Be creative with constraints, awesome designs address constraints

I am working on a system design with some others and we are on to some cool things because we have chose some interesting design constraints that are creating a different user experience.

Some data centers designs have had very little constraints as they had plenty of budget and time.  Yet, some of the most interesting designs are when constraints are made that force the team to be more creative.

For an idea of what is meant consider this blog post.

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For a lot of designers constraints are kryptonite or a barbed wire fence that is a prison for their design freedom. But design constraints shouldn’t be viewed as problems to be overcome, rather, constraints or restrictions are probably the best tool for creativity.Constraints are good: they give you direction and they challenge you to be better. Constraints force you to try new things and to experiment more.

Victor Hugo said “Necessity is the mother of all invention” and he is right, we invent stuff to solve problems. Invention and creativity go hand in hand, without creativity nothing would be invented. In design, constraints create necessity and their sole purpose is to challenge our very creativity and make us examine design in different ways.

10 years of blogging, 10 lessons, Om Malik shares his learnings

I've been blogging for 4 years, and have learned a lot along the way.  Om Malik has been blogging for 10 years and shares his 10 lessons.

My 10 years of blogging: Reflections, Lessons & Some Stats Too

By  Nov. 26, 2011, 8:04pm PT 26 Comments

Ten years is a long time. Sometimes it is so long that one forgets a lot more than one remembers — like the fact that it I have been blogging for a decade. I would have totally forgotten about the amount of time that has passed, had it not been for (what else) a blog post from Fred Wilson, one of the more engaging and rigorous bloggers on the web. It just so happens he is a venture capitalist, but he would be a great blogger without the VC tag as well.

Om buries his 10 lessons in the bottom of his relatively long post.  So, let's bring them to the top and you can see them here.

Here are my 10 lessons learned:

  1. Blogging is communal: In 2008, I wrote that “blogging is not just an act of publishing but also a communal activity. It is more than leaving comments; it is about creating connections.” That is the single biggest lesson learned of these past 10 years. Every connection has lead to a new idea, new thought and a new opportunity.
  2. Being authentic in your thoughts and voice is the only way to survive the test of time.
  3. Being wrong is as important as being right. What’s more important — when wrong, admit that you are wrong and listen to those who are/were right.
  4. Be regular. And show up to blog every day. After all you are as fresh as your last blog post.
  5. Treat others as you expect yourself to be treated.
  6. (In 2006 I wrote this and it is worth repeating) Doc Searls once told me, and it has been one of the guiding principles for me: blog if you have something to say and respect your reader’s time. If you respect their time, they are going to give you some time of their day.
  7. A long time ago, Slate’s Farhaad Manjoo asked mefor some tips on blogging and here is what I told him – Wait at least 15 minutes before publishing something you’ve written—this will give you enough distance to edit yourself dispassionately.
  8. Write everything as if your mom is reading your work, a good way to maintain civility and keep your work comprehensible.
  9. Blogging is not about opinion but it is about viewing the world in a certain way and sharing it with others how you look at things.

The tenth lesson comes from Kevin Kelleher when he was writing for us back in 2010. In his post, How the Internet changed writing he noted:

Many bloggers tailor headlines and posts so that they’ll surface at the top of search results, making them at once easier to find and less enjoyable to read. And this decade, a lot of other bloggers mistook a strong writing voice for caustic irreverence. But most eventually learned that writing with snark is like cooking with salt — a little goes a long way.

If anything, avoiding that trap Kevin mentioned is the biggest lesson of them all.

A Peak into IT in FedEx Green Data Center

FedEx announced its Green Data Center in Colorado in Feb 2011.

FedEx Unveils “Green” Data Center in Colorado Springs

 

February 16, 2011

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) today celebrated the grand opening of its first environmentally sustainable (“green”) data center, located adjacent to the FedEx Rocky Mountain Tech Center in Colorado Springs, CO. Based on the application of a number of green design standards, the Enterprise Data Center–West (EDC-W) can be counted among the most energy efficient data centers in the U.S.

...

The EDC-W PUE is 1.28, with a ratio of “1.0” indicating perfect efficiency.

...

The Technology

Over the next three years, FedEx technology teams will move core systems and applications from the Customer Technology Center (CTC) in Memphis to Colorado Springs. The massive migration of data, already in progress, will require thousands of hours of work to ensure the successful implementation of the simplified and consolidated infrastructure.

So what is some of the technology moving into FedEx's green data center?

FedEx is thinking like an information company.

The so-called Internet of things is one of the emerging technology themes at the Gartner conference. For CIOs, these sensors connect many distinct disciplines, including data management, analytics, business intelligence and customer service.

Other themes from Carter included:

  • FedEx is an information services question. The company’s ethos is that the information about the package is as important as the package itself.
  • Enterprise IT is a young discipline. “Enterprise IT as a profession is only about 35 years old. It’s a new science,” said Carter.
  • FedEx is architecture around service oriented architecture. The company is broken down into 22 services that are delivered to various operating units. These services cover addresses, locations, labeling and other items that “are foundational services that really matter to the business.”
  • Once those services are in place, interfaces and applications that aren’t necessary fall away. “You’re not entitled to an enterprise stack,” said Carter, referring to operating units.
  • FedEx’s data centers run on VMware as an internal cloud. The hardware revolves around commodity x86 servers, said Carter. That architecture is the dominant design that is used by Amazon, Salesforce and others.

And the CIO drove some action.

4. Enlist reluctant top management.

To persuade top management to make the move, Carter didn't do five-year plans or 10-year projected returns on investment. Instead, he drew a map of what the existing data center environment looked like versus the simplified one he wanted to operate. His mappings of the existing application infrastructure and dependencies were so complex, intense, and confusing that his CEO dubbed them scenes from "Hurricane Rob" in his honor. "I had a lot of ugly pictures," he said.

5. You don't have to wait for just the right software.

Carter didn't get caught in analysis paralysis. Carter wasn't looking to bring in an external supplier's private cloud system to get started or waiting for a cloud computing standard, such as OpenStack, to firm up. As a Salesforce.com customer, he and his IT staff "compared notes" with Salesforce on its data center operations and FedEx knew how Twitter and Facebook had built their new data centers. His staff worked with the LAMP stack--Linux with a proven set of integrated open source code--to build a shared x86 infrastructure, then created pilot services on top of it.

There were cultural issues. Some IT staffers felt they were doing a good job with the way legacy systems were running. Carter illustrated that FedEx was using 200 different applications to manage addresses, a key component of its business, when one address service could do the same thing more efficiently and at a lower cost. Another new service supplied currency conversions throughout the company. Carter told his staff, you're doing a good job of managing the details of the existing infrastructure. "It was the macro picture (of future data center operation) that looked unsustainable."

And, note that FedEx skipped the public cloud step and went straight to the private cloud, but has his options open for AWS.

6. What about the public cloud?

Carter acknowledged his approach doesn't include a blueprint for working with the public cloud. But FedEx is a close partner with Salesforce.com--"I've known Marc Benioff for a long time," said Carter--and initially, FedEx will "live in a hybrid cloud world with Salesforce" CRM applications. But Carter also noted the seasonal nature of FedEx's business and how it doubles with the approach of the holidays. "Our business is unique in its peaking factor ... Amazon Web Services' capacity to handle intense workloads, like Netflix streaming, means it might be quite suitable for some of our work," he said.

Netflix Outage, can't sign in

We'll see how this one plays out.  Depending on how long it takes Netflix to fix this one, we'll see how the stock takes a hit tomorrow.


Rachel Lightfoot
My Netflix isnt working. 
2 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Megg Thomas   
Netflix flow
2 minutes ago
tess myers
brb, crying that i can't log-in to my netflix account ;-;
2 minutes ago
erin delanty
Having a hard time explaining to my 5 y/o why she can't watch her "flix movie" I promised ALL day long to her! Come on !!
2 minutes ago
S.A.
You better figure it out ...
2 minutes ago
Allison Parman
Can't log on to  tonight. Looks like a lot of others can't either. Sad.
2 minutes ago
Emily Reid
decided in the last 30 min my password isn't valid anymore...but I haven't changed it.  I am beyond 
2 minutes ago

Comparing Kindle Fire vs. iPad 2 is flawed without accounting for business models

There are many comparisons between the Kindle Fire and iPad 2 as a tablet.  With top issues like no camera, microphone, screen size, and lack of 3G.


Kindle Fire Review: 5 Things Amazon's New Tablet Is Missing

ByRICK ARISTOTLE MUNARRIZ, THE MOTLEY FOOLPosted 12:15PM 11/22/11Technology,Google,Apple,Amazon.com,Barnes & Noble


Kindle Fire Review: 5 Things Amazon's New Tablet Is MissingAs early adopters crack open their Kindle Fires this month, the rest of the country is watching. Is Amazon.com's (AMZN) new $199 gadget as good as the $499 iPad 2 or the $249 Nook Tablet?

After playing around with the Kindle Fire for a couple of days, I have no problem recommending it as a quality entry-level tablet. Money's tight this holiday shopping season, and if junior can be talked out of an iPad and into a Kindle Fire, then we're talking about a few extra bills that can be paid.

Analysis has the part cost of the $199 Kindle Fire to be $201.70.

Amazon Kindle Fire Costs $201.70 to Manufacture
November 18, 2011

Amazon’s Kindle Fire media tablet carries a BOM cost of $185.60, according to preliminary findings from the IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service. When manufacturing services expenses are added, the cost increases to $201.70, as shown in the table below.

Amazon Kindle Fire BOM

This is slightly lower than the IHS virtual estimate of the Kindle’s cost issued in September of a BOM amounting to $191.65, and a total of $209.63, when factoring in the manufacturing and the margin expenses.

ISupply say the iPad2 cost $326.

iPad 2 Carries Bill of Materials of $326.60, IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Shows
March 13, 2011
With the second-generation iPad, Apple Inc. has held the line on the bill of materials (BOM), maintaining virtually the same costs as the first version of the device, an IHS iSuppli teardown analysis of the product has revealed. The 32GB NAND flash memory version of the iPad 2 equipped the with Global System for Mobile Communications/high-speed packet access (GSM/HSPA) air standard carries a BOM of $326.60. The 32GB version equipped with the code division multiple access (CDMA) air standard carries a BOM of $323.25. The compares with $320 for the first-generation 32GB 3G iPad, based on pricing from April 2010.

You could go on making the comparison on what the Kindle Fire should cost with the missing iPad2 features, but what is consistently missing is accounting for the business models of Amazon vs. Apple.  Amazon is selling its device at below or close to cost.  Apple is making a profit on the devices.  If Apple adds features it thinks about its margin on the device.  If Amazon adds cost to the device, they need to eat the cost or raise the price.  Why would they increase the price/cost unless they see more revenue coming from Amazon.com?
The goal of Amazon is to ship a device that it makes money on.  Not necessarily the device itself, but from the goods bought.  Look at the first generation kindle.  It cost $399.  Do you think that was cost?  maybe, but highly unlikely.  What amazon.com figured out is how much it makes on kindle books.
Apple sells Apps.  Amazon sells Apps.  Both sell videos.  Both sell books.
Does adding a camera, microphone, and 3G help amazon.com sell more apps, books, and videos?
What amazon has bunches of people thinking about and creating the kindle roadmap is what makes more money for amazon.com.  You know Bezos would be ruthless with this focus and drill into any feature that does not have a clear benefit to amazon.com.
Hope this help you look at the kindle fire in a different way.  writing this down helped me more clearly articulate this view.