Technical Stories & Links
The Unified Infrastructure
by George Offord
June 13, 2014
Today I read an article about the art of analyzing telecommunication subscriber data and the market opportunities that it offers. The race is on; all the telecommunication giants in the industry and all the IT giants in the industry are rushing to develop and corner the market to be.
In the near future "to follow a trend" shall quietly transform into "to create a trend", we are actually halfway there already but with the advent of marketing subscriber's user data we shall enter a dynamic phase of advertising and marketing predicted trends. Our lifestyles shall change, not only will you be bombarded with advertising on TV but now you will be submitted to target advertising that has been designed just for you based on your data profile and usage.
Echos of "Brave New World" ? ... maybe, but not necessarily. The up side of exploiting consolidated telecommunications user data is that it will make it easier to please the individual supplying tailor fitted solutions for; health, business, sports, cooking, literature, film, and even information about exotic travels and places. All this will be readily available for you .... without even having to search for it; it will be searching for you.
Then we enter the cloud, "The Cloud" is a buzz word these days within the telecommunications and IT communities. Simply sharing ... who could find fault with that? It's finally happening, we can share the hardware infrastructure that's holding up this electronic world of information and communication. We can agree upon a method of sharing physical resources based on a real-time need for capacity on those resources. This is a good thing; it reduces wasted resources and unnecessary costs related to those unused resources.
There is only one drawback to this vision of tomorrow and that is vulnerability. If someone pulls the plug there is total system collapse. We are concentrating our infrastructure systems into tighter and closer knit units. Consolidated data realized this risk and built redundancy into the architectural plan but it still has its geographical limits. The first "blackout" that hit New York hit the entire Eastern seaboard; redundancy wouldn't have helped there (at that time cellular phones didn't exist). And the cloud is not without its limits either; the damage done by electrical failure or even worse virus infection would be devastating.
So as an afterthought, think before it's too late; what are the Pros & Cons concerning the world that we are so unthinkably rushing headlong into. The vision of a united unified singular network of utilities and commodities is enticing but please remember that there is a dark side to it as well. Not for nothing there is an existing military strategy based on small sustainable units as opposed to centralized consolidated entities; it's worth a reappraisal. The Tsunami that struck Japan didn't come advertised; its adverse effects are still continuing fresh and unabated.
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