The holiday season is started, and I've actually done some Christmas shopping! It's amazing how quickly I can get into it. Now that I've got a few things, I'm ready to keep going – catalogs and the Internet are my chosen method of shopping. I've used catalogs for years, and that's where I've been able to find unique and personal gifts.
Gifts this year will include CC4Families. I've actually just returned from Mississippi, where I went to meet with people and see first hand what the area looks like. It is unbelievable that, two months after the hurricane, the area still looks like a war zone. Please visit the Web site and consider joining us in helping these people. If you've already contacted us, you'll be getting details about what we learned while we were there very soon. If not, just email, and we'll get you on the list. A quick summary – the overwhelming message we got was that the only real help people were getting was from churches and independent organizations like CC4Families. FEMA and the Red Cross (etc.) are just too big to help individuals. We need you!
We're looking at hardware this month – servers in particular. As many of you know, "server" is in my opinion the worst word in all of IT. It just has too many definitions. So, this month we'll talk about many of the uses of the term. More importantly, we'll talk about the importance of servers in today's IT.
Our Web class is completely filled, but there are still a few seats available in the DC class in November. Consider that session if you need training right away.
And have a great Thanksgiving! My daughter is having Thanksgiving dinner this year, so we'll be at her house with her 90 lb. puppy, my 20ish lb. nieces, and other assorted family. I wish you all a wonderful day/week-end with lots of turkey, football, and whatever else fits in your annual day of thanks. While this year has had more than its share of horrors, we still have much to be thankful for, and we at SemCo certainly consider you all to be on our list of bright spots.
The schedule for the next three months is below, or view the complete schedule on the Website:
CSTA Web sessions:
December 1,2
January 10,11
CSTA classroom sessions:
November 15 - DC area
December 6 - Raleigh (NEW AREA)
December 15 - Chicago
January 19 - New York City area
January 31 - Atlanta
UITJ (Understanding IT Jobs) Web sessions:
November 2
December 2
January 11
TR Web session:
November 17
Keep in touch . . .
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Servers - Lots of them
Server is one of the worst words in IT. First of all – is a server hardware or software? Well, we all use the term to refer to computers, but actually any computer becomes a server if it's running server software. What's server software? Any software that makes programs and/or data available to other systems. All mainframes are servers, as all run server software. We do, however, all recognize the term as referring to the midsize computers that primarily function as a central manager of programs and data that can be used by many desktop systems.
Now, that being said, how many different descriptions of server are we exposed to? It's often not the servers themselves that we hear about, but the organization of servers within a company. How many servers do you think a company like AOL, or Amazon has? A Web server is a program whose main function is to supply Web pages to requesting browsers. How many Web servers does Amazon have to run to handle their 4 million average daily unique visitors? How many physical computers do they need to run these programs? And, how are the physical servers organized?
This is where the terms server farm, Web farm, and Web server farm come into the picture. A server farm is a group of computers acting and housed together in a single location. These systems usually operate as a single computer with the same application (in this case, the Amazon system). Network switches and routers connect the different servers in the farm to each other. Server farms are commonly used for Web hosting, and by ISPs (Internet Service Providers such as AOL) that provide Web-hosting services. Managing the computers is called server provisioning and server virtualization.
Provisioning is a term that simply means "providing." It's currently used in on-demand computing to describe software that automatically provides resources in real-time to applications as needed. Picture Amazon's traffic. They have 4 million visitors each day – how many of these visitors are searching for books? Let's say 2 million. That means thousands of servers are running the "sell books" application. Then what happens when Oprah makes a book club pick? Amazon is going to get way above average visitors – even an additional 500,000 - all of whom will search for books. Amazon now needs to provide 25% more servers to handle the additional visitors. Where do these servers come from? That's what server provisioning means. Perhaps the system must cancel some batch programs that are running to turn those servers over to run the "sell books" application. Perhaps Amazon subscribes to an on-demand processing center, and can get additional servers from the center. However it's done, additional servers must be provided to the new traffic. Application servers are the programs that then deploy the "sell books" programs into the available computers.
Server virtualization goes hand-in-hand with provisioning. Virtualization refers to the technology that pools together resources into a single unit that can be managed from a single point. This allows resources to be assigned to a user only as needed, and returned to the pool when free. The prior discussion assumed that half of Amazon's visitors would be searching for books. Without virtualization and provisioning, IT staff would assign half of the servers to run the "sell books" application. In a virtualized system, there would be no pre-assignment of resources. Only as people visit the Web site, are servers allocated to an application such as "sell books." This means that there would be a complete pool of available servers for Oprah's viewers, and they could be provisioned (provided) as needed.
Other descriptions of servers refer to the architecture, or the physical make-up of the computer itself. For many years servers were RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) machines. A RISC system is one built with chip technology, and designed with a specific and smaller instruction set to be more efficient. These systems are typified by fast speeds and extensive graphic capabilities. They are often called servers as they function in that capacity most of the time.
The newest architecture is server blades (or blade servers). These systems are built by stacking physically small blades in a rack to occupy less space. Each blade can include processors, memory, storage (disks) and network connections, and all share the common power and air-cooling resources of the rack (also called a chassis). The purpose of this design is to cut down on the heat generated by typical computer system. We talked about Amazon needing thousands of servers – you can't put a thousand tower computers in one room without having incredible heat problems. Server blade systems address this problem and are increasingly used for server farms.
As the Internet continues to grow in use, and as more and more applications either convert to online systems, or include an online (or Web-based) front-end, servers become more necessary. This means both the hardware and the software as neither can function without the other.
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1. Are you getting Razrwire sunglasses? And then what will you do with your Thump sunglasses?
2. What's the difference between ALM, PLM, and ILM?
3. How fast is fast? What are the speeds of current supercomputers? Within a few thousand calculations per second would be close enough for a correct answer.
4. Are money testing and gorilla testing the same thing?
5. Which of the following does not belong:
a. Build
b. Program
c. Release
d. Version
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Technology keeps growing. TechRef just passed 17,000 definitions. This knowledgebase was published in 1989 with 3,000 definitions. Already this year 2100 definitions have been added and/or updated. And it's not going to slow down.
Look at what's on the horizon. Voice input and output. Yes, we are going to be able to really talk to our computers. "Computer tell me what the sales on item xxxxx have been over the past three months" is going to happen soon – predictions are between two to five years. Wireless will be the norm. The cables will go, and our homes and offices will be wireless except for power supplies. We will have refrigerators that will generate shopping lists – and then contact the local grocery store to submit the approved (we do get to do something) order – which will be delivered to us.
All of this requires additional technical people, and additional technical skills and knowledge. It also requires all of us to become more technical. We have to understand technology in order to tell the techies what to develop. We have to understand technology in order to use increasingly sophisticated products. We have to understand technology in order to decide what products to purchase and use. And, more and more we're being moved into the IT Department. First, business started using business people for analysis. Then they moved business people into testing. Now business people are becoming designers and modelers.
It's exciting to be involved at this time. It's even a little scary. Just remember, it's our job to understand the technology and explain it in terms, and with examples, that make sense to business people. Stick with us, we'll work on this together!
Get in touch!
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Architects and Architecture
Slowly but surely, the "important" noun in IT titles has changed from "Engineer" to "Architect." At the same time, discussions about architecture have increased, frameworks are important, software releases are called builds, and hubs are no longer just a communications device, they're also a software design tool. Next month we'll look at IT's "building industry" terminology.
architect Noun used in many IT titles. Senior design position, usually encompassing both design and modeling. There are many types of architects including data architects, solution architects, enterprise architects, applications architects, and infrastructure architects.
architecture Architecture refers to the construction of any aspect of IT (Information Technology). Computer architecture includes storage types, speeds, etc. Data architecture describes the building blocks of data file and databases. Communications architecture includes types of networks and backbones and applications architecture covers types of application systems.
architectural framework An architectural framework includes a methodology for designing an information system by using building blocks. It defines a common vocabulary and describes the building blocks and states how they fit together. It includes a set of development tools, recommended standards, and a list of compliant products that can be used to implement the building blocks. Architectural frameworks are used in EA (Enterprise Architecture) and are created by tool vendors, the government, and IT practitioners.
build Development technology. Systems are often developed by offering more and more sophisticated versions of the software, each of which is called a build. This iterative development allows for continual testing of the key components of the software. Builds are pre-release versions of the product.
data hub Data architecture which allows data to be used across multiple systems. The architecture is based on a wheel design, with spokes connecting to a central hub. A data hub is organized around the integration of a single type of data, such as customer, product or order data, to be used across multiple systems. This hub can then support various spokes; for example, a product data hub can be used to support order processing, distribution and service.
development framework A set of software building blocks that programmers can use, extend, or customize for specific computing solutions. The basic infrastructure of applications. Provides developers with such things as file and edit menus, print reports and pre-defined screens so the same code doesn't have to be written for each application. A framework used in object-oriented development is a set of related classes.
enterprise The entire company. Software developed for the enterprise considers all aspects of the company as opposed to departmental software development which only considers a specific department or function.
infrastructure Infrastructure refers to the connections between the parts of a system. System infrastructure is a combination of hardware (the physical infrastructure that is comprised of cables and equipment), and software (the middleware and software tools). Another way of looking at it is by comparison. The infrastructure of a city is how you get around the city – the roads, subways, bridges, etc. The infrastructure of a computer system is how data gets around the system – the hardware and the software.
.NET Framework Development and runtime environment. Includes outlines, guides, and the languages used to develop Web applications. Includes VB.NET, C++.NET, C#.NET, Perl, and Python as core languages, and many other languages can be used through CLR (Common Language Runtime) function. The runtime environment includes CLR and class libraries (ASP.NET, ADO.NET) to execute programs developed through the .NET tools. Originally released: 2001.
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1. These are sunglasses/cellphones. You can receive calls and dial by voice at up to 30 feet away from a Motorola Razr cell phone. But this will conflict with your Thump glasses, which play digital music. Thump glasses have been available for a year, but you can be the first on your block with the Razrwire glasses – just out.
2. Two of these are actually the same. ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) and PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) both work with the same lifecycle – define, analyze, design, develop, test, and implement. One talks about software (ALM) and the other refers to manufacturing (PLM). ILM is the one that's different. ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) deals with data storage and has completely different phases in the lifecycle - assessment, socialization, classification, automation, and review.
3. IBM's Blue Gene/L supercomputer now contains over 130,000 processors and operates at 135.5 trillion calculations per second. The system was completed in September, 2005.
4. No, they're not. Monkey testing is an unscripted test of random activity. The name comes from the theory that a room full of monkeys with a typewriter (or computer) placed in front of each of them would, given enough time, produce the works of Shakespeare. Based on the idea that random activity can create order or cover all options. Gorilla testing is testing a system by pounding on a site or application in as many ways as the tester can think of without an organized test plan. It is an intense round of testing--quite often redirecting all available resources to the activity to test as much of the application in as short a period of time as possible.
5. They all belong – but b) program is the odd man out. A build, release, or version of a program is the program in executable form, at a point in time. These terms all recognize that programs change and new versions (or releases, or builds) with fewer bugs and more functionality will appear. Program is the overall word that refers to all of them and a program is not necessarily in executable form as in, e.g. "source program."
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