For those of us seeking more reliable Internet access in the developing countries or operating in remote parts of the world ... have now at least one option.
Note that the first step is ... one has to have Internet access. Even though this access may not be as reliable as one would want, nor responsive enough, but we have some level of Internet access.
Second step ... if in need of improved response times, and ensuring that reliable connectivity ... i.e. if you need to improve application performance provided your issue is not server hardware but high packet drops and high latency then read on ...
One potential solution is ... WAN Optimization.
Product from the likes of Riverbed, Juniper, Blue Coat Systems, Expand Networks, CISCO, Packeteer ... to name a few offer a solution to this problem.
Let us call it an "appliance". This would be needed on both ends of the pipe. It does "network black magic" and ensure greater reliability, performance of data packets arriving from point A to point B.
How? ... Do not ask me but go and google "WAN optimization".
Trust me that this works.
I owe big thanks and gratitude to IBM staff for directing me towards this technology, specifically Keith Angell, Tung Ouyang, and Nathan DeWitt.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
People I work with ...
Well, what can I say? In many ways we are no different than in most for-profit organizations anywhere in the world.
However in one telling aspect the people I work with are different ... in wanting to help make a difference in places where we ordinary morsels would not want to go ... they are passionate, committed, communal, and caring.
Ohh, and I almost forgot - shame on me, and very talented linguistically and musically.
They come in all shapes, sizes, physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, in almost every "...ally" way.
...suffice to say, agreat bunch of people.
Now the IT folks, well, they are an inspired, ecletic bunch; fortunately for me they also happen to be talented, experienced, humourous, and a real joy to work with.
How many are we talking about here??? ... 3 in Washington, 3 in Africa, 3 (and soon to be 4) in Eurasia, and right now 1 in Latin America.
It can be amazing as well as very rewarding to see what one can do with very limited, miniscule resources.
However in one telling aspect the people I work with are different ... in wanting to help make a difference in places where we ordinary morsels would not want to go ... they are passionate, committed, communal, and caring.
Ohh, and I almost forgot - shame on me, and very talented linguistically and musically.
They come in all shapes, sizes, physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, in almost every "...ally" way.
...suffice to say, agreat bunch of people.
Now the IT folks, well, they are an inspired, ecletic bunch; fortunately for me they also happen to be talented, experienced, humourous, and a real joy to work with.
How many are we talking about here??? ... 3 in Washington, 3 in Africa, 3 (and soon to be 4) in Eurasia, and right now 1 in Latin America.
It can be amazing as well as very rewarding to see what one can do with very limited, miniscule resources.
Tech basics ...
Technology in use in the countries where we operate ...
- Yes, we do operate with PC's, printers, etc
- Yes, we do have a LAN (local area network) in the HQ office in each country;
- Yes, we do have branches in each of the countries; and they in turn will have a PC or two and either a dial-up / DSL/ VPN type Internet connection
- Yes, we also have what we call "satellite" branches or "point-of-sale" branches which are branches with no Internet connection, just a small place or stall in a market or something akin to that ... allowing us to meet our prospective and/or existing customers;
- Yes, we do have e-mail and Internet when the Internet connectivity is up and running;
All of the above are up and running when we have "street" power running; in most places power goes up and down multiple times during the course of the day;
- And yes, we do have a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) just for the servers in HQ office.
- Yes, we do have a knowledgeable IT person at each HQ office in each country.
- Yes, IT resources are very limited
- Yes, IT vendors in most of these places are also few and far between, and so getting good support is an issue.
- Yes, we for the most part use "homegrown" lending software, and for lending it works okay; however beyond lending, i.e. broader banking capabilities, it does not offer much; and as our business demands change and evolve we are beginning to migrate towards this off-the-shelf community banking software from 3rd parties.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Trip to Tbilisi
The week of March 3rd was going to visit the team in Baku where we are implementing a community banking software from IFlex. After speaking with the team there, it made more sense to visit them later in the month, and so changed plans to attend the Eurasia Regional meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia that same week.
Had to scurry around to make flight changes so that I could be in Tbilisi before Tuesday, March 4th. Had limited flight options, I either fly to London and take BMI to Tbilisi but this would require flying out on Saturday, March 1st (yikes!!!), or I fly out on Monday March 3rd to either London or Amsterdam and then make further pit stops using other airlines, some of whom are only airlines in name, before descending on Tbilisi. Yes, you guessed it ... I flew out on Saturday, at least knowing that I will get there.
We hold these quarterly get togethers in each region, with each country rotating as the host each quarter, with Country Directors (in our parlance, otherwise more commonly referred to as CEO's), CFO's and COO's from each of our affiliates (country operations) in the region, along with some folks from Washington. The purpose of these get togethers is to strengthen collaboration, communication, conduct formal Board sessions, to offer workshops on critical topics, and to make branch visits (to view the operations and to meet customers).
We have talked about the using video conferencing as an alternative for some folks to not have to travel. Need to continue to work on this to convince people on its material benefit. However having said this, in some countries getting Internet to work in a hotel is work in itself. So for now I will leave the subject of video conferencing alone ... will focus on more important matters.
Flew out on late, late BA flight on Saturday night ... it pains me to fly out on the weekend especially on a Saturday nite. The flight was uneventful, which was just fine. Could not sleep this time for some reason, so walked a lot and watched a movie, though cannot fathom what I watched - must have been real good.
To beat jet lag ... eat before you board the flight, drink gallons of water, sparkling if you can, and do not eat on the plane ... telling you it works for me. Though you do need an aisle seat to make the regular walk to the bathroom.
Landed in London, and I was in bad shape. Needed a place to keel over as my connecting flight was not till 9:00 at nite. As good as BA is they can be a pain sometimes ... landed in London had to change terminals and even though I paid for the connecting flight thru BA, it was code share with BMI, but they would not let me use their lounge because I do not have a Gold frequent flyer card of theirs. I found the cheapest hotel I could find in close proximity to the airport and was lost for a while lost in my dreams.
Flight to Tbilisi took off on time. Three of us from FINCA were on the flight, including my fearless leader. Landed after 5 hours, early in the morning at 6:00am local time. My first visit to Georgia. I was blown away by the brand spanking new airport terminal. Puts our JFK airport in NYC to shame. My bag came in no time. The driver was waiting for us. It was in the 40F nice and cool, pleasant.
The hotel was located approx 45 mins outside of Tbilisi. The roads were paved, no pot-holes, streets with lights, and yes traffic lights, and clean streets, and one can see the Babushkas (older ladies) street sweeping with what looked like a home-made sweepers made of branches and twigs tied together. The city is split by a river running thru the middle. Infrastructure is well maintained, most probably with foreign aid. On the outskirts the buildings are older, dilapidated, and as one gets closer to the city center the scenary changes to where it almost looks likes Amsterdam or some other European city ... beautiful buildings, russian style architecture, mixed in with modern. As one gets to the outskirts on the other side, now one sees the vestiges of older style homes, rustic in nature, and as one gets further out it becomes more desolate, homes in poor shape.
After approx 45 mins to an hour of driving, after making a turn off the road ... Wowww!!! an oasis ... our hotel nicely nestled next to a lake (frozen at this time). And the temperature chillier than in the city, and raining.
The place looked like a huge big resort, but with no one in site at around 7:00am in the morning. Had to wake up the guard / sentry to open the gate to allow the car into the resort. not a soul in sight, other than a few dogs.
Nice rooms. Dumped my one bag and my computer bag in the room and made my way for breakfast. I was hungry, could wait to shoer and freshen up but not for breakfast.
Had to scurry around to make flight changes so that I could be in Tbilisi before Tuesday, March 4th. Had limited flight options, I either fly to London and take BMI to Tbilisi but this would require flying out on Saturday, March 1st (yikes!!!), or I fly out on Monday March 3rd to either London or Amsterdam and then make further pit stops using other airlines, some of whom are only airlines in name, before descending on Tbilisi. Yes, you guessed it ... I flew out on Saturday, at least knowing that I will get there.
We hold these quarterly get togethers in each region, with each country rotating as the host each quarter, with Country Directors (in our parlance, otherwise more commonly referred to as CEO's), CFO's and COO's from each of our affiliates (country operations) in the region, along with some folks from Washington. The purpose of these get togethers is to strengthen collaboration, communication, conduct formal Board sessions, to offer workshops on critical topics, and to make branch visits (to view the operations and to meet customers).
We have talked about the using video conferencing as an alternative for some folks to not have to travel. Need to continue to work on this to convince people on its material benefit. However having said this, in some countries getting Internet to work in a hotel is work in itself. So for now I will leave the subject of video conferencing alone ... will focus on more important matters.
Flew out on late, late BA flight on Saturday night ... it pains me to fly out on the weekend especially on a Saturday nite. The flight was uneventful, which was just fine. Could not sleep this time for some reason, so walked a lot and watched a movie, though cannot fathom what I watched - must have been real good.
To beat jet lag ... eat before you board the flight, drink gallons of water, sparkling if you can, and do not eat on the plane ... telling you it works for me. Though you do need an aisle seat to make the regular walk to the bathroom.
Landed in London, and I was in bad shape. Needed a place to keel over as my connecting flight was not till 9:00 at nite. As good as BA is they can be a pain sometimes ... landed in London had to change terminals and even though I paid for the connecting flight thru BA, it was code share with BMI, but they would not let me use their lounge because I do not have a Gold frequent flyer card of theirs. I found the cheapest hotel I could find in close proximity to the airport and was lost for a while lost in my dreams.
Flight to Tbilisi took off on time. Three of us from FINCA were on the flight, including my fearless leader. Landed after 5 hours, early in the morning at 6:00am local time. My first visit to Georgia. I was blown away by the brand spanking new airport terminal. Puts our JFK airport in NYC to shame. My bag came in no time. The driver was waiting for us. It was in the 40F nice and cool, pleasant.
The hotel was located approx 45 mins outside of Tbilisi. The roads were paved, no pot-holes, streets with lights, and yes traffic lights, and clean streets, and one can see the Babushkas (older ladies) street sweeping with what looked like a home-made sweepers made of branches and twigs tied together. The city is split by a river running thru the middle. Infrastructure is well maintained, most probably with foreign aid. On the outskirts the buildings are older, dilapidated, and as one gets closer to the city center the scenary changes to where it almost looks likes Amsterdam or some other European city ... beautiful buildings, russian style architecture, mixed in with modern. As one gets to the outskirts on the other side, now one sees the vestiges of older style homes, rustic in nature, and as one gets further out it becomes more desolate, homes in poor shape.
After approx 45 mins to an hour of driving, after making a turn off the road ... Wowww!!! an oasis ... our hotel nicely nestled next to a lake (frozen at this time). And the temperature chillier than in the city, and raining.
The place looked like a huge big resort, but with no one in site at around 7:00am in the morning. Had to wake up the guard / sentry to open the gate to allow the car into the resort. not a soul in sight, other than a few dogs.
Nice rooms. Dumped my one bag and my computer bag in the room and made my way for breakfast. I was hungry, could wait to shoer and freshen up but not for breakfast.
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