Tag Archives: Blockchain

Podcast –Nick Alesandro on Blockchain, Edge, and Cloud Oh My!

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Joining us this week is Nick Alesandro, VP of Product at Overclock Labs; creators of The Akash Network.

About Overclock Labs

  • We believe the Cloud should be distributed and decentralized so that no one provider can control the internet.
  • We believe the cloud should be globally fault-tolerant to avoid any single points of failure.
  • We believe the Cloud should be simple, automated, and accessible for all.

About Akash Network

Decentralized protocol for provisioning, scaling and securing cloud workloads: The world’s only on-chain auction marketplace for off-chain container deployments

Highlights

  • 0 min 37 sec: Introduction of Guest
  • 2 min 28 sec: High level description of the technology
    • Cloud centralization is a problem; it needs to be decentralized
    • Take over 100% or a partial amount of a machine added to the cloud network with special CoreOS based system
  • 5 min 13 sec: Akash Network
    • Donate your idle servers into an available system for usage in a cloud managed by Overclock Labs
    • 2 Components – Blockchain for marketplace / Deployment platform
  • 6 min 52 sec: How does marketplace work; who wants to use this network?
    • Focus is on developers who want to use these systems
    • #1 Reason – Cheaper than standard public clouds ; #2 Reason – Its distributed globally not at fixed known sites
  • 10 min 26sec: Blockchain as decentralized ledger to avoid central store
    • Join the infrastructure without a formal registration on a single database; only listening for bids not publishing what they offer
    • History of the infrastructure is public for customers to evaluate
  • 12 min 31 sec: How do I know where I am pushing my workloads? Can I trust the infrastructure provider?
    • Issues arise with receiving workloads that are unknown to you
  • 16 min 38 sec: What do I do to add a rack of servers into Akash network?
    • What you need to do vs what you should do
    • Management Server, Network Isolation, Monitoring
    • Seasonal Load Model ~ Electric Grid Analogy
  • 20 min 23 sec: Identify Geography and Latency to Customers?
  • 21 min 23sec: What do I ensure I am not getting dropped or pulled into a bidding trap?
    • Workload goes down it automates a bid elsewhere in the network
    • Conditions can be set should you need a long running workload and it is terminated by the host
    • Do you expect providers to monitor machines or do you as a service?
  • 27 min 45 sec: Kubernetes Cluster across providers?
    • Kubernetes Federation
    • Why Kubernetes? Writing our own Kubernetes using Kubernetes
  • 31 min 55 sec: Why not do this with Virtual Machines?
    • Containers makes sense
  • 32 min 40 sec: How long have you been working on this project?
    • Why of the project? DISCO → Scheduler
    • Decentralization is the key
    • Can build a private infrastructure using their system
  • 37 min 01 sec: Wrap-Up

Podcast – Syed Zaaem Hosain on Edge, IoT, and Reality

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Joining us this week is Syed Zaeem Hosain, CTO and Founder of Aeris from the KeyBanc Emerging Tech Summit.

About Aeris
Aeris is a technology partner with a proven history of helping companies unlock the value of IoT. For more than a decade, we’ve powered critical projects for some of the most demanding customers of IoT services. Aeris strives to fundamentally improve businesses by dramatically reducing costs, accelerating time-to-market, and enabling new revenue streams. Built from the ground up for IoT and globally tested at scale, Aeris IoT Services are based on the broadest technology stack in the industry, spanning connectivity up to vertical solutions. As veterans of the industry, we know that implementing an IoT solution can be complex, and we pride ourselves on making it simpler.

Highlights

  • 0 min 48 sec: Introduction of Guest
  • 1 min 27 sec: Edge is already here for Aeris – Mobile Data Presence
    • Support customers who have a need for long distance data transport over cellular
    • Focused on device connectivity
    • Edge devices will have processing power of their own
  • 4 min 31 sec: Car as Edge Data Center Issues
    • Better to move processing off the car? Cost issue for sending data via cellular
    • Tire Pressure System Example
    • 5G Cost may not be dramatically lower as people expect
  • 7 min 24sec: Can’t Send all Data Back ~ Need Local Machine Learning
    • Great deal of irrelevant data (e.g. Tire pressure)
    • Can send lots of data to train models as well – Airplane example
  • 12 min 04 sec: Dave McCrory Podcast on Airplane Use Case / Data Gravity
    • Security in Data Gathering Algorithms – Must validate the source of data
    • Use of aggregated data to monitor data validity
  • 17 min 11 sec: Sharing of Data in Edge Models
    • Issues with Security, Ownership, etc of data
    • Windshield wipers on cars for weather info
    • Source of data – how participate in money chain?
  • 21 min 45 sec: Billing for Pennies is a Problem
    • Billing systems are in issue to track revenue
    • ROI in IoT space is an open issue
  • 23 min 36 sec: Blockchain can help here?
  • 25 min 21 sec: What is the ROI for adding more devices into IoT model
    • Medical sensors (skin monitoring, pressure points in eye for monitoring)
    • Human privacy is a massive issue in this space
  • 34 min 02 sec: BOOK – Definitive Guide to IoT for Business (Free)
  • 35 min 37 sec: Wrap-Up

Podcast Guest: Syed Zaeem Hosain, CTO and Founder of Aeris

Mr. Hosain is responsible for the architecture and future direction of Aeris’ networks and technology strategy. He joined Aeris in 1996 as Vice President, Engineering and is a member of the founding executive team of Aeris. Mr. Hosain has more than 38 years of experience in the semiconductor, computer, and telecommunications industries, including product development, architecture design, and technical management. Prior to joining Aeris, he held senior engineering and management positions at Analog Devices, Cypress Semiconductor, CAD National, and ESS Technology. Mr. Hosain is Chairman of the International Forum on ANSI‐41 Standards Technology (IFAST) and Chairman of the IoT M2M Council (IMC). He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

Podcast – Val Bercovici on why Lawyers and Insurance Companies drive to good IT Practices

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Joining us this week is Val Bercovici, Founder & CEO of PencilDATA at KeyBanc Emerging Tech Summit.

About PencilDATA

PencilDATA is a software-as-a-service startup embracing data governance allowing users to see and manipulate data easily. It achieves this with a blockchain ledger that accounts for all data activity.

Highlights

  • 0 min 48 sec: Introduction from Val Bercovici
  • 4 min 47 sec: What do you use Blockchain for?
    • Core to the value but is just an enabler
  • 5 min 52 sec: Don’t confused Blockchain with ICO/Crypto-currency
    • Blockchain rollouts in 2018 have paused ~ Gartner quote
    • HOMEWORK – Podcast with BlockChain Technology Partners
    • PencilDATA has built the S3 of Blockchains
  • 10 min 08 sec: Blockchain Service or Acting on BC with distributed service?
    • Useful Zero Trust Solution
    • Autonomous Vehicle Taxi Service Use Case
    • Same workflow and processes needed for medical equipment
  • 15 min 59 sec: Why Distributed Ledgers for these Use Cases?
    • Centralized authorities can be a single point of failure
  • 19 min 51 sec: Data security issues around Veracity & Authentication
    • Data poison can train AI poorly
    • Explainable AI ~ Data Reproduce-ability; prove data is valid
  • 25 min 54 sec: Salesforce Use Cases
    • Live on the Salesforce App Exchange
    • Launching at Dreamforce 2018 with Customer References
  • 27 min 18 sec: How PencilDATA provide value to Salesforce Customers?
    • SaaS Turnkey Solution that hides the behind the scenes work
    • Costs for Ethereum usage
  • 37 min 14 sec: Industrial IoT Use Case
  • 37 min 31 sec: Wrap-Up

Podcast Guest: Val Bercovici, Founder & CEO of PencilDATA

Valentin (Val) Bercovici, a longtime NetApp executive and former SolidFire CTO / co-founder at Peritus.ai. Val is now Founder & CEO of PencilDATA – an early leader in Tamper-Proofing Digital Transformation.

Previously, Bercovici led teams driving change across his 19 years with NetApp/SolidFire. Val’s teams have played an integral role in successfully growing the company beyond a pure storage play into the Cloud, Analytics & DevOps eras. Bercovici, a pioneer in the Cloud industry, introduced the first International Cloud Standard to the marketplace as CDMI (ISO INCITS 17826) in 2012 and has several patents granted & pending around data center applications of augmented reality.

Podcast – Lack of Seriousness in Cybersecurity, Security thru Transparency, and Blockchain

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Joining us this week is Mike D. Kail, previously the CTO of Cybric and Yahoo’s CIO and SVP of Infrastructure.

Highlights

  • RANT Cast on Cybersecurity Regulations from Governments
    • Security is Important but NOT a Priority
  • Culture around Security is Lacking
  • Time for Security Tech to Include UI Testing and Consider User Experience
  • Confusing on Not-Working Security Settings and Profit Motives
    • Security thru Transparency
  • Accountability of Provider in Turning off Security based on Requests
  • Definition on Distributed Ledgers / Blockchain & Scalability Challenges
  • Promise of Blockchain and Good Application for It / Digital Identity
  • Zero Trust Security Overview
  • Equifax Example and Regulations

 

Topic                                                                                           Time (Minutes.Seconds)

(Boring) Intro on Introduction Music Not Happening          0.0 – 0.59
Introduction                                                                                0.59 – 2.54
RANT Cast Overview                                                                2.54 – 3.50 (Eric Wright Podcast)
Mike’s RANT on Gov’t Legislate Security (e.g. GDPR)         3.50 – 6.26
Does Gov’t have a Responsibility?                                         6.26 – 7.40
Fix Usability for Security Tools                                                7.40 – 9.16
Impact of Facebook / Security Settings Complexity          9.16 – 17.03 (Camera Example)
Permission to Access NOT Analyze It                                    17.03 – 21.14
Distributed Ledgers / Blockchain                                           21.14 – 23.20
Promise of Blockchain                                                               23.20 – 25.05
Digital Identity & Authentication                                              25.05 – 28.02
Controlling Access to Distributed Ledgers                            28.02 – 32.36
Equifax Example                                                                         32.36 – 35.30
Will Gov’t Step in Eventually                                                    35.30 – 37.28
Wrap Up                                                                                       37.28  – END

Podcast Guest:  Mike D Kail

For the past 3 years, Mike D. Kail was Cybric’s CTO, responsible for the strategic vision and technical direction of the Cybric Platform. Prior to joining Cybric, Mike was Yahoo’s CIO and SVP of Infrastructure, where he led the IT and Global Data Center functions for the company. He has more than 25 years of IT Operations experience with a focus on highly-scalable architectures.

Previously, Mike served as VP of IT Operations at Netflix, where he was responsible for Employee Technology and various Engineering components. Before that role, Mike was VP of IT Operations at Attensity, where he was responsible for the Americas data center operations team; including managing various Big Data systems with their Hadoop cluster, HBase and MongoDB components.

He has been widely recognized for his insightful industry commentary on social media, and was recently named by the Huffington Post as one of the “Top 100 Most Social CIOs on Twitter.”

Podcast – Blockchain Technology Partners on their Startup and Key Issues of Blockchain

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Joining us this week is the team from Blockchain Technology Partners: Duncan-Johnston-Watt, Kevin O’Donnell, and Mike Zaccardo live from GlueCon 2018 in Colorado.

Blockchain Technology Partners is an Edinburgh-based technology startup:

  • Mission – to radically simplify the enterprise adoption of blockchain technologies
  • Goal – to reduce the cost and complexity of doing business through decentralization while ensuring trust, transparency and accountability in a distributed world
  • Focus – providing a production-ready blockchain platform and partnering with businesses to deliver blockchain-based solutions

Highlights

  • Who is Blockchain Technology Partners and Company Objectives
  • What is Blockchain: Distributed Transaction Log and Consensus
  • Decentralization of Ledgers and Centralization Weakness (Bitcoin e.g)
  • Use Cases for Blockchain
  • Publication Components of Blockchain; its Middle-Ware
  • Trusted Authorities and Broker Replacement (Shipping e.g.)
  • Edge Computing and Blockchain Examples
  • Data Responsibility and Local Blockchains
  • Blockchain Technology Partners Open Source Model and Technology

Topic                                                                                    Time (Minutes.Seconds)

Introduction                                                                                 0.0 – 0.47
Blockchain Technology Partners – What are you doing?   0.47 – 1.52
What is Blockchain? (Proof of Elapsed Time)                        1.52 – 5.17
Common Thread of Decentralization                                      5.17 – 10.13
Block of Use Cases                                                                    10.13 – 11.55
Publication Component of Blockchain                                   11.55 – 14.05
Trusted Authorities / Broker / Supply Chain                         14.05 – 17.52
Medical Waste Handling Example                                          17.52 – 19.01
Edge Computing and Blockchain                                            19.01 – 20.11
Multi-Vendor IoT Devices and Multiple Clouds                    20.11 – 25.49
Data at Edge Accumulation (Tokenizing Data)                      25.49 – 27.51
Description of Open Source Model for BTP                          27.51 – 31.08
Wrap Up                                                                                      31.08  – END

Podcast Guests

  • Duncan Johnston-Watt (Chief Executive Officer)

Duncan is a serial entrepreneur and pioneer with thirty years’ experience in the software industry.

He founded Cloudsoft Corporation, creator of the Apache Brooklyn open source project, serving as its CEO for nine years. Previously he was founder and CTO of Enigmatec Corporation which was sold to iWave and subsequently acquired by EMC.

Prior to this he had a number of fintech roles. At Instinet he led the delivery of their Fixed Income brokerage platform. In recognition of this work pioneering the use of Java enterprise technologies in Financial Services he was nominated for a Computerworld Smithsonian Award.

  • Kevin O’Donnell (Chief Strategy Officer)

Kevin is co-founder of the DevOps platform Chill Code. He served as VP Infrastructure & Operations at JP Morgan from September 2012 until July 2016. Prior to this he served as VP Operations, Video Analytics at Nielsen following its acquisition of Glance Guide in March 2010 where he was VP Operations form December 2007.

Kevin has worked with Duncan at both Instinet Corporation where he was Director, Global Fixed Income Engineering and Enigmatec Corporation Limited where he served as VP, Product Management for four years.

Kevin has over 20 years’ experience delivering large-scale production systems, much of it gained on Wall Street, focusing on automation and operations. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University.

  • Mike Zaccardo (Lead Blockchain Engineer)

Mike is a computer scientist, comedian, traveler, and dancer.

As a senior software engineer at Cloudsoft, he worked with Duncan deploying and managing bleeding edge open source distributed systems including Hyperledger Fabric.

Mike also enjoys performing improv comedy and traveling the world, making dance videos along the way.

He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from John Hopkins University.

Podcast – Rich Miller on Cloud Innovation and Edge Revolution

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Joining us this week is Rich Miller, CEO and Managing Director of Telematica, Inc.

Highlights

  • GitHub and Microsoft Discussion ~ Why is GitHub so Valuable?
  • Evolution of Open Source and its Commercial Aspects
  • Monetization of Open Source Depends on Services for Success
  • Container Management and Marketplace for Innovation
  • ISV Ecosystem ~ All About Big Money and the New Tech Investment Thesis
  • Multi-Platforms / Multi-CSP Change the Nature of Innovation from the Independents
  • Edge Computing will Disrupt the Locus of Opportunities
  • The Edge Marketplace and Cloud Platform Marketplace Must Appear Unified to Developers
  • Edge Infrastructure Multi-Tenancy and Development Challenges
  • Distributed Ledger at Edge is the Killer Edge App
  • How will Cloud, Blockchain and Edge be Driven toward Integration in the Future? Email Example

Topic                                                                                   Time (Minutes.Seconds)

Introduction                                                                            0.0 – 4.16
How GitHub become so important?                                  4.16 – 10.05
Open Source evolution                                                        10.05 – 14.11
Only make money via open source services not sol’n   14.11 – 21.30
Only large companies can dominate software?              21.30 – 30.05
ISVs have a strong current against them                          30.05 – 34.55
As a Service on Multiple Platforms                                    34.55 – 38.07 (Mark Thiele Podcast)
Data and IoT at Edge ~ Edge creates the new market    38.07 – 41.31
IT Infrastructure at Edge                                                      41.31 – 47.09
Return of ISV Roots at Edge                                                47.09 – 49.46
Killer app for blockchain is Edge data husbandry          49.46 – 51.27
What has to happen to merge Cloud and Edge?            51.27 – 58.44
Closing                                                                                    58.44 – END

Podcast Guest:  Rich Miller, CEO and Managing Director of Telematica, Inc.

Rich Miller is CEO of Telematica, Inc., a holding company and consultancy with a practice in product strategy and business development for distributed computing technologies and their management; data governance, integration and monetization; and, increasingly, focus on distributed ledger technologies and industrial IoT.

Until mid-2017, he served as the non-executive Chairman of Cloudsoft Corp. Ltd. (Edinburgh).

Rich is also a co-Founder and, until May 2012, CEO of StreetLight Data Inc. He served as CEO of Replicate Technologies, Inc., a provider of configuration management technology for virtualized data centers from 2007 – 2010. Prior to Replicate, he co-founded and served as COO of Univa Corporation (now Univa, Inc.), a provider of optimization and management software for conventional and cloud data centers.

Among Telematica’s business and product strategy engagements are industry leaders like PwC, GE Digital, IBM as well as enterprise and governmental organizations pursuing digital transformation.

Miller’s career as advisor, executive, and an early investor, has focused on overseeing the formation of technology companies and their offerings that provide security applications, wireless network infrastructure, and application service infrastructures.

DC2020: Skeptics Guide to Blockchain in the Data Center

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At Think 2018, Machine Learning and Blockchain technologies are beyond pervasive, they are assumed to be beneficial to ROI in every situation. That type of hype begs for closer review. In this post, we’ll look at a potentially real use of blockchain for operations.

There is so much noise about blockchain that it can be difficult to find a starting point. I’m leaving background reading as an exercise for the reader; instead, I want to focus on how blockchain creates a distributed ledger with shared trust. That’s a lot of buzz words! Basically, we’re talking about a system where nodes share data in a way that they use consensus with their peer to determine if the information is trustworthy.

The key concept in blockchain is moving from a central authority to a distributed authority.

In the data center, administrative trust is essential. The premises, networks, and access credentials all rely on the idea that we have a centralized authoritative group. Even PKI, which is designed for decentralized trust, relies on a centralized trust to sign keys. Looking objectively at the bundle of passwords, certificates, keys and isolation layers, there are gaping risks in this model. It only takes getting the right access to flip administrative control from an asset into a liability.

Blockchain allows us to decentralize trust in the data center by requiring systems to collaboratively validate administrative instructions.

In this model, we’d still have administrative controls and management; however, the nodes would be able to validate configuration changes with their peers or other administrative sources. For example, an out of process change (potential hack?) on a single node would be confirmed via consensus with other nodes instead of automatically trusting the source. The body of nodes protects from a bad administrative request. It also allows operators to quickly propagate configurations peer-to-peer instead of relying on a central hub and spoke model.

This is even more powerful if configuration is composited from multiple sources in a pipeline. In a multiple author system, each contributor will be involved in verifying that changes to the whole configuration. This ensures that downstream insertions are both communicated and accepted by upstream steps.  This works because blockchain is a distributed ledger. Changes made to the chain are passed back to all parties. Just like in a decentralized supply chain model, this ensures both validation and transparency.

Blockchain’s ability to provide both horizontal and vertical integrity for operations is an intriguing possibility.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts about this application for blockchain. From a RackN and Digital Rebar perspective, these capabilities are well aligned with our composable approach to configuration. We’d be happy to talk with operators who want to look more deeply into this type of integration.