OCIONEWSLETTER Issue 9 • Oct 2012
SPOTLIGHT
Overview of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) – Part 1 Alex Lam 1. Backgrounds Over the years, the central IT of CityU is committed to and capable of providing the best IT services to support its mission. With the rapid advancement of technology, the great behavioral shifts in modern IT usage, the sharp increase in user demands, and the heavy dependence on IT, it has become more and more difficult to react and maintain quality IT services, not to mention the planning of service improvement. Moreover, in meeting the 3-3-4 challenges and the expanding user population, new application systems are added, and existing applications and infrastructure are enhanced. The service integration of these different new and existing applications with the respective infrastructure changes has added another dimension of complexity to the already constrained manpower of IT support. To provide quality service and support with limited manpower, we need to know our services better. We need to understand how users use these services in their business, and to plan ahead accordingly before demands have consumed all available resources.
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Figure 1 Traditional event and log processing for IT service with different monitoring systems
We also need to know the business risks and impact arisen from potential weakness of the existing setups, be fast alerted of eminent incidents, and respond speedily and effectively when they indeed occur. In maintaining the security protection and smooth operations of these IT services, we need to continuously monitor and respond quickly to millions of system events and alerts. The collection, correlation, storage and presentation of service and security information from events logs of thousands of applications, servers, network and storage systems, which look disparate and unrelated, pose a great challenge in but critical to maintaining their health and security level of IT services as well as the future service improvement planning . In this article, we discuss how the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) technology can meet the above challenges and how it delivers additional value in maintaining service quality and assisting in resource planning besides the service event and security management of the IT systems.
2. Traditional security and event/log processing of IT services As shown in figure 1, modern IT services are sophisticated and composed of multiple components such as networking equipment, operating systems and application systems. The challenges of the security protection and event/log processing of IT services are shown on the right of the diagram. (figure 1)
In summary, the challenges of security and event log processing are:
• Millions of events from different systems are collected concurrently and must be reacted instantly for critical events • Real-time event aggregation and filtering capabilities are required for the detection of critical events from the noisy event (non-critical event or false-positive alert) and log entries. • With the increase in supported user and traffic bandwidth, it further increases the processing requirements for SIEM
• There is no central storage pool for the storage and processing of events and logs from different components of an IT service. • A managed central storage for long term log retention is a requirement for security standard and regulatory compliance
Issue 9 • Oct 2012
Figure 2 Components of SIEM
• As events and logs are stored in diseparate monitoring systems, there is no way to correlate events beween systems.
3.1. Components of SIEM SIEM is a combination of two interrelated components that operate on a shared pool of event and log. The two components are listed as follows: • SIM – Security Information Management system • SEM – Security Event Management system
• This provides insufficient information for the incident detection. Thus, it is difficult to detect security attack in its early state
The functions and objectives of the two SIEM components are shown in figure 2.
• As the status of different components of a service are processed separately, there is no way to provide and present a single view of service status. • There is no DashBoard to show security level and standards compliance status
By sharing a common and centralized event and log storage pool, the SEM and SIM component can work cohesively to achieve its own functions. In fact, modern SIEM system will combine the SEM and SIM components seamlessly into a single system. User can access the SIEM system via a single graphic interface to access the service and security related information.
3. Anatomy of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system After discussing the challenges of traditional event processing, this section provides an overview of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system. We will present how the SIEM system helps meet the challenges of traditional event processing described earlier.
In the next section, we will show the architecture of SIEM system.
To be continued...
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BRIEF UPDATES
CityU IP Phone System Upgrade S K Tsui
Background The CityU IP Phone (IPT) system has been serving our University for 10 years. Some of its core components such as the voice mail system, voice gateway, etc. have already reached its end of lifecycle and we can no longer get support and maintenance of these components from the manufacturer. In order to retire these legacy components and keep uninterrupted operation of the IPT system, the CSC has decided to upgrade the hardware and software of the core system (Cisco Unify Communication Manager and Cisco Unity) and replaced the obsolete voice gateways last summer.
IPT System Upgrade The upgrade process was very complicated and was divided into 4 steps: 1. The first step was to upgrade the firmware of all the existing IP phone sets at midnight to make them compatible with the new IPT. It took almost a month (from 10 July 12 to 9 August 12) to complete the upgrading of the existing 4,800 phone sets. 2. The second step performed the core equipment setup and burn-in test. It took 18 working days to complete the
Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) and VMware ESXi 5 installation and configuration, as well as the Unify Communication Manager, Unity Connection and UCCX server virtualization. 3. The third step involved the migration of the system data and user date from the old IPT to the new IPT. It took 2 weeks to backup and restore the data, perform data integrity checking and data rehabilitation after migration. Due to technical problem, the old voice messages could not be migrated to the new system and would be kept in the old voice mail server. If necessary, users can still access and manage their old messages received on or before 19 August 2012 by dialing extension “7000”. These old messages will remain accessible until 31 December 2012. 4. The last step was to switchover the CityU IP Phone service from the old system to the new system. We needed to disconnect the old system from the network to trigger the phone sets and voice gateways to reboot and re-register themselves to the new system. To minimize the impact to our user due to service interruption, the switchover was made on 19 August 2012 (Sun) morning. The phone and voice mail service resumed at around 11:00am and the other services (personal fax, UCCX, etc.) resumed at 15:00.
New Features and Enhancements of the New IPT System 1. Server virtualization The new IPT system utilizes server virtualization technology to reduce server count and hardware maintenance costs. In the past, we have 10 physical appliances (3 x Callmanagers, 2 x Unity servers, 2 x MS Exchange servers, 2 x MS Domain servers and 1 x UCCX server) to provide the core IPT service. By virtualizing the servers on top of VMware ESXi 5, the core IPT is now running on 3 x powerful Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) servers. Other benefits of using virtualization is reducing energy consumption, improving service stability, simplifying disaster recovery and delivering high availability. 2. Security enhancement on phone services Phone services such as personal directory, change credentials, etc. are now transmitting on a more secured protocol (HTTPS) to protect your privacy and sensitive data. 3. More phone models support Besides the conventional Cisco Unified IP Phone 7900 series we are using, we can now have a variety of selections
Issue 9 • Oct 2012
IT Security Awareness Series by JUCC With an aim to enhancing the IT security awareness of the CityU community, the KPMG was commissioned by the Joint Universities Computer Centre (JUCC) to prepare a series of articles on IT security and they will be adopted and published here for your reference.
Portable Storage Media I. Background on 6900, 8900, and 9900 series to fulfill various requirements from costeffective to high-quality, interactive multimedia communications. The 6900 series are affordable and are ideal replacement for traditional analog and digital phones. It is most suitable for low-to-moderate voice communications usage such as public phone for laboratories and classrooms. The 8900 and 9900 series are for high end users seeking endpoints with integrated video capability for highquality, rich, interactive multimedia collaboration. There are many other new features and improvements in the new system. Most of them are administrative or operational improvements and these features were aimed to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO). If you would like to know more about the new features, you may visit the following page: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/ prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6788/ vcallcon/ps556/ps10662/data_ sheet_c78-584298.html
Industry Story University of Arizona Losses Drive Containing Personal Information on Thousands The University of Arizona recently announced the loss of a hard drive containing the personal information on former students. The drive, holding information on individuals enrolled at the university between 1997 and 2008, contained names and Social Security numbers of over 8,000 former students. The drive was moved during the summer of 2010 to a new building and was discovered missing in October 2010. According to the University of Arizona’s Dean of Students Dr. Carol Thompson, the files and drive were always under supervision, even during the move. Thompson called the incident troubling. In a notice to the affected individuals, the university asks that the former students watch for signs of possible identity theft.
Key Benefit of Portable Storage Media The emergence of external hard drives, USB sticks or even smart phones makes our work and life much easier. Portable storage media with large storage sizes and convenient connectivity interface allow students or staff to take their study and work wherever they go.
Key Risks of Portable Storage Media Nevertheless, portable storage media poses a number of security threats to the university. Without adequate protection mechanism like authentication or encryption, portable storage media may bring significant risk of data theft or data loss. On the other side, improper use of protection mechanism (e.g. loss of decryption key) or device failure could deny the university from accessing important data timely. Another common threat is the introduction of malware from portable storage media to the university’s IT systems. Hackers may use social engineering techniques to manipulate users into connecting infected portable data storage devices to their desktop, laptop or even university’s IT systems.
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II. Management In order to manage the risks associated with the use of portable data storage media by staff and students, while enjoying the benefits of greater mobility and flexibility, the Management should consider the following dimensions of security practice:
Policies and procedures Policies and procedures should be developed to clearly outline the roles and responsibilities with respect to the use and management of portable data storage media for university’s data. 1. Establish a portable data storage system security policy, which encompasses both university-issued and privately owned portable data storage media. This security policy should also be integrated into university’s overall IT security framework and rigorously enforced. 2. Review and consequently revise or update the university’s portable data storage system security policy, particularly in light of the availability of new data storage technologies, and in the wake of security incidents involving portable data storage systems. 3. Develop a set of handling procedures to cover the entire life-cycle of portable data storage devices, including acquisition, deployment, use, to disposal. 4. Limit or prohibit the connection of privately owned portable data storage devices to university’s IT systems. For university’s sensitive data, rigorous access control procedures should be implemented to prevent unauthorised data access, modification and leakage. 5. Consider establishing a centralised encryption key and password repository system to achieve efficient management of authentication information and avoid accidental loss of encryption keys or passwords.
People Applying security controls to counter the security risks caused by human mistakes and negligence is critical for securing the portable storage media used by university. Sufficient staff and student awareness and training programs should be offered by university to achieve the following objectives:
1. Identify and communicate roles and responsibilities of staff and students in securing their portable storage media. 2. Inform staff and students of the risks associated with the use of portable storage media and consequence when those threats are exploited by malicious parties. 3. Emphasise the importance of timely reporting on suspicious data leakage, data loss or data denial incidents to university’s IT security team. 4. Educate users and administrators regarding the physical access control, acceptable use, permissible data storage devices, and security incident handling and escalation procedures in relation to portable storage media.
Technology Whilst technical solutions cannot substitute for an integrated and comprehensive portable data storage security framework, a range of technologies or products can effectively reduce the level of risk exposure arising from the portable data storage devices, and mitigate the impact of security incidents when they occur. 1. Encrypt sensitive data residing on portable data storage devices using strong passwords or algorithm. For example, 8-character alpha-numeric password, RSA key encryption. 2. Alter the default settings of the university’s IT system to prohibit automatic execution of applications residing on a portable data storage device upon connection. 3. Deploy and enable audit logging function that record connection of portable storage devices and data transferred between university IT systems and portable data storage media. 4. Block the ability to connect portable data storage media for university’s IT systems holding sensitive data by disabling connection sockets on related desktops, laptops or servers. 5. Where possible, implement tiered connection states (i.e. no connection, read only data from the portable data storage media, read/write data to and from
Issue 9 • Oct 2012
the portable data storage media) within university’s IT systems based on the institutional imposed risk criteria.
Restriction
6. Employ secured physical or logical destruction mechanism to enforce safe disposal of portable storage media.
Unless specifically approved, users should not keep the university related information on privately owned portable storage media. On the other hand, data related to personal matters should not be kept on the portable storage provided by the university.
III. General Users
Conclusion
Care and Storage Users should keep portable storage media with information related to university out of sight from other people to minimise the risk of theft. In addition, such media should not be left unattended at any time. Where possible, users should utilise the security features of the portable storage media (e.g. USB stick with finger print recognition function) or security tools recommended by the university (e.g. data encryption software) to protect the information from unauthorised access or modification. Important data stored on portable storage devices should be regularly backed up to designated file servers of the university.
Cleansing and Sanitisation Portable storage media containing the university related information must be appropriately cleansed and sanitised after use and before disposal. If un-rewritable portable storage devices/media are used, such as CD and DVD, they must be destroyed either by a disintegrator, or by grinding, smashing or burning.
Lost or Stolen Portable Storage Media Users must report to the IT Help Desk as soon as possible if a portable storage device containing information related to the university is lost or stolen. The IT security staff must be notified immediately and record the identification (e.g. serial number, type, asset register code) of the device, the physical appearance of the device and the details of the information stored.
The convenience and flexibility of portable storage media increase the efficiency of university’s staff and students during their work and study. However, the security threats of data loss or denial cannot be ignored. To build a safe environment for using portable storage media, both the Management and general users should pay great attention to the establishment, enforcement and maintenance of necessary security measures. Copyright Statement All material in this document is, unless otherwise stated, the property of the Joint Universities Computer Centre (“JUCC”). Copyright and other intellectual property laws protect these materials. Reproduction or retransmission of the materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, is a violation of copyright law. A single copy of the materials available through this document may be made, solely for personal, noncommercial use. Individuals must preserve any copyright or other notices contained in or associated with them. Users may not distribute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form, whether or not for a charge or other consideration, without prior written consent of the copyright holder of the materials. Contact information for requests for permission to reproduce or distribute materials available through this document are listed below: copyright@jucc.edu.hk Joint Universities Computer Centre Limited (JUCC), Room 223, Run Run Shaw Building, c/o Computer Centre, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Reference: http://security.tennessee.edu/pdfs/SMDBP.pdf http://www.sandisk.com/media/226722/enterprise_whitepaper_ endpointsecurity.pdf
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BRIEF UPDATES
Blackboard Surveys 2012 Crusher Wong
Blackboard Surveys to students and teachers were first launched in 2006 to inform e-Learning development at City University of Hong Kong. Two online questionnaires are disseminated annually to collect perceptions of teachers and students separately on the adoption of Blackboard Learn for teaching and learning. Survey questions and formats have been slightly adjusted over the years and the following aspects are covered in 2012: usage level, popularity of features and functions (including third party Building Block tools), user experience, future expectations, other web services used for teaching and learning, and mobile learning experience. The surveys were conducted anonymously with authentication at the end of semester B 2011/12 (April to May 2012). Statistical results are available at http://go.cityu. hk/z7g5kd and http://go.cityu. hk/zm6edw for CityU members when key findings are listed below. In order to cope with the advancement in e-learning pedagogy and technology, the surveys will receive a major makeover in 2013 according to feedback from stakeholders.
Key Findings 1. 64% of the surveyed students said Blackboard was used in all courses that they were taking in semester B
2011/12 (see Figure 1). The Figure 1 population with around half of all courses or above using Blackboard covered 91% of the responses. The significance of Blackboard to students was evidenced. 2. The use of Blackboard was necessary to the achievement of at least some of the course learning outcomes (integral use, central use and exclusive use) according to the majority of teachers and students (over 70%) as shown in Figure 2 & 3, respectively. 3. e-Learning at CityU mainly facilitated course material dissemination and asynchronous messaging based on the 3 most used features identified by both teachers (see Figure 4) and students (see Figure 5) – Course Documents (course contents), Announcement and e-Mail. Besides the top 3, assignment submissions (with or without plagiarism prevention), grading and online discussions were also popular activities among users. 4. Pedagogical development in e-learning might lag behind the advancement of e-learning technology as suggested by the fact that more students
Figure 2
Figure 3
Issue 9 • Oct 2012
acknowledged the advantage of Blackboard in managing their studies comparing to enriching the quality of their studies (65% vs 31%, see Figure 6). According to Figure 7, similar situation was found with teachers when 81% of the surveyed believed Blackboard helped them manage courses but only 42% of them thought students’ learning experience was enhanced.
Figure 4
5. Students’ immense dependence on community built resources was reinforced by the popularity of Wikipedia (73%) and YouTube (71%) for learning as illustrated in Figure 8. The adoption of Facebook (57%) to their studies also hinted the era of social learning in tertiary education. 6. 39% of responded students had experience with mobile learning. As indicated in Figure 9 & 10, amongst this group of students: 6.1. the most popular devices used for mobile learning were Android phones (52%) and iPhones (39%). Since no purchasing scheme of smart phones was launched at CityU, the trend of self-directed adoption of mobile phones for learning was confirmed. 6.2. iOS and Android both had adoption rates of over half of the population (some reported the use of both platforms). The support to iOS and Android platforms for m-learning was inevitable until a major shift in market share.
Figure 5
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Figure 8
6.3. the most common practice in mobile learning was accessing Blackboard anytime anywhere for studies (82%). Hence, one of the initial goals of m-learning had been achieved without the need of additional involvement from teachers. Nevertheless, advanced practice such as engaging in inclass activities (27%) would require acceptance from teachers to become ubiquitous at CityU.
Figure 6
Figure 9
Figure 7 Figure 10
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FEATURES
DMS (Document Management System) Implementation for HRO and FO Alex Ho A small team of 3 persons in the OCIO was approved for taking up the Paperless Office Project with the EMC Documentum software from the central administrative offices. The team, Enterprise Document Management Team (EDMT), established in March 2012 with only 2 members on board, has been working hard to implement the software for use by the HRO and the FO, initially for document management.
The Project Team and the Tasks Led by the EDMT, a project team was formed with the IT Security Officer, and representatives from the CSC and the ESU as members. A system integrator was contracted for installing the software and implementing the system as designed and requested by the HRO, the FO and the University. System security and data protection are the biggest concern of the implementation since HRO personnel and related documents, FO payroll and other financial and contractual information are highly confidential information. The CSC, in consultation with the Security Officer, has designed and built a network and system infrastructure, the security level of which matches the nature of the information to be stored. The architecture of the network and system infrastructure was also reviewed by an external security advisor.
Figure 1
To bring up the system for use as quickly as possible, the first task was to implement the DMS for the HRO and the FO to store personnel and payroll documents. To achieve it, the EDMT interviewed the HRO and the FO-Payroll staff to collect user requirements and expectations, did analysis, designed the system, managed and worked with the system integrator, conducted system integration test and user acceptance test, and organized end-user training. As a standard of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), three system environments were built separately for development, staging and production. Three system drill tests had been conducted on system performance and backup restore process. The project started in March, the system went into soft launch on 22 June, and the HRO and the FO-Payroll users started using the system for real data on 7 August 2012.
Live Production – 7 August 2012 The HRO and the FO-Payroll team started putting personnel and payroll document to the DMS. The estimation of document volume is approximately 4,000 HRO personnel files amounting
to 200,000 pages, and 8,500 FO payroll files amounting to 425,000 pages. Documents are scanned into DMS repository by either using a 2D barcodes process or dragging and dropping scanned documents into the system. On the capture process, firstly, the HRO and the FO generate a 2D barcode document cover page and document dividers which are a document separator. So, after the process, each document after a divider will form a single document stored into DMS repository in the below pattern.
Document cover a Divider a[document] aDivider a [document] and so on ... The barcode contains document properties, tagged metadata and user ID for subsequent processes. When the document set is scanned, the Captiva capturing process decodes the information from the barcode, and creates folder, associating folder level access control, assigning metadata
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FEATURES
CSC Teaching Studios on G/F, 4/F Joe Lee to the document properties, and creating a document in PDF format. During the process, the document has also applied the OCR (optical character recognition) to make it full-text searchable. (figure 1) A departmental administrative role is also created to maintain the DMS operation tasks. With the departmental administrator role, the HRO and the FO can nominate some of their staff to be a departmental administrator. The latter is responsible for user account maintenance task, such as assigning or removing user from groups, granting user access to new comer. Besides, they are also responsible for document housekeeping, complying with their document retention policy.
Next Phases‌ Moving forward, the EDMT will work on the subject documents of the HRO and the FO payroll section. The subject files require a highly hierarchical folder structure with well-organized user group access control. Document sharing between the FO and the HRO in the DMS is also an idea that will be implemented at this phase. Besides, we will work with other teams of the FO to implement the DMS for them.
While moving a single home from one place to another is already time-consuming and problematic, the level of difficulty in moving all the teaching studios, facilities and services from one building to another is much higher. After several months of preparation and hard work, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) Service Counter and Teaching Studio Areas have been successfully moved from Academic 1 (AC1) to Academic 2 (AC2) before the commencement of Semester A 2012-13. Actually, the new Service Counter located on 4/F (AC2) has started to provide full services since 24 August 2012. There is a total of 19 Teaching Studios providing 870 PCs and 30 iMacs for teaching and learning. Below is a summary of the Teaching Studios. Teaching Studio
Operating System
Capacity
AC2-G600
108
AC2-4101
29
AC2-4109
69
AC2-4200
39
AC2-4208
66
AC2-4307
82
AC2-4400
69
AC2-4412 AC2-5506 AC2-5606
82 Windows 7/ Windows XP
39 60
AC2-5500
30
AC2-5501
30
AC2-5502
27
AC2-5503
30
AC2-5505
30
AC2-5601
27
AC2-5604
27
AC2-5608
26
AC2-5607
Mac OS X 10.6
30
For details of the new CSC Teaching Studio areas, please refer to the CSC website at http://www.cityu.edu.hk/csc/deptweb/facilities/terminalarea/teaching-studio.htm.
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and 5/F in AC2 Scanners
Printers
Printing Service
CSC Teaching Studio Areas
Service Counter
(Konica Minolta Bizhub 950)
AC2 4/F near the Service Counter
2
AC2 5/F near Room 5604
1
AC2 5/F near Room 5503
1
AC2 G/F Room G600
2
(Fuji Xerox DC7000CPS)
CMC 4/F
2
Charged printing
AC2 4/F near CSC Service Counter
1
(Konica Minolta Bizhub C360)
AC2 5/F near Room 5503
1
For the new floor plan of the CSC and further information, please visit the CSC website at www.cityu. edu.hk/csc, or contact the Service Counter at 3442 8340.
Student Notebook Computer Daily Loan Scheme
Mon - Fri
8:30 am11:00 pm
8:45 am11:00 pm
8:45 am10:00 pm
Sat
8:30 am11:00 pm
8:45 am9:30 pm
8:45 am9:00 pm
Sun
8:30 am11:00 pm
12:30 pm6:00 pm
1:00 pm5:30 pm
Public Holidays
8:30 am11:00 pm
Closed
Closed
Major facilities and services (such as Service Counter support, Student Notebook Computer Daily Loan Scheme, Multiple Choice Scanning, document scanner and others) are provided on 4/F of AC2. However, student printing facilities are deliberately distributed on G/F, 4/F and 5/F of AC2 for the convenience of students. Below is a summary of the printing facilities.
Quantity 2
CSC Teaching Studio
In view that the demand for computers will be keen due to a larger student population resulting from the 334 academic reform, we have increased the number of notebook computers for daily loan to students from 600 to 900. Opening hours of the CSC Teaching Studio Areas, Service Counter and DLS Counter have been adjusted to align with the University’s new class hours so that students have sufficient time to obtain printouts, borrow and return notebook computers and resolve problems encountered.
Location
Quota-controlled AC2 4/F near the DLS Counter printing
DLS Counter
CSC Service Counter
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BRIEF UPDATES
Mobile Apps for CAP and NewsCentre Tomson Xu and Vicker Leung
There is no doubt that receiving up-to-date information is very important nowadays. In CityU we have already established several communication channels including CityU Announcement Portal (CAP) [1] and CityU NewsCentre [2] to ensure that our staff, students and the general public can receive University information quickly and systematically. To further extend the reachability and availability of information across smartphones and tablets, CityU is actively exploring the use of mobile apps and has recently published two official CityU mobile apps including CityU Mobile CAP and CityU Mobile News. CityU Mobile CAP Based on the existing infrastructure of the CAP, the mobile counterpart CityU Mobile CAP retrieves, categorizes and transforms the messages on the CAP into a fully native mobile application experience. Users can easily browse through the content with just one flick of a finger. In addition, Mobile CAP is integrated with the push notification services provided by Apple and Google. University announcements and emergency messages are actively pushed to the mobile devices so that users will never miss any important information. The future version of Mobile CAP will also allow users to save messages
onto device storage for offline viewing. Usage will no longer be bounded by connectivity. CityU Mobile News Focusing on a pleasant cross-platform reading experience, CityU Mobile News brings the latest news and achievements of the University from the traditional desktop devices to mobile devices. Readers can enjoy the same intuitive experience no matter what kind, size or orientation the mobile device is. Users will soon be able to share articles through social networks as well. Mobile CAP and Mobile News are the first round of mobile apps introduced by the Central IT to enrich our service mobility. With the increasing popularity and influence of mobile devices, more apps will be launched for the other University services in the near future.
CityU Mobile CAP Available on Apple App Store and Google Play
CityU Mobile News Available on Apple App Store and Google Play
References: [1] CityU Announcement Portal (CAP) https://cap.cityu.edu.hk [2] CityU NewsCentre http://wikisites.cityu. edu.hk/sites/newscentre/en/Pages/ index.aspx
Issue 9 • Oct 2012
Blackboard Mobile Learn Statistics for September 2012
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GLOSSARY
IT Concepts from Wikipedia Andy Chun (ed.) Big Data is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools. The challenges include capture, storage, search, sharing, analysis, and visualization. The trend to larger data sets is due to the additional information derivable from analysis of a single large set of related data, as compared to separate smaller sets with the same total amount of data, allowing correlations to be found to “spot business trends, determine quality of research, prevent diseases, link legal citations, combat crime, and determine real-time roadway traffic conditions.” Scientists regularly encounter limitations due to large data sets in many areas, including meteorology, genomics, connectomics, complex physics simulations, and biological and environmental research. The limitations also affect Internet search, finance and business informatics. Data sets grow because they are increasingly being gathered by ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, aerial sensory technologies (remote sensing), software logs, cameras, microphones, radio-frequency identification readers, and wireless sensor networks. Big data is difficult to work with using relational databases and desktop statistics and visualization packages, requiring instead “massively parallel software running on tens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers”. This article uses material from Wikipedia. The Author(s) and Editor(s) listed with this article may have significantly modified the content derived from Wikipedia with original content or with content drawn from other sources. The current version of the cited Wikipedia article may differ from the version that existed on the date of access. Text in this article available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Theme photo on the cover courtesy of Peter Mok (CSC)
Editorial Box OCIO Newsletter Advisory Board Dr. Andy Chun (OCIO) Ms. Annie Ip (OCIO) Mrs. W K Yu (ESU) Mr. Raymond Poon (CSC) Mr. Peter Mok (CSC) Ms. Maria Chin (CSC) Publishing Team Ms. Noel Laam (CSC) Ms. Annie Yu (CSC) Ms. Joyce Lam (CSC) Mr. Ng Kar Leong (CSC) Mrs. Louisa Tang (ESU) Ms. Doris Au (OCIO) For Enquiry Phone 3442 6284 Fax 3442 0366 Email cc@cityu.edu.hk OCIO Newsletter Online http://issuu.com/cityuhkocio