Everybody’s Doing It?

The buzz around frameworks like CakePHP, Zend, CodeIgniter and even SilverStripe’s recently decoupled framework (formerly known as Sapphire), might give a casual observer the impression that the majority of PHP developers have embraced frameworks to standardize and speed their development.

They haven’t.

Read more on the Silverstripe blog…

David Ferguson, CEO of 5000fish, which created a BI platform YURBI (as in your BI) thinks so. Ferguson has been evangelizing a user-centric approach to BI for almost a decade. Ferguson says,

“The legacy BI tools have historically under delivered. The historic model of users sending requirements to the IT group and then waiting for them to generate reports using the legacy tools has never worked for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, businesses have invested substantial amounts of money in these technologies but business users still say that they are not being served.”

In Ferguson”s opinion, although IT is responsible for supporting business users, in many organizations they aren’t embracing that responsibility, which results in business expectations not being met. In addition, Ferguson notes that traditional IT delivery  cycles can result in requested reports becoming unnecessary by the time  they are delivered. Ferguson continues,

“The business users we work with are under tremendous pressure to, plain and simple, get business done.  Their organization has usually gathered a huge amount of data that they need to act on to achieve their business mission.  There is a large gap between requesting the reports and then being able to use the data to make smart business decisions. This is a paradigm that has needed to change for a long time.”

Ferguson acknowledges that even though he feels there needs to be a paradigm shift to empower users,  IT still needs to play a critical role in providing data sources and securing data. Although Ferguson’s position is definitely tuned to hawk his user-based BI platform, other vendors like  Pentaho have also take a decidedly end-user focused approach.

I’m definitely for delivering user value, but I have also personally experienced far to many cases of end users “abusing the data until it confessed to whatever they wanted.”  In many cases, it appears that end users are able to get answers faster because they are not adhering to responsible data practices. There has to be a happy medium. If end users are going to become more involved in business intelligence:

• tools must support the ability of IT to throttle data sizes, connection life spans and other options that could dramatically impact the performance of the underlying data store
• organizations should train users in data retrieval techniques or employ tools that don’t require complex languages like SQL for querying
• organization must ensure well defined policies for data classification and governance are in place to avoid exposing sensitive data
• organizations should make every attempt to make users aware of existing pre-built reports to minimize productivity losses due to the same report being created repeatedly across departments
• organizations should establish common calculations an formulas for important business metrics to minimize the multiple version of the truth phenomenon

Having the right information at the right time can yield tremendous competitive advantage, and users should be empowered to get maximum value from the data. However, this does not mean throwing tools at them and hoping for the best.

The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act already makes copyright infringement illegal. Although this law cannot be used effectively against foreign sites, language like “deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability” in the proposed laws is so vague it can be used to censor sites that are simply protesting actions by another company. Further, these laws allow organizations to make false accusations that result in funding and support being removed without due process.

Accused sites only have five days to appeal any action taken. Provisions in the bill grant immunity to payment processors and ad networks that cut off sites based on a reasonable belief of infringement. Even if claims turn out to be false, nobody is punished except the site that was blacklisted. What’s worse is that truly malicious sites will not be at all deterred because they usually register 100′s and 1000′s of domain names, which makes stamping them out with a bill like this kind of like swatting mosquitoes in Texas on a summer night — an exercise in futility.

This legislation will fundamentally change the fabric of the Internet and impacts the ability of honest hard working citizens like me to make money and gain knowledge online. Please join me in protesting this proposed bill. Contact your representatives today.

“Have an IT problem? The solution is in the cloud.”

The buzz is enticing, but  effective IT leaders realize that no solution, even those  with a seemingly limitless supply of clever metaphors, is magic. Cloud computing can be a valuable asset, but its use does not eliminate the need to have a sound strategy in place for managing information assets. Or, for those that prefer marketing speak,

“Just because your data is in the cloud, your responsibility didn’t float away.”

Cloud computing is a technology evolution. Impressive processing capacities, automated software updates and subscription-based pricing make it possible to deliver new solutions and store massive datasets without prohibitive upfront investments or deep technical expertise. Further, cloud computing is achieving what previous off-premises methods like shared hosting and virtual private servers could not – elastic scalability. The cloud can have a dramatic impacts even beyond the technical for enterprise adopters  - cost-savings, reductions in resource requirements and improved organizational agility.

The benefits do not come without challenges. Cloud adoption brings:

• Loss of operational control
• Complexity navigating security and regulatory requirements
• Limited vendor contract flexibility

The issues associated with on-premise solutions still exist in the cloud; in fact, in some cases,cloud computing increases the complexity. Embracing the cloud does not eliminate the need to address concerns like integration, security, privacy, governance, compliance and data quality and consistency. Organizations that choose to ignore this reality may find themselves out of the clouds and at the center of a storm.

Control the Data

Managing and protecting data, or data governance, is hard. The cloud does not ease that burden. 87 percent of IT leaders, in a 2010 survey on Access Governance Trends by the Ponemon Institute, indicated employees were able to gain inappropriate levels of access to data. Cloud computing was a major factor in the minds of many respondents. 73 percent indicated that cloud-based applications were enabling users to circumvent organizational controls.

Cloud vendors are capitalizing on delivery frustrations and selling solutions to organizations without engaging IT. Business users are making independent decisions to leverage platform-as-a-service, database as a service and other cloud based solutions spurred on by shiny vendor promises. Unfortunately, many of these non-technical decision makers are not familiar with the organizational policies addressing a growing list of compliance requirements.

These free-floating departmental clouds can quickly become problematic. Non-technical users may not consider the long-term viability of the cloud provider; what happens to the data if the company dissolves? Business users may not ask important questions like, “Where will this solution be physically hosted?”, which determines which country’s laws will apply if something goes wrong. Further, departmental clouds may provide inappropriate levels of access or auditing for sensitive data. In some cases, the problem starts even earlier, and even moving the data off-premises violates legal and regulatory rules. The majority of IT departments have resources tasked with ensuring appropriate levels of data governance for privacy, confidentiality, and compliance are applied; many non-technical departments aren’t even aware these issues need to be considered.

Even if the business strikes out to the cloud on its own, technology leaders cannot turn their backs after say, “You created this mess, so you fix it!” with a self-satisfied smirk, and then walk away. Protecting organizational data is the responsibility of IT. The financial and reputational consequences of a data breach due to ill applied data governance are significant, and technologists will not escape the impacts.

Modern technology environments are  filled with increasingly complex laws, constantly growing data sizes and rapidly shifting technologies. Each of these factors introduces its own risks. Despite the challenges, it is possible to mitigate these risks by:

• Establish and evangelize a data governance plan if one does not exist. In January 2010, Microsoft published a recommended activity flow for defining a data governance process.

Microsoft data governance model

Other frameworks exist, whether an existing approach is selected or custom strategy defined, leaders must ensure that it takes into account emerging technology trends like cloud hosting. After a process is defined, at least an equivalent effort should be applied to communicating and selling it outside of IT.

• Analyze data flows to better understand the security, privacy and compliance risks with regard the cloud. Companies like IBM, Microsoft and Cloud Security Alliance have documented some generic flows that IT organization can leverage.
• Define and distribute a baseline set of questions and guidelines for selecting cloud providers. Like governance policies, the availability of this resource should be evangelized and distributed as widely as possible.
• Engage the legal department to create a master services agreement that addresses issues like process transparency, privacy, participation in compliance audits, service level agreements cloud provider rights and ownership of data. The cloud master services agreement should be applied to all cloud vendor relationships so that consistent level of service can be assured.

Enacting these practices will not eliminate risk; totally eliminating risk is impossible. These measures will increase the opportunity for successfully leveraging the cloud and maintaining control of information assets.

Hortonworks said “Our code is bigger than everybody elses.” and Cloudera was all like

“Nuh uh, we wrote more code.”

Then, Hortonworks was all, “As if. We have more code and it’s better.”

Fortunately, the argument is over and HortonWorks has been busy. HortonWork’s CEO, that I affectionately refer to as Eric 14, made a few announcements about the company has been working on lately:

• a Hadoop distribution
• professional training and support
• partners

Although Yahoo killed its Hadoop distribution earlier in the year, HortonWorks elected to create its own Hadoop distribution. According to Baldeschwieler, the new distribution, HortonWorks Data Platform,

“ includes the essential Hadoop components, plus some that make it more manageable, open and extensible. Our distribution is based on Hadoop 0.20.205, the first Apache Hadoop release that supports security and HBase.  It also includes some new APIs, such as WebHDFS and those in Ambari and HCatalog, which will make it easy for our partners to integrate their products with Apache Hadoop.”

The HortonWorks distribution will be 100% Apache-licensed unlike many other commercially backed Hadoop distributions. It will also include management features (implemented using an open source  tool called Ambari) and tools to make it easier to install and deploy Hadoop –  critical capabilities in most organizations.

The new distribution has not been released yet. However, Hortonworks is accepting applicants for a private technology preview, which should begin in November. You can sign up at http://hortonworks.com/technology/techpreview/. The public technology preview should occur in early 2012.

By the way, be sure to look out for my interview with Eric Baldeschwieler. The video will be posted soon.

The team at Oracle has been doing some thinking and decided that maybe, just maybe, they were a tiny bit harsh in their assessment of NoSQL. Just a few months ago, the company released a 15-page white paper,  Debunking the NoSQL Hype (now conveniently removed from the Oracle site),which explains why they felt NoSQL was not ready for primetime.

The paper warns companies to stay away from the technology saying,

“Go for the tried and true path. Don’t be risking your data on NoSQL databases.”

Beyond the grammatical issues, Oracle was pretty clear it had no love for NoSQL.

What a difference a few months can make. This week, at its annual conference Oracle announced its very own NoSQL offering built on the company’s Berkley DB key/value store. The product isn’t available for download, but Oracle has published a whitepaper that provides additional details. The Oracle website indicates a download will be available in mid-October. In addition, Oracle is offering a big data appliance: an integrated package including Hadoop and R.

The NoSQL Competition

Existing NoSQL vendors don’t seem to be concerned with the beast of a company entering the market. In fact, DataStax and others are saying that Oracle’s announcement is a validation of the value of NoSQL as an alternative to relational data storage.

James Phillips, SVP Products, Couchbase said,

Oracle has historically been cautious about touting new technologies that could be viewed as disruptive to their core business model. The unveiling of their NoSQL and Big Data technology next week indicates that Oracle is now validating what we at Couchbase have long accepted as the new market reality: there is a fundamental shift in how modern applications are being built, and what those applications need from a data management system. Customers are investing time and money across the “big three” themes in data management – Big Data, NoSQL and mobile – and Oracle clearly doesn’t want to miss yet another market shift.

His is official obituary is at http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2096251-1,00.html.

Steve Jobs taught me that technology (or technologist) don’t have to come packaged in the way the world expects. Technology can be beautiful. His passing comes as especially saddening to me because like Steve, I have a chronic illness, and I’m also adopted.

No matter what your view of Apple as a corporation, if you are honest, you have to admit that the creativity, business acumen and technical acuity of this man changed the world in a way that few of us will ever achieve. Thank you Mr.Jobs for taking the effort.

Rest in peace.

The Role of IT in Going Green

It ain’t easy being green. However, well thought out technology practices can help ease the burden and speed the transition. A recent Gartner study on the role of green information technology for businesses stated,

“IT can help lessen the environmental impact of business operations and the supply chain or that of enterprise products and services.” and went on to add, “there are areas were deploying more IT can significantly contribute to making an organization more environmentally sustainable.”

Additional studies confirm Gartner’s position. In April of this year, CompTIA released its second annual Green Information Technology and Insights study. The study, which included 650 senior-level information technology and business decision makers from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, found that 76 percent of organizations have some form of green information technology strategy – a 16 percent increase from 2010. The data also revealed that 37 percent of companies rank green information technology in the top half of organizational priorities, up from only 9 percent. CompTIA expects the importance of sustainable IT to continue to rise and become a top priority for over half of companies by 2013.

What does all of this mean? Green IT is kind of a big deal and is getting bigger.

So, whether you are a technology professional seeking to improve your career prospects and make a little more green, a technology leader seeking ensure your staff has the right skills to meet upcoming business needs or a business leader accountable for your organization’s environmental responsibility , an investment in sustainable IT skills are a good bet.

Important Green IT Skills

There are several important skills for technologist that are seeking to support or drive sustainable information technology initiatives to have such as:

• Legal and ethical policies: Many national, state and local regulations may dictate the steps an organization needs to take and how fast they need to move to become more green. It is important that resources that are involved in setting or managing sustainability efforts understand these external forces.

• Sustainable IT strategy: This is a skill targeted primarily at senior to mid-level technology resources. It is the ability to create a high level IT sustainability strategy that can be used as the basis for subsequent policies and execution. A well-defined technical sustainability strategy should take into account:
  • existing sustainability strategies and plans in other areas of the enterprise
  • energy consumption and demand
  • legal, social, economic and technology constraints
  • standards that will be adopted
  • stakeholder commitment

• Sustainability planning and management: This involves knowledge of items such as ROI calculation, project management, conflict resolution, understanding internal sustainability strategy and general knowledge of sustainable practices.

• Sustainability auditing: Sustainability auditing is the act of reviewing operations to determine how closely they align with sustainability goals. This activity may be guided by specific auditing guidelines defined by external legal policies and legislation.

• Sustainable engineering: This skill involves knowledge of specific technologies that support sustainability goals. Examples include virtualization, cloud computing, green data center design or even video conferencing.

There are obviously other skills that may be beneficial, but knowledge in these areas will provide a solid base for adopting green technology practices.

Gaining Green IT Skills

How can professionals demonstrate green knowledge? Certifications can serve as a sign that a resource knows a thing or two about sustainable IT practices. It can also be catalyst for improving knowledge of sustainable technology.

Multiple providers are stepping forward to provide assurance via certification and degree programs that technology professionals have the necessary proficiency to implement environmentally appropriate solutions and practices. CompTIA is offering the CompTIA Green IT certification, which tests green infrastructure skills. The Chartered Institute of IT ISEB Foundation is offering the Certificate in Green IT, which demonstrates a test taker’s knowledge of green regulations, legislation, policies, strategy definition and carbon energy accounting. At least a dozen other organizations have also introduced green certifications or programs; the number will continue to grow as the demand for green IT skills increases. Other certifications like those focused on cloud computing, virtualization or data center planning can also be valuable to green technologists.

Corporate goals related to environmental sustainability are not going away, neither is demand for technology professionals that can help achieve these goals. IT professionals can embrace these skills now to sustain their career or risk  becoming obsolete.