Information Management in Year 2020

The shape of information ten years from now will be a whole lot different then we see it today. Information will flow seamlessly across devices and the authorized individuals will be able to access the information. To understand the way information and its enablers will change in due course; let us look at the following assumptions–

1. Servers – Instead of having servers and in house data warehouse the IT of 2020 will rely on cloud computing or virtual servers. The concept of cloud computing will remain the same but due to vast acceptance the name will be different. Individuals and enterprises will rely on servers running applications, storing data etc. We see the glimpse of tomorrow’s revolution in today’s world. Not only individuals but companies as well will rely on cloud providers to store and access information. The convenience of anytime any-form and any type access of information will result in the expansion and mass reliability on cloud. The metadata on the cloud will get more comprehensive due to the massive volumes of data. New developments will make the servers in cloud very small and more powerful. The space used by one server will be enough to contain 10 servers each double the efficiency and storage of the ones available today. The servers of 2020 will also use ten times less energy and will not need the energy consuming HVAC system (Heat, ventilation and Air conditioning).

2. Access devices – Since most of the information will be on the cloud servers the access devices (clients) will get smaller and will consume less energy. The concept of ‘Sustainability’ and ‘going green’ will force the invention of smaller more energy efficient devices. To the most part the devices will run on solar or artificial light. The laptops/handhelds will have less processing power and will rely on internet connectivity both for processing in cloud and accessing information. The internal storage devices will get smaller in sizes and capacity will remain constant due to reliability on cloud. Thin clients such as netbooks and iPads will also replace paper and will add to environment friendliness.

3. Applications – The application on devices ten years from now will be serve as the link between the application used for processing in the cloud and the device accessing the cloud. They will be just the authorizers and displayers. Since the processing will be done in the cloud the application on the device will take less space. With the increasing inclination on open source it is not wrong to anticipate that the softwares will mostly be open source whereas the platform and security applications will be commercially produced. The open source software will use data from the repositories along with computing capabilities from cloud to serve the required purposes. Business intelligence that is an important part of information management will become a service provided by the cloud vendors. Some of the vendors offer BI tools today but in 2020 BI will be a part of cloud and will be seen as part of the various services from the service provider.

4. Security – It would not be wrong to assume that the future of cloud computing can be bright only if there is a revolution in information security. The security of cloud will become synonym of Information security in 2020. So, the security drawbacks that cloud faces today will be addressed and the security and privacy of cloud will be much better in the future. New developments in encryption and advancement of SSL (secured socket layer) will help users rely on the cloud and in due course make themselves completely dependent on cloud for their computing needs.

5. Transmission Medium – Wireless technologies have shown rapid growth in last two decades and the future looks brilliant. The current state of Wi-fi IEEE 802.11n for home/office networking has the data transmission rate of 600 Mbps (Megabytes per second). On the wireless with mobility front both GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code division multiple access) have introduced 4G wireless data communication that gives a speed of 100Mbps. The constant development in wireless transmission medium will serve as a strong cause for cloud adaption. Thin clients (netbooks, iPads etc) will be preferred over laptops and desktops. In 2020, the developments in wireless technology will make desktops obsolete and PDA’s and light weight mobile devices will become smaller, lighter and more widely used.

6. Storage devices – Probably the biggest technology revolution will come in the way information will be stored. SSD (Solid state disks) will replace HDD (hard disk drives) in the cloud servers. The failure rate of SSDs is very less compared to traditional HDD’s as SSD’s do not have any moving parts and use IS’s to store data just as Random access memory(RAM) of Computers. RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) will be replaced with RAISSD (Redundant array of inexpensive solid state disks). The huge difference is that SSDs don’t lose data if power is switched off (just as HDDs). Another development in data storage that can reduce the size of storage devices and decrease their vulnerabilities is Holographic data storage that has the potential of storing 250 terabits per square inch, enough to store 10 DVDs worth of data on a pinhead.

Conclusion

Information is growing fast and exponentially. It is estimated that about 4 Exabyte (1018 bytes) of unique information will be generated this year, higher than ever before. It is easy to expect in today’s exponential time that the information generate in 2020 can be anywhere from 1 Zettabyte (1021 bytes) to 100 Yottabyte (1024 bytes). Increase in information will give rise to increase data storage space and extreme capacity storage devices. To carry huge volumes of information the transmission medium will have to be very fast and reliable. Security will come in play as the information will move more frequently and faster than ever before. With the increase in information requirements, environmental concerns will also grow leading to smaller, energy efficient devices and cloud servers.

Are lower priority plans a resort after failure of high priority deeds?

Where we are today, is where we had planned to be or it’s where our fate led us? This sometimes makes me think of my plans few years back. If I remember clearly I wanted to be where I am today but that for sure was not one of my priorities. Are lower priority plans a resort after failure of high priority deeds? I know everyone would not agree to that, especially those who were fortunate enough to make their higher priority plans work.

I wasted around five years of my life, at the stage where time was most valuable. I am paying the price and I will continue to do so till the day my accounts are settled. That’s the irony of life for five years of loss I will have to work for fifteen years without defaulting.

Failure …..the road to success..

You know when you out doing something and it keeps on failing. It’s those times when you say you are almost there and you never reach there, my story is little similar. I kept trying hard, to make it, to do everything and do it in a way to make it a success but it never reached where I want it to..that’s when you tend to call it a failure. To be optimistic you try not to call it a failure you just say “I’m not there yet”.

Do dreams really means something’ I mean is it true that you can attain what you dream of.. you really want something to work out and secretly you pray after doing what all you could do and still; It doesn’t work. You want to throw that thought off your mind, but you pretty much can’t 'that you were not able to do it.' You feel like being silent and everyone associated on the other hand, keeps mum about it.. they don’t really want to talk to you. You try like a million related things and about a hundred time each to make it work and you still tell yourself you didn’t do it that well.

This is what Edison said “It is not that I failed but it is just that it didn’t work a thousand times….. but thousand and one it did”

Did Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in one go? He started working on light bulb in 1850 and he was finally able to make it work in 1879. Uncountable times he did the things right but it didn’t work.. but with that kind of effort and dedication it was bound to work…

That is how the world got the light bulb and a very essential lesson…

“One who hasn’t tasted failure will never be able to have real taste of success..”

God Bless!!!

Search for exact definition of ‘LOVE’

I searched real hard to find the definition of ‘Love’. I found few but am not contented. At few places it said “It is not possible to define ‘Love’.  The love can be defined as…. “.It is ironical, you are trying to define what you yourself believe is impossible to define.

Love is a mixture of feelings & emotions. I wonder who discovered love and how.. , I had come across lot of relations and incidences when I have told someone that I loved them but I wonder today what I really meant and what was that they reciprocated out of it? I don’t feel it today or for that matter from last few weeks, I don’t feel loved nor feel I love anyone. 

Weird but true, my experience here in Waltham has been really different from what I had in mind when I came to US. I never knew I would get so lonely.. I have no one to be called a friend, no one to share my feelings with, and no one to laugh with.. wish I just get  to live my last few yrs again so that I can go back to people I once loved and tell them how much loving someone means and what it feels like when love leaves you..

Another day in Waltham

Another day in Waltham and the evening made me nostalgic. After a week end of snow and rain it was finally sun shine. Standing outside my door of a small townhouse in Garden crest and waves of thoughts hitting me one after the other. Wondering what to take up as my concentration in MBA and at the same time a fear that I might not be able to prove myself if I chose something wrong.

It was so good back in India. I was always surrounded by friends and family. People who really cared who were there for me, thinking about the times I had in India makes me want to cry and drain out the feelings that I’m holding inside.

They say shape of world is changing and that it is shrinking, but why is it that I still feel so far off from home and those warm feelings. It makes me wonder what it would have been when there weren’t mode of communications couple of decades back or when it was far too expensive to possess and use them. How do those people who came here leaving there loved ones behind in different countries communicated and led their feelings out.

I remember the first Cellphone I purchased was back in 2001. It used to be a luxury back in those times. But India grew big comparatively faster than was expected. It has one of the largest cellphone subscriber base today and it’s so cheap to have phones that owing one in US for an Indian is a pain. My first cellphone had nothing more than facility of calling and receiving calls. Today the one I carry is a bundle of goodies, it had camera, 3G, wi-fi, Bluetooth and so on and so forth. I never imagined I would be able to work on spreadsheets on my cellphone; but I guess that’s what technology has given us, the cellphone has become a mini computer. Is that what they meant when they said “the world is shrinking?”

I got my first computer back in 1995, a pentium-1 with 64MB RAM and 640MB HDD. It had a monochromatic monitor which I felt too fond of having at home. I was probably the first one to have a computer at home out of my class of 42 students. I am so proud of my Dad that he took evening classes to learn computers and kept himself updated with technology so that his kids can be at par with the fast moving world. This inspired him to buy a computer in 1995 and not to forget it took 24 days for the computer to finally get delivered.

Today it is impossible to imagine a world without computers and internet.

One thing that made me choose Bentley University was that it was moving in pace with the technology. It has the most advanced technology one could imagine for a University to have. I was so fascinated to learn about the technology Bentley possessed that it made me choose it over all the schools I got admits from.

With my MBA concentration being Finance I want to do lot of courses in Information technology because of this never ending cravings to learn more about technology and its implementations. I would also like to mention here that a great deal of this comes from Professor Anderson who teaches “Strategic Information management” ‘(GS 601) which happens to be a core course and a big motivation for me to go ahead with Information Planning related courses. If it wouldn’t have been for Professor Anderson I would have never thought of taking such courses. But its too soon to say anything as I am in my first semester and don’t really know what courses I’ll pick up for the coming semesters, but I sure going to try taking IPM classes.