This week, I am in Dublin, Ireland for the [IBM System x, IBM PureSystems and System Storage Technical University] conference.

Here are the sessions that I will be speaking at:

Day	Time	Session
Monday	14:30	IBM Smarter Storage Strategy
Tuesday	16:15	Cloud Storage Options
Wednesday	09:00	What is Big Data? Architectures and Practical use cases
	10:30	New Generation of Storage Tiering: Less management, lower investment and increased performance
	16:15	IBM Archive Storage Solutions - Data Retention for Government Compliance and Industry Regulations
	17:45	Meet the Storage Experts
Thursday	14:30	Data Footprint Reduction - Understanding IBM Storage Efficiency Options
Friday	10:30	IBM Smarter Storage Strategy (repeat of Monday)

If you are at the conference, stop by and see me! You can also follow me on Twitter @az990tony and the hashtag #ibmtechu.

technorati tags: #ibmtechu, Smarter Storage, Cloud storage, Big data, Storage tiering, Archive storage, Data footrpint reduction, storage efficiency

Well it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? IBM Announcements!

(Ha Ha! It is actually Monday. Some of these announcements were originally scheduled for October 28, but with [Enterprise 2014 conference] this week, and the [IBM System x, IBM PureSystems and IBM System Storage Technical University] next week, IBM executives moved up the date!)

We have a lot to cover, so I will do the quick recap today, and then go in-depth on subsequent posts.

IBM FlashSystem 840 and V840

The FlashSystem now offers a high-voltage 1300W power supply. There are two supplies providing redundancy. In the unlikely event that you are doing maintenance on one of them, the other supply handles all the workload. With the original power supply, the system slowed down the clock speeds to reduce electrical demand. The new power supplies can handle full performance.

Also, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) now holds 300 days of performance data with pan-and-zoom capability. Five predefined graphs showing key performance metrics with additional user-defined metrics available for visualization.

See the [Announcement letter 114-157] for details.

IBM DS8870 Enhancements new v7.4 microcode

The new v7.4 level of microcode combines features from v7.2.7 and v7.3 into a single code base.

In previous 3-site mirroring implementations, you had A-to-B-to-C cascading. Metro Mirror would get the data from A-to-B, then Global Mirror would copy B-to-C. Multiple Target Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy (PPRC) feature number 7025 allows you to have two separate paths of the data: A-to-B and separately A-to-C. Some folks refer to this as a "star" configuration.

For System z mainframe clients, the new v7.4 introduces new zHyperWrite for DB2 database logs, enhances zGM (XRC) write pacing, and extends Easy Tier automated-tiering API to allow z/OS applications to influence placement on different tiers of storage.

The High Performance Flash Enclosures (HPFE) that IBM introduced last May for the "A" frames are now available for "B" frames. You can have four HPFE in A, and another 4 in B.

DS8870 now offers 600 GB 15K rpm SAS and 1.6 TB 2.5-inch SSD encryption drives for additional capacity and cost performance options to meet data growth demands within the same space. Both support data-at-rest encryption.

Lastly, we have upgraded the OpenStack Cinder driver to the latest Juno release, including features like volume replication and volume retype.

See the [Announcement letter 114-171] and [114-172] for details.

IBM SAN24B-5 switches

The latest SAN switch is a slim 1U high box that can be configured with 12 or 24 ports. These are 16Bps ports that can auto-negotiate down to 8Gbps, 4Gbps and 2Gbps. These are easy to set up, and can be managed with the IBM Network Advisor management software.

See the [Announcement letter 114-162] for details.

GPFS v4.1 and GPFS Storage Server

GPFS is the core technology for IBM's "Codename: Elastic Storage" initiative.

You have several options. First, you can purchase just the GPFS software itself. It runs natively on AIX, Windows and Linux, and can be extended to support other operating systems through the use of NAS protocols like NFS or CIFS. Today, the Linux support which was previously just x86 and POWER has been extended to include Linux on System z mainframes as well.

GPFS v4.1 offers "Native RAID" support, with de-clustered RAID in 8+2P and 8+3P configurations. Like the IBM XIV Storage System, this scatters the data across many drives, and can tolerate drive failures better than traditional RAID-5 configurations.

Another option is to get a pre-configured "Converged" appliance that combines servers, storage and hardware. We already offer SONAS and the Storwize V7000 Unified, but IBM now offers the "GPFS Storage Server" running on the new P822L Linux-on-Power servers, RHEL v7, and and GPFS v4.1 with Native RAID to twin-tailed attached DCS3700 expansion drawers. Since GPFS provides the RAID, no need for DCS37000 controllers, saving clients substantial costs.

For more details, see [Announcement letter 214-376] and [214-367].

Storwize family

The IBM Storwize family includes SAN Volume Controller, Storwize V7000, Storwize V7000 Unified, Storwize V5000, Storwize V3700 and Storwize V3500.

The big announcement is that IBM now offers data-at-rest encryption for block data on internal drives in the new generation of Storwize V7000 and V7000 Unified models. There is no performance impact, and no need to purchase new SED-capable drives.

Data-at-rest encryption helps in several ways. First, it protects data if a drive is pulled out and taken away maliciously. Second, it protects data if the drive fails and you want to send it back to the manufacturer for replacement. Third, it allows you to perform a "secure erase" so that the data can be sold or re-purposed without fear of anyone reading previous data.

Initially, the encryption key management is built-in, with the keys stored on a USB memory stick physically attached to the model. In the future, IBM will extend this support to SVC, extend this support to external virtualized drives, and extend this support to IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager (SKLM).

Other announcements include 16Gbps adapters for SVC, Storwize V7000 and V7000 Unified. The entire Storwize family will also enjoy both 1.8TB 10K RPM 2.5-inch drives, and 6TB 7200RPM 3.5-inch drives

See the Announcement Letter (available later this month) for details.

New TS1150 enterprise tape drives

The anticipation is over! The new TS1150 tape drive has been announced, with 10TB raw un-compressed "JD" media cartridge capacity and 360 MB/sec throughput performance. The new drive is read/write compatible with TS1140 on JC, JY and JK media cartridges.

 

See the [Announcement letter 114-165] and [114-163] for details.

TS7720 now supports tape library attach

For the virtual tape libraries for the System z platform, IBM offers two models. The TS7740 had a small amount of disk front ending tape library of physical tape. The TS7720 had a large amount of disk with no tape library.

But then the person carrying the chocolate bar bumped into the person carrying the jar of peanut butter, and the rest is history. IBM will now allow tape attach on TS7720, best of both worlds! Large disk cache plus tape library attach.

Tape-attached TS7720 configurations can have up to eight partitions, with different partitions have different policies. Some might move data from disk cache to tape more aggressively, while other partitions may keep data on disk for longer periods, or indefinitely if needed.

Logical tape volumes can now be up to 25GB in size.

See the [Announcement letter 114-167] for details.

DCS3700 Disk System

The DCS3700 is IBM's entry-level disk system for sequential-oriented workloads. Today, IBM announced new disk drive options: 400GB 2.5-inch SSD, 800 GB 2.5-inch SSD, and 1.2TB 10K RPM 2.5-inch drive. All of these offer T10 Protection Information (PI) data integrity.

I won't be attending this week's [Enterprise 2014 conference], but I will be at the [IBM System x, IBM PureSystems and IBM System Storage Technical University] next week. If you will be in Dublin, Ireland next week, let me know!

technorati tags: IBM, FlashSystem, FlashSystem 840, FlashSystem V840, DS8000, DS8870, SAN24B-5, GPFS, GPFS Storage Server, GSS, GPFS Native Raid, GNR, Elastic Storage, de-clustered RAID, Data-at-Rest, Encryption, SVC, Storwize, Storwize V7000, Storwize V7000 Unified, TS1150, TS7720, DCS3700, #Enterprise2014, #IBMtechU, Dublin Ireland

Hello everyone! I am back, fully well-rested from a wonderful 3-week vacation touring the lovely state of Tennessee. Here's a quick recap:

(FCC Disclosure: I mention various companies and products in this blog post. I have no financial interested in any of them, nor have I received any compensation to mention or endorse them here.)

Lynchburg

Our first stop was Lynchburg, TN, home of [Jack Daniel's], America's oldest whiskey distillery. Our tour guide, Ron (who both looked and sounded like [John Goodman]) took us first to see how they burn wood to make charcoal, then the natural water spring which supplies the iron-free water used for the whiskey. We then got a whiff of the mash at various stages of fermentation. Lastly, we had samples of Original No. 7, Gentleman's Jack, and Single Barrel.

(A word of caution: Domestic airlines only allow FIVE LITERS of Bourbon, Whiskey or Rum in your checked luggage. That is only six bottles at the 750ml size, of beverages that are between 24 to 70 percent alcohol by volume [ABV]. Anything above 70 percent is considered too flammable to take on the plane. Excess bottles can be custom packed and shipped, but can be quite expensive. Nearly everyone we met drove all the way to Tennessee instead of flying, and now I understand why.)

While in the area, we had a nice lunch at [Miss Mary Bobo's], a boarding house turned into a restaurant. They only serve one meal a day at 1pm, by reservation only. And we were paired up with eight others and served food "family style" a large round table with a [Lazy Susan].

Jack Daniel's is not the only attraction in the area. We also visited [Falls Mill], a grist mill that grinds corn, wheat and rye for the other distilleries. Mo and I visited [Prichard's Distillery], where they make Whiskey, Rye and Rum. We highly recommend their molasses-flavored "Sweet Lucy"!

Chattanooga

We stopped at the famous historic landmark, the [Chattanooga Choo Choo], which was formerly a train station, and now renovated into a hotel. We asked to see the inside of one of the train cars converted into a hotel room.

 

Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge

We stayed in a cabin in the [Smokey Mountains] near Gatlinburg. In addition to pleasant rides through the National park, we also walked around the small town, looking at all the shops and amusements.

The next town over is Pigeon Forge, and driving down the main parkway is like Las Vegas in a slightly alternate universe. One person called it the Redneck Riviera!

We spent two days at Dollywood theme park, named after its founder, famous country singer Dolly Parton. We arrived after 3pm the first day, so they gave us the second day free!

In addition to roller coaster rides, artisan shops and restaurants, we found zip lines! Mo and I put on harness, attached to a pulley, and zipped over roller coasters, trees and rivers throughout Dollywood park. It was a lot of fun!

We also went to Dolly Parton's other attraction: Stampede. This was a dinner show with horses. It was similar to the Excalibur show we saw in Las Vegas last year during the week of Edge 2013 Conference.

 

Knoxville

On our way from Gatlinburg, we stopped into Knoxville to have lunch with clients. We had a choice to make, we could either drive up into Kentucky and visit the distilleries in the Bourbon trail, or drive straight to Nashville and spend more time there. We opted for Nashville, saving the Bourbon trail for a future trip.

Nashville

Our final stop was Nashville, known as Music City. Our hotel was on Broadway, walking distance between Vanderbilt University and the [honky-tonks] downtown.

We had purchased advanced tickets for the [Grand Ole Opry]. This is not your typical concert. Instead, you have no idea who will play until just a few days before. The three hour show had about a dozen different musical acts, some famous, some new to the country music scene.

We went to the Johnny Cash Museum. People with ticket stubs from the Grand Ole Opry get in for a discount!

After the museum, we had lunch at [Demos' restaurant] and then listened to live music at a honky-tonk called [Second Fiddle]. Mo got a picture with the country singer [John Riggins]!

Searching [TripAdvisor] for things to do in Nashville, I found [The Escape Game]. You pay them money to lock you up in a room with a bunch of strangers, and then collectively as a team you need to figure out how to escape by solving puzzles and clues.

Each room has different themes. First, we tried the "Underground Playground". You know that TV show [Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?] Well, the majority of our so-called team were not in this case, and after 60 minutes the referee told us we had failed and unlocked the door.

We had so much fun that we came back two days later to try a different room. This time we tried "The Heist" which is all about art theft. The strangers we were teamed up with were very motivated to get out of the room in time, and we succeeded, getting out in just 54 minutes!

Mo and I had a great time, but are glad to be back home!

Well, it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? IBM Announcements!

Back in 2007, my blog post [Double Happy Wedding] compared IBM's acquisition for a company that produced data migration software to the practice in Japan of waiting until the bride is five to seven months pregnant to have a wedding. In USA, these are called "shotgun" weddings.

I was in Japan when I wrote that, and the company IBM acquired was Japanese, so the comparison stuck.

Today, IBM announces the latest versions Transparent Data Migration Facility z/OS v5 [TDMF] and z/OS Dataset Migration Facility v3 [zDMF] software products.

(Where better to commemorate this event than in Pigeon Forge, Tenessee, the capital of shotgun wedding venues! Including, and I am not making this up, a replica of the [grand staircase of the Titanic]. Yes, you can book this for a shotgun wedding, while your guests re-arrange the deck chairs. I stopped at a local McDonald's to submit this blog post.)

TDMF software allows you to migrate CKD volumes that are attached to your System z mainframe, including those that are actively being used by applications. zDMF allows you to migrate z/OS data sets, including those currently open by applications.

The migration is hardware-agnostic, supporting CKD volumes on IBM, EMC and HDS disk systems. As many clients are migrating from EMC and HDS disk systems to IBM DS8870, this is a good time to look at TDMF and zDMF to help make the process as transparent as possible.

Of course, if you are not interested in acquiring the software to do this yourself, you can hire IBM Data Mobility Services, which uses TDMF and zDMF to do it for you!

technorati tags: IBM, TDMF, zDMF, shotgun wedding

This week, I was one of the 24 recipients of the IBM Corporate Technology Social Business Impact awards!

The list of recipients spans 14 countries (in alphabetical order):

Country	Award recipient
Australia	Darryl Miles
Brazil	Sergio Varga
Egypt	Ahmed Abbass
France	Jean Francois Puget
Germany	Turgut Aslan
	Detlef Helmbrecht
	Sebastian Thaele
India	Prashanta Chandramohan
	Vinod A Valecha1
Italy	Massimo Chiriatti
	Bruno Portaluri
Korea	JungWoon Lee
	HyungKeun Park
Netherlands	Edwin Schouten
Poland	Renata Anna Bilecka
Spain	Maria Borbones
Switzerland	Alessandro Sorniotti1
United Kingdom	Richard G Brown
	Jon McNamara
	Rick Robinson
United States	Paul DiMarzio
	Tony Pearson
	Christopher Pepin
	Elisabeth Stahl

The award was based on engagements and conversations resulting from blogs, tweets, Facebook and Linkedin posts, Slideshare, Flickr, and other social venues, over the 2013 calendar year.

I would like to congratulate the other 23 winners! I am glad to recognize several of the people that I had helped get their blog started, and mentored along the way, have made it to the list!

technorati tags: IBM, Social Business, Darryl Miles, Sergio Varga, Ahmed Abbass, Jean Francois Puget, Turgut Aslan, Detlef Helmbrecht, Sebastian Thaele, Prashanta Chandramohan, Vinod A Valecha1, Massimo Chiriatti, Bruno Portaluri, JungWoon Lee, HyungKeun Park, Edwin Schouten, Renata Anna Bilecka, Maria Borbones, Alessandro Sorniotti1, Richard G Brown, Jon McNamara, Rick Robinson, Paul DiMarzio, Tony Pearson, Christopher Pepin, Elisabeth Stahl

Years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts related to IBM Watson computer that played Jeopardy! game show. My most popular post to-date has been [IBM Watson -- How to replicate Watson hardware and systems design for your own use in your basement], which I had previously used "Watson Jr." an an unofficial name for your own personal implementation.

Over time, I have gotten many emails, comments and tweets related to this post. The instructions have been downloaded over 130,000 times!

The letter below was so inspiring that I felt I need to share it. (Published here with permission from the author, who goes by the screen name DaveAlex)

Thought you would like to know that I am working toward an AI Agent hopefully more advanced than "Watson Jr." although I will probably include the software behind it.

The hardware I have on hand is a System X3650M2 which I bought for $250 on eBay. It has four 2.66 GHz Xeons with 6 cores each, and 16 GB RAM. I have another 16 to install when I need it. I will shortly have 4 TB of HDD space on line, plus an addition 3 TB USB3 drive.

Ultimately, I hope to have some of the available knowledge bases on line, Freebase, CYC, etc which will handle specific information perhaps better than the Watson software by itself.

What the target (goal) that I am aiming for is a stationary version of Commander Data of Star Trek, Next generation.

I envision if having some form of self knowledge, being capable of processing graphical data, i.e., facial recognition, gesture interpretation, voice input/output, mathematical processing, with graphical output (display & hardcopy) and several additional features.

As I have studied this project, I am amazed at how much of the required software is already available. The biggest stumbling block is integrating the separate parts.

Back to Hardware. I just bought 2 Dell 2850 servers, each with dual Intel Xeons which can handle some of the tasks. If I need more processing power, I just happen to have about 10 other towers with Pentium IV or dual core processors sitting around, which can be pressed into service as needed. So far, my total cost is less than $1000 US Dollars, and my wife has not thrown me out yet. I continue to watch eBay for additional older used equipment for fractions of the original cost. My friends who follow my project keep telling me that I need to get on with the software, and add hardware as needed; they are absolutely correct, but I can't resist a bargain.

The power consumption is a potential problem, but I have a 4500 Watt solar array to use. The cooling could be a problem too, but my house sits into the side of hill, and can readily duct the air supply pass the sub-surface wall, perhaps with old Processor cooling fins glued to the wall.

I hope to get some hobby programmers involved in the project, it is a bit beyond my programming capabilities. I hope that I can live long enough to see it come to fruition; I am 78 now, and mentally in very good condition.

-- DaveAlex

Wow! He is 78 years old! While others his age are playing shuffleboard at the nursing home, he is out there learning new things about the latest technology. I wish him the best of luck on this! If you would like to reach out to DaveAlex, send me a note or comment below, and I will forward them on to him.

Continuing my coverage of the [IBM Edge2014 conference], IBM's premiere conference for System Storage and related products, I attended keynote sessions on Tuesday morning, titled "Delivering on the Promise of the Future: Made with IBM".

Once again, Stephen Leonard, IBM General Manager, STG Sales, served as emcee for this general session. Yesterday, the executives focused on the "What" and "Why" for new IT initiatives. Today, they want to tackle "How" to accomplish all this.

Robert LaBlanc, IBM Senior Vice President, Software and Cloud Solutions

Robert estimates that 70 percent of enterprises will pursue dynamic hybrid clouds by 2015. Big data and analytics represents a $17 trillion USD opportunity, about 25 percent of the total IT industry.

IBM helps companies extend what they already have to what they need. In the future, people will ask "Who remembers building a private cloud stick-by-stick?" Today, IBM supports the deployment of patterns of expertise that can work on-premise IBM PureSystems. These can easily be moved or deployed off-premise to IBM SoftLayer private and public cloud offerings.

Snehal Antani, CIO of GE Capital

IT has shifted from the "back office" to the very core of business. Technology now allows GE Capital to go quickly from whiteboard to roll-out.

Not everyone is on-board. At GE Capital, people are encouraged to be like [Tigger", the adorable character from Winnie the Pooh stories, to lead efforts of innovation and collaboration. Cynics are tagged as [Eeyores], always finding a reason or excuse why plans won't work. Finally, we have "Kings and Queens", eager to be offended that any changes are needed at all.

Snehal also mentioned their "No squirrel" policy. If you have seen the movie "Up!", you know that the dog was constantly distracted by squirrels, or things he thought were squirrels. Many IT people fall the latest "shiny object" in technology.

Arvind Krishna, IBM General Manager of Development and Manufacturing

Arvind feels that "data" is the new base of new business value, in the same manner as steam, electricity and hydrocarbons had done in past centuries. In the past, most data was stored in databases, but today over 90 percent is unstructured.

In 2008, there were more "things" than people attached to the Internet, and this [Internet of Things] is expected to exceed 1 trillion items by 2015.

One of these things will be the [connected car]. By 2017, ABI Research predicts that [60 percent of cars will be connected by 2017]. Hopefully, resulting in 80 percent fewer serious accidents.

Mike North, Senior Director of NFL

Have you ever wondered how the NFL plans each year's football game schedule, balancing 32 teams across five television networks? There are over 800 quadrillion possible combinations!

Borrowing the analogy from Snehal from GE Capital, the football teams are the Eeyores, and the networks are the Kings and Queens. This year, three of the games will be played in London, England. With IBM's help, the NFL was able to finish the 2014 schedule earlier than before.

Maria Winans, IBM Vice President, Social Business

Maria started with an interesting anecdote:

Lily Robinson, age 3, sent a letter asking a local grocery chain Sainsbury why their "tiger bread" was not called "giraffe bread" as it looked more like the spots on a giraffe. A manager provided a nice reply. Her parents posted it on social media, the conversation went viral, and [Sainsbury changed the name of their product] to "giraffe bread".

This is an example of "People-centric" engagement, rather than dealing with consumers in marketing segments or categories of gender or race. People will share personal data with companies they trust. Smarter companies use this data to provide the right experience at exactly the right time.

Maria explained IBM AlwaysOn Engagement Center which allows companies to track social mentions. For example, there were over 52 million social mentions of IBM Edge 2014 so far during its first two days!

The process is not just for clients, customers and consumers. It can be used to engage individual employees to drive business outcomes, or individual citizens to deliver sustainable economic growth and improve living standards.

This was a nice balance, combining IBM executives with client testimonials.

For those on Twitter, my handle is @az990tony and the hashtag for this event was #ibmedge.

technorati tags: IBM, Stephen Leonard, Robert LaBlanc, Snehal Antani, GE Capital, PureSystems, SoftLayer, Tigger, Eeyore, Arvind Krishna, Internet of Things, connected car, ABI Research, Mike North, NFL, People-centric Engagement, AlwaysOn Engagement Center, Maria Winans

Continuing my coverage of the [IBM Edge2014 conference], IBM's premiere conference for System Storage and related products, I attended EdgeTalks: Innovation That Impacts Our World that offered a series of inspiring talks styled after the famous [TED] conferences.

Surjit Chana, IBM Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and VP of Strategy for IBM Systems and Technology Group, served as emcee to introduce the speakers.

Ron Finley, Renegade Gardener

Back in 2003, "South Central" was [renamed to South Los Angeles]. But as everyone in IT knows, merely renaming something doesn't fix any of its problems. Ron was tired of seeing empty lots filled with old mattresses, used condoms and discarded tires, and wanted to beautify his immediate surroundings by planting vegetables in his front yard.

The city of Los Angeles [cited him for growing food within city limits], and even threatened him with jail time. An appearance with comedian Russell Brand helped Ron gain national attention.

Ron's army of volunteers, the [L.A. Green Grounds], filed a petition. As of October 2013, it is now legal to grow food on your parkway in Los Angeles.

Ron explained that South Los Angeles is a [food desert], where it is nearly impossible to get healthy, organic food. He is concerned the "drive-thrus" of fast food restaurants kill more of his neighbors than [drive-by] shootings.

Ron has discovered this problem is not limited to Los Angeles. The American food system is designed to fill you with processed food and chemicals, made worse by a health care system happy to cut you open or prescribe you more chemicals and drugs. Everywhere processed food goes, chronic disease follows. The USA exports obesity to the rest of the world.

"To change a community, and you must first change the composition of the soil." -- Ron Finley

The rise in cancer, diabetes, and childhood cardiac arrests inspired Ron to start the [Ron Finley Project] consisting of community farms, a marketplace that accepts EBT, SNAP and other government food programs, and portable "container cafes" based on standard shipping containers that could be placed near a garden to help sell the food grown locally.

John Wilbanks, Chief Commons Officer at Sage Bionetworks and Senior Fellow in Entrepreneurship for Faster Cures

John works at [Sage Bionetworks], a non-profit 2009 spin-off from Merck.

We live in the age of cheap data. John prefers the term "cheap data" rather than "big data". Mapping the first human genome cost $3 Billion USD, now John can get his own genome mapped for about $1200.

John feels this cheap data changes the way we justify our opinions. From baseball scouts to the analytics demonstrated in the movie [Moneyball]. President Barack Obama used social media to help win elections. And cheap data is coming to health and medicine.

John gave an interesting example. A grad student wanted to study alcoholism among undergraduate students. The traditional method would have been to gather privacy permission slips from volunteers. Instead, he "friended" 4,000 undergraduates, and looked on social media containing the [distinctive color of red beer cups] for photos taken on Monday through Wednesday, indicative of a drinking problem. This innovative approach allowed the grad student to complete his research in less than six weeks.

Cheap data doesn't mean we have wisdom. John explained the wrong way of doing things. There are several machine-learning apps for smartphones to check for melanoma. Take a photo of your suspected mole, and the app will determine if it detects skin cancer, and recommend a biopsy. Incentives to sell apps, and to perform biopsies, result in 90 percent false positive rates. There is no financial incentive to improve accuracy.

Sharing is the innovation that converts cheap data into wisdom. Get the world's smartest people to compete to create wisdom. Collaborating with IBM on Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods [DREAM] platform, a competition for modeling breast cancer was launched. Requiring all participants to share their code in real-time allowed the accuracy of the model to jump three orders of magnitude in just nine days. Over 60 teams participated. The winning team was awarded an article and cover of [Science Translational Medicine] magazine.

John feels that there are very few genius [data scientists] in the world, and they are isolated, hideously overpaid, managing hedge funds or search engines, but would probably rather be looking for cures for cancer.

Progress is not made if every company only has its own people looking at its own data. John wants data to shared amongst the world's scientists to create wisdom. However collaboration flies in the face of the competition that all the reward systems are based on in health care.

As an experiment, John wanted to make his own genome public. However, that requires "informed consent" for others to use his private health information, and it took him six months of legal and ethical rules to develop a system for him to provide this consent for public use.

In much the same way that gardens and fields were the first [commons] shared by farmers, John feels we need to cultivate the public domain, the "digital commons". This can truly transform medicine and health care.

Peter Singer, Technology Expert and Best-selling Author

Peter shared insights from his latest book [Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know].

The first web page appeared in 1991, and now there are over 30 trillion pages. Over 98 percent of military communications occur over civilian internet communications. The [Internet of Things] adds everything from smart cars to medical devices into the equation.

But along with all the benefits the web has brought society, there are also risks. Every second, nine new pieces of malware are discovered. An astounding 97 percent of Fortune 500 have admitted to being hacked. Over 100 governments have established a cybermilitary force.

(Instead of Powerpoint slides, Peter had a slideshow of his personal collection of the world's best and worst cybersecurity art. Studies show that audiences remember 60 percent more if they are looking at pictures when they hear a speaker.)

While IT folks are good at dealing with both hardware and software, they traditionally don't do well with "wetware", the human side of things. Essential cybersecurity terms and concepts are often misunderstood.

Business leaders over-react to some threats, but completely ignore others. Consider that 70 percent of cybersecurity decisions at companies are made by executives who have no training in cybersecurity. No single MBA program offers cybersecurity courses.

There is a shortage of talent to deal with cybersecurity. Hiring managers are only satisfied with 40 percent of the employees they hire in this Cybersecurity space.

Incentives help explain why some industries like financial services do security well, while others like health care do poorly.

In an effort to find which employees do not take cybersecurity seriously enough, Companies have resorted to sending [phishing] emails to their own employees. Those that click are caught, and must attend mandatory training, or are subject to dismissal. Unfortunately, senior executives are twice as likely to click on phishing emails than the general workforce.

Peter recommends companies focus on resilience. You can never build high enough walls to eliminate threats. Instead, focus on bouncing back after attacks, similar to the anti-bodies in the human body deal with illness.

Ben Franklin said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Peter cited a studied that found proper cyberhygiene would have prevented 94 percent of attacks. The most successful foreign military attack on the U.S. military happened when a soldier saw a memory stick in a parking lot, and was curious enough to connect it to the secure military network to see what it contained.

We need to build an ethic. We teach our kids to cover your mouth when you cough. This does not protect your child in any way, but is an ethic to avoid spreading disease. We need to teach the same ethics related to cybersecurity.

All three were excellent talks focused on innovation. Ron Finley used gardening in otherwise empty urban spaces to help grow people as well as food. John Wilbanks used innovation to help bring the smartest minds to determine models for identifying cancer from genomes. Peter Singer marveled at the innovation of the Internet, and how proper cyberhygiene is needed to keep it secure.

These talks were recorded and available on this [98-minute YouTube video]. For those on Twitter, my handle is @az990tony and the hashtag for this session was #ibmedgetalks.

technorati tags: IBM, #ibmedge, #ibmedgetalks, TED conference, Surjit Chana, Ron Finley, Ron Finley Project, South Los Angeles, Russell Brand, LA Green Grounds, container cafe, John Wilbanks, Sage Bionetworks, Moneyball, cheap data, Barack Obama, red Solo cup, social media, DREAM, data scientist, Science Translational Medicine, human genome, Ben Franklin, Peter Singer, cybersecurity, public domain, digital commons, cyberhygiene

Continuing my coverage of the [IBM Edge2014 conference], IBM's premiere conference for System Storage and related products, here are my notes from the afternoon of Day 1 at the general keynote sessions.

Stephen Leonard, IBM General Manager, STG Sales, served as emcee for the general session.

Tom Rosamilia, IBM Senior Vice President, STG and ISC

Tom (my fifth-line manager, BTW) started off with a joke: "All this talk about Cloud, but it has to run on hardware somewhere!"

Tom insists it is imperative for clients to build an infrastructure that enables business growth. However, less than 10 percent of clients are ready for Cloud, Analytics, Mobile or Social (CAMS) initiatives. Clients need to embrace these new workloads, ensure right-time decision making, and integrate front-office with back-office IT systems.

Tom is also proud that IBM's Software Define Storage solutions manage over 1 [Yottabyte] of information today. That's a billion Petabytes, in case you were wondering. If all of this data was stored on 1TB disk drives, instead of a mix of disk and tape, it would take over one million city blocks to house all the data centers required.

Tom indicated that data is to the 21st century what steam was for the 18th century, electricity was for the 19th century, and hydrocarbons were for the 20th century.

(Fact check: The first [steam engine applied for industrial use] was in 1698, and later improved in 1712. The first industrial-class [electrical generator] was not invented until 1884, and use of electricity was not widespread until the 20th century. Most of the steam and electricity was generated from hydrocarbons such as coal, natural gas or oil. In the 20th century, hydrocarbons were not just used for fuel, but also [plastics, wax, lubricants, and asphalt for roads and parking lots].)

Tom invited Mike Reagan, CIO of Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, to say a few words on why Infrastructure matters to his IT environment. The [Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi] is a 364-bed multi-specialty facility, the first US-hospital replicated outside of North America.

Mike explained their great success partnering with IBM to develop a private cloud solution. Each patient has a bedside tablet that can be used to control the entertainment, lighting, temperature and window shades. It can also be used to Skype with family and friends. The facility is four times the floorspace of the Sands Expo that this event is being helenovo 61 CES awardsld in.

Jamie Thomas, IBM General Manager, Storage and Software Defined Systems

Jamie feels that data is all about security and economics. Storage admins must become the new [data scientists] for IT.

It is important to integrate traditional "Systems of Record" with new "Systems of Engagement" workloads. Her focus areas are Software Defined Storage, Flash technologies, and storage virtualization. Specific examples included:

• New hardware models of the IBM Storwize family: [SAN Volume Controller 2145-DH8 and Storwize V7000] along with v7.3 software enhancements.
• New 1TB flash modules to offer smaller entry versions of the IBM [FlashSystem 840 and V840].
• High-performance Flash enclosures (HPFE) for the IBM [DS8870 disk system].
• The new [Codename: Elastic Storage] for GPFS v4.1 and related products.

Jamie invited two clients to join her on stage: Mike Smith is CIO of [Lee Memorial Health System] and Greg Lavender is CTO of [Citi].

Mike talked about how important Electronic Health Record [EHR] systems and advanced clinical diagnostics are to help make the right medical decisions.

Greg explained that Citi was operating at global scale in 100 countries. Citi partnered with IBM to deploy commodity compute servers, 10GbE/40GbE Ethernet networking and IBM Software Defined Storage to achieve Cloud economics and Cloud scale. Citi can't afford for server, storage and network admins to work separately.

Adalio Sanchez, IBM General Manager for System x

Adalio expressed his excitement in Lenovo's [plans to acquire IBM’s x86 Server Business],

(Note: The deal is not yet complete, awaiting approval from the [Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.] over [national security concerns].)

Rather than contesting [Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman's FUD about this deal], Adalio took the high road, and focused on IBM's success in the x86 server space. New offerings include the X6 architecture, including PureSystems and the NextScale dense computing platform.

Adalio invited Christian Teismann, Lenovo, on stage. Christian re-iterated that IBM and Lenovo are both committed to a smooth transition, continuing IBM's roadmap for the x86 server platform, and full consideration for the x86 servers and related storage, software, service and maintenance.

IBM has had a strong relationship with Lenovo already with the acquisition of IBM's PC division, and now this deal brings together Chinese supply chain efficiency with Western ideals and design principles. Lenovo has about 46,000 employees, nearly 4,000 R&D engineers, and will acquire an additional 7,500 IBMers when the deal completes.

 

Adalio then invited two clients to join him on stage: Ron Grabyan, Manager of Data Warehousing Services at [Southern California Edison], and Rohit Lal, IT Direction of Coca-Cola.

Ron indicated that actionable insights must be fast for productivity. He mentioned the funny [MetLife television commercial featuring Charlie Brown and Lucy] declaring that term-life insurance should cost only "five cents" per month. In the same manner, end users often request that response times should be short. IBM was able to get response times from 40 seconds down to "5 seconds" by helping Ron deploy SAP HANA. Another process that took 53 minutes was down to 1 minute 20 seconds.

Rohit talked about their exciting new "Coke One North America" (CONA) project. This will provide consolidated IT services for 6 different Coca-Cola bottlers in North America. With $46 Billion USD in revenue serving 1.8 billion servings of beverage per day, the use of Analytics, SAP HANA and private cloud were critical to their business.

The industry recognizes Lenovo as a major x86 player, having had 20 quarters of growth outpacing the market. Lenovo has [won 61 CES 2014 awards], more than the other top five x86 vendors combined. IBM x86 servers are ideal for Enterprise solutions, Cloud, HPC, embedded designs, and IT infrastructure deployments. IBM is #1 in x86 server customer satisfaction, #1 in x86 server up-time, and boasts the #1 fastest x86-based supercomputer. IBM and Lenovo want to take this to the next level: #1 leadership in every x86 category.

For those on Twitter, my handle is @az990tony and the hashtag for this event is #IBMEdge.

technorati tags: IBM, Stephen Leonard, Tom Rosamilia, STG, ISC, Software Defined Storage, SDS, Yottabyte, Mike Reagan, Cleveland Clinic, Abu Dhabi, Jamie Thomas, data scientists, Systems of Record, Systems of Engagement, Flash, virtualization, SAN Volume Controller, SVC, 2145-DH8, Storwize V7000, FlashSystem 840, FlashSystem V840, Elastic Storage, GPFS, Mike Smith, Lee Memorial, Greg Lavender, CitiGroup, Electronic Health Record, EHR, Adalio Sanchez, Hewlett-Packard, Meg Whitman, X6, PureSystems, NextScale, Christian Teismann, Lenovo, Ron Grabyan, Southern California Edison, MetLife, Rohit Lal, Coca-Cola, CONA, SAP HANA, CES