thoughts on changing technologies

Just about everyone these days has a smartphone. To support our student’s needs for on-the-go information we recently launched http://m.tru.ca.

Simply enter this url in any smartphone browser to access a number of TRU campus services including TRU News and Events, Food Services Information, Wolf Pack sports updates,computer lab availability and wireless printers, campus maps and  Security contacts.

More services to come.

I was keen on using the Ghost service, a “cloud-based” virtual desktop environment I planned to use for my daughter’s school science project. That was until I got this message in my in-box recently -

Dear Ghost User,

We hope you have been enjoying our free Ghost service. Regrettably changes in the marketplace mean that it is no longer economical for us to host the Ghost service and we will be closing down the service on or around March 15. We will instead be focusing on licensing or selling our technology to larger companies.

etc etc

Yikes. So much for a new frontier…

Cloud computing is one of the hot topics on the tech agenda over the last few years but candidly I thought we would be further along. Because of all  the issues around security, privacy and switching costs, not to mention the questionable ROI at this time, I’ve had trouble thinking about migrating our infrastructure to the Cloud. In that I would appear to not be alone.

Making money in the Cloud space still appears illusive. According to Silicon Alley Insider, even Microsoft is struggling with it. Check out the performance of Microsoft Online Services Division, of which Infrastructure Services is a part:

While I still have  ROI and security concerns surrounding the model I still feel it’s the future. It just seems the future isn’t arriving as fast as I thought it would.

A piece on Finance 2.0 in Tech Crunch talks about new methods and technologies that will have a positive impact for the consumer and the merchant over the next few years. I say bring them on…

I’ve got my fingers crossed for the success of a new mobile payment application from Vancouver-based Modio that seems to just make sense for smartphone owners and merchants. All you need to do is download the Mobio app from the Apple App Store (I’m not sure about Blackberry support), load your payment details and start scanning.

What could be more convenient or secure than simply scanning a 2D bar-code like the following:

This one allows you to directly contribute to Habitat for Humanity’s Haitian Relief Fund but MobioID is involved with other charity work as well.

Expect to see these 2D bar codes everywhere from restaurant bills, to SkyTrain ads to websites. It’s a bit ironic that I’ve spent the last decade enabling and fussing over web payment functionality that effectively could be made obsolete by this simple technology. I think that counts as a breakthrough.

With TRU transacting about $30 million in credit card payments each year, this type of technology will be a boon to both students and the University.

Been playing with Google’s wonder wheel feature today. (In google searches, select Show Options, Wonder wheel) to get a wheel view of your search results. The visual view of search results is very handy, and often illuminating.

Nerds the world over rejoice, wearable gestural interfaces are enroute

Excellent piece from Andrew Keen on profiting from social media like twitter and facebook. Keen talks about the John Wiley’s formula for online success:

Influence + Reputation = Trust

We’d do well to understand this simple equation because trust equals dollars…

It would seem, whether we know it or not, all of us social media users are in a struggle to improve our trust proposition on the net. Whether we are goofy, cool or clever, we will continue to reinforce our personal brand with each status update.

My take is that these social media sites will become more controlled, online resumes like linkedin.com and less confessional, no holds barred exposes of our lives. Note the example of Petite Anglaise aka Catherine Sanderson who recently shut down her personal blog on life in Paris for reasons of confessional blogging being “fraught with danger” for her and her family.

Okay this is cool: Have you got your Reprap yet? Reprap stands for Replicating Rapid-prototyper and is a University of Bath project that builds 3D Printers that can self-replicate. This means it can make another one of itself. Yeah it took me a while to get my head around that concept too. This video has the wow factor:

The idea that you have an Open-Source 3D Printer is fantastic, the concept that my RepRap can make one for my neighbour is downright amazing. 3D Printing is perhaps the killer app for designers and architects. For example, with 3D Printing, Timberland Shoes reduced its shoe prototyping per sole from 7 days @ $1200 per prototype to 90 minutes and $35.

I think the big story with 3D Printing will be in home printing of parts and products from designs downloaded from the web. These parts will be created “just-in-time” and “just-in-place” – that is, remove all the storage and transportation of goods out of the equation. Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google says “Think of RepRap as China on your desktop.” This could be big…

What technie wouldn’t also be impressed with the open approach to building massive storage courtesy of BackBlaze, complete with instructions to build.  Imagine 67 Petabytes for under $8,000 USD. Unbelievable. Methinks it may have serious cooling issues, but still impressive…

Most laptop computer users will notice their lap getting very warm while they use their machine. Very recently there have been incidents in Vancouver and Kamloops where laptop computers have shorted out or overheated causing burns and even a fatality.

From the CBC article –  a list of laptop safety precautions:

• Always operate on a hard surface that allows ventilation. Soft materials can block the airflow vents and cause it to overheat.
• If it is not possible to avoid using a soft surface, an optional heat-sink base should be used to maintain cooling.
• Always shut down your laptop, even for short periods of time, especially when placed in a carry bag.
• Inspect and clean the air vents on a weekly basis. Forced-air dusters can be used to keep the vents clean and free from debris.
• Replace any equipment or parts that do not work.
• Using a laptop desk or cooler to allow air circulation between the laptop and the desk
• Visit the Health Canada recall listings website to see if a laptop has been recalled.
• Review the manufacturers’ website for additional safety tips and recommended maintenance.

Blue Skying Again

Everyone in IT Services at TRU is working hard to see Project SAGE a success. This project (the biggest IT project in TRU’s history) involves the standardization of TRU’s Student, Finance, Advancement and HR systems on Banner Version 8 as well as many other new modules that will improve services for students, faculty and staff. Human Resources, Payroll and Finance went live in April 2009 and the big push is on for Admissions go live in October. Once Student Admissions goes live it will be all-hands-on-deck completing data conversion and other functionality  for the Open Learning and Campus Student Registration go-live in June, 2010.

But what happens after go-live in 2010? Here are some of our plans and predictions over the next few years. Ok 18 months…

Cloud Computing, the next big thing, is upon us.

Gartner defines cloud computing as a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service” using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.

Cloud computing will have a major impact on how IT services are provided into the future. We are also looking at virtualization of our desktop environments to improve student access, flexibility and availability, all the while reducing our carbon footprint.

The continued evolution of our synchronous (Video Conferencing, Collaboration Tools like Wimba or Elluminate) and asynchronous (ie Blackboard, Moodle) learning technologies is a given. We can anticipate more time and place-shifting tools like audio and video podcasts being used by TRU faculty. Multimedia equipment will be available for most classrooms on campus.

A funny thing happened on the way to the future: some things got bigger and some things got much smaller. Desktop computing will move slowly to virtual solutions (ie no more black box under your desk) and TRU Students will use smarter (and smaller) wireless mobile devices on the campus. This will require mobile computing versions of the TRU website and other services such as registration and scheduling. These mobile devices will also be location-aware.

Monitors, however, will get bigger and bigger as new display technologies make larger displays more affordable.

The New Banner system will allow new ways of providing services to students, faculty and staff, improve internal business processes and open up new partnership opportunities with service providers. Once the dust settles from the go-live of our new Banner system, work will need to start on phase II of a number of modules to improve student services and processes further. This system will allow better reporting and decision making to happen. We will also undertake a review of our current Novell File, Print and Groupware software.

Pandemics and other potential threats to TRU will need technologies to ensure campus safety and allow teaching and learning to continue remotely. As mentioned, all the pieces will come together to let students study where they want and faculty teach where they want.

While this happens, we will continue to work on our Information Security, Service Management (ITIL) and Project Management capabilities within IT Services. All new technology decisions will be made with consideration to their environmental impact. No planning is done in isolation. IT Services will continue its partnership and liaison with the Senate sub-committee on Instructional Development and Support as well as the EATAC committee.

Our Technology Services team at TRU has worked really hard to virtualize our data centre and our Client Services group has been planning virtual desktop environments for some time now. The business benefits of virtualization include reduced energy consumption, lowered costs, increased reliability and a reduction in the complexity of our IT environment. This supports our university mission and allows our faculty and researchers to continuously innovate. This innovation usually has nothing to do with our internal IT infrastructure.

I’ve been going on and on about how Cloud Computing will one day, very soon, move all our infrastructure skyward into the clouds, to be run “somewhere else.” Indeed, to many stakeholders, Cloud Computing has been sold as the final nail in the coffin of central IT. Whether that is true or not time will tell, all I know is, as a CIO, I have to move our organization into this new world.

Trouble was, I wasn’t clear on how to get there. This is starting to become clearer as I’m starting to realize what I want out of Cloud Computing.

1. I want server instances deployed for our customers quickly. 10 Minutes? 1 minute?
2. I want to be able to scale up and down on demand. Like all schools we have peak registration periods and some slower times in the summer. I want to be able to be able to dynamically scale processors, memory, and disk elastically as needed.
3. I want easy backup and restore. As time goes by, the servers and tapes become less important, the data more so. I want it protected without the cost and complexity of backup data centres in our organization.
4. I want all these ‘aaS’es to talk to each other. I need a common API and security framework to allow all the applications appearing as services to talk to each other.
5. I want control. I want to be able to manage hybrids of disposable and private clouds, I want to be able to move virtual cloud instances between service providers as necessary to reduce every IT administrator’s fear: vendor lock-in. Oh, and I want all the IP mapping to be easy.

I want the cloud environments of tomorrow to be as secure and reliable as the internal services we currently provide. Ultimately, the move to this cloud economy has nothing to do with CIO’s and internal IT departments as organizations start taking advantage of digital combinatorial innovation. But it’s up to us IT leaders s to Begin the Beguine.