NorCal CMG Meeting Feb 3, 2009

If you're in the neighborhood, I'll be giving two talks:

1. "Mongo Measurement Requires Mongo Capacity Management"
   
2. "The Apdex Index Revealed"
   

at the next meeting of the Northern California Computer Measurement Group.

New Quantum Camera

Information is physical because it takes energy to create it and transform it. Instead of the digital bits that you're used to thinking about in the terrestrial computing world, quantum information technologies (QIT) involve encoding information as quantum bits or qubits. The photon has turned out to be a very amenable quantum particle for encoding qubits. For anyone following my progress in the world of QIT, here's the latest. Our invited paper: "A Quantum Imager for Intensity Correlated Photons," which describes a new type of camera has now been published in the European open-access publication New Journal of Physics.

Intel Still Tick-Tocking AMD

As I mentioned at CMG 2008, and also in my Guerrilla Boot Camp classes, it's important to keep your eye on the various twists and turns in the technology marketplace, so that you are not broadsided when it comes to things like server procurement. One example I referred to is the very aggressive microprocessor technology roadmap that Intel is pursuing; something they call "tick-tock".

Although I'm not tracking these events as closely as I was last year (when Intel was racing toward 45 nm parts), it looks like AMD microprocessor fabrication is essentially 1 yr behind Intel. One way this leapfrogging occurs is due to full automation. Intel can go from lab to fab essentially in one shot by uploading their lab "recipes" into the production chip fabrication line. They claim to have 32 nm working in the lab already and are planning to ship parts in 4Q09.

Update: In spite of that, Intel 4Q08 profits plunged by 90 percent.

Update: In related news, world-wide desktop PC sales have taken a pounding.

Canada Cogitates On The Future of IT

ITworld Canada reports on how the Canadian Coalition for ICT (CCICT) is hoping to increase the number of students studying IT through its new National ICT Week event. "We need to get the word out as to how the world is changing, and change people's attitudes toward IT as a career plan," says CCICT executive director David Ticoll.

"In addition to being afraid of the dot-com crash fall-out and offshoring, they don't really think an IT career is competitive.
But the reality is that the demand profile is changing: around 25% of IT workers are business analysts, and those are the most in demand."

I wonder if that's still true since the econo-bomb went off?

Mao Meets Capacity Management

Could happen. Not ex-Chairman Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung, when I was in school), who hasn't been "The Great Helmsman" in the national bridge for 35 years, but rather his grandson, Mao Xinyu. The latter's blog about his grandfather was selected by the Chinese government as the most "attention-grabbing" blog of 2008 (in mainland China, I assume).

In the course of studiously searching the web for references to his grandfather, Mao Xinyu might well have come across the rubric on my Guerrilla Manifesto page. It's a paraphrasing of a passage from gandpa's Little Red Book:

"Mao Tse-tung during the Chinese civil war, condensed guerrilla warfare into the following points for his troops: The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue."

On second thought, maybe Mao Xinyu didn't find my page. I've been told that my entire web site is blocked in China. In an act of profound irony, this may be because the current Communist government blocks on keywords like "guerrilla" or possibly the Mao quotation, out of fear that such words might encourage some of their 1.3 billion people to rise up, like Mao and his guerrilla army in 1949, and do to them what Mao did to the Kuomintang. Could happen.

Guerrilla Training Schedule for 2009

A preliminary schedule for 2009 Guerrilla capacity planning classes has been posted. A recession is all about doing more with less or, at least, with the capital equipment already purchased. That's a major reason for doing capacity planning.

The class fees and penalties have been increased over 2008, unless you book Early Bird. This means you should start arranging your 2009 training now, so that it gets budgeted. This is going to be rough year. If you do not act preemptively, you may not get in at the last minute (the hotel puts a lot of pressure on us) or, even worse, we may not run the class. Book early, book often!

Another option to consider is having me come to you: Have notes, will travel. That can be more efficient when you have a group of people in your organization who need training. See you in class!

National Performance Officer Appointed

Here's another Guerrilla "grenade" (as in, weapon of mass instruction) you can throw at your boss.

Clearly, this Obama dude is displaying enlightenment by appointing Nancy Killefer as his administration's chief performance officer; a new White House position aimed at eliminating government waste and improving efficiency. Every home, well ... organization, should have one.

Update (Feb 3, 2009): It worked!(?) The first Chief Performance Officer found herself under-performing and was removed.