IPC, CloudSigma Launch ‘instant’ Disaster Recovery Solution

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Companies now a few clicks away from protecting their business from disasters

Local cloud services pioneer IPC, together with its global Infrastructure-as-a-Service partner CloudSigma, recently launched its latest service offering that will allow companies to set up Disaster Recovery with just a few clicks and minimal configuration time.

“Given the disaster-prone nature of our country, it is a must for companies and organizations to create secure backups for their data. Our Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) powered by CloudSigma can be set up almost instantly, with only a few clicks via our online platform. With this, companies can replicate crucial data to our cloud and switch them into production immediately should an untoward incident compromise their systems,” said Niño R. Valmonte, Director for Marketing and Digital Innovation at IPC.

The service, which can be accessed by IPC’s clients through cloud.ipc.ph, allows users to replicate data and systems from other infrastructures or locations, and have these periodically synced to the cloud automatically. This seamless DRaaS system powered by CloudSigma provides an ideal business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) solution, enabling the IT department to easily switch production systems to a secure and stable cloud infrastructure during a disaster.

Using the cloud as part of a disaster recovery plan versus traditional physical infrastructure allows companies to avoid the capital expenditure needed to maintain hardware, instead relying on on-demand compute resources that can be easily accessed through the Internet. This reduces the cost of comprehensive disaster recovery solutions to a fraction of the former cost and allows more capital to be covered by such a solution including laptops, desktops, and other assets that are considered uneconomic to include in a disaster recovery plan.

“This Disaster Recovery solution can sync data not only from onsite premises and data centers but also between all existing and future CloudSigma locations. This is particularly relevant to enterprise customers who are running many deployments in different locations and want to utilize the full potential of cloud infrastructure,” said Robert Jenkins, CEO & Co-founder at CloudSigma.

A Swiss-based company, CloudSigma entered the Asian market through its partnership with IPC back in 2016 by integrating its services within IPC’s data center network. Clients who subscribe to IPC benefit from low latency, dedicated connectivity provided by CloudSigma, which is ideal for servicing critical IT workloads.

By combining the advantages provided by the cloud platform with strong networking and disaster recovery capabilities, customers can easily combine cloud-delivered storage and compute environments in conjunction with their existing infrastructure.

Unlike other cloud providers, IPC and CloudSigma craft custom end-to-end solutions for customers that directly service their needs and at a uniquely competitive price through a single billing relationship for hosting, cloud, and networking connectivity.

“We urge Philippine enterprises to be proactive in their BC/DR efforts. Through cloud-based Disaster Recovery, we eliminate high cost and complexity from the picture. This is high time for everyone to review their current systems and ensure that a secure and reliable backup and recovery plan is in place,” said Valmonte.

The new service is priced per GB basis, providing complete cost transparency and predictability. Compared to traditional solutions that require complex set-ups and custom implementations, IPC and CloudSigma are able to bring to market a comprehensive disaster recovery solution at a disruptively low price by using technology to automate the process and encourage self-configuration via the main webapp.

To know more about IPC and its services, visit www.ipc.ph.

ONE Championship Draws Massive Crowd for ONE: Reign of Kings in Manila

Wazzup Pilipinas!

For the third time in 2018, ONE Championship™ (ONE), the largest global sports media property in Asian history, brought their exciting brand of martial arts action to Philippine soil and once again, it brought the house down.  

ONE: REIGN OF KINGS, which was held at the SM Mall of Asia Arena last Friday, 27 July, featured a stacked card from top to bottom, and was headlined by top Filipino bantamweight contender Kevin ‘The Silencer’ Belingon of Team Lakay who defeated reigning ONE Featherweight and Lightweight World Champion Martin ‘The Situ-Asian’ Nguyen to become the new ONE Interim Bantamweight World Champion.

Aside from the massive main event that featured two of ONE Championship’s top athletes, a handful of other big names also saw action, including martial arts legends Renzo Gracie and Yuki Kondo, as well as former ONE Lightweight World Champion and Filipino mixed martial arts hero Eduard Folayang.

From as early as the opening bout of the night, fans had already filled up more than half of the seats at the state-of-the-art arena in Manila, and even as event night progressed, more people continued to gather outside the arena, hoping to make their way in to catch the action.

By the end of the night, the SM Mall of Asia Arena was packed to the rafters with passionate martial arts fans.

“The Philippines has always been one of the best countries to hold our events, so it’s no surprise that ONE: REIGN OF KINGS in Manila produced that kind of turnout,” said ONE Championship founder and Chairman Chatri Sityodtong.

“Filipino fans are some of the most passionate fans, not just in Asia, but in the whole world, and that’s because every Filipino, deep inside, has that warrior spirit,” Sityodtong continued.

“They celebrate and they embrace that warrior spirit that they see in their heroes. Look at Manny Pacquiao, who’s possibly the biggest Filipino martial arts hero of them all, look at guys like Eduard Folayang, look at their new champion, Kevin Belingon, these guys are warriors and these guys are champions, and that’s why they’re beloved in the Philippines.”

In turn, the Filipino contingent at ONE: REIGN OF KINGS repaid the unparalleled fan support by turning in a 4-0 clean sweep that saw Folayang, Joshua Pacio, and Rene Catalan all putting on impressive performances leading to dominant victories.

Drawing a huge crowd and pulling in an immense number of viewers in Manila is nothing new anymore, as back in 2017, ONE Championship made history by putting together the most-watched mixed martial arts event in the country.

ONE: KINGS OF DESTINY, which was headlined by then-champion Folayang successfully defending his ONE Lightweight World Championship against top contender Ev Ting back in 21 April, 2017, became the most-watched mixed martial arts show in the Philippines, not only filling up the SM Mall of Asia Arena, but also garnering a 26-percent peak ratings share that blasted the competitors’ television ratings out of the water.

“We broke all records with a 26 percent peak TV ratings share as per Nielsen. Those numbers are massive. It means one in four Filipinos who were watching TV was watching ONE Championship,” Sityodtong said then.

After making history last year, ONE Championship aims to make even more history in the Philippines this year and in the years to come, and one of the steps the company has taken is to double-up on the number of events to take place on Philippine soil.

From usually holding two cards a year, ONE Championship has already put on three momentous cards in Manila this year, and there’s one more on the way, which is likely to again feature some of the biggest names on the ONE roster.

By the end of 2018, Manila will have hosted four ONE Championship events.

“It’s always big when we come to the Philippines,” said Sityodtong. “We’ve put on big-time championship bouts, we’ve showcased legends on our events, and we’ve even introduced new avenues of martial arts like the ONE Super Series which we debuted back in April in Manila, because we know that we’ll always get a warm reception from the fans there, and they’ve never let us down.”

“This year, we’ll be holding twice as many cards in Manila, and moving forward, the Filipino martial arts fans can expect even more big names and even more exciting ONE Championship action. As I’ve said before, I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to what ONE Championship can achieve.” Sityodtong added.

ONE Championship returns to Manila on Friday, 23 November, 2018 for ONE: CONQUEST OF CHAMPIONS.

For more updates on ONE Championship, please visit www.onefc.com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @ONEChampionship, and like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ONEChampionship.

Breeding Tuna in the Philippines

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Jonah van Beijnen (MSc), Best Alternatives Campaign Proponent

Tuna are large predatory pelagic fish that swim through the seas of the world. In terms of value and volume, they are some of the most important species for the Philippine fisheries sector.

The most commonly-caught species include Skipjack, Yellowfin and Bigeye Tuna – taken using a variety of gear ranging from purse seine nets to circular handline reels. Tuna provide excellent income for fisherfolk and fishing companies, while generating thousands of jobs in vessels, canneries and other parts of the supply chain. 

Because of their high value in local and international sushi restaurants, many fishers focus on catching Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacares). However, in recent years the rising number of fishers and large fishing vessels targeting these fish have depleted stocks, putting the livelihoods of Pinoy fishers and other tuna sector workers at risk. Besides promoting sustainable systems like handline fisheries, limiting fishing effort and improving enforcement, closed cycle aquaculture or breeding tuna can be a #BestAlternative – especially for the Philippines.

Owing to technical difficulties, most aquaculturists still think producing captive-bred tuna from eggs is impossible – but much has changed in recent years.
In Europe and Japan, the culture of tuna started many years ago with fattening operations. Here special purse seiners target wild juvenile and sub-adult tuna, which are carefully caught and towed back to special fattening farms.

Upon arrival, these tuna are transferred to large floating cages where they are fattened to attain better marketable sizes and to improve the fat percentage of their meat. Fatter tuna fetch higher prices.

Since pellet feeds for tuna are still under development in Europe, fresh fish like sardines and mackerel are used as feed. The feed conversion ratio of fresh fish fed to these tuna is not yet very efficient and approximately 15 to 20 kilograms of other fish is used to produce one kilogram of tuna.

About 10 years ago, with the number of fattening operations rising and most tuna stocks overfished or fished close to their maximum sustainable yields, a number of governments, nonprofits and other stakeholders expressed their concerns about the sustainability of these farming practices.

This eventually drove the European Union and Japanese governments to steer their aquaculture sectors away from fattening wild-caught juvenile fish and instead invest in developing technology for the sustainable closed-cycle aquaculture of tuna.

Today hatchery projects for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) are already operating in Spain, Malta, Greece, Croatia, Egypt and Turkey. Since 2014, many of these projects have successfully produced small quantities of fingerlings and some harvestable fish. The first tuna products from these efforts are already available in the Netherlands.

In Japan, scientists have been working hard to close the lifecycle of the closely-related Pacific Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus orientalis), a species which is also found in the Philippines, especially around the recently-protected Philippine Rise, east of Luzon. After many years of trial and error, approximately 20 hatchery facilities are now producing Pacific Bluefin Tuna with an average survival rate estimated from 3 to 5%.

In 2016, these hatcheries together produced an incredible 500,000 fingerlings! The sales from grow-out operations using hatchery-produced Pacific Bluefin Tuna have lifted off as well, with 900 metric tons of sales in 2016 and over 1000 metric tons of sales in 2017 – thereby proving beyond a doubt that the closed-cycle aquaculture of Bluefin Tuna is viable, profitable and an excellent alternative to wild-capture fisheries.

In the meantime, two projects in Panama (South America) and Bali (Indonesia) have been focusing their efforts on Yellowfin Tuna. Both projects have been able to produce plenty of eggs in captivity and some fingerlings. Although there are still plenty of remaining challenges in improving the survival of tuna larvae and fingerlings, improving the sustainability of feeds and minimizing the environmental impacts of farming activities, the potential of the sector is clear.

The Philippines, with many islands and surrounding calm and productive waters, sits at the centre of the natural spawning grounds of wild Yellowfin Tuna. Juvenile tuna love these warm and calm waters, teeming with food. This might just give the Philippines a big advantage in the future closed cycle culture of Yellowfin Tuna.

The Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has also realized the potential of tuna aquaculture. On 11 July 2018, they released a statement that the Bureau of Fisheries will collaborate with the Japanese government to start Yellowfin Tuna fattening operations in Samar, where juvenile tuna will be gathered from spawning grounds in municipal waters for farming.

This is an innovative and hands-on move by BFAR. However, with Yellowfin Tuna stocks in the Philippines and Western Pacific Ocean already under severe pressure, collecting wild juvenile tuna from spawning grounds might not be the most sustainable approach. The same approach has been tried with groupers and lobster, where undersized individuals were caught for fattening purposes – and both practices resulted in a population collapse.

Since the Japanese are already producing hundreds of thousands of hatchery-bred juvenile tuna, perhaps the Japanese government can be requested to focus on the closed-cycle aquaculture of Yellowfin Tuna in their collaboration with BFAR instead.

As an alternative to catching undersized tuna, the Japanese could for example build a hatchery and farming research centre for Yellowfin Tuna in Samar and share their knowledge on how to culture tuna from eggs with Filipino aquaculturists.
In doing so, they will capacitate Filipinos, create a truly sustainable aquaculture sector for Samar and many other island provinces, and let locals truly benefit from their investment.

About the Author: 
Jonah van Beijnen believes that sustainable production and consumption of seafood is the key to ensuring a better world for all people. Ten years ago, he co-founded Fins and Leaves to develop and successfully market one of the Philippines’ first grouper (Lapu-Lapu) hatcheries. Now based in Spain and a Best Alternatives Campaign proponent, he continues to assist nonprofits, corporations and governments in improving the sustainability of their fisheries and aquaculture operations, focusing on high-value species like grouper and tuna. For more information, please contact jonah@vb-consultancy.com or see his work on Researchgate.

About the Best Alternatives Campaign:
Founded by environmentalist Gregg Yan in 2014, the Best Alternatives Campaign is an environmental communications think-tank which publicizes sustainable and profitable solutions to meet a host of ecological challenges – ranging from better ways to generate renewable energy to best practices for the seafood industry.  For more information, please contact BestAlternativesCampaign@Gmail.com.