Growth of IT Operations and Automation

35 years ago when I was getting my degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research I liked manufacturing, and realized that going into automotive was not were I wanted to go. I focused on distribution logistics and going to a high tech firm.  My first company was HP.  At HP I got really good at distribution logistics which got me recruited by Apple.

When I started my degree it was in the early days of computers and automation.  The PC was just getting going with Apple II and commodore 64.  The PC is not nearly as interesting as mobile and the data centers where I spend my time now.  But, some things come back like Operations.  What is a big topic that continues to grow is IT Operations and Automation.  I like IT operations as it is the same type of problems as manufacturing operations and distribution logistics.

And, one benefit I have over many others is I have been through lots of different stuff in 35 years working at HP, Apple, Microsoft and being independent.

One of the ski friends I know said he has a new job at company X starting in a week.  “Have you heard of them?”  Yep.  Know the co-founders, VP of marketing, CTO.  IT Automation is a hot topic and will get bigger.  My wife even chimed in she knew the company as she sees the t-shits all the time.

IT Operations and Automation is a necessity if you are building a cloud.  

Maybe Microsoft Should have co-CEO's Mulally and Nadella, two could be much better than one

Normally you think of a company with a CEO, the one who has the most power.  The software company that I co-founded, we have three equal executives who make decisions, and it is comforting to have two people “watching your six."

To watch your behind, used in aviation as a warning by your wingmen.

Watch your 6 nighthawk, you have a bogie on your tail

We’re a bunch of data center geeks so having two sets of eyes watching you is much better than one.  This concept is a bit too radical though for most people most know this concept as a Triumvirate.

A triumvirate (from Latin, "triumvirātus") is a political regime dominated by three powerful individuals, each a triumvir (pl. triumviri). The arrangement can be formal or informal, and though the three are usually equal on paper, in reality this is rarely the case. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different military leaders who all claim to be the sole leader.

On the other hand a a Co-CEO is more common.

Co-CEOs: Are Two Better than One?
April 2 2012 by Russ Banham
Two for the Road: The Rise of Co-CEOsAre Two Better than One?
“Co-CEOs are ideal in many situations, especially when the executives provide oversight of each other’s actions and have complementary skill sets,” says Stephen Ferris, a finance professor and Rogers Chair of Money, Credit and Banking at the University of Missouri’s Trulaske College of Business. Ferris has studied the efficacy of the co-CEO model and argues that it is a highly effective way of running a business. “Co-CEOs are ideal in many situations, especially when the executives provide oversight of each other’s actions and have complementary skill sets,” he explains. “It’s actually a very successful model.” From his research on more than 100 shared-governance examples, 

Reading CNET news latest post on Microsoft CEO Hunt, it says that Mulally and Nadella are leading candidates ahead of others.

Ford boss edging out Nokia's Elop in race to replace Ballmer at Microsoft, report says

New reports suggest Ford's Alan Mulally and Microsoft exec Satya Nadella are ahead of rivals including Nokia boss Stephen Elop in the race to replace Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Everyone is focusing on who is the one, but maybe Microsoft should have two CEOs.  If Microsoft had Nadella and Mulally the two combined could easily outperform Ballmer’s one CEO performance.

Happy Thanksgiving, hope you are taking a break, I am

Most of my readers are USA based, but many of you aren’t.  It is Thanksgiving this week in USA, and I am committed to disconnect more, but not completely as next week is a busy week traveling to Atlanta and North Carolina.

I won’t be blogging much for next couple of weeks with vacation and traveling.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I think there should be a “Life is Good, Disconnect” T-shirt.  Although that is probably not as appealing as these.

Picking events to attend with Smart People and Social

I just got back from 7x24 Exchange in San Antonio.

And one of the simple reasons I like the conference is there are smart people attending and they are social.  There are conferences that have smart people, but it is hard to socialize or the attendees aren’t very social.  And, there are even more conferences you can go to where the people are social (aka sales people & business development), but the attendees are not some of the smartest in the industry.

A simple way to look at what conferences I attend is whether there are smart people attending and are they social.  So far my favorites are 7x24 Exchange and GigaOm.  I work for GigaOm Research as a freelance researcher now, but before that I found the conferences met the bar which is part of why I accepted the invitation to work with the research group.

Is working in an Amazon Data Center, like working in one of their warehouses?

Working in a data center is not glamorous.  Neither is working in warehouse.  I used to spend lots of times in warehouses at HP and Apple working in logistics.  Big buildings with racks and rack of pallets.  I remember when the Mac 512K was going to be released and people were excited about the product.  I said the Mac 512K is no different than the Mac 128K, same size box, and it weights the same.  All that is different is the sku # and a label.  Many times the servers look like that to people in the data center, it’s another 1U server, what processor it has, RAM, HD, or SSD isn’t that much difference.  How much does it weigh, how much power does it consume.

BBC has a controversial post from a warehouse worker in the UK on the conditions inside the warehouse.

"We are machines, we are robots, we plug our scanner in, we're holding it, but we might as well be plugging it into ourselves", he said.

Prof Marmot, one of Britain's leading experts on stress at work, said the working conditions at the warehouse are "all the bad stuff at once"."We don't think for ourselves, maybe they don't trust us to think for ourselves as human beings, I don't know."

He said: "The characteristics of this type of job, the evidence shows increased risk of mental illness and physical illness."

One of the observations I have made and asked others about. 

“Do you notice that we don’t see people at other data center companies that are ex-Amazon data center staff?"

“We’ll see ex-Microsoft, ex-Google, etc.  But, when was the last time you saw someone who was ex-amazon data center?  Many of us know a person or two who have joined amazon.com and once they are in, they disappear."

One way you could explain is they are so burnt out of working on data centers at amazon.com they don’t want to do it any more.  Maybe the noncompete agreements are too painful.

Any vendor who works on amazon.com projects knows they say nothing about their work for amazon if they want to stay a supplier.