Cloud Matters

Gun Violence is Over

Unfortunately, any idea of really ending gun violence in the US is no more believable on April Fools day than on any other day.  It’s no joke.

Not that the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t like to see that.  It’s just what they want.  More than 90% want universal background checks.  Yet the congress is frozen in place.  Iced by the NRA. 

No matter how many voters want to see progress, progress – even a little bit – is unlikely.  More like impossible. 

Dopes.

Still, we can aspire to do what is best for the rights and safety of all – gun owners and school children and the thousands of innocents that suffer from America’s obsession with firearms.  

I understand that Major League Baseball is doing a small bit.  All 28 teams will wear a patch on their opening day uniforms – a black ribbon with the Newtown seal and twenty-six stars.  Symbols count.

So, the many arguments have been made and entrenched positions taken.  There is no need to rehash here. 

But there is another notion, or set of notions to consider.  This may be a time where some new capabilities, new technologies, can be brought to bear on these issues so simple (stop the violence) and complex (fix mental health, and background checks and fundamental societal values / American culture).

A December article in the Atlantic proposed that Big Data in the form of a national gun-registry database could potentially have helped to prevent Newtown.

No Price on Value

Data is a good thing and essential for much of what we accompish every day. But it isn't the only thing.  We also need humans in the mix - for intution, emotion, loyalty and more.  

David Brooks wrote a NY Times column last week that frames a view of data that provides an example of that need.  It's a reminder worth noting.

Brooks describes a conversation with a banker - not the heartless kind - who decided to ride out a crisis despite data pointing in the opposite direction.  His decision was based upon trust and loyalty and values  - the values based upon principles not dollars.  

I don't always agree with Brooks.  However, he is a smart and thoughtful guy who is willing to stretch his own understanding and help the rest of us to stretch ours.

That has value too.

 

Finding New Value in Big Data

There are some fundamental things to know about Big Data.  Start with the ambiguous term itself.  It’s important because it is affecting each of us already and the impacts are rapidly increasing. 

I wrote a piece for “C-Suite Insider” that does a high level Big Data intro.  This post is a follow-on to that.

There are multiple elements that create the value of Big Data, that make it “Big” in scope as well as importance. Start with a collection of data sources and technologies that enable new measures of predictive analytic insight.  Use all of this to gain techniques that enable rapid decision-making leading to competitive advantage.

A collection of data sources…

In addition to the immense size of data sets, the new technology takes advantage data types beyond traditional relational and transactional databases.  This incorporates semi-structured data from social media and unstructured data such as text, photos and video.  It is this variety of sources, taken together with data sets that were previously neglected that are providing brand new value and insights. 

A murder study applied standard health tracking methods to data on Newark N.J. murders and developed their conclusion that the spread of homicide can be predicted.  It spreads in the same way diseases do.

Santa used data from “millions of sources worldwide”, including report cards, detention records, chore charts and text messages to determine who was naughty or nice.  Suspend your disbelief.

Big Data is being employed to make Academy awards predictions which are based upon other awards already given, historical trends, Las Vegas bets and more with weekly updates to keep the predictions on track right through February 24^th - when Argo will win best picture.  Watch.

What are the Big Data business implications? 

By most indications, impacts will be felt across all industries.  Many are well on their way, particularly insurance, finance, retail and manufacturing.  It is being used to detect fraud, analyze customer satisfaction, or enhance risk analysis for banks.  A McKinsey study estimates the impacts of data analytics on US health care could be $300 billion in savings. 

The Book

When  I first downloaded the "Big Data App" I excitedly shared some of the fun examples with my son. Then my iPad went missing for a bit while he explored on his own.  

It's addictive.  

Now I have the book "The Human Face of Big Data." and that's addictive too.   Some content covers topics that appear in the App.  However the book has more and also adds a very neat viewer for any page that contains a key symbol.   Download the viewer and point it at the page to automatically load a video on the given topic.  

Point at the photo of the team creating a modern Library of Alexandria, intended to ultimately contain every book ever printed, now digitally accessible on the web.  And you'll get a lecture explaining the project and its evolution.  

Point at the photo of  A. J. Jacobs atempting to become "the healthiest person alive" and you'll hear him describe his year-long project and all the detailed data he collected and the book he wrote about it.  

As much as I enjoy exploring the original App, the book has a physically satifying feel to it.  Put it on the coffee table to thumb through and an hour is gone in a flash.  The topics may be futuristic, facinating and fun but the feel of a high quality old school book is also comforting.  

Grounded.

 

The Cool of Big Data

It’s Big. Now it’s also very cool.

If you’ve been grappling with a clear understanding of Big Data it can certainly be confusing. And depending how geeky you are – or aren’t – “cool” is probably not the first descriptor that comes to mind.  But you have to see this, The Human Face of Big Data.

You may have heard about this project, which has been underway for several months.  It puts the concept of Big Data in practical and personal terms, then connects it to global scale.  Sponsored by EMC, Cisco, FedEx and others, a team of 100 Photographers in 30 countries have been recording images that show the Human Face of Big Data.  (If you’ve visited the EMC web site in the last few months it’s been hard to miss the expanding head.) 

The project also promoted a phone app that helped capture personal data to provide a single day snapshot on October 2 from smartphones around the world. 

Now they’ve completed the primary project stage which includes the publication of a large format book and an enticing iPad app – both linked from their website or available from the usual suspects. 

What’s especially enticing is that the book/app make it very simple to understand what it is and why it’s important.  How it applies to our daily lives.  In an interview for CNN Rick Smolan, who drove the project with his business partner Jennifer Erwitt, talks about how all this data has the potential to change life as we know it:

“Imagine if your whole life you had been looking through just one eye.  Then all of a sudden you can open the second eye.  You aren’t just getting more information, you’re getting a new dimension of understanding.  … We’re starting to see patterns we’ve never perceived before. … it’s impacting everything.”

Part of the plan was to deliver 10,000 of the books to key influencers around the world and do it all on the same day, December 4^th. 

 I bet the package delivery services love it. 

 Also, all of the profits from the iPad app are being donated to charity that funds clean water projects.

 The iPad app includes features ranging from “How do Babies Learn to Speak” to why “Data is the New Oil” to a map of the frenetic Pizza delivery bikers in Manhattan.  Some are just fun, some a bit scary.  All fascinatingly show a glimpse of what is yet to come.

 So far, much of the Big Data chatter has focused on the technology and the commercial applications.   

Here’s a view that humanizes it.  

 

 

Buzzwords, Business and Murder

 

The Buzz

Looking to predict the future is no new idea.  How it is done has changed though and that's one reason that Time magazine lists “Big Data” as the number two buzzword of 2012, led only by the not very surprising “Fiscal Cliff”.  (Thanks Chuck for the heads up tweet.)  We’ve been through this buzzword fatigue before – green, cloud, everything “e”.  

Perhaps the key lesson is that while they can indeed get tiresome, the terms draw early attention to something that will ultimately become quite valuable and will also entwine with normalcy enough to be hardly noted as special. 

 Just essential.

Big Data, Climate Change and Geopolitical Threats

I was intrigued by an opinion piece in the November 5^th edition of the Boston Globe titled: “The Pentagon’s new threat” .  The article is written by Juliette Kayyem, a Globe Staff member, who comes to journalism by way of government service, including, most recently,  Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security.

The subtitle is “As weather worsens, environmentalists and the military find common cause”.   And it connects some dots that most of us have probably not given much thought: how do the impacts of climate change draw the military into action by creating unforeseen geopolitical impacts?    

If you followed the news around Hurricane Sandy, you probably saw that the military was hauling in massive generators and transporting power grid repair trucks from California to New Jersey.   You know that the National Guard was called up to help.  And there were lots of specific examples where military personnel were praised for helping to distribute food and help with cleanup: “Marines push into NYC to help with Sandy relief”.

Too Many, Too Much, Too Fast. Or not.

Can an extraordinarily successful company move in too many places with too many products and do it so fast that the market - and their customers - can't sufficiently comprehend or absorb them?

Apple had a major product announcement earlier this week introducing three new computers, a cool fusion drive and two new iPads, including the much touted iPad Mini.

They also pointed out that sales of the  iPad tablet computer have reached 100 million. (More Apple stats here.)

Just a few weeks earlier they introduced the iPhone5 and iOS6.

At the same time, the stock price for the world's most valuable company continues to drop, in part because they missed earning expectations by a few pennies.  Other factors are higher than expected pricing for the iPad mini and trouble after the iPhone 5 announcement for melting bridges and bad directions in their new mapping program.  But they still sold 5 million of the phones in the first post-announcement weekend. 

Data Center Energy in a Times Warp

 A recent NY Times series titled “The Cloud Factories” has stirred up some controversy  (over 300 comments- mostly negative).

That’s a good thing.

Data Center energy consumption is a critical challenge to be understood and dealt with – in context.     

While the Times article has brought some fresh scrutiny, it is being justifiably criticized for lack of completeness by offering half-truths and dated information that doesn’t account for progress made over the last six years.  

Sounds like a presidential debate you say? 

(Most embarrassing perhaps is that the author clearly doesn’t understand a topic he just spent a year researching.  And he pays a disproportionate attention to diesel generators.)

Five or six years ago, “green IT” was a big deal – and not just from a marketing standpoint.  Every IT company large or small was paying attention.   Some called it “greenwashing” but it had a number of important impacts.

In August of 2007 I began writing about it in my "Energy Matters" blog.

What drove that were two important factors:  customers were complaining about excessive IT energy consumption and competitors were staking claims of greener-than-green technology.

Since that time, much has changed - cloud for example.

It may seem that it’s always been there but cloud computing is a relatively new concept.  Chuck Hollis made the first mention I am aware of in a blog, Is There A Cloud In Your Future?  posted October 31, 2007.  I don’t know if Chuck coined the term but he was certainly one of the early proponents. 

 The Times article is also confused in implying that the cloud is just a set of big data centers inefficiently sucking energy.  There’s no hint of the concept that this is shared infrastructure that provides access to sophisticated on-demand capabilities while avoiding massive duplication of proprietary facilities.

Most importantly, today’s more efficient data centers address a central concern that caused all of that attention to green IT in 2006 - customer complaints, competition, energy cost increases, the push for sustainability and greener energy sources – all producing new awareness, better efficiencies, improved practices and economic benefits.  And cloud.

 

Missing the point

 So, what did “The Cloud Factories” article miss in the data center forest? 

 Trees.

 Start with the biggest.  Virtualization gets hardly a nod.  Across the industry, efficiency gains from virtualization have been huge.  We’ve seen repeated examples of servers virtualized at the rate of 85%+ with 35%+ improvements in energy efficiency and hundreds of tons less CO2 emissions.

 The point is that there are thousands of small efficiency gains that have already added up to huge energy efficiency and sustainability improvements.  More must be done and wider adoption is essential.  But every bit contributes to the whole, from flywheel UPS systems, to efficient power supplies, to data compression, automated tiering and solid state storage.

 Most of these have come into play since 2006, which is the time warp this article appears to occupy.

 At it’s most fundamental, the best practice advice now widely practiced is: consolidate, optimize, and automate.  Sometimes that means create your own cloud.  Sometimes a public cloud.  Often, both.

These principles aren’t new. We just have more compelling reasons to adhere to them and we have the added benefit that new technologies – some in just the last year or so – generate much higher payback from taking these steps. 

 Consolidate means consolidate everything. Data Centers. Storage. Servers. Networks.  Applications. That, and provide for multi-tenancy so more users can share the same efficient infrastructure.  For example, a 2:1 payback can be expected just from the consolidation of storage. Consolidation of servers through virtualization is much bigger 10:1, 15:1 or even higher.

 Optimization brings even greater payback once all of that consolidation has taken place. Automated tiering of data can and applications can decrease total cost of ownership by 25%. Robust disaster recovery and business continuity is better enabled – optimized - by virtualization.

 Automation of software and business process can decrease operating costs by 30% or more. Improvements from data deduplication, for example, are off the charts.

All of these steps save energy in the data center but there is one more compelling consideration in the IT mix.  The most compelling really.  I think of it as the Rumpelstiltskin effect.  IT turning straw to gold.

“ICT has the capacity to deliver carbon savings 5x or greater than the sector’s own emissions – equivalent to 15- 25% reduction in global emissions.”
   United Nations Broadband Commission Report, April 2, 2012  http://www.broadbandcommission.org

 Another seminal study from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) pointed to productivity gains resulting from ICT as a major force in overall energy efficiency advances.  Their analysis was that:

"For every extra kilowatt-hour of electricity that has been demanded by ICT, the US economy increased its overall energy savings by a factor of about 10”

“Huge cost reductions and important ICT innovations have worked together to drive the expansion and diffusion of new applications that have subsequently enabled the development of additional high-tech products and services, new investments, and new ways of doing things. In other words, the positive economic feedback generated by most ICT innovations has stimulated higher levels of economic productivity and driven net gains in cost-effective energy savings throughout the U.S. economy.”

And finally, a Pike Research study titled "Cloud Computing Energy Efficiency" reinforces the economic and environmental benefits from the expansion of cloud computing:

"Growth in cloud computing has some important consequences for both greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sustainability. Thanks to massive investments in new data center technologies, computing clouds in general and public clouds in particular are able to achieve industry-leading rates of efficiency. Simply put, clouds are better utilized and less expensive to operate than traditional data centers."

Said another way, Information Technology – Cloud - saves energy. 

 

Note: Quite a few responses were stirred by the article.  Here are a few links:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/23/the-new-york-times-blasts-cloud-factories-on-energy-use/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57518536-92/nyt-story-on-data-center-waste-scares-some-frustrates-others/

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/NY-Times-Data-Centers-Are-Polluting-Energy-Pigs-121400

http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/09/ny-times-data-center-energy-story-shows-fossil-fuels-history/

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/nyts-data-center-power-article-reports-from-a-time-machine-back-to-2006/

http://investorplace.com/2012/10/data-centers-a-surprising-nest-for-burgeoning-energy-plays/

 

 

Digital Government Accelerating in Cloud IT

 

In 1965 there was a proposal to to create one massive federal data center.  It was stopped by a public outcry about invasion of privacy and because it would have cost about $12 million a year.

Instead, by 2011 there were 2,094 federal data centers scattered around the globe at a cost of about $80 billion/yr.  Now they there’s concerted movement to reverse the trend, move to the cloud, and reduce the data center number by about half.  

So what is the US Government cloud progress and how fast is it moving?  

By all reports, progress is good and benefits are being realized faster than anyone expected.   The results could be $18.8 billion in annual savings within a few years.

How’s that for exceeding expectations? 

Looking at IT energy efficiency, sustainability and ultimately cloud IT, the US government is a most fascinating case to follow.  They are the biggest IT user in the world.  So the striking pace of cloud IT progress made across nearly every agency and department is impressive.  There is a concerted effort to internalize cloud concepts with some demonstrated creativity on multiple fronts.  

These are political times and I have no intent to be political here.  That said, the appointment of the first CIO for the United States in 2009 and an ongoing push by the White House that created the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy has certainly influenced the speed of government cloud adoption.

Then, in May of this year, came a White House directive to launch “a comprehensive strategy to build a “21^st Century Digital Government”. Steven VanRoekel, the current US CIO, calls it a “coordinated, information and customer-centric approach to changing how the government works and delivers services to the American people.”

VanRoekel also shows the savings in his flat budget.  And he shows it in his mission statement:

       “We will aspire to promote a bright and prosperous future for the United States through the strategic use of Federal Information Technology.”