Say hello to cloud computing, it is something you will get to know well over the next 5-10 years as most information technology moves to centralized servers instead of inside the corporation data centers.
When energy was first produced by harnessing the wind or putting a paddle wheel on a river, it was all created and used locally. Few economies of scale, lots of maintenance issues, and generally a hard way to do things.
Corporations have built vast empires of servers and staff to service their IT needs over the last 60 years. What has resulted has limited economies of scale, lots of maintenance issues, and a generally hard way to operate. Corporations that hired great IT people did well, others not so well. Even world renowned companies like Sony had their systems broken into, with only the internal people to hold accountable.
The cloud helps these problems in several ways. Security can be watched more tightly (Fort Knox versus a bunch of local branch banks), economies of scale can apply, and the Cloud providers provide a level of liability protection that internal IS people have not since they are part of the host corporation.
Will there be problems? Of course. Disasters and embarrassments? Inevitably. Is this progress or the "next wave" of computing? Yes it is.
Interoperable data will allow rapid collaboration between the cloud applications, stepping up the pace of innovation and cooperation.
Will this affect everyone? It already has as major businesses like EBAY and Amazon and SalesForce.com all have conducted business from a web hosted environment. It has worked very well, and the cloud is the next step toward making this model pervasive.
Will this move 100% of everything? Nope. There are some sensitive applications that will defy the trend, and there will always be the need for some local data (spreadsheets, word docs, etc) for convenience.
Times are changing. Don't get left behind.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Standards and the Broken Government
The government of the United States is broken - at the Federal, State, and local levels - 1 completely redundand federal govt, 50 states, territories, over 3,000 cities and thousands of overlapping city and town governments.
This made a lot of sense when you had large distances between populations, and slow transportation (pre 1930). It makes no sense today to allow for thousands of different approaches.
If you talk to people in these various entities you find out that redundancy, duplication and any lack of a standardized approach is mostly absent. Insurance is regulated by the states, and there are 51 separate methods of being an insurance agent? Why?
Corporations like WalMart and Home Depot have shown how standards drive success and efficiencies. If a WalMart exec suddenly decided he was going to something majorly differnt, he or she would quickly be shown the door.
Do we really need Fish and Game at both the federal level and all the states? As much as I love fishing, it makes no sense in our current financial straits. Are all the government agencies necessary? Why do the overap so much.
Imagine the blowback if someone suggested getting rid of states in favor of regions, or consolidating all the counties in one set of state provided services.
We have to change with the world if we're going to lead.
This made a lot of sense when you had large distances between populations, and slow transportation (pre 1930). It makes no sense today to allow for thousands of different approaches.
If you talk to people in these various entities you find out that redundancy, duplication and any lack of a standardized approach is mostly absent. Insurance is regulated by the states, and there are 51 separate methods of being an insurance agent? Why?
Corporations like WalMart and Home Depot have shown how standards drive success and efficiencies. If a WalMart exec suddenly decided he was going to something majorly differnt, he or she would quickly be shown the door.
Do we really need Fish and Game at both the federal level and all the states? As much as I love fishing, it makes no sense in our current financial straits. Are all the government agencies necessary? Why do the overap so much.
Imagine the blowback if someone suggested getting rid of states in favor of regions, or consolidating all the counties in one set of state provided services.
We have to change with the world if we're going to lead.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
OASIS - Structured Emergency Management Data
OASIS (www.oasis-open) is laying the groundwork for a sea change in how emergency management is handled. Elysa Jones heads up their technical committe and has been a tireless contributor for years (pro-bono).
Common Alerting Protocol, conceived in the late 90s/early 2000 is now becoming a world standard and saving countless lives with severe weather warnings (NOAA), Earthquake reporting (USGS), Tsunami Warning, and a host of other time senstive threats. CAP is easy to use, interoperabe so that you don't have to buy certain software, multi-lingual and other key constructs. There is nothing competitive to it that can handle the general nature of emergency alerts. FEMA has chosen CAP for their years after Katrina Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).
EDXL-DE (a stndardized delivery package that can address both explicit and functional addressees) and a host of other standards are either released or in development:
1. Resource Messaging: instead of random phone calls and the good old boy method of borrowing needed resources - EDXL RM brings a scalable, complete method for acquiring people, equipment, and other key resources using XML transactions.
2. HAVE: Don't you think hospitals should be able to report status (beds, doctors, and other vital information) automatically to the 9-1-1 centers so they are informed when it comes to a life or death decision of what hospital to route an accident patient to? Its all manual, but the Hospital Availability Standard makes this achieveable without massive cost.
3. Tracking of Emergency Patients
4. SITREPS: you would think that one standardized set of info that could e shared would make sense. It would. Everyone does it differently, including every federal agency, state, and local group. EDXL SITREP will change this.
And there is more......they won't throw in Ginzu knives, but this non-profit, tireless organization is working to fix the huge problems that exist today in the Emergency Management world. Kudos, kudos, kudos.
Common Alerting Protocol, conceived in the late 90s/early 2000 is now becoming a world standard and saving countless lives with severe weather warnings (NOAA), Earthquake reporting (USGS), Tsunami Warning, and a host of other time senstive threats. CAP is easy to use, interoperabe so that you don't have to buy certain software, multi-lingual and other key constructs. There is nothing competitive to it that can handle the general nature of emergency alerts. FEMA has chosen CAP for their years after Katrina Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).
EDXL-DE (a stndardized delivery package that can address both explicit and functional addressees) and a host of other standards are either released or in development:
1. Resource Messaging: instead of random phone calls and the good old boy method of borrowing needed resources - EDXL RM brings a scalable, complete method for acquiring people, equipment, and other key resources using XML transactions.
2. HAVE: Don't you think hospitals should be able to report status (beds, doctors, and other vital information) automatically to the 9-1-1 centers so they are informed when it comes to a life or death decision of what hospital to route an accident patient to? Its all manual, but the Hospital Availability Standard makes this achieveable without massive cost.
3. Tracking of Emergency Patients
4. SITREPS: you would think that one standardized set of info that could e shared would make sense. It would. Everyone does it differently, including every federal agency, state, and local group. EDXL SITREP will change this.
And there is more......they won't throw in Ginzu knives, but this non-profit, tireless organization is working to fix the huge problems that exist today in the Emergency Management world. Kudos, kudos, kudos.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
NGOs - saving the world, but could be much better organized...
If you have ever seen the cartoon of the king brushing off a machine gun salesman to go fight his war with a sword, that is an apt description of IT in many NGOs.
CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) and other standards are easily adopted and implemented, adn would save NGOs millions of dollars, reduce their dependance on the IT group (usually 10 years behind), allow sharing of resources, and save lives through much better situational awareness.
Why aren't they doing it? See para 1. There are a million excuses, but no good answers except for the lack of long term vision when you are crisis driven. I expect the ituation to change over the next year as cloud based tools become easier to use, more widely available, and utilized by budget and speed conscious leaders.
CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) and other standards are easily adopted and implemented, adn would save NGOs millions of dollars, reduce their dependance on the IT group (usually 10 years behind), allow sharing of resources, and save lives through much better situational awareness.
Why aren't they doing it? See para 1. There are a million excuses, but no good answers except for the lack of long term vision when you are crisis driven. I expect the ituation to change over the next year as cloud based tools become easier to use, more widely available, and utilized by budget and speed conscious leaders.
Friday, April 22, 2011
CAP gaining ground.....
Recently (April 20211), a worldwide CAP conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland. People representing over 30 countries attended, and it was hosted by the World Meteorlogical Organization and had representatives from OASIS and ITU there as well.
Great presentations, and an overall sense that CAP is becoming THE world standard for alerting/warning. The standard is great in its current form, and actively being developed for version 2.0 and 3.0.
Kudos to all those making this happen, and all the countries that are adopting. I'd encourage all software developers to incorporate the ability to both import and export CAP feeds into their solutions.
Mobile phones will allow people to submit alerts faster and in greater volume. Sensors, dropping in price, and increasing in functionality, can also automatically send CAP alerts on a wide array of issues.
Go CAP!
Great presentations, and an overall sense that CAP is becoming THE world standard for alerting/warning. The standard is great in its current form, and actively being developed for version 2.0 and 3.0.
Kudos to all those making this happen, and all the countries that are adopting. I'd encourage all software developers to incorporate the ability to both import and export CAP feeds into their solutions.
Mobile phones will allow people to submit alerts faster and in greater volume. Sensors, dropping in price, and increasing in functionality, can also automatically send CAP alerts on a wide array of issues.
Go CAP!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Too much of a good thing!
At least on the creation side, government has gotten some momentum going on setting standards for information sharing! Great deal - it will save lives, money, time and pave the way for more collaborative efforts between business and government and international....IF...
....the various agencies and groups cooperate and don't reinvent their wheel or make their efforts incompatable with others. This is classic government craziness, understandable in a time before the internet and the web lets everyone know what everyone is doing, but certainly a waste of effort now.
A great example is Common Alerting Protocol by OASIS. It has become used by many groups around the world - FEMA, DHS, private entities, Australia, Canada, software companies, and more. It is a very good, lightweight, easy to understand and utilize standard. However, there are many alerting areas that still need to be incorporated (food, financial, and more) - but it makes no sense to utilize some other standard or create a new, proprietary method. THE WAY IS ALREADY PAVED!!!!
One of hte biggest possible losses is having the 9-1-1 capability in the US go some other direction - 112 in Sweden (and 112 is a EU standard) has already piloted CAP for emergency calls.
This same issue applies for more standards that are starting to develop - smart grid, health, and many others - they need to examine the existing standards and work to move them forward versus creating parallell efforts. Building on the shoulders of already existing efforts will make a major difference.
Pete
....the various agencies and groups cooperate and don't reinvent their wheel or make their efforts incompatable with others. This is classic government craziness, understandable in a time before the internet and the web lets everyone know what everyone is doing, but certainly a waste of effort now.
A great example is Common Alerting Protocol by OASIS. It has become used by many groups around the world - FEMA, DHS, private entities, Australia, Canada, software companies, and more. It is a very good, lightweight, easy to understand and utilize standard. However, there are many alerting areas that still need to be incorporated (food, financial, and more) - but it makes no sense to utilize some other standard or create a new, proprietary method. THE WAY IS ALREADY PAVED!!!!
One of hte biggest possible losses is having the 9-1-1 capability in the US go some other direction - 112 in Sweden (and 112 is a EU standard) has already piloted CAP for emergency calls.
This same issue applies for more standards that are starting to develop - smart grid, health, and many others - they need to examine the existing standards and work to move them forward versus creating parallell efforts. Building on the shoulders of already existing efforts will make a major difference.
Pete
Thursday, January 27, 2011
State of the Union and a standardized approach
In the SOTU, President Obama outlined that government was totally disorganized (who knew?), citing that salmon in salt water was a different agency from salmon in fresh water.
The last reorg of government was a long time ago - lets think even bigger toward a standardized approach - reorg the federal government and then also reorg the states into 6 economic groupings! This would eliminate 44 disparate goverments, lay the groundwork for further reorganizing the county, parish, rural and urban landscapes into a 21st century structure - leveraging off each other instead of having a byzantine set of laws, processes, redundant positions, radios and systems that don't communicate and more.
It would be a major shift, but one that would stimulate the thinking of the entire country in how to accomplish it. We already have the Northwest, the Northeast and other "zones" identified, take the best of the governments that exist and move it forward.
The last reorg of government was a long time ago - lets think even bigger toward a standardized approach - reorg the federal government and then also reorg the states into 6 economic groupings! This would eliminate 44 disparate goverments, lay the groundwork for further reorganizing the county, parish, rural and urban landscapes into a 21st century structure - leveraging off each other instead of having a byzantine set of laws, processes, redundant positions, radios and systems that don't communicate and more.
It would be a major shift, but one that would stimulate the thinking of the entire country in how to accomplish it. We already have the Northwest, the Northeast and other "zones" identified, take the best of the governments that exist and move it forward.
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