Live From IBM Pulse 2013: Day 2 General Session — IBM Tivoli Customers Share Their Best Practices

Several prominent IBM Tivoli clients joined IBM senior vice president Robert Leblanc at the IBM Pulse 2013 day two general session to discuss their asset and infrastructure management best practices on the MGM Grand Arena stage.

If you missed Carrie Underwood last evening in the MGM Grand Arena, well…I’m sorry.

Actually, I’d find it difficult to believe anyone from IBM Pulse missed Carrie Underwood, as the place was packed to the rafters, and Carrie did not disappoint.

In fact, quite the opposite…and judging from the line waiting to get in that stretched all the way back to the MGM hotel elevators, well, let’s just say expectations were high.

And as we move into Pulse 2013 Day Two, we should maintain those high expectations, because it was clear from this morning’s keynote customer interview led by IBM senior vice president Robert Leblanc that today’s focus would be on highlighting best practices in building and maintaining smart infrastructures.

IBM vice president Scott Hebner first kicked the session off, explaining IBM’s continued commitment to open standards (see yesterday’s announcement about IBM’s commitment to using OpenStack), explaining that “Just as standards helped us realize the promise of e-business over the last decade, I think the same is going to occur with respect to cloud computing.”

Scott also encountered an amusing “blue screen of cloud death” moment, where all systems failed, spinning umbrellas appeared on screen (and in the audience), and colorful chaos people appeared from offstage.

An amusing moment, but one with an underlined headline of warning: Thou who doth go too far forward building on proprietary platforms may findeth one’s business in cloud computing chaos!

Scott next handed the baton to Robert Leblanc, and it was time now for Robert to introduce a range of IBM Tivoli clients operating in a garden variety of industries: Steve Caniano, Vice President, Hosting, Applications, and Cloud Computing with AT&T; Robert Pierce, Assistant Vice President, Information Services, Carolina Healthcare; Eduardo Bustamante, Director of Systems and Telecommunications, Port of Cartagena; and Tony Spinelli, Chief Security Officer, Equifax.

First, he cleared the decks and set up the big picture: Technology is now the number one issue for CEOs, as they recognize it could make or break their success. Big data, mobile, and cloud loom over the horizon as competitive differentiating technologies, and, increasingly, are table stakes.

Security is more of a risk, but going on the offensive beats succumbing to the nastiness of the defensive (read the cyber security headlines lately?).

And yet…and here was the key point of the best practices session…only one in five CEOs feel they have a highly efficient IT infrastructure, one that’s versatile and dynamic and can adapt to the ever-changing whims of an admittedly volatile marketplace.

And Robert delivered more bad news (admittedly, he did so with a smile): 70 percent of CIOs lack proper visibility into their cloud systems, 78 percent are NOT using mobile device management, and 53 percent lack the proper automation of securing their assets.

Oh, and only one in ten feel they have the skills and capabilities they require.

Robert asked each of the IT executives about their respective environments and challenges.

Steve from AT&T observed that “cloud computing is a team game” but that “hybrid types of solutions needed to be deployed,” and he explained AT&T’s partnership with IBM had been key in this regard.

Robert with Carolina Healthcare explained in the field of medicine that “mobility has become a key differentiator” and that the new doctors coming up “expect robust information technology services” or else they’ll find someone else’s hospital to work at.

He went on to explain that Carolina had begun to use IBM’s Endpoint Manager to manage some 38,000 desktops, laptops, iPads and iPhones.

Eduardo had a different set of challenges, operating in a much more “physical” realm in using IT services to better orchestrate the cacophony of trains, cranes, and other moveable assets.  He indicated the Port of Cartagena is implementing RFID in concert with IBM Maximo technologies to better manage and move those assets efficiently around the port, and in the process, adding a layer of analytics to allow for continuous improvement of that physical instrumentation.

And Tony with Equifax got a laugh from the audience when he started by stating that “Everyone in this audience wants me to do a great job,” acknowledging the company has and must protect the information of individuals and businesses around the globe.

He suggested companies need to move beyond simply “naming the bad actors” in the security intrusion front, and instead move to “better understand those bad actor’s strategies and tactics” so they can better prioritize, respond to, and yes, even prevent those incidences from occurring in the first place, something Equifax is doing through the implementation of improved security intelligence using IBM QRadar technology.

“By having better security intelligence on the battlefield,” Tony explained, “you’re better prepared.”

“Not all assets are created equally,” he explained, speaking, of course, for Equifax, but acknowledging a much broader theme and challenge to the gathered IBM Pulse crowd.

Big Data, Big Security, Big Boxes

There’s been some substantial “Big Data” announcements over the past week from Big Blue.

Late last week, on the heels of the public disclosure of security breaches at a number of major media organizations, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, IBM announced its new “IBM Security Intelligence With Big Data” offering, which combines leading security intellignece with big data analytics capabilities for both external cyber security threats and internal risk detection and protection.

You can learn more about that offering here.

IBM is also working to make it easier for organizations to quickly adopt and deploy big data and cloud computing solutions.

Today, the company announced major advances to its PureSystems family of expert integrated systems.

Now, organizations challenged by limited IT skills and resources can quickly comb through massive volumes of data and uncover critical trends that can dramatically impact their business.

The new PureSystems models also help to remove the complexity of developing cloud-based services by making it easier to provision, deploy and manage a secure cloud environment.

Together, these moves by IBM further extend its leadership in big data and next generation computing environments such as cloud computing, while opening up new opportunities within growth markets and with organizations such as managed service providers (MSPs).

Big Data Only Getting Bigger

Across all industries and geographies, organizations of various sizes are being challenged to find simpler and faster ways to analyze massive amounts of data and better meet client needs.

According to IDC, the market for big data technology and services will reach $16.9 billion by 2015, up from $3.2 billion in 2010.1

At the same time, an IBM study found that almost three-fourths of leaders surveyed indicated their companies had piloted, adopted or substantially implemented cloud in their organizations — and 90 percent expect to have done so in three years. While the demand is high, many organizations do not have the resources or skills to embrace it.

Today’s news includes PureData System for Analytics to capitalize on big data opportunities; a smaller PureApplication System to accelerate cloud deployments for a broader range of organizations; PureApplication System on POWER7+ to ease management of transaction and analytics applications in the cloud; additional options for MSPs across the PureSystems family including flexible financing options and specific MSP Editions to support new services models; and SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure to ease management of virtual desktop solutions.

New Systems Tuned for Big Data

The new IBM PureData System for Analytics, powered by Netezza technology, features 50 percent greater data capacity per rack3 and is able to crunch data 3x faster4, making this system a top performer, while also addressing the challenges of big data.

The IBM PureData System for Analytics is designed to assist organizations with managing more data while maintaining efficiency in the data center – a major concern for clients of all sizes.

With IBM PureData System for Analytics, physicians can analyze patient information faster and retailers can better gain insight into customer behavior. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) relies on PureData System for Analytics to handle an enormous volume of data in its trading systems and identify and investigate trading anomalies faster and easier.

You can learn more about these and other new PureSystems capabilities here.

To aid in the detection of stealthy threats that can hide in the increasing mounds of data, IBM recently announced IBM Security Intelligence with Big Data, combining leading security intelligence with big data analytics capabilities for both external cyber security threats and internal risk detection and prevention. IBM Security Intelligence with Big Data provides a comprehensive approach that allows security analysts to extend their analysis well beyond typical security data and to hunt for malicious cyber activity.

The Blackout In India

To my friends in India, I hope you’re fairly weathering your blackout.

I was just reading through some BBC coverage which has reporters spread across northern India, including Utter Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, and West Bengal.

The report suggests Calcutta was not as badly affected as other regions, because it has a private electricity board, but that power went out across the rest of West Bengal state.

Thus far, coverage suggests the power breakdowns in India are mainly in the north, the east, and the northeast, and that about 600 million people have been in affected in over 20 Indian states.

To put that in perspective for those of us here in the west, that would be like the power going out across all of the U.S. and all of the United Kingdom, at once.

Yes, just imagine that.

Obviously, there will be lots of fingerpointing until an investigation can get to the bottom of this, but in the meantime it demonstrates once again how fragile infrastructure can be, in both emerging and advanced economies.

In the Northeast blackout of 2003 here in the U.S., some 55 million U.S and Canadian citizens were impacted and some left without power for up to 16 hours.

Though there was no major civil unrest during that particular blackout, one need simply just read the Wikipedia entry of that event to remember how many “systems” were impacted: everything from transportation to healthcare to water supply.

In India, telecommunications are being particularly hard hit in this outage, because so many people there depend on mobile phone service for their communications.  Even if the cell towers have backup generators, many folks in rural India have no alternative method of recharging their cell phones once that primary charge dissipates.

Also, business process outsourcing companies such as Wipro, Genpact, WNS and others have “kicked in business continuity plans” to ensure continuity of services to global clients. Thus far, The Hindu Business Line is reporting that the IT-BPO industry, which accounts for over 7% of Indian GDP, are running their operations at centers in the north and eastern India using backup generators running on diesel.

The Wall Street Journal India has an “IndiaRealTime” blog where you can follow the latest on the India power outage.

Smarter City Solutions For A Small Planet

Improving Water Management In South Bend, Indiana

Yesterday, IBM made several announcements in the “smarter cities” arena that I wanted to lend some pixels to, as it’s IBM’s partnerships in such initiatives that bring the Smarter Planet story to life.  In other words, the proof is in the pudding.

In South Bend, Indiana, IBM partnered with the city government there to dramatically overhaul South Bend’s water management system. Like many municipalities, South Bend has an aging sewer infrastructure, and yet sixty percent of water allocated for domestic human use goes to urban cities.

The new IBM IOC for Smarter Cities service, which was developed with local business partner Emnet, has now improved South Bend’s ability to predict the potential overflow of hazardous wastewater. The system also has allowed South Bend to improve storage and water conveyance performance while avoiding $120 million in infrastructure investments.

IBM is delivering IOC as a service on the SmartCloud, removing the up-front cost and complexity for South Bend which saves on IT infrastructure costs.  This model allows cities such as South Bend to pay for software-as-a-service out of their operational budgets, enabling easier, faster procurement than if they were required to fund new IT infrastructure from their capital budgets.

You can learn more from the press release here and via the video below.

“Anticipating and preventing incidents before they happen is key. Viewing all our aggregated data in real-time via the IBM SmartCloud will help us predict where incidents can occur and safeguard our citizens.  Through creative collaboration and IBM’s powerful smarter city solution, we can create a smarter city and solve problems that, until now, seemed insurmountable,” said Gary Gilot, Member, Board of Public Works, City of South Bend, of their IBM smarter city solution. “We have had huge measurable benefits and with IBM’s continuing partnership with the city, Notre Dame and local entrepreneurs like Emnet, we will produce more.”

Improving Public Safety in Davao City, Philippines

Across the Pacific in the Phillipines, IBM and the Davao City Government announced an agreement to help the city scale-up its existing Public Safety and Security Command Center (PSSCC) by integrating city operations into a single system, infused with advanced technologies, to further enhance public safety operations in the city.

Using IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC), the PSSCC will have a centralized dashboard view that will allow the city to monitor events and operations in real time. This comprehensive view will enable officials to better predict and plan for potential issues.

To enable Davao’s smarter city transformation, the IOC will integrate multiple city agencies in the PSSCC to improve interdepartmental collaboration and enhance the management of Davao’s four pillars of public safety: crime prevention and suppression; emergency response; threat prevention and response; and traffic management.

Davao City, considered the nerve center of the Southern Philippines in the Mindanao region, has undergone a tremendous transformation over the last decade. The collaboration with IBM will contribute to the City’s vision to emerge as the premier socio-economic and tourism center in Mindanao and across East ASEAN as well as the Asia-Pacific region.

You can learn more about the Davao City smarter city solution here.

Rationalisation de la Trafic en France!

Not to be outdone, the City of Lyon, France (the second largest metropolitan area in France outside of Paris) announced that, in partnership with Veolia Transdev and IBM, that they are developing a smarter mobility solution designed to help cities alleviate road congestion, optimize transportation infrastructures and improve the urban traveler experience.

As part of the Lyon’s Optimod project, Optimod’Lyon will test and validate new services to improve the mobility of people, passengers in the urban environment, optimizing and combining the use of transport infrastructure.

The smarter mobility solution brings together Veolia Transdev’s expertise in the public transit industry and IBM’s expertise in managing big data and advanced analytics. Cities will now have the ability to coordinate and connect services across all of its transportation networks, including subways, trams, buses, vehicular and bicycle traffic, and more.

The solution also leverages IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) designed to give cities a holistic view of city operations – such as water, transportation and public safety – through one central point of command, facilitating faster and more efficient decision-making.

Combined with Veolia Transdev’s technology dedicated to urban mobility, the new solution helps a city predict traffic road speed and arrival times and coordinate city responses across the transportation network across multiples modes of transportation within a city, such as buses and trams.

These advanced solutions also take into account unplanned events, such as rain storms or traffic accidents, which may cause delays or disruption in service.

Travelers will have access to real-time information on traffic for a more seamless, multi-modal transportation experience – such as combining bicycle, vehicle and public transit. The service uses predictive analytics, which can help a traveler easily bypass a traffic jam, and provide details about the location and interconnections of the transportation options.

Integrated transit information, such as the ability to scan ticket barcode for your journey like with air travel and the ability to simply plan and travel across different public and private transport networks, will be provided through an app for smartphones and tablets. This will help travelers save time and money and enhances the overall traveler experience.

I don’t know about you, but I think I’m ready for a fully-travel-optimized summer vacation to Lyon!

You can learn more about the City of Lyon smarter city solution here.

Having Impact

It’s the end of a long Friday, and you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, “Hmm, what in the world am I going to be doing starting on Sunday, April 29th?!!”

I’m from headquarters and I’m here to help.

If you’re a business or technology leader trying to understand and keep up with the insane amount of change going on in our industry, my recommendation is you hop on a plane and head out to attend the IBM Impact 2012 Global Conference from April 29-May 4.

No, it’s NOT “The Hangover,” thank goodness — neither part one nor part deux — but what it IS is an opportunity to mix it up with your peers and to hear from some of our industry’s key thought leaders.

Let’s start with the keynotes: Author of the acclaimed Steve Jobs biography entitled Steve Jobs, as well as president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, Walter Isaacson, will be a featured speaker this year. Isaacson is a former correspondent and new media editor of Time magazine, who went on to serve as chairman and CEO of CNN from 2001-2003.

“Chic Geek” and 2011 audience favorite Katie Linendoll will also be making a return engagement to Impact. Katie is going to be leading the day 2 general session, as well as moderating a “Women’s Panel” later that Tuesday afternoon (May 1).

And if you’ve never heard from Jane McGonigal, creative director of Social Chocolate and a world-renowned designer of alternate reality games…well, prepare to have your mind blown. I’ve heard Jane at a couple of SXSW Interactives, and Jane’s view of the world is one you’ll want to look into.  She’s also the author of the New York Times bestseller, Reality is Broken.

And those are just the guest speakers.  You’ll also hear from a powerhouse cadre of IBM experts and executives, starting with senior veep Steve Mills. Also in attendance: Rod Smith, our VP emerging technologies…Marie Wieck, GM of the AIM organization…Bridget van Kralingen, senior veep of IBM Global Business Services…Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow and WebSphere veep…and a host of others.

But let’s not forget one of the most important aspects of Impact: The networking prowess of 9,000 tech and business leaders all under the same roof.  You can get started in the conversation well ahead of the event by following and contributing to the Impact Social Media Aggregator, and onsite, by visiting the “Impact Social Playground,” a new social hub that will provide enhanced social networking facilities for all attendees, Tweeps, bloggers, analysts, media, and Business Partners.

If you just want to follow along on Twitter, make sure you’re using the #IBMImpact hash tag.

developerWorks blogger and podcaster extraordinaire, Scott Laningham, will also be in attendance, along with yours truly, where we will be conducting live and recorded interviews throughout the event for “ImpactTV.”  So far, we have a committed lineup of the best and brightest…and then there’s Scott and I!

Here’s the link where it all starts for Impact 2012.

I, for one, can’t wait.  Last year was my first Impact, and I had more fun and talked to more cool people than a person has a right to.  And I learned more than I could keep in my head…but of course, that’s not saying much.

And iffen your boss is giving you a hard time about taking time out of your hectic schedule, we’ve even got that covered with our “5 Reasons to Attend Impact 2012.”

I hope to see you there, and if you can’t make it live and in person, be sure to keep an eye on ImpactTV from April 29 through May 4.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that the Goo Goo Dolls are playing???

Simplifying The IT Experience: Introducing IBM PureSystems

I mentioned the coming announcement about our new expert integrated systems in my last post, and lo and behold, the details arrived overnight.

The new family of systems that come with built-in expertise based on IBM’s decades of experience running IT operations from tens of thousands of clients in 170 countries will be called, simply, “PureSystems.”

This effort is the result of $2 billion in research and development, along with acquisitions, over four years, and represents an unprecedented move by IBM to integrate all IT elements, physical and virtual.

This effort is also about a new offering.  This new systems family offers IBM customers an alternative to today’s enterprise computing model, where multiple and disparate systems require huge resources in set-up and ongoing maintenance.

The current economics and models have far too many focused too much on the small stuff. Companies worldwide spend an average of 70 percent or more of IT budgets on simple operations and maintenance, which leaves them precious little time to invest in innovation.

Furthermore, two-thirds of corporate IT projects are delivered over budget and behind schedule, according to a recent study by IBM.  That same said study also found that only one in five corporate IT departments are able to spend the majority of their IT budget on innovation.

The infographic details many of those IT headaches and challenges facing so many today.

The prime challenge facing companies worldwide is the need to spend 70 percent or more of IT budgets on simple operations and maintenance, leaving little to invest in innovation. Two-thirds of corporate IT projects are delivered over budget and behind schedule, according to a recent study by IBM which also found that only one in five corporate IT departments are able to spend the majority of their IT budget on innovation!

Introducing IBM PureSystems

In today’s unveiling of the new PureSystems family, IBM is revealing three major advances that point to this new era of computing technology designed to allow businesses to lower these costs and headaches:

• “Scale-In” System Design: With PureSystems, IBM is introducing a new concept in system design that integrates the server, storage, and networking into a highly automated, simple-to-manage machine. Scale-in design provides for increased density – PureSystems can handle twice as many applications compared to some IBM systems, doubling the computing power per square foot of data center space.
• Patterns of Expertise:  For the first time, IBM is embedding technology and industry expertise through first-of-a-kind software that allows the systems to automatically handle basic, time-consuming tasks such as configuration, upgrades, and application requirements.
• Cloud Ready integration: Out of the box, all PureSystems family members are built for the cloud, enabling corporations to quickly create private, self-service cloud offerings that can scale up and down automatically.

“With its new scale-in design and built-in expertise, PureSystems represents an important advance in the evolution of computing,” said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, software and systems, IBM.

“By tightening the connections between hardware and software, and adding incomparable software know-how, PureSystems is designed to help clients to free up time and money to focus on innovation that many businesses cannot address due to ever rising costs and staffing needs in the traditional data center.”

PureSystems Pricing and Availability

The first two models of the PureSystems family – PureFlex System and PureApplication System — start shipping to customers this quarter. PureSystems support POWER processors and Intel processors.

For more information visit the IBM expert integrated systems blog and be sure to follow the #puresystems Twitter hashtag to follow the emerging conversation around this breakthrough new approach to IT.

U.S. Air Force Partners With IBM On Building Performance Mission

IBM today announced that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) has selected IBM smarter buildings software to help its civil engineers maximize energy efficiency and automate the management of its physical infrastructure portfolio — from buildings, vehicles, runways and other infrastructure across 170 locations worldwide.

BM has partnered with the U.S. Air Force to help its civil engineers maximize energy efficiency and automate the management of its physical infrastructure — from buildings, vehicles, runways, and other infrastructure across 626 million square feet and 170 locations worldwide.

This portfolio includes more than 626 million square feet of real estate, over 100 million square yards of airfield pavement and 10 million acres of land used by Active Duty, Reserve and Air National Guard personnel.

Presidential Executive Orders require executive branch departments and agencies to establish asset management plans, install performance measures and ensure the effective management of Federal real property assets through their entire lifecycle.

Additional orders require agencies to improve energy efficiency, reduce natural resource consumption and decrease waste production to reduce carbon emissions.

To meet this order, the Air Force Office of the Civil Engineer, whose mission is to provide, operate, maintain, and protect sustainable installations as weapon-system platforms through engineering and emergency response services across the full mission spectrum, will use IBM TRIRIGA software to gain greater visibility and control of its physical assets.

IBM’s integrated workplace management software, called IBM TRIRIGA, provides the Air Force with a standardized, powerful technology platform to analyze data about real property assets, streamline work orders and suppliers, and reduce energy use across thousands of buildings.

These tools will help USAF measure and manage its operational, financial and environmental performance to determine and prove effectiveness against government-wide and agency real property management objectives.

“IBM TRIRIGA software will help implement  our NexGen IT vision and give USAF a data-driven approach to manage its real property and physical assets, as well as help us predict issues before they impact service and safety,”said Alexander Earle, Chief Information Officer, Air Force Office of the Civil Engineer.  “Implementing IBM TRIRIGA will help strengthen our IT infrastructure by removing redundant systems, providing real-time analytics and optimizing core processes that enable us to make better decisions about how we manage our resources.”

Using IBM TRIRIGA, USAF plans to reduce operating costs, increase return on budget and reduce energy consumption through:

• Integrated Workplace Management: Provides a single system to optimize performance of all real estate locations, assets and personnel operations. By optimizing building use, occupancy costs are reduced, lease administration is made easier, and managers can evaluate future space requirements to make long term planning decisions.
• Energy Assessment Tools: Enables users to obtain environmental insights and pre-defined, automated operational procedures and processes to monitor and reduce energy consumption as well as waste production from real property assets operations.
• Condition-based Maintenance: Better manage the maintenance of property and equipment based on the age, condition and history of facilities. Having this insight can prevent costly repairs by allowing staff to pinpoint equipment that should be replaced before incidents occur.

IBM TRIRIGA improves the operational, financial and environmental performance of real estate assets and operations. The software provides a comprehensive suite of applications to manage the real estate lifecycle of an organization with pre-defined management processes and extensive web-based configuration management tools.

About IBM Smarter Buildings

Since launching its Smarter Buildings initiative in February 2010, IBM has created a portfolio of smarter buildings solutions that integrate with building automation software from across the industry.

IBM’s real-time monitoring and analysis, facilities and space management capabilities, and advanced dynamic dashboards helps property owners and managers reduce facilities operations and energy expense, and improve asset management and reliability.

Through IBM’s acquisition of TRIRIGA, IBM accelerated efforts to bring intelligence in the smarter buildings market. IBM’s smarter building solutions help clients listen to data generated by facilities. By collecting, managing, and analyzing data IBM helps clients gain intelligence and insight to energy, space and facilities management. TRIRIGA strengthens IBM’s smarter buildings solutions by adding key functions such as real estate, facility and energy management software solutions.

TurboTech: A Humorous Look At 2011 Technology Trends In Review

It’s not many people who have the opportunity to be able to say that they’ve worked with a true broadcasting professional like Scott Laningham.

Blogger's Note: No dolphins were harmed during the making of this video. Green pigs who stole bird's eggs, well, that's a whole other story!

It’s even less people who would take the opportunity to actually come clean and admit to having done so, especially on more than one occasion.

Because I’m neither a true professional nor someone who likes to allow the skeletons in his closet to begin to accumulate, instead of facing as many of them as I can take head on like some egregious out-of-control episode of “Walking Dead,” or, worse, a full-on “Angry Birds” like assault come to life (but only if it’s the ad-supported version, as we’re too cheap to actually buy a copy), it is with great pleasure that I feature for you my readers the latest episode of “TurboTech,” another fine example supporting the postulation by Gartner and others that broadband video is here to stay…even if Scott and I are not destined to be ourselves.

The following is video documentary evidence of what happens when nature cannot simply abhor a vacuum, but instead must attempt to fill it with technology forecasting tripe at the end of another grand year of massive technological disruption.  In our case, the year 2011, which was filled with much technological wonder and wonderment, not the least of which included fabric-based computing.

It shall also not go unnoticed by somewhat regular (assuming there are any of you) viewers that Scott continues to look and sound much, much better than me in these episodes, indicating once again that Scott continues to have better technology than me.

This, too, must change.

Healthier Hong Kong

I’ve been too busy to keep an eye out for Norad Santa this year, but for those of you with children out there, you’ll be happy to know you can now track Santa via the NORAD Tracks Santa app, available for both Android and the iPhone.

For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight. The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations "hotline." The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

It’s good to know that Santa’s multi-platform!

If, on the other hand, you’re all about tracking leading healthcare providers, look now towards Hong Kong-based Quality HealthCare Medical Services (QMHS), which partnered today with IBM to build a virtualized infrastructure for its practice.

The project involves the consolidation of more than 100 servers into a cloud environment that hosts QHMS’ mission critical systems that serve over 600 medical centers in Hong Kong and Macau.

The optimized infrastructure will enable QHMS to reduce IT maintenance and disaster recovery costs, ensure production system maintainability and performance, and achieve energy-savings.

By reducing the number of physical servers from over 100 to eight IBM System x3650 servers and centralizing storage, QHMS is expected to reduce IT operational costs by 25 percent and software license and related maintenance costs by 23 percent.

The new and highly redundant server infrastructure also includes an automated centralized back-up system of IBM System Storage DS3500 Express that enables fast, secure and cost-effective storage management, back up and recovery.

“We are always looking for ways to further improve the patient experience. Our new cloud allows us to deliver information to our doctors faster and in a more reliable way,” said Elaine Chu, Chief Operating Officer of QHMS. “As a result, we will be able to serve our patients more effectively and with higher levels of care. It is very exciting to see how we can make a difference to our patients with the help of technology.”

Additionally, the deployment of the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence solution provides financial key performance indicator (KPI) and analysis, creating the opportunity to gain more timely business information for better business performance management and smarter decision-making.

QHMS aims to monitor business performance in over 600 medical centers. With IBM Cognos BI, QHMS can build a standardized and centralized information delivery platform that enables QHMS to monitor the performance of a wide range of services running on different systems.

QHMS’ management team can now access timely business information with just a few mouse clicks, speeding response times to business needs and patient demands.

About Quality HealthCare
Quality HealthCare Medical Services Limited is a physician led provider group offering an integrated range of healthcare services including facilities management, third party plan administration and paramedical support. The Group provides care for private and corporate contract patients through a network of more than 580 Western and Chinese medical centers, and 47 dental and physiotherapy centers.

In 2010, its network recorded more than 2.8 million healthcare visits. It also operates Hong Kong’s longest-established nursing agency and one of its medical practices has been serving Hong Kong people for over 140 years.

Flying Through Your Data Center

After my recent visit to the Bahamas, and my first ever flight in a small aircraft, I decided I was going to take up flying.  Well, virtually, anyhow.

My buddy Steve recommended I buy a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator X, along with a remote USB yoke and throttle control, to do some initial simulation and learn some of the basic flying requirements on the safety of my computer.

Click to expand image. The IBM Smarter Computing Workload Simulator is designed to give busy chief information officers a fast and easy way to view areas of potential savings and efficiency through the lens of IBM Smarter Computing systems and technologies. I was able to create this simulation in less than a minute!

I’m all about simulating while I learn the basics of flying.  I figure it’s much safer for me on the ground than in the air!

But simulations are no longer limited simply to learning how to fly.

Sometimes, the best way to demonstrate the benefits of new technology is, actually, through more technology.

Like an online simulator for IT data center ROI, for example.

The kind of tool that allows people to punch in information and variables and receive instant feedback on possible alternatives.

So, enter the new IBM Smarter Computing Workload Simulator.

This new online simulation tool is designed to give busy CIOs a fast and easy to way to view areas of potential savings and efficiency through lens of IBM Smarter Computing systems and technologies.

If you’re not familiar with IBM’s Smarter Computing approach to IT earlier this year, IBM introduced it as a way for organizations to realize greater efficiencies, improved reliability, and better performance, and all at lower costs.

The strategy centers around three fundamental aspects:

• Leveraging analytics to exploit vast amounts of data for business goals
• Utilizing optimized systems that are designed for specific tasks
• Managing as much of the IT as possible with cloud-computing technologies.

The new simulator, then, starts by asking the visitor to select either IBM Power Systems or IBM System z to compare to their own IT infrastructure.

It then asks for the type of industry they’re in, the type of workload to be compared, and the number and types of systems to compare – including those based on Intel Itanium, Intel x86, and/or Sun SPARC.

As the systems are identified, graphical images of servers begin to populate a simulated data center floor.

When the visitor finishes and hits the “Next” button, an alternative data center floor immediately pops up and populates with IBM systems and a breakdown of estimated costs and savings.

Visitors can drill down for charts and analysis on operating and strategic costs of their infrastructures, and the potential costs and savings of the IBM alternative.

For even greater analysis, visitors can click on the IBM System Consolidation and Evaluation Tool at the end of the simulation that provides a more comprehensive and detailed comparison.

IBM will expand the tool, which went live in mid-October, to include support for System x in the first half of 2012.

You can check out the IBM Smarter Computing Workload simulator here.