Brilliant concept developments on datacenter enginering

Last summer I went to a Excecutive Briefing at the Microsoft EBC in Redmond. The this 3 day meeting handled about Microsoft moving to online services or cloud services. Probably you heard about the intentions of Microsoft and maybe you heard about names like BPOS and Azure.
For me, I was mainly interested in the online concepts and the business opportunity's. One of the issues on the agenda was about datacenters. Ofcourse, this is the hardware infrastructure needed to make the cloud possible was my first impression. Also a lot of datacenter guys joint us to the EBC. What surprised me was the way datacenter concepts developed and the way engineering and thinking about energy and sustainability lead to the modern datacenter architectures.

Take a look at this video for a few of those implemented concepts.

video Chicago datacenter

Met de uitrol van de Ricoh Document Store op een appliance, levert Ricoh haar oplossing op een basis voor - Software and Services -

De appliance waarop Ricoh haar Ricoh Document Store (RDS) levert kan enerzijds gezien worden als een vehicel om de software te leveren bij de klant. De appliance is in conceptuele zin echter veel meer. Het is een platform, een basis van waaruit een grote hoeveelheid van functionaliteiten geboden kan worden.
StartReady, de leverancier van de appliance en de partner van Ricoh waarmee samen een software distribution layer in de appliance is gebouwd legt uit:

StartReady biedt Microsoft OCS als een appliance. Wensing: “Het is een combinatie van Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) en een lokaal geïnstalleerde (on premise) oplossing. De hard- en software installeren we bij de klant, maar we bieden Microsoft OCS als managed service aan. In tegenstelling tot
volledige SaaS-diensten kun je dit wel makkelijk integreren in de rest van je infrastructuur. Tegelijkertijd bied je bedrijven de voordelen van SaaS, zoals een snelle implementatie en betalen via een vast bedrag per maand in plaats van een forse eenmalige investering.

bron: artikel TAMTAM

In het voorbeeld van het artikel is het product wat geleverd wordt Office Communication Server (OCS). Ricoh biedt met RDS een op SharePoint gebaseerde document -en dossiermanagement platform dat geïntegreerd is met de Multi Functionele Printers (MFP). Sinds lange tijd heeft Ricoh de middelen om deze (en nu dus in combinatie) te leveren tegen een bedrag op basis van afname van de dienst, zonder investering.

BING BING BING

Yahoo Search and Microsoft BING together. One year and a half ago at the Microsoft SharePoint conference in Seattle there was a big rumor. Microsoft bought FAST search technology and wanted to take over Yahoo.

Now you can't mis the news that was anounced (or leaked) on this years Microsoft World Partner Conference in New Orleans. Microsoft will take over the Search activities of Yahoo.

On the SharePoint conference last year Zia Zamann of FAST explained a bit about the marketshare of Microsoft, FAST, Google and Yahoo. Very interesting to see where Microsoft wanted to go with the strategy on search and the enormous marketshare when comparing the big Google on this issue against this upcomming Microsoft searuc prop.

Steve Ballmer was very clear about the Microsoft intentions the next 18 mounth. 'we will be comming, comming and comming till we got it right - BOOM' Therefore Microsoft is investing a HUGE amound of money into development.

Ricoh and Golf - just fun

On youTube a few video's explain the golf strokes.

Hard Surface

Water Shot

Chip Shot

Ricoh succesvol met Microsoft SharePoint en Ricoh Document Store

Voor de meeste bedrijven is een periode van relatieve rust aangebroken. Juist in deze periode lukt het Ricoh om de propositie Slim Samenwerken met een concrete invulling van de Ricoh Document Store succesvol in de markt te positioneren.
Key in dit traject is de focus en volharding gebleken. Vooral het opstellen van een heldere roadmap is een belangrijk handvat gebleken. De verankering in het businessmodel en het distributiemodel maakt de keuzen in de roadmap voor iedereen herkenbaar. Het maken van een heldere en consistente keuze leidt uiteindelijk tot succes, ook op het moment dat de handel stil lijkt te vallen.
Inmiddels zijn er in heel korte tijd een flink aantal deals gesloten waarin Ricoh Document Store een centrale rol speelt. Het aanbieden van de oplossing in een gedifferentieerd distributie kanaal is hier vol benut: RDS on premise (in eigen infrastructuur) en in een lease constructie, de keuze voor de appliance in het eigen netwerk en de appliance, maar dan gehost (dus als een ASP model) en ook gefinancierd.
Medio september zal RDS2.0 gereleased worden en drie solutions templates beschikbaar komen: postkamer, factuur distributie en leerling dossier. De laatste is gebaseerd op het dossiermanagement framework en als verticale oplossing in onderwijs ingericht.
Het volgende release slot is inmiddels grotendeels gepland en voor invulling van de roadmap zijn de workshops met de segmenten gestart. Deze toetsing vindt niet enkel intern, maar vooral ook met het gezicht naar buiten plaats. Op naar het volgende gezamelijke succes!

Ricoh Document Store is een concept waarin de intelligente multifinctionele devices geintegreerd worden met een platform gebaseerd op Microsoft SharePoint. De appliance maakt een zeer snelle en stabiele implementatie mogelijk. De appliance maakt bovendien het afnemen van beheerdiensten mogelijk.

New Orleans ##Microsoft #WPC09 ended

My intention was to put a little piece of my experiences to this blog about every day. The conference ended yesterday. Today only Business Feed back session from the Dutch Microsoft ecosystem in New Orleans. I couldn't attend this one because my flight is leaving soon now.
So I did not manage to put something here everyday, but the good thing is that time wasn't simply there. To much going on at the conference itself and in the evenings even more. Unfortunately the connection in the convention center was not good enough.

Very well were the keynotes of he Microsoft executives as I wrote earlier on. Tree days of keynotes that were intersting to listen to, inpiring and the content was of high quality too.

Now on the Louis Armstrong Int Ariport in New Orleans (connecting on a free conection with better quality than in the NO convention center)I have a little time to overthink the past days.

The New Orleans #Microsoft #wpc09 started

Today the Microsoft World Partner Conference in New Orleans started with a good breakfest at the convention center.

After some Microsoft warmpup the session of Allison Watson kicked the conference off. She was followed by Stephen Elop and Bill Veghte. So what's new? Allison launched the new Microsoft Partner Program. Looks like a lot of new tools. On first side there are some nice opportunity's to expand business. I'm afraid though that these tools are not as straight forward as shown. I expect them to be a lot beter and more usefull.

Stephen Elop showed a bit of the products that will be launched shortly and demonstrated some feautures of Office 2010 (we all get an technical preview invitation for it), Microsoft Online products like BPOS and also the SharePoint 2010 platform.
Elop is convinced that 90% of our customers will ask us to help them develop an Software and Services strategy within 12 months. The products are designed to support that, that's for sure.

The part of Bill was about Windows 7. It's not my core interest but it promises to be a hell of a lot better than vista. One partner told the story that he had to down grade customers after delivering Dell hardware to Windows XP. Now so has to be expected not only Windows 7 will be provided with new hardware in the way it used to work, but according to Microsoft also a lot of hardware in the installed based can be upgraded to Windows 7.

Microsoft is aiming on bigger deals in this changing world. They even named a figure of 16% a deal bigger. I wonder on what facts they based this 16%. I understand the opportunity to take advantage of the level of integration of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, the opporunity to add collaboration and communication to propositions. I however can't put numbers to it. We'll see.

9000 visitors on this event from 125 country's. That's about 40% less than last year. Still a lot of people. With 250 of them The Netherlands is the biggest group after the US itself.

Let's collor this event orange! Tonight the dutch partner reception. A lot of business friends are here. Look forward to meet them too.

Exploring New Orleans 3 - #wpc09

Yesterday after registering at the wpc09 I went back to the hotel. Glad to be able to take a shawer and rest a bit. I wanted to walk down the Missisipi, but from the busstop to the river wa a little tricky.The road is running over the convention center, or a long walk around it. It was far to hot to do that.

So I enjoyed the rest and planned to meet with a few partners and Microsofties to get some food in de evening.

At 7pm we met all in the Marriott at Canal St drank a beer and went of to grab a cow in a steakhouse. Boy what a big chunk they serve overthere.New Orleans is Hot, that is outside the buildings. Inside you need to keep moving to prevent freezing to your chair.

Maybe it's a smart idea to spent a little less to cooling down the buildings, that way going outside is a little less a problem.

After diner half of the group went for a little walk to Bourbon St. Me myself went with the group that taak a few beers in the hotel lobby.

Exploring New Orleans 2

This morning is well spent exploring a little of New Orleans. Just a day to do so and I choose to get on the bus and hunt for a treasure in New Orleans City Park. The street car is out of order for two months. That would have been better, but the alternative suits the purpose.
I went to cementery near City Park. On my way to the hotel in the ariport shuttle I spotted the graveyard. It was a big collection of little houses. A special place.
The bellman at the hotel asked me what my goal for today was. Walking and exploring New Orleans was my answer. He warned me to take enough water with me (or bear, but that was not a very good idea). It was very hot indeed and I was glad that I took two bottles with me.
The city park is a nice place. A little bit a swamp, think about those southern america films with the sounds that goes with it. I found the geocache grand entrance and went back to the hotel, took a shower and drank a lot of water.
Ready for the next event, goning to register for the wpc09 I guess.

Exploring New Orleans

Today wake up at about 6:30 am. Not bad for a jetlag. Slept quit allright. Had a little fight with setting the right temprature for the airco and wake up a few times.

This morning try to relax a little, write some stuff, plan the day and take a look at the programm of this week Microsoft World Partner Conference. First some coffee on the hotel room and ofcourse a refill, this is the US.

Weather report makes me worry a bit. Hot and change rain will hit New Orleans. Bad combination I figure. Today 90 degrees Fahrenheit and probably a lot of moisture.

For funn I'am planning on a geocaching trip. Have to do this today, I do not want to take them back again.

Business trip New Orleans

Yesterday was travel day. The trip Amsterdam to New Orleans contains a transit. I choose to travel on Houston and a little hour flight from Houston to New Orleans. The trip from Amsterdam was quit bumpy. No very big turbulence, but a long time more than usual. That is more than I expected and got use to the last trips to the US.

At the Amsterdam airport almost everryone was trying to get in one plane. Glad I was not on the SunExpress! Besides the bumps it was a flight as all others, to long and borring, even with the old bat flight attendents (where are those young lady's still dreaming help us travelers in these aire busses?).

After a few times US I'm used to the madness at imigration and customs. Just do not pay attention and follow orders while standing in line. This time in Houston We sensed the heat despite of airco's. Some 100 degrees, that's F.

Getting on the plane was special to. We had to walk to the continental gates for the flight to New Orleans, way on the other side of the airport. We got there just in time. Than when boarding, they opend a backdoor and the heat hit us. Again a short walk - outside - to a little 'bus'. We tried to get in and bearly managed it.

The trip to New Orleans was a short one, less than an hour. New Orleans was HOT. Finding a shuttle took us another hour. You know we make jokes about public servants. How many people needed to dig a hole? Well, here they needed 5 people to get us in the shuttle! One pointing out the way to get our tickets, one to open the door and put our bags in the shuttle, one to collect the tickets we just bought, one to drive, one to navigate for him... madness.

At the hotel everything fine JW Marriott on Canal st in the CBD (Central Business Deistrict) just a block from French quarter and two from Bourbon st. I called some guys here in New Orleans visiting the WPC and we made an appointment for dinner 7:30 pm CT.

After a shower I went to the hotel bar to drink a couple of Corona's and went of to get some stuff for the kids. Afterwards I had to experience Bourbon st. A lot of things going on there! No Mardi Gras but I spotted the Beads and the tits. Bear on the street (take away)and the Hustler sex shop crowded with family's. Weird this is the US too.

I met Lucas, Nils and Nelson at the cornor af Bourbon and Canal. We had some nice seafood dinner. 10:30pm time to go back to the hotel. But first again a short look on Bourbon. Well it was crowded, people dancing on the street, lot's of drinks on the street, beads and tits and live music everywhere.

Enough for one day. Finaly around midnight - nighty night.

Microsoft World Partner Conference 2009

So I almost finished packing. That is I try to pack only the most important things, i.e. nothing. Wondering, should I pack all of my stuff in just one little backpack? It's only a week New Orleans.
Got a new Backpack. Last time Seattle bought a new nice small Asus EEE. The BIG laptop backpack is handy, but a little heavy. I do not need the extra weight of the protection for my little partner. Lots of clothes I do not need. It's a business trip to the Microsoft WPC09 but, casual and it's hot in New Orleans.

Again a long flight to The States. I took a few travel bugs with me. For those who care: GEOCACHING. A nice way to 'hire' a local guide in a foreign city.

I'll travel with a business friend and I expect to meet some more along the way. First apointment in New Orleans: Diner with Lucas and Nils. We want to make clear to the Dutch Ecosystem what the nice Ricoh - StartReady aliance adds to the Microsoft technology based propositions. We will post you on that matter.

Ricoh Launches Visual Online Storage Service quanp

Quantum Paper

Sometimes you have to simply promote a development from your own compagnie. #Ricoh is a worldwide marketleader in IT solutions. Ricoh is famous for it's multi functional devices but that does not cover the innovative IT solutions in it's portfolio.

QUANP... Rings a bell? Just an example of those innovative solutions.

Tag cloud

Thinking about Search will take you sometime to metadata and tags. It is used in all kind of ways. For example to help you structure your documents in a document management system. Or better said, configure your system with a document structure plan. It is also possible to configure views with it and groups of related documents as if they where grouped in a dossier.
One nice and simple way to visually help the user to keep track of documents or important, often used tags is a 'TAG CLOUD'.



Such a bunch of words tell you a few things: what tags are used and the bigger they, the more they are used. When clicking on that hyperlink, it will organize the documents in a view that are tagged with that term. Fast and efficient.

Tag Clouds are used a lot in publishing sites using BLOGS like this one. (if you like the cloud in this BLOG there is a link to the script used) More and more you will see these kind of techniques appear in the more document management related systems. Not always in this form, but based on the technique itself.

So what has this to do with search? Well think about it. Do you want to search or to find.

Records Management lives in a mixed world

A few days ago I wrote a little piece on Records Management and SharePoint. SharePoint is recognized as a platform that can be configured to fulfill the function as an archive as described in the NEN 2082 Standard (Dutch).

The audit against the standard has been performed by the European Certification Bureau.

Last week I attended at a session where Rubicon demonstrated the standard available functionalities on Document Management that SharePoint provides. The second topic in this session was Rcords Management, SharePoint and the NEN2082 accreditation. For this reason Dick Marijnen from the ECB attended the session to explain a little about the standard and the impact of the standard on documents.

The session was no deep dive into the subject, but only a short introduction. Striking is the assumption in these kind of sessions that a document is still assumed to be 'a piece of text in a digital form'. Say a word document.

In my opinion two major complexities are unexposed:

What is a document?

What is the format of a document?

An document in the historical explanation is a piece of paper with a text or some drawings. Today we are looking in a total different way to a document. It can be a text with some drawing, but also a video or a recording. More complex is when documents are related and combined. For example a set of documents or a text document or a power point presentation with multi media content like an embedded video. About 20 years ago you had to go to a library to look up a document and a related video, go to a video player and so on... It's all there on our fingertips now.
One step further these documents never come alone, there is a reason why they are there. Related documents are dossiers and some of these documents are related to more than one dossier.

If this content is essential for you, your department and later the company or society it becomes a 'record'. Of course this is a VERY simple explanation. Think about it this way. When a document that you produced becomes very important for your company, it is very difficult to find, retrieve and maintain the record if it is located on your hard disk or in your drawer.
When digital, that is the starting-point of the concept of an application providing Records Management support, this will become much easier. True in lot's of ways, but look around. Look around in your own office. Take a look at your desk, think of the way you perform your tasks. Do you use paper during this process? What happens with it? So how digital are we? Or are we still dependent of paper, at least for a part of our life?
I do believe we live in a mixed world of paper and digital content and this is what makes Records Management complex. You can not ignore paper flowing through your organization. Yes you can digitize it as a kind of a remedy. And systems will be able to support the process better. But for the time being Records Management lives in a mixed world.

Hij koemt, hij koemt...

Al enige tijd staat het in de hoek van de Search technologie bol van de geruchten. Microsoft komt met een nieuwe Search engine. Intern bij Microsoft staat deze bekend onder de naam KUMO. Ook al lang geen geheim meer is het feit dat deze search engine onder een andere naam het levenslicht zal zien.

De keuze van Microsoft lijkt op de naam BING gevallen te zijn. Gaan we nu bingen ipv googlen? Het zal er om gaan spannen.

Het tipje van de sluier wat Microsoft oplicht geeft een kleine blik op de technologie. Wat opvalt is dat de resultaten veel 'rijker' zijn dan bij Google het geval is. Zie ik hier de inbreng van FAST?

Invention vs Innovation

About a month ago now Tim Hyer placed a BLOG on Innovation vs Invention (Cheskin). It was about a discussion with Peter E Hart and is innovation consultants of Ricoh Innovations.

invention "creates something new in the world," while innovation "captures value from invention."

I agree with the outcome of the discussion and the different level of complexity between invention and innovation. But still without the fish learning to fish makes no sense. The fact these two are related makes the total proces of development complex. Succes not only depends on the invention itself but als on the immagination neede to understand the value.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 en Recordmanagement

NEN 2082 is enige tijd geleden als norm geaccepteerd. NEN 2082 beschrijft de eisen die aan een systeem gesteld worden om voor recordmanagement gebruikt te mogen worden.

of zoals de norm zelf in de titel pagina aangeeft: Eisen voor functionaliteit van informatie- en archiefmanagement in programmatuur.

SharePoint had al een belangrijke audit op dit vlak doorstaan. De amerikaanse defensie stelt op een gelijke wijze eisen aan een systeem en de norm die daarvoor is opgesteld staat model voor een aantal afgeleide normen in Europa en uit eindelijk ook de NEN norm.

Er is wel een kanttekening te maken bij deze certificering. De certificering geldt voor het platform SharePoint (MOSS 2007), maar enkel in combinatie met de zogenaamde DOD 5015 pack.
Een goed recordmanagement is niet eenvoudig en om tot een goed systeem te komen moeten vooral ook aspecten als organisatie, gebruik en beheer meegenomen worden. Dat maakt dat de implementatie ook niet zomaar door iedere implemantatie partner uitgevoerd kan worden.

Certificering volgens NEN 2082 is uitgevoerd door het ECB

Education - does the ability for students to access work and applications from anywhere make sense?

...on 21th of may 2009 Christopher Dawson - technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts wrote:



...it does make a lot of sense for students to be able to access their work and applications from anywhere. Whether they are home sick and simply need to get their homework turned, they lack the resources for a computer of their own, or their schools are looking for a cost-effective way to deliver a standardized desktop with minimal hardware investment...



In his example he is relating the fact of being ill to the ability to still follow lessons. Chris states it is ofcourse an example and not the main reason to use this technology to accomplish the final goal, but still it is usefull. The technology presents a way to respond on these kind of events.

Cloud computing is NOT the holy grail, but a way to fit education to the demands of the future.

Cloud computing in education - does it make sense?

We all like to believe (me and my tech friends) today technology will move to the cloud. The future is cloud shaped. Services, functionality today on our PC or laptop (oh sorry PDA) will be available in the cloud. So no matter where you are and on what time you 'arrive' there, IT will be available.
The tech site of the story has become reality today. However what does it take to help the teachers to take advantage of the technology? Does this inside - out story fit the demands? What are the disadvantages of this development?

Well I do believe it fits more than just the demand, but it will support a future development and a vision on how to deliver education and support learning. Not only it will deliver the content to the student or enable the ability to share mutual content. It will be available to a much broader public. So not only your ideas will be available, but also the brilliant ideas of your colleague can help your students to understand the subject.
Teachers ask themselfs how to envolve the student and her or his parents in the proces. It is a harsh proces to keep a student on the right track without the support of the parents. When a program, the content or the way of communication does not fit the experience of a student he will drift away. But without the understanding of this complexity of the parents it is even harder to accomplish. So keep the parents envolved.
Is using this technology in education necessary? Does it make sense to take content to the cloud, even avoid direct contact? Isn't it a disadvantage to contact each other via internet?

NO we can not afford to ignore direct contact and meeting physical. We do need that personal touch and contact to teach and to learn. Still I do believe the technologie will support the goal and help the fit of the way content is presented to students and shared amongst teachers.

Responsibility

Whenever you decide to start something you've to take care of the consequences. So Ruth showed me in the simple comment on this BLOG.

'I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often'

In my own opinion it wasn't so special, and this is still my believe. When however people care you become Responsible.

So I decided to publish more often, thank you Ruth.

House of the future at the Microsoft Campus - an impressioin

Short impression of the house of the future at the Microsoft Campus. I've been there March 2009 visiting an EBC. Some very interesting technologies and implementations - not even this far of reality.