Post # 2
Cameron (2008) presents to us Van Sickle et al’s five pillars of infomation technology, i.e. databases, networking, software applications, operating systems, and storage. Further, Cameron argues convincingly for the importance of the storage pillar. As a technology practitioner in the domain of database infrastructure, I can only agree on the need for more curriculum to promote training and education on the finer details of database storage engineering and management. Indeed, Information storage and management has evolved from what was lowly perceived as mere back-office operations to an area of architectural and strategic importance.
As innovations for computer and communication technologies continue to grow and advance, the rate of data generation and sharing has increased in an explosive way. The growth of digital data can be attributed to the following: 1.) More powerful data-processing capabilities. As Moore's law predicted, we now see the increase in processing and storage capabilities. This processing power has enabled the conversion of various types of content and media from conventional forms to digital formats i.e. we now see highly usable digital video, audio applications, and incredible virtual reality technologies. 2.) The cost of digital storage has dropped dramatically: Technology advances in miniturized economies have now provided low-cost storage solutions. Not surprisingly, this cost benefit has increased the rate at which digital data is generated and stored. 3.) Affordable and faster communication technologies: Given the new cellular capabilities for increased transmission quality and bandwidth, the rate of sharing digital data is now much faster than a decade ago with amazing multi-media capabilities. 4.) With the growing market for these new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's), the growth and proliferation of applications and smart devices was enabled: The ubiquitous personal smartphones, tablets, and newer digital devices, along with social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter, have significantly contributed to the generation of digital content.
Interestingly however, storage capabilities are not only implemented on the hardware infrastructure side, but also with new innovations on the application side such as Google's Map-Reduce algorithms. As Mellor has pointed out in his article, with the size and scale of google data available for searches (5 petabytes in 2010), we might think that the company is using something close to massive sophisticated Cray servers. As an interesting study of innovation and creativity, it's important to note that the world's largest search company does use networked storage but in the form of networked clusters of Linux servers, cheap racks of x86 servers with one or two internal drives. I would think that studying all the Google innovations in the area of storage can provide a great course syllabus in itself.
References:
Cameron, B. (2008). Enterprise systems education: New directions & challenges for the future. Paper presented at the 119-126. doi:10.1145/1355238.1355269
Mellor, Chris. (2010 Apr 6). Google's storage strategy. Retrieved from http://www.techworld.com/storage/googles-storage-strategy-467/
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