Robert Von Oech on CreativeThink remembers Ernest Gallo, who died last week at 97 years old.

"Do you know what I do?" Mr. Mondavi recalls Mr. Gallo asked him when they first met.
"Yes, you run the largest winery in the country," recalls Mr. Mondavi, then in his mid-20s.
"No," Ernest corrected him. "I go out and visit customers in stores."

Robert Smith (aka Radio Voom) reports on National Public Radio that Second Life is now being used for campaigning for political candidates. It used to be that political candidates took trains and buses across the country, meeting people, discussing their issues, and getting a feel for what is going on in the hearts and minds of their potential voters. With the development of TV and Radio, candidates traveled less, hoping to get their word out to people who would listen to them. Using Second Life and other social networking tools brings candidates back to having conversations with the people they hope to represent.

Of course, many of these candidates are old, and are learning internet social networking skills for the first time. John McCain, my senator from Arizona, is running for President at 70 years old! It's true that old dogs CAN learn new tricks.

IBM is investing heavily into Second Life, as are many other forward-thinking companies, to explore the age-old human need for connectedness, community and dialog. I've asked my team to all get their avatars up and running in Second Life. Granted there is a bit of a learning curve, but everybody handles change in different ways, some better than others.

John Windsor on YouBlog,Marina Krakovsky inStanford Magazine,and Guy Kawasaki, all discuss the "Effort Effect" and Carol Dweck's latest book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success". I haven't read the book yet myself, but the reviews are interesting. The IT industry is evolving fast, and embracing new technologies, new concepts, and new ideas is necessary for success.

Seth Godin takes this one step further, arguing there are two kinds of people in this world: Thrill Seekers and Fear Avoiders. Forbes just published its latest list of billionaires. The front quote on Forbes' website says it all...

"Knowledge is the antidote to fear."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why are most of these guys (and girls) with over a billion US dollars in net worth still working? Perhaps because they embrace new ideas, and are on the thrill seeking side of humanity. I guess I am too. I'll be thrill-seeking in Chicago this weekend, celebrating St. Patrick's day.

technorati tags: Robert Von Oech, CreativeThink, Ernest Gallo, Mondavi, Robert Smith, National Public Radio, NPR, John+McCain, Arizona, IBM, Secondlife, John Windsor, YouBlog, Mirina Krakovsky, Standford, Guy Kawasaki, Effort Effect, mindset, success, Seth Godin, thrill seekers, fear avoiders, Forbes, billionaires, working, Chicago, Wicked, St Patricks Day

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Tags:  secondlife

On the news today, they mentioned it was "Happy Pi Day". Today is the 14th day of the 3rd month, and "pi" is about 3.14159, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. So, in Tucson it is celebrated on 3/14, at 1:59pm MST.

The ratio has a lot to do with storage.

• Tape wrapped around a hub. Tape is thin, but not completely, so wrapping hundreds of meters on tape results in a change in diameter of the spool. This impacts the rotational velocity needed to get the linear meters-per-second on the tape media consistent as the diameter changes when you wind down from a full spindle toward the hub. IBM has variable speed motors and other clever technologies to handle this adjustment.

• Disks spin at consistent speeds, but tracks on the outside edge travel faster across the head than the inside tracks.Currently, the top speeds for disk are 15000 Revolutions per minute (RPM). As faster rotational speeds are investigated, the researchers find they need to make the diameters smaller to compensate.

• The diameters of disks were based on "U", the unit height of standard 19" racks. A "U" is 1.75 inches, and standard floppy diskettes were 5.25 inch (3U) and 3.5 inch (2U). For those who have a difficult time remember how many inches a "U" is, it is the height of a standard two-by-four (2x4) piece of lumber.

The value of "pi" has been calculated to over a billion significant digits. Here is a cuteapplet to use if you ever need the value to any level of accuracy.

technorati tags: IBM, disk, tape, pi, Pi Day, U, RPM

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Tags:  disk tape

Yesterday, most of the USA moved its clocks forward an hour. Arizona and Hawaii don't bother, as there is plenty of daylight in both states. While it may seem that Arizonans are not "affected" by Daylight Saving Time (DST), we are, because we have to deal with the time zone offsets with those we talk to in other states. (Note: it is SAVING not SAVINGS, many people mistakenly say "Daylight Savings Time", which is incorrect).

Year round, Arizona is on Mountain Standard Time (MST), which is GMT-7. Figuring out what time Arizona can be remembered by a simple mnemonic:

• In the winter time, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona are all on MST, so best American ski resorts are all on the same time zone. People who hop from one ski resort to another by helicopter don't have to reset their watches as they move into or out of Arizona.
• In the summer time, Arizonans head to San Diego, Los Angeles or other parts of California, where it is not so hot. California is on PDT, which is the same as MST. People who hop from Arizona wineries and vineyards to those in California and Oregon can easily cross the Arizona-California border without having to reset our watches.

Those in Second Life may have noticed that "Second Life time" (SL time) shifted from PST to PDT. That is because their servers reside in San Francisco, California.

technorati tags: IBM, Daylight Saving Time, DST, Second Life, Arizona, Hawaii, PDT, MST, GMT

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Tags:  secondlife infrastructure

The blogosphere has quieted down a bit over the two papers on MTBF estimates for Disk Drive Modules (DDM).One article on SearchStorage.com by Arun Taneja asksIs RAID passé? Disk capacity is growing at a faster rate than DDM reliability. During the hours to rebuild a DDM, companies are at risk of additional failures that could require recovery from a copy, or result in data loss, depending on how well your Business Continuity (BC) plan is written and followed.

I'll discuss two comments in particular.

1. Joerg Hallbauer felt I did not address all the issues raised:

   ... The problem with that is that it's the DISK ARRAY that determines when a drive has failed an starts the rebuild process. That IS under the control of IBM, specifically the controller. But more importantly, it effects my risk of data loss.

   As I see it, my risk of data loss with RAID-5 is influenced by two main factors. 1 - The drive replacement rate and 2 - The rebuild time (which to a great extent is a function of the drive size) both of which IBM has some control over.

   So, I think that the question in my mind is, what's the tipping point? Where does the risk of using RAID-5 protection exceed what I'm willing to accept, and I need to move to some other protection mechanism like RAID-6? Is it when the rebuild times exceed 12 hours? 24 hours? 48 hours?

   Also, I wonder why IBM isn't publishing some information to help me make these kinds of decisions?

2. Bill Todd felt I was not technical enough:

   Oh, dear - while Tony doesn’t seem to be parrying vigorously (as Seagate, Hitachi, and Chunk were doing), his contribution sounds more like IBM marketing than the kind of detailed, technical response one might have hoped for

   ... well, he *is* a manager, and a marketing one at that, so perhaps we shouldn’t expect more).

Both are fair comments. Disk arrays do run microcode to assist or perform the RAID function, detect failures and start the rebuild process, and so clever designs to support spare disks, process the rebuild quickly, and so on, can differentiate one vendor's offering from another.

On the issue of what does IBM provide to help its clients make the right decisions for their environments, Jon William Toigo at DrunkenData points his readers to IBM's Business Continuity Self-Assessment tool. In normal data center conditions, DDMs will fail, and a Business Continuity plan shouldbe written and developed to handle this fact. Using 2-site and 3-site mirroring, complemented with versions of tape backups, can help address some of these concerns and mitigate some of the risks involved with using disk systems.

For those who want a more technical answer, IBM has just published a series of IBM Redbooks.

• Business Continuity - Solutions Overview
• Business Continuity - Part 1 Planning Guide
• Business Continuity - Part 2 Solutions Guide

Each client's situation is different, so no simple answer is possible. However, IBM does have a lot of experience in this area, and would be glad to help you write or update your existing Business Continuity plan.

technorati tags: IBM, disk, MTBF, estimates, papers, Arun Taneja, Jon William Toigo, StorageMojo, Business Continuity, Redbooks

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Tags:  bc disk