MDeC Raises the Game for Malaysian Businesses with Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014

Greater push for Big Data Analytics to increase productivity in public and private sector

KUALA LUMPUR, MAY 6, 2014 – The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) launched the “Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014” today, an initiative that aims to help Malaysia’s ICT industry build its capabilities in Big Data Analytics (BDA), and spur endless opportunities for BDA products and services. With the theme of “Harnessing Value from Your Data Variety”, the launch of the seven-day event which took place at the Connexion@Nexus, Bangsar South City, was officiated by Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia and witnessed by Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, Chief Executive Officer of MDeC.

As the only city in South East Asia to be given the honour in showcasing Big Data Week, Kuala Lumpur is at the centre of one of the most unique global platforms of interconnected community events that focuses on the social, political and technological impacts of data. The Big Data Week also brings together a global community of data scientists, data technologies, data visualisers and data businesseses from six major commercial, financial, social, and technological sectors.

Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Jailani Johari (R) and MDeC’s CEO, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali (L) during the press conference at the launch of Big Data Week 2014 in Kuala Lumpur.

Speaking at the launch, Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, said “Malaysian business and technology landscape have grown to such an extent that we are now ready to embrace the new developments around BDA for businesses, the government, community organisation and much more. For local businesses, there is a need to embrace technologies such as BDA to raise their game so that they can be more competitive with large multinational companies. From the government perspective, BDA can play a huge role in increasing its efficiency and efficacy. With the implementation of the right big data analytics solutions, the government can gain much needed feedback and precious insights that can tremendously improve our decision making process.”

“Indeed, BDA is no longer a futuristic abstract concept but is something that is already happening today. According to Gartner, a total of 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support BDA by 2015. As BDA will form an integral part of ICT Services, efforts to drive the development of the BDA industry in Malaysia will no doubt complement the Digital Malaysia initiative and be in tandem with the DM 354 roadmap. Thus, MDeC believes that Malaysia is ready to embrace the vast opportunities that Big Data Analytics has to offer as we sow the seeds to grow Malaysia into a developed country driven by the digital economy by 2020.” said Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, CEO, MDeC.

The launch was followed by MDeC’s one-day conference on Big Data themed “Big Data: Endless Possibilities” featuring speakers from Intel, Teradata, Dell, IBM, Amazon, MIMOS, HP Labs, and many more. Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014 is organised with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU). Big Data Week in Kuala Lumpur will feature 18 related events – the highest number of activities in all 30 participating cities worldwide.

The 3rd edition of Big Data Week also debuted on the 5th of May as the largest crowd-sourced festival of events, meet-ups, workshops and hackathons focused on the social, political, technological and commercial impacts of data. It brings together an anticipated 30,000 data practitioners across more than 200 events.

For further information on the “Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur” or to participate, please visit (www.bigdataweek.com/kualalumpur)

Gartner Says by 2017, Mobile Users Will Provide Personalized Data Streams to More Than 100 Apps and Services Every Day

Mobile Apps Will Be a Vehicle for Cognizant Computing

Kuala Lumpur, January 27, 2014 — By 2017, mobile apps will be downloaded more than 268 billion times, generating revenue of more than $77 billion and making apps one of the most popular computing tools for users across the globe, according to Gartner, Inc. As a result, Gartner predicts that mobile users will provide personalized data streams to more than 100 apps and services every day.

"Mobile apps have become the official channel to drive content and services to consumers. From entertainment content to productivity services, from quantified-self to home automation, there is an app for practically anything a connected consumer may want to achieve," said Brian Blau, research director at Gartner. "This connection to consumer services means users are constantly funneling data through mobile apps. As users continue to adopt and interact with apps, it is their data — what they say, what they do, where they go — that is transforming the app interaction paradigm."

Currently, apps often provide an opportunity for brands to reach and engage with customers in a direct way, and therefore data coming from the user is often treated as a resource. This is especially true of free apps, which in 2013 account for 92 percent of app downloads. App users are providing troves of data and often accept advertising or data connectivity in exchange for access to the app.

Gartner said that brands and businesses are already using mobile apps as a primary component of their user engagement strategies, and as the use of mobile devices, including wearable devices, expands into other areas of consumer and business activities, mobile apps will become even more significant.

"In the next three to four years, apps will no longer be simply confined to smartphones and tablets, but will impact a wider set of devices, from home appliances to cars and wearable devices," said Mr. Blau. "By 2017, Gartner predicts that wearable devices will drive 50 percent of total app interactions."

Wearable devices will use mobile apps as their conduit for data exchange and user interface, because many of them will have few or no user interface capabilities. Offloading that responsibility to the mobile device means the wearable devices will depend on apps for all types of user input or output, configuration, content creation and consumption, and in some cases, basic connectivity.

"While wearable devices will not fully rely on, or be a slave to, mobile devices, it is a way for manufacturers to keep these devices small and efficient, therefore significantly reducing device costs in favor of using apps, which are more easily maintained and updated," said Mr. Blau. "Considering their underlying service, most wearable devices need some type of user interface. Taking the example of a fitness-tracking device, ultimately its onboard data will need to be uploaded into the cloud, processed, and then analyzed in reporting back to the user. Apps are an obvious and convenient platform to enable great products and services to be developed."

Mobile apps are often a vehicle for cognizant computing, in which the data gathered through the use of the apps and the analytics around it are becoming more important in both volume and value. In fact, it can be so sophisticated that through their solution providers, consumer brands know a lot about any individual consumer, such as the consumer's demographic data, location, preferences, habits, and even his or her social circle, in some cases. As a result, Gartner predicts that by 2015, cognizant computing will be a key enabler in smart home solutions.

"Cognizant computing takes intelligent actions on behalf of users based on their historical data, preferences and rules," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. "It can predict user needs and complete tasks without users initiating the action or interfering with the service. It can take the very simplistic format of completing a recurring event such as to turn on the water heater at a preset time, or the more sophisticated format of calling the rescue services and connecting with the doctor when an emergency occurs.

Cognizant computing can play a meaningful role at home because home settings are stable with relatively fixed equipment, and the user behavior there is routine and predictable. Tasks tend to be linear, in that each stays in its own boundaries with little interactions among different disciplines. For example, the entertainment services are unlikely to need to interact with the healthcare or home management services. Also, the amount of equipment or service data to call upon is relatively small compared with an outdoor environment, where the surrounding conditions and user intentions are more diverse.

Large service providers such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are likely to have a head start in this market due to the relationship they already have with consumers, which provides them with a large repository of user data that they can analyze and predict — a key asset in cognizant computing. In addition, consumers also trust these brands to manage their personal data — another key aspect in cognizant computing, whereas newcomers will have to build these relationships from scratch. Smart home solutions will likely span across various brands and platforms in order to become "intelligent" and deliver good user experience. Those that are restricted to a single brand are likely to lose the competitive edge.

IBM Sets U.S. Patent Record; Achieves 21st Straight Year of Patent Leadership

IBM inventors received more than 6,800 U.S. patents in 2013 including 3 from Malaysia

PETALING JAYA 27 Jan 2014:  IBM (NYSE: IBM) inventors received a record-setting 6,809 patents for 2013, making it the 21st consecutive year the company topped the annual list of U.S. patent leaders. The 6,809 patents included three that were awarded to Malaysian teams whose inventions have helped our clients improve their business processes.

The three local patents were for the following inventions: automated paper consumption tracking and auditing;  message oriented construction of web services; and, spacer and process to enhance the strain in the channel with stress liner.

"IBMers in Malaysia are proud with the recognition that underscores that when talent and creativity are combined with teamwork, the results are immeasurable," said IBM Malaysia managing director, Paul Moung.

“We take pride in being recognized as the U.S. patent leader, but patents are only one gauge of innovation. Equally significant is the impact that our patented inventions have when they are used to enable solutions that help clients and societies solve problems,”said Bernie Meyerson, IBM Fellow and VP of Innovation. “Furthermore, the broad range of inventions that these patents represent underscores the need for a patent system that equally and fairly promotes and supports innovation across all technical fields.”

IBM's 2013 patent total exceeded the combined totals of Amazon, Google, EMC, HP, Intel, Oracle/SUN and Symantec. The company's record 2013 patent count was made possible by more than 8,000 IBM inventors residing in 47 different U.S. states and 41 countries.

The Top Ten list of 2013 U.S. patent recipients* includes:
1 IBM 6,809
2 Samsung 4,676
3 Canon 3,825
4 Sony 3,098
5 Microsoft 2,660
6 Panasonic 2,601
7 Toshiba 2,416
8 Hon Hai 2,279
9 Qualcomm 2,103
10 LG Electronics 1,947

Sophos Leverages Amazon Web Services “Test Drive” Program for Sophos UTM in the Cloud

Teams with 8K Miles to Demonstrate Simple, Secure Access to Data via Mobile Devices

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 12, 2013  – Sophos today announced a “Test Drive” of Sophos UTM on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Working with partner 8K Miles, a global Cloud services provider and an early AWS Premier Consulting Partner, Sophos has created a dedicated Cloud-enabled UTM running in AWS for customers to easily evaluate and test a variety of use cases.

Sophos will demonstrate the scenarios at the AWS re:Invent – the largest gathering of developers and technical leaders from the AWS community – November 12-15 in Las Vegas. Sophos will be in booth #929.

Angelo Comazzetto, Senior Technologist for Sophos, said, “At Sophos, we understand that many companies are interested in the AWS Cloud and its many benefits, but don’t have the time to learn about all the things AWS can do. Test Drive allows an admin to step into the driver’s seat of their own personal AWS cloud with a Sophos UTM already configured to show them what is possible, and dramatically accelerate time-to-value. In this first of many planned Test Drive scenarios, we worked with 8K miles to create a demonstration of how Sophos UTM can provide encrypted mobile VPN access to the Amazon Cloud for customers to securely access files from anywhere.”

The AWS Test Drive program provides customers with access to the AWS infrastructure, a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of enterprise, government and startup customer businesses in 190 countries around the world. The Test Drive program includes a complete environment that can be provisioned to customers in minutes so they can quickly evaluate and explore Sophos UTM.

Test Drive automates the creation of an entire AWS infrastructure, with the necessary resources to get setup and running. The customer gets their own view into how the solution would look, and is free move about the environment to see the results. After a period of a few hours, the environment self-destructs. Sophos will show how customers can have simple, secure access to data hosted in a virtual private cloud using a VPN client on an iOS device, such as an Apple iPad or iPhone.

Silver Peak Provides 100x Faster Access to the Amazon Cloud

Software Installs in Minutes to Improve Cloud Back-Ups and Application Performance; Saves Amazon Customers Thousands-of-Dollars in AWS Expenses

Singapore. March 5, 2013 – Silver Peak Systems, the leader in accelerating data over distance, today announced that its Virtual Acceleration Open Architecture (VXOA) software in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers cloud-ready data acceleration for enterprise customers. Silver Peak software enables AWS users to accelerate data moving to and from AWS data centers, drastically improving data transfer efficiency by overcoming common network challenges such as limited WAN bandwidth, distance and network quality.

•    Watch the demo: http://blog.silver-peak.com/faster-access-to-amazon-cloud-locations

Whether backing up data to the cloud or accessing cloud-hosted applications and services, Silver Peak makes AWS fast and affordable. AWS data centers can be hundreds-to-thousands of miles away for a company’s core data center.  Accessing those data centers over lower-quality Internet connections can result in poor application performance and slow data transfers. Silver Peak software deployed in the Amazon cloud saves customers thousands-of-dollars every month in AWS expenses by eliminating over 50% of cloud traffic and overcoming the adverse effects of distance and network quality. With Silver Peak, Amazon customers can migrate data to the cloud quicker than ever with 20x more throughput—reducing the largest data transfers from days to hours.

•   AWS Marketplace with Silver Peak: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B00AY4FAHK/ref=srh_res_product_title?ie=UTF8&sr=0-2&qid=1361819209340

“The benefits of cloud computing and being able to replicate data to the cloud can be negated by the WAN bottleneck and lower-quality public Internet connections,” said Vivian Xu, director of cloud and virtualization product management for Silver Peak. “Silver Peak software installs quickly and easily to accelerate data to and from the Amazon cloud and make it seem like your cloud-based applications are hosted right next door.”

The Silver Peak Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) enables AWS users to accelerate traffic between AWS storage, AWS hosted applications and services, and on-premise data centers. The Silver Peak AMI accelerates all data and applications, including Web and replication traffic. The software puts full design flexibility and control in the hands of enterprise users, enabling them to more quickly and cost-effectively meet their business objectives. Silver Peak supports all major hypervisors, and delivers the highest-capacity virtual appliances available on the market today (gigabit and multi-gigabit-per-second). This avoids vendor lock-in and ensures that enterprises can choose the virtual data center and cloud offering that is most suitable for their business needs.

MyIX Peers with Three Global Internet Brands

Top international brands connect to MyIX for direct connectivity with ASEAN ISPs; 
Faster Internet experience expected for MyIX members to improve their customer experience in business

KUALA LUMPUR, 7 February 2013- The operator of Malaysia’s sole neutral Internet Exchange, MyIX – also known as ‘Persatuan Pengendali Internet Malaysia’, today announces that top international brands including Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft have recently joined the country’s national Internet exchange as part of its existing peering network.

The biggest value from this development is an immediate improvement in connectivity between MyIX members – consisting of over 50 ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and Content Providers with the three said global Internet brands.

MyIX Chairman, Chiew Kok Hin, says, “MyIX’s ability to support the growing Internet traffic needs of these international brands have lead to the forging of these peering partnerships, which will now allow the Brand’s regional customers to enjoy better accessibility to their website and Internet content.”

Due to the burst of mobility in this region, the adoption of smartphones, tablets and mobile data applications have seen a steady increase. Smartphones continue to fuel sales of mobile phones worldwide with sales of close to 170 million units by Q3 2012 (Source: Gartner). These numbers are predicted to rise higher and with it an increase in internet users worldwide.

“Thus it is very important for these top Internet brands to ensure their customers get the best user experience while managing the burst in traffic especially from Asia. The need for faster connectivity and functionality has made them choose MyIX to better serve their regional market.”

“In addition to improved performance and connectivity, they can also expect to see lower operational costs as they are now able to bypass longer and more expensive data routes internationally,” adds Chiew.
By leveraging MyIX as the main traffic ply route for its domestic Internet data, these brands local traffic is kept local within the country’s networks and this reduces the latency of “boomerang traffic effect” when in-country Internet data need to loop to foreign networks to access the target Internet content.

“MyIX will continue to explore more extensive direct peering partnerships global Internet brands so as to benefit our members via better performance of their managed ISP networks with lessen dependency on expensive international bandwidth links,” ends Chiew.

Fortinet Delivers Virtual Web Application Firewall Solution For Amazon Web Services

MALAYSIA, November 28, 2012- Fortinet - a world leader in high-performance network security – today announced the virtual machine version of its FortiWeb Web application firewall is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“FortiWeb-VM provides AWS customers the best of both worlds,” said Chris Rodriguez, senior network security industry analyst with Frost and Sullivan. “The tremendous flexibility and stability of AWS, combined with Fortinet’s advanced security capabilities, is a winning combination for customers migrating strategic Web applications to the cloud.”

With FortiWeb-VM, customers can deploy virtual Web application firewalls running on AWS in conjunction with other FortiGate security technologies running on their own internal network, all from a single, centralized management platform. This allows them to easily extend the power and flexibility of Fortinet security technologies to the AWS Cloud.

FortiWeb-VM at-a-Glance
FortiWeb-VM provides multiple protection layers against today’s threats that target Web applications, including application signatures, HTTP RFC compliance, auto-learn-based violations and data leak prevention.

In addition, FortiWeb-VM automatically and dynamically profiles user activity to create a baseline of permissible activity. Its real-time data analysis capabilities provide an analytics interface that helps organizations understand their Web application usage and maps requests to their geographic location.

Unique to FortiWeb-VM is an integrated vulnerability scanner that provides detailed analyses of existing application vulnerabilities that complement its application firewall capabilities and is especially useful for PCI DSS compliance.

“Security is paramount at AWS and we work hard to ensure our partner ecosystem includes the strongest players in enterprise security,” said Terry Wise, head of worldwide partner ecosystem, Amazon Web Services. “In the cloud, security is a shared responsibility and therefore our customers look to deploy the same best of breed security solutions that they utilize on premise. We are excited to see Fortinet bring FortiWeb-VM to AWS.”  

“Leveraging the AWS platform to provide tools to help AWS customers protect their strategic Web applications is a key milestone in expanding Fortinet’s rich portfolio of cloud computing solutions,” said George Chang, Fortinet’s Regional Director for Southeast Asia & Hong Kong. “AWS is a global presence, and we are looking forward to supporting AWS customers around the world with our innovative FortiWeb-VM security solution.”

Availability
FortiWeb-VM for Amazon Web Services is available now.