Day two of the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas continued reinforcing old topics, appearing at times to be either enlist attendees in contributing to Gartner research, or simply providing conference content directed to promoting conference sponsors.
For example, sessions “To the Point: When Open Meets Cloud” and “Backup/Recovery: Backing Up the Future” included a series of audience surveys. Those surveys were apparently the same as presented, in the same sessions, for several years. Thus the speaker immediately referenced this year’s results vs. results from the same survey questions from the past two years. This would lead a casual attendee to believe nothing radically new is being presented in the above topics, and the attendees are generally contributing to further trend analysis research that will eventually show up in a commercial Gartner Research Note.
Gartner analyst and speaker on the topic of “When Open Meets Clouds,” Aneel Lakhani, did make a couple useful, if not obvious points in his presentation.
- We cannot secure complete freedom from vendors, regardless of how much you adopt open source
- Open source can actually be more expensive than commercial products
- Interoperability is easy to say, but a heck of a lot more complicated to implement
- Enterprise users have a very low threshold for “test” environments (sorry DevOps guys)
- If your organization has the time and staff, test, test, and test a bit more to ensure your open source product will perform as expected or designed
However analyst Dave Russell, speaker on the topic of “Backup/Recovery” was a bit more cut and paste in his approach. Lots of questions to match against last year’s conference, and a strong emphasis on using tape as a continuing, if not growing media for disaster recovery.
Problem with this presentation was the discussion centered on backing up data – very little on business continuity. In fact, in one slide he referenced a recovery point objective (RPO) of one day for backups. What organization operating in a global market, in Internet time, can possibly design for a one day RPO?
In addition, there was no discussion on the need for compatible hardware in a disaster recovery site that would allow immediate or rapid restart of applications. Having data on tape is fine. Having mainframe archival data is fine. But without a business continuity capability, it is likely any organization will suffer significant damage in their ability to function in their marketplace. Very few organizations today can absorb an extended global presence outage or marketplace outage.
The conference continues until Thursday and we will look for more, positive approaches, to data center and cloud computing.
Gartner’s 2012 Data Center Conference in Las Vegas is noted for not yielding any major surprise. While having an uncanny number of attendees (*the stats are not available, however it is clear they are having a very good conference), most of the sessions appear to be simply reaffirming what everybody really knows already, serving to reinforce the reality data center consolidation, cloud computing, big data, and the move to an interoperable framework will be part of everybody’s life within a few years.
Gartner analyst Ray Paquet started the morning by drawing a line at the real value of server hardware in cloud computing. Paquet stressed that cloud adopters should avoid integrated hardware solutions based on blade servers, which carry a high margin, and focus their CAPEX on cheaper “skinless” servers. Paquet emphasized that integrated solutions are a “waste of money.”
Cameron Haight, another Gartner analyst, fired a volley at the process and framework world, with a comparison of the value DevOps brings versus ITIL. Describing ITIL as a cumbersome burden to organizational agility, DevOps is a culture-changer that allows small groups to quickly respond to challenges. Haight emphasized the frequently stressful relationship between development organizations and operations organizations, where operations demands stability and quality, and development needs freedom to move projects forward, sometimes without the comfort of baking code to the standards preferred by operations – and required by frameworks such as ITIL.
Haight’s most direct slide described De Ops as being “ITIL minus CRAP.” Of course most of his supporting slides for moving to DevOps looked eerily like an ITIL process….
Other sessions attended (by the author) included “Shaping Private Clouds,” a WIPRO product demonstration, and a data center introduction by Raging Wire. All valuable introductions for those who are considering making a major change in their internal IT deployments, but nothing cutting edge or radical.
The Raging Wire data center discussion did raise some questions on the overall vulnerability of large box data centers. While it is certainly possible to build a data center up to any standard needed to fulfill a specific need, the large data center clusters in locations such as Northern Virginia are beginning to appear very vulnerable to either natural, human, or equipment failure disruptions. In addition to fulfilling data center tier classification models as presented by the Uptime Institute, it is clear we are producing critical national infrastructure which if disrupted could cause significant damage to the US economy or even social order.
Eventually, much like the communications infrastructure in the US, data centers will need to come under the observation or review of a national agency such as Homeland Security. While nobody wants a government officer in the data center, protection of national infrastructure is a consideration we probably will not be able to avoid for long.
Raging Wire also noted that some colocation customers, particularly social media companies, are hitting up to 8kW per cabinet. Also scary if true, and in extended deployments. This could result in serious operational problems if cooling systems were disrupted, as the heat generated in those cabinets will quickly become extreme. Would also be interesting if companies like Raging Wire and other colocation companies considered developing a real time CFD monitor for their data center floors allowing better monitoring and predictability than simple zone monitoring solutions.
The best presentation of the day came at the end, “Big Data is Coming to Your Data Center.” Gartner’s Sheila Childs brought color and enthusiasm to a topic many consider, well, boring. Childs was able to bring the value, power, and future of big data into a human consumable format that kept the audience in their seats until the end of session at 6 p.m. in the late afternoon.
Childs hit on concepts such as “dark data” within organizations, the value of big data in decision support systems (DSS), and the need for developing and recruiting skilled staff who can actually write or build the systems needed to fully exploit the value of big data. We cannot argue that point, and can only hope our education system is able to focus on producing graduates with the basic skills needed to fulfill that requirement.
Pacific-Tier Communications and Burbank N Beyond’s Innovators and Entrepreneurs had an opportunity to visit with Amy Kramer, President and Marketing Whiz, and Lee Wochner, CEO and Creative Strategist, at Counterintuity LLC, a Burbank-based agency focusing on Internet marketing. 
Amy and Lee discussed a variety of topics ranging from taking the risk with a start up company, to their visions and ideas on Internet marketing and social media, as well as why Burbank is a great place to run a business.
Counterintuity is a full-service marketing agency that has designed, launched and maintained hundreds of custom-built websites, digital marketing strategies, public relations, search engine optimization, social media campaigns, as well as identity and print pieces.
PT-BNB: It is kind of scary doing a start up when you have worked in a corporate environment your entire life – how did you get started?
Amy: Back in the late 90s I was working in direct response, in infomercials. And I was helping a very large product break into the web. So we were launching eCommerce sites doing email marketing when it was only text, and Lyrist was the only provider. And so right there at the very cusp of Internet marketing I was there with a budget.
It was a tremendous opportunity. So after launching that product, then we’re into 2000 and it was really starting to grow, and the opportunities were really awesome.
So I left the cushy direct response gig and decided to break out and do it myself.
The there was an opportunity for Lee and I together to bring this Internet marketing product and series of products to small businesses and organizations. Because previously it was only available because the cost was so prohibitive. So we were able to bring it to a wider range of businesses and organizations.
Lee: Amy and I already had a working relationship and I already knew she was a really smart digital marketer, we work well together, and I think it is a great time to be in business, it is an important time for entrepreneurship, and I think a lot of the problem in the country and in the world will increasingly be solved by entrepreneurial solutions.
And so what we were looking to do was find a way to leverage those sorts of opportunities for smaller businesses rather than lock them out because they don’t have big budget.
PT-BNB: Are smaller business a focus of the Counterintuity, does it make any difference what size a business is?
Lee: It really depends on how you define small business. I think small business as defined by the federal government is 500 employees or fewer. So people, even in the Small Business Administration think they need to redefine that.
We have clients who do a million dollars a year in revenue, sometimes a little bit less. And we have clients who do 200 million dollars a year in revenue or more. About a third of our clients are non-profit or public sector. So I don’t know if they really fit that profile.
But the commonality among all of our clients is that they are looking to succeed in entrepreneurial ways in response to all of the changes in consumer patterns driven by the Internet.
PT-BNB: On your website you show three majors areas which include social media, website design, and digital marketing. You wouldn’t have seen that 10 years ago, with social media being a focal point. What is the impact of social media? Why is that important for us to understand?
Lee: So next week we’re doing a presentation for the city as part of “Team Business.” We’re going to be doing our “Get Connected Social Media Seminar.”
Let me give you the shortest, best answer I can. Social media is word of mouth marketing done big. Amy and I both have a background in the theater. That’s how we met in 1999. What you find out in the theater is that it doesn’t matter what your ads are, what your reviews are, the primary way to drive business is through “word of mouth.”
Social media presents a suite of tools that allows you to capture word of mouth from all of the people you are connected to and spread it.
Obviously there’s a potential upside and a potential downside to that. The potential upside is “hey this is really great we really like this,” and the potential downside is “we were really disappointed, we don’t really like this, and forget them.”
There has always been a conversation about you, your product, and your service. Now you have more opportunity than ever to manage that, and to spread the word, and to turn other people into advocates for you online.
PT-BNB: What does social media mean for the generation that is just graduating from high school and college, and what role do you play in being able to fulfill their need for having access to social media?
Lee: What need does the typewriter fill? Or the quill pen?
It’s not a marketing tool, it is a tool. A basic tool. It is a communications platform. It’s a way to connect everybody up, with all of their content. Some of the content might be “here is a picture of my kid.” And “here is the dinner we had.” I took a picture of my dinner in San Francisco the other night because it was so interesting, and I built a blog post around it.
And then all these people on Facebook “liked” the picture of my dinner, and said they wished they’d had it. If that had been my client in San Francisco I would have linked to it.
But see it was my life, and then I could turn it into marketing, but really it’s about the tool.
When people talk about social media marketing, then I say we’re talking about communications. When you think about it, when you are born the very first thing you do is communicate. You cry, and then you start to breath. You are crying to communicate.
Communication is at the heart of who we are. There is (traditional) scientific research that says we developed more than other primates because we have language, and because we have bigger brains.
The new thinking is we have bigger brains because we developed language, developed synaptic connections, and grew our brain muscles.
So language and communication are at the core of who we are.
I try to talk to people and say “don’t focus on the tool.” If I give you the three basic ways to think about all the social media tools then you can do anything you want with them. Don’t get hung up on how seemingly complex there are, and how to use them.
It’s like your car. I have no idea how the cylinders work. I just drive it. That’s how social media should work for you.
Amy: And when you talk about the next generation, they are just using it (social media) in different ways. They don’t like talking on the phone as much. They like texting more. It’s a small, quick conversation.
Turns out a lot of the kids are not into Facebook. Some prefer Twitter. Others right now are really into Instagram. It is a great way for them to share what they are doing, and what they are involved in. Visual storytelling.
Again it is sharing information, it all comes down to what’s sharing what is going on in your life and telling that story. Whether it is for you personally, or whether it is for a brand.
Kids today – email. Not as big with kids. They are doing Facebook messaging. They are doing DMs on Twitter. Just a text. It is a different way to communicate. But as Lee was saying, it is just a communication tool, it is just how new social media and new Internet platforms are helping them (young people) communicate.
PT-BNB: What is the role of blogging?
Lee: Blogging at its core is journaling.
As marketers, we recommend it for our clients. And the reason we recommend blogging for clients is it is a way to build credibility and to expand your authority in your industry.
When journalists are looking for folks to interview, where do you go? You go to LinkedIn to look them up, and generally the next place is their website. Then if you get to their website and want to look at what they have to say you go to their blog.
Because that gives you a bit of insight into their voice and into their POV (point of view).
The you go “oh, they might be good for this entrepreneurial article that I’m writing.”
So blogging is an entrée into PR. It is an entrée into getting more coverage, as well as if a client is looking for someone like you it can actually help your search engine optimization, significantly. Because it can give you opportunities to talk about what you do.
So blogging is good for authority, it is good for search rankings, because the more content, and the more regularly you update your content on your website and your blog, the more highly Google thinks of you.
PT-BNB: How about video?
Lee: Massive, huge. We’ve been doing more and more video for clients and for ourselves, and have been winning awards for it. It (video) has got to be brief, it has got to be interesting, it has got to make a point, and you need to share it.
Put it on Youtube, Tweet out a link, put it on your Facebook, put it on your website, stick it in your blog, repurpose your content, because then people will see it more often.
Amy: And it has got to be short. Attention spans are now teeny. It must play quickly.
Lee: So if you go to our Youtube page you will see some of the videos we have done. We’ve been doing client videos and internal videos, and the great thing is you no longer need a massive budget.
Now there are projects we’ve done for very large clients who have a budget, and we can go do what would be called a corporate-looking video.
Then there are ways to do more guerrilla type video. We did a video recently for Center Theater Group, the Taper, Ahmanson, Kirk Douglass Theater. I and our video editor went down there and we did 13 setups and shot the whole video in about 4 hours. Because now the technology is such that you can go do that, be really mobile, really fast. We wrote the script in advance, went down and shot it, and then it took about a half a day to do the first cut on a laptop.
We sent it to the client, the client asked for a few tweaks, and in just two days we had a complete corporate video for them.
PT-BNB: Why did you decide to setup shop in Burbank?
Lee: Burbank is a great place to do business. Burbank is a tight knit community, it is easy to do business here, and it is easy to become part of the community.
The city has been terrific. We have personal relationships with all the city council members, the mayor, the city staff… Whenever we have had an issue or an opportunity they have resolved it very fast. They have worked with us, and we have nothing but positive things to say about the city.
With regard to the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber has been a key driver in our business. They have been so terrific at connecting us up, offering valuable services, and anything we can do with or for the Chamber we will do it.
It is a great place to be, Burbank.
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You can learn more about Counterintuity at their website www.counterintuity.com
Burbank Innovators and Entrepreneurs
Burbank is the home of the global entertainment industry, prominent in aviation, and a burgeoning Internet development community. Burbank Innovators and Entrepreneurs will look at companies and persons based in Burbank making an impact in their industry, with an emphasis on entrepreneurs, and those on the cutting edge of technology, services, and thought leadership.
Innovators and Entrepreneurs will bring personal interviews digging into the motivations, challenges, successes, personalities, with visions of companies and people driving our business community into the future.
If you have a Burbank-based company or recommendation of a company, that is at the cutting edge of your industry, are an innovator, or an entrepreneur, and would like either Pacific-Tier Communications or BurbankNBeyond to highlight the activity, send a note to jsavageau@burbanknbeyond.com.
Federal, state, and local government agencies gathered in Washington D.C. on 16 February to participate in Cloud/Gov 2012 held at the Westin Washington D.C. With Keynotes by David L. McLure, US General Services Administration, and Dawn Leaf, NIST, vendors and government agencies were brought up to date on federal cloud policies and initiatives.
Of special note were updates on the FedRAMP program (a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services) and NIST’s progress on standards. “The FedRAMP process chart looks complicated” noted McLure, “however we are trying to provide support needed to accelerate the (FedRAMP vendor) approval process.
McLure also provided a roadmap for FedRAMP implementation, with FY13/Q2 targeted for full operation and FY14 planned for sustaining operations.
In a panel focusing on government case studies, David Terry from the Department of Education commented that “mobile phones are rapidly becoming the access point (to applications and data) for young people.” Applications (SaaS) should be written to accommodate mobile devices, and “auto-adjust to user access devices.”
Tim Matson from DISA highlighted the US Department of Defense’s Forge.Mil initiative providing an open collaboration community for both the military and development community to work together in rapidly developing new applications to better support DoD activities. While Forge.Mil has tighter controls than standard GSA (US General Services Administration) standards, Matson emphasized “DISA wants to force the concept of change into the behavior of vendors.” Matson continued explaining that Forge.Mil will reinforce “a pipeline to support continuous delivery” of new applications.
While technology and process change topics provided a majority of discussion points, mostly enthusiastic, David Mihalchik from Google advised “we still do not know the long term impact of global collaboration. The culture is changing, forced on by the idea of global collaboration.”
Other areas of discussion among panel members throughout the day included the need for establishing and defining service level agreements (SLAs) for cloud services. Daniel Burton from SalesForce.Com explained their SLAs are broken into two categories, SLAs based on subscription services, and those based on specific negotiations with government customers. Other vendors took a stab at explaining their SLAs, without giving specific examples of their SLAs, leaving the audience without a solid answer.
NIST Takes the Leadership Role
The highlight of the day was provided by Dawn Leaf, Senior Executive for Cloud Computing with NIST. Leaf provided very logical guidance for all cloud computing stakeholders, including vendors and users.
“US industry requires an international standard to ensure (global) competitiveness” explained Leaf. In the past US vendors and service providers have developed standards which were not compatible with European and other standards, notably in wireless telephony, and one of NIST’s objectives is to participate in developing a global standard for cloud computing to prevent this possibility in cloud computing.
Cloud infrastructure and SaaS portability is also a high interest item for NIST. Leaf advises that “we can force vendors into demonstrating their portability. There are a lot of new entries in the business, and we need to force the vendors into proving their portability and interoperability.”
Leaf also reinforced the idea that standards are developed in the private sector. NIST provides guidance and an architectural framework for vendors and the private sector to use as reference when developing those specific technical standards. However leaf also had one caution for private industry, “industry should try to map their products to NIST references, as the government is not in a position to wait” for extended debates on the development of specific items, when the need for cloud computing development and implementation is immediate.
Further information on the conference, with agendas and participants is available at www.sia.net
2011 was a great year for technology innovation. The science of data center design and operations continued to improve, the move away from mixed-use buildings used as data centers continued, the watts/sqft metric took a second seat to overall kilowatts available to a facility or customer, and the idea of compute capacity and broadband as a utility began to take its place as a basic right of citizens.
However, there are 5 areas where we will see additional significant advances in 2012.
1. Data Center Consolidation. The US Government admits it is using only 27% of its overall available compute power. With 2094 data centers supporting the federal government (from the CIO’s 25 Point Plan to Reform Fed IT Mgt), the government is required to close at least 800 of those data centers by 2015.
The lesson is not lost on state and local governments, private industry, or even internet content providers. The economics of operating a data center or server closet, whether in costs of real estate, power, hardware, in addition to service and licensing agreements, are compelling enough to make even the most fervent server-hugger reconsider their religion.
2. Cloud Computing. Who doesn’t believe cloud computing will eventually replace the need for a server closets, cabinets, or even small cages in data centers? The move to cloud computing is as certain as the move to email was in the 1980s.
Some IT managers and data owners hate the idea of cloud computing, enterprise service busses, and consolidated data. Not so much an issue of losing control, but in many cases because it brings transparency to their operation. If you are the owner of data in a developing country, and suddenly everything you do can be audited by a central authority – well it might make you uncomfortable…
A lesson learned while attending a fast pitch contest during late 2009 in Irvine, CA… An enterprising entrepreneur gave his “pitch” to a panel of investment bankers and venture capital representatives. He stated he was looking for a $5 million investment in his startup company.
A panelist asked what the money was for, and the entrepreneur stated “.. and $2 million to build out a data center…” The panelist responded that 90% of new companies fail within 2 years. Why would he want to be stuck with the liability of a data center and hardware if the company failed? The gentleman further stated, “don’t waste my money on a data center – do the smart thing, use the Amazon cloud.”
3. Virtual Desktops and Hosted Office Automation. How many times have we lost data and files due to a failed hard drive, stolen laptop, or virus disrupting our computer? What is the cost or burden of keeping licenses updated, versions updated, and security patches current in an organization with potentially hundreds of users? What is the lead time when a user needs a new application loaded on a computer?
From applications as simple as Google Docs, to Microsoft 365, and other desktop replacement applications suites, users will become free from the burden of carrying a heavy laptop computer everywhere they travel. Imagine being able to connect your 4G/LTE phone’s HDMI port to a hotel widescreen television monitor, and be able to access all the applications normally used at a desktop. You can give a presentation off your phone, update company documents, or nearly any other IT function with the only limitation being a requirement to access broadband Internet connections (See # 5 below).
Your phone can already connect to Google Docs and Microsoft Live Office, and the flexibility of access will only improve as iPads and other mobile devices mature.
The other obvious benefit is files will be maintained on servers, much more likely to be backed up and included in a disaster recovery plan.
4. The Science of Data Centers. It has only been a few years since small hosting companies were satisfied to go into a data center carved out of a mixed-use building, happy to have access to electricity, cooling, and a menu of available Internet network providers. Most rooms were 
designed to accommodate 2~3kW per cabinet, and users installed servers, switches, NAS boxes, and routers without regard to alignment or power usage.
That has changed. No business or organization can survive without a 24x7x265 presence on the Internet, and most small enterprises – and large enterprises, are either consolidating their IT into professionally managed data centers, or have already washed their hands of servers and other IT infrastructure.
The Uptime Institute, BICSI, TIA, and government agencies have begun publishing guidelines on data center construction providing best practices, quality standards, design standards, and even standards for evaluation. Power efficiency using metrics such as the PUE/DCiE provide additional guidance on power management, data center management, and design.
The days of small business technicians running into a data center at 2 a.m. to install new servers, repair broken servers, and pile their empty boxes or garbage in their cabinet or cage on the way out are gone. The new data center religion is discipline, standards, discipline, and security. Electricity is as valuable as platinum, just as cooling and heat are managed more closely than inmates at San Quentin. While every other standards organization is now offering certification in cabling, data center design, and data center management, we can soon expect universities to offer an MS or Ph.D in data center sciences.
5. The 4th Utility Gains Traction. Orwell’s “1984” painted a picture of pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control (Wikipedia). Many people believe the Internet is the source of all evil, including identity theft, pornography, crime, over-socialization of cultures and thoughts, and a huge intellectual time sink that sucks us into the need to be wired or connected 24 hours a day.
Yes, that is pretty much true, and if we do not consider the 1000 good things about the Internet vs. each 1 negative aspect, it might be a pretty scary place to consider all future generations being exposed and indoctrinated. The alternative is to live in a intellectual Brazilian or Papuan rain forest, one step out of the evolutionary stone age.
The Internet is not going away, unless some global repressive government, fundamentalist religion, or dictator manages to dismantle civilization as we know it.
The 4th utility identifies broadband access to the ‘net as a basic right of all citizens, with the same status as roads, water, and electricity. All governments with a desire to have their nation survive and thrive in the next millennium will find a way to cooperate with network infrastructure providers to build out their national information infrastructure (haven’t heard that term since Al Gore, eh?).
Without a robust 4th utility, our children and their children will produce a global generation of intellectual migrant workers, intellectual refugees from a failed national information sciences vision and policy.
2012 should be a great year. All the above predictions are positive, and if proved true, will leave the United States and other countries with stronger capacities to improve their national quality of life, and bring us all another step closer.
Happy New Year!
On October 20th, Bill Reidway, Vice President of Numbering Services Product Management at Neustar blogged on the topic of number portability, and why it is important to both the telecom industry and end users. As manager of the National Portability Administration Center (NPAC), Neustar connects more than 2000 carriers in North America, supporting user ability to change carriers without changing their phone number, and seamlessly routing calls between all carriers regardless of the original source of individual or blocks of phone numbers.
Pacific-Tier Communications interviewed Reidway with the intent to learn more about Neustar’s activities with the NPAC, as well as dig a bit deeper into the company’s vision on the future of telephony, telephone numbers, and communications.
Origins of the NPAC
According to Reidway, administration of the NPAC has continued to change since local number portability was mandated as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Neustar has managed the NPAC program since 1997, with changes along the way including addition of wireless network portability, internodal portability, and most recently in 2007, VoIP carrier portability.
Reidway is convinced telephone numbers and telephone carriers have a good future. While many talk about the potential of peer-to-peer technologies, such as Skype, as the future of communications, Reidway strongly believes the need for telephone numbers remains unabated. “Even Skype needs to connect to the PSTN (public switched telephone network) to provide a meaningful user experience” noted Reidway. “Bypassing the telephone number is still an exception to the rule.”
While emphasizing the existing TDM networks offer a great deal of control, particularly in terms of cutting down unwanted telephony traffic, Reidway cautions the IP telephony world is still a bit like the wild, wild, west, raising challenges in security, load balancing, and network authorization. “Neustar has to keep up with technology” continued Reidway, explaining the telecom industry has made the decision to support Internet protocols (IP). He uses the cable industry as an example of carriers running “all” IP telephony networks.
Decline of the Fixed Line Network
It is clear fixed line telephone services in the United States are beginning a rapid decline, with users favoring mobile phones and computer-enabled telephony. Reidway fully appreciates the dynamics of user migrations and mobility, assuring the NPAC is not constrained by the “vagaries” associated with fixed-line networks and location. “As the fixed line network begins to fall by the wayside” explained Reidway, “the notion of telephone numbers associated with a specific geography falls with it.”
Reidway also explained that although telephone numbers no longer have rigid location sensitive significance, users still generally prefer to associate their phone numbers with a location, and that is particularly important for business users. While it is certainly possible for a business or individual to use an area code, or even country code from any point in the world, he believes an area code “still says something about the identity behind the number.”
A Peek into the Future
Neustar currently has no specific plan to change NPAC’s operations, as carriers understand there are still ample supplies of telephone numbers available to support new numbers, possibly for several decades into the future. With additional opportunities through number pooling (in 2000 the FCC allowed smaller carriers with large amounts of unused telephone numbers to contribute those excess resources to a common number resource pool for distribution to other carriers in need of additional numbers), North America has sufficient numbers to last at least several decades.
When asked of the potential of individuals, businesses, and even objects such as refrigerators all being able to tag an identity to an IPv6 address, with all potential modes of communication ultimately finding a way to that identity, Reidway understands the question. The issue, and the very long term significance, are a very important discussion, one which Reidway is prepared to engage.
The communications and network-enabled global community are changing quickly to meet the needs of existing and new users. Infrastructure shortfalls in many locations around the world which have historically throttled citizens from being able to join the the global community are now being reinforced, allowing nearly every point of the world some level of access to the Internet, long before most are able to secure a fixed line telephone.
Impact of Peer-to-Peer
As of September 2011 Skype claims more than 660 million registered users, nearly 1/8th of the world’s population, representing more than 190 billion minutes of non-telephony, unpaid communications, with 13% of those minutes bypassing international carriers.
As the concept of interpersonal communications continues to morph into a form which may not be easily envisioned today, Nuestar, with additional services such as domain name and registry services, IP geolocation, and IP translation/mapping services such as ENUM, Reidway maintains confidence Neustar and the NPAC have both flexibility and resources to ensure North American carriers, users, and networks are not caught short in the global move to Internet-enabled multi-media and communication services.
Reidway concluded “we have the experience and capability to help any transition to new technologies and emerging forms of communication.”
You can read all of Reidway’s blogs at Neustar Insights, and comment on his ideas, visions, and support of the North American communications community.
NOTE: Pacific-Tier Communications LLC is not affiliated with Neustar or the NPAC. This interview and article are intended to inform readers of the NPAC, and some of the thought leaders responsible for managing and developing infrastructure needed to keep the US and North American competitive in the global market and community.
With dozens of public cloud service providers on the market, offering a wide variety of services, standards, SLAs, and options, how does an IT manager make an informed decision on which provider to use? Is it time in business? Location? Cost? Performance?
Pacific-Tier Communications met up with Jason Read, owner of CloudHarmony, a company specializing in benchmarking the cloud, at Studio City, California, on 25 October. Read understands how confusing and difficult it is to evaluate different service providers without an industry-standard benchmark. In fact, Read started CloudHarmony based on his own frustrations as a consultant helping a client choose a public cloud service provider, while attempting to sort through vague cloud resource and service terms used by industry vendors.
“Cloud is so different. Vendors describe resources using vague terminology like 1 virtual CPU, 50 GB storage. I think cloud makes it much easier for providers to mislead. Not all virtual CPUs and 50 GB storage volumes are equal, not by a long shot, but providers often talk and compare as if they are. It was this frustration that led me to create CloudHarmony” explained Read.
So, Read went to work creating a platform for not only his client, but also other consultants and IT managers that would give a single point of testing public cloud services not only within the US, but around the world. Input to the testing platform came from aggregating more than 100 testing benchmarks and methodologies available to the public. However CloudHarmony standardized on CentOS/RHEL Linux as an operating system which all cloud vendors support, “to provide as close to an apples to apples comparison as possible” said Read.
Customizing a CloudHarmony Benchmark Test
Setting up a test is simple. You go to the CloudHarmony Benchmarks page, select the benchmarks you would like to run, the service providers you would like to test, configurations of virtual options within those service providers, geographic location, and the format of your report.
Figure 1. Benchmark Configuration shows a sample report setup.
“CloudHarmony is a starting point for narrowing the search for a public cloud provider” advised Read. “We provide data that can facilitate and narrow the selection process. We don’t have all of the data necessary to make a decision related to vendor selection, but I think it is a really good starting point.
Read continued “for example, if a company is considering cloud for a very CPU intensive application, using the CPU performance metrics we provide, they’d quickly be able to eliminate vendors that utilize homogenous infrastructure with very little CPU scaling capabilities from small to larger sized instance.”
Cloud vendors listed in the benchmark directory are surprisingly open to CoudHarmony testing. “We don’t require or accept payment from vendors to be listed on the site and included in the performance analysis” mentioned Read. “We do, however, ask that vendors provide resources to allow us to conduct periodic compute benchmarking, continual uptime monitoring, and network testing.”
When asked if cloud service providers contest or object to CloudHarmony’s methodology or reports, Read replied “not frequently. We try to be open and fair about the performance analysis. We don’t recommend one vendor over another. I’d like CloudHarmony to simply be a source of reliable, objective data. The CloudHarmony performance analysis is just a piece of the puzzle, users should also consider other factors such as pricing, support, scalability, etc.”
During an independent trial of CloudHarmony’s testing tool, Pacific-Tier Communications selected the following parameters to complete a sample CPU benchmark:
- CPU Benchmark (Single Threaded CPU)
- GMPbench math library
- Cloud Vendor – AirVM (MO/USA)
- Cloud Vendor – Amazon EC2 (CA/USA)
- Cloud Vendor – Bit Refinery Cloud Hosting (CO/USA)
- 1/2/4 CPUs
- Small/Medium/Large configs
- Bar Chart and Sortable Table report
The result, shown above in Figure 2., shows a test result including performance measured against each of the above parameters. Individual tests for each parameter are available, allowing a deeper look into the resources used and test results based on those resources.
In addition, as shown in Figure 3., CloudHarmony provides a view providing uptime statistics of dozens of cloud service providers over a period of one year. Uptime statistics showed a range (at the time of this article) between 98.678% availability to 100% availability, with 100% current uptime (27 October).
Who Uses CloudHarmony Benchmark Testing?
While the average user today may be in the cloud computing industry, likely vendors eager to see how their product compares against competitors, Read targets CloudHarmony’s product to “persons responsible for making decisions related to cloud adoption.” Although he admits that today most users of the site lean towards the technical side of the cloud service provider industry.
Running test reports on cloud harmony is based on a system of purchasing credits. Read explained “we have a system in place now where the data we provide is accessible via the website or web services – both of which rely on web service credits to provide the data. Currently, the system is set up to allow 5 free requests daily. For additional requests, we sell web service credits where we provide a token that authorizes you to access the data in addition to the 5 free daily requests.”
The Bottom Line
“Cloud is in many ways a black box” noted Read. “Vendors describe the resources they sell using sometimes similar and sometimes very different terminology. It is very difficult to compare providers and to determine performance expectations. Virtualization and multi-tenancy further complicates this issue by introducing performance variability. I decided to build CloudHarmony to provide greater transparency to the cloud.”
And to both vendors and potential cloud service customers, provide an objective, honest, transparent analysis of commercially available public cloud services.
Check out CloudHarmony and their directory of services at cloudharmony.com.
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During his opening keynote speech at ICEGOV 2011 in Tallinn, Estonia, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves highlighted efforts of the Estonia’s Cyber Defense League, an operational arm of the country’s National Defense League.
An all volunteer force, the Cyber Defense League acts as a national guard to protect Estonia from cyber attack, following the major assault on country in 2007 by Russian hackers.
“Our country encourages IT professionals to contribute to national defense as part-time members of our cyber national guard,” said Ilves, these are young people “who are motivated, patriotic, and think it (contributing to national defense) is pretty cool.”
Traditional Barriers to National Service Removed
Recruits entering their country’s national service, such as the army, normally follow a similar track. The first year of service provides an exercise in mental torture, mental strengthening, physical training, gathering skills to function in the infantry, and all the other training needed to bring a civilian into a basic level of competence for military service.
This standard routine serves to exclude individuals who may be far more interested in technology, academic pursuits, sciences, and to be honest, becoming serious network or software geeks. While there may be an argument that military organizations have become much better in their cyber-warfare capabilities, it can also be argued many of the best minds in a country are those developing technology systems, rather than super users.
Estonia, home of Skype and other global software initiatives, is harnessing the power of their intellectual resources in a positive way, which also promotes national security, pride, and patriotism.
Cyber Weekend Warriors
The Cyber Defense League (CDL) is a uniformed service, equal in stature and responsibility to other arms of the National Defense League. Recruits require security clearances, and are available for mobilization in the event of a national emergency – regardless of the nature of that emergency.
CDL members muster for weekend duty, exercises, and additional cyber security and warfare training.
Cooperation between private industry and national defense is much closer than in countries such as the US, where even during national emergencies commercial companies are rarely engaged in immediate cyber attack and response – at least not in full cooperation with the government or military. There may be representation in groups such as the CERT, however even those organizations generally act outside the scope of national defense.
In Estonia, now commercial companies and many of their employees are an inherent component of the national cyber defense.
… Be Cyber Strong
So, if we consider a model of supplementing national security by recruiting engineers, developers, and technicians in a single model location such as the Silicon Valley, train them to extend their skills to support national defense, complete a background check and offer a security clearance, what would the potential impact be on reinforcing our California or national Cyber Protection capacity?
Add more highly skilled engineers from other technology “industry cluster” states to the defense system, and it is highly probable that we will make great strides in further strengthening our local and national cyber defense.
Of course in the United States we do have to get over some additional concerns, such as suspicion among many in Internet and technology communities who may not fully trust the intentions of the government.
The burden is on the government to establish programs, develop a thought leadership campaign to build a sense of service and pride, and then fully embrace extremely motivated and intelligent IT professionals into the military community.
One of those programs is the DOD’s Defense Industrial Base Cyber Pilot, which allows the DoD to share some information with private enterprise regarding threats to security. However it is clearly a superficial attempt, and does not seek to actively engage those who potentially have the best skills to offer.
Estonia is a small country, struggling to break free of the social and institutional constraints imposed by nearly 70 years of Soviet and Nazi occupation, and economic restrains of a global recession. A country with a motivated workforce, and a need to protect all their national wired resource from theft, exploitation, and attack.
The Cyber Defense League is a very unique, and creative step to provide that security and protection.
We have all seen the videos of Rodney King’s beating in Los Angeles, Oscar Grant’s death at the BART station in Oakland, Anthony Graber’s arrest for videotaping his own arrest in Maryland, and other “caught on video” scenes with public officials behaving outside the law or violating the rights of citizens. The question brought before the US 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, is simple – is filming a public official in the performance of their duties a right guaranteed us under the 1st amendment of the US Constitution?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (1st Amendment, US Constitution)
On 26 August the US Court of Appeals issued their opinion, following a suit filed by the ALCU on behalf of Simon Glik, a citizen arrested on 1 October 2007 for filming a Boston Police take down of a man in Boston Commons. Glik was standing in a public location, at least 10 feet away from the officers, when suspicion of excessive use of force prompted him to film the incident with his cell phone. A Boston police officer challenged Glik on whether he was capturing audio with his film, and upon admitting he was, the officers arrested Glik under Massachusetts wiretap statute.
It is firmly established that the First Amendment’s aegis extends further than the text’s proscription on laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” and encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information. As the Supreme Court has observed, “the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and the self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw.”
…An important corollary to this interest in protecting the stock of public information is that “[t]here is an undoubted right to gather news ‘from any source by means within the law.’”
The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles.
Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting “the free discussion of governmental affairs.” (Case 10-1764)
This is a major win for citizens, and citizen journalists. With “mainstream” media such as CNN recruiting “iReporters” for their broadcasts, it is a clear message to the world traditional journalists cannot adequately cover world events, and citizen journalists have a role in filling coverage gaps during rapidly evolving events.
While we can acknowledge police officers and public officials will not always warmly embrace embrace this decision, it is the law.
Why it is Important to Support Citizen Journalism and the Right to Record Events
National and local newspapers are rapidly closing due to either mismanagement (the owners did not see the radical changes prompted by the digital age), bankruptcy, or combinations of both dynamics. The “Newspaper Deathwatch” website highlights the major newspapers that have closed in the past five years, and those which have either announced their demise or change to an all digital format.
With the loss of newspapers, the media industry is also losing experienced reporters, creating major shortfalls in coverage of public events (such as city hall meetings, school board meetings, etc), as well as incidents and events occurring within the community (such as accidents, fires, weather-related news, etc).
Among the more well-known sites which have closed or changed formats are:
- Honolulu Advertiser (closed and merged with the Star-Bulletin)
- Rocky Mountain News
- Cincinnati Post
- Baltimore Examiner
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Detroit News/Free press
- Christian Science Monitor
This means local news sources are becoming more scarce, depriving citizens of knowledge related to their local community. The digital age supports gathering and recovering that knowledge, primarily through user generated content. An emerging trend in news gathering and presentation is through hyper-local web sites focusing on individual communities or geographies. As many startup hyper-local media sources are self-funded or lacking ample startup funding, the editors and owners do rely on citizen generated content to provide news to readers.
The US Court of Appeals in their decision on recording public officials and police have fortunately accepted and understood the changing technologies and media environment, acknowledging citizens recording events are protected under the Bill of Rights, and those citizens are also protected from illegal arrest, search, or seizure of their media.
NOTE: Attempts to contact the public affairs/information officer (PIO) at several Los Angeles area police departments were unsuccessful. If the PIOs do eventually respond, we will update the blog with that response. This is not meant to degrade the professionalism or courage of police officers, rather it is meant to highlight citizen rights under the 1st and 4th amendments under the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
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