PLATFORMS

New Computers-on-Module
Alexander Kovalyov
The successful evolution of computers-on-module showed the promise the concept offers for building various types of embedded systems. A new step of this evolution is represented by an ARM-based system that had initiated the creation of a new market segment for energy efficient embedded solutions.

ExaFLOPS Power vs Mathematical Modeling
Valeriy Ilyin
What needs to be done to turn mathematical modeling into an in-demand tool for getting new fundamental knowledge and creating high tech innovations through the use of a new generation of applications running on computers of extreme performance?

DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS
DevOps: the new way to integration
Natalya Dubova
A new concept facilitating the cooperation of software developers and IT operation staff promises to teach working together those who are used to deep isolation.

Knowledge-based Process Support
Alexander Tsimbalistov
The complexity of modern IT systems supporting corporate business processes is so high that a single person is hardly enough to have the entire body of knowledge needed to operate the solution. With such systems constantly developing, it is highly critical to make special efforts facilitating knowledge exchange among the people responsible for the support of different lifecycle stages of those solutions.

From Development to Operation and Back
Dmitry Isaychenko
Despite the abundance of documentation on the development and operation of IT systems, the efficient cooperation of the respective teams is still one of the most pressing issues faced by IT managers. What problems exist today in this area, and how are they solved in practice?

Practice of DevOps
Dmitry Andreev
DevOps is about bridging the gap between a software development team and system administrators responsible for the solution’s operation. The aspects of practical implementation of this concept are not entirely clear, however. Microsoft Corp. offers a package that includes tools specifically designed to support DevOps.

IT MANAGEMENT
ITSM and Business
Kirill Skripkin
ITSM is now one of the de facto standards of IT management with undisputed significance. In Russia, however, ITSM has been used only in limited range of IT management processes over more than a decade now. There are fundamental reasons for this beyond simple user immaturity. What are these reasons and how can one evaluate the need for ITSM processes at the preparation stage of a project?

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Software Sketchifying: Bringing Innovation into Software Development
Zeljko Obrenovic
Software sketchifying is a software development activity that stimulates spending more time generating and considering alternative ideas before making a decision to proceed with engineering. It’s supported by Sketchlet, a flexible tool that empowers both engineers and nonengineers to work with emerging technologies and explore their possibilities.

SECURITY
Did You Want Privacy With That? Personal Data Protection in Mobile Devices
Hilarie Orman
Why are privacy protection mechanisms in modern smartphones? Are these mechanisms sufficient? What more is needed? What should users know about the risks? And what should developers consider when writing apps?

DBMS
The New Database Architectures
Tim Kraska, Beth Trushkowsky
The rise of big data and cloud computing significantly changed the database market. Here, the authors describe how developers decomposed the traditional database system and questioned the classical three-tier system architecture.

INTEGRATION
Designing a Business Process Model
Igor Fyodorov
An end-to-end business process may seem monolithic at first, but in practice, it may branch into a network of interacting subprocesses. This can lead to errors in process architecture design, which makes difficult the analyzing of organization operation and managing the processes. Meanwhile, the knowledge of requirements and sufficient conditions of the splitting an end-to-end process into subprocesses makes it significantly easier for analysts to design a process model top-down.

OS MEETING ROOM
Moore’s Law, Complexity and Feedback
Leonid Chernyak
Alexey Sharov and Richard Gordon have shown that the exponential growth of various systems’ complexity is caused by positive feedback, while Moore’s law is a more general phenomenon that is seen not only in IT industry.

OSJ MUSEUM
Infografics: from Origins to Modern Age
Leonid Chernyak
Our ancestors, clad in animal skins, had no writing and had to scratch drawings-messages on the walls of their caves. After several thousand years of written messages rule, in the age of Big Data, we are to resort to something like those cave-drawings, again.

OS ACADEMY. LIBRARY
Cybersecurity in the 21st Century
Sergey Kuznetsov
The central topic of the April 2013 issue of the IEEE Computer Magazine is information security.

EXTREME TECHNOLOGY
Say Goodbye to the Privacy of Your Personal Data
Leonid Chernyak
As far back as in 1999, Scott McNealy said, «You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.» The years that followed have acknowledged that McNealy was right.