Future-Proofing the Data Center: Will you be seen as a Visionary or a Fool?

Written by Ken Salchow, Jr
Wednesday, 13 February 2008

Innovation is rife with tales of visionaries and fools; the difference between the two is often simply the application of time. Some innovations are touted as visionary breakthroughs, but quickly become dim memories, simple fads, or punch-lines. Other innovations are seen as pure foolishness and only through many years and societal changes are they realized for the vision that they embody.

For example, take the new Airbus A380 “superjumbo” jet. As the largest commercial passenger jet ever built, it has been heralded as model of modern technology and achievement. Despite the hundreds of technology advancements included, it is its sheer size and capacity that have captured most people’s imagination. And yet, this modern marvel is still, in some ways, surpassed by another plane built more than 60 years ago and seen as a madman’s delusion—the Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known as the “Spruce Goose.” What a difference 60 years can make. Who knows how history will treat the A380 when another 60 years goes by?
The technology industry is often very similar.
Who knew at the turn of the 21st century that dedicated electronic books would exist, that the market would nearly completely fail less than three years later, or that they would be resurrected less than 5 years after that? This capitulation and uncertainty makes it hard to predict what the technological landscape will look like in the future, something many technology pundits have learned the hard way (Bill Gates, Ken Olson, etc.). IPv6 has been around for nearly 15 years and service-oriented architecture (SOA)—with all the associated protocols and standards encompassed by it—remains an often talked about, but rarely implemented ideal. So what is the modern technologist, IT Manager, or CIO going to rely on when trying to build the best, visionary solutions for the future without looking like a fool down the road?

Scalability
Certainly, any solution deployed must be capable of handling today’s needs as well as being able to handle the expected load of the future. The fact that the future, by nature, is unknown is the essence of the problem. A smart engineer will apply the simple, yet well proven concept of “buy the biggest, most powerful widget that the budget will allow.” When purchasing a server platform, this might mean buying the system with the greatest number of processor sockets and addressable RAM—even though the current budget may not allow you to fully populate them. At least in this case—if the current system becomes overloaded—you always have the option of adding more processor and memory down the road, without having to replace the entire system or spend all your money upfront for performance you may never need.
This may also mean architecting your solution in such a way as to virtualize as many components within your architecture as possible, specifically the “one-to-many” virtualization that enables you to grow beyond the bounds of a single hardware device or instance. For example, instead of buying a single, extremely powerful server platform, you might consider buying several, less powerful (and less costly) systems, and using the remaining budget to buy an Application Delivery Controller (ADC) to virtualize the application servers. This enables you to incrementally add additional, low-cost servers to the architecture as performance demands increase; this allows you to address future concerns without re-architecting or replacing existing design elements.

Extensibility
Another critical element in architecture design today is the need for extensibility. Scalability helps address the unknown demands of performance in the future, while extensibility helps address the unknown features/functions of the future. Ideally, whenever possible, today’s architects need to find solutions that are not simply point-products. Obviously, products that solve the business need of the project are all viable candidates, but preference should be given to products which, in addition to solving the problem at hand, are also capable of solving other problems through the addition of hardware or software components. Whether or not one can foresee the need for these additional solutions is, often times, irrelevant. The extensible capability of the solution is what will count when you are planning for an unknown future.

Current extensibility should not be the only criteria, however. A visionary technologist will also examine the design and track record of products to evaluate their future extensibility. Software applications built to SOA principles are a perfect example of this: not only does the virtualized and object-oriented nature of them provide robust extensibility in the present, but—depending on the history of the vendor or third-party support—it can provide built-in protection against the unforeseen needs of tomorrow. Products that are inherently designed to have new, unique technology “plugged-in” down the road at least have the potential to adapt to your changing needs; in the case of those without that capability, what you see is what you get.

Adaptability
Just as important as being able to add more capacity and more functionality to the solution, is the ability to adapt to changes in the business need or the unique characteristics of an organization’s implementation. There are two significant reasons for this need. The first is simply a reflection of the de facto 80/20 rule. It is most often more efficient and cost effective to buy shrink-wrapped solutions that solve 80% of the problem as long as they are adaptable, or customizable, enough to allow them to be modified to solve the remaining 20%. Again, many of the commercially available SOA-based software solutions show this trend—providing development platforms on which to build custom applications to solve unique business problems, not the final solutions themselves. The second reason adaptability is so important, is that technology standards today are also built with the ideals of scalability and extensibility in mind. As such, many standards allow for custom modification on a per implementation basis without violating the “standard.” This leads to situations where two similar applications, both built to the same “standard,” may not be able to work with each other. The session initiation protocol (SIP) and hyper-text transfer protocol (HTTP) are two perfect examples where individual implementations (like custom headers) can make integration difficult.

Extensibility
can often help this, as it inherently enables components to be ”upgraded” or modified as well as act as a wholesale replacement or new feature addition. However, the effectiveness of this is contingent on the granularity of the components. A modularized accounting system, with separate components for general ledger, accounts payable/receivable, and so on, can be adapted to changes based on the replacement of modules or even pieces—such as changes in withholding in the payroll module. This allows the system some degree of adaptability through extensibility, but only on a module basis. A more powerful and direct way to achieve architecture adaptability is the inclusion of intelligence through application integration. That is, the ability to modify or adapt the way the module itself behaves to fit changes in need or in direct response to unique business requirements—especially in a dynamic and programmatic way. This not only allows the solution to adapt to necessary changes, like accounting for custom headers used by an ancillary solution, but enables it to act in an intelligent way and continue to work the way it always has.

Manageability
While the architecture you implement today may have limited components with finite capabilities, a design built with scalability and extensibility in mind promises a much more complex tomorrow. Manageability is the final critical component of modern architecture design. The simplification, and consolidation, of managing the diverse components within the system—keeping in mind the components and features not yet implemented (or even imagined)—is an absolute requirement. No one will remember how scalable, extensible, or adaptable the architecture was intended to be if the resultant solution is too costly or complex to manage.

It is important to note that the management system itself is also a business solution. This means that the same characteristics of scalability, extensibility, and adaptability of management need to be considered. In addition to providing a virtual view of the entire architecture, management systems need to provide the scalability to grow with the architecture, the extensibility to integrate with new features/solutions down the road, and the adaptability to meet the unknown issues of tomorrow.
Visionary or Fool?

The real difference between the visionary and the foolhardy is that the visionary anticipates the unknown and incorporates “wiggle-room”; the fool makes finite decisions based only on what can be known at any given moment. The problem with systems analysis and design, as taught throughout the world, is that it remains fairly focused on analyzing and solving the specific requirements on a single system based on concrete information. This has been the bane of information security for years since users rarely mention security as a requirement, no one can anticipate the security threats of the future, and, therefore, without an organizational mandate, it never becomes a priority. With the ever-increasing rate of technological change and complexity, it is essential that the concepts of scalability, extensibility, adaptability, and manageability also become primary stepping stones in solution design and data center architecture. No matter how technologically advance an architecture is the day it goes live, the real test is the test of time; how will that solution look when tomorrow comes? Will your architecture prove you to be visionary or foolish?

About the Author: KJ (Ken) Salchow, Jr. is the Manager of Technical Marketing at F5 Networks

Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property rights (IPR) cover the legal ownership of new ideas or brand names. They can be sold or licenced - and can also be used to stop people exploiting assets without permission.

The term covers:

* patents;
* registered designs and the design right;
* registered trademarks; and
* copyright.

Patents:
Patents are often associated with gadgets and gimmicks, but virtually all machines, products and processes (and their individual parts) are patentable. To be patentable they must be new, inventive and capable of industrial application.

If you invent something, you don’t have to patent your invention. You may choose to exploit your invention alone. However, without a patent your invention may be invented and exploited independently by someone else and you will have no legal protection. The Patent Office is responsible for granted patents, registered designs and registered trade marks. Ex: The UK Patent Office grants rights that are effective in the UK only.

Designs
The outward shape and configuration of products can be protected in two ways: either by registered design (which requires an application to the Patent Office) or by the (unregistered) design right, which gives automatic, but weaker, protection.

For example, A new mechanism in a camera will be patentable but the look of the casing that encloses the mechanism will be protectable by a registered design or the design right.

Trademarks
Trade marks are signs which distinguish the goods and services of one trader from those of others. They provide protection for the goodwill and reputation of a firm in its products and services.

Trade marks do not have to be registered. For example, if sufficient reputation and goodwill has been built against a particular mark, a degree of protection is afforded at common law against others who may wish to pass off their goods and services as those of the person entitled to the reputation of the mark.

Copyright
Copyright offers rights to the creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, published editions of works, sound recordings, films and videos, broadcasts and cable programmes, and computer programmes. Some databases may also be protected by copyright.

Copyright protects these creators from other people copying, adapting, publishing, performing or broadcasting protected material without permission.
Copyright is automatic. This means you don’t need to register but you do bear responsibility for proving the right is yours. Unlike other intellectual property rights, material does not have to have novelty value to be protected by copyright. It simply has to be the result of independent intellectual effort.

International protection
If you do not obtain protection abroad, others are free to exploit your product or services in those territories without protection. Most countries have intellectual property laws but particular provisions may vary.

Talking to others!!!

Talking to the right people can inspire all kinds of new ideas and help you to test the ideas you already have.

Talk to your customers. What improvements would they suggest? Does your product have a group of 'expert users' who are already adapting it and using it in ways you had not thought of?

Look at your competitors. How do their products and services differ from yours? Seek the opinions of your suppliers. Sometimes they will have thought of something you have not. You can meet both these groups at trade and industry fairs, where you can also encounter those outside your local business environment - sometimes 'new ideas' are already being used by your international competitors.

You can get new ideas and test existing ones by doing research on the web and in print media. Who are the experts in your field? Look up the authors in the material you research. Contact universities with departments covering technology applicable to your business.

Do not forget to test your most innovative ideas by doing patent searches to ensure they are original. During such searches you may even find technology you can license and use to meet your customers' needs.

Ideas and Innovations

All companies and organisations need to be innovative if they are to continue to meet the demands of their customers and the changing marketplace. Innovative companies also have the ability to break into new markets and improve their profitability.

New products, new processes and new ways of working are the results of successful innovation. They require a steady flow of good ideas, knowledge and resources.

*Innovation starts with ideas. Thinking creatively can get the ideas flowing.
--*A frequent problem for many businesses is finding the time to be creative.
How do you continue to come up with the ideas that can be developed into successful products, services or processes?
How do you generate the best ideas that can keep you ahead of the competition?

Internal ideas:
Often the best place to find or generate ideas is within your own company.Take time out to think and encourage others to do the same. Record your ideas and act on the best ones. Simple techniques such as brainstorming and Mind Mapping can get the ideas flowing, help you to organise them and save you time.
--Mind Mapping:
Mind Maps are an excellent technique for organising ideas or issues around a particular problem or theme. You begin by writing the main issue in the centre of your page and then writing associated words on lines coming from the centre. You then continue the process linking more associated words and phrases from each new word. The theory is that this kind of arrangement of ideas matches the way our brains work.

This feature of mirroring the way the brain works does not just help with creativity. It can aid memory too.

Brainstorming:
Brainstorming is probably one of the most familiar techniques. It is usually done by a group and involves the recording of all ideas around a particular problem. The recording of all ideas without judgement is one of the most important aspects of brainstorming. You should not make any decisions about the ideas or how to take them forward until a later session.

Allowing yourself to record your most outlandish ideas during brainstorming can be useful. They may not provide you with your final solution but they can be the spark that leads to a truly innovative and practical route.

SWOT:

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is a simple tool for analysing your current situation and deciding how best to go forward. You should make four lists under the headings Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The entries you make in these lists can form the basis of how you plan over the short and long term. Look for connections between the lists too. Can threats become opportunities? Can you turn weaknesses into strengths?

While making the lists you should try to write down how others might perceive you as well as how you perceive yourself.

Six universal questions

There are only really six kinds of question we can ask:

* What?
* Where?
* When?
* How?
* Why?
* Who?

When faced with a particular problem or opportunity it is always worthwhile asking a question of each kind. You can also keep asking the same kind of question to focus in on a particular issue. One suggested technique is to start a Mind Map with these questions as the first six points coming out of your central issue.

External ideas:
You should also look at sources of inspiration outside of your company. Talk to others to find inspiration or to get help testing your ideas.
Be aware of changes in your business area. If you act quickly enough you can turn threats into opportunities.

Strategic Planning for the Future:
Making the most of your ideas and opportunities means putting them into context for your business and looking at the big picture.

Enterprise Architecture

-Introduction:
The Zachman Framework is a framework for enterprise architecture which provides a formal and highly structured way of defining an enterprise. It uses a two dimensional classification model based around the 6 basic communication interrogatives (What, How, Where, Who, When, and Why) intersecting 6 distinct model types which relate to stakeholder groups (Visionary, Owner, Designer, Builder, Implementer and Worker) to give an holistic view of the enterprise which is being modeled.

--System Architecture:The design or set of relations between the parts of a system. There is no strict definition of which aspects constitutes a system architecture, and various organizations define it in different ways, including:

1)The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution.
2)The composite of the design architectures for products and their life cycle processes.
3)A representation of a system in which there is a mapping of functionality onto hardware and software components, a mapping of the software architecture onto the hardware architecture, and human interaction with these components.
4)An allocated arrangement of physical elements which provides the design solution for a consumer product or life-cycle process intended to satisfy the requirements of the functional architecture and the requirements baseline.
5)An architecture is the most important, pervasive, top-level, strategic inventions, decisions, and their associated rationales about the overall structure (i.e., essential elements and their relationships) and associated characteristics and behavior.
6)A description of the design and contents of a computer system. If documented, it may include information such as a detailed inventory of current hardware, software and networking capabilities; a description of long-range plans and priorities for future purchases, and a plan for upgrading and/or replacing dated equipment and software.
7)A formal description of a system, or a detailed plan of the system at component level to guide its implementation.
8)The structure of components, their interrelationships, and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over time.

The strong points are the complete coverage gained by touching each of the cells on the schema. The weak point is that this approach generates a lot of documentation, due to its completeness, which can be difficult to digest and sometimes of questionable utility.

Whats is Enterprise?

This whole effort from scratch is the foundation stone for my building own ideas and concepts to understand the complete in and out of the 'Enterprise' building process.
This articles and the references are the outcome of various queries, knowledge building process and the questions mostly bugged during my sleep.

I need to figure out exactly where I'm going and what exactly I will be doing in the coming time. Its an initiative to build the basic building blocks for understanding the efforts, procedures, planning methodologies and various factors involving the Case studies and the business patterns.

What exactly you want to build? What you are thinking of?
An Enterprise???
Is that a Ship?

A purposeful or industrious undertaking.
An organization created for business ventures.
A business, an ownership.
A Passion , profession , a hobby to meet or to create the market requirements.

Why you want to get into business?
As simple as you understand.

Do you have an idea?
No.

How will you develop the idea???
Market Research ... creating requirements or finding out the ways to meet the existing requirements.

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