps catching errors. Therefore I recommend the use of auto only
in restricted scopes. I hope and expect that auto will be relatively
rare for namespace variables. If a function gets so long that auto
becomes a source of confusion, the proper response will usually
be to shorten the function.
On Wishlist
Debasish Jana: Finally, your C++ wishlist, please.
Bjarne Stroustrup: Quality C++0x implementations. People
learning to use C++0x idiomatically. Better static analysis tools to
cope with high-end applications.
Oh, you meant new language features and library components! We
only just finished the C++11 standard. I have not had time for calm
thought about future long-term needs, so I can only mention some
preliminary personal thoughts. I think we should look serious at a
simpler-to-use and simpler-to-implement concept design as the
premier way of improving our support for generic programming.
In general, we should focus language improvements on support
for abstraction (rather than directly supporting specific end-user
needs). I think we should look at multi-methods (e.g. see Peter
Pirkelbauer, Yuriy Solodkyy, and Bjarne Stroustrup: “Open MultiMethods for C++” , Ref. URL: http://www.research.att.com/~bs/
multimethods.pdf, Proc. ACM GPCE’07) and I think we should
look into what would be needed to support multiple address
spaces.
The change should be fundamental rather than
serving a current fashion.
For libraries, I’d like to revisit the various ideas about distributed
computing and in general look for ways to provide standardlibrary support for higher-level concurrency models. I’d also like
to see some better support for linear algebra, but that may be
selfish and frivolous. The pressure for change should come from
the community rather than from within the standard committee.
The change should be fundamental rather than serving a current
fashion. Only a library that has been designed, implemented, and
used by a community has a chance of becoming a standard library
component.
I think it will be important to look for major improvements rather
than more small “convenience features” and focus on library
design.
On Final Good wishes for the fan club, the learners, the
educators, the practitioners of C++ the community at
large
Debasish Jana: I have been learning and preaching C++ for more
than two decades now and I don’t have any doubt whatsoever about
the fact that C++ is the most brilliant language ever made. I am
personally delighted to know the C++0x taking its final shape and
being released in this year as part of the compiler supports.
On behalf of C++ community at large, and from my personal admirer
viewpoint, sincerest very special thanks to you, Prof. Stroustrup, for
spending so much time for showing us the way through this exclusive
interview, giving a chance to hold the torch of the glory and success
of C++ in making more and more robust, resilient and adaptable
softwares.
Bjarne Stroustrup: Thanks, Debasish, for giving me an opportunity
to explain about C++11. I’m looking forward to many new and even
more exciting applications.
Only a library that has been designed,
implemented, and used by a community has
a chance of becoming a standard library
component.
The entire series of all three parts of the exclusive interview with
Prof. Bjarne Stroustup is also listed under Interviews link at his
n
home page: http://www2.research.att.com/~bs/
8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
CIO Perspective
Anil V. Vaidya
Adjunct Professor, S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research
Doctor of Business Administration (UK), MBA (USA), B.Sc.(Tech), B.Sc., CISA, CISM, anvvaidya@gmail.com
IT Strategy Nuances »
Is IT Valued ?
The first article in this series brought out the nuances of IT strategy. The
next three articles addressed three aspects of IT Strategy viz. strategy
management, organization and technology. This article focuses on the
important concept of ‘value of IT’ and presents a value addition model.
IT value has been a topic of
discussion in the CIO circle for a long
time now. Value creation, computation
and its demonstration have been the
challenges faced by CIOs. The CIOs
and IT professionals have tried various
ways to prove the worth of IT, in terms
of contribution to businesses at different
levels. In the real world, a product or
service is valued only as much as its
perceived worth; matching expectations is
considered the minimum requirement. IT
arena has been immensely dynamic and
is ever changing. In turn, the expectations
gallop ahead never to be completely
fulfilled, resulting in gaps. This article
offers valuation examples and ways of
valuing the involvement of IT.
IT Value - usage of information and
transformation
Information management (IM) is the
management of processes and systems
that create, acquire, organize, store,
distribute and use information (Detlor,
2010 p. 103). IM is not about managing
technology but about managing processes
that generate and use information.
McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2011) reported
from their research of 330 US companies
that most data-driven companies had 4%
higher productivity and 6% higher profits
than the average.
Transformational characteristics of
information technology and systems have
been at the forefront, especially with the
rapid spread of internet usage. Decisionmaking processes not just of organizations
but even of individuals have undergone
major overhaul. Consumers have a
much wider spectrum of alternatives
and a lot more information available. “IT
has contributed significantly allowing
customers to make informed choices”
said a CEO. There are enough examples
of IT companies offering transformational
service consulting. Weill et al (2010) of
MIT CISR offer a value framework that
shows ‘Distinctive Digitization’ as one of
the four management commitments of
top-performing firms.
While delivering IT value to business,
the CIOs have also assumed a new active
role in transforming organizations. Gupta
(2011) believes that CIOs will be the
new change agents for organizations.
In the organizational history, although
the roles of political, religious and social
opinion leaders and change agents
have been recognized, that of the
technological change agents are yet to
be fully investigated. At this juncture,
it is important to acknowledge that the
path towards the new state must be
well thought of, besides knowing the
goal of transformation with absolute
clarity. The efforts to integrate suppliers
and customers into IT systems are well
known. Taking this a step further, the
organizations now strengthen the cocreation of products and services alongwith business partners. Co-creation is
highly valued in marketing circles and
IT is the enabler for attaining this goal
through its collaboration services and the
connectivity of virtual teams.
Hicks (2007 p. 234) advocates
the application of lean management
principles. The principles of lean involve
eliminating waste and ensuring value
flows. There has been an increasing flow
of so-called information generation in the
corporate world. In the real world, there
are processes introduced and followed
that keep churning the data and generate
so called information that conforms to
the principles of diminishing returns. The
information management professionals
need to focus on two areas: statutory/
regulatory requirements and decision
inputs.
Some IT value examples
The role of IT services has changed
from being merely a cost-innovator to
a co-creator. Jayadevan and Sabharwal
(2011) describe the Philips IT strategy
of pyramid structure with the base layer
as cost innovation and next an enabling
layer. The topmost layer is IT as cocreator, where IT is increasingly involved
in the products, the services and business
model. The two top layers have become
more important to support growth. The
Traffic Management Centre (TMC) set up
by Bangalore traffic police helps to reduce
traffic violations and decongest arterial
roads using simple IT solutions. The
target set is to reduce congestion by 30%
in central areas, reduce accidents by 30%
and to improve parking management.
Technology is being used for management
and compliance through improved
effective policing (Jayadevan, 2011). The
RFID-based ubiquitous third party logistic
(3PL) system was promoted to apply a
collaborative business model to the field
operation of warehouses and distribution
centers. Kim et al (2008) offer a Korean
case study, where the company achieved
Transformational characteristics of information technology and
systems have been at the forefront, especially with the rapid spread
of internet usage. Decision-making processes not just of organizations
but even of individuals have undergone major overhaul.
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8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
a distinct competitive advantage through
innovative information technology, which
has enabled it to create an uncontested
market space, electronic logistics
business. In the process, the company
identified future customers.
Jutras (2010) reported from her
research that on manufacturing ERP
implementation, best-in-class companies
benefited by:
1. 20% reduction in operating costs
2. 18% reduction in administrative
costs
3. 22% reduction in inventory costs
4. 17% improvement in complete and
on-time shipment
5. 18% improvement in manufacturing
schedule
Technology cycle and value
responsibility
IT management concepts embedding
IT-Business alignment, involvement of
business managers and management
of IT project portfolio help in promoting
value generation. During a discussion
a consultant elaborated the concept
of ’technology cycles‘. The consultant
stressed that the technology cycle has
been one of 50/60 years, made up of the
‘Innovation’ phase and the ‘Value creation’
phase. The first phase was of innovations
that lasted for last thirty years when the
technologists invented new products.
It was the novelty that attracted people
during that period. Miller (2009 p. 9)
supports this view of technology change
followed by emergence of new solutions.
During the next thirty years of the ‘value
creation phase’ technologist need to prove
the value created by the innovations that
they have been making. The businesses
will emphasise the value of technology
rather than its innovativeness. Norman
(1998) proposed that customers now look
for solutions and convenience rather than
for technology. He offered this picture
(figure 1) to indicate two periods:
The value creation function of IT
has been well recognized by researchers
and corporations alike. Peppard (2007)
acknowledged the difficulty faced by
CIOs in delivering value on account of
the organization structures, mindset,
authority patterns and processes. In their
attempt to create value, the CIOs work
on their IT organizations and restructure
those from time to time e.g. setting up
relationships management function within
The
CHASM
Relative % of
Customers
Early
Majority
Late
Majority
Early
Adopters
Laggards
Innovators
Time
Customers want technology
and performance
Customers want solutions and convenience
Source: Adapted from Norman (1998)
Fig. 1 : Early adopters and laggards
IT. He has identified the core issue as
‘how to generate value through IT without
having access or authority over necessary
knowledge and resources’.
There is a definite shift from ‘IT
as enabler’ to ‘IT as value creator’. The
direction change clearly brings into focus
the mindset change from technology
performance to value creation. Peppard
(2007) announced “we are possibly
addressing the requirement to generate
business value through IT in an
inappropriate fashion”. He further stated,
“seeking to improve the performance of
the IT function is likely to achieve little”.
Often the businesses view the IT function
as a black box that is supposed to meet the
business requirements. The value creation
being addressed solely internally by IT
function is unlikely to achieve the required
level. While the expectation and attempt
to create value through IT function is
certainly important, the businesses do not
get involved or share the responsibility
of value creation. Peppard (2007) has
identified the six competencies that are
required for value creation: creating
strategy, defining the IT capability,
delivering IT supply, implementing
solutions, exploiting information, defining
the IS contribution. Importantly all these
competencies do not reside within IT i.e.
the knowledge and skills underpinning
each of these competencies are not
located solely in IT functions. We need the
business functions to work closely with IT
to create value.
IT value addition model
IT value creation may be achieved
through various means such as: cost
reduction, process support, business
improvement, strategic contribution,
revenue growth. Aspirational, experienced
and transformational capabilities of IT
have been in discussion for a while now.
These capabilities can be best described
through the role of IT as “business
support”, “business enabler”, “business
partner” and “business creator”; the last
being the direct “value creation” role.
Under
“business
creator”
formulation, corporates have structured
separate organizations for conducting
business in IT arena. Wipro, Tata, L&T, for
example, are known to have succeeded
in their IT ventures. In recent years, we
know that larger data centers of even nonIT companies are gearing up to provide
cloud services. Such examples fit in very
well into the MIT concept of “Value
Center” built from four sources of value.
There are others that refer to such activity
as top of IT value pyramid. While it is the
top of the pyramid that many may desire,
8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
IT value addition model Transition
Value creator
Supporter
Enabler
Creator
Value
Enabler
Supporter
Partner
Enabler
Supporter
Pillars
Fig. 2
IT players directly interact with cloud
service providers and acquire necessary
services they will be part of value chain.
IT organizations, which have traditionally
been service providers/enablers, will
need to compete with such users in future.
While closing this discussion, it
may be worth reconsidering – why do we
discuss the value of IT? We rarely do the
same for other services; why not carry on
with the good work instead of spending
efforts in proving the ‘value’? In any case,
in the world of today and of tomorrow, no
one can be without “IT”.




Bibliography

The future
ChannelWorld (2010) predicts
that 20 percent of non-IT Global 500
companies will be cloud service providers
by 2015. The easy availability and
accessibility of cloud computing services
will extend the role of IT decision making
to users. This represents yet another
opportunity for IT organizations to
redefine their value proposition as service
enablers — with either consumption
or provision of cloud-based services
(ChannelWorld Bureau, 2010). As non-
Contributors
Stack
Value creator
it is extremely important to recognize
the IT role in the other three areas. The
figure 2 here depicts the transition from
earlier concepts of “value stack” to “value
pillars” to “value contributors”. It is vital
to appreciate that the businesses vary
in IT value addition methodologies. The
“stack” indicates a kind of hierarchy,
which may not be the right perspective
for every business. The “pillars” connote
a sort of support structure to be built on.
The “contributor” representation offers a
more comprehensive picture of multiple
ways of value addition.
As
an
example,
one
may
consider remote patient monitoring
field in healthcare. The very nature
of “remoteness” requires IT to be
contributing through direct partnering
in business. In a way this is true for all
transactions done from a distance, be
it sale of books or orders for flowers or
transfer of funds. During the early days,
IT strategy followed business strategy,
and it was derived from business strategy.
However, with the technological advances,
IT is becoming integral part of business,
as in financial sector, making strategy
development a two-way process between
IT and Business. The “enabling” role of IT
has contributed immensely in functions
such as supply chain and manufacturing.
One can hardly manage a global supply
chain without underlying IT infrastructure.
The computer aided design has been in
vogue for well over two decades. Similarly,
the R&D laboratories can hardly function
today without IT enablement. The
financial and HR functions were the early
adopters of IT to “support” their tasks and
activities.




ChannelWorld Bureau (2010) Gartner
reveals top predictions for IT organizations
for 2011 and beyond ChannelWorld.IN
November 30 accessed on March 21,
2011 at 11:45 AM IST from http://www.
channelworld.in/news/gartner-revealstop-predictions-it-organizations-andusers-2011-and-beyond-40622010
Detlor,
B.
(2010)
Information
management International Journal of
Information Management 30: 103-108
Gupta, M. (2011) CIOs: New champions
of transformation The Economic Times 9
June 2011: 14
Hicks, B. (2007) Lean information
management:
Understanding
and
eliminating waste International Journal of
Information Management 27:233-249
Jayadevan, P. and Sabharwal, S. (2011)




It is a co-creator today, not just costinnovator The Economic Times March 15: 4
Jayadevan, P. (2011) Managing traffic
through technology The Economic Times
March 17: 4
Jutras, C. (2010) ERP in manufacturing
2010: measuring business benefits and
time to value Aberdeen Group
Kim, C., Yang, K. and Kim, J. (2008) A
strategy for third party logistics system:
A case analysis using the blue ocean
strategy The International Journal of
Management Science 36: 522-534
McAfee, A. and Brynjolfsson, E. (2011)
What makes a company good at IT? The
Wall Street Journal April 25, 2011
Miller, D. (2009) Business focused IT and
service excellence British Computer Society
UK
Norman, D. (1998) The life cycle of a
technology: Why it is so difficult for large
companies to innovate Nielsen Norman
Group Report accessed on March 5, 2010
from http://www.nngroup.com/reports/
life_cycle_of_tech.html
Peppard, J. (2007) The conundrum
of IT management European Journal of
Information Systems 16:336-345
Weill, P., Ross, J. and Quaadgras, A.
(2010) Achieving superior business value
from digitization: The MIT CISR value
framework MIT Center for Information
Systems Research 8(X)
n
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
HR
Kishor Bhalerao
Sr. Vice President – Human Resources at Persistent Systems Ltd.
Role of HR in Mergers and Acquisitions
HR plays an important role even
during the initial decision making
process in an M&A.
When a company is acquiring some
other organization, then the choice
of action or inaction remains with the
acquiring company, while the company
that gets acquired, generally does not
have much say in the decision making.
HR Checklist for M&A
Competition is the industry buzzword
these days, and it is what drives
mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
They say ‘if you can’t beat them, join
them’.
related issues need to be considered and
so it is important to keep employees’
emotions and aspirations in mind. HR,
therefore, has a role to play considering
the people factor.
What is M & A?
When an M&A is in process,
employee-related issues need
to be considered and so it is
important to keep employees’
emotions and aspirations in mind.
A merger is like a union, where
both the parties are convinced that
their interests will be better served by
creating a single organization. While
in an acquisition, the dominant player
takes over an organization and functions
as a single organization to enjoy better
advantage.
Mergers and acquisitions have been
taking place even before IT companies
came on the horizon. In the early years,
M&A were prominently seen in Europe.
Globalization has also thrown many
challenges and opened up possibilities.
It has given new meaning to merger and
acquisition by creating win-win situations
for all concerned.
Over a period of time, the mechanism
and reasons for mergers and acquisitions
have changed. Acquisition now happens
for varied reasons – securing marketing
rights, gaining patents, controlling
business in different geographies,
procuring products etc. At the same time,
partial merger or acquisition is possible as
well.
Goals of M & A
Originally it was perceived that
mergers or acquisitions had only financial
implications. The new realization is that
the human aspect cannot be overlooked.
When an M&A is in process, employee-
Process of M & A
From a decision making position, the
most important thing while acquiring, is to
ascertain that the merger or acquisition
will be a business viable proposition.
The objective of this activity should
be the growth of business. Further
considerations are affordability and cost.
Once the intent is established and you
think that objective can be met over a
period of time, you create the proposal.
In my opinion, this is the time when
HR comes into the picture and remains in
the picture even post the merger. At every
stage, HR has a role to play. The postmerger processes are just as important as
the pre-merger requirements.
Once HR gets engaged, it may take
3 to 6 months to finalize and settle all
the HR requirements of the organizations
involved. But this again is a generic
estimate. This assessment also depends
on other factors related to the companies
that are merging or the company that is
being acquired.
Considering
this
multifaceted
activity, creating and maintaining a
checklist of activities to be done is
necessary. A consultant may assist you in
creating the checklist, but I would suggest
one should make one’s own Do’s & Don’ts
list. While making a checklist, an eye for
detail is very important. Each person
involved, be it finance, HR or legal must
have his own checklist. It is not possible to
really go further without a checklist.
Role of HR in M & A
HR plays an important role even
during the initial decision making process
in an M&A. A checklist will help in
ascertaining the presence or absence of
certain checkpoints. Also the HR person
has the option of raising a red flag in
case there are any issues. The cultural
differences surface prominently postmerger.
One of the first things to do would be
to find out if there are any people related
liabilities e.g. pending court cases.
Second thing is to find out whether
the company has made any commitment
to the people for payments in future. You
would like to acquire the organization with
a clean slate. You expect the organization
to settle the people related deals before
you acquire its ownership. So you need
to find out the situation as you really
would want to buy the assets and not the
liabilities. Many times we find that the
liabilities are hidden. So you need to go in
depth and find out the liabilities - if any.
Thirdly,
is
the
organization
compliant? Is the company fulfilling the
employee related legal and statutory
compliances? If the company is not
compliant, are there any future threats
arising out of the non-compliance? It may
8/6/2011 12:45:47 PM
not be possible to find out the position
only by superficial examination. The HR
person is required to do due diligence.
It may involve interviewing people and
also carrying out document verifications.
The HR person needs to find out the
necessary details. It is like interviewing
a candidate and if required look into the
organizations background and conduct
the verifications, and even post –interview
background verification. This process is
very important, the HR persons needs to
get into the organization, meet people,
talk to them, ask for documents, and be
convinced that everything is in place.
Getting into the depth of the matter is very
important.
The analogy of a new daughterin-law coming to the house can be
given here. It is the responsibility
of the family to make this
daughter-in-law comfortable in
the house. They are well settled,
while she is new to the house.
Cultural Aspects
Culture is indeed a very important
facet of any organization. It takes a long
time to change it. If a company acquires
an organization with a similar culture
there is a big advantage. As in this case,
the company doesn’t have to spend time
and energy to bring in much change.
Or else, the merger of cultures needs
to take place. Cultural merger has to
be a smooth merger and a battle of two
cultures should be avoided. Unification
of two cultures to evolve a common work
and desirable culture is important. In case
of two different cultures, it is necessary
for the organization to really think about
the post-merger cultural policy they
are willing to adopt. You need to plan to
create the desired culture; otherwise it
is quite likely that the merged culture
may be undesirable. Planned efforts and
careful handling is required to create a
»
culture taking the best of both the merging
organizations.
The merger of two cultures takes the
most time. Merger of technology is faster,
merger of geographical boundaries is
faster, creating a joint hierarchy is faster,
but cultural merger takes its own time.
Post merger Responsibility of HR
It is the responsibility of the acquiring
organization to follow some etiquettes.
The psychology of the employees needs
to be handled very sensibly. It is very
important to create a sense of win-win
situation at every level of the organization.
A feeling of ‘we have acquired you’ should
not prevail. Normally, in such a situation,
the employees should be asked not to
refer to it as ‘acquisition’, although in
reality it may be so. It could be referred
to as a merger so as to give the acquired
employees a feeling of parity.
To maintain sensitivity is of immense
importance. You have to really understand
the psychology of people, provide moral
support to them, handle the feeling of
uncertainty that they might have and
make them comfortable. The analogy of a
new daughter-in-law coming to the house
can be given here. It is the responsibility
of the family to make this daughter-in-law
comfortable in the house. They are well
settled, while she is new to the house.
Extend a helping hand and make her
comfortable. Only then can you expect
her to merge in the family culture.
Cultural sensitivity post merger
So, initially the acquiring organization
has more responsibility than the
organization, which is getting acquired.
Later on, all will be treated at par in the
merged organization. The individual
identity of the earlier organization should
gradually melt away. At the same time –
carrying the analogy further, the daughterin-law has to really accept the new house
as her house and not keep referring to
her Mayaka. That is very important. It
requires effort from both parties to create
a cohesive atmosphere. The role of HR is
to make a merger successful.
HR opposing the M &A
HR can strongly oppose an M &A for
two basic reasons. First reason could be
that the organization being acquired has
a history of union related problems such
as lack of industrial peace or a negative
history of labour and industrial relations
(IR).
Second reason could be the cultural
incompatibility and the extent to which
people need to be re-trained. Changing
attitudes takes quite some time and
efforts. Additionally if the culture of the
organisation being acquired does not
match desirable work culture, it will
negatively impact the culture of the
acquiring organization. In such situations,
HR could recommend to withdraw the
M&A.
When a company acquires human
resource/human capital, it is for the
purpose of the talent or competence
enhancement. So if you find that the
employees do not have that type or extent
of talent and competency you require,
then you need to really rethink about
acquiring the manpower.
Conclusion
The role of HR starts from the stage of
conception of the idea. HR should advise
the decision maker about the feasibility
of merging the manpower. Due diligence
should be done to ensure there are no
hidden pitfalls. In extreme conditions it
needs to warn the decision maker of the
negative consequences before the activity
is started.
Post-merger, it is the responsibility
of HR to ensure a smooth merging of
the two cultures. Most importantly, it is
the formation of a new desirable culture.
The ‘daughter-in-law’ coming to the
family should be accepted as part of the
family and therefore the role of HR is
indispensible in this activity.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this
article are strictly the personal views of the
author.)
n
About the Author
Kishor drives the Human Resources function at Persistent Systems. Persistent is a global software product development company
with a team of 6,500 spread across 22 cities and 3 continents. Kishor brings in over 35 years of experience in the HR field including
over 25 years as Head-HR with a number of prestigious, blue-chip multinationals including Mastek & Tata Infotech etc. His knowledge,
experience coupled with his dynamic HR initiatives has influenced the growth of the various companies he has worked in. Under
Kishor’s leadership companies like Mastek went on to receive recognition from the Carnegie Mellon University to become the “first
company in the world” to achieve P-CMM Level 3 certification.
Kishor has earned his Masters degree in Personnel Management with a graduation in Psychology.
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:48 PM
Product Showcase
Jayadev Nair
General Manager, NetScout Systems India Pvt. Ltd.
Monitoring Application Delivery with nGenius® and Sniffer®
In today’s enterprise, the reliability and performance of the IT
infrastructure directly impacts business success. Networks carry
time-sensitive financial transactions, lifesaving patient records,
valuable manufacturing orders and critical call signaling / voice
data. Network outages or application degradations often result in
financial loss, delays in treatments, customer dissatisfaction or call
outages. The ability to monitor the performance of applications
on the network and the delivery of services therefore has become
crucial in enterprises.
NetScout Systems has been a pioneer in the Remote
Monitoring (RMON) technology with 26 years history of
expertise in network and application monitoring. They offer a
range of products for management and monitoring of IP networks
for Enterprises, Service Providers and other similar class of
users. NetScout products have proven their value by providing
comprehensive monitoring for more than 20,000 enterprise
customers worldwide.
The flagship product in the NetScout nGenius product
suite is the nGenius Performance Manager (PM). It is a highlyscalable network and application performance management
solution designed to help you minimize service disruptions due to
performance problems on complex, global networks. It provides
the early warnings and in-depth visibility you urgently need to
evaluate and troubleshoot network and application performance
issues and ultimately reduce MTTR (Mean Time To Recover).
The real-time and historical reporting opens a window into how
the business uses the network and reveals the interrelationship
of the many applications and end users across the network. It is
designed specifically to cover the key components of performance
management, namely:
• Application monitoring
• Application profiling &
• Network convergence
Response time analysis
• Troubleshooting
• Network monitoring
• Bandwidth capacity planning • Comprehensive reporting of
network status daily, weekly,
monthly or customized
The nGenius Performance manager system offers a user friendly
browser based access to the entire product feature set.
Deployed across the network, nGenius Infinistreams capture and
analyze real-time IP traffic flows. It can also leverage NetFlow and
sFlow data sources for analysis.
nGenius Infinistream
While the nGenius Performance Manager is ideally suited to
large complex global networks, NetScout also provides solutions to
the Small and Medium Business sector. This solution set is offered
under the brand name of “Sniffer”, a name which by its pervasive
use around the globe has become a synonym for Packet Analysis.
The Sniffer Portable Professional and the Sniffer Global are two
offerings under this brand. While the Sniffer Global Analyzer is
an Enterprise level tool, the Sniffer Portable Professional Analyzer
is a best-in class, single-user portable analyzer for network and
application troubleshooting. It provides network managers, field
technicians and engineers with software to perform on-demand
monitoring, packet capture and troubleshooting for wired and
wireless network segments. The Sniffer Analyzer is the ideal tool
for rapid response to network and application issues on location
in the field. Rich Expert modes assist users in quickly identifying
errors during packet-level analysis for a wide range of protocol
decodes. Sniffer analyzers also deliver intuitive, easy-to-use
dashboards and network views of 10/100/1000 Ethernet and
wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n network statistics, all in one tool.
For more details call +91-20-6608 0200 or visit www.netscout.com
nGenius Performance Manager leverages robust and
pervasive packet flow data collected by a comprehensive family
of nGenius Intelligent Data Sources called nGenius Infinistreams.
Jayadev Nair is the General Manager of
NetScout Systems India Pvt Ltd. located
in Pune. He has more than 20 years of
experience in network management and
related fields. He was instrumental in
setting up the India operations of NetScout
Systems Inc in 2001 and has been heading
the office in Pune since 2003. He holds
an MS in Computer Science from the
University of Massachusetts, Lowell, a B E (Hons) in Electrical
and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani and a Business
Management certificate from IIM Calcutta.
If you want to display your ICT product or service in this column, please write to csic@csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:48 PM
ICT@Society
Achuthsankar S Nair
The following charter is from: http://emailcharter.org/ (The copyright is acknowledged). Here is the site’s crisp preface:
We’re drowning in email. And the many hours we spend on it are generating ever more work for our friends and colleagues.
We can reverse this spiral only by mutual agreement. Hence this Charter...
10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral
1
Respect Recipients’ Time
6. Tighten the Thread
This is the fundamental rule. As the message sender, the
onus is on YOU to minimize the time your email will take
to process. Even if it means taking more time at your end
before sending.
2
Short or Slow is not Rude
Let’s mutually agree to cut each other some slack. Given
the email load we’re all facing, it’s OK if replies take a
while coming and if they don’t give detailed responses to
all your questions. No one wants to come over as brusque,
so please don’t take it personally. We just want our lives
back!
3
Some emails depend for their meaning on context. Which
means it’s usually right to include the thread being
responded to. But it’s rare that a thread should extend
to more than 3 emails. Before sending, cut what’s not
relevant. Or consider making a phone call instead.
Celebrate Clarity
7
Don’t use graphics files as logos or signatures that appear
as attachments. Time is wasted trying to see if there’s
something to open. Even worse is sending text as an
attachment when it could have been included in the body
of the email.
8
Start with a subject line that clearly labels the topic, and
maybe includes a status category [Info], [Action], [Time
Sens] [Low Priority]. Use crisp, muddle-free sentences.
If the email has to be longer than five sentences, make
sure the first provides the basic reason for writing. Avoid
strange fonts and colors.
4
Attack Attachments
Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR
If your email message can be expressed in half a dozen
words, just put it in the subject line, followed by EOM
(= End of Message). This saves the recipient having to
actually open the message. Ending a note with “No need
to respond” or NNTR, is a wonderful act of generosity.
Many acronyms confuse as much as help, but these two
are golden and deserve wide adoption.
Quash Open-Ended Questions
It is asking a lot to send someone an email with four
long paragraphs of turgid text followed by “Thoughts?”.
Even well-intended-but-open questions like “How can I
help?” may not be that helpful. Email generosity requires
simplifying, easy-to-answer questions. “Can I help best by
a) calling b) visiting or c) staying right out of it?!”
9
Cut Contentless Responses
You don’t need to reply to every email, especially not those
that are themselves clear responses. An email saying
“Thanks for your note. I’m in.” does not need you to reply
“Great.” That just cost someone another 30 seconds.
10 Disconnect!
5
Slash Surplus cc’s
cc’s are like mating bunnies. For every recipient you add,
you are dramatically multiplying total response time. Not
to be done lightly! When there are multiple recipients,
please don’t default to ‘Reply All’. Maybe you only need
to cc a couple of people on the original thread. Or none.
If we all agreed to spend less time doing email, we’d all
get less email! Consider calendaring half-days at work
where you can’t go online. Or a commitment to emailfree weekends. Or an ‘auto-response’ that references this
charter. And don’t forget to smell the roses.
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:51 PM
Brain Teaser
Debasish Jana
Crossword »
Test your Knowledge on Autonomic Computing
Solution to the crossword will appear in the next issue. Send your answers to CSI Communications with subject line ‘Crossword-SolutionCSIC August 2011’at email address csic@csi-india.org.
1
2
CLUES
ACROSS
3
4
1.
5
To identify attacks and accommodate defensive
responses (11)
Fundamental building block of AC (8)
Important task in autonomic computing (10)
Science of control and communication (11)
A formal representation of knowledge (8)
Type of system often considered as analogous to AC
(7)
Control from attacks (10)
A function of cognitive psychology (12)
A Network Management Protocol (4)
system that can learn and change (8)
A range of self-discovery, awareness and analysis
capabilities (12)
Quality level of performance of service (3)
Property of a system to regulate its internal
environment (11)
Core of autonomic computing (9)
3.
6.
7.
9.
11.
6
7
8
9
12.
15.
18.
20.
21.
10
11
12
13
23.
24.
14
15
25.
16
DOWN
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2.
4.
5.
7.
8.
Access criteria of a system (8)
Important task within Boyd’s control loop (6)
Task within Boyd’s control loop (7)
Important criteria to manage (13)
Name of a philosopher that resembles acronym of
self optimization and self-configuration in wireless
networks (8)
10. Goal of better utilization of resources (12)
13. Desired Level of service (3)
14. Organization that initiated autonomic computing (3)
16. Correction of faults (7)
17. Key task in success of autonomic computing (6)
19. Timing criteria to measure performance (8)
21. Concept that helps autonomic computing (2)
22. Acronym for Boyd’s control loop (4)
Solution for July 2011
1
2
C
S
I
3
N G
O
6
8
N
A
B
A
S
Sir, Sir, if under autonomic
system it has auto heal
facility like our human body,
does it mean that in this
computing system, the phrase
“garbage in garbage out” gets
redundant?
Mr. Vivek Gupta (Reader, IES-IPS Academy, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indore)
for getting all correct answer to July month’s crossword.
7
W
9
E
A
V
I
A B
S T
R
E N C
C
13
S
I
P
O
T
N
E
25
U
B
R
D
I
23
U
26
A D A
E
C
A
T
P
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31
E
L
L
T
I
N A
23
S
V
U
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C
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S
E
C A
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S
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S
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21
S
T
A
T
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29
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27
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32
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34
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M M U
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C O N D
E M P
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20
14
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18
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28
S
33
10
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P
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C A
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A C
16
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19
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17
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24
S
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5
T O N
U M L
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4
11
12
15
E
H
E
T
30
Congratulations to
S
L
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A
F
E
L
8/6/2011 12:45:53 PM
Ask an Expert
Debasish Jana
Your Question, Our Answer
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” ~ Plato
Data stored as a private member within a class cannot be
accessed by a non member function (data abstraction),
only a friend function can access it. But, using return statement,
a private value can be taken in main() without use of friend
function. Sir, how can I answer this? Does this violate data
abstraction, or, is this a significance of private vicinity?
Sumith S, Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Computer Applications, Sree
Narayana Institute of Technology, Kollam, Kerala
Data abstraction involves the formulation of representations
(structure and behavior) by focusing on common publicly
accessible behavioral characteristics that a set of objects offer, by
putting them in a class. Encapsulation involves the packaging of
representations by focusing on the hiding of details to facilitate
abstraction, where specifications are used to describe what an
entity (class) is and what an entity does and implementations are
used to describe how an entity is realized. Data hiding philosophy
says to partition the program so that data (structure) is hidden
in modules providing services (behavior) such that users of the
service shouldn’t know the underlying implementation. Internal
representation can be accessed from internal implementation
and not by the users of the modules. The object’s data attributes
define the current state of an object. The current state of the
object can be manipulated only by calling the publicly accessible
function interfaces or methods.
A
Note that, there are three member functions. The member
function, getSize returns a copy of the size, as such is innocent
and non-damaging. The second member function, getChars is
potentially dangerous, as it exposes the internal pointer, and the
caller may, by intention or not, damage the content. The third
member function, overloaded getChars, with two arguments,
is another variant where you take the container and size of the
container from the caller in terms of arguments, and copy the
private data to the caller’s container, thus preventing from direct
access to the private member.
Jayshree Dhere added: This shows a classic example of difference
between “Programming Paradigms” and liberties that actual
language implementations allow. So it is left to the wise judgment
of a developer how best to use certain paradigm without falling
prey to programming pitfalls or to use programming freedom in
adroit manner.
Hope that answers your question and concern.
to trace or find out the person who hacks into our
Q How
facebook account or any social networking sites?
Rahul Samant, Name and affiliation not given
it a Facebook account, or any other social networking site
A Beor any
website, in general, these can be hacked. Attacks can
be through phishing (camouflaging fake websites as real ones
and taking sensitive data), keylogging (recording keystrokes by
an agent or remote spy software), social engineering (retrieving
answer of security questions or password by direct querying the
prey) or by hacking primary email address. There is no automated
software to track such activities.
In terms of accessibility, private members of a class are accessible
only to members within the class and friends of that class. Like
members, friends grant explicit access right. As such, a friend
function that is not a member of a class, can access the members
of that class that granted friendship.
However, when you return a private member from within a class,
you essentially should return a representation of the internal
structure and not the private member itself.
Let’s take an example of a skeleton String class:
class String
{
char *pData; // null terminated character array
int size; // size of the array with the null terminator
public:
....
int getSize(){return size;}
char *getChars(){return pData;}
int getChars(char *szText, int szTextSize)
{
strncpy(szText, pData, szTextSize – 1);
szText[szTextSize -1] = ‘\0’;
}
};
IP addressees of the hacker can often be tracked from huge log
files available with the ISPs, or to find out the owner of IP address
(provided it’s a fixed IP). There is a tool named netstat that can
tell you all incoming and outgoing network connections. This tool
is available on Unix, Unix-like, and WindowsTM
operating systems. You can keep an eye on
who are trying to connect to your machine
to catch the intruders. Prevention is better
than cure. Protecting your machine
through firewalls and other means could
be better way to prevent such attacks
and surprises.
Send your questions to CSI Communications
with subject line
‘Ask an Expert’ at email address
csic@csi-india.org
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:54 PM
Happenings@ICT
H R Mohan
Chairman, Div. IV CSI, AVP (Systems), The Hindu, Chnenai.
Email: hrmohan.csi@gmail.com
ICT news briefs in July 2011
The following India specific ICT news and headlines during the
period 1 - 25 July have been compiled from various news & Internet
sources including the financial daily and The Hindu Business Line.
Voices & Views









Gartner predicts global IT services to reach $846 billion
in 2011, a 6.6% increase from 2010. The computing and
hardware segment will see the maximum growth with
spending forecast to grow 11.7% in 2011.
According to Kaspersky, 7% of all 45 lakh botnet computers
that became victims globally are in India. The US tops the list
with 28%, followed by India at 7% and the UK at 5%.
India’s spend on IT is expected to grow to over $50 billion in
the next five years from the current $29 billion due to startup eco-system and growth of MNC R&D centres.
According to Gartner, the global spending on gaming will
increase by 10.4% to exceed $74 billion in 2011 from $67
billion in the past year. The gaming-software component will
represent $44.7 billion in 2011.
HP estimates that India will throw up a 120 billion pageopportunity in 2014 from the 80 billion pages being printed now.
The outsourced ‘testing’ market, which was virtually nonexistent in 1998, grew to $10 billion by 2010 – A. V. Asvini
Kumar, MD, Thinksoft, Chennai
According to the Nasscom report on the software testing
industry, the total workforce in this market increased from
31,000 people in 2006 to 63,000 people in 2010, growing at
18.73 per cent CAGR. The total workforce requirement will
be 2,68,000 by 2020.
According to Gartner, the Indian IT services market is
expected to grow by 18%, from $7.6 billion in 2010 to $9.5
billion in 2011. This could cross the $15-billion mark by 2014.
Media vertical is seen as one of the future growth engines for
the IT industry, with some estimates pegging the opportunity
at $17-20 billion by 2020.
IT Manpower, Staffing & Top Moves





“You cannot go on forever…I wish you let me enjoy life the
way I want to,” Mr. Ratan Tata tells shareholders who were
keen that he continues at the helm of the Tata Group.
Wipro has helped the Bangalore Police in unearthing a
recruitment fraud by arresting a gang that had handed out
fake offer letters to aspiring candidates for jobs at Wipro by
collecting a cash of about ` 2 lakh each.
TCS has become the first Indian software services company
to employ over two lakh staffers with an active staff count of
2,02,190 where as IBM and Accenture, employed 4,26,751
and 2,25,000 as on Mar 31, 2011
iGATE-Patni to recruit 7,400 employees in the financial year
2011-12.
Smaller IT firms see ‘scarcity of quality engineers’
Telecom

The Govt. has set up a telecom network testing centre at





an estimated cost of ` 60 Cr. at IISc Bangalore in a bid to
address security concerns arising out of importing gear from
foreign countries.
The DoT has prepared a ` 30-crore plan to deploy IPv6
across the country by Mar 2012. The plan includes setting up
trial laboratories and training modules to create awareness
of IPv6.
After the Simputer and several low-cost PCs and laptop
versions getting into the market, DRDO plans to get its own
version ready by Dec. 2011.
The DoT will soon get powers to take back spectrum from
operators who are not using it.
BSNL launches Net telephony services.
Telecom Commission approves the proposed national optical
fiber network (NOFN) to be set up at a cost of ` 20,000 crore
for offering broadband services in rural areas.
Company News: Tie-ups, Joint Ventures, New Initiatives









Microsoft’s Office 365 – cloud-based product, offering
business productivity solutions will now be available in India
at $2 a user for a month onward.
Tata DoCoMo ups SMS, STD call rates; others Telcos to
follow the suit.
China-headquartered Huawei Technologies plans to offer its
4G solutions to support broadband operators in India by Dec.
2011.
The defence Laboratory – Anurag – has joined hands with the
IIT Jodhpur to design and develop a low-cost laptop.
Moser Baer unveils water-resistant USB drive.
Intel India plans to start work on creating products based on
the 14-nanometre (nm) process some time later this year or
next year.
Google’s Transit and Google Maps to offer travel tips on
mobile and make the travel in the city much easier and save
time.
Three major telecom players – Vodafone, Idea Cellular and
Bharti Airtel – have entered into agreement to provide panIndia 3G services.
For ` 12,999, one can now learn to assemble a tablet
computer and own it. Jetking Infotrain is offering ‘Do-ItYourself’ courses to those interested in assembling tablet
PCs.
General


GSM is 20 years old. Mr Harri Holkeri, then Prime Minister
of Finland, made the world’s first GSM call on July 1, 1991
in Helsinki. Today, GSM subscribers worldwide exceed 4.4
billion and still counting.
The International Telecom Union (ITU) has announced a
global Application Challenge to create innovative applications
for Internet TV or Internet Protocol Television. The best app
would get about ` 4.5 lakh. One can register by Sept. 16 and
n
submit apps by Sept. 23.
8/6/2011 12:45:55 PM
On the Shelf!
Dr. Suneeta Sane
Professor and Dean R & D, VJTI, Mumbai
Book Review »
COMPUTER GRAPHICS: Algorithms and Implementations
Book Title
: Computer Graphics: Algorithms and Implementations
Author
: Mukherjee D. P., Jana Debasish
ISBN
: 978-81-203-4089-3
Printed Pages
: 640
Print Edition Price
: ` 395/-
ADOBE Digital Edition Price : ` 395/Publisher
: PHI Learning
Computer Graphics is one of the basic courses taught at
undergraduate and post-graduate levels like BE/BTech Computer
Science, Information Technology, M.Sc. (Computer Science/IT)
and Computer Applications (BCA/MCA). It has been observed
that Computer Graphics textbooks provide the application
development and implementation part of the subject in a cryptic
manner. The books essentially come under the distinct categories
of Computer Graphics textbooks and Programming Language
textbooks. However, the practitioners need more details from
the programming perspective, as there are assignments, which
involve programming work. This leaves a wide gap between the
two types of book users. There are very few books that cater to
this need and the present book tries to cover this gap. This Book
is essentially intended to be a supportive material for the students
and programmers, who are learning Computer Graphics as a first
course in the curriculum.
Book covers many topics considered at the core of Computer
Graphics.
The topic wise coverage may be given as follows –

The book begins with the evolution of Windows operating
system with its GUI features, which made it a de facto
Operating System for universal usage. Specifics of DLL
libraries have been discussed in detail. The overview of
Visual Studio, IDE and Windows programs along with
program description of each component developed can help
the learner to understand the topic well.

The two-dimensional geometric transforms like translation,
rotation, scaling have been explained in a novel manner with
the help of programs and use of corresponding multiple
windows to show the visual effect of the same. Corresponding
to each program developed an object diagram of each
module is given so that it gives clear functionality of each
process written.

Topics like line drawing, circle drawing, curve drawing, filling
and clipping algorithms are covered separately individual
chapters covering standard elementary algorithms, along
with the implementations to emphasize in application
development view.

A complete chapter is devoted for three-dimensional
graphics, which specify the two-dimensional displays for
three-dimensional objects. The standard three-dimensional
transformations are discussed in detail with implementation.
Z - Buffer and ray tracing algorithms implementation is given
in lucid manner for hidden surface removal.
A CD has been provided along with the book for learners to use.
The book is targeted to beginners groping in dark while writing
code. The book serves the intended purpose and is useful as a
support material for novice students of the discipline. The life of
the learner is made very easy. However, if learner is not made
to slog initially, then the expectations for laid out procedures is
imperative and does not bring out best in a programmer. n
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:55 PM
Call for Papers
1.
Dr.D D Sarma
Director, Guru Nanak Institute of P.G. Studies, Ibrahimpatnam, Hyderabad
2.
Balasubba Raman Guruswamy
Professor, Kathir College of Engineering, Coimbatore
1.
National Conference on Emerging Trends in
Information & Communication Technologies
14-15th Oct., 2011 at Guru Nanak Institutions, Ibrahimpatnam, Hyderabad
Organised by:
Guru Nanak Institutions, Ibrahimpatnam, Hyderabad, in association with Computer Society of India,
Div. IV & CSI- Hyderabad Chapter
The objective of this National Conference is to provide a forum to discuss and debate on the cutting-edge technological computing
areas of Information & Communication Technologies. The conference will feature peer-reviewed technical papers for presentation,
stimulating keynote talks from experts in the relevant areas and posters. The sub-areas include and not limited to:
1. Network and Application Security
5. Mobile Enterprise Applications,
2. Priority based information retrieval
6. Application Development,
3. Neural Networks, Cloud Computing, Web Mining
7. Enterprise application and social Networking.
4. Mobile, Wireless pervasive Computing and protocol
8. Sustainability, Data Warehousing and Data Mining
Papers should be prepared in the format of CSI Communications. All papers will be peer reviewed. Extended versions of a few
selected research papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings. e-mail your papers to: csignis@gmail.com
Important dates:
Last date for paper submission
:
15.09.2011
Notification of acceptance : 30.09.2011
For details, please contact:
Dr. D D Sarma Convener, Director, Guru Nanak Institute of P.G. Studies, Ibrahimpatnam, Hyderabad
E-mail: csignis@gmail.com • Website: www.gurunanakinstitutions.org OR
Mr. H R Mohan Chairman. Div. IV, CSI, hrmohan@gmail.co
2.
COMAD 2011
The 17th Conference on Management of Data
December 19-21, 2011
—
IIITB Bangalore, India
For close to two decades, the International Conference on Management of Data has been the premier database conference hosted in India. The
first COMAD was held in 1989, and it has been held on a nearly annual basis since. COMAD’s technical program has always had a significant
international component, with about 30% of papers from researchers outside India.
The 17th COMAD will be held during December 19-21, 2011 at IIIT Bangalore, India. We have an exciting program with the following keynote
speakers having confirmed their participation:
•
Prof. Marianne Winslett, Univ. of Illinois – Urbana Champaign (UIUC) and Director, Advanced Digital Sciences Center, Singapore, ACM
Fellow
•
Prof. Volker Markl, Chair of Database Systems and Information Management (DIMA), Technical University Berlin (TU-Berlin)
•
Prof. Kamal Karlapalem, Head of Centre for Data Engineering, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India (IIITH)
Call For Papers
COMAD 2011’s scope includes all areas in the data management space including Database Management Systems, Web and Information
Retrieval, and Data Mining. Submission of original research contributions as well as proposals for demonstrations, tutorials, industrial
presentations, and panels are invited.
This year’s program will have a special “Work in Progress” track designed as a forum for presenting ongoing work and getting feedback. The
accepted submissions in this track will be presented as posters.
To ensure wide visibility for the material published at the conference, arrangements will be made with ACM SIGMOD for including the
proceedings of the conference in the SIGMOD on-line archives. Two awards, for Best Paper and Best Student Paper, will be presented at the
conference.
Important Dates
Research Papers
Industrial Papers, Demo and Panel Proposals
Work In Progress Papers
Tutorial Proposals
Notification to Authors
Camera-ready Copies
Early-Bird Registration
Conference
August 20, 2011
September 24, 2011
October 22, 2011
December 3, 2011
December 19-21, 2011
For further details, visit: http://2011.comad.in/
8/6/2011 12:45:57 PM
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:57 PM
ExecCom Transacts
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Hon. Secretary, Computer Society of India
secretary@csi-india.org
ExecCom approval for formation of 8 new Chapters: The
ExecCom in its meeting at Bangalore during 23-24 July
approved the formation of 8 new chapters proposed by
respective Regional Vice Presidents and recommended
by the Hon. Secretary and Chairman of the Membership
Committee. The proposed chapters are at Region 1 (Jammu),
Region 3 (Sagar and Satna), Region 5 (Mangalore, Hubli and
Tirupati), Region 7 (Sivakasi and Karur).
Membership Development: For the first time in last several
decades, we witnessed a significant increase in the individual
membership by over 19% (April-July 21011). The institutional
membership recorded a growth of 25% in academic and 21%
in non-academic categories respectively during the period.
Detailed membership statistics can be viewed on http://
www.csi-india.org/web/csi/membership-statistics.
The CSI National and Chapters Elections- 2012-13/201214: The National Nominations Committee by headed Prof.
AK Nayak has geared up to conclude the election process by
15th December 2011 as stipulated in the CSI constitution and
bye-laws. The Chapters elections will be conducted along
with the national elections using electronic voting process.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr. S.C. Bhatia 52 out 69 chapters
could complete election process resulting into the formation
of chapter management committees for the year 2011-12
while the other chapters are being guided by the respective
RVPs to form the ad hoc management committees for the
year 2011-12.
Identification of over 40 Potential New Chapters: The CSI
Membership Committee headed by Prof. H.R. Vishwakarma
with the help of Chapters Revamping Committee Convener
Dr. SC Bhatia has identified over 40 potential new chapters
in different regions including the unrepresented states and
union territories. The members and stakeholders across India
are requested to extend their fullest support and cooperation
towards realizing the aforesaid goal. Any specific suggestions
may please be communicated to hq@csi-india.org with cc to
secretary@csi-india.org.
CSI National/Regional/State Student Conventions: The
team of CSI Regional and State Student Coordinators headed
by Mr. Ranga Rajagopal, National Student Coordinator has
been striving to prepare an aggressive and highly forward
looking action plan for hosting student conventions across
India. Any specific suggestions may please be communicated
to Mr. Ranga Rajagopal nsc@csi-india.org with cc to director.
edu@csi-india.org and secretary@csi-india.org.
CSI Annual Resource Guide: There are several suggestions
to bring out an Annual Resource Guide along with the CSI
Annual Report for the benefit of members and stakeholders.
Chapters, Student Branches and Members at large are
requested to submit best technical papers presented in
various CSI events, power-point slides/reference materials
of seminars, workshops and tutorials, Research outcomes,
Case studies involving development/deployment of ICT in
socially relevant sectors and especially catering to the needs
of unrepresented geographical areas and segments of society,
including how far CSI Programmes could help promote
growth of ICT. The submissions may also include surveys
to assess the reach and effectiveness of CSI programmes
including membership development. The innovative and
path-breaking initiative taken by members and stakeholders
would be especially appreciated. The proposals may please
sent to csi.research@csi-india.org with cc hq@csi-india.org.
The History of Computing in India and Role of CSI: The
professional societies such as CSI follow a paradigm of
Innovate-Associate-Resonate-Communicate
cycle
for
serving the members and larger interests of inclusive
growth. As we approach the Golden Jubilee of CSI, members
across nation are requested to share the achievements and
contributions of CSI and its chapters, student branches and
members at large.
8. Strategies for Chapter Sustainable Development: The CSI
membership committee members have shared a serious
concern about the chapters’ sustainable development. There
are instances when even the chapters at major cities could not
be sustained. As such, it is essential to adapt strategies such
as Mentoring of New Chapters by past ExecCom members
and senior members over there, Seeking government/
industry support for revival of defunct chapters, Provisioning
of budgetary support for C category chapters, Conducting
Region-wise Orientation programmes for New Office
Bearers of the Chapters, focused outreach programmes to
bring Business, Industry, Government, Academia, Research
and Consultancy sectors into CSI’s fold, Sharing of Resources
(including infrastructure, human resources and learning
experiences) among CSI chapters and between CSI and its
partners.
9. Proposal of CSI Digital Library: Several members have
suggested to strengthen CSI Publications and to launch
Digital Library. Apart from concerted efforts towards
enhancing productivity, quality and reach of CSI periodicals,
there is also strong need to publish proceedings of CSI events.
Prof. Mini Ulanat, CSI National Skill Development Convener
has been entrusted with the responsibility of preparing an
action plan for Digital Library.
10. Recognition/Appreciation for OC/PC Chairs: There are
suggestions to recognize the efforts of members across
India who have contributed significantly in organizing
national/international events of CSI. There is a proposal to
honour such members-contributors during the CSI Annual
Convention. CSI chapters, student branches and members
at large may send their invaluable inputs and suggestions to
secretary@csi-india.org and vp@csi-india.org on or before
15th October 2011.
11. Proposal for CSI National Resource Centres: As India’s
largest national ICT professional society, the CSI has been
striving to provide strategic and technological leadership to
a wide spectrum spanning business, industry, government,
academia, research and consultancy.
With view to
consolidate achievements and enhance its value-added
services to various stakeholders, there are suggestions from
the members across India to work towards realizing 6 CSI
national Resource Centres at Mumbai (Business), New
Delhi (Industry), Hyderabad (Govt.), Chennai (Academia),
Kolkata (Research) and Bangalore (Consultancy). These
proposed National Resource Centres could mentor the
projected membership base of over 100 chapters, 1000
student branches, 10000 institutional members and 100000
members. Suggestions and inputs for these may please sent
to the secretary@csi-india.org and hq@csi-india.org on or
before 15th October 2011.
7.
8/6/2011 12:45:59 PM
Know Your Chapters
Sushanta Sinha
Kolkata Chapter Chairman
CSI Kolkata Chapter
conventions and international and national conferences like
COMAD 1993, EAIT 2006, RDHS 2008, EAIT 2011 is worth
mentioning. Proceedings of EAIT2006, CSI 2006, RDHS
2008, EAIT 2011 were published by Elsevier, Tata McGrawHill,
Macmillan and IEEE Computer Society respectively. Papers
published in EAIT 2011 have been digitally avaiable in IEEE
Xplore and IEEE CS Digital Library.
Brief History:
Among the oldest CSI Chapters, Kolkata Chapter started its
journey way back in 1965. The first Annual Convention of CSI
was held soon after, in December 15 at Indian Statistical Institute.
The legacy of that date is still being remembered by celebrating
it every year as ‘Computer Day’. Today, when we look back with
a sense of pride and nostalgia of last five decades, its glorious
past has enabled us to move on with fast changing time. Thanks
to the vision, initiative and tenacity of our predecessors like Prof
Jogabrata Roy, Mr. J V Rangarao, Prof D Dutta Majumder, Mr. N
K Roy, Mr. Amal Roy, to name a few. Late Prof. Jogabrata Roy of
Indian Statistical Institute was the first Chairman of the chapter
and a source of inspiration for all.
Current Chairman and Contact Details:
•
1050/1, Survey Park, Udayan UV-36-01A,
P.O. Santoshpur, Kolkata - 700075
Membership No. 00091536
033-24161489 / 9830551724
sushanta.sinha@tcs.com
Major Milestones:




Besides the first Annual Convention in 1965, CSI-KC
organized Annual Conventions in 1978, 1986, 1990 (Silver
Jubilee Convention), 1994, 2001 and 2006.
Hosting the Eastern Regional Conference (ERC’99 of CSI)
Since 1999, CSI Kolkata Chapter have been successfully
organizing CSI Young IT Professional Awards and many of
the candidates of Eastern Regional contest became national
Champions.
Over the years, Kolkata Chapter hosted series of National and
International conferences like Research and Development
in National Conference on Research and Development in
Hardware and Systems (CSI-RDHS 2008), and International
Conference on Emerging Application of Information
Technology (CSI-EAIT 2006, 2011) worth mentioning.
Other Achievements:



CSI-KC is the first chapter in India with own premises at
the heart of the city (inaugurated in 1988) and own library
(inaugurated in 1989) during the Chairman-ship of Mr. P B
Ghosh.
Kolkata Chapter publishes a Monthly Newsletter “Hard
Copy” and distributes to CSI Kolkata Chapter members. This
Chapter Newsletter has been the recipient of CSI awards
several times.
The proceedings published on the occasion of annual
Mr. Sushanta Sinha
Future Plan and Vision:





Immediate plan includes hosting of Annual National
Convention in 2012. The entire team is looking forward tor
an outstanding show this time.
CSI Kolkata Chapter intends to organize quality programs in
the niche technology areas involving practitioners as well as
academicians. CSI Kolkata Chapter has announced two very
promising program in July-August, 2011: two-day workshop
on role of computing for better governance and another
as one-day seminar on mobile application development
awareness focusing iPhone, Objective C, Android and Java.
CSI Kolkata Chapter does not want to forget its commitment
of reaching to the masses in the society with those kind of
programs, where the under-privileged community can get
the benefit of computer knowledge and value education.
Focus is also given to self-sustaining programs like Summer
Training, which generates adequate revenue to meet-up the
operational cost of the society.
Involving students in CSI activities will be a major focus this
year. n
A New Column “Know Your Chapters” in the CSI Communications:
With a view of sharing the success stories and best practices of some of our vibrant chapters, a new column
“Know Your Chapters” is being introduced in the CSI Communications with immediate effect. The Chapters’
Chairpersons and senior members are requested to send their contributions and suggestions on the above to
csic@csi-india.org with cc to hq@csi-india.org and secretary@csi-india.org.
– Prof. H R Vishwakarma
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:45:59 PM
Announcements
CSI Constitution Amendment
Mr. Lalit Sawhney, Chairman, Constitution Amendment Review Committee, has informed that the committee is in the process
of considering amendments to the CSI Constitution to help the society meet expectations of its stakeholders, better fulfill its
role, meet its avowed objectives and grow faster. The committee has discussed some ideas and would like to invite members
to study the Discussion Note, available on the CSI website at http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/carc-2011-12 and provide
suggestions by e-mail on cac@csi-india.org before August 31, 2011.
Nomination of Dr. N L Sarda
as Division Chairman, Education & Research
Dr. Nandlal L Sarda of IIT, Mumbai, has been nominated as Divisional Chairman, Education & Research, CSI as
per ExecCom resolution on 23rd July, 2011, for year 2011-12 and 2012-13.
Dr. Sarda is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Mumbai (Bombay). He
was Dean of Academic Programmes, IIT Bombay, from October 2001 to September 2004. In this capacity, he
coordinated with IIT’s Senate and its various Academic departments for creating, revising, operationalizing and
supervising IIT’s academic programmes.
He has been appointed in October 2004 as Professor-in-Charge for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, in which
role he coordinates with the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) hosted by IIT Bombay. For more
details, please visit www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~nls
Under his able leadership, CSI is looking forward to reaching new frontiers in the fields of Education and Research.
CSI Membership Statistics Report
State and Chapter wise Membership Statistics Report-as on 28th July 2011
Voting Members
Student Members
Total Members
272
4880
1070
717
7282
5907
4307
1535
798
2402
1600
13509
818
2741
13899
49536
16250
63435
7330
9943
2613
18521
21448
2927
REGION-I
REGION-V
REGION-I
REGION-V
REGION-I
REGION-V
REGION-II
REGION-VI
REGION-II
REGION-VI
REGION-II
REGION-VI
REGION-III
REGION-VII
REGION-III
REGION-VII
REGION-III
REGION-VII
REGION-IV
TOTAL
REGION-IV
TOTAL
REGION-IV
TOTAL
For detailed report of Region, State and Chapterwise Membership Statistics, visit
http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/membership-statistics
8/6/2011 12:45:59 PM
CSI News
From CSI Chapters »
Please check detailed news at:
http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chapternews-August2011
SPEAKER(S)
TOPIC AND GIST
INDORE (REGION III)
Dr. Prabhu Jhingran, Dr. Suresh Jain, Dr. Durgesh Mishra 23 April 2011 : National Conference “Recent Trends in Computational
and others
Intelligence (RTCI – 11)”
“Some techniques within computational intelligence are often
counted as artificial intelligence techniques. Yet, there is a clear
difference between these techniques and traditional, logic based
AI techniques. Typical artificial intelligence techniques are top-tobottom, where the structure of models, solutions etc. is imposed
from above. Computational intelligence techniques are generally
bottom-up, where order & structure emerges from an unstructured
beginning.”
Courtesy - Computing Intelligence Group, Amsterdam
Dr. Jhingran said that Compuational Intelligence is very important for the
telecast purposes, and the action replay of cricket and other important tasks
could be possible with the recent technologies of computational intelligence.
Dr. Jain was gave a lecture on data mining and its role in computational
intelligence. Dr. Mishra delivered a lecture on computational intelligence
and networking.
UDAIPUR (REGION III)
Dr. S Reisman, Dr. Dharm Singh, Dr. Y C Bahtt
5 May 2011 : Motivational and Expert Series of Lectures
Dr. Reisman spoke about access, use and importance of IEEE e-resources.
Dr. Dharm Singh spoke on Wireless Internet Access: Technologies and
Securities in rural areas. He said that reliable connectivity is a prerequisite
for successful penetration of IT into rural areas.
Dr. Y C Bahtt spoke on e- Agriculture, wherein he assessed the potential
of IT under two heads - one as a tool for direct contribution to agriculture
productivity and other as indirect tool for empowering farmers to take
informed and quality decisions which will have positive impact on the way
agriculture and allied activities are conducted.
ParƟcipants aƩending lectures
Mr. Agarwal, Mr. R N Mathur, Dr. S S Rathore, Dr. R 17-19 May 2011 : First CSI Rajasthan State and National Conference on
C Purohit, Ms. Pokharna, Dr. Dhaka, Mr. S M Oswal & “Better Life in Rural Communities with ICTs – WTISD 2011”
Mr. Manoj Agarwal said that ICT is an increasingly interesting platform not
others
just for developers, but also for common people. Mr. R N Mathur spoke
about importance of NKN Connectivity and said University is going to be
connected using 1 GBPS broadband connectivity. Dr. R C Purohit spoke
about importance of ICTs in agriculture domain and said that advanced IT
technologies will improve rural network connectivity. Ms. Deepika Pokharna
presented ICT applications in Education, Agriculture and Healthcare. She
said that BSNL and HCL Infosystems will be working together on National
Broadband Penetration Program (NBPP), a nationwide initiative to
accelerate IT proliferation in rural India. Dr. Pooam Dhaka stated that the
Inaugural Session: (L to R) Dr. Dharm Singh, Dr. M L Kalara, Ms. ICTs do play an important role in disseminating wide range of information.
Deepika Pokharna, Mr. Manoj Agarwal, Mr, RN Mathur, Dr. RC Mr. S M Oswal demonstrated latest instruments used in rural exchange and
Purohit, Dr. S S Rathore, Dr. R S Shekhawat, Dr. Y C BhaƩ
urban exchange for network connectivity.
VADODARA (REGION III)
Mr. Kejal Shah
 Mr. Kejal Shah delivering a talk on SOA
11 June 2011 : An Expert Lecture on “SOA – Service Oriented Architecture”
Mr. Kejal Shah started his talk with history of application development
and the development methodologies, starting from PC based stand alone
applications to evolution of the Web based applications, to the use of Web
Servers, use of application servers for development of Web Applications,
use of Web Services, and then SOA.
Mr. Shah cleared several doubts, including the distinction between using the
Web Services based architecture, which is more of a point to point, vs. the
use of ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) and Services Repository, which allows
any business process to interact and use the services.
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:46:00 PM
SPEAKER(S)
TOPIC AND GIST
BANGALORE (REGION V)
Dr. K Balaveera Reddy, Mr. Satish Sangameshwar, 23-25 June 2011: Faculty Development Program on “Emerging Technologies”
Mr. Shashidar Ramareddy, Mr. Navaneet Nagarajan, The Program focused on recent trends and advances in fields of Cloud
Mr. Prateek Dubey and Mr. Achindra Bhatnagar
Computing, High Performance Computing, Mobile Computing, Robotics
and Microsoft Visual Studio.
Mr. Sangameshwar informed that Microsoft offers free access to software
under Microsoft dream park, Microsoft Student tech clubs, Microsoft
Student partners, Microsoft Imagine Cup-Global Level student Project
competition and Microsoft Faculty Connection-Resource sharing.
Mr. Ramareddy discussed about basic definition of Robot, different types
of Robots and its applications. He spoke about tools available for writing
robotic application using Visual Programming Language, Visual Simulation
Environment 2008, X-box for gaming development.
Mr. Nagarajan talked about Mobility and its significance for Educators,
features of Windows phone compared to other phones and about Microsoft
Business Space. He also discussed concepts of Cloud Computing and
Microsoft Product Office 365.
Mr. Dubey spoke about Visual Studio/Web Matrix development and
(L to R) Mr. Iqbal Ahmed welcoming the delegates.
demonstrated Website design using Web Matrix
Seated: Dr. K Balaveera Reddy, Mr. T.Sabapathy, Mr. SaƟsh
Mr. Bhatnagar talked about concepts of High Performance Computing
Sangameshwar & Prof. H S Ramesh Babu
and Microsoft tools like Windows Compute Cluster server 2003 and HPC
Server 2008.
HYDERABAD (REGION V)
Mr. D K Jain, Mr Raju L Kanchibhotia, Dr. Sameen 18 June 2011 : FOSS Forward-2011 One-day Workshop on “Open Source
Fatima, Dr. K Lal Kishore, Mr. Gautam Mahapatra
Technologies”
Mr. D K Jain spoke about importance of FOSS technologies and informed
how CDAC is establishing National Resources Centre for Free/Open
source System (NRCFOSS). He also spoke about involvement of CDAC
in formulating Indian Operating System called Bharat Operating Systems
Solution (BOSS) and success in the implementation of BOSS in several
Organizations.
Workshop in collaboraƟon with CDAC, Hyderabad
Dr. Sameen Fatima shared his experience on FOSS and its need and
importance in education and research.
Demo of BOSS and e-learning technologies in open source such as Learning
Management System, Content Management System, Learning Content
Management System with web based technologies were also held.
Mr. S Chandra Girish, Team lead, Sagar Soft India Ltd.
10 July 2011 : Workshop on “Android”
Mr. S Chandra Girish covered following topics in his talk •
The available mobile operating systems and their development
languages and IDE’s
•
Anatomy of Android Application Development
•
Overview of Android development environment with a demo
•
Overview of other Android development tools
•
Signing and packaging Android Native Mobile Application.
•
Debugging Android application
•
Deployment in phone and Few live examples.
Mr. S Chandra Girish delivering a talk on Android
8/6/2011 12:46:01 PM
GOA (REGION VI)
Dr Anand Bariya, Tekshala, Banaglore
22-24 May 2011 : Workshop on “Introduction to Programming”
This workshop was specially conducted for school students from STD IX
onwards and who did not had any background in programming. It was
conducted using “Processing” language.
The focus was on learning graphics oriented features of programming
initially and then understanding basic constructs of programming language.
The sessions were conducted in computer laboratory of Goa University.
Dr Vijayendra Kamat giving cerƟficate to a parƟcipant of the workshop.
Dr. V V Kamat , Dr Anand Baria , Mr. Shripad Khedeker and Mr. Ramrao
Wagh are also seen in the photograph.
PUNE (REGION VI)
Suresh Thiagarajan, Service Architect, Start Run Training 22-24 May 2011 : Inauguration of Newly Renovated Training Facility
Academy
The Training Hall is named as “Dr. A K Pathak Memorial Hall” in
the fond memory of past President of CSI Dr. A K Pathak, who
has contributed significantly to the CSI Pune Chapter activities.
The newly renovated training facilities will be extensively used for
conducting various training workshops and seminars for the benefit of CSI
members and IT community at large.
Dr. Vijay Bhatkar inauguraƟng the A K Pathak memorial hall. Also seen
are Shekhar Sahasrabudhe, Deepak Shikarpur, Mrs Pathak, Rajendra Erande,
Arun Tavildar and Rahul Pore.
COCHIN (REGION VII)
Ms. Manjusha Devi and Ms. Mini Ulanat
14 May 2011 : Training Programme on “Computer Education & Awareness
for Children from State-run Schools”
This program’s objective was to increase awareness of
ICT role amongst rural children and to bridge the gap
between quality of education received by them and city
students.
Students were well versed in basic operations and were aware of many open
source packages including open office. The talk was oriented towards Ethical
usage of computers, Cyber security and Cyber safety and latest advances in
the field. Classes were handled in vernacular medium.
Credit goes to IT@school project of Kerala Govt for remodeling conventional teaching
methods in classrooms with ICT.
COIMBATORE (REGION VII)
Senior academicians from Anna University, PSG College 3 July 2011 : Free Orientation Programme on “How to face Anna University
of Technology, etc.
Engineering Counselling”
The orientation programme for aspiring engineering students was held 8th
successive year. The objective of this programme was to provide a platform
for parents and students to listen to and interact with senior academicians.
The academic experts guided students on Anna University Single Window
Engineering Admission process and provided clarity about queries regarding
choice of branches/colleges and latest industry and placement trends.
DisƟnguished academicians at the programme
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:46:03 PM
From Student Branches »
http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/chapternews-August2011
SPEAKER(S)
TOPIC AND GIST
TRUBA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (TCET), INDORE (REGION-III)
Prof. R P Singh, Prof. Rajkamal, Dr. Himanshu Mishra, Dr. 28 – 29 April 2011 : Two-days Workshop on “Green IT for e-Pragati”
Parag Kulkarni, Dr. Gore, U K Gupta and others
Prof. R P Singh urged people not to destroy forest and to be aware of global
warming and climate changes. He spoke about how human being is causing
damage to environment.
Prof. Rajkamal spoke about the way green IT can be implemented in the
industry by tuning both hardware and software to cater to the needs of
Green IT.
InauguraƟon in progress
RAGHU COLLEGE (AFFILIATED TO JNTU, KAKINADA), DAKAMARRI, DIST. VISAKHAPATANAM (REGION-V)
Mr. Prabhakar Manohar Divecha
12 July 2011: Technical Talk on “Database Management Systems”
The speaker discussed about the Data Base Management System and
Relational data base management system and explained about the role of
Database Management in an organization.
He also briefed about security in database, and data migration.
Topics like SAN, NAS were also discussed. Various backup/restore utilities
such as EXPORT/IMPORT, SQL Loader etc. were demonstrated.
SecƟon of audience
GMR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (GMRIT), RAJAM, SRIKAKULAM, AP (REGION-V)
Mr. Anand from Nihon Comm. Sol. Pvt. Ltd
23 June 2011 : One day Seminar on “Qualnet Simulator”
Mr. Anand explained and demonstrated the Qualnet Simulator.
QualNet is a network simulation tool that simulates wireless and wired
packet mode communication networks. QualNet supports simulation
of thousands of network nodes. QualNet offers unmatched platform
portability and interface flexibility. QualNet runs on sequential and parallel
Unix, Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems.
Mr. Anand with Mr. J Vasudeva Rao (SBC) and Mr. M SaƟsh
GOGTE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (GIT), BELGAUM, KARNATAKA (REGION-V)
7 May 2011 : Workshop on “vCloud Computing and Spring Framework”
The workshop provided student delegates hands-on experience on cloud
computing and spring framework.
Around 10 experts on cloud computing, led by Shri Ajay Chaudhary and Shri
Gopal Srinivasan interacted with the student community and shared their
technical knowhow on cloud computing.
Session in progress
8/6/2011 12:46:06 PM
SPEAKER(S)
TOPIC AND GIST
JAWAHARLAL DARDA INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY (JDIET), YAVATMAL (REGION-VI)
Dr. Mrs. Archna M Rajurker, Head CSE Department, 10 February 2011 : Expert Lecture on “Image and Video Retrieval from
MGM’s College of Engineering, Nanded
Multimedia Databases”
Dr. Mrs. Rajurkar spoke about Digital Image Processing.
Prof. N P Jawarkar, Head EXTC department, B.N.C.O.E,
Pusad
14 February 2011 : Expert Lecture on “Speech Processing”
Prof. N P Jawarkar spoke about fundamentals & latest developments in this
subject.
Prof. A P Bodkhe, Dr. N K Chaudhari and others
5 March 2011 : National Conference on “Exalt IT”
Various events such as Paper Presentation (UG and PG), Project
Presentation, Blind C Programming, Web Page Designing, T-Shirt designing,
Poster Presentation etc were organized.
Orators in their speeches described IT as a super power that has done
miracles in the world of communication, uncovering dangerous plots
against human society and uniting us against them to shatter such plots.
It has equally played a very powerful role in spreading advancements in
science and technology happening in every corner of the world.
 Prof. Pradip Jawandhiya, Dr. G R Bamnote, Prof. A P Bodkhe, Dr. Avinash Kolhatkar
Dr. N K Chaudhari, Prof Rajkishor Tugnayat, Prof. Sandip Lambade, Prof. C M Sedani
Prof. Makrand Shahade, Nishant Waghmare
Dr. G R Bamnote and Dr. Mohd. Atique
11 March 2011 : Expert Lectures on “Real Time Database” and “Open Source
Software”
Dr. G R Bamnote spoke about fundamentals & latest
developement in Database Systems.
Dr. Mohd. Atique talked about basics of Open Source Software’s and
different types of available software.
KLN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING (KLNCE), POTTAPALAYAM, TAMILNADU (REGION-VII)
Prof. R T Sakthidaran, Prof. G Ramesh, Mrs. S Amudha 5 July 2011 : FOSS Workshop on “8th Ubuntu for All”
and Mrs. M Ragini of IT
The workshop helped in creating awareness on FOSS, Ubuntu OS, GSS (C,
C++ programming environment), MySQL and BOUML (CASE Tool) among
the students.
 Prof. Sakthidaran speaking during the workshop
MEPCO SCHLENK ENGINEERING COLLEGE (MEPCO), SIVAKASI (REGION-VII)
M Shunmugaraj (JRF) of ECE department
6-7 July 2011 : Workshop on “Matlab and Image Processing”
M. Shunmugaraj talked about the coding involved in MATLAB and gave a
general view on the image processing.
He also gave a gist of project we could refer to in image processing. He
displayed many videos related to image processing and the way they are
conceded out.
 Mr. Shunmugarajan delivering a speech on MATLAB programming
Please send your event news to csic@csi-india.org. Low resolution photos and news without description
of gist will not be published. Please send only 1 photo per event, not more. Kindly note that news received
on or before 20th of a month will only be considered for publishing in CSIC issue of the following month.
www.csi-india.org
8/6/2011 12:46:08 PM
CSI Calendar 2011-12
Date
Satish Babu
Vice President& Chair, Conference Committee, CSI
Event Details & Organisers
Contact Information
August 2011 Events
26 August 2011
One day workshop on “Social Media Risk”
CSI Mumbai Chapter
info@csimumbai.org ,
csimumbai@vsnl.com
27 August 2011
Madhya Pradesh State CSE/IT HODs Meet on ICT Education
CSI Bhopal Chapter
Mr. Vivek Dhawan
ceo.smriti@gmail.com
Dr. Rajeev Shrivastava
shrivastava_rajeev@yahoo.com
Mr. Anil Shrivastava
Rvp3@csi-india.org
One day workshop on “Software Effort Estimation Function Point”
Analysis and its Applications, Based on latest release 4.3.1
CSI Mumbai Chapter
info@csimumbai.org
csimumbai@vsnl.com
One day workshop on “RFID – NFC Technology: Its Physics, Not Magic”
CSI Mumbai Chapter
info@csimumbai.org
csimumbai@vsnl.com
C’ Programming and Computer Awareness at S R Group of Institutions
CSE Campus, Jhansi (UP) & CSI Jhansi Chapter
Prof. (Dr.) A K Tripathi
dr.aktripathi@gmail.com
28 August 2011
September 2011 Events
7-9 Sept. 2011
IAMA-2011: International Conference on Intelligent Agent & Multi-Agent Systems.
enquiry@iama2011.org.in
Rajalakshmi Engineering College, CSI Chennai Chapter, IEEE computer Society AND Artificial http://www.iama2011.org.in
Intelligence Association of India
15-16, Sept. 2011
ReSYM-11: Research Symposium on Pervasive Computing and its Underlying Technologies
TIFAC-CORE, Dept. of CS, Velammal Engg. College, CSI Div. IV & Chennai Chapter, IEEE CS
Dr. A Balaji Ganesh
resym11@gmail.com
17-18 Sept. 2011
Exhibition of Computer & Allied Products ECAP 2011
CSI Goa Chapter
Mr. Santosh Kamat
santoshkamat.goa@gmail.com
22-25 Sept. 2011 2nd International conference of bioinformatics
IFIP-TC 5 and Computer Society of India
Dr. Datta or Dr. Kamal Raj Pardasani
kamalrajp@rediffmail.com
23-24 Sept. 2011 28th CSI National Student Convention
Godavari Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rajahmundry
Mr. P Ramesh Babu
ramesh.giet@gmail.com
Prof. M L Saikumar
rsc5@csi-india.org
Mr. Ranga Rajagopal
nsc@csi-india.org
National Conference at SR group of Institutions on “Recharges Advancement in Mechanical Prof. (Dr.) A K Tripathi
Engineering ‘Yantrik Gyan Dhara”’
CSE Campus, Jhansi (UP) by CSI Jhansi Chapter
29 Sept. 2011
Science Quiz for 9th and 10th the students of Jhansi district
SR Group of Institutions, CSE Campus, Jhansi (UP) & CSI Jhansi Chapter
Prof. (Dr.) A K Tripathi
October 2011 Events
14-15 Oct 2011
Emerging trends in Information and Communication Technologies
Guru Nanak Institutions, Ibrahimpatnam, CSI Div. IV and Hyderabad Chapter
Dr. D.D. Sarma, H.R. Mohan
ddsarma18@yahoo.com
hrmohan.csi@gmail.com
National Conference on Civil Engineering “The New Era of Construction Engineering ‘Nirman Prof. (Dr.) A K Tripathi
Samiksha’”
SR Group of Institutions, PG Campus, Jhansi (UP) by CSI Jhansi Chapter
14-16 Oct. 2011
NCIPMC-2011:: National Seminar on IP Multimedia Communications
IEI, CSI SIG-WNS, e-Agriculture, CTAE and TINJR Udaipur
Dr. Dharm Singh
dharm@mpuat.ac.in
www.mpuat.ac.in
16 Oct. 2011
YITP Contest for Region V
CSI Visakhapatnam Chapter
s_paramata@vizagsteel.com
Please visit http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/csi-eventcalendar for detailed calendar of all future events.
8/6/2011 12:46:09 PM
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Post Without Prepayment
MR/TECH/WPP 241/WEST/09-11
Registered with Registrar of News Papers
for India - RNI 31668/78
Regd. No. MH/MR/WEST-76-2009-11
If undelivered return to :
CSI, 122, TV Indl. Estate,
Mumbai - 400 030
CSI Young IT
Professional Award 2011
The National competition for young IT professionals is an event conducted
annually instituted by CSI in the year 1999 to encourage Researchers,
IT professionals, Academicians, Consultants, Entrepreneurs and IT
Practitioners in an Organization, or as individuals in service/ support/
training function in the field of Information Technology. The competition
aims at involving young IT professionals in the quest of innovation in IT and
provides them an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, professional
prowess and excellence in their profession.
Awards Comprise of: Trophy and Certificate to winning team/individual
and prize as under:
Themes:
The winners of the regional contest will qualify for competing in the final
national round.
Hardware: Hardware development, Cloud implementation
Software: Information Security, Artificial Intelligence, BFSI, Manufacturing,
Retail, Multi lingual applications, Applications for rural development,
Medicine or Health care Equipment’s.
Applications: Multi lingual applications, Applications for rural development,
Medicine or Health care Equipment’s, Fashion industry / art, Public
transport, BFSI, Manufacturing, Retail, Gaming.
Communications: Telecom, Mobile computing
Education and Research: E-learning, Animation Industry
Criteria:
The most outstanding technology project of any kind, completed during the
year 2010 / 2011 (project duration could be of 2-3 years from the start date)
within an organisation will be judged for following criteria by the selection
committee:

Criticality of IT Usage

Improvement of Customer Service

Innovation, Return on Investment

Quality of management

Impact on organisation and society
Category
National Awards
Regional YITP award
(For each region)
Winner
` 50,000/-
` 25,000/-
1st runner up
` 25,000/-
` 15,000/-
Special mention
` 15,000/-
` 10,000/-
Host Chapters for Regional Contest
Region-I
Ghaziabad Region-II
Region-IV Raipur
Region-V
Kolkata
Region-III Ahmedabad
Visakhapatnam
Region-VI Pune
Region-VII Tiruchirappalli
Schedule:
Schedule for the application submission dates, regional and national rounds
will be announced shortly on CSI Website. The National round will be held
at one of the chapters. CSI National Young IT Professional Award will be
presented on the same day.
How to apply:
Nominations should be made in the prescribed format available on the CSIwebsite: www.csi-india.org or www.csinationalawards.org/yitpawards2011.
html on or before the last date of submission for the specific region to the
Regional Convener. The nomination process is described in the prescribed
format.
Entry Fee:
Category
Non CSI Member
Eligibility:
Individual
` 3,000
` 2,000
Any individual below 35 years of age (on 31st March, 2011) who are
either working professionals, entrepreneurs or researchers and has made
significant innovation in the areas of research, academics, IT applications
and services to bring improvement in service, support and training in the
field of Information Technology.
Participants can be from CSI Institutional members, Business organizations,
Research Institutes and Interns from incubation centres of universities.
Only those individual with minimum of 3 years and maximum 12 years
of experience can participate in this competition.A team of maximum 3
members meeting all the eligibility criteria can be nominated.
Nominations should be supported by the organisation to which the
applicants are attached. Applications nominated by any CSI Fellow are also
eligible.
The project which is nominated should be original and not published prior to
the event.
Team of three members
` 5,000
` 4,000
Additional team member
` 2,000
` 1,000
CSI-National YITP Committee, 2011
• Mr. M D Agrawal, President CSI
• Dr. P Thrimurthy, Chairperson,
CSI Awards Committee
• Mr. Bipin Mehta, Fellow, CSI,
Convener-YITP Awards
• Mr. R K Vyas, RVP – Region-I
• Prof. Dipti Prasad Mukherjee, RVP – Region-II
• Mr. Anil Srivastava, RVP – Region-III
• Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra, RVP – Region-IV
• Prof. D B V Sarma, RVP – Region-V
• Mr. C G Sahasarabuddhe, RVP – Region-VI
• Mr. Ramasamy S, RVP – Region-VII
CSI Member
Selection Process:
Regional Contest:
In the Regional Round, short-listed individual / teams will make oral
presentations followed by Q&A in the presence of selection committee on
the day of contest.
National Round:
The National Award will be contested by Winners of the regional contest.
No changes can be made between the regional contest and national contest.
The judging at the national level will be done by a representative panel of
eminent IT professionals, practitioners and academicians.
The decision of the selection committee will be final and binding.
CSI YITP Regional Convener, 2011 & Host Chapter
 Region-I (Ghaziabad) :
Mr. Vijay Rastogi, Chairman CSI, Ghaziabad Chapter
 Region- II (Kolkata) :
Mr. Sushanta Sinha , Chairman CSI, Kolkata Chapter
 Region-III (Ahmedabad) :
Shri N. R. Diwanji, Past Chairman, Ahmedabad Chapter
 Region-IV (Raipur) :
Prof. Abhaya K Samal, Hon. Secretary, Raipur Chapter
 Region-V (Visakhapatnam) : Dr. B G Reddy
 Region-VI (Pune) : Dr. Shubhangi Kelkar, Chairperson, Pune Chapter
 Region-VII (Tiruchirappalli) : Prof. Dr. Maluk Mohammed,
Prof. S. Ravimaran, Hon. Secretary – CSI Tiruchirappalli Chapter
For further details Contact:
CSI HQ YITP Cell
Computer Society of India
Samruddhi Venture Park
Unit no 3, 4th Floor
Marol Industrial Area
Andheri (E)
Mumbai – 400 093
Email: yitpawards@csi-india.org
Web: www.csi-india.org
Published by Suchit Gogwekar for Computer Society of India at 122, TV Indl. Estate, S K Ahire Marg, Worli, Mumbai-400 030 • Tel.: 022-2493 4776
Email : hq@csi-india.org Printed at GP Offset Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai 400 059.
8/6/2011 12:46:09 PM