Security Architectures for the Rich Web

While Web 2.0 technology and services have been common in the public sphere for a number of years, their uptake into the Enterprise has been relatively slow. Rich Internet Applications and Social Networks introduce new ways to allow users to interact with their applications, data and indeed, other users. They do however, bring with them significant opportunity to expose sensitive information. Whether breaches in security are due to unforeseen use of components of the application itself, or simply, by inappropriate information dissemination; through the use of Social Networking tools, Enterprise Web 2.0 introduces security trapdoors that should be addressed as part of the development framework and application design. In this talk recorded at Saltmarch Media's Great Indian Developer Summit Oracle's Barry Hiern looks at the various points of exposure in building Web 2.0 based applications for the enterprise, and some of the ways developers and administrators can secure their applications before data exposure becomes an issue.

Barry Hiern is Senior Principal Architect, APAC Channels Enablement at Oracle Corporation. With over twenty years in the software industry and more than a decade in leading roles within the Oracle Development organization, he has extensive experience in the areas of product development and delivery, enterprise architectures, business development, partner enablement and sales consulting.

The Entire Game Should Move Onto the GPU, says Rev Lebaredian

As the computing functionality and horsepower of GPUs has grown over the last few years, the role of the GPU is rapidly expanding to game tasks beyond rasterization-based graphics. Now GPU computing can be used for solving a variety of problems in game computing including game physics, artificial intelligence, animation, post-processing effects and others. Rev Lebaredian, Director of Engineering in Nvidia, says that as GPUs grow and become more general purpose, more and more of the game is going to be shifting over to the GPU. The final goal is to have the whole game run on the GPU.

Rev Lebaredian leads a team of engineers developing APEX - a middleware library and tools for integrating realistic and scalable physics simulation into games. APEX is a new technology that empowers artists to quickly create fully interactive in-game clothing, destruction, particles and vegetation. APEX is a middleware library and artist-oriented tools, built on top of Nvidia's PhysX software. The APEX framework streamlines the integration of new effects into games.

Saltmarch Media spoke to Rev Lebaredian during his recent visit to Bangalore, India. The discussion began with a topic close to Rev's heart – APEX. "APEX is trying to handover the power of game physics to the artists directly as they are the biggest section of employees in a game development company. By achieving this, an artist need not depend on a programmer to achieve every task and this in turn will enable the creation of a lot of creative content which the user of today has come to expect from games," says Rev.

Read on to know Rev's thoughts on moving the entire game to the GPU starting with graphics and physics, how video applications are tapping the increasing computing power of GPUs, optimal Direct X 11 support, and advancements in the graphics and digital media processors industry. Rev also shares his experiences with using Optimus technology that addresses the performance/battery life balance by automatically selecting the right graphics processor-between an Nvidia discrete GPU or an Intel integrated GPU

Q. Please introduce yourself to our readership and talk in a bit about your role at Nvidia.
 
Rev Lebaredian: I am the Director of Engineering within the Content and Technology group within Nvidia. This is the group that deals primarily with application developers. My responsibility right now is leading the group that develops a product called APEX.

APEX is a middleware solution we have been creating and implementing in actual games that enables game developers to put hi-fidelity simulation and dynamics into their games with minimal amount of work for the quality that they get out of it.

The goal is to make APEX scalable across platforms and allow game developers to put as much of it as possible in their games by leveraging their artists, instead of just a few programmers in their group who know game physics.
 
Q. One of your talks at India Game Developer Summit specifically revolved around APEX, a middleware library and tools for integrating realistic and scalable physics simulation into games. Can you explain APEX in a bit?
 
RL: What we found while integrating physics with the GPU was that for many years, the bottleneck in most game productions was the fact that most of the actual employees within any game studio are artists and the ratio of artist to other employees remains big because games are getting bigger themselves.

So in order for us to get more content in games we need to address the issue at the artist level and allow and enable them to create physical content without having to depend on a programmer to do everything.

Currently within development companies there are around one or two artists who are experts at doing physics programming and that is not sufficient for us to really enable games with the kind of content everybody wants.
 
Q. APEX is built on top of Nvidia's PhysX software. PhysX was designed by a company called AGEIA, which was acquired by Nvidia in 2008. What do you see as the benefits of the acquisition?
 
RL: AEGIA was a great acquisition for us. We knew that as GPUs grow and become more general purpose, more and more of the game is going to be shifting over to the GPU. The final goal is to have the whole game run on the GPU.

The next natural step after graphics is physics. It is very parallelizable and it is scaleable. There is lots of computation so it is in many ways a good fit for GPUs. So we evaluated and found out that it would take a lot of time to build up a physics library just at the rudimentary level and that it was much better to do an acquisition.

We were lucky as AEGIA were willing to do this and they have also had a lot of experience with accelerating physics on the hardware. So in many ways it was a perfect match for us. What they were trying to do with their products matched our business model and hence the expertise that they had gained matched us perfectly. This also has ramifications in the future.

What we learn from moving physics over to the GPU will apply to everything else we try to move over to the GPU as well. Physics is a great real-time application to try to move to the GPU so it is critical for us to have technologies like this in-house that we can use as beacons for where our architectures need to go in the future on the whole.
 
Q. More and more processing is now being done on the GPU. And video is the killer application for the GPU. What are the new kinds of video applications that are tapping the increasing computing power of GPUs?
 
RL: Encoding and transcoding are already big on the GPU and we are seeing many compute based applications that take advantage of the raw horse power of the GPU. As and when people create more and more digital media, there is an insatiable appetite for computing power in order to process this and archive it and store it in ways that are convenient for people. So we definitely have a big need for this sort of computation abilities.

In addition there are lots of problems with video that are naturally suited towards massively parallel architectures. Motion estimation, doing optimal flow, and these sort of image processing problems map very nicely onto the GPU.
 
Q. Nvidia had earlier pioneered a technology called switchable graphics to address the performance/battery life balance. But it was cumbersome to use since users had to manually switch between the two display adapters. Recently Nvidia released the Optimus technology that automatically selects the right graphics processor-between an Nvidia discrete GPU or an Intel integrated GPU. Have you used the Optimus technology and what is your feedback about it?
 
RL: I think its fantastic and it is much better than the switchable stuff that we had before. Optimus is extremely elegant and I think what you will find in the reviews and in the press will confirm this. Everybody loves this and I think it is the ideal solution to this particular problem and it is the sort of thing that we are actually good at.

It has taken a lot more than just developing hardware and the driver in order to produce something like this. We have to go through all the applications people are running, create a profile and invest a lot in QA and there are things we have to do in an ecosystem to create a product like this. So it makes me proud when we actually deliver something as elegant as this as a company.

Q. Will optimal Direct X 11 support be a deciding factor in terms of GPU sales in the next few years?
 
RL: History has always shown that to be true with respect to GPUs. We are not done with graphics. There is obviously a long way to go before we get to photo realism. And with games we are not even close to where film has been for many years now. DirectX 11 is a large step towards that.

We have had a lot of texture complexity for a long time and we have hit the limits of it and it looks kind of weird when the geometric complexities of games do not match the shading and texture complexity that we have become accustomed to. So as soon as we have some games out there that take advantage of DirectX 11 features, it is going to become obvious that all games need to increase their geometric quality to match this.
 
Q. What are the advancements you see in the graphics and digital media processors industry in the coming years?
 
RL: We are at an inflexion point in this industry. The whole parallelization thing was something the world was forced to accept when CPUs started going to dual core. We are not able to depend on the same speed ups that we were getting year after year with traditional CPU architectures. So GPUs happen to be at the right place at the right time.

With the level of programmability we have now, we are slowly converging towards the limits of what CPUs will eventually become. So now it is a race to see who can create the massively parallelizable architecture for the future. My hope is to see applications as complex as games completely running on the GPU.
 
Q. What are Nvidia’s ambitions for the next decade?
 
RL: In the coming years we have a lot of work to do in integrating physics properly onto the GPU. Then we need to ensure that all of it is running in there and it is optimal as possible and coexisting with all other parts of the game that we want to run on the GPU as well – including artifical intelligence (AI) and various sorts of scripting and all the various processes that happen within a modern gaming engine.

Fermi Graphics Chip is Direct X 11 Done Right, says Nvidia's Ashu Rege and Keita Iida

The computer game and hardware industry is advancing at a rapid pace, both in terms of technical innovation and sales. Nvidia is working towards expanding the market reach for games and to continually advance the state-of-the-art in visual computing. Ashu Rege is Director of Content and Technology at Nvidia managing the Content Management, Evangelism, Developer Technology, PhysX and APEX groups. He is an expert on games, graphics, geometric modeling, AI, error-correction codes and networking among other areas. Keita Iida has been part of Nvidia's Content & Technology organization since 2001, working with software developers and publishers to ensure that games and applications are well-aligned with Nvidia graphics and platform technologies. He is also a video game historian, contributing to several books on this subject as well as being cited by CNN, USA Today and others as an expert voice in the field.

Saltmarch Media spoke to Ashu and Keita on about the much awaited release of Nvidia’s Fermi architecture based GPUs. Nvidia's latest graphics card, based on Fermi architecture, is the company's first DirectX 11 graphics card. DirectX 11 is the next generation of graphics technology. Ashu firmly believes the Fermi architecture can truly exploit the possibilities of Direct X 11. Ashu and Keita share their thoughts on optimal Direct X 11 support becoming a deciding factor in terms of GPU sales in the coming years, how Fermi will fare against ATI’s HD5800 series, the most significant result of the AEGIA acquisition and whether modern games getting too dependant on high end hardware. When quizzed on the main skills Indian game developers should equip themselves with to gain a sizable share of the global game development work Ashu says Indian developers should develop a passion for being involved with game development to be truly successful. They should also look at going into high end game development, because what has actually become a critical bottleneck for studios worldwide is talent. Read on to find out more.

Q. Please introduce yourselves to our readership and talk in a bit about your roles at Nvidia.
 
Keita Iida: I work in a team called content management that handles alliances and partnerships with developers and publishers. We are a subset of Ashu Rege’s organization. Myself and my team work for him.
 
Ashu Rege: I am part of the content and technology organization and we work with developers from all over the world on various Nvidia technologies. Within this group we have Keita’s team that manages business, marketing and go-to-market aspects like helping developers take the games and the cool content they have created and help them put it out there. We have other groups like the evangelism group that works with maintaining relationships with developers, making sure they are aware of our latest technologies.

We also have a significant amount of people dedicated to engineering. We have developer technology engineers who work directly with developers by going on-site and helping them with any issues they might be having - all the way from driver issues to really pushing new technology into games.

We also have a sizable team devoted to developing PhysX, the PhysX SDK that we provide and support on multiple platforms including consoles, CPUs, GPUs, Wii, iPhone and so on. So my team, as our CEO Jen-Hsun Huang likes to say, we do not generate any revenue whatsoever for Nvidia but we do help our company and our developers. It is a commitment on the part of Nvidia to the developer community.
 
Q. What are your thoughts on the cultural significance and historical importance of electronic entertainment?
 
KI: That is a very broad question but an interesting one. In terms of cultural significance, the one thing video games have brought is that it has made engineers ‘cool’. It really is the case that in the past engineers and programmers went straight into working for defense contractors and governments, which is not bad, but making games that your brothers, kids and cousins play is kind of a cool thing and its fun.

Video games have made technology fun and it is also kind of the starting point of people becoming very comfortable with technology and not being intimidated by it.

The other significance of games, aside from it being fun, is that it has actually percolated into various fields -- from learning and cognitive skills, developing hand-eye coordination and social interaction through MMO’s and many others where it is really useful. So all of these factors have combined to cause video games to transform society as a whole in numerous ways.
 
AR: It is cool that video games break down a lot of barriers. You get to know and meet a lot of people from various parts of the world that you would have never have interacted with. So it is creating the one world community, which is something that can change the dynamics of society going forward.
 
Q. As a video game historian, Keita, can you tell us in brief about the growth of video games over the years and where you see it heading?
 
KI: We firmly believe video games are the driving force of technical innovation. It is the most complicated thing, both on the processor side from the tools, the APIs, as well as actually creating content for it. Consumer electronics products in comparison are very tame in terms of technical sophistication so I guess that’s the one thing that has significantly shifted over time.

From the early days of computers a user is accustomed to performing basic word processing and database management functions on a computer. But those can be done on a machine that is 10 years past its time in terms of hardware. Games on the other hand are driving people to want to continue to have better hardware.

A lot of that credit goes to game developers who continue to push the envelope in a way people can immerse themselves in interactive entertainment. That is kind of the one big thing that is accelerating at a more rapid pace than ever before.
 
AR: The other thing that has been very interesting is from an Nvidia perspective. We began with creating hardware for games. But now that is coming full circle where the hardware created for driving video games, in the last four to five years, is being used to solve socially significant problems like breast cancer research. This is done by using our GPU computing technologies in CUDA.

It is exciting for our company to see scientific research and medical research being driven now by something that probably would not have existed if it had not been for games.
 
Q. Nvidia new Fermi architecture based GPUs are the GTX 470 and the 480. Can you tell us a bit more on this particular architecture and what makes it different from the previous generation hardwares.
 
AR: My group in particular, which has a lot of people who work directly with developers, is very excited about the Fermi architecture and the products that are going to be based on it. There are multiple features of the architecture and we can spend hours talking about it but some of the things that are really exciting are that it is a Direct X 11 GPU and we believe it is Direct X 11 done right. Some of the characteristics of Fermi are going to enable a new level of geometric realism that has never been seen in games before.

When you look back at when the Direct X 9 API was introduced and how it unleashed the power of pixel shading, which moved pretty rapidly over the last three years where pixel shaders are pretty common to do all kinds of effects. What has lagged significantly behind has been the actual geometry that has been used in games. Using a character with more than 10000 polygons is unheard of in most games because most systems cannot handle that. With Fermi I really believe you will see new levels of geometric realism.

The other part of Fermi we are really excited about is building up on the GPU computing aspects specifically related to games. A cool new feature of Direct X 11 is called Direct X Compute that basically uses the computing horse power of the GPU to do more than just graphics. You can do physics simulations, artificial intelligence and all kinds of new post processing effects that was not possible earlier.

So I can’t wait for the content and the games that exploit all of Fermi’s features to come out. It is going to be an exciting year for us.
 
Q. How in your opinion will Fermi fare against ATI’s HD5800 series?
 
AR: Obviously I am a biased observer so I am going to say that it is going to fare extremely well and the proof will be laid out when Fermi launches and independent reviewers will see for themselves. I particularly think that as far as the newer features go, Fermi will be the development and gamers’ platform of choice because of the level of things it can do is going to be surprising for a lot of people.
 
Q. In your talk at India Game Developer Summit, you said Nvidia is working with various players in the gaming industry to increase your market reach. Is there any particular collaboration you can tell our readers about? A partnership that harnesses the GTX’s capabilities, perhaps.
 
KI: We continuously work with developers and its an ongoing thing. What we do with games depends on what would make the games better so certain features would work for certain games and they might not be applicable for other games. So there’s no generic answer that would work. That said, Ashu’s talk during India Game Developer Summit 2010 had some videos that contained a few snapshots of the possibilities -- turbulent smoke or destruction of walls and things like that. These really add a new level of immersion to video games.

 Q. Will optimal Direct X 11 support be a deciding factor in terms of GPU sales in the coming years?
 
AR: I believe so. If you look at Direct X 10 [which was the previous API], one of the challenges for developers for adoption was that it was not supported on Windows XP so you had to have a Vista-based system. And the other big problem was that you could not create a Direct X 9 device through Direct X 10. So essentially you had to write a separate renderer for Direct X 10. Combine that with the consoles – the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 that were both essentially Direct X 9 capable hardware -- it did not really provide much incentive for developers to go out of their way to work with Direct X 10. 

While Direct X 10 was a really good API in many ways from a pure software engineering point of view, it did not introduce a whole lot of new features. So making your game visually or otherwise distinguishable from a Direct X 9 game was challenging. Direct x 11 solves all those problems and I think Microsoft has done an excellent job with designing Direct X 11.

Firstly, Direct X 11 runs on both Windows 7 and Vista so you do not have to worry about OS compatibility. And Windows 7, if you see the surveys, has done fabulously so far.

The other thing is you can create a Direct X 10 device and support Direct X 10 GPUs through Direct X 11 so you don’t have to have to have a separate path.

I believe there will be a very fast adoption of Direct X 11 by developers. For most of the next generation consoles Direct X 11 will be the minimum level they would have to support. So it is profitable for a developer to invest resources into getting an understanding and using the Direct X 11 pipeline.

There will be a lot more Direct X 11 content that will be compelling and different from previous generations, therefore. This will make a lot of difference in terms of support for Direct X 11, and with special features like tessalation and many others, this will have a direct impact on sales.

Q. Are modern games getting too dependant on high end hardware? Is the limited scope for improvement in terms of software fuelling the gaming hardware sector?
 
KI: There are two parts to that. First of all Nvidia does offer products from top to bottom that address all the various segments that exist in the PC world today. All the way from SLI and multi GPU and supercomputer class hardware with billions of transistors all the way down to entry level netbooks that run on Atom chipsets. We call this our ION platform. This is the fastest growing segment of the PC market and we bring gaming capabilities to that platform.

Similarly we address all the market segments and we feel that in each segment we offer products that are compelling enough that users would want to invest in our GPUs to experience the kind of usages that they want in their PCs.

The second thing is what we call Optimized PC. The GPU is becoming increasingly high end and users have a tendency to get apprehensive on spending a lot on the latest GPUs. If you actually think about it, as Ashu said earlier, GPUs are becoming more relevant in not only graphical usages and taking games to the next level but also in many other usages such as cancer research and even video decoding and encoding amongst others.

If you want the best experience, like HD video on Youtube, it is in your best interest to get a GPU that offers the best performance for your money. Spending a little bit more on the GPU in relative to the other components in your computer ensures your total PC budget does not have to go up or down. By investing a little more on the GPU you can have an exponential increased performance improvement and features for every extra dollar you spend.
 
Q. It has been almost two years since Nvidia acquired AEGIA. Can you tell us what has been the most significant result of this acquisition.
 
AR: It was in February of 2008 that we acquired AEGIA and it has been a fabulous acquisition for us. We acquired an extremely talented team of engineers who had implemented the leading physics SDK on all platforms. The most significant result of this has been our ability to push the technology -- the GPU part of it.

The AEGIA team worked really hard after the acquisition to map their PhysX SDK onto the GPU and they got it done in amazing time. We were able to put that technology in the hands of developers. If you look at some of the games that came out recently, like Batman Arkaham Asylym and other great games of last year, developers have already started using these features of GPU PhysX in games in a very compelling fashion. So getting this technology into the hands of users has been huge for us through AEGIA.

Q. What do you foresee as the future of GPU?
 
AR: I believe that a GPU as a general computing processor is going to become a must in any system. We are already seeing that in areas of scientific computing and in medical research where the GPU is becoming a critical part of the research for a lot of people. In Japan a supercomputer has been built with GPUs.

The future of GPU is expanding all the way from high end supercomputing nodes all the way down to mobiles, where our products are branded as Tegra. This allows you to do HD decoding and video playback on your cellphone. Many more multimedia functions will be available in the future through the GPU. GPU is going to span this wide range of activity that will make it a critical component in any system.

Q. India is known as a cost conscious market. Does Nvidia have a different pricing strategy or marketing model to increase its Indian customer base?
 
KI: For the budget that any user has in terms of purchasing a product, whether its 3000rs or 30000rs, we want them to think about the GPUs. Think about the way they use the hardware they buy and we are very confident we can cater to anything a user might want to do with a computer or a computing device.

Rather than spending a lot on the best possible CPUs and using the remaining budget on the rest of the components of the PC, you should spend more of the money on GPU. For example, if you see our ION based chipsets for the Intel Atom processor, with just a little incremental extra spend you can actually play mainstream games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and SIMS and experience them -- it may not be the ultimate experience but it is fairly good.

So rather than telling a customer that they should spend more money on the PC they buy, we just feel that as the GPU becomes more relevant and continues to innovate in concert with application development, users will vote for the GPU with the percentage or proportion of money they spend on it.

Q. Is Nvidia developing anything in particular for its Indian customer base?
 
KI: Not right now. However we have developed other custom products in the past and there is no reason why this will not happen for India, especially if there are any unique requirements for specific products. One example of that is in China where the single biggest expenditure of running an Internet café is electricity. We custom designed low power, low heat dissipating chipsets and graphic processors specifically for China.

Once a market grows and becomes big enough, we can invest and differentiate, and can create custom products for a market that requires it and there is no reason why we won’t.
 
Q. What, in your opinion, are the main skills Indian game developers should equip themselves with to gain a sizable share of the global game development work?
 
AR: Game development is a rather unique field. Historically if you look at some of the most successful game developers, they had a passion for being involved with game development. This is required more so especially in a country like India where there is a more traditional outlook. You are expected [in India] to follow an established path rather than strike out into this ‘game thing’, as a lot of parents here would say. It can be challenging.

I say, if you are really committed to game development you are more than half way there.

I find it surprising that most Indian developers focus on a lower end approach to gaming, which is basically mobile games and other games that do not necessarily require high investment and technology to take it ahead of the game -- no pun intended.

I would suggest to game developers in India, programmers and artists and companies included, to at least take a look at going into high end game development, because what has actually become a critical bottleneck for studios worldwide is talent.

The ability to program on the next generation consoles when they come out is going to be a huge need in India and everywhere else in the world. That is, those who have good experience with the previous generation consoles today – the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 -- and also can adapt themselves to the next generation consoles. Approaching from that high end which involves GPU computing, besides understanding Direct X 11 and Open Computing Language (OpenCL) and so on, would give Indian game developers a leg up if they address that need.

Picking the Right Technology for Enterprise RIA

We are entering an era of Rich Internet Applications (RIA), and many enterprise development managers are facing the dilemma - which way to go - remain with tried and true Java or .NET or experiment with relative newcomers such as AJAX, Flex, Silverlight or JavaFX. While the Internet brings a lot of noise, where "it's cool" is the most popular definition. In this talk recorded at Saltmarch Media's Great Indian Developer Summit Yakov Fain presents an overview of what's out there on the enterprise RIA market. He talks about the pros and cons of using various techniques and technologies for the development of the front end for complex distributed systems.

Yakov Fain is a managing principal of Farata Systems, a consulting company specializing in rich Internet applications for financial applications. He has authored several books on Java and Flex and dozens of articles on software development. Oracle's Sun Microsystems nominated and awarded Yakov with the title of Java Champion, which was presented to only a hundred people in the world. He leads leads the Princeton Java Users Group.

Mobile Internet for Emerging Markets

Internet is the key driving force in the market gearing towards its promises of reaching 4 billion subscriptions during 2010. This wave of the Internet is making it truly MOBILE -- creating new ways for people to connect with each other and to access information on the move. In this talk recorded at Saltmarch Media's Great Indian Developer Summit, the VP & MD of Nokia India D Shivakumar says music, navigation services and mobile TV are part of what had been anticipated to play a key role in spearheading this growth. But it had been notably clear that the driving business force backing this up is no other than the emerging India market where an increasing numbers of people are accessing the internet for the first time on their mobile rather than a PC. The proliferation of this demand in an immerse market like India has unveiled a world of opportunities left un-tapped. Shivakumar strives to review and evaluate current trends while anticipating new movements of the mobile internet alongside with in-depth consumer insights that are key to the makings and being part of this technology convergence revolution.

Backed with over two decades of management expertise and deep insights to the consumer market in India, Shiv heads up and drives the Nokia mobile phones business in India while providing strategic direction and operational focus. Besides working at consolidating Nokia’s market presence, he also focuses on building the Nokia brand, driving partnerships and strategic alliances and developing the capabilities of the Nokia organization in India. Over the years, Shivakumar has been able to chart an excellent track record of managing businesses, people and customer relationships and has gained a good understanding of the changing needs of customers and a wealth of experience in delivering solutions.

Every year, GIDS is a game changer for several thousands of IT professionals, providing them with a competitive edge over their peers, enlightening them with bleeding-edge information most useful in their daily jobs, helping them network with world-class experts and visionaries, and providing them with a much needed thrust in their careers. Attend Great Indian Developer Summit to gain the information, education and solutions you seek. From post-conference workshops, breakout sessions by expert instructors, keynotes by industry heavyweights, enhanced networking opportunities, and more. Click here to register.

Game Lifecycle Management is Immature in India

A mobile gaming production team resembles a software factory giving an opportunity to apply the classic production management principles while dealing with hundreds of SKUs on a daily basis. Given the fragmentation of mobile handsets and limited computing resources (processor power, memory etc), it is a unique challenge to manage the lifecycle of a mobile game through its different key phases such as studio production, post-production (porting onto hundreds of phones), packaging and submission to all carriers worldwide with local language support. What starts like a blend of making an animation movie (with conceptualisation, creative direction, production etc) and writing a software (with over 50,000 lines of code) on a couple of reference handsets starts expanding horizontally to cover hundreds of phone, several languages in each technical platform such as Java, Brew, iPhone, Android, Windows etc.

Saltmarch Media caught up with Dayanidhi MG, Vice President - Customer Delivery at Digital Chocolate, to talk about managing the life cycle of developing a mobile game and the challenges of building a cross-platform or a multi-platform game. He also speaks about the swell in the mobile games development in India, the experiences he gained while meeting the challenges in building a team and the level of co-operation among Indian game development companies.

Q. Please introduce yourself to our viewers and talk in a bit about your role at Digital Chocolate.
 
My name is Dayanidhi and I work as President of Content Delivery at the Digital Chocolate’s Indian office in Bangalore. We work with our offices located in US, Finland, Spain and Mexico and do a lot of engineering work covering the different cycles of mobile game development.
 
Q. Your talk at India Game Developer Summit revolves around life cycle management for mobile games. How mature is this process in India’s game development industry.
 
There aren’t many players in the Indian market that cover game development lifecycle from start to finish. There are a few service providers who work with publishers and them with some parts of the game lifecycle in areas such as developing a game for limited reference handsets or porting games onto other platforms, but Indian companies haven’t ventured into working through the entire lifecycle in a bigger scale. I think it’s going to mature in the coming days and we may see some players participate in the development cycle, production cycle and the post production and some who actually cover the entire life cycle in mobile games.
 
Q. How much importance is placed on establishing a strong storyboard before pushing a mobile game into development.
 
A game’s idea is really strengthened when strong storyboarding is done and I would say that it is a very important step. There are lot of instances where the story boarding goes through different cycles, iterations and then gets refined by a large extent and by the time the refinement process is done the game would have changed into something totally different from where it began.
 
Q. What are the biggest challenges a developer faces while building a cross-platform or a multi-platform game? Do you see this process being eased in the near future and how?
 
When I was making my presentation at the India Game Developer Community, I did mention the scenario and the engineering processes that multiplatform games are subjected to. One such scenario is when a publisher develops it for all the available platforms. In this case the publisher needs to really plan carefully in order to optimize the process so that he can leverage common efforts and resources that are required ensuring a proper sequence flow where again the time and efforts get reduced. So basically when the developers intend to release a game on multiple platforms they have to do a lot of technical planning in terms of creative development during the production process. But in the coming days we might see the evolution of some software tools that help in developing a game for multiple platforms thereby reducing the efforts and demanding skills that are required to develop a game for multiple platforms.
 
Q. What are main skills that you look for when hiring a new game developer?
 
One has to be a good engineer. If a developer is going to be a part of the studio it really calls for good coding skills and this is one area where college students can apply the skills and knowledge they’ve acquired in the fields of physics and mathematics because game development really requires a deep understand of these two subjects. In the specific area of post production, which involves porting a game onto multiple handsets, the engineering skills that we look for are based on the platforms on which post production is done which could be Java or C++ or Object C.
 
Q. Do you have any words of wisdom for startup game development companies to help them also gain a sizable share of the global game development work?
 
Indian startup companies should remain focused on one platform to start with. This way they can gain strength in that platform before moving onto multiple platforms. They also need to concentrate on gaining strength in one particular domain such as game development which is basically production and then putting some best practices into use to ensure the game development cycle is reduced and then be able to pass on that benefit to their customers. If they are publishers themselves, then they save up a lot on time during the late development cycle and this could really help them. Basically I would say that it helps to remain concentrated on one platform to begin with.
 
Q. What is the state of game development in India? What is your opinion about the level of co-operation among Indian game development companies and what can be bettered?
 
The density of game development companies in India isn’t really that and we personally know most of the companies that are largely present. But these numbers are increasing in recent times and I think it really helps to form an ecosystem where everyone stands to gain based on mutual discoveries and technological advancements. It’s really important to develop an ecosystem of this nature.

Q. What are Digital Chocolate’s ambitions for the next decade?
 
We’ve been in the field of mobile games for quite some time. Our CEO Trip Hawkins (William M Hawkins III), who also founded EA games, is a veteran in mobile games. Digital Chocolate has developed games for all the platforms that have evolved over time. We are now getting into social games. So in all, we are poised to be one of the key cross-platform mobile publisher and we really look forward to being present across all platforms and specially have a strong presence in social gaming because we believe the mobile-social game convergence is going to happen very soon. 

Indie Game Development is Here to Stay, says Karthik Subramaniam

Game development is heavily bound by huge capital investments by the game publisher. The term 'Indie' is commonly used in the game industry to represent a small team or an individual who independently develops a commercial-quality video game. Few young and energetic developers choose the indie route rather than join a professional game studio to unleash their creative freedom. This is mainly because indie developers cannot match the resources or might of the large producers. Indies have challenges in all aspects of game development such as funding, developing, publishing, marketing and selling their games. It becomes increasingly difficult to have access to expensive state-of-the-art tooling for creating game content. So where does that leave a developers who is solely relying on his programming skills and self-determination to create games outside this restrictive relationship?

Karthik Subramaniam spoke to Saltmarch Media about how independent game developers succeed in the competitive game industry. He explained the distinct channels of capital investment generation, how high-quality open source content creation tools could be used as a viable alternative to their commercial counterparts, and the main skills Indian game developers should equip themselves with to gain a sizable share of the global game development work. He also touched upon the level of interdependence between large publishers and indie game developers, the various marketing channels an indie game developer leverage to his benefit, and developments in the global and Indian game industry.

Q. Please introduce yourself to our viewers and talk in a bit about your assosciation with game development.

I started programming games at the age of 15. I started with BASIC and developed my own games during college. Ever since I have been interested in independently developing games. Even though I work for a software services company, I spend time on my own to research trends and understand the market and continuously try and improve my skills in game development.

Q. You develop games as a hobby. Have you considered getting into full-time game development, either as an independent or join a large game development studio?

Yes I have. Even though I work for a company I have future plans to start my own venture as an independent game developer, either as a part time activity or take it up full time. I plan to enter the gaming industry in the next couple years.

Q. Your talk at India Game Developer Summit revolved around the various aspects of independent game development. Can you explain a bit about the distinct channels of capital investment generation because that seems to be one of the biggest challenges faced by an independent developer?

Absolutely right! For independent game developers, huge capital investment is always a challenge. It’s very difficult to sell your idea to potential investors. That is why you need to explore smaller channels such as the Web and mobile platforms and fund yourself for game development. The revenue you generate from this can be used as investment to develop larger games.

Q. Is there a higher level of interaction between large publishers and indie game developers in this day and age? And, what is the level of interdependence between these two families of game developers?

Absolutely yes. Large game publishers such as Microsoft welcome independent game developers. A classic example for this is Microsoft’s XNA which openly welcomes independent game developers. Digital distribution is seen as the most feasible distribution channel for independent game developers to reach large publishers.

Q. The open source community is an indie game developer’s best friend. What are your thoughts on this?

I just can’t agree more with this statement. The focus of my talk at India Game Developer Summit was on open source software as well. Today the open source software community has matured to a level where it is giving serious competition to major commercial players. There have been instances where major players from larger companies have approached open source teams to align their products so that they get mutual benefits.

Q. Can you shed some light on the various marketing channels an indie game developer leverage to his benefit?

Learning and networking opporutinites such as India Game Developer Summit and game developer institutes are platforms where one can showcase his/her products and talents. Reaching out with social media offerings, volunteering to give interviews to media and promoting a unique concept will get more media attention than just publicising the game.

Q. Have there been any developments in the global game industry recently that has piqued your interest?

Digital distribution has doubled. Many big companies are also having their products distributed under larger distribution channels. Social gaming has increased. Also larger publishers who generally released AAA titles are now developing smaller titles for social platforms.

Q. Have there been any developments in the Indian gaming industry recently that has got you excited?

Game development in India has moved from the typical Flash-based mobile games to console games. There have been recent examples like Hanuman – The Boy Warrior and Desi Adda which have been released on PS2, so I see the Indian gaming industry moving towards consoles.

Q. What, in your opinion, are the main skills Indian game developers should equip themselves with to gain a sizable share of the global game development work?

Indians are very good in programming but the pattern I see is that they don’t focus much on the art side of things. I think Indians should focus more on art direction and the entire creative process. Thinking about game design than just delivering a product with mediocre art is of utmost importance. If Indians can concentrate a little more on art then we should be in a good position to compete with the global gaming industry.

Q. Do you have any words of wisdom for startup game developers?

Aim high. Think big. Take your time to come out with a good product and when you debut in the industry do not compromise on quality.

Q. Where do you see the Indian gaming industry heading in the next decade?

India has a large pool of talent to compete with larger game providers especially since India is seen as a destination where high quality skills come at a very low cost. It is a good market for Indian studios to launch professional products that can compete with the larger players on the global level.

Busting Common Myths about Developer Productivity

Many traditional assumptions about software development have been challenged in recent years. Agile processes and service oriented architectures are two examples of this. An area that has seen little real scrutiny is developer productivity. Almost by convention, every new tool, framework or approach promises huge gains in productivity but a coherent view of all factors involved is usually missing. In this talk recorded at Saltmarch Media's Great Indian Developer Summit, Erik Dörnenburg examine several common myths about developer productivity and show that productivity improvements often require a trade-off with other desirable goals. He also discusses the relative impact of some tools and approaches.

Building on his experience with J2EE, Microsoft .NET and other environments, Erik Dörnenburg is continually exploring new patterns of enterprise software. His career in enterprise software began in the early nineties on the NeXTSTEP platform and Erik has been an advocate of agile, test-driven, object-oriented development and Open Source software for many years. Before helping clients with the design and implementation of large-scale enterprise solutions at Thoughtworks Erik was Technical Director at Pixelpark UK, a new media company, where he integrated enterprise systems with web-based solutions and a variety of digital delivery channels.

Over 6500 attendees have benefited from two game changing editions of Great Indian Developer Summit. In 2010, the biggest independent summit for software developers in India is bringing together over 100 sessions encompassing the full range of Microsoft computing, Java, Agile, RIA, Rich Web, open source/standards, languages, frameworks and platforms, practical tutorials that deep dive into technical skill and best practices, inspirational keynote presentations, an Expo Hall featuring dozens of the latest projects and products activities, Awards to honor software excellence, engaging networking events, and over 80 of the best and brightest of speakers from around the world. The summit will be held 20-23 April 2010 at the IISc in Bangalore. For further information on GIDS 2010, please visit the summit on the web http://www.developersummit.com/.

Need More Developer Heroes for India, says Intel

Over the last few years, the defining paradigm in computing performance has shifted inexorably from raw clock speed to parallel operations and energy efficiency. Saltmarch spoke to Narendra Bhandari, the Director for Asia Pacific of the Intel Software and Services Group - Developer Relations Division at Intel, to find out how industry participants are adapting to this change. Narendra also speaks on a multititude of topics such as multi-threaded application development, enhancing the end user experience, Larrabee - the new instantiation of Intel architecture designed for highly parallel throughput applications like gaming, that is expected to compete with GeForce and Radeon products from NVIDIA and AMD respectively. He also provides insights into Intel’s forthcoming innovations in products and software that will create opportunities for the developer community to quickly grow and expand their business. Read the complete interview.

Q. Can you introduce yourself to our audience and tell us in a bit about your role at Intel?

I manage the Asia Pacific portion of the group called Software and Services Group (SSG). It is a group within Intel which is focused at making sure that software developers can be more productive and can produce innovative applications on top of hardware, which we produce that is used by our customers. So the focus is to get developers to be productive, get them to use maximum amount of features from the hardware and then get them to produce more innovative applications on top of our hardware.

Q. SSG, unlike virtually all other Intel groups, has teams focused on almost all aspects of Intel platforms. Can you tell us about how SSG is adding value to the platform and ecosystem and why SSG as a group is critical to Intel's plans going forward?

Sure. The SSG basically goes with the value proposition of helping X86 across the board. If you look at it, right from Xeon which is used for servers, all the way down to the Atom processor which is used for smaller devices, we have an x86 instruction set that is compatible from top to bottom. Now this is critical for developers as they can build applications on one platform and at least have availability on other platforms. It may not be completely optimised, but at least have the capability to run it on multiple platforms. What our group does is help build tools and provide a set of frameworks and applications so developers can build applications and have a continuum of applications. From a platform ecosystem perspective we make sure that various other components such as Operating System and middleware are well optimised to take advantage of the hardware features below. The benefit of that is that many of the developers don’t get to mess with the hardware anymore. Nobody writes assembly anymore so we make sure that the layers between the application and the hardware are well optimised so the developers can write on top of the API and take advantage of the hardware features.

Q. Over the last few years, the defining paradigm in computing performance has shifted inexorably from raw clock speed to parallel operations and energy efficiency. What is the feedback you are getting from industry participants who have moved to adapt to this change?

Let’s step back and think as to why it has happened. If you think about it, it is largely driven by the consumers. As a consumer you want to be mobile. You want to carry your data with you. You want to carry your music with you. From a consumer perspective and from a business perspective, you want to carry your applications, e-mail, contacts etc. with you. Now when you are mobile, you want battery life. You want the device to be running at least full day of your usage. And once that started people also wanted performance. You cannot have a mobile device that takes three seconds to look up a contact name because you want it almost instantly. And when a call comes and you press the button you want the voice to come instantly.

So you want the performance and you want the battery life. To balance that, the devices have over time taken to techniques that provide energy efficiency.

Performance can come from two things. One is driving up the clock speed but as we drive up the clock speed, the power consumption increases which is not good for mobile devices like smartphones, notebooks, laptops and devices that largely depend on battery for their usage.

If we increase the clock speed on these devices, the energy efficiency is not very good and the battery runs out very fast. You will get performance but the battery drains out pretty fast.

Many years ago, the approach taken by almost all processor vendors in the industry was to say, “What if in addition to the straight line performance we introduced parallel execution engines. Dual core was the start and now you see multi-core processors coming out in the market. Now once the hardware became parallel, you had to make sure that the software has the ability to take advantage of the multiple execution units or multiple cores in the platform.

Parallelism has been in the industry for many years, in different forms, but when we came out with Pentium 4 with hyper threading, people started to parallelize their application but it was one processor unit running two or three threads of execution. However, as we got into multiple cores the application designers and developers had the flexibility to design more number of threads which could potentially run on these platforms and this gives us increased performance and the clock speed can remain constant or even lower and you get energy efficiency and performance. So from an end user perspective, we get better battery life. From a developer perspective, they can take advantage of the hardware and provide energy efficiency.

Q. Would it be correct to assume that performance enhancements are increasingly becoming dependent on multithreading and that is simply the most effective way to produce gains in application behavior?

Almost 90% of the processors we ship today support parallelism and many of them actually have multiple cores. So when you have the hardware able to run two cores simultaneously, four in the higher end machines, four and six in the server side, Parallelism is one of the most effective ways to drive performance on these architectures. Now the straight line performance has also improved due to our micro architectural improvements. But if you want scaleable performance, threading is right now the most effective way.

Q. What advances are we seeing in tools to enhance multi-threaded application development and what is Intel doing to help parallel software developers keep pace with emerging multi-core architectures?

Let’s take two scenarios. One is somebody is taking an existing application and trying to make it parallel. There are data structures, algorithms, validation techniques and all that needs to be taken care of to move from a straight line application to a multi threaded application. The other scenario could be that you are designing from scratch, where you take a bunch of libraries, put them together but the architecture of the code is coming from scratch. In both these scenarios you do need to test, debug and validate at the end. So Intel has software tools at every stage of the pipeline. We have something called Parallel Studio. Studio implies that we have a suite of tools which help you at different stages of the pipeline. Compilers will produce very efficient code and then there are other tools in previous stages of pipeline to help the developers to be productive in architecting, verifying and debugging the code and of course generating very efficient parallel computing programs.

Q. Part of the challenge with helping advance multi-threaded application development appears to be educating and supporting developers to master this technology. How is Intel approaching this challenge?

We provide the tools that integrate well into the developer environment which the developers are used to already. For example, Microsoft Visual Studio or similar environments. We thought to integrate these tools into those environments so that they can continue to be productive as they have trained themselves in those IDEs, and then they use our tools, compliers etc. from that. So that once you know making sure that the transition for the developer is not significant.

The other approach we took was that we said, “Let’s go work with the top infrastructure players. For example, Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe etc. are all relatively base players and whose applications and software is used across millions of machines around the world. We first spent time with them understanding how to optimise the base applications including databases, middleware, manage run time engines like Java. NET, and many of the open source components and ingredients, making sure that they have the ability to take advantage of the multi core hardware. Then we went to the software application companies who are leaders in the various segments -- financial, media, accounting or high performance computing applications -- and dedicated our engineers and gave them hardware to test and take advantage of the multi core feature and got the key applications used across the globe to become multi threaded. At the very least we provided them the training.

The final stage is that we have online communities where developers can get code samples, get SDKs, peer learning, case studies. All this is available for the worldwide developer base -- the key infrastructure players, the key application players and of course the wide base of software developers  -- to take advantage of and to increase their capability at every layer.. We can’t send our engineers to every software company in the world so we make sure they have access to the online resources. Plus we do a series of trainings online, offline, chats, webinars so that people can learn from the others sitting at the comfort of their desk, people can gain the expertise or at least build the confidence in their mind that, “Yes this is pretty easy to do and I have the help I need”.

Q. Specific to our application developer audience, are you able to provide updates on the tools and technologies available to help ensure their visual applications can be optimized on Intel platforms and thereby enhance the end user experience?

The keyword there is visual applications right. Visual applications or visual computing needs the maximum amount of computing to provide a better visual experience. All these are extremely compute intensive task. Also the human eyes see them, and we can detect flaws easily. We can look at something and say, "oh that’s a poor animation" because you know our eyes detect that easily and even a common person can say that didn't look very real. So it's an extremely challenging task for developers in visual computing. Many of the tools I mentioned earlier hold good for the visual computing community also but we also have a visual Adrenalin program targeted towards people who build visual computing type applications. For existing applications which will be based on core and also applications which will potentially come out when Larrabee hits the market over the quarters.

Q. How is Intel's work with universities to provide enhanced training in threading in undergraduate programming courses progressing?

We realize that it’s not just the developers of today but the developers of the future, who are coming out of the universities, who also need to understand the essentials of parallel programming. Once they are well trained on the fundamentals and essentials of parallel programming, it is easy for them to take advantage of dual core, quad core and many core architecture become much easier. They don’t have to ‘unlearn’ straight line programming and then get into parallel programming if we can introduce elements of parallel programming into their course.

Over the years the approach we took was to reach out to the graduate students first. There are around 300 institutions in India that teach parallel programming at some level. At the under graduate program it is a little bit tougher as you need to influence the people who set the curriculum. And since it is a four-year program, the decision making cycles are different in different universities. So we are working with systems through out the world. For instance, in Bangalore (India), we work with Vishweshwarya Technological University (VTU). The undergraduate level will take some time because of the cycles I mentioned earlier. Senior professors in the university are helping to develop the curriculum. So while we bring in the technology, it is great to hear from professors who tell us how to go about with the course design.

Q. Can you tell us what’s new with Larrabee, the new instantiation of Intel architecture designed for highly parallel throughput applications like gaming?

Larrabee is a code name. The software kit and some early samples of the hardware have been provided to a variety of media and gaming companies across the globe. We have also provided a graphics environment, which is like a debugging environment that allows these graphics developers to take the maximum advantage of visual computing features of Larrabee. Larrabee is also very important because it truly is a many core processor. Typically mainstream cores are 2, 4, 6 today, but Larrabee goes into much higher numbers. So scaling of the code has to be significant. There are tools available in the graphics kit that allow you to do pretty high levels of scaling and there are multiple modes provided to program. Not everybody is going to write directly into the metal as we call it. They might use different layers, for example, directX from Microsoft or openGl from the open standard and potentially over time as openCl as it becomes mature. We will see layers in between that will be supported on the Larrabee platform also.

Q. Can you share with us Intel’s forthcoming innovations in products and software that will create opportunities for the developer community to quickly grow and expand their business?

The area which seems to be growing from devices perspective is the mobile devices part. A variety of mobile devices, netbooks and smartphones are growing across the globe in terms of volume.

The nature of Indian consumers is also changing such that they are making more online purchases. The success of application stores is already being demonstrated in many of the mature markets. The paradigm for the developer community is to understand the consumer buying pattern and build applications for it. For developers I would say it is about build for multiple platforms using standard architecture.

Mobile devices are a huge volume including netbooks which a volume leader right now. We are also talking to people about how developers can take advantage of the worldwide opportunity. We have launched the Intel Atom Developer Program focused on building applications for atom based devices. Initially the focus will be on netbooks as it is already there in the market.

Another important thing is that we are focusing on the developer-developer connection. Say, if I want to build an application, without having deep detail of the codecs, hardware and such, I can still build an application using the industry standard components.

Thus the focus is to make the life of the developer more productive. They do not need to build everything from scratch. There will be semblances of engineering validations, testing done through the program so that the person putting together the program gets a sense that many of the technological aspects that he does not know have been taken care of.

So I think it is pretty exciting for developers as they get a chance to have worldwide impact. They can use others components as well as contribute to applications that others are building. For more information about the Intel® AtomTM Developer Program visit www.appdeveloper.intel.com.

Q. What is your vision for Intel SSG in India? Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our audience?

I strongly believe -- at least from the India perspective -- we have an extremely large, mature and growing developer population doing a variety of software programming and services for the Indian as well as the global market. My vision, objective and passion is to make these developers healthy and wealthy -- healthy from a technological perspective and wealthy to make sure they do more innovation. Whatever we need to do in the form of trainings, infrastructure, business opportunities etc. we will continue to provide. My vision is to make sure that our organization continues to make the developers of this country more productive, more technologically competent and, hopefully, produce lots of heroes from here. For more information about Intel® Software Network visit www.intel.com/software.

Plug-in to Rapid Development on WebLogic with Eclipse

In this plenary talk, Dhiraj Bhandari of Oracle demonstrates FastSwap, an Eclipse Plug-in for faster iterative development. While the traditional JEE development cycle comprises of the "Edit", "Build", "Deploy" and "Test" phases, modern IDE's remove the "Build" step through conditional compilation. FastSwap's goal is to simplify this further by removing the "Deploy" phase of the JEE development cycle.

Enhancing the Productivity of RAD Using Websphere

Rational Application Developer (RAD) v7.5 is tightly integrated with WebSphere Application Server (WAS) to provide seamless development and deployment for complex web, Java EE and SOA applications. In this plenary delivered at Eclipse India Summit 2009, Bharat Kasturirangan highlights some of the key areas of function in RAD v7.5 that enhance developer productivity, including tools for Java EE 5, annotations, and the built-in WebSphere Test Environment that allows applications to be quickly deployed and tested locally.