Google Ventures-backed CliQr intros one-click cloud migration

Bouncing between cloud vendors might be easier than ever with the introduction of a new service from a Google Ventures-backed startup.

Vendor lock-in is often cited as a major problem or even roadblock when it comes to cloud adoption and migration services. Furthermore, switching vendors and migrating massive amounts of data is expensive, time consuming, and just a major hassle overall.

One small company, CliQr, is aiming to fix all that with a different approach.

Introducing its new platform to the world one day ahead of Google I/O, the Mountain View, Calif.-based startup is launching CloudCenter, a cloud application management platform designed to enable businesses to be able to deploy and manage existing cloud-based apps on any kind of cloud model (i.e. private, public or hybrid) without migration disruption or expenses.

Gaurav Manglik, CEO and co-founder of CliQr, explained via telephone last week that the process is rather simple. Users can upload native applications to CliQr’s cloud and then benchmark said apps against the likes of Amazon Web Services. From there, customers can choose the new cloud that they want and automatically start running apps on the selected cloud service. CliQr will not only migrate them but run them on other clouds without lock-in.

Manglik characterized it as a “potential one-click switch” from one cloud to another.

“In some ways it seems magical, but it’s really not,” added CliQr chief marketing officer David Cope, describing further that sometimes the best processes aren’t really that intricate at all.

Cope offered some examples of industries and workloads that could benefit from this platform, such as compute-intensive applications (i.e. sourcing cancer research from multiple healthcare facilities and organizations) or highly variable sites (i.e. e-commerce, online helpdesks, etc.).

“We’re actually following the adoption of the cloud in general, but we think we’re following it to the next level,” Cope remarked.

To get an idea of how much time could be saved by uploading data and apps to CliQr for migration to another cloud, Manglik cited that some of its customers have moved legacy workloads to the cloud in less than a day compared to six months with other competitive solutions.

Along with AWS, CliQr supports “top clouds at any given time.” Manglik noted cloud offerings from Rackspace, VMware and OpenStack as examples.

Backed by Google Ventures, the Cliqr CloudCenter solution is now available.

Source  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-ventures-backed-cliqr-intros-one-click-cloud-migration/80840

Expressions of Interest, Sessional/Casual Lecturers in Migration Law

Reference: 494791
Element: Griffith Law School
Work type: Casual

Overview

The Legal Practice Centre, Griffith University located at South Bank is seeking expressions of interest from persons specialising in Migration Law and practice to teach in our Graduate Certificate in Australian Migration Law and Practice and/or our Masters of Migration Law and Practice programs.

The Graduate Certificate is taught both online and in intensive (in-person) modes.  The Masters program is taught in online mode.

The role:

The successful candidate will be familiar with the following broad subjects or topics in Migration Law and practice:

Graduate Certificate courses:

• Australian Migration Law and MARA (including the role of MARA).
• Australia's Visa System (including student employment and business visas; RRV).
• Visa Compliance Cancellation and Review (including student cancellations; merits review; judicial review).
• Applied Migration Law and Practice (including business planning and management; professional ethics; FOI).

Masters courses:

• Immigration and Refugee Law.
• Current Issues in Migration Law and Practice.
• Merits and Judicial Review.
• Practical Skills in Migration Practice.

The person:

We are looking for experienced professionals with a background or previous teaching experience in one or more of the subjects or topics noted above and who also have a strong commitment to sharing their knowledge and experience with those wishing to study in these areas. 

Essential criteria:

• Current and not less than five years experience working or teaching in the subjects nominated by the applicant as being of interest.
• Experience with, or an ability to acquire, the necessary skills for teaching in an online environment.
• Evidence of excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to succinctly and successfully organize and convey knowledge and skills to others.
• Excellent organizational and inter-personal skills.
• Proven ability to manage projects and meet deadlines.

Desirable criteria:

• Previous tertiary institution undergraduate or postgraduate teaching experience.
• Previous experience in developing courses, updating/creating course materials, drafting/creating students assessments and marking guides.

Salary range:

Sessional/Casual rates are applicable.

Further information:

Please note in your covering letter the subjects or topics you are most interested in teaching.

For position queries, contact Ms Terri Mottershead, Acting Director, Legal Practice Centre on +61 (0) 3735 3235 or t.mottershead@griffith.edu.au 

For application queries, contact Ms Priscilla Pratap, Recruitment Officer on +61 (0) 7 3735 4627. 

Closing date: 9 July 2012 4.30pm AEST.

Source  http://jobs.theconversation.edu.au/jobs/2148-expressions-of-interest-sessional-casual-lecturers-in-migration-law?utm_source=theconversation.edu.au&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=sidebar_job

SA Police recruit denied entry

AN English policeman and his family are devastated after being told they cannot move to South Australia because his stepdaughter, Sarah, is autistic. 

 

London Metropolitan Police sergeant Peter Threlfall is outraged at the decision, which was made despite his daughter Sarah, 25, having two jobs and volunteering with the Scout and Guide movement. She had planned to study hairdressing when they arrived here.

Mr Threlfall was preparing to move his wife and family to South Australia, but was told in December they had been denied visas under the Regional Sponsored Migration services Scheme.

He had been offered a job as a constable at Ceduna, on the state's West Coast, and was due to start work as soon as his visa was approved.

Mr Threlfall has spent the past few months trying to reverse the decision but his family is now resigned to staying in the UK.

The refusal to let the Threlfalls into the country was based on the presumption his step-daughter Sarah's condition would place a burden on healthcare and community services in Australia.

Mr Threlfall said Sarah worked part-time as both a cleaner and a store assistant. His family was not seeking any assistance for Sarah and were shattered that they could no longer move to Australia.

He said he had spent about six months and $8000 going through the international recruitment process and had missed out on career advancement in London because he had been focused on the move.

"Sarah is not a drain on UK resources and would not have been on Australia," he said.

An Immigration Department spokesman confirmed Mr Threlfall and his family had applied for visas. His daughter had not met the legislated health requirement, which was partly to restrict public expenditure on healthcare and community services.

There were no legal grounds for a health waiver and had the family been in Australia they may have had grounds to appeal, the spokesman said.

It is one of a several decisions disability advocates have branded "discriminatory".

Two months ago, Filipino doctor Edwin Lapidario avoided deportation only after directors at his Hackham Medical Centre workplace agreed to pay $52,000 towards his autistic son's medical costs.

In 2008, a migrant doctor working in Victoria was threatened with deportation because his son had Down syndrome.

It took an international outcry and the intervention of then Immigration Minister Chris Evans to overturn the decision to deport German doctor Bernhard Moeller and his family.

Intellectual Disability Association of SA chairman David Holst and Dignity for Disability MP Kelly Vincent have both called for an immediate overhaul of the "discriminatory" policies.

"A decision made on some sort of disability shouldn't be grounds for someone being in the country - it is discrimination," Mr Holst said.

Ms Vincent said making black-and-white decisions based someone's disability was unacceptable. "It is very concerning and I think insulting to put all people with disabilities in the same basket," she said.

"We need to stop pretending that people with disabilities and their families don't pay taxes too."

Autism SA chief executive Jon Martin said people with Autism Spectrum Disorder could make "excellent social and economic contributions".

SAPOL said it did not comment on individual recruitments. It did confirm it had no immediate plans to recruit more officers from the UK. The latest round of 93 UK recruitments has just ended.

Source   http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-police-recruit-denied-entry/story-e6frea83-1226393535623

Trillion-dollar investment pipeline at risk, warns Business Council of Australia

THE Business Council of Australia (BCA) has warned the nation's unprecedented pipeline of investment is at risk because of high costs and low productivity. 

 

In a new report, the council says state and federal governments must recognise the investment is not assured, and half of the $921 billion lined up for resources, energy and economic infrastructure investment projects is yet to be locked in.

``We have got to be very careful that we don't take these projects, both in infrastructure and in resources, for granted,'' BCA president Tony Shepherd said.

``The bottom line is we can see a pipeline here of close to a trillion dollars ... (but) in the resources sector we are 40 per cent more expensive than the equivalent in the US gulf region.

``That is a hell amount of money that is sacrificed in terms of extra costs.''

This could mean less money for subsequent investment and lower tax revenue impacting the whole community.

Worse still, some offshore oil and gas projects are as much as 200 per cent more expensive than global benchmarks, while in various infrastructure projects are also considerably more costly than elsewhere.

The report, released today, will also be presented to the Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Economic Forum in Brisbane next week.

The BCA, which represents the bosses of the nation's top 100 companies, recommends the government ask the Productivity Commission to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into the factors driving major project costs and their delivery.

Mr Shepherd said new imposts like the mining and carbon taxes will impact on the competitive nature of business and should be taken into account.

BCA believes the starting price for the carbon tax, and the base price once the fixed period is over, are too high.

The study found that by 2013, about 30 per cent of all economic activity will depend on the success of capital investments, making Australia the investment-intensive economy within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Private investment makes up 71 per cent of the entire investment pipeline.

Mining, oil and gas projects make up 45 per cent of project value, 31 per cent in transport, and six per cent in both education, health and community services, and utilities and electricity generation.

But it says that if Australia cannot deliver the pipeline more efficiently, its standard of living will reduce.

BCA acknowledges that some action has been taken by the Council of Australian Governments by the streamlining of environmental assessments and approvals, the boost to skilled migration services and skills training, and the introduction of Enterprise Migration Agreements.

``But what is clear is that all governments must recognise the pipeline of investment is not assured and must stay focused on taking a proactive approach to making the economy more competitive,'' Mr Shepherd said.

Source  http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/trillion-dollar-investment-pipeline-at-risk-warns-business-council-of-australia/story-e6frg2r3-1226387263271

Changes to Australia’s Business Skills Migration programme

Australia has announced changes to its Business Skills Migration programme, which will take effect on July 1 this year.

The programme will be renamed the Business Innovation and Investment Programme and has a stronger focus on entrepreneurs and people with a track record of innovation in business.

Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship MP Chris Bowen made the announcement on May 25 regarding changes to the Business Skills Migration services programme.

There is also a new visa category called the ‘Significant Investor Visa’ which will allow eligible applicants to achieve permanent residency through making investment in an Australian company, government bonds or approved managed funds.

This offers more choice than the current Investor visa, which only allows for investment in government bonds.

A points test called the ‘Innovation Points Test’ will be introduced for certain visas under the Business Innovation and Investment Programme.

Points will be granted based on age, English language ability, business experience, innovation, turnover and assets.

“These changes have been discussed by the Australian government for a long time,” said GALC Professional Services managing director Grant Colbron.

Colbron is the former First Secretary (Immigration) of the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur and is now based in Kota Kinabalu with representatives in Sarawak covering Kuching, Bintulu and Miri.

“A review of the current Business Skills programme was conducted in 2011 and recommendations were made about where changes should be made. This was the first major review of Business Skills in many years,” he said.

He is a registered migration agent with the Migration Agents Registration Authority of Australia.

For further information, call Clara at 019-8564418.

The Business Innovation and Investment Programme will come into effect on July 1.

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/06/06/changes-to-australias-business-skills-migration-programme/

Ingram Micro to distribute Silver Peak WAN optimisation in Australia

Silver Peak Systems and Ingram Micro Australia announced today that, as part of a distribution partnership across the APAC region, Ingram Micro has will distribute Silver Peak’s leading data centre class wide area network (WAN) optimisation products to resellers and customers in Australia. 

“The growth of virtualised Infrastructures and centralised, cloud-based applications provides a strong growth opportunity for Silver Peak data centre class WAN optimisation solutions in this market,” said David Lenz, Senior Director, Enterprise Technology Group for Ingram Micro. 

Silver Peak virtual and physical appliances provide the highest-capacity and most comprehensive options for deploying WAN optimisation anywhere—from data centres, to branch offices, and to the cloud. Silver Peak’s Virtual Acceleration Open Architecture (VXOA) also aligns well with Ingram Micro’s virtual infrastructure offerings from companies such as VMware (vSphere), Microsoft (Hyper-V), and KVM.

This enables enterprises to accelerate and optimise IT initiatives while reducing WAN infrastructure costs, including added costs for multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), Internet virtual private networking (VPN) and satellite WANs.

“Silver Peak’s innovative solutions and strong support for the channel make them an ideal partner and one which strongly complements our existing enterprise data centre vendor partners. We are looking forward to working closely with the Silver Peak team and our resellers to capitalise on the opportunities this strongly growing segment of the market offers,” says Lenz.

“Australia is a critical region for WAN optimisation because of highly distributed IT environments and the inherent lower-quality WAN connectivity,” said Arturo Cazares, senior vice president of worldwide sales for Silver Peak. “By teaming with Ingram Micro and our reseller partners in Australia, we will help customers cost-effectively maximise their WAN resources and accelerate the adoption of business-critical applications between data centres, branch offices, and the cloud.”

As part of the new value-added distribution relationship, Ingram Micro and Silver Peak are co-investing in dedicated technical support staff, market development, and cross-trained sales engineers across the APAC region. 

About Ingram Micro Inc. 

As a vital link in the technology value chain, Ingram Micro creates sales and profitability opportunities for vendors and resellers through unique marketing programs, outsourced logistics, technical and financial support, managed and cloud-based services, and product aggregation and distribution. The company is the only global broad-based IT distributor, serving more than 150 countries on six continents with the world's most comprehensive portfolio of IT products and services. For more information visit www.ingrammicro.com.au 

About Silver Peak Systems, Inc.

Silver Peak is the leader in data centre class WAN optimisation. The company’s Virtual Acceleration Open Architecture (VXOA) delivers unprecedented scalability and flexibility, enabling rapid deployment of WAN optimisation anywhere and on any platform or hypervisor. Silver Peak’s WAN optimisation solutions are strategic enablers for large IT initiatives, including data centre consolidation, data migration, cloud computing, disaster recovery, server centralisation, and hosted virtual desktops (VDI). 

For more information, visit www.silver-peak.com, or follow Silver Peak on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and the WAN Speak Blog.

Source  http://www.cfoworld.com.au/mediareleases/14257/ingram-micro-to-distribute-silver-peak-wan/

Toyota Australia ramps up IT transformation projects

Auto maker, Toyota Australia, is in the closing stages of a major IT modernisation initiative which will see the company replace data centre hardware, migrate to Windows 7 and iPad/iPhone trials. 

The projects, according to Toyota Australia information systems division service delivery corporate manager, Ellis Brover, are designed to reduce costs and update the company’s ageing infrastructure.

He told Computerworld Australia that the data centre refresh included replacement of firewalls, load balancing and router hardware. 

An upgrade from the XP operating system (OS) to Windows 7, which began in September 2010 following the signing of a services contract with supplier Fujitsu, will be completed in May 2012. “It was a particularly complex project for us, largely because we were going from an 11-year-old operating system and a relatively uncontrolled operating environment to a controlled one,” he said. “As a result we had to discover the thousands of applications our users had installed and test all of them for Windows 7.” 

The company is also conducting a trial of 30 iPads and iPhones as part of a strategy to replace 100 BlackBerry smartphones currently issued to executives. The tablets and smartphones are due to be rolled out by mid-2012 to both sales staff and executives. 

“Feedback has been very positive, especially from staff members who haven’t had access to this technology before,” Brover said. “They’re telling us the devices allow them to be more efficient while on the road and keep up to date with business changes as they happen.” 

A bring your own device (BYOD) trial is also underway. This will allow staff to synchronise their personal iPad or iPhone with the company’s network to access emails and documents. 

“We’re still satisfying ourselves that we can guarantee the right level of security with BYOD but the flip side of not having a policy is that it sometimes leads people to circumnavigate networks in a way that is less secure,” he said. 

In addition, Toyota Australia has renewed an existing managed voice and data network services contract with NEC for the next three years. 

As part of this contract, NEC provides data carriage, customer premises equipment, service monitoring and support to more than 180 Toyota dealer sites across Australia. The service is supported by NEC’s Nextep network, providing the manufacturer with a private Cloud offering. 

The contract extension also provides a network reliability upgrade to the Dealers IP network, a dealer management system which runs every aspect of a dealership, and is hosted in a private Cloud by Fujitsu. 

Source  http://www.techworld.com.au/article/421710/toyota_australia_ramps_up_it_transformation_projects/?fp=16&fpid=1