Marty Wolfe

An inside look at America’s largest data centers (infographic) November 2, 2011

In our increasingly connected world of cloud-powered information, it’s easy to forget that there are enormous facilities around the U.S. that store all this data. …

• http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/01/top-5-largest-data-centers-infographic/

Also .. an interesting look at Twitter’s DC..

• http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/19/twitter-atlanta-data-center/

My LinkedIn Connections.. October 11, 2011

A really interesting visualization of my connections in linkedin. .. Using “in maps”, it runs fairly quick and what’s interesting is how it attempts to sort and categorize your connections. In this way, you can see how one of your contacts in linkedin has impacts across the different categories. Really interesting view.

Tesla vs. Edison.. June 13, 2011

Well all know that there are amazing similarities between the world of Cloud computing (and “Cloud” in general) and the early 20th century debate over power distribution (specifically AC vs. DC).  There’s a great book which discusses this called “The Big Switch” (amazon link).. while a little extreme I think it relays the story quite well.  In any case, I found this really interesting info-graphic on the topic recently:

http://www.good.is/post/transparency-the-origins-of-electricity-tesla-vs-edison/

Waiting In Line.. June 10, 2011

Just waiting in line (May 28, 2011) for tickets to enter Forbidden City. You need tickets for everything and there are many ‘tour guides’ offering to help you. Many people are quite nice and, while very hot, the pollution has dissipated a bit and there’s a nice breeze. The veneer of capitalism is everywhere.

Lots of other pictures of my time in Beijing are here.. http://beijingmaw.shutterfly.com

Cloud and Cultural Adoption June 10, 2011

This was a great client discussion and trip to the Los Angeles area to talk about Cloud and help them determine the right first steps. It’s too bad I couldn’t meet with an old high school friend, as he was all caught up at work. Maybe next time.

One of the main topics which came up in our client discussion was the challenge of culture and cloud. The question put to me and the team went something like this..

“We want to use this Cloud model, and especially the automation, self-service and scheduling capabilities.. we think it will help us get test environments up fatster, etc. However, how do we convince the development teams to give up control? We can provide the HW part of the stack, but if we offer a common middleware stack, the developers will consider that an infringement on their ‘turf’.”

So I see this as usually a generalization of frustrated feelings and not really the whole story when I hear it. It is a problem for sure, but not everyone in development will have this kind of frustration when it comes to the underlying infrastructure, so it’s important for you to not be so binary in your thinking.

Here are the questions I asked to help the client re-shape their thinking:

1. Are there any teams in development who would be willing to try out this model?
2. Do they have a compelling reason (e.g. mandate, schedule, financial, etc.) to work with you?
3. Will any of the development teams become and advocate for your new approach? If so, start with them (see #1).
4. Have you found any common elements among the different applications? If so, go ahead and create a common image and offer it to one or more teams, especially those who would be willing to advocate for you to other teams (see #3).

While not everything to consider these are common topics you need to consider when trying to overcome cultural challenges relating to Cloud.

IBM Cloud Tiger Team .. InformationWeek.. May 12, 2011

I’ve been one of two global architect leaders in on this team since September 2010 .. and our General Manager mentioned us in the InformationWeek.. very cool.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/outsourcing/229403197?cid=nl_IW_cloud_2011-05-11_html