Month: November 2018

When encountering the buffet of web hosting plans for the first time, customers can easily be overwhelmed by the various options, configurations, and acronyms. Matching the right server portions and hosting flavours to your appetite can be daunting. Boasting high-powered and reliable infrastructure, cloud hosting is a fast-growing option for consumers with a somewhat more refined palate, while shared hosting serves up affordable, easy comfort food. Read on the feast of information about these two savoury web hosting choices.

Cloud hosting, a premium option that touts performance, reliability, and scalability, entails connecting and virtualizing several servers to share storage and processing resources. The hardware components are optimized to handle particular tasks, and extra servers are ready to fill in if something breaks or has to go offline. Customers can provision or turn off additional computing resources to meet traffic demands, making the product particularly relevant to growing businesses.

Shared hosting, the most common plan on the market, resonates especially with first-time site owners and individual developers. In a shared hosting provider’s datacenter, individual servers can host hundreds or thousands of websites. Several customers share each server, meaning that storage and computing resources are limited. As the cheapest and most accessible type of hosting, shared packages often come with extra features such as one-click software installations, marketing credits, and website builders.

Server Resources, Configuration, and Management

Shared hosting providers make an effort to set the table with everything beginners need to get online, often including a free domain registration, drag-and-drop site builder, email accounts, search engine marketing credits, automatic backups, and a security certificate. The host will take care of the technical details of server maintenance such as operating system updates and security patches.

Cloud hosting, however, takes a different approach; multiple servers pool their resources together and cooperate to host multiple websites. The added hardware means more resources are available to each customer — and even more can be tacked onto your account with just a click of the mouse.

 Scalability

Even though numerous shared hosting providers tout unlimited resources for storage, bandwidth, databases, email accounts, and the like, so-called unlimited hosting is a myth — shared hosts commonly ask customers to enjoy their “unlimited hosting” within certain parameters deemed fair to the other customers on the server. Websites that exceed the allocated resource usage are often penalized with fees or decreased performance.

Performance

Shared hosting speed, on the other hand, can fluctuate between perfectly acceptable and downright slow. Customers’ site speed is largely dependent on the performance of other websites on the same server. The more a shared server is maxed out, whether in terms of the number of accounts or the amount of traffic it needs to handle, the slower it processes requests for information.

Cost

shared hosting gets an edge over cloud hosting when it comes to pricing and bonuses. It’s a perfect plan for those on a budget or small business owners because they can have access to all the basic features they need to get started and do so affordably. Cloud hosting, on the other hand, takes the crown when it comes to security, speed, performance, and uptime. All the features packed into this plan making it ideal for medium to large sized business or generally those websites that tend to receive huge traffic.

The EC3 unique centre which controls and integrates all existing and future technologies that would be required in any large scale real estate or smart city project. What sets it apart is the use of intelligent technologies and its ability to achieve integration and control of all the clients assets, from Energy, Security, Water, Sensor and others. In addition to collecting and analyzing all the data gathered in real time, the EC3 also ensures that emerging technologies such as Machine learning, Artificial intelligence, IOT and others will allow the snart-cities to speed up the response time to its users

Anatomy Of An Enterprise Command Center
An enterprise command center gives IT teams the situational awareness and tools to manage proactive and reactive issues that affect business services and operations.

The architecture of an enterprise command center includes the business and IT stakeholders, technology tools and the infrastructure elements that interact with and comprise IT services for the enterprise.

• Business Units. As enterprise IT teams evolve to serve as internal IT service providers to their business units, a command center provides the platform to deliver and optimize these services in a multi-tenant way.
• IT and Application Services Teams. Whether enterprise IT is organized by technology towers, service categories or applications, multiple “tower” teams need to collaborate and have a consolidated view across their infrastructure to move fast enough to meet the needs of today’s business. The enterprise command center provides the platform that teams can leverage to coordinate response and share common services.
• Tools Stack. Enterprises will have multiple IT operations tools in their stack, including ITSM tools and technology- or application-specific monitoring point tools. The command center integrates this myriad of tools into a single framework that leverages APIs and automation to consolidate alerts, events and metrics across tools to provide the right insights to drive action.
• IT Infrastructure. The enterprise command center has line of sight to all infrastructure, cloud and application elements that are used across the enterprise IT environment. The technologies may or may not be directly owned or managed by central IT, but is part of the integrated framework to provide enterprise-wide visibility.
• Vendors. With new models of working with service providers and vendors, the command center provides secure, role- and time-based access to external partners who provide IT services to the enterprise.
  The command center is a framework that brings together these elements and enables the enterprise to consolidate management across their infrastructure, tool sets, IT teams and stakeholders.

In the construction industry, there is a necessity for innovative methods to improve the construction efficiency that proves to be true happening now and for soon expected changes. The given paper studies information and communication technologies concerning their usage within the construction industry with purposes to increase construction efficiency and solve the special challenges such as sustainable design and construction.

About ICT in construction

Information and Communication Technology in Construction Industry Combination of site positioning, design requirements, materials selection, budget constraints and the availability of specialized skills makes each building project absolutely unique. Also, the construction industry is well-known for its highly fragmented and competitive environment. Nowadays the majority of building projects are hardly treated without traditional communication means, such as face-to-face meetings and the exchange of paper documents. Despite it there is a huge potential for increasing of volume, speed, quality and efficiency of information transfer.

The Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry shows huge interest in accepting of new technologies in the sphere of nD visualization, data analysis, information sharing, communications and collaboration. Following this way it is possible to improve communication, increase client satisfaction, reduce coordination errors in construction, provide a greater understanding between project participants, create fewer ambiguities and discrepancies in documentation and generally increase awareness and recognition of issues and requirements by all project participants. The main destination of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is providing construction stakeholders with information and analytical tools for the best control.

It is essential that each team member receives the right documents at the right time such as the latest version of drawings, specifications requirements among others. ICT softwares are used at this stage to:

• Improve efficiency of work
• reduce the risk of errors and rework by ensuring that everyone in the project team is working with the most current drawings and other documents;  
• save time in the query (request for information, RFI) and approval process, by allowing the design team to mark up and comment on drawings online;
• eliminate the risk of losing important files, by maintaining all current and past versions in one central location;
• improve team communication by enabling team members to raise and respond to queries in a structured way;  
• maintain a complete log of all communications for tracking purposes (audit trail facility);  provide clients and other participants with a view of the project as it is built;
• as some software have incorporated virtual reality models to denote the status of a project at any point in time (a snap shot view of a project);
• Provide a collaborative environment whereby the diverse participants can perform online collaboration via the web.  
• The real exchange of information takes place via other, informal channels, where other forms of information and communication technology such as e-mail, SMS messaging and mobile telephones, which enable direct contacts between project 25 members in network-like cooperation.

The construction industry is one of the least automated industries that feature manual-intensive labor as a primary source of productivity. Whether it’s new commercial construction, renovation or demolition, robots don’t yet play a significant role in any step of a building’s lifecycle. There are several new robots under development and in the early stages of deployment that could change this, however. As a highly unautomated industry, construction is poised for a robot revolution.

Construction Robots Only Now Realizing Commercial Potential
It may seem odd that the construction industry utilizes so few robots, but there’s a good reason for this: construction tasks are notoriously difficult to automate. The construction worksite is the primary obstacle to robotic automation.
Robots excel at repetitive tasks in a controlled environment. Construction sites could not be more opposite. Robots need to be able to adapt to real-time variability in their environment with little to no reprogramming in order to be profitable and productive. This is difficult for robots to do, but a few different construction robots are taking on these historically challenging tasks.

Types of Construction Robots
There are a few different types of construction robots that are poised to break into the construction market at a mass scale. First is a 3D-printing robot that can build large buildings on demand. A mobile robotic arm controls a 3D-printer, and with a set of preprogrammed instructions, this system 3D prints an entire structurally-safe building.
This technology is also beginning to be used for building bridges, with the first ever 3D printed bridge recently being built in the Netherlands. This combination of 3D printing and industrial robots is some of the most promising automation technology in the construction industry.

There are also construction robots for brick-laying and masonry, and even robots that lay an entire street at one time. These types of robots dramatically improve the speed and quality of construction work.
Demolition robots are another type of construction robot that’s about to break into mainstream applications. While they’re slower than demolition crews, they’re far safer and cheaper when it comes to demolishing concrete and structural components of a building at the end of its lifecycle.

There are several other types of construction robots, such as remote controlled or autonomous vehicles, but the few mentioned above are the most prepared to function in a current construction site and may be the most impactful.
As a highly unautomated industry, construction robots will have a major impact on the construction industry. As construction companies look to automate more and more tasks for the sake of efficiency and productivity, demand for construction robots will grow steadily.

The Advantages of Robotics in Construction

Adding robots to the mix on any construction job site may seem out of place, given the countless hazards that lurk on nearly all projects. However, giving machines the ability to function on their own, without the need for human interaction, actually has the potential to improve safety for all workers. Robotics in construction is currently being used for self-operating machinery, including bulldozers, excavators, and cranes, but the implications for such technology are far-reaching. When construction workers are taken out of the role of completing the mundane tasks now managed by robots, they can use their time to do more skilled work. This bolsters efficiencies and timeline management for most construction job sites.

In addition to autonomously completing tasks, robotics in construction may also influence the level of safety construction workers experience. Ekso Bionics, another California-based technology firm, has been developing wearable robotics for construction industry professionals for the past few years. Enhancements like exoskeletons that help improve mobility for contractors and robotic arms to reduce the impact of repetitive tasks on the job are being used at many job sites currently. These additions to construction projects pave the way for a safer job site, increased productivity, and a reduction in the time it takes to complete a job. The combination of the benefits robotics is adding to the industry ultimately lead to lower operations costs, from surety bond pricing to insurance expenses.

What it Means for Construction Workers

Adding technology like robotics to the construction industry has been met with some hesitation, mostly from industry professionals who have spent countless hours to get licensed and bonded, create and nurture professional relationships, and stay up to date on safety and building standards. However, technology and construction industry experts agree that while the trends moving toward digitization of the field has the potential to take away some low-level positions, it will be several years before robotics in construction is the norm. Instead, a slow and steady introduction of new technology in the industry is more likely.

Construction workers who are fearful of tech-infused solutions taking away jobs should rest assured that human skill will not be replaced by automated machines. Several tasks cannot be completed accurately or more efficiently by a robot, and project management is not a role that can be replaced by technology. The benefits robotics brings to the construction industry are evolving every day while being embraced on a wider scale, but construction workers are not out of a job because of it.

The huge development in the information technology has provided the possibilities for much faster and more efficient access to survey data, allowing their remote, nearly real-time management, processing and visualisation. The proposed geographic information system (GIS) is able to integrate many different types of survey data, especially those acquired by various acoustic sensors. It also supports instantaneous 2D and 3D visualisation in the form of thematic layers that can be overlaid. The set of geoprocessing and spatial analysis methods can be used in order to retrieve relevant information and analysis results.

About Geographic Information Systems

Tailoring solutions to each client and to each project, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be implemented on a number of software platforms for use in all sectors, including municipal, provincial and governments, urban development, forestry and emergency response, as well as for linear projects such as pipelines, fibre-optics and power transmission.

The solutions of a GIS platform

• Needs Analysis and Assessment
• Dataset Creation, Manipulation and Implementation
• Data/GIS Modeling
• GIS Analysis and Reporting
• Data Collection, Input and Conversion
• 3D Modeling
• Digital Mapping
• Database Design
• Cartographic Layout and Design
• Printing and Production
• Website Design and Maintenance
• Application Development

Information integrity that mitigates risk

The quality and integrity of project information is of paramount concern. A successful outcome for critical business decisions relies on an inherent trust in the integrity and accuracy of the underlying engineering information that those decisions are based upon. GIS applies rigorous standards and controls to all of the information that goes into project.

The web GIS portal provides a single interface where stakeholders can go to obtain up to date information on engineering, design/build and overall project status. Access to the portal and the different information is controlled by usernames and passwords. These portals are easy to use, requiring no technical GIS knowledge and run on any standard web browser. All project staff, senior executives and even the public can use the portal for knowledge gathering and/or to support decision making.  Decreasing and in some cases eliminating the time it takes to find information and make decisions creates value by enabling faster execution of project deliverables.

Collaboration that strengthens communication and ads value

GIS is a conglomerate platform. It is a technology that provides a mechanism where all of the diverse disciplines on engineering projects can interact. The web GIS portals provide a single access point where all project stakeholders can quickly understand everything that is going on, regardless of their individual role within the larger project. GIS facilitates true teamwork by providing a single interactive space where all disciplines and stakeholders can see the full picture.

The ability to move forward on any project relies on being able to effectively communicate with decision makers on the past, current and future state. GIS has advanced tools for analysing information, then presenting and visualizing different scenarios.

GIS for Electric Utilities & Smart Grids

The smart grid is all about situation awareness and effective anticipation of and response to events that might disrupt the performance of the power grid. Since spatial data underlies everything an electric utility does, GIS is the only foundational view that can potentially link every operational activity of an electric utility including design and construction, asset management, workforce management, and outage management as well as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distribution management systems (DMSs), renewable, and strategy planning.