Tag Archives: Software as a Service

Beyond High Definition Video, Cloud of Things, Cloud Security, Cloud Servers, Healthcare Technology, Public Cloud Technology, Strategic Technology Directions, Technoiogy Trends 2014-2018

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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Advanced Appliance Architecture, Cloud of Things, Cloud Servers, Internet of Things, Silicon Architecture, Strategic Technology Directions, Technical Contributions, Technology Trends 2015

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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Cloud of Things, Cloud Security, Cloud Servers, Internet of Things, Strategic Technology Directions, Technoiogy Trends 2014-2018, Technology Trends 2015

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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Silicon Architecture, Strategic Technology Directions, Technology Trends 2013

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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Silicon Architecture, Strategic Technology Directions

Big Changes at Intel & Microsoft Signal a Major Industry Shift

2014's HereWith the resignation/retirement of long term Intel leaders and Microsoft’s announcement of a new CEO, the direction of the industry’s shift to non-X86 architecture Future Work
products is forcing both of these giants to rethink their corporate leadership philosophies.
Satya Nadella becomes only the third CEO of Microsoft while CEO Brian Krzanich of Intel follows a similarly small group of predecessors.  A good example is that Verizon and Intel in late January announced an agreement for Verizon to purchase from Intel the assets of Intel Media, a business division dedicated to the development of Cloud TV products and services.

The Future Work is an attempt to show how enterprises need to adapt to the changes in order to stay relevant in 2014 and beyond. Check out these links and judge for  yourself if Intel and Microsoft are headed in the right directions.

 

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Beyond High Definition Video, Strategic Technology Directions, Technology Trends 2013

Internet Trends from KPCB

This is a very interesting slide deck on Internet Trends.  Specifically when you dissect digital media into audio, photo, video and audio you see we are just at the beginning of a huge growth in demand for Cloud Services to support our digital lifestyle. When you combine what we want digitally with how we use it and socialize using it, the volume of digital content will grow at an unbelievable rate through 2035. internettrends052913final-130529094939-phpapp02

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Uncategorized

Cloud Enterprise Architects must use Elasticity Guiding Enterprise Design

The IaaS and PaaS cloud models allow architects to decouple components of an application or enterprise system into the lowest functional components and design for failure how these pieces can be utilized as “independent black boxes” to form an application.  This allows for provisioning elasticity and resiliency of individual components and their states in the inevitable event of hardware or software failure.

One of the least understood impacts of this approach is that the message queues used by components can become the most important elements in assuring availability, scalability and ultimate reliability.  In essence the messaging infrastructure components become the most critical parts of an applications infrastructure designed to exploit elasticity. If you envision these Enterprise Apps as complex organisms, then the message queues and their reliability become mission critical organs of the living, agile enterprise architecture. Components such as controller apps, databases and such should be isolated allowing buffering of request along with replies making the network of components more durable and state independent facilitating failover and scalability.

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Strategic Technology Directions, Technology Trends 2013

Hybrid Cloud Computing Model Should dominate Enterprise Usage

As enterprises come to grips with Cloud Computing demands (both internal and external) the IT groups will soon realize that the Hybrid model is the “best fit” for the new Enterprise IT organization.  This will also force a closer alignment with various business units and provoke a rethink of the costing models for IT. can IT really stay a coast center given the inevitable variable demand curve of Cloud Services? Enterprise IT shops will consider various vendors (E.G., Azure, HP, VMware, Amazon & others) in light of the matrix created by matching customers service type needs to flexibility of leveraging a vendors Cloud Service offerings to suit the enterprise’s complex business needs. the ease of entrance and exit will be the driving forces behind vendor selection not just cost but ease of achieving true operational excellence.

Finance, Corporate Strategy, Biz Units and IT will collaborate to determine which “flavor” of Cloud Services are needed.  For example the SaaS, IaaS or PaaS models may all be needed in the view of the business objectives.  The decision of what kind of service offerings to implement will drive IT’s customers to do a functional decomposition of existing applications and distil what services are used today.  This will lead to an “applicability analysis” of which type of Cloud implementation makes good business sense.  Some may choose from Cloud Platform as a Service, Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Cloud as a Software Service model.  These may also include convent “off ramp & on ramp” strategies to allow customers to switch as circumstances dictate.  An example of the choices is illustrated below:

Whatever Business Situation Determines That's the Right Cloud Service Choice
Whatever Business Situation Determines That’s the Right Cloud Service Choice
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Strategic Technology Directions, Technology Trends 2013

Today’s Key Product Engineering Technology Requirements

As we look at today’s complex product, business and end-user requirements, some key ideas must be addressed to achieve profit margin goals.  Almost all electronic products today utilize software, hardware and multiple suppliers/vendors to complete product functionality.  The chart below is meant to trigger thinking about key items that must be included in the today’s electronic product engineering process.

These must come in to play while engineering products today.
These must come in to play while engineering products today.
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Strategic Technology Directions, Technology Trends 2013

VOIP and Data Communications must combine

To be successful going forward in voice and data communications, companies must be able to integrate the cost benefits of VoIP wire line carrier transmission with cellular/mobile end-user voice and data product suites. E.G., AT&T, COX et al are bundling offerings to increase conglomerate market share. Wireless and Wire line service offerings – previously, large corporations have spent billions of dollars expanding their PSTN network.  As mobile and cellular technologies became available (and dominant) additional investments were spent creating the second stage of telecommunications.  Today, trends are foretelling the final tale in these under-connected technologies.  With the introduction of mobile data communications such as 8.02.11 (Wi-Fi) and 8.02.16 (WiMax), the Next Generation Networks (NGNs) will begin to support both data and voice communications, to a wireless end-user, while taking advantage of the cost-effective VoIP network backbone.  Smart Phone carriers have already successfully integrated a VoIP/Wireless package for this product-type powerhouse.

These companies also must be able to saturate their combined products suites into the international origination retail marketplace. As we have seen in the US domestic marketplace, companies are offering bundled services to customers, including:

  • Enhanced voice products that are easily integrated into a VoIP switching platform such as voicemail, conference calling, international toll-free, and the personal secretary (follow me number)
  • Integration of voice and data products together such as 802.11 wireless hot spot services, local phone services, and cellular (CDMA, GPS) subscriptions.
  • Initiatives with strategic partners

A key driver to ride this momentum is the ability to penetrate the market with affordable voice services, then maximize product suites with customer up-sell, using the Internet for advertising, provisioning, and selling, eliminating large personnel infrastructures that have, in the past, proved to be too costly for the PSTN Contribution model shrinking gap.  In addition, these marketing plans can be handled virtually from one corporate operating entity, for each geographic/ethnic market segment.

Finally, success will be contingent on companies familiarity with the sensitive balance between Revenues and associated Cost Minutes of Use (CMOUs), while building and maintaining a low-cost ongoing capital expense network.

  • Revenue vs. Cost Minutes – Although Operating Margins will continue to decrease by MOU, these declines will be offset by the strong demand for wireless data and voice services, both standard and enhanced, worldwide.  The addition of wire line and wireless customers in the less developed countries will gain huge market segment and will produce high Revenue dollar figures until the international accounting recalibration of the industry in these “start up” markets.

Building a low-cost enhanced service network. While VoIP networks have rendered old business models obsolete, it is expected to drive down the cost structure of providing service.  By building a MPLS access network for VoIP, Telecom Engineers, Operators, and Technicians are now located virtually, significant reducing operating costs and initiating an increase in service quality.  Because large domestic providers have billions of dollars invested in PSTN networks.  Understanding that cost reductions will be a necessity to stay competitive, migrating away from PSTN networks to VoIP will produce a large dilemma of instigating and executing an expense plan, with a result in reduced revenues.  RBOC and telephone carrier leaders seem to be slightly behind the curve of independent players who are building their model on the future, instead of the past.  How these large conglomerates handle this transition and these financial challenges will foretell their viability and future. Simply put tomorrow’s phone company will not be your parents’ phone company.

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