Information Before Technology

One of the interesting side effects of being a corporate blogger is that you can stir up some interesting discussion.  Most of the commentary to date has been along the lines of quick blurbs, but occasionally someone writes an interesting piece from a different perspective.

I'd like to share with you some commentary from another EMCer, Dave Farmer, who has a different (yet related) perspective on the theme of information ownership, and the new role of IT.

He writes:

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Chuck,

Your recent post about information ownership got me thinking about information from a slightly different perspective.

One of the pure ironies of computing lives squarely in the term "Information Technology." The moniker, by its very ordering, casts information as the ultimate asset whose needs -- above all -- are serviced by the underlying technology.

Information ... before ... Technology.

Utopian concept? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Depends on the timeframe.

For decades IT planners have been forced into a "technology knows best" approach, leaving the unique and dynamic needs of information stranded on the school steps.

Information has been relegated to subservience in relation to the very technology used to create, process and manage it. The results, as you've pointed out, include unnecessary costs, unnecessary risks and unexploited information value.

It won't be long before we refer to this era of management within the confines of individual application stacks as "the bad old way."

We're on the brink, however, of inverting this relationship ... giving information a voice to be heard and a strategic seat at the IT planning table.

Imagine having the luxury of sitting down with an X-Ray, email, loan origination form, subpoena, customer record, web video, etc. and asking the simple question: "What do you need?" The responses would vary materially from piece to piece to piece. And from lifecycle phase to lifecycle phase.

It's not entirely futuristic. Information in this sense is in the process of breaking free from the shackles of the applications that create it and gaining its own voice in next-generation IT design. Virtualization, service-oriented architectures, model-based management, information-centric security and a collection of their technology cousins now make it possible to begin thinking about and designing IT from the information out.

The model shift from tightly aligned and hierarchical IT to information-centric information infrastructures -- where information is presented to applications as a set of services -- will give way to powerful up ticks in information value.

Think about the leap from Web 2.0 and application "mashups" to the semantic web. 

While the semantic web (or Web 3.0 as some are labeling it) is much more akin to a science project at this point, the new breed of information infrastructure is quickly taking shape and promises the same liberating possibilities for information connections, corresponding spikes in information value and enhanced user experience.

If information could talk it would be screaming in frustration over its inadequate treatment. And while information can't talk ... those who truly understand its "behavior" and hierarchy of needs are speaking up and taking action on its behalf.

It will be anything but easy.

It won't all happen next Thursday (users will take their rightful places along the bell curve.)

But it is essential and, as typically the case, forward thinkers and early adopters will reap the most reward.

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Well, he's right.  And I think he put it more eloquently than I ever could.

Over the last few months, I'm seeing more of the "aha" moment with customers along these lines.  I guess I'll need to wait a few more months to see if the thinking takes root, and causes different behavior.  We'll see ...

Thanks, Dave!

Comments

[Robert Pearson]

When I read your comment on DrunkenData I felt you had been looking at an Information Centric view somewhere. Now I know where.

Rather than duplicate other posts here I will refer you to where I have posted on the "Transformation of Storage to the Information Centric view from the historic Technology Centric view".

I have been working in isolation on this for over 10 years. I am happy to have company. This is not as bad as all the work I did on my E2EIoD (End-to-End Information on Demand) concept. When I finished it and started telling people about it, I found that IBM had already done it, and better, and called it SOA.

The post at DrunkenData "The Sands are Shifting on the Desert"
http://www.drunkendata.com/?p=698
actually covers both DrunkenData and StorageMojo at the moment.

I believe that EMC has done their homework and paid their dues and has the software products to deliver Information Centric Storage under SOA "Right Now!". I'm not sure the internal structure is in place to deliver this. I would hate to see it go the way of the "Calypso" product. The finest one product I ever saw.

I believe your Storage hardware would need some innovation to collaborate well with your software and put you way up the "power" curve with your competition.

I am always torn between making the "boxen" really smart or keeping them really dumb. The "big-brained" people feel the best paradigm is "dumb boxen" and very intelligent edges.

The Information Centric Storage view could use a lot of help from either the boxen or the edge or both.

The reason is that the classic Technology Centric Storage view needs to disappear by becoming seamless, transparent and invisible.

The Information Centric view is more interested in the ROI/TCO ratio of Managed Units of Information. TCO is easy to get, difficult to get correctly. ROI is difficult to get all the time. I can't even get people to agree on the Information, which if you lose it, will put you out of business, and the Information that generates 80% of your revenue.

The ROI/TCO ratio is the key parameter in the "Well-being Index".
The Well-being Index is one possible solution to having an important measure of the Information well-being. Call it anything you like.
An acceptable Well-being Index takes into account ROI/TCO, Context, Content, Findability, Information High Availability (IHA), Information Integrity (II), which Information, if lost, will put you out of business, which Information generates 80% of revenue and the User Experience (UX).
The Event Management System will report on the status of the Managed Units of Information.