Middleware News

SAP's products focus on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). The company's main product is SAP ERP. The current version is SAP ERP 6.0 and is part of the SAP Business Suite. Its previous name was called R/3. The "R" of SAP R/3 stood for realtime - even though it is not a realtime solution. The number 3 related to the 3-tier architecture: database, application server and client (SAPgui). R/2, which ran on a Mainframe architecture, was the predecessor of R/3. Before R/2 came System RF, later dubbed R/1. SAP ERP is one of five enterprise applications in SAP's Business Suite. The other four applications are: * customer relationship management (CRM) - helps companies acquire and retain customers, gain marketing and customer insight * product lifecycle management (PLM) - helps manufacturers with product-related information * supply chain management (SCM) - helps companies with the process of resourcing its manufacturing and service processes * supplier relationsh...

SAP was founded in 1972 as Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung ("System Analysis and Program Development") by five former IBM engineers in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg (Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus E. Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther).[3] As part of the Xerox exit strategy from the computer industry, Xerox retained IBM to migrate their business systems to IBM technology. As part of IBM's compensation for the migration, IBM acquired the SDS/SAPE software, reportedly for a contract credit of $80,000. The SAPE software was given by IBM to the founding ex-IBM employees in exchange for founding stock provided to IBM, reportedly 8%. Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was SAP's first ever customer in 1972.[4] The acronym was later changed to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung ("Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing"). In 1976, "SAP GmbH" was founded and the following year...

storage area network (SAN) is an architecture to attach remote computer storage devices (such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes) to servers in such a way that the devices appear as locally attached to the operating system. Although the cost and complexity of SANs are dropping, they are still uncommon outside larger enterprises. Network attached storage (NAS), in contrast to SAN, uses file-based protocols such as NFS or SMB/CIFS where it is clear that the storage is remote, and computers request a portion of an abstract file rather than a disk block.

Network types Most storage networks use the SCSI protocol for communication between servers and disk drive devices. They do not use SCSI low-level physical interface (e.g. cables), however, as its bus topology is unsuitable for networking. A mapping layer to other low-level protocols is used to form a network: * ATA over Ethernet (AoE), mapping of ATA over Ethernet, * Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP), the most prominent one, is mapping of SCSI over Fibre Channel (FC), * Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), * mapping of FICON over FC, used by mainframe computers, * HyperSCSI, mapping of SCSI over Ethernet, * iFCP[1] or SANoIP[2] mapping of FCP over IP. * iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER), mapping of iSCSI over InfiniBand (IB), * iSCSI, mapping of SCSI over TCP/IP

Storage sharing Historically, data centers first created "islands" of SCSI disk arrays. Each island was dedicated to an application, and visible as a number of "virtual hard drives" (i.e. LUNs). Essentially, a SAN connects storage islands together using a high-speed network, thus allowing all applications to access all disks. Operating systems still view a SAN as a collection of LUNs, and usually maintain their own file systems on them. These local file systems, which cannot be shared among multiple operating systems/hosts, are the most reliable and most widely used. If two independent local file systems resided on a shared LUN, they would be unaware of this fact, would have no means of cache synchronization and eventually would corrupt each other. Thus, sharing data between computers through a SAN requires advanced solutions, such as SAN file systems or clustered computing. Despite such issues, SANs help to increase storage capacity utilization, since multiple...

IELTS (pronounced /ˈaı.ɛlts/), or 'International English Language Testing System', is an international standardised test of English language proficiency. It is jointly managed by University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations, the British Council and IDP Education Australia, and was established in 1989. There are two versions of the IELTS: the Academic Version and the General Training Version: * The Academic Version is intended for those who want to enroll in universities and other institutions of higher education and for professionals such as medical doctors and nurses who want to study or practice in an English-speaking country. * The General Training Version is intended for those planning to undertake non-academic training or to gain work experience, or for immigration purposes. It is generally acknowledged that the reading and writing tests for the Academic Version are more difficult than those for the General Training Version, due to the differences in the level of inte...

IELTS Test Structure All candidates must complete four Modules - Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking - to obtain a Band, which is shown on an IELTS Test Report Form (TRF). All candidates take the same Listening and Speaking Modules, while the Reading and Writing Modules differ depending on whether the candidate is taking the Academic or General Training Versions of the Test. The total test duration is around 2 hours and 45 minutes for Listening, Reading and Writing modules. Listening: 40 minutes, 30 minutes for which a recording is played centrally and additional 10 minutes for transferring answers onto the OMR answer sheet. Reading: 60 minutes. Writing: 60 minutes. (n.b. No additional time is given for transfer of answers in Reading and Writing modules) The first three modules - Listening, Reading and Writing (always in that order) - are completed in one day, and in fact are taken with no break in between. The Speaking Module may be taken, at the discretion of the test...