Category: Technology

Is it time that the file server concept was finally killed off? Is the continued use of this most ancient of network concepts holding us all back? Are they so embedded that we shall never get rid of them?

Some assumptions taken early in the technology cycle continue to influence the current technology even though they are no longer relevant. There is a well told story which links the width of a horse through to size of a train. This is apparently only half-true but serves my purposes well here because it shows that once a standard is set it is built upon, and on, and on, and may never ever be changed. So it is with the file server.

I’m not suggesting that things need to be changed just because they have been around for a while, thought I could construct an argument to that effect. In the normal course of life though something happens which changes the basis for a standard in a disruptive way and the old standard is simply left behind. In the UK the cart used to be the way to move things around, and then along came the canal, but before the canal was even fully established along came the train. The old standard may still be around, but it is no longer the standard.

The shared file server concept has been alive and well since the creation of the first network. In simplistic terms, if you wanted to share a file with someone you put it on a file server so you can both get access to it. The first and simplest form of IT collaboration, even pre-dating email. We have moved between different variant but in essence they all allow us to store files and get them back again.

This simple centralisation concept has allowed us to build a whole set of working process and technologies that have little to do with file services but build on its bedrock. We ask people to store data on the file server so we don’t need to worry about backup on the clients. We ask people to store data centrally so we can protect it with RAID systems and other resilience techniques. We ask people to store their data on the file server so we can rebuild their client device without worrying about data.

At the same time we have realised and lived with the problems of data centralisation. Moving all of the data to the centre has meant that all of the growth is centralised too leaving many organisations with an impossible task trying to keep up with the growth. Centralisation of the data has established massively complex security structures making restructuring of the data practically impossible Centralising the data has moved, to a significant extent, ownership of the data to the centre to; but because the centre doesn’t actually own the data it doesn’t know what to do with it making policy definition impossible. Centralisation of the data has also enforced a single view of the data structure which serves the needs of only some members of the team who are using the data (some people think in applications rather than in process for instance).

People have come up with all sorts of ideas to resolve these problems. Most of these ideas have involved a movement of the data out of the file systems and into some application or database. While working in some niches they have done little to curtail the continued growth of the file server. has Oracle iFiles (as it used to be called) actually removed a significant percentage of the file servers out there, how about Documentum, or any other Document Management system. Even people’s reliance upon email hasn’t slowed the consumption of the file server all that happens is that people store the data in the email system and on the file service.

So why do I say that the file server is dead? What is the disruption that is coming that will remove our reliance upon it? What technology can this idiot be talking about?

Well it’s not a technology.

It’s not some new software.

It’s society – yes society.

Or more specifically, the changes in the modern work environment leading to more pervasive home and remote working.

I regard myself as a bit of a Edge Case when it comes to home working, but I’m only one of several million. I used to architect and deploy file servers by the bucket load; since working at home I haven’t touched a single one. The file service has changed from being a service to being a constraint. In order to use the file service I need to embed myself and my device wholly into the corporate IT from the outside and it’s just too difficult. If I want to use a file service I need to start a VPN into my corporate environment. If I want to access the Document Management system I don’t, if I want to use any of the LOB applications I don’t, if I want to use email I don’t. So why should I bother? What used to be the easiest place to store data has become one of the most difficult. Perhaps there are good reason for me to use the shared file services available to me, but I don’t. It’s easier for me to share data into the places that I should have been using all along, so I have changed a long established process and started using the Document Management system.

A couple of years ago I would have told you that you were bonkers if you told me that I would be writing this post.

Where I have come many will follow.

The announcement by Ray Ozzie of some work that they have been doing on the creation of a Clipboard concept for the web has got a lot of people talking today.

Sometimes someone says something simple, profound and obvious. We all understand the clipboard concept, we all understand that we can’t do this on the web but have got so used to that fact that we have missed the point that it could be possible.

The first screen-cast was enough for me. I was left thinking two things, firstly I was thinking “that’s brilliant”, secondly I was thinking “why can’t I do that today”.

The best ideas are often the obvious ones. The funny thing is that I do something similar to this to create this blog, but I do it manually without the help of the technology. When I post a picture into this blog I go to a page in flickr which has all of the code (html) I need to paste the picture into BlogJet and hence upload it to Typepad. This demo is doing something incredibly similar to that, but with a lot more style. All we need now are a set of developers to make it work and for that to happen they need to be told that we expect it to happen.

Other links:

Dave Winer, eWeek, Technorati, CNET News.com, Scoble, any many, many more.

 

Anyone who has done any form of desktop refresh or upgrade will know that the biggest issue is getting the applications from one side of the refresh in working order to the other side. Despite the amount of press coverage that a new operating system gets, most people use an operating system to run applications. The volume of applications used by businesses has always amazed me.

There are many techniques that assist with this challenge. The main one I have seen employed has been application re-packaging. On the basis that most applications get deployed more than once they are re-packaged so that the same application package with the corporate configuration can be deployed quickly to anyone who needs the application. The problem with this – it’s expensive and time consuming, but more significantly it gives every user the ‘corporate’ configuration of the application. Most users then proceed to spend even more time tuning the application to their working process. This reduction in productivity is a major impact to anyone receiving a refreshed or upgraded device.

The other approach that some organisations follow is to make the end-user responsible for the applications that they use, some even make them responsible for the configuration of the client device and when to refresh it. The application re-packaging approach doesn’t work in these environments the approach needs to be client based.

Yesterday Microsoft announced the purchase of Apptimum (beta news) focussed on moving applications, settings and data between devices.

The killer application in this arena will be the one that blends both solutions, allowing enterprises to build easily deployed packages and also to enable users to move their state with them. There isn’t enough information available to position the Apptimum technology but I would expect it to come into the Microsoft toolset along side the next version of the User State Migration Tool.

We still have a long, long way to go before we make the business of upgrades a pleasurable experience for people.

(Sorry, I’m all out of Jimmy and Grandad pictures at the moment so please enjoy the snow in Bulgaria as a substitute for now)

Steve’s blog has become active again – nice to see you back.

Steve and I were commenting the other day on search engine ranking. Steve is number 3 for “Steve Richards” on Google today – as usual I am number 1 for “Graham Chastney” and for “Chastney”. Having an unusual name has its advantages .

One of the concepts that has been most pervasive within IT since it’s inception has been the idea of the cursor or the pointer. We have had over all these years, almost exclusively, a single point of focus on our screens. The mouse has then been the universal interface to this concept. This concept was developed in the days when computers could only cope with doing one thing on a screen at any one time. Many of us prefer the keyboard because it allows us to get an approximation of a multi-point interface but really all we are doing is driving a single point interface as fast as we can. It’s a bit like a virtuoso pianist using all of their fingers but only pressing one key at a time.

This video and this link show the way it could be; bi-manual, multi-point and multi-user interactions on a graphical interaction surface. It’s one of those videos that makes you think about the way it could be. It would mean a completely new way of looking at software, but it could be so much more productive.

Some interesting articles from The Filing Cabinet on Single Instance Storage

• Part 1: Introduction
• Part 2: SIS Design; creating links, assessing links, breaking links
• Part 3: The SIS Common Store and Common-Store Files
• Part 4: Backup and Restore Support for SIS

It’s definitely very interesting.

This is a really interesting article on stuff, you know, all that detritus that we carry around every day just-in-case:

Slogging around with a backpack, a notebook and a bottle of water, you stop for a while and stare at the historic black-and-white photographs in the National Museum of American History. You know, the ones depicting Americans going about their everyday lives: folks waiting for District trolley cars circa 1900, for instance, or people crisscrossing Pennsylvania Avenue in 1905.

Notice something missing? That’s right: stuff.

The people — all ages, all colors, all genders — are not carrying any backpacks or water bottles. They are not schlepping cell phones, cradling coffee cups or lugging laptops. They have no bags — shopping, tote or diaper. Besides a small purse here or a walking cane or umbrella there, they are unburdened: footloose and fingers free.

Now walk outside and take a look around. People on the same city streets are loaded down. They are laden with books, newspapers, Gatorade jugs, personal stereos, knapsacks, briefcases and canvas totes with high-heel shoes inside. They have iPods strapped to upper arms, fanny packs buckled around waists and house keys Velcroed to shoelaces.

I especially liked this line:

It’s the perfect posture for the Age of Insecurity. We fret about our jobs, families, country, manhood or womanhood, ability to be a good parent. We believe someone is out to get us. And to get our things. So, like the homeless, we carry our stuff with us. Just in case something, or anything, happens.

Isn’t it a trap, all that carrying.

For a few months now I’ve had a sore shoulder (oh no he was only just talking about his headaches) and it’s really made me think about all the stuff I carry around. Simple things like spare Ethernet cables just in case I get somewhere and there aren’t any.

The other day though I achieved the ultimate. I got in my car with a notebook and a pen, I drove to a meeting, I took notes and I left. I felt naked, but strangely released.

Now all I need to do is work out how I’m going to reduce the level of detritus that is stacking up in our bedroom ready for our skiing holiday.