Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Architecture and change: The proper end is fitness for purpose

This guest post comes courtesy of Leonard Fehskens, Vice President of Skills and Capabilities at The Open Group.

By Leonard Fehskens

T
he enterprise transformation theme of The Open Group’s San Francisco conference reminded me of the common assertion that architecture is about change, and the implication that enterprise architecture is thus about enterprise transformation.

We have to be careful that we don’t make change an end in itself. We have to remember that change is a means to the end of getting something we want that is different from what we have. In the enterprise context, that something has been labeled in different ways. One is “alignment,” specifically “business/IT alignment.” Some have concluded that alignment isn’t quite the right idea, and it’s really “integration” we are pursuing. Others have suggested that “coherency” is a better characterization of what we want.

I think all of these are still just means to an end, and that end is fitness for purpose. The pragmatist in me says I don’t really care if all the parts of a system are “aligned” or “integrated” or “coherent,” as long as that system is fit for purpose, i.e., does what it’s supposed to do. [Disclosure: The Open Group is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

I think all of these are still just means to an end, and that end is fitness for purpose.



I’m sure some will argue that alignment and integration and coherency ensure that a system is “optimal” or “efficient,” but doing the wrong thing optimally or efficiently isn’t what we want systems to do. It’s easy to imagine a system that is aligned, integrated and coherent but still not fit for purpose, and it’s just as easy to imagine a system that is not aligned, not integrated and not coherent but that is fit for purpose.

Of course, we can insist that alignment, integration and coherency be with respect to a system’s purpose, but if that’s the case, why don’t we say so directly? Why use words that strongly suggest internal properties of the system, rather than its relationship to an external purpose?

Value is in implementation


W
hatever we call it, continuous pursuit of something is ultimately the continuous failure to achieve it. It isn’t the chase that matters, it’s the catch. While I am sympathetic to the idea that there is intrinsic value in “doing architecture,” the real value is in the resulting architecture and its implementation. Until we actually implement the architecture, we can only answer the question, “Are we there yet?” with, “No, not yet.”

Let me be clear that I’m not arguing, or even assuming, that things don’t change and we don’t need to cope with change. Of course they do, and of course we do. But we should take a cue from rock climbers -- the ones who don’t fall generally follow the principle “only move one limb at a time, from a secure position.”

What stakeholders mean by fitness for purpose must be periodically revisited and revised. It’s fashionable to say “Enterprise architecture is a journey, not a destination,” and this is reflected in definitions of enterprise architecture that refer to it as a “continuous process.” However, the fact is that journey has to pass through specific waypoints. There may be no final destination, but there is always a next destination.

There may be no final destination, but there is always a next destination.



Finally, we should not forget that while the pursuit of fitness for purpose may require that some things change; it may also require that some things not change. We risk losing this insight if we conclude that the primary purpose of architecture is to enable change. The primary purpose of architecture is to ensure fitness for purpose.

For a fuller treatment of the connection between architecture and fitness for purpose, see my presentations to The Open Group Conferences in Boston, July 2010, “What ‘Architecture’ in ‘Enterprise Architecture’ Ought to Mean,” and Amsterdam, October 2010, “Deriving Execution from Strategy: Architecture and the Enterprise.”

This guest post comes courtesy of Leonard Fehskens, Vice President of Skills and Capabilities at The Open Group.

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Monday, February 13, 2012

HP's Gen8 servers attack data center woes head on with better management, automation, and energy conservation to cut total costs

HP today took direct aim at the ever-increasing costs of data centers and managing an explosion of data by announcing a new generation of automated and efficient hardware. The new generation of ProLiant servers includes better internal management, powerful automation features, and improved energy conservation.

The ProLiant Gen8 servers are part HP's Converged Infrastructure strategy, and represent the first step in the company's Project Voyager, a two-year, $300-million effort to redefine the economics of the data center. At the heart of the new generation of servers is ProActive Insight architecture, which includes integrated lifecycle automation, dynamic workload acceleration, automated energy optimization, and proactive service and support. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Data has become a differentiator in business, and with an ever-expanding growth in storage needs, enterprises are feeling the pinch in personnel costs, energy, and facilities. Supporting data as a lifecycle may be IT's fastest growing cost worldwide.

Analysts now predict a 45 percent annual increase in storage over the next three years, and the current annual costs associated with storage are estimated at $157 billion. In addition, server administration and operations cost three times the price of servers, while the cost of facilities to accommodate the data center is even higher.

“The skyrocketing cost of operations in the data center is unsustainable, and enterprises are looking to HP to help solve this problem,” said Mark Potter, senior vice president and general manager, Industry standard Servers and Software, HP. “We are delivering innovative intelligence technologies that enable servers to virtually take care of themselves, allowing data center staff to devote more time to business innovation.”

Integrated lifecycle management


I
ncorporating three major innovations, Integrated Lifecycle Automation simplifies common tasks to keep systems running at peak performance, with an estimated 93 percent less downtime during updates than with previous generations, said HP. These innovations include:
  • Intelligent Provisioning, which enables organizations to get systems online three times faster with a fully integrated server and operating system configuration tool.

    Intelligent Provisioning enables organizations to get systems online three times faster with a fully integrated server and operating system configuration tool.


  • Active Health system, which allows administrators to collect troubleshooting information five times faster by continuously monitoring more than 1,600 system parameters and securely logging all configuration changes.
  • Smart Update, a system maintenance tool that systematically updates servers and blade infrastructures at the scale of the data center.
Dynamic workload acceleration

The demand for data-intensive and transactional workloads such as data warehousing, real-time analytics, and virtualized environments is expanding dramatically. These workloads bring unpredictability to the data center requiring a fundamental change in the way compute and storage services integrate.

HP's Gen8 servers aim to reduce and in some cases eliminate bottlenecks by converging compute and storage services through three innovations:
  • Solid-state optimization, delivering what HP says is a 500 percent improved storage performance using SSDs that reduces costs and downtime over previous generations, and promises two times more storage per server.

    Intelligent performance analytics continuously optimize system performance and efficiency in real time.

  • Real-time data protection, adding multiple embedded data protection technologies such as Advanced Data Mirroring, which HP says is 1,000 times safer than traditional two-drive mirroring in previous generations, while improving read performance.
  • Intelligent performance analytics that continuously optimize system performance and efficiency in real time, with the ability to analyze a variety of workload-specific data points.
Automated energy optimization

E
nsuring that data center capacity will meet growing workload requirements is critical. However, constraints on physical space, rising power demands, and limits on available cooling are adversely affecting data center capacity. In many organizations IT managers are struggling to get what they need from existing resources without inadvertently causing downtime.

The Gen8 servers enable data center and IT managers to identify the physical location of each server in the rack, row and data center. This insight, combined with a sea of intelligent sensors embedded into each server, allows users to reduce power requirements, reclaim as much as 10 percent more usable power per circuit and eliminate manual configuration and tracking errors that can increase downtime.

The Gen8 servers enable data center and IT managers to identify the physical location of each server in the rack, row and data center.



Three new features automate energy optimization in the data center so users can:
  • Optimize workload placement with Location Discovery Services and eliminate labor-intensive and error-prone tracking of IT assets
  • Reduce energy use and increase power capacity with Thermal Discovery Services, which improve airflow efficiency by as much as 25 percent with an intelligent server rack meaning that enterprises can realize an estimated energy saving of $2,750 per 10kW rack
  • Increase system uptime with Power Discovery Services, which automatically track power usage per rack and server, eliminating errors and manual record keeping to reduce unplanned data center outages
Partner program

HP says the new servers will also be a boon to participants in the Partner Program, because partners can expand their service portfolio, increase partner touchpoints, enhance remote technical capabilities, and create consultative opportunities over the life of the customer’s solution.

Further, by eliminating manual processes and the potential of human error, HP and channel partners can reduce outages, while focusing IT resources on strategic tasks. Specifically, partners can:
  • Deploy servers seven times faster over competing servers with automation and elimination of software downloads and CD installations.

    The skyrocketing cost of operations in the data center is unsustainable, and enterprises are looking to HP to help solve this problem.


  • Reduce downtime by automating processes for updates, application provisioning, patch management, and other maintenance tasks.
  • Improve issue resolution with a 95 percent "first-time fix" rate and 40 percent reduction in problem resolution through Insight Online, Active Health, and Insight Remote Support, which automatically pinpoint, diagnose and often proactively fix issues.
ProLiant Gen8 servers are available to early-adopter clients today. General availability begins in March and continues throughout 2012. This includes ProLiant ML tower servers for remote and branch offices and versatile ProLiant DL rack-mount servers that deliver a balance of efficiency and performance. Also included are ProLiant BL blade servers for cloud-ready Converged Infrastructure and ProLiant SL scalable system servers built for web, cloud and massively scaled environments.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

User meta data wars going way too far, Google

I'm a big fan of Google, always have been. But the thirst for pulling in more users to its Google+ social network is about to turn my admiration south.

Now Google is not alone in sliding down the slippery slope of user information invasion. But they are getting too good at it, and they have a huge exploitation potential that others do not.

Google+ seems to now -- I just noticed it today -- require me to click a little box NOT to send my Google+ posts to all the contacts in MY Gmail address book that are not already on Google+.

That's right. When I have something to post to my circles of social connections on Google+ I have to opt out of not having Google send a copy of that post to all the people in my own address book via unsolicited email -- also known as spam. Kind of defeats the purpose of having circles in the first place, right?

This puts me in the place of shilling for Google+ unless I opt out. Not necessarily evil, but not benign, either.

Incidentally, if I wanted to jam all my posts to all my contacts, to spam them, I'd just blast it out to my contacts as my own email. No need for Google+.

So today I'm being held up as a spammer from those I care about most, those I intentionally put in my address book, and that I thought was still ****MY**** data even if it is -- gulp -- in the cloud on Google or iCloud or ... oh my, where ever else my once-private address book is now being sucked into.

But I do not want to spam my contacts. I'd be a fool too. And Google should not want to spam my contacts either, even if they do have Facebook envy to a foolish level.

To be fair, a lot of other Facebook wannabes are also resorting to user address book shenanigans. Path just got a whole lot of flak for outright downloading address books. Not sure if that was a bug or a feature.

And some site called ApnaCircle last month had me scrambling to stop email invites to join it from going out again and again to my contacts. That was not my intent. So I deleted my account, but had to manually delete all my contacts there too or the emails kept going out.

This is not how word of mouth marketing or social networking is supposed to work, folks. I kind of feel like my pocket has been picked of the little black book I keep there for my contacts. My contacts. Did I give up the rights to my contacts when I placed them in an address book on Gmail? Maybe I did, but not for long.

No, this filching of user data is social networking run amok, and it needs to stop.

NewSQL pioneer Clustrix delivers free software-only kit to demo shard-less MySQL scaling, unveils a poster child use at Twoo

There's a lot to like about MySQL databases if you're a start-up, until success comes knocking a bit too fast.

When big data demand soars then MySQL can sour on making the transactions needed on time. Sharding the application and data resources has been about the only answer, other than to painfully and expensively cut and run to another data base like NoSQL.

This was the problem facing Massive Media when its social networking site Twoo rapidly grew to four million users in six months. By using the Clustrix distributed relational database system, Massive Media gained high scale-out transactional performance and automated fault tolerance, said Clustrix.

And that has now made Twoo the poster child for Clustrix, a San Francisco start-up funded by Sequoia and USVP and its co-founder, Paul Mikesell, also co-founded Isilon, which was sold to EMC for $2.25 billion.

Recognizing the huge uptake in MySQL -- while also understanding the database's limits -- promoted Clustrix to find a NewSQL alternative, first via a hardware appliance play, and now this week broadening to a software-only environment too that simulates the hardware components of the Clustrix database appliance.

On Tuesday, Clustrix announced the availability of the free Clustrix Development Kit, allowing users to try out the NewSQL system that it's backers say scales to an "unlimited number of users, transactions or data."

New class of database

Clustrix fits into the new class of hybrid SQL-NoSQL database solutions that combine the advantage of being compatible with many SQL applications and providing the scalability of NoSQL ones. Other such solutions include Database.com with ODBC/JDBC drivers, NuoDB, Xeround, and VoltDB, according to InfoQ.

"We are seeing increased interest in NewSQL database technologies that enable users to scale their databases without having to resort to complex manual sharding," said Matt Aslett, research manager, data management and analytics at 451 Research, in a release. "Clustrix's combination of an SSD-based appliance and MySQL compatibility is a compelling alternative for enterprises struggling to manage with sharding MySQL."

Clustrix uniquely offers a hardware solution that provides for linear scalability by simply adding hardware appliance nodes to the database cluster as demand mounts. The appliances sport a 4- or 8-cores processor, 24-48GB RAM, and 448-896GB SSD, and the entire cluster is seen and managed as one database, according to InfoQ. Pricing starts at about $100,000.

Eliminating the need for database sharding, which Clustrix CEO Robin Purohit calls "a toxic event," is huge because of the manual work required of developers (three times the code), the complexity due to not being able to do transactions across shards, and difficulty doing joins and innovations across the sharded data. You might recall that Purohit was an executive at HP Software before he joined Clustrix last October.

The value of the hybrid SQL-NoSQL database solutions reminds me of where server virtualization was a few years ago. A very good thing can quickly become a bad thing when sprawl and complexity undercut the benefits.

If Clustrix and its brethren can allow MySQL values to grow unencumbered via NewSQL then it will be of interest to more than start-ups. Enterprises building new applications for cloud, mobile, and high-transactions-intense big data uses may well be seduced to the NewSQL way as well. And there will be a lot of skilled developers and DBAs at their disposal who know MySQL well.

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Five tips enterprise architects can learn from the Winchester Mystery House

This guest post comes courtesy of E.G. Nadhan of HP Enterprise Services.

By E.G.Nadhan, HP Enterprise Services

N
ot far from where The Open Group Conference was held in San Francisco this week is the Winchester Mystery House, once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, widow of the gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. It took 38 years to build this house. Extensions and modifications were primarily based on a localized requirement du jour. Today, the house has several functional abnormalities that have no practical explanation.

To build a house right, you need a blueprint that details what is to be built, where, why and how based on the home owner's requirements (including cost). As the story goes, Sarah Winchester's priorities were different. However, if we don't follow this systematic approach as enterprise architects, we are likely to land up with some Winchester IT houses as well.

Or, have we already? Enterprises are always tempted to address the immediate problem at hand with surprisingly short timelines. Frequent implementations of sporadic, tactical additions evolve to a Winchester Architecture. Right or wrong, Sarah Winchester did this by choice. If enterprises of today land up with such architectures, it can only by chance and not by choice.

Choice not chance

So, here are my tips to architect by choice rather than chance:
  1. Establish your principles: Fundamental architectural principles must be in place that serve as a rock solid foundation upon which architectures are based. These principles are based on generic, common-sense tenets that are refined to apply specifically to your enterprise.
  2. Install solid governance: The appropriate level of architectural governance must be in place with the participation from the stakeholders concerned. This governance must be exercised, keeping these architectural principles in context.
  3. Ensure business alignment: After establishing the architectural vision, Enterprise Architecture must lead in with a clear definition of the over-arching business architecture which defines the manner in which the other architectural layers are realized. Aligning business to IT is one of the primary responsibilities of an enterprise architect.
  4. Plan for continuous evaluation: Enterprise Architecture is never really done. There are constant triggers (internal and external) for implementing improvements and extensions. Consumer behavior, market trends and technological evolution can trigger aftershocks within the foundational concepts that the architecture is based upon.
  5. Standardize: All that said, enterprises must be agile in order to react to such demands. A standardized and modularized approach is key. Standardization can be implemented in various shapes and forms. It could be the Architectural Development Method (TOGAF), the reference architecture for a Service Oriented Approach or the manner in which infrastructure services are provisioned across SOA and Cloud solutions.
Thus, it is interesting that The Open Group conference was miles away from the Winchester House. By choice, I would expect enterprise architects to go to The Open Group Conference. By chance, if you do happen by the Winchester House and are able to relate it to your Enterprise Architecture, please follow the tips above to architect by choice, and not by chance.

If you have instances where you have seen the Winchester pattern, do let me know by commenting here or following me on Twitter @NadhanAtHP.

This blog post was originally posted on HP’s Transforming IT Blog.

This guest post comes courtesy of E.G. Nadhan of HP Enterprise Services.

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