Zynga's CIO makes a call for energy efficiency

Zynga's CIO Debra Chrapaty wishes for innovation in server power consumption. Below is a video that can you can watch.

Watch live streaming video from gigaomstructure at livestream.com

And, here is a post on the presentation.

Zynga’s biggest disappointment with running its own data center? Power consumption.

Even though electrical power can account for 40 percent of the cost of running large-scale infrastructure, Chrapaty said Zynga has only seen “slight evolutions” in terms of things like server cooling. “We’ve yet to see true advances like alternative-energy-run data centers,” she said. “It’s certainly a topic worth a couple of hours of discussion.”

Cloud API Fight at GigaOm Structure

One of the more entertaining sessions was on  Cloud APIs.

API WARS: DELIVERING THE DE FACTO STANDARD

 

OpenStack. CloudStack. Amazon now lets Eucalyptus customers link their private clouds to AWS. The cloud industry has grown up, and after six years, Amazon is still on top. Do the open-source efforts have a chance, or is this recent fragmentation the last straw?

Moderated by:Jo Maitland - Research Director, GigaOM Pro
Speakers:Sameer Dholakia - Group VP and GM, Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix

 

Chris C. Kemp - CEO, Nebula and Co-Founder, OpenStack

 

Marten Mickos - CEO, Eucalyptus Systems 

The video is here.

Watch live streaming video from gigaomstructure at livestream.com

If you don't want to watch the video here is a post on the presentation.

If AWS is the WalMart of cloud, is OpenStack the Soviet Union?

By Kevin Fitchard Jun. 21, 2012, 10:56am PT

Some of the most dynamic part of the presentation was this discussion..

Kemp took Citrix and Eucalyptus to task for reinforcing Amazon’s dominance rather than embracing the OpenStack project. As you can imagine, Eucalyptus Systems CEO Marten Mickos and Citrix Systems Cloud Platforms Group GM Sameer Dholakia took exception to Kemp’s claims, particularly his characterization of their cloud platforms as closed.

Both pointed out that their platforms are open-source, just like OpenStack, but Kemp refused to accept that definition, saying the companies developed the core of platform internally and then released their software to the open-source community. Kemp contrasted that with the OpenStack, which is developed top-to-bottom by its broad membership with no large company having any outsized influence.

Facebook discusses a move to add Edge Network

GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham had a discussion with Facebook's Frank Frankovsky.

BREAKING FREE FROM A VENDOR-DEFINED ECOSYSTEM AND BEYOND

With the Open Compute Project, Facebook helped build a new type of infrastructure for its needs and the needs of other webscale companies that had been locked into a vendor-defined ecosystem. After taking the power in its own hands with Open Compute, Facebook isn't done. Frank Frankovsky, the director of hardware design and supply chain, highlights how to take webscale computing to the next level. Instead of just building data centers for scale, it's time to start thinking about how to operate them at scale too.

Moderated by:Stacey Higginbotham - Senior Writer, GigaOM
Speakers:Frank Frankovsky - VP, Facebook 

Stacey reports on her own conversation with Frank.

Like Netflix, Facebook is boosting its edge network

By Stacey Higginbotham Jun. 21, 2012, 10:20am PT

Updated: Facebook is building out its own content delivery network edge network to help speed up the delivery of its photos according to Frank Frankovsky, a VP at the social networking company. Frankovsky outed his plans onstage at the GigaOM Structure 2012 event in San Francisco as part of a conversation about how the network plans to continue scaling out its infrastructure. His announcement comes just a few weeks after Netflix announced it was building its own CDN.

VIdeo of Apple's Solar Farm, Neighbors say nice things about Apple's Renewable Energy Construction

As any of you have gone through a major home remodel know, your biggest nightmares can come from your neighbors who complain to the city.  Well, you think that is tough, can you imagine building megawatts of solar cells and fuel cells, and besides complaining to the city, the press is talking to the neighbors too looking for the dirt on how you are not abiding by buliding codes.

Apple has this problem building one of the largest Solar Arrays and Fuel Cell installations at its data center in Maiden, NC.  Here are images from this news video.

WSOCTV  article has many neighbors comments.  One is pro environment.

Pastor William Painter's church sits right next to the data center and commends Apple for trying to help the environment. 

"It's great that they're using the solar power. We need more of that around. Cleaner powersources," Painter said.

Another says the curious are good for business.

But the project has been good for Randy Rush's appliance business. Apple said the renewable energy produced here could power not just refrigerators but more than 10,000 homes. 

"I've got a couple people who stop a week and ask what they're doing and most of the time of they stop they buy something, so it's been good, " Rush said. 

There are a few complaints of dust and noise.

Zelda Vosburgh's back yard runs right up to the solar farm. She said she cannot wait for the renewable energy project to be completed. She said she has endured a lot during the construction of the environmentally friendly project. 

"When we get a storm or the wind blows bad this whole place turns into nothing but dust in the air. You can see it flying everywhere," Vosburgh said. 

Trevor Wilson said it's not the dust but the noise he's noticed the most near his parent's home in Maiden. On Monday, crews were working to install the rows of supports needed for the solar panels. 

But, no out right anger.  You can watch the video in the web post to see what people say and their expressions.

Observation: why the press can be difficult sometimes

I laugh when people think of me as media.  I think of myself as an engineer who likes to solve problems.  Being an Industrial Engineer, I spend a lot of time thinking about the human element in projects.  With this blog I can now write a bunch of my observations and share it with anyone who wants to visit this blog. The great thing about blogs, twitter, and other social media is you can now have a voice even if you don't work for a major publication.

One of the observations I want to share is one I made over 25 years ago when i was working for Apple.  There was an evening party after an event like MacWorld with a wide range of people from the Mac ecosystem including Apple HW and SW developers.  There was a particular guy who was dressed poorly, had bags to grab stuff being handed out, and an attitude. This guy was nerdy than the rest, and I worked with the Apple developers with not the greatest social skills who I thought were nerds.  I looked at his badge and he had a media badge.  I watched him a bit more and he had an air of entitlement that said treat me with respect. Why? If not, I'll write something really bad.  Many people kept their distance from him.

To be a technical reporter, you need to have some technical knowledge to understand the press releases. But, in general they are not technical enough to work for the companies that make the stuff. What got me thinking is how does it feel to be constantly looking at the latest technology and know you aren't qualified to work there, the people you are talking to are changing the world, and getting paid really well with stock options.  There are a handful of journalists that are successful, but they don't retire after their company goes IPO.  

It is easy to talk to the press the same way you talk to your peers about a technology.  Keep in mind that your product and its success can actually rub someone the wrong way.

When a person does get rubbed the wrong way, they can spend more time to show this person is wrong by interviewing someone with an opposing view. This can also be called unbiased reporting.  How many times does a journalist say this person is the expert and this other person is some random person I finally found with an opposing view that is not credible as the expert opinion.  The unbiased reporting is an interesting area.

Where can we find unbiased journalism?

A Hemingway novel ends with the line, "Isn't it pretty to think so?" I've always wanted to know what was true, not merely what I might want to believe -- including about Obama. I assume some WSJ readers are the same way.

...

I was a journalist; I know how and how not to game statistics. I suspect this "study" of gaming statistics because it uses two different time periods: recessions post- WWII and post-1960. Isn't that an apples-to-oranges comparison? I suspect the statistics were gamed to make Obama look as bad as possible. I know for sure that's at least one reason why this was published in Opinion rather than the news pages.

In fact, this evident gaming makes me disappointed in the WSJ. But it'll never be a perfect world -- as all conservatives know.

It's tough to be unbiased when you are reporting on a subject that you enjoy, but think you could do.  Imagine if sports journalisms was composed of those who didn't make the team.  If entertainment reporting was composed of the waitresses/waiters who couldn't make it on Broadway.  

One tip about talking to the press is to try and get some background on them.  When you talk to the person keep in mind you could be rubbing them the wrong way.  This is why phone interviews can be so difficult.  When you see the person you can see how they are reacting to you.