Tag: cloud computing

Google: Prediction API and other cool stuff

Google just announced it’s tools Big Query and Prediction API for use with it’s new cloud storage device called Google Storage. With this the computing cycle seems to have come a full circle – from mainframe to desktop/servers to cloud. The Prediction API seems interesting but it, and the other services, are quite clearly dependent on market as well as developer enthusiasm. Me thinks, Google knows a thing or two about Big Data, and this one looks like a revenue positive product from Google ( unless they get REST less and let it languish like other great ideas-like Docs,Wave etc)

Also could be interesting is applications from both R, as well as SAS and SPSS to start using this remote data cloud/server farm 😉

With Storage,Querying and Prediction Analysis- Google is definitely in the Infrastructure as a Service business, but success with these services would be crucial to establish it’s name in the formidably lucrative business analytics and business intelligence fields.

http://code.google.com/apis/predict/

http://code.google.com/apis/bigquery/

http://code.google.com/apis/storage/

Partly Cloudy: Hale

Video Citation-Mason Hale

Poem Lyrics-Mason Hale

http://flowdelic.org/archives/2009/04/partly-cloudy/

Partly Cloudy

We have a dream
A vision
An aspiration
To compute in the cloud
To pay as we go
To drink by the sip
To add cores at our whim
To write to disks with no end
To scale up with demand
And scale down when it ends
Elasticity
Scalability
Redundancy
Computing as a utility
This is our dream
Becoming reality

But…
There’s a hitch.
There’s a bump in the road
There’s a twist in the path
There’s a detour ahead on the way to achieving our goal

It’s the Database
Our old friend
He is set in his ways
He deals in transactions to keeps things consistent
He maintains the integrity of all his relations
He eats disks for breakfast
He hungers for RAM
He loves queries and joins, and gives each one a plan
He likes his schemas normal and strict
His changes are atomic
That is his schtick

He’s an old friend as I said
We all know him well
So it pains me to say that in this new-fangled cloud
He doesn’t quite fit

Image Courtesy: James C Pitt of NYT

Don’t get me wrong, our friend can scale as high as you want
But there’s a price to be paid
That expands as you grow
The cost is complexity
It’s more things to maintain
More things that can go wrong
More ways to inflict pain
On the poor DBA who cares for our friend
The one who backs him up and, if he dies, restores him again

I love our old friend
I know you do too
But it is time for us all to own up to the fact
That putting him into the cloud
Taking him out of the rack
Just causes us both more pain and more woe
So…
It’s time to move on
Time to learn some new tricks
Time to explore a new world that is less ACIDic

It’s time to meet some new friends
Those who were born in the cloud
Who are still growing up
Still figuring things out
There’s Google’s BigTable
and Werner’s SimpleDB
There’s Hive and HBase and Mongo and Couch
There’s Cassandra and Drizzle
And not to be left out
There’s Vertica and Aster if you want to spend for support
There’s a Tokyo Cabinet and something called Redis I’m told

It’s a party, a playgroup of newborn DB’s
They scale and expand, they re-partition with ease
They are new and exciting
And still flawed to be sure
But they’ll learn and improve, grow and mature

They are our future
We developers should take heed
If our databases can change, then maybe
Just maybe
So can we

( Ajay- Because Cloud Computing is really really 60’s time sharing , Dr G 🙂

Google stuck on Gears

Google has launched support for Droid the mobile operating system but forgot to include support for their own browser- Chromium. Atleast if you can support Windows Explorer and Firefox for Gears, surely you can add support for Gears for Chromium.Maybe with an Ad or two 😉 .Since Al Gore invented the internet and he sits as a consultant for the California boys, maybe he can advise them as well on the anti trust investigations with Apple (cough).

Twitter Cloud and a note on Cloud Computing

That’s what I use twitter for. If you have a twitter account you can follow me here

http://twitter.com/decisionstats

A couple of weeks ago I accidentally deleted many followers using a Twitter App called Refollow- I was trying to clean up people I follow and checked the wrong tick box-

so please if you feel I unfollowed you- it was a mistake. Seriously.

[tweetmeme=”decisionstats”]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Cloud Computing- and Google- rumours ( 🙂 ) are emerging that Google’s push for cloud computing is to turn desktop computing to IBM like mainframe computing .  Except that there are too many players this time. Where is the Department of Justice and anti trust – does Amazon qualify for being too big in cloud computing currently.

Or the rumours could be spread by Microsoft/ Apple / Amazon competitors etc. Geeks are like that sometimes.

Analytics and BI for small biz

I saw a story on Warren B and Goldman S creating a 500$ million pool for small business owners.

  • The program will contribute $200 million to community colleges, universities and other institutions to provide small- business owners with practical business education.

  • Goldman Sachs repaid the $10 billion it was given last year under the taxpayer-funded Troubled Asset Relief Program, plus dividends. The firm continues to benefit from federal guarantees on about $21 billion of long-term debt.

  • Buffett, known as the “Oracle of Omaha” for his investing prowess, is the second-richest American. Berkshire, which invests in companies ranging from retailers to insurers, paid $5 billion in September 2008 to acquire preferred stock in Goldman Sachs that pays a 10 percent dividend. Berkshire, based in Omaha, Nebraska, also gained five-year warrants to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 per share.

  • ( NOTE Curent Price of GS shares is 172$ – thats a 50% profit on 5 Billion~ 2.5 Billion for Mr Buffett but he is probably waiting for long term capital gains ax rates to kick in before encashing his patriotic  “Buy American. I am” warrants (see NYT op ed by him  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html )
  • A better analysis of the above Bloomberg story was given on Bloomberg itself at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=asjp51YPDwJU
  • A small thought- could smaller businesses gain from efficiencies of programs like SPSS, SAS and R. Or would they be better off with customized GUI’s linked to their POS data.

Anyways a need for analytics for small businesses in inventory management, and sales planning could help. Joe the Plumber could do with some ETS and Regression Models as well.

However apart for Salesforce.com applications this field seems to be totally vacant for analytics. What are IBM SPSS, SAS, or even other stats packages doing for small businesses. or even developing Salesforce.com applications for their own equivalent software

The market could be an interesting one to atleast do a test in. Unless you don’t believe in test and control.

See below the IBM Cognos by IBM itself and the third party app by Pervasive for SAP Integration-

Citation-

http://sites.force.com/appexchange/listingDetail?listingId=a0N300000016YGYEA2

and

http://sites.force.com/appexchange/listingDetail?listingId=a0N300000016am1EAA