It's back to school month!. Do we ever get away from thinking about September as "back-to-school?" Remember that training counts as school. If you're new to IT or need a refresher, CSTA is on the schedule. Of course it's on the schedule every month. We don't get the summer off, and have to be ready when work calls. As we do throughout the year, we've just finished an update reflecting the smartphones, operating systems, and product releases.
Here's the schedule or you can view the complete schedule on our Website:
CSTA Web sessions:
September 29, 30
November 3, 4
December 15, 16
UITJ (Understanding IT Jobs) Web sessions:
September 30
December 16
TR Web sessions:
October 13
December 1
Keep in touch - I love hearing from you - and keep up with technology!
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Data Storage Technology
Data Storage Technology
Data storage is a big deal. Companies are now working with trillions of bytes of data – moving to quadrillions. Can you even picture it? I can't – but it's here. We have huge collections of data, and we need to provide "on demand" storage for that data. We should be able to purchase storage devices when we need them, not before. Finally, do we need to purchase storage devices? Storage has moved into the cloud, giving us the choice of purchasing or subscribing to the devices we need. Are we ready for this?
The industry has responded with new products and technology. Storage media has improved. Spinning disk hard drives, solid-state NAND and NOR Flash, digital tape, and optical disks, hold more data than older devices. New technologies and products providing storage pooling, data tiering, disaster recovery, deduplication, thin-provisioning, and capacity management handle these huge data collections.
Of all the techniques, deduplication is the word we hear the most. Duplicate data is the exact same data appearing in more than one data collection. How many times is your address stored in your company's databases? If you work for a retail firm, this information is in the HR database, the sales database, the billing database, and hopefully not but maybe, the collections database. And, is your address the same in all these places? Probably not if you've moved within the last two years. It's a big problem, and has been since "data processing" started in the 1960s. Deduplication merges together duplicate information. Just matching text is not enough, and duplicate data is found by matching on operators including phonetic, direct word match, telephone/fax number and name initials. Once duplicate data is found, records can be merged into a folder, file, or record preserving the context and specific unique data facts. Data deduplication can achieve a 20-1 reduction in the amount of storage needed.
Data tiering has become important. This refers to moving data among various types of storage media as demand for it rises or falls. It means moving older or less frequently accessed data to slower, less expensive storage while putting the most frequently accessed or most important data on faster, more expensive storage drives. Automated data tiering means this is accomplished by software rather than manually as is the current norm.
Clustered storage is also important. Clustered storage is created by linking multiple storage servers to form a redundant ring of storage devices. These systems can scale I/O (Input/Output) for data-intensive applications, and they allow users to buy storage as needed. This provides storage "on demand."
These, and other new techniques, are invaluable, but they also require new knowledge and skills. The jobs of Storage Manager, SAN Manager, Storage Administrator, etc. are only six or seven years old. These jobs are hard to fill, as more and more companies grow and as new technologies appear. Some companies are choosing to let storage vendors fill this need. Storage in the cloud is growing, but slowly and carefully. Some companies are using storage vendors for backup and archival functions, but everyone's wary of trusting live data to these new technologies and an outside vendor. One thing is certain. Whether companies own or rent storage, the new technologies and devices are in use, growing in use, and growing in functionality. And, the new storage jobs are here to stay.
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1. What's Facebook's newest move in social networking?
2. Wayback Machine and Flashback – what's the difference?
3. What's IBM latest server processor – and what operating system can manage these systems?
4. What smartphones are no longer competitive?
5. Which of the following does not belong?
a. B#
b. C#
c. E#
d. F#
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At least this one was new to me. There's always something new in technology, so we get used to adding technologies, skills, products and everything else to TechRef®, CSTA, and our Web site. We tweet, blog and write this newsletter to make sure we are publishing the new information business people need. We don't talk as much about the other stuff we work with – the tools and knowledge used by technical recruiters.
For you recruiters – check out Recruiting Links on our Web site. We keep this updated just as we keep the technical information updated. This portal gets you to information and aids for recruiting. We use it throughout our Technical Recruiting seminar, and I've just updated both the Web and the seminar to include information about a product/service I just used. You might already be using it. Here's the URL for SkillSurvey.
I was asked to supply a reference for someone, and was sent the URL of this site. I filled out a very reasonable set of ratings questions, and was informed that the person who requested the reference would be sent a composite of the answers from all of their references. They would not know what answers came from what references. Looked good to me and was so easy to fill out. It's a painless way of supplying a reference, and there is no reason to be anything but truthful. Companies tell their staff not to give references because the company could be sued for keeping someone from gaining employment. This product could really be valuable in solving the problem of getting good references. Of course, I have not seen any of the results from using this product, and filling out one reference is not a thorough check, so you would have to evaluate it. But it sure looks like it's worth a look.
UITJ (Understand IT Jobs) runs on September 30th, and Technical Recruiting runs on October 13th. Don't forget these seminars – designed specifically for Technical Recruiters.
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Web Development
So much of IT is now Web based. We know everything on the Web is client-server so we have front-end and back-end development. What else is there? We know there's movement towards user-friendly development tools. Letting users develop their own programs – particularly query programs – has been a long-time goal. Are we getting close?
AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) Development system used to create and maintain RIA (Rich Internet Application) Web applications. Includes a SDK (Software Development Kit) of command-line tools for developing and working with Apollo applications. Allows users to use existing Web development tools Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax, etc. Runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux will soon be supported. Apollo is the development name, and the product released to testing: March, 2007. Developed under the name Apollo and released: March, 2008. Version 2 release candidate available: May, 2010.
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) Technology and tools that define an approach to delivering Web content that eliminates the wait while refreshing an entire page by only updating the part of the Web page that has been changed. The update is done locally (if possible) and asynchronously. The user can continue to interact with the Web page during the refresh. Technology has been available for years, but became popular in 2005.
Flash Application development tool used to create Internet applications which include video. Intended for use by advanced Flash developers, or for people used to forms-based programming such as that done with Visual Basic or Delphi. Runs on Mac OS X and Windows systems. Developers use ActionScript, an object-oriented programming language created for Flash, or Script Assist, a GUI based development tool. Current version is Flash CS4 Professional, released September, 2008. Prior versions: Flash Professional MX and Flash Professional 8.
Flex Application development tool used to build front-ends for Internet applications using Flash technology. Works with a new XML-based language, called FML (Flex Markup Language), that describes the user interface of an application and then compiles pre-built code. Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) tool used to create RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). The compiled code is translated by a Flash Player which must be downloaded to the browser. Works with J2EE application servers including JRun, WebSphere, WebLogic and Tomcat. Originally released: March, 2004. Version 1.5 released: December, 2004. Originally written by Macromedia which was acquired by Adobe in 2005 and operates as a brand for Adobe Systems. Flex 3 released: March, 2008, and the SDK (Software Development Kit) is available to developers at no charge.
LAMP stack IT terminology used to describe an IT environment for developing and deploying applications. Includes the operating system Linux, Apache Web server, MySQL database, and PHP (or Perl or Python) scripting language. All four programs are open source and the name refers to the first letters of the components. Substituting the Windows operating system sets up a WAMP stack. The .NET stack (Windows, IIS Web server, SQL Server, and ASP [Active Server Pages] scripting).
open source development Open source development is an architecture which is used to develop both open-source and proprietary software. Its methodology is geared to physically distributed teams, and includes collaborative, team based development. The word "open" actually means published, so all standards and code are shared. In addition all code is reusable, software is developed in small increments, and there are always two releases available - the development release and the production release. With open source there must be control over the versions in development. In fact, often multiple teams are working on the same project and someone must decide which code is included in the final software. Open source development has been described as "survival of the fittest," and many people feel it produces the best software.
Silverlight Application development tool used to build RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). Windows API (Application Programming Interface) that allows applications developers to build a user interface which utilizes media-rich graphics. Supports 2D and 3D graphics as well as standard GUI widgets. Development code name: Avalon. Originally developed as WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), and WPF/E (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere). Silverlight announced: April, 2007. Similar to Adobe's Air (Adobe Integrated Runtime). Version 4 beta announced: November, 2009.
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1. Facebook Questions. This will be a pop-up on your Facebook page that lets you enter a question and get responses from any to every one. Not just your friends – Not even just Facebook members. In beta now.
2. The WayBack Machine is a Web archive. You can input any URL, and get links to that Web site's URL for dates as far back as 1996. Try it: HYPERLINK "http://www.archive.org/" http://www.archive.org/. Flashback is part of the Oracle DBMS (DataBase Management System). It allows users to view data the way it was at dates in the past. Very useful, especially with some of the compliance issues with HIPPA, SOX, etc.
3. Power7 systems are IBM's latest microprocessors (used in servers), and they use AIX. But – don't forget zEnterprise. IBM's latest operating system for mainframes also manages Power7 servers. zEnterprise is a really big deal – it actually manages a complete data center with mainframes, Power7 servers and server blades.
4. A couple of the big ones. Well, Google's Nexus One never got to be a big one, but they've already dropped it and are no longer making phones now that so many vendor's are using their Android operating system. The Palm Pre is also in trouble. It never reached the audience Palm needed and is included in a couple of "products that should go away" lists.
5. c. E# does not belong. In fact, it doesn't exist. The other three are all programming languages. B# is the newest – a language designed to develop small footprint, embedded systems.
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