Electric Car Sales Set To Accelerate As Costs Fall And Production Scales Up

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May 29, 2018 in Health Care and Wellness, News, Tips and Tricks

Electric Car Sales Set To Accelerate As Costs Fall And Production Scales Up

Electric Car Sales Set To Accelerate As Costs Fall And Production Scales Up

The Chinese-made $1.5million NIO EP9 at the Shanghai auto show. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

The electrification of the transport system is set to accelerate in the late 2020s, with electric buses leading the way, a new report claims. Electric vehicle sales will surge thanks to tumbling battery costs and increasing scale in manufacturing.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance says that sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will reach 11 million by 2025 before racing to 30 million by 2030 as they become cheaper than petrol and diesel vehicles, up from just 1.1 million last year. By 2040, sales will have doubled once again to 60 million, which will be more than half of the market (55%). Electric cars will be 28% of the total market by 2030, while 84% of buses will be electric.

The transition will be led by China, which will account for half of sales in 2025, before falling back to 39% by 2030. Electric buses will dominate the market even earlier, by the late 2020s and here China is even more dominant – of the 300,000 e-buses on the road today, 99% are in China.

The rapid domination of e-buses will come about because the business case is so compelling – the total cost of ownership of electric buses is set to be cheaper than traditional models as early as next year.

This rapid growth means that oil demand for passenger cars is set to peak as early as 2022, just four years away, at 24.2 million barrels per day before declining to less than 16mpd by 2040. In the mid-2020s, sales of internal combustion engine cars will also start to fall as their cost advantage over EVs disappears and then goes into reverse. By contrast, the EV surge will require 2,000TWh of power in 2030, leading to a 6% increase in global electricity demand and displacing more than 7mpd of oil demand.

It will also lead to a significant increase in demand for lithium and cobalt, which are vital raw materials for battery production. Supply constraints for these two metals, along with the speed of the rollout of charging infrastructure and the rise of shared mobility – most of which will be electric –  could slow the market’s growth.

Salim Morsy, senior transportation analyst, said: “While we’re optimistic on EV demand over the coming years, we see two important hurdles emerging. In the short term, we see a risk of cobalt shortages in the early 2020s that could slow down some of the rapid battery cost declines we have seen recently. Looking further out, charging infrastructure is still a challenge.”

Colin McKerracher, lead analyst on advanced transportation for BNEF, commented: “The big new feature of this forecast is electric buses. China has led this market in spectacular style, accounting for 99% of the world total last year. The rest of the world will follow, and by 2040 we expect 80% of the global municipal bus fleet to be electric.”

“Developments over the last 12 months, such as manufacturers’ plans for model roll-outs and new regulations on urban pollution, have bolstered our bullish view of the prospects for EVs,” McKerracher says.

Ali Izadi-Najafabadi, lead analyst for intelligent mobility at BNEF, added: “We predict that the global shared mobility fleet will swell from just under 5 million vehicles today to more than 20 million by 2040. By then over 90% of these cars will be electric, due to lower operating costs. Highly autonomous vehicles will account for 40% of the shared mobility fleet.”

The pace of electrification in transport will be fastest in Europe, where 44% of light vehicles will be electric by 2030, followed by China (41%) and the US (34%), while Japan will lag behind with just 17% of cars being electric. The market in India will be held back by a shortage of charging infrastructure and a lack of affordable models, so just 7% of cars will be EVs in 2030.

Soa Technology

May 29, 2018 in News, Only Happened In India, Tips and Tricks

DR DRILL of GST System on 2nd June 2018

DR DRILL of GST System on 2nd June 2018

Dear Taxpayer, 

GSTN is tentatively planning Disaster Recovery Drill of GST System on Saturday, 02nd June 2018 between 09:00 to 15:00 Hrs. GST system services will NOT be available during this time.

You are requested to plan your GST related activities on GST portal accordingly. Inconvenience, if any, is regretted.

Regards, GSTN Team.

Soa Technology

May 29, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

INCOME TAX SAVING: NEW TAX RULES WHICH WILL HELP YOU SAVE TAX IN FY2018-19

INCOME TAX SAVING: NEW TAX RULES WHICH WILL HELP YOU SAVE TAX IN FY2018-19

As the new financial year has already begun, people have started mulling over where to invest and how to save tax during this year. Here are the key tax changes which may impact your cash flows and investment decisions for FY2018-19.

Benjamin Franklin had rightly said that only two things are certain in this world – death and taxes. So, while there can’t be any escape from taxes, particularly if someone has taxable income, everyone tries to save as much tax as possible. As the new financial year has already begun, people have started mulling over where to invest and how to save tax during this year. However, saving the maximum tax is not possible without looking at the changes introduced in the Union Budget 2018. So, let us review the key tax changes which may impact your cash flows and investment decisions for the financial year 2018-19:

1. Standard Deduction for Salaried Individuals and Pensioners

The Finance Act, 2018 re-introduced standard deduction of up to Rs 40,000 for salaried taxpayers. Such deduction is allowed in lieu of the current transport allowance of Rs 19,200 (Rs 1,600 p.m.) and reimbursement of medical expenses of Rs 15,000 p.a. The net benefit for the employees already claiming a deduction for transport allowance and medical reimbursement will be Rs 5,800 (Rs 40,000 – Rs 19,200 – Rs 15,000).

“It is important to note here that pension received for past employment is also taxable as salary. Therefore, the benefit of standard deduction will also be available to pensioners. Till now pensioners were not allowed any exemption for transport allowance or medical reimbursement. Therefore, it will result in additional Rs 40,000 tax- free income for all pensioners,” says Chetan Chandak, Head of Tax Research, H&R Block India.

2. Enhanced deduction u/s 80D

Earlier, an individual was allowed a maximum deduction of up to Rs 30,000 in respect of expenditure incurred by him for the medical insurance for himself, his spouse or children. He was also allowed additional deduction of up to Rs 30,000 for the expense incurred for the medical insurance policy for his parents. The deduction of Rs 30,000 was restricted to max Rs 25,000 if the insured persons were less than 60 years of age.

“In case the assessee himself or his/her spouse or any of his/her parent was 80 years or more and was not covered under any insurance policy, then the deduction u/s 80D he/she was allowed to claim for the medical expenditure incurred on the health of such a person was Rs 30,000. The Budget 2018 extended this benefit to all senior citizens (i.e. 60 years and above),” says Chandak.

Also, this limit has now been increased to Rs 50,000 from the existing Rs 30,000 in case of all senior citizens (i.e. above 60 years). In a nutshell, an individual taxpayer can claim a maximum deduction of up to Rs 1 lakh under Section 80D if he or his family members and his parents are 60 years or above.

A summary of deduction allowable under Section 80D is explained in the table given below:

Nature of amount spentFamily MemberParents
Age below 60 years (value in Rs)Age above 60 years (value in Rs)Age below 60 years (value in Rs)
A. Medical Insurance25,00050,00025,000
B. Central Govt Health Scheme25,00050,000–
C. Health Check-up5,0005,0005,000
D.Medical Expenditure–50,000–
Maximum deduction25,00050,00025,000

Further, in case of single premium health insurance policies which cover more than one year, the deduction shall be allowed on a proportionate basis for all those years for which health insurance coverage is provided, subject to the specified monetary limit.

3. Deduction limit under section 80DDB raised to Rs 1,00,000

This deduction u/s 80DDB is allowed to an individual or HUF taxpayer who pays for the medical treatment of critical illness for himself or any other family member. At present, this deduction is allowed up to Rs 80,000 for the very senior citizen, up to Rs 60,000 for the senior citizen, and Rs 40,000 in any other case.

The Budget 2018 has raised the limit of deduction under this section to Rs 1,00,000 for all senior citizens (i.e. any one above 60 years in age). There is no change in the deduction allowed for expenditure incurred in any other case. i.e. for person who is below 60 years of age.

4. Bank interest up to Rs 50,000 will be tax exempt for senior citizens

A new section 80TTB has been introduced from AY 2019-20 which allows deduction of up to Rs 50,000 to any senior citizen (above 60 years) having interest income from deposits with banks or post office or co-operative banks. Aggregate interest earned on saving deposits and fixed deposits will be eligible for deduction u/s 80TTB up to Rs 50,000.

“No deduction under section 80TTA shall be allowed to the senior citizens claiming the benefit u/s 80TTB starting AY2019-20. Further, the corresponding amendment has been proposed in section 194A to provide that no tax shall be deducted at source from payment of interest to a senior citizen up to Rs 50,000,” says Chandak.

5. Enhanced Tax Benefit on Gratuity

Gratuity received on retirement or on becoming incapacitated or on termination or any gratuity received by the widow of the deceased employee, children or dependents was till now exempt up to Rs 10,00,000 as per the recent changes in the Gratuity Act. This exemption will be enhanced to Rs 20,00,000. So the taxpayers who are going to retire or receive gratuity starting 1st April 2018 will be able to claim higher exemption.

6. NPS withdrawal exemption extended to non-employees

Any amount received by an employee from the National Pension System (NPS) either on closure or opting out from the scheme is exempt up to 40% of the total accumulated balance in his NPS account at the time of withdrawal. Till now this exemption was not available to non-employee account holders. The Budget 2018 has extended the said benefit to all NPS subscribers.

7. No capital gains tax if the variation in stamp value and the actual consideration is up to 5%

Earlier, if a taxpayer sold an immovable property for a consideration which was less than the value adopted by the Stamp authorities, then the stamp value was deemed as the actual sales consideration. “This treatment resulted in higher amount of capital gains even if the seller had not actually gained anything due to such higher stamp valuation. Further, such difference in the stamp value and the actual consideration disclosed by the parties was also taxed in the hands of the buyer. This resulted in hefty double taxation,” says Chandak.

In order to minimise hardship in case of genuine transactions, now no adjustments shall be made in a case where the variation between stamp duty value and the sale consideration does not exceed 5% of the sale consideration.

Source – financialexpress.com

May 27, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

Xiaomi’s Mi Credit offers instant loans up to Rs 1 lakh to MIUI users in India

Xiaomi’s Mi Credit offers instant loans up to Rs 1 lakh to MIUI users in India

Expanding its portfolio of value-added internet services, Xiaomi has launched its own instant lending platform Mi Credit in India. The platform lists financial loan providers that MIUI users can access to apply for quick loans.

MIUI users can avail personal loans from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 lakh from the only loan provider listed on Mi Credit, Kreditbee. Xiaomi claims that loans can be initiated in 10 minutes through Mi Credit with simple KYC verification. All loan verification and user information input is done on the partner platforms, while Mi Credit only lists loan providers.

“Xiaomi provides internet services to give our users a complete mobile internet experience, and MIUI functions as an open platform for us to deliver our wide range of internet services, such as content, entertainment, financial services and productivity tools. The connectivity between our devices and the seamless integration between hardware and internet services enable us to provide our users with better user experience. Mi Credit is another big step in bringing an important internet service to India and we trust that our users would be able to truly benefit as the service becomes more sophisticated,” said Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi.

Notably, Kreditbee is the only loan provider listed on the Mi Credit. While Xiaomi’s lending platform is exclusive to MIUI users, Kreditbee on its own is available acorss the Android ecosystem via its mobile application, and is expected to make an appearance on the iOS platform some time soon. Thus, even non-MIUI users can also avail loans from Kreditbee.

All that is to know before getting a loan from Kreditbee

Kreditbee calls itself an instant personal loan platform for young professionals which offers them salary advance up to Rs 1 lakh with different repayment tenures. The first is personal loan between Rs 1,000 and Rs 9,900 which has to be repaid within 15 days of the loan processing date. The next is a short-term personal loan starting from Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh. The loan repayment tenure varies from 30 days to 90 days, depending on the loan amount.

The Mi Credit website lists the monthly interest rate at 3 per cent for loans up to Rs 1 lakh from Kreditbee. “For 15-day loan products from Rs 1,000 to Rs 9,900, we charge a flat interest at 1.48 per cent (annualized interest rate: 36 per cent per annum). For 30-90 day loan products from Rs 10,000 to Rs 1 lakh, we charge an annualized interest rate of 36 per cent per annum,” Kreditbee says.

Kreditbee also charges a processing fee ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 1000 depending on the loan amount. This processing fee is deducted up front from the loan amount and before it is disbursed to the loan applicant’s account.

Source by

May 25, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

BEST ANTIVIRUS: KEEP YOUR WINDOWS PC SAFE FROM SPYWARE, TROJANS, MALWARE, AND MORE

BEST ANTIVIRUS: KEEP YOUR WINDOWS PC SAFE FROM SPYWARE, TROJANS, MALWARE, AND MORE

7 Credit Card Charges You Must Know About

Credit cards can be a boon when used judiciously as they entitle you to advance credit and great rewards. But if you’re careless with your card use, you could incur charges, penalties and a hefty interest rate.

To ensure that you use your card smartly and not get overcharged, make sure you are aware of some crucial charges associated with credit cards.

Joining or Annual Fee

While many credit cards come free of cost, i.e. no joining fees and perhaps exemption from annual fee for a particular period, the ones with bigger rewards and benefits generally tend to have a joining fee. Some may waive off the joining fee for the first year but may have it from the second year. Sometimes these charges are waived off if one spends up to a threshold specified by the bank.

Interest and Finance Charges

Most credit cards offer a 50-day interest-free period to pay for all spends. Some premium cards have finance charges regardless of where and when the card is swiped. But once the interest-free period passes, banks will levy an interest/finance charge to be borne by the customer if the full payment is not made on time.

Cash Withdrawal Charges

Credit cards also allow you to withdraw cash from ATMs. This option should be exercised only in emergencies. While there’s an interest-free period for all other credit card transactions, the interest rate applies immediately for cash withdrawals. If you withdraw cash in an emergency, repay it as soon as possible to avoid the hefty interest rate.

Over Limit Charge

There is a charge if you breach your credit limit and cash withdrawal limit. For instance, if your credit limit is Rs. 1 lakh but you have spent Rs. 1.25 lakhs on the card, be prepared to pay a charge. Normally a percentage of the excess spend is charged as penalty. So make sure to keep track of your spending and if you think you need to make a big purchase deposit the deficit amount by cash to the card if necessary.

Late Payment Charges

A late payment on your credit card bill can be disastrous in many ways. Firstly, your credit score gets affected, and secondly, you have to pay a late fee each time you are late in paying dues. While some banks charge a standard late fee, some charge a percentage of the amount due as late fee. Some may even charge an additional fee if your ECS for the credit card payment gets rejected.

In case you don’t have the full amount to repay your card, make sure to at least pay the minimum amount due, in order to avoid the late payment penalty.

Foreign Transaction Fee

Whenever a credit card is used for foreign transactions, whether online or at a point of sale, the bank levies a foreign mark-up fee. It ranges anywhere between 1.5 per cent and 5 per cent depending on the bank and the card. Cash withdrawals abroad are charged at a higher rate that card swipes. So when abroad you can carry enough cash or get a travel card to avoid these charges.

Balance Transfer Fee

A balance transfer is when you pay off the balances on existing credit cards or loans by transferring them to another credit card account. While many high value cards allow this free of cost, in some cases you may be charged a fee to complete the balance transfer – typically a percentage of the transfer balance. It is basically an expensive way to move money from one account to another, rather moving debt from one account to another, and you must avoid getting to this point by repaying your debts in a timely manner.

Source by:-ndtv

May 24, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

What’s Next In Autonomous Cloud Services: Analytics, Integration, And Development

What’s Next In Autonomous Cloud Services: Analytics, Integration, And Development

“Why doesn’t software manage itself?”

That’s the question his team asked about seven years ago, Oracle president Thomas Kurian told journalists at a recent briefing at the company’s headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. In 2018, the answer is now “It does,” in the form of Oracle’s autonomous cloud services.

Earlier this year, Oracle launched the world’s first autonomous data warehouse and pledged to add self-driving, self-securing, and self-repairing capabilities across its cloud platform services. Now, three more autonomous services have come on line: Oracle Autonomous Analytics Cloud, Oracle Autonomous Integration Cloud, and Oracle Autonomous Visual Builder Cloud. Powered by machine learning, these services perform tasks like patching and optimizing without human intervention, lowering operating costs and freeing IT teams, DevOps engineers, cloud architects, and even citizen developers to focus on more creative work.

“For every $1 spent on developing software, companies spend $3 on administering software,” Kurian said. With a vision of reducing this burden and freeing up time for more inspiring activities, Oracle started a four-phase project. “First, let software install itself, and do patches and backup. Second, let software take care of capacity management, adding servers on the fly,” Kurian said. “Third, let software tune itself, observing how queries run on the database, then indexing. Fourth, let it do health management: If the system is not looking healthy, take corrective action.”

These industry-first autonomous systems can also help reduce security risk because systems are patched automatically, rather than waiting for a person to schedule time to do that. “Embedding AI and machine learning in these cloud services will help organizations innovate in revolutionary new ways,” said Amit Zavery, executive vice president of development for Oracle Cloud Platform.

Three New Services: Analytics, Integration, and Development

All the autonomous services built on Oracle Cloud Platform reduce human labor, automatically upgrade and patch while running, and scale up or down without downtime (self-driving). They protect from malicious activity and automatically encrypt all data (self-securing). And they boast 99.995% availability, or less than 2.5 minutes of downtime per month (self-repairing).

Beyond that foundation, each of these three new services has been optimized for its audience.

Oracle Autonomous Analytics Cloud, for example, helps business users uncover insights by asking questions without having to write complex queries. Analytics Cloud converts the questions into backend queries using natural language processing, then creates rich visualizations of the answers. All the while, it’s learning from those interactions in order to proactively suggest insights and reveal hidden patterns.

With Oracle Autonomous Integration Cloud, machine learning can help integrate the thickets of systems companies run on—a problem that is only getting thornier. “The problem we’re solving is to make it easy to map those end points quickly,” Zavery said. “We will figure out what schema maps to what other schema in your SaaS applications. We provide a lot of pre-packaged connectors, so customers don’t have to do a lot of that coding.” Most impressively, Autonomous Integration Cloud learns from crowd-sourced data of all executed integrations and then makes visual recommendations of how to connect objects across different systems.

And finally, there’s the challenge of feeding the beast: Keeping up with the insatiable demand for new mobile and web apps. Oracle Autonomous Visual Builder Cloud makes it easier for developers and business users alike to deliver cross-platform mobile applications written in JavaScript and HTML, with code generated via WYSIWYG tooling including Oracle JET, Swagger, and Apache Cordova. Visual Builder Cloud Service also has autonomous capabilities to eliminate repetitive tasks so you can focus on designing, prototyping, and releasing your app. Simply name your server and click the button, and VBCS configures a database, host, and full development platform. Publishing a mobile app is just as simple: All it takes is one click to package the code for iOS and/or Android.

Will professional developers want to use such a visual coding tool? Oracle believes the productivity of visual coding will pay off for serious coders, now that Visual Builder Cloud Services lets developers add their own custom code to achieve richer behaviors. “While VBCS automatically generates code for you, the code is directly accessible for the developers—they can go in and enhance and modify it,” said Shay Smeltzer, director of product management for Oracle. “Basically, a professional developer can think of Autonomous VBCS as a platform that removes the boring part of coding and lets them focus on the more challenging part of development: implementing unique functionality for their organization.”

Make AI Do the Mundane

Oracle announced earlier this month that it plans to release more autonomous services later this year focused on mobile and chatbots, data integration, blockchain, security and management, and additional database workloads, including OLTP.

And expect more autonomous tools to help developers. “We are looking into leveraging more AI to help remove mundane tasks,” said Smeltzer. “So for example, one of the ideas we are working on is being able to scan an image with a conceptual design of a page and generate the HTML to implement it for you.”

May 24, 2018 in Health Care and Wellness, Tips and Tricks

TOP 7 TIPS TO GET BEST FUEL ECONOMY FROM YOUR PETROL OR DIESEL CAR

TOP 7 TIPS TO GET BEST FUEL ECONOMY FROM YOUR PETROL OR DIESEL CAR

Fuel prices hit a record high today in Delhi at Rs 77.17 per litre for petrol and Rs 68.34 per litre for diesel and we expect the increase of prices to continue until the government lowers taxes. And with higher fuel prices comes higher running costs. While most cars in India have stated fuel economy figures between the 15 kmpl to 25 kmpl mark, in real usage conditions, fuel economy figures are actually considerable lower. The misconception states, smaller the engine, more the fuel economy. But this isn’t always true. It is now about what car you drive, it is about how you drive it. So here are 7 important tips that will help you improve your fuel economy.

1. Service your car!

While you might think doing that one free service a year when you get a phone call from your authorised service centre is enough, it actually isn’t. You car is a machine and like every machine, it needs constant upkeep. We aren’t asking you to check your car every morning like it is the 1960s, but checking oil levels and coolant levels once every two weeks can actually have a big difference on your car. Oil levels are crucial and so is using the correct grade of oil that has been recommended by the manufacturer.

Another very important part of service are filters. Air filters, fuel filters and oil filters make a big difference in ensuring the engine runs at peak mechanical efficiency and that in turn ensures good fuel economy. It also helps to make sure your spark plugs are clean and without a layer of soot on them.

2. Maintain the correct air pressure

The manufacturer recommended air pressure is crucial – not only for a comfortable ride and correct handling but also for ensuring fuel economy. An under inflated tyre leads to friction and that leads to kinetic energy being lost. Another trick is to actually increase the air pressure in your tyre by a few PSI. That makes the side walls firmer and reduces the contact patch of the tyre but at the same time it can lead to blowouts (if over inflated) and lower grip as compared to correct pressures. And while it is known to work, we personally would not recommend it.

tyre decals

(Maintain the correct tyre pressure for best fuel economy)

3. Drive in the correct gear

You are not Vin Diesel. You are not chasing an Antonov AN 225 down a runway with baddies shooting at you. And thus you don’t need to change gear every 3 seconds. Being in the right gear at the right RPM helps the most. Especially if you are in a high traffic area. Another mistake people regularly make is to rev the engine all the way to its redline before changing gear. And while that might be great if you don’t give two hoots about your fuel economy, it makes a HUGE difference if you do.

Always remember, shift up as quickly as you can and only shift down when you need to. Also, sometimes, especially while coming down slopes, it is actually better to leave the car in a higher gear and not shift it to neutral. Remember, neutral means that the RPM of the car is at idle and therefore controlled by the ECU. Alternatively, being in a higher gear makes sure that RPMs depend on engine speed and considering the fact that the throttle is closed off as much as the ECU would allow, fuel economy is actually higher. That said, NEVER TURN YOUR CAR OFF WHILE DRIVING DOWNHILL!

4. Don’t carry unnecessary weight

Weight is the worst enemy when it comes to fuel economy. And while you cant ask your passengers to get off just because you want 1kmpl more, you can get rid of anything unnecessary from your car to save weight. This of course does not mean that you should get rid of your spare wheel or tools, but always remember to clean our your boot of anything unnecessary while you travel. And while an extra spare wheel is great when you travel, it is not necessarily needed while in the city.

ford freestyle diesel review

(Always keep the windows up while driving for best fuel economy)

5. Keep those windows up!

While it might not seem so, aerodynamics play a HUGE part in improving fuel economy. Windows rolled up means that the car’s body is as slippery when coming in contact with the air that it can possibly be. This means that the air flow around your car will be at its best and you don’t need that little extra power to make your air cut through the air. Of course, in a country like India, it is always best to have your windows up and your air conditioning on in order to sacrifice a little fuel economy for the sake of your health.

6. Park in a shaded area

While most lists will ask you not to use your air conditioning, we know it is an essentially need rather than a luxury if you intend to drive in India. In summer, with temperatures peaking at almost 50 degrees outside, the car’s interiors are usually even hotter and can take quite a while to cool down to a bearable level. This means that your AC has to work overtime at full blast, in turn sapping power from the engine. So just park under a shade. You will have a cooler car to come back to and your wallet will thank you too.

mumbai traffic

(Avoid idling at a traffic light for more than 60 seconds)

7. Avoid long idles

Avoid situations where the car is idling for over a minute. While normally a starting procedure takes more fuel, it is less than having your car idle for over a minute. IF you have a car with start-stop technology, use it. This will help especially if you in a situation where traffic rolls for a few metres and then comes to a stand still repeatedly.

 Source – auto.ndtv.com

May 24, 2018 in Tips and Tricks

The top IT initiatives of enterprise network managers are cloud and software-defined data centers, overcoming server virtualization’s dominance for the past 10 years, according to Enterprise Management Associates.

The top IT initiatives of enterprise network managers are cloud and software-defined data centers, overcoming server virtualization’s dominance for the past 10 years, according to Enterprise Management Associates.

In 2018, for the first time cloud and software-defined data-center concerns have become the primary focus of enterprise network teams, bumping server virtualization from the top spot, according to an Enterprise management Associates (EMA) report based on a survey of 251 North American and European enterprise network managers

This is the first shift in their priorities for in more than a decade. Since 2008, EMA has been asking network managers to identify the broad IT initiatives that drive their priorities. Server virtualization has dominated their responses year after year. Cloud and software-defined data center (SDDC) architectures have always been secondary or tertiary drivers.

In 2018, this pattern has finally broken, according to EMA’s “Network Management Megatrends 2018” research. This shift in drivers is also leading to mainstream focus on software-defined networking (SDN), network virtualization and software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN).

Server virtualization and workload consolidation

Before there was vCloud, OpenStack, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or even ESXi, there was simply VMware ESX. At its outset, VMware’s server-virtualization technology allowed enterprises to run more than one application on an x86 host, which allowed data center operators to consolidate workloads onto a smaller number of servers. Virtualization allowed enterprises to remove hardware, save rack space and drive efficiency in power and cooling. Virtualization also facilitated the decomposition of monolithic applications into multi-tiered application architectures, where different layers of an application could run on separate virtual machines.

This consolidation of workloads and the decomposition of applications that followed had profound impacts on networks. Bandwidth demand at the server access layer expanded, and the amount of traffic traveling east-west between servers exploded. Network engineers have spent the last decade reacting to this, building flatter, leaf-spine networks and replacing spanning tree protocol with equal-cost multi-pathing schemes.

That is why network managers have told EMA over and over again since 2008 that the broad IT initiative that most drives networking is server virtualization by a wide margin.

2018: software-defined and cloud architectures

While server virtualization remains influential on networking in 2018 (35% of network managers), it is no longer the top driver. This year, several other initiatives moved into a virtual tie with it, which indicates that mainstream enterprises are asking the network to support next-generation technologies. EMA asked network managers to identify all broad IT initiatives that were driving their priorities. The top driver in 2018 is SDDC architecture (37%). Other leading initiatives are infrastructure as a service (35%) and private cloud architecture (35%). Note that all these newly influential initiatives are ideas that draw on server virtualization as a foundational technology.

This data suggests an inflection point. For years, technology companies anxious to sell next-generation solutions have claimed this inflection point had already arrived, despite limited supporting evidence. Finally, EMA sees this shift in the numbers. Network managers are turning their focus away from east-west traffic optimization in the data center to programmable, software-defined technologies.

SDN and SD-WAN finally have their day

Network teams will naturally adopt new technologies to support these next-generation initiatives, and EMA research affirms this. In 2014 and 2016, network managers told us that network security and WAN optimization were the two most important networking initiatives they were dealing with.

Security is always a major concern, since the threat landscape is always evolving and challenging the security team. But WAN optimization is by no means a technology of the future. Its popularity always suggested that enterprises were focused on extracting more value out of their high-priced and bandwidth-constrained MPLS networks.

Network teams tasked with supporting cloud and SDDC architecture need to expand their technology focus. This year’s Megatrends research found just that. Network security (43%) remains at the top of the list, but data center SDN (40%), network virtualization (37%) and SD-WAN (36%) are near the top of the list. In previous years they were afterthoughts.

CLOUD

How does SD-WAN work?

This shift in priorities suggests that mainstream enterprises are at last focused on these solutions after years of hype. Data center SDN and network virtualization are essential to private cloud and SDDC initiatives. They make the network more dynamic, agile and programmatic. Meanwhile, SD-WAN brings many of the same benefits to the WAN, and it facilitates the connection of remote sites to public-cloud environments.

WAN optimization (36%) remains relevant, but the rise of SD-WAN suggests that a tectonic shift is happening in the WAN, since SD-WAN enables enterprises to supplement or replace MPLS with broadband internet.

(Shamus McGillicuddy is a senior analyst, network management, at Enterprise Management Associates and the author of the report “Network Management Megatrends 2018”.)

This story, “Survey: Mainstream adoption of SDN, SD-WAN finally arrives” was originally published by Network World.

April 29, 2018 in Tips and Tricks

Add new user account from command line (CMD)

Add new user account from command line (CMD)

Some times we may want to add new users from command line instead of using the UI. For example, if we have to add some 100 users, using a script will save lot of time and manual effort. Windows provides net user command for this purpose. This command works on Windows 2000, Windows XP/2003, Vista and Windows 7.
To add a new user account on the local computer:

net user username password /ADD

Example: To add a new user account with the loginid John and with password fadf24as

net user John fadf24as /ADD

Hide password

If you do not want the password to be visible while adding new user account, you can use ‘*’ as shown below.

C:\>net user /add John *
Type a password for the user: 
Retype the password to confirm:
The command completed successfully.
C:\>

To add a new user account to the domain:

net user username password /ADD /DOMAIN

Note that the command does not include the domain name.

Example:

net user John fadf24as /ADD /DOMAIN

Rename a user account

Net use command does not have any switches to rename a user account.  But we can do that using wmic commands. Please check this – Rename user accounts on Windows

Few more Advanced uses of net user command.

To set user full name while creating the user account

net user username password /ADD /FULLNAME:"User_Fullname"

To allow user to change password:

net user username password /ADD /PASSWORDCHG:Yes

To restrict user not to change the password:

net user username userpasswd /ADD /PASSWORDCHG:NO

To set account expiry time we can use /EXPIRES switch. This can also be used to set that the account never expires.

To specify if the user must  have a password set we can use /PASSWORDREQ switch. For more information on all net user options, read this – Net user command: syntax and examples

How to create a new administrator account?

An administrator account can’t be created directly.  We first need to create a user account and then add the user to the administrators group.

Errors:

  1. If you don’t have privileges to add new user account to the system, you would get an error like below. C:\>net user John /add System error 5 has occurred. Access is denied. C:\>
  2. While adding user to domain, make sure that your computer is connected to the domain. Otherwise it throws up below error. C:\>net user testuser testpassword /ADD /DOMAIN The request will be processed at a domain controller for domain mydomain.com. System error 1355 has occurred. The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.

April 13, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

VMWARE TACKLES COMPLEXITY OF MULTI-CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS

VMWARE TACKLES COMPLEXITY OF MULTI-CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS

VMware has expanded its portfolio of cloud tools to help enterprises improve the manageability of their public cloud and on-premises environments. At the same time, VMware announced the first global expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS, its joint hybrid cloud service with Amazon Web Services.

VMware has expanded its portfolio of cloud tools to help enterprises improve the manageability of their public cloud and on-premises environments. At the same time, VMware announced the first global expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS, its joint hybrid cloud service with Amazon Web Services.

Complexity is on the rise for enterprises as they expand their use of cloud computing – which often is not limited to a single cloud provider. VMware estimates that nearly two-thirds of companies will use two or more cloud service providers in addition to their on-premises data centers.

VMware Cloud Services are designed to provide a consistent set of tools – for visibility, operations, automation, security and governance – across multiple public cloud and on-premises environments. The goal is to enable consistent operations from the data center to the cloud, providing greater visibility into cloud usage, infrastructure costs, network performance and application monitoring, for example.

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“The need to support a complex set of new and existing applications is driving cloud adoption, and the needs of the applications are driving cloud decisions,” said Raghu Raghuram, chief operating officer for products and cloud services at VMware, in a statement. “VMware Cloud gives customers unprecedented flexibility to develop any type of application, deploy these apps to any cloud and deliver them to any device, while leveraging a consistent infrastructure across clouds and a consistent set of operations across any cloud.”

VMware Cloud Services

Two new products and two upgraded products are among the announcements VMware made today:

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension for Private Cloud
VMware’s Hybrid Cloud Extension services are SaaS offerings designed to support large-scale application migrations between diverse vSphere environments, on-premises and in the cloud. VMware has previously announced Hybrid Cloud Extension services for both IBM Cloud and VMware Cloud on AWS; these are now available for enterprises that want to extend their VMware-based environments to the public cloud.

The new service – VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension Service for Private Cloud – is geared for self-managed private enterprise data centers. It’s designed to make it easier for enterprises to migrate applications without modification, with little or no application downtime, in environments that span multiple private data-center locations.

VMware Log Intelligence
This new log-analysis service is a single troubleshooting tool that works across private data centers and multiple clouds, including VMware Cloud on AWS. Log Intelligence uses machine learning algorithms and log analytics to scan for anomalies in data center and cloud environments and give IT teams visibility into application behavior and infrastructure health.

Wavefront by VMware
VMware updated its SaaS-based metrics monitoring and analytics platform, Wavefront by VMware, to include 45 new integrations, including GCP, Chef, GitHub, Spark, Nginx+, and Mesos. In May 2017, VMware acquired Wavefront, which specialized in monitoring complex applications – consisting of hundreds of microservices in containers with lifespans of seconds – spread across private and public clouds. Wavefront by VMware now supports Kubernetes in Pivotal Container Service, application platform services such as Pivotal Cloud Foundry, and enterprise applications running on VMware-based private clouds. It also now integrates with VMware’s vRealize Operations, a monitoring tool that helps enterprises troubleshoot and plan capacity for virtualized environments.

VMware Cost Insight
Cost Insight is VMware’s cost monitoring and optimization service for public and private clouds. It’s designed to help IT teams analyze, track and streamline cloud spending. Cost Insight already supported AWS, Microsoft Azure and VMware-based private cloud data centers. Now it includes support for VMware Cloud on AWS. When enterprises want to consider migrating workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS, Cost Insight can provide details about how much the migration would cost. It’s also tied to VMware Network Insight, so users can calculate the impact of networking costs during a migration.

VMware Cloud on AWS goes global

In addition to the new and updated cloud management tools, VMware announced the European expansion of its AWS offering. VMware Cloud on AWS (the bare-metal cloud platform that makes it easier for customers to run VMware workloads on the Amazon Web Services public cloud) is now available in the AWS London region. After the UK, European expansion will continue with the AWS data center in Frankfurt, Germany.

“Since launching VMware Cloud on AWS just six months ago, we’ve seen tremendous interest from our global customer base and multi-national enterprises. Today marks an essential starting point for our global expansion to deliver unparalleled hybrid-cloud services in major geographies around the world,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager of the cloud platform business unit at VMware, in a statement.

The hybrid cloud model with VMware and VMware Cloud on AWS is a key component of the technology and business transformation at Brink’s, according to Greg Osgood, global vice president of infrastructure and security at the Richmond, Va.-based cash-management company.

“VMware and VMware Cloud on AWS are the foundation of Brink’s global infrastructure,” Osgood said in a statement. “These systems allow the company to easily move workloads between its private cloud and the public cloud, providing agility for production services and disaster recovery. Using these VMware technologies, and with a partnership with Eastern Computer Exchange, Brink’s successfully consolidated its North America data center operations in 2017, and is planning to extend this model to Europe, Latin American and Asia in 2018.”

VMware also debuted a partner program for its AWS cloud service.

This story, “VMware tackles complexity of multi-cloud environments” was originally published by Network World.