Useful Mobile Apps And It Tools For Start Ups

Here are a few freely available tools for startups to deal with some of their challenges like ensuring 100% service uptime, high availability and performance of servers, among other things

Almost 100 million new businesses are launched every year, globally. As of December 2015, India was ranked third in the number of startups and is home to over 4,200 of them, according to a report published by NASSCOM. With the relaxing of the startup regulations, you can expect a spike in technology startups in India.

Some of the typical challenges these startups could face include space, infrastructure, talent, and technology. Fortunately, mobile and cloud technologies have transformed the way businesses operate today. Now that employees can work from the comfort of their homes or on the move, startups can eliminate concerns such as space, connectivity, and IT infrastructure. With mobility influencing the IT landscape, it’s important that startups and small businesses are able to manage IT from anywhere

Here are some of the IT challenges most startups face depending on whether their IT infrastructure is on the cloud or on-premise:

• 100% service uptime

• High availability and performance of servers

• Internet connectivity

• Mobility

Ensuring 100% service uptime

Startups and small enterprises rely on the availability of their IT resources for business continuity. The first step in resolving downtime is a basic ping check. Ping lets you instantly determine whether a server is up or down and if there is any packet loss, or if the response time is beyond the acceptable limit

These metrics help determine the availability of a device or a website. With a mobile ping tool, attending to an unavailable server or a network is a breeze for the IT admin on the move. The ping tool also allows for first-level troubleshooting by enabling the admins trace route to the websites or servers and perform a reverse lookup to check if the DNS resolves.

Ensuring high availability and performance of servers

The services hosted on the servers often choke up resources and slow down the machines. Sometimes services are unavailable because of insufficient resources. Therefore, IT admins need to closely monitor critical services, even when they are physically away from these services.

In a larger environment, the app allows you to create a list of critical servers to monitor so that you can avoid wading through a huge list of servers. The app automatically detects the services on the system and monitors for availability. You can manage the services and perform operations such as start, stop, or restart a service. The app also lets you shut down or restart a Windows system from wherever you are

Ensuring optimum Wi-Fi connectivity

Have you found yourself walking all over a conference floor or trapped inside a meeting room in search of a good Wi-Fi signal? It happens to the best of us. Both end users and IT admins could use an app that reports on the available Wi-Fi networks and their signal strengths. Wi-Fi admins are often bombarded with emails and calls from employees complaining about poor connectivity. There are many Wi-Fi analyzer apps that besides showing signal strength, provide insight on channel overlaps as well. This insight will allow admins to switch off channels to eliminate interference or deploy additional access points or repeaters to improve the reception.

Managing Cloud Infrastructure

For most startups or small businesses, hosting their services in the cloud is a more viable option than having to set up the required IT infrastructure onpremise. The challenges with in-house hosting include ensuring 100-percent uptime, sufficient bandwidth, infrastructure redundancy, and the ability to allocate or free up unused resources. Many businesses host their services on Amazon EC2 instances. IT admins tasked with monitoring their cloud instances would just need the authentication parameters to be able to access their cloud resources.

The cloud infrastructure management app enables you to monitor the resources on your EC2 instances from anywhere. With increasing enterprise apps, you can connect to Amazon EC2 instances and monitor live feed data, historical data, configured alarms, and EBS volumes. Monitoring the performance metrics on the EC2 instances lets you determine the health and availability of these instances.

Troubleshooting SNMP

Startups that have on-premise infrastructure typically deploy one of the several free monitoring solutions to manage health, performance, and security of the deployed IT infrastructure. Most of these servers, applications, and network monitoring applications rely on SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) to manage the monitored devices. These solutions will fall back on the native ping to determine the availability and response time of the monitored devices. SNMP, CLI, or WMI will be used to gather the performance metrics of all other resources on the monitored devices.

We are living in a digital world which is majorly driven by smartphones. There are various mobile apps and free IT tools available in the market that will help a start-up get to a next level. These free IT utilities will enable admins with easy on-the-move IT management with the required capabilities.

Mobile Banking App Threat: A New Dimension

The problem with distributing apps through vendor and third party stores is that there are different levels of security offered to developers who distribute their apps through these venues

Mobile banking is now a way of life for the connected people. It also presents a lucrative opportunity for criminals to commit fraud. One of the easiest ways to breach into a victim’s portal is through malware and apps which require excessive permissions.

According to a report by RiskIQ criminals are using look-a-like banking apps to distribute malware and capture data on the device in order to commit crimes. The company found that more than 40,000 (or 11 per cent) of the 350,000 apps which reference banking in the world’s top 90 app stores contain malware or suspicious binaries.

Of the more than 40,000 mobile apps listed in the report as suspicious:

21,076 contained adware

• 20,000 contained Trojan malware

• 3,823 contained spyware

• 209 contained exploit code

178 contained malicious JavaScript

Ajay Khubchandani, Senior IT Security Expert, ESS Distribution Pvt Ltd (official distributor of ESET products in India) predicts that attacks on online payment systems and net-banking will increase as it is widely used by people and businesses for managing their finances.

“As the usage of virtualization by home users and SMEs increase, the attacks on them increase too. Various service networks for web performance, optimization, analytics, personalization, etc. will be increasingly targeted via both sophisticated attacks (i.e. code injection of specific customers) and unsophisticated attacks (DDoS),” he further added.

The Best Defence

The best way to tackle these issues is to apply a layered approach by implementing different techniques within each layer. Here are some of the key steps you can take to strengthen app security using currently available technology.

App in Stealth Mode

Deter attacks by making it difficult for attackers to understand the app workflows. This can be achieved through implementing reverse engineering resistance using data obfuscation (Hiding original data with random characters, and anti-debugging capabilities.) Always make sure that the apps don’t run on smartphone emulators by using strong device binding/fingerprinting resistant to spoofing.

Open source OS like Android can easily be breached so it’s always better to create your own security libraries, which avoids being exposed to standard OS vulnerabilities that are often easily available and promoted within the public domain.

Data Protection

Don’t rely on standard Android or iOS mobile software development kits (SDK) to safeguard your app data and always use alternative proprietary secure storage based on data obfuscation. When a Secure Element is not available, the security library should store the most sensitive data, e.g. encryption keys, in nonobvious locations and enable the location to be changed regularly.

Secure your Communication Channels

Use ‘certificate pinning’ to protect communications. This checks a server’s certificate against trusted validation data to confirm the source is safe. A copy of this certificate is then ‘bundled with the app’ to provide stronger authentication in the future. Additional protocols can also be used to improve resistance against man-in-the-middle attacks

Attack Detection

Use anti-malware and sentinels built into the app to enable attack detection and defensive reaction. This method can be used as a two-line defence, where the app can either react immediately or harvest data about the attack before enforcing its defences at a seemingly random point.

According to Sethu S Raman, Chief Risk Officer, Mphasis, “Cyber-attacks are pretty different from that of the physical world attacks. Many times we may not know our enemies and where are they based. In a recent case, the forensic team found that he was one amongst us but perpetrating these activities. It is not simply installing some anti-virus, or putting some spam filters and few other security software which generally is a trend in corporates. There has to be a thought out Security Strategy which is aligned with the corporate strategy and the IT strategy of the company. A proper risk assessment of the information assets of the organization should be done which should dictate the development of a comprehensive security architecture.”

Man-in-the-middle Attack

Last year a serious security flaw affecting approximately 1,500 iOS apps was detected. This made them vulnerable to hackers looking to swipe passwords, bank account info and other sensitive data, according to a report by security analytics firm SourceDNA.

App store needs to be Secure

The problem with distributing apps through vendor and third party stores is that there are different levels of security offered to developers who distribute their apps through these venues. Some app store operations are highly secure and demand that developers meet rigorous standards before their apps can be offered, while others’ standards are less stringent. The result is that app stores are susceptible to a variety of security and related problems, such as the distribution of copycat apps and malware distribution. Also, some applications are vulnerable to a variety of security problems as they are not well written.

The fragmentation in the Android space, which is significantly greater than iOS, contributes to the mobile malware problem because cybercriminals can impact a large proportion of Android users who are using older and less secure versions of the operating system.

To Conclude…

Every organization that distributes mobile apps via app stores should implement a robust mobile app security solution to protect their brands, trademarks and other intellectual property. Adhering to security best practices, such as keeping away from untrustworthy apps and app sources, will reduce the risks considerably.

How Digital Disruption Is Going To Impact Our Lives

Organisations looking to unlock their full business potential must keep in sync with the upcoming technology trends and must master a wide range of digital technologies which are critical to connecting with customers and employees

We are in a period where digital technologies are reshaping relationships between customers and companies as well as blurring the boundaries between industry sectors. Organizations are having to reinvent not only their operating models but in many cases their business models as well, just to survive.

However, research suggests that digital disruption and the need to prepare for it is still not receiving the direct attention at the Board level. Companies are either not acknowledging the risk of digital disruption, or have not addressed it sufficiently. Digital disruption is not just a buzzword – it is here to stay, and to bring around the radical change in the way companies think and operate.We see the trend of transitioning from traditional methods of managing the business to getting real-time analytics of every aspect of the business solidifying and becoming a part of mainstream business.

The rise of mobile money

In India, there are over 1 crore mobile subscribers who use some or the other form of mobile money and payment application today – certainly critical mass. Whether it be customer convenience and lower costper- transaction for urban customers or the safety and ease of transactions it offers to the unbanked and underbanked rural population in India – mobile payments are only bound to grow.

Mobile payments technology is offering many small businesses and businessmen, as well as the underprivileged in our society, the opportunity to access basic financial services. We believe consumers are looking for operator agnostic services – by creating products for all customers who can now have a choice of cashless dealings.

Public Wi-Fi is the traveler’s best companion

The growing popularity of public Wi-Fi services – especially among millennials in India – is largely because mobile devices have become the number one information source for receiving and sharing everything from current affairs to celebrity gossip, and public spaces have become fundamental to this trend. Visitors at shopping centers, railway stations, sports stadiums and other public spaces consider Wi-Fi access in the same way as air-conditioning or lighting; simply a given, and airline passengers are no exception. Travelers have their own ‘Magic Hour’ which they use to check emails, access flight information, browse the web and send messages prior to boarding their flight. According to SITA’s global research, air passengers are becoming increasingly reliant on social media throughout their journey

Just over four in five passengers carry a smartphone and 76% of them use airline apps, 43% say it’s made a definite improvement to their travel

• Provision of airport Wi-Fi represents a top three priority for passengers (after price comparison services and real-time flight information)

• 45% would use their connected device to purchase food and drinks or browse a virtual duty-free shop while waiting to board

• By 2016, airport status notifications and flight status updates will be provided on social media by 75% of airports, while 70% will offer customer relations.

Wearables makes IoT real for consumers

As predicted by Gartner, the Internet of Things (IoT) will result in approximately 26 billion connected units

by the2020. The revenue generated with respect of IoT products and services will cross $300 billion-mark which provides a plethora of opportunities for organizations across sectors. In order to lead this change, individuals and enterprises will have to fasten their hold on to the open standards for improving device monitoring and management, big data information gathering and analytics; and overall network communications.

Wearables are also growing in importance as mobile commerce gathers greater acceptability among consumers. Growing digitization, device automation, innovations in security and payment gateway services as well as growth in ecosystem partners will mean that new frictionless cashless payment methods will come into vogue – through the things we wear

Mobile and Cloud are joined at the hip

After growing at an exponential pace in 2015, cloud computing has become an integral part of the enterprise business strategy. Large global multinational firms are now looking to cloud to not only offer better front-end customer service but also to fully leverage advances in back-end manufacturing. For CIOs to be sure they are getting the cost efficiency and resource optimization the cloud promises, requires them to deploy cloud analytics solutions. In a connected device world where data resides in the cloud, mobiles are ideally placed to track the business outcomes most critical to them. Today, businesses no longer debate whether cloud and mobile analytics will work together – it’s about how can these two key trends be merged to create a seamless unified business management tool

Smart connectivity means green connectivity

Going green is the latest trend being followed the world over. Products and devices which are connected also will have the ability to sense, process, report, and take corrective actions. Enterprises are currently involved in the process in reducing their carbon footprints in all verticals and introducing options such as green data centers for their customers. Growth is inextricably linked to the well-being of our ecosystem - employees, business partners, local communities, and the environment. Green telecom is not just environmentally responsible but also sensible for business. This trend is most likely to spread over other sectors such as smart clothing, watches, phones, to smart buildings and smart cities with environment-friendly elements attached

The Rise Of Hybrid Cloud: Redefining The Business Functions

Girish Gupta

The best hybrid cloud scenario represents an environment where a private cloud is assembled to handle the standard workload, with burst compute offloaded to the public cloud

Cloud storage adoption has seen tremendous growth over the past few years and has become a fundamental requirement for IT decision makers and companies small or big. Cloud is redefining how a business functions and as per IDC predictions, will continue to do so all the way to 2020. Historically, many companies have been apprehensive to shift to a cloud based model given the security concerns associated with traditional dependency on a single vendor. Fortunately, there is a new model of cloud computing that is gaining prominence amongst companies— Hybrid Cloud.

Hybrid Cloud is a cloud computing environment which uses a combination of an organizations on-premise private cloud and public cloud services. This allows both infrastructures to operate independently of each other, at the same time offering benefits of multiple deployment models.

Considered as the best of both worlds in cloud computing, Hybrid Cloud is an environment where a private cloud is assembled to handle the standard workload, with burst compute offloaded to the public cloud. This translates to a long-term budget-friendly arrangement as opposed to traditional modes.

This technology is making headway across various sectors and industries of all sizes. Hybrid cloud is being deployed in the healthcare sector, as it simplifies the data exchange process between healthcare providers and insurance companies. Similarly, the financial sector is also largely dependent on hybrid cloud for pushing trade orders and running analytics on trades. Law firms and retail firms also use the hybrid cloud model for reasons including safeguarding information against the potential loss due to theft, hardware failure etc.

Why going Hybrid is beneficial?

• Cost Benefits: With the adoption of Hybrid cloud, businesses can reduce their overall cost of ownership and improve cost efficiency. Since a hybrid cloud uses both private and public clouds, it allows users to enjoy significant economies of scale without exposing imperative data to third-party vulnerabilities. By using this model, businesses have to pay for the extra compute time only when these resources are needed and not on

a constant basis.

• Security: The hybrid cloud model helps address security and compliance issues. By using this model, businesses are able to maintain in-house storage for sensitive operations. In fact, many of them are of the view that the data stored in the cloud could actually prove to be more secure than that on a server. Organizations have the option to carry our critical operations on their private cloud, while using the public cloud to carry out heavy processing tasks.

Direct accessibility through on-premise infrastructure:

A hybrid cloud model provides direct accessibility due to on-premise private infrastructure and is not pushed through the public internet. As compared to public cloud services, this model considerably reduces latency, access time and provides contingency against internet failure. The on-ground computational infrastructure supports the average business workload while providing the option to leverage the public cloud in case the workload exceeds the computational power of the private cloud component.

Still not convinced? Enter, Hybrid Cloud management

While many organizations are shifting to hybrid cloud due to its various benefits, many are still apprehensive because of perceived privacy issues associated with it. To address this, hybrid cloud solution providers are offering cloud-based management platforms that radically accelerates how IT can securely deliver the apps and data people need to do their jobs, while simplifying the process of managing workspace resources. Such platforms are being created for businesses that face incredible pressure from the explosion of native mobile apps, cloud-based web applications, and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives that are straining conventional IT infrastructure to its breaking point. Additionally, these companies are offering a comprehensive portfolio of workspace services available as a subscription.

Conclusion

More and more companies that are looking for smarter ways to optimize their IT spending are considering hybrid cloud as a game changer presenting businesses with a wealth of opportunities. Gradually, businesses are moving towards more adaptive technologies like cloud computing to deliver a host of services with agility, in a secure and cost effective manner. IT decision makers have bypassed the questions raised regarding moving workloads to cloud and observed that the hybrid cloud is capable of providing the same and sometimes even better security for sensitive data and applications

Hybrid cloud brings tremendous value to an organization- so much so that leading providers of hybrid cloud technologies have geared up and acquired the expertise to ensure that aspects like security are in place to safeguard the information on cloud. Adopting hybrid cloud can free a company’s valuable IT resources, make IT budgets available for innovation in business and make data available all the time. So when are you shifting to hybrid cloud?

5 Digital Trends to Leverage 2016

The times have truly changed, with so many successful examples of digitally led organizations giving traditional businesses a run for their money. There’s an interesting observation doing rounds on various social media sites, which says that today, the world’s largest taxi service, Uber, owns no taxis; the world’s largest accommodation provider, Airbnb, owns no real estate; the largest phone company, Skype, owns no telecom infrastructure; the world’s most valuable retailer, Alibaba, has no inventory; the most popular media owner, Facebook creates no content; and the world’s largest movie house, Netflix owns no cinemas!

We all know these examples and use their (or other Indian companies’) services very regularly. They’ve clearly proven how to do business digitally successfully, by using all the hot technologies we have been talking of over the past few years—social media, mobility, analytics, cloud computing, and IoT.

The good thing about all this is that today, any organization, large or small, has access to affordable technology, and can make it big if they have an innovative business idea. Here are a few technology trends that could be leveraged this year

Mobility:

This one technology dominates all others, thanks to its spread. There are several key trends to leverage in this space. One of them is mobile payments, and we’ve given an example of that in this issue. The other is to use the mobile platform for various on-demand services. You could today for instance, order grocery by taking a snap of your list and sending it by WhatsApp to a vendor. Now that’s really on-demand! Likewise, you could ask for medical advice from your doctor, book a movie ticket, ask for a plumber or electrician, and so on. It’s one technology that any business can and should leverage.

Rise of IoT and Sensors:

This is another tech to watch out for. According to Gartner, there will be 6.4 billion connected things in 2016, with 5.5 million new ones getting connected every day. These will get into just about every object you can think of, including what you wear, even clothes! Imagine going to a store with payment enabled clothing or any other wearable device. Companies like MasterCard and Visa have already demonstrated this and are making every gadget, wearable, and accessory payment enabled. According to research firm Tractica, there will be $501 billion of wearable payment transactions by 2020. You’ll have to see how it impacts your industry. If you’re from banking or retail, you’ll have to integrate these payment methods. Google Pay and Apple Pay have already tied up with MasterCard and Visa programs for enabling payments through various devices. Wearable electronics market is expected to reach USD 70 billion by 2025 from the current 20 USD billion, and healthcare will be the dominant sector, according to IDTechEx.

3D Printing: Future of Mfg.:

I covered why this technology is the future of manufacturing in my last column. In short, this technology has the potential to allow every company to do localized manufacturing. As a result, PWC estimates that 40% of air and shipping cargo is under threat. 3D bio-printing has the potential to reshape healthcare, while nano printing could fuel e-textiles. According to research firm Canalysis, 3D printing could become a $16.2 billion industry by 2018.

Security becomes more critical:

Amidstall these technologies, technology will play a crucial role, because in a connected world, the number of doors for security threats to come in will grow multi-fold. It will be important therefore, to safeguard all doors and have more intelligent security solutions in place.

Rise of Next-Gen Traffic:

More mobile devices, IoT sensors, wearables, home security systems and appliances, vending machines, etc. will drive traditional networks to the breaking point. What will be required is to re-think network design and management strategies.

These are just a few key technologies to watch out for this year. We’ve talked about some of them specifically for small and mid-sized businesses in our cover story. What’s important is to understand these technologies well before others, else your industry might also get disrupted soon. Maybe the world’s largest banker won’t have any branches, healthcare providers may not have any hospitals, and manufacturers may not have large factories. The possibilities are endless. You must understand trends ahead of time, integrate new technologies with traditional ones, and be more agile in setting up prototypes of new solutions

Take the risk before someone else does and disrupts your business!

"Buyer’S Guide Nas Drives Can Handle A Variety Of Tasks, From Pc Backup To Remote Access And Running A Home Media Server. Here’S What You Should Be Looking For

N ot every business needs a fully fledged server, and it would certainly be unusual if you had one at home. Often, it’s the ability to share files across a network that drives people to purchase a server, particularly small businesses. But if this is all you need, you’re better off with a networkattached storage (NAS) drive. A NAS drive is essentially a mini-server with the advanced capabilities stripped out – although many models allow you to add them back again via apps. This month we test ten NAS drives from some of the leading manufacturers in the field.

The most advanced NAS drives come in a rack-mountable chassis, intended to be installed in multiples or to supplement full servers in a dedicated rack. In this test, however, we’re focusing on a selection of two- and four-drive standalone NAS devices aimed at small businesses and home users. These are intended to sit on your desk, on a shelf, or even on the floor somewhere, and are relatively small and unobtrusive

When you are selecting such a device, the first question you need to ask is what you’ll use it for. Will it be simply a network backup device or will it also act as a shared media server? Are there any other server-type uses you’d like to take advantage of? Then consider how much capacity you need, and whether you want room for expansion. Some NAS boxes are sold pre-populated, but others require you to supply disks yourself – and only selected drives will be compatible. Power consumption is important, too, since you’ll most likely leave your NAS device on around the clock, so that it’s available whenever you need it.

A key feature of a NAS is the ability to configure the installed disks in a variety of different ways. The options available on your device will depend on how many drive bays it has and how many of these are populated. With a two-drive device, the simplest options are to configure the drives as separate volumes, or to concatenate them into one logical drive: these arrangements are sometimes called “JBOD” configurations, which stands for “just a bunch of disks

For most purposes, it makes sense to set up your drives as a RAID array (the name stands for “redundant array of inexpensive disks”, although if you’ve invested in hefty 4TB volumes you might quibble with the description). There are several options here, offering different balances of performance, capacity and security (see Choose the right RAID level, opposite page)

Beyond drive configurations, the networking features should be considered. All this month’s devices have one or two Gigabit Ethernet ports, but the protocols they support vary a little. The most basic is Server Message Block (SMB), which allows Windows devices to access the storage over the network. Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) is Apple’s equivalent, although OS X devices are SMB-compatible too, and Network File System (NFS) is the Unix/ Linux equivalent.

HTTP compatibility is required if you want to access files over a web browser interface, while FTP support allows this protocol to be used to upload and download files. WebDAV is an extension of HTTP that allows writing as well as reading. For more enterprise-level connectivity, some of this month’s devices support iSCSI, which allows the network drive to behave like an SCSI-attached local disk – beneficial for software that expects locally attached volumes.

MEDIA SERVERS

Home users will be looking for a few different features. In particular, there’s a good chance you’ll want to use your NAS drive as a media server for all the devices in your home network. The core functionality here is UPnP/

DLNA compatibility, which is a widely used protocol for sharing video, music and pictures in a read-only fashion between devices. All of this month’s NAS devices support it, and there are even smart TVs that can stream media in this way. For music lovers, iTunes compatibility means that the NAS device will conveniently show up automatically in your iTunes library

Data backup from all of your network devices is likely to be the bread-andbutter task for a NAS server. A number of this month’s entries come with backup software and multi-user licences, but if you’re using OS X systems then support for Time Machine will be greatly beneficial. Some NAS manufacturers also offer apps for smartphones and tablets that you can use to access your files. You may want to share data outside your local area network. This is where the aforementioned HTTP, WebDAV and FTP support will be beneficial, although this can lead to security risks (see Securing your NAS device, p70).

Many of this month’s devices also allow you to extend their capabilities by installing additional applications, including PHP frameworks that turn these storage servers into general web servers for hosting blogs, forums, or even e-commerce sites. It’s debatable whether it’s wise to host such things from a NAS drive, but the option is there. Whatever you intend to use your NAS for, there’s a huge range of options available, so study the reviews to fi nd out which has the features to match your budget and needs.

HOW WE TESTED

As well as comparing the features of each NAS device, we ran a series of performance tests on each of them, to simulate regular everyday usage scenarios. First of all, we measured the best possible performance by copying a large 1.96GB single fi le to the device and back again. If you store a collection of audiovisual content, this will give you an idea of how quickly you’ll be able to retrieve large video fi les.

For more general throughput, we copied a 10.6GB collection of smaller fi les to the NAS device, simulating backup operations. All of these tests were performed across a Gigabit Ethernet network to minimise network bottlenecks, and the host system for copying was an Overclockers Renda PW-E7F workstation with fast SSD primary storage, again to ensure that the NAS setup was getting the best data delivery possible.

For the same reason we used a Gigabit network, with only the NAS device, router and workstation on it. Using a power meter, we measured the number of watts consumed when the NAS device was idle and performing the multi-fi le backup test. For the NAS devices that came without drives, we used the same set of 3TB WD Red hard disks – either two or four, depending on the model.

Since fault tolerance is more important than performance for a NAS drive, we confi gured RAID1 (mirroring) for two-drive devices, and RAID5 for fourdrive devices.

Skylake, Intel’s latest secret partially revealed

MARK WILLIAMS TAKES A LOOK AT THE NEW PROCESSORS FROM INTEL BUT FINISHES WITH AS MANY QUESTIONS AS ANSWERS

I ntel’s latest desktop CPUs, codenamed Skylake-S, are fi nally upon us. O cially known as Intel’s 6th generation of Core processors and benefi ting from Broadwell’s previous, very late, manufacturing node shrink down to 14nm of Haswell, this 6th generation focuses on bringing architectural improvements aimed at increasing performance through higher Instructions Per Clock (IPC), not just the higher clocks that a node shrink typically brings.

TOUCH, BUT DON’T LOOK

Unfortunately, despite having launched two 6th gen CPUs already, Intel has been very tight lipped about exactly what they’ve done under the hood in Skylake since Broadwell. There’s virtually no information available on the topic. Intel have instead chosen to withhold this information until their Intel Developer Forum (IDF) conference. Whether it’s something ground breaking or they simply wanted some fi ller content for the conference, we simply won’t know in time for this issue. So let’s talk about what we do know. The two CPU’s that have launched in tandem with the matching Z170 motherboard chipset are the Core i7- 6700K and Core i5-6600K.

ENTHUSIASTS GET FIRST DIBS

Breaking from the tradition of the last few generations which started with laptop focused CPUs launching fi rst, these fi rst two Skylake CPUs are entirely enthusiastfocused.

The i7-6700K can be viewed as a direct replacement of the i7-4790K. It has four hyper threaded CPU cores running at a stock base clock of 4.0GHz that can turbo up to 4.2GHz. That turbo is 200MHz less than the 4790K, however the architectural improvements since made over the 4790K should help the 6700K surpass it in most cases.

The i5-6600K e— ectively replaces the i5-4690K. It too has four CPU cores but like most i5 class processors it is missing hyper threading. It operates at a base clock speed of 3.5GHz with a turbo clock of 3.9GHz.

THE PLOT THICKENS

Both are somewhat surprisingly rated at a 91W TDP, which is higher than the 84W of Haswell processors of two generations ago on the larger 22nm process node. While Intel is keeping its cards close to its chest for now on the nitty gritty of these new Skylake chips, the fact that the i7- 5775C (Broadwell-DT) managed to shrink Haswell to 14nm, more than double the IGP size AND add 128MB of eDRAM yet still only draw 65W, shows that there is potentially a much higher transistor count in Skylake CPUs than what we might currently think.

To add further to the mystery, several things have been removed from Skylake since Broadwell. Such as the audio subsystem which has now been completely shifted o— to the Z170 chipset; the Flexible Display Interface (FDI); the fully integrated voltage regulators (FIVR) has also been moved o— package to the motherboard;

the introduction of DDR3L/DDR4 which operates at lower power envelopes; and the complete absence of eDRAM on these new processors over Broadwell-DT. It does make you wonder where all this extra 26W in power over Broadwell-DT is disappearing to because the initial performance results don’t show any abnormally large gains

AN ACE UP THE SLEEVE

On the iGPU side of things both the 6700K and 6600K have a HD Graphics 530 (GT2) branded processor on board, which appears to be essentially the same as that of the HD Graphics 4600 (GT2) found in its Haswell Refresh progenitors. The only di— erences being that the maximum IGP frequency is now 50- 100MHz lower at 1.15GHz but with an extra four Execution Units (EUs) on-board for 24 total over the previous 20 EUs leading to measurable increases in integrated graphics performance.

VGA connections are now no longer supported out of the box (although can be added with an active digital/ analogue converter chip by motherboard makers). Interestingly it appears all of the 9th generation IGPs house an empty controller for an optional 64MB or 128MB of eDRAM (L4 cache). With the success of Broadwell-DT’s eDRAM in boosting GPU performance, fi nally giving Intel the lead in the iGPU stakes versus AMDs o— erings, it appears Intel has built in the option to add eDRAM into future CPUs to give them a decisive reply against anything AMD brings out in the short to medium term to press home Intel’s advantage before AMD likely bring in new HBM-equipped Zen based APUs.

On a fi nal note, both the i7-6700K and i5-6600K CPUs, in a fi rst for Intel, do not ship with a heatsink fan cooler in the box. Being enthusiast-grade products with unlocked multipliers, the reasoning behind the omission is that buyers would likely be using 3rd party coolers anyway. And yes, your current 1150 socket cooler will work just fi ne with these new 1151 socketed CPUs