Tag Archives: Applications Infrastructure

Microsoft pays $26.2B buying LinkedIn… Too much????

Is $26.2 Billion too mush?
Is $26.2 Billion too much?

Microsoft seems to be paying a lot to buy LinkedIn if you just look at the “P&L” side of the deal.

But if you examine the long term MSFT strategy of making Office 365 the pervasive business and social platform for documents, presentations and spreadsheets, then it makes the deal worth the investment cost.NewConstructs_LNKD_DeterioratingMargins_2016-06-13

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Polyglot VS RDMS VS NoSQL… Which is RIGHT???

In doing work for a local healthcare product venture, I was asked to look at the network and database requirements to support mixed content transactions, video streaming all while conforming to HIPAA compliance standards.  As a part of this work, I developed a Web Services Cloud-based architecture that took into account, ERH, HL7, document management and provider notation.

Polyglot DB for the Web
Polyglot DB used  for the Web

 

This tasking led me to a deep dive on the data architecture and DB requirements analysis that was required to develop the architecture.

The question of utilizing standard RDBMS (SQL) VS NoSQL was an immediate consideration.  My conclusion…. It depends on a large number of technical, business and regulatory factors to derive the appropriate architectural answers. For example, what other external systems are interfaced to the applications and how do they require interaction? In general with the prolific growth in web services, mobile and cloud computing today’s enterprise will require a polyglot data architecture to satisfy all stakeholders.

anette-ashertrend-in-medical-informatics-24-1024 trusted health clouds
See www.2gls.com/ceo.php posted by Anette Asher

 

A look at Healcareinformatics provides an operational insight into some of the complexities.

“Healthonomics” can be the key driving factor to trigger enterprise decisions to support multiple types of DB solutions woven together in a heterogeneous way delivering a network of web services that affect healthcare outcomes.

OPs considerations for Healthcareinformatics
OPs considerations for Healthcareinformatics
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4K Video’s significant impact on; info consumers, platform vendors and content providers

As we start to see the uptake in 4K video content, suppliers of CPUs, NIC (Network Interface Cards), networks (LAN, WLAN, Wi-Fi) and storage technologies will all be struggling to “step up to the plate” in meeting the challenges of this disruptive Video format.  Also IAAS platform providers will face huge challenges to configure cloud components that can be rapidly provisioned  for 4K content or Video Streaming.  Even the security industry will be affected regarding the video surveillance infrastructure (see this Video Security Magazine article).

SD VS HD VS 4K
SD VS HD VS 4K

This is a Technologies Strategic Directions “Sleeping Inflection Point” for multiple industries, manufacturers, eworkers  and information consumers.

Ultra-high definition (UHD) resolution is 3840×2160 Pixels now used in displays and broadcast., This does not equal 4K (4096×2160 Pixels) used in digital cinema. People tend to used them interchangeably but there is a significant difference in impact on the networking bandwidth required to service consumption of 4K.

We all are aware from a display technology perspective that TVs are now offering this content.  However, how about other network and computer infrastructure components?  When will they be able to handle  the disruptive impact of 4K?

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IoE/IoT KEY Enablers will be Ubiquitous Connectivity & Predictive Maintainence

I’ve been digesting and expanding on an interesting white paper authored by the Microsoft Azure Incubation team titled: Building the Internet of Things Early learnings from architecting solutions focused on predictive maintenance. I agree with the premise tha ubiquity in connection technology will be the key enabler and that predictive maintenance will probably be required to instantiate a true global ubiquitous connection state.  Recently MS is changing their terminology from Internet of Things to Internet of Everything (IoE).  Here I use them interchangeably A key technical enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT) is ubiquitous connectivity. A week or so ago I blogged about a new technology called Active Steering(TM) which should be the winner in patented connectivity hardware/Software/Firmware for antenna products.

Focussed Adaptive Radiation
Focussed Adaptive Radiation by Ethertronics

Just imagine that the antenna on your device was constantly sampling the wireless signals around your location and finding the strongest source and directing the focus of the antenna to that source.  That is what an Active Steering antenna does on your phone, tablet or PC.   By using this technique the system is also performing predictive maintenance on the connectivity configuration for your specific device and location. Let’s first look at the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. Even though the Internet model uses a simplified abstraction, the models in the previous figure and the associated well-known logical protocols are comparable. Connectivity Model Application-layer protocols are not concerned with the lower-level layers in the stack other than being aware of the key attributes of those layers, such as IP addresses and ports. The right side of the figure shows the logical protocol breakdown transposed over the OSI model and the TCP/IP model.

Interaction patterns

Special-purpose devices differ not only in the depth of their relationship with back-end services, but in the interaction patterns of these services when compared to information-centric devices because of their role as peripherals. They are not the origin of command-and-control gestures; instead, they typically contribute information to decisions, and receive commands as a result of decisions. The decision-maker does not interface with them locally, and the device acts as an immediate proxy; the decision-maker is remotely connected and might be a machine. We usually classify interaction patterns for special-purpose devices into the four categories indicated in the following figure.

Device Coomunications Patterns
Device communications Patterns

CoPathwaysnnectivity Types

All of these models need uninterrupted connectivity to enable the ultimate user experience that Windows 10 could offer with the addition of Active Steering Technologies at the Platform level.

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Windows10 Hands on Revelations

As a member of the Windows Insider Program I have had a while now to install, investigate and update the Windows 10 Technical Preview.  I took a 12 year old HP Windows 7 PC and upgraded it to Windows 10. All of my hardware & programs worked flawlessly. The new browser (code named “Project Spartan” ) is really a big step forward in performance and functionality. Key features are built-in natively to the browser and their major purpose is to make web-services content easier to read, share and comment on.

At last - A True Ubiquitous Platform
At last – A True Ubiquitous Platform

Other more important revelations have to do with the stated goals of Microsoft regarding their key technology – Windows.  According to the new CEO Satya Nadella, “Windows 10 marks the beginning of the more personal computing era in the mobile-first, cloud-first world. Our ambition is for the 1.5 billion people who are using Windows today to fall in love with Windows 10 and for billions more to decide to make Windows home.”  If you look at the new offerings superimposed on the backdrop of existing “must have” applications, Microsoft seems determined to make itself through Windows the big dog in the internet services arena. According to Terry Myerson, “We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet.”

He continued to state that, “Windows 10 is the first step to an era of more personal computing. This vision framed our work on Windows 10, where we are moving Windows from its heritage of enabling a single device – the PC – to a world that is more mobile, natural and grounded in trust. We believe your experiences should be mobile – not just your devices. Technology should be out of the way and your apps, services and content should move with you across devices, seamlessly and easily. In our connected and transparent world, we know that people care deeply about privacy – and so do we. That’s why everything we do puts you in control – because you are our customer, not our product. We also believe that interacting with technology should be as natural as interacting with people – using voice, pen, gestures and even gaze for the right interaction, in the right way, at the right time. These concepts led our development and you saw them come to life today. “

Look at their video on demand announcement here.

This will create many new opportunities for HW & SW engineers to make the continuum user experiences a reality and increase monetization of proving add-ons to the Windows 10 new functionalities.

 

 

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New Technology Coming to Marry the Internet of Things with small appliance world!

My firm has been engaged by one of the world’s largest small appliance manufacturing PRC-based companies to architect and implement a cloud/mobile/appliance IoT offering. This new small wine appliance will be launched in Q4 of 2014.

In fact this is an exciting project where WilQuest is Partnering with Microsoft, interKnowlogy, Tridea Partners and others to create a “Cloud of Things” CoT infrastructre where a global software/hardware engineering team is developing products on Azure,Windows 8,  Android, iPhone, iPad, Intel and ARM platforms to create a seamless web srevices orchestration of devices and applications that each perform a segment of a task that the end user request via gesture/mouse/keyboard action.

 

 

 

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Internet of Things ( IoT) Chatter…..

I’ve been interacting with other Intel Alumni regarding the Internet of Things and various prognostications about the work going on between Intel & Microsoft.  Some believe there’s no room for Intel in this domain space to the I posted on an Intel Alumni social media site:

“Don’t count this partnership out quite yet….  The new management teams at both of these companies are well positioned to drive innovation and deliver a cost effect offerings in the IoT space. MSFT’s purchase of Nokia along with the Surface device push means that a lot of folk at MSFT are now focused on delivering HW/SW bundled solutions. If any collaboration can find a way to do it the Intel army along with a reinvigorated Bill Gates having a hands-on role at MSFT (from an architecture and creativity function) could cause an inflection point for the IoT product domain.”

Also, look at this video from our friends in Redmond:

Microsoft's IoT Push
Microsoft’s IoT Push discussed at the 2013 Intelligent Systems Leadership Summit
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Are Cloud Technologies Replacing on-premise Servers?

It seems that that is the case.  In fact the old-style justifications for on site servers and attendant OpEx costs don’t seem to make sense any more.  Read this interesting article  Is the data center in the Cloud or is the Cloud in the data center?

Maybe your next Server won't be collocated with you!
Maybe your next Server won’t be collocated with you!

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Convergence of Cloud Computing & Big Data????

There’s a lot of buzz stating that Cloud Computing and Big Data are synonymous. See a Forbes article here stating that ”

“Big data is the new cloud computing.”

This sentiment was recently expressed in an interview with Motley Fool analyst Tim Beyers, who analyzed the zeitgeist coming out of the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) conference and observed that cloud computing and big data were now one in the same phenomena, converging on enterprises of all shapes and sizes.”

For those who don’t know what big data is, this Intel Video gives you a “Big Data 101” primer.

The Cloud definitely provides a cost effect and timely way to go after big data problems and then using the elasticity of the cloud’s IaaS foundation, dump the costly resources when you’ve finished or allow them to grow only when needed. But they are not one and the same. Big Data is just the current “Bell of the ball” for enterprise usage of the Cloud.  See below Gartner’s Hype Cycle for emerging technologies 2012. This shows we are either in or approaching the “Trough of Disillusionment” regarding Reduce Map and the offerings of DBSaaS.  I’m eager to apply some innovative ideas I have regarding the trip out of this trough on some upcoming projects.

Big Data Hype Cycle 2012
Big Data Hype Cycle 2012
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Next “BIG THING” for Apps = Inteligent Network Adaptors

Next-Gen "Smart" Server AdaptorAs heterogeneous computing starts to grow, intelligent networking will be the facilitators of smart enterprise systems architecture. Basically hardware vendors are beginning to put intelligent silicon on network adaptors.  This provides the ability through deep packet inspection to realistically provide Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and true Software Defined Networks (SDN) as a part of hardware/software computing infrastructure.  This requires an intelligent NIC, Software Defined Networks (SDN) & Web Services/Cloud Servers must be engineered to “be aware” of the intelligence in the hardware so that software can make smart choices based on business logic context.

See more information about this trend here:
http://www.edn.com/design/wireless-networking/4422820/Next-gen-intelligent-application-adapters-for-100–network-programmability-?goback=%2Egde_35866_member_5798174629294006275#%21

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