The Basic Fundamental of Data Deduplication

If you work on a computer, at some point you've had a moment of panic. Did I save that last file before I logged off? Most of us have had at least one experience in the past when we discovered to our horror that we lost an hour’s worth of work because we forgot to save changes to a document, or worse, spent an entire morning seeking a file that had disappeared completely. Thankfully, most computer programs now back up your work at timed intervals – you never need to suffer data loss anxiety again.

But that security comes at a price. Your computer or network are backing up and storing vast amounts of data multiple times each day but a large amount of the data being backed up at any time is largely identical to that saved during the prior backup and the one before. Imagine writing a lengthy report and going to the copier to duplicate it every time you make the slightest change. You’d soon be overwhelmed by a tidal wave of paper. This buildup of redundant information is happening in your office every day, eating into your storage and slowing down data transfer across your network. But don’t worry – there’s a solution for this dilemma as well, one you’re probably already using. It’s called data deduplication.

It works like this. Data deduplication programs analyze and compare data and when they come across a section of redundant data, instead of copying each redundant chunk they make only one copy and replace the other occurrences of the chunk with a reference point, essentially indexing a file so that it file retrieves the data identical to the single copy of the data saved. The consequent reduction in file size allows you store data more efficiently. It also makes for speedier file transfers in your network secondary to requiring less bandwidth. This can come into play particularly during disaster recovery, when you want to restore backed-up files quickly and return to normal operations as soon as possible.

There are three options for employing a data deduplication system for your office or network – hardware, software or a combination of both. The hardware option, whether a virtual tape library or NAS (network-attached storage) is a file server usually manufactured for the specific purpose of data storage. Its advantages include generally better compression than software deduplication and a certain amount of user-friendliness – the hardware you purchase, once installed, will handle backup functions automatically.

The main advantage of a software solution for data deduplication is the cost. Deduplication hardware for a small business or a sole proprietor is likely to be cost-prohibitive.

It’s also possible to use a hybrid of both methods. For example, if you have a central office and several branches, it might be worthwhile to consider a hardware solution for the overall backup needs of your company and software for the individual data of each branch that can then be sent across a WAN (wide-area network) to the central storage facility.

How do you choose which solution is right for your company? As with most things, it’ll depend on your specific data needs, your budget, and whether or not it’ll require you to modify your existing storage hardware. Of course, data deduplication may not be right for everyone – a small businessman may be able to back up data on a single flash drive. And if the IT department of your company consists of a single PC, most computers are now sold with a built-in system restore capacity to help you return to functioning in the event of a crash or other data disaster.

Peter Jonathan Wilcheck

Image is property of Microsoft Corporation.

Five Focused Sales Tactics for Selling to the US Government - A Proven Best Practice Approach.

Federal agencies have needs for goods and services which to a large extent are met by the private sector. The contracts are out there. But how to get them?

Department Contract Management Agency - Just one of many
Government agencies that you can obtain a bidding agreement with.

Here are a few strategies to improve your chances. Be patient. If the mills of God grind slow, according to Longfellow, then the United States government more so. You will encounter many hurdles along the way, but they can all be cleared with patience.

First, you will have to register with the System for Award Management (SAM). Their Guide to Codes will help you negotiate the specific cont
racting practices of each federal agency.

Do your homework. Check out the FedBizOpps (FBO) website. Here you will find out how to register as a buyer or a vendor, how to receive a user’s manual for negotiation the General Services Administration procurement process, and how to receive an invitation permitting you to make an offer on a contract.

The process of receiving a GSA number can take many months, so again, be patient. The FBO site will also tell you which jobs require GSA numbers.

 Many jobs can be bid on without them. Pay attention to detail. Become familiar with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) at www.acquisition.gov/far.

There you’ll find downloadable versions of the regulations involving procurement as well as search tools and FAQs. Keep in mind, regulations are passed by Congress and thus change on a regular basis.

The FAR website will help you stay up-to-date. Work smarter, not harder. Use all of the tools at your command to market to specific agencies and network via public events sponsored by agencies, industry trade shows, and through personal contacts whenever possible.

 Following these practices will help you navigate the maze of governmental red tape and help you close the deal with Uncle Sam.

Posted by:
Peter Jonathan Wilcheck
Commercial, Enterprise and Government Blog Contributor

Voice in the cloud

There is no doubt unified communications facilitates a more integrated form of communications encompassing various components of communication. Jive communications created a product that deserves recognition. The company itself is privately owned and their product is the Cloud voice. Basically, this product is targeted at enterprises or organizations aimed at unifying their communication processes lowering costs incurred in communications expenses. The product can be described as organizations’ unified communications solutions in the cloud. Cloud voice is a product that offers affordability and great features. 

Cost effective 
On matters pertaining to costs Cloud voice charges are based on the number of users therefore giving the organization an opportunity to scale their systems up and down with a billing format that changes in real time. The cloud voice initial set up will be lowered especially if you have an already established network system in place. The systems works with any services provider’s equipment as long as it’s compatible with the cloud voice. The Voice in the cloud systems enhances the use of networks ensuring that both data and voice communication are carried through a single network freeing the excess lines for backup or eliminated entirely.

Great reliability 
Typically, traditional communications solutions can be regarded as the predecessors of cloud voice solutions and notable improvements are best expressed in reliability. For example, the infrastructure in cloud voice is professionally managed by service providers instead of on site. Due to the hosting of data on voice in the cloud in various remote locations all over the world, there is no interruptions in case of emergencies. In addition the disaster management is reliable since the cloud voice solutions can be re-routed to other wireless connections such as another company, location, and home phone or a third party phone receiver. 

Enhanced productivity
The unified communications features offer enhanced productivity. The user can customize the system to fit into the organization specifications in any location with access to the internet. Some of these customized features include the voicemail to email and fax to email, dial-in conferencing, visual plan editor, and auto-attendant and find me-follow me. All these features are built on making voice cloud communications more effective. Furthermore, enhancing these features does not require a lot of training and it can be achieved within a short time. 

Simplicity 
The modifications of settings, addition of users or making any changes have been made easier with the voice in the cloud. The changes can be made through a mobile device or point and click interface. It can be easily accessed through mobile devices on applications created to make desktops phone features available on the phone. In case of an upgrade, the organization can have a faster and reliable upgrade. The upgrades are conducted by the services providers in a timely fashion. The cloud voice solutions eliminate boundaries that could have been created by telephone lines since access can be made on any location due to the remote settings of the cloud solutions. 
The virtual voice solutions offer an all inclusive pricing that reduces the cost of implementations which is incurred especially in the traditional means of communication such as the telephone. 

Conclusion
Notably, cloud voice is a great alternative form of communications especially with its unified communications offering and lower pricing. In addition, it is cheap and a reason it is emerging as one of the most favored unified communication service providers.

Stay tuned for more Unified Communication articles and how ALTTRIX Cloud serve you better with email, voice, security, storage, back up, office applications, fax and much more. 

How Tablets Are Influencing Healthcare!

Technology has improved the life of people drastically. Initially the new technology was limited to certain sectors of work but today the new technology has made its way into hospitals thus changing the entire method of treating a patient.

Tablet computers have started overturning the concept of how to go about using technology to give better and better results in all the fields of health investigations. Today most of the doctors make use of tablet computers and gone are the days when a doctor was found to be just carrying his or her stethoscope. 

The purpose of using this may be different from doctor to doctor but the accuracy of the investigation has made it the most reliable friend of the doctor.

Though there are certain devices from Apple are found to be more popular as survey has shown that nearly 80%to 90% doctors have started using smartphones and nearly half the numbers are using tablets to keep themselves updated to modern methods of investigations and drugs for various diseases. Some of the hospitals have a computer fitted in besides each bed which was later upgraded to tablets but then with the advent of iPads the things have changed as the life of the battery is longer compared to the tablet and provided them with even the minutest details of investigation which was found to be missing when using a tablet.

Apart from using the tablet for getting the right investigation results the use of tablet has other sentimental attachments too as the doctors or for that matter the nurses and technicians use them to store their own personal experiences while treating certain patients, mode of treating and drugs administration as well as feeding in their own personal details.

We have seen an increase in the usage of tablets as more and more hospitals are making use of the tablets and letting go of the laptops and desktops. Tablets give them an upper hand as the information that they require is easily available anywhere and at any given moment thus enabling them to come to a decision anytime when it comes to treating their patients.

These days treatment has started on wheels so having fixed devices has now been replaced by these smaller but more efficient electronic gadgets which can be easily carried, transported and accurate. The most wonderful advantage of tablet is that the patient need not be transferred from the room to the investigation center but rather the doctors or nurses for that matter can carry this small gadget near the patient and complete all the investigations without actually making the patient move around.

Conclusion: Tablets are a boon to the hospitals and doctors as they are more reliable, more adaptable for use and easy to carry unlike the fixed desktop computers. They are an extra benefit as they are carried to the patients thus reliving the patients from being transferred from place to place to carry out various health related investigations.

Digital Signage, an ever growing dynamic venue for broadcasts and advertising.

Posted by Sarina D. - Alttrix Digital Media (ADM) 

Digital signage is a sub category of signage. Digital signs are more frequently used in placemaking, wayfinding, public installations, outdoor advertisement and marketing. Digital signs display contents such as video streaming media, digital images and information by the use of projection, LED and LCD.  Digital signs are found mostly in public spaces, museums, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, transportation systems and corporate buildings. 
Digital signage use content management system and digital media distribution system for display. These can run either from simple PC, from different servers or from national media hosting providers for efficient transmission. Digital signage content can be easily uploaded and updated. This is because of real world interface provides accompanying employments in the form of image capture, touch screens and movement detection. These are easy to understand that who and how users can interact with them. This is the reason for the acceptance of digital signage over static signage.

Sports Broadcast along with Appetizing Advertisements. 

Digital signage has specific use in out of home advertisement in which advertisements and contents are easily uploaded and then displayed on Digital signage. In this way messages are transferred to the desired places very easily and in specific time. Due to this specific functionality it is often known as “Digital out of Home”.

In digital signage content refers to anything that is designed to display on screens to advertise specific things. The content may include images, videos, animations, texts and sometime interfaces as well. In additional to all this installation of digital signage is somewhat sophisticated and it needs contents that is useful for user to get back its investment. All the content is designed by specialist companies and firms such as Arsenal media, Digital kitchen and united field. 

To ensure the correct message displayed at specific time regular content update is required time by time. This can be done by two different ways; it may be manual or through digital data feed system. Both of these methods are impressive and don’t require further proof reading.
Digital signs required different hardware to deliver their message frequently. Its components mostly include screens, media players and content management server to maintain all the required content within given domain and within given time. These entire gather to make a perfect signage and then its content management server will be connected with media player over a network. These all work in series that is one content management server has the ability to support multiple media players and in return one media player can manage more than on screen at a time. In this way digital signage is better than static signage. In this way single digital signage can combine all three functions in a single device and no network plug in is required. In addition to all the advantages digital signage has some more advantages over static signage such as it runs on a variety of media operating systems such as Linux, Android and windows as well.

Digital signage is getting fame because of the latest technologies used such as three dimensional screens (3D), with glasses or without glasses. Along with three D digital signage also support LCD, Plasma screens, LED screens, projectors and other emerging media devices. In digital signage digital audiovisual contents are reproducing on TV screens. This can be done by the introduction of various audio video soft wares’ and hardware’s. Digital signage in now popular with the advent of latest technologies and it has completely replaced the original static signage. It can support latest technologies and people want to have broad and new look on their screens with the help of digital signage.

For more information on how ADM can help you generate additional advertising revenue, control media content and provide exciting broadcasts. Please don't to contact us at:

888-296-3350 ext 715

Burn Victims to get New Skin with the same technology that is found in Ink-jet Printer

Most of the people today, have never thought of that there is something common between the humble ink-jet printer and the device used in the medical field. However, researchers from North Carolina-based Wake Forest University were a game to try something new with the Ink-jet Printer technology. In the process, they came up with a technique for regenerating burnt skin by spraying new cells and proteins on skin burns for enabling the skin to heal faster. Obviously the spraying is done with the same technology that is used in an ink-jet printer.

Bio Printing Technology uses laserjet

The device developed by them consists of a laser unit that assesses the exact size and shape of the burn area. The next step is spraying of proteins and new cells in that specific area. In view of the difficulty in moving burn victims, the combined unit is affixed on a frame which can be moved or wheeled across the bed in the hospital, thereby doing away with the need to move the burn patient a lot. Considerable precision in implanting the specific type of cells can be achieved with this system. Not only the precise variety of cells is lodged in the specific area, even spraying of precise quantities of such cells can be monitored with this technology. This technology of spraying cells is, for now, referred to as bioprinting.

Just to name a few members of the team- Kyle Binder is one of the students who helped to design this bioprinting device. George Christ is the professor at the school for regenerative medicine.

So far the technology has been tested on mice. There are various types of skin cells, such as keratinocytes, and fibroblasts. It is necessary to ensure that precise type of cell is sprayed in position. Researchers extracted these cells and multiplied them under laboratory conditions. Thereafter, these cells were sprayed in layers, i. e., first the fibroblasts layer, followed by keratinocytes layer. Some stem cells were also used. Because of the stem cells, the eventual results were such that it was hard to distinguish where the burns were since the tissue easily blended with other parts of the skin in the surroundings including sebaceous glands and follicles.

HP 3D Printers launched in June 2014

The technique would replace conventional skin grafting, which is not only time consuming and painful, but also takes much longer for recovery.  Mice that were subjected to treatment in this fashion took two to three weeks to recover merely, whereas others that were treated conventionally took five weeks to recover. 

Researchers intend to approach the US FDA for trying the technology on human beings. The technology may also be effective in closing another type of wounds. To this end, research is being conducted by the team along with U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine for treating the wounds of soldiers. 

People with massive burns are likely to die in a fortnight if their wound is left open for too long because of infections. Usually, skin grafting needs to be done promptly and it can be painful. Not only will this printing of skin ensure prompt recovery, it would also ensure that there are little marks of wound or burn remaining on the skin at the end of the treatment.

Posted by Jason Williams - ALTTRIX Digital