EngineerIT e-News
 
ICT, electronics, instrumentation, automation and control in engineering
Issue number 96
February 2016  

 

 

In this issue...
- Manufacturing for SA's economic growth
- Ask an expert: Cooling ICT environments: where to next?
- In conversation with Gary Friend
- WiFi is the future of broadband in Africa
- Connected devices: Africa on the cusp of M2M explosion
- Virtual panel discussion: Is it time for a new automation architecture?
- Time-sensitive networking: Deep impact or mission impossible?
- A new software-defined world
- IO-Link for more production efficiency
- Selection of explosion protected equipment for hazardous locations
- Protected solutions for hazardous area installations
- Rugged monitors for harsh environments
- How LTE is the enabling technology for new automotive systems
- Connected cars: Bumps in the road and how to avoid them
- RF antenna misalignment effects on 4G/LTE data throughput
- Storage in the cloud - software-defined storage
- Is white-listing a panacea?
- Amateur Radio: Man-made pollution of radio spectrum is a growing problem
- Gadgets 4 Geeks
- AeroSpace and Beyond
- Telecoms in Africa
- Industry News
- Views, Comment and Opinion
- Product and Service News
 
Get your e-Zines
free-of-charge
  
(PC & mobile editions)
  
  
(PC & mobile editions)
   
   
(PC & mobile editions)
 
  
(PC & mobile editions)

Published by

 

EE Publishers

 

P O Box 458
Muldersdrift
1747
South Africa

 

 Tel: 0115437000
Fax: 0115437025

 


 Copyright

 

� Copyright 2016

EE Publishers (Pty) Ltd

All rights reserved

  

Philippa Rodseth
Manufacturing for SA's economic growth
by Philippa Rodseth, executive director, Manufacturing Circle
 
It is no secret that business conditions in the South African economy are fragile. The IMF reduced its GDP outlook for South Africa to 1,4% from 2% for 2015, and a tough year is forecast for 2016... (more)
Peter Greaves
Ask an expert: Cooling ICT environments: where to next?
by Peter Greaves, Aurecon Group
 
Data centres are essential to the digital economy; but they are also significant consumers of energy. Estimated to consume 2% of the world's total energy, they consume roughly ten times more energy per square metre... (more)
Gary Friend In conversation with Gary Friend
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EngineerIT

Standards are essential for local industry growth but also play an important part in plant safety, particularly in the mining and petrochemical industry The SAIMC realised that C&I standards were not in place in South Africa... (more)
Alan Knott-Craig WiFi is the future of broadband in Africa
by Alan Knott-Craig, Project Isizwe

Broadband in Africa is a massive opportunity, but licensed spectrum is too risky for a long term data network business, as has recently been borne out by MTN's regulatory woes in Nigeria. Where to from here?... (more)
Kees Snijders Connected devices: Africa on the cusp of M2M explosion
by Kees Snijders, Flickswitch

Thanks to the advancement of ICT on the continent, Africa is in a strong position to capitalise on forecasts that the machine-to-machine (M2M) sector will generate US$40-billion in global services revenue by 2019... (more)
Compiled by Hans van de Groenendaal, EE Publishers
   
A recent discussion on LinkedIN following an article by Bill Lydon entitled "PLC vs DCS - competing process control philosophy", raised the question of whether it is not time to evolve to a new open architecture... (more)
Time-sensitive networking: Deep impact or mission impossible? 
by Dr. Karl Weber, Beckhoff Automation
                            
The major shortcoming of Ethernet often boils down to real-time capability. The IEEE task group Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) intends to change this. The intention is for real-time to become an integral part of the Ethernet standard... (more)
Information from VMWare
   
Speaking at the recent VMware User Group (VMUG) meeting in Johannesburg, CTO of VMware EMEA, Joe Baguley explored the concept of what software-defined means and asked attendees how they plan to prepare their businesses to transform... (more)
IO-Link for more production efficiency
by Sai Sridhavan, Turck
 
IO-Link has arrived: The new communication standard offers measurable production advantages and added efficiency for numerous applications. There are not many topics on which automation manufacturers and users agree as they do on the topic of IO-Link... (more)
Selection of explosion protected equipment for hazardous locations
by Pieter Coetzee, Explotac
 
Explosion-related industrial accidents throughout the world have caused extraordinary environmental damage and cost many lives. While national regulations exist in some countries, there is an urgent need for an international approach to increase safety... (more)  
Protected solutions for hazardous area installations 
Information from Pepperl+Fuchs
 
Safe protection of humans and installed assets in hazardous areas is predicated on a multitude of international, regional and company-internal regulations and standards. The international standard on explosion protection, IEC 60079, defines a multitude of regulations... (more)
Rugged monitors for harsh environments
by Taita Chou, Moxa
  
With the thousands of different monitors available on the market today, you might wonder why industrial users can't find a suitable monitor for their industrial applications. The reason is simple: The vast majority of these thousands of different monitors are designed... (more)
How LTE is the enabling technology for new automotive systems
by Stefano Moioli, RF Design
    
The rapid rollout of long term evolution (LTE) by cellular radio operators is not just about increasing the available bandwidth for data communications. As the fastest growing telecommunications standard in history, it has already started to create hundreds of billions... (more)
Connected cars: Bumps in the road and how to avoid them
Information from Destinhaus
 
The 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas has turned one industry on its head - namely the automotive industry, which had an unprecedented 50 km squared exhibition space at the event. At this point, a strong electronics package is... (more)
RF antenna misalignment effects on 4G/LTE data throughput
by David Witkowski, Oku Solutions and John Vetter, Sunsight Instruments

One of the most important elements of efficient mobile network deployment is the antenna system. Proper alignment is critical to the performance of the network... (more
Storage in the cloud - software-defined storage
by Derek Rule, SUSE

IT has traditionally worked out its storage requirements by looking at data growth levels and making a projection. It has generally paid for increases by replacing old arrays - in an asset management life cycle... (more
Is whitelisting a panacea?
by Peter Cohen, MWR InfoSecurity

Whitelisting is an important security control and is considered so effective against targeted attacks that the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) rated it one of the four most important controls. By allowing only approved processes... (more
Amateur Radio: Man-made pollution of radio spectrum is a growing problem
by Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, South African Radio League

Man-made pollution of the radio spectrum is a growing problem for everyone, with radio amateurs being the first to notice its effects. The main reason is that radio amateurs work mostly with low power transmissions and weak signals... (more
Compiled by Hans van de Groenendaal, features editor, EE Publishers 
  • Remote control your online streaming
  • Professionalise your presentation
  • More hours of power
  • Portable sonar to track the fish... (more)
AeroSpace and Beyond  
Compiled by Aim�e Clarke, EE Publishers 
  • Tanzanian telecom shares profits
  • Nigerian-Cameroon submarine cable system now live
  • Internet of things Africa Summit approaching
  • Digital divide in Tanzania
  • South African telecoms urged to innovate, not regulate
  • Zambian telco invest in service improvement
  • Liberia: acquisition to enhance consumer services
  • Cote d'Ivoire ICT sector to restructure in 2016... (more)
Industry News  
Views, Comment and Opinion

Product and Service News