Do we really need to
see the big guy wielding a mighty hammer, or are areas of focus for many in IT
already being covered by smaller blows leveraging what we already have?
Boulder has been hit with some amazing thunderstorms
of late, with another one passing overhead early this afternoon. Rather
fortuitous in some respects as I took time to have a look – boiling clouds with
amazing displays of nature’s powers as lightning flashes lit the sky. It was a
big display of nature’s awesomeness. Lightning, disrupting the normality of an
afternoon; clouds, the source of tremendous energy; no matter where you stood,
the display was on a grand scale – big, by anyone’s measure.
At the macro level, prairie thunderstorms are majestic to watch whether you are out in the open or tucked up alongside a mountain. However, stepping away from nature there are still amazing sights to take in that are man-made. To me, the unrelenting drive to miniaturization blows my mind – there’s just no real way to equate what is inside a modern chip to anything we can see in the real world. When quantum physicists talk of size where 2 to the power of 512 is referenced in the same breath as being more than the sum of all atoms in the known universe, then yes, we have come a long way from a system my father showed me in the mid-1960s that had 8K bits of memory, yet still could store a program.
As a place to start, did you know that vendors, well known to the NonStop community, have begun taking steps along the path to clouds. “The model today is cloud computing is inevitable even among the financial institutions I count as customers,” said OmniPayments, Inc. CEO, Yash Kapadia. “It’s inevitable because it represents a more sensible approach to providing the best value for the dollars spent. Too often we size systems and include software with expectations of the volume and type of transactions a customer will face but this can lead to erring on the conservative side with customers ending up paying more. And this is not what we want to do at OmniPayments. Elasticity of provisioning as well as providing capacity on demand is just the latest way to express a need for flexibility and with cloud computing, whether the cloud is on site and private, or is on our premises and managed, it is simply a way to better leverage commodity hardware and open systems.”
The productizing of the demo that has been showcased at the last couple of HP Discover events by Infrasoft as maRunga is just one more proof point. To those embarked on modernization projects where the volume of searches is high, as their clients spend more time looking up items, then maRunga is an easy first step to take on their path to clouds. And solutions for NonStop that include support of clouds are already being deployed. “OmniPayments has already been sold as a cloud offering in the America’s and is in an early stage of customer acceptance. In this first instance, there’s both a private cloud on site as well as a managed cloud on our premises for back-up purposes. And yes, NonStop systems are an important part of both cloud computer configurations,” added Yash. “Are we playing liberties with the concept of cloud computing? I don’t believe we are as the cloud we externalize to the customer is a collection of processors the specifics of which aren’t visible to the customer.”
The arrival of big data comes at a crucial time for the industry. In an always-connected, online world it’s imperative that we have the right information at our fingertips to sway our clients to more favorably consider what we offer. So often we emphasize two of the Vs associated with big data – volume and velocity – but timing is of the uttermost importance when integrating the world of big data with transaction processing, NonStop’s forte. “From our perspective, we should be talking about ‘time value of information’”, said Managing Consultant, Enterprise Solutions & Architecture at Hewlett-Packard, T.C. Janes. “Time is the enemy of data.”
“Certain types of data have enormous value at its moment of creation but may have less value an hour from now and perhaps no value tomorrow. Stock traders have understood this from time immemorial – if you can identify and act on a transaction opportunity faster than anyone else, you will benefit the most,” added HP’s Janes. “If you can synchronize data arrival velocity with business process velocity, an organization can sell more product, deliver better customer service and capitalize on new business opportunities sooner than their competitors. Inversely, an organization does not necessarily want to act on every potential black swan “event” if their evaluation of aggregate data yields a contradictory model.”
There is another side to clouds and big data, and that’s the likely intersection of technologies. When it comes to big data and cloud computing then according to HP Master Technologist, Justin Simonds, “I think there will be a collision, at least for a while, as organizations attempt to derive meaning out of every piece of data they can get their hands on. Cloud is the only ‘price reasonable’ way to churn through all that stuff.” Furthermore, added Simonds, “I believe there will be a falling away as attempt after attempt yields little business insight. I see the industry adopting specific products for specific requirements. NonStop, as mentioned, is still extremely well designed for the operational analytic, real time velocity events. Vertica still holds the top magic quadrant spot for deep / big data analytics and for all its bad press Autonomy has some very good IP in the audio/video arena. I believe multiple solutions are the only way to effectively proceed.”
Simonds observations are shared by comForte’s CTO, Thomas Burg. In an interview for an upcoming post to the blog, comForte Lounge, Burg observed that when it comes to “clouds and big data, there almost nothing that is really new here either. Cloud computing is little more than old wine in new caskets where the only issue is one of business best-practices. Can we run this application in a cloud? Can we store this data in a cloud? Security? Bring it on! We have the technology and know-how, we are happy to talk to prospective cloud adopters. Big data is a similar challenge but somehow, many NonStop users see only a big hammer when only a small hammer is needed.” On the other hand, “We continue to include NonStop in our plans for WebAction as there’s no question, serious online processing is occurring on that platform,” added Akbay. “To ignore NonStop would imply we aren’t taking the integration of Big Data with real time processing seriously and that simply isn’t the case.”
It as the Thor, who “put the hammer down”, as Captain America unfortunately requested of him in the film, The Avengers. Watching the lightning storms it wasn’t hard to imagine legendary beings as the source of such a spectacle of nature. Fortunately, when it comes to IT and NonStop, it’s a little less intense but every bit as important particularly as so many within the NonStop community are actively engaged in modernization initiatives. In time, of course, we will find broad exploitation of both technologies across the NonStop community (just as we did with Client / Server computing as well as with SOA and Web services that followed) with much of what is covered here generating little more than a yawn. And if you want to stay informed about what’s important to the community then yes, check out the new groups on LinkedIn and become a member – I look forward to all the comments you care to provide!
At the macro level, prairie thunderstorms are majestic to watch whether you are out in the open or tucked up alongside a mountain. However, stepping away from nature there are still amazing sights to take in that are man-made. To me, the unrelenting drive to miniaturization blows my mind – there’s just no real way to equate what is inside a modern chip to anything we can see in the real world. When quantum physicists talk of size where 2 to the power of 512 is referenced in the same breath as being more than the sum of all atoms in the known universe, then yes, we have come a long way from a system my father showed me in the mid-1960s that had 8K bits of memory, yet still could store a program.
All of this is leading to the topic of the week and
the two subjects are increasingly becoming related – Clouds and Big Data. A
short time ago I started a couple of LinkedIn groups aimed at the NonStop
community. Clouds,
powered by NonStop, that now has 271 members and is a couple of weeks old
and Big
Data, integrated with NonStop that has fewer than 40 members but is
relatively new. Including NonStop in the names of both groups was
intentional, as I wanted to make sure any new member of the NonStop community
that searched for groups focused on NonStop would see that there is interest
within the community in both Cloud and Big Data. If this is all new to you and
as yet, you haven’t joined, then perhaps you should take a few minutes and do
so.
While the community is concerned about the growing number of LinkedIn groups out there, its highly intentional on my part to project an image of NonStop that may surprise folks – of late I have become selective about the ones I do end up joining and the metric most important for me is the volatility of the group – just how much is going on. If you have seen some of the discussions and the passions they arouse on groups like Tandem User Group and Real Time View, you will know what I mean. Clouds and Big Data are very important for all stakeholders in the NonStop community. Many businesses have embarked on modernization initiatives so I have to ask you – do your modernization initiatives actively involve Clouds and Big Data?
While the community is concerned about the growing number of LinkedIn groups out there, its highly intentional on my part to project an image of NonStop that may surprise folks – of late I have become selective about the ones I do end up joining and the metric most important for me is the volatility of the group – just how much is going on. If you have seen some of the discussions and the passions they arouse on groups like Tandem User Group and Real Time View, you will know what I mean. Clouds and Big Data are very important for all stakeholders in the NonStop community. Many businesses have embarked on modernization initiatives so I have to ask you – do your modernization initiatives actively involve Clouds and Big Data?
As a place to start, did you know that vendors, well known to the NonStop community, have begun taking steps along the path to clouds. “The model today is cloud computing is inevitable even among the financial institutions I count as customers,” said OmniPayments, Inc. CEO, Yash Kapadia. “It’s inevitable because it represents a more sensible approach to providing the best value for the dollars spent. Too often we size systems and include software with expectations of the volume and type of transactions a customer will face but this can lead to erring on the conservative side with customers ending up paying more. And this is not what we want to do at OmniPayments. Elasticity of provisioning as well as providing capacity on demand is just the latest way to express a need for flexibility and with cloud computing, whether the cloud is on site and private, or is on our premises and managed, it is simply a way to better leverage commodity hardware and open systems.”
The productizing of the demo that has been showcased at the last couple of HP Discover events by Infrasoft as maRunga is just one more proof point. To those embarked on modernization projects where the volume of searches is high, as their clients spend more time looking up items, then maRunga is an easy first step to take on their path to clouds. And solutions for NonStop that include support of clouds are already being deployed. “OmniPayments has already been sold as a cloud offering in the America’s and is in an early stage of customer acceptance. In this first instance, there’s both a private cloud on site as well as a managed cloud on our premises for back-up purposes. And yes, NonStop systems are an important part of both cloud computer configurations,” added Yash. “Are we playing liberties with the concept of cloud computing? I don’t believe we are as the cloud we externalize to the customer is a collection of processors the specifics of which aren’t visible to the customer.”
The arrival of big data comes at a crucial time for the industry. In an always-connected, online world it’s imperative that we have the right information at our fingertips to sway our clients to more favorably consider what we offer. So often we emphasize two of the Vs associated with big data – volume and velocity – but timing is of the uttermost importance when integrating the world of big data with transaction processing, NonStop’s forte. “From our perspective, we should be talking about ‘time value of information’”, said Managing Consultant, Enterprise Solutions & Architecture at Hewlett-Packard, T.C. Janes. “Time is the enemy of data.”
“Big Data is driving much of the agenda of IT of
late – business is fully aware that they need better insight into their
business and that only comes when meaningful information can be extracted from
the reams of data accumulating all around them,” said WebAction, Inc. Cofounder
Sami Akbay. “However, the need isn’t something that can be addressed without
understanding that relevant and applicable data, meeting business criteria,
needs to be captured and repackaged for consumption by business logic central
to the running of the business. When NonStop is taken into consideration this
is particularly important as it’s often NonStop applications interacting
directly with customers – the very community about which better insight is
critical.”
I am particularly interested in the work that WebAction has taken to date and in delivering the WebAction product, those in the NonStop community embarking on a modernization revamp, have a very viable solution on hand, and one that absolutely understands the importance of time. In the August 20, 2014, post Value Networking? Nonstop Community Certainly Does! to the WebAction blog, I wrote of how WebAction, by the very nature of the control it ultimately gives to system architects can generate web actions as verbose or as targeted as we need – it’s really the ultimate control gate when it comes to turning on the flow of big data to time-sensitive mission critical applications. A really big hammer? Yes! A very small hammer? Yes, again!
I am particularly interested in the work that WebAction has taken to date and in delivering the WebAction product, those in the NonStop community embarking on a modernization revamp, have a very viable solution on hand, and one that absolutely understands the importance of time. In the August 20, 2014, post Value Networking? Nonstop Community Certainly Does! to the WebAction blog, I wrote of how WebAction, by the very nature of the control it ultimately gives to system architects can generate web actions as verbose or as targeted as we need – it’s really the ultimate control gate when it comes to turning on the flow of big data to time-sensitive mission critical applications. A really big hammer? Yes! A very small hammer? Yes, again!
“Certain types of data have enormous value at its moment of creation but may have less value an hour from now and perhaps no value tomorrow. Stock traders have understood this from time immemorial – if you can identify and act on a transaction opportunity faster than anyone else, you will benefit the most,” added HP’s Janes. “If you can synchronize data arrival velocity with business process velocity, an organization can sell more product, deliver better customer service and capitalize on new business opportunities sooner than their competitors. Inversely, an organization does not necessarily want to act on every potential black swan “event” if their evaluation of aggregate data yields a contradictory model.”
There is another side to clouds and big data, and that’s the likely intersection of technologies. When it comes to big data and cloud computing then according to HP Master Technologist, Justin Simonds, “I think there will be a collision, at least for a while, as organizations attempt to derive meaning out of every piece of data they can get their hands on. Cloud is the only ‘price reasonable’ way to churn through all that stuff.” Furthermore, added Simonds, “I believe there will be a falling away as attempt after attempt yields little business insight. I see the industry adopting specific products for specific requirements. NonStop, as mentioned, is still extremely well designed for the operational analytic, real time velocity events. Vertica still holds the top magic quadrant spot for deep / big data analytics and for all its bad press Autonomy has some very good IP in the audio/video arena. I believe multiple solutions are the only way to effectively proceed.”
Simonds observations are shared by comForte’s CTO, Thomas Burg. In an interview for an upcoming post to the blog, comForte Lounge, Burg observed that when it comes to “clouds and big data, there almost nothing that is really new here either. Cloud computing is little more than old wine in new caskets where the only issue is one of business best-practices. Can we run this application in a cloud? Can we store this data in a cloud? Security? Bring it on! We have the technology and know-how, we are happy to talk to prospective cloud adopters. Big data is a similar challenge but somehow, many NonStop users see only a big hammer when only a small hammer is needed.” On the other hand, “We continue to include NonStop in our plans for WebAction as there’s no question, serious online processing is occurring on that platform,” added Akbay. “To ignore NonStop would imply we aren’t taking the integration of Big Data with real time processing seriously and that simply isn’t the case.”
It as the Thor, who “put the hammer down”, as Captain America unfortunately requested of him in the film, The Avengers. Watching the lightning storms it wasn’t hard to imagine legendary beings as the source of such a spectacle of nature. Fortunately, when it comes to IT and NonStop, it’s a little less intense but every bit as important particularly as so many within the NonStop community are actively engaged in modernization initiatives. In time, of course, we will find broad exploitation of both technologies across the NonStop community (just as we did with Client / Server computing as well as with SOA and Web services that followed) with much of what is covered here generating little more than a yawn. And if you want to stay informed about what’s important to the community then yes, check out the new groups on LinkedIn and become a member – I look forward to all the comments you care to provide!
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