iesl-news letter - july august normal 2014 mailpdf

8/10/2019 IESL-NEWS LETTER - July August Normal 2014 Mailpdf

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The Newspaper of The Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka Vol. 50, No 04, July / August 2014Registered at the GPO as a Newspaper No. QD/48/News/2014

The Instit ution of EngineersSri Lanka

120/15, Wijerama MawathaColombo 7, Sri Lanka

Tel: 2685490,2698426, 2699210Fax: 2699202E.mail:[email protected]/iesl@slt . lkWebsite:http: / /www.iesl . . lk

in this issue108 TH ANNUAL SESSIONS PROGRAMME ............. 2 and 3Editorial................................ 4Ray WijewardeneMemor ia l Lec tu re2014 Held.............................5

PRESIDENTS CORNERPRESIDENTS CORNERPRESIDENTS CORNERPRESIDENTS CORNERPRESIDENTS CORNERIESL INDUCTION ANDGRADUATION 2014

AWARDS CEREMONY,ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE

AWARDS 2014,Held in Grand Style

The annual Induction and Graduation ceremony of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka(IESL) for the year 2014 was held at the BMICH on 22nd August, 2014 from 4.00 pmonwards.

Dr. S.M.M. Ismail Vice Chancellor of the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka graced theoccasion as the Chief Guest while Professor Mohan Kumaraswamy Honorary Professor,University of Hong Kong was the Guest of Honour for the occasion.. This years eventconferred Chartered Engineer status on 162 Associate Members of the institution, inductingthem into the fold of Corporate Members. Forty one students who successfully completedthe IESL Engineering Course also received their certificates.

The event also saw awards being presented to winners of several memorial awards for various categories of engineers and final year undergraduates who obtained best marks for industrial training. School children who excelled in the annual Junior Inventor of the Compe-tition affiliated to the Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair and the Intel InternationalScience and Engineering Fair also received Scholarships.

E ngineering Excellence Awards Ceremony for 2014 the premier event for rewardingoutstanding achievements by engineers, engineering enterprises and engineering jour-nalists, organized by the apex professional body for engineering in the country, the Institu-tion of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL), was held at the Grand Ball Room of the Waters Edge on

Immediate Past Presidentof the IESL, Eng.Tilak DeSilvas portrait unveiled

The portrait of the Immediate Past President of the IESL,Eng. Tilak De Silva, joined the portraits of all its past presi-dents adorning the hallowed walls of its Committee Room whenit was unveiled at a simple ceremony held at the IESL on Fri-day, 8th August, 2014. Past Presidents of the present era and

Contd. on page 10.... Contd. on page 10....

Council members attended theevent with. Eng. Tilak De Silvahimself being present.Eng. Tilak De Silva joined theIESL in 1992 and become aFellow in 1999 and served inthe IESL Council for almost15yrs in various capacities in-cluding 3 consecutive years asVice President before beingelected as President Elect for the 2011/2012 Sessions. Histenure as President of the IESLwas during the 2012 / 2013Sessions.

Dear Members,

In my last corner I told you about the IESL regarding theinternational achievement that we got from the Washing-ton Accord (WA) and the International Professional Engi-neers Agreement (IPEA). After that we had our EngineeringExcellence Awards Ceremonya couple of weeks ago andeven during that ceremony I had the honour to appreciateand recognize the good work done especially by the Chair-man of the Accreditation Board and I made it a point to giveaway the Presidents Award to Prof. B L Tennakoon whowas the pioneer and infact the Chairman of the Accredita-tion Board which did a lot of work in our endeavor to obtainthe Washington accord. Again this month of August havebeen quiet heavy on IESL. On 21 st , a week ago, we alsohad the Induction and Graduation ceremony where we in-ducted 162 Young Chartered Engineers as well as we gradu-ated 41 students who were students of our Institution. Asyou know the Institutions course has been there for about40 years now. We started off with humble beginnings with a2 part course. Later on it became a 3 part course, and nowas most of you may know we have established the IESLCollege of Engineering which is a complete subsidiary of the IESL where we have, at the moment, about 450 stu-dents during our weekend course.The course is structuredwith 5 parts with multiple entry and multiple exit facility

Contd. on page 4....

ENGINEERING NEWSSRI LANKA

Established 1906

A y oun g engin ieer r eceiv ing his Charter certi ficate f rom the Chi ef Gues t,Dr. S.M.M. Ismail and President - IESL Eng. Shavindranath Fernando


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Sri Lanka Engineering News - July / August 2014IESL NEWS2

108 TH ANNUAL SESSIONS PROGRAMME

OCTOBER

10, 11 & 12FRIDAY,SATURDAY,

SUNDAY

TECHNO 2014Exhibition

atBMICH

FRIDAYOCTOBER 10,

2014

Inauguration of 108 th Annual

Sessions

at 9.00 a.m. atBMICH Colombo

SATURDAYOCTOBER 11,

2014

FEISCA RegionalSeminar

onInnovative Technol-

ogy for ExcellenceinEngineering

at 9.00 a.m.at Mihilaka Medura,

BMICH - Colombo

SUNDAYOCTOBER 12,

2014

Visit toUpper Kotmale

HydropowerProject

(Buses will leaveIESL at 6.00 a.m.)

TUESDAY - OCTOBER 14to

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 15

Presentation of Technical Papers at IESL

TUESDAYOCTOBER

14, 2014

SESSION I

CivilEngineering -GeotechnicalEngineering

9.00 9.20 a.m .-Shrinkage Effects onthe TensionStiffening Behaviourand Cracking ofReinforced Concrete

Tension ElementsBy: Eng. M.R. Nirangaand Eng. (Dr.) H.P.Sooriyaarachchi

9.20 9.40 a.m.-Applicability of theLimit EquilibriumMethod and theFinite ElementMethod in Predicting the Stability of Em-bankment Slopes

By : Eng. T.H.K.Nawarathna and Eng.(Dr.) L.I.N. de Silva

CivilEngineering -

StructuralEngineering andMaterial Science

9.40 10.00 a.m.-Design and Construc-tion of Cement Stabi-

lized Rammed Earthwalls for Single StoreyHousing By : Eng. (Mrs.)G.W.T.C. Kandamby

10.0010.20 a.m.-Paragasthota BridgeFailureBy : Eng. A. N.Abeysuriya

10.20 10.40 a.m.-Characteristics ofVibration Induced byConstruction Activitiesand its effect on Struc-tural Response

By : Eng. W.A.M.Wanniarachchi, Eng.C.M. Welhena, Eng.(Dr.) (Ms.) G.H.M.J.Subashi De Silva andEng. (Dr.) G.S.Y. DeSilva

10.40 11.00 a.m. -Mineralogical Charac-terization of ClayDeposits inEmbilipitiya Region toStudy the Presence ofMontmorillonite Nano

Particles

By : Eng. (Dr.) S.U.Adikary, W.G.P.

Jayasinghe and W.R.M.Soysa

11.00 11.20 a.m.-Extraction ofMontmorillonite Nano Particlesfrom Naturally Occurring Clay Mixtures

By : Eng. D.D.Wanasingheand Eng. (Dr.) S.U.Adikary

11.20 11.40 a.m.-Synthesis and Charac-terization of Chitosan / Hydroxyapatite (70/30)Nano-CompositesBy : Eng. (Dr.) S.U.Adikary

11.40 12.00 noon-Investigation of theRelationship betweenthe Quenched LayerDepth and the Me-chanical Properties ofTMT SteelBy : P.D.I.K.Karunaratne, S.L.Udawatta and Eng. S.P.Guluwita


00.00 00.20 p.m.-Performance of MudHouses andContentment in SriLankan ContextBy:Eng. (Ms.) A.W.L.H.Ranasinghe and Eng.(Dr.) R.U. Halwatura

00.20 00.40 p.m.-Restoring FlexuralPerformance of Dam-aged Timber BeamsUsing GFRP Wrapping By : Eng. (Dr.) K. S.Wanniarachchi, Eng.R.D.N.R. Wickramasenaand Eng. J.H.V.G.T.N.S.

Jayawardana

Civil Engineering Water Resources

Engineering 00.40 01.00 p.m.- GIS-Based SpatialAssessment of FloodDamages at UpperGIN River BasinBy : S.P.S.P.Kulathunga, Eng.N.D.P. Ransara,R.M.K.C. Rajapakshaand Eng. (Dr.) G.H.A.C.Silva

1.00 2.00 p.m. -Lunch break

TUESDAYOCTOBER 14,

2014

SESSION - II

Civil Engineering Transportation

Engineering

2.00 2.20 p.m.-A Comparison ofActual TransportDemand at ModernSupermarkets andSupply AttributesStipulated in SriLankan RegulationsBy: Eng. (Dr.) Tissa U.Liyanage and Eng.Maheen T. Ranasinghe

2.20 2.40 p.m.- Transport SectorEmissions in SriLanka: EmissionLevels by VehicleType and Influence ofFuel Price, VehicleImport Tax Variation

on Vehicle Fleet

By: Dr. G.G. TusharaChaminda, Eng. (Dr.)(Ms.) Samarasekara,R.M.P.I.U.Rathnayake, E.M.NMadushanka,G.W.S.U. SurendraPerera, A.WDissanayaka and S.Wijayakeerthi

2.40 3.00 p.m.-Modelling Pedestrian

Level of Service atPedestrian Walkswith Street-Vendorsand Beggars

By: Eng. (Dr.) T.M.Rengarasu, Eng.S.M.G.P.S.Karunarathna, Eng.L.G.K. Manula, andEng. (Ms.) M.L.Subhashini

3.00 3.20 p.m.-Effects of Age and

Clothing Types onPedestrian Crossing Speed

By : Eng. (Dr.) T.M.Rengarasu, Eng. (Ms.)S.M.D. Kaushalya,Eng. H.N. Jayawansa,and Eng. P.W. Perera

3.20 3.40 p.m.-Review of Some HSRNorms through WorkStudy

By : Eng. (Mrs.) S.N.Malkanthi, G.V.A.C.D.Perera and U.M.W.Mahinda


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Sri Lanka Engineering News - July / August 2014IESL NEWS 3

108 TH ANNUAL SESSIONS PROGRAMMEContd. from page 2...

WEDNESDAYOCTOBER 15,

2014

SESSION III

Chemical andProcess

Engineering

9.00 9.20 a.m.-A Layout Planning Framework for theFood Processing Indus-try

By : Eng. W.N.C.Wanniarachchi, Eng.(Dr.) R.A.R.C. Gopura,Eng. (Dr.) H.K.G.Punchihewa

9.20 9.40 a.m.-Effect ofConfiguration of Non-Porous Draft Tubes onDrying Kinetics ofBlack Pepper in aSpouted Bed Dryer

By : Eng. (Ms.) G.K. Jayatunga and Eng.(Prof.) B.M.W.P.K.Amarasinghe

9.40 10.00 a.m.-Life Cycle InventoryAnalysis for ParboiledRice Production in SriLanka

By : Eng. (Ms.) E.Nadeeshani and Eng.(Dr.) M.Y. Gunasekera

10.0010.20 a.m.-Adsorption of LeadHeavy Metal Ions byChitosan Biopolymer:Kinetics and Equilibrium

By : Eng. J.M. Unagollaand Eng. (Dr.) S.U.Adikary

10.20 10.40 a.m.-Safety and EmergencyPreparedness in Oiland Gas industry:Experience based onNorth Sea offshorePlatforms

By : Eng. (Dr.) DeshaiBotheju, Eng. (Dr.)Kumuduni Abeysingheand Eng. (Dr.) P GRathnasiri

10.40 11.00 a.m.-Thermally and CoronaAged Coconut andMineral Oil Impreg-nated TransformerSolid Insulation Assessed by FDS,Tensile Strength andVisual ObservationsBy : Eng. N W N JNanayakkara, Eng. WM I B Naranpanawe,Eng. (Prof.) M A R MFernando, J R S SKumara, Eng. (Dr.) C SKalpage and Dr. K R BHerath

Environmental

Engineering 11.00 11.20 a.m.-Selection of SuitableMaterial for FinalCover of an EngineeredLandfill in Dry Zone ofSri LankaBy : Ms. W.G.P. Kumari,S.K.E. Sanjaya, Eng.(Dr.) N.H. Priyankara,Eng. (Dr.) A.M.N.Alagiyawanna andProf. K. Kawamoto

11.20 11.40 a.m.-Floristic Compositionof Roadside Vegetationand Involvement oflandowners along Road sides: ACaseStudyin Southern Sri Lanka

By : Eng. (Dr.) (Ms.)Champika Ellawala,Eng. (Dr.) (Ms.) G. N.Samarasekara, D.D.Samaraweera, B.M.G.N.Balasooriya and .A.C.R.

Jayasekara

11.40 12.00 noon-Up and Down- FlowAnaerobic Filtersusing firewood Charcoal,Dewatered AlumSludge and Silica sandfor Landfill-Leachatetreatment

By : Eng. (Ms.) B.S.RNanayakkara, Eng.(Dr.) (Ms.) W.K.C.N.Dayanthi, V.P.H.S.

Vidanapathirana andM.P. Siriwardana

00.00 00.20 p.m.-Applicability of WasteMatter as ReactiveMedia in PermeableReactive Barriers(PRBs) to Treat Land-fill-Leachate Contami-nated Groundwater

By : Eng. (Dr.) (Ms.)W.K.C.N. Dayanthi,A.M.C. Arthanayaka,K.K.V.L. Asiri andK.A.R. Malkanthi

00.20 00.40 p.m.-Optimization ofDiary Waste WaterTreatment Processusing CombinedExperimental andMathematical Model-ling Approach

By : Eng. AchalaGodawita and Eng.(Dr.) P. G. Rathnasiri

00.40 1.00 p.m.-Evaluation of the Per-formance of a SludgeBlanket Clarifier in

Water Treatment

By : Eng. (Ms.) W.K.Illangasinghe, Eng.(Prof.) NiranjanieRatnayake, Eng. (Dr.) J.M.A Manatunge andDr. N. Jayasuriya

1.00 2.00 p.m. -Lunch break

WEDNESDAYOCTOBER

15, 2014

SESSION IV

MechanicalEngineering

2.00 2.20 p.m.-Analysis of a BoilerTube Failure due toLong TermOverheating andCaustic Attack

By : Eng. (Dr.) K.E.D.Sumanasiri

2.20 2.40 p.m .-Effect of ActivatedCarbon on theProperties of NaturalRubber Latex Foams

By : A.R.M. Rajakaruna,Eng. (Dr.) S. Walpalageand D.G.P.M.Perera

2.40 3.00 p.m.-Effect of DifferentAeration Levels onNatural Rubber Latexupon Maturation

By :Ms. L. K. S Roshanieand Eng. (Dr.) S.Walpalage

3.00 3.20 p.m.-Effect of Blend Ratioon Properties ofNaturalm Rubber/Low Density Polyethylene BlendsBy : W.D.M. Sampath,Eng. Dr.) (Mrs.) S.M.Egodage and Dr. (Mrs.)D.G. Edirisinghe

Electrical&

ElectronicEngineering

3.20 3.40 p.m.-Empirical ModelTuning Exercise forRadio NetworkPlanning Tools Usedby MobileCommunication

ProviderBy : Eng. C.A.Wijesinghe

3.40 4.00 p.m.-Investigation the useof an IntelligentTransformer for a Volt-Var ControlBy :Miss. R.R.L.L.Wijayaratne, Dr. P.J.Binduhewa,Eng. (Dr.)S.G. Abeyratne andEng. (Prof.) J.B.Ekanayake

4.00 4.20 p.m.-Delay Distribution ofResponses within aHome Area Networkusing Wi-Fi with in-Network DataAggregationBy : Eng. N.S.Weerakoon, Eng.M.A.M. Manaz andEng. (Prof.) K.M.Liyanage

4.20 4.40 p.m.

-ComparativeEvaluation of Form Wound StatorInsulationMethodologies Priorand afterRehabilitation of OldLaxapanaBy : Eng. N.C.Manamperi, Eng. G.A. Jayantha and Eng.(Prof.) J.P. Karunadasa

4.40 5.00 p.m.-Linear Predi ction of

Wind Spe ed Variat ionin a W ind Powe r Plantin S ri LankaBy : Eng. (Dr.) M.Narayan a, P.W.Vidan age andEng. H.H.M .P.Rathna yake

5.00 5.20 p.m.-Integr ated Solut ionfor Future Tra nsportation and P ower Systems th rough So larPlan t with En ergyStorageBy : Eng. S.Thana njeyan,Eng. S.Aru nan, Eng.(Dr.) T. Thiruvaran ,Eng . (Dr.) A.Atputharaja h andEng. (Dr. ) V.K.Rama chandar amurthy

FRI DA YOCTO BER

17, 2014

Present ation of Papers by

Young Membe rsfrom 9.0 0 a.m. at

IESL

SA TURDAYO C TOBER 18 ,

2014Annual General

Meetingat 9.0 0 a.m.

atBMICH

Committ ee RoomA

S UNDAYNO VEMBER

02, 2014

TechnoAwards C eremony

at 7.00 p.m.at

Hotel G aladari


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Sri LankaEngineering News

Confusion about localengineering degrees awardedprior to ( IESL ) becoming a full

member of the WashingtonAccord Agreement

Dear Editor,

There is some confusion among graduates with engineering degrees (from Sri Lanka) of past about the accreditation validity of their own degrees. I think very clear answers areprovided by the International Engineering Alliance which administers the Washington Accordand many other international engineering agreements to improve the engineering professionthrough advanced benchmarking of accreditation processes and promoting increased mobil-ity among professionals.

Digital SLEN is the ideal tool to eliminate this confusion.

Please go to the website of International Engineering Alliance (IEA) which administersWashington Accord as well. You will get clear answers that are up to date.

http://www.ieagreements.org/Washington-Accord/FAQ.cfm

Also read the specifics related to IESL becoming a full accreditation body on June 13,2014.

http://www.ieagreements.org/Washington-Accord/

However, IESL was provisionally accepted as an accreditation body around 2008. IESL hasaccredited our 4 year engineering degrees before obtaining the full membership. Not alldegree programs in Sri Lankan universities were accredited during that time. Nor are theIESL accredited degrees under the provisional membership status recognized by the Wash-ington Accord Agreement. See the list:

http://www.iesl.lk/page-1823075

From June 13, 2014 IESL has powers to accredit four year ( not less years or post graduate)engineering degrees ( not universities but their specific degree programs) for another 6 years.Before the end of that period IESL must renew its membership through a review. In fact,currently IESL accreditation process is being reviewed every six months since it is newlyenrolled to the full membership to ensure IESL adheres to the governing procedures. All themore reasons for getting our act together at the IESL Secretariat and the IESL AccreditationCommittee. We have work to do!

I am a member of the IESL Professional Affairs Committee ( 2012/2013 and 2013/2014sessions) which is the standing committee appointed as per By Laws by the Council to lookinto professional affairs in general including international agreements such as the Washing-ton Accord.

Eng. Arjuna ManamperiM-2062

where we have Certificate Level 1 and 2, then Diploma Level 1 and 2 and the GraduateDiploma which will be equivalent to the degree. On the other hand the efforts of the IESL,specially in this Year of Professional Excellence, have been very well recognized by theUniversity Grants Commission (UGC) and I am a member of the Engineering Sub Com-mittee of the UGC and they have requested the IESL to assist them in identifying thevarious engineering courses that have to be taught in this country. There have been lotsof applications to the UGC to start various engineering courses. There are two aspects tothis. While the country and the economy needs a large number of engineer we have to becautious on two matters.Firstly, the quality of the engineering education that will bedished out by the new entrance. Secondly the consequences their students may facewhen they go to the field whether they have done the right course or not. These aspectswe will be studied at the moment on a survey launch by the IESL both with the industryand the universities to find out what are the thrust areas of what we teach in the universi-ties and secondly the facilities we have in the engineering faculties to launch theseprogrammes right now.So, these are the activities the IESL is currently engaged in and this shows our recogni-tion in the country. We also have had discussions about the Engineering Council Actwhich I am sure most of you must be very keen to know. We met several Ministers and itis our hope that our Council Act will be presented to the Parliament shortly so that our long felt dream of achieving the milestone of making the Engineering Act law will be areality soon. This is my expectation and hope. So with all these things my initial hopethat this year will be a Year of Professional Excellence is bearing fruit now and I amextremely happy with the progress we are making in this endeavor.My term isdrawing toa close in a couple of months and when I will be handing over to the President Elect,Eng. S B Wijekoon I will be able to handover an Institution which has stood up to myideals and an Intuition comprised of engineers with engineering excellence. So I wish youthe very best in your endeavor

Thank you

Contd. from page 1... PRESIDENTS CORNER... .PRESIDENTS CORNER... .PRESIDENTS CORNER... .PRESIDENTS CORNER... .PRESIDENTS CORNER... .

Year of ProfessionalExcellence

This would be the last SLEN before the AGMto be held in October. President/IESL de-clared the year as the Year of Professional Ex-cellence and we have achieved a greater suc-cess, notably the greatest achievement was be-

ing a signatory country of the Washington Accord.Further, with this editorial, I am completing twoyears in the office as the editor/SLEN.

As you all know we have tried different means toget our members be active with IESL, though notsuccessful sometimes. We have witnessed thatthe attendance in a lot of activities have grownexponentially, especially in some memorial lec-tures and some other outbound activities. Still Iam not so impressed with the attendance for the

Annual Sessions. This year we are trying severalnew ways such as pre-registration, nominationsof members by their respective institutions, cir-culating the programme at glance quite early toplan their schedule etc. I sincerely hope that thiscould encourage the young engineers to attendthe annual sessions and we all should treat theannual session as the forum to share our findings,new thoughts with the fellow engineers. By attend-ing and actively participating, we all will encour-age the engineers who have some intention todo novel things. I urge the engineers to take thisas positive and attend in numbers. Glanceprogramme will be very handy and you can opti-mize your visit to Colombo if you are travellingform other provinces. Meanwhile, it is the moralobligation of the senior engineers to release their

junior engineers during the annual sessions. Manycountries consider this as a time of reunion and itis not rare to see more than a thousand engineersattending their annual sessions.

I thank you for your active participation during theyear and your feedback has been very fruitful. Wealways do respect your ideas for improvementand please remember that we have reserved a

section called write to the editor. Month of Oc-tober will be with full of activities and your partici-pation in all these would be an immense encour-agement to those who voluntarily sacrifice their time for the benefit of engineering profession inthe country.

Eng. (Dr) Udeni P. [email protected]


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11th Installa11th Installa11th Installa11th Installa11th Installa tion Cer tion Cer tion Cer tion Cer tion Cer emonemonemonemonemon yyyyyof of of of of IESLIESLIESLIESLIESL TTTTToastmaster oastmaster oastmaster oastmaster oastmaster sssss ClubClubClubClubClub

2014/ 20152014/ 20152014/ 20152014/ 20152014/ 2015

The Toastmasters Club of In-stitution of Engineers, SriLanka (IESL) held its 11 th In-stallation and Induction Cer-emony at the IESLWimalasurendra Auditoriumon 29 th June 2014. The Chief Guest Eng. ShavindranathFernando (President of IESL), Guest of Honour Dis-trict Governor, DTM Yusuf Jeevanjee, Maj. DouglasWijesinghe (Mentor of IESLToastmasters Club), M ZSaleem DTM, Past Presi-dents, distinguished guestsincluding eminent Toastmas-ters from other clubs gracedthe occasion.

Since 2004, the IESL Toast-masters Club has provided amutually supportive and posi-tive learning environment for its members in public speak-ing and leadership develop-ment, a need in todays chal-lenging environment. Theclub is affiliated to the Toast-

masters International (TMI)based in California which isin operation since 1921. TMIis a non-profit making educa-tional organisation.

IESL Toastmasters Club isthe 5th club established inSri Lanka out of 92 clubs op-erating today. The club ismade up of more than 40members who meet once afortnight for two hours. Eachmeeting provides the partici-pants an opportunity to prac-tice public speaking by giv-ing impromptu speeches, pre-pared speeches, and thechance to offer constructiveevaluations. Anybody, froman experienced professionalto beginner can gain im-mense benefit from thesepractical, face-to-face learn-ing programs which rangesfrom high level businessmeetings to day to day com-mon public speaking.

The Chief Guest, Eng.Shavindranath Fernando, as Contd. on page 11...

Appreciation

Former PresidentIESL:

Eng. (Dr.) DharmasiriDe Alwis

It is with great sadness thatwe announce the passingaway of Eng. (Dr.)Dharmasiri De Alwis on 4 th

July 2014. I have knownEng. De Alwis over threedecades starting from thedays when he was a dy-namic young engineer atMahaweli DevelopmentBoard way back in early1980s up to his demise inJuly 2014. He was my first

boss at Welikanda Assistant General Manager (Construction)s office in 1981 and later my faculty boardcolleague until his last days. He was an elected member inthe Faculty Board of the Faculty of Engineering Technologyat The Open University of Sri Lanka continuously from 2004up to his demise in July 2014. He was indeed an engineer of a high caliber with a perfect record of honesty which is quiterare to find these days.

Eng. De Alwis was born in 1945 and had his secondaryeducation at Ananda College, Colombo. At college he ex-celled in cadetting, basketball and badminton. He enteredthe Faculty of Engineering, University of Ceylon in 1965 andgraduated in civil engineering in 1970. Eng. De Alwis com-menced his professional career as a civil engineer in theMahaweli Development Board (MDB) at Polgolla DiversionUnit, which was the first project implemented under the gi-gantic Mahaweli Ganga Development Scheme (MGDS). Heserved as a project engineer on Polgolla Diversion Unit up to1973. After obtaining the London Charter in 1974 and later in1976 he became a member of the Institution of Engineers,Sri Lanka. He then served as a senior design engineer in-volved in development of irrigation systems in the maidendevelopment area Mahaweli System H (Kala Oya basin). In1977 he was promoted to the rank of chief engineer (Water Management) to be responsible for bulk allocation of Mahaweli waters to large reservoirs in the dry zone facilitat-ing double cropping. Subsequently he became the first Sec-

retary to the Water Management Panel, which was consti-tuted by the Minister in Charge of the subject of MGDS. In1978 he was promoted as the Resident Project Manager (RPM) for Mahaweli System H. It was during his tenurethat the infrastructure and the settlers themselves were un-der threat, when the cyclone struck the area in November 1978, where under his leadership had to grant relief mea-sures to the settlers, while repairing and restoring the dam-aged infrastructure. The building of the Galnewa Townshipin 1978 was a milestone in his career. In 1979 he functionedas the Asst. General Manager (Construction) for part of Sys-tem H and the Bowatenna Diversion Project.

In January 1980 he was appointed as the Asst. GeneralManager (Construction) of Mahaweli System B or theMaduru Oya Project, where he served up to February 1983.This is the time I started to work under him as a civil engi-neer fresh from the university. During this period he imple-mented the concept of re-use of irrigation water by construct-ing minor reservoirs across secondary and tertiatiary drain-ages. With the adoption of this concept, during the opera-tion of the irrigation system, the flexibility of the total sys-tem was enhanced, while storing water for the use of set-tlers and animals during canal closure and drought. At thebeginning the settlers could be inducted into the homesteadsand promote cultivation, long before the Maduru Oya reser-voir was constructed.

In 1983 he was promoted to the post of Deputy GeneralManager (Construction) and this position was held by him

Contd. on page 10...

by : Eng. (Prof.) Kolita WeerasekeraFIE(SL), CEng, Int.PEng(SL)

the President of IESL, ex-pressed the importance of ef-fective communication withinall levels of organisationssighting his own experience.Only technical skills andknowledge will not help youexcel in your careers. Softskills such as inter-personalskills and public speaking &presentation skills will giveyou the added impetus tomove you forward.

TM Manjula Samarasighe,the newly elected presidentof the club while addressingthe gathering explained thathe would like to drive the clubwith two mottos. That isCommitment andSelf.Development. He ex-plained that Commitmentis equally important as skills,knowledge and experience inorder to achieve excellence.


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Holcim Inter University

Concrete MixDesign

Competition- Holcim Concludes Competi-tion at University Level

F urthering its vision of building foundations for Sri Lankasfuture, premier cement production company Holcim(Lanka) Ltd recently partnered with the University of Peradeniya, Moratuwa and Ruhuna to conduct an innovativeConcrete Mix Design Competition for the Universitys FinalYear Civil Engineering students.

The objective of the competition was to impart practical andtheoretical knowledge in the specialized area of concrete mixdesign, providing students with valuable exposure to workingwith concrete as well as encouraging them to work in teams.

The competition at the University of Peradeniya was held dur-ing the period February to April 2014 and the competition atthe University of Moratuwa and Ruhuna during May to July2014. The competition was conducted by Holcim (Lanka) Ltdand the Universitys Civil Engineering Societies and com-menced with a workshop on concrete mix design, includingthe practical application of mix design. While imparting skills,knowledge and training,the programme also sought to encour-age personal and professional development, focusing on im-proving communication, leadership and teamwork.

Student groups whose proposals were selected by the Uni-versity Civil Engineering Societies participated in the compe-tition, which consisted of casting concrete cubes and per-forming slump tests in the presence of the representativesfrom the Department of Civil Engineering and Holcim (Lanka)Ltd. The enthusiasm and the active participation of the stu-dents during the competition clearly indicated that it was val-ued by them.

The cubes were tested for 28 th day strength and the top 5teams from each university were awarded a 2 day outwardbound training programme sponsored by Holcim (Lanka) Ltd.

DESIGN COURSES & OTHERTECHNICAL COURSES

DESIGN COURSES

1. Single story and two storied houses based on BS 8110, BS5628 and BS 5268 for suitable and unsuitable soil condi-tions.

2. Reclamation of marshy lands to accommodate for housingand industrial projects based on ICTAD publications withnecessary specifications.

OTHER COURSES

1. Preparation of bid document for civil work tenders.

2. Bid evaluation process based on technical and financial markingscheme or contractors evaluation process.

a) Commencement of courses : 2nd week of October 2014

b) Course suited for : Pr acticing Engineers

c) Venue : In Colombo

For registration please contact :Tel : 0777666149, 0114934266E-mail : vkbengineer [email protected]

Ray Wijewardene MemorialLecture 2014 Held

The Ray Wijewardene Memorial Lecture 2014 was held on, Thursday, 31 st July, 2013 at

the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute Auditorium. This years memorial lecture on Extrater-restrial Life and The Future Trajectory of Humanity was delivered by Prof. Chandra

Wicremasinghe, one of the worlds leading featured on BBC, Discovery and History chan-

nels and National Geo-

graphic; A pioneer of the

emerging science of Astro-

biology and advocate of

Panspermia the hypoth-

esis that life exists through-

out the Universe lectures

on Red Rain and a swathe

of new discoveries heralding

a major paradigm shift inscience. The lecture was

delivered as has been the

case with previous years

Ray Wijewardene Memorial

Lectures to a full house. It

was organized by the Ray

Wijewardene Charitable

Trust in collaboration with

the Institution of Engineers,

Sri Lanka



7/12


ELECTIONS TO COUNCIL FOR THE SESSION 2014/2015The following were the Returning Officers for the electionsfor the Session 2014/2015:

Eng. Priyal De Silva - Chief Returning Officer

Eng. D C S Elakanda Assistant Returning Officer Eng. M G Hemachandra - Assistant Returning Officer Eng. Madhawa Perera Assistant Returning Officer

Eng. S B Wijekoon will be the President for the Session2014/2015, having been elected as President-Elect at theelections held for the Session 2013/2014.

The notice calling nominations for all posts to be vacant inthe Council for the Session 2014/2015 was issued on June2, 2014 with the deadline for receiving nominations set at4.00 p.m. on June 23, 2014.

The following were elected uncontested:

Past President - Eng. Tilak De Silva

Vice Presidents - Eng. J MeegodaEng. R G Rubasinghe

Chairman Building Services Eng. Sect. Committee- Eng. S S Gunawardana

Chairman Civil .Eng. Sect. Committee -Eng. P C Jinasena

Chairman IT & Comm. Eng. Sect. Committee -Eng. S A Samarakoon

No valid nominations were received for the following posts:

Chairman, Agricultural and Plantations Engineering SectionalCommitteeChairman, Chemical & Process Engineering Sectional Com-mitteeChairman, Electrical and Electronics Engineering SectionalCommittee

The following three (3) Fellows representing Class of Fel-lows will continue in the Council till the end of their term of office:1. Eng. (Prof.) S B S Abayakoon2. Eng. D C S Elakanda3. Eng. (Dr.) L B K Laksiri

The following five (5) Members representing the Class of Members will continue in the Council till the end of their terms of office.1. Eng. P Thangamayil2. Eng. H M U Seneviratne3. Eng. (Dr.) U L Tissa4. Eng. K S M Silva5. Eng. M G Hemachandra

The Election was held for the following posts.

President-Elect Honorary Secretary Honorary Treasurer Chairman, Mechanical Engineering Sectional Committee

Representatives Fellows Representatives Members

Voting for Elections to the Council 2014/2015 closed on August 28, 2014 at 4.00 p.m. The Ballot Box was opened at9.00 a.m. on August 29, 2014 and the counting commencedimmediately thereafter.

Total No. of Ballot Papers received - 1241

Invalid Ballot Papers - 18

Total No. of Valid Ballot Papers - 1223

(1) Post of President-Elect

Vacancies Post Candidates Votes Remarks

01 President-Elect Eng. Wimalasena Gamage 556 Elected Eng. E W Karunaratna 80 Eng. Prof.(Mrs.) Niranjanie 511

Ratnayake

(1) Post of Honorary Secretary 01 Honorary Secretary Eng. Granie R Jayalath 719 Elected

Eng. Saliya Kaluarachchi 297

(1) Post of Honorary Treasurer 01 Honorary Eng. A P Ranjith De Silva 639 Elected Treasurer Eng. P C C Perera 339

(1)Post of Chairman- Mechanical Engineering Sectional Committee

01 Chairman Eng. P Kalubowila 383 -Mechanical Eng. Arjuna Manamperi 616 Elected Engineering Sectional Committee

(3) Posts of Representatives Fellows

03 Representatives Eng. Dharmapala K P I U 619 Elected - Fellows Eng. (Dr.) Ajith Dolage 663 Elected

Eng.(Prof.) T M Pallewatta 752 Elected Eng. Udeni Wickramaratne 596

(5) Posts of Representatives Members 05 Representatives Eng. P A Samira Anuradha 413 Elected - Members (Under-40) Eng. Jaliya Bandara 450 Elected (Under 40) Eng. Jayatilaka N P 422

Eng.(Dr.) U P Nawagamuwa 675 Elected Eng. Mahesh Samarawickrama 320

Eng. S A P C Siriwardana 322 Eng.(Major) Nishsanka 462 Wasalabandara

Eng. (Dr.) Sanjeewa 425 Elected Wickramaratne (Under-40) Eng. M D S Wijayabandara 589 Elected

Summary

Members elected to the Council for the Session 2014/2015

1. Eng. W Gamage has been elected as the President-Elect.

2. Eng. Granie Jayalath has been elected as the Honorary Secretary.

3. Eng. A P R de Silva has been elected as the Honorary Treasurer.

4. Eng. Arjuna Manamperi has been elected as the Chairman, Mechanical Engineering Sec-tional Committee.

5. Eng. K P I U Dharmapala, Eng. (Dr.) Ajith Dolage and Eng.(Prof.) T M Pallewatta havebeen elected to the Council for the Session 2014/2015 as the Representatives Fellows.

6. Eng.(Dr.) U P Nawagamuwa and Eng. M D S Wijayabandara have been elected as the

Representatives-Members above 40 years of age.Eng. P A Samira Anuradha, Eng. Jaliya Bandara and Eng. (Dr.) Sanjeewa Wickramaratnehave been elected to the Council for the Session 2014/2015 as the Representatives-Mem-bers under 40 years of age.

7. The following vacancies in the Council will have to be filled by the Council for theSession 2014/2015: Vice President Chairman, Agricultural and Plantations Engineering Sectional Committee Chairman, Chemical & Process Engineering Sectional Committee Chairman, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Sectional Committee

Eng. Priyal De SilvaChief Returning Officer

The Results are as follows:-


8/12


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9/12


Car Stereos&

Smartphones

Many of us are drivers. We drive daily from home to officeand vise-verse. We go on trips during our vacations or holi-days; then we ought to drive long distances. Anyway thesedays, especially in Sri Lanka one of the main causes of roadaccidents is using mobile phones while driving. If you are afrequent driver and your vehicle has a modern stereo sys-tem, then you can use your mobile phone while driving!!!Well, it is pretty good that you dont have obstacles thatdistract you while driving; but if you need to keep on drivingwhile you are in a conversation with the party on the other side of the phone then the modern car stereos (which hasBluetooth facility) might be great advantage. Nevertheless,you may think, having a Bluetooth Headset might be useful

as well but if you have a stereo system that supportsBluetooth connection then you can do activities beyond phonea call. After connecting your mobile phone to the stereo viaBluetooth, you can keep the phone aside and operate it viathe stereo interface. You can navigate through your phonecontact lists, you can dial numbers and also you can playmedia files via the stereos console. I tend to use that facilitybecause its not a burden for my driving especially when Ineed to answer an important phone call. Anyway please makesure that you setup the phone and stereo before you startdriving. If you can fully omit using mobile phones while driv-ing (even with this technology) it is pretty handy.

However I thought its worth exploring the technology behindthese modern car-stereos. I know some of you might al-ready use this feature, but it is good that you are aware of the technological background of it.

Modern car-stereo connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth(of course your mobile phone must have Bluetooth technol-ogy) and it can control your phone. It is dangerous to payyour attention to your stereo while driving; but once you have

by Eng. Tharindu Weerasinghe[MSc.Eng, BSc.Eng(Hons), C|EH, MIEEE, AMIESL]

completed all the settings (in-order to keep the phone aside)you can make a move whileanswering the call you re-ceived.

Bluetooth:

Bluetooth is a technologyused to connect digital de-vices which are in short range.

It is a wireless protocol whichis being used by deviceswhich has Bluetooth ports. Allmodern mobile phones havethis facility. It is invented in 1994 by Ericsson. [1] Bluetoothoperates in short range radio frequency band. Bluetooth com-prises protocols in the likes of cable replacement protocol,telephony control protocol, and adopted protocol. Among themandatory protocols we find, the one used to set-up andcontrol radio link between two devices as well as the oneused for audio/video remote control. [1]

What are the common applications of Bluetooth technology?

As you might already know, there are Bluetoothheadsets that you can use with your mobile phone. By using


Cloud Computing SecurityChallenges

by Kushan Sharma

Engineering Manager IT Security Services

Introduction

Enterprises continuously seek innovative approaches to reduce operational computing costswhile getting the most from their resources. Recent developments in Cloud Computing tech-nology play a major role in helping organizations to reduce the operational cost. It is a modelfor enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable com-puting resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can berapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interac-tion. Figure 1 presents an overview of the NIST Cloud Computing reference architecture [1],which identifies the major actors, their activities and functions in Cloud Computing.

IT experts have classifiedCloud Computing vendorsinto three broad categoriesbased on the fundamentalnature of the Cloud-basedsolution they provide:1. Infrastructure-as-a-Ser-vice (IaaS),2. Platform-as-a-Service(PaaS) and3. Software-as-a-Service(SaaS).

The main difference be-tween these service mod-els lies in how responsibili-ties are divided between

Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and Cloud Con-sumer. For example, In IaaS offering, the Cloud consumer has extensive con-trol over his servers and theinstalled operating systemsand applications; thevirtualization infrastructureand at least parts of the net-work infrastructure. WithSaaS, in contrast, theCloud consumer usuallycontrols only certain con-figuration parameters of thecontracted service the ap-plication and all underlyinginfrastructure is under con-trol of the CSP. PaaS liesbetween these two ex-tremes in that the customer controls the application asa whole (including thecode), while the CSP con-trols the runtime environ-ment and supporting infra-structure.

Towards Cloud SecurityThe new paradigm of Cloud

Computing possesses severesecurity risks to its adoptersdue to the distributed natureof Cloud Computing environ-ments which make them arich target for malicious indi-viduals. Cloud resides with anentirely virtual infrastructurewhich is, invisible to the user [5, 10]. This inherent abstrac-tion ensures that an applica-tion or business service is notdirectly tied to the underlyinghardware infrastructure suchas servers, storage or net-works. This allows businessservices to move dynamically

across virtualized infrastruc-ture resources in a very effi-cient manner. However thevirtualization techniques usedin Cloud possess numeroussecurity threats and attacks.A fully or partially sharedCloud environment is ex-pected to have a greater at-tack surface and thereforecan be considered to be atgreater risk than a dedicatedresources environment [13].Cloud Instances (CIs) are vul-nerable as they move be-tween the private Cloud andthe public Cloud. Moreover the easiness of cloning virtualmachines instance leads topropagation of security vulner-abilities and configuration er-rors. In addition to this, theco-location of multiple CIs in-creases the attack surfaceand risk of CI to another in-stance compromise [13].

Cloud Consumers runs nu-merous applications/scriptsin order to complete their

computing tasks. Most of them are too complex andcomplicated to trust. Evenwith access to the sourcecode, it is difficult to reasonabout the security of these ap-plications. They might harbor malicious code such as com-puter viruses, worms, bots,Trojan horses and spyware or contain bugs that are exploit-able by carefully crafted input.It is essential that instead of

just relying on conventionaldefense techniques, the nextgeneration of system softwaremust be designed from the

ground-up to provide stronger isolation of services runningon computer systems.

Existing Security Threats & AttacksVM Escaping & VM Monitor-ing

Cloud infrastructure is ben-efited with co-location of mul-tiple CIs. This benefit, if notcarefully deployed, become athreat to the environment.Moreover current virtual ma-chine monitors (VMMs) do not

offer perfect solution for VM in-stance monitoring. Many se-curity vulnerabilities, which anattacker can exploit, havebeen discovered in all popular VMMs [5]. In ideal world ad-ministrator and users of virtualization expect the 100%isolation of VM instances.



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Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL), was held at the Grand Ball Roomof the Waters Edge on Friday, 15th August, 2014 from 6.00 pmonwards. Hon. Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Senior Minister for Scien-tific Affairs graced the occasion as the Chief Guest while Hon.Faizer Mustapha, Deputy Minister for Investment Promotion wasthe Guest of Honor. The most prestigious Eminence in Engi-

neering Award was awarded to Prof. Mohan Munasinghe whowas the Vice Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-mate Change (IPCC-AR4) that shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace, the firstever Sri Lankan to be associated with the greathonour. The Excellence in Engineering Awards for Individualswent to Eng. Ranjith Jayakumara Gunawardana (Electricaland Electronic Engineering) and Eng. LiyanarachchigeParakrama Jayasinghe (Mechanical Engineering) in their respec-tive sectors.

The winners in the different award categories were as follows:

Eminence in Engineering AwardProf.Mohan Munasinghe

Excellence in Engineering Awards for IndividualsEng. Ranjith Jayakumara Gunawardana (Electrical and Elec-tronic Engineering)

Eng. Liyanarachchige Parakrama Jayasinghe (Mechanical En-gineering)

Engineering Entrepreneur AwardEng. Lalith KahatapitiyaEng. Manulal Nandana Jayaruwan Edirisinghe ( Merit Award )Eng. Daya Hettiarachchi ( Merit Award )

Award for Excellence in Engineering JournalismMr. Nihal P Abeysinghe (Associated Newspapers Ceylon Ltd.)

Chartered Engineer AwardsEng. Prabodha Chithralal Jinasena (Civil Engineering)

Social Responsibilities and Environment AwardNot Awarded

Engineering Heritage AwardNot Awarded

Outstanding Engineering Education AwardNot Awarded

Presidents AwardEng. (Prof.) B.L. Tennekoon

Special AwardEng. Tilak De Silva

Excellence in Engineering Awards for Organizations

Manufacturing (Large)M/s Orel Corporation (Pvt.) Ltd.

Construction (Large)M/s Tudawe Brothers (Pvt.) Ltd.

Construction (Medium)Not Awarded

Engineering - ServicesM/s Mobitel (Pvt.) Ltd.Engineering Consultancy ServicesM/s Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau

Contd. from page 1.... AWARDS CEREMONY, ....the Bluetooth headset you are able to talk without your phone in hand, in a specific range.

You can connect your mobile phone to another phone or a computer using Bluetooth. Modern car stereo systems have the facility to connect to your mobile phone and it willmake your life so easy while you are driving.

In this article I focus on the technology behind these car stereos that help us to usemobile phones.Bluetooth has many profiles that help us to use it for various functions. For example if youconsider streaming audio/video data from one device to other, then there is a specificBluetooth profile for that, namely, Advanced Audio Distribution Profile ( A2DP ). To makeuse of these profiles, both devices must have Bluetooth version that supports the specificprofile. Now, A2DP is essential to transfer audio data from your phone to the stereo;means that its a basic profile in the modern car stereos Bluetooth. There is another protocol, Hands-free Profile ( HFP ) which allows car hands-free kits to connect with themobile phones in the car. Phone Book Access Profile ( PBAP , PBA ) allows you to syn-chronize your phones contact list with the stereo. Likewise there are many Bluetoothprofiles (set of technological enhancements of Bluetooth) that you can use for differentpurposes. [2]

If you have one of these new car stereo setups in your car, then go to its menu option andselect mobile phone to connect to your mobile phone. (This is of course if you have notused this feature earlier). Make sure you have switched on phones Bluetooth. If you havepaired the two devices then the next time you bring these two devices closer enough to beconnected, they will connect automatically [3]. These enhancements in the Bluetoothtechnology are very attractive so the modern day users are attached to them. You canread the technical specifications of a profile online, if you are interested.

References:[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile[3] http://www.cnet.com/news/car-techs-guide-to-using-your-android-phone-in-the-car/

The writer is a software developer at an Australian Company.

Contd. from page 9... Car Stereos....Car Stereos....Car Stereos....Car Stereos....Car Stereos....

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Un fortunately, architecturallimitations, the VM vendorsapproach to isolation, or bugsin the virtualization softwaremay result in the ability to com-promise isolation. VM escapeis such a scenario which in theworst case, a program run-ning inside a VM would be ableto completely bypass the VMlayer, getting full access to thehosting environment [14]. For example, successful exploita-tion of VMWare remote arbi-trary code execution vulnerabil-ity may allow an attacker to ex-ecute arbitrary code on the vul-nerable computer hostingVMWare resulting a completecompromise [14].Sometimes one VM can moni-tor another VM, resides onsame physical resources.This is done through CPUmemory or network traffic or some other means of interven-tion [12]. Network traffic isola-tion completely depends onthe configuration of virtual net-working environment. VMs arelinked to the host machine bymeans of virtual hub or by avirtual switch [12]. This en-ables the guest machines tosniff packets in to the networkor even worse that the guestmachines can use AddressResolution Protocol (ARP)poisoning to redirect the pack-ets going to and coming fromanother guest [8].

Zombies in the Cloud

Botnets are one of the fastestgrowing threats amongmalware today. A zombie is acomputer connected to theInternet that has been compro-mised by a hacker, computer virus or trojan horse and canbe used to perform malicioustasks of one sort or another under remote direction [9]. AZombie is essentially needednot to be a physical computer.A zombie can be a VM instancein the Cloud. Jiang et al, pro-vide an estimate that 40% of the 800 million computers thatconnect to the internet on adaily basis are Zombies, thatare part of a botnet [9]. For anexample, Amazons Cloud-based EC2 service was at-tacked by a botnet in late 2009[17]. This attack was triggeredby a compromised internalservice. Analysis of the incidentyielded information detailinghow a variation of the pass-word-stealing Zeus bankingTrojan had infected client com-puters within the EC2 Cloud.The infection was a direct re-sult of malicious intruderscompromising a site withinEC2, and transforming it intoa Botnet Command and Con-trol (C&C) system. The attackwas further aggravated by apower outage at one of Amazons data centers in Vir-ginia [17].

Cloud Malware InjectionsCloud malware injection is anattempt of injecting a mali-cious service implementationor virtual machine into theCloud system [7]. Once a ma-licious VM instance is plantedin the Cloud or there is amalware infected CI availableon the Cloud it could serve any

particular purpose the adver-sary is interested in, rangingfrom eavesdropping to fullfunctionality changes or blockings. The Cloud admin-istrators need to pay specialattention on this type of attackthat will look to penetrate thesecurity perimeters of thesetitanic data pools in the Cloud.Once compromised, vastquantities of personal data willbecome available to cyber criminals. For an example areport by CNN [4] highlightedthat in January 2010, Googleannounced its web-basedGmail system had been com-promised by a malware attackoriginating in China. This in-cident proves that malware isalready finding its way intothese titanic data pools of themajor players of Cloud re-sources.

Flooding AttacksCloud Computing enables adynamic adaptation of hard-ware requirements to the ac-tual workload requirements.Though this feature of provid-ing more computationalpower on demand is appreci-ated in the case of valid us-ers, it poses severe issues inthe presence of an attacker.Once such attacking scenariois flooding attacks [7]. Toelaborate flooding attacks onCloud, two security expertsDavid Bryan and MichaelAnderson conducted a re-search and they warned thatCloud-based denial-of-ser-vice attacks are looming on

the horizon. With $6 and ahomemade Thunder Clapprogram, they managed totake down their clients server bu using the Amazons EC2Cloud infrastructure itself [3].

In Direct Denial of Service at-tack (DoS), the attacker onlyneeds to flood a single Cloud-based address in order toperform a full loss of availabil-ity on the intended service. Inthe worst case scenario, if anattacker manages to utilizeanother different Cloud Com-puting infrastructure or thesame Cloud infrastructure,where the victim resides, asthe attack launching pad. It willlead towards a race in the pro-cessing power between twodifferent Cloud infrastructuresor between the victim and theattacker within the sameCloud infrastructure [6]. In asituation where the attacker and the victim reside in sameCloud infrastructure, the racefor processor power wouldplay both Cloud systems off against each other. Both theparties would be providedmore and more computationalresources for creating, re-spectively fending, the flood,until one of them eventuallyreaches full loss of availabil-ity.

Side Channel AttacksI might find out all kind of busi-ness intelligence with thingsthat these side-channelsmight leak, said Radu Sion,a computer scientist at StonyBrook University who waschairing a Cloud security work-shop at CCSW 2009 confer-ence at which a paper waspresented [15]. BecauseCloud Computing introduces

a shared resource environ-ment, unexpected sidechannels (passively observ-ing information) and covertchannels (actively sendingdata) can arise. Sharing of resources means that theactivity of one Cloud user might appear visible to other Cloud users using the sameresources, potentially lead-ing to the construction of co-vert and side channels.

Utilization of side channelsto learn information aboutco-residency of VM in-stances inside the Cloud isone of the usable scenarioof side channel attacks. In[16], they have shown that(time-shared) caches allowan attacker to measurewhen other instances are ex-periencing computationalload. Leaking such informa-tion might seem not harm-ful, but in fact it can alreadybe quite useful to clever at-tackers. They introduce sev-eral novel applications of this side channel: robust co-residence detection, andtiming keystrokes by an hon-est user (via SSH) of a co-resident instance.

Although side channel at-tacks are said to be pos-sible in carefully controlledenvironments, Cloud ser-vice providers claim that theside-channel method is notseeming reasonable or probable. Further they ex-plain that the side channel

techniques presented arebased on testing resultsfrom a carefully controlledlab environment with con-figurations that do notmatch the actual commer-cial Cloud environment. Asthe researchers point out,there are a number of fac-tors that would make suchan attack significantly moredifficult in practice.

Malicious InsidersAlthough it is less likely, thedamage that may be causedby malicious insiders is of-ten far greater. This threatclearly identifies that there isno security mechanismswhich will provide a 100%secure environment. In [2]Stephen Biggs and StilianosVidalis believe that time willultimately see Cloud infra-structures, resources andphysical domains beingcompromised by insider at-tacks. Even though certainroles like Cloud service pro-viders, system administra-tors and managed securityservice providers are essen-tial to manage Cloud serviceinfrastructure, these rolessometimes may lead to arole of a malicious insider.

Conclusion

Since the concept of CloudComputing was proposed,Cloud Security has inevita-bly became a significantbusiness differentiator.Much of cloud computing tar-gets customers treat secu-rity as an elevated priority. Al-though emerging technolo-gies and architectures,used in Cloud Computing,introduce new features, theybring their own security con-

cerns and challenges to theCloud environment. New robustsecurity measurements are es-sential in order to assure proper security. Although there are manysecurity concerns, just as theInternet made information univer-sally accessible, affordable, anduseful, we believe that CloudComputing also has the poten-tial to bring about the computa-tion revolution, in which largescale computations become uni-versally accessible, affordable,and useful.

References

[1] J. Albus. A reference model ar-chitecture for intelligent un-manned ground vehicles. page303310, 2002.

[2] Stephen Biggs and StilianosVidalis. Cloud computing storms.International Journal of IntelligentComputing Research (IJICR),March 2010.

[3] cloudtweaks. Thunder in thecloud: cloud-based denial-of-service attack |CloudTweaks.com - the cloudcomputing community. http://www.cloudtweaks.com/2010/08/thunder-in-the-cloud-6-cloud-based-denial-of-service-attack/,2010.

[4] Lara Farrar. How safe is cloudcomputing? CNN.com. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/12/cloud.computing.security/index.html, March 2010.

[5] U. Gurav and R. Shaikh.Virtualization: a key feature of cloud computing. In Proceedingsof the International Conferenceand Workshop on EmergingTrends in Technology, pages227229, 2010.

[6] M. Jensen, N. Gruschka, andN. Luttenberger. The impact of flooding attacks on network-based services. In The Third In-ternational Conference on Avail-ability, Reliability and Security,page 509513, 2008.

[7] M. Jensen, J. Schwenk, N.Gruschka, and L. L Iacono. Ontechnical security issues in cloudcomputing. In 2009 IEEE Interna-tional Conference on Cloud

Computing, page 109116,2009.

[8] J. Kirch. Virtual machinesecurity guidelines. The Cen-ter for Internet Security, 2007.

[9] C. Li, W. Jiang, and X. Zou.Botnet: Survey and case study.Fourth International Confer-ence on Innovative Comput-ing, Information and Control,IEEE Computer Society, page11841187, 2009.

[10] Flavio Lombardi andRoberto Di Pietro. Securevirtualization for cloud comput-ing. Journal of Network andComputer Applications, InPress, Corrected Proof, June2010.

[11] William Moss and BrianRichardson. Zombies in theclouds. 2010.

[12] J. S Reuben. A survey on

virtual machine security.Helsinki University of Technol-ogy, 2007.

[13] J. Rittinghouse and J. FRansome. Cloud computing:implementation, manage-ment, and security. CRCPress Taylor & Francis Group,2009.

[14] Security Focus. VMWareremote arbitrary code execu-tion vulnerability. http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15998/info, 2006.

[15] David Talbot. Vulnerabil-ity seen in amazons cloud-computing. MIT TechnologyReview, October 2009.

[16] Hovav Shacham ThomasRistenpart, Eran Tromer andStefan Savage. Hey, you, getoff of my cloud: Exploring in-formation leakage in third-party compute clouds. Proc.16th ACM Conf. Computer andCommunications Security,pages 199212, November 2009.

[17] L. Whitney. Amazon ec2cloud service hit bybotnet,outage. http://n e w s . c n e t . c o m / 8 3 0 1 -1009_3-10413951-83.html,December 2009.

Contd. from page 9..

Cloud Computing .....

Eng. Tilak De Silva is currently the Chief Innovation Officer of Sri Lanka Telecom and hails from Panadura. He attended SriSumangala College, Panadura and obtained his graduate de-gree in Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering from theUniversity of Moratuwa in 1983 and his MSc in Data Communi-cations from the Brunel University, UK in 2002.He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology,UK, Chartered Engineer of the Engineering Council, UK, Fellowand Chartered IT Professional of the British Computer Societyand Member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics En-gineers, USA.

Immediate Past President . ...Contd. from page 1...

Contd. from page 5.... 11th Installa11th Installa11th Installa11th Installa11th Installa tion Cer tion Cer tion Cer tion Cer tion Cer emonemonemonemonemon yyyyy....................He said the desire for Self Development is an important qualityevery body should possess.

For the year 2014/2015, the following officers were installed byDistinguished Toastmaster M. Z. Saleem, the Past District Gover-nor of District 82 of TMI. President : Manjula Samarasighe ACB,Vice President Education : Saman Devapriya, Vice President Mem-bership : Jagath Wicramasekara, Vice President Public Relations: Bhathiya Alahakoon, Treasurer : GeethaWeerasuriya CC, Secre-tary : M Musthafa Aliyar CC, Sergeant at Arms : Ariyasiri ArangallageCC, Immediate Past President : RanishkaWimalasena CC.Manjula Samarasighe +94714135894 and Saman+94714767825 can be contacted for further information on theclub activities and membership.


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