Many of you have probably heard the name of Alan Turing, but most of those probably don't appreciate the extent of his contributions. To say that he invented the modern world is an overstatement, but he did dream up the computers we see around us today, and helped win World War II in the process. But the story of Alan Turing is as much about exclusion and defeat as it is of … [Read more...] about What More Could Alan Turing Have Accomplished?
Sunday series
From Kipling’s Dirigibles to the Jet Age
I don't get much chance to read for pleasure, but two things I've been reading recently spurred my imagination. After reliving the advent of modern transportation in the solid non-fiction Jet Age by Sam Howe Verhovek, I stumbled upon two pieces of speculative fiction from an unlikely source that predated everything presented there. In between The Jungle Book and hundreds of … [Read more...] about From Kipling’s Dirigibles to the Jet Age
We Need a Storage Revolution
Although many discussions in the storage industry focus on the relative merits of one protocol or another, the conversation occasionally turns to the core issue at hand: We continue to patch together a system based on outdated concepts. Most storage protocols continue to mimic direct attached storage, and most of our so-called networks act as point to point channels. An … [Read more...] about We Need a Storage Revolution
Where Will Virtualization of Data Center Infrastructure Take Us?
Virtualization of IT systems decouples physical infrastructure from logical resources, hiding complexity and enabling new capabilities. However, not all potential benefits of virtualization have meaningful value outside IT circles: Too many of our discussions revolve around the very complexity that virtualization technology should be hiding! True business value is derived from … [Read more...] about Where Will Virtualization of Data Center Infrastructure Take Us?
Granularity: The Hidden Challenge of Storage Management
Many storage challenges focus on correlating high-level uses of data (such as applications) with the nuts and bolts of storage infrastructure. These discussions often revolve around the conflict between data management, which demands an ever-smaller unit of management, and storage management, which benefits most from consolidation. Developing data management capability that is … [Read more...] about Granularity: The Hidden Challenge of Storage Management