Twitter PostsTo put it very simply: SupraSphere is a universal remote for accessing and adding personal data in the cloud. You can host all of your data in one place on one server, access it securely, and share it as you wish. It incorporates multiple message types including threaded IM, bookmarks, email, and rss feeds, as well as a full Mozilla based browser. But, let’s break it down more. Read the rest of this entry »
Wikipedia is amazing. People explain what things are and how things work, usually in a simplified manner. I looked up cloud computing and got lost in the first sentence. I figured I should rewrite the definitive guide on what on “earth” cloud computing is, in a way even my parents could understand. :) Let’s travel down though the mystery cloud from the top, down, explaining the simple things and going into the complex.
The Cloud, simply put, is the internet. Check it out here. It Kind of looks like a colorful, wordy cloud, doesn’t it? That’s because when you connect to the internet, you have virtually an infinite number of connections to make, like a cloud has trillions of water droplets stored in it. That map, however is just all of the North American connections. The internet map if the world would look something like a thunderhead, hence my title. :)
Simply put, a supercomputer is a really really really fast computer. The current fastest computer in the world is the IBM Roadrunner, which runs at a steady 1.something petaflops. First off, a flops is the FLoating point Operations Per Second. Most computers can’t run at a gigaflop, let alone a petaflop. A Calculator runs at a few flops, and a regular computer is that much faster. Most computers measure speed with Hz or hertz. Hertz is number of cycles per second. The Roadrunner runs at 398131.2Ghz, whereas the average brand-spanking-new computer runs at about 2.33 GHz depending on processor. So, in other words, supercomputing is really fast processors strung together to make a giant uber-fast computer.
Be patient my friend, all will be explained. If 1+1=2, then lots of computers connected via the web equals a supercomputer. See, I told you so. Cloud computing is that basic system of running a really fast computer by using lots of computer processors with the internet tying them all together. It’s more complicated than that though.
And so here is a quote of Prof. Ramnath K. Chellappa:
a computing paradigm where the boundaries of computing will be determined by economic rationale rather than technical limits.
Here is the most interesting thing about cloud computing to me…it’s scalable.What does that mean? Well, for one it means that the more “space” you purchase, the faster your personal supercomputer is, in terms of servers. The “space” I am referring to is apportioned my companies such as Amazon, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. You buy increments of storage space, and you can add to it. Scalability also referrs to that growth when more money=space is added. Hypothetically there is really no limit to the speed of your cloud server. There also is virtually no downtime for servers either.
There are six layers to cloud computing:
So what does that mean? Examples of each layer in order is:
Each of the examples are services that cloud computing as a whole offers, thus their ability to impact the economy. Cloud computing effects the economy by selling these services at a much lower price if not free to the general public. Almost anyone who uses the internet uses one or more of these products. Many of these such as gmail, I use, and love.
At the bottom of the cloud, is you, the user. I hate to rain on your parade, but this guide is over. Don’t use an umbrella, but start cloud computing!
Simply because of netbooks. So many are being released with Linux derivatives Such as Dell’s line-up of Ubuntu Netbooks, as well as Intel’s Moblin, and HP’s Mi. Linux with it’s new ease of use in the netbook arena is being discovered, and I want to jump into it. Linux is slowly becoming mainstream, especially my favorite, Ubuntu, (it sits nicely in our links) along with other derivatives. I’m looking forward to a Suse computer system being released, and hopefully it will come out soon. Here is a quick lineup of software I’m looking for. Now if it came pre-installed, I’d be one happy girl.
Linux as an os has become so easy to use and customize, that it should take over the os market. Most Distrobutions are free or very affordable, and some are even “Windows Compliant” whatever that means. I dislike Microsoft, just out of principle, however, XP was a great os. Linux and especially Ubuntu distro was my first foray into the Linux arena. It will forever be in my heart as my first true love. Joking aside, uinx based systems such as Mac and Linux os’s are the wave of the future, especially if Mac comes out with a netbook as well. Systems are much more secure at this point, and creativity-based programs made by users abound on both systems.
With Linux on the horizon, are there any more operating systems in the works poised to capitalize on computing and netbooks? I seriously doubt it.
Today, the IT ministry of China released Green Dam-Youth Escort, a program blocking some sites like pornography and other explicit materials. Programs, either released on CD or preinstalled on new computers are expected to be released starting as early as July 1.
How does this affect the global internet community? According to AP:
Beijing routinely blocks political sites, especially ones it considers socially destabilizing such as sites that challenge the ruling Communist Party, promote democratic reform or advocate independence for Tibet.
Although porn sites are initially targeted, the program could be used to block other Web sites, too, including those based on keywords rather than specific Web addresses, although its developer said users could disable blocking of any site on the list or even uninstall the software completely.
Unfortunately, this may include such sites as Google, and Baidu, both search engines. The Communist Party seeks to protect children while limiting the rights of speech and communication with the world. Is this fair? Law dictates one thing, personal choice dictates others. Freedom of speech should be a global law, in this writer’s opinion.
It seems that, after years of prognostication about video moving to the Internet, such as Mark Cuban’s claiming that HDTV is the new PC, that we might finally be hitting a critical inflection point.
I spoke with my friend the other day, who said he turned in his Comcast DVR in favor of Netflix + Hulu + streamed content. Sure, this is a sample size of one, but as soon as I move into a new place, I’ll give ditching cable a try myself. Since Comcast provides Internet service alongside cable service, that doesn’t necessarily mean that cable is dead, but it does show increasing frustration with cable set top box interfaces.
Cisco owns both Scientific Atlanta and Linksys. I used to work at Cisco, and my impression is that they usually do not produce signficant innovation after they have purchased a company. Products usually either stagnate or receive relatively minor improvements. Cisco basically buys technologies that they can spin into new markets and leverage into existing relationships through their exceptional sales force.
On the other hand, Netgear is doing some interesting things with BitTorrent and video content. Classic issue of hardware manufacturers having an incentive for as much content as possible, content producers perhaps not considered as strongly.
Samsung has partnered with Netflix to make their movie catalogue available on two of their BluRay players.
YouTube seems to be pushing into the living room as well, with a new interface specifically optimized for viewing and navigating YouTube content on Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3.
Of course Hulu is pretty big. However, the movies aren’t that great. The main show I would want to watch is The Office, but the shows lag so far behind it’s frustrating.
I shouldn’t leave out iTunes, but I don’t buy anything on there because of DRM, so I have no idea what’s going on. I did see Boxee being available as a hack for Apple iTV.
So, it seems that video content online is close enough that it’s worth it to try without cable. Cable is just too expensive, the content channels are not nearly “a-la-carte enough”, it’s missing huge vast seas of “long-tail” content, and the interactive guides are poor. Should be a very interesting year in this space when the PC expands its role into that of a super sophisticated, programmable, remote control.
There is an excellent article on the New York Times called The Rise of the Machines, which details just how little anyone seems to understand some of the financial instruments and their vast global interdependencies.
It reminds me first and foremost of the time that I saw Bill Joy speak at the Kennedy School of Government. It was in the midst of the dot com boom, and Bill Joy was singing to quite a different tune. According to Joy, with three main inputs into the future, science and technological progress, broader access to education and the spread of information, and violence, one of them has to change to avoid impending doom. The unabomber was working on retarding the first, no one has ever successfully seriously slowed the second (and do we want to have to obtain a “license” to be educated?), and so the third looks strangely like the most likely to change in the most fundamental way as little as that seems any more possible than altering the first two.
I also read a book called Digital Soul, which was actually much more interesting than I expected. I thought it was going to rehash all of the same issues, but it presented some fairly interesting insights. For example, people often ponder “artificial intelligence”, but in the book, Thomas Georges introduced me to the term “artificial stupidity”, asking what it would even look like. The idea is generally that we assume that a superior intelligence would look a lot like our own, using human intelligence as the benchmark, and how stupidity must be included in human definitions of intelligence. However, we already have computer intelligence that is far, far superior to our own, just different for different purposes. How would we recognize a superior intelligence if it emerged any more than a cow can recognize our intelligence as superior to its own?
Overall, I continue to insist that we need to put money back in the service of humanity. It is the lever that has the most leverage on all three major inputs into the future given how pervasive it is. I found it interesting and completely unsurprising to read that Ithaca, NY, aims to become America’s first Podcar City. Tell me there is no correlation between that type of progressive, big dream thinking, and one of the main types of money that they use.
Which would be better? A one trillion dollar bailout of wacky financial instruments that no one understands (merely perpetuating and prolonging this deaf, dumb, and blind system of things…if we do that at least we should teach “it” to read), or a global supersonic maglev subway system allowing anyone to get anywhere in the world in under three hours? The latter could probably even be accomplished for less than that, but we the humans have no choice in the matter. The only way to prove otherwise is to just do it.
What does the currency crisis have to do with technology, the overall theme of this blog?
My original inspiration for SupraSphere was based on the work of Bernard Lietaer, particularly his book The Future of Money, where he describes a new communication medium that will allow experimenting with different types of money, allowing the most capable models to bubble to the top. I thought it would be fun to try and build such a thing.
Fast forward seven years. I just yesterday ran into the CIO of the first hedge fund where SupraSphere was installed in December 2002, where it has been running ever since. It manages all of their trading workflow, functioning as an extension of their order management system, and further serves as a repository for all their news. He expressed gratitude for how great the product is and that his organization “grew up around it”.
Meanwhile, the markets are seemingly experiencing total global chaos, with Black Swans everywhere. I read that Iceland might be going bankrupt. I’m not exactly sure what means for a whole country technically to go bankrupt.
I read another report about Brazil and Argentina banding together to create a bilateral exchange that would bypass dollars altogether. Could the Amero Conspiracy be somewhat real after all. According to Vicente Fox, it’s real, but will be “long term, very long term”.
Another one of my contacts is one of the foremost experts on Islamic finance in the world. Interestingly, Islamic banking seems to be rather insulated from the crisis thus far. I will follow up with him and see what his latest thoughts are.
Then there’s the question/idea of a global currency currency standard. Here a representative from China suggests, “The world urgently needs to create a diversified currency and financial system and fair and just financial order that is not dependent on the United States.” I’m not sure if it would be gold/silver-backed, based on one of Lietaer’s suggestions, or something else entirely.
Personally, I’m in favor of a currency based on art and music, ideas and innovation. While SupraSphere is not quite to the point where it can model such a currency, it has many ingredients to help bring such an idea about.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but not too much has changed in the overall IT landscape. Cloud computing has become such a buzzword that it’s hard to know what it is anymore, and I still have deep reservations about the whole model with respect to privacy, security, and flexibility down the road.
In any case, iPhone 2.0 software and its 3G hardware counterpart have been released. Apple’s AppStore seems to be well executed, but they’re getting some very strong pushback on how controlled and arbitrary the approval process is for apps. It still doesn’t have cut/copy/paste, and I still don’t think the typing is great even if it’s good enough.
Google Android has officially entered the scene with the G1 handset. I don’t like T-Mobile so I probably won’t run one until its released on different hardware and carriers, but it’s a very interesting platform and one that has much more depth than the iPhone. Here’s a great article about where Google might be going with it. It’s a lot like Microsoft’s WinCE strategy, but in theory more open. Microsoft has shown openness in supporting a large ecosystem of hardware manufacturers and across carriers, and time will tell if Google takes it one step further by opening the underlying mobile platform on top of it. They have the first part (openness of the platform), but will need to execute on the second (multiple devices) and the third (multiple carriers), to be seen as offering a significantly different alternative to the other players.
Google’s Chrome browser isn’t that innovative other than its javascript performance, but it could be a very interesting piece of the puzzle when combined with Android. Google Gears, Google Gadgets, seamlessly running between Chrome and Android would be killer. Imagine developing Android apps and deploying seamlessly either to Chrome or Android, especially since Android will support Chrome. It’s a heck of a better proposition than having to create a native Blackberry or iPhone application, and it could be that Google pulls off what Apple was hoping to do in the first place by suggesting that developers target the browser as opposed to the native device itself.
In any case, I found the announcement that VISA will support Android a particularly interesting one. Why could they not have done this for the Blackberry a long time ago? The iPhone seems more like a consumer gadget, so it’s possible that Google will move into the “serious” device category even if it’s questionable if that will include the enterprise.
I am no fan of Exchange, but there’s a lot of inertia there, and as tempted as I am by gMail and Google Apps even for the enterprise, the thought that one day all of my or my company’s email in theory could just disappear randomly, is a total non-starter. At least with on-premises solutions I can know, for certain, that my email is physically somewhere and there is 0% chance that I will lose it all. Having been told by the head of Google’s Enterprise App division that they will never, ever, support appliances or virtual appliances, sticking with the multi-tenant model in every case, I can’t consider them a serious contender in the enterprise.
That leads to the other question about the openness of Android. I will begin to tinker with the SDK soon, and it will be interesting to see how clearly it can be de-coupled from Google’s network and services. It’s not just about concern about privacy and all that, but also a question of whether it’s both a level playing field and an open canvas for anything that I could possibly dream up.
So it’s come to my attention that just about everyone on Twitter and Friend Feed has one thing to talk about anymore. That being the all powerful iPhone 3G edition. Personally, I have no desire to own one as they are just so expensive and it seems it all amounts to eye candy. The killer app for iPhone is…wait, I really don’t want a killer app on my phone thank you, I want to be able to call people and text, and possibly check my email. That is all I ask of a phone. However, in most of today’s tech savvy generation, that just makes me “stuck in the nineties” and obliterates any geek in me.
I am of the opinion that there are very interesting things happening other than the iPhone; things that are getting overlooked. For example, Verizon was in talks to buy out Alltel for $27 billion. That to me is horrifying, seeing as how Alltel services us down here in Hickville, Nowhere USA, where as when I came here on vacation my Verizon phone did not work at all. Verizon seems to be about supplying cities with service but neglects the country bumpkins in little towns all over the US. And with poor tact on the Customer Service end of things, I’m worried as to what is going to happen with my phone service. Will I have to make the switch back to Verizon, or will I have to go with the other mobile carrier in the area: AT&T?
Another interesting thing to me was the analysis of the latest cover of the New Yorker Magazine. Chris Farley, wrote on his blog possibly the best political/satirical wrap up of the cover and of the upcoming election. In part it says:
Rumors are circulated about Obama being a (gasp) Muslim. His middle name is Hussein, he must be related to Saddam Hussein. I think the humor is self explanatory. The New Yorker is mocking, and rightly so, the sheer stupidity of those who believe these rumors, as well as those who spread them maliciously.
I just about fell out of my chair when I read a twitter later on regarding this particular cover:
“The new yorker” is full of [expletive deleted] …. : /”
It just goes to show that some people regardless of their age can write and analyze politics on a level much higher than some of their peers. I have no desire to voice my opinions on politics, but it proves the point that the New Yorker may have done something unwise in releasing this particular cover. Too many will feel that it’s jabbing at Sen. Obama, completely missing the point of the whole article.
Lastly, Microsoft stocks fell last night 6%. Sales rose for them during the last fiscal year, but because many people are slow to adopt Vista (no wonder, I despise it) and Wall Street’s estimates were higher than Microsoft’s actual year end profit, stocks dropped. Sadly I failed to see whether or not their stock dropped on the day they discontinued XP, but in my opinion it seems likely that it would. XP was by far better than Vista, and should I ever need a new computer, I will just go for a Mac, seeing as how it seems like Vista is trying to be a knock-off edition. Perhaps it’s just the Unix lover in me, or maybe I’ve been using Linux far too long, but something about Microsoft going under in the not so distant future makes me smile.
I attended a very interesting panel discussion yesterday evening called “An Evening in the Cloud” at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference at the Westin on the Waterfront in Boston. It was a sort of conversational panel between vendors of cloud computing platforms (”Cloud Players”), namely Google, SalesForce.com (through Force.com), and Amazon Web Services, and a group of potential buyers (”Cloud Customers”) from several different types of organizations, from both the public and private sectors. The “Cloud Players” each took their turn presenting a compelling argument to the buyers to move their IT infrastructure as much into the cloud as possible, ideally completely. The “Cloud Customers” then had the chance to react by asking the panel questions and bringing up any possible anxieties they might have in embracing this model to such a degree.
One of the main conversation points centered around the analogy to the utility companies and the “power grid”. The idea is that most people don’t produce their own power and for the most part don’t need to, and do better just plugging into the massive national power infrastructure. Another interesting analogy, made by Jeff Keltner, Business Development Manager for Google Apps, relating to the safety and security of data in the cloud, is that driving is much less safe than flying even though it might not feel that that’s what the statistics would show. The sophisticated infrastructure and incredible engineering in the airline industry makes it possible to be much safer than driving, just like SalesForce.com, Google, Amazon and the others have much more secure and powerful IT environments than what the overwhelming majority of businesses can match.
So I guess controlling and maintaining our own private data is like driving cars. :) I don’t know which I would pick if I had to choose only driving my own car or flying in airplanes (neither really, maybe this once it can fly), but overall I think the argument for cloud computing is sound. There is undeniable momentum towards the utility computing model, and the adoption numbers for Google, SalesForce.com, and Amazon as major players in this space is staggering. Despite the fact that they all have different approaches, with Google and SalesForce.com pursuing a multi-tenant model much more than Amazon as far as their cloud platform story, they are all strongly committed to cloud computing and often consume each other’s services either indirectly or through direct partnerships.
I absolutely love the idea of cloud computing. I want the big “Jukebox in the Sky”, frictionless commerce, social networking driven by semantic personalization, and the multimedia bonzanza that cloud computing will undoubtedly unleash. However, I still also have some reservations, primarily related to what I think is a huge missed opportunity instead of just the commonly-raised concerns concerns around security, privacy, and reliability. I believe there is one key missing element in the equation that I will get to later.
As far as the power grid analogy, one of the “Cloud Customers” on the panel, Carolyn Lawson, Chief Information Officer for the California Public Utilities Commission, made a funny quip in her talk about how it might not be the most appropriate and convincing analogy given some of the recent history of California’s power grid. Then, Dr. Richard Mark Soley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Object Management Group, Inc. (OMG®) and Executive Director of the SOA Consortium, mentioned he was actually just starting to his produce power for his own home, and that he saw a lot of momentum in the direction of much more distributed energy infrastructure. In my own recent trip to Haiti, I couldn’t imagine anything except highly distributed solar and/or wind power making much sense in even the remotely near term.
One of the central themes throughout the conversation between the two sides, could be associated with the term Vendor Relationship Management. There was an overarching desire from those consuming cloud computing services, whether individuals or businesses, to have a basic level of control over their own context. Aside from legal issues, of which there are plenty, there were a string of comments related to concern about the leverage that such companies would have over pricing and abrupt changes in privacy policies, especially in the event of acquisitions and leadership changes. One audience commenter brought up the Patriot Act, which the cloud computing vendors freely admitted is causing them some grief in providing services to an international audience.
As part of introducing myself and my company to any participants of the conference who might be reading this blog, I would like to offer my own analogy to help frame the debate that is centered around encryption. First, for some background on our company, we recently released an Open Source web browsing and searching product called SupraBrowser. It’s a browsing, research, and messaging system used by a number of financial services companies in Boston. We use it ourselves daily for our development and other types of collaboration. One of it’s core attributes is that it’s based partly on a distributed security algorithm called the Secure Remote Password Protocol that reduces or eliminates the need for a central trust authority in all communication traffic.
Additionally, we will be launching shortly a distributed web service called dealtac.com. It’s an exclusive social network for deal makers and connectors, which allows users to monitor and mine their email, bookmarks, feeds, and documents for personal connections from their existing business social network of contacts. Users can also collaborate through a real-time messaging system and leave comments about their contacts.
From what I’ve learned through the odyssey of building this company, I think it’s incredibly necessary to provide a personal, private context to individuals in “the cloud”, and that the absence of this core artifact will severely hamper the success of cloud computing regardless of its early adoption. One of my most interesting conversations of the night was one I had with Jeff Keltner from Google. At one point in the earlier debate, when the potential buyers all really started harping on the issue of privacy, Jeff was the first to mention encryption as a practical way to maintain privacy in the cloud. If you encrypt your data before storing it, it remains adequately private for the majority of cases. This is true, as long as you don’t access it while it’s still in the cloud, but I think encryption itself provides the best analogy for why the “multi-tenant” approach can and should only work up to a limited point.
The very fact that encryption can be mentioned by him in the context of being a raw, foundational element to build privacy and trust upon, actually proves my point. If the US (or any other) government demanded the inclusion of a “skeleton key” for all encryption protocols and programs that only they had full access to, not only would the security be much, much weaker, but also people wouldn’t trust it nearly to the same degree. Even if a government or other central body employed the vast majority of cryptologists and mathematicians in the world, people would still trust a transparently developed algorithm with no known backdoors and known ways to cheat the math more than a closed algorithm. The fact that Google has “root access” to it’s users’ data is the equivalent of maintaining root access to an encryption algorithm.
All the cloud computing vendors in some way mentioned trust as one of the most important elements in their relationship with their customers and users. So, when Google or another cloud platform company denies the need for a place in the cloud that can contain completely private data with no known way for anyone other than the individual to view it, even in theory, while still having all the positive attributes of cloud computing, i.e. more secure, redundant, accessible, and mobile, it’s quite disingenuous and practically the same as if they provided an encryption “service” with a backdoor for the “governing” operator.
The panel was actually incredibly well run and conceived overall, and it was part of a fascinating and important dialogue going on around cloud computing that ultimately touches on deep issues of trust, governance, self-determination, and even sovereignty. I look forward to continuing to be a part of the dialogue and trying to transcode our own privacy policy into the architecture, algorithms, and software code of our products and services as much as possible.
So, which would you want? To be stuck in “the cloud”, or to see a sky full of clouds? We have presented our version of the sky and have only just begun in our quest for what perhaps might be called “Sky Computing”. Since it’s open like the air, we welcome all breathing collaborators. :)