Yahoo: Clouds or Fog
October 2, 2009
I found Steve Shankland’s “How Yahoo Is Betting Its Cloud Will Pay Off” a useful look at what Yahoo wants to be—someday. Unlike the frou frou in the Hewlett Packard “analysis” of mainframe computers, Mr. Shankland reports what Yahoo wizard Shelton Shugar, Yahoo’s senior vice president of cloud computing, explained in one or more conversations with Mr. Shankland. Several points struck me as interesting:
First, the focus and investment in cloud computing is aimed at some tough Yahoo problems. Here’s the statement that sums up this point:
although rebuilding Yahoo on its own cloud-computing foundation is expected to save some money, the primary motivation is to liberate the company’s programmers from the difficulties and drudgery of coding for gargantuan audience on the Internet.
The wording suggested to me cost control and a step toward reducing the work and rework method that has kept Yahoo from leveraging certain revenue opportunities.
Second, I found the reference to multi-tenancy fascinating. The passage I noted says:
it’s [the Yahoo cloud] got a variety of interfaces that many Yahoo services can use–a concept often called multitenancy–so they don’t have to build them on their own. For another, it’s global, handling thorny issues such as operating at large scale and replicating data for reliability and responsiveness. And it’s got a degree of elasticity built in, so the infrastructure can expand, contract, or otherwise adjust to changing work load demands.
Multi tenancy is the technology that Salesforce.com has worked hard to tame and even harder to drive patent applications on its systems and methods into the ever efficient USPTO. I must admit I never thought of Yahoo operating a multi tenant system. I think that’s because Yahoo kept services separate in silos. Whatever was going on across silos was mostly a mystery to me. Within silos, my research suggested a fruit cake of solutions. Salesforce.com, bless its heart, is more homogeneous even though its dark heart pulses in tune with Oracle reads and writes.
Finally, Yahoo had performance problems and judging from this statement Yahoo still has performance problems. This is the passage I marked:
We need to be able to tweak it [Yahoo’s virtualization implementation] quite a bit for performance, to match it with our hardware,” Shugar said.
When I access Yahoo mail from outside the US, I have to deal with multiple time outs. In my opinion, the latency makes Yahoo unusable from some of the fine places I work. Even more annoying is the hit and miss results from Yahoo’s email search system. Once a week, the system reports I have no matches for my email queries. Not too good since I pay for a premium Yahoo service.
I hope Yahoo moves from “as is” to a platform that works better for me. My thought is that Yahoo is years behind in infrastructure, and if the economy goes south, cash will be tight and the job won’t be completed. If that happens, Yahoo adds to its already significant handicap.
Stephen Arnold, October 2, 2009
Microsoft Live: $560 Million Loss in 12 Months or $64,000 and Hour
September 23, 2009
TechFlash reported an interesting article called “Windows Live Lost $560 Million in FY2009”. With revenues of $520, the loss chewed through $64,000 an hour or $2,663 a minute 24×7 for 365 days. With Microsoft’s revenue in the $58 billion range, a $560 million is not such a big deal. In my opinion, profligate spending might work in the short term, but I wonder if the tactic will work over a longer haul on the information highway.
Stephen Arnold, September 23, 2009
Twitter Trends: A Glimpse of the Future of Content Monitoring
September 23, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me information about “Trendsmap Maps Twitter Trends in Real-Time.” The Cnet write up points out that this Web site uses “trending Twitter topics by geographical location by combining data from Twitter’s API and What The Trend.” Very interesting publicly accessible service. Similar types of monitoring systems are in use in certain government organizations. The importance of this implementation is that the blend of disparate systems provide new ways to look at people, topics, and relationships. With this system another point becomes clear. If you want to drop off the grid, move to a small town where data flows are modest. Little data won’t show up so more traditional monitoring methods have to be used. On the other hand, for those in big metro areas, interesting observations may be made. Fascinating. The site has some interface issues but a few minutes of fiddling will make most of the strengths and weaknesses clear. The free service is at http://www.trendsmap.com/.
Stephen Arnold, September 22, 2009
Google and Newspapers: Misclassifying Google Is Risky
September 22, 2009
I enjoy most of the GigaOM information. I found the write up “Google’s Plan to Become The Media Company” thought provoking but off the mark. My view is that classifying Google as a media company is one of those confident assertions that seem accurate but are only partially correct. In fact, the error is akin to classifying a tiger cub as a house pet. Sure, the young cub might learn some manners, but as Roy and Siegfried learned, the tiger often has a different idea about what it is; namely, a wild animal capable of ruining an act and a life. If you don’t remember, Roy and Siegfried, here is a useful reminder of the consequences of an erroneous classification. (Warning: not for the faint of heart.)
Google is an application platform, a point I made in my 2005 monograph, The Google Legacy. That research study is germane today. I amplified my analysis of Google’s technology in two subsequent studies, pointing out that Google’s technical open source information supported my assertion that Google was a disruptive force in such business sectors as enterprise software, financial services, and commercial publishing, among three or four other business sectors. The importance of this point was mocked openly by telecommunications executives when one of the consulting firms for which I work as an advisor trotted me around to review Google’s telephone inventions in 2006. I wonder how many of those executives are laughing now? Google is not just a disruptive force in the telco space, the company is in a position to give Apple a run for its money in the broader mobile device sector. This idea is probably not too amusing for Apple. In fact, Google teamed up with Sony to get some steroids in its distribution and content arm for the coming dust up.
Wild animal or pet? Source: http://www.wamajama.com/wamajama/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/siegfried_roy_tiger_1_r.jpg
Now back to the GigaOM write up.
Here’s the problem. I agree that Google will have even greater disruptive impacts on the media sector. But media is just one business sector that Google will jostle. The author believes that defining Google as a media company sums up that wild and crazy bunch of physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and smart folks. That’s a very big mistake. The reason is that a media company draws a ring around Google and says, “Here be the dragon.” Wrong. The circle identifies one of Google’s dragronettes. Seeing Google as a dragonette leads to the misperception of Google as a dragonette breeder. A person involved in online retail could take the media company definition to heart. That person might then overlook what the Google is doing with its financial back office system. Sure, Checkout is visible, but it’s a weak sister compared to eBay’s PayPal or the Amazon machine. Or, is it? Kevin Kelleher, like those telco executives, would not ask the question, “What is Google?” Heck, Google is a media company, maybe a next generation outfit like Hanna Barbera Studios or the Peoria Journal Star.
Get that classification wrong and you may — no, strike that – will be blindsided as Google uses its platform to probe, disrupt, and exploit a broader range of market sectors. In short, those who misclassify run the risk of seeing the tiger up close and personal as Roy and Siegfried did. The results may not be for the squeamish.
Stephen Arnold, September 22, 2009
Data Liberation and the Enterprise
September 17, 2009
I like the Google logo for the Data Liberation Front.
I was browsing EnglishRussia.com the other evening. When I saw the DLF logo, I thought about some interesting posters from another era. Take a look yourself under Art. I thought about the DLF and the image when I read “How Google’s Data Liberation Front Can Boost Google Apps” in eWeek.
Clint Boulton’s article suggested that data portability – that is, moving data from Point A to Point B – is one of the key services of DLF. Now if Point A is Microsoft file format and Point B is a Google cloud application, I think the point of DLF is laser sharp and aimed at building Google’s enterprise service array.
For me, the most important comment in the article was:
Google has been gradually making it possible for Google App business users to move data in and out of Google Calendar and Google Docs, with plans to “liberate” Google Sites and enable users to do batch exports of files from Google Docs. Specifically, Fitzpatrick and his team are working to let business users export their entire Sites wiki as HTML with microformats. Users would be able to take and drop it into an Apache Web server. For Docs, Google is working to let users select multiple Docs files and export them in OpenOffice, HMTL or Microsoft formats. Google’s servers convert these files into ZIP files, and Apps users can e-mail these payloads to colleagues for collaboration. Google hopes these portability efforts will foster good will among customers. This is an important part of Google’s strategy as it seeks to take on Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and others in SAAS collaboration.
I am not sure about the “goodwill” part, however.
Stephen Arnold, September 17, 2009
http://www.dataliberation.org/
Pigeons versus Kentucky Broadband
September 13, 2009
A happy quack to the caller today who alerted me to this news flash from Tom’s Hardware. Of course, living near a mine run off pond discourages the phone and cable companies from putting high speed anything in my dank hollow. The story’s headline is enticing: “Pigeon Found to be Faster Than Broadband”. I enjoyed this comment:
ISP Telom said that it couldn’t be held responsible for the slow transfer speeds to the IT company, as it has helped to advise the company in possible improvements, but thus far none have been accepted.
I heard from my local ISP that its system was really fast. Never mind that my Verizon WAN card times out when I try to access my mail via the ISP’s Web interface. “Works for us,” the company wrote. Yep, carrier pigeons. Also in Kentucky.
Stephen Arnold, September 13, 2009
Gmail Outage as Instructional Opportunity
September 8, 2009
I try to focus my attention on companies and pundits in the search and content processing sectors. I need to make a slight modification. The GigaOM write up “5 Things We Learned From the Gmail Outage” snagged my attention. I think I see the purpose of the article; that is, provide a semi-oracular spin on a high profile company’s technical problem. If I were younger, I suppose I would adopt a similar tone in an effort to curry favor with the Google and approach a subject that has caught the attention of some Gmail users. The core of the article for me was this comment:
But in the end, the fact of the outage wasn’t nearly as interesting as what it said about Google, about email and about us.
In the best spirit of English 101, Kevin Kelleher uses the fact of Gmail going offline as a way to extract some lessons about life in 2009. The five lessons disturbed me. Let me comment on each, and I don’t want to imply that you should not read the original article. Far from it, you need to go to the water bucket yourself to drink.
First, I don’t like the implication that I have to get used to “outages”. When my family lived in Brazil in the 1950s, we had outages every day. The electricity worked a few hours a day. The water, maybe it was on two or three days a week. One does not get used to outages because outages require fundamental changes in the way one goes about certain tasks. I think it is defeatist to learn that Google cannot deliver a service that does not throw a user’s / customer’s life into a tail spin. Outages are not “good enough”; they are unacceptable. This glib statement irritated me. What if a Gmail contained information for a doctor treating the author’s loved one. Without the information, the doctor muffs the bunny and the author’s loved one dies. Is that something the author will get used to? Probably not too quickly I surmise.
Second, big is bad. Excuse me. The consolidation of computing and information services is moving forward, particularly in the US. “Big is bad” but for whom? Big seems to be the trajectory in the US, and if it were bad, why is bigness accelerating? The notion that “big” – the normal situation in telecommunications, automobiles, insurance, and (my favorite) financial services – is a philosophical message. Reality is different, and I find that taking a company’s technical weakness and making a political statement a weird way to communicate with me. Do something to change the reality; don’t tell me that I learned a lesson.
Finally, chain reactions are part of networks. Nope, chain reactions are a characteristics of nuclear phenomena. A chain reaction triggers a sequence of events that continues until the state of matter changes. A network is a system and failures can cascade. Furthermore failures in network systems can be compartmentalized, remediated, and in smart networks worked around. The chain reaction is a fact of nature. The failure of a network centric system is consequence of careless engineers.
Google has to do better, and I think the lesson the Gmail failure taught me is easy to state: Google has to do better. Google should not be excused, given a free pass because “good enough” or “get used to it” is acceptable. Wrong. Google made itself a dominant outfit. Now it has to live up to its obligation. No one should excuse or make excuses for Google’s lousy engineering.
Stephen Arnold, September 8, 2009
Google Behind in Cloud Plays
August 27, 2009
I am sitting in my government influenced hotel room in Washington, DC. I don’t have access to my research material. I do remember analyzing an invention disclosed by Google sometime in 2004 or 2005 that offered some interesting functions. A client could use a computer running some Google software could hook into the Google infrastructure to perform some work. I am going to refresh my memory when I return to the saner world of the goose pond in rural Kentucky.
In the meantime, two news items caused me to wonder, “Has Google fallen further behind in the race to cloud computing?” Let me highlight the two news items and then capture the tickle at the back of my addled goose brain.
First, the world’s smartest man has engineered another cloud move that seems to leave Google flat pawed. Amazon has announced a veepeesee in its Web log. You can dig into some of the details in “Introducing Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)”. As I understand the announcement, Amazon wants to make its multiple cloud services enterprise satisfying. That translates to control. This development reminds me of some Google technology.
Source: Amazon.com
What I find interesting is that Amazon seems to be in the mind space of Google. And more importantly, Amazon seems able to move more quickly than the Google. Speed and agility are often important in the high stakes world which Amazon inhabits. Has Google become to large and burdened to move like a lithe Amazonian?
Second, Salesforce.com has announced a reseller program. You will want to read “Deals & More” by Anthony Ha in Venture Beat. The announcement reminded me that Salesforce.com, a company that Google has supported with some cheerleading, now seems to be moving on its own trajectory. I thought that a tie up between Google and Salesforce.com might have had some charm a couple of years ago. Now I have a working hypothesis that Google perceives a different view of the future. Salesforce.com was among the first companies to get traction with cloud services for the enterprise. I ask myself, “What does Google see as its future in cloud centric enterprise services?” The reseller deal seems to put Salesforce.com at an acute angle with regard to Google. Does Google “get” the Salesforce.com model? How many cloud resellers will want to jump on the Salesforce.com bandwagon? Will some Google partners jump ship? No answers from the addled goose at this time.
Is Salesforce.com becoming the shadow warrior in sales as Amazon has become a ninja in cloud computing technology?
One can interpret these two events in several ways:
- Amazon and Salesforce.com are uninterested in Google. Each company moves independently of Google. Each is doing quite well as Google disrupts other business sectors. In short, Google has no material impact on either of these firms.
- Amazon and Salesforce.com have figured out that each can move more quickly than the sluggish Google. The telcos might see Google as a race car but Amazon and Salesforce.com have found ways to move more quickly than Google, thus neutralizing Google’s potential in certain “spaces”.
- Amazon and Salesforce.com are working in the “here and now”. Google either operates in another space time dimension or perceives the “here and now” markets as uninteresting. If this is accurate, the question becomes, “What is Google’s broader play in the cloud market?”
The addled goose has no answers. Just questions.
Stephen Arnold, August 27, 2009
Software as a Service: More Complexity
August 26, 2009
Short honk: A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to “Software as a Service Not Yet Ready”. We goslings like SaaS. Sure, there some Amazon type bugs in the woodwork, but that’s to be expected. A much stronger anti SaaS stance is expressed by Haseet Sanghrajka, a senior manager at ST Consulting. He asserted:
There are moves to develop standards in data hosting, which is good, but until the SaaS model has gone through a few iterations the market will not clearly understand the pitfalls, or work out just how to address them. From bandwidth redundancy to the strengths of service providers, organisations cannot afford to underestimate the complexity of this model.
I am popping this into the Beyond Search quotation file drawer.
Stephen Arnold, August 26, 2009
Cloud Price War
August 23, 2009
Short honk: If you have been keeping an eye on the fees assessed for cloud computing, you will want to take a look at “Amazon Lowers Fees on Reserved EC2 Instances”. The article contains a useful table of prices. What was missing were the pre discount prices, but the information is useful. When I read the write up, I thought, “Amazon is buying market share.” I wonder if Amazon will report revenues for its cloud product line. Probably not. Clarity in financial reporting is not part of the Amazon game plan in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, August 22, 2009
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