Multiple sources indicate that “Internet of Things” or “IoT” is a term that was coined in 1999 by Kevin Ashton of Procter&Gamble. However, the history of the whole concept is debatable, some authors may even go all the way back to 1832 when Paul Schilling invented the electric telegraph in Russia, we won’t go that far! It is not most logic to go back in time to a point where internet was not even invented yet! I would say that 1982’s Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University becoming the first Internet-connected appliance would mark the first event in the history of IoT, but that’s only me. Actually, talks about the concept have been going on for years now, Mr. Ashton himself said that the term is “still often misunderstood“. However, almost 20 years later after his presentation, we have a clearer idea on the concept and the whole world is moving forward towards it.

I could be wrong, but I’m fairly sure the phrase “Internet of Things” started life as the title of a presentation I made at Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1999. Linking the new idea of RFID in P&G’s supply chain to the then-red-hot topic of the Internet was more than just a good way to get executive attention. It summed up an important insight which is still often misunderstood.

Kevin Ashton

According to google trends, people’s interest in the term “Internet of Things” started to rise in 2012 and peaked in November 2016.

From Internet of People (IoP) to Internet of Things (IoT)

Why do they call it internet of things? For starters, the name looks catchy, you can’t argue with that. Secondly, it fits the definition and provides a clear idea of the whole concept. Prior to 2010’s internet was more likely to be called “Internet of People” or “Internet of humans”, a phone or a computer will need a human to guide it through. Now, your watch can talk to your phone, your phone can send signals to your car, your car will be connected to the internet in one way or another and so forth. Actually in first quarter of 2016 there were more cars-connected than mobile phones, I found this hard to believe, but it checks out, 31% were phone, 23% were tablets and 32% were cars! (Source: Kevin Wallace)

So the idea is simple, instead of people using devices to communicate, the devices or “things” will be communicating with each other without human interference. But how to reach there? It doesn’t need an expert to tell that reaching this goal will require to connect different things running different applications and technologies in one giant coherent network.

Where will IoT be applied?

Well, EVERYWHERE!

Whatever can be connected, will be connected, right? And as long as any device could be connected, IoT will be applied virtually everywhere around us, cars, refrigerators, coffee makers, washing machines, wearable device and so on. Businesses are already partially applying the concept in various industries: Healthcare, Government, Education, Manufacturing, Energy, Retail, Transportation, Finance, Smart cities are all already using some sort of IoT in their operations.

Stumbling Blocks

Like any technology advancement, IoT has some obstacles to overcome. Internet speed was major obstacle in the past, but today with super fast broadband internet in our houses and the advances toward 5G internet, this won’t be a problem anymore. Apart from the technical challenges and data security, privacy and safety are big concerns.  A self-driving Uber car killing a pedestrian in Arizona last week was a major setback to the concept of self-driven connected vehicles. However, the accident, as sad as it is, it could have happened with any Uber driver, worst things have happened, we recall the tragedy of British diplomat in Lebanon that was murdered in December 2017 by an Uber “human” driver. This of course, doesn’t justify the self-driven car accident and safety will always come first especially with self-driven vehicles roaming the streets.

The “Internet of Things” is here to stay

It has been estimated that by 2020 there will be more than 50 connected devices in an average household or “smart” house. And according to the below graph from Statista, 23.14 billion devices will be connected to the internet in 2018, and the number will triple by 2025, that is less than 7 years from now, to reach 75 billion connected devices. If that doesn’t mean that internet of things is already here and it is here to stay, what does!

Those were some thoughts regarding Internet of Things, the coming years will tell how accurate those forecasts are, and how will they impact our everyday lives we’ll just have to wait and see. Stay tuned to ciatec.com, share and comment.

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The accident raised the flag on the future of this technology said to revolutionize the transport industry. Uber said it was suspending North American tests of its self-driving vehicles, which are currently going on in Arizona, Pittsburgh and Toronto.

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Other than I/O type, size and speed of hard disk, Western Digital (WD) adds another attribute; the Color. So what are these hard disks colors, what is the difference between them and what is each color best used for:

WD Hard Disk Color: Green

WD Green hard disk is no longer in production. WD merged green and blue hard disks product lines in October 2015.

WD Hard Disk Color: Blue

This is probably the most popular color in WD hard disk family. Suitable for everyday computing people who are not looking for something special in a hard drive. A laptop version is also available of this drive called “Blue Mobile”.

+ Current available specs: Size: 500 GB up to 6 TB, RPM: 5400, 7200, Cache: 32, 64 MB.
+Affordable price.

– Low in performance.

WD Hard Disk Color: Black

Enterprise edition hard drive, suitable for enterprises requires high-end computing servers for applications such as video editing, rendering and high performance gaming console. A laptop version is also available of this drive called “Black Mobile”.
+ Current available specs: Size: 500 GB up to 6 TB, RPM: 7200, Cache: 64 MB, 128MB, 256MB.
+ Comes with 5 years warranty

– High noise and heat

WD Hard Disk Color: Red

This is the NAS storage version of WD hard drives. WD also used to produce a WD Red Pro version but it is also discontinued.

+ Current available specs: Size: 750 GB up to 10 TB, RPM: 5400, Cache: 16 MB, 128MB, 256MB.
+ Comes with 3 years warranty

– Optimizes Read performance over Write performance.

WD Hard Disk Color: Purple

WD Purple hard drives are built for surveillance systems with supported workload up to 180 TB/year.

+ Current available specs: Size: 500 GB up to 10 TB, RPM: 5400, Cache: 64 MB, 128MB, 256MB.
+ High work load

– Expensive

WD Hard Disk Color: Gold

This is the elite version of WD hard drives, built with HelioSeal^TM technology, for high work load enterprise class reliability storage.
+ Current available specs: Size: 1TB up to 12 TB, RPM: 7200, Cache: 128MB and 256MB.
+ High work load

– The most expensive among the whole WD hard drives family.

Those were 6 colors or types of hard drives produced by Western Digital, if you’re still not sure what to choose, let us know in the comments.

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Everyone is talking about virtualization! Yet as with any technology, it can be challenging to wade through the gritty details of how your business can benefit from the upgrade.

Let’s talk about the big benefits of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), and what that means for your company.

So, all in all we can say that VDI desktops are secure, reliable and manageable end-user computing experience. The only area you might find inconvenient for the system is the disk storage. If you have the disk space in abundance, you are ready for VDI.

This article is also available in Arabic

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In this post, we’ll try to help you choose between two major backup options Local backup and Cloud-based backup. But before jumping into the advantages and disadvantages of local backup and cloud backup, there are several variables to be considered before reaching a verdict:

1- Data Size: This is the first thing to look at, how many GBs or TBs of data are to be backup on daily, weekly and monthly basis.

2- Internet Speed: Before considering a cloud backup, internet capacity should be taken into consideration. Will it carry the load without affecting other services?

3- Data Sensitivity: How sensitive is the data, and would the information asset owner (usually higher management) agree on copying this data into a third-party server?

4- Budget: Cost is always a main player. How much is a company willing to pay to protect its data against accidental deletion, hacking, disasters…etc?

Local Backup

Local backup is the traditional backup method that has been used for decades. Your data is usually protected by being copied to local storage on regular basis. A local storage can be hard drive, tape drive, flash drive and so on. As best practice, backup device should be placed in a different location than that of live data, and a copy of the backup data should be stored off-site on regular basis.

Pros of Local Backup

+ Full Control over your data: You know exactly where your data is, and you tell who will have access to what.

+ Independent from the internet speed: being copied locally, internet speed is irrelevant.

+ Backup and restore time is much faster.

+ Offline copy of data is secure and protected against any malware attack on your network.

Cons of Local Backup

– Reachability: You have no access to the backup data unless you are on the network.

– High Cost: Local backup will need a software license, backup hardware (such as tape library or network storage) and consumables (such as tapes of disks).

– Maintenance: Being responsible of the whole software and hardware infrastructure mean that you’ll have to take care of all hardware and software errors and updates.

– Scalability: Expanding storage capacity comes at a relatively expensive cost compared to cloud backup.

Cloud-based Backup

Cloud-based backup, sometimes referred to as “online backup” or backup-as-a-service, is relatively “new” concept of backing up your data. Backup is being done over the internet to an off-site server usually hosted by third-party cloud service provider or on the companies private cloud if exists.

Pros of Cloud Backup

+ Reachability: Backup data could be accessed from any connected device.

+ Cost: Pay as you go, purchase the size required for the time being and then expand as needed, this will save money, as the size of online storage is becoming cheaper year after year.

+ Maintenance: Zero maintenance required from your side.

Cons of Cloud Backup

– Privacy: With data being stored on foreign server, your privacy is only protected by service agreement terms. That’s the main reason why companies are opting to build their own cloud.

– Requires high internet bandwidth especially if the size of data being backup is too high. If bandwidth upgrade is required, the price of this should be compared with the overall cost of local backup.

– Speed: Backup and restore time is much longer with cloud backup.

– Being accessible from any connected device, cloud backup will always be at risk of hacking and malware attacks.

Long story short: Summary of Cloud Backup vs. Local Backup

Those were the major differences between Local Backup and Cloud Backup. If you have second thoughts regarding your backup strategy, CIATEC staff can help! Just drop us a line in the comments or contact us here and we’ll be happy to assist.

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What is WiFi ?

WiFi, the short for “wireless fidelity,” is the name of a popular wireless networking technology for wireless local area networking with devices based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. It uses radio waves to provide wireless high-speed Internet and network connections.

What is LiFi ?

LiFi, the short for “light fidelity”, is a wireless optical networking technology for wireless communication between devices using light to transmit data. In its present state only LED lamps can be used for the transmission of visible light. It is a safer, greener and cheaper technology as it does not have any radio waves or any other type of waves.

Following poster mentions feature comparison between WiFi and LiFi technology.

To conclude

After carefully examining the above two technologies, it is quite evident that the new LiFi technology is not the replacement of WiFi technology. Both WiFi and LiFi has its own advantages and limitations. Although LiFi seems to be temptingly faster many people believe that LiFi will just remain as an alternative to WiFi and might not replace it completely.

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Blockchain is a term that everybody is hearing about nowadays. It is undeniably a cunning invention. Defined in simple terms, blockchain is an original method to identify who owns what through technology. In this short post, we will tell how blockchain and cyber security relate.

“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.” Don & Alex Tapscott, authors Blockchain Revolution (2016)

Through this technology, one can keep track of transactions and is able to connect a million of computers across the globe. This is accomplished through adding those machines to a public accessible “ledger”, that until now can not be hacked or corrupted.

Let’s imagine it a database available, and continuously being updated across a network. Every transaction occurring over this database is known as a “block”.

Prohibiting individuals from controlling the data available, would limit chances of failure. Some of the main advantages of using blockchain are transparency, and decentralization.

Blockchain to Enhance Security

So how would blockchain and cyber security relate? We all rely on our web identifications and passwords, and are very cautious of any information thefts. Ensuring a secure identity is very crucial for any online interaction.

With Blockchain, security is enhanced through the encryption technology.

Technically speaking, blockchain uses a public key (users address), a private key (like passwords), and a paperwallet that allows individuals to protect their keys.

Blockchain technology is an innovation in cyber security, however the complications of the technology are to be taken into consideration and may hinder development in its application.

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