Project Alluvion is??? Amazon or someone else?

I have friends asking me if I know who is behind Project Alluvion.  My guess to throw out there is Amazon. Why?  Let me go over a few things.

What is Alluvion?

al·lu·vi·on
əˈlo͞ovēən/
noun
LAW
noun: alluvion
  1. 1.
    the action of the sea or a river in forming new land by deposition.
Origin
 

Alluvion could be a code name that applies to Amazon project given the connection applies to a river.

Could it be Facebook, Google, or Microsoft?  No, they have presences in the area already.

Could it be Apple?  Not likely, Apple has land in Prineville, Reno, and Maiden with no data centers in Europe or APAC.  It would seem Apple would expand on its existing properties or buy land outside of the US before buying land in Des Moines.

Amazon has a west coast presence and east coast, but creating a high availability fail over from the coasts doesn’t work well for many scenarios.  For the same reason that Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have gone to each coast and the midwest, for Amazon to follow to compete seems reasonable.

After guessing Amazon, the potential customers don’t pan out on who would need a big data center with tax incentives. 

My Friends build Data Centers, AWS's friends don't?

My friends like to build data centers.  Some are building a lot.  Thanks to Amazon, there is a view that “Friends don’t let Friends build Data Centers."

 “Friends don’t let friends build data centers,” Infor CEO Charles Phillips said in his presentation during the keynote.

My friends like building data centers.  And many of the partners of AWS’s Direct Connect build data centers.  Building data centers is not bad if you know what you are doing.   I thinkI would say “Friends don’t let the clueless build data centers.”  Some people shouldn’t build data centers.  Leave data centers to the pros.

US East (Virginia)US West (N. California)US West (Oregon)EU West (Ireland)South America (Sao Paulo)Asia Pacific (Singapore)Asia Pacific (Tokyo)Asia Pacific (Sydney)
AAPT               ✔
Amcom               ✔  
Atlantic Metro Communications ✔ ✔ ✔            
Bestel ✔ ✔            
CFN Services ✔ ✔   ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔  
Cinenet               ✔
CoreSite ✔ ✔            
Datapipe ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔   ✔    
DBR360 ✔ ✔   ✔        
eircom Ltd.       ✔        
Exponential-e Ltd.       ✔        
Equinix, Inc. ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔   ✔ ✔ ✔
EUNetworks       ✔        
FiberLight ✔              
Fiber Internet Center   ✔            
First Communications ✔              
Global Capacity ✔ ✔            
Global Telecom & Technology, Inc. (GTT) ✔ ✔ ✔          
Hibernia Atlantic ✔     ✔   ✔    
InterCloud ✔     ✔        
IX Reach ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔        
KVH Co., Ltd.             ✔  
Level 3 Communications, Inc. ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Lightower ✔              
Masergy ✔ ✔ ✔          
Megaport               ✔
Nomura Research Institute (NRI)             ✔  
NTT Communications Corporation             ✔  
Pacnet               ✔
Smart421       ✔        
Softbank Telecom Corp.             ✔  
Splice Communications ✔ ✔            
TelecityGroup       ✔        
Telx ✔ ✔            
tw telecom ✔ ✔ ✔          
Venus       ✔        
Vibe               ✔
Vocus               ✔
XO Communications ✔ ✔ ✔            
Zayo Group ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔        

Can A True Analysis be Written of Amazon.com? Everything Store book makes the point

I am reading the Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon for the 2nd time.  The first read I found interesting to see what the author had collected as the facts to write his book.  The nice thing is I know some folks who have been at Amazon and talked with them first hand on what the company is like.  One friend I found was in the book.  Were they quoted in an interview?  no they just appear in this picture included in the book.

NewImage

A point made in the book is the challenge of telling story in words.

The narrative fallacy, Bezos explained, was a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan to describe how humans are biologically inclined to turn complex realities into soothing but oversimplified stories. Taleb argued that the limitations of the human brain resulted in our species’ tendency to squeeze unrelated facts and events into cause-and-effect equations and then convert them into easily understandable narratives. These stories, Taleb wrote, shield humanity from the true randomness of the world, the chaos of human experience, and, to some extent, the unnerving element of luck that plays into all successes and failures.

Bezos was suggesting that Amazon’s rise might be that sort of impossibly complex story. There was no easy explanation for how certain products were invented, such as Amazon Web Services, its pioneering cloud business that so many other Internet companies now use to run their operations. “When a company comes up with an idea, it’s a messy process. There’s no aha moment,” Bezos said. Reducing Amazon’s history to a simple narrative, he worried, could give the impression of clarity rather than the real thing.

Stone, Brad (2013-10-15). The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (pp. 12-13). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

If you agree with the point made by Bezos and Taleb which the author Brad Stone would appear given he puts it in the book, then how should you interpret what Brad Stone has written?  The image above tells a story that is not manipulated in photoshop to align with the goals of a sales team.  The words written by Brad Stone are written in a way that fulfill his objectives and his publisher.

This idea is going through my head as I read the book for the 2nd time.

Here are some words from my friend who is in the above picture.

in my time he was just a very enthusiastic, very smart startup CEO with a mission beyond what any of us ever imagined. I'm still crazy proud of the place and my time there

This point is going through my head though more as I study Amazon.

Back to Blogging

I had an unintended break from Blogging.  I got a chance to attend an analyst briefing by RMS and got to meet in person Hemant Shah the CEO.  Why is RMS interesting to me?  Because here is a company that has spent 25 years working on catastrophe risk modeling and they are about to launch on Apr 15 their Cloud HPC Risk Modeling environment, RMS One.

I had just listened to Hemant’s talk at Stanford.

Description 

Hemant Shah, co-founder and CEO of RMS, takes students on a ride through the highs and lows of growing and changing a company. From early days in an apartment with co-founders, to making the tough calls as a market leader in risk and catastrophe modeling, Shah discusses lessons around culture, business models, and pivoting a value proposition.

Spending the day with RMS got me thinking of how to view operations from a Risk perspective.  This perspective was not what they told us, but I saw how risk is different way to view the waste that can exist.

I had so many ideas spinning in my head I was having a hard time writing down the ideas, but that is not a good excuse.

Anyway back to writing.  This is a busy week.  OSIsoft has their user conference that I haven’t attended for over 5 years.  Google has their cloud event in SF.  and AWS has their one day summit SF as well.  Going to a data center in Santa Clara.  And, going to try some ideas on how risk modeling is a perspective to see the issues that exist in operations.