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AT THE CENTER
The electronic newsletter of the
Silicon Valley World Internet Centers
Tuesday, March 12, 2002

 

The Silicon Valley World Internet Center thanks its Sponsors for their continuing support:

EXECUTIVE SPONSORS
• Amdocs, Inc. •• Cable & Wireless •• Deutsche Telekom •• Fujitsu •• IBM Corporation •• SAP •• Sun Microsystems •

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK PARTNERS
•• Halleck ••• IC Growth, Inc. ••• Internet Wire ••

Check out the Center's Web site: http://www.worldinternetcenter.com

Past copies of newsletters and directions to the Center are available on the Web site.

All programs are held at the Center unless otherwise noted.

To join our community, click on this link: http://center.infopoint.com/join.php

CABLE & WIRELESS ANNOUNCEMENT: JANUARY 2002
Cable & Wireless eMessaging Solutions.
For more information: (http://www.cw.com/th_03.asp?ID=ems_us).

THINK TANK SESSION: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002
"Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Check-Up For Health Care eBusiness Needs"
Invitation-only. No Fee. 8:00 am - 2:30 p.m.

PUB TALK: THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2002
"High-Volume Web Site Performance Simulator For WebSphere"
By Mr. Noshir C. Wadia, Senior Technical Staff Member, High-Volume Web Sites, Software Group, IBM Corporation
Open to the public. No Fee. 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Pub Talk starts at 6:00 p.m.

WORKING GROUP: TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2002
"Models & Taxonomies"
Second meeting of an ongoing Working Group on "Dynamic Information Integration: The Role of the Feedback Loop"
Invitation-only. No Fee. 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.

CENTER ANNOUNCEMENT
Center Thursday Pub Glasses: How do I get one? Can I get a replacement?


CABLE & WIRELESS ANNOUNCEMENT: JANUARY 2002
Cable & Wireless eMessaging Solutions.
For more information: (http://www.cw.com/th_03.asp?ID=ems_us).

Cable & Wireless, an Executive Sponsor of the Center, would like for your business to run more efficiently with eMessaging Solutions provided by Cable & Wireless.

Communicate more effectively via eMail - keep in touch with customers, prospects, shareholders or any other community with Cable & Wireless eMessaging Solutions. Cable & Wireless has the capacity to handle your largest eMail broadcasts by providing personalization tools to create messages that build a one-to-one relationship with your audience as well as having the accountability of the industry's most comprehensive delivery reports, allowing maximum reach with minimum expense.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
For further information, please visit the following:

http://www.cw.com/th_03.asp?ID=ems_us


THINK TANK SESSION: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2002
"Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Check-Up For Health Care eBusiness Needs"
Invitation-only. No Fee. 8:00 am - 2:30 p.m.

PROGRAM
The focus of this Think Tank Session is to create a body of knowledge around the most critical technology pressure points of health care organizations. The Session will also focus on understanding which of these pressure points merit investment in the short-term (12-18 months) and long-term (18 months and beyond) for a solid eBusiness strategy. Twenty-four invitation-only thought leaders in the health care industry -- representing health care providers and institutions (end-users), as well as system integrators (SIs) and vendors (ISVs) - will convene at the Center for a high level exchange and networking opportunities.

The management of HCOs is plagued with challenges that keep increasing. Integration and inter-operability, information duplication, and medical errors account for a large part of business inefficiencies found today in HCOs. Limited revenue, increasing costs, continued provider and consumer dissatisfaction with health care financing and delivery, and an uncertain financial environment have led boards of directors and shareholders of HCOs to be more demanding that IT investments deliver adequate business value. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations of 2001 place additional pressures on HCOs to embrace the Internet economy. Security and privacy dimensions have been recently elevated due to the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

Enabling technologies -- such as the Internet, XML, workflow, business process automation, mobile technologies and other technologies -- can be applied to many areas in health care to reduce business inefficiencies, comply with HIPAA regulations, address security concerns, and directly increase productivity and return-on-investment (ROI). The business risks to HCOs of not adopting these technologies, proven in other industries, into a long-term eBusiness strategy, is considered to exceed the technology risk in attempting to deploy them.

BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATION
• End users have the opportunity to verbalize their technology needs and learn about existing and upcoming technology solutions.
• The ISIs and ISVs have the opportunity to gather knowledge first hand on existing and future needs of customers.
• Written proceedings will be issued from this Think Tank Session to the participants to assist in their eBusiness strategies and budgets for 2002 and beyond.
• As a select group, those who participate are able to network with one another for business opportunities.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION & POSSIBLE PARTICIPATION
This program is invitation-only. If you have an interest in possible participation and represent a health care provider or institution (end-users) or a system integrator (SIs) or vendor (ISVs), send your name, title, bio, short summary of your company, email address and phone number to:

Dr. Venilde Jeronimo
Senior Director,Client Services
mailto:venilde@worldinternetcenter.com
T: 650.462.9800


PUB TALK: THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2002
"High-Volume Web Site Performance Simulator For WebSphere"
By Mr. Noshir C. Wadia, Senior Technical Staff Member, High-Volume Web Sites, Software Group, IBM Corporation
Open to the public. No Fee. 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Pub Talk starts at 6:00 p.m.

As eBusiness and its related requirements grow at "Web speed," a critical issue is whether the IT infrastructure supporting the Web sites has what it needs to provide available, scalable, fast, and efficient access to the company's information, products, and services. More than ever, CIOs and their teams struggle with the challenges to minimize downtime and bottlenecks and maximize the use of the hardware and software that comprises their eBusiness infrastructure. Configuration planning for large Web servers in this environment is becoming an increasingly difficult task. The hardware and software structure of large Web sites is becoming complex and the behavior characteristics of the workloads are at best poorly understood, or, at worst essentially unknown because the workload has yet to be implemented.

The infrastructure supporting most high-volume Web sites (HVWSs) typically has multiple components, which include clients, the network, and multiple layers of machines within the Web server. These multiple machine layers are frequently called tiers with each tier handling a particular set of functions, such as serving content, providing integration business environments, or processing data base transactions. While actual customer implementations can vary widely, the simulator uses the following generalized view of the infrastructure options.

IBM Patterns for eBusiness & Workloads: These are built in workloads for the major business patterns: shopping, trading, and banking. The user can use these pre-built workloads or modify them based on customer's requirements. Users can also define a very specific workload if pre-built workloads do not fit customer environments. We have also developed special algorithms to handle bursty web traffic, which can occur during holiday season or stock market storm. User can define the degree of burstiness in the terms of burst/peak ratio. The user can set a specific performance objective for items such as (1) user visit rate, (2) resource utilization, (3) response time, (4) # of concurrent users, and (5) page view rate. The model will estimate the performance and recommend configurations.

ABOUT NOSHIR C. WADIA
Noshir C. Wadia is a Senior Technical Staff Member in the High-Volume Web Sites organization of IBM's Software Group. He is currently leading a team to develop simulator for performance/capacity estimates. He is also working with large IBM customers on web site performance issues. Mr. Wadia has held many leadership positions in architecture/performance throughout his IBM career developing performance/architecture models for parallel and distributed systems. Mr. Wadia has been author of many papers in the area of performance. He has also been adjunct professor for ten years at State University of New York where he taught Computer Systems Architecture and Design. Mr. Wadia holds a MS in Computer Science from Syracuse University, a MS from Applied Statistics from Purdue University, and a MS in Mathematical Statistics from University of Baroda (India).

ABOUT THE IBM ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGY & JULY CONFERENCE
The IBM Academy of Technology is holding a Conference on Performance Engineering in Toronto, Canada, on July 8 -10, 2002. Information about the conference will be published on the IBM Academy web site (http://w3.ibm.com/academy - click on coming events).


WORKING GROUP: TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2002 "Models & Taxonomies"
Second meeting of an ongoing Working Group on "Dynamic Information Integration: The Role of the Feedback Loop"
Invitation-only. No Fee. 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.

As a result of a series of programs last fall, the Center is hosting a Working Group this winter and spring on "Dynamic Information Integration: The Role of the Feedback Loop." A group of 12-14 invited participants (who have participated in the Center's past programs on this subject) will analyze and discuss various aspects of dynamic information integration over the next several months, including:

• The role and importance of explicit models
• How to achieve a working feedback loop
• Existing technologies and components
• Relevant standards

SECOND WORKING GROUP MEETING
The second Working Group meeting on March 19 will focus on "Models & Taxonomies." When striving for information integration, central metadata models and taxonomies are needed. Data from heterogeneous sources need to be mapped to these models and taxonomies. In theory, there are several possible approaches. The group will discuss as well as exchange ideas and experiences with different approaches. The goal of the meeting is to get an overview and compile information on the different ways of addressing data from heterogeneous sources and metadata models and taxonomies. The following questions -- among others -- will be discussed, over wine and light hors d'oeuvres:

• Is a central metadata model or taxonomy necessary?
• How is flexibility over time ensured if a central model is used?
• Can learning systems be used to perform mappings and translations?

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
For further information, please contact:

Dr. Venilde Jeronimo
Sr. Director, Client Services
Em: mailto:venilde@worldinternetcenter.com
T: 650.462.9800


CENTER ANNOUNCEMENT
Center Pub Glasses: How do I get one? Can I get a replacement? Further information below.

The question is often asked, how do I get a Thursday Pub glass? Those who have been to the Center's Thursday Pub 15 times over a 12 month period, are inaugurated into the "Center's Community" and receive a wine glass engraved with their name on it. These glasses remain at the Center and each week can be used at the Thursday Pub, a networking program.

If you are missing your Pub glass or you have been to the Thursday Pub 15 times over the last 12 months (and we can double check with our own records), please send an email, by Friday, March 15 to:

Ms. Glenda Garcia
Operations Assistant
Em: mailto:garcia@worldinternetcenter.com


JOIN US FOR OUR WEEKLY PUB
Come join us for our weekly Pub every Thursday from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.

The Pub Talk begins at 6 p.m. The Pub gathers 80-100 mid- to high-level executives every week and, as always, is a great place to come and meet people from the Silicon Valley and all over the world. Representatives from small start-ups and major companies to venture capital and academic join in the exchange at the Center's Pub. It's...

--- The best reason to take off work early on Thursdays ---

For directions, please visit http://www.worldinternetcenter.com and click on directions.

The dress is casual and there is no fee to attend. Just bring your good ideas!

Companies with an interest in giving a Pub Talk should contact Venilde Jeronimo, the Senior Director, Client Services (mailto:venilde@worldinternetcenter.com).

For inquiries about upcoming Center programs, send an email to mailto:venilde@worldinternetcenter.com

To unsubscribe from this eNewsletter, contact Ms. Glenda Garcia at mailto:garcia@worldinternetcenter.com


EXECUTIVE SPONSORS
• Amdocs, Inc. http://www.amdocs.com
• Cable & Wireless http://www.cw.com
• Deutsche Telekom http://www.dtag.de/english/index.htm
• Fujitsu http://www.fujitsu.com
• IBM Corporation http://www.ibm.com
• SAP http://www.mysap.com
• Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com

KNOWLEDGE NETWORK PARTNERS
• Halleck http://www.halleck.com
• IC Growth, Inc. http://www.icgrowth.com
• Internet Wire http://www.internetwire.com

To join our community, click on this link:
http://center.infopoint.com/join.php


To join our community, click on this link: http://center.infopoint.com/join.php

 

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