Where's the Easy Button??

The marketing folks at Staples are geniuses for coming up with the idea of the Easy Button. Really, how many times has this idea been re-purposed by others to make a point? And each time, Staples gets a mention, even if not overtly!

Well, now it's my turn to give the Easy Button a push to make a point.

For the last 28 years, I've been exposed to a wide range of enterprise technologies and systems. As a sales engineer, a product guy, a CTO, etc., I've had the opportunity to experience some really GREAT installation procedures and some really cruddy ones as well. Some installations are intuitive while others were incredibly complex. There are many reasons for such disparity, ranging from the dependencies of a system/application to the skill of the team creating the installation procedure.

Yesterday, I jumped on a plane to Chicago to visit headquarters (Cleversafe) to stage a system scheduled to be shipped to a customer for a Proof of Concept at the end of the week. Having yet to perform a staging/installation exercise from scratch, I scheduled a full two and half days to be here for this activity. I mean, we're talking about staging a system that incorporates 12 servers that are starting out in boxes with no software. The entire POC system has a storage capacity of over 2 petabytes of usable storage. This should take awhile, right?

Imagine my surprise when the entire activity was completed in under 4 hours. (BTW, I was being taught on the fly, which slowed the process down just a little bit.) This included the following:

• Bringing the boxes into the staging area
• Removing the servers from the boxes
• Placing the software image on each server
• Configuring each server with the appropriate networking information
• Connecting the machines into a network
• Setting up the actual Cleversafe dsNet software
• Configuring the dsNet
• Burn in testing
• Shutting down and reboxing the servers in preparation for shipping

When theses machines get to the customer, all that's left to do is take them out of the box, add the rack rails, slide them into the rack and connect power/network. At most, 90 minutes. Qualify for the Easy Button moniker? Oh yeah. 

It makes me wonder how many other storage providers can get a 2 petabyte system up and running from scratch this easily? 

Easy Button. Pushed.

And what is Bobby going to do with his extra time in Chicago? Well, I'll give you a hint. There's hot dogs, beer and a 7th inning stretch in store for him later tonight. Yeah, working for Cleversafe is a good thing.

Which comes first, people or information?

I just finished absorbing the new digital government strategy rolled out on Tuesday by the White House. Thinking strictly as a technologist, my first impression is the strategy is an exercise in stating the obvious. There's nothing blatantly WRONG with it, but, there's also nothing ground-breaking. This is a pretty standard and accepted approach to large scale platforms/systems/services.

Now, let's take a look at the strategy again with a different point of view, the customer. From this perspective, there is an obvious mistake in the strategy, not putting the customer/citizen front and center. Many will argue that the customer is represented, even called out in a bullet point. Yet, it is not the first bullet, it is the third. Subtle? Maybe, maybe not. It is my experience that whatever is written in a strategy or requirements document first is what gets the most focus, so, that would suggest that the 'needs' of the information come before the 'needs' of the customer. When the inevitable time comes to make trade off decisions in the design, who normally loses? Yep, the person using the system.

Forward thinking organizations who have wildly successful online applications and services have recognized this by building their digital strategies to first focus on people. Who's the target user? What do they care about? How do they use technology in their day to day lives? And most importantly, what are they trying to do?? It is only after the customer's perspective is fully understood that the technical aspects of the system should be considered. Systems and services are built from the top down, rather than the traditional approach of bottom up.

At the end of the day, what's more important, the system/data architecture, the APIs, etc. OR a citizen/customer successfully achieving a desired outcome? The answer? Both, however, it's time to get the horse before the cart.

Rehashing a point of view

Being the 'new guy on the block' with regards to the storage industry, I've given myself the license to wonder about everything, open old wounds and simply ponder the question, 'why'. This is not a new place for me, I've been curious about how everything works and why things are as they are ever since I was a little kid burning holes in my Mom's carpet. Um, little kids don't know the difference between AC and DC power. So, in my mind, a battery operated electric motor would run REAL fast if you hooked the wires to an extension cord. Oops! To this day, I don't know how I survived my curiosity as a child. But, I digress.

Most recently, I've been chewing on the notion of structured vs. unstructured data. For years, I've had a notion of what I thought constituted a structured data and all else was, by definition, unstructured. Right? Admittedly, my parameters were pretty simple. Any data stored in a database was considered structured making any data stored in some other format (can you say files?) unstructured.

But, is this really an accurate way to think of information? I figured I'm not smart enough to be the first person to ever consider this so I hit Google. Not surprisingly, I found a number of relevant hits, from blog entries to academic papers, on the subject. Really? Academic papers? Ok.

Anyway, after reading and digesting I've come to the conclusion that characterizing data as structured or unstructured is more relevant to the context of who or what is attempting to use it. For example, information stored in a database is most certainly considered structured to another computer application, yet, showing raw data in it's table format to a person, especially a non-technologist, would most likely prove to be confusing. On the other hand, a human being sitting down to read the most current corporate memo could easily argue that the information is HIGHLY structured, yet, it may not necessarily be as apparent to a computer.

So what's my point to all this. Simple. In general, 'structured vs. unstructured' is a false comparison unless it is applied to a specific point of view. What most people REALLY mean when they say 'structured vs. unstructured' is 'information stored in a database vs. information stored in a file'.

So back to being the 'new guy on the block', this seems to have some interesting implications with regards to discussing storage solutions. When a vendor says they are good with unstructured data, do they really mean information stored in files? I suspect I know the answer.

Any thoughts out there?