This Week I Learned - Week #15 2021

 This Week I Learned - 

* One view to the question "Has the cloud datacenter (Azure) achieved a tier 3 (or higher) classification?" - From a Microsoft Q&A thread (paraphrased) - There is no official tier certification for Microsoft Azure Datacenter. Uptime which is the institute that manages Tiers certification doesn't have Microsoft listed in their certified Tier Database. That's why there is no official certification. What does it mean? This means that MS Datacenters are good, we all know but are not certified. Another view - "From generation 1 the datacenters have been designed to meet the customer SLAs and service needs of 99,999%. Given that a tier 4 datacenter is designed towards a customer SLA and service need of 99,995%, we can state that an Azure Datacenter exceeds the expectations of a tier 4 datacenter." 

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database Migration (DMS) is a fully-managed service that provides a high performing, self-service experience for migrating databases to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). It provides logical online and offline migration for enterprise-level database migration with minimal downtime. The managed cloud service will validate your environment and perform a migration while your database and applications are online. While the database is migrated, all transactions are captured and replicated to the target using the highly performant and reliable Oracle GoldenGate replication solution. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database Migration is free to use for the first 6 months. 

Taking multi-cloud even further, Google announced Anthos on bare metal, so customers could have high performance computing with minimal latency in even remote locations. With BigQuery Omni, an enterprise can seamlessly connect directly to their data across Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and (soon) Microsoft Azure, managing large-scale data analysis fast, without having to move or copy data sets, on a single user interface. Looker is a multi-cloud data analysis platform that supports multiple data sources and deployment methods.

VMware's CloudHealth is named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Cost Management and Optimization, Q4 2020 report, with the highest score in every category among the eight evaluated vendors.

* Nutanix founders launched the company at VMWorld 2012 and went on to win the VMWorld Best of Show award in 2012 and 2013. Today Nutanix & VMware are rivals in key markets, including hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), virtualization, IT automation, hybrid cloud management, software-defined file storage, network-based microsegmentation.

* ...enterprises want to have the same substrate for compute, storage, and networking on premises and in the cloud, to the greatest extent possible, so they can avoid vendor lock in. And they don’t want to dumb it down. This is why VMware and Nutanix gave up and just did deals with AWS for cloudy infrastructure, and it is also why Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all created private versions of their public cloud infrastructure (to varying degrees) with Outposts, Anthos, and Azure Stack, respectively.

What is Delta lake?

* First revealed in 2019, the IBM Cloud for Financial Services was designed in collaboration with Bank of America.  With the general availability of IBM Cloud for Financial Services, the financial services industry, including technology partners, can now build applications with Red Hat OpenShift, migrate virtual machine workloads, and establish compliance profiles across their workloads– to help support their continuous compliance needs. IBM Cloud for Financial Services is built on IBM Cloud, which uses Red Hat OpenShift as its primary Kubernetes environment to manage containerized software across the enterprise, and includes more than 200 API driven, cloud native PaaS services 

* Jeff Bezos published a corporate edict around 2002 mandating that from that point forward, all product teams were required to expose their data and functionality through APIs. Not only that, he insisted that teams were only allowed to communicate with each other through these APIs.

* Upon a request from Telangana police, Google has removed as many as 290 loan shark apps from its Play Store that are playing havoc with the lives of innocent borrowers. - ToI

SWAYAM is an Indian Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform initiated by Government of India. Courses delivered through SWAYAM are available free of cost to the learners, however learners wanting a SWAYAM certificate should register for the final proctored exams that come at a fee and attend in-person at designated centres on specified dates. The Union government has allocated more than ₹320 crore for creation of such courses in the last couple of years and also incurred other expenditure, including infrastructure cost, according to official data.

* NPTEL is an acronym for National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning which is an initiative by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for creating course contents in engineering and science. NPTEL provides E-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Science and Humanities streams.

* 2001-03 was the era of some #Epicfail acquisitions. AOL-TimeWarner ($54bn writedown), HP-Compaq($12bn writedown). And in the midst of it, happened L&T Cement/Ultratech, the stuff you only read in textbooks & fairytales, where everyone got to make money. 

* James Gosling is a Canadian computer scientist best known for inventing the Java programming language and virtual machines. James Gosling has been recognized for his contributions with Canada's most honored prize for civilians, the Officer of the Canadian Medal.

* Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Frances H. Arnold. In 1993, she conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes, which are proteins that catalyse chemical reactions. Since then, she has refined the methods that are now routinely used to develop new catalysts. The uses of Frances Arnold’s enzymes include more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemical substances, such as pharmaceuticals, and the production of renewable fuels for a greener transport sector.

* Rabindranath Tagore began painting in his sixties

* Lucid dreams—in which sleepers are aware they are dreaming—seem to be associated with only one kind of sleep, known as "rapid eye movement" (REM) sleep. During REM sleep, brain activity looks similar to that seen during waking hours. Past research has shown that it is possible for people to be influenced by events taking place in the outside world during REM sleep. 

* Sputnik V, a two dose vaccine administered 21 days apart, is developed by Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow. It is currently being used in 60 countries. Sputnik V vaccine uses two different viruses that cause the common cold (adenovirus) in humans. The adenoviruses are weakened so they cannot replicate in humans and cannot cause disease. Sputnik uses a different vector for each of the two shots in a course of vaccination. This provides immunity with a longer duration than vaccines using the same delivery mechanism for both shots. Sputnik V has an efficacy of 91.6% and provides full protection against severe cases of Covid-19. Sputnik V is to be stored at -18°C in its liquid form. However, in its freeze-dried form, it can be stored at 2-8°C, in a conventional refrigerator without any need to invest in additional cold-chain infrastructure.

Walk, cycle or run when possible to reduce the carbon footprint of travel – this comes with many other benefits such as lower local air pollution and better health

* EPF account is eligible for tax-free interest accumulations only when it is operational.  If EPF contribution is not made in EPF account for three years and during this period if the EPF withdrawal is also not claimed, then the EPF account will continue to earn EPF interest but the EPF account will become inoperative.

* Just as the pyramids of Egypt were built in alignment with celestial bodies, some famous monuments in Hyderabad also align with certain heavenly bodies according to heritage expert Mohammad Habib, a member of the Paigah family (the second most powerful family after the Nizam’s in the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad). The Qutb Shahis had built monuments in alignment with the constellations, particularly those related to their birth star or the name of their tribe. The Qutb Shahis were of Persian descent, but in early Arabia, Orion was called ‘Al Jauzah’, a term that was used for black sheep with a white spot in the middle of its body. three iconic structures of Hyderabad — Jama Masjid, Charminar and Mecca Masjid — are in direct correlation with the three stars from east to west — Alnitak (Zeta Orionis), Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis) and Mintaka (Delta Orionis) — also known as ‘The Three Kings’ that traditionally make up the ‘Belt of Orion’. The alignment of the stars in the heaven are similar to the alignment of monuments in Hyderabad. Paigah Amir Nawab Sir Viqar-ul-Umrah Bahadur was a prolific builder who wanted his palaces to be architectural masterpieces reflecting the grandeur of his vision. He hired the two Italian architects, Oselio Bronowic and Misowalic, to build Falaknuma Palace in the shape of a scorpion, representing this celestial legend on earth. The Paigahs built Falaknama in the shape of Scorpius constellation to complete the celestial alignment of ancient structures in the Old City - ToI

* The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) covered only 173 sq. km. In 2007, together with MCH and 12 other municipalities in Ranga Reddy and Medak districts, covering an area of 626 sq. Kms, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation or GHMC was formed. GHMC is divided into five zones (south, east, north, west, and central), 18 circles and 150 wards. GHMC is the civic body that provides basic amenities while Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) was formed in 2008 to be the authority for planning and development of metropolitan areaHMDA covers an area of 7,100 sq. kms under its jurisdiction. It is the 2nd largest urban development area in India after Bengaluru.

* Al Jaffee who turned 100 this year, predicted future inventions like rotary parking garage, predictive text, anti-graffiti coating, multi-blade razor, poo collector, baby bubble protector, years & decades before they became reality.

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