Having fun at 7x24 Exchange, Getting some of the Thought Leaders to Socialize more

Normally going to a conference is not considered fun.  It may be educational, but rarely fun.  Many of my data center friends, the thought leaders who speak at events or have built and run some of the biggest data centers, like to get together when they can.  It can be a challenge trying to organize when we can get together for an evening and break away from the conference activities.  Hanging in the bar just doesn’t work for discussing something worthwhile.

Many of us are planning on going to 7x24 Exchange, Nov 17-20, 2013 in San Antonio.

This time we’ll spend an extra day in Texas and head to Austin for beer, BBQ, listen to a band, and socialize at a leisure pace.  I’ve found I get many more insights exchanging ideas this way and many others do too which is why we get together.  Building a social event around another data center event has been working, and this is the first time we’ll spend an additional day in the area. 

Thanks to Kevin,Sonda, Kristen to help pull this off.  There is no way this social could be organized without their help.

And a big thanks to those attending our Austin Social. 

At this time, we are full and are not adding more people to the event.  I am not going to say where we are staying in Austin, where we are going to dinner, or what venue we are going for the band.  Thanks to Kevin who is a native Austin, he has taken care of us.

What I will l say is thanks to another well connected individual, those who golf are going to Fazio Foothills.

The Fazio Foothills course, established in 1986, ranks at the top of all experts’ lists. Golfweek Magazine rates the Foothills #4 among America’s 50 Best Resort Courses. The course is also named the Best Resort Course in Texas and has the distinction of consistently having several holes listed among the State’s Best or Most Beautiful Holes (holes #12, 4, 9, 16, 10, 18) recognized by the Dallas Morning News.

And here is a little secret is a common interest.  You hang out with people who help you get better.  I was referring to the data center conversations, not the golf game. :-) 

Developing something new is hard due to Fog of War syndrome, Obamacare suffers

Developing something new is hard.  It is too easy to think you have answers to question you ask internally, confident you have things figured out and you ship.  When I worked on the Mac Portable, this occurred.  Everyone on the team thought the product was a winner, including the media.

Released on September 20, 1989, it was received with excitement from most critics but consumer sales were quite low.

...

In May 2006, PC World rated the Macintosh Portable as the seventeenth worst tech product of all time.^[

The lesson I learned from this is the Fog of War syndrome.  The lack of situational awareness shipping new services can be crippling.

The fog of war is the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.^[1] The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign.

The enemy is not the other companies, but the act of customers not buying your service.

The latest manifestation of this problem is Obamacare.   And, the enemy Obama didn’t expect is his own Democratic party.

Washington (CNN) -- A private meeting on Capitol Hill with House Democrats and White House officials on Wednesday became heated when rank-and-file members expressed frustration about continued Obamacare problems, according to multiple sources in the room.

One congressional Democrat who attended the meeting said senior Obama administration officials Mike Hash and David Simas really "got hit" by House Democrats about everything from the troubled website to the broken presidential promise that people can keep the insurance plans they like.

Including President Clinton.

Boosting pressure further on Obama was former President Bill Clinton, who said on Tuesday that the President should find a way to uphold his initial promises about health policies.

Clinton: Obama should 'honor commitment' on keeping health plans

A growing number of Democrats have called for changes or delays to the program as many face tough reelection bids in 2014 and are feeling pressure from challengers and constituents.

There are some data center services I can think that were developed in the Fog of War, lacking the situational awareness.

Developing something new is hard due to Fog of War syndrome, Obamacare suffers

Developing something new is hard.  It is too easy to think you have answers to question you ask internally, confident you have things figured out and you ship.  When I worked on the Mac Portable, this occurred.  Everyone on the team thought the product was a winner, including the media.

Released on September 20, 1989, it was received with excitement from most critics but consumer sales were quite low.

...

In May 2006, PC World rated the Macintosh Portable as the seventeenth worst tech product of all time.^[

The lesson I learned from this is the Fog of War syndrome.  The lack of situational awareness shipping new services can be crippling.

The fog of war is the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.^[1] The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign.

The enemy is not the other companies, but the act of customers not buying your service.

The latest manifestation of this problem is Obamacare.   And, the enemy Obama didn’t expect is his own Democratic party.

Washington (CNN) -- A private meeting on Capitol Hill with House Democrats and White House officials on Wednesday became heated when rank-and-file members expressed frustration about continued Obamacare problems, according to multiple sources in the room.

One congressional Democrat who attended the meeting said senior Obama administration officials Mike Hash and David Simas really "got hit" by House Democrats about everything from the troubled website to the broken presidential promise that people can keep the insurance plans they like.

Including President Clinton.

Boosting pressure further on Obama was former President Bill Clinton, who said on Tuesday that the President should find a way to uphold his initial promises about health policies.

Clinton: Obama should 'honor commitment' on keeping health plans

A growing number of Democrats have called for changes or delays to the program as many face tough reelection bids in 2014 and are feeling pressure from challengers and constituents.

There are some data center services I can think that were developed in the Fog of War, lacking the situational awareness.

#1 thing to protect your Smartphone when Lost or Stolen, Keep it Connected, then find it

I wrote a post on the 5 things to protect your iPhone.  I’ve read some other posts on features like Find My iPhone, Activation Lock, etc.  After reading about the silliness of privacy int’l thinking phones can be track when off, I decided it is better change the order of what to do in a focus on the most important first.

Rule #1 for finding your lost or stolen phone - keep it connected to the network.  If disconnected or off you will not be able to ring it, GPS find it, lock it, or erase it.

On iOS7 disable access to control center from the “access on lock screen” which allows anyone to put your phone in airplane mode, then put it in their pocket.  You can’t ring it, or find it now.

In Android, I can't find a way to get to airplane mode from the lock screen.  

Rule #2 use the OS’s find iPhone activation lock or Android Device Manager

iOS7 use activation lock in Find my iPhone.

Android use Android Device Manager.  I just tried the feature on my Galaxy Note 3 and it rings it even with volume muted. Sweet! 

If your phone is connected then you can find it.  A thief could hard reset your phone which on some devices would turn it off, but on most the phone reboots and it is back on the network.

I hope this helps you out and your friends.  My 12 year old daughter is providing mobile tech support to her friends showing how they turn off “control center” in iOS7.   I’ll see if I can get my son to do the same on his bus which is where this problem started.  If my son had done this, he would probably have his phone, but I would not have figured this out and shared it with many more people in this post.

Facebook keeps score of Serviceability and Operational Efficiency of Data Center Hardware

There is a short post on OCP by Charlie Manese, Facebook Hardware Design team on Serviceability and operational efficiency, so I will just put the whole thing up.

Know the guys at Google have this data, wonder who else does?

Facebook's perspective on serviceability and operational efficiency

Wednesday, October 09, 2013 · Posted by charlie at 8:09 AM

UPDATED - Webinar on October 24, 2013

By Charlie Manese, Facebook Hardware Design team

At Facebook, because of our scale, we require that solutions deployed in our data center be engineered for maximum operational efficiency and serviceability.

The data center team works closely with the hardware design team to ensure this. Our designs incorporate features such as front-of-rack serviceability, toolless repair operations, and simplicity.

We’ve completed time-in-motion studies, streamlined processes for inventory and repair, and have developed scorecards to that help us evaluate and compare different hardware solutions.

Below is a table of the time-to-repair comparison of different kinds of web servers that have been deployed in our environment:

 

If you're interested in learning more about how Facebook thinks about serviceability and operational efficiency, and you missed the original event, I'll be joining a Hyve webinar on October 24, 2013.

For more information on the event, please see  https://synnex.ilinc.com/perl/ilinc/lms/register.pl?activity_id=zvkkfkw&user_id=

Hope to see you there!