Ynema Mangum: The Human Cloud

I got a follow from Twitter today from Jon Aydinova (@jonaturk).  I like to look at who follows me and read their profile or whatever they choose as their only link to share from their Twitter profile.  His led to a community called Disruptive Thoughts, Game Changers and New World Order.  If that name doesn't compel you to continue, I don't know what will.  At this point, I couldn't possibly leave.

Reading through it I was pleased he pointed to this blog, but really loved the videos he posted from John Underkoffler.  Most intriguing was the brief video clip by Oblong Industries that describes the revolutionary g-speak spatial operating system.  It's described as a spatial operating environment that represents a completely new platform for computing, which seems to get all of its input from human gestures.  Optimized for metadata, it's the perfect cloud computing application.

#cool

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

So, the Sun Cloud has finally been announced.  And, on the same day, IBM leaked news about a bid to buy Sun.  Fortunately, the IBM stuff did not rain on our cloud.  Developers, startups, and partners were buzzing all over our booth at Community One East asking about storage in the cloud, how we are different from Amazon and the rest of the market, how we are alike, and when they can give us their credit card.  Wednesday was an exciting day, especially for this product manager.

Here's where you can go for more info leading up to our summer launch:

1. sun.com/cloud - This site will keep you up to date with what we are doing across the board in cloud computing.
   


2. kenai.com - We're using our own "forge" to host the project containing the APIs for the Sun Cloud.
   


3. network.com - Well, that now just redirects back to the sun.com/cloud page.
   


4. wikis.sun.com - You can find some other stuff there about the Sun Cloud that is delivered from our business operations side.
   

Make sure you sign up for CommunityOne West in San Francisco and JavaOne, where we'll be announcing more about the Sun Cloud.  Or, just stay tuned to our Web announcements.  Either way, if you're interested in the cloud computing space, Sun has some intriguing services coming your way.

It's 10:30pm on March 17th and here's what you see if you go to CommunityOne or if you go to Network.com:

I flew into New York today, headfirst into a sea of green.  It is St. Patrick's Day after all, and there doesn't seem to be a better place to be Irish than NY, NY.

I missed the parade.  I also missed the memo that would have reminded me to wear green.  Thankfully (though there were many opportunities), I escaped the crowds without a single pinch.

Now, I'm in my hotel room anticipating an exciting day for Sun tomorrow.  I'll be tweeting live from the event and also doing some demos.  So, if you're in town, swing by the Marriott Marquis and look me up.  Meanwhile, tune into the Web event.

WEB EVENT DETAILS:

• Rich web event at sun.com/communityone including a live chat and live and on-demand webcasts of CommunityOne content. 


• Where: sun.com/communityone (Page goes LIVE at 9 a.m. ET on March 18.)
  

LIVE EVENT DETAILS:

• What:  Dave Douglas and Lew Tucker will unveil details about Sun's public cloud service during the opening keynote of the CommunityOne East Conference


• When:  March 18, 9:00 a.m. ET


• Where:  New York Marriott Marquis, Salon 1 & 2.  1535 Broadway, New York, NY


• Registration: http://developers.sun.com/events/communityone/2009/east/


• CommunityOne East website: http://developers.sun.com/events/communityone/2009/east/

CommunityOne East Web Event Agenda - (all times are EDT)

9:00 a.m.  General Session featuring Dave Douglas and Lew Tucker, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
10:10 a.m.  MySQL and PHP - State of the Union, Hans Zaunere, New York PHP, LLC
11:10 a.m.  Open Storage with OpenSolaris, Peter Buckingham, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
12:40 p.m.  NetBeans 6.5 and Glassfish v3 - The Synergy for Pragmatic Java EE 6 Development, Adam Bien, Consultant
1:40 p.m.  Analyzing PHP Web Applications with DTrace, David Soria Parra, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
3:00 p.m.  The Third Wave of Open: Open Source and Business Models, Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
4:00 p.m.  Persistent Clouds: New Models for Data Storage, Geir Magnusson Jr., 10gen
5:00 p.m.  Cloud Panel discussion, moderated by David Berlind

So, Lew and Jonathan announced that at SugarCon 2009 this week.  Finally.  The news is out.

Since you read the blog of a cloud computing product manager at Sun, you shouldn't be surprised.  What you should be surprised about is the positioning that this is something new.  If you count HPC (high performance computing), Sun has been building clouds for years.  And, there's no better place to be at this point in the evolution of cloud computing.  From chipsets to hardware to applications, Sun has all the building blocks for a complete cloud offering.

We're in the middle of building the cloud economy, where any business can begin without the need for IT infrastructure.  In fact, venture capital firms now refuse to pay for IT infrastructure, instead pointing their startups to cloud and the notion of zero-infrastructure.  This greatly reduces the barrier to entry for many businesses and also provides an opportunity for existing enterprises to investigate the notion of private and hybrid clouds.

You'll hear more details at CommunityOne East.  New York will be a good place to be in March, don't you think?  

A few months ago, on http://www.ObamaCTO.org, I saw this question:

Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation's first CTO. What are the top priorities?

One of it's answers:

Build a nation-wide smart grid

Embed intelligence throughout a nation-wide electrical grid, on both sides of the meter to enhance the efficiency of distribution and use. This will (A) accelerate the penetration of sources like solar & wind that
are diurnal or intermittent; (B) take advantage of smart meters and distributed storage as plug-in cars become available; (C) permit power to be wheeled from where resources are rich to where electricity is needed; (D) provide tens of thousands of jobs and train workers to replace the baby boomers who will retire from utilities over the next 5-10 years. Start with the government-owned Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest, learn what works, and extend the network across the country.

Neato.

On another note, whurley is calling for President Obama to build out a national computing cloud specifically for higher education.   Of course, this will benefit open source peeps (beyond students).  Maybe this is ala Eucalyptus?  Hi, Rich!

Looks like cloud computing is going down the thought path of the traditional computing model, so the analysts are right on.  At some point in time, someone might even suggest a government built and regulated cloud computing model.  We live in interesting times.

Like many, I now have more virtual friends than "real" friends.  In fact, some of these virtual friends feel like "real" friends.  And, by "real", I mean people I've seen, touched, hugged, or spoken with directly...face-to-face.  But, most of my virtual friends I met through other virtual friends.  I have a large network of people who are a Friend Of A Friend (FOAF).  And, darnit, sometimes I just want to take my whole social network with me to a new site rather than starting over from scratch.

A small snapshot of one of my FOAF files.

 I'm reminded of those Verizon commercials where you look out the window and there they are. Your whole darn network.

Take your social network with you with FOAF + SSL.  Thanks, Henry Story, for simple user story #1!

 I'm stoked about the coming year and exploring all the devices that will be powering apps on the cloud.  I saw this demo today that highlights surface computing, Semantic Web, and a new little thing called "spotlets".  Web 3.0 is really cool.

From Marketwatch on 12/8/2008:

Appirio has an interesting post about their top 10 predictions for cloud computing in 2009.

Sign into Google Moderator Beta to agree, disagree, or add your own.

 Sharing an interesting article in Newsweek:

Today’s Forecast: Cloudy

Newsweek, Daniel Lyons; November 1, 2008

Newsweek discusses the technology trend of cloud computing, noting, “Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems used to call it "the big friggin' web-tone switch" ("Web tone" being the digital successor to "ringtone"). IBM dubbed it "on-demand computing." Others have called it "grid computing" and "software as a service." The latest name is "cloud computing," and it's the hot new dance craze—er, tech trend—that's sweeping the computing industry.” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, speaking at a conference recently, said of the cloud phenomenon, "Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane.” The basic idea is simple enough. Instead of storing your data on your PC, you store it on a server on the Internet. You don't know, or care, where that server is located. Your data might, in fact, be scattered across a bunch of different servers. It's just all up in the sky someplace (hence the name "cloud").

The "big friggin' web-tone switch"?  Go Scott!

As cloud computing takes hold, PCs are getting smaller.  Just look at the data.

The Pew report, Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services (PDF), is based on a survey of more than 1,500 American Internet users conducted in April and May of this year, and has a margin of error of 3 percent.  An interesting conclusion of the report is that 69% of those surveyed use cloud-based online applications, even though they don't yet understand cloud computing. By far, the largest usage is for webmail (56%) and personal photo storage (34%).

Cloud computing is taking hold and growing phenomenally, with no end to the growth curve in site.  The highest adoption of cloud computing applications are among the 18-29 age group at 89%, while usage declines with each successive age category down to 46 percent for those over 65.

The use of online services using cloud infrastructure is definitely taking the place of desktop applications.  The personal computer no longer has to do all the work, so it's getting smaller.  HP just launched a $400 mini notebook, a portable and inexpensive Netbook designed specifically for Web browsing.

$400 bucks for a PC.  And, that's reality, unlike the failed $100 laptop project.  $400 bucks is the cost of 2 iPhones.  Eventually, maybe Apple will make the iPhone with a holographic and resizable screen and keyboard.  I don't know about you, but if Apple makes that happen, I won't need a PC anymore.

Today, I was reading a post by Paul Murphy on ZDNet and realized there is a perfect storm brewing in cloud computing, especially for Sun Microsystems.

First, Paul gives some advice to "...focus a lot more effort in the small to mid range market: the people who desperately want stuff that “just works” and now think they have nowhere to go. These people are angry about IT, about something that looks so simple but costs them money and aggravation every single day of the week -and no one’s telling them that Sun has exactly what they need. "  He's right.  Sun's product set -- especially in software -- is largely undiscovered and hasn't reached its full potential in the marketplace, especially as it relates to brand recognition.  

Second, Sun has very publicly announced its investment in cloud computing by creating a separate business unit for it, led by Chief Sustainability Officer Dave Douglas.  Sun's investment in the cloud isn't a "me too" thing.  We've been in this space for years.  But, the open and specific investment in the future of cloud computing is not just exciting for me as a product manager, but should make potential customers and current shareholders tingle in their toes.  Don't forget that cloud computing is largely a trust proposition.  The most trusted brands will do well in this space, and Sun has that in loads.

Third, the economy is on a downturn.  Jonathan recently blogged "Innovation Loves a Crisis".  He clarified this by stating, "You're not going to hear from any of our customers, "let's stop buying technology and hire more people to do the work." They're going to default to the opposite - automating work, and finding answers and opportunities with technology, not headcount. And in that process lies an opportunity for Sun - to engage with customers in driving down cost, driving up utilization, and driving the changes that yield immediate and long term benefit."  The value of cloud computing to a business is in the reduction (potentially down to zero) of it's IT infrastructure by utilizing a cloud computing infrastructure service provider and only paying for what they use.  This value model is too good to pass up.

So, the equation is this:

    Largely Untapped Software Brand

+ Investment in Cloud by a Trusted Brand with Amazing Intellectual Property

+ Economic Downturn

------------------------------

= PERFECT STORM for Cloud Computing

I feel like a storm chaser.  Makes me kind of breathless.

Cloud computing is considered controversial by those who mock it as a marketing fashion statement.  Yet, analysts believe that cloud computing will closely follow the adoption curve of traditional computing.  What that means to me is that CC starts with high performance and very traditional computing applications, will begin to focus on a much wider and less technical user base, and become the de-facto infrastructure for entertainment and education -- the invisible and unwired platform whether you are at work, rest or play.  Cloud computing in the future will represent a confluence of technologies and trends and virtual worlds, enabling a deeply immersive experience. Reminds me of gaming.  (Play me on Halo3 online.  I'm YAMY34.)

Have you noticed that game designers are a bit more sophisticated than other software developers?  Not sophisticated as in having a deep understanding of the tender differences between years, types, and brands of wine.  By "sophisticated", I mean that they seem to have a deeper and more passionate understanding of the end-user and they build their game software with this in mind.  Audience immersion and experience is the ultimate end goal.

How video games and computing in general have evolved is similar.  First, designers had to build in primitive features that required touch (keyboard/mouse) and sight (reading and interpreting words or symbols on the screen).  Sound came from mechanical interactions with the hardware itself, like the sound of a mainframe punchcard, the sound of the keys clacking, or the fan cooling down the processor.  Now, gaming is much like the entertainment industry, where the aim is to build as much sensory interaction as possible and make it much more complex.  This gives the audience almost total submersion in an evolved, complex, sensory interaction which enables reality to blend with fantasy.

Good game design requires a hybrid understanding of the entertainment industry and computing.  It involves an understanding of the evolution of human senses with technology like sound (ex:  surround sound) and sight (color/digital/HD).  Touch technology, right now, is still in an emerging state -- even though multi-touch technology exists today.  Smell technology is still in its infancy.  (Actually, I saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist recently and was very thankful that I couldn't smell what I was watching and hearing.)  The more senses are involved, and the more complex their interaction is with technology, the more immersive the total experience. 

As I've thought about this, I've also wondered about immersive experiences in the cloud.  What will they be?  How will my senses work with the technology?  Will it include interaction through a virtual world cocoon?  Will education, gaming, and entertainment collide to create a one-stop ultimate immersion?

I've had a recurring dream about this very thing for the past year and a half.  My sci-fi dream is set in 2050, when all of these technologies and trends have collided with global ecosystem events.  It's fascinating to think about, and I'm not sure when the details of this dream will stop coming to me.  But, I pack away research about this subject every so often.

How immersive do you think our experiences will be when cloud computing reaches its full potential?