IT Storage Blog

More to come

Hope all is well for everyone.  Sorry it has been a while for some good content.  Will have some details about EMC World 2013 (including meetups), Celerra (VNX File), scale out SAN and other open source technologies.  ...Stay tuned.  This will mostlty be CLI intensive - so be prepared.  :)

What are you worth?

Interesting data collected below.  My personal observations are that there is a huge gap on skills of the age group between undergrad and seasoned professionals.  There is a gap on bringing up the new younger technologists and successfully transitioning them into mid level leadership, then successors.  If this would happen more (mentorship, etc) then management and business process owners would have a better selection of talent and spending/investment power.  There is a power loss in skills for IT.  If not addressed it will suffocate gradual growth over time.  

Here is a recent survey...

Digital Privacy -and the #Cloud (#Instagram)

What do we do with recorded voicemails, texts, and emails not explicitly owned on our own exclusive hardware?  Are there trusted providers that consumers and companies that we will value for their ethics?

 

....Moment by moment policies seem to change.  Are people more outraged by the overnight changes and inability to participate in the changes without being properly notified & ability to participate of continuing their options?  What if the small print is so small and so quick with deadlines that people cannot respond to "default out" ... or are perhaps legally responsible to accept - just like credit card companies & banks do so much with their users?   This example transcends the digital age.  Here is an example: What if Kodak created a license or policy right to every image created on negatives created with their technology & had a copy of every image of families / private events for the last 30 years?  What if every producer / partner of theirs kept (or kept a copy) since then (like a CVS or Wal-Mart)  -and then Kodak were to have the ability to sell it or archive it for their own purpose?  Then, now 20+ years later could sell or produce that as their own data?  Do you think there would be some resistance?  Just think about it.

So today, the (un)ethical response from corporate & un unprecedented government rulings seems to be: if you do not respond within a defined period of time (days or weeks), then you must automatically be OK with the new policy – and are thereby held by it.

Summary: there never seems to be the ethically response, you "grandfather" in your previous contract regardless of what company policies or "new ownership" dictates.  Sounds like a time to sound off my fellow friends. What should #Cloud provider's do?

 

Related articles

Instagram Rings its Own Death Knell and Leaps to the Mainstream

Don't Like Instagram's New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy? Quitting Is The Only Way Out

Facebook is changing its Instagram privacy policy

Instagram Can Now Sell Your Photos Without You Knowing

Some great historical facts--> Technology gurus are gurus for a reason, :) http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671425/how-googles-designers-are-quietly-overhauling-search#1

Flash is Big, Memory is Bigger? #DataStorage

Notwithstanding the tides of innovation and time.  Is it no wonder Memory Chips have re-surged?  Check out some fantastic wonders from SAP HANA.  EMC did it in the late 70's & regressed to spinning disks in 80's and 90's. Data General was an acquisition for the mid market to make information storage at a lower cost.  SAP does it again to be better faster & lower cost (Memory is the new low cost investment & commodity)  (clustered advanced cache techniques are the common answers) Let's take a look:

Predictive Analysis gains new grounds (page 13):

http://www.saphana.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/2858-102-1-5319/Extending%20Analytics%20with%20Predictive%20Analysis.pdf

(Just want to know where it rests when not in use? ... Are spinning disks involved?) Thoughts?

 

Related articles

eProvided's Memory Stick Recovery Service Techniques and NEW 44TB SSD Storage Devices

EMC To Deliver All Flash Storage Array for Datacenters

Computer RAM. How Stuff Works

Violin Memory Hires SVP of North American Sales to Expand Growth of Flash-Based Memory Storage Systems

Fun Things To Do With #BigData (via Google Trends)

Here are a few fun searches in Google Trends.  Big Data has a lot of uses.  Who will harness the power best?  Who is already doing it well?  Who are your favorites?  Think we may have stumbled onto something.... now just need to correlate and decipher these searches.  Perhaps the API will lend itself more intelligence

Searches: (Notice the seasonal trends, and also notice the predictability)

1. Server Popularity
2. Storage Companies
3. IU Basketball
4. Smartphones

(you may want to try "flu" or "strep throat", etc - and zero the trends down per region.  Very interesting data to discover & perhaps prepare for too!)  Here is a link for your own searches: 

 

Re-Tweet / Title of The Week

Storage: the crack cocaine of cloud computing

"Storage price slashing continues as Microsoft meets cuts Google and Amazon traded last week. There's method in this madness -- lots of businesses have yet to test the cloud, and cheap storage is a way…"

Informative article I saw Tweeted a few times this week... by Barb Darrow:
http://gigaom.com/cloud/storage-the-crack-cocaine-of-cloud-computing/

Brad's Take:

1. The extended price of storage is purely a sales technique.  This is what I call a "percieved" discount.  The cost of storage to customers (and also the Cloud providers) is much higher.  Your "cost" for storage is recovered eaily by the provider either in other costs or services...
2. AND "dare I say" in some contexts, possible data profiling/ownership techniques - without explicit consent in the Terms/Agreements of the cutomer contract?  
3. Not to mention, very few providers actually know how to work with customers on real life performance benchmarks & other I/O requirements arround connectivity and application responsiveness to the End User.  That said, often "you get, what you pay for" ...

(Buyer Beware!   ...of your storage)  :)   Great story & insights Barb!

Related articles

Storage: the crack cocaine of cloud computing [GigaOM]

Modern storage dilemma: The hard drive or the cloud?

Brad's 11 daily things to do in December, to help life worth waking up to & sleep better at night:

1 - Have a glass of H2O when you wake up in the morning.

2 - Take at least six, 10 minute breaks. Do not work on any project more than 50 minutes at a time.

3 - Use a new or different Operating System for 10 % of the day. (Get the IT guy to help you as needed).

4 - Don't reply to every text msg. Call someone back instead.

5 - Take the advice of a friend back home & sleep on it.

6 - Challenge a friend.

7 - Recommend a friend to another person.

8 - Say hello & thank you to every stranger you meet.

9 - Arrive 10 minutes early to every meeting or conf call. No excuses. Others deserve our respect & preparedness.

10 - Play an instrument in a different key in the evenings. (or try to learn one).

11 - Count out loud when necessary. Are you paying attention to others & this count so far? :)

12 - Talk with a family member at least once per day. Answer questions honestly.

(optional… take a pet for a walk 2x, if you skip any steps)

Is OPEX your friend in IT?

 It’s funny to have the OPEX and CAPEX conversation with fellow technology geeks and sales people.  Everyone says OPEX is better, and tells the CFO and CIO that today’s solution is going to save you from CAPEX!  I think most decision makers are getting tired of hearing that.  So much –it’s almost dismissed as sales buzz words.  Probably because many consultants forget the deeper significance (AND when there are exceptions to the rule).  What happens when you ask the geek and sales guy the significance of the two?  What is the difference between CAPEX and OPEX?

Just to clarify what you should know (follow link):

Who Are You? What Do You Mean By Cloud?

It's very frustrating as a consumer and a commercial organization to wade through the many vendors and consultants who talk about bringing "cloud" to the IT organization.  How do I know?  Because my clients tell me.  Not only are my client friends trying to figure out a concise repeatable definition to "sell" internally to their management and business teams -but they are also being bombarded with vendors saying the latest buzz words and claiming to take them on the journey.  The term "cloud" has different connotations depending on an IT professional's (consultant's) products, offerings, or place within the eco system.

That being said, I've been asked to create some examples to hopefully illustrate some thoughts on how to interpret 'who's who' -among the landscape.  This will enable the right conversations in the right context when inviting (or ignoring) the next "cloud" expert to the office.