I’m pleased to share that Horkan.com has been recognised as the 12th most widely read tech blog from the UK by Feedspot, based on RSS feed aggregation in their recent article “Top 70 UK Tech RSS Feeds“. This acknowledgement is a significant moment for me, reflecting a journey that began over 17 years ago.
Continue readingIncompetence a bigger IT security threat than malign insidersThe Register Human error still the most prolific problem in IT provision, not purely security, which this report focuses upon. …..
Here’s a few Cloud Computing reading recommendations from Jim Baty, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect for Global Sales and Services. I’ve had these for a couple of months now but I thought I’d post them anyway as they are well worth a read.
some reading that folks are talking about
clouds from Berkeley / Patterson
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-28.pdf
data intensive supercomputing
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bryant/pubdir/cmu-cs-07-128.pdf
implementation comparison of GAE & AWS
http://www.slideshare.net/mastermark/fowa-miami-09-cloud-computing-workshop-1059049
So whilst a number of my colleagues, friends and peers at Sun are off enjoying JavaOne, the no.1 Java event of the year, and CommunityOne West, I’m going to be in Guernsey, where I’m keynoting at the Itex / Sun Thought Leadership event “A Computing Revolution: Why Cloud Computing Changes Everything“.
During the event we’ll be looking to cover the following topics:
I’d just like to say ‘Many Thanks’ to everyone at Itex who helped organise this event, especially Daniel Fitton, Richard Parker and Chris Eaton, and to Paul Tarantino and Greg Roberts, of Sun UK’s Internet and Web2.0 team, who originally put me forward as guest speaker.
Details for the event are:
Itex have created a flyer for the event, which is available here (in PDF format). Event page is: http://www.itexoffshore.com/NewsAndEvents/Events/May+2009/Cloud_May09.htm
I really shouldn’t say be saying this, as JavaOne is big news in the IT Industry, especially at Sun, and has an incredibly exciting line up of speakers and agenda this year, but I’m looking forward to being in Guernsey more.
Frankly I’ve been to the States a fair amount with work and conferences but I’ve never been to Guernsey yet; I’m really looking forward to going and think I’ll have a great time too. Expect to see slides, write up and photos sometime next week.
Shockingly the latest report from Forrester Research effectively ends up telling us exactly what we all know already; that the majority of CIOs, CTOs, and other IT leadership and operations management, are not interested in power saving.
As reported recently by The Register in the article “Study finds IT heads not interested in power saving” (available here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/30/pc_power_saving/) which confirms what most of us in the IT industry know to be true, in that in the majority of cases because power consumption comes under the remit of Facilities Management in most organisations the IT department is not responsible for paying for Power Consumed (whether that be for compute, storage and network infrastructure itself, or the cooling equipment that is required to maintain that infrastructure either) and so has no reason to be concerned about the size of the companies power bills (or the effect of poor IT power efficiencies on those bills).
Also in almost all companies the Facilities Management department is much larger, and has a much larger budget, than the IT department; easily often in the magnitude of ten times that of the IT department (in some organisations the IT department is part of the Facilities department, and we most often encounter this model when the organisation in question sees IT purely as organisational ‘infrastructure’ and tends not to see IT as a means to deliver competitive advantage).
Encouraging IT management to be concerned about power efficiency is still highly problematic whilst the IT department is not accountable for managing that Cap-Ex spend, although things are getting better, albeit slowly. Day to day I see large numbers of IT departments and management thereof being set targets for power savings, however I infrequently see any genuine penalties or incentives that ensure these targets are even remotely met (in most cases I see IT departments focus being that of maintaining business critical systems, especially during processing runs, whilst still attempting to build out new functionality at the same time, how little things have really changed).
What constantly amazes me are the number of organisations planning, and determined to, build out new data centre facilities, even now during the downturn. Many of these organisations would be much more sensible to look at refreshing there existing infrastructure, reducing server footprint, getting better energy efficiency and performance, as long as the risk impact and analysis of risk is low, and possibly even reducing their data centre footprint, but that would mean shrinking peoples corporate ‘power bases’ and personal ’empires’ and so often receives a lack of genuine support.
Frankly this would become an important topic if those responsible for the facilities budget where also responsible for the IT budget, but this is rarely the case; IT usually reports to Operations (which may also contain facilities), Finance, or occasionally even the the Main Board or Marketing (including Sales), followed rather infrequently by facilities (this becomes more complex when looking at the IT departments remit, and whether they have significant influence, or control, over the application development team and the business analysts from the profit generating business units).
The most obvious answer would be to get IT and Facilities to work much more closely together, and at least be set joint targets, which are ‘SMART’ (stands for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-framed”). The other that I’ve heard becoming more popular recently has been to redirect Facilities budgets to IT departments for them to run technology refresh programmes, with a recent example looking at an unprecedented 10% of Facilities budget being transferred to IT, nearly doubling that IT departments budget for the year.
Personally I don’t think this will be addressed well in the short term, but I’m hopeful that using budget earmarked for Facilities for Technology Refresh, and planning facilities reductions becomes a more widely recognised and sensible approach to help drive down the amount of energy consumed by the technology at use within enterprises, because, frankly, something needs to be done to reduce enterprise consumption of power and space resources.
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In the future, once we’re all ensconced in our virtual reality worlds, is this the way it will all end? On February the 28th, 2009, Tabula Rasa, an MMORPG (like World of Warcraft and RuneScape) was shut down, after failing to attract enough subscribers related to the current economic downturn.
In his article “Analysis: Tabula Rasa’s Final Moments – A Firsthand Account“, Simon Carless evocatively writes:
By the afternoon, the West Coast server Hydra was the last server standing. As more and more of its citizenry logged on for the last hurrah, and foreign players from dead servers poured in to squeeze a few more hours out of the game, it became increasingly congested, buggy, and lag-ridden. The intended scenario was indeed playing out not just in the game and the fiction but as a metagame: the active duty population swelled as humanity prepared to make its final stand.
Simon’s description reminded me a little of the recent Doctor Who episode “Utopia”, where at the end of time humanity are huddling together as heat death consumes the planets they had colonised. The ‘Futurekind’ almost like NPCs, also collecting together, prior to being finally terminated.
In a doubly ironic twist of fate, ‘Tabula Rasa’ is Latin for ‘blank slate’, or rather ‘slate wiped clean’, popularised by John Locke as a rather now out of fashion philosophical thesis that individuals are born without any built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception alone (the whole ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’ debate is more balanced now). It also resembles the off state of the server infrastructure that would have supported the game that presumably had it’s ‘memory’ wiped clean, prior to being redeployed to support other functionality.
Thanks to Mick Farren’s blog for bringing this to my attention.
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Interested in Computing in Birmingham and the West Midlands? Then come along and join us at the BCS Birmingham Branch Annual General Meeting (AGM) this coming Monday, where we are looking for members to come forward to join the Branch Committee.
After the AGM itself I’ll be doing a presentation called “An Exploration of Cloud Computing” with the following synopsis:
An exploration of Cloud Computing looking at an overview of the subject of and some of the current common definitions available. Looking at the current state of the Cloud Computing market place and Cloud Vendors, what is actually being sold to people. Will also look at the different types of clouds, the differing approaches to engaging with cloud providers, the business models, impact on Business, and how Businesses can exploit the ‘Cloud’.
Answers to key Cloud Computing questions I hope to address include:
- What’s Cloud Computing?
- What’s different to what we’ve seen before?
- What’s driving Cloud Computing adoption?
- What types of Cloud are there?
- How can I engage with them and use in my Business?
- What’s the overview of the Cloud Computing marketplace now?
- How is Cloud Computing likely to change?
A number of the members of the Birmingham Committee will be standing down at the AGM so we are looking for volunteers to join the Committee to take part in planning our activities for the 2009-10 session. If you are interested in joining the Committee please contact John Chinn, Branch Secretary, at john.chinn@manchester.ac.uk or you can come forward at the AGM itself.
Details for the event are:
Official BCS Birmingham Branch AGM and “An Exploration of Cloud Computing” page: http://birmingham.bcs.org/agm2009.htm
Very much hope that we will see you at the Branch AGM, and even better if your interested in being involved with the Committee.
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This Friday I’ll be presenting on the topic of ‘Enterprise Architecture Case Studies’ in Aberystwyth, in an event organised and hosted by the South Wales branch of the BCS.
For more information the event is advertised here with the BCS. The core details are:
Here’s what I generally say as an overview of this talk:
The case studies presented explore my experiences with Enterprise Architecture in three major customer engagements. They include an Enterprise Architecture team which led its company into a £70+ million ‘pitfall’; the use of Enterprise Architecture to define a Service Oriented Architecture; and an example of how much Enterprise Architecture is about achieving the proper governance model.
Key takeaways:
- Enterprise Architecture best practices drawn from multiple engagements.
- How to use good governance to avoid and limit the ‘Ivory Tower’ syndrome.
- How to combine Enterprise Architecture and Service Oriented Architecture to deliver sustainable Transformation.
Given the current downturn I’ll also go into some of the issues facing EA programmes due to the credit crunch and what can be done to ensure that they continue to receive executive sponsorship and funding.
Happy to answer any and all questions; please consider that I’ll be attempting to condense three major and very large scale Enterprise Architecture case studies into a talk lasting an hour and a half or so, therefore I will definitely be around to speak with afterwards. ¨C13C
‘Many Thanks’ to Fred Long (of Aberystwyth University) for organising and co-ordinating this event and for Clive King (of Sun) for initially brokering the relationship.
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Alan Mather has just released his excellent “Enterprise Architecture in Government” white paper from 2003. This white paper has mythic status in UK Government IT circles because of it’s visionary roadmap of an implementation for Enterprise Architecture (EA) for the UK. Pre-dating the “Cross Government Enterprise Architecture” (XGEA) work of the CTO Council (who hadn’t even been formed at the time, but nor had the CIO Council who commissioned them either) this is the earliest attempt at applying an EA vision to the co-ordination of the UK’s IT and IS portfolio.
Alan surely requires little introduction, and is a singularly authoritative voice, having been the been the Chief Exec. of the Office of the e-Envoy’s (OeE, then e-Government Unit, or eGU, and finally the CIO Council) e-Design Team (eDT, currently led admirably by it’s new Director, Chris Haynes, although the eDT itself is now part of DWP having moved there at the same time as the eGU transformed into the CIO Council). Alan spent a number of years at the heart of the Cabinet Offices push for ‘Shared Services’ and Government services online programmes, helping to instigate and then deliver the largest UK “Government to Government” (G2G) system, by volume and scale, the Government Gateway.
Writing in his blog article also entitled “Enterprise Architecture in Government” (available from http://blog.diverdiver.com/2009/05/enterprise-architecture-in-government.html) he says:
More than a few people are starting to get active again around shared services, enterprise architectures, shared data centres (and all of the SaaS, HaaS and maybe just plain old aaS that could bring). A while ago I wrote a document that I hoped would lead to a debate on delivering some or all of those things into UK government. The document largely languished on my hard drive gathering virtual dust like so many reports about what government should do to make things better. It never quite got finished although, looking through it now some 6 years after it was written, it still seems to hang together pretty well.
Alan’s being rather reserved here because I know it was released to a few, select, senior people across Government, and I genuinely credit this to having furthered, if not initiated, the conversation in Government about planning out it’s overall EA (both “as is”, “to be”, and strategy) in a much more pro-active manner. I’m glad to say I was one of the people Alan chose to review the document back in 2003, but frankly I thought it was excellent at the time and still do.
For the life of me I can’t understand why Alan isn’t at the epicentre of Government as an integral part of the UK Government EA programme, then again he is running a major programme at the moment, another large-scale system key to the future of the UK, so I imagine know he is kept pretty busy by that delivery.
Anyone and everyone interested in UK Government IT should read this document, I’m sure many of you would be shocked at how visionary the paper is, and how relevant it still is after six years. Alan Mather’s “Enterprise Architecture in Government” document is available from box.net (which opens in a new window): https://www.box.net/shared/ki3z6ejjiv
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My biggest concern about the UK economy is in two very related areas, firstly the imbalance of industry contributions to UK GDP, and secondly the imbalance of investment in innovation in those industries.
When I speak about the imbalance of industry contributions to UK GDP I’m actually talking about which industry sectors are contributing to the UK GDP.
Over the last few years the GDP of the UK has been around £1.2 to £1.3 Trillion (where 1 Trillion equates to 1,000 Billion); this is traditionally circa $2.35 Trillion for those of you who prefer dollar notation.
If we break down GDP contributions as percentages the most obvious point to be made is that Services makes up the majority at over 75% of the GDP contribution to the UK economy (and up until the credit crunch circa 40% of GDP contribution were from Financial Services alone). Manufacturing as an industry sector currently supports just 13% of the UK GDP (as a comparison the USA is circa 19% and Germany is circa 23%) and the actual amount is around £150 Billion. The rest is made up of Agriculture (hovering at 1% and just below) and ‘other’ Industry.
It occurs to me that frankly this isn’t a particularly balanced model; especially when it comes to global recessions such as the one we find our selves in now which, because of our dependence on single industry sectors, affects us so adversely. And nor is it particularly self sustaining.
I’m not alone in thinking this, Warren Buffet warned long ago that the UK’s over reliance on it’s service sector exposed the economy to a higher risk of recession, and George Soros has recently been quoted in the UK press that his concern about the recovery of the UK economy is it’s dependence on the financial services industry.
Sir John Rose, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce, and one of the UK’s most inspiring business leaders, is vocal about the UK’s need to balance it’s industries contribution to it’s GDP, he has this to say on the subject:
“This country needs a broad portfolio of assets.” adding “There is an over dependence on financial services. If you are a one-trick pony, you have to hope that people continue to like your trick. If they stop liking it, you become pet food.” and “…the credit crisis gives a unique opportunity to start answering questions about how this country should be earning its living in the 21st century.”
You may agree or disagree, or perhaps you’d be interested in what the spread and distribution of UK GDP contributions from differing Industries should or could be, something I believe needs a certain amount of consideration and planning, something you’d imagine would be in the UK’s “Industrial Strategy”, which according to key experts, sadly, does not exist as a coherent and authoritative source. What is key to me is that we collectively recognise the imbalance and look at what it means and what our options might be, including attempting to encourage or stimulate other areas of the economy where appropriate.
All of this brings me to the second, related area, and probably the one that I find more worrying as I increasingly think about the future of the UK economy; that is the imbalance of investment in innovation across the industry sectors in the UK.
Circa 75% of all UK business Research and Development is in Manufacturing alone. Let me restate that another way to bring the point clearer. 75% of all investment in R&D;, innovation and future offerings is done in a single industry sector which contributes just 13% of the economy. Genuinely this worries me a great deal, because therefore, 87% of the economy (which is not manufacturing, and is predominantly services) is contributing just 25% of the entire amount being invested in the future. Yes that’s right, nearly 90% of the UK economy will be dependant on a quarter of the total investment in innovation. This does not look like a good investment on the future state of the economy to me. Nor does it give me a warm and fuzzy feeling when it comes to the future of non-manufacturing businesses either, and lets be clear here, the future of the service industry.
These two points could be playing off against each other of course, in that industry contributions to the economy need to be rebalanced, possibly with a larger (or even, much larger) contribution from manufacturing. And that subsequently the imbalance in terms of investment in R&D; across industry could possibly be less of a worry than I currently imagine.
However I really don’t expect for manufacturing to make up 75% of the GDP contribution anywhere in the future, and I’m still very concerned about the lack of investment in R&D; in the Services industry of the UK. I’d really like better awareness of the issue as a whole, and perhaps go so far to look for more focused stimulation from Government to encourage investment in R&D; in the Services sector.
Recently the CBI’s Innovation, Science and Technology (IST) committee have been working on a number of upcoming white papers, and I have been vocal in having the above issues brought to light in those. Thankfully I got a great of support from the other members of the IST, especially those who are working in the Services sector. I’ll let you know when the white papers I’ve mentioned are available from the CBI web site.
So in a nutshell what am I saying? Firstly let’s investigate and hopefully work towards a more balanced, recession proof economy, with a bigger contribution from high value and “just in time” manufacturing, if it is viable, and secondly let’s see more investment in R&D;, innovation and the future from the Services industry. To achieve any of this we’ll need significant support from Government departments like DBERR and DIUS, followed by the Treasury, to act as sponsors, and finally some Government assistance, whether that be legislation, stimulation, or something softer (the current favourite doing the rounds across the political parties is that of the ‘nudge’ as exemplified by Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, in their book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness”).
Please Note: All data in this piece comes from these sources, in this order, the Economist ‘Pocket World in Figures (2009 Edition)’, the Economist magazine, the CBI, the IoD, and the BBC. Furthermore, despite manufacturing making up 13% of the UK economy, the UK is still the sixth largest manufacturer in the World (although there are some very big gaps between the economic output of the top five and the UK, and so I may very well touch on the state of the UK manufacturing industry in the future).
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Are you concerned about the state of the UK economy in the future, because I know I am, so I’ll be exploring some of the issues being faced by the UK economy, especially when it comes to science, technology, engineering and industry contributions to the UK’s GDP in my next few articles. …..
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Récemment, Eric Bezille compris le modèle de mon “Cloud Relationship Model” article dans son blog “Sur les pas du premier Camp Cloud à Paris …».Recently Eric Bezille included the model from my ” Cloud Relationship Model ” article in his blog post ” Sur les pas du premier Cloud Camp à Paris… “. And I thought I’d translate the article into French for Philippe’s readers. Et j’ai pensé traduire l’article en français pour les lecteurs de Philippe. I’ve had to use electronic translation (Google, actually) as I’m afraid my written and spoken French isn’t quite good enough to be able to do it manually in a reasonable amount of time. J’ai eu à utiliser la traduction électronique (Google, en fait) que je crains que mon français écrit et parlé est pas tout à fait assez bon pour être en mesure de le faire manuellement dans un délai raisonnable. I haven’t had time to translate the model itself, but you are more than welcome to recreate, reuse and distribute it, although I’d hope you would attribute the original version to me at this site. Je n’ai pas eu le temps de traduire le modèle lui-même, mais vous êtes plus que bienvenu pour recréer, de réutilisation et de la distribuer, mais je l’espère vous attribuer la version originale pour moi à ce site. Please let me know if there are any outstanding translation issues and I’ll amend them when I can. S’il vous plaît laissez-moi savoir s’il ya des questions de traduction en suspens et je vais les modifier quand je peux.
This article was originally a guest post I did recently for Stewart Townsend over at Sun Startup Essentials describing the cloud relationship model I had developed as an artefact when discussing cloud computing. Cet article a été invité récemment post, je n’ai plus de Stewart Townsend à Sun Startup Essentials décrivant le modèle de relation de nuages j’avais développé comme un artefact de calcul lors de l’examen de nuages.
I wanted a simply model which I could share with people and use as a discussion point, whilst still capturing the major areas of cloud computing which I considered most pertinent. I developed this model about six months ago and have since found it useful when talking with people about cloud computing. Je voulais tout simplement un modèle qui je pourrais partager avec les gens et utiliser comme point de discussion, tout en capturant les grands domaines de l’informatique de nuages que j’ai jugé plus pertinent. J’ai développé ce modèle il ya environ six mois et ont depuis trouvé utile lorsque l’on parle avec les gens sur les nuages de calcul.
Here’s the model and I’ll go though it’s major elements below. Voici le modèle et je vais bien que les principaux éléments ci-dessous.
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In the cloud there are three major participants: Dans les nuages, il ya trois principaux participants: ¨C22C
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I think it’s important to talk about these communities because I keep hearing lots about the Cloud Providers, and even more about the issues and ‘needs’ of the Cloud adopters / developers, but very little in terms of Cloud “End” Users. In a computing eco-system such as this where “services” are supported by and transverse technology providers, service enablers and service consumers an end to end understanding of how this affects these reliant communities is required. Je pense qu’il est important de parler de ces communautés parce que je continue à l’audience sur les lots Cloud fournisseurs, et plus encore sur les questions et les «besoins» des adoptants Cloud / développeurs, mais très peu en termes de Cloud “fin” des utilisateurs. Dans un le calcul de l’éco-système de ce genre où les “services” sont pris en charge par les fournisseurs de technologie et transversal, le service des facilitateurs et les consommateurs un service de bout en bout la compréhension de la façon dont cela affecte les communautés dépendantes est nécessaire. Obvious issues such as SLAs for end users and businesses which rely upon high availability and high uptime from there cloud providers come to mind; however other “ilities” and systemic qualities come to mind such as security, and that’s before looking at any detailed breakdown of functional services. Évidente des questions telles que la SLA pour les utilisateurs finaux et les entreprises qui s’appuient sur la haute disponibilité et haute disponibilité à partir de là, les fournisseurs de nuages viennent à l’esprit, mais d’autres “ilities” et systémique qualités me viennent à l’esprit, comme la sécurité, et que l’avant de chercher à tout ventilation détaillée des services fonctionnels. ¨C34C
The point here is that the cloud adopters / developers and interestingly the cloud “watchers” (ie the press, media, bloggers and experts) would be mindful to remember the needs and requirements of genuine end users; for myself it’d certainly be invigorating to hear more on this topic area. Le point important ici est que le nuage adoptants / développeurs et intéressant le nuage “observateurs” (c’est-à-dire la presse, les médias, les blogueurs et experts) sont conscients de se rappeler les besoins et les exigences de véritables utilisateurs finaux, pour moi ça sera certainement vivifiant pour en savoir plus sur ce sujet. ¨C35C¨C36C
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Simon Wardley , a much more eloquent public speaker than myself, does a wonderful pitch which includes a look at the different “as a Service types” which he boils down to being a load of “*aaS” (very amusing, and informative, try and catch Simon presenting if you can). Simon Wardley, un public beaucoup plus éloquent orateur que moi, fait un merveilleux terrain qui comprend un regard sur les différents types de service »dont il se résume à être une charge de” * AAS “(très amusant et instructif, essayez Simon et les prises de présenter, si vous le pouvez).
I wholeheartedly agree that there is a large amount of befuddlement when it comes to the differing “aaS” types and sub-types, and new ones are springing up relatively frequently, however I also think it’s important to not ignore the differences between them. Je suis entièrement d’accord qu’il ya une grande quantité de befuddlement quand il s’agit de la différence “ AAS” types et sous-types, et de nouveaux voient le jour assez fréquemment, mais je crois aussi qu’il est important de ne pas ignorer les différences entre eux. ¨C40C
For me, and many others, I think first popularised by the ” Partly Cloudy – Blue-Sky Thinking About Cloud Computing ” white paper from the 451 Group, the differing “aaS” variants are identified as billing and engagement models. That white paper also postulates the five major Cloud Computing provider models, into which the majority of minor “aaS” variants fall. They are: Pour moi, et bien d’autres, je pense que le premier popularisé par “Nuages épars – Blue-Sky Thinking About Cloud Computing” livre blanc de la 451 groupe, les différents “* AAS” variantes sont identifiées comme étant des modèles de facturation et d’engagement. Ce livre blanc aussi les cinq principaux postulats Cloud Computing fournisseur de modèles, dans lequel la majorité des mineurs “* AAS« variantes automne. Ce sont: ¨C41C
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One of the best breakdowns and visual analysis of this space is the model in Peter Laird’s ” Understanding the Cloud Computing/SaaS/PaaS markets: a Map of the Players in the Industry ” article which is well worth a read. Un des meilleurs pannes et l’analyse visuelle de cet espace est le modèle de Peter Laird de «Comprendre le Cloud Computing / SaaS / Paas marchés: une carte des joueurs de l’industrie” l’article qui est très intéressant à lire. ¨C57C¨C58C¨C59C¨C60C
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Also included in the diagram are the major architectural layers that are included in each of the above billing / engagement models offered by the Cloud providers. Également inclus dans le diagramme sont les principales couches architecturales qui sont inclus dans chacune de ces facturation / l’engagement des modèles offerts par les fournisseurs de Cloud. They are: Ils sont: ¨C64C¨C65C
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This rather oversimplifies the architecture, as it’s important to note that each of the cloud billing / engagement models use capabilities from each of the above architectural layers; for instance their can be a lot of service simply in managing a network, however these describe the major architectural components (which support the service being procured), not simply ancillary functions, effectively what are the cloud providers customers principally paying for. Cet excès de l’architecture, plutôt, comme il est important de noter que chacun des nuages de facturation / d’engagement de l’utilisation des modèles de capacités de chacune de ces couches architecturales, par exemple, peut leur être très simplement dans la gestion de service d’un réseau, mais elles décrivent les principales éléments d’architecture (qui soutiennent le service d’approvisionnement), et non pas simplement des fonctions auxiliaires, de manière efficace ce que les nuages sont principalement les fournisseurs de clients pour le paiement. ¨C83C¨C84C
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This is much more than the ‘gap’ between the cloud providers and the cloud users, wherein the cloud adopters / developers sit, the gap between the cloud providers and the end cloud users can be called the delta of effort, but also the delta of opportunity. C’est beaucoup plus que le «fossé» entre les nuages et les nuages des utilisateurs, que le nuage adopteurs développeurs s’asseoir, l’écart entre le nuage et les utilisateurs de la fin des nuages peut être appelé le delta de l’effort, mais aussi le delta du occasion. ¨C88C
It is the delta of effort in terms of skills, abilities, experience and technology that the cloud adopter needs to deliver a functional service to their own “End Users”. This will be potentially a major area of cost to the cloud adopters. Il est le delta de l’effort en termes de compétences, les capacités, l’expérience et de la technologie que le nuage adoptant doit fournir un service fonctionnel à leur propre “End Users”. Ce sera peut être un domaine majeur de coût pour le nuage adoptants. But it’s also the delta of opportunity;in terms of ‘room’ to innovate. Mais c’est aussi le delta de l’occasion, en termes de «chambre» à l’innovation. ¨C89C
The more capability procured from the cloud provider (ie higher up the stack as a whole), the less you have to do (and procure) yourself. However the less procured from the cloud provider the more opportunity you have engineer a differentiating technology stack yourself. This itself has it’s disadvantages because the cloud adopters / developers could potentially not realise the true and best value of their cloud providers infrastructure. La capacité d’approvisionnement plus le nuage de fournisseur (c’est-à-dire en haut de la pile dans son ensemble), moins vous avez à faire (et acheter) vous-même. Toutefois, le moins obtenus à partir de la nuée fournisseur le plus vous avez la possibilité de différenciation ingénieur technologie pile-vous . Ce qu’il est lui-même a des inconvénients car les nuages adopteurs développeurs pourraient ne pas réaliser la véritable et la meilleure valeur de leur nuage les fournisseurs d’infrastructures. ¨C90C¨C91C
I suspect that there is an optimum level, around the Platform Layer, which abstracts enough complexity away (ie you don’t have to procure servers, networks, implementation or technology operations staff), but also leaves enough room to innovate and produce software engineered value. Arguably the only current successful cloud provider, based upon market share, perception, revenue and customer take up, is Amazon Web Services (AWS) who provide a PaaS offering. Je pense qu’il ya un niveau optimal, autour de la plate-forme de couche, qui résumés complexité assez loin (c’est-à-dire vous n’avez pas à acheter des serveurs, des réseaux, la mise en œuvre des opérations ou de technologie), mais laisse aussi assez d’espace pour innover et produire de l’ingénierie du logiciel valeur. doute le seul fournisseur actuel succès des nuages, sur la base de la part de marché, la perception des recettes et des clients de prendre place, est Amazon Web Services (AWS) qui fournissent une offre Paas. ¨C92C¨C93C¨C94C¨C95C
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Hope you enjoyed the article, in summary if developing cloud services or even building out a cloud infrastructure I would recommend that you focus on your users and if your a cloud provider, your users’ users; remembering that only a certain percentage of those users will be customers (I won’t getting into discussing Chris Anderson’s 5% recommended conversion rate for the long tail , however I would recommend understanding what some of those calculations might be). Espérons que vous avez aimé cet article, en résumé, si le développement des services ou encore des nuages à la construction d’infrastructures d’un nuage, je vous recommandons de vous concentrer sur vos utilisateurs, et si votre fournisseur d’un nuage, vos utilisateurs, les utilisateurs; de se souvenir que seul un certain pourcentage de ces utilisateurs être des clients (je ne vais pas entrer dans la discussion Chris Anderson recommandé 5% du taux de conversion pour la longue queue, mais je recommande la compréhension de ce que certains de ces calculs pourraient être). ¨C99C
If you’re looking to develop services over the cloud, think carefully about where you and your teams skills lie, and where would you most want them focusing there efforts; working on installing and tuning operating systems and application platforms or writing business value focused applications and services, before choosing at which level to engage with your cloud provider(s). Si vous cherchez à développer des services sur le nuage, la réflexion sur l’endroit où vous et vos équipes les compétences se trouvent, et où vous le plus envie de les y concentrer les efforts, le travail sur l’installation et le réglage des systèmes d’exploitation et plates-formes d’application ou de rédaction de la valeur axée applications et des services, avant de choisir à quel niveau de dialoguer avec votre fournisseur de nuage (s). ¨C100C¨C101C¨C102C¨C103C
I haven’t mentioned enterprise adoption of cloud based services, and that’s because I’d like to post that in the near future in a different article. Je n’ai pas mentionné l’adoption d’entreprise de services basés sur les nuages, et c’est parce que je voudrais pour écrire que dans un avenir proche dans un autre article. ¨C104C
Hope you enjoyed the article and all the best, Espérons que vous avez aimé l’article et tous les meilleurs, ¨C105C¨C106C
Wayne Horkan ¨C107CWayne Horkan ¨C108C
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Kürzlich Philipp Strube meiner ursprünglichen genannten “Cloud Betreuungsmodell” Artikel in seinem Blog-Post “Paas, IAAS, Saas: Den Überblick zu behalten ist wie immer ein Problem für sich”.Recently Philipp Strube mentioned my original ” Cloud Relationship Model ” article in his blog post ” Paas, Iaas, Saas: Den Überblick zu behalten ist wie immer ein Problem für sich “. And given all the traffic it’s generated I thought I’d translate the article into German for Philippe’s readers. Und da der gesamte Verkehr ist es, die ich dachte, ich übersetzen den Artikel in Deutsch für Philippe Leser. I’ve had to use electronic translation (Google, actually) as I’m afraid my written and spoken German isn’t quite good enough to be able to do it manually in a reasonable amount of time. Ich habe die Verwendung elektronischer Übersetzung (Google, eigentlich), wie ich fürchte, mein Wort und Schrift Deutsch ist nicht gut genug sein, um es manuell in einer angemessenen Höhe der Zeit. I haven’t had time to translate the model itself, but you are more than welcome to recreate, reuse and distribute it, although I’d hope you would attribute the original version to me at this site. Ich habe nicht genug Zeit hatte, um das Modell selbst, aber Sie sind mehr als willkommen zu neu, Wiederverwendung und zu verteilen, auch wenn ich hoffe, Sie würden Attribut der ursprünglichen Version für mich auf dieser Seite. Please let me know if there are any outstanding translation issues and I’ll amend them when I can. Bitte lassen Sie mich wissen, wenn es alle noch ausstehenden Fragen und Übersetzung ich ändern, wenn ich kann.
This article was originally a guest post I did recently for Stewart Townsend over at Sun Startup Essentials describing the cloud relationship model I had developed as an artefact when discussing cloud computing. Dieser Artikel war ursprünglich ein Gast-post Ich habe vor kurzem für Stewart Townsend über auf Sonntag Startup Essentials beschreiben die Wolke Modell hatte ich als ein Artefakt bei der Erörterung Wolke Computing.
I wanted a simply model which I could share with people and use as a discussion point, whilst still capturing the major areas of cloud computing which I considered most pertinent. I developed this model about six months ago and have since found it useful when talking with people about cloud computing. Ich wollte ein Modell, das einfach konnte ich mit Menschen und die Verwendung als Diskussion, während die Aufnahme noch die wichtigsten Bereiche der EDV-Wolke, die ich als besonders wichtig. Ich habe dieses Modell an etwa sechs Monaten und haben gefunden, da es für sinnvoll, wenn im Gespräch mit Menschen über Wolke Computing.
Here’s the model and I’ll go though it’s major elements below. Hier ist das Modell, und ich gehe auch wenn es die wichtigsten Elemente aufgeführt.
In the cloud there are three major participants: In den Wolken gibt es im wesentlichen drei Teilnehmer:
I think it’s important to talk about these communities because I keep hearing lots about the Cloud Providers, and even more about the issues and ‘needs’ of the Cloud adopters / developers, but very little in terms of Cloud “End” Users. In a computing eco-system such as this where “services” are supported by and transverse technology providers, service enablers and service consumers an end to end understanding of how this affects these reliant communities is required. Ich denke, es ist wichtig, darüber zu sprechen, weil diese Gemeinschaften ich viel über die Anhörung Cloud-Provider, und noch mehr über die Probleme und Bedürfnisse “der Wolke Anwender / Entwickler, aber nur sehr wenig in Bezug auf die Ableitung von” End “-Benutzer. In einer Eco-Computing-System wie diesem, wo “Dienstleistungen” werden von Quer-und Technologie-Anbietern, Service-Enabler und Service der Verbraucher ein Ende zu Ende zu verstehen, wie sich diese auf dieser Reliant Gemeinden erforderlich ist. Obvious issues such as SLAs for end users and businesses which rely upon high availability and high uptime from there cloud providers come to mind; however other “ilities” and systemic qualities come to mind such as security, and that’s before looking at any detailed breakdown of functional services. Offensichtliche Fragen wie SLAs für Endnutzer und Unternehmen, die sich auf hohe Verfügbarkeit und hohe Verfügbarkeit von dort Wolke Anbieter kommen in den Sinn, aber andere “ilities” und systemischen Eigenschaften kommen in den Sinn wie Sicherheit, und das ist, bevor man eine detaillierte Aufschlüsselung der funktionsfähigen Dienste.
The point here is that the cloud adopters / developers and interestingly the cloud “watchers” (ie the press, media, bloggers and experts) would be mindful to remember the needs and requirements of genuine end users; for myself it’d certainly be invigorating to hear more on this topic area. Der Punkt hier ist, dass die Wolke Anwender / Entwickler und interessanterweise der Wolke “Watchers” (dh der Presse, Medien, Blogger und Experten) würden darauf achten, nicht vergessen, den Bedürfnissen und Anforderungen der Endnutzer echten, für mich würde es sicherlich belebend zu hören, mehr zu diesem Thema werden.
Simon Wardley , a much more eloquent public speaker than myself, does a wonderful pitch which includes a look at the different “as a Service types” which he boils down to being a load of “aaS” (very amusing, and informative, try and catch Simon presenting if you can). Simon Wardley, eine sehr viel beredter Redner als ich, hat eine wunderbare Tonhöhe, die einen Blick auf die verschiedenen “als Service-Typen”, die er läuft darauf hinaus, dass eine Last von “ Aas” (sehr witzig und informativ, versuchen Fang und Simon, die, wenn Sie können).
I wholeheartedly agree that there is a large amount of befuddlement when it comes to the differing “aaS” types and sub-types, and new ones are springing up relatively frequently, however I also think it’s important to not ignore the differences between them. Ich voll und ganz zustimmen, dass es eine große Menge von befuddlement, wenn es darum geht, die unterschiedlichen “ Aas” und Sub-Typen und neue Boden relativ häufig, aber ich denke, es ist wichtig, nicht über die Unterschiede zwischen ihnen.
For me, and many others, I think first popularised by the ” Partly Cloudy – Blue-Sky Thinking About Cloud Computing ” white paper from the 451 Group, the differing “aaS” variants are identified as billing and engagement models. That white paper also postulates the five major Cloud Computing provider models, into which the majority of minor “aaS” variants fall. They are: Für mich und viele andere, ich glaube, von der ersten popularisierte “teilweise bewölkt – Blue-Sky Thinking About Cloud Computing” weißen Papier aus dem 451-Fraktion, die unterschiedlichen “* Aas” Varianten sind als Rechnungs-und Engagement Modelle. Das Weißbuch postuliert auch die fünf größten Anbieter Cloud Computing-Modelle, in denen die Mehrheit der minderjährigen “* Aas” Varianten fallen. Sie sind:
One of the best breakdowns and visual analysis of this space is the model in Peter Laird’s ” Understanding the Cloud Computing/SaaS/PaaS markets: a Map of the Players in the Industry ” article which is well worth a read. Eines der besten Pannen und visuelle Analyse von dieser Stelle ist das Modell in Peter Laird’s “Understanding the Cloud Computing / SaaS / Paas Märkte: eine Karte der Player in der Industrie” Artikel, das lohnt sich lesen.
Also included in the diagram are the major architectural layers that are included in each of the above billing / engagement models offered by the Cloud providers. Auch in der Grafik sind die wichtigsten architektonischen Schichten, die in jedem der oben genannten Billing / Engagement Modelle von der Cloud-Anbieter. They are: Sie sind:
This rather oversimplifies the architecture, as it’s important to note that each of the cloud billing / engagement models use capabilities from each of the above architectural layers; for instance their can be a lot of service simply in managing a network, however these describe the major architectural components (which support the service being procured), not simply ancillary functions, effectively what are the cloud providers customers principally paying for. Diese eher übermäßige der Architektur, wie es ist wichtig zu beachten, dass jeder der Wolke Abrechnung / Engagement Modelle verwenden Fähigkeiten aus jedem der oben genannten architektonischen Schichten, zum Beispiel ihre kann eine Menge Service einfach in die Verwaltung eines Netzes, aber diese Beschreibung der wichtigsten Architektur-Komponenten (die Unterstützung der Service werden soll), nicht einfach Nebendienstleistungen Funktionen, wirksam sind, was die Wolke Anbieter hauptsächlich Kunden bezahlen.
This is much more than the ‘gap’ between the cloud providers and the cloud users, wherein the cloud adopters / developers sit, the gap between the cloud providers and the end cloud users can be called the delta of effort, but also the delta of opportunity. Dies ist viel mehr als die “Lücke” zwischen der Wolke und den Wolken Benutzer, dass die Wolke Anwender / Entwickler sitzen, die Kluft zwischen der Wolke und den Ende Wolke Benutzer kann die Delta-Aufwand, sondern auch das Delta der Chance. ¨C88C
It is the delta of effort in terms of skills, abilities, experience and technology that the cloud adopter needs to deliver a functional service to their own “End Users”. This will be potentially a major area of cost to the cloud adopters. Es ist das Delta der Anstrengungen im Hinblick auf die Fertigkeiten, Fähigkeiten, Erfahrungen und Technologien, dass die Wolke Anwender braucht, um eine funktionale Service für ihre eigenen “End User”. Dies ist möglicherweise ein wichtiger Bereich der Kosten für die Wolke adopters. But it’s also the delta of opportunity;in terms of ‘room’ to innovate. Aber es ist auch das Delta der Möglichkeit, im Hinblick auf die “Zimmer”, zu innovieren.
The more capability procured from the cloud provider (ie higher up the stack as a whole), the less you have to do (and procure) yourself. However the less procured from the cloud provider the more opportunity you have engineer a differentiating technology stack yourself. This itself has it’s disadvantages because the cloud adopters / developers could potentially not realise the true and best value of their cloud providers infrastructure. Die Fähigkeit, die aus der Wolke-Anbieter (z. B. die weiter oben in der Stack als Ganzes), desto weniger müssen Sie tun (und Beschaffung) selber. Doch die weniger die aus der Wolke Anbieter die Möglichkeit haben Sie ein Ingenieur differirende Technologie-Stack selbst . Dieses selbst hat seine Nachteile, weil die Wolke Anwender / Entwickler möglicherweise nicht, die wahre und beste Wert ihrer Wolke Anbieter Infrastruktur.
I suspect that there is an optimum level, around the Platform Layer, which abstracts enough complexity away (ie you don’t have to procure servers, networks, implementation or technology operations staff), but also leaves enough room to innovate and produce software engineered value. Arguably the only current successful cloud provider, based upon market share, perception, revenue and customer take up, is Amazon Web Services (AWS) who provide a PaaS offering. Ich vermute, dass es ein optimales Niveau, um die Plattform-Layer, die Abstracts genug Komplexität entfernt (dh Sie müssen nicht beschaffen Servern, Netzwerken, der Durchführung oder der Technologie Operationen Mitarbeiter), aber auch genügend Spielraum für Innovation und Herstellung von Software-Engineering Wert. die wohl nur die aktuellen erfolgreiche Anbieter Wolke, die sich auf Marktanteil, Wahrnehmung, Einnahmen und Kunden nehmen, ist Amazon Web Services (AWS), die eine Paas bieten.
Hope you enjoyed the article, in summary if developing cloud services or even building out a cloud infrastructure I would recommend that you focus on your users and if your a cloud provider, your users’ users; remembering that only a certain percentage of those users will be customers (I won’t getting into discussing Chris Anderson’s 5% recommended conversion rate for the long tail , however I would recommend understanding what some of those calculations might be). Hoffen, dass Ihnen die Artikel, in der Zusammenfassung, wenn die Entwicklung Wolke oder sogar Ausbau der Infrastruktur eine Wolke Ich würde empfehlen, dass Sie sich auf Ihre Benutzer und wenn Ihr Provider eine Wolke, die Benutzer “Benutzer; Erinnerung, dass nur ein bestimmter Prozentsatz der Nutzer Kunden werden (ich werde nicht immer in der Diskussion Chris Anderson, 5% empfohlen, Conversion-Rate für den langen Schwanz, aber ich würde empfehlen, zu verstehen, was einige dieser Berechnungen werden könnten).
If you’re looking to develop services over the cloud, think carefully about where you and your teams skills lie, and where would you most want them focusing there efforts; working on installing and tuning operating systems and application platforms or writing business value focused applications and services, before choosing at which level to engage with your cloud provider(s). Wenn Sie zur Entwicklung von Diensten über den Wolken, sich genau überlegen, wo Sie und Ihre Teams Fähigkeiten liegen, und wo würden Sie am meisten wollen, dass sie sich es Bemühungen, auf die Installation und Tuning-Betriebssysteme und Plattformen Antrag schriftlich oder geschäftlichen Nutzen sich Anwendungen und Dienstleistungen, vor der Wahl, auf welcher Ebene, sich mit Ihrem Provider Wolke (n).
I haven’t mentioned enterprise adoption of cloud based services, and that’s because I’d like to post that in the near future in a different article. Ich habe nicht erwähnt Unternehmen Annahme Wolke Dienste, und dass deshalb, weil ich möchte, dass die Post in der nahen Zukunft in einem anderen Artikel.
Hope you enjoyed the article and all the best, Hoffen, dass Ihnen die Artikel und alles Gute,
Links for this article:
Simon Wardley, Software Services Manager at Canonical UK and noted Cloud Computing expert and public speaker, responds to my article “Cloud Relationship Model“, with specific mention of my paraphrasing of a talk I saw him give; and thereby explains the history behind the “*aaS” double entendre.
Seriously though, the number of heads on the “*aaS” Hydra continues to grow, and Simon’s comment soon focuses upon the genuine need for a stable and standardised taxonomy, something I agree with wholeheartedly, along with a little bit of temperance and cool-headedness when it comes to thinking up and announcing more “*aaS” classifications…
Alas I cannot claim that joke to be my own.
Back in early 2007 when I gave a talk at ETECH, I described the changes in the industry as a continued shift of the computing stack from a product to a service based economy.
At that time I often categorised the computing stack into three layers – software, software platform and hardware (back from 2006). Whilst I had made comments that the software layer was really about applications and therefore SaaS should have had a more unfortunate acronym, this was not my true crime nor the origin of the joke.
The problem was that whilst SaaS and HaaS had been in common usage, the mid layer was known as SaaS Platform. This neither fitted neatly into the naming convention nor was it correct, as this layer of the stack contained many framework elements. So I started to describe this as the framework layer and FaaS seemed to be the obvious choice.
Hence at OSCON in Jul’07 I described the stack as a trio of SaaS, FaaS and HaaS.
Robert Lefkowitz (in a later talk at OSCON’07) warned us that this trio of “oh so wrong” nomenclature would lead to a whole lot of “aaS” and hence the joke was born.
Well Robert, as always, was spot on. In the last few years we’ve seen a plethora of different “aaS” terms (at last count it was about 16, including multiple versions of DaaS). The last few years has seen a constant exercise in revisionism.
Whilst the distinction between the layers of the computing stack is valid and meaningful, especially in context of the shift from products to services, what is not meaningful is the constant creation and recreation of terms.
Fortunately we now seem to be settling down to a three layer stack of application, platform and infrastructure – though I’m sure there is going to be more arguments.
This is why I argue the one thing we need in cloud computing today is a stable taxonomy.
Good post by the way.
Simon W
Glad to see the Monument to the Great Fire of London has been re-opened after spending the last eighteen months being refurbished. And to celebrate here’s a few of the photographs I’ve taken on, from, by, and of, the Monument.
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I’m keen on the Monument seeing as I’m a bit of a nostalgist and it’s just by Sun’s London offices (55 King William St.) and Customer Briefing Centre (CBC, at Regis House, 45 King William St.), with the Fine Line pub artfully arranged betwixt the two (there are plenty of other pubs nearby, it’s just almost a certainty you’ll see someone you know here after work, prior to the inevitable journey home).
A couple of years ago I went through a phase of going up the Monument almost every lunch time I was at our London offices; for a bit of exercise (it’s 311 steps up) and because I enjoyed the view, and that’s when I started to take the photos.
Serendipitously my children were learning about the Great Fire a few months after I’d become interested in the Monument, in fact I think the commemorative certificate I received when I first went up there is still on the wall at their primary school, along with the information booklet and a few pictures.
Obviously the history of the Monument is more than interesting; it was commissioned in 1669, three years after the Great Fire of London of 1666 that it commemorated. And for a great deal of the time it has been in existence it was inscribed with a variety of text blaming the Catholic community for starting the fire (getting caught up in the ascension of William III to the throne), a lie so plainly untrue that Alexander Pope famously wrote “Where London’s column pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.” (Moral Essays. Epistle iii.).
William the III marks the last successful invasion and occupation of England and Wales, and is often overlooked by many, as, of course, he and his Dutch forces were ‘invited’ to invade by Parliament, but invasion and occupation it was. The bloodshed was predominately kept to Scotland and Ireland, where supporters for James the II were most prevalent; in Scotland because of his links to and descent from the Scottish throne and in Ireland because of his support of Catholicism. Anecdotally I’ve been told by elder members of the Horkan family that a number of our ancestors fought at ‘Battle of the Boyne‘ on the side of James the II, this decisive battle marked the failure of James to regain the throne of England and a crucial turning point in the struggle between Protestant and Catholic communities in Ireland.
The English Parliament, had made it illegal for anyone to be Head of State who was Catholic, in part, as being so would mean that the Head of the Church of England would be subject to the See of Rome, something that could not be tolerated, but predominately because of the mainly Protestant make up of Parliament itself. Coupled with the complex relationship to, and composition of, allies and enemies, some united by and divided by religious alignment, across Western Europe, it led to the situation that saw the invasion take place (in fact many historians see it as being little more than an extension to the fighting across Europe attempting to keep Louise the XIV in check). The law still exists that dictates the religion of the Head of State of England, even though a number of the Royal family have chosen to convert to Catholicism, losing them their place in the ‘order of precedence’ for the throne for all time (unsurprisingly this is often done just before they need to receive their last rights, just in case I suppose).
Thanks to the wonders of tagging here’s a selection of pictures from the monument taken by everyone who hosts their photographs on flickr who’ve used ‘the-monument‘ as a tag (some of these will be mine, flickr doesn’t have complex search and sort around tags yet, that would allow me to exclude my photos from this selection).
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Here’s a whole host of links to Monument themed content; go knock yourselves out:
Checkout YouNoodle, a new service which measures the “buzz” surrounding a company via blogs and media reports along with a variety of factors including website traffic. So far it’s providing coverage of nearly 30,000 start-ups, ranging from biotechnology to gaming software.
I’ve just signed up and I’m checking out some of my favourite start-ups already; it’s very interesting reading.
About eighteen months ago I wrote up an overview of government to government (G2G) systems in the UK, followed by a high level comparison of the three most utilised, and a look at the potential evolution of the G2G systems across the UK.
The last of the three articles discussed the UK G2G systems and how they might end up being integrated together, I postulated that there were two major approaches a point-to-point “Mesh” approach or a master G2G “Hub” approach. I also mentioned the “Decentralised” Hub model brought to my attention by Simon Freeman, ex Chief Architect of the Government Gateway, a major UK G2G system. The “Decentralised” Hub is a model whereby one of the existent G2G systems effectively evolves into the master G2G Hub.
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I agreed with Simon that the most likely candidate was the Government Gateway because of it’s dominance in terms of volume and variety of data in comparison to the other UK G2G systems. Every day this becomes more and more likely as the number of messages originating from non Gateway sources increases.
Following the post Simon was kind enough to respond to the article and a couple of the comments that had been posted there. He makes a number of points specifically about identity and how it it is managed in the UK, as well as the Data Protection Act and it’s effect on UK Government IT planning, which I think are interesting enough to repeat here.
Here’s his post in full:
Hi Wayne,
Thanks for pointing out my new found fame on your blog. I would point out these views below are mine and not government’s, not least of all because I don’t work for gov any more. I must admit that it amuses me a great deal when identity is discussed by IT suppliers. In fact I had a good laugh when Mr XYZ representing IT suppliers of Gov came on Radio 4 on Sunday and moaned about the lack of requirements on the identity programme. I would be interested to hear your views. And to Miles Peters’ comment above, I think it important to note that SUN provided a ‘hub’ to the Home Office some time back and despite the fact that Gateway is all built on Wintel, Wayne consistently has supported its use.
One of the issue facing government on identity is that it is not a technical problem. If gov takes forward a huge programme of IT without solving the business issues it would surely be guilty of not learning past lessons. As far as I can see, they have taken a look at what is needed in gov from a identity perspective and realised that there is plenty there to be getting on with.
Identity cards are continually focused on anti-terrorism devices. This position has no credibility because the focus is on ‘card’ and not the wider identity needs. A card carrying population will still have terrorists.
So IMHO the way to look at ID is to look at the outcomes gov needs to achieve and then look at the best way to achieve them.
So let’s have a go.
1) Reduction in fraud in benefits
2) Immigration controls
3) Reduction in tax fraud and avoidance
4) Entitlement to other Gov servics (NHS etc)
In the UK there is a basic set of issues to do with benefit and tax. There are 4 key categories
1) The people who knowingly defraud tax and benefit system
2) The people who defraud tax and benefits by accident because the system is hard.
3) The people who pay the right tax and benefits by accident because the system is hard
4) The people who pay the right tax and benefits because the know what they are doing.
To help 1-4 above, identity management needs to ensure that each person who is liable for tax and benefits has one identity tied to one human being. I suspect that what government has realised is that a huge % of our population has an NI number but until now HMRC would not allow the number to be used for wider purposes. This seems to be changing. Once we are in a position where each taxpaying person or benefit receiving person is identified consistently by a single number such as NI it means that better detection of fraud can occur and save the UK a huge amount of money. The second issue once you have all these NIs is to tie a single human being to its ownership and ensure that there are ways to detect if any given human is attempting to get two identities. Thats where the biometrics come in. So I suspect that the reason the big IT approach for identity cards is being revisited is that by simply widening NI usage across Gov and reusing the database already in existence in DWP the Gov can go a long way to achieving some of its goals. Introduction of biometrics is a harder problem to solve technically but we can start to reap big benefits from just the first step.
I won’t go into the other points in the initial 4 as this is already way too long. I would however counter the position on DPA. It is by far the biggest excuse I have heard in gov for not solving these problems and yet has very few grounds. I firmly believe that if you want services from gov then you need to accept a certain loss of privacy. It is a difficult pill to swallow but ultimately there are lots and lots of bad people out there who are robbing hard working tax payers of lots and lots and lots of money. Why is it unreasonable to ask people to prove their identity. We should also note that the privacy being fought for is only perceived anyway. If gov wants to cross check your details because of fraud suspicion then data can be shared. It is just unreliable ad costs money (us money).
Let me put this another way. If we assume benefit and tax fraud costs the UK (guess only) 4 billion pounds per year. Now lets say that the average tax payer pays about 20K per year in total taxes (its probably far less). That means that 200,000 people’s hard earned tax cash will simply walk out the door this year. Let’s put it another way. That means that for a working life of 30 years over 6000 people will work all their lives paying tax to cover 1 year’s losses to people who think it is ok to defraud the UK tax and benefit system. Now put yourself in one of those 6000 people’s shoes. You will pay taxes all of your life for nothing and so will every one you know, and probably most of the people you will ever know. Next year, another 4 billion will go missing.
Data protection should not be an excuse for such haemorrhaging of cash.
The one final point which I think demonstrates the real issue to be sorted out by ID. The guy on Radio 4 said that even if ID agency gets the solution on there is no obligation for any Gov department to sign up and use. I am not sure what is more outrageous, the possibility that they may not sign up or that they are given an option at all.
So let’s not get to wrapped up in tech on ID. There’s load’s to be done with what we have if the right policy and delivery was put in place today. Further IT spend is just a red herring. A very expensive red herring.
IMHO
PS. You can tell this is a techie blog as you have to type in BR in the text to get a new line!
I really should reply to Simon’s request to hear my views on the identity programme and the relationship to and opinions of the vendor community of the programme (as I see it); I’ll try and do this soon for the readers of this blog. I’ve spoken to Simon a number of times since he posted the above and we’ve talked about the subject of this post, so really I’ll be using the upcoming response as an opportunity to state my opinions.
Java vs C: A Brief Performance Comparison : Alejandro’s Bitacora The way that people get additional performance out of Java and JVMs never ceases to amaze me. …..