http://www.sundaytimes.lk/111009/BusinessTimes/bt31.html
A local Cyber Security Week, Sri Lanka’s fourth, is set to kick off this week with a Hacking Challenge (October 13) and a Security Quiz (October 14). The latter is only for students of tertiary education institutions, and will culminate in an Annual National Conference (October 19) and two technical workshops (October 20 and 21), according to a statement by organisers Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre (Sri Lanka CERT CC).
Also noted, the first technical workshop is titled “Virtualisation Cloud Computing and the Next Generation of Enterprise Architecture”, while the second is named “Network and Web Traffic Analysis.”
The statement said the Hacking Challenge will “allow penetration testing enthusiasts to measure their skills in a simulated environment, free of legal repercussions; the other objective is to allow these enthusiasts to be rewarded, if they rack up the highest points according to the scoring system [with winners] awarded Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) training and certification voucher courtesy of International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council).” Organisers said that more information can be accessed at http://www.cert.gov.lk.
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/110828/BusinessTimes/bt21.html
Technology researcher IDC has predicted that, by 2012, 85% of all new software introduced will be in the form of pay-per-use, also known as Software-as-a-Service or SaaS, which will be accessed via the cloud, with 14.5% of the worldwide software spend also said to be attributable to SaaS. At the same time, many hotels are already experiencing information systems budget cuts.
This, according to John Keells Computer Services, is the reason why its Zhara Hospitality Suite, a hotel management-oriented SaaS offering, which is hosted in the cloud and so does not require purchase of servers or software, or even any other sort of “stand-alone capital expenditure,” is said to have “captured the hospitality industry and become the choice of many hotel operators in the Asia Pacific region since its launch in 2010.”
Further noted; “Prior to creating the Zhara HS system, JKCS designed software exclusively for leading global airlines and airports. The expertise gained in generating the highest yield-per-passenger in the aviation business was leveraged in the creation of the Zhara Hospitality Suite.
The SaaS model, on which Zhara HS is built, is a distinctive development in the field of IT. It is a model of software deployment, where the application is provided as a service to customers across the internet with no installation or maintenance hassle for a hotel operation. It also provides advantages such as rapid deployment, no capital outlay and, most importantly, it provides access to comprehensive security systems, which consist of back up, disaster recovery and support services.”
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/110828/BusinessTimes/bt27.html
Sri Lanka-based IT distributor South Asian Technologies last week launched a new virus programme from partner Symantec, the “Endpoint Protection 12,” which it claims “outperforms the competition in both virtual and physical environments.”
Further, the company, in a statement, also pointed to tests carried out on this new locally launched product by organisations such as Dennis Labs, Tolly Group, Av-Test.org and Passmark, which stated, amongst other comments, that Symantec’s software “running in a [Virtual Desktop Infrastructure] environment defended against more real- world threats than comparable solutions from McAfee and Trend Micro” and that, “in physical environments, Symantec protected better than comparable solutions from Kaspersky, McAfee, Microsoft, Sophos and Trend Micro.”
Also noted, this product “completes an on- demand scan in about half the time with 49% less disk bandwidth when compared to solutions from McAfee and Trend Micro. In addition, Symantec Endpoint Protection required 20% less disk bandwidth when performing on- access scanning compared to Trend Micro’s agent-less Deep Security solution.”
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/110807/BusinessTimes/bt31.html
A national-level IT conference scheduled to be held in Colombo between the 24th and 25th of this month will showcase a wide and diverse range of topics, from cloud computing, cyber war, social media, data centre transformation, Internet identity and electronic governance, to even mobile payments, iPV6 (a new internet protocol) and ICT’s use in farming, among many other areas.
Organised by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka, the 29th National information Technology Conference (NITC) will feature the following keynote presentations by international speakers: “The threat of Cyber War – How real is it? The increasing need to protect IT critical infrastructure in Sri Lanka” by Prof. Abhaya Induruwa, Principal Lecturer and Programme Director for the Master’s Programmes in Computing, Forensic Computing and Cybercrime Forensics at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK; “Fast Forward – Next Gen Shift in IT Solution” by A.V. Sreenath, Vice President (Enterprise, BFSI and Govt) at the Business Solutions Division of Wipro Infotec, India; “Information Risk Management – The Changing Paradigm” by Srinivas Rao, Co-Founder & CEO of Aujas Networks Pvt Ltd., India; and “Cloud Computing Strategy And Planning Transformation Design” by Martin Yates, Group Chairman for the Enterprise Cloud Computing Special Interest Group, Singapore Computer Society, and Global Solution Architect for Cloud Computing / Virtualisation, Solutions Architecture Director, Dell BV (Singapore).
Meanwhile, according to a statement by the organisers, this two-day event will comprise a total of 26 presentations by local and foreign speakers from both the commercial and academic sectors. Additionally indicated, the entire range of presentations wil touch upon “collaborative development within the context of Sri Lanka and the region, the ways of exploiting ICT trends, the innovation and development of ICT solutions, impacts of ICT on development and development on ICT” as well as topics such as “Web 2.0 technologies, Virtualisation, the trends in Cloud Computing, Social Media, Social Computing and Networks, Information Security, Cyber-forensics and Cyber crime.”
Also noted, the following sub-themes will be on offer: “e-Government and Gov 2.0 –ICT for Public Sector Service delivery and collaborative social networking in effective Government, ICT for participatory citizenship, Developments for bridging the digital divide, Participatory systems access and equity, Web 2.0 technologies- Services available to collaborate and share information online, Web access for differently-able users, Technologies for New Learning – e-Learning, ICT in education, Life long and life wide learning, Interactive & Collaborative Learning, The Virtual University, Internet and Society – Social computing and Networks, Social Learning, ICT, Poverty and Development – ICT for Rural development and poverty reduction, GIS & IS in Agriculture and land use, Emerging technologies to fulfill the communication needs in mobile and fixed lines, Cloud computing and Network Virtualisation, Information Security, Cyber-forensics, Cybercrime, Green IT.”
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100718/BusinessTimes/bt35.html
Enterprise operating systems developer Novell this week revealed that it now had three products available in the Sri Lankan market, which were introduced in “recent weeks”. These are the “Identity Manager 4” security application, “SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1” for servers and cloud computing-centred “PlateSpin Migrate, PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Forge”.
According to the company’s product descriptions, the PlateSpin suite has been described as a “virtualisation management solution supporting both Linux and Windows, offering live migrations of workloads from [physical to virtual, virtual to physical, and physical to physical] regardless of operating system platform”.
Meanwhile, Novell also noted that the “beta programme for Novell Identity Manager 4 is already underway, with more than 50 large customers and partners actively participating worldwide. Beta programs are test programmes before the applications are running live, much like a full-dress rehearsal”. In addition, the company also indicated that its partners currently also offered “more than 5,000 certified applications today for SUSE Linux Enterprise”.
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100627/BusinessTimes/bt31.html
An enterprise applications developer with development facilities in Sri Lanka recently launched its first 100% open source cloud platform, WSO2 Stratos. Built on the WSO2 Carbon platform which it introduced last year, the company’s, WSO2’s, new product offers advantages such as lower project times and reduced data centre costs, WSO said in a statement.
Meanwhile, indications point to WSO2’s project time speed being its main selling point with WSO2 Founder and Chief Executive Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana remarking that, since “IT developers can create a new application in one month, taking months to provision and deploy servers and systems no longer makes strategic or economic sense”.
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/100620/BusinessTimes/bt10.html
The popular Sri Lankan ICT exhibition Infotel will be held this year again at the BMICH starting from September 30 and ending on October 4, a five day period, the organisers said this week.
A local exhibition held over the past 18 years, Infotel was last organised in 2008 by the Federation of Information Technology Industry of Sri Lanka (FITISL) at which time as many as 30,000 visited the exhibition over its entire run.
Additionally, again according to Infotel’s launch announcement, the exhibition will coincide with the “National ICT Week 2010”. This includes “the CEO conclave and walk, student day and career guidance fair where large number of students from schools in the western province are expected to participate. In addition the Infotel FORUM, FITISL Young Computer Scientist (YCS) Awards, ICTer2010 International ICT Conference and the National Best Quality Software awards ceremony.”
Meanwhile, it has also been indicated that the exhibition will showcase products and solutions ranging from computer hardware, Business Software, SAS, Cloud Computing, Virtualisation, iDC, ICT Security, Hosted PBX, IP networking, Tele presence, Collaboration Technologies, Systems Integration, ITES (IT Enabled Services), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Office Automation to Telecommunication Equipment, Mobile Broadband, NGN (Next Generation Networks), Ubiquity, 3G, 4G, Wimax, LTE, IPTV, IP Convergence, IPv6 Technology, Smartphone Applications, Navigation and LBS (Location Based Services), ICT Training, Electronic Media, Computer Gaming, Medical Electronics, e-Citizen Services and e-Sri Lanka initiatives”.
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