1,316 research outputs found
ElasTraS: An Elastic Transactional Data Store in the Cloud
Over the last couple of years, "Cloud Computing" or "Elastic Computing" has
emerged as a compelling and successful paradigm for internet scale computing.
One of the major contributing factors to this success is the elasticity of
resources. In spite of the elasticity provided by the infrastructure and the
scalable design of the applications, the elephant (or the underlying database),
which drives most of these web-based applications, is not very elastic and
scalable, and hence limits scalability. In this paper, we propose ElasTraS
which addresses this issue of scalability and elasticity of the data store in a
cloud computing environment to leverage from the elastic nature of the
underlying infrastructure, while providing scalable transactional data access.
This paper aims at providing the design of a system in progress, highlighting
the major design choices, analyzing the different guarantees provided by the
system, and identifying several important challenges for the research community
striving for computing in the cloud.Comment: 5 Pages, In Proc. of USENIX HotCloud 200
Prevention of Competition by Competition Law: Evidence from Unbundling Regulation on Fiber-Optic Networks in Japan
This paper finds that a regulation that promotes competition in one market may decrease competition in other related markets. Policy makers in the telecommunication industry currently are facing an important decision about whether to continue unbundling regulations on new optical-fiber lines. I find that unbundling regulation prevents new providers from building optical-fiber networks, by estimating a dynamic entry game with a dataset of fiber-optic network constructions in Japan from 2005 to 2009. In particular, when a new technology is introduced, unbundling regulation has an oligopolization effect on the regulated firms. This finding in the Japanese telecommunications industry suggests that unbundling regulation during periods of new technology diffusion may reduce the price of service but also decrease competition in the infrastructure market.
Work and Employment under the Gig Economy
This paper aims to indicate the key issues yielding to explain why a regulatory framework and correct policy responses are needed for what here we define as a platform 'society' and to identify its key 'collective' features. These include the respect of workers' fundamental rights (i.e. collective bargaining and representation) as well as they include the role of the state and public policy. These reflections are developed in the light of an in-depth examinations of the social implications of the gig-economy for work and employment
From fintechs to banking as a service: global trends banks cannot ignore
In 2009, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the late Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, quipped that “the only useful innovation in banking for the past 20 years” had been the ATM. He went on to call for banks to think more boldly
Regulating for competition with BigTechs: banking-as-a-service and “beyond banking”
En este artĂculo se analizan dos estrategias novedosas de competencia en el sector bancario: la banca como servicio (banking-as-a-service) y la prestaciĂłn de servicios
más allá de la banca (beyond banking). Se argumenta que estos modelos de negocio emulan la penetraciĂłn de las BigTech en la prestaciĂłn de servicios financieros con el trasfondo de su actividad comercial. Pero estos modelos conllevan nuevos riesgos, que requieren respuestas regulatorias adecuadas en una doble vĂa. En primer lugar, se afirma que la regulaciĂłn del modelo de competencia disruptivo de las BigTech —en la confluencia de los servicios financieros y la tecnologĂa— precisa de instrumentos de coordinaciĂłn novedosos entre las distintas áreas de polĂtica regulatoria involucradas (banca, pagos, competencia, tecnologĂa digital y datos), asĂ como de una nueva perspectiva sobre el tratamiento de los conglomerados mixtos que consolidan mĂşltiples lĂneas de negocio y riesgos. En segundo lugar, el hecho de que la «banca como servicio» se base en un pseudo-leasing de la licencia bancaria a empresas no financieras, al objeto de ganar una base transaccional, plantea riesgos morales y de modelo que exigen tratamientos especĂficos, no muy diferentes de los aplicados al modelo de «originar para distribuir». Las perspectivas de Ă©xito del modelo beyond banking son poco alentadoras en su versiĂłn extrema, en la que las entidades de crĂ©dito pasan a ser patrocinadoras de plataformas en toda regla, mientras que las versiones hĂbridas siguen conllevando nuevos riesgos.This paper analyses “banking-as-a-service” and “beyond banking”, two emerging bank competition strategies. These business models are argued to emulate the transaction-based inroads that BigTechs have made into finance. But they entail new risks that call for adequate regulatory responses along a dual track. First, it is argued that regulation of the disruptive competition model of BigTechs at the confluence of finance and technology requires new tools to coordinate the different regulatory policies involved (banking, payments, competition, data, digital) and a new approach to the treatment of mixed business conglomerates that consolidate multiple business lines and risks. Second, the reliance of “banking-as-a-service” on a quasi-renting-out of the banking licence to non-financial companies as a way of obtaining a transactional base poses moral hazard and model risks that require specific treatments not unlike the originate-to-distribute business model did. The prospects for success of the pure version of the “beyond banking” model, where banks become sponsors of full-fledged platforms, are assessed as dim, but hybrid versions still entail new risks
Regulating for competition with BigTechs: banking-as-a-service and “beyond banking”
This paper analyses “banking-as-a-service” and “beyond banking”, two emerging
bank competition strategies. These business models are argued to emulate the
transaction-based inroads that BigTechs have made into finance. But they entail new
risks that call for adequate regulatory responses along a dual track. First, it is argued
that regulation of the disruptive competition model of BigTechs at the confluence of
finance and technology requires new tools to coordinate the different regulatory
policies involved (banking, payments, competition, data, digital) and a new approach
to the treatment of mixed business conglomerates that consolidate multiple business
lines and risks. Second, the reliance of “banking-as-a-service” on a quasi-renting-out
of the banking licence to non-financial companies as a way of obtaining a transactional
base poses moral hazard and model risks that require specific treatments not unlike
the originate-to-distribute business model did. The prospects for success of the pure
version of the “beyond banking” model, where banks become sponsors of full-fledged
platforms, are assessed as dim, but hybrid versions still entail new risks
Proposal for shared services performance management model applied to portugueses public administration
Comunicação apresentada no 8º Congresso Nacional de Administração Pública - Desafios e Soluções, em Carcavelos de 21 a 22 de Novembro de 2011.In order to improve the quality of the services and the relationship between the central
public administration and citizens the Portuguese government launched an egovernment
initiative including both front and back-office processes. The
implementation of shared services represents one of the transformation vectors having
as major goal the gain of efficacy by reducing the organisational structures and the
gain of efficiency through the rationalization of back-office processes. The main target
was first the development and implementation of both financial and human resources
shared services management solutions and afterwards the enlargement of this concept
to other domains such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The
shared services implementation target is the central public administration, which
employs 550.000 workers. Depending on the success of this initiative it may be later
extended to regional and local entities encompassing a total of 800.000 workers.
This shared services initiative catalyzes the need of having a global public
administration structure in order to provide services with the required quality and to
implement adequate and flexible process oriented business models. In 2007 GeRAP, a
public enterprise owned by the Ministry of Finances and Public Administration, was
created aiming a suitable implementation of this paradigm.
As an outcome of the financial and human resources shared services implementation
experience, a Portuguese Governmental Open Cloud (GO-Cloud) project was
launched with the aim of deploying an ICT public infrastructure able to integrate other
private and public clouds and to offer quality infrastructure services at lower costs. The
GO-Cloud overlays the double objective of establishing a technological platform that
will leverage the shared services adoption spreading among public administration
entities, concerning both the already deployed financial and budgetary management
solution and the shared human resource management solution, and the provisioning of
ICT resources and services in a more flexible and effective way.
A successful implementation of shared services in a public and wide environment such
as the Portuguese public administration requires a suitable reference architecture,
reliable and scalable infrastructures, automated procedures, adequate management
processes, an agile organization and adequate relationship models, based on a set of
core competences. Thus, this paper focuses the way shared services are being
implemented and managed in the Portuguese public administration, considering both
the scope of this activity and the differences between public and private contexts. It
8º Congresso Nacional de Administração Pública – 2011 | Página 338
also presents the adopted service oriented architecture (SOA) and both the business
model and the shared services analysis model (SSAM) used to grant GeRAP internal
and external alignment.
SSAM contributes with a formal analysis structure through the identification of main
pillars that sustain the shared services implementation in Portuguese public
administration. The defined pillars will be used as analysis vectors to create a
performance model which will be able to evaluate the performance reached by shared services implementation and to anticipate some actions
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