Newsletter:March2010
From IIITM-k-wiki
IIITM-K newsletter contents for March 2010 due Feb. 23 11.00A.M.
IIITM-K to establish Cloud computing Testbed
IIITM-K has been entrusted with the responsibility to establish a Cloud computing testbed by Information Technology Department, Government of Kerala. Realising the benefits of cloud computing for the e-Governance projects and State Data Centre, Kerala State Information Technology Mission (KSITM) has taken the initiative to set up a Cloud Computing Test-bed at IIITM-K to study the feasibility of setting up a cloud environment for the State Data Centre. Cloud computing infrastructure allows enterprises to achieve more efficient use of their IT hardware and software investments. CDAC Chennai is providing technical consultancy to the project.
Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Cloud computing services usually provide common business applications on-line that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers. It is expected that Cloud Computing will help in pooling of computing resources of Government Departments into large clouds thereby increasing utilisation of computing resources effectively. Besides, the self-service nature of cloud computing allows organizations to create elastic environments that expand and contract; based on the workload and target performance parameters.
The Kerala government started a number of e-governance projects to address the services of 39 Government departments, over 122 field Departments and over 30,000 offices spread across the nook and corner of the state. Projects like Personnel and Payroll Management System using SPARK (Service and Payroll Administrative Repository for Kerala) requires huge amount of resources during the peak period of computation at the end of every month and may face problems with poor response time owing to want of resources. Also, applications which require high traffic at certain period and other time kept idle(Examination result announcement) are more suited for a cloud environment. The cloud is futuristic, and a reality now and has become the most exciting development and delivery alternative to arise in the new millennium. Presently, cloud computing is still in the early adopter phase, but will continue to move into mainstream adoption. Today's unprecedented business and organizational challenges re-thinking decision makers to adopt more flexible and cost-effective mechanisms to achieve their IT and business objectives to achieve in a easy and comfortable way. Cloud, with its economic, green and scalable development and delivery mechanism, will be a gift to organizations and the business benefits are undeniable. Though it may be seen as a threat to hardware manufacturers, nevertheless cloud offers tremendous opportunity in terms of software, services, networking, platforms, infrastructure sharing “on-demand”.
The development of the project will be carried out using open source software toolkit like Eucalyptus, Hadoop, with CDAC open source OS BOSS. BOSS is an operating system developed by C-DAC. Once the testbed is successful, the testing would be done with one of the e-Governance projects.
Admission to IIITM-K Ph.D. Programme
IIITM-K invites applications for admission to the Ph.D. Programme starting in April 2010 in IT related topics in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language processing, Software Engineering, Advanced Computing areas like High Performance Computing, Grid and Cloud Computing, Distributed Computing etc.
Eligibility: For admission to the Ph.D. Programme a candidate must have a Master's degree in Engineering / Technology / Science / MCA / M.Sc CS/IT in a relevant area with a minimum Cumulative Performance Index (CPI) of 6.5 or 60% of marks. For further details visit www.iiitmk.ac.in
SPEED-IT Research Fellowship:The selected full-time candidates shall be eligible to get "SPEED-IT Research Fellowship" instituted by the Department of Information Technology, Government of Kerala. Each selected student will be eligible for a monthly fellowship of Rs 14,000/- for the first year, Rs 15,000/- for the second year and Rs 17,000/- for the third year. An annual contingent grant of Rs 20,000/- will also be paid.
IIITM-K Conducted NAIP workshop on Agricultural Decision Support Systems
As part of National Agricultural innovation Project(NAIP) by Indian Council of Agricultural Research, IIITM-K team has conducted workshop on Managing Decision Support Systems at University of Agricultural Sciences - Raichur (UAS-R), Karnataka from 22-23rd February 2010. The workshop was organized jointly by IIITM-K and University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur. Around 30 scientists and faculty from various departments have actively participated in the workshop and gained practical knowledge on managing the Decision support systems developed by IIITM-K as part of the project. The IIITM-K team consisting; Sri.R. Ajith Kumar (Principal Investigator), Sri. T. Radhakrishnan (Co investigator) and Dr. C.K. Peethambaran (Subject Consultant) have handled various technical and hands on sessions.
International delegates visits IIITM-K Library
A Group of 11 library professionals from various countries visited IIITMK Library. The delegates were undergoing their Training on "Global Training Programme on Digital Library and Knowledge Management" conducted by the Fluid Control Research Institute (FCRI), Palakkad. Delegates from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Ivory Cost, Tanzania, Zambia, Indonesia, and Oman were among the delegates visited along with FCRI Officials. Visitors were highly impressed by the digital library of IIITMK established using GenISISWeb. Mr Sainul Abideen, Librarian IIITMK demonstrated the Online Library Information System of IIITM-K and the functionalities of ABCD Library automation software to the delegates.
Digital Library Trainees Receives Award
Mr. Shameer KK and Ms. Shyama C, both Digital Library Trainees of the institute secured 2nd and 3rd rank respectively in the BLISc examination conducted by the University of Calicut during 2008. They were felicitated by an award constituted by Farook College Old Students' Association (FOSA). Award was distributed in a colorful function organized to honor distinguished old students of the college Adv. M.I. Shanavas elected to lok sabha, Dr. A. Jayakrishnan, Vice Chancellor of University of Kerala, Dr Azad Moopan, recipient of Prawasi Bharatha Ratna.
Mr Shameer and Ms Shyama are recipient of PTA award for rank holders, which was distributed few months back.
Appraisal Workshop @ IIT Guwahati
Mr Md Meraj Uddin, Principal Investigator, Information Security Education and Awareness[ISEA] project of DIT, Govt of India participated in one-day `appraisal workshop` at IIT Guwahati on February 19, 2010 for taking stock of progress made so far on various activities undertaken in the ISEA project and to evolve appropriate strategy and action plans for the present and the future. Under ISEA project, IIITM-K is planning to conduct workshops on Information Security, short courses on 'Secure Systems and Network Administration', 'Emedded Systems Security' & 'Secure Cloud Computing', and a post graduate level course in Computer and Data Security.
Short courses
Systems and Network Administration
IIITM-K is conducting two weeks short course on Systems and Networks Administration in Linux from March 8 - 19 2010. The course is intended for graduates / final year students of B Tech / MCA / MSc ( IT / CS/ ECE) and systems & network trainees who aspire to pursue their career in the area of Systems & Network Administration. The programme is offered under information Security and Awareness Progamme of Department of Information Technology, Government of India. For more details visit www.iiiitmk.ac.in/ or contact programme coordinator shortcourse@iiitmk.ac.in, 0471-25527567(O), 9447582856(M).
Embedded Systems
IIITM-K is conducting twenty days short course on embedded systems from April 10, 2010. The course is intended for graduates [B.E./B.Tech/MSc/BSc] who aspire to pursue their career in the area of embedded systems. The programme is offered under information Security and Awareness Progamme of Department of Information Technology, Government of India. For more details visit www.iiiitmk.ac.in/ or contact Programme Coordinator by email : embedded@iiitmk.ac.in, or phone : 0471-25527567(O), 9447582856(M).
Agriculture Graduates visits institute to learn KISSAN Kerala Project
As part of the academic program a group of 40 students undergoing BSc Agriculture course at College of Agriculture, Vellayani alongiwth faculty visited IIITM-K on 6th February 2010 to familiarise themselves with the features of KISSAN Kerala Project. The Kissan Kerala team at IIITM-K gave an exposure and demonstrated various ICT enabled agricultural information Services to the students. The KISSAN Kerala project and its multi-modal delivery architecture has been included as a major topic in the curriculum of courses in Agriculture.
Invited talk
Dr. C.S.P. Iyer, Professor Emeritus, IIITM-K, delivered an invited lecture on "Disaster Management”, at the Dept. of Environmental Science, Mahatma University, Kottayam on Tuesday, the 23rd of February. During the talk, he recounted the experiences he had had as a Member of the scientific team investigating the Bhopal Gas tragedy. This worst industrial disaster was due to a combination of human errors and the consequence of economizing on safety features, so essential for handling a toxic chemical as Methyl Isocyanate. This was compounded by the lack of awareness among the general public on the working of the industrial unit and the precautions they should take when an accident occurs in the industrial unit.
Seminars
05 February 2010: "Symmetry in Nature" by Prof. M.S. Gopinathan, Dean and Professor, IISER, Trivandrum.
