Discussion and comparison of Container technologies

Today, I would like to discuss a little bit on the Container technology and why it has become so popular.
One of the best ways to truly implement the "Infrastructure as a Service" paradigm and make it configuration based is through containers.
Containers are a method of operating system virtualization that allow you to run an application and its dependencies in resource-isolated processes. They allow you to easily package an application's code, configurations, and dependencies into easy to use building blocks that deliver environmental consistency, operational efficiency, developer productivity, and version control all packaged into one.

They can help ensure that applications deploy quickly, reliably, and consistently regardless of deployment environment. Running containers like Docker in AWS is a nice flexible way to make the entire infrastructure configuration based and removing state based dependencies from end to end architectures.It automates the deployment of Linux based applications in the cloud.

Some of the cool technologies competing in this space include Docker, CoreOS, IBM, AWS, Google, Red Hat and Microsoft Drawbridge .
 

Cloud based tools

Summarizing some experiences of the different cloud based tools that are needed in enterprises

• Full stack performance and analytics cloud tools
   - AppNeta
   - CoScale
   - AppDynamics
   - Dynatrace
   - Quantum Metrics
   - New Relic
• Cloud cost management tools
  - Cloudability
   - Cloudyn
   - VMWare
   - Rightscale
   - Dell
   - Scalr
   - Cloud Cruiser
• Workload automation tools
   - Ansible
   - Chef
   - Gigaspaces - Cloudify
   - Puppet Labs 

• Cloud Service Management
   - BMC
  - CA Applogic
  - FUJITSU - cloud service management

.NET Core and recent advances

Latest Trends
NET Core 1.0 was released 27 June 2016. This is a cross-platform free and open-source managed software framework similar to .NET Framework. It consists of CoreCLR, a complete cross-platform runtime implementation of CLR, the virtual machine that manages the execution of .NET programs. CoreCLR comes with an improved just-in-time (JIT) compiler called RyuJIT. While .NET Core shares a subset of .NET Framework APIs, it comes with its own API that is not part of .NET Framework. Further, .NET Core contains CoreRT, the .NET Native runtime optimized to be integrated into AOT compiled native binaries. The command-line interface of this framework offers an execution entry point for operating systems and provides developer services like compilation and package management.
Innovation using .NET
The .NET framework has been in the forefront of innovation from the beginning. Some of the innovative features of the .NET framework include LINQ (Language Integrated Query) , ASP.NET Web framework, Asynchronous programming using Async/ Await, .NET Portable Class Libraries and Mobile services. Ability for the .NET core framework to be used in Docker containers is also an innovation this framework can boast of.
.NET in Mobility
Xamarin provides the following summarized features:
Native User Interfaces – Xamarin apps are built with standard, native user interface controls. Apps not only look the way the end user expects; they behave that way too.
Native API Access – Xamarin apps have access to the full spectrum of functionality exposed by the underlying platform and device, including platform-specific capabilities like iBeacons and Android Fragments.
Native Performance – Xamarin apps leverage platform-specific hardware acceleration, and are compiled for native performance. This can’t be achieved with solutions that interpret code at runtime.
Productivity – With Xamarin.Forms developers can use the same logic and UI targeting iOS, Android and Windows 10 UWP.
.NET Core advances
Unlike the traditional .NET Framework, which is a single package installation, system-wide, and Windows-only runtime environment, .NET Core is about decoupling .NET from Windows, allowing it to run in non-Windows environments without having to install a giant 400mb set of binaries plus the ability to deploy the applications coming with the framework itself supporting side-by-side execution of different versions of the framework. This also helps to run this platform on Linux based Docker containers.   
Basically, the .NET Core Platform is packaged and installed in a different way. Instead of being part of the operating system .NET Core is composed of NuGet packages and is either compiled directly into an application or put into a folder inside the application. This means applications can carry .NET Core with and thus are completely side by side on the machine.
.NET Core consists of a common language runtime, which in .NET Core is named CoreCLR. .NET Core also features an extensive class library. Rather than a single .NET Framework Class Library, however, .NET Core features CoreFX, a modular collection of libraries. This allows you to include just the libraries that your app needs without the overhead of including those that you don’t need.
Value Proposition for .NET Core
The following topics are the main value-propositions of .NET Core:
Cross-platform – .NET Core currently supports three main operating systems: Linux, Windows and OS X with other OS ports in progress such as FreeBSD and Alpine. .NET Core libraries can run unmodified across supported OSes and need the applications to be recompiled per environment, given that apps use a native host.
Open Source – .NET Core is available on GitHub, licensed with the MIT and Apache 2 licenses. It also makes use of a significant set of open source industry
Modular framework – .NET Core is built with a modular design, enabling applications to include only the .NET Core libraries and dependencies that are needed in line with the latest docker contained based development. Each application makes its own .NET Core versioning choices, avoiding conflicts with shared components. .
Natural acquisition – .NET Core is distributed as a set of NuGet packages that developers can pick and choose from and Docker images for it are also available on Docker hub. The runtime and base framework can be acquired from NuGet and OS-specific package managers, such as APT, Homebrew and Yum.
Smaller deployment footprint: Even when in v1.0 the size of .NET Core is a lot smaller than .NET Framework, note that the overall size of .NET Core doesn’t intend to be smaller than the .NET Framework over time, but since it is pay-for-play, most applications that utilize only parts of CoreFX will have a smaller deployment footprint.
Fast release cycles of .NET Core – .NET Core modular architecture provide a modern and much faster release cycles compared to slow release cycles from larger monolithic frameworks. This approach allows a much faster innovation pace from Microsoft and the OSS .NET community than what was traditionally possible with the .NET Framework.

Ecommerce shines

Latest ECommerce Trends shaping up

ECommerce these days has exploded many times, hitting new milestones and achieving numbers never seen.  In the year 2014, sales hit a high of $1.3 trillion reaching almost $2 trillion by the end of 2016.

By 2020, it is estimated that the value of ECommerce sales will have topped $4 Trillion. This article discusses some of the top trends in ECommerce sales that has had far reaching consequences in the way

enterprises design a strategy, develop software and execute a plan that gives seamless experience to the end users while keeping them in line with latest trends

Multi-Device Shopping : Given that sixty-six percent of all time spent on ecommerce sites is done across mobile devices, companies are aligning their web design aligned with the mobile first strategy.
eRetailers will need to ensure that the site is accessible from devices of different form factors like phones, tablets and laptops having different resolutions. 61 percent of customers leave a site if it isn’t mobile-friendly, it is hardly a surprise that responsive web design is becoming a key component of any web site’s strategy

Material Design – This vibrant and content focused pattern has been gaining popularity since late 2014 and continues to be used extensively in modern ECommerce site. It is the unified and playful experience provided by
Material design which makes it extremely attractive. Even for development shops, this frameworks allows for rapid and consistent baseline that can be utilized for almost a “game” kind of experience.

Custom Product demonstrations / Real time customization – Providing interactive product demonstrations is a very compelling way to showcase your product offering and how they work. Lot of companies would like to give a real time experience of building models and clothings so that it is customized to the need of the customer

Hidden Menus – With the advent of bold modern designs, the concept of menus has been replaced with large images and alternative mechanisms to toggle between choices. Even the hamburger menu in the corner is being
replaced by innovative ways of allowing users to choose between different modes and choices.

Multi-channel marketing – Using a combination of ECommerce indirect and direct communication channels like websites, direct mail, email, mobile apps and social media campaigns, companies are maximizing their investment in digital assets and also investing in a variety of digital asset management products. As the pace of this marketing mechanism picks up, there will surely an uptrend in the usage of these asset management products.

Location Targeting – Given that there is an innate integration of a GPS device pinpointing the location of a customer, it is natural for companies to start focusing on location centric targeting through relevant advertisement.
Using Beacons and accurate location sensors coupled with preferences and profile specifics of the individuals, it is even more possible to pinpoint the kind of discounts and promotions that could be transmitted to the individual to encourage buying specific merchandise.

Social Media Advertising – Social Media advertisements have come a long way in being used as an effective advertising mechanism. Taking the example of Facebook’s Dynamic Product Ads which automatically promote relevant products from your entire catalog with unique creative, showcasing one or more products, across any device, users can be literally reminded about the quality and uniqueness of the product that they just viewed minutes back thereby refreshing their memory and giving a good visibility for the product.

Marketing Automation – As the email campaigns to promote different products become more and more annoying, technology has found ways to classify the mails as junk or “clutter”. Marketing automation helps in a way that makes the emails a lot more relevant, attractive and possibly worthwhile to the email receiver to spend some time understanding the material.

Rich Media – Audio, Video Product – As the competition for attracting more and more eyeballs intensifies, companies are trying to find every possible way to get more “stickiness” to their ECommerce channel. One very practical way to do this is by using rich media generously. A recent survey has indicated that more than 90% of the buyers have revealed that a video explaining the features can play a much better role for them to make a buying decision. Use of bold colors, pleasing to the eyes can surely help ECommerce retailers generate more interest for their customers.

Data Aggregators – As the concept of “Data as a service” intensifies, using variety of data in real time and aggregating it to give a contextual and specific experience continues to help customers make their decisions easy.
In this information age, where data is on the fingertips of most millennials, nothing can be more irritating for the customer than to see outdated or wrong information just because aggregation and data cleansing has not been done correctly. This reflects very poorly on the quality of the product and directly influences the product buying decision process.

Artificial intelligence in ECommerce – The three areas that artificial intelligence is playing a big role in ECommerce is advanced search, Personalization and Predictive analysis. Given the behavior of the buyer, most AI algorithms
can foretell the taste of the individual and suggest specific products based on context when the user is trying to search. Given that the inventory of most retailers is considerable, it surely helps to zero in the customer to the required merchandise quicker. From a personalization standpoint, using the preferences that the user has mentioned in his profile as well as any traits that the algorithm can gather from his publicly available social or professional datapoints, companies will need to create a virtual profile of the customer and help in suggesting options accordingly. Finally, predictive analysis helps enterprises predict future purchasing patterns or possible interest points for the customer so that recommendations can be made accordingly. Used effectively by Amazon initially, this has now become a standard process

Emergence of Payment Wearables– With the emergence of mobile wallets, rings and small wearables capable of making digital payments, there has been a new trends of companies using Tap and Go kind of techniques for payments in the ECommerce arena. There is a huge market for this and it will continue to expand in the coming years.

 

Azure rules the roost

While Microsoft was a late entrant in the Cloud services space with Amazon already taking a lion's share of the work involved, it has definitely caught up some lost space in the past 3 years. Apart from MS Azure being a natural first choice for Microsoft shops trying to get their feet wet in the Public cloud space, there are some startups who are trying their options with this technology.
I have written a recent article on "Azure rules the roost" at

http://microsoft.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/windows-azure-ruling-the-roost-nid-23249-cid-50.html

The World of Open Source

With several options in the Javascript Framework space, it can easily become pretty confusing which frameworks to look at and eventually implement. Started as an inhouse project, Google's AngularJS library quickly caught up in the market as a UX framework of choice. Given that Material design with its flat and clean interface is quickly becoming popular, Google is not leaving any stone unturned to implement a framework for this as well.

I have written a new article on the World of Open Source with specifics on AngularJS Material at

http://opensource.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/the-world-of-open-source-nid-23335-cid-92.html

Today and tomorrow of ECM

Enterprise Content Management(ECM) strategy in the cloud is quickly becoming an effective mechanism for companies to manage their content without having to worry about accompanying typical concerns around archival, disaster recovery and storage. The explosion of mobile applications has also necessitated the existence of an effective API strategy around this approach. In my article, I try to deal with the challenges around this and possible alternatives to address this.

http://enterprise-content-management.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/the-today-and-tomorrow-of-ecm-nid-23305-cid-129.html

Collaborating for Success

Despite a lot of discussion around collaboration and the value therein, traditional tools have not been able to capture the true business value of ideas that came up during collaboration sessions due to a variety of reasons. Some of these being inability to capture cross language, cross cultural, gesture and voice based inputs that had inherent values but could not be translated into any tangible benefits. I have tried to come up with some ideas in this space at :
http://collaboration-solutions.cioreview.com/cxoinsight/collaborating-for-success-nid-23281-cid-124.html

First passenger drone car cleared

The first passenger drone car has been cleared for testing

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/08/worlds-first-passenger-drone-testing-ehang-nevada

Some of the misconceptions of the marriage between Big Data and cloud can be cleared using the following article.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/04/12/6-challenges-cloud-overcome/

Salesforce

Trying to understand the Functionality of Salesforce and how the inner working of the platform helps customize the needs for the enterprise. Found some great resources at Trails ..

https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead/trail/force_com_dev_beginner

Slack adds group messages

Just the thing that Slack needed
http://www.techinsider.io/slack-adds-group-messages-2015-10


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Everybody is suddenly copying Microsoft

Everybody is suddenly copying Microsoft 11 comments · 77 likes · 54 reflips businessinsider.com / Matt Weinberger · In 2012, when Microsoft first introduced the Surface Pro — a tablet that was also a laptop — it became an industry punch line. "You can merge a toaster and... Photo: businessinsider.com     Read it on Flipboard

Related topics on Flipboard Microsoft Google Touchscreens

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Beacon issues

As the argument rages on about what is the best way to reach out mobile shoppers through their devices, the most obvious answer seems to be the Beacon strategy that has been used immediately.
Having said that, there are areas that need to be carefully considered before a blanket solution is proposed. The article talks about some of the challenges that come alongwith a Beacon strategy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2015/08/24/why-targets-beacon-strategy-is-doomed/

As we see Beacon proliferation, we will need to look at fine tuning this strategy to come up with an effective final solution.

Eddystone

After so much activity and discussions around Eddystone, some simple thoughts around how it has made significant changes in the IOT landscape :

• IOS , Android and more ....

Given that folks have been playing around the iBeacon spec and Beacons from Estimotes, Motorola etc for a while, it is a well known fact that the current landscape is more aligned towards the iOS users. Given that a little over two third of the world's users use Android, this had to be corrected...Eddystone gets us there

• No App...That's fine

With Beacons, the users had to be using your application to make it really effective. Now with Eddystone, there can be URLs that can be broadcasted which do not need your apps to be installed. You can use Eddystone to send a link to your visitors to your application on the App store or something similar and also feature current promotions

• Context Galore

With Eddystone, there is also a Telemetry option which allows broadcast sensor - driven data on the beacon's state and the environment around it. Data can be used to control factors around specific parameters. Different actions can be triggered based on the changes in environmental and weather conditions. Warehouse, Hotel conditions, Collecting weather factors, Notifications to preferred customers etc are just some of the huge applciations which can be used. 

• Proximity factor

Using Eddystone URL, merchants can push URLs linked to their content, web page or personalized content system to patrons who do not have their applications installed. That way, folks near shopping centers or malls can receive notifications about the merchant offers and have context around that data, 

Hyperloop discussion

Based on the Hyperloop discussion by Mr Elon Musk, efforts are on for a transportation system that "would whisk travelers between cities at speeds topping 760 miles per hour. Passengers would ride inside pods shooting through a network of low-pressure tubes, with the pods surfing electromagnetic pulses rather than carrying engines of their own.".

While this system sounds extremely enticing for folks who have dreamt about getting to workplaces quicker, there are several challenges that will need to be addressed before it becomes "production" grade.

The initial design seems to be over simplified for such a complex system. Some of the challenges include

• Seismic factors

In areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles, that are sitting on top of a potential seismic activity zone, the design of such a transportation mode which would sit as a welded steel tube on top of concrete pillars with dampers will have its own challenges.

• More connections for Pylon

Currently the transportation system is just kept as a sort of tube that is hug from a Pylon but there has to be some sort of a connection to keep it from sliding off the side of the pylon. 

• System Communications

This system will require some sort of tracking system of where each capsule was along the route.  A web of substations, communication centers will be needed 

• Thermal Expansion

The current design claims that no expansion joints are needed because “tube is not rigidly fixed at any point” and uses “dampers” instead. But simple calculations show damper attachment to each pylon would not allow for the kind of movement that will happen.

Tesla considers its own autonomous ride-sharing business

Advait Kulkarni shared the story, Tesla considers its own autonomous ride-sharing business, with you on Flipboard.

Tesla considers its own autonomous ride-sharing business engadget.com The best music often comes from the notes left unplayed, and so it was with the Tesla Motors Q2 earnings call with financial analysts this week. While w... read more

Flipboard is your personal magazine It's a single place to discover, collect and share the stories that matter to you.

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Comparison between c#, RoR, Python and Java

I was looking for a good comparison of the 4 side by side and found this interesting spreadsheet that someone had prepared. Still a WIP but thought was interesting

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ijQq32h9g_HVQWOyMJWawVtBpYqlyfgkHRGPfb0SUyI/pub?hl=en

Google photos

Since the time the announcement for using Google photis has come out, have been following the tech  that goes into making it so extensible.. Following are the nice features in it

http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/13/10-reasons-to-start-using-google-photos/

Javascript framework comparison

Having been following several JS frameworks in the works implementing some of the needs of our clients, this is a good article talking about a comparison helping choosing of the right framework for use:

https://blog.stamplay.com/choosing-your-javascript-framework/