Telematique, water and fire.

Attention Span 09.07.25

555 KUBIK: HOW IT WOULD BE, IF A HOUSE WAS DREAMING

3-D projection on German building created by UrbanScreen

Relax, Bloggers. The AP Isn’t Out to Get You

The level of nervous blogging and twittering following the New York Times article , including Jeff Jarvis' How (and why) to replace the AP , has been pretty extreme. I was reassured to see Ryan Chittum's post in the CJR , which he wrote after actually going to the source... the AP. Now, I'm sure there are those in the blogosphere about to accuse the AP of spinning and damage control, but I'm tempted to take to heart this quote from a Senior VP of product development at the AP:

“Are we going to worry about individuals using our stories here and there? That isn’t our intent. That’s being fueled by people who want to make us look silly. But we’re not silly.”

Russian Programmers Petition Russian Government for a Holiday

Russian programmers have turned to the Administration of President (of the Russian Federation) Medvedev with a request for the establishment of professional holiday... Day of the Programmer. September 13 (the 256th day of the Gregorian calendar) is being promoted as the official Programmers Day. (Translated article from C-News )

Trying out Snap Shots

As I return to tending the blog, I've installed a nice tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles , LinkedIn profiles and Amazon products , display inline videos , RSS , photos and stock charts .

Snap Shots often presents you with the information, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out. I'd like to get your reaction to the tool, so please let if me know if it's an asset or a distraction.

The Age of Stream

Nova Spivak (the father of Twine) has an excellent post on how the Web, or rather it's use by the consumers of the Web, has morphed. I've had many of the the same thoughts about the way in which Web usage (and the value of the web) has changed to be more than a hyperlinked collection of information nodes that the end user 'navigates' in a form of active, directed exploration. The earliest Web explorers set out to traverse the linkages, which remained fairly static. Now, with the rate of new linkages, new sources and the rapid revision of existing structures, the Web is so immense and so plastic that our efforts are focused on the nature of the new, the rates of change and managing both the volume and complexity.

From the very early days of the Web, we've seen attempts to create the means by which information "comes to you." I think of the excitement I felt when using some of the earliest publish-subscribe services that delivered content by email, the streaming "tickers", and eventually the RSS feed and the feed reader. The Stream, however, is a different beast. Consider Twitter and other micro-blog offerings that seem most popularly associated with "social media." In some sense, the microblog is the analog of the "dumb network", where the application of filters and searches and selective attention is made NOT at the source (the publisher) and NOT only at the sink, but in combination (i.e., a easily modified subscription to multiple sources, plus the late-binding application of filters by the recipient and consumer).

Nova poses a few excellent questions in this post, and it's kicked off a number of worthwhile, Sunday-morning reflections and ideas. Welcome to the Age of Stream.

Is the Stream What Comes After the Web

... One of the most difficult challenges will be how to know what to pay attention to in the Stream: Information and conversation flow by so quickly that we can barely keep up with the present, let alone the past. How will know what to focus on, what we just have to read, and what to ignore or perhaps read later?

Recently many sites have emerged that attempt to show what is trending up in real-time, for example by measuring how many retweets various URLs are getting in Twitter. But these services only show the huge and most popular trends. What about all the important stuff that's not trending up massively? Will people even notice things that are not widely RT'd or "liked"? Does popularity equal importance of content? ...

Attention Span 2009.05.05 (Evening Edition)

Exploring cloud interoperability, part 1

But what exactly is cloud interoperability, and what exactly are each of these efforts addressing? Where are the standards going to be created, or (perhaps more importantly) where is the technology going to come from?

I thought it would be useful to give my current understanding of the space, and to give you my 100,000-foot view of the cloud interoperability landscape today.

Publishers Nurture Rivals to Kindle

Some newspaper and magazine companies, feeling let down by the Kindle electronic reader from Amazon.com Inc., are pushing for alternatives.

A few publishers are forging alliances with consumer-electronics firms to support e-readers that meet their needs. Chief among their complaints about the Amazon portable reading gadget is the way Amazon acts as a middleman with subscribers and controls pricing. In addition, the layout isn't conducive to advertising.

Is OCCI the HTTP of Cloud Computing?

The Web is built on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), a client-server protocol that simply allows client user agents to retrieve and manipulate resources stored on a server. It follows that a single protocol could prove similarly critical for Cloud Computing, but what would that protocol look like?

Cloud Computing

Clouds and F/OSS

Stephen O'Grady, one of the indominable Redmonk analysts, has a great response to a recent interview of Richard Stallman as reported by the Guardian. 

Over the past few days, the noise generated by the interview, in which Stallman refers to cloud computing as "stupidity" and "marketing hype" has been reminiscent of religious arguments or ideological debates on free market economics in the US Congress. 

However, I'd really have to recommend O'Grady's thoughtful treatment of the issue, and his (deservedly respectful) response to David Berlind about Free Software / Open Source Software.  O'Grady correctly (IMHO) establishes the notion that F/OSS has a huge impact on SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS offerings.  In part, it's because the vendors of proprietary softare, platforms and infrastructure have been happily minting money based on a classic computing and product economy (vs. a service economy).  In part, it's because the F/OSS arguments really DO hold for technologies in which there exist reasonably well defined reference implementations ... operating systems, web servers, application platforms, data base management systems ... that lend themselves to standardized interfaces or by virtue of market dominance (like MSFT's Exchange) have become a de facto standard. 

I'd recommend watching the likely exchange between (and around) O'Grady and Berlind.   It's likely to be well worth the attention.

tecosystems » Is the Cloud Stupid?

All of which begs the question of whether or not cloud computing is a clear and present danger to either or both of the free software or open source movements. From his comments, it seems reasonable to deduce that Stallman does so regard it. As does one of the smarter journalists you’ll meet: one David Berlind.

Personally, I disagree. To quote Austin Milbarge, for once I am in complete agreement with my partner: far from marginalizing F/OSS, the cloud may well prove to be its most significant benefactor.

Consider, for a moment, that the F/OSS’s impact on the PC has been, desktop marketshare-wise, neglible. And that while successful in the server market, it is hardly dominant. Yet in the cloud, F/OSS is at present the rule, rather than the exception.

Amazon? Built on Xen, hosting only (to date) open source operating systems (Linux and, in alpha, OpenSolaris). Google App Engine? Only the folks in Moutain View what, precisely, it’s composed of, but there’s little question that the foundation is open source. The language (Python) and the primary framework (Django), meanwhile, are as well. And so on. Some of the success of F/OSS within the cloud is doubtless attributable to the specific players. By Ray Ozzie’s own admission, Amazon - a shop with deep experience in open source technologies - simply took the cloud market far more seriously than did Microsoft. If the roles were to be reversed, the makeup of the cloud might look radically different.

But the foundational role that F/OSS plays within the cloud ecosystem cannot be entirely attributed to the players. Licensing - or the lack thereof - played its part, as did the technology itself. For many would-be cloud providers, F/OSS is simply the best tool for the job.

Cellular Data Services & Customizing the Infrastructure

Great post by Doc Searls, for a couple of reasons. First, the topic at hand -- the cellular telephony's data service and it's impact on the distribution and use of (relatively low-level) streaming content. Internet audio content - whether streamed or delivered as podcasts - has always held very high value for me. Since the update to iPhone 2.0 and the arrival of apps like Pandora, I find that I'm running my battery down to the "red zone" a lot more often. And it's better than "acceptable" audio quality... it's really good!

But the money quote comes in the middle of the modest post. "The internet is the ultimate software-eats-hardware story, and that applies to hardware infrastructure as well." This is so clearly the story when considering Replicate's industry -- virtualized infrastructure for the datacenter. Doesn't sound much like internet radio, now, does it?

The high concept for virtualization is about utilizing non-differentiated (or "less differentiated") hardware to flatten and commodify the hardware infrastructure, after which customization and differentiated infrastructure is established through the application of software. I know... I know. It's what we've all heard for years about the use of computing in general and the role of software. Yet, I can't help but be startled and delighted when jumps out at me again, standing in high relief.

Opening the Cellwaves | Linux Journal

The history of infrastructure is one of endlessly repurposed uses. Cow paths become dirt roads that become railroads that become bike trails. Railroads and power line easements play host to fiber optic cabling buried in the ground or draped from tower to tower in the sky. Power poles become telephone poles that also serve as cable TV poles and fiber optic Internet poles.

The Internet is the ultimate software-eats-hardware story, and that applies to hardware infrastructure as well. Hardware is still required, of course, but not for its original narrow purposes. Those purposes in many cases (including telephony, television and radio) are subsumed by the Internet and its protocols. While those protocols might not be ideal for, say, radio transmission of the customary sort, they're good enough. And in the real world good-enough wins when widespread deployment and adoption is easy.

BEA Delivers a Short Stack

When Java was a young meme, making its way through the collective consciousness of the technology community, there was often talk about the ultimate arrival of a "pure" Java OS ... one OS to run them all.  It never happened, for a number of good reasons.

With the stability and capabilities of this generation of virtual machine environments (VMEs), application platforms that rely on a full featured JVM only have the possibility of slimming down by eliminating the OS altogether, relying on the VME hypervisor and the built-in capabilities of Java.  There are a handful of application platforms for which this might work, but if BEA's successful with this one ...  watch out!!

BEA Says No OS Necessary With WebLogic Server Virtual Edition -- Virtualization -- InformationWeek

Losing the operating system has several benefits. Many OS services are already duplicated by Java or the hypervisor, and BEA estimates that cutting the OS can reduce consumption of system resources such as memory and CPU cycles by 25% to 50%. It also simplifies management, as WLS-VE knows it's being virtualized and so can more easily map software processes to the hardware it's running on. Performance can improve, as a complete OS doesn't have to be loaded whenever a virtual machine is started.

Still, though WLS-VE shipped in July, its Liquid Operations Control management system won't be available until December. Performance claims haven't yet been proved and will depend on using hardware with virtualization support baked in--without it, VMware simply takes the place of the OS.

Technorati Tags: Java, BEA

Ray Ozzie Clarifies Microsofts Cloud Computing Intentions

This past week, Ray Ozzie, CTO and CSA at Microsoft, made an interesting presentation to the financial analyst community.  In this outing, he made a great deal clearer MSFT's intentions and inclinations with respect to utility computing.  In the course of the presentation, he identifies the three layers of Microsofts utility offerings to come:  the Global Foundation Services comprising huge data centers running commodity technology, the Cloud Infrastructure Services and the Live Platform (the "application layer" or most easily recognized as SaaS). 

It's the Cloud Infrastructure that interests me.  If, as Ray and others have said, this layer is offered up as "Infrastructure as a Service", it potentially opens a huge door into inexpensive, on-demand computing for IT organizations that depend on Microsoft, as well as OTHER operating systems and applications. The success of such an offer depends, in my view, on the ability of enterprise IT, particularly the small and medium size enterprise that relies so heavily on Microsoft products, to use the IaaS utility as an adjunct resource, providing on-demand resources at extremely low price, with very quick provisioning, and high reliability and resilience.

[Thanks to Isabel Wang for her pointer to the text of the presentation and her analysis.]

MSFT Financial Analyst Meeting: Ray Ozzie

The next layer above that is our cloud infrastructure services layer. And this is the most fundamental software level of the services infrastructure. You can think of this as a utility computing fabric upon which all of our online services run. You know, among other services, this fabric has an efficient and isolated virtualized computation layer. It has application frameworks that support a variety of app models that are designed for horizontal scaling. And it has infrastructure that manages the automatic deployment and load balancing and performance optimization of the apps that it's managing running on its infrastructure.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, IaaS, utility computing

WADLing toward RESTful services

In the on-going dialogue between the RESTIANs and the Splat-ians (as in... WS-* which is often pronounced "double-yew ess splat"), there's apparently a proposal called Web Appliaction Description Language (WADL) that designed to provide descriptors for REST services.

WADL: The REST answer to WSDL

...

For SOAP Web services, descriptors based on Web Services Description Language (WSDL) form a fundamental piece of their actual design, mainly on account of the underlying complexity present in the actual service. In these scenarios, a descriptor not only serves the purpose of formally describing all the business logic it can fulfill, but it also aides in the creation of helper classes -- often called stubs -- used to build service clients.

Enter WADL, a similar description language to WSDL, but strictly targeting the requirements of RESTful services. REST started of simple enough, as live URL's on major portals which returned structured data to querying clients, but as interest has grown in this alternate approach to Web services, so has the scope and size of the business processes it attempts to fulfill, making descriptors a natural addition. ...

Technorati Tags: REST, WS-*, WADL, WSDL

Clone? Split Personality? Confusion.

Over the course of the past week, I've noticed references to Rich Miller about topics I'm likely to write about, but don't remember having posted.  The first thought... Have I been blogging in my sleep?  Am I leaving my short-term memory at the door?

No.  It's an inevitable result of having a common name.  It's happened before, and will certainly happen again.  This time it's Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge.  Rich is a noted technology journalist who's had the good judgement to be interested in the next generation data center.  I've only recently found his site, and enjoy reading it.   It will go on my site's blogroll in the next day or so.


Technorati Tags: utility computing, data center