commodity versus complexity - it as innovation in technology (box cio briefing)

Martin Hamilton

Commodity vs. Complexity: IT as Innovation in TechnologyBox CIO Briefing, London, January 2015

Photo CC BY-NC-SA Flickr user lostincustoms04/02/2015 Commodity vs Complexity - IT as Innovation in Technology - Box CIO Briefing 1

Photo CC BY-NC-SA Flickr user lostincustoms04/02/2015 Commodity vs Complexity - IT as Innovation in Technology - Box CIO Briefing 2

Themes

Commodity vs. ComplexityBox CIO Briefing

1. Back to the future

2. Trends and signifiers

3. IT as Innovation in Technology

04/02/2015 Commodity vs Complexity - IT as Innovation in Technology - Box CIO Briefing 3

Themes






Back to the future


From Vaughn Bell in Slate [http://goo.gl/YW1DW0]:

A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload.

In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind.

The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an "always on" digital environment.

http://goo.gl/YW1DW0

Back to the future


From Vaughn Bell in Slate [http://goo.gl/YW1DW0]:

A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload.

In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind.

The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an "always on" digital environment. Conrad Gessner died in 1565.

http://goo.gl/YW1DW0

Back to the future

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Hands up if you remember:

› Vampire Taps

› DIY thin ethernet using TVcoax cabling

› Trumpet WinSock

› Mosaic

› Archie, Gopher, WAIS, …

› WaveLAN


UKNOF Internet History Project:http://www.uknof.org.uk/history.html

http://www.uknof.org.uk/history.html

Back to the future

Commodification:

› Ethernet and structured cabling

› …enabling IP telephony and wireless

› Server hardware as a commodity

› Wintel becomes a serious option

› Inexorable rise of the Internet andalongside it, Linux

› Virtualization and cloud computing, everything as a service


Photo credit: Kysoh

Themes






Trends and signifiers

Moonshot:› Single, unifying technology that enables

you to effectively manage and control access to a wide range of web and non-web services and applications.

› These include cloud infrastructures, High Performance Computing, Grid Computing and commonly deployed services such as email, file store, remote access and instant messaging

www.ja.net/moonshot


http://www.ja.net/moonshot


Reach:› £4M funding from BIS to work

towards a Janet which is "open and accessible" to industry

› Provides industry access to university e-infrastructure facilities to facilitate further investment in science, engineering and technology with the active participation of business and industry

› Modelled on Innovate UK competition process


www.ja.net/janet-reach

http://www.ja.net/janet-reach


Safe share:› Encrypted VPN infrastructure between

organisations

› Providing enhanced confidentiality and integrity per ISO27001

› Requirement to move electronic health data securely and support research collaboration

› Working with biomedical researchers at Farr Institute, MRC Medical Bioinformatics initiative, ESRC Administrative Data Centres



Equipment sharing:› Brokered industry access to £60m

public investment in HPC

› Working with EPSRC to pilot theKit-Catalogue software, sharingdetails of 10,000 items of highvalue equipment

› Newcastle University alone issharing £16m+ of >£20K valueequipment


Photo credit: HPC Midlands

www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/equipment-sharing-made-easy

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/equipment-sharing-made-easy


Observations:

› Growing emphasis on what the network enables

› Sharing facilities to reduce the friction of collaboration– And achieve operating efficiencies

› Astronomical volumes of data – LHC, SKA, 100,000 Genomes

› Joining the dots across the R&D landscape – Catapults,industrial connectivity, industry access to e-Infrastructure

› Best of breed solutions increasingly commodity/consumer IT– Build, buy or broker decision now more crucial than ever


Themes






IT as Innovation in Technology

Example: Autonomous Vehicles

› Capability:– Do we have it in house?

– If not: build, buy or broker?

– New model or updated? Retrofit?

› Capacity:– Can we do it at scale?

– How do we respond to changes in demand?

› Sector specific:– Shift from buying cars to renting them

Photo CC BY-NC-SA Flickr user traftery

Photo credit: Google



Example: 5G communications

› From Samsung, China Mobile and Huawei:– 50Gbit/s peak

– 1Gbit/s generally

– Speeds up to 500km/hr

– Millisecond latency

› Underpinning technology– mmWave based?

– Massive MIMO arrays?

– Software defined networking / radios?

– New generation of backplanes?

Photo credit: CC-BY-NCFlickr user Rain Rabbit



Example: 5G trends (projected)

› Bandwidth:

– From streaming Despicable Me 5 in 8K

– To smart sensors in street furniture

› Latency:

– From Call of Duty 12 on HS2

– To tracking your next Amazon Drone delivery

› Massification:– From 90,000 FA Cup Vines

– To a telepresence session with two rooms

Photo CC BY Flickr user mariusb

Photo credit: CC BY-NC Flickr user willrich



IT == Innovation in Technology

› Conventional wisdom: IT as a cost centre– Is that how Tesco and Amazon see it?

› Can you be replaced with a robot?– Or an outsourcerer / shared service / SaaS / …

› What do (or can) you do that gives yourinstitution a unique advantage?– May not be what you are doing now

› Are we actually entering a new golden age?– Discuss!


Photo credit: CC-BY-NCFlickr user Rain Rabbit

Find out more…


Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND

Martin Hamilton, [email protected]

@martin_hamiltonhttp://martinh.net

commodity versus complexity - it as innovation in technology (box cio briefing)

Technology

complexitybox cio

technologybox cio briefing

unifying technology

conrad gessner

slate http

cloud computing

kysoh8 themescommodity

grid computing