Tech & Work World

Floor wax, dessert topping

As I mention below, I've had more time to write reports recently. I just submitted one titled "Docker: floor-wax or dessert topping? Reflections on DockerCon EU". It's one of our "spotlight" pieces, which means it's an open-ended think-piece rather than a write-up of a briefing.

Here's some excerpts:

451 Take: The container technology Docker and the ecosystem around it is figuring out its identity while at the same time contending with a sudden rise in popularity. While early attention on Docker paired it up against the likes of VMware at, let's say, the IaaS level, as we look at it more, Docker looks like more of a PaaS innovator. VMware would certainly like that option, and Docker, Inc. spent much of its recent conference in Amsterdam talking more about Docker-as-PaaS - through the lens of "microservices" - than Docker-as-IaaS. From this vantage point, it looks more and more like dotCloud never really stopped being a PaaS vendor, and instead, with under its new name of Docker is just evolving the nature of PaaS.
...
The technology promises at least two things: (1.) an alternative way of virtualizing workloads on servers using the underlying containerization technology and (2.) a DevOps friendly way of packaging applications for deployment on cloud and cloud-like infrastructures. Much of the vendor sports watchers fixate onto the first use-case, looking to thrust Docker into a Thunderdome with VMware. However, as both Dockers - the open source project and the startup - have evolved, it's becoming clear that the second is perhaps the more interesting promise, long-term.
...
Over the next 12 to 18 months, expect to see much shuffling and toe-stomping on the ecosystem dance floor. Indeed, with so many interests, large and small involved, it wouldn't be surprising if the landscape changed dramatically over the next year. Early moves like the Rocket container standard effort point towards conflicting (or at least "differing") interests, and with deep larders and large revenue sources to protect behind many, large Docker ecosystem member's backs, anything could happen with something as miraculous as a floor wax that also makes butter-scotch pudding taste so terrific.

One of the ongoing theories I hit on in the piece is that (a.) cloud is all about developers, but, (b.) the PaaS market is small compared to others, so, (c.) what up with that? As you can imagine, I posit that the interest in Docker-cum-containers could change the market-dynamics a bit. We'll see.

I'll throw a link in here and all the usual places once it gets published, I'm guessing next week. I put in three or four charts too, so look forward to them if you like charts.

(Lucky[?] for you, this is the only place you'll see the silly dessert topping floor-wax reference as the copy desk asked me to take that out since another analyst used it recently.)

How I use Twitter: ignore the timeline

I'll let you in on a secret: I don't really pay attention to my main timeline in Twitter. There's too much crap in there that I've ended up following (1,910 account, to be exact) since I started using Twitter in 2006.

Sometime ago, I created a list called "Focus" that I actually follow. It has just 127 accounts in it and it works well. There's some tricks of how to do this depending on which client you use. I can stand the official Twitter web and iOS (actually, I haven't looked at it in awhile) apps so I use TweetDeck on my desktop and TweetBot on my phone. In both instances, you can choose to focus on a list.

In TweetDeck, it's easy: you just move the column over that you want. You'll notice in the below that my "timeline" is nowhere to be seen:

In TweetBot, it's a bit more hidden, you have to "long tap" (is that what you call it?) on the title bar until it pops up a list of lists, then select the one you want. You can see what it looks like after I long-tapped on the title bar:

Sometimes I go slightly insane and think there's not enough from Twitter. Recently, I thought I'd take a look at the timeline and see what was in it, what was going on. It's a fun walk down memory lane as I discover clusters of accounts I've added over the year. I found a bunch from when I thought I didn't get enough local and "real-world" news so I have/had several Austin accounts and things like Meet the Press. There's also folks from long ago in there that I vaguely remember. And, going in and out of the analyst world, there's also a lot of people who are or were clients at RedMonk and 451 Research. Lots of IBM. Lots.

I've been pruning that main timeline this week in the hopes of perhaps actually using it. I'm not sure it's worth it, but it a good distraction-as-entertainment.

Quick Hits

• Open source foundations, thenewstack.io podcast - last week we talked about the Cloud Foundry Foundation and I ended up comparing them to other OSS foundations. It was fun!

• The IBM Design Language, on the Under Development Podcast - also in podcast land, Bill and I discuss IBM's recent design language guide.

• 451 Report on StackStorm - with consulting projects winding down, I've had time to catch-up on report writing. Here's one on StackStorm.

• Packaged software is a big fucking market - $419bn this year, growing to $541bn by 2018, IDC says. Private cloud and plain old virtualization - oh my!

• Investment Firm: Amazon Will Spin Off AWS In 2015 - file under crazy. Well, I guess IBM did sell off x86. Hrm.

• AOL keyword: Craigslist - over the years all us nerds have observed how Facebook finally cracked getting "normals" to use the web. Sometimes I have to chide my wife to get off her phone and talk to me; this is an odd reversal. Worrying about the "walled garden" that is Facebook is long over, it's a moot point as that model is accepted. If Facebook gets into the eBay/Craigslist market (which is an excellent idea!), well, that's a big deal. My wife is also a huge fan of Nextdoor, which would make a logical thing for Facebook to buy if their M&A engine wasn't robot obsessed. Maybe they're "leap-frogging" with robots, but, really, I think there's plenty of work to be done just improving everyday life. They could fix calendars. They could make it easier and securer (and less gross) to sell things to each other (the link here, friend). All sorts of things they could do other than robots. But, hey, what does a meat-sack like me know?

• Delicious 7 Layer DIP (DevOps Infrastructure Provisioning) model with graphic! - don't call it reinventing the wheel, I been here for years. More seriously, I love seeing these analysises (call up Oxford, insert a net word!) of what's needed for cloud and DevOps-y frameworks. It's good stuff.

Fun & IRL

No fun today, just work.

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