Time to make some changes, my present to myself for my 51st B'day, "it is time"

5 Years ago, I quit Microsoft after 14 years with no idea what I was going to do next.  What I did know is after 5 years I would be working on things that were much bigger and more fun than than what I was doing at Microsoft when I left.  Working on Win3.1, Win95, Windows 2000, and Windows XP were the most fun I had at Microsoft and I have the best memories.  Working at Apple, re-architecting the physical distribution system, being part of the hardware team on the Macintosh II, and working on software components for System 7 was when I had the most fun at Apple.  HP fresh out of school, I had all kinds of ideas on what I wanted to try.  Ideas in quality/reliability engineering, process engineering, and distribution logistics were fun.  Yeh, I am engineering nerd.  Why can’t the same ideas I worked on 30 years ago be applied to data centers?

I am lucky being 100% Japanese ancestry that I don’t look my age, but with 30+ years in high tech and even spending my summer jobs working in semiconductor companies, I am ready to move on to start having more fun like I used to.  It’s been fun having the role as a blogger, but it is not what I want to be known for 5 years from now, and too embarrassing for my kids. 

Being a Blogger is not what it used to be (humor)

FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2011 AT 6:39AM

I saw this cartoon and my kids are not old enough to make this point, but I also don’t tell my kids friends I am a blogger. 

What do I want to do? I want to get back to the fun making solutions to solve tough problems.  20 years ago, I took a sabbatical from Apple.  15 weeks from Memorial Day to Labor day, I got to enjoy the summer just like a kid.  Well a kid who started Zen Meditation when I was 14.  Summer was my time to think.  As my wife once said you like to think about how to think.  After all that time off, at the end of sabbatical I realized I loved to solve tough problems.  Energized I went back to Apple and told my manager I really like to solve problems.  Her response “that is nice,  but we are about process in this group.”  Within 9 months I left Apple to go to Microsoft to be the guy to get fonts for FE Win3.1- Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea where top priorities.

A year ago my wife threw me a surprise B’day party for my 50th.

Now I am going to turn 51, and I am going to give myself my own present.  I am going to start having fun again.  Solving really tough problems.  Going to all these data center conferences, meeting great people, watching the industry, working on various consulting projects I have all kinds of ideas on problems that need to be solved.  As Lion King’s Rafiki made a simple statement. “It is time.” It is time to start solving the problems like I used to do at HP, Apple, and Microsoft.

What does this mean?  Part of what this means is I am going to start travelling less, spending more time developing solutions and less time researching ideas.  Also, as it is the beginning of summer and it is the last day of school for my kids today they want me home more.

In addition to my surprise b’day party, we went to Italy for my 50th.

I have one event today that I will be attending today as a technical guy not as a blogger.  The event staff was nice enough to make an exception letting me attend as he understands my multiple roles.  Small world I sat next to one of the presenters at the event from SEA to SJC and reviewed his slide deck, making some suggestions.  And, he did say I thought there was no press at the event.  I told him I am attending not as press, but as a technical guy who knows a bunch of data center and server technology.  The blogger role has been useful and gets me media status for attending many events, but it is also limits what people think you do.  How many media people have these business cards?

I’ll be at GigaOm Structure June 22-23, and my next data center conference will not be for a while.  I will be at 7x24 Exchange Phoenix as I’ll most likely be presenting there on something.

Submit a Presentation Proposal Today!
2011 FALL CONFERENCE
November 13-16, 2011
Arizona Biltmore
Phoenix, AZ
Leveraging Innovation

Does this mean I’ll stop blogging?  No. I will be blogging about different things though.  And, besides I was getting kind of tired of seeing the same presentations repeated. 

Although am I really going to change how I blog as my criteria has been what are the things that solve problems?  There I go thinking about how to think.

Some of the projects I have identified are with those who want to discuss data center ideas in an open and transparent manner.  Organizations that think of themselves as Fiercely Independent Companies, like I am a Fiercely Independent Guy.

Thanks for reading this blog.

-Dave Ohara

Time to upgrade my camera gear, new 24-105 lens

I have had Canon gear for years and have been lucky to work on projects with some awesome digital photographers like Charles Mauzy, Rob Galbraith, and Kevin Gilbert, getting tours of the White House press photographers processes and US aircraft carriers. 

I posted on my past working on digital photography.

Story of Adobe & Apple High-Value Digital Image Applications, Adobe’s angst developing for the iPad, and how Microsoft missed this battle

MONDAY, MAY 17, 2010 AT 3:25AM

This is not a data center post, but one about competition and innovation.

If you are a high-end photographer person you use the RAW imaging format, a higher quality image format vs. JPEG.

After spending more time taking pictures at conferences, I decided its time to upgrade my workhorse lens.  I have a 10-22 lens for ultra-wide angle. and 70-200 lens for telephoto.  And, a 28-75 that is not of the same quality, but I use the most.

My next lens is a 24-105MM F/4L IS USM lens.

EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM

Standard Zoom

Lugging my Canon 7D and lens to conferences is heavy, but it allows me to get good pictures during presentations and quickly download them to my laptop, and upload them to this blog.

I’ll be at GigaOm Structure on June 22-23 trying my toy, workhorse lens.

The ultimate hidden test of whether users are important at a Data Center Conference, how good is the food?

I've attended many IT events and worked behind the scenes at many as well.  My wife also used to work on many events for Ziff-Davis, Seybold Publications, and IDG.  Whenever we entertain we spend lots of time planning the food we'll serve, and we both agree that good food is a must for a successful event.

I've been thinking of how I compare Uptime, 7x24 Exchange, DatacenterDynamics, Gartner Data Center Conference, and DataCenterWorld.

Sometimes what seems like a silly idea can be a test.  David Lee Roth had a story about not wanting brown M&Ms backstage.  What is explained behind the story is it was a test to see if the concert host read the complete contract and was prepared to support the multiple eighteen wheelers of gear that would arrive for a show which could create a logistics challenge for some.

Mac McKinley’s blog Boomer Opinion retells a story about the importance of reading and understanding contracts.

In his autobiography, David Lee Roth, wrote that their touring contract demanded that at each venue backstage there would be a bowl of M&Ms with all of the brown ones removed. To most that sounds like the demands of some quirky rock stars, right?

There was actually a very valid reason for this demand. At each venue, the band arrived with nine 18 wheelers full of gear. Stage setup was quite complicated and had to be done with the precision of a Swiss watch. The touring contract demanded very specific requirements of each venue. For example, one section stipulated, “There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes.”

According to David Lee Roth, that touring contract was voluminous and read “like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages”. Buried in the middle of the contract, Article 126 read, “There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.”

When Roth arrived at a new venue, he would walk backstage and check out the M&Ms bowl. If he saw a brown M&M in the bowl, he’d demand a line check of the entire production. He knew from past experience that when the promoter did not read the contract fully, that other problems and technical errors would occur unless they fully vetted the production setup prior to the show.

So the brown M&Ms were just a warning signal or red flag that indicated bigger issues might arise that could threaten the successful completion of the concert at that venue. It was his way of ensuring that the management and stagehands at the new venue were indeed paying attention to every detail and had read the contract thoroughly.

After reading the story about brown M&Ms and food details, it gave me the idea to evaluate the data center events based on how good the food is.  A test that is not evident.

Gartner Data Center Conference is the typical large enterprise event for 3,000 people at a Las Vegas venue.  OK, not great.  Average.

AFCOM Data Center World is less quality than Gartner Data Center Conference.

DatacenterDynamics is a one day event that is better than the other two mentioned, but different given it is a one day event without dinner.

Uptime Institute Symposium is not any better than these, but one of the most expensive to attend.  Note: many Gartner data center conference attendees get passes because of their subscription to Gartner research.

What about 7x24 Exchange?  They have the benefit of having a smaller crowd which makes serving good food easier.  This last conference had 700 attendees, and being a non-profit they put the users at the core of what they do.  So how was the food?  Better than all the above.  When talking to the folks at 7x24 Exchange they said the food has been better at their other events, and Phoenix will be better than Orlando.

This may seem like something that doesn't seem like it is that important, but when people spend the extra time thinking and planning the food to be enjoyable then they probably have spent more time thinking about how to host an enjoyable event and provide useful content.

Do sometimes you feel like you are attending an event where the #1 priority are the event executives and their business model, the #2 priority are the vendors, and the users are third on  the list?

I do.

Describing my blogger role, Fiercely Independent Guy (FIG)

I've been having a good time at 7x24 Exchange, and many of the people I see are good friends who I chat with and see regularly.  Part of going to a conference is to meet new people, and many times I am introduced as a blogger which many times brings up why I blog and how I make money.  One of my friends was describing what  I do and he made a description that is sticking in my mind.  Dave is a fiercely independent guy.

independent - free from external control and constraint; "an independent mind"; "a series of independent judgments"; "fiercely independent individualism"

I just ran into one of the new guys who I met at 7x24 before he headed out the door.  We chatted a bit, and he brought in up again.  "You are the FIG, fiercely independent guy."

This could be a fun title to put on a business card. FIG-Fiercely, Independent, Guy

The right way to disclose Data Center LEED certification, eBay shows the points they earned for Gold

At 7x24 Exchange Orlando, eBay presented its story on achieving Gold LEED Certification.

eBay - Data Center Goes Gold

In May 2010, eBay officially opened its newest data center in South Jordan, Utah, named Topaz after the state stone of Utah. The facility was a green field development focusing on the design principles of reliability, maintainability, sustainability, and efficiency. As a result of the design and construction efforts, the facility achieved a LEED Gold rating in October of 2010.

Michael Lewis, Director Mission Critical Engineering, eBay
Stephen Spinazzola, Vice President, RTKL Associates Inc.

And, the one thing that eBay has done that I haven't seen any other data center is disclose its list of points earned to achieve Gold Certification.

Shouldn't this disclosure be a standard practice if someone markets their LEED certification?

Here is a quote from Olivier Sanche.  Olivier is infamous as the departed Apple Data Center executive.  What few other people know is Olivier's baby, the data center he designed with Mike Lewis is the Topaz eBay Data Center.

We have a company vision of measuring and managing our carbon footprint that includes a hard look at the ways that information, facilities, and operations use energy and water resources.

Here are few slides more slides that give details behind the LEED point achievements.

One of the last slides is going beyond LEED.