Posts Tagged ‘innovation’

Those of you who follow auto sports understand that it’s not just a sport of physical endurance and skill. Those two traits are definitely part of it but a large part of a team’s performance in a race also comes down to the tools and devices the team interacts with to achieve their results. If the driver is as strong as an ox, skillful and able to endure 12hrs of in the seat driving it still won’t guarantee him the race unless his car and crew are up to the task and able to perform at that same level. Likewise if the driver is not up to task but the car and team are you will have a similar inability to achieve. This sets auto sports aside from many of the other team sports we have come to love over time like football, baseball, soccer, etc. These sports all involve teammates however their reliance on tools and other devices to achieve their results is much less than in racing. Because of this it is incredibly important that all members of a Formula One team, from the car designers to the pit crew and driver, be performing at 100% at all times. This is not entirely unlike how a great operations team works in a datacenter. All members of that team must be able to fulfill their role to the best of their ability and then some. An ops team that has the best hardware and tools along with the best technicians and knowledge is an unstoppable force comparable to the Ferrari’s and Brawn GP’s of F1.

A driver can only do so much with the equipment they are handed on race day. If Sebastian Vettel is given a car with a bad engine for example it makes his job much more difficult, if not impossible, to succeed. The same goes with datacenter equipment. That is why SoftLayer prides itself on using high quality components from high quality manufactures for all networking and server applications. Of course being the best requires more than just high end equipment and tools. It requires people of an equal caliber. That is why SoftLayer goes above and beyond to ensure that their staff is well informed, capable and happy. This creates an environment where people not only want to personally succeed but also want to share in the successes and failures that the company experiences, much like any well developed team would. This also creates a feeling of investment by those who are on the team which in turn pushes each member to do their absolute best at all times. SoftLayer’s involvement in recent large media events was a huge undertaking that the company turned in to successful ventures. Just like how Ferrari is always pushing for the win and to be the best, so is SoftLayer.

Innovation is another competitive trait that you see often in F1. BrawnGP and RedBull Racing (both relatively fledgling teams in Formula 1) took an alternate interpretation of the design guidelines this season which, after much ado, was found to be a perfectly legal interpretation that many of the other teams didn’t see or use. These innovations helped BrawnGP, a new comer to the sport (technically they are the defunct Honda team but that is for a different discussion), lead the championship standings this season and has handed them a number of victories. Here again the kinds of innovation you see in the top tier or racing you also see with SoftLayer. No, we didn’t add wings to our servers but our network within a network topography and CloudLayer services are great examples of how SoftLayer is taking the old rule book and innovating new ideas, products and services utilizing a different yet valid interpretation. The success yielded from these experiences continues to motivate the SoftLayer team and is proof that following to the beat of a new drum can, in many aspects of business and sport, be a good idea.

I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the cloud software we use (okay, maybe a little ,) but I know the gist of it as far as hardware is concerned- redundancy. Entire servers were the last piece of the puzzle needed to complete entire hardware redundancy. In my original article, Hardwhere?, (http://theinnerlayer.softlayer.com/2008/hardwhere/) I talked about using load balancers to spread the load to multiple servers (a service we already had at the time) and eluded to cloud computing.

Now cloud services are a reality.

This is a dream come true for me as the hardware manager. Hardware will always have failures and living in the cloud eliminates customer impact. Words cannot describe what it means to the customer. Never again will a downed server impact service.

Simply put, when you use a SoftLayer CloudLayer Computing Instance, your software is running on one or more servers. If one of these should fail, the load of your software is shifted to another server in the “cloud” seamlessly. We call this HA or High Availability.

If there is a sad part to all of this, it would be that I have spent considerable effort optimizing the hardware department to minimize customer downtime in the even on hardware failures. But I have a rather odd way of looking at my job. I believe the end game of any job I do is complete automation and/or elimination of the task altogether. (Can you say the opposite of job security?) I have a going joke where I say: “Until I have automated and/or proceduralized everything down to perfection with one big red button, there is still work to be done!”

Cloud computing eliminates the customer impact of hardware failures. Bam! Even though this has nothing to do with my hardware department planning, policies and procedures, I have no ego in the matter. If it solves the problem, I don’t care who did the work and was the genius behind it all, as long as it moves us forward with the best products and optimal customer satisfaction!

We have taken the worry out of hosting- no more deciding what RAID is best. No more worrying about how to keep your data available in the event of a hardware failure. CloudLayer does it for you and has all the same service options as a dedicated server and more! One more step to a big red button for the customer!

Now back to working on the DC patrol sharks (they keep eating the techs!) New project- tech redundancy!

Wow, where did we come from to get to here?

How many readers remember being your Dad’s remote control for the TV, heating a bit of oil that covered the bottom of a pan till it sizzled to make popcorn, percolating coffee pots, wondering how long it would take for enough hot water to take a shower after your primping older brother hogged it all? What about “fast” forwarding cassette and VCR tapes or thawing a chicken breast for hours on the counter? The list goes on and on.

My absolute favorite was sitting around on a Friday night at about age 10 at the baby sitters with my brother listening to the radio just hoping that “Shake your Booty” would come on the radio so we could record it instead of having to go buy it.

The amount of time we used to sit around waiting for things to happen was huge! Today, it’s all in an instant!

We have five remote controls or at the very least one really smart one that can do it all. Microwave popcorn that takes minutes and no cleanup, instant coffee – just add water, instant hot water heaters that never go cold, mp3 players that you can just click and go from song to song with no waiting; DVD/DVR that you can just go from scene to scene or skip those boring commercials… and you can use that same microwave to thaw your chicken in no time at all.

Today you can be listening to the radio in your car and click a button and it will tell iTunes what song it was and queue it up for your next download, you just have to love technology and the speed at which it happens.

I also remember the days when we had a rotary phone with an 82.5 foot cord that you could string across the house to the bathroom or in front of the TV and keep talking. Then it became the wall phone with the 84 foot stretchy cord and the number keys were on the handset, how cool was that? It never failed though- no matter how long the cord, you always needed more!

Today, you can Facebook, Tweet, chirp, yell, chat, and instant message from just about anywhere, even from a Jet Blue jet flying through the air. That is just pretty cool stuff.

In my previous life before I became a booth babe and a bloghogger I was known for being fairly technical in the world of Microsoft Windows Server and Citrix MetaFrame. They actually worked pretty well for a few of the company apps I had to deal with along my career path. The hardest part was actually setting up the application server to be just perfect and getting it on the wire to allow the employees to do their jobs.

The real challenge was getting more servers added to the pool in a timely fashion at month end for accounting or at rush times of the year for the sales group. It takes time to blast an OS no matter what method you are using, then get the app installed and functioning and then add it to the pool. Sure, I came up with a few tricks on how to image Citrix and they worked but it was still a waiting game trying to procure the hardware, install the image, get the server racked and cabled, etc. It never failed, a week before I had them ready the sales and/or accounting group managers were all over me because it was MY fault that they had slow applications. A few times just about the time I had the servers ready they didn’t need them anymore, I missed the rush.

Welcome to Instant Servification! CloudLayer, oh CloudLayer, I would have paid out of my own pocket back then to have this technology. With the release of hourly billing you can just use them when you need them even if your peak loads are only a fraction of one day. You create your golden image, save it, and push it out to as many as you need for as long as you need, and then when your peak usage is over, cancel them like high interest credit cards!

That is instant Gratification at its best! Welcome to SoftLayer how can we help you?

As I am entering my final semester of college, SoftLayer has given me the opportunity to experience what it’s like to have a “real job.” I very am lucky to have the chance to work for a great company and gain valuable work experience before I graduate. Although, I have only been here for a little over a week, it is very exciting to be a part of a hardworking team and innovative company. Everybody in the office is a strong believer in Softlayer, and that is why they are here.

The question at hand is: Does college prepare you for the real world? The obvious answer should be yes. We spend four or more years of our life at universities and colleges, and most of us are still in debt for it. I sometimes wondered how Aristotle or The Canterbury Tales had any application to my future career. Although many of the courses we studied outside our majors seemed irrelevant, I see now that we did learn something from it. We learned how to meet deadlines and work diligently. College is strenuous for a reason, and now that I have been a part of the work force, I understand this. Being able to complete college coursework proves to employers that you have the ability to learn and take on large tasks.

There are many aspects of college that have definitely prepared me for this job. The most important skill I have gained from college so far has been working with Excel. Being a market analyst, I spend most of my days in excel spreadsheets. College has also helped me gain a sense of independence and responsibility, two very important attributes for an efficient employee. Your boss needs to trust you not only to get the tasks done, but to get them done well, and professors do not hold you to any lesser standards. During college, there are also many essential lessons learned outside the classroom like learning to deal with roommates, getting along with a diverse group of people, paying bills on time, and being punctual.

In conclusion, college does prepare us for the real world. Sometimes I would sit in class and say to myself “I’m never going to use this”, and I am sure I was not the only one. The most important thing I took from college is to work hard. Sometimes your boss will ask you do things that you do not want to do, but that is life. Life takes hard work, and hard work will let you experience the best things in life that you value.

The new search engine “Bing” by the software colossus Microsoft is a sad attempt at capturing some of the search engine traffic that internet superstar Google has dominated for quite some time. Based on the preview video at bing.com, the search engine offers little in new features or innovation, instead catering to the ‘too-lazy-to-click-the-back-button” crowd with expanded link previews from the search results page. I have personally found this type of feature to be near worthless, as information of value is typically more than a few lines from the top. Then again maybe my 5 button mouse has numbed me to the indignation so many users have suffered by having to move the cursor to click the back button after discovering the web page wasn’t quite what they were after. (Google added longer previews in March.)

Microsoft representatives point out the technologic advancement of augmenting the standard fare keyword searches with some semantic based algorithms. This alone should yield significantly better results than the current Microsoft engine, “MSN Live Search.” (Google rolled out its semantic searches months ago.)

Next, Microsoft offers the “Conjecture Circle” to combat Google’s “Wonder Wheel”. OK, I’m just kidding on that one. Besides, it is only June, and Microsoft is still catching up with Google’s March features. They will not be taking on the “Wonder Wheel” until August or September.

I think I see a pattern here! This “innovation” reeks of lag. While taking the conservative copycat approach might be the safe thing for the boys from Redmond, it will never vault them to the front of the line in this market. The turbo boost for technology industries is clearly tied to new ideas and advancement. We see this time and time again as startups bring new whiz-bang tools to market and shoot right past the established giants. Time will of course tell. Fortunately in the fast paced world of the internet, we will not have to wait long it see if Bing will go bang.

I am not ashamed to say that I own both the Slanket and the Snuggie. I got the Snuggie as a gift last year, and I purchased the Slanket for myself a couple of months ago (only partly because of the cool SL name). The Slanket turned out to be a WAY better product. As I sat on the couch with my Slanket and my kitten Linux, I started drawing these hilarious and uncanny parallels between the Slanket and my company, SoftLayer. Once I got started, I just couldn’t stop:

1. The Slanket is bigger, and thicker. The fabric of the Slanket is far more robust, and doesn’t start “pilling” immediately. It’s designed for constant and vigorous use, and will last me a very long time before wearing out.
2. There are more buying options with the Slanket – they come in different sizes and many more colors (including a shade that’s *almost* SoftLayer Red), so there’s a Slanket for every need.
3. The Slanket has a better name – Sleeves + Blanket = Slanket. I’m not likely to talk about my “Snuggie” to my peers, because … well, I’m not a 4-year old.
4. While the Slanket is a bit more expensive, it is a far superior product. In the Blankets-With-Sleeves industry, you seem to get what you pay for.
5. I used the Contact Us form on the Slanket website to talk to their SLales team, and got great, personalized service, and a discount! Btw, the owner’s email address is also available online, which shows that he is involved in the day to day operations, and wants to hear from you.

Does any of this sound familiar? These are the same things people love about SoftLayer. I am a very proud SLanket customer. A++ would buy again.

It’s a fact — all software ends up relying on a piece of hardware at some point. And hardware can fail. But the secret is to create redundancy to minimize the impact if hardware does fail.
RAIDS, load balancers, redundant power supplies, cloud computing – the list goes on. And we support them all. Many of these options are not mandatory, but I wish they were! That’s where the customer comes in – it is critical to understand the value of the application and data sitting on the hardware and set a redundancy and recovery plan that fits.

Keep your DATA safe:

• RAID – For starters *everyone* should have a RAID 1, 5, or 10. This keeps your server online in the event of a drive failure.

The best approach – RAID 10 all the way. You get the benefits of a RAID 0 (striping across 2 drives so you get the data almost twice as fast) and the security of RAID 1 (mirroring data on 2 separate drives) all rolled into one. I think every server should have this as a default.

• Separate Backups – EVault Backup, ISCSI Storage, FTP/NAS Storage, your own NAS server or just a different server. Lose data just once (or have the ability to recover it painlessly) and these will pay for themselves. Remember, hardware is not the only way in which you can lose data -– hackers, software failures, and human error will always be a risk.

StorageLayer. Use it or lose it.

Going further:

• Redundant servers in different locations – spread your servers out across different datacenters and use a load balancer. Nothing is safer than a duplicate server 1000’s of miles away. That’s why we have invested in a second data center – to keep your data and business safe.

Check ‘em out in our Services > Network Services section.

The future:

• Solid state drives – aww yeah baby. They are coming.

Solid state drives are just that – a drive with no moving parts. No more platters or read/write heads. I mean come on, hard drives are essentially using the same basics that old record players use. CD’s use this technology too. And you see where those went (can you say iPod? I prefer my iPod touch. I have never had an iPod until now so I skipped right to the new fancy pants model. Can you tell I just got it?).

Check out these comparison tests of solid state drives vs. conventional ones:

• Faster, faster, faster! –- Processors, memory, drives, network — everything is getting much faster. And in part by redundancy (dual and quad core processors, dual and quad processor motherboards). See? Redundancy is the way of the future!

We have 4 Intel Xeon Quadcore Tigertown processors on one motherboard. That’s 16 processors on one server! Shazam!

• Robot DC patrol sharks – yep. Got the plans on my desk right now. But I can’t take all the credit, Josh R. suggested this one, I just make things happen.

I work to keep all of our hardware running in tip top condition. But I look at the bigger picture when it comes to hardware – how to completely eliminate the impact of any hardware issue. That’s why I suggest all the redundancies listed above. While I can reduce the probability of hardware issues with testing, monitoring of firmware updates, proper handling procedures, choosing quality components, etc., redundancy is the ultimate solution to invisible hardware.

Hardwhere?, if you will.

-Brad