You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2008.
Here’s a great article from Jon Tiogo on his drunkendata blog about how it is much less expensive to back up data to tape versus disk. I have to admit that I really like backing up to disk. It’s simple, fast, and dynamic. In other words it’s a great solution for lazy sysadmins. (smile) But according to this research tape is 23 times cheaper than SATA disk backup and it consumes 290 times less energy. I can see the advertisements already: Go Green = Go Back to Tape.
I’m borrowing the title from a great article I stumbled across by Lance Glasser. The article is a must read for CTOs of high tech companies. I wasn’t familiar with his work but he is obviously a very bright guy. In summary, he believes that CTOs need to fulfill a number of roles:
1) Ensure the company has the best technology.
2) Create business options and opportunities for the organization.
3) Be the public face of technology for the company.
4) Play a role in the corporate strategic thinking.
I’m delighted to read an article about CTO duties that is isn’t just a basic job description. Well done!
I wrote an article in my company’s blog 6 months ago questioning “green” policy efforts. I’ve been doing some more thinking about this subject lately as I’ve come across articles about taxing energy producers to offset global warming.
Let’s think about this logically.
Energy is required to innovate. Physicists need to run simulations on grid supercomputers. Large disk systems are required to store testing data. Email and collaboration tools are required to coordinate project teams. All of these activities require power.
As you increase the cost of power you increase the cost to innovate. Increasing the cost of innovation will likely slow innovation and decrease the number of companies pursuing innovation.
I believe we should focus on decreasing the cost of energy versus building an artificial energy market using tax credits or carbon caps. What we have today is a situation where government is manipulating the energy market to force changes in energy production and costs.
I agree that we should minimize our impact to the planet by reducing waste. I want to leave my children a cleaner world than my grandparents left me (which actually won’t be hard to do). But making it harder to innovate and solve energy production problems at a time we need it most is kind of like cutting off our nose to spite our face. I would rather increase pollution over the next 10 years and keep energy costs low if that meant we could find a longterm energy solution faster.
Many proponents of artificially inflating the cost of energy believe that this will spur change in the market. I agree that this will create change: even more companies moving manufacturing and operations to countries like China and India that are building power plants like mad. But even if you believe that artificially increasing energy costs will drive companies to look for new forms of energy you have to make a big bet: new and cheaper forms of energy will be found.
Maybe instead of creating a carbon trading system people should be buying stock in companies that are researching new forms of energy production. At least they would be putting their money where their mouth is. They could be part of the solution versus becoming a barrier.
An increase in the capital gains tax is basically an increase in government business ownership. For example, if the government increases capital gains by 10% they effectively own 10% more of your business. Because if you ever sold your business the government would take that percentage of the profit. When the press talks about who is impacted by potential capital gains hikes they focus on rich fat cats. But the truth is that millions of small business owners and retirees are the ones who really take the biggest hit.
Every day a new vendor or service provider touts their new cloud computing technology and strategy. But what is cloud computing? It is quickly becoming one of those catch phrases which hosting marketing groups morph into every product pitch.
The origins of cloud computing stem from grid computing. You generally find grid computing in academic institutions and research laboratories. You’ve probably read articles about schools that build supercomputers using hundreds of off-the-shelf desktop machines. They use grid computing architectures and technologies to tie all those computers together. Think Borg. You can’t install Windows XP on this sort of massive cluster. These types of systems only support custom applications that are designed to take advantage of the distributed computing architecture.
Cloud computing incorporates the horizontal scalability of grid computing and packages it into a service that is delivered from a datacenter. The idea is that you can install your applications in a datacenter computing environment with little regard to the underlying infrastructure. Your applications live in the cloud. Cloud computing environments generally utilize virtual servers, networked storage, and significant software automation. Amazon’s EC2 is a good example of a modern cloud computing strategy. Their hosting service allows users to load applications on virtual servers and then scale those virtual servers — even across datacenters — to meet increased performance requirements. Google’s App Engine is another example of a cloud computing strategy. Do users really know where their applications live within Google’s infrastructure? No. And it doesn’t really matter. Google’s massively distributed infrastructure ensures that applications survive and thrive within the cloud.
The biggest challenge with cloud computing is that the specialized architecture requires specialized application development. It requires re-engineering time that most businesses don’t want to invest in. Many of Amazon’s bigger EC2 customers are companies that have strategically focused their application development on Amazon’s platform.
I believe that cloud computing will one day replace common hosting services such as shared websites, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers. But it will take a few more years before we see a standardized platform that both hosting providers and businesses can support.
I try not to stray into political discussions too often. I’m not a card carrying member of any political party and I think you will find plenty of crooks on either side of the aisle. That being said I shake my head in amazement when I hear politicians talk about equality and fairness. Recent legislation offered by State Representative Ann Lenczewski (D) in Minnesota strikes me as ethically bankrupt.
Ann’s basic pitch is that a portion of the property taxes that Minnesotans pay should be based on their income. For example, let’s say my home is exactly the same as my neighbor’s home and I have a higher income than he does. According to Ann’s math my neighbor should be able to claim a larger property tax deduction than I can. So in a weird twisted way the lower my income the more benefits I get from property ownership. If my income is higher than my neighbor’s I’m already paying more income taxes. Policies like this seem inherently divisive.
I’m a guest panelist at the IssuesLive event tomorrow in St. Paul, MN. The event is sponsored by an organization called Microbusiness Strategies. I served as a call-in guest on a radio show program they moderated last year. The panelists include business people, entrepreneurs, out-of-work-meteorologists and politicians. I have no idea what I’m going to talk about because the panelists field questions from the audience in a town-hall meeting format. The audience members are small business (micro business) owners and entrepreneurs. This is going to be interesting…
REDUX: I served on a panel that included both business and political leaders — Congressman Keith Ellison, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, Commissioner Dan McElroy, and former TV weatherman Paul Douglas. The attendee turnout was lower than I expected. But this was a first-time event marketed towards very small business owners. These are the kind of people that probably don’t have much free time to attend networking events. The event devolved into a discussion of the resources provided by the State to small business owners. I kind of expected this since we had so many government people in the room. I managed to get a couple statements in edgewise so hopefully my presence was worthwhile. The event was recorded and broadcast on the Internet somewhere. I’ll try to provide a link in a future posting.
