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.

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…

And another excellent presentation from Simon Wardley on the topic.

Cloud Computing is a generic term used to describe the disruptive transformation in IT towards a service-based economy driven by a set of economic, cultural, and technological  conditions.

His definition moves our thinking away from the narrow, vendor-driven definition of cloud computing (relating to products and technologies) to include the social, economic factors leading to this shift to services. Spot on I say. From OSCON 2009:

Data centre coming to a town near you?

Exciting developments in our region as Q9 and EDS announce the creation of a new data centre in Kamloops, located on McGill Road near the campus. As this will store Government data, the ownership arrangement is such that the data won’t be subject to the Patriot Act.

The facility is planned to be 50,000 square feet on a six acre property. This is certainly good news and, as I’ve argued, the Kamloops region an ideal location because of a number of strategic advantages:

• Trained IT labour force;
• National fibre runs right through town;
• Dark-fibre infrastructure in place;
• Situation high above the floodplain;
• Low seismic activity; and,
• Opportunities for Free-Cooling.

In other news, cloud computing spotters will have also noticed this week that Google displayed one of it’s data centre servers. Instead of using brand name pizza boxes, Google apparently builds their own, with the innovation that includes on-board backup power.

Once a carefully guarded Google secret

Other interesting aspects of the Googleplex are that servers are stored in 250KW capacity containers. Each container can store 1,160 servers. Google also runs their data centre hot, apparently. More specs here.

And the future and why things aren’t simple.

An interesting presentation that challenged my assumptions on innovation and commoditization. And I thought management was simple…

I’ve tended to think that the future was that everything we do in internal IT would become a utility service elsewhere and that would be the end of it. Perhaps things aren’t so simple and we take our role in cultivating innovation in the organization for granted..

Wardley mentions the Red Queen Hypothesis  from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and equates that with the role of management. The Red Queen says that ”It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” Getting the balance right between the innovative and the commodity is the key.

The following chart from Wardley’s blog illustrates how technologies move along the s-curve from the innovative to the mundane. Picking the right technologies at the right time was the challenge faced by management and the source of continuous competitive advantage.

Good Evening,

1. If you are currently using Internet Explore 7.0, please don’t. A critical vulnerability exists that could infect your computer, launch malicious code remotely from your machine, steal your passwords and bring all sorts of other nasties upon you. At this time we aren’t sure if anti-virus software will catch the vulnerability. I suggest you run ”Mozilla Firefox” or some other browser until there is a rock-solid patch for Internet Explorer 7.0 – expected some time in January 2009. For TRU users, Firefox should already be installed on your desktop computer. The IT Service Desk will provide you any help you need. Update – Microsoft has now released a patch for this. Run Windows Updates – Security.
   
2. You may have noticed that the Toronto Stock Exchange has been down all day due to a “computer problem.” You may also recall that the London Stock Exchange was down all day in September.  Two things come to mind here, a) It would totally suck to be the IT Manager at those outfits and b) in our rush to cloudify everything, we may want to take extra care of those systems that can kill our fragile economies;
3. Green idea of the day – run the data centre hotter. While we currently keep the A/C on full tilt in our data centre, telecom companies are starting to run theirs at 35 degrees C. Given the bone chilling weather of late, I wouldn’t mind being in a nice warm server farm about now. Sorry, no fancy drinks allowed;
4. In other, non-IT related news, Canada was voted the friendliest place on Earth in an HSBC expat survey. The link is to a rather odd article (i.e. not as “in-depth” as advertised)  but nevertheless isn’t it great to be finally recognized as being so friendly, eh?
5. Sadly, your correspondent has been laid low with a bad flu. If he was smart he would have seen this sickness coming on Google’s Flu Trend Tracker and stayed inside, avoiding all contact.

Fond Memory - Dog

Imaginary hands up who has a laptop or home computer? – lots of hands

Hands up who store precious and other memories in the form of digital photos, rare Brinsley Schwartz songs, etc on said device? – many hands

Hands up who back up those computers? – less hands

Hands up if a fire, flood or theft in your dorm or residence caused your computer to go AWOL – would your precious data be safe? even less hands; Ashen and crestfallen faces.

You see, we’ve basically digitized our memories over the last 10 years and with Web 2.0 stuff it’s gotten even more frenetic. Even my dear olde Dad has scanned and processed a lifetime of slides and family photos into his iMac. This data needs protecting.

But on this cold December day we need to come face-to-face with the home truth that we are all backup slackers. Dad and I use a solution called “Time Machine”, that comes with the Mac and provides automated “near-line” storage and recovery. This software, connected to a USB hard drive, acts as a good “belt” in the backup wardrobe but doesn’t protect you from the nightmare scenario of total loss. To do that you need to go to the “cloud.”

So today I decided to change my ways and test out some remote backup software. Being of Australian heritage I liked the sound of the Mozy solution.  It also seemed simple to use and is backed by that little company called EMC. I also liked the cute message about reticulating splines that comes up when it is configuring itself. If it reticulates its splines, it must be good…

Note that these solutions aren’t free (mozy is $5 per month per machine if you have more than 2GB to store – well duh) and may cause your ISP consternation when it takes that first big backup gulp of your hard drive. Remember also that this data is stored somewhere out on the cloud, probably in the USA, where Uncle Sam can view those pictures of Boots and Fluffy should those cute kittens pose a threat to national security. They are also slowwwwww to backup.

Whichever fashion accessory you choose to protect your data – belt, suspenders or both – do something people!

I remember an electrical engineer once telling me that “all the best software becomes hardware.” I think what he was referring to at the time was that the most useful software based functions and drivers find themselves eventually mounted as an ASIC someday.

I’m starting to see this evolution of software to hardware more and more in the form of “appliances” in our data centre.  For example we use a “google mini”, an appliance to speed up searches of our website. The trade off with this blue (black) box is that it will index everything in our web environment, whether or not that was the intention.

Perhaps the biggest, most expensive appliance you can now get is the recently announced HP Oracle Database Machine.  Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle announced in September at Oracle World that the 168TB  monster can run your Oracle Data warehouses 10-50x faster than your usual hardware/software combos.

The marketing of appliances such as the Oracle Machine to institutions and corporations has me scratching my head. Is the future of cloud computing to be football field sized data-centres with thousands of inexpensive CPU’s and disks velcroed to the wall or these expensive, well branded appliances? Time will tell.

I want simple applications that I can get to from anywhere, i.e., I want the City to tell me when the garbage truck will be at my house. I get confused with the calendar and the changes in pick up days. I want a message that comes to my mobile device, TV, computer screen, refrigerator, and car dashboard that says:

“Reminder: Recycling/Garbage Day Tomorrow“

then, suddenly the next morning:

“Garbage Truck will be here in 17.38 minutes. Get out of bed lazy!”

I also want to be able to book appointments using my mobile device, TV, laptop, refrigerator, or car dashboard directly with the doctor, salon, golf course, dentist, hairdresser, or doggie-day care people without an endless back and forth of calls, hold musak and busy signals. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want to get a message that says “wisdom teeth extraction tomorrow: 8am.” (Well not really.) If the dentist’s office could also book it in my e-calendar I’d be most appreciative.

I want to get an email from the washing machine telling me it’s done.

While the smart-phone wars rage on and on, I think we will be moving to a time when we won’t really care what shiny device we get our info from, just so long as we get our info. Any old point of interface will do. As long the thingie I’m using connects to the cloud that connects to the garbage truck that is rumbling down the boulevard, I’ll be satisfied.

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.