Borjes was a surrealist who could see societal trends despite his blindness.
Google Cloud: Identification of an AWS Weakness
November 25, 2019
Who knows if this report is public relations or data gold? Today one can struggle to wriggle the truth in technical reports. If you are up to a challenge, navigate to “Just Eat Orders Google Cloud Platform for Its Data Needs – Ditches AWS.”
JustEat says on its Web site:
More than 12 million hungry people come to Just Eat every month. And they keep coming back because we continue to invest in marketing and improved products and services for customers and restaurants.
The write up points out that JustEat has 27 million customers. Each is “wanting food and you’ve got 112,000 restaurants. How do you start to map the two together?”
The article explains that the Google Cloud Platform is the solution. The company’s AWS system:
and every Monday morning, analysts and data scientists would cause a massive traffic jam and demand to get data, and the average query time would be 800 seconds, so people would start a query, go and get a coffee and then come back and get their results set and then may even have to query again if there’s something wrong.
How much faster is the Google solution? The answer is:
the average query time is down to 30 seconds, so not only are people getting data quicker than before, but all of that 90% of data that we weren’t ingesting is also being ingested – so the data estate is a magnitude bigger, and yet we’re still getting lower query times.
Just Eat was impressed with Google Contact Centre AI product. The write up quotes a JustEat executive as saying:
The post-order space is just as important [as ordering food], and I think there is a lot of work we can do there to improve the experience and remove anxiety. So, looking for services like Customer Contact Centre AI is a big piece.
A few observations:
- Amazon has invented a streaming data service. This article takes direct aim at AWS and its failures
- Query time improvement is interesting, but there is scant data about what’s happening within the GCP set up
- Amazon offers a range of smart software. The write up makes it clear that Google is just better at implementing.
Whom does one believe? The information flowing from Amazon via its AWS Web site or information in an article which can find little fault with the Google.
DarkCyber’s take away is that the PR battle between Google and AWS may be ticking up a notch. Despite the assertions in the write up, Amazon is likely to find a way to point out its virtues.
And the facts? Have you ever heard of road kill on the information superhighway?
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2019
AWS: Working Like a Mainframe? Maybe
November 22, 2019
Is it possible to mainframe-ize AWS? Batch operations and similar useful method? If you think the answer is, “No,” you may want to read “How NextRoll Leverages AWS Batch for Daily Business Operations.” The DarkCyber team has been laboring in the AWS data marketplace, and we were delighted to read this post in NextRoll.
We noted this passage:
The freedom of stack is one of them. As long as you can package your requirements into a Dockerfile, and build that docker image, you can deploy it to Batch. This enables us to use a wide variety of technologies in our stack. We have jobs that are written using C/C++, Python, Rust, GoLang, Haskell, Java and other programming languages. Freedom in the way that data is being processed is another reason.
The write up invokes the open source goodness some associate with AWS.
Net net: AWS delivers some useful functions. Mainframers may disagree, but batch is batch.
Stephen E Arnold, November 22, 2019
Amazon Rolls Out an Online Data Market
November 21, 2019
Here is some interesting news from Amazon Web Services. Inside Big Data reports, “Introducing AWS Data Exchange.” Third-party data has become integral to the processes of research, analytics, and machine-learning models for businesses and academic institutions, but the process of tapping into that data has been cumbersome and time-consuming. Organizations have had to establish and manage relationships with disparate data providers, and those providers have had to invest fortunes in marketing and technology to reach and serve customers. The AWS Data Exchange brings all these processes together on Amazon’s cloud platform. This will bring welcome simplicity to data providers and consumers alike while positioning AWS as an indispensable resource.
Oracle has a data marketplace too.
Through the AWS Marketplace, customers will be able to subscribe to popular data providers including Reuters (news data), Change Healthcare (healthcare transactions and claims), Dun & Bradstreet (global business records), Foursquare (location data), TruFactor (anonymized consumer data), and Pitney Bowes (demographics). Clearly, these data vendors represent a diverse assortment of data types to meet a wide range of needs. The API also integrates into certain third-party analytics platforms, like Databricks and Deloitte’s ConvergeHEALTH Miner. See the write-up for more on each of these resources. We also learn:
“Prior to subscribing to a data product, customers can review the price and terms of use that providers make publicly available. Once subscribed, customers can use the AWS Data Exchange API or console to ingest data they subscribe to directly into Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to use across the broadest and deepest portfolio of cloud services in AWS. Each time a provider publishes a new revision of their data, AWS Data Exchange notifies all subscribers via an Amazon CloudWatch Event, allowing them to automatically consume new revisions in their data lakes, applications, analytics, and machine-learning models running on AWS. Data subscription costs are consolidated in customers’ existing AWS invoice. Additionally, customers can ask their data providers to deliver their existing subscriptions to them using AWS Data Exchange at no cost. This enables customers to use AWS Data Exchange to consume all their third-party data in the AWS cloud using a single API. AWS Data Exchange also makes it easy for qualified data providers to securely package, license, and deliver data products to millions of AWS customers worldwide. AWS knows that customers care deeply about privacy and data security. AWS Data Exchange prohibits sharing sensitive personal data (e.g. personal health information) as well as any personal data that is not already lawfully and publicly available.”
The exchange also lets data providers publish their data on their terms, including private offers and custom terms for certain customers. They have the ability to review use cases and manage compliance needs, and will receive daily, weekly, and monthly reports on subscription activity. Perhaps most welcome to some, AWS will manage billing, collection, and secure data delivery. This development will make a big difference for many organizations; Amazon must be pretty pleased with itself.
Cynthia Murrell, November 21, 2019
DarkCyber for November 19, 2019, Now Available
November 19, 2019
The November 19, 2019, DarkCyber discussed Amazon’s patent US 10,296,764 B1 “Verifiable Cryptographically Secured Ledgers for Human Resource Systems.” Stephen tries his best to make this patent discussion thrilling. Well, perhaps “thrilling” may be stretching the discussion of the system and method disclosed in this 24 page disclosure. But there are some graphics and a number of statements which are probably too simple to satisfy a patent attorney. Nevertheless, if you are curious about Amazon and its invention for human resources, navigate to www.vimeo.com/373810982 and check out the program. This week’s program marks the start of “season two” of DarkCyber. More patents, an interview, and news stories will feature in the coming weeks. After celebrating three quarters of a century of semi-coherent thinking, DarkCyber will appear every two weeks. The interfaces implemented in the software Stephen uses slows him down. The team just tells him, “Okay, Boomer, work harder.” His response cannot be printed in this prestigious blog.
PS. In August, Stephen was quoted by the New York Times, in October by MIT’s Technology Review (yep, the Epstein friendly organization), and this month by Le Monde (that’s in Paris and in French no less). The subjects? Intelligence, Amazon, and the lack of awareness among certain residents of Harrod’s Creek to Stephen’s research. Hey, he lives in Kentucky which holds a proud place in the lower quartile of literacy in the US.
Kenny Toth, November 19, 2019
Amazon Product Search: A Challenge for the GOOG
November 18, 2019
Amazon is gaining ground in the search-based advertising arena. ZDNet reports, “Amazon Search Ad Business to Whittle Away at Google Market Share Through 2021, Says eMarketer.” Citing a recent eMarketer report, writer Larry Dignan tells us that, though Google will remain top dog by a wide margin for the foreseeable future, Amazon is positioned to increase its share. He writes:
“The report finds that Google will continue to dominate search advertising, but its share will fall over time. Amazon is expected to show search ad revenue growth of 29.5% in 2019, 30.7% in 2020 and 26.2% in 2021. Amazon’s advertising business has surged past Microsoft to be No. 2 behind Google, which has 73.1% of the search ad market. Amazon will end 2019 with 12.9%, followed by Microsoft at 6.5%. Verizon Media and Yelp round out the top five with market share of about 2%.In addition, Amazon’s advertising business is closely watched among Wall Street analysts. The search ad business falls into Amazon’s ‘other’ revenue category and many analysts expect it to be a break out business like Amazon Web Services. Google’s market share in the search advertising market is expected to drop to 70.5% by 2021, according to eMarketer estimates.”
Amazon, you see, has a unique advantage—many active shoppers begin their product searches there, so they are already poised to make a purchase. Dignan adds that other retail sites like Wal-Mart, Target, and eBay are also nipping at Google’s search-ad market share.
Cynthia Murrell, November 18, 2019
How to Create Solutions in Software: The Cloud and More
November 8, 2019
DarkCyber is working on a white paper. This white paper is about Amazon AWS and its products/services for LE and intel professionals. Don’t worry, the white paper will be free to those affiliated with an enforcement organization.
In that white paper, DarkCyber’s team includes a diagram with layers. One of the reviewers of the paper told a team member:
Layers. What’s AWS? A birthday cake?
We talked about our diagram and the notion of layers. One person talked about “Layers in Software: From Data to Value.” The article included this diagram, which is different from the illustration in the DarkCyber white paper, but it conveys the same message. Here’s the Jessitron image:
The main idea is explained this way:
Feature teams need to do everything, from the old perspective. But that’s too hard for one team — so we make it easier.
This is where Developer Experience (DevEx) teams come in. (a.k.a. Developer Productivity, Platform and Tools, or inaccurately DevOps Teams.) These undergird the feature teams, making their work smoother. Self-service infrastructure, smooth setup of visibility and control for production software. Tools and expertise to help developers learn and do everything necessary to fulfill each team’s purpose. Internal services are supported by external services. Managed services like Kubernetes, databases, queueing, observability, logging: we have outsourced the deep expertise of operating these components. Meanwhile, internal service teams like DevEx have enough understanding of the details, plus enough company-specific context, to mediate between what the outside world provides and what feature teams need. This makes development smoother, and therefore faster and safer. We once layered by serving data to software. Now we layer by serving value to people.
This is a useful explanation. It applies to Amazon’s approach to the LE and intel sector. There is a twist in the Amazon digital river of products and services. That’s to be expected.
What is that twist?
The white paper will be out one the reviewers complete their inputs.
Stephen E Arnold, November 8, 2019
The UAE and AI: What Will Students Learn?
November 7, 2019
DarkCyber noted “Abu Dhabi AI University Is Key to UAE’s Future As the Oil Dries Up.” The write up states:
The Gulf state is developing healthcare, financial services, renewable energy and materials technology sectors, which will make up the UAE economy when the oil runs out. But first, it needs to ensure its citizens have the skills to drive them. The long-term nature of the UAE government’s initiative is what stands out for Oxford University professor Michael Brady, who is interim president of Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), which was set up to ensure the UAE has the right skills to drive these industries. The Masdar City-based university has just opened to applications for its first intake of 50 students.
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, among others, have a presence in UAE. The article quoted Professor Brady as saying:
But it was the ambition that he saw when he visited Abu Dhabi, which puts UK government planning to shame, that cemented his interest “There is a stark difference between the short-termism that characterizes so much of government policy in the UK, where politicians worry about the headlines tomorrow morning,” he said. “It is so refreshing to be part of a government-led initiative that has a 30-year vision to transform the economy and the culture.”
The AI university is important. The question the write up did not address is:
What cloud AI service will be the core of the curriculum?
It seems obvious that the go-to cloud system for students will have an advantage in deploying next-generation solutions.
Worth monitoring which of these three cloud aspirants will capture the hearts and minds of the student, UAE officials, and investors who want to cash in on this investment in the future.
Stephen E Arnold, November 7, 2019
Microsoft Displays Its Amazon AWS Neutralizer
November 5, 2019
I read about Microsoft’s victory over the evil neighbor Amazon. What was Microsoft’s trump card, its AWS neutralizer, its technology innovation?
The answer may have appeared in “Microsoft Unveils Azure Arc, Aiming to Fend Off Google and Amazon with New Hybrid Cloud Tech.” Here’s the once closely-held diagram.
Like most AWS-hostile diagrams, it includes three features which customers like the Pentagon and other entities desire:
- The ability to integrate multiple clouds, on premises computers, and edge computers into one homogeneous system. (Latency? Don’t bring that up, please.)
- The Azure stack in one’s own computer center where it can be managed by an Azure-certified staff with the assistance of Azure-certified Microsoft partners. (Headcount implications. Don’t bring that up, please.)
- An Azure administrative system which provides a bird’s-eye view of the client’s Azure-centric system. (Permissions and access controls. Don’t bring that up, please.)
Microsoft has rolled out a comprehensive vision. The challenge is that Amazon and Google have similar visions.
Microsoft may want to check out Amazon’s security and access control technology. But that’s a minor point for a company which struggles to update Windows 10 without disabling user’s computers.
Great diagram though. Someone once observed, “The map is not the territory.” And then there is the increasingly relevant Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges who wrote:
Nothing is built on stone; All is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.
Stephen E Arnold, November 4, 2019
Procurement Bias Alleged in Amazon Microsoft Procurement Competition
October 28, 2019
DarkCyber noted “Trump Ordered Mattis to “Screw Amazon” Out of Pentagon Contract, Book Alleges.” If the allegation is accurate, the Federal procurement process is not above influence. If the allegations are not accurate, firing people who get quoted may be a bad idea. Maybe both statements are accurate?
The write up reports second or third hand:
Trump called Mattis in the summer of 2018 and directed him to “screw Amazon” out of a chance to bid on a $10 billion cloud networking contract.
Interesting.
The shift to the cloud is an important step for the Department of Defense. An error might have a few minor downsides: Loss of life, intelligence failures, increased and unbudgeted triage expenses, and increased friction in data-centric processes.
The upside is that the Department of Defense has made a decision.
Several questions arise and may be worth considering:
First, will there be review processes? The allegation about instructions from the White House are, if true, reasonably clear.
Second, will Microsoft be able to deliver the cloud solutions the Department of Defense requires? There are a few—how shall I phrase it—impediments to effective use of information technology which must be addressed. These are a bit more challenging than shipping software updates which create problems for users.
Third, can Microsoft navigate around Amazon’s patent fences? Some of the functionality which seems to be important to the DoD are within an Amazon patent fence. If Microsoft crawls under one of these fences, Amazon may sue. The litigation and any penalties might chew into Microsoft’s profit from the hard-won deal. (Are there examples? Yes, and I address these in my chapter for a forthcoming book, but the information is not for a free blog post on a chill Sunday morning, gentle reader. Alas!)
Net net: DarkCyber has a premonition that the MSFT JEDI assertions may make Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis a best seller.
Intriguing. Mad Dog becomes a celebrity author.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2019
Amazon Loses JEDI: Now What?
October 26, 2019
Friday (October 25, 2019) Amazon and the Bezos bulldozer drove into a granite erratic. The Department of Defense awarded the multi-year, multi-billion dollar contract for cloud services to Microsoft. “Microsoft Snags Hotly Contested $10 Billion Defense Contract, Beating Out Amazon” reported the collision between PowerPoint’s owner and the killing machine which has devastated retail.
CNBC reports:
If the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure deal, known by the acronym JEDI, ends up being worth $10 billion, it would likely be a bigger deal to Microsoft than it would have been to Amazon. Microsoft does not disclose Azure revenue in dollar figures but it’s widely believed to have a smaller share of the market than Amazon, which received $9 billion in revenue from AWS in the third quarter.
The write up pointed out:
While Trump didn’t cite Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by name at the time, the billionaire executive has been a constant source of frustration for the president. Bezos owns The Washington Post, which Trump regularly criticizes for its coverage of his administration. Trump also has gone after Amazon repeatedly on other fronts, such as claiming it does not pay its fair share of taxes and rips off the U.S. Post Office.
There are other twists and turns to the JEDI story, but I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to determine if the Oracle anti-Amazon campaign played a role.
There are some questions which I discussed with my DarkCyber team when we heard the news as a rather uneventful week in the technology world wound down. Let’s look at four of these and the “answers” my team floated as possibilities.
Question 1: Will this defeat alter Amazon’s strategy for policeware and intelware business?
Answer 1: No. Since 2007, Amazon has been grinding forward in the manner of the Bezos bulldozer with its flywheel spinning and its electricity sparking. As big as $10 billion is, Amazon has invested significant time and resources in policeware and intelware inventions like DeepLens, software like SageMaker, and infrastructure designed to deliver information that many US government agencies will want and for which many of the more than 60 badge-and-gun entities in the US government will pay. The existing sales team may be juggled as former Microsoft government sales professional Teresa Carlson wrestles with the question, “What next?” Failure turns on a bright spotlight. The DoD is just one, albeit deep pocket entity, of many US government agencies needing cloud services. And there is always next year which begins October 1, 2020.
Question 2: Has Amazon tuned its cloud services and functions to the needs of the Department of Defense?
Answer 2: No. Amazon offers services which meet the needs of numerous government agencies at the federal as well as local jurisdictional levels. In fact, there is one US government agency deals with more money than the DoD that is a potential ATM for Amazon. The Bezos bulldozer drivers may be uniquely positioned to deliver cloud services and investigative tools with the potential payout to Amazon larger than the JEDI deal.
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