Microsoft Canadian Colleges Exec Briefing – Data Center Management

 enterprise architecture, higher education, it governance, strategic planning  No Responses »
Feb 022011
 

Rick Bakken, Senior Director, Data Center Evangelism, Microsoft Corporation

Delivering Infrastructure to the Cloud

Data Center Innovation – asked the question “Why are we building giant refrigerators for our data centers?”  In the Chicago data center, there are two floors.  Top floor is standard raised floor and the bottom floor is container based servers.  Made a decision to run the data centers hotter.  Microsoft buys 5% of the servers bought annually around the world.

Timeline – PC era, Portal era, Online App era, Web Services era, Cloud Computing era –>

  • opened first data center in 1989
  • launched microsoft.com in 1994-95
  • added Trustworthy Computing in 2002
  • added Security development lifecycle in 2004
  • Windows Live launched in 2008
  • Windows Azure cloud service launched in 2010

Microsoft runs on a huge global scale 24 x 7 with over 200 cloud services running today (2011).  Microsoft has more than 10 and less than 100 data centers world wide.  The Network Architecture is really the key to cloud based computing scalability.  Geo-redundancy is a feature of this style of network architecture.  This is a combination of few High Density data centers and large numbers of edge nodes.  Microsoft Global Foundation Services works from layer 0 to 4 of the OSI model.  They have some serious process and procedures to bring a low cost data center service to market.  Microsoft is investing a huge amount of capital in the Global Network and particularly Dark Fibre.

Sustainability Evolution

  • Generation 1 – 1989 – 2005 – co-location with server based architecture – $25M per MW
  • Generation 2 – 2007 – density with rack based architecture – $17M per MW
  • Generation 3 – 2008 – containers and pods architecture
  • Generation 4 – 2010+ – modular with ITPAC (pre-assebmled components) architecture – $4 to 8M per MW
  • Generation 5 – ? – remove all moving parts from the data center servers
  • Generation 6 – ? – completely green data center – all components fully recyclable

Server Hardware Design Considerations

  • the data center is the server
  • performance/watt/dollar – PUE is no longer a useful measure need a new way to measure
  • drive change in the industry through strong partnerships
  • deliver value to online service partners through customized designs at the application layer
  • think about infrastructure refreshes using OpEx instead of CapEx

CTO “Journey to the Cloud’  2008 to 2020

  1. IT Workload Analysis – what is running where?
  2. Virtualized Data Center – efficiency gains
  3. Legacy Migration- cloud rehost, rewrite ancient code, reduce power
  4. Cloud – on/off premise utility model
  5. Data Sovereignty appliance - Azure Appliance refreshed on a OpEx cycle every 3 years

Microsoft Canadian Colleges Exec Briefing – Data Sovereignty

 enterprise architecture, higher education, it governance  No Responses »
Feb 022011
 

John Weigelt, National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada

Data Sovereignty and Privacy

John’s job is to avoid “those unintended consequences” around technology adoption.

Discussion about what constitutes cloud computing especially being clear about the context.  SaaS, PaaS and IaaS all have different contexts and require different approaches when considering data security and privacy.

Microsoft Infrastructure Investment – data centres in North and South Central USA, North and Western Europe, East and South East Asia.

There will no plans by Microsoft to build a Canadian data centre.

There is no economics especially customer base and scaling, higher levels of legal “friction”, and not a viable cost model for Microsoft.

Common Questions about Cloud Computing

  • uncertainty
  • human resources
  • governance
  • security
  • privacy
  • interoperability

The Challenge

Law – BC legislation obliges their government entities to maintain personal info in Canada. Nova Scotia has similar legislation but allows DM to authorize international data transfers

Data Sovereignty

US Patriot Act - mis-perceptions with the business community regarding the US Patriot Act and how the lack of clarity surrounding this piece of legislation has resulted in lost opportunities.   Fred Cate “there is a vanishingly small chance” that the exercise of the Patriot Act can actually be used.  Also look at David Fraser (http://privacylawyer.ca) for an analysis of the national privacy laws.

Security & Compliance Program

Take a layered approach – Microsoft implemented the “Trustworthy Computing” initiative in 2002 for all their software.

  • security management
  • data
  • user
  • application
  • host
  • internal network
  • network perimeter
  • facility

Microsoft is the #2 most attacked entity after the US Department of Defense on the Internet.   Microsoft as a strong commitment to meeting security standards and is regularly independently audited based on these standards.  There is support for the full continuum of private, hybrid and public cloud services.

Call to Action

  • hone your skills
  • understand the service expectations for the services you currently provide
  • seek opportunities to leverage cloud services
  • engage in the conversations with your compliance authorities

Forrester Top 15 Technology Trends – Webinar Notes

 enterprise architecture, it governance, strategic planning  1 Response »
Jan 272011
 

Gene Leganza (@gleganza) VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Inc discusses and presents on Technology Trends.  Gene used the following criteria (Impact, Newness, Complexity) to help describe the trends. In Oct 2010, Gene wrote about the Top 15 Technology Trends on his Forrester blog.  Gene published a table of the top trends here.

On Jan 26, 2011, Gene presented a webinar about his research.  Here are some notes I took:

Theme 1 Empowered Technologies

SaaS and cloud based platforms become standard

  • Customer community platforms integerate with business applications
  • Apps and business processes go mobile
  • Collaboration moves from document centric to people centric

Theme 2 Process Centric Data and Intelligence

  • Next gen BI takes shape
  • IaaS finds a broader audience
  • Master data management matures
  • Analytics target text and social networks

Theme 3 Agile and Fit-to-Purpose Applications

  • Business rules processing move to mainstream
  • BPM will be Web 2.0 enabled
  • Event driven patterns demand attention

Theme 4 Smart Technology Management

  • Systems management enables continued virtualization
  • Client virtualization is ubiquitous
  • IT embraces planning and analytics tools

Recommendations

  • Craft your internal innovation process
  • Integrate your criteria with your business model and priorities
  • Use an annual scan as input to next year’s research agenda
  • Socialize and communicate – create your “technology watch annual report”

Thanks for the insights Gene. I will be looking at our enterprise architecture and see how your themes fit.

One area I would like to comment on in Theme 1 Empowered Technologies.  There is still not enough research and policy work being done on privacy and security for cloud based services.  Influencing governments particularly those outside the United States to modernize their thinking and laws will be a much longer road.  In the meantime, those of us outside the US continue to struggle with the adoption of cloud based services due to things like the Patriot Act and our own privacy laws.

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