Oracle, Cloud Computing, and Search
August 6, 2009
I recall that Oracle was once skeptical of cloud computing. I also remember when Oracle bought me breakfast in New York to explain the wonders of Secure Enterprise Search 10g. The world has changed. I read “Oracle To Keynote Cloud Computing Expo” and did a quick double take. The Sys Con publication stated:
Private clouds for the exclusive use of one enterprise can however mitigate these concerns by giving the enterprise greater control. In a keynote address to be given at SYS-CON’s 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, Richard Sarwal (pictured), SVP of Development for Oracle Enterprise Manager, will explore how enterprises are likely to adopt public and private cloud computing, building on a foundation of virtualization infrastructure and management systems. The keynote will be titled: “Cloud Computing: Separating Hype from Reality.”
Now I know that cloud computing within the Oracle embrace is good. But what about Secure Enterprise Search 10g, on premises or from the cloud?
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2009
Open Source XML Flaws
August 6, 2009
I want to stay out of the squabble between commercial software vendors (Microsoft, Computer Associates, and others) and the open source crowd (Lucene, Drupal, and Eclipse, among others). I do want to call your attention to the story in ITWorld “XML Flaw Threatens Apps Built with Sun, Apache, Python Libraries”. Microsoft, no tyro in the world of online security, has suggested that it fears Linux and maybe other open source software as well. If this security story by Ellen Messmer is spot on, the open source crowd may have some explaining to do. If there are flaws, are there backdoors? What other surprises for commercial and governmental entities will open source spring on the unaware. What are the implications for XML and its wide use? Will venture firms become more cautious about funding open source plays with consulting as the main engine of financial growth? Worth a read for sure.
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2009
Yahoo IBM Tie May Be Warped by Microsoft
August 6, 2009
Computer World’s “Yahoo Deal Puts IBM, Microsoft in Enterprise Search Pickle” seems to a bit of a stretch. The idea is that the tie up between Microsoft and Yahoo will create a problem for IBM’s enterprise search promotion. Computer World argues that IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition will be a victim of Microsoft’s control of Yahoo search. Microsoft has Bing and its Microsoft Fast ESP (soon to be released we hear). Therefore, the IBM deal with Yahoo is a goner. We’re not too concerned. The IBM Yahoo OmniFind search system is Lucene. If that were not sufficient reason to kill the deal, Yahoo’s partner is IBM. IBM probably would want to bow out of the tie up. It remembers its first deal with Mr. Gates and company and probably OS/2 Warp. IBM’s previous dealings with Microsoft were interesting. Furthermore, we don’t think that there has been much traction for OmniFind with or without Yahoo.
Jessica Bratcher, August 6, 2009
Large Online Lab Experiment: Charging for News
August 6, 2009
Short honk: I am looking forward to the results of the News Corporation’s decision to charge for its news. Actually, according to MarketWatch’s story “News Corp. Swings to Loss on Charges” reported:
“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,” Murdoch said.
The addled goose does only old information, certainly not news and never quality journalism. The addled goose learned when he had to generate revenue from commercial online products (successfully I must add) is that making a profit from electronic information required a different mindset from the traditional newspaper who hired him. Those tricks are still mostly unknown even among some online publishing wizards.
Now the big lab experiment is underway. The likelihood of the mice dying is high.
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2009
MarkLogic: Helping Nature Is Natural
August 6, 2009
We just wrote about MarkLogic upgrading its XML server platform, and now it seems the company is stepping up its performance with another important win: MarkLogic won the Nature Publishing Group deal to use that souped-up server as the primary XML-based information platform powering Nature.com. MarkLogic will power the enhanced search functionality on the web site that includes an archive of journals. Nature is happy about it; here’s their article: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/nature-publishing-group-uses-marklogic,908127.shtml. MarkLogic is happy; they were able to leverage an existing partnership with another Macmillan affiliate (Palgrave) into becoming “the centerpiece of our content infrastructure” at nature.com. Nature Publishing is a division of Macmillan–that’s big publishing mojo–and this is a high profile score for MarkLogic.
Jessica Bratcher, August 6, 2009
Online Trail
August 6, 2009
Short honk: Here is an example of the type of online trail that one leaves. Note that the Google search history was obtained by fiddling with user name and password. The link may be removed. I verified it at 10 pm Eastern on August 6, 2009.
Stephen Arnold, August 6,2009
Flickr Thunderstorms
August 6, 2009
Right after inking a yet-to-be-approved deal with Microsoft, Yahoo rolled out enhancements to Flickr’s image search. If you have not tried the new-and-improved Flickr, click here and give the system a whirl. My test queries were modest. I need pictures of train wrecks, collapsed houses, and skiers who are doing headers into snow drifts. These illustrations amuse me and I find them useful in illustrating the business methods of some dinosaur-like organizations. The search “train wreck” worked. I received image results that were on a par with Google’s. Yahoo’s Flickr did not allow me to NOT out jpgs or narrow the query to line art. The system was fine. My query for “house collapse” was less satisfying, but the results were usable. I had to click and browse before I found a suitable image for a company that is shaken by financial upheavals and management decisions.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbruce/193295658/
What surprised me about Flickr was the story “Cloud Storage Nightmare with Flickr.” Hubert Nguyen reported:
A Flickr user learned the hard way when his account got hacked and 3000 of his photos were deleted by the hacker, who also closed his account. The account owner is now campaigning against Flickr’s support. You can imagine how mad that person was, but it gets worse: Flickr cannot retrieve his data and we guess that this is because they were deleted in a seemingly “legitimate” manner (from Flickr’s point of view). We think that Flickr is built to survive some catastrophic hardware failure, but if an account is closed, the data is immediately deleted – permanently.
This strikes me as a policy issue, but it underscores the types of challenges that Microsoft may find itself trying to free itself from the thorn bush. If the revenue from the yet-to-be-approved tie up does not produce a truck load of dough, the situation could become even thornier for Microsoft.
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2009
More Wall Street Journal Spam
August 5, 2009
My main email account is now in the hands of the Wall Street Journal’s marketers. I am a subscriber. I have called. I have clicked on the link to remove my name. Right now, WSJ needs paying customers like me. Spamming me is a quick way to lose a customer. Newspapers, magazines, and book publishers don’t understand the antipathy created by stupid use of Web marketing tools to * paying customers *.
August 4, 2009 spam from the Wall Street Journal
This addled goose has a crusade: get off the spam list operated by the Wall Street Journal. I will post as often as I receive spam. I bet I have to do a lot of posts. Those WSJ wizards are too busy to worry about one customer I wager. Is irresponsible an appropriate word? Is ham handed appropriate?
Stephen Arnold, August 5, 2009
How to Build a Catamaran, Not an Aircraft Carrier
August 5, 2009
I have been thinking about the “aircraft carrier” metaphor I used to describe Microsoft. Aircraft carriers are good at many nautical tasks. Aircraft carriers, however, may not work in certain situations. What would I do if I were building an online service with content processing, search, and discovery functions? Part of the answer was in a link sent to me by one of my two or three readers: “Building a Data Intensive Web Application with Cloudera, Hadoop, Hive, Pig, and EC2”. The Web page is a tutorial. My only concern is that the Amazon technology is used for some of the plumbing. The Orwell incident gives me pause. High handed actions taken without the type of communications I expect would make me look for an alternative cloud solution. (Hurry, gentle Google, hurry, and release your Amazon killer). The difference between the old style aircraft carrier approach to online services and the method in this tutorial is significant. I think that Cloudera presented a useful chunk of information.
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2009
Generational Confusion and Online
August 5, 2009
I am a member of the computer-surprised Generation X. I’ve ridden the wave of the Internet since the first AOL accounts, and I am continually surprised by new technology: iPhones, G3 network, texting, live video chat, and so on. My niece and nephew are members of the digital Generation Z. They eat up the technology without blinking. Now there’s cloud search, social networking, semantic analysis, and instant access to the Internet by way of mobile devices. So when I saw this Network World article at http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/073109-productivity-suite-future.html?hpg1=bn that talks about how “Generation Y” is going to have to learn to make more flexible applications with the new Web 2.0 work for them, I had to shake my head. Apologies to the analyst, but it seems to me he’s stating the obvious. He does specify that newer applications aren’t available in the enterprise market yet, but it’s certainly coming, and fast. I think that it’s Generation X and older who are going to have the steeper learning curve.
Jessica Bratcher, August 5, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
