Tag Archives: Cloud

Microsoft e-Books on MVA

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Architecture, Cloud, Tools

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Microsoft have added a couple of new titles to their collection of e-books on MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy) this month. These titles add to a good collection of information on Microsoft products.

There are lots of other titles available and it is worth checking out the collection.

Microsoft System Center Deploying Hyper-V with Software-Defined Storage & Networking

Microsoft TechNet and the Cloud Platform Team; Series Editor: Mitch Tulloch
March 2015 236 pages
This ebook covers a variety of aspects that make up the foundation of the software-defined datacenter: virtualization, storage, and networking. By the end, you will have a fully operational, small-scale configuration that will enable you to proceed with evaluation of your own key workloads, experiment with additional features and capabilities, and continue to build your knowledge.
Microsoft System Center Software Update Management Field Experience
Andre Della Monica, Chris Shilt, Russ Rimmerman, and Rushi Faldu; Series Editor: Mitch Tulloch
March 2015 160 pages
This ebook addresses some of the gaps and pain points you might encounter when implementing, administering, and troubleshooting Software Updates using Configuration Manager 2012 R2. The advice is based on the authors’ experiences working as Premier Field Engineers and Microsoft Consultants in customer environments on a daily basis. Enjoy this book and the shared experiences from the field.

Open Source, Open Human, Open Data, Open Sesame!

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in IoT, Open Source, Wearable Tech

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Opeopenn Source is a term that is now common place  meaning access to the inner workings of a thing to allow a wider community of people to help develop and take it forward. A good example of this is in software. The Internet is full of Open Source Software projects that people are developing and collaborating on, sharing data.

A project by the Personal Genome Project is now looking to take the idea of Open Source to the next level with Open Humans. The project is looking for volunteers to Open Source themselves and publicly share data about their health to further science and medical fields. The project does state though that you can choose what data you share.

Open Data is a term relating to data that can be shared openly and freely. An example of this are the data sets freely available by governments such as Data.gov and Data.gov.uk.

By 2020 it is predicted that with a world population of 7.6 billion, there will be 50 billion connected devices. That’s 6.58 connected devices per person. Some people have that now with phones, tablets, wrist devices, glasses etc. Each device capable of producing a lot of data on usage, actions, etc. How much of this data will be private vs open is yet to be determined and the ability to opt in and out need to be clearer for people to understand.

A report in todays BBC News claims that yet more personal data is being sold illegally. This time pensions data (Pension data ‘sales’ investigated by watchdog) . However as we take more steps towards the IoT (Internet of Things) are we able to keep track of our data and how it is used or are we heading towards an Open Sesame bonanza of data treasure being opened, taken and sold on.

Open Sesame is a magical phrase used by Ali Baba to access a secret cave of treasure. In this case the treasure is data!

Race to the largest Raspberry Pi Cluster

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Architecture, Cloud, Innovation, IoT, Programming, Raspberry Pi

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The humble Raspberry Pi has been around for some time and its popularity is growing again with the latest release of the Pi and is a great development platform for the Internet of Things both cost wise and its sheer versatility from basic programming and running Minecraft, to hosting a Docker server.

GCHQ have recently announced the clustering of a 66 node Pi cluster called bramble. They have just pipped the University of Southampton who built a 64 node Pi cluster out of the Pi and Lego.

Some other earlier attempts have seen a 32 Node Cluster Beowulf from the Boise State University.

However it would appear that a 120 node Cluster is currently being developed.

With the 32 node cluster costing roughly the same as a PC, this technology has certainly brought high powered computing into the reach of most people today and the applications going forward are huge for development of solutions.

Data Science in the Cloud ebook

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Data Science

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Microsoft have released a free e-book to download about using Data Science, R and Azure ML (Machine Learning).

Data Science in the Cloud with Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and R

The topics in the book cover:

  • Data management with Azure ML.
  • Data transformation with Azure ML and R.
  • Data I/O between Azure ML and the R Scripts.
  • R graphics with Azure ML.
  • Building and evaluating machine learning models with Azure ML and R.
  • Publishing Azure ML models as a web service.

Added to my every increasing pile of things to read.

IoT Cloak of Invisibility

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Innovation, IoT, Security

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With the upsurge in the IoT (Internet of Things), wearable tech and the desire to be constantly connected within the world, there is also now an emerging market of other things to protect yourself as security devices.

Once such item is an RFID Blocking Wallet that protects your debit and credit cards from giving off data or paying for things that you were not aware of – “Contactless ‘charging errors’ at Marks and Spencer”.

Redcoat

Maybe going forward may see a “Cloak of Invisibility” not as a garment to turn is completely invisible to the naked eye, but more a garment that blocks our signals from the IoT providing a high level of personal security or as a “Firewall Blanket” or a “Firewall Coat/Garment” maybe letting certain of your information through. Providing a layer of protection and security to the user.

I see this as maybe working at a thread level within the garment using low level power flows to disrupt the signals of the IoT or being used to broadcast a blocking frequency, only allowing certain frequencies/digital pulses out and in.

As the IoT develops, I’m sure the level of personal security will as well.

Ready for Technet Online 2015

27 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Cloud, DevOps/OpsDev, Programming

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I am looking forward to this years TechDays Online 2015 which is being run between the 3rd and 5th February 2015. If you cant make the sessions then they normally appear on Microsoft Virtual Academy a few weeks later.

This is being done over 3 days with a packed agenda that you can dip in and out of as needed.

Day One Theme: Client, Devices and Mobility :

  • Day one: Devices and Managing a Mobile-First World

09:30-09:40 Overview of the Day
09:40-10:15 Delighting your business with EMS
10:30-11:05 Devices, Devices Everywhere
11:20-11:55 Windows 10 Client Innovations
12:10-12:45 KEYNOTE: What IT Pros and Devs Need to Know About the New Microsoft
13:30-14:05 Building IoT solutions today
14:20-14:55 Microsoft Azure Remote App
15:10-15:45 Microsoft Azure RMS
16:00-16:35 Azure Active Directory: Much more than a user store
16:50-17:25 Microsoft Intune/SCCM
17:25-17:30 Wrap up of day 1 – Part 1

  • Day one evening: An evening with Office 365

18:30-19:05 Migration of your mailboxes to Office 365
19:15-19:50 Keeping in touch with the online world
20:00-20:35 Building online collaboration inside Office 365
20:35-20:45 Final thoughts for the day

Day Two Theme: Server and Cloud:

  • Day two: The Journey to the Cloud-first World

09:30-09:40 Overview of the Day
09:40-10:15 What’s new Windows Server /Hyper –V – a technical preview
10:30-11:05 How to find out what’s happening in your datacentre with Azure Insights
11:20-11:55 Host your own cloud with the Windows Azure Pack
12:10-12:45 Taking scripting to the next level with Service Management / Azure Automation
13:30-14:05 A new home for your old applications ↓
14:20-14:55 20% + of Azure runs on Linux – why is this important and how to do it well?
15:10-15:45 DevOps in Microsoft Azure with Chef and Puppet for heterogeneous cloud environments
16:00-16:35 Make Azure your DMZ
16:50-17:25 Microsoft Corporate Keynote
17:25-17:35 Wrap up of Day 2

Day Three Theme: Developer

  • Day three: Multi-device, Cross-platform Development

09:30-09:40 Overview of the Day
09:40-10:25 Creating cross-platform apps with Visual Studio
10:40-11:25 How are you going to deploy that?
11:40-12:25 Microsoft Azure Machine Learning without a PhD
13:00-13:45 Debugging and Performance Tuning Web Apps and Sites
14:00-14:45 What is Roslyn and why should you care?
15:00-15:45 Building cross-platform apps with .NET and ASP.NET
16:00-16:45 Creating cross-platform cloud apps for mobile devices
17:00-17:45 Microsoft Corporate Keynote
17:45-17:55 Wrap-up of Tech.Days Online Day 3

Data Science Tools and Cloud Usage

15 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Data Science

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At the end of 2014 O’Reilly published a Data Science Salary Survey report. Two areas of the report that caught my attention not because of the Salary side, but because of the other data collected and the trends it shows.

The first of these is the popularity of Tools that help enable Data Scientists. R and Excel seem to be on a par which is interesting to see as R is typically seen as being more powerful than Excel (I’m sure there is a bigger debate around that but wont get into it here!) , although Excel is more graphically pleasing to the user in manipulation of the data. However the data does not show where someone is using both or has a preference between one and the other.

common+tools

The respondents fall into several roles, which is most probably the swing between a Windows and Linux type environment and the tools used:

  • Analyst – includes coding
  • Statistician
  • Software developer
  • Technical lead
  • Manager
  • Product developer
  • Non-coding Analyst
  • Database administrator
  • UI/UX developer

Interesting that there is no one single role for a Data Scientist listed in the roles.

The report also shows the use of amount of cloud computing that is used by Data Scientists that responded to the survey. Approx a third still not moving to cloud, however two thirds are using it or experimenting with it in some way.  As the common tools are now being altered for the cloud, such as R cluster computing which is now available, there will be more shift to a cloud experience for data manipulation. The one thing that lets R down is the use of memory to hold and load data. The bigger the data set the more memory you need. This may change over time as a limitation and R Cluster is one way around this.

common+cloud

Of course this is only a report based on a number of respondents showing a sample of what is being carried out in the field of Data Science.  The trends may be different if run with a bigger data set and different roles responded.

Source: http://www.oreilly.com/data/free/2014-data-science-salary-survey.csp