mamafufu Q: how is life? A: mamafufu

it was a hot and humid friday evening.  the temperature of the classroom reached 35 celsius/95 fahrenheit with 100% humidity.  it was fully packed with about 300 students from the south china university of technology (SCUT) school of software.  they were mostly first or second year undergraduate students .  the campus is located in the messy guangzhou university city in guangzhou china which is also the home of ten higher education institutions and about 150,000 students.

the event was the commencement of the sun club in SCUT.  it was one of the first sun club in greater china with many more being planned.  the objective of the sun club is to foster, promote and organize various activities such as contests, workshops, seminars and other events revolving around sun technologies and its values.

tae kim and i were invited to speak in this event with the students about sun and a topic on IT career.  hmmm, a topic on IT career with first and second year undergraduate students in a hot and humid friday evening?!  it must be a group of enthusiastic students and sure they were.  the discussion was lively and was carried in english, mandarin and even some cantonese.  here are some of the selected slides:

when i first saw the reusable chopsticks here, i said to myself i have to get one. thanks for my colleague in beijing china, mine came yesterday in light blue for his and pink for hers. outside the box it says "sun-green-future 太阳-绿色-未来". can't wait to try it out in my favorite pho place later this afternoon.

greening and future proofing data centers continue to be a challenge and a priority for many enterprises big or small globally. as we all learned in management 201 - "we can't manage what we don't measure". ability to measure, analyze and forecast energy consumption, cooling requirements and load utilization is one of the first and important step on better data center resource management.

last week sun announced the early access release of the sun intelligent power monitoring service. with its innovative software-only solution, it can be immediately deployed and doesn't require any external sensors. take advantage of the free 60 days early access release offer that supports these five Sun Fire systems initally: 6800, X4600, T2000, T1000 and T5440.

still thinking about the reusable chopsticks? good luck .

my mobile service contract commitment ended a few weeks ago. like many others may do, i shop for my next phone. it will come down to do i want to go with iphone 3G and switch carrier or do i stay with my current carrier and go with the newly available LG dare? if the LG dare provides better language support as in the iphone, it will be a much harder decision to make. while the LG phone itself certainly has the ability to support languages like chinese, don't understand why it is opted out in the US market.

so what am i going to do with my perfectly fine moto Q that i use today? i will keep it as a piece of memory or history. this reminds me my first mobile phone. it was a moto 8800 ultra classic upright brick model. it has a LED display of 7 characters, 30 minutes talk time, expensive, ability to store about 20 numbers, big and heavy. it made and received cellular calls in very limited areas mainly outdoor. at that time mobile phone was more like a status thing than necessity for many people. that pretty much sums up all the features and characteristics of my first mobile phone.

in first quarter of 2008 there were nearly 300 millions mobile phones shipped worldwide compared with about 70 million PCs shipped and the gap is widening. with mobile technologies like 3G, wi-fi, bigger screen with higher resolution, audio, video, and web enabled applications, accessing the internet from mobile phones becomes more real, fun and practical, .

as mobile phones become more internet-centric, what does it mean to the service industry? how can existing services use this new opportunity to enhance its offerings or as a competitive edge? what innovative services can be developed to catch this new wave? a colleague of mine alok rishi started a service science blog recently to discuss those opportunities and challenges.  looking forward to learning more ...

i always wanted to take photography lessons but also always able to find excuses not to. no time, too far, too expensive, not the right class, not for my camera, i don't need it, i am doing just fine - along with other bad excuses too. the past weekend i finally convinced myself to take one. it was a private lesson with a pro. we started at 9:00 am on a sunday morning and the 4-hour session went by very fast. we talked about white balance, metering, depth of field, aperture, f-stops, iso, exposure compensation, dust, crop factor and other random musings. his bag seemed to carry every gadgets ever made for digital photography. at the end of the session we went through the features and capabilities of my camera and lenses. at that time i started to realize how little i know about photography, how little i know about my camera and how much i underutilized its capabilities and features.

in the same afternoon i took my dog for a routine walk in the neighborhood. i had my camera with me and took this picture of beautiful flowers from the yard of a neighbor. i may have passed by the same flowers yesterday or the day before but didn't notice how beautiful they were or even their existence - until i paid more attention this time for things around me with my camera looking for picture opportunities.

what i have learned from the photography lesson was more than taking better pictures. i also learned something that i didn't expect. i learned about how to cherish what i have instead of keep chasing what i don't have. i learned about beautiful flowers can also be found in my neighborhood instead of miles away. i also learned to notice the great songs that i have not listened to for years on my playlist, the great books collecting dust in bookshelf that i have not finished reading, the great movies that i bought years ago that are still wrapped, and the "long lost" friends who are only one phone call or email away.

more importantly, with thousands and thousands of lives lost in the myanmar's cyclone, sichuan's earthquake, conflicts, accidents, illness and other natural or human-made incidents around the world, i also learned about cherish the people around me (珍惜眼前人) and learned to cherish life.

it is good that we still live ...

it was a sunny saturday afternoon in the campus of school of software at dalian university of technology. over 400 graduate and undergraduate students gathered in a packed lecture hall for a 4-hour information exchange session known as the sun tech day. some of the students were bused from the main campus 50 kilometers away for this sun university touring event.

i was in beijing for other businesses and was invited to give a talk to kick off this event. i also took the opportunity and met with faculty members, school administrative leaders and students. the focus of the event was on opensolaris. michael cui discussed software system serviceability in solaris environment and touched on best practices and enabling technologies such as sunmc, fma, dtrace and jmx. william xue discussed the sun studio integrated development environment for solaris and linux. fiona duan talked about opensolaris installation and project indiana. the interactions and feedbacks on these sessions were overwhelmingly well and encouraging.

as for my session, i tried something different this time which i have never done before. after i walked up to the podium while waiting for my slides to be projected, i introduced myself in mandarin chinese to fill the time gap. and i decided to continue my session in mandarin instead of in english as i originally planned. speaking mandarin is a stretch for me specially when it comes to business or technical terms and conversations. english would be my language of choice for this type of setting and cantonese would be my second choice.

my one-hour session went by very quickly with good interactions and Q&A. although i may never know for sure whether my messages would come across better or worse for the audience if i delivered in english instead, there is one thing i know for sure - i felt a lot more closer with the audience and i glad i did.

adobe announced photoshop express beta last week as its implementation of yet-another picture-sharing site with web-based photo editing capability.  although the photo editing capability in photoshop express has next to nothing in common with its bigger brother photoshop or even photoshop elements, it run's on adobe's own browsers friendly and OS independent flash plug-in.  it is free as long as you keep your collections under 2 GB in storage.

if adobe manages to offer full photoshop capabilities as a hosted application on the web that carries a subscription-based fee, charge by storage, supported by some sort of advertisement program or other creative revenue generating business model, would you give up your computer-bound software and give it a try for the following good reasons:

• low initial software acquisition cost. don't need to pay for the $649 full computer-bound software license from day one. easier to switch to another provider without worry about vendor lock-in.

• low maintenance and support cost since the software is hosted and managed by the vendor. don't need to worry about software configuration, patch and upgrade etc. on-going support and operational cost is more predictable.

• don't need to worry about data storage and management (i.e. backup/restore) since they are stored in the data center of your service provider.

• software and data are more accessible wherever there is a web browser and internet connection. this greatly simplifies your computing environment.

this example describes the essence of software as a service (SaaS). SaaS is certainly not new in the corporate world. while whether it is just a new marketing term for application service provider (ASP) may be up for some debate, SaaS will continue to stay and to evolve - or until someone comes up a fancier or more eye-catching name.

just got a hold of a sun spot java development kit.  the kit includes both hardware and software, as well as virtually unlimited innovation and application opportunities.  so exactly what sun spot is and what it does?  at a high level it is an extensible hardware and programmable software platform that enables the development of applications that take advantage of wireless sensor networks.  does it sound as clear as your organization's mission statement?  no worry.  may be these other blogs would help:

http://blogs.sun.com/roger/
http://blogs.sun.com/davidgs/

you may notice the kit in the picture is still unwrapped.  the reason is my mission is not to keep it for myself but to pass along to my team to encourage innovation in the areas of managed services or services in general.

can't wait to see what innovative applications the team will come up.  stay tuned ...

i like taking pictures and believe the more i take them the better chance i will get a few good ones.  got my new macro lens today and couldn't wait to try it outdoor.  the lens is heavy and big but simply amazing.  this is my first true macro lens.  it will open up so many new and creative ways to take pictures.

now i need a new tripod to go with the heavy lens.  the conversation is going to be like this:

"i need a new tripod"
"you already got two tripods.  why do you need another one?"
"but i need a better one"
"well, remember the <fill in the blank here> that you bought last year with all the 'great' features that you never used?"
"but this time ..."

i usually end up putting it on my christmas wish list.   december is around the corner, right?

[update - mar. 2, 2008]

christmas came early this year.  my new tripod came late last week.  it was a manfrotto.  so far so good.

picked up a few books from the library this afternoon.  one of them was the mythical man-month by mr. fredrick brooks - an all time classic on the human elements of software engineering.  but wait a minute, do i not already have this book somewhere on my book shelf?  sure i do.  mine is a 1982 reprint of the 1975 first edition (the one on the left).  i had it for quite many years and had read it cover-to-cover.  the one on the right is the 1995 edition that i borrowed from the library today.

i read through the first two chapters this evening and was still amazed by the messages in this book which were written over 30 years ago.  the tar pits, the optimistic programmers, the interchangeable men and months, the gutless estimations, and the myth about adding more resources to a late project will improve the schedule - aren't they all sound so familiar even in the today's environment?

while technology has certainly improved and matured in a much more rapid rate since the 80s or even from a year or two ago,  the overall development of software engineering processes or disciplines has lagged behind.  come to think of it, is it really that much different from managing a software development project today comparing with 2, 5, 10 or even 20 years ago?  sure there are differences and improvements but certainly don't think they are that dramatic or far-reaching changes.  agile software development certainly is a good practice today but the concept existed in the 90s in a slightly different form or shape.  remember rapid application development (RAD) back in the PL/1 or C days?

today managers of software projects face many similar difficulties and challenges as described by mr. brooks in his book.  the ugly truth is it doesn't seem like we are much better off today after all these years.  so exactly what happened or what didn't happen?  did technology help or make the situation worse?  should we focus more on process improvement or maturity?   or does it all come down to the "human elements" of the whole software development ecosystem which include you, me and many others?

read this book or re-read this book.  would like to hear your view ...

feb. 7, 2008 is first day of the year in lunar calendar which is celebrated by many countries across asia.  this is year of the rat.  so in welcoming the new year, i decided to make some shark fin soup at home and set the controversy discussion about shark fin aside for a little bit.

shark fin is one of the delicacy in chinese menu partly because of its rarity and the elaborated preparation process.  i started with the dry skinned fins (see picture above), soaked them in water for hours, and steamed them for hours in wine and "high soup".  for one dinner with some left over for the morning, i used about 8 fins or about 250 grams.    

while shark fin is a great source of protein, it doesn't really have much flavor of its own.  this is the reason the soup base itself is very important.  i keep my soup simple with chicken (prefer with bone such as chicken thighs and need a lot of them), aged ham and a few other things.  i simmer it for hours into concentrated essence.  this is also called "high soup" and it pretty much goes well with anything including shoelaces.

with all the work and anticipation it turns out to be a very good meal.  in addition to the soup i also cooked sauté "omaha" filet mignon in honey, sea scallop in xo sauce, and braised chinese mushroom with dry scallop in oyster sauce. 

and what goes best with the shark fin soup after all the trouble of preparing it?  i chose the hennessy "paradise" extra rare cognac this time.  both the soup and the cognac were good to the last drop.  to finish up, i brew myself a pot of 15-year old raw pu-erh tea.  it is a new year after all.

happy new year to you all!

last week sun announced product availability for sun modular datacenter (sun MD) s20, widely known as project blackbox.  i am sure you have already heard or read so much about this innovative datacenter-in-a-box and its simplicity, flexibility, transportability, environmental friendliness and many other great features.  in addition, sun also offered a suite of innovative services that covers the full spectrum of plan, build, support and transform.

over the past few months i have read many interesting stories as how companies, universities and governments applied and deployed the sun md creatively.  here is an interesting one - an 100m below ground datacenter in an abandoned coal mine in japan with 30 sun MDs.  it must be an interesting experience to field a support call in such subterranean environment.

sun-on-sun may not be a hard-and-fast rule at sun, it certainly is part of the sun culture and norm.  since i joined sun three years ago through the sevenspace acquisition, we have been taken every opportunities to practice "eat our own dog food" as we continue to invest in our sun managed operations platform.

prior to the acquisition, many of the sevenspace back-end core components were already running on sun hardware and solaris.  java was also used extensively in engineering software.  in addition, we also had a diverse range of heterogeneous technologies from dell, hp, ibm, redhat, emc and many others.  here is the great sun-on-sun journey for managed operations so far:

• dell -> sun x64 based server for the controltower appliance (pdf)
• eclipse -> netbeans
• jboss -> sun java system application server
  
• oracle cluster -> sun solaris cluster
  
• sonic jms -> sun java system message queue
  
• redhat linux -> solaris 10
• emc -> sun storagetek disk system

this all sounds good and logical.  so in addition to servicing its partners and customers, what do the sun managed operations people, process, technology and knowledge have to offer the rest of sun?  how do we integrate the sun managed operations services to other exciting emerging sun products and services?  how does sun IT operations use the sun managed operations technology and process to manage our own sun internal infrastructure?

more on this exciting topic later.

it was a quiet sunday afternoon.  the snow had stopped and it was cold. my favoriate RTHK radio 2 was being streamed from the internet many timezones away.  i was enjoying a glass of wine with cheese and home-made candied walnut.  and i said to myself, what a perfect moment to think about software engineering demand management and project prioritization :-).

software engineering managers face many challenges today.  demand management is certainly one of them.   demand management can be loosely defined as a discipline or process that determines which software development projects should be commissioned and executed.  project prioritization is a complex process that involves many variables and factors such as business value, time, cost, risk, technical complexity, organizational capacity and many more.

demand management and project prioritization exist in most, if not all, software engineering organizations in different forms or shapes.  some are more formal and elaborate while others may be more informal and streamlined.  it all depends on the given business or organization environments and needs.  good demand management is important and needed because of the following reasons:

• there is always more projects to do than available resources.  if you are in a software engineering business and this doesn't happen to you, look for a new job.
• many software engineering projects fail or being canceled for many reasons.  while good demand management and project priortization doesn't guarantee success, it does help by asking and answering the following questions before projects can be started.  does the project have management support?  does the project bring clear value to the business?  does the project have high level scope and requirements?  does the project have high level time and cost assessed and understood?  does the project have support from all impacted organizations?
• one of the most visible measure of software engineering organization is success completion of projects that bring good vaule to the business both timely and cost effectively.  successful selection, prioritization and execution of projects play a large part in determining the overall success of the software engineering organization.

while this domain should not be a hard problem to solve plus there are many best and good practices on demand management processes to reference, consideration of your particulate environment and execution excellence are also some of the success factors.

more on this topic later.

this first press release in 2008 from sun canada certainly is an exciting one.  the headline reads "sun microsystems of canada powers up the vancouver 2010 olympic and paralympic winter games".  read the full story here.  good job team.

speaking of vancouver, it has the best hong kong style chinese restaurants in the americas whether it is dim sum, hot pot or wonton noodle.  other honorable mentions are toronto, los angeles, san francisco (including the san jose area) and new york city.  this is according to me, of course.  :-)

2008 javaone(sm) conference registration is now open.  use priority code J8ROIC.  register today and save $200.

i took the ITIL v3 foundation training and certification exam right before the end of year.  having been learning and practicing ITIL for quite some time as part of supporting the Sun Managed Services, it is good to (re-)familiarize myself with all the ITIL terms and acronyms if nothing else.  i have heard this discussion before - ITIL is a good practice for IT service management.  it is a "good" practice and not a "best" practice any more since it is now a common practice in the IT service management industry.  so this implies implementing and practicing ITIL don't give you a competitive advantage any more.  it is a matter of survival.

do you "ITIL" yet?

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this picture was taken earlier this week from the sun office in ashburn, va, usa.  it is my home office and also was the headquarter of sevenspace, inc. before it was acquired by sun in jan 2005.  this month marks the third anniversary of the acquisition.  i remember because i was one of the "sevenspacer" and became a sun employee since then.

now going back to the picture above.  it was made of alphabet cookies and it must has been there shortly after the acquisition.  while i am surprised to see the cookies are still in good looking condition after all these time, i am more amazed that they have not been eaten by now.

as for the IT managed services that sevenspace built and was known for, it is now known as the sun managed operations to the world - just bigger and better.  in addition to servicing external partners and customers, sun is also using the same technology and the ITIL based operational process to support its internal infrastructure as well as integrating it into new offerings such as project blackbox and network.com - the sun grid utility computing.
 
as an ex-sevenspacer, i feel good and proud of the managed operations line of business that we helped to build at sun.  also want to take this opportunity to again thank all my colleagues at sun.  you made my transition to sun a painless one and many of you have gone out of your ways to make me feel like home from day one.  i noticed, i remember and i thank you.

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