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Here is a video on FedEx’s latest data center in Colorado Springs.
The news site is here.
"Saving money and saving resources, they go hand in hand. If it's operating efficiently and sustainability, then we've hit the bulls eye," according to Mitch Jackson, VP of Environmental Affairs for FedEx. That's a very important target, when managing tens of millions of packages a day, and billions of pieces of information.
It is kind of stupid to wait for your monthly AWS bill to see what you are paying. Checking your console is one option. Another would be if there was an API to get the data in an CSV (Excel compatible file).
Google just announced its Billing API for its cloud.
Now Get Programmatic Access to your Billing Data With the New Billing API
Posted: Monday, December 23, 2013Tools for monitoring, analyzing and optimizing cost have become an important part of managing cloud services. But these tools are difficult to build if the usage data is only in the Google Cloud Console. We are happy to announce a solution to this problem. The Billing Export feature addresses this need, and it is available in Preview.
Once enabled, your daily Google Cloud Platform usage and cost estimates will be exported automatically to a CSV or JSON file stored in a Google Cloud Storage bucket you specify. You can then access the data via theCloud Storage API, CLI tool or Cloud Console file browser. Usage data is labelled with project Number and resource type. You have full control of who can access this data via ACLs on your Cloud Storage bucket.
Programmatic Billing Access
Programmatic Billing Access leverages existing Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) APIs so you can build applications that reference your billing data from a CSV (comma-separated value) file stored in an Amazon S3 bucket.
Note
IAM users with access to the billing pages can set the Programmatic Billing preferences.
Here's how it works:
Programmatic Billing Access Process
Log in to the Billing Preferences page.
Enable CSV reporting of your billing statement.
Sign up for Programmatic Billing Access by providing a bucket location for the CSV files.
Set a policy on the bucket granting AWS access to publish your CSV files to the bucket at the specified location.
Note
The CSV files are stored in Amazon S3 at standard Amazon S3 pricing.
Use an application, such as Microsoft Excel, to parse the billing data. Or, use the existing Amazon S3 API to write an application that accesses your billing data.
AWS provides SDKs for developing applications in specific languages. For links to the complete set of AWS SDKs, see Sample Code & Libraries.
The following diagram shows how Programmatic Billing Access works.
The NSA has had decades to refine how it operates. The personnel and technology are meant to fulfill the mission of the NSA.
Mission
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances.
I never noticed until now that in the Mission Statement is “under all circumstances.” This means the NSA spent a lot of time thinking about threats to its operations. Out of all the scenarios that the NSA went through, it is very unlikely they foresaw the case where they are in a PR disaster and are being attacked by Allies and the USA.
Just check out the latest Google News search for “NSA."
Hill lawmakers battle over future of NSA spying, in wake of White ...
FILE: Oct. 28, 2013: A photo illustration of an NSA logo and a cellphone simulating a call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Frankford, ...Lawmakers defend NSA spy program after task force reportNew York Daily News-2 hours agoCongressional leaders debate NSA data collection programMSNBC-4 hours agoSen. Mark Udall: 'Status Quo' Argument For NSA Spying 'Fell Apart ...In-Depth-Huffington Post-4 hours agoRogers defends NSA data collectionBlog-Politico (blog)-4 hours ago
In the Sen Mark Udall post on Huffington the call is made to change NSA operations.
WASHINGTON -- Colorado Sen. Mark Udall (D) said on Sunday that any arguments against reform of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs crumbled this past week, following the release of a White House report that criticized the programs and a judge's ruling that questioned their constitutionality.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Udall said, "The arguments for the status quo fell apart this week in Washington."
"It's now time to really fundamentally reform the way in which the NSA operates," he said.
Maybe it is worthwhile to think about what happens if there is a PR disaster in your data center operations and documents are in public domain as to how you operate.
There is sadness in Calxeda’s lack of funding to continue its efforts on ARM servers.
Calxeda Closes Its Office: The Sad Story Of One Of The Most Innovative Companies In Years
But, over a year ago, I started to doubt whether Calxeda would survive. I would chat with some server hardware folks and one of the ideas we would discuss is out of the 8+ companies out there with ARM chips there would eventually be only three who survive, and whether Calxeda would be one of them was not clear. We had more faith in Samsung to be a player than many of the others.
Almost everyone focuses on ARM as if the ARM chip has magical powers that can beat the x86 chip once someone ships an ARM chip for servers. ARM is just a chip. x86 is a chip. I decided to look for a recent paper that compares ARM vs. x86 and found this paper.
A Detailed Analysis of Contemporary ARM and x86 Architectures
Emily Blem, Jaikrishnan Menon, and Karthikeyan Sankaralingam
University of Wisconsin - Madison
The results show. (note: ISA is Instruction Set Architecture)
We find that ARM and x86 processors are simply engineering
design points optimized for different levels of performance, and
there is nothing fundamentally more energy efficient in one ISA
class or the other. The ISA being RISC or CISC seems irrelevant
So if ARM vs. x86 is irrelevant what was the battle to fight? It is about creating a new Fabric for Servers. Read the press statement from Calxeda. Their first two paragraphs say Fabric.
Over the last few years, Calxeda has been a driving force in the industry for low power server processors and fabric-based computing.
The concept of a fabric of ARM-based servers challenging the industry giants was not on anyone¹s radar screen when we started this journey.
In April 2012 Intel announced it had licensed Cray’s supercomputing fabric.
Intel Acquires Industry-Leading, High-Performance Computing Interconnect Technology and Expertise
SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 24, 2012 – Intel Corporation today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement with Cray Inc. to acquire certain assets related to its high-performance computing (HPC) interconnect program. With the agreement, Intel gains access to Cray’s world-class interconnect personnel and intellectual property.
The Cray interconnect team is responsible for the award-winning Gemini interconnect as well as the upcoming Aries interconnect, designed to work in Cray’s next-generation supercomputer, codenamed “Cascade,” which will integrate Intel® Xeon® processors. The transaction is expected to close before the end of the current quarter, subject to customary closing conditions being met.
Intel announced the C2000 Atom to go against ARM. In this blog post I referenced posts on Barron’s blog by analyst who discussed the ARM vs. Atom.
There are probably many other small things that made it difficult for Calxeda. It’s hard to be a disruptive force especially in Intel’s turf.
I had beers for the holidays with some data center friends last night. We had fun chatting about all kinds of topics. One guy is lucky to have executives who will listen to the data center issues. One of the other guys is unlucky with management who doesn’t understand the data center. The gal is watching craziness at the executive level at another company as they save costs. My own situation at big companies is long gone. My past problem at big companies is I was focused on doing the right thing in spite of management.
Just yesterday I was reading this white paper on Speaking Truth to Power and many points are made that resonated.
The truth that makes men free is for the most part
the truth which men prefer not to hear.
--Herbert Agar, A Time for Greatness (1942)
The author writes about an authority power dominated company (Cowles Media) vs. an open challenge of authority’s decisions (FedEx) and summarizes with...
The lesson I drew from these examples nearly three decades ago was that mangers in companies with healthy cultures were constantly willing to rethink even their most basic assumptions through a process of constructive dissent.
Many companies have the belief the CEO should always be the authority with power.
thanks to the much-publicized behavior of imperial CEOs in the 1990s, a cultural expectation has been created that leaders need to be decisive, tough, take-charge men who quickly fire those who are not "team-players." Imagine the courage it would take to tell a Jack Welch, a Scott McNeely, an Andy Grove, or a Larry Ellison news he didn't want to hear? Even in a book by fawning admirers, Jack Welch came across as a modern-day Attila when GE mangers dared to question him. Dissenters were berated, insulted, and abused: "According to former employees, Welch conducts meetings so aggressively that people tremble. He attacks almost physically with his intellect-criticizing, demeaning, ridiculing, humiliating." One humiliated former GE-executive who had been publicly dressed down by Welch for daring to question his boss admitted to the moderator of an Aspen Institute seminar in the early 1990s that Welch's furious tirade "caused me to soil my pants."
The white paper is a long read, but will get you thinking about the challenges of Speaking Truth to those in Power.
