GMO Cloud

PassportScan Ltd: Cloud Computing Enhances Innovation

PassportScan Ltd is a UK-based company that provides hotel applications and related solutions. It recently adopted cloud computing to eliminate on-site IT structures and improve service quality.

PassportScan Ltd’s operational effectiveness increased from moving all operational activities to the cloud. The company is now able to attend to client requirements more quickly and precisely. Hotels require swift data management as guest check-in and check-out information must be properly and speedily processed. PassportScan achieved all this.

These improved services help the company’s clients to monitor the rate of room occupancy in real-time. Large hotels especially need management solutions or applications which snow, at each particular moment, the room occupancy rate. With cloud computing, PassportScan is able to provide this unique service.

PassportScan also used cloud computing to cut recurrent expenditures: physical IT structure, technical support and programming activities. The savings can be re-directed to other business operations.

With the help of cloud computing, PassportScan UK is able to make higher revenue projections for the future. Apart from saving on recurrent expenses, the company is able to innovate, expand and diversify into other business interests through more flexible, scalable and efficient cloud technology.

PassportScan is now developing new business opportunities thanks to the cloud. Previously, many of PassportScan’s clients were large hotels. However, the scalability and flexibility features afforded by cloud computing allow the Company to take on small and medium-sized hotel clients in greater number.

Before, many small and medium-sized hotels did not possess solutions for monitoring, in real-time, the rate of check-in and check-out of guests.

PassportScan demonstrates, indisputably, that cloud computing works in every area of human endeavor, including travels and transportation. As shown in this case, cloud technology not only increases overall performance of a business, but also enhances innovations instrumental in obtaining greater revenue.

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About the Guest Author:

Jerry Olasakinju, a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree holder, is a passionate researcher and writer whose interest in everything computing is unparalleled. He blogs about his literary works at http://jerryolasakinju.blogspot.jp/

The Future of Japan’s Mainstream Gaming Companies

The gaming market in Japan, particularly social gaming, is especially lucrative. However, the peculiarities that make this market attractive also make it harder to predict.

An overview of the actual state of gaming in Japan:

Japan has a social networking culture that is unique to its own culture. Both real and virtual identity social networks have gained prominence as ways to spread news, games and interaction. Japan’s social networking structure is intriguingly dominated by three very large domestic networks, each with its own particular market and clearly-delineated goal. These are:

1. Mobage - Mostly about mobile social gaming and its users take on virtual identities to access content.

 

2. Mixi - The largest real identity social network in Japan. About 80% of Mixi users are members. Its closest Western equivalent is Facebook, which has recently overtaken Mixi in the Japanese market.

 

3. GREE - Like Mobage, GREE is also focused on mobile social games and allows users to take on virtual identities

 

There are some aspects of the Japanese social gaming industry today that sound completely alien to outsiders. For example, the industry structure is quite fragmented, including hundreds of providers of social apps. Two companies provide both social games and platforms, DeNA and GREE. Imagine a Western company that combined Facebook and Zynga (which has since closed its offices in Japan).

These companies’ stocks have a bright future as they hold something of a monopoly over local social gaming, with the only successful foreign gaming company in Japan being Reekoo.

Possible threats on the horizon

There are, however, several potential threats to the big players. The most widely publicized is the increasing government regulation of social gaming. In recent years, attention has been cast on the gambling-like aspects of Japanese social gaming. Other problems include games financially abusing the addictions of users. Known as kompu gacha, these practices involved using micro transactions to milk consumers out of their money.

The rise of Western social media companies in Japan is also a threat. While Twitter gained almost immediate acceptance in Japan, Facebook was an underdog for several years. However, it is booming now and experts predict that it’s market share will continue to rise. Successful incursions by other international companies may finally open up the Japanese social gaming market. For now, though, these threats are not particularly strong as GREE and DeNA have adeptly adapted to the fluctuating demands of their Japanese customers.

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About the Guest Author:

Nida Rasheed is a freelance writer and owner of an outsourcing company, Nida often finds herself wanting to write about the subjects that are closest to her heart. She lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be found on Twitter @nidarasheed.

Improving Data Center Competitiveness – Successful Solutions

The Green Grid (TGG) ( www.thegreengrid.org  ) is a nonprofit consortium of industries with more than 175 member companies around the world. TGG is fast becoming a global authority on data centers and recently published a case study of energy efficiency in data centers in Japan. The findings are summarized here.

In one case, a company decided reduce total data center energy consumption by 50% over five years by following a three-pronged approach:

 
• Visualization – collection of multidimensional data about the data center itself: temperature, humidity, energy utilization, abnormalities and excessive variations.

 

• Analysis – analysis of root-cause inefficiencies uncovered an airflow shortage under the floor that was creating local hot spots, leading to imbalances between hot and cold air.

 

• Optimization – the under-floor cable layout was improved and other changes were made to improve the air flow.

 
The result of the optimization was that rack temperature was reduced by 2 degrees. Two air conditioners were found to be surplus and removed. Further improvements have been made by replacing old air conditioners with more efficient ones.

Another company found that awareness of power consumption was itself a catalyst for continuous improvement. The company examined in detail the energy efficiency in each data center, interviewing operations staff and management to build standard data collection methods.

Results of the initial study showed temporary increases in use of captive power during power outages, and increase in air conditioning load during installation of new equipment. Having seen the savings accrue from simple consumption awareness, the company is now expanding its reporting, automating reporting functions, and increasing frequency of reports to aid immediate corrective action.

Another company built a data center in Kyushu in 2008, adopting a hot aisle containment design. The efficiency of this design improves with the power density level. As the data center gets more load, the efficacy of hot air isolation improves. The floor was raised to one meters in height – rare for Japanese companies. Cabling under the floor was routed so as not to impede air flow. The speed of intake fans was adjusted based on the temperature inside, further reducing power consumption. Hot air thrown out by the exhaust system is then used to heat up a large green house that grows numerous exotic fruits!

This company now uses external air for 10% of its data center cooling needs, thus reducing total consumption by 40%. It has generally been found that energy efficiency is higher in containerized data centers as they are erected faster and have lower operating costs. Japan did not use containerized data centers earlier because of building standard laws and fire laws, but these have since changed.

Experience shows that data center efficiency (read: significant cost reduction) is best ensured by a synchronized approach incorporating both IT and facility equipment. Seasonal variations must also be taken into account and companies now routinely prepare different operating modes accordingly.

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About the Guest Author:

Sanjay Srivastava has been active in computing infrastructure and has participated in major projects on cloud computing, networking, VoIP and in creation of applications running over distributed databases. Due to a military background, his focus has always been on stability and availability of infrastructure. Sanjay was the Director of Information Technology in a major enterprise and managed the transition from legacy software to fully networked operations using private cloud infrastructure. He now writes extensively on cloud computing and networking and is about to move to his farm in Central India where he plans to use cloud computing and modern technology to improve the lives of rural folk in India.

Changing Enterprise Perceptions Towards Cloud Computing and Outsourcing

Soaring costs of business operations, recession, a volatile dollar. All are causing companies to scour far and wide when cutting down on IT expenses. Outsourcing is the most popular strategy to counter rising operational costs, so says a. recent study by Savvis. Enterprises are embracing cultural shifts in outsourcing by focusing more on breakthrough technologies such as cloud.

According to the survey, nearly 60 percent of managers favor outsourcing critical business procedures to cloud computing-type models in search of long-term cost reductions. Since cloud-based services eliminate the need for expensive infrastructure in-house, organisations can reduce IT budgets considerably and reduce other associated costs such as power consumption and maintenance.

Nearly 60% of respondents believed that in-house infrastructure results in wastage of resources. Rather than focusing on infrastructure, IT companies are turning to key organizational prerequisites such as competitive agility, strong collaboration and increased productivity as well as efficiency of their operational models. Industry leaders believe that outsourcing combined with technologies such as cloud computing are the stepping stones to such success.

The Software as a Service model (SaaS) is a growing technological strategy that companies undertake to make huge savings on utility procedures carried out via proprietary software. This allows businesses to leverage the benefit of using software services without having to buy or install them. The costs are much lower than a buy-and-operate model.

On a similar note, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) models are also gaining attention. Here companies need not spend on exorbitant hardware storage for processing information, instead using the service via a shared interface between hardware vendor and business process. Remote access of complex hardware at lower cost comes courtesy of cloud computing.

Global organisations which currently outsource 25 percent of IT infrastructure will ramp up to over 40 percent. More than 50 percent of surveyed organisations admit that they have wasted money on buying infrastructure that could have easily been rented via a cloud service. However 56 percent of organizations (78 percent of Japanese organizations) are still satisfied with their in-house infrastructure management and are yet to shift to a cloud-based paradigm.

Surprisingly, 42 percent of organizations avoid outsourcing, citing lack of contractual obligation from outsourcing partners. However, in a sign of growing acceptance of the cloud, 85 percent are reportedly using some form of private or public cloud services for storage, Big Data and analytics.

Organizations are continually embracing new initiatives to ensure that outsourcing of managed services can bear riper fruit. The above survey shows that business enterprises are changing their focus from saving on IT budgets to enhancing core competencies. An avalanche of such strategic decisions awaits in the near future, with the cloud expected to benefit heavily.

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About the Guest Author:

Mandira Srivastava is a fulltime freelance writer who specializes in technology, health and fitness, politics, and financial writing. Equipped with degree of mass communication and having worked for both private and corporate clients, I have experience meeting a wide range of writing requirements and styles.

Why Supply Chain Management Should be Integrated With Cloud Computing

Today our business environments are evolving as never before. Rapid implementation of technology into all aspects of business is making service availability and product delivery nigh-instantaneous. Growing competition is forcing enterprises to reduce prices, thereby necessitating searches for operational cost savings. New technology is among the top choices for modern enterprises seeking to streamline, especially for automating and streamlining supply chain operations.

Cloud computing has also made its way into the Supply Chain Management strategy of contemporary manufacturing businesses, offering radical change for both technological deployment and the creation and storage of data.

Almost every major manufacturing company is following  some form of supply-chain management practice. Components are sourced from different partners who may be distributed across the planet. So what difference will cloud computing make in the SCM process for a business?

For any manufacturing business, a mere Intra-Organisational collaboration platform is insufficient. Inter-Organisational collaboration platforms are a must. Their business partners must be constantly available via a communication platform that eliminates all technical barriers and provides a convenient interface for exchange of information. Cue cloud computing.

Common Communication platform:

Suppliers or partners of a firm can be located in different cities, states or countries. To collaborate effectively, they need uninterrupted communication with the parent firm. Yet there is a big problem: each supplier follows a different operational standard with their own tools and communication interfaces. Cloud computing therefore allows these companies to follow a common business standard or SCM protocol. It can provide a common communication interface for the parent firm which is accessible by any supplier at any place and at any time.

The Security Angle:

Exchanges of goods and services between companies and suppliers involve a great deal of financial and trustworthy commitments. Vital information should never fall into the wrong hands. Cloud computing allows the communication interface to be secured with firewalls, intrusion alarms, data security encryption techniques and much more. It provides a secure gateway for the smooth flow of critical data.

Software as a Service option:

Cloud computing allows business enterprises to use a Software as a Service (SaaS) model wherein they do not have to physically install hardware or deploy any software to help them manage their SCM models. Monitoring and tracking SCM strategies involves expensive utility tools which also require specialized personnel to handle installation and operation.

No Need of Physical Presence:

Since cloud computing brings the parent company and its suppliers into a single communication framework, it reduces the need for executives to visit the supplier location to monitor performance and quality. Cloud computing can thus streamline information delivery across various business channels by ensuring strict compliance with a common business language… and eliminating fatal communication gaps.

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Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Mandira Srivastava is a fulltime freelance writer who specializes in technology, health and fitness, politics, and financial writing. Equipped with degree of mass communication and having worked for both private and corporate clients, I have experience meeting a wide range of writing requirements and styles.