Thursday, September 16, 2010
Relationship between virtualization and cloud computing
Virtualization is the ability to run “virtual machines” on top of a “hypervisor.” A virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a machine (i.e., a computer) that executes programs like a physical machine. Each VM includes its own kernel, operating system, supporting libraries and applications. A hypervisor provides a uniform abstraction of the underlying physical machine. Multiple VMs can execute simultaneously on a single hypervisor. The decoupling of the VM from the underlying physical hardware allows the same VM to be started on different physical machines. Thus virtualization is seen as an enabler for cloud computing, allowing the cloud computing provider the necessary flexibility to move and allocate the computing resources requested by the user wherever the physical resources are available.
What is a private cloud?
Private cloud (also called internal cloud or corporate cloud) is a marketing term for a proprietary computing architecture that provides hosted services to a limited number of people behind a firewall.
Advances in virtualization and distributed computing have allowed corporate network and datacenter administrators to effectively become service providers that meet the needs of their "customers" within the corporation.
Marketing media that uses the words "private cloud" is designed to appeal to an organization that needs or wants more control over their data than they can get by using a third-party hosted service such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) or Simple Storage Service (S3).
Advances in virtualization and distributed computing have allowed corporate network and datacenter administrators to effectively become service providers that meet the needs of their "customers" within the corporation.
Marketing media that uses the words "private cloud" is designed to appeal to an organization that needs or wants more control over their data than they can get by using a third-party hosted service such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) or Simple Storage Service (S3).
How compatible is Eucalyptus with Amazon's EC2!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eucalyptus is a private cloud-computing platform that implements the Amazon specification for EC2, S3, and EBS. Eucalyptus conforms to both the syntax and the semantic definition of the Amazon API and tool suite, with few exceptions. Along with providing a REST and SOAP interface compatible with Amazon AWS, Eucalyptus also exposes administrative functionalities (e.g., user management, storage configuration, network management, hypervisor configuration, etc.) for managing and maintaining the cloud. Eucalyptus implementation of the specification, however, is undoubtedly different than Amazon's implementations. These differences are related to several engineering design decisions. Eucalyptus primary goal is to provide an open-source software tool for community distribution that is highly scalable and extensible, as well as easy to install and maintain.
Tour to space....... Dream come true by 2015
Boeing has announced plans to add space tourism to its CST-100 -- or Crew Space Transportation-100-- low orbit flights by 2015. Operated by a partnership with Space Adventures, the flights will be able to carry up to seven passengers about 62 miles above Earth's surface, and the craft are currently being developed with the help of NASA.The vehicles could also be used as a ferry to get people to and from the various space habitats companies are working away at. There's no word on what the pricing of one of these journeys will look like, but trust us: Jared Leto will be able to afford one, while you probably will not.
Mumbai's 'King-size' Ganpati
As kings always deal in superlatives, Mumbai's most famous Ganpati -- Lalbaugcha Raja -- is no exception. Be it his overbearing personality standing tall at 12 feet or the record number of devotees that come to seek his blessings or the record donations being collected -- everything is 'king size.' Lalbaugcha Raja reigns over Mumbai during these ten days of festivity
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Honey! it's sweet, yet comes with a sting
That spoonful of “guaranteed pure” sweetness may be hiding a bitter secret. Branded honey sold in India is likely to be contaminated with harmful antibiotics, according to a new study by the Centre for Science and Environment. CSE's Pollution Monitoring Laboratory tested 12 leading brands of honey sold in Delhi, Scientists found high levels of six harmful antibiotics in 11 samples. The contamination is the end result of a murky chain, which begins when antibiotics are fed to bees to prevent disease, promote growth and increase honey production to meet commercial targets. When they make their way into your daily spoonful of honey, these substances could damage the blood, kidneys, liver, bones and teeth. More importantly, they create resistance in the body to prescribed antibiotics when you really do fall ill, says the CSE report.
Most developed countries have banned or strictly regulated antibiotics in honey, and Indian companies must meet those standards when they export their products. However, in a stinging example of double standards, most Indian companies are dumping their contaminated honey on the domestic market, since there are no regulations here, says the CSE.
Interestingly, companies were recently involved in a controversy in Nepal, where leading newspapers claimed that its honey was substandard and used harmful chemicals. The company dismissed it as part of a “smear campaign” against Indian products, but the sticky claim has now come from an Indian source.
One Switzerland company, had the largest number — five — of the six antibiotics that it was tested for, including the highest levels of ampicillin and erythromycin, both of which are not permitted for beekeeping in any country. It would be illegal to sell it even in Switzerland itself. Similarly, Australian brand, sold in 40 countries, violated standards set in its home country.
“It is clear that foreign companies are taking advantage of the lack of regulations in India. After all, if our government does not care about the health of its people, why should these companies care?” said CSE director Sunita Narain, at the release of the study on Wednesday.
“We have standards for antibiotic contamination in the honey we export. The government even tests and certifies that exported honey meets health and safety regulations. But we do not have any standards for domestic honey. This is clearly unacceptable,” she said.
Most developed countries have banned or strictly regulated antibiotics in honey, and Indian companies must meet those standards when they export their products. However, in a stinging example of double standards, most Indian companies are dumping their contaminated honey on the domestic market, since there are no regulations here, says the CSE.
Interestingly, companies were recently involved in a controversy in Nepal, where leading newspapers claimed that its honey was substandard and used harmful chemicals. The company dismissed it as part of a “smear campaign” against Indian products, but the sticky claim has now come from an Indian source.
One Switzerland company, had the largest number — five — of the six antibiotics that it was tested for, including the highest levels of ampicillin and erythromycin, both of which are not permitted for beekeeping in any country. It would be illegal to sell it even in Switzerland itself. Similarly, Australian brand, sold in 40 countries, violated standards set in its home country.
“It is clear that foreign companies are taking advantage of the lack of regulations in India. After all, if our government does not care about the health of its people, why should these companies care?” said CSE director Sunita Narain, at the release of the study on Wednesday.
“We have standards for antibiotic contamination in the honey we export. The government even tests and certifies that exported honey meets health and safety regulations. But we do not have any standards for domestic honey. This is clearly unacceptable,” she said.
Smart Grid
How aware are we about the electricity consumption apart from monthly electric bills? How many times haven’t we cribbed about the unplanned power cuts and black outs? As “gadget Gurus” we always keep our electronic gadgets updated. Is the power grid giving the required quality of power to these gadgets? Well, a solution to these may not be prevalent today but is a vision of tomorrow. The Electricity system of future has to produce and deliver electricity that is reliable, affordable and clean. To accomplish these goals, both electricity grid and existing regulatory system needs to get smarter. “SMART Grid” is an intelligent step to evolve from our era of power grid towards a brighter future.
The existing grid system delivers electricity from point of generation to consumers. This Electricity delivery system functions via two systems
In this existing system the focus is more on protection of asset when a system failure happens rather than automatically detecting the emerging transmission and distribution problems. The customer is uninformed and they are not a part of the existing power system. Moreover the focus is on power shutdown / outages rather than power quality problems.
The basic concept of Smart Grid is to add monitoring, analysis, control and communication capabilities to the national electric grid in order to improve reliability, maximize throughput, increase energy efficiency, provide consumer participation and allow diverse generation and storage options.
Building a smart grid means adding computer and communication technology to the existing electricity grid. With an overlay of digital technology, the grid promises to operate more efficiently and reliably. It can also accommodate more solar and wind power, which are inconsistent sources of energy that can become more reliable with better controls. Much like computers and routers manage the flow of bits on the Internet, smart-grid technologies use information to optimize the flow of electricity.
Right now, if there is a breakdown at your local substation, it is not rectified until the customers call to complain. This can be avoided by placing a networked sensor inside a transformer or along wires which would locate and report a problem, or prevent it from happening.
Despite living in the age of information, most of us only get a glimpse of our energy consumption when the utility bills come once a month. With smart grid, it should mean more detailed information on usage of electricity through home energy-monitoring tools. These can be small displays or Web-based programs that give a real-time view of how much energy you are using, which appliances consume the most, and how your home compares to others.
What is needed to start is a smart meter with two-way communication or some other kind of gateway. Once that conduit is put in place, consumers can get more detailed energy data and start taking advantage of efficiency incentives, such as charging your plug-in electric vehicle in the middle of the night to get off-peak rates.
The next step towards efficiency is what is called demand response. The goal here is to dial back energy consumption at peak times. This is very important to utilities because it's costly and polluting to bring on auxiliary power plants to meet a spike in demand, say, from an air conditioning load on a hot summer day. Consumers and businesses have financial incentives to participate, such as a discounted rate. "Shedding load" could mean turning the gas heat off of the clothes drier for a few minutes or dimming the lights in a supermarket in the middle of the day.
A smarter grid also makes distributed energy, such as home solar systems, more viable and user-friendly. With a smart meter and monitoring software, a home owner can see how much solar panels are producing and their carbon footprint is being reduced. A utility, too, is keenly interested in how much distributed energy is available so it can calibrate its own daily power generation.
The functionality of smart grid can be defined by the following characteristics
Thus the transformation to Smart Grid would give all the features that would have once been impossible with Power Grid. Let us move to the grid technology which is of good quality, reliable and smarter.
Existing Grid System / Power Grid
The existing grid system delivers electricity from point of generation to consumers. This Electricity delivery system functions via two systems
- 1. Transmission System
The Transmission system delivers electricity from power plant to distribution Substations. Here the transmission voltage will be very high (110kV or above), to reduce the energy lost in long distance transmission
- 2. Distribution system
The distribution system delivers electricity form substations to consumers. Typically the network includes medium voltage (less than 50 kV) power lines, pole mounted transformers, low voltage (less than 1kV) distribution wiring.
In this existing system the focus is more on protection of asset when a system failure happens rather than automatically detecting the emerging transmission and distribution problems. The customer is uninformed and they are not a part of the existing power system. Moreover the focus is on power shutdown / outages rather than power quality problems.
What is Smart Grid ?
The basic concept of Smart Grid is to add monitoring, analysis, control and communication capabilities to the national electric grid in order to improve reliability, maximize throughput, increase energy efficiency, provide consumer participation and allow diverse generation and storage options.
Building a smart grid means adding computer and communication technology to the existing electricity grid. With an overlay of digital technology, the grid promises to operate more efficiently and reliably. It can also accommodate more solar and wind power, which are inconsistent sources of energy that can become more reliable with better controls. Much like computers and routers manage the flow of bits on the Internet, smart-grid technologies use information to optimize the flow of electricity.
How smart grid differs from the existing grid system /Power grid ?
Right now, if there is a breakdown at your local substation, it is not rectified until the customers call to complain. This can be avoided by placing a networked sensor inside a transformer or along wires which would locate and report a problem, or prevent it from happening.
Despite living in the age of information, most of us only get a glimpse of our energy consumption when the utility bills come once a month. With smart grid, it should mean more detailed information on usage of electricity through home energy-monitoring tools. These can be small displays or Web-based programs that give a real-time view of how much energy you are using, which appliances consume the most, and how your home compares to others.
What is needed to start is a smart meter with two-way communication or some other kind of gateway. Once that conduit is put in place, consumers can get more detailed energy data and start taking advantage of efficiency incentives, such as charging your plug-in electric vehicle in the middle of the night to get off-peak rates.
The next step towards efficiency is what is called demand response. The goal here is to dial back energy consumption at peak times. This is very important to utilities because it's costly and polluting to bring on auxiliary power plants to meet a spike in demand, say, from an air conditioning load on a hot summer day. Consumers and businesses have financial incentives to participate, such as a discounted rate. "Shedding load" could mean turning the gas heat off of the clothes drier for a few minutes or dimming the lights in a supermarket in the middle of the day.
A smarter grid also makes distributed energy, such as home solar systems, more viable and user-friendly. With a smart meter and monitoring software, a home owner can see how much solar panels are producing and their carbon footprint is being reduced. A utility, too, is keenly interested in how much distributed energy is available so it can calibrate its own daily power generation.
Smart Grid Characteristics
The functionality of smart grid can be defined by the following characteristics
- • It will enable active participation of consumers, ie., it will give consumers information, control and options that enable them to engage in new “electricity markets”. Well informed consumers will modify consumption based on the balancing of their demands and resources.
- • It will accommodate all generation and storage options. It will seamlessly integrate all types and sizes of electrical generation and storage systems using simplified interconnection process and universal interoperability standards to support a “plug-and-play” level of convenience.
- • It will enable new products, services and markets. Support the creation of new electricity market from the home energy management system at the consumer’s premises to technologies that allow consumers and third parties to bid their energy resources into the electricity market.
- • It will provide power quality for the digital economy. It will monitor, diagnose and respond to the power quality deficiencies resulting in dramatic reduction in the business losses currently experienced by consumers due to insufficient power quality.
- • It will anticipate and respond to system disturbance. It will heal itself by performing continuous self-assessment to detect and analyze issues, take corrective action to mitigate them. It will also handle problems too large or too fast-moving for human intervention.
- • It will operate resiliently against attack and natural disaster. The smart grid will incorporate a system-wide solution that reduces physical and cyber vulnerabilities and enables a rapid recovery from disruptions.
Thus the transformation to Smart Grid would give all the features that would have once been impossible with Power Grid. Let us move to the grid technology which is of good quality, reliable and smarter.
Want more Mobile applications!!!!!!
Hey Guys..... I found many interesting mobile games and applications in http://www.noeman.org/gsm/
Found very interesting stuff.....
Found very interesting stuff.....
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios.
Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios.
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