TechTouch Asia

AMD has announced that IBM Cloud is enhancing its global infrastructure with 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors to power its latest bare-metal servers. A bare-metal server is a physical server meant for a single user, as opposed to having its components shared across a pool of virtual servers. With the addition of the AMD EPYC 7642 processor to its cloud portfolio, IBM is engineered to deliver increased computing performance in its bare-metal offerings. Available now, these new bare-metal servers are the first 2nd Gen AMD EPYC-based offering from IBM Cloud and are focused on the computing power and performance required to accelerate modern workloads like data analytics, electronic design automation, artificial intelligence as well as virtualised and containerised workloads. “2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors deliver where it counts for cloud providers, providing the cores, scalability and throughput for critical workloads,” said Forrest Norrod, Senior VP and GM, Data Center and Embedded Soluti...

By Bruce Momjian, co-founder of the PostgreSQL Global Development Group and Senior Database Architect, EnterpriseDB 'Ubiquity' and 'democracy' are the two words that best describe the open source PostgreSQL (Postgres) database management system. And, much like Linux, both are great examples of “open source at its best”. In terms of its ubiquity, Postgres has been around more than 30 years and today is seemingly everywhere running on-premise or available as a hosted service (cloud) worldwide from dozens of providers. We often hear it is the “go-to” API most often selected by developers. Ask developers which database technologies they most love , and Postgres comes in second only to Redis , according to the Stack Overflow survey . And, in terms of democracy, the software project is governed by The PostgreSQL Global Development Group who are developers and volunteers from around the world. The software project has more than 500 contributors. No one company is responsib...

On 31 March, 2020 Marriott International announced that it had notified some of its guests of a data breach. Approximately 5.2 million guests were involved, the hotel chain said. Marriott International has a portfolio of more than 7,300 properties under 30 brands spanning 134 countries and territories.  Hotels operated and franchised under Marriott’s brands use an application to help provide services to guests at hotels, the company explained. An "unexpected amount of guest information" stored in this application may have been accessed using the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property, Marriott said in a statement. The breach was found at the end of February 2020, and was likely to have occurred in mid-January 2020. Marriott confirmed that the login credentials were disabled, began an investigation, implemented heightened monitoring, and arranged resources to inform and assist guests. Marriott also notified relevant authorities and is supporting their ...

The openEuler community has released its first long-term support (LTS) edition, openEuler 20.03 LTS, at the Huawei Developer Conference 2020 (Cloud) on March 27, 2020 . This marks a new milestone for openEuler, an open source, free Linux distribution platform. Source: Huawei. There are now commercial openEuler operating systems. The openEuler 20.03 LTS edition supports Kunpeng and x86 processor architectures. It is expected to unlock performance improvements of 10% to 100%; slash startup time by 35%, and reduce memory resource consumption by 68%. Huawei has also joined with four OS vendors, Kylinsoft, iSoft, Uniontech, and the Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS), to announce commercial editions powered by openEuler . -  Kylinsoft’s Kylin Server OS based on openEuler kernels is designed for multicore heterogeneous computing scenarios, and targets processing for mission-critical services and workloads. - ISoft has launched the iSoft Server O...

Source: Huawei. MindSpore is officially open-source on Gitee. Huawei has delivered on the artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for developers that it announced at HUAWEI CONNECT 2018*. This year, at HDC.Cloud, Huawei's developer conference for cloud, Huawei talked about the progress it has made towards its goal. Full-stack, all-scenario solutions that have been introduced at the late March web event, enabling easier AI application development and contributing to a robust global AI ecosystem. One key announcement is that of Huawei's MindSpore, an all-scenario artificial intelligence (AI) computing framework, going open source. Professor Chen Lei, Chief Scientist at Huawei MindSpore and an IEEE Fellow, said that MindSpore would go open source on Gitee. MindSpore has focused on lowering entry barriers for AI developers, with Professor Chen noting: " MindSpore natively adapts to all scenarios across the device, edge, and cloud. "We implement AI algorithms...

Singtel is extending a care package of services to support the broader community in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore with effect from 1 April, including free business solutions for SMEs.   Chua Sock Koong, Singtel’s Group CEO said, “This is an unprecedented time in our history. The COVID-19 outbreak has impacted the health of our loved ones and disrupted not just our lives, but the livelihoods of many around us. As a homegrown company, we want to stand together with the broader community and keep them supported during this time." Chua added, “The businesses we depend on, the way we live our lives have been completely upended. People are having to stay home, businesses are trying to cope and survive. We want to offer up some of our services to sustain and support the public through this time. This is our way of saying we are in this together, our commitment to you has not changed and hopefully, we can also spread a little cheer.” On the business ...

Source: Esri Singapore. Graphic of the Punggol Digital District. Singapore’s first smart and sustainable business park – Punggol Digital District (PDD) – relies on a geographic information system (GIS) solution created by Esri Singapore to integrate, manage and analyse data. According to Thomas Pramotedham, CEO, Esri Singapore, the seamless integration of building information modelling (BIM) data and GIS (or geoBIM) will enable JTC to deliver better designs that maximise the long-term value of upcoming infrastructures and facilities. BIM methods bring team members together earlier in the construction process and support 3D, augmented and virtual reality visualisations that help designers and architects finalise a structure’s location, orientation, and even construction materials. This geoBIM platform capability will enable planners to visualise and experiment the impact of the designs against existing surroundings and landscape on a 3D map to ensure infrastructure and amenitie...