Here’s some “blue-skying” for the year ahead in IT. Note that I reserve the right to be breathtakingly wrong.

1. Being Green Saves Green

Everything will continue to be about reducing IT’s CO2 footprint and reducing costs. Virtualization technologies (VMWare etc.) now rule the server room and are a no-brainer approach; desktop virtualization technologies (VMWare, XenSource, Citrix, nComputing, etc.) will improve student access to bespoke applications, improve access and reduce costs.

The total carbon footprint of technologies now guides all our purchases. We now consider the whole lifecycle of devices: how and where electronics are built, how much power they use and how the can be safely disposed of form the evaluation criteria.

Of course, all this virtualization reduces the number of machines required – spelling bad news for hardware vendors.

2. Disaster Recovery

2008 was a bad year for “cloud” outages. Google and Amazon had major service interruptions. Banks and stock market systems failed. In 2009, keeping things running will be the core competency of IT teams. To do this properly we will rely on new technologies and partners to protect critical data and networks.

3. The Year of Living with Video Conferencing

2009 is going to be the year when we have to start delivering good video conferencing services. We aren’t talking about 3D holographic telepresence just yet, but high definition cameras, good quality sound and wireless microphones, proper lighting will improve the videoconferencing experience and provide a sound alternative for in-person lectures and meetings. Improvements to videoconferencing and synchronous collaboration tools should slowly reduce the requirement for travel.

4. Can’t we all just get along – with all those new devices?

Over the last few years we’ve seen a veritable plankton-bloom of equipment on our wireless “bubble.” With laptops, net-books (ie mini laptops),  iPods, iPhones, iDogs (kidding), Smart Phones, RFID Tags, Security Equipment, dual mode phones,  – the number of new consumer devices connecting will continue to grow exponentially.  Survival for IT in this new landscape requires us to be really good at security and network availability – policing the stuff on the network may be tricky. Strong security and identity management will be critical here.

5. And all those new devices better work well together

This year expect better touch screens, cameras, power management, and, most importantly,  less wires connecting those devices. I’d loove to do away with the big plastic box of cables I have to plug everything in. Other vendors and Open Sourcers should follow Apple’s beautiful walled garden approach to device and application integration.

Walled Garden - by Paul Englefield

6. Speaking of Netbooks, is it the beginning of the end of Desktops?

Windows Version 7.0 will no doubt emerge this year but it’s overall presence will be a big yawn. How important are operating systems in a world of “information anywhere” devices? I expect to see continued use of mobile computing with users bypassing laptops to Netbooks or smart-phones. Applications via the Cloud will figure prominently in this shift.

7. Will ERP Vendors start to get “SaaS-y”?

I’ve got no idea how or when the (Enterprise Resources Planning) ERP vendors will get there but Small and Medium Sized (SME) customers, their last frontier for new revenue, will want their ERP solution as  Software as a Service (SaaS) where applications are used and rented on-demand. Here at TRU, I’d expect we will be using more SaaS solutions into the future as everyone rushes into the “clouds.” That’s probably the new gold dream.

8. I’ve Looked at Clouds from Both Sides Now

While I don’t think things will change overnight, I’m a believer that if cloud computing offers a greener, cheaper and easier way of doing things to your standard data-centre model, it will succeed. That said, I don’t think people will shut down their IT infrastructures overnight. Look forward to seeing cloud-based implementations of productivity applications like MS-exchange, gmail, sharepoint, office, google docs taking a foothold in enterprises. On its heels applications from Intuit, Mint, 37Signals, and the like will continue to gain in popularity.

Big ERP’s may take much longer to migrate to the cloud. Perhaps “Platform as a Service” will be the approach that succeeds for core enterprise applications. Can you say Service Bureau 2.0?

We will continue to work with other schools to create “trusted clouds” of shared services.

9. Social Networking

Now that the whole world is on Facebook (fb) or some other social network, look forward to seeing more corporate implementations of social network-like packages. I’m not thinking that we would actually use fb for University collaboration (I’m not convinced fb groups or applications actually have much uptake)  but look forward to fb look and feel in collaborative applications behind the firewall to improve internal communications.

10. The Search for IT Talent Continues

Global Economic Downturn or not, the IT talent pool is shallow. We will continue having trouble attracting and retaining pros over the next year. Woe is me.

Gentle Reader;

Today I was going  to write a clever entry about iPods. Everyone has one and some people I know change them once a year, like shoes. That’s all part of the Apple marketing campaign, captured exquisitely in this classic by the MadTV people.

But does the music coming out of all those iPods sound any good? I’m not convinced. Are we just trading off sound quality for storage quantity and dare I say, fashion?  Are we getting further and further away from how the music originally sounded? Will anything ever sound good again??? Inquiring minds want to know.

Answering these questions requires research and that’s when things got far too complicated for me. I needed to learn a lot more about Nyquist sampling algorithms, lossy compression techniques, codecs and rate-distortion theory. This science would inform the ideal bit rates for sound reproduction and playback. And I still wouldn’t have addressed the psycho-acoustical properties that need to be considered when you try and trick the human ear. And what about the quality of the headphones you use? (I bought myself some of those fancy noise canceling ones for Christmas – I’ll report back in the new year if that helped.)

So at this time it seems I can’t really comment on iPod sound quality. But I do have a theory. My theory is that your mood is directly related to your perception of sound quality. For example, music always seems to sound better at my brother’s house. Maybe it’s his dedicated listening room with the comfy chairs and a stereo that costs about as much as my car. Maybe it’s that rich, warm sound coming out of those speakers or maybe just the down-home hospitality and snacks.

I haven’t a clue. Happy Friday.

It’s about time that I started to do top 10 lists on my blog. For the record I originally posted this on our website in January 2007 but this is new and improved for 2008! Also, the items on my top ten lists are in no particular order…

In all seriousness, the ICT industry is, according to Gartner, as big a polluter as the aviation industry so we have lots of work to do to reduce CO2 emissions. Here are a few things we are doing:

1. Perhaps the biggest energy saver has come from the move from CRT to LCD monitors. LCD displays use only a third of the energy with a similar sized CRT. When you have thousands of monitors like we do, it adds up…
2. We continue to look for ways of reducing paper by providing people access to on-line reports, electronic mail or electronic workflow where possible.
3. We also actively promote the use of IP based video conferencing to reduce travel. In fact, we have 720p high definition video conferencing in place if you want to look really good.
4. The digital signage currently in use reduces the need for printing bulletin board ads. These displays also shut off at night to save energy.
5. Speaking of shutting off at night, currently all multimedia projectors connected to Crestron controls automatically shut off at 11pm each night. Except for the labs open 24 hours a day, all other lab PC’s are set to power down at 12:15am every night.
6. We are going crazy with VMWARE technology in the server room with a goal of 60% of our server instances running as virtualized sessions. This means that fewer servers and disks need to be purchased. Besides from reducing costs, the cooling requirements are reduced in the data centre, saving significant energy. We are currently testing desktop virtualization technologies to do get the same success
7. Our new data centre is a “lights out” environment – meaning just that!
8. Heat generated from the new data centre in the BCCOL is recovered and used to provide heat for offices.
9. The TRU computer leasing program means that end-of-lease doesn’t mean end-of-life. Instead of going to a landfill, TRU’s lease returned equipment is sold to secondary markets. All Apple products are manufactured with full-lifecycle green standards – meaning that the devices are mostly aluminum and glass.
10. Power management is enabled on all campus printing devices.
11. We lease equipment with ultra efficient power supplies. By this one simple move, we reduce energy requirements equivalent to burning approximately 12,000 US gallons of gasoline per year.
12. We are actively looking at alternatives to hosting applications locally, including Software as a Service and Cloud Computing.

Earlier I spoke of the benefits of plain old hard work and old fashioned subscription models as the way to make money on the web.

Well forget all that because, while I was sleeping, the web  moved to smart phones like the iPhone and the new gold rush are the riches to be made from creating clever iPhone apps. These are the single purpose applications that give you directions to the closest Tim Horton’s donut shop or cheapest gas station near you or the latest game for your hand held or… Because they are so cheap (say $1-5), geeks everywhere are buying them like, er,  donuts.

Apple is supposedly selling applications through its iTunes iStore (App Store) to the tune of $30 million per month.

Okay, now to make piles of cash all you need to do is  come up with an ingenious idea, download the SDK pay the $99 fee to Apple (sheesh) and learn to program in Objective-C. Done.

PS Actually the Timmy Me donut finding application is free.