Oracle Unveils AutoVue 20.2

Oracle Unveils Oracle’s AutoVue 20.2

Augmented Business Visualization, Enterprise Mobility and Workflow Approval Capabilities Enhance Industry-Leading Enterprise Visualization Platform

Redwood Shores, CA – March 21, 2012

News Facts

To further enhance document visualization and extend its family of enterprise visualization solutions to the mobile workforce, Oracle today announced a new release of Oracle’s AutoVue.

As a leader in enterprise visualization, Oracle’s AutoVue 20.2 helps create rich and actionable visual decision making environments on all delivery platforms with Augmented Business Visualization (ABV). The framework connects portions of documents with business data from enterprise applications for more informed decisions and enables increased effectiveness of a broad range of business processes.

Demonstrating its commitment to supporting the mobile workforce in the utilities and oil and gas industries, AutoVue 20.2 can be integrated with Oracle’s industry leading portfolio of enterprise applications to visually enable a range of mobile devices by leveraging Oracle’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (OVDI).

To help further streamline business processes and support regulatory compliance in the public sector and energy industries, AutoVue 20.2 enables faster and more complete end-to-end approval workflows by leveraging advanced stamping and digital signoff capabilities.

The new release extends AutoVue’s world-class support for manufacturing and high-tech customers by introducing new versions of numerous mechanical computer aided design (MCAD) and electronic computer aided design (ECAD) formats.

Supporting enterprise level deployments, the release includes reliability and stability enhancements, as well as improvements to AutoVue’s security mechanisms, which adhere to Oracle’s Software Security Assurance standards.

In addition, the AutoVue 20.2 release family includes new versions of Oracle’s AutoVue Document Print Services and Oracle’s AutoVue Integration Software Development Kit (iSDK) .

An Industry Leader for Enterprise Visualization Solutions

Oracle’s AutoVue continues to be a leader in enterprise visualization solutions by helping customers in the energy, public sector, high tech and manufacturing industries increase operational efficiency and capitalize on information to drive business transformation.

The new release of Oracle’s AutoVue delivers:

Augmented Business Visualization: A new paradigm in visualization which synthesizes and reconciles information and business data from multiple sources into a single actionable visual environment. Partners and systems integrators can develop ABV solutions which enable users to access ERP data via hotspot links directly from documents and trigger actions in enterprise systems.

Visually Enabling the Mobile Workforce: With AutoVue available on mobile devices, field technicians have visual access to work-order related documents and can capture a digital record of onsite repair work, greatly improving productivity and wrench time.

Improved End to End Approval Workflows: AutoVue’s advanced stamping enables more efficient document approvals and digital signoffs and significantly improves document centric business processes, such as building ePermitting or supplier/contractor reviews, while also enhancing accountability and compliance with regulatory requirements.

Supporting Quotes

“Providing a holistic view to information is critical to transform the value chain, drive operational efficiencies and manage risk across the organization,” says Thierry Bonfante, AutoVue Senior Director of Product Management, Oracle. “New capabilities introduced in AutoVue20.2, such as Augmented Business Visualization, reconcile information from documents and the rest of the Oracle stack, helping companies access critical information in the format they need to make informed business decisions.”

“AutoVue’s stamping enhancements will greatly benefit our building permit management processes,” said Ties Kremer, Information Manager, Noordenveld Municipality, Netherlands. “The ability to batch stamp documents will speed up our approval processes, enable us to save time and money, and help us meet our regulatory compliance obligations.”

“AutoVue provides our non-technical teams in marketing and sales with access to customer order requirements and supporting CAD documents and drawings,” said James Lim, Regional Technical Systems Manager at Molex Incorporated. “AutoVue 20.2 has enabled us to refine our quotation process, and reduce order errors.”

“We are excited about our use of AutoVue’s Augmented Business Visualization framework, which will offer Meridian users enhanced access to related technical documentation,” said Edwin van Dijk, Director of Product Management, BlueCielo.  “By including AutoVue’s new regional hotspot capabilities within BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise, the context of engineering information is carried over into the visual representation of complex assets, thereby helping us to improve productivity and operational excellence.”

Supporting Resources

Datasheet: AutoVue 20.2

Oracle’s AutoVue

Oracle’s AutoVue AppCasts

Oracle’s AutoVue YouTube channel

Oracle's AutoVue Enterprise Visualization Blog

News Release from GE - Oblong

08 March 2012

FROM SCIENCE FICTION TO REAL SOLUTIONS, OBLONG RECEIVES INVESTMENTS FROM MORGAN STANLEY AIP, GE-NRG ENERGY-CONOCOPHILLIPS VENTURE AND FOUNDRY GROUP

LOS ANGELES, March 8, 2012 – Oblong Industries, the company that created the computing environments depicted in the film Minority Report, has announced that it is partnering with two new funders for its Series B capital raise: Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, and Energy Technology Ventures — a GE-NRG Energy-ConocoPhillips venture. The Foundry Group, already an Oblong investor, led the new funding round.

Oblong and its partners view this latest investment round as an opportunity to fuel growth, further extend the company’s technology leadership position, and deliver solutions to a broader market.

Oblong’s g-speak™ spatial operating system provides data visualization, analytics, and integration capabilities across multiple computers, screens, and applications. The g-speak environment supports many different kinds of computing and input devices, from desktops and laptops to mobile devices, from large-screen “mission control” centers to walk-up information kiosks. Oblong pioneered the development of gestural interfaces and continues to ship the world’s most scalable and accurate system for interactive hand and object tracking.

Oblong’s Mezzanine™ product, built on the g-speak platform, introduces next-generation, real-time collaboration with integrated telepresence. Mezzanine allows any user on an enterprise network to share content and applications with any colleague, any where in the world, dynamically and interactively.

Video of Oblong’s products is available at the company’s website:http://www.oblong.com/.

"We believe Oblong's spatial operating system is revolutionizing the way people interact with their computers," said Jamey Sperans, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners. "We are delighted to be partnering with Oblong's team of visionaries in pursuing the multiple market opportunities for this transformative technology."

Oblong’s technology research began over two decades ago at the MIT Media Lab. Today, the team is comprised of developers and engineers formerly with companies including Apple, Google, Pixar, Microsoft, Accenture and Walt Disney Imagineering.

Kwindla Hultman Kramer, Oblong’s Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We founded Oblong because we want to make computers better, smarter, and easier to use. We're proud of the multi-user, multi-screen, multi-device spatial operating environment we're supplying to partners like Boeing, SAP, and GE Digital Energy. And we look forward to taking that platform to broader markets in 2012.”

“We seek to invest in brilliant innovations that solve real problems with a talented team that can execute. We found that in Oblong. Their groundbreaking technology has the potential to fundamentally change how we interact with and act on data,” said Kevin Skillern, GE Energy Financial Services’ Managing Director of venture capital and representative of Energy Technology Ventures.

Oblong will use the new investment dollars to scale product commercialization and custom solutions development. Partners are critical to this scaling, and GE recently announced that Oblong’s technology has been licensed by GE Digital Energy for use in new Smart Grid analytics software. The product will enable utilities to use integrated digital tools and data sources designed to make decisions, both in infrastructure planning and real-time operations.

GE’s partnership with Oblong was conducted through GE’s ecomagination Accelerator program. The $20 million ecomagination Accelerator program, a spin-off from the $200 million ecomagination challenge, is designed to scale offerings of leading start-up companies through GE as a global growth platform. In addition to equity investments, GE funds commercial pilots through the Accelerator program in key growth markets like the smart grid.

Financial details on the Series B financing round in Oblong Industries were not disclosed.

HP Unveils New Line of Workstations

HP Unveils Powerful New Line of Workstations

Topics:Technology and Innovation

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- HP today introduced new multicore updates and increased expandability on its powerful line ofHP Z Workstations.

The new workstations feature the latest eight-core Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 product family, offer up to 512 gigabytes (GB) of DDR3 memory,⁽¹⁾ and support multithreaded workstation applications that professionals rely on.

The latest additions to the industry-leading line of HP Z Workstations also feature third-generation PCI Express technology, providing customers increased performance and seamless integration of new graphics cards.

• Engineered for the most demanding and compute-intensive visualization needs, the HP Z820 is ideal for customers in oil and gas, mechanical computer-aided design (CAD), mechanical computer-aided engineering, medical, video and animation. The HP Z820 provides up to 16 processing cores, up to 512 GB of ECC memory, up to 14 terabytes (TB) of high-speed storage and up to dual NVIDIA Quadro 6000 graphics.
• For quiet environments with minimal space, the HP Z620 is a great choice for customers in financial services, video, animation, architecture and midrange CAD. Updated to support both single- and dual-socket processors, the powerful and versatile HP Z620 provides up to 16 processing cores, up to 96 GB of ECC memory, up to 11 TB of high-speed storage, and up to NVIDIA Quadro 6000 or dual NVIDIA Quadro 5000 graphics.
• Engineered to meet mainstream computing and visualization needs for customers in CAD, architecture, video editing and photography, the HP Z420 includes up to eight processing cores using the latest Intel Xeon processor E5-1600 and E5-2600 product families, providing up to 64 GB of ECC memory, up to 11 TB of high-speed storage, and up to NVIDIA Quadro 5000 or dual NVIDIA Quadro 2000 graphics.

“As the workstation industry leader, HP continues to invest in technology that allows our customers to push the limits of innovation,” said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP. “Our investments in R&D and technology have led to workstations that meet and exceed the needs of the world’s most demanding customers.”

More cores for “megatasking”
The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family allows for up to 16 physical cores in a single system and lets 32 threads run at one time when using two processors, each with eight cores and Intel Hyper-Threading⁽²⁾ Technology enabled. The new processors include Intel vPro™ Technology,⁽³⁾ integrated memory controllers and Intel Turbo Boost Technology.⁽⁴⁾

“HP Workstations based on our new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family are helping workstation users fast track the way they create, test and modify their innovative ideas,” said Boyd Davis, vice president, Architecture Group, Intel. “Our new Intel Xeon E5 processors combine an increase in computational capacity and proficiency with an optimized I/O infrastructure. These advanced capabilities enable professionals to quickly and efficiently interact with their models while concurrently executing simulations, renderings, ray tracing and modeling their ideas on their HP Workstations.”

“HP Workstations based on our new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family are helping workstation users fast track the way they create, test and modify their innovative ideas,” said Boyd Davis, vice president, Architecture Group, Intel. “Our new Intel Xeon E5 processors combine an increase in computational capacity and proficiency with an optimized I/O infrastructure. These advanced capabilities enable professionals to quickly and efficiently interact with their models while concurrently executing simulations, renderings, ray tracing and modeling their ideas on their HP Workstations.”

All HP Z Workstations offer BFR/PVC-free configurations⁽⁵⁾ and are more than 90 percent recyclable by weight.

HP Workstations are used by some of the world’s most demanding customers in industries such as graphic arts, broadcast, CAD, engineering, medical imaging, finance, and oil and gas exploration. Companies use HP Workstations to design everything from running shoes to race cars, animated characters to deep-sea submersibles, and to manage everything from billions of dollars of tradable securities to mission-critical IT environments.

More information about HP Workstations is available at www.hp.com/zworkstations.

Pricing and availability
The HP Z420, Z620 and Z820 Workstations are expected to be available worldwide beginning in April. Estimated U.S. pricing starts at $1,169 for the HP Z420, $1,649 for the HP Z620 and $2,299 for the HP Z820.⁽⁶⁾

HP offers flexible financing solutions for customers deploying the latest HP Workstations through HP Financial Services, the company’s leasing and life cycle asset management services division.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

Sandia to Help IT Professionals w/ DNS Vulnerabilities

News release from Sandia Labs:

January 11, 2012

Sandia cyber project looks to help IT professionals with complex Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerabilities

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Sandia National Laboratories computer scientist Casey Deccio has developed a visualization tool known as DNSViz to help network administrators within the federal government and global IT community better understand Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) and to help them troubleshoot problems. (Click here to see a short video of Deccio discussing the DNSViz tool.)

Sandia computer scientist Casey Deccio developed a software tool called DNSViz to help network administrators with Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerabilities. DNSViz provides a visual analysis of the DNSSEC authentication chain for a domain name and its resolution path in the DNS namespace. 

DNSSEC is a security feature mandated for all federal information systems by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The 2008 mandate requires that “the top level .gov domain will be DNSSEC-signed, and processes to enable secure delegated sub-domains will be developed.”

The entity that serves to translate the hostname of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) into an Internet Protocol (IP) address is known as the Domain Name System (DNS). A DNS “lookup” is a prerequisite for doing almost anything on the Internet, including Web browsing, emailing or videoconferencing.

Although the mandate made perfect sense, said Deccio, there soon emerged a problem when .gov organizations actually began deploying DNSSEC.

“DNSSEC is hard to configure correctly and has to undergo regular maintenance,” he said. “It adds a great deal of complexity to IT systems, and if configured improperly or deployed onto servers that aren’t fully compatible, it keeps users from accessing .gov sites. They just get error responses.”

The still-new DNSSEC security feature is designed to allow user applications like Web browsers to ensure that the IP addresses they have received from the DNS have not been “spoofed” by anyone with ill intent. As such, Internet-connected systems within the government can verify that the responses are authoritative and have not been altered. Still, the hiccups with implementing DNSSEC convinced Deccio that there was a need for a tool like DNSViz.

DNS, said Deccio, is inherently insecure. Without DNSSEC, tampering by third-party attackers could go undetected, thus redirecting online communications to unwanted destinations. This represents a particularly troublesome problem for .gov addresses owned by government organizations guarding national security information and other vital data.

Deccio believes DNSSEC is of little use if network administrators don’t know how to configure or use it.
He describes DNSViz as a “tool for visualizing the status of a DNS zone.” It provides a visual analysis of the DNSSEC authentication chain for a domain name and its resolution path in the DNS namespace, made available via a Web browser to any Internet user at http://dnsviz.net/. It visually highlights and describes configuration errors detected by the tool to assist administrators in identifying and fixing DNSSEC-related configuration problems.

DNSViz brings together all the components that work together for DNSSEC to function properly into a single graphical representation. The resulting visualization is a collection of configuration data and relationships that are otherwise difficult to assemble, assess and understand.

To help network administrators in their DNSSEC deployment, Sandia’s DNSViz tool functions in two primary ways: It actively analyzes a domain name by performing pertinent DNS lookups and it makes the analysis available via the Web interface. The active analysis occurs periodically to build a history of DNSSEC deployment over time and provide a historical reference for DNS administrators.

Currently, the Web interface is the primary source for viewers to observe data, though Deccio intends to expand DNSViz functionality to allow access via other means. For example, alert mechanisms might be used to inform affected parties, and application programming interfaces (API) can be designed to allow administrators to programmatically access the information instead of manually browsing the DNSViz website.
Deccio has the tool running in the background on Sandia/California’s servers, monitoring a list of some 100,000 DNS names. It performs an analysis a couple times each day and offers a situational awareness of what the DNS configuration for each name looks like from top to bottom.

Though the functionality provided by DNSViz could potentially be included in a marketable software product that’s sold by a for-profit company, Deccio says he envisions it as an open-source tool available to anyone who needs it. With further funding, he hopes to expand the tool so that it can analyze DNS health and security on a continuous basis, essentially creating a full-blown monitoring system that is scalable, versatile and more informational.