too long away

Hi All,

I knew I'd been neglecting this space, but I didn't realize I hadn't written since July. Wow - what a severe breach of netiquette. Mea culpa mi amigos.

I've been really busy at work - in April I took a position at a very cool new media start up as their director of marketing. i've been enjoying it quite a bit.

I've also been very excited by the prospect of a democrat taking the white house. I admi, I've got Obama fever. Hey - if you are of the same ilk, my suggestion is don't wait till monday or tuesday to buy your champagne - might sell out.

In 2004 I volunteered on the kerry campaign - went door to door in wake forest and raleigh trying to get out the vote. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when we lost. first reaction was to move to canadia. once over this, I couldn't help but be very disappointed in the lack of ideas and inspiraion from democrats - just totally uninspiraitonal.

Man, what a difference 4 years can make!! finally someone who can bring this country together, end this stupid war in Iraq and get the economy on track.

I'm planning a party as soon as the results are in at our house in Raleigh - lmk if you want to come

To GUI or not to GUI

there's been an excellent discussion going on on the Ubuntu Server List recently that reveals the multi-dimensional complexity of this topic

as I see it, this question - to GUI or not to GUI - has at least the following 3 dimensions:

1. It has a user dimension - does a user need/want a GUI (the Windows admin converting to Linux or the new admin)? or does a GUI limit the admin (the *nix expert)?

2. It has an IT department dimension - if I have Windows admins and I want to deploy Linux, I need to retrain, rehire, or give them a GUI they are comfortable with. If I am a Linux shop, and my company merges with a company that is a windows shop, how do I reconcile these two departments and their systems?

3. and it has an enterprise dimension - if I don't have some centralized system that automates change and configuration management (ccm), then I am very reliant on the sysadmins that know the complexities of the config files, that know scripting, cron, etc., and that follow revision control procedures (back up all .confs before making changes...). And if these admins leave, or don't follow procedure, the business is hurting. So enterprises have a strong business continuity motivation to implement a system that takes some of the complexity out of the ccm process.

therefore, the trick, IMO, to implementing a CCM system is to provide enough of what the noobs need, without limiting the experts too much and, at the same time, giving the enterprise more visibility and control.

These market requirements drive the design specs:

1. the system needs to be modular and flexible, with GUI and cli/scripting options
2. it needs to be functionally segregated (role based access control) so that different users can access different functions depending on their expertise
3. it needs to be scalable - client/server, many as one changes even with the GUI
4. It needs to be secure - ssl-encrypted, built-in revision control
5. it needs to be multi-platform, preferably covering *nix and windows
6. of course, it needs to be open source ;) seriously, an open source and open standards approach greatly enhances the ability to integrate with other lifecycle management tools like patching, monitoring, reporting, etc.

the problem with most open source ccm options is that they address one or a small subset of the needs to the exclusion of the others. Oliver mentions func, which I agree is a very nice improvement over scripting for medium to large fedora shops and soon probably other distros as well. But it doesn't help the Linux noob, and it doesn't give the enterprise any greater visibility or control. Is it a far better way for the *nix expert to do what they already do today with scripts and such? Yes. will it help Linux penetrate windows accounts, doubtful (and, in fairness, I don't think it was ever intended to do so). eBox and Webmin, on the other hand, simplify things for the newby, but they don't scale, they don't provide enterprise security or control (rbac, revision control, etc.) and they do handicap the expert.

So, my question to the Ubuntu server team, is, if you buy the above framework and rationale, what are their goals for a future Ubuntu server management system? who's the intended audience? Personally, I think they ought to cast as wide a net as the universe of existing systems will allow.

Trying to be Viral

Have you noticed how hard everyone is trying to be viral these days? It's almost oxymoronic to be deliberately viral. Do you agree?

Or maybe the annoying attempts that I've noticed recently are just bad, and it wouldn't matter if they were attempting to be traditional campaigns, they'd still be bad.

One that I found particularly annoying was a hand-written card that I received at my office with a url written on it: www.whatsthisfor.com/gregwallace

No context, no nothing - like I've got that much time and I'm that curious to go to this web site. STUPID!!

And I see all kinds of companies doing this - putting some little tease out there, but not indicating what it's about and suggesting that people go to a web site to discover the big secret.

If you have connections on madison ave, can you please pass the word along that these campaigns suck?

thanks!

Spamalot

I was in New York this week and on my way to lunch asked a colleague to snap this shot of me with the actors in Monty Python's broadway play Spamalot.

‘Customer Affinity’ New Measure of B2B Mktng Effectiveness

Great article summarizing research by the CMO Council on the importance of transparency and trust between B2B technology vendors and their customers.

read more | digg story

CA-Sponsored Study Finds Data Center Automation Will Grow

study surveyed 300 CIOs and other top IT executives at companies in the U.S., EMEA and APAC with more than $250 million in annual revenue. It found the top three goals companies are hoping to achieve with data center automation efforts are uptime/business continuity, performance management, and enabling dynamic response to changes in business demand
More interesting than what this study "found" (didn't we all already know this?) is who sposnosred the research - CA....best of my knowledge, they don't really have a DCA solution now, do they? Comments?

read more

Open source a no-brainer for SaaS providers

Open source will start to dominate software infrastructure for providers of SaaS (Software as a Service) within three years, according to Gartner analyst Yefim Natis. Lower cost and better flexibility, compared to closed source, or proprietary software, are key factors for the growing popularity of open source in this segment of the market.

read more