Western Digital and their important products.

Western Digital is a well known storage technology company. Western Digital was founded in 1970 and over the years has grown into a leading position in the development and manufacturing of hard drives and solid state drives for internal, external, and portable devices. Western Digitals hard drives can be utilized by both desktop and laptop computers. Their products can also be found in mobile and handheld devices, corporate networks and home entertainment equipment.

Western Digital has a variety of different types of products that can be purchased by consumers. The first type of product are the external hard drives. The external hard drives for desktops include WD Elements Desktop hard drive and My Book Essential hard drive.

These two hard drives for desktops can reach a capacity of 3 TB. With a minimum of 500 gb. The interface used to connect the hard drives are USB 2.0 and/or USB 3.0

The second type of product WD has to offer are the portable hard drives. The different portable hard drives include WD Elements Portable, WD Elements Portable SE, My Passport Essential, and My Passport Essential SE.

The storage devices capactiy starts at 250 gb and can reach all the way to 1tb. The My Passport Essential devices features automatic back up capabilites as well as password protection and hardware encryption. The interface used for connectivity is USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.


Another type of storage device WD offers is network storage. Theses devices include My Book Live, My Book World Edition II, and WD ShareSpace. These devices are great for sharing storage for computers, tablets and smartphones. Also double safe for backup and storage for all computers on ones network.

Theses network storage devices capacity can reach up to 8TB of space. The interface used for connectivity is gigabit ethernet. Includes backup software and an automatic back up feature.


Sources:

• Logo
• Information
• Pictures

Field Trip to EMC

On October 28th my Foundation of Storage Technology class took a field trip to the EMC buildings in Durham, NC. We also traveled to there Center of Excellence located in Apex, NC.

When we first got there we were given a tour of the warehouse where they received orders, put the parts with the machines, and ship off their products. A couple of things I found interesting about the facilities were one they had motion-sensor florescent lights installed to preserve energy. Another interesting thing about the facilities was that they have vendors from almost every company that creates storage; companies such as Seagate, Hitachi and Western Digital.. During the tour our guide was explaining to us how all of the boards they create go through many tests. The first test that all boards go through were chambers.


After the tour of the warehouse they Vice President of the company Bob Hawkins came to speak to us about the company more. Come to find out that the vice president of this storage solutions company had a degree in political science. He was very informing though and something he piointed out to the group was that the amount of digital data is doubling every two years. He also felt that North Carolina brings in a lot of data centers because the cost of power is reasonable.

Here are two of the few pictures they allowed me to take at the Center of Excellence.

Open Source Licensing

Open Source licensing involves obtaining a copyright license for computer software that makes the source code available for everyone to use. Without open source licensing developers of computer software and applications can not legally develop there product.

An open source license is a combination of redistribution policies agreed on by a group of developers before they contribute the source code to a common project.

What exactly are you copyrighting?

The Source code. The source code is created by one or more authors and is automatically registered to copy right once gone through process. The author or authors of the code can then decide if they want to distribute the code or not. In return the recipients of the code can not do anything beside utilize it.

Another type of source code is the GPL which is the General Public License. GPL creates a copyright for the  purpose of collaborating on developing software. When an author releases a product under a GPL they are granting its users the right to use the code anywhere and in any situation, the right to redistribute the code to anyone as long as the source code is included and the GPL is still present. Also the users have the right to create a additional work of the code and redistribute it as long as the requirements of the second right are met.




OpenLogic asked mobile app developers: "Is complying with Open Source Licenses a challenge?"


67% said yes
21% said no


Source:

•  OpenACS
• OpenLogic 

Cloud Storage and Security.

Cloud Storage

What?

Also known as utility computing. Its the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, where shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network.

It is a convergence of three major trends. 1. Virtualization 2. Utility Computing 3. Software as a service.

Who?

Everyone uses it. Anyone from a small business to a major companies.

 Why?

People use cloud computing for better communication. Using computing features such as email and video conferencing. Also for file sharing and back up which can be expensive to invest in one's own.

How?

Information and software applications stored and ran in data centers all across the world over a fast connection.

       Pros and Cons

    Don’t have to worry about machines running the applications. Some companies had complex requirements. 

    Didn’t approve of data outside of firewall.

    Virtualization

    Applications and infrastructure to became independent. Allows servers to be easily shared by many applications

a  and applications can run anywhere as long as the application is virtualized. Virtualizing applications include

n  packaging the application with everything it needs to run (operating system, middleware, and databases). The

    engine that powers cloud computing is virtualization.

    Cloud turns into a “pay as you go” computing service

Sources:
•Diagram

A day without internet access

Today TECHmo Super Bowl is publishing its thoughts on how it survived a day with no internet service. Starting on Saturday at 11:00 pm until 11:00 pm Sunday night we went without use of internet access including cell phones. The experience was a interesting one if I must say so myself. At first I debated on whether or not it would be a good idea. Then I came to the conclusion that if i did it on Sunday it should not be a large set back. The hardest part about not being able to use the internet was keeping myself busy doing something else. I opened up a book for a part of the day, reading Russel Simmons book Do You. Not to long after that I decided to get on Call of Duty (no multiplayer). Other than those two things I relaxed in the apartment watching Sunday night football. Participating in this exercise has caused me to realize that life is a lot more difficult without internet access than it was a decade ago. I nearly caught myself multiple times attempting to use the internet. It would have been a quick 30 second search on google. In today's world we want information instantly. It shows how fast paced we live. Not being able to use the internet allowed me to understand that we should slow down and live our life in its entirety rather than trying to rush through it.