Cloud computing the future of software

Time to talk business again and this is something that I've being doing a lot of research on lately.

First of all, my take on what "cloud computing" really is all about.  Essentially, server rooms, data centers and IT guys with beards that look like they've never seen the light of day all GO AWAY.  All processing power, storage, security, memory (RAM), etc is going to be facilitated soon by the cloud.  The cloud contains all of that and more.  Businesses will be able to formulate applications strategy WITHOUT a dependence on what IT says can and cannot be done technically.  So, Mr. CFO would you like Oracle Financials installed with your company's account structure, corporate entity layout and accessible to all of your users starting next month?  No problem, I've got a VM in the cloud that I can duplicate from a similar company, I'll get some consultants to come in and figure out the nuts and bolts of the application configuration and I'll start giving access to your users.

Now, I know that I'm simplifying things a bit here (especially the time frame), but this really isn't that far-fetched.

The easiest way for someone like me to really get their hands around cloud computing is to imagine a large grid of computers running some operating system (it really doesn't matter which one as long as it's massively scalable) and supporting hundreds or thousands of virtual machines.  These virtual machines in turn can be running any operating system (VMS, Windows Servers, UNIX, Linux, etc).

Again, a simplistic view of what the cloud is really all about, but for starters that's a good "baby step" in the right direction.

Also, again from the server/application side of things.  If you need more processing power, no problem we ratchet up the MIPS (or whatever measure you may want to use).  Do you need more storage space?  OK, no problem the virtual machine architecture supports dynamically changing storage.  More RAM, well really in a true cloud environment storage is storage, but sure we'll give you "more RAM" to make you feel better.  Backup and disaster recovery?  Hey, we just back up the VM or maybe just run two side-by-side in two different data centers with fail over capabilities.

From a front-end, end-user perspective things don't really change too much with one exception.  The user interface to these applications "in the cloud" become ubiquitous.  It simply will not matter if you're using Windows XP, Vista, Fedora, Ubuntu or a mobile device.  A URL or IP address does not care what device you are using to access it.

So, what's the business benefit here?  Well, it's a true win-win situation.

From the provider side, there is a constant revenue stream.  Customers are changed monthly (or yearly) for access to the cloud infrastructure and their applications.  NO MORE MAD DASHED BY YOUR SALES FORCE TO MAKE "QUARTERLY" NUMBERS!  Customers are charged for the service that goes along with this as well.  Administrative duties, adding more users or tweaking the configuration is at one service level and more involved tasks (application upgrades, major changes) are structured at a different rate level.  The personnel that you use to administer this service can be ANYWHERE?  IT staff can be in midtown Manhattan (not recommended) or Manhattan, Kansas.  Central office, home office, flex-time office, it matters not.  If you've got access to a high-speed Internet connection anything is possible.

What's the advantage to the customer?  Well, how would you like never to have to buy a server again?  Also, how would you like never to have to BUY an enterprise license for a piece of software again?  There is only going to be a monthly or yearly fee for access to the application of your choice (possibly a yearly commitment at the beginning to help offset origination costs).  Did you company recently grow from 50 to 100 users?  No problem, we'll adjust that and give you your new periodic bill rate.  Did you company shrink due to layoffs from 100 to 50?  Same thing, we'll adjust your periodic payment and usage amounts and dial back the resources appropriately that you're using.  Want that new version of the software that you're using?  Cool, we'll get that up and running for you, give you a URL for testing and when you're ready to put it into "production" we'll swap out the old URL and the next morning your users bookmarks will take them to the new version.

EASY!

So, what's holding us back?  Well, businesses for the most part are still run by guys who went to business school back in the 60s.  Some executives even date back to the WWII or baby boomer generation.  This is a strange new paradigm and very few of them are going to accept it, much less bet their enterprise application strategy on it.

How will it evolve?  Here's what I think.

Software as a service (SaaS) was cloud computing version 1.0.  Now, we're moving to the second generation.  Amazon, Oracle, Google, and (yes, Virginia) IBM are currently the BIG guys leading the charge.  Companies will soon begin to tip their toes into the cloud.  They'll probably start with non-mission critical applications, skunk-work projects at a departmental level with their current application infrastructure still in place.  It's a low risk way to start.

Eventually, big ticket applications like ERP, CRM, data warehouse and business intelligence applications will move there.  Service vendors will need to ramp up and Amazon and Google will need to make their cloud operating systems more compatible with current application technologies.  Sorry Jeff (Bezos), but I don't see SAP or Oracle re-writing their code base to work with your cloud platform.  It might be better for your to develop a VM technology that can support all of the current application technologies right out of the box.  I think a purchase of VMWare from EMC is imminent unless EMC makes a strategic decision to start touting their cloud infrastructure soon.  Oracle's On-Demand team is heading in the right direction, especially with their business intelligence delivery initiatives.  That might be a fairly low risk application set to get the ball rolling.

All always, feel free to post comments, agree, disagree or just call names.  Just back up whatever you say - that's all I ask.

State of Fear - revisited

See my earlier posts on global warming below, but in the meantime I was struck by an interview I saw last week with Al Gore.  The reporter had asked about people like myself who don't necessarily believe the "party line" on the causes of global warming.  Mr. Gore compared us to people who "still believe the world is flat".

Well Mr. Gore, even though I've never actually been to outer space or in orbit I do believe the world is round.  Kind of an oval actually, not exactly circular according to my education.  But, that's not the point.

Today, I run across an article on the BBC's web site entitled "Global Warming 'dips this year'".  (click the link to view the entire article)  There are two main points here to ponder:

1. 2008 will actually be much cooler than 2007 due to the global cooling effects of a very strong La Nina current in the Pacific ocean.
2. Mean global temperatures (according to The World Meteorological Organization) have NOT risen since 1998.

Mean (or average) temperatures haven't risen in TEN years!  What?  How can that be!?!?  Doesn't an "Inconvenient Truth" tell us that mean global temperatures are rising every year, year on year for the last century?  Maybe I am mis-quoting, I'll admit I've only seen the movie once, but that's what I walked away with.  What if Mr. Gore's Nobel prize is based on inaccurate, contrived scientific data?  Well, wouldn't that be just a kick in the pants!

Regardless I do feel that humans as a whole have a pretty negative impact on our environment.  The real challenge ahead for homo sapiens is to get our act together, rebuild our economies on something other than the burning/consumption of fossil fuels and solve the world's energy needs once and for all.

I'll leave you with one "ramble" on that last point.  Here a link to an article in on CNN.com.  C'mon folks, little ole Iceland is doing it, why can't the good old US of A?

Alternative Energy - Part Deux

I just ran across a great article about a light that is powered by gravity.  I know, I know it sounds a little crazy but hear me out.  First of all here is the link.  Basically, you walk into the room and instead of hitting a light switch (or reaching around blindly under the lamp shade like I do) you raise a weight from bottom to top of the lamp.  Over time, the weight lowers itself via gravity and in doing so generates a small amount of wattage necessary to produce light.  There is no power cord!  Now, as my wife so eloquently pointed out to me (IT'S UGLY!), the current design of said light leaves much to be desired and you'll definitely have a tough time matching this bit of furniture with a new couch and drapes, but the CONCEPT is what has me all geeked out.

Now, as I admitted in my previous post I am NOT an engineer nor do I profess great knowledge regarding power systems and the generation of electricity.  But in my simplistic view it seems that there are two types of energy: active and stored.  Active energy is all around us.  It's the wind blowing through the trees, it's the sun striking our faces, it's the water flowing down a river, it's the tides coming in, etc, etc.  The problem with active energy is that it's not always "active".  The sun obviously doesn't shine at night, rainfall levels impact the flows of rivers, the tides ebb and flow.

That brings us to "stored" energy.  A common example that comes immediately to anyone's mind is batteries.  But also open your mind to other forms of stored energy, the water in a lake behind a dam for example can be thought of as stored.  The movement of the weight in the lamp mentioned above makes stored energy in that the weight will be brought down over time by gravity.  I seem to remember from my physics classes the official term is "potential".  Now, we had to use some of our "active" energy in order for this to happen (by raising the weight from the bottom to the top), but our active energy was stored and is then used over time - I think I read that the light burns for approximately four hours.

So here's the idea and it certainly is not original.  Take active energy, say solar energy and figure out a way to store it so you can use it anytime.  A great example in the hydroelectric field is the idea of pumping water back from the river below to the lake above during off-peak hours when energy is cheap (I would prefer to use something like solar or wind power to do this, but that's not the case currently for a variety of rea$on$).  What happens is that you use the active energy while it's there (sun is shining, wind is blowing, tide is ebbing) and then store it until such time that you need it.

Now the storage issue is one that has confounded us for a while.  Batteries just need a lot of work before things like the electric car become a reality.  But for non-mobile applications it seems there are a variety of methods.  The weight method used by the light mentioned here could be taken up to a grander scale.  What if solar, wind or tidal energy was used to "raise the weight" during the day when most of us are at work and then a generator attached to the weight "falling" during the morning/evening when the power was used or when the other energy sources just weren't available.

I understand that in batteries the "holy grail" would be to store 100 megawatts of energy for an amount of time and then get back the full 100 megawatts.  Alas, physics, the element of friction, etc prevent this from happening.  BUT it seems to me that even re-couping 50-75 percent of this stored energy would be plenty to run a household.

That would be a great goal someday, to get myself and my family "off the grid".  It would even be better to be off the grid and maybe adding a little back.

I have two challenges there.  One, my wife.  She's just not going to let me put solar cells all over the roof of our home not is she probably going to be keen on the idea of a giant weight in the back yard that goes up and down.  Secondly, the engineering aspects of this are daunting.  To my knowledge there are no commercial firms that offer systems like this in my area.  I have heard of companies in the southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, etc), basically areas with an overabundance of sunshine that offer this for homes but the systems are very, very expensive and their TCO prohibitive based on the money that comes back.  I have not heard of any company during any form of hydroelectric research for such a small scale.

Anyone out there have any ideas on this?  It seems to me if you could keep the TCO low and the over time savings obvious (say the system pays for itself after 3 years and everything after that is pure profit) it would be a no-brainer sell to any new construction in certain areas...

Ultimate Fun Stuff - Alternative Energy

You know I've said for years the biggest challenge facing Americans today is the energy "squeeze".  Please notice that I did not use the word "crisis", nor did I use the word "shortage" or any other euphemism for FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).  Unlike the mainstream media, that's not my gig.

Alternative energy HAS fascinated me for years though.  Another disclaimer, I am not an engineer nor do I claim to be, but that actually might be a good thing.  See I'm not limited by an engineers view on things and I tend to dream big.

For example, there's a great little company out there called "Ausra".  If you check out the link on their front page they claim that all of the electrical energy needs of the country could be provided by a 92 x 92 mile square patch of desert populated by their solar power energy solution.  WOW.  Now I'm also not one to jump the gun of what (obviously) is a nice piece of Internet marketing, but even if something close to this is true the implication are mind boggling.

Think of this on a state by state basis.  Take Georgia for example (my home state) and let's say that Georgia only needs 2-7% of that capacity.  Take a 13 x 13 mile square (or several squares scattered around the state equivalent to that area), augment with the several hydroelectric facilities and nuclear facilities in the state and viola!  All the power we need.  Add more capabilities for electric cars (and make electric vehicles more economical for the average consumer) and we could make a significant dent in our dependency on foreign oil.

What?

What did he just say?

Reduce dramatically our dependency on foreign oil?  Now, that my friends would have a significant impact on EVERYTHING.

Let's see, first of all the United States could scale back their support of oppressive regimes.

What?  The United States does not "support" oppressive regimes, we sanction and/or invade them and spread FREEDOM throughout the world!  Right?

Not so fast my friend.

Parade Magazine each year publishes a list of "The World's Worst Dictators".  It's actually one of the few articles they publish that I read from beginning to end each year.  So, who's on the list?  (I mean c'mon Bryan like I have enough time/energy to click on the link you've provided above)  Well, coming in at #4 is one of our only "friends" in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia.  Ranked as one of the worst country's in the treatment of women.  For example, did you know that a woman must attain approval from a male member of her family before asking for/obtaining healthcare?  Household accident?  Trip down some stairs, cut yourself with some scissors?  Gotta wait until a male member of the household get home before calling 911 or going to the emergency room...  (This is 2008, right?)

Coming in at #5, got most favored trading status again last year and the maker of most items in your household, China!  Home of this year's Olympics!  Free speech?  Yeah, right.  The world does not care.  Just fill up all of the Wal Marts and Targets with cheap goods and we'll look the other way on the work camps, torture and general oppression.

And lastly, but not least coming in at #8 our best "friend" in the "war on terror" President Musharraf and Pakistan.  Man, talk about letting the fox guard the henhouse.

Back on topic...

Secondly, Americans would no longer need to burn fuels for energy thus significantly cutting down on air pollution.  Granted we would still need to use petroleum for much industrialized production and for things like air travel, but taking the internal combustion engine off America's roadways would be a truly great thing.  (Now, if I could only afford a Tesla car...)

Also, we would not be limited in any way shape or form by boats crossing oceans filled with hazardous material.  Talk about an endless potential for growth!

If Americans can, in fact, take on the challenge and revamp our energy needs and break our dependency on foreign oil we could potentially change the geopolitical map worldwide.  We would no longer be wary of challenging democratic reform in Saudi Arabia.  We could actually be "tough" and probably win the war on terror.  We could preserve areas in Alaska that the current administration has earmarked for drilling.

It is embarrassing to be a human being in the 21st century living in the industrialized world and to think that my energy needs are dependent upon burning black stuff that comes from the ground.  There's got to be a better way and we owe it to ourselves and future generations to do the "hard work" now and find it.

Next up, my ideas on potential limitless forms of energy (NOT just solar).

My "business" - Business Intelligence and OLAP

In 1996 I started work with a company called Arbor software.  I had worked with their flagship product "Essbase" in a previous company and was attracted to the company, it's product and most of all its people.  To this day, the team that I worked with at Arbor remains my model of stability, entrepreneurship, leadership and intelligence.  I just cannot say what a privilege it was to work with this talented group of people.

What amazes me though looking back over the last 12-14 years is that the landscape for consumers in business intelligence largely has not changed.  I remember a sales meeting in Jacksonville in 1996 when the concept of the "analysis gap" was first mentioned.  Numerous white papers have been published on this concept since and it has even found mention in a few books.

The part of this that amazes me today is that even now in 2008 companies are still having problems with the basic "blocking and tackling" needed to overcome the analysis gap.

What?  How can that be?

What about all of that wonderful technology that came out of the "feature and function" wars of the late 1990s?  What about the new "enterprise-wide" profile of most of the BI vendors?  Wasn't all that great technology, strategy and enterprise-wide integration supposed to "magically" solve the analysis gap in every corporation that bought into one of these technologies?

Not surprisingly, the answer to that last question is a resounding "NO".

Yes, companies have bought in the speculated value-add that business intelligence solutions provide.  Yes, they have spent untold millions of dollars on systems integrations to tie in all manner of data sources to be digested by a wider audience.

Why are people still using spreadsheets?  Why are they still asking for static reports from the ERP systems?  Why are they still using (for the most part) technologies that were considered "mature" ten years ago?

For the simple fact that most companies know what they've bought.  Most also know where their data is stored.  They have incorporated consultants to come in and "connect the dots", but they have NOT taken the last step and really taught the business how to use these wonderful new toys (for the most part).

It's kind of like putting together the most beautiful, most powerful Ferrari possible, customizing it completely to who you "think" will be the most likely driver and then never teaching them how to drive.  Here are the keys, you should be able to figure out the rest from here.

What would happen in that scenario if the person did not know how to drive?  What would happen if they've never seen a car before?  What is they were only 2 years old?

That's the case in today's marketplace.  There is a new "gap".  I call it the "user gap".  There is no Kevin Costner to help out here ("build it and they will come").  Nope, just because a system is "there", implemented, integrated and ready to go it does NOT mean everyone is going to jump at the chance to use it.

"If a business intelligence system comes on line in the forest and no one is there to use it - will it make a sound?"

No way.

How do you solve this conundrum?  It's easy, call me.

There is a new breed of consultant in the marketplace.  I'm a little bit country (I can talk business) and I'm a little bit rock-n-roll (I can play with the "tech" guys too).  This isn't your everyday run of the mill consulting either.  You can't go to Essbase class and declare your self an "expert" (there does seem to be a lot of that going around).

This consultant is all about guidance, understanding and evangelism.  You've got to be all three.  The role is really more of a trusted advisor to mid to high level leaders in the company.  Let's understand first what you've got.  Now, let's figure out how you're using it.  OK, who is the target audience of the effort and what's the "gap" between questions one and two?

OK, I'm not going to give away ALL of my secrets here, but here's one.  Consultants out there listen up, this is the only thing FREE you will ever get from me.

Start by "SHUTTING UP"!

You don't have to fill each and every silence with your incessant blabbering about how great you are, how much success you've had with your previous customers, the white papers you've published and what Mr. customer is doing "wrong" and what "they should do" (which generally involves more business for you, right?).  LISTEN to your customer.  Understand THEIR goals (not yours) and help craft a plan to get them there.

OK, advice over.

In closing, there will always be a place in my opinion for the "technical" consultant, but the management consultant not capable of "doing" is a dying breed.  Exception to this rule do exist I'm sure (especially in the well-connected government circles), but for the most part we, as consultants, need to provide much, much more that the 0's and 1's that have been our bread and butter for the last few years.

Business intelligence practitioners must more and more be able to perform in the server room, the board room and everywhere in between.  That is how to solve the user gap: education, communication, advocacy and good old fashioned training and leg-work.

Beginning of Year Musings

I think it's very important at the beginning of the year to review the last twelve months.

Firstly, I think it's important to review the things for which we feel "thankful".  There are a few obvious ones in my life.  My children's health and well-being, yes that's definitely something to be very grateful for.  That my wonderful wife has seen fit to put up with me for yet another year, definitely, good one.  That I have been reasonably successful this year with my business ventures and because of that my family was able to enjoy a great Christmas and are able to take a couple of weeks off and go to Florida at the end of the year - absolutely, everybody needs to re-charge the old batteries every now and again and this is rapidly becoming our family tradition.

One other thing that comes to mind this year is clarity.  I have a great deal of clarity in my life right now.  Certain events have led to that over the last couple of years.  One of my closest friends has a child that is battling cancer.  The grace with which he and his family have approached this situation provides me with a great deal of clarity on what is most important in life.  For the 3rd time in five years I found myself on the wrong end of small company (slash) political situation.  I worked my butt off, I gave everything I had, sacrificed much and walked away with the proverbial "short end of the stick" (unemployed, no parachute).

So the bottom line here, personal and family life - I'll give myself an "A".  Professionally, a very frustrating and hard fought "C".  Financially I'll give myself a "B", through a lot of hard work, but we still probably could've done better on the budgeting and planning.

Hey, speaking of budgeting and planning, this is a field with which I am very familiar.  I've worked in the OLAP (mostly Hyperion and Oracle technologies) for the past 15 years.  I was also looking back at the mergers/acquisitions that occurred in the last few months.  Amazing...  There really is not a single, independent major player left in the industry.  Hyperion was bought by Oracle.  Business Objects bought by SAP and even little old ("dead in the water") Cognos bought by the ever-present 800 lb. gorilla (IBM).  Absolute unbelievable.

As a consultant working in this industry I am provided a healthy 3rd person point of view (which is nice).  Who does this help?  Well obviously it helps the buying companies expand into the growing BI (business intelligence) marketplace.  Who does this harm?  Well, the customers of course.  Anytime companies these large are allowed to merge the customers are going to get the short end of the stick.  They will pay more for their products and services.  They will receive much less value in these products and services.  (see past post on the death of entrepreneurship and large companies).

Now, in my case, as a services provider these mergers are wonderful opportunities.  The larger companies will continually put out products with problems ("undocumented features").  The internal services organizations within Oracle, IBM (global services), SAP, etc will not be able to cope with these issues - they'll have problems of their own focusing on nothing but billable hours with the lowest level of talent acceptable by their customers.  So what is a customer of these technologies to do when caught in the proverbial "rock and hard place"?

Call me.

Yes, that's right.  Call me.  Your independent systems integrator, technical expert, one man band.

Actually, don't just call me.  Call any one of the extremely talented independent BI practitioners that are currently out there.  You know that you will be getting great quality - independents generally don't last very long in this industry unless their services are top-notch.  You'll pay much less money ($150-$200/hr versus $225+).  And you will generally never be caught in an unfavorable contract situation with a large billing agency and corporate lawyers breathing down your neck (I've seen this happen, it ain't pretty).

And lastly, view the outside help that you are asking for just like a very, very critical hire.  I can't tell you how many times I've had to come in to a software installation that has been screwed up by $40/hr consultants who received most of their "training" from Bangalore.  Trust me on this one, even if you don't I have several references that will back me up on this one.  You truly get what you pay for in this industry and market rates are the rule.

Remember at the start of this I thanked my "clarity"?  Well, what makes me most valuable in this consulting space is my 3rd person point of view to these corporations that I help out every day and it is also my "clarity" in watching this industry (from inside and out!) so closely for so long.

Happy New Year everybody!

I've got some time in the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting more on this subject!

My Contribution

I was just going back through my previous couple of posts.  You guys must think by now that I am one, negative, cynical, glass "half empty" kind of person.

Au contraire kind reader.  I am (in person) one of the most happy, positive people that you will ever meet.  I do have a tendency to make fun of things, especially really obvious things.  I mean I still believe strongly that "news" shows should NOT be able to report on anything that is not "new".  I mean, c'mon the Arabs don't like the Israelis and vice-versa, we get it!  We Americans tend to start wars when we feel our right to fill up our gas guzzlers is threatened, OK that's a given!  Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton will jump in front of a camera faster than Cynthia McKinney can assault a capitol hill police officer, you bet!

So today I am going to make a lifehacker-like contribution to the readership at large (all two of you).  If you don't know the wonders of lifehacker, please click one of the links above or the link over to the right.  I don't make any money from this referral, I am doing this completely from the goodness of my heart ('tis the season!).

Have you ever wanted a personal knowledgebase?  For those of you who don't know what a knowledge base is, it is basically a personal database that you can search and ask anything.  It's a bit like Dumbledore's pensieve in the Harry Potter books/movies.  Say I was trying to find an online receipt from something I had bought on eBay of last year.  I could search for "eBay receipt 2007" and all of the e-mails or documents, or whatever would appear as a result in my search screen.  Lost an e-mail address for "Joe Smith"?  No problem, just type "Joe Smith" and the last few e-mails from that person pop up.  How about that great article on "How to make money blogging?", just type in a few keywords and search for that also.

Pretty cool, eh?

Well, let me be the first to deliver the great news!  Now you (YES YOU!) can have your own personal knowledgebase for only $19.99!  But wait, there's more!  How about some wind chimes?...

Just kidding, what I'm about to describe is free.  Maybe I am a bit cynical after all.

Several free web-based e-mail services now offer what amounts to unlimited storage.  This is very cool and makes my knowledgebase dream very easy!  I don't know about you, but I've been using free, web-based e-mail offerings for over ten years and they've only gotten better and better in their usability and functionality.  The two services that I use for my knowledge base are Google's Gmail service and Yahoo's Yahoo mail.

Now, in my case I split my knowledge bases into two separate accounts for two different types of data.  The Yahoo account is for my business and I use Gmail for all things personal.  I also have a pop3 account through 1and1.com that I use to "funnel" everything from my desktop (Microsoft Outlook) to these two online e-mail accounts.  (I do pay $2.99/month for this pop3 account, but it is well worth it for the features I get.)

For example, if I get an e-mail that is for business and I want to keep it (forever!) I simply forward it to my yahoo e-mail address and add any keywords that I want ("receipt", "eBay", "2007", "UGA keg tap") to the message body.  Anything "personal" that I get, say a funny joke from one of my friends I forward to my personal account with keywords "funny", "joke", "Ron White drunk in public".  Receipts for paid bills online or items I buy this season for Christmas I forward to my personal account with the keywords "Christmas", "2007" and "receipt".

Now, this isn't just limited to e-mails.  I can forward any e-mail, again with the proper keywords in the message body, containing ANY attachment (pictures, web-links, documents, spreadsheets, etc, etc).

I don't even use folders in these accounts any more - heck, unlimited storage is unlimited storage!

When I go to retrieve something I just log in to my online account and use the "search" feature.

Please enjoy and let me know if you have any questions!