Netflix's approach to innovation, get out of the way

Isn't it funny how many company's answer to innovation is to make it an objective and goal of the company.  IBM has even created an event called Innovate.

An entertaining post on innovation is by Netflix's Adrian Cockcroft where he uses Netflix streaming media shows as slides.

How Netflix gets out of the way of innovation

 

#defrag 2011 presentation script.

I'm the cloud architect for Netflix, but rather than tell you about why we moved Netflix to a cloud architecture or how we built our cloud architecture, I'm going to tell you what we do differently at Netflix to create a culture that supports innovation.

What is it that lets us get things done very quickly. Sometimes a bit too qwikly…. but how did we keep making big strategic moves, from DVD to streaming, from Datacenter to Public Cloud, from USA only to International, all in very short timescales with a fairly small team of engineers.

My presentation slides are just box-shots of movies and TV shows that are available on Netflix streaming. This script is based on the notes I made to figure out what I was going to say for each box shot. If some of you see a show you didn't know we had and want to watch that would make me happy, you can click on the box shot to visit that movie at Netflix, they were all available for streaming in the USA at the time of writing.

The post is long, so let me help you to the part I found useful.

What I found out over the next few years is that the culture is what enables innovation, so that Netflix can get things done quickly that other companies are too scared or too slow to try. The rest of this talk is about the key things that we do differently at Netflix.

And Andrian's warns this guidance is most likely not useful for a large established company.

Before I get into them I want to warn you that even with a roadmap and a guide, you probably won't be able to follow this path if you are in a large established company. Your existing culture won't let you. However if you are creating a new company from scratch, I hope you can join me in what I hope is the future of cool places to work.

Here's the key insight. It's the things you don't do that make the difference. You don't add innovation to a company culture, you get out of its way.

GigaOm Structure, A Data Center event for thought leaders

This year was my second time attending GigaOm Structure.  There were some very famiiar faces I see at GigaOm Structure - Rich Miller from DCK, Kevin Timmons from Cyrus One, and Frank Frankovsky from Facebook are a few I had a chance to talk to.  

One of the things that struck me in the presentations is how much data centers are discussed.  Then, it hit me that the folks data center folks who attend are part of the thought leaders.  Amazon Web Services Werner Vogel has spoke for the full 5 years of Structure.  

Here are some of the companies that have booths.  There are many more that I didn't take pictures of.

Dell with DCS servers, modular data centers, and cloud Boomi.

Verizon/Terramark with a bit of IBM in the background.

Intel is in force with cloud solutions.

Equinix and Seamicro is the background.

Calxeda and Duport Fabros

Cloud Oxymoron: 91% IT decision makers like the cloud, yet 43% business users skip central IT

Rackspace has a press release on its survey that finds nine in ten IT decision makers support the cloud.

Rackspace Hosting Reports Nine in Ten IT Decision Makers in National Survey Have Positive View of Cloud Computing

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Overwhelming Majority of Decision Makers Believe Customer Service and Technical Support

Are Important Considerations When Choosing Cloud Provider

San Antonio, TX, June 25, 2012 – Nine in ten (91%) of IT decision makers have a positive opinion of cloud computing according to a national survey commissioned by Rackspace Hosting.  IT decision makers view customer service and technical support as important considerations when choosing a cloud computing provider.

But, when I read the press release an Oxymoron comes out.

An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or oxymora) (from Greek ὀξύμωρον, "sharp dull") is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Oxymorons appear in a variety of contexts, including inadvertent errors such as ground pilot and literary oxymorons crafted to reveal a paradox.

The contradictory idea is the same people who filled out the survey have a wide number of users that bypass the corporate IT group for cloud services.

Rogue IT is Prevalent

Nearly half (43%) of decision makers surveyed are aware of people taking it upon themselves to use cloud computing services or resources not provided by their organization’s IT department in order to help with work projects.   Among respondents reporting someone in their organization using cloud services independently of the IT department, 38% said the main reason is to save time.  One in three respondents believe it was because the solutions were not available internally or because it was a way to not deal with the organization’s IT department.

Now you can explain this many different ways.  Let me give you simple way to look at this.  Corporate IT is a huge group with lots of lots of employees.  The Cloud is a threat to their jobs.  So, whenever a cloud project is brought into corporate IT, a lot of what goes on are attempts to educate the users that they should be using corporate IT staff to run their cloud projects.  This delays the project and increase the costs.  

Wouldn't it be amazing if corporate IT said we can execute cloud projects faster and cheaper than you can on your own.  Shouldn't this be true if corporate IT really had Cloud skills?

What the cloud is doing is giving business users a freedom of choice.  The past corporate IT was a monopoly.

“Cloud computing is spurring innovation by enabling business users and developers to deploy, configure and adapt faster,” said John Engates, chief technology officer at Rackspace.  “The survey confirms the rapid migration to the cloud as IT leaders reap the benefit of spending more time creating and less time configuring.”

The harsh reality of the cloud is it eliminates jobs in corporate IT.  If it doesn't eliminate jobs how do you expect to save money?  Rackspace, Softlayer, and Amazon Web Services would go broke if they had the manpower overhead of corporate IT.

The evil part of The Cloud is it is threat to the large mass of people in IT.  Amazon, Facebook, Google, and others are proud they have one sys admin taking care of up to 10,000 servers.

Students at 7x24 Exchange 2012 Orlando

Last year was my first 7x24 Exchange conference.  I had been going to data center conferences for years and was sticking to that ones I knew my friends were at.  Some friends and I decided to give 7x24 Exchange a try and now I have switched to going to 7x24 Exchange twice a year.

i am going to write a few more posts about my observations of 7x24 Exchange.  One that helps me get a different perspective is 7x24 Exchange has a sponsored student program.  I was able to get my nephew in this year.  Justin just finished his sophomore year in mechanical engineering at U of Colorado-Boulder.  His Dad works at Oracle, not in data centers.  His aunt works at Intuit in the data center group.  And, I do all kinds of fun stuff in data centers.

The one thing I told Justin is where else do you tell me people you are getting your degree in mechanical engineering, and people say "that's cool."  I told Justin when he goes back to school he needs to go talk to the facility operations team, not the data center team to understand mechanical infrastructure on campus for data centers.  The industry terminology can be a bit overwhelming, but getting the context at a place like 7x24 Exchange helps a lot to digest the industry news.

I would like to thank the folks at 7x24 Exchange for accepting Justin Ohara in their sponsored student program.

Washington Aluminum Plant celebrates 60 years in Wenatchee

The growth of data centers in the Northwest takes advantage of low cost power that the Aluminum industry used.  Seattletimes publishes an AP article that discusses  the 60 years of one Alcoa plant.

Today, just two plants remain - but one of them celebrates its 60th anniversary Saturday with an open house and an idle plant in Montana is considering a restart thanks in part to abundant power supplies.

It is interesting to know that at one time 40 percent of the USA's aluminum came from 10 plants in the NW.

The Pacific Northwest aluminum industry supplied roughly 40 percent of the nation's aluminum in its heyday in the 1980s, with 10 plants producing the pliable, lightweight metal for everything from war planes to soda cans.

140 MW is available to restart one plant.

In Columbia Falls, Mont., an idle plant is considering a restart, according to the Bonneville Power Administration, the Portland, Ore.-based federal agency that manages much of the Northwest power grid.

Columbia Falls Aluminum, located near the Hungry Horse Dam in northwest Montana, laid off nearly 90 workers when it closed at the end of October 2009.

BPA has told the company it can provide 140 average megawatts of power each year, spokesman Michael Hansen said, which is roughly enough power for two pot lines to operate.

Here is the website for the 60 year old plant in Wenatchee.

Construction of Alcoa Wenatchee Works began in May, 1951. The smelting plant, where alumina, or aluminum ore, is reduced to metal, was constructed as a direct result of a request from the Office of Defense Mobilization to increase the domestic production of aluminum in a defense oriented economy.

Alcoa Wenatchee Works opened in 1952. The Wenatchee Works was the first smelter to be built In the Pacific Northwest in the post World War 2 period and the first plant of this type built with private capital in the area since before the war.

Wenatchee Works is located eleven miles south of the city of Wenatchee, Chelan County, Washington, and one and one half miles above Rock Island Dam, the first dam built on the Columbia River. The entire site covers more than 2,700 acres, excluding some 1,700 acres of orchard land donated to Washington State University In 1972. The plant itself covers 100 acres adjacent to the Columbia River.

Here is the dam that the power comes from.