EnterpriseDB is pleased to announce the initial release of pg_catcheck, a catalog integrity checker for PostgreSQL and Postgres Plus Advanced Server.

pg_catcheck is a simple tool for diagnosing system catalog corruption, released under the same license as PostgreSQL itself. pg_catcheck reports logical errors in system catalogs, such as a value in pg_catalog.relnamespace that is not present in pg_namespace.oid. It is intended to make it easy to determine the nature and extent of system catalog corruption so that you (or your PostgreSQL support provider) can take whatever recovery actions you might deem appropriate, such as repairing enough of the damage to take a successful pg_dump of the damaged cluster. pg_catcheck has been tested on Linux and Windows and is expected to work on other operating systems, and it supports server versions 8.4 and newer.

For more details, see the source code and README here.

You can join the project mailing list, pg-catcheck@enterprisedb.com, here.

ACCRA, Ghana — May 1 3 , 2014 — Tuesday at the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance Global Summit in Accra, Microsoft Corp. announced new TV white space partnerships and projects on four continents, including its newest partnership with SpectraLink Wireless and Facebook to provide low-cost wireless connectivity to students and faculty at universities in Koforidua, Ghana. Globally, Microsoft is now involved in white spaces pilots in 10 countries.

TV white spaces, the unused portions of wireless spectrum in the frequency bands generally set aside for television transmissions, can be utilized for a range of applications including the following:

• Providing low-cost connectivity

• Connecting rural areas to broadband

• Improving in-building wireless networks

• Creating hotspots for Internet access

• Offloading mobile traffic

Microsoft’s commercial partnership with SpectraLink Wireless and research partnership with Facebook will deploy wireless networks covering entire campuses at All Nations University College and Koforidua Polytechnic. This pilot is part of Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative to help improve the continent’s global competitiveness. A core goal of the 4Afrika Initiative is to facilitate access to technology for the masses and to empower African students, entrepreneurs, developers and others to become even more active global citizens.

For students and faculty at the universities, access to the network will be coupled with productivity and communications applications as well as Internet-enabled devices. The networks will use TV white space-enabled radios and other wireless technologies to connect campus buildings, as well as off-campus hostels where students live, to ensure they have access to fast broadband. The project is operating under a TV white space pilot license granted by the Ghana National Communications Authority and is the only TV white space license currently issued in West Africa.

Facebook’s main involvement in the project will be to collaborate with Microsoft and SpectraLink Wireless on joint technology research to better understand how TV white space spectrum and equipment can support wireless Internet users today. These efforts will be led by Facebook’s Connectivity Lab team, who are working on new technologies to support Internet.org’s mission to make Internet access available to the two-thirds of the world not yet connected.

Facebook, Microsoft and SpectraLink Wireless have a like-minded view that a more abundant supply and flexible use of spectrum are important aspects to affordably connect more people to the Internet, and the companies plan to collaborate on the policy front. All three companies involved in this pilot project are also members of the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance — a global, cross-industry alliance focused on increasing dynamic access to unused radio frequencies.

“TV white spaces technology, when combined with other low-cost wireless technologies, such as Wi-Fi, offers a substantial opportunity for businesses, consumers and governments around the world to improve the economics of broadband network deployment and service delivery,” said Paul Garnett, director in Microsoft’s Technology Policy Group. “Through these projects worldwide, we are working with local private- and public-sector partners to enable new consumer experiences, while encouraging governments to make needed legal and regulatory changes to allow this technology to be deployed more broadly.”

“This project will provide substantial benefit to students and faculty at the universities,” said John Sarpong, CEO of SpectraLink Wireless. “Until now, students at these universities have not had consistent access to fast broadband, which is key to students’ ability to access information and learning resources online and compete in the 21st-century economy. With SpectraLink Wireless’ Edutech-as-a-Service platform, students and faculty will have access to the best productivity applications on the market and Internet access at true broadband speeds. All at a low cost per user per month. We look forward to rolling this out in Koforidua and the rest of the country.”

Africa is not the only region where the company’s white spaces pilots are flourishing. In Asia, Microsoft has helped to pioneer white spaces pilots in Singapore and the Philippines. Last week, Microsoft was announced as a founding member of Taiwan’s Dynamic Spectrum Access Pilot Group, which aims to contribute to the creation and development of a world-leading dynamic spectrum access ecosystem in Taiwan, leveraging Taiwan’s tremendous capabilities in semiconductor design and fabrication, component and devices manufacturing, and systems integration and solutions. The group includes leading Taiwanese companies, academic and research institutions, as well as Mediatek, the Communications Research Center at the National Taiwan University, and the Taiwan Institute for Information Industry. All are members of the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance as well. The group will conduct pilot projects in Taiwan for both rural broadband access and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as Smart Grid, using TV white space radios.

In Latin America, Microsoft is involved in the region’s first white spaces pilot in Uruguay, where the company is providing technical support to Plan Ceibal, an initiative supporting the integration of information and communications technologies into the country’s public education system. Plan Ceibal will use TV white space technology provided by Dynamic Spectrum Alliance member 6Harmonics to provide broadband access to ten rural schools.

Finally, in the U.K., Microsoft is working with Ofcom and other partners on a pilot in Glasgow. This will play a key role in providing data to inform Ofcom’s legislative proposals for TV white spaces. The pilot is being led by the Centre for White Space Communications at the University of Strathclyde, with support from the Scottish Government's Demonstrating Digital programme, and will use TV white space radios to enable Wi-Fi hotspots and webcam image backhaul at various outdoor locations within the university’s city center campus.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

Surprise! We announced last month that we’ve been working with Valve to bring the critically acclaimed game Portal to SHIELD. Today, we can share some more exciting news. SHIELD owners can also download the masterpiece – Half-Life 2 from Google Play, in addition to Portal. Yes, Half-Life 2. The winner of over 50 Game of… Read More

HOUSTON — May 12, 2014 — Monday at TechEd North America 2014, Microsoft Corp. announced new services, products and partnerships that remove the barriers to cloud adoption for IT professionals, developers and technology users.

“Mobility and cloud are the future of business, and the future is now,” said Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud & Enterprise Division. “Our differentiated cloud innovations, comprehensive mobile productivity solutions and developer tools help all of our customers realize the true potential of the cloud era.”

Hybrid cloud: the gateway to “cloud-first”

According to Gartner,* “nearly half of large enterprises will likely have hybrid cloud deployments by the end of 2017.” Delivering on its commitment to offer the best of both worlds, Microsoft announced the following:

• Private connections to the cloud. Available Monday, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute enables customers to create private connections between Azure and on-premises environments. Through alliances with providers such as AT&T, BT, Equinix, Level 3, SingTel, TelecityGroup, Verizon and Zadara Storage, ExpressRoute offers enterprises new options for embracing the cloud, including fast speeds, security and reliability features, and low latency.

• Radically simplified cloud storage. Available in preview, Microsoft Azure Files streamlines cloud storage by enabling a single file share from multiple virtual machines, helping save customers time and money.

• Enterprise-grade performance and networking. Microsoft also announced the availability of compute-intensive virtual machine sizes, in-region and cross-region virtual networking connections, and reserved IP addresses. Together, these advancements help customers architect, deploy and manage global-scale services.

• API management. Available in preview Monday, Azure API Management lets customers improve interdepartmental information sharing and create new business models by exposing APIs through the cloud.

Protecting cloud investments

As CIOs and IT directors move their businesses to the cloud, they have to secure their technology across on-premises and cloud environments. Microsoft announced on Monday new advancements that help customers better protect their data:

• Enhanced disaster recovery. Available in preview next month, Microsoft Azure Site Recovery, formerly Hyper-V Recovery Manager, enables enhanced, cost-effective disaster recovery in the cloud. With this new capability, customers can replicate and recover virtual machines and services to Azure in the event of an outage at their primary datacenter.

• New anti-malware. Microsoft Antimalware for Azure, available in preview, offers customers the ability to install an anti-malware agent for both cloud services and virtual machines. In addition, Microsoft announced solutions with cloud security partners Symantec and Trend Micro that integrate with Azure virtual machines.

• Enhanced encryption technologies. Beginning in July, Microsoft will begin to deploy new encryption technology for Microsoft Office 365 business customers, ensuring that every file stored in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business is encrypted with its own key for highly secure content storage.

• Expanded data loss prevention. Starting in June, existing Data Loss Prevention capabilities available in Exchange will now expand to include documents stored in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business for Office 365 E3 enterprise customers. Data Loss Prevention helps prevent the sharing of sensitive content inside and outside an organization.

Fueling “mobile-first” productivity

As customers use even more devices and services, IT must find ways to empower productivity on the go while protecting corporate information. Building on the recently announced Enterprise Mobility Suite, on Monday Microsoft introduced new capabilities that offer industry-leading mobile application management, protection and delivery:

• Office mobile app management with Windows Intune. Later this year, Intune and Office 365 will deliver mobile productivity across Office for iPad, iPhone and Android phones including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook Web App. Part of the Enterprise Mobility Suite, Intune will also deliver a tool to help customers manage existing iOS and Android line-of-business apps.

• Microsoft Azure RemoteApp. Available Monday in preview, Azure RemoteApp helps companies give mobile employees access to Windows applications across a range of devices. Combining Microsoft’s powerful Remote Desktop Services capabilities with the scale and cost-efficiencies of Microsoft Azure, RemoteApp will help end users stay productive on the go and enable IT to easily scale and meet customer needs.

Enhancing the developer experience

Microsoft also announced a series of tooling and framework updates that enable enterprise developers to embrace development opportunities with next-generation cloud and mobile applications, including these:

• Optimized .NET for the cloud. Microsoft shared a preview of the next version of ASP.NET, a streamlined framework and runtime that enables developers to optimize cloud and server workloads with maximum agility and performance. ASP.NET vNext will be a new Microsoft contribution to the .NET Foundation as an open source project.

• Advanced mobile development. Microsoft announced a preview of Visual Studio tooling for the Apache Cordova™ platform, allowing developers to easily build multidevice hybrid applications using their HTML and JavaScript skills. Visual Studio developers can now build Windows, iOS and Android native applications with .NET and Xamarin or hybrid applications with Apache Cordova. Microsoft also released Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RTM including support for universal Windows apps.

• Agile software development. Today, Microsoft extended Visual Studio Online, the cloud-based application lifecycle management offering, by releasing a set of APIs and service hooks that integrate with third-party services. The new APIs make it easier for organizations to adopt Visual Studio Online without abandoning the tools they’re using today.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

* Gartner Private Cloud Matures, Hybrid Cloud Is Next, Thomas J. Bittman, Sept. 6, 2013

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.