Posts tagged IT

IT Vocabulary Builder: Thin Clients

0
2 years ago
by Scott Coughlin in , , , , , ,

The Information Technology (IT) Vocabulary Builder series aims to deliver a very concise summary of a currently relevant topic to Information Professionals.  It is done mostly by collecting a small number of highly relevant web links to save you the time of combing through search results yourself.  It differs from sites such as Wikipedia because it includes opinions, forecasts, and detractions in addition to just facts.

They say that If you want a new idea, read an old book.  That saying always sticks in my head after I see a presentation suggesting that an organization shift to using thin clients.  This same idea has had many names – mainframe computing, client/server deployment, and now thin clients.  It has come and go from information technology vogue many times and seems to me to show up every time that a major operating system vendor – Apple, LINUX, or Windows releases a new version that claims to support it better than before.

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Here is how Wikipedia introduces the topic:

"A thin client (sometimes also called a lean or slim client) is a client computer or client software in client-server architecture networks which depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the remote server. In contrast, a thick or fat client does as much processing as possible and passes only data for communications and storage to the server.

 

The term was coined in 1993 by Tim Negris, VP of Server Marketing at Oracle Corp., while working with company founder Larry Ellison on the launch of the landmark Oracle7 release of the company’s flagship relational database management system (RDBMS). Ellison had charged Negris with finding a way to boldly differentiate Oracle’s server-centric software from the decidedly desktop-oriented products of then-rival Microsoft. Thin Client became Ellison’s relentless battle cry, repeated in hundreds of speeches, interviews and articles attendant to the release of Oracle7 and many other products after that."

Among the advantages of this approach are lower capital outlay, simplified architectures, enhanced security, scalability, ease of troubleshooting, repair, and upgrade, and environmental footprint.  Disadvantages are requirement for expert administrators, specialized training, inability to customize workstations, lack of peripherals, expense of central nodes, reliance on single vendor supply chains, and vulnerability to system outage based upon server outage. 

My suggestion is only that they be used in cases where the computing requirements are both completely understood and defined as well as standardized.  I think that most groups find that while they may have been smart ideas when they were deployed, the majority of them are replaced by more standard PC architectures when it comes time to upgrade.  For most organizations, flexibility is a better long term advantage than lower capital outlay.

The following references provide excellent extended reading on the topic:

Does your team use this term regularly?  Do you have experience deploying, maintaing, or using thin clients? Do you think that it will last? Please share your thoughts on this emerging paradigm.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for October 1, 2009.

Image Credit: HP.com http://www.hp.com

The Purpose of Information Technology

4
2 years ago
by Scott Coughlin in , ,

Today, my thought is a very cornerstone one… What is the purpose of information technology management as a profession? Obviously the information professional implements, maintains, operates, and manages an organization’s information technology (IT) systems.  What is not so obvious is why those organizations use IT in the first place.  I think that it is a very good idea to revaluate these fundamental reasons on a regular basis.

question mark

Here are the reasons why, I believe, organizations move from manual processes to automated ones using information technology:

Reduce uncertainty. In a world where the data comes at you like a New York City fire department hydrant that has burst, we have forever progressed past the point where a human can even consider, let alone evaluate the flow.  Turing data into information is now the province of the computer.

Reduce cycle time. Any process that is repetitive – building cars, painting animation cells, or drawing blueprints – can be sped up through the use of IT based automation.

Reduce the cost of creation. Seen any movie lately?  All of those CG (computer generated) special effects are excellent examples of products that can be created for a fraction of the price using computers.

Improve archiving. There is a reason why the first computers were used for the US Census.  If you want to permanently record anything, you will be far more effective using IT than people.  Accurate record keeping is a function that we have turned over to computers.

Mining data.  Closely coupled to our discussion of uncertainty reduction, above, you cannot argue that when experts spend their talent and time creating rules for computers to review data with, you can produce knowledge much more effectively.  Information Technology excels at filtering huge quantities of data to create context and relevance.

Speeding up decision-making.  I know that my computer chess program can play at speeds that I cannot.  I am sure that it gets very bored waiting the millions of CPU cycles it must to slow down to a pace that I only lose 9 times out of ten against it.

That is it.  I know of no other that is not a derivative of one of the above.  I recommend that you try to use these categories to bin your IT challenges at work.  If you start the conversation with the fundamental idea of specifying what you are trying to accomplish, you may just find much greater clarity and understanding occurs all around the corporate decision making table. 

Can you think of other reasons to employ an information technology solution?  Do you have an example of another function?  If so, please share.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for September 29, 2009 by Scott Coughlin

Best Information Technology News Podcasts

2
2 years ago
by Scott Coughlin in , , ,

I often times get asked how I manage to keep up with all of the happenings in the Information Technology (IT) field. My recommendation to most is that you need to invest time in a range of media – magazines, websites, blogs, and podcasts – to really do it correctly. It is the last category, podcasts, that I wish to discuss today.

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Podcasts are downloadable audio files that you can play on your computer, iPod, or portable media player. Like blogs, they range in quality from amateur garage-bands to completely professional mass media productions. For technology, I have found that the sweet spot seems to be technology professionals who are refugees from either closed-down magazines, TV channels, or radio shows. They seem to produce the best quality formats and recordings, accessing the best media-savvy guests, have the skills to make the show entertaining while remaining informative, and keep to a schedule that makes them valuable from a current-events perspective. I especially like ones that are funny and intelligent while being information packed.

Here is how Wikipedia defines podcasts:

"A podcast is a series of digital media files, either audio or video, that is released episodically and downloaded through web syndication. The mode of delivery is what differentiates podcasts from other ways of accessing media files over the Internet, such as simple download or streamed webcasts: special client software applications known as podcatchers (like iTunes, Zune, Juice, and Winamp) are used to automatically identify and download new files in the series when they are released by accessing a centrally-maintained web feed that lists all files associated with the series. New files can thus be downloaded automatically by the podcatcher and stored locally on the user’s computer or other device for offline use, giving simpler access to episodic content."

There are literally podcasts covering every technical topic under the sun. Sometimes they can be hard to find, though, and even harder to separate the good from the not so good. The iTunes Music Store, is where I go to subscribe to podcasts, but you can also download them directly from the various websites. All of my recommendations are free. I almost always listen to them in audio format on an iPod, but most of these actually tape live with video that is available via streaming if you prefer that format.

Here are the information technology (IT) related podcasts that I listen to regularly and recommend:

General Tech
Cloud Computing
Security
Apple Computing
Linux

I find that this combination presents me the right information and news, at the perfect intervals, with the best commentary to make sense of it all. If you happen to have a decent commute, as I do, you can turn that time into productive time and really stay on top of all that is going on in the technology sector and driving our Information Age. Enjoy!

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for September 28, 2009.

Image Credit: US Naval Postgraduate School

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