Google one of the fastest growing companies with an outstanding
contribution to the internet world has celebrated its 13th Birthday on
September 27th 2011.
It all started in 1995, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin Stanford computer
science grad students began collaborating on a search engine called
BackRub. In 1997 they thought BackRub needs a new name. After a
brainstorming discussion they decide to go for Google a Mathematical term
“Googol” which means a numeral, 1 followed by 100 zeros or 10 to the power
of hundred. The name reflects Google’s mission: “To organise the world’s
information and make it universally accessible and useful". In 1998,
August, Andy Bechtolsheim co-founder of Sun writes a check for $100,000 for
Google Inc. In September the same year Google sets up a workspace in Susan
Wojcicki‘s garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park. On September 4th
Google files an incorporation in Califonia, shortly after which Larry Page
and Sergey Brin open a bank account in their newly established companies
name and deposit Andy Bechtolsheim‘s check. They hire Craig Silverstein as
their first employee; who was a fellow computer science graduate student at
Stanford.
Since it's start Google has been coming up with continuous innovations, making a conspicuous approach in the internet world that has
been advancing with rocket speed. The birthday date has been a topic of
debate as Google had filed incorporation on 4th September 1998, was
established on 7th September 1998 and Google.com domain was registered on
15th September. The dates did change a couple of times. As for Doodles, the
special logos have been around since Aug. 30, 1998. The first Doodle was
created when Page and Sergey Brin attended the Burning Man festival. The
first Google Doodle celebrating their birthday appeared on Sept. 27, 2002,
for their fourth birthday. Every year since then Google has been coming
with birthday-themed Google Doodles on 27th September as a remark of their
celebrations.

Whether to conquer
Or to redeem a suffering Younker
May be to condemn
Or could be to commence
A thought blossoms in ones heart
Sown deep within is the root for all start

Whether to construct or to destruct
Or to design a code of conduct
May be for progress
Or could be to regress
A thought blossoms in ones heart
Sown deep within is the root for all start

Whether to live a humble dream
Or to be among the Supreme’s
May be for peace
Or could be to cease
A thought blossoms in ones heart
Sown deep within is the root for all start

Whether to live in harmony
Or to put life in misery
May be to support
Or could be to oppose
A thought blossoms in ones heart
Sown deep within is the root for all start

Whether it is for hatred or love
Or a devotee of God above
May be a fanatic fight for cause
Or could be an atrocious attack over loss
A thought blossoms in ones heart
Sown deep within is the root for all start

Whether an apostle of revolution
Or a war by theoretical fusion
May be a scientific invention
Or could be a political convention
A thought blossoms in ones heart
Sown deep within is the root for all start

Most applications today go for Load Balancing Methodology to distribute
work across different servers, and to enhance continuity of business. Going
for a load balancing methodology increases system reliability by providing
redundancy. A load balancer is a software program that is listening on the
port and forwards the request to the server which responds to the load
balancer.  Mechanisms are available to forward request to backup servers in
cases of failure of the main server. There are a variety of scheduling
algorithms in place for distributing the work among different servers.


The diagram explains how a simple load balancing architecture looks like
and works.
The request from the client is forwarded to either of Server 1 or Server 2
whichever is relatively free. The decision is made by the load balancer
based on the algorithm. The algorithm could be as simple as random choice,
round robin or sophisticated based on the resource utilization and
performance. Suppose Server 1
fails, then there is a process set up to handle such situations “ON FAILURE
SWITCHOVER TO BACKUP SERVER”. The switchover happens automatically in most
times; In case it fails then the administrators do a manual switchover. The
Backup server acts as the main server and responds to the requests till the
main server is completely restored. This ensures continuity of business.
The failure of one of the servers is not a hindrance to progress or
production. A load balancing architecture could include more than 2 servers
as well based on business need.

An ERP is a combination of Business Management and Technology. The
functionality of different systems is integrated to form an ERP where the
individual applications share information and assist with the core
functionality of an enterprise as a whole. They put across the information
depicting the key performance index (KPI) of an organization. They help in
planning, design and decision making. The individual system could be
in-house built or third party supplier systems enabling sharing of required
data between the organization, vendors, customers and the suppliers.
Each organization has its own challenges to meet the growing customer
demands, market competitors and to deliver on time. On time delivery can be
achieved only if there is a proper plan in place. For example let us
consider a food industry; nobody buys the ingredients for the product years
in advance. They would definitely get wasted. At the same time they need to
anticipate the demand for the product for the coming cycle and should have
a margin to expand their sales. So for a food industry the average time
required to dispose an order could be one week, one month etc based on the
product. Now let’s consider a software product. I wonder where we would
have landed if we could develop new products over a week. Definitely the
turnaround time here is more and the plan is for a longer period. Likewise
they are several other factors that have to be taken into consideration; a
product may experience high sales during summer and low during winter,
there could be an internal dependency (Sales of one product, could have an
impact on the other) etc. An ERP model is a blending of Business logic's
with technology by integrating systems that share data for analysis to
arrive at appropriate conclusions. There may not be an exact match in the
predictions however a well implemented ERP gives the best fit to growing
business needs and reduce wastage.

ERP technology is divided into the below modules based on the business
purpose they serve
  FRM – Financial Resource Management
  MRP – Manufacturing Resource Planning
  CRM – Customer Relationship Management
  HRM – Human Resource Management
  SCM – Supply Chain Management

The diagram shows a rough sketch of MRP module as I have been considering
product manufacturing as an example in my Blog.
The referential system here holds the basic information (Product Names,
Suppliers, and their Contact Information etc) All other systems use this as
a base for fetching the basic information.  The planner holds the bill of
material or the recipe to build a product. The information provided by the
planner is substituted by the actual values when a customer places an
order, the forecast systems help to predict the upcoming sales/market
conditions; there are systems through which the third party suppliers and
vendors access information, place orders, assist with sales, distribution
and marketing. The model also includes systems which generate invoices,
send bills to customers and for making payments. The other modules (FRM,
SCM, CRM, HRM) also hold an integrated group of systems which assist with
the proper functioning of an enterprise.

Microsoft with their slogan “Be what’s next” is moving business to the
cloud with their new release of Office 365 on June 28th 2011. Recently this
is been a topic that is highly discussed, so thought why not take some time
out for it. Cloud computing considers service as a whole than as a product.
Shared resources, software’s and information are provided as a single
utility in a Cloud.  Office 365 is an enhancement over ‘Business
Productivity Suite (BPOS)’ which had been offering software as a service on
branded Microsoft applications. According to the reviews, this new cloud is
expected to greatly reduce the cost of IT with the easy to administer
features. A 30 day trail version is available for use which would assist in
arriving at a decision if you are looking for the actual results.

Office 365 is a collaboration of tools that rightly fits in any office
needs, needless to mention if it’s a small business or a professional or a
big multinational firm. Microsoft has come up with specific pricing to
address small, mid-sized and large firms with monthly subscription plans.

Office 365 includes
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Exchange Online
Microsoft SharePoint Online
Microsoft Lync Online
Giving a new opportunity to work and share ideas. Active Directory
Federation Services 2.0 with single sign-on is a new addition with Office
365. With Office 365 you can do anything from instant messaging, video
conferencing, file/work sharing, commenting, reviewing, email migrations,
website developments etc.  It addresses the security features and provides
hierarchical access control and restrictions to sensitive data.

Google Docs is also a similar product to Office 365 however Office 365 is
more in sync with the desktop clients and has better functionality. Google
Docs holds an edge in terms of interoperability. I am not going to get
deeper with the comparisons. Opting for a cloud provides a strategic
approach to cut down maintenance cost.

Onam is a harvest festival of Kerala, which falls in the first month of the
Malayalam calender Chingam(August -September). This festival depicts the
culture and tradition of Kerala. The story goes this way – There was a
Demon King Mahabali who ruled the world, during his reign Kerala witnessed
the Golden era. There was prosperity and happiness at every home. Lord
Indra became jealous of Mahabali as he held a high respect in the hearts of the
people. So Mahavishnu takes the form of Vamana, tricks him by asking for
three feet of land and sends him to Pathalam. To this day it is believed
that Mahabali visits every home on Onam to see his people and would return
happily only when there is joy, prosperity and celebrations.

In Kerala, the festival is celebrated for 10 days. Boat race, pookollams,
and several other traditional games brings the festive spirit in air. Being
bought up outside Kerala, I don't remember the celebrations there, or was
to young to have them registered in my memory. All thanks to my mother for
sharing her memories and the story behind Onam.

We do celebrate it here with a few malayalee families nearby, we brighten up the festival mood with Onapookkalams and gather for
an Onasadya on Thiruvonam (2nd day) . The specialty of Onasadya is, its served on banana leaves and
includes a number of dishes- papadam, sambhar, parippu curry, aviyal,
thoran (beans, cabbage), vallarika, ginger/mango pickles, curd, payasam,
banana chips, sarkarapurati are among the famous. It's an epitome to
celebrate Onam with a lunch served on banana leaf, no matter how rich one
is.  There's a lot of effort that goes into the
preparation of this simple, vegetarian, traditional meal.  It's time for me
to take a break, Onam is up in air. :):)

Onasamsakal to one and all.

Today with business continuity and customer focus as primary goals, the
need to identify and fix problems before a service interruption occurs has
increased. Manual checks are tedious, as most of your time goes with
identifying the issue, then concentrating on fixing.  We have several
monitoring tools in place which help us identify where a problem has
exactly occurred. They warn about data overflows, slowness, high
utilization etc in advance so that the engineers can fix it, lest there is
a business impact.