Technological US Mother's Day

Mother's Day in the US.
We continue our research in the technological world and we have found a lot of news to share with you.

First one, cloud computing is in our homes and the politicians know the importance of that:

Public-sector cloud computing: The good, the bad and the ugly

As state and local governments look to the cloud, everyone can learn from agencies' struggles with compliance and ingrained cultures.

By Howard Baldwin

May 9, 2012 06:00 AM ET

Computerworld - When the second-in-command of one of the most technologically advanced states in the country slams public-sector computing -- publicly -- it's a resounding wake-up call.

"Don't underestimate how far local, state and federal government is behind [in computing]," said California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom at a tech conference in Silicon Valley earlier this year. "We have to wake up to the new reality."
The new reality Newsom was referring to is cloud computing -- a versatile way for government agencies of all sizes to solve a variety of technological issues relating to cost, human resources and the ability to respond quickly to constituents' needs. Many government agencies are doing just that -- albeit in limited areas, such as email and data center consolidation.

A Deloitte survey of midmarket businesses found they are interested in leveraging technology to improve business efficiency

More information click here.

Secondly, I would like to share again the importance of social networks and the business of themselves.

Facebook admits in SEC filing that making money off mobile is a problem

By Sharon Gaudin

May 11, 2012 11:52 AM ET

Computerworld - While Facebook executives talk to the country's top investors about its 900 million users and its powerful global reach, analysts say they need to explain how they're going to fix one glaring problem -- mobile.

Facebook executives are in the midst of a roadshow pitching the company's initial public offering to potential investors around the country. The company, the world's largest social network, is eclipsing its competitors and whipping up a flurry of pre-IPO interest in its stock.
However, industry analysts and investors are asking questions about how Facebook will generate revenue from the growing number of members who are accessing the network via their mobile phones from restaurants, park benches and commuter trains.
"Facebook is really struggling with mobile," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with ZK Research. "They make almost no money on it. I think mobile makes people use Facebook more, but Facebook hasn't figured out how to monetize that."

Technologies news:

Apple is going to show his potential with his new maps for iOS.

New Maps for iOS? It's not exactly a surprise

Posted May 11th 2012 3:45PM by Megan Lavey-Heaton

Filed under: iOS

The latest rumor to get everyone talking is that Apple will drop Google Maps for their own proprietary software. Sources told 9to5 Mac that a new Maps app will debut with iOS 6 with an Apple-created backend that will resemble the current Maps app, but with a more amenable solution.
This really isn't the big shocker that everyone is making it out to be. The writing has been on the wall for a couple of years. It was never a matter of if Apple would drop Google but when. The question was asked as early as 2009 when Apple bought Placebase. This was followed by the acquisition of several 3D-technology companies -- Poly9 in 2010 and C3 Technologies in 2011. While Apple and Google did renew their partnership last year, it was most likely on a year-to-year basis. Apple wasn't ready with the technology in 2011. It looks to be ready now, and the leak could be intentional to drum up excitement for WWDC.
The proof is in iPhoto for iOS. When the iOS version of iPhoto debuted in March, Apple was using older OpenStreetMap data instead of Google. This was most likely a testing ground to see how their own maps would function before pushing it out to a wider audience with a major iOS release. While the iPhoto maps aren't anywhere near as full-featured as a new Maps app would likely be, and I hope it looks different because the maps in iPhoto are rather ugly, it was a good place to start.
Maps for iOS has long lacked the features offered to Android users, including a solid integration with voice control. If this Maps app does debut with iOS 6, I hope Siri can be used to voice turn-by-turn directions. The addition of 3D-map technology would of course bring additional benefits. What features would you like to see in a new Apple-originated Maps app?

The last new of this week I would like to highlight is the trend of VMware:

VMware Wants to be Your New SDN

VMware doesn't just want your servers virtualized, they want software define your network but they are taking a different approach than Cisco, HP and others that have embraced OpenFlow.

By Sean Michael Kerner | May 11, 2012

VMware helped to lead the revolution that has transformed the data center server space with virtual nodes of compute server infrastructure. Now VMware wants to lead the way in virtualizing networking. It's a movement that is aligned with the newly emerging trend of software defined networking (SDN) that enables programmable networks abstracting networking hardware.

VMware's Software Defined Data Center

Allwyn Sequeira, vice president and CTO of Security and Networking at VMware explained to Enterprise Networking Planet that while it might take two minutes to set up a virtual machine (VM) it could take an additional five days in traditional data center deployment to set up the network to support and enable that VM. To get around that, Sequeira is advocating for VMware's Software Defined Data Center, which is a new architectural approach that virtualizes the network elements like firewalls and load balancers.
"The whole idea is about delivering a scale-out elastic architecture that is available to apps on-demand," Sequeira said. "You are freeing yourself from the tyranny of having to buy hardware."
In Sequeira's view, it's not possible to scale physical networking hardware to meet the on-demand needs of modern virtualized applications. From a product and technology perspective, the Software Defined Data Center architecture involves applications and specification available now, as well as work that is coming. With server virtualization there is now the concept of one vSwitch per host and, in that context, a VLAN is how VMs are networked. VLANs traditionally have been limited in their ability to stretch across data center domains, which is where the VXLAN standard comes into play.
The VXLAN specification was initially proposed in September of 2011, and is a multi-vendor effort that includes VMware along with Cisco, Arista Networks, Citrix and Red Hat. The basic idea behind VXLAN is to have a Layer 2 abstraction for virtual machines so they are not restricted to a particular LAN boundary.
"VXLAN is the basis for us untethering ourselves from current network limitations," Sequeira said. "VXLAN is what enables end-to-end elasticity in the data center and allows you to build a software defined network."
VXLAN abstracts the VLAN from the underlying physical network and it also supports multi-tenancy. VXLAN is not a finalized industry standard. It is available as an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft standard known as NV-03 (network virtualization over Layer 3).

VMware vs. OpenFlow

For Sequeira, he now sees two views of the SDN world. One is the VMware type approach with vSwitch and VXLAN and the other is OpenFlow. OpenFlow is an open source protocol for SDN that is also gaining in interest and popularity.
"I want the equivalent of a LAN across a data center and that's what VXLAN does," Sequeira said. "The VXLAN overlay combined with what we have with vSwitch and vCloud networking is what we believe to be the most prevalent form of SDN in the world today."
When it comes to OpenFlow, in Sequeira's view there are a set of vendors that are now building monolithic stacks on top of the OpenFlow protocol, trying to establish control points. As such he expects that SDN silos will emerge over time that will require some form of federation to connect together.
"For us, SDN is a natural extension of our current product lines, extending what we already have for a VMware domain," Sequeira said. "When do we see a world when there is a VMware SDN working with an OpenFlow SDN? I don't think, that's in the cards."

Welcome - Bienvenidos

Today, May 10th, is the first day of this blog.

The object of itself will be to inform about trends, new technologies, business intelligence and news about IT world.

Trends

• My first words will be focused in the importance of the IPAD nowadays.                   IPAD-NOWADAYS

•  Social Networks are more and more important and the politician world is concerned about it.  DemocratsFacebook

Business Intelligence

• Gartner's 2012 Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms Report.                        Source: Gartner.com

  Magic Quadrant

  Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

  

  Source: Gartner (February 2012)

  Market Definition/Description

  This document was revised on 10 February 2012. For more information, see the Corrections page on gartner.com.
  Business intelligence (BI) platforms enable all types of users — from IT staff to consultants to business users — to build applications that help organizations learn about and understand their business. Gartner defines a BI platform as a software platform that delivers the 14 capabilities listed below. These capabilities are organized into three categories of functionality: integration, information delivery and analysis. Information delivery is the core focus of most BI projects today, but we are seeing an increased interest in deployments of analysis to discover new insights, and in integration to implement those insights.
  

  Integration

  • BI infrastructure — All tools in the platform use the same security, metadata, administration, portal integration, object model and query engine, and should share the same look and feel.
  • Metadata management — Not only should all tools leverage the same metadata, but the offering should provide a robust way to search, capture, store, reuse and publish metadata objects such as dimensions, hierarchies, measures, performance metrics and report layout objects.
  • Development tools — The BI platform should provide a set of programmatic development tools and a visual development environment, coupled with a software developer's kit for creating BI applications, integrating them into a business process, and/or embedding them in another application. The BI platform should also enable developers to build BI applications without coding by using wizard-like components for a graphical assembly process. The development environment should also support Web services in performing common tasks such as scheduling, delivering, administering and managing. In addition, the BI application can assign and track events or tasks allotted to specific users, based on predefined business rules. Often, this capability can be delivered by integrating with a separate portal or workflow tool.
  • Collaboration — This capability enables BI users to share and discuss information, BI content and results, and/or manage hierarchies and metrics via discussion threads, chat and annotations, either embedded in the BI platform or through integration with collaboration, social software and analytical master data management (MDM).

  Information Delivery

  • Reporting — Reporting provides the ability to create formatted and interactive reports, with or without parameters, with highly scalable distribution and scheduling capabilities. In addition, BI platform vendors should handle a wide array of reporting styles (for example, financial, operational and performance dashboards), and should enable users to access and fully interact with BI content delivered consistently across delivery platforms including the Web, mobile devices and common portal environments.
  • Dashboards — This subset of reporting includes the ability to publish formal, Web-based or mobile reports with intuitive interactive displays of information, including dials, gauges, sliders, check boxes and traffic lights. These displays indicate the state of the performance metric compared with a goal or target value. Increasingly, dashboards are used to disseminate real-time data from operational applications or in conjunction with a complex event processing engine.
  • Ad hoc query — This capability enables users to ask their own questions of the data, without relying on IT to create a report. In particular, the tools must have a robust semantic layer to allow users to navigate available data sources. These tools should include a disconnected analysis capability that enables users to access BI content and analyze data remotely without being connected to a server-based BI application. In addition, these tools should offer query governance and auditing capabilities to ensure that queries perform well.
  • Microsoft Office integration — In some use cases, BI platforms are used as a middle tier to manage, secure and execute BI tasks, but Microsoft Office (particularly Excel) acts as the BI client. In these cases, it is vital that the BI vendor provides integration with Microsoft Office applications, including support for document and presentation formats, formulas, data "refreshes" and pivot tables. Advanced integration includes cell locking and write-back.
  • Search-based BI — This applies a search index to both structured and unstructured data sources and maps them into a classification structure of dimensions and measures (often, but not necessarily leveraging the BI semantic layer) that users can easily navigate and explore using a search (Google-like) interface. This capability extends beyond keyword searching of BI platform content and metadata.
  • Mobile BI — This capability enables organizations to deliver report and dashboard content to mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) in a publishing and/or interactive (bidirectional) mode, and takes advantage of the interaction mode of the device (tapping, swiping and so on) and other capabilities not commonly available on desktops and laptops, such as location awareness.

  Analysis

  • Online analytical processing (OLAP) — This enables end users to analyze data with extremely fast query and calculation performance, enabling a style of analysis known as "slicing and dicing." Users are (often) able to easily navigate multidimensional drill paths. And they (sometimes) have the ability to write-back values to a proprietary database for planning and "what if" modeling purposes. This capability could span a variety of data architectures (such as relational or multidimensional) and storage architectures (such as disk-based or in-memory).
  • Interactive visualization — This gives users the ability to display numerous aspects of the data more efficiently by using interactive pictures and charts, instead of rows and columns. Over time, advanced visualization will go beyond just slicing and dicing data to include more process-driven BI projects, allowing all stakeholders to better understand the workflow through a visual representation.
  • Predictive modeling and data mining — This capability enables organizations to classify categorical variables and to estimate continuous variables using advanced mathematical techniques. BI developers are able to integrate models easily into BI reports, dashboards and analysis, and business processes.
  • Scorecards — These take the metrics displayed in a dashboard a step further by applying them to a strategy map that aligns key performance indicators (KPIs) with a strategic objective. Scorecard metrics should be linked to related reports and information in order to do further analysis. A scorecard implies the use of a performance management methodology such as Six Sigma or a balanced scorecard framework.