Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Author: fish1964

  • “The Cloud” is Now Meaningless

    I guess it was inevitable. It started with “Cloudwashing” where PR folks started calling everything the cloud. Now we are to the point where the “cloud” simply means “not on my computer”.

    When Aon eSolutions claims to be “the original cloud provider to the risk insurance and safety community” you know the term cloud has no real meaning.

    I guess it should be flattering to Origami. At first, competitors were telling prospects not to use us because the cloud is scary. Now they are saying they’ve been cloud all along.

    But cloud computing has real meaning. It’s about being able to harness resources on the fly with drastically reduced costs.

    Here’s a simple example. Microsoft is close to releasing the new version of SQL Server, “Denali”. Everyone is excited about the new capabilities. There’s a release candidate out there to test. But it’s a bit of a pain to buy a new server, install Windows and everything else and then install Denali.

    Amazon and Microsoft got together so that Amazon EC2 can offer a pre-built image of Denali. So we can bring up a Denali server to test with a click at minimal cost. That’s the cloud.

    I always go back to Werner Vogels description of the key benefits of a true cloud. His point was that if your “cloud” doesn’t have these benefits then it’s not a cloud:

    The cloud:

    • Eliminates Cost. The cloud changes capital expense to variable expense and lowers operating costs. The utility-based pricing model of the cloud combined with its on-demand access to resources eliminates the needs for capital investments in IT Infrastructure. And because resources can be released when no longer needed, effective utilization rises dramatically and our customers see a significant reduction in operational costs.
    • Is Elastic. The ready access to vast cloud resources eliminates the need for complex procurement cycles, improving the time-to-market for its users. Many organizations have deployment cycles that are counted in weeks or months, while cloud resources such as Amazon EC2 only take minutes to deploy. The scalability of the cloud no longer forces designers and architects to think in resource-constrained ways and they can now pursue opportunities without having to worry how to grow their infrastructure if their product becomes successful.
    • Removes Undifferentiated “Heavy Lifting.”The cloud let its users focus on delivering differentiating business value instead of wasting valuable resources on the undifferentiated heavy lifting that makes up most of IT infrastructure. Over time Amazon has invested over $2B in developing technologies that could deliver security, reliability and performance at tremendous scale and at low cost. Our teams have created a culture of operational excellence that power some of the world’s largest distributed systems. All of this expertise is instantly available to customers through the AWS services.

    Of course, Origami doesn’t really argue that our product is better because it’s in the cloud. Sure, we do derive the above benefits from being in the cloud.

    But we’re winning because Origami is just a better product.

  • I Report, You Decide

    I make no judgments, I simply report the news.

    1969-2011 Trend: Support for Making Use of Marijuana Legal

  • Bad Month for Tech

    This is a much geekier remembrance than for Steve Jobs, but I might argue just as important in the tech world. I started my tech existence reading Dennis Ritchie, as did anyone who learned C.

    If you are programming for the iPhone, you are probably using Objective-C which is an extension of original C. Frankly most programming these days owes something to the original C language (Origami is primarily C#, another extension of C).

    So a farewell to someone that no one outside of tech has even heard of. But should have…

  • Oh, the horror…

    A 27 year old trader who made $500K last year (last paragraph), bemoaning the fact that this year he’ll work harder and make less.

    I’m sure the millions of unemployed are feeling very sorry for him right now.

  • Francona Deserves Better

    As a Yankee fan who hates the Red Sox on principle, I had to always give begrudging respect to Terry Francona, their manager, because he was always a class act and frankly very good.

    Now I don’t follow the Red Sox clubhouse details closely, and perhaps Francona did lose the clubhouse this season. Though let’s recall that for most of the season they had the 1st or 2nd best record in baseball.

    But even if it was time for him to go, this is the guy who brought you two World Series victories after one of the longest droughts in baseball history.

    You don’t need to slime him on the way out the door…

  • The Family that Hikes Together…

    With some spectacular weather in New York last weekend, my wife thought it would be a good idea to go hiking as a family. Pre-kids, my wife and I did a lot of hiking together.

    Being spur of the moment, we checked the web for hiking spots close to Brooklyn that wouldn’t be too hard for a 4 year old. That’s a bit of a crap shoot if you don’t know the spots, so we rolled the dice and headed to the Cranberry Lake Preserve in Westchester. Figuring a lake hike can’t have too many hills and there were a few short hikes so it looked like a good call.

    And it was.

    My wife was afraid that it might be too easy, one of those paths that are more like walks than hikes, but it wasn’t that. There were ups and downs and you had to scramble over logs and streams. There were some rickety wooden bridges that added some fear factor and even one that had been washed out forcing us to turn back and try a different path. Tori started out holding my hand for support, but about halfway through she started taking off on her own (and only fell once).

    Just the right amount of challenge to make it fun but not discourage the girls. They are now both really excited about going hiking again.

    The obligatory pictures:

    My girls on the Bent Bridge
    The Bent Bridge – this was a sturdy one
    Waterfall
    Snacks by a waterfall
    Climbing Rocks
    Climbing a big rock

  • Jobs

    Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

  • Atlantic Antic 2011

    Regular readers have heard about the Atlantic Antic, Brooklyn’s largest street fair (biggest in NYC, I believe) and right outside our front door. They close Atlantic Avenue (our street) for the day and it’s a mile long. They say a million people come to this fair.

    To me what makes this street fair great is that the local bars and restaurants come out. Atlantic has some great bars and restaurants with crazy ethnic diversity, so it’s not just the typical NYC street fair food.

    It’s also very kid friendly, which works well for us.

    We like to start the day by taking a stroll before it actually opens. My girls love the fact that they can walk on the street, so we head out around 10:30 am to check out things getting set up. This is what it looks like. The fair goes farther than you can see in this picture.

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    The NYC Transit Museum is just off Atlantic and they block off a side street for a block and bring in a bunch of old buses. This is fun because it’s open before the rest of the fair starts cranking.

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    They also provide arts and crafts for the kids, making buttons and cardboard buses.

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    Since at this point the Antic hasn’t even started yet, we head home (picking up some corn on the cob on the way) to pick up my wife for the real eating.

    For me it’s all about the food. Among the things we ate:

    Not to mention some great beers and sangria along the way.

    Of course, for the kids it’s all about other things. Face painting:

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    Random kid stuff (this guy actually lives in our building):

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    Random kids games:

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    And we all love the music. About every other block a band is playing. This was a great blues band.

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    On the way home we saw these street dancers/acrobats literally in front of our building. I really should have taken video of these guys.

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    It was a truly great day. And it reminded us what a great age our kids have hit. We were out from about 10:30 am until 5:00 walking with our 4 and 8 year olds (almost 5 and 9). No issues. Taking our kids places has become easy.

    And fun.

  • Just Watch

    Impatient folks should skip to about 1:15 in. But seriously, just watch. In full screen.

  • Mo and Faith

    You all know Mariano Rivera is my favorite Yankee. For many reasons. Interestingly the media rarely discusses his faith, probably because it’s both a subject that the media isn’t particularly comfortable with and it’s a subject where athletes are often less than sincere (like God cares who wins a baseball game).

    So I thought this was a very good article.

    The best quote in the article came from Tino Martinez:

    Look, we’re all replaceable. Baseball can replace a first baseman, a shortstop, a third baseman. But you can’t replace him. When he’s not there, it will all change. He’s the single individual in the game where everything will be completely different without him. The way you approach the Yankees will be different. Everyone is wondering what that will be like.

    I’m not looking forward to that…