Thursday 26 July 2012

Oracle hopes to poach Microsoft SQL Server users with MySQL migration tool

Oracle is going after users of Microsoft's SQL Server with a new tool for migrating data from SQL Server to its own MySQL database, the vendor announced Wednesday.

The tool has been built into Oracle's MySQL Workbench administration console, and with it, applications written for SQL Server can be easily tweaked for MySQL, Oracle said in a statement.

Oracle is also releasing an improved version of the MySQL Installer for Windows environments, as well as a new MySQL Notifier for Windows tool that "helps developers and DBAs to easily monitor, start and stop their MySQL database instances, with the Microsoft SQL Server look and feel," Oracle said.
In addition, Oracle is offering a new plug-in that allows users with no experience on MySQL to work with MySQL data inside Microsoft Excel.

Oracle claims that MySQL users can experience up to 90% less total cost of ownership compared to running SQL Server 2012.

However, Oracle's MySQL TCO Savings Calculator web page notes that these numbers are based on public list pricing for SQL Server. Therefore, they don't take into account any negotiated discounts.
Microsoft didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Database migration programs are a long-standing tradition in the software industry. EnterpriseDB, for example, offers compatibility with Oracle's flagship database.

Platform vendors like Oracle are keen to increase their database penetration into corporate IT shops, and not just for the license revenues, or in open-source MySQL's case, support subscription contracts. The database's central role in software technology stacks also gives these vendors a greater opportunity to cross-sell compatible applications, middleware and other tools.

One industry observer expressed a mixed opinion of Oracle's bid to court SQL Server users.
"There are many SQL Server/Windows uses for which MySQL/Linux would do just as well," said analyst Curt Monash of Monash Research via instant message. "However, I'm not sure in how many cases it would be worth the trouble of migration."

For one thing, many Microsoft users "have adopted a thick Windows-based stack," Monash added. "MySQL migration doesn't address them. At the other extreme, if your application is really trivial, why bother moving?"

Oracle is expected to discuss the new MySQL tools as well as the database's general roadmap in September at the MySQL Connect conference in San Francisco.

Monday 23 July 2012

Recruitment drive eases junior doctor shortage

STAFFING SHORTAGES at junior doctor level have greatly eased since last year’s crisis, according to the Health Service Executive (HSE).

Last week, 68 non-consultant hospital doctor (NCHD) posts remained vacant following the most recent rotation of staff at the start of the month, the HSE said. This represented 1.4 per cent of junior doctor posts available in Irish hospitals and marked a significant reduction on the almost 200 vacancies that arose in July 2011. Last year’s staffing shortages were most keenly felt in emergency departments and in smaller, non-teaching hospitals.

Last year, the HSE went on a recruitment drive in India and Pakistan to fill the vacant NCHD posts. Dr Philip Crowley, national director of quality and patient safety, said this process had largely proved a success, with 290 high-quality doctors working in the Irish system.

“The recruitment services and registration process has ensured that all of these doctors have met the high standards and criteria necessary to work in an Irish hospital,” he said.

Recruitment is ongoing and the number of potential vacancies across the country remains fluid, he said.
Many of the vacant posts will be filled by locums or agency doctors on a short-term basis where needs are critical. However, pressures on the HSE budget because of cost overruns are likely to lead to cuts in spending on agency staff for the rest of the year.

The HSE spent almost €2 million recruiting junior doctors from India and Pakistan to plug gaps in the health service, Minister for Health James Reilly revealed earlier this year. The spend included about €169,000 on flights. However, less than half of those who came to Ireland passed an examination set by the Medical Council, and most of those subsequently left Ireland. The HSE paid the doctors €2,500 a month during the interim period.

About 80 per cent of NCHD posts are filled in HSE or voluntary hospitals by postgraduate training bodies as part of their training schemes. The remaining posts are service posts, with about 15 per cent in HSE hospitals and 5 per cent in voluntary hospitals.

Sunday 15 July 2012

Is offshore policy fair? Just ask the migrants

THE recent tragedies at sea that have seen so many people die in their attempt to get to Australia have led to a quantum shift in Australia's debate on refugee policy.

People who have been passionate advocates for onshore processing as the most compassionate approach have changed their view, as they recognise there is nothing compassionate or humanitarian about a policy that tells people they should risk their lives to maximise their chance of a new life in Australia.

Thursday 12 July 2012

New Priority Processing for Australian Skilled Migration Visas

New priority processing arrangements for certain skilled migration visas, including new skilled visa subclasses introduced in the skilled migration reforms, have recently been set by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen MP.

The priority processing arrangements allow the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) to consider and finalise visa applications in an order of priority that the minister considers appropriate. The new arrangements apply to visa applications for the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (RSMS), Employer Nomination Scheme (ENS) and certain points based skilled migration.
From July 1, 2012, processing priorities (with highest priority listed first) are applications from people who:
  • are sponsored under the RSMS program
  • are sponsored under the ENS program
  • are nominated by a state or territory government agency
  • have nominated an occupation on the Skilled Occupation List – Schedule 1 effective form July 1, 2012
  • all other applications
Regional employer sponsored visas continue to be given the highest processing priority. Applications for visa subclasses 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, or 489 which are lodged through SkillSelect will be given the highest priority within each priority processing group.

According to the DIAC, the new arrangements are aimed at solving the needs of industry by targeting skills in demand across a number of sectors, while ensuring that the Skilled Migration Program is responsive to the current economic climate and the needs of the Australian economy. These arrangements do not change visa eligibility criteria.

The new priority processing arrangements apply to current applications, including those in the final stages of processing.

If you are interested in Australian visas, contact Migration Expert for information and advice on which visa is best suited to you. You can also try our visa eligibility assessment to see if you are eligible to apply for a visa to Australia. 

Monday 9 July 2012

Enterprise Mobility and Migration Towards Cloud Data Centers

As an emerging business model/concept that enables both information technology infrastructure and software to be delivered directly over the Internet as a service, cloud computing has gained tremendous prominence over the last few years. Enabling easy, cost-effective, on-demand access to shared pool of computing resources such as, servers, networks, storage, software applications, etc, which presents compelling advantages such as low upfront and management costs, reduced end-user infrastructure investments, and multi-tenancy benefits to end-users, cloud computing is increasingly gaining favor in the corporate world.

Defined as a special case of leveraging cloud computing with the objective of achieving competitive advantage, enterprise cloud computing is gaining popularity as a tool for accelerating business innovation and achieving superior enterprise productivity footprint. Enterprises keen on enhancing the speed of both business processes and sharpening market response agility are especially embracing the concept in a big way encouraged by incremental improvements in security, reliability and resilience of cloud computing services. This in turn pushes the technology closer towards prime-time use in enterprise environments. With tough economic conditions being the new normal, especially among the developed economies, which are now saddled with conditions likely to persist into the foreseeable future, cost benefits will continue to dictate the adoption of enterprise cloud computing.

The growing magnitude of workforce mobility and the ensuing need for flexible, mobile communications in an enterprise environment creates a strong business case for enterprise mobile cloud computing, a key emerging lucrative area of enterprise cloud computing. Enterprise mobile cloud computing enables enterprise applications which until recently were only made available to employees behind corporate firewalls, to be available on public/private clouds for easy access by employees on mobile devices, thus overcoming the long standing constraints of time and space.

With more and more businesses operating in 24/7 environment and eyeing global opportunities, companies succeeding in future will mostly be the ones embracing enterprise mobility as a key communications strategy. Growth in the global enterprise mobile cloud computing market over the next few years will be therefore driven by the plethora of cloud-based applications being developed to optimize enterprise mobility, growing device sophistication and increased deployment of open-source operating systems, growing clout of community-built mobile platforms, proliferation of virtualization and the service-oriented architectures (SOA), and launch of high speed internet connectivity technologies such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 4G/3.5G mobile networks. As companies recognize the potential of combining the power of clouds and its ability to offer unlimited computer horsepower with the flexibility of mobile devices in order to take productivity to higher levels, its opportunities galore for enterprise mobile cloud computing.

As stated by the new market research report on Enterprise Mobile Cloud Computing, Asia-Pacific represents the fastest growing regional market, with annual revenue from the region waxing at a CAGR of about 44.5% over the analysis period. Increased adoption of mobile computing devices as common business tools, particularly in emerging markets such as China and India, has created the need for mobile applications and services, which can be efficiently delivered over the Internet, thereby creating huge market for enterprise mobile cloud computing in the region.

Major players in the global marketplace include Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., appsFreedomTM, DMX Technologies Group Limited, Google Inc., International Business Machines, Microsoft Corporation, Mobility in Cloud Ltd., NetSuite Inc., Rackspace US, Inc., Salesforce.com, Inc., Samsung SDS America, Inc., ThoriumCloud, among others.

The research report titled “Enterprise Mobile Cloud Computing: A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, issues, drivers, company profiles, mergers, acquisitions and other strategic industry activities. The report provides market estimates and projections in US$ Million for major geographic markets including the US, Japan, Europe (France, Germany, Italy, UK and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific, and Rest of World.

For more details about this comprehensive market research report, please visit –
http://www.strategyr.com/Enterprise_Mobile_Cloud_Computing_Market_Report.asp

Sunday 8 July 2012

Office of Immigration Services Commissioner

Q: I have recently visited a community website and there are a number of classified advertisements with people advertising their immigration advice services. Is there a body regulating immigration advisors in order to protect clients?

A: Yes, in order to render immigration advice in the UK you have to be regulated by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner or OISC. They also have different levels of advisors, so depending on the complexity of a problem an advisor may assist you or not. All OISC advisers are required to display their certificates of registration or exemption.

The only exception to this rule is persons regulated by the Law Societies of England and Wales, and Scotland.

So unless someone is regulated as set out above, they are prohibited from rendering UK immigration advice, and are committing an offence if they do so.

You will also be pleased to hear that Breytenbachs Immigration Consultants are registered with the OISC to Level 3, which is the top level and therefore we can provide you with immigration advice on all UK immigration matters.


Wednesday 4 July 2012

Great expectations of Immigration defy the realities of border protection

The Captain Emad controversy did not expose any fatal flaws in Australia's border policing

There was considerable public consternation after the ABC's Four Corners alleged last month that people smugglers, in particular ''Captain Emad'' (or Ali al-Abassi), had arrived among asylum seekers and continued to run their smuggling activities from Australia. However, while it's easy to blame a lack of effective intelligence or failings around criminality and identity processes, the public debate in Australia has not risen to the complexity of the issues involved.

Whether Australian intelligence failed in Emad's case is far from clear, as the federal police indicated it was aware of the allegations against him but lacked the evidence to prosecute successfully. What I can say, from my past experience as the deputy chairman of the people-smuggling taskforce, is that the quality of regional intelligence was very high, it was valued by regional partners and it was used effectively to stifle boat movements. There was never, under the Howard government, a naval wall of steel around Australia. Interceptions relied overwhelmingly on intelligence-directed locations, as one fishing boat looks much like another from the air in busy sea lanes. It's also noteworthy that people smugglers' past attempts to relocate to Australia were foiled. In 2006, for example, Kais Asfoor was sentenced in Australia to 10 years' jail over seven boats carrying 801 passengers to Ashmore Reef. While he was effectively out of reach of the law in Indonesia at the time, he thought coming to Australia would be a useful move. He was more than flummoxed on his arrival in Perth to find that law-enforcement authorities were at the airport at 3am to greet him.

As good as our intelligence has been, the public debate has at times been deeply flawed by the assumption that intelligence can provide every answer. This was evident in the SIEV X tragedy of 2001, during which more than 350 asylum seekers drowned. Many critics said they expected that Australia would begin a search because the boat was overdue. Yet such boats often leave Indonesia for Australia to end up in the same or an adjoining port, sometimes on the same day, with intelligence taking some time to filter back, if at all. The cruel reality of the economics of people-smuggling from Indonesia is that disposable and relatively worthless boats must be used, making their whereabouts and safety highly unreliable. The fact that we have not had many unauthorised boat arrivals from Sri Lanka, for example, is not due to them lacking the ability to make the long sea voyage to the Australian mainland, but because the boats needed to navigate to the mainland are too expensive to risk confiscation.

The question of criminality and Refugee Convention obligations has caused considerable angst for many countries, not only Australia. Put simply, some refugees are criminals but this does not necessarily relieve a country of the obligation to take them. In the case of Emad, if the allegations against him had proven true, it cannot be assumed that the operation of law would have resulted in his removal from Australia. To understand this, it's necessary to consider briefly the convention and associated removal processes.
The Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees sets a very high bar. The fundamental principle within the convention is that no contracting state, such as Australia, can expel or return (refoule) a refugee if their life would be threatened on convention grounds (e.g. race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group). There are a couple of exceptions that limit such obligations. Article 1(F) excludes cases involving crimes against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity, and serious non-political crimes outside the country of refuge. Article 33 covers circumstances where the person is a danger to national security or their crime is particularly serious and constitutes a danger to the community. In other words: terrorists, repeat axe murderers and those orchestrating genocide, look out!

If the convention removal bar could be met, the process by which a visa is cancelled or a person is removed from Australia under the Migration services Act can be, and often is, challenged through the courts. Even then, it may come to pass that the person simply cannot be practically removed. For example, while Iran will take back failed asylum seekers, it requires the agreement of the person involved, which, unsurprisingly, is often not given. Returning asylum seekers to Iraq has also proved particularly problematic.

Identity, in many respects, is the pervasive underlying issue because, without identification, the threat posed by some asylum seekers or the nature of their claims might not be able to be assessed. This concern confronts every government and is not confined to the border. However, it is important to understand that identity deception, such as the use of false documents, does not in itself relieve a country of its obligations under the Refugee Convention. It would also be wrong to assume that discarded identity documents would necessarily disclose the actual identity of the person concerned. Some refugees, by the very nature of their being a refugee, cannot secure exit documents. In some countries, official, and therefore ostensibly legitimate, documents can be bought, with the identity tailored to the traveller's needs. People smugglers have bought high-quality passport blanks in South-east Asia for as little as $US20, and have used them in the people-smuggling process.

Nonetheless, governments are right to focus on the identity of unauthorised boat arrivals given that sophisticated controls govern those arriving through legitimate international passenger services. Take one family, arriving by plane into Australia without documents, who claimed refugee status. Their documents were presumably flushed down the toilet in flight. Their claims were so strong that the Australian refugee process was rapidly moving towards conferring refugee status. However, border-security officials, through the advance passenger processing system (which maintains details of identity documents and associated visas and effectively provides the ''lift'' permission for travellers to Australia) identified the passengers as Dutch nationals. They were returned to the Netherlands, which had already provided them with effective protection. They simply preferred, for family reasons, to live in Australia.

This wish to identity-shift is a common phenomenon. There was one initially puzzling case of a person found outside a controlled area at Sydney Airport, suitcase in hand, claiming refugee status. There was no record of his entry and there was no evidence of flight documents, which he claimed to have discarded. He finally admitted that he was a permanent resident who wanted the housing benefits and other aid provided to refugees. More bizarrely, a person already granted refugee status sought asylum, claiming to have just jumped ship. In his case, he simply wanted a new start, but his identity was established from fingerprints on a police database after a minor, unrelated incident.

Australia's border control systems remain powerful tools for tracking and identifying people born overseas. Unlike many European countries, Australia has continued to collect exit data so that its systems can determine the day that someone becomes illegal, by comparing their entry and exit data and their associated visa status. This capability was no better illustrated than by a case in which a detained Asian man refused to reveal his identity. He had been in the community for years but there was no record of his entry under the name he was using. He would only speak in English, preventing the identification of his first language. Officials suspected he was Malaysian, which led to a fruitless exchange of information with the Malaysian government. It seemed he would remain unidentified until a small piece of paper was found in his room with three dates, two of which were recognised as relating to his detention. An immigration officer compiled a report on people who were in Australia illegally who had arrived on that third date, more than a decade before, and the name of one Malaysian male came up. This time, the Malaysian government confirmed his identity and he was on his way.

This leads to the question: why has the accuracy of our immigration systems been derided? Some of this was due to an extraordinary misinterpretation of a 2004 auditor-general's report on onshore compliance. The auditor-general had referred to a 30 per cent error rate in the unlawful non-citizen file, a relatively small matched file, but did not find any problems with its statistical treatment. Nonetheless, the media reported that the auditor-general had discovered an error rate within immigration systems of about 30 per cent, which was nonsense. The actual error rate was about 0.0001 per cent, given that the file examined by the auditor-general was derived from matching over 300 million records.

Despite some unauthorised arrivals' lack of documents, biometric capability is critical. In a few cases, unauthorised boat arrivals will be identified from international databases, particularly through fingerprints. Even if people cannot be identified, the collection of biometric data on arrival provides a basis for anchoring the identity of an unauthorised arrival, so that the Australian community can be confident it is dealing with one person and that further identity-shifting is difficult. It also leaves open the possibility of identification in the future.

The criminality and identity issues around asylum seekers are not new. With the great outflow from Europe after the war, Australia accepted large numbers of refugees despite difficulties in confirming their identities, and knowing that a few might have been concentration camp guards or Nazi collaborators. We survived that.
The lesson from the Emad controversy is not that it exposed any fatal flaws in Australia's law-enforcement and border arrangements. That capability remains powerful but far from infallible. Any analysis of the incident does, however, reveal some of the complexity in handling unauthorised boat arrivals and the challenges that face policymakers.