See Inside a Google Data Center and a Google Server

Google has recently provided some unprecedented views into their data center operations and have even revealed current details of their server board.  In the past they have only released information on old designs (like the 80 PC rack given to the computer history museum). It seems like every time photos would pop up of server parts it would end up being of a previous generation of equipment.  For the most part, folks like me have only dreamed of being able to see inside a real Google data center and seeing real operational, current generation Google equipment.  

A Proposal Regarding High Tech Immigrants to the US

The topic of H-1B visa’s has always been a hot one.  In the current economic climate there are plenty of American tech workers looking for work and therefore this special visa program is under increasing scrutiny.  I have many friends and associates and family members who have either lost jobs or found themselves in positions they would not prefer due to the current economic meltdown and my bias is to side with them on this.  We need to rethink the nation’s objectives regarding the H-1B program (you can read more on the H-1B visa program, including criticisms, at wikipedia).

Federal Government Technology Directions and the Fed CTO

Technologists in and out of government have been very excited about the work of the Obama transition team, especially the work of their technologists.   A group known as the TIGR (Technology, Innovation and Government Reform) Team has brought some of the best and brightest minds together to strategize and impact the action plans of the federal government.

We have now been treated to an insider’s view into the workings of this team.  The Change.gov website posted a 4 minute video introducing these thinkers and showing us some of the dialog underway.  See it below:

The video shows glimpses of the entire team, but features :

• Vivek Kundra, CTO of Washington DC
• Beth Noveck, Author and idea generator who has written on topics like “Wiki-Government”
• Andrew McLaughlin, head of global policy and government for Google.
• Dan Chenok, a former IT executive and Obama advisor.
• Blair Levin, Telecom analyst and former FCC executive.

Watch the video to see them in action!  Listen for the term “mashups.”  And a good definition of cloud computing relevant to the federal enterprise.

For those who have made it a hobby to speculate on who Obama’s CTO will be, I think the answer now is that it almost doesn’t matter which of the nation’s great tech leaders will be selected.  We know whoever it is will stand on the shoulders of giants and will be served with a group of advisors who have mapped out a vision and an action plan for success (whoever it is, I just hope to have dinner with periodically to pick his or her brain and see how I can serve from the outside- I sure want to see them succeed).

Now things are about to get exciting!  Time for all of us to do what we can to ensure the visions of this group become reality.

Government 2.0 Camp 27-28 March 2009 in DC

Have you ever heard of an Unconference?

Have you ever heard of a BarCamp?

If these are new terms please read on, there are some important aspects of these concepts that CTOs should be familiar with.   And there is a specific BarCamp Unconference coming up 27-28 March in the DC area focused on Gov2.0 that I’ll mention below.

But first, back to those two terms.

An Unconference is a participant driven conference, normally facilitated, but never dictated.  Unconferences are centered around a theme or a purpose.  For more on Unconferences see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

You can think of a BarCamp as a type of unconference.  BarCamps are a network of user generated conference that are open, participatory events based on workshops.  They have been commonplace in the open source community, but have also been applied in other areas, even political organizing.  For more history see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcamp   But if you really want to know what a BarCamp is, go to one and contribute and see how you can change the world.

A great opportunity to contribute is coming on 27 and 28 March.  The Government 2.0 Camp, organized by three widely followed experts in social media and collective action (Maxine Teller, Peter Corbett, Mark Drapeau) is a 100% participant planned, not-for-profit event that will bring together leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and to collaborate about leveraging social media tools and Web2.0 technology to create a more efficient and effective government– Government 2.0.

Maxine Teller writes that:  “The
unconference format embodies these same collaborative principles as our
nation’s democracy–of the people, by the people, for the people–and
thus, is the ideal structure for the topic of Government 2.0.  This
event is a tremendous opportunity to practice what we preach and create
something better collectively than we could individually.“

This event will be happening at a great time.  The Obama administration will have been on scene long enough to have mapped out not only their strategy for the future but strengths, weaknesses and gaps in pursuit of their strategy.  With input from feds in the know, the attendees at this event may be able to help address gaps and contribute to the technology path of the nation in ways that are hard to predict, but likely very positive.     

To learn more about the event and to sign up for it (and to help plan for and sponsor it), see the event wiki at: http://barcamp.org/Government20Camp

To register for the event visit the site at: http://gov20camp.eventbrite.com

I hope to see you there. 

CTOvision.com and Facebook Connect: A Request

Movable Type recently announced an exciting new way for blogs like CTOvision.com to leverage the Facebook Connect API.  I’ve just integrated these capabilities into my blog and have deployed a Facebook application page to act as the hub for these features. I would greatly appreciate it if you would test this out and give me some feedback.

Background:  The Facebook Connect API lets users share their information with third party websites and applications.  Users can dynamically connect their identity information in ways that respect their privacy choices.  Basic profile info, photos and information can be shared.  The current version of this capability offers more trusted authentication, better ways to stay in touch with friends and family, and stronger, more dynamic privacy.    Movable Type has provided plugins and integration guidance to enable blogs like CTOvision.com to leverage these capabilities.

Potential Benefits:  When you log into the CTOvision.com site using your Facebook account, you get the full features of a CTOvision.com account without having to create a new login. If you choose, your Facebook profile name and picture can automatically be shared with this and other Movable Type blogs.  And you will be able to see which other friends of yours are commenting on this site.   Additionally, when you comment, you will have the option of having your comments posted to your Facebook wall. 

The Request:  I would really appreciate it if you would help me test out these features on this site.  Please try logging into CTOvision.com with your Facebook account and after you do, leave a comment on this post.   If you share your comment on your Facebook page that would be appreciated too. 

Please let me know if you have any suggestions/comments/thoughts on ways this can be better integrated into the site. 

The Disruptive Power of Netbooks

The idea of light-weight, low-cost, but very powerful laptops designed for a smaller feature set than traditional laptops has been around for a decade or so.  But all indications are that something has changed in the market place.   Due to a convergence of many factors, netbooks are growing in sales.  These factors include the continual improvement in wireless speeds, the more widespread availability of wifi, the continued drop in cost of hardware, the continued increase in performance of open source operating systems and open source applications, the unstoppable move to more thin-client solutions, and the dramatically increased capabilities of cloud computing services (including the entire web2.0 megatrend and of course the continued innovations of Google in the cloud computing and online applications space). 

I just did a few searches on Amazon and Bestbuy for netbooks devices, and pulled up entries for small notebooks like the Acer Aspire One, an 8.9-inch mini laptop that runs Linux Lite and sells for under $300.00.  It has plenty of capability and is very lightweight.   It comes loaded with applications, including open source office automation packages (I think I would want to download the most recent version of open office if I purchased this).  It also comes with a built in camera and is ready for high end video chat. 

Will I buy one?  There are clearly some of these in my future, I just don't know when.  I have a MacBook and I really like it for everything I need in a laptop.  I use it around the house and on travel.  And, although it is over a year old now, it doesn't need replacement.  When it does, however, I'm going to be asking myself why I would want to pay $1000 more for a Mac instead of a couple hundered for a Netbook.  So much of what I do I do on the cloud anyway, and the many things I do locally can be done using the free Open Office.  

If we assume the same sort of trades are being considered by other buyers, a conclusion starts to emerge.  Netbooks are going to be a very disruptive force in the market.

And what is the market saying so far about this trend?  Acer is reporting huge success with their netbooks approach, their sales have been growing significantly.  They just reported a 78.8 percent growth rate over the same quarter in 2007.  And this is during a huge market downturn.  HP and Dell are reporting unit sales growth of 13.5 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively.   Apple is just about flat.

If you are an enterprise CTO, what should you do with this information?  For one, you should consider how to use laptops/netbooks like these in your organization.  If done right, you can enhance the security of your enterprise by moving more of your data and applications to secure clouds, and you can also add security features to your netbooks and field a significant enhancement to your security posture.  And, since the cost of these devices is far less than traditional laptops you can equip more of your workforce and save money at the same time, which is a very virtuous thing in this economic environment.

Note: I've previously written about several devices that qualify as netbooks, including:

Thin Client Laptops: Functionality, Security, Mobility A review of high end, enterprise quality wireless stateless thin clients using the Sun Microsystems approach;

and

The Future Is Changing Again A review of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative.

I also recommend a recent article at Economist.com called Small is Beautiful. 

And, thanks to a friend on Twitter, I just got pointed to a post at GigaOm titled: Why Netbooks are Greener Than Laptops

The Technology Implications of the Obama Win

There are several megatrends sweeping the technology industry today.  Some of them are about to be accelerated.  

I like to use five key topic areas to track megatrends in IT: 

- Convergence and trend towards unified communications and user empowerment
- Globalization and increasing internationalization of IT and demographic shifts
- Increasing open development of software and hardware
- Power, Cooling and Space (PCS) impacting data centers and every place computing is done
- Increasing pace of technology development and probability of disruption

Over the past two months two major events have occurred which are impacting these trends.  

The
first was the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting cascading
effects on the financial industry.  The impact on IT spending and the
movement of more enterprises to grid/cloud computing because of that
are still being assessed, but for some thoughts see: Wall Street Crisis

The second was the Presidential election of Barack Obama.   

The Future of Cyberspace Security: The Law of The Rodeo

This is an update of my now annual assessment of the future of technology associated with good and evil in cyberspace which was first posted here.

Predictions
of the future of technology are increasingly starting to sound like
science fiction, with powerful computing grids giving incredible computational power to users and with autonomous robots becoming closer and closer to being in our daily lives vice just in computer science departments. Infotech, nanotech and biotech are fueling each other and each of those three dominate fields are generating more and more benefits that impact the other, propelling us even faster into a new world.   Depending on your point of view the increasing pace of science and technology can be good or
bad.  As for me, I'm an optimist, and I know we humans will find a way
to ensure technology serves our best interests.   

Android: Disruptive? Not enough info to say

Google and T-Mobile just announced the arrival of the G1 device today.  This is the first cell phone to use Google's new open "Android" operating system.   Android will almost certainly change the mobile computing fabric.  It is the first open and free mobile platform and since it is backed by Google it is not going to be a flash-in-the-pan.  But, now the question is, how disruptive will it be?  There are over 3.3 Billion active cell phone subscribers in the globe.  How many of those will eventually be on Android? 

I'd appreciate any of your thoughts on that.  For now, check out some of Android's features below.  Looks pretty cool.

We still don't know when these will be in the local phone stores. But then again, we don't know when the Blackberry Bold will be here either.   Anyway, I plan on evaluating an Android phone as soon as possible to see if it is for me. 

More later.

Android: Disruptive? Not enough info to say

Google and T-Mobile just announced the arrival of the G1 device today.  This is the first cell phone to use Google's new open "Android" operating system.   Android will almost certainly change the mobile computing fabric.  It is the first open and free mobile platform and since it is backed by Google it is not going to be a flash-in-the-pan.  But, now the question is, how disruptive will it be?  There are over 3.3 Billion active cell phone subscribers in the globe.  How many of those will eventually be on Android? 

I'd appreciate any of your thoughts on that.  For now, check out some of Android's features below.  Looks pretty cool.

We still don't know when these will be in the local phone stores. But then again, we don't know when the Blackberry Bold will be here either.   Anyway, I plan on evaluating an Android phone as soon as possible to see if it is for me. 

More later.