Data Center Solutions to Complete the Technology Life-cycle in An Organization

A safe, secure and uncomplicated storage of data is an important matter for any modern organization. With increasing numbers of processes becoming virtual and the focus being online data, it has become imperative to have an effective data centre to keep an organization running smoothly. An enterprise needs to be technologically advanced in order to compete in today’s marketplace. Data security and its accessibility are among the most vital business operations.


Data centers are complex centralized storage facilities for enormous number of systems. Data centers need to be more advanced with the many developments in information technology to provide unprecedented business benefits. As being ahead of business competition is becoming increasingly more challenging now, it is almost impossible to properly implement your operational business processes without the services of a data-processing center.


The advent of cloud computing and virtual servers has provided numerous choices to businesses in terms of storage solutions have never been better. As businesses grow it is necessary to be prepared to handle the changes proficiently. A meticulous and insightful approach will helps one to confidently deal with the future requirements in your business. From data backup of your servers, to the updates made to your operating systems or networks, and even power and cooling, it is important to be aware of and in control of your data storage needs.


The right data center solutions provide immense support in helping to deliver reliable and quality products and services. With optimized platform for server consolidation, they provide an efficient storage servers and High Performance Computing (HPC) features along with open architecture, best-of-breed industry standard components that allow for future growth and easy upgrades.  It is prudent to partner with a solution provider that offers scalable storage servers that help to efficiently run a wide range of applications including those meant for data backup purposes. Such advanced data center solutions effectively complete the technology lifecycle in an organization.


Leading service providers today have forayed into the domain of data center solutions. These solutions ensure complete software and hardware integration. They help in curbing down unidentified hazards and other associated operational threats. Furthermore, the solution looks after the user's rack assembly, cabinet and product level requirements. This makes it possible for the end users to incorporate their hardware, software, and other peripherals for a turn-key. In addition to that, the solution ensures that their customers with racks for database servers, networks, industrial applications and web servers are all set for a laboratory, workshop or commercial environment.


Read Also On: Oem Manufacturing , Data Centre Solutions , Custom Computer Systems , High Performance Computing Cluster

Biometrics Services Offered By CRO’s

Over the past few decades, medical science and its multiple domains have taken a quantum leap with the help of the latest technologies. The same applies for biometrics, that can be defined as a technology that helps in identification of individuals based on their physical and behavioral traits. Examples of physical characteristics include iris, face, hand geometry and fingerprint recognition to name a few. Similarly, the behavioral traits involve elements such as voice, walking style, signature style and other similar individual features. Today eminent medical institutes and clinical research organizations (CRO) in India have contributed immensely in the domain of biometrics.


In India, esteemed CRO’s have been offering a comprehensive range of data management services in bioequivalence and Phase I to IV clinical trials. All these clinical trial procedures are conducted in bio clinical laboratories that the CRO’s individually own. The primary objective of this is to transform raw data into accurate and consistent trial outputs in compliance and regulatory policies.


Furthermore, CRO’s have their own Biometrics department with efficient medical professionals working to speed up the regulatory submission procedure and minimize the timeline making use of forward thinking and commitment to high standard and quality. Biometric services provided are frequently used by pharmaceutical, biotechnology and clinical organizations. The services include the following:


Database Programming


* CRF Design (paper & electronic)

* CRF Annotation

* Database Programming

* Validation Checks

* Metadata Repository Management


Data Management


* Data Acquisition

* Data Reconciliation

* Discrepancy Management

* Medical Coding (MeDRA & WHODD)

* Database Lock

* Data Extraction for Reporting


Pharmacokinetic & Pharmacodynamic Studies


* Sampling Point Estimation

* Technical Document Review

* PK/PD Query Resolution

* PK/PD Subject Matter Expert

* Pharmacokinetic support across study engagement


PK/PD Reporting


* SDMS Data Extraction

* PK Data Analysis

* PK Summary Reporting


Biostatistics


* Randomization

* Sample size estimation

* Trial Design Inputs

* Statistical Analysis Plan

* Statistical Analysis

* Biostatistics Subject Matter Expert


Statistical Reporting


* TLF Programming

* CDISC Data Mapping (SDTM & ADaM)

* Clinical Data Repository

* Pooled Data Analysis & Reporting

* Safety (ADR) Reporting

* Patient Profiles & Data Cleaning Reporting


The biometrics team in CRO’s and other medical institutes are experienced in clinical trial phases. The team members delve deep in biometric treatments and experiments with innovative discoveries that help not only the medical but the defense and security and surveillance sectors as well.


Read Also On: Bioequivalence, Clinical Pharmacokinetic

Enterprise Compliance Management through End-to-end Automation

The global business enterprises today, though technologically enabled, are challenged to remain compliant to local and international regulations in force across various geographical locations.   Achieving regulatory compliance involves use of various strategies, contracts, policies, and practices that are today included as a part of  compliance management  along with Governance and risk management and are referred to as GRC.

Corporate governance, enterprise risk management and corporate compliance adopted by organizations as an integrated approach, facilitates easy solution for all compliance related issues. However, with workforce, customers and vendors spread across geographically distant locations, the compliance initiatives also become intertwined with the organizational requirements, which affect organizational efficiency. With the innovation of cloud computing, leading industry experts have designed and developed cloud based multi-tenanted automated Enterprise Compliance Management software that would cater to the requirements of both large corporate houses as well as small and medium enterprises cutting across geographical locations.

Technology solutions like the Enterprise Compliance management provides an innovative and unified monitoring service and ensures that all security and IT-GRC functions for information security and compliance required for every organization to be compliant with, is achieved.  Further, the built-in frameworks, for HIPAA, HITECH, PCI and ISO along with inference engines and alert processing features, facilitates easy adoption of the security framework. The integrated cloud-based security and GRC platform makes this solution a multi-tenant one, multiple users accessing the services.  With built-in templates available at no extra cost for the best practices, policies and procedures, this is a low investment, high return model.

Secure enterprise compliance management solution provides organizations, a complete end-to-end automation, for its security, compliance, audit and risk management needs. Further, this also helps reduce, the time required for regulatory compliance and certification processes and extends the built-in support for other compliance regulations such as HIPAA compliance, PCI, SOX, ISO,IT security and compliance. Further, being available as Software-as-a-Service model, ensures that all the critical data that is electronically saved never leaves the network, and gets updated automatically. Its real-time dashboards and extensive risk and compliance reports offer continuity of security and compliance.

Enterprise compliance management solution is advantageous to the organization in a number of ways; apart from ease of  deploying, it also facilitates easy integration with vendor management . The menu driven assessment makes it feasible for the organizations to understand regulatory frameworks such as HIPAA, HITECH and others and facilitates a scalable and cost-effective compliance management.

Also read more on - Threat management, meaningful use in healthcare

Achieve ISO 27002 Compliance with Enterprise Compliance Management Solution

ISO/IEC 27002 is a code of practice for information security published together by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and by the International Electro technical Commission (IEC). Originally, a code of practice published by the UK government, it later evolved into a BSI standard (BS7799). When ISO/IEC adopted the British Standard,it became ISO/IEC 17799:2000. Revised in 2005 (ISO 17799:2005), it was renumbered (but otherwise unchanged) in 2007 (ISO 27002:2007) to align with the other ISO/IEC 27000-series standards.

Named as ‘Information technology - Security techniques - Code of practice for information security management’, it provides best practice recommendations on information security management for those enterprises that need to set up a comprehensive information security management program or enhance its current information security practices. Though ISO/IEC recommends enterprises to consider each of the security practices, it is not compulsory that each enterprise must implement every practice. Organizations need to implement only those practices that meet their requirements or address their information security risks.

The ISO 27002 standards provide “guidelines and general principles for initiating, implementing, maintaining, and improving information security management within an organization." The objective of the ISO/IEC 27002 standards is to develop "organizational security standards and effective security management practices and to help build confidence in inter-organizational activities".

The ISO/IEC 27002 standard contains the following twelve main sections:

  1. Risk Assessment
  2. Security Policy - management direction
  3. Organization of Information Security- governance of information security
  4. Asset Management - inventory and classification of information assets
  5. Human Resources Security- security aspects for employees joining, moving and leaving an organization
  6. Physical and Environmental Security- protection of the computer facilities
  7. Communications and Operations Management- management of technical security controls in systems and networks
  8. Access Control - restriction of access rights to networks, systems, applications, functions and data
  9. Information Systems Acquisition, Development and Maintenance- building security into applications
  10. Information Security Incident Management- anticipating and responding appropriately to information security breaches
  11. Business Continuity Management- protecting, maintaining and recovering business-critical processes and systems
  12. Compliance - ensuring conformance with information security policies, standards, laws and regulations

Today most of the business transactions happen online and therefore incidents of data breach is something that enterprises face regularly.Hence, enterprises must not only implement effective data security measures but also make others know about it. This can be easily done through ISO-27002 implementation.

ISO 27002 compliance helps enterprises in proving that information security practices are stringently followed and that their information is secure and in accordance with an internationally recognized standard. Hence, enterprises must deploy compliance management solution that has ready to use compliance control kits for ISO 27002 developed by security and compliance auditors with industry best practices.

Read more on - IT security and compliance, vendor management

Importance of Clinical Pharmacokinetic Studies

Clinical Pharmacokinetics can be defined as the study of the relationship between drug dosage regimens and the concentration time profiles. There are three basic parameters that govern these relationships. They are:


* Clearence i.e. the volume of the fluid that is cleared out completely from the drug per unit time

* Distribution volume i.e. the apparent volume in which the drug has been distributed to make the measured concentration

* Elimination half-life i.e. the time that is required for 50 percent of the drug to be completely eradicated.


The knowledge of distribution volume is helpful in estimating a loading dose in order to quickly attain a target concentration. On the other hand the knowledge of clearance can be helpful in calculating the dose rate needed to retain a target concentration. Furthermore, elimination half-time helps in determining the time needed for a drug to completely blend and eliminate from the body. It also indicates the time taken to attain a steady state and can be further used to gauge the optimum dosage interval for producing the target peak to channel the difference.


Clinical Pharmacokinetics and treatment of Tropical Diseases


In the recent past there has been incremental progress in the field of Clinical Pharmacokinetics and it is used to treat tropical ailments, especially in the development and design of dosage regimens for treating chronic malaria. For instance, by a cautious manipulation  of its administration rate, chloroquine has been observed to be better tolerated when used for treating severe diseases that are caused by susceptible parasites. On similar lines, essential advancement has been made in the rational design of quinine dosage regimens for patients in places such as Africa and South East Asia.


Clinical Pharmacokinetics investigations in mefloquine have drawn the focus on issues related to its administration as a combination therapy with sulfadoxine and pyrimethamine in Thailand. The evaluation of pharmacokinetic traits of halofantrine has resulted in the explanation that erratic and poor absorption can explain the therapeutic failure as the resistance of the parasites to the effects of this drug. Furthermore, the disposition of antimalarial biguanides has delineated the role of hos-related impacts in determining drug response. For instance, a limited number of individuals are not able to convert proguanil to its active triazine metabolite, cycloguanil.


Today eminent CRO (Clinical Research Organizations) in India conducts clinical trials and medical researches on Clinical Pharmacokinetics and other medical domains in order to facilitate the drug development process.


Read Also On: Phase I Study, Biometrics Companies, Bioequivalence, Clinical Pharmacokinetic

Understanding Vendor Management Strategies

Globalization has paved way for expansion of the business enterprises across boundaries. In the process, it has also paved way for opening up of various opportunities for small and medium enterprises, groups or individuals to act as vendors for the large corporate houses. Further, technological growth has given the dynamic business environment networking systems to keep them connected and share business related critical data and information across the network. However, all this e-information needs to be protected from cyber attack.

To guard such vital business information organizations require management solutions, the effectiveness of which lies in the strength of the firewall and information security programs. Designing and developing such strong threat management systems requires a proper understanding of origin of threats and its modus operandi. Selection of vendors and using an effective vendor management system will help organizations alleviate threats and keep a tab of all the links to the network.

Vendors can be defined as a group of workers, independent professionals, consultants or experts, either freelancing or on temporary contract, outsourced by an organization. Gartner’s research on vendor management goes a long way in aiding organizations with the right metrics and relationships required in selecting the vendors best fit the organization.  An effective vendor management system thus enables organizations to control overhead costs, drive service excellence throughout the product life cycle.

For every organization, the important aspect of managing vendors is the ability to share information and priorities with them. However, with threats looming large over the World Wide Web and the risks to corporate networks, organizations need to effectively manage risk and compliance simultaneously while being cost efficient. Leading service providers have worked out effective vendor management processes for these organizations. Such process will enable the global organizations to understand the risks of their business relationships with third-party vendors regarding data sharing or outsourcing.

By integrating effective risk management solutions involving people, policies, process and technology and the structured vendor management approach will help organization establish a continuous communication and alleviate threats while achieving quality service.   The risk management solutions available as an on-demand service from the service providers would provide client organizations the necessary support for managing vendors, cyber-security, operations, and IT compliance.

Vendor management solutions offered by the leading service providers, to protect the global organizations, from various unknown threats,   helps client organization to automatically monitor and manage sensitive data and technical controls. It enables managers to manage the risks involved, assesses vendor risk against best practice standards, derive IT compliance , vendor compliance and risks ratings. By adopting such effective approaches to reduce business risks, organizations can gain a competitive advantage.

Also read on -  HIPAA and HITECH, Vulnerability management

Prevent NIHL with Electronic Hearing Protection Devices

The most common type of hearing loss prevalent among young and old individuals is noise induced hearing loss. Everyone is exposed to unpleasant, uncomfortable and annoying noise everywhere.  A sound is a noise when the sound level crosses 85 decibels (dB). As the intensity of the decibel increases, a pleasant sound instantly becomes an annoying noise. With a thin line existing between sound and noise, it is up to the listener to take all possible precautions for hearing protection.

 

Occupational noise is the important cause for the rise in noise induced hearing loss. The following is a list of sounds associated with workplace.


  •  Jackhammer at 50' -  95 decibels
  • Hand Drill  - 98 decibels
  • Sandblasting  -  115 decibels
  • Power Saw at 3”   -  110 decibels
  •  Woodshop   -            100 decibels

 

All the above decibels cross the safe level of 85 decibels (the maximum limit of exposure to this decibel is 8 hours per day). The "3-dB exchange rate" formula clearly explains the maximum exposure time for different decibels. As per the "3-dB exchange rate" formula, for every 3 dB above 85 dBA, the maximum exposure time is cut in half. That means the maximum exposure time for any sound of 88 dB is 4 hours. Imagine the damage caused to ear by exposing oneself to such noise levels as mentioned above.

 

One of the most common symptoms of NIHL is Tinnitus or ringing ears. Tinnitus sufferers feel an intermittent or persistent buzzing or ringing sound in their ears in the absence of corresponding external sound. Tinnitus is of two types, objective and subjective. In subjective the patient alone hears the sound where as in the case of objective, apart from the patient himself, others can also hear the ringing sound. It is a disturbing and frustrating condition since in some patients the ringing sound would be so loud that they would not be able to sleep and concentrate. Thus, it interferes with happiness and well-being of a person.

 

Tinnitus is not a disease but a symptom mainly caused by NIHL and there is no cure recognized in medicine. What exist are symptomatic treatments, which help people cope better with the condition. Hence, most insurance companies do not cover medical expenses as tinnitus treatments are considered experimental.

 

The best possible measure to prevent the condition from worsening is to wear ear plugs or earmuffs. Then there are electronic hearing protection devices available that combines the speech enhancement and noise cancellation technology to ensure users can hear speech and stay protected in the workplace. With hearing protection devices, workers can now eliminate the menace called NIHL.

 

 

Important Pointers For Filing FBAR

The last two decades have witnessed an unparalleled degree of globalization especially in the financial services, despite the financial crisis that had a hindering effect on the economy sometime back. This has increased cross-border banks and other capital flows dramatically. Several banks have ventured to foreign lands and have set up their presence in other lands. Owing to the importance of foreign banks in most countries, it is essential to understand the motivations of foreign banks prior to your entry in a certain host country. It is crucial to know how are they different from domestic banks and what impact they have on the financial sector development and their lending stability.


However, if you are a citizen of America then FBAR i.e. Foreign Bank and Financial Account Report is form that you ought to file for complying with the requirements of reporting Foreign Bank  Account and financial accounts to the Unites States tax authorities. This applies to one and all residing in United States having a financial interest or an authority on any financial account in a foreign country. In addition to that, it is also applicable in case the aggregate value of these accounts in foreign countries exceeds US$10,000 in a year. The form that needs to be filled up formally is the Treasury Department Form 90-22.1. However, it becomes easy to understand the process when there are answers to some of the important questions pertaining to it.


Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts that can be reported?


Given below are some of the financial accounts that need to be reported in the Foreign Bank Account report, as and when you qualify for it:


* Bank accounts (checking and savings)

* Investment accounts

* Mutual funds

* Retirement and pension accounts

* Securities and other brokerage accounts

* Debit card and prepaid credit card accounts

* Life insurance and annuities having cash value


Date for filing the form?


The Treasury Form 90-22.1 needs to be filed annually on June 30th. Quoting the Internal Revenue Manual section 4.26.16.3.7 it is highlighted that the “The FBAR is considered filed when it is received in Detroit, not when it is postmarked."


The repercussions of not filing Treasury Form 90-22.1?


Any person is entitled to file the TD F 90-22.1 for reporting about their foreign bank accounts that they are holding at presented. This needs to be done even if someone has missed the deadline of June 30th else the state has rigid penalties for the ones willingly failing to fill the report. To complete this process smoothly, you can seek help from leading tax planning agencies and consultants based in the United States. This would help you to avoid the strict penalties and complete the FBAR filing smoothly.


Read Also On: Overseas Voluntary Disclosure, Entity Formation, IRS Amnesty

Ensure Highest Efficiency with Top Aircraft Engineering Services

Aircraft engineering plays a significant role when it comes to safe and comfortable flying. Many aerospace companies are looking to create better models with advanced features to give them an edge above the rest. Stiff global competition is presenting formidable challenges to industries for engineering and manufacture of products without any compromises on quality.


The aircraft supply chain has to further their engagement about a more robustly integrated and optimized aircraft that perform better than at a reasonable cost. This necessitates a high degree of engineering and specialization.


These processes incur huge expenditures, it is essential to adopt innovative techniques without any compromises to ensure increased efficiency and effective results. The aviation industry can consult professionals who provide outsourced  aircraft engineering services.


These service providers have the required cumulative experience and worldwide presence, to offer customized solutions to efficient aircraft engineering. They offer product design and development expertise in aircraft engineering that usually includes aircraft structure, vital aircraft systems such as mechanical, electrical, avionics, etc. They also have the experience and knowledge to implement best practices with outstanding and supportive coordination capabilities.

With streamlined and composite processes that focus on assured and promising returns, these engineering services  combine  aero structural engineering services with manufacturing to enable customers to meet their growing offset requirements in aircraft engineering contracts.


The best outsourced engineering services also offer in-house capability and expertise in providing of a wide variety of comprehensive technical documents catering to varied technical aspects of aerospace industry. It prudent to team with top engineering consulting services to provide customer service and ongoing support throughout the operating Life Cycle of equipment, monitor the performance and reliability of their aircraft, engines and components in the field. These consultants demonstrate high levels of expertise and knowledge while ushering in streamlined and composite processes that focus on assured and promising returns.  


The enterprises that can blend engineering services outsourcing along with their own internal capacities are the ones that can enjoy the best cost-effective benefits. Enhanced generation of revenues while meeting the exacting industry standards is a laudable accomplishment.


Teaming up with the right aerospace engineering services provider brings tremendous advantages in maintaining and promoting cost structures.  


With successful outsourced engineering services, aerospace engineering businesses can make their efforts tangible and provide them with outstanding support to help them live up to the expectations of the customers.


Related Links: engineering consultancy service ,  aerospace product and parts manufacturing

Ensure Brand Reputation with Counterfeit Detection Software

Today the internet and advancement in technology has led to increase in the availability of counterfeits and it is difficult to find a single product whose counterfeit is not available. Counterfeiting is a growing menace to the society as it not only eats into jobs and revenue but also puts the health and safety of the people in grave danger.  The growing popularity of online shopping is one of the contributing factors for the increase in the market share of counterfeit products.

There is not a single industry where the counterfeiters have failed to penetrate. From apparels to pharmaceutical industry and from automotive parts to electronics and electrical products, counterfeiters now have the upper hand. For instance, according to ERAI Inc and the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP) in the electronics industry counterfeiting has quadrupled since 2009, growing from 324 to 1,363 in 2011. This substantially proves that the counterfeit industry is no longer a small-scale industry that it used to be. It is now a highly networked and sophisticated industry draining business and the global economy.

The growth of counterfeit electrical goods and products pose a serious risk for electrical product manufacturers. Apart from causing loss of lawful employment and tax revenues, counterfeit electronic products and parts put people’s lives in jeopardy thereby causing irreparable damage to the brand reputation of the original/legitimate electrical product manufacturers. Since the counterfeit products are branded with legitimate company's trademark, the genuine and legitimate companies have to face the brunt when the counterfeit products fail to perform. There are very many instances where counterfeit electronic products and parts have led to fire and explosion resulting in injury and loss of life.

 

In today’s competitive business environment, even a minor damage to brand reputation can result in companies going out of business and competitors gaining foothold in the market. In such a scenario where one false move could be the last, legitimate companies need to look at brand reputation management much more seriously.  They must invest in effective counterfeit detection solution that identifies the syndicates and the most sophisticated violators doing the most damage to a company’s brand reputation. This way companies can reduce the amount of counterfeits on the market and thereby protect their revenues, brand and customers.

 

Know more on: Anti-Fraud & Anti-Counterfeiting