Compucon CPD Seminar
24 July 2012 Tuesday Compucon House Albany

This is a Continuing Professional Development effort for our business partners and customers.  Attendance is free of charge but pre-registration is strictly necessary because our seating capacity is limited.  Please register by replying to this email.

4:00 – 4:15pm Outside the Square Session
4:15 – 4:40pm Computing for Fitness for Purpose
4:40 – 5:20pm IP Video Surveillance (IPVS) System
5:20 – 6:00pm Video Surveillance Virtual System
6:00 - 7:30pm Wine and Cheese

The theme for Outside the Square is air travel.  Air refers to the Earth and not Space.  When we travel by air, we want the trip to be safe, comfortable and as fast as possible.  Efforts have certainly been made by the 2 major civilian airplane makers on these 3 fronts.  This session will have a look of these issues, and poke into the 4th factor which may come into being in 10 years.

As there are many types of computer models as there are vehicles addressing different applications, this short session is an effort to elaborate fitness for purpose of computer models.  We will single out 2 computer types for discussion.  The first is desktop computing which emphasizes speed of performance.  We will point out that Thunderbird FX6100 has its special appeals and weaknesses among the myriads of desktop models.  The second is on the top end of computing which could be in a datacentre or research organisation.  We will explain the difference between homogenous computing (as in blade server) and heterogeneous computing (as in CUDA based systems).  The terms may sound very technical but they will be extremely easy to understand once we show you an analogy.  CUDA is winning the hearts and minds of top organisations and professionals across the world and we shall have a fair go at this word.

IP based technology has surpassed analogue based for video surveillance across the world this year and reached the mature phase of its adoption lifecycle.  IPVS is not a disruptive technology and it is in fact a foundation technology as big IT players such as Cisco have clinched onto the IPVS bandwagon to develop new products and services.  This session will explain the 3 subsystems of IPVS as in video capturing, connecting fabrics, and recording systems; and some impressive artificial intelligence of IP based systems.    We will explain where IT people have a major advantage over traditional system installers and inversely how traditional system installers can upgrade to master this new technology foundation stone.   We will provide insights from our direct involvements.  This session will not go into technical details and will stay on a conceptual level.  It is suitable for people interested in video surveillance and a general (not specialist) technical background is necessary. 

The last session is about a project blueprint that Compucon is about to launch.  The project is the design and installation of a regional video surveillance system.  Regional is a keyword here.  It means all videos captured within a region will be processed centrally although each camera site sees itself as a discrete and independent system.  Apart from installations at each customer site, other expensive hardware will be virtualized for sharing and this achieves cost saving and operational efficiency.  This is not the hype of clouds.  Clouds carry many uncertainties whereas the planned system offers certainties to customers.  North Harbour Industrial Estate is a well defined region and we plan to start the project in this region.  The same scheme can be applied across New Zealand as long as the conditions are satisfied. This session will introduce the scheme and how customers are better off than other schemes.  We will not go into technical details and will stay on a conceptual level.