Posts Tagged ‘Cloud’

I want an iChromeBook

Friday, June 10th, 2011

As I think about what my ideal next computer could be like, something dawn on me: it’s Google’s Chrome OS core tenet (your work automatically saved to the cloud) combined with a powerful and versatile device that I can also run software development projects on. That’s what I need, and I don’t want to be bothered about lugging around an USB drive, having to explicitly move files around. So what are the options?

I’ve said this a few times, Chrome OS just won’t cut it for me. The ideal device has got to be more capable than running a web browser, this leads me to the tablets. But the iPad still doesn’t look like it’d be something for me. The videos of HP TouchPab I saw today impressed me, it seems that that thing has some serious guts inside. If I were to buy a tablet though, I’d need an external keyboard most of the time, so why not upgrade and get a laptop then? I could do that, but then I’m back where I am right now.

All of this vaguely reminds me something else, Microsoft’s Longhorn vision. I dumped my last gigabytes of Longhorn material last year, so I can’t fully recall what it said about storage – no use digging that up anyway, that’d be hypothetical.

As I sit there undecided, I suddenly realise that I’ve already seen the beginning of a solution without making the connections. Apple’s just announced iCloud, now I see what they’re trying to do and I see that it’s clever marketing – I watched bits of the keynote and didn’t really think too much of it, until now. iCloud also looks to be limited to files produced with Apple’s software, what about my design and development work created with non-Apple software? Not supported, I suppose. Stuck. Bummer.

There’s another option, use Dropbox as a live storage drive. It’s tempting, though I’d be nervous doing that, it might just fall apart or cost me too much. What then?

Actually, there isn’t much choice. The magical GDrive never materialised. One’s got to go for the next best thing, and that is simple: stay with a laptop, and maybe use Cloud development platforms and Emacs on the client, stay with Dropbox.

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Accidental IT infrastructure tsars

Friday, March 5th, 2010

In the past decade, some of the most successful IT infrastructure innovations have been stumbled upon, after the originators found themselves in unanticipated conundrum! In some instances, this kind of anarchic R&D is reaping rewards of several orders of magnitude higher than walled-in research efforts.

Think about it for a moment, we are enjoying an amazing array of technology that were created after some dudes’ fiddles and ramblings forced them to rethink their infrastructure. In their travails, clever & bohemian as they are, they’ve come up with solutions that many of us can enjoy. Witnessing such success, deep pocketed vendors joined in the fun, and the field is being redefined in the process.

Once frowned upon, FaceBook is now a leading contributor to prominent open source infrastructure projects. Google’s track record is longer and deeper, their data centre innovations are being copied around the world, their latest announcement in the U.S. is just illustrating how far reaching their ambitions are. The whole No SQL movement has spawned a category of data manipulation techniques forcing a rethink of the way we manage information. Google, Yahoo! and FaceBook are all strong leaders in this space. The best example is probably the open source Unix/Linux ecosystem (counting in the OpenBSD and FreeBSD variants, which are not Linuxes). What is happening with the uptake of Cloud computing is simply amazing, would make many a veteran chuckle (isn’t this what was supposed to be uncool?). Now that heavyweights such as Oracle and Microsoft are trumpeting the Cloud, we are probably entering a new era where mix-and-match will become a norm.

These infrastructure innovations are making it easier and faster for us to do more with our computing resources. Incidentally, this is also making us more vulnerable and fragile from a security point of view. Security breaches can do much more damage much faster than ever before. This could mean that our security infrastructure is simply being thrown out, forcing us to rethink the very notion of security.

Marketing mantra aside, here looking at you Google, these infrastructure innovations have had a profound impact on the way we perform computing these days. A substantial amount of these innovations were actually not planned, they seem to have been following a kind of Darwinian evolution theory, the good ones quickly gain traction and everyone adjust their positions.

Is this the beginning of a bigger and truly world changing movement? Is this a vindication of the open source phenomenon? Is this the edge of what an Agile (Californian?) culture could nurture?

Time will tell.

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Posted in Architecture, Cloud, Innovation | Comments Off

With Azure, it might be game-on for Microsoft!

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

I watched Microsoft PDC keynotes yesterday and it left me quite an impression: Microsoft firmly intends to be a strong force in this Cloud markets, no doubt.

Ironically, Microsoft might become a big winner here. Thinking about it, Cloud turns the clock on vendor-independence mantra: businesses would rely more than ever on their cloud provider. This works for Microsoft too: it no longer matters what platform runs your business, so long as it performs and you get the expected value from it. Naturally there remain issues around security, governance and such, issues that are open for all vendors the same way.

By delivering quality tools and performing Cloud solutions, Microsoft is in the game. If you can depend on Google of Salesforce to run your business, what other reasons can there be for snubbing Microsoft? Can anyone credibly speak of vendor lock-in as a valid argument? The other important questions to ask are then around pricing and service terms.

The vision outlined by Microsoft appears sound to me, they also appear to be engaging customers in this effort. The tooling seems to be coming along nicely too, and Microsoft is wooing celebrity developers. It seems that a larger chunk of Microsoft technology is being made available in the Clouds, that is something I didn’t expect so soon – could still be just a teaser with no real intention to deliver much, we’ll see. But my impression at the moment is: game on for Microsoft, when they start shipping Azure.

As Microsoft starts to deliver Cloud services, the playing field becomes square and they can leverage their massive momentum to gain a significant market share once again. They might actually end up dominating the Cloud in the process!

I’m loving this epic battle in the Clouds. Will it be a winner takes all?

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Posted in Architecture, Cloud | 1 Comment »