Designing better worlds | Gary Metcalf | May 2, 2013 | Rethinking Complexity

In social systems redesign, @garysmetcalf cites the @FukuyamaFrancis challenge of the second phase of nation-building — towards self-sustaining indigenous institutions — as an area where the work of prior systems thinkers (Bela H. Banathy, John Warfield, Aleco Christakis, Russ Ackoff, Stafford Beer, Eric Trist, Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery) might be extended.

The grandest scale of social systems change, though, has probably come about in connection with military conflicts. Following the devastation of World War II, much of Europe was rebuilt in connection with the Marshall Plan and other assistance, in the form of economic and technical aid. The legacy of those efforts is probably the nation-building of today – the aid and assistance given to countries in order to create. It is done with clear political objectives, though, related to concerns about security.

According to Fukuyama (2004), “The fact is that the chief threats to [the U.S.] and to world order come today from weak, collapsed, or failed states. Weak or absent government institutions in developing countries form the thread linking terrorism, refugees, AIDS, and global poverty” (p. 1.) As he further explains, “What we are really talking about is state-building—that is, creating or strengthening such government institutions as armies, police forces, judiciaries, central banks, tax-collection agencies, health and education systems, and the like” (p. 2). The problem, however, is that “no one has solved the more serious problem of how to implement the second phase of nation-building—the transition to self-sustaining indigenous institutions” (p. 6).

Historically, this approach to nation-building was been separate from military interventions. Like the Marshall Plan, it came in the form of aid after the military was gone. With the shift in the nature of perceived security threats (e.g. terrorism by non-state actors) and military interventions (targeted, tactical strikes), larger strategies have also changed. The military corollary to nation-building is often counterinsurgency, as described in a Field Manual of the U.S. Marine Corps:

An insurgency is an organized, protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken the control and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power, or other political authority while increasing insurgent control. Counterinsurgency is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency…Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate. Insurgents use all available tools—political (including diplomatic), informational (including appeals to religious, ethnic, or ideological beliefs), military, and economic—to overthrow the existing authority… Long-term success in COIN depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government’s rule (Counterinsurgency, 2006, p. 1)

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have raised significant questions about the role of U.S. Military intervention and responsibilities beyond simply defeating an enemy. Interestingly, the military has sponsored research aimed directly at a better understanding of human social systems, due to this expanded view. As described in a book from the National Research Council (2008): Today’s military missions have shifted away from force-on-force warfare – fighting nation-states using conventional weapons – toward combatting insurgents and terrorist networks in battlespace in which the attitudes and behaviors of civilian noncombatants may be the primary effects of military actions. These new missions call for agile, indigenously sensitive forces capable of switching quickly and effectively from conventional combat to humanitarian assistance and able to defuse tense situations without, if possible, the use of force. IOS [individual, organizational, and societal] models are greatly needed for planning, supporting, and training for these forces and for evaluating the technology with which they fight. Models of human behavior in social units – teams, organizations, cultural and ethnic groups, and societies – are needed to understand, predict, and influence the behavior of these social units (p. 2).

The report goes on to explore models ranging from verbal and conceptual to system dynamics, cognitive architectures, decision and game theories, social network models, agent-based models, games, etc. Ironically, even though this research was proceeding at the time that the counterinsurgency manual was produced, there is no indication that it was referenced or incorporated in it. (The fact that this research was supported through that Air Force and that the counterinsurgency manual was published by the Marine Corp may be all the explanation needed.)

There appears to be a need to bring what we know about social systems to the arenas in which social systems are being most affected; in places where efforts such as nation-building and the aftermath of conflicts are occurring. There is an even greater need to continue the research in clear, rigorous ways, focused on the principles involved. It is not enough to build new houses and shops and schools. Nor is it enough to hope that people can simply “get along” if economic conditions get better for them. We need to consider the world that we, collectively, want to live in, and how we might go about creating that.

Designing better worlds | Gary Metcalf | May 2, 2013 | Rethinking Complexity at
http://www.saybrook.edu/rethinkingcomplexity/posts/05-02-13/designing-better-worlds
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Society as a Complex Adaptive System | Walter Buckley | 1968 | Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist

Sociocultural systems described by Walter Buckley in 1968 were later cited as information-bonded (c.f. energy-bonded) systems by Gharajedaghi 1999, and in 2011.  This reading deserves some more thought, so I’m getting into motion to lead a workshop at ISSS Hai Phong City 2013.

We have argued at some length in another place [1] that the mechanical equilibrium model and the organismic homeostasis models of society that have underlain most modern sociological theory have outlived their usefulness. A more viable model, one much more faithful to the kind of system that society is more and more recognized to be, is in process of developing out of, or is in keeping with, the modern systems perspective (which we use loosely here to refer to general systems research, cybernetics, information and communication theory, and related fields). Society, or the sociocultural system, is not, then, principally an equilibrium system or a homeostatic system, but what we shall simply refer to as a complex adaptive system.

[1]. Sociology and Modern System Theory (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967)

To summarize the argument in overly simplified form: Equilibrial systems are relatively closed and entropic. In going to equilibrium they

• typically lose structure and have a minimum of free energy;
• they are affected only by external “disturbances” and have no internal or endogenous sources of change;
• their component elements are relatively simple and linked directly via energy exchange (rather than information interchange); and
• since they are relatively closed they have no feedback or other systematic self-regulating or adaptive capabilities.

The homeostatic system (for example, the organism, apart from higher cortical functioning) is open and negentropic, maintaining a moderate energy level within controlled limits.  But for our purposes here, the system’s main characteristic is its functioning to maintain the given structure of the system within pre-established limits. It involves feedback loops with its environment, and possibly information as well as pure energy interchanges, but these are geared principally to self-regulation (structure maintenance) rather than adaptation (change of system structure).

The complex adaptive systems (species, psychological and socio-cultural systems) are also open and negentropic. But

• they are open “internally” us well as externally in that the interchanges among their components may result in significant changes in the nature of the components themselves with important consequences for the system as a whole.
• And the energy level that may be mobilized by the system is subject to relatively wide fluctuation.
• Internal as well as external interchanges are mediated characteristically by information flows (via chemical, cortical, or cultural encoding and decoding), although pure energy interchange occurs also.
• True feedback control loops make possible not only self-regulation, but self-direction or at least adaptation to a changing environment, such that the system may change or elaborate its structure as a condition of survival or viability. [p. 490, editorial paragraphing added]

We argue, then, that the sociocultural system is fundamentally of the latter type, and requisite for analysis a theoretical model or perspective built on the kinds of characteristics mentioned. In what follows we draw on many of the concepts and principles presented throughout this sourcebook to sketch out aspects of a complex adaptive system model or analytical framework for the sociocultural system. It is further argued that a number of recent sociological and social psychological theories and theoretical orientations articulate well with this modern systems perspective and we outline some of these to suggest in addition that modern systems research is not as remote from the social scientists’ interests and endeavors as many appear to believe.  [pp. 490-491]

Buckley, Walter. 1968. “Society as a Complex Adaptive System.” In Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook, edited by Walter Buckley, 490–513. Chicago: Aldine.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=zmankKmLmQYC&pg=PA490
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Gharajedaghi provides the tie from his writing to Buckley (1967) book — from which the 1968 chapter excerpts.  In chapter 4, on “Sociocultural Model: Information-Bonded Systems”:

Buckley (1967) explains this structural characteristic of sociocultural systems by focusing on the organization and its dynamics based on the effect of the information, as opposed to energy transmission. The sociocultural system is viewed as a set of elements linked almost entirely by intercommunication of information. It is an organization of meanings emerging from a network of interactions among individuals. [pp. 83-84]

Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. 1999. Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity : a Platform for Designing Business Architecture. Elsevier.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=7N-sFxFntakC
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The Buckley article was republished in 2008 with an introduction by David Schwandt & Jeffrey A. Goldstein in E:CO Emergence: Complexity & Organization.

Although the phrase “complex adaptive system” is one usually thought to have been coined at the Santa Fe Institute sometime during the 1990s, we can see by the title of this classic paper that the systems-oriented social thinker Walter Buckley had already been using the phrase “complex adaptive system” as early as 1968 and with pretty much the same connotations as it is used today. Thus, similar to how the phrase is contemporarily employed, Buckley explicitly crafted “complex adaptive system” to counter an equilibrium-based, “closed” view of systems which he felt was endemic at the time of his writing this paper.  [p. 86]

Buckley, Walter, David Schwandt, and Jeffrey A. Goldstein. 2008. “Society as a Complex Adaptive System.” E:CO Emergence: Complexity & Organization 10 (3): 86–112.
http://emergentpublications.com/ECO/issue_contents.aspx?Volume=10&Issue=3#ContentPlaceHolder1_repContents_authors_7
.

• … or search Google on buckley “society as a complex adaptive system”

Socio-cultural Systems | Jamshid Gharajedaghi | May 19, 2013 | Ackoff Center Weblog

The socio-cultural view by Gharajedaghi (2011) describes information-bonded systems, and self-organization of multi-minded purposeful systems.

Socio-cultural View

Socio-cultural view, the focus of this paper, considers a social system to be a voluntary association of purposeful members who have a choice. They get together to serve their own purpose by collectively serving a need in their environment. This is a whole new ball game. Mechanical or biological models cannot explain behavior of a system whose parts display an ability to choose. Therefore, a social system has to be understood on its own terms. Understanding the following five principles is the key to appreciating the distinctive characteristic of a socio-cultural system. However, to get a handle on socio-cultural systems, we also need to explore the essence of information-bonded systems and explain the self-organizing behavior of multi-minded purposeful systems. In addition, in this paper, I will touch upon social learning and development and share my take on ideological terrorism as a major obstruction to the development of peaceful international order. [p. 2]

Systems principles

The five principles of Openness, Purposefulness,  Multidimensionality, Emergent Property, and Counterintuitive behavior, acting together as an interactive whole, define the essential characteristics of a socio-cultural system (Figure 1).

 

Figure 1: System principles

These five principles are an integral part of the systems view of organization from defining problems to designing solutions. [....]

Information-Bonded System

[....] While the elements of mechanical systems are energy-bonded, those of socio-cultural systems are information-bonded. In energy-bonded systems, laws of classical physics govern the relationship existing between the elements. Integration of the parts is a onetime  proposition. Nail two boards together, and they stay that way until the wood rots the nails rust, or a pry bar separates them. In energy-bonded systems, passive and predictable functioning of parts is a must, until a part breaks down. But the behavior of active parts of an information-bonded system is a different proposition: An automobile yields to its driver regardless of his expertise and dexterity. If a driver decides to run a car into a solid wall, the car will hit the wall without objection. Riding a horse, however, presents a different perspective. It matters to the horse who the rider is, and a proper ride can be achieved only after a series of information exchanges between the horse and the rider. Horse and rider form an information-bonded system in which guidance and control are achieved by agreement based on a common perception. A socio-cultural system is viewed as a set of elements linked almost entirely by interconnection of information. It is an organization of meanings emerging from a network of interactions among individuals.  Integration of an information-bonded system into a cohesive whole is a lifetime struggle. To appreciate the unique challenges of integrating the members of a social system, think about the challenges of maintaining marriage, families, or any other close-knit group of human beings—each with a mind of his or her own. To clarify the meaning of information bonded systems, we need to examine the concept of culture in more detail.

Culture

Image building and abstraction are among the most significant characteristics of human beings, allowing them not only to form and interpret images of real things, but also to use these images to create images of things that may not exist. These images are then synthesized into a unified, meaningful mental model and eventually into a worldview (Boulding, 1956). The dialectical interaction between objective and subjective realities lies at the core of a process called design thinking responsible for the dynamic development of human societies. This is so true that Nigel Cross (2007) in his beautiful book makes the following indisputable observation: ”Everything we have around us has been designed” (p. 34). [....]

Figure 2: Shared image and Culture

It is the “shared image” that we refer to as the culture of a people. This shared image incorporates their experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and ideals. Culture is the ultimate product of their history and the manifestation of their identity—man creates his culture and his culture creates him.  [p. 7]

Socio-cultural Systems | Jamshid Gharajedaghi | May 19, 2013 | Ackoff Center Weblog at
http://ackoffcenter.blogs.com/ackoff_center_weblog/2013/05/socio-cultural-systems.html
 (originally from December 2011, prepared in response to a request from U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences as part of a research project on the nature and the behavior of socio-cultural systems).

Open Access Journals and Capitalism: An Interview with Christian Fuchs | Simon Schöpf and Dimitris Masvoulas | May 24, 2012 | fuchs.uti.at

The primary function of journal publishing is to distribute knowledge. @fuchschristian says Open Access academic publishing can follow a variety of models.

The question is not if Open Access will be the future of academic publishing, without a doubt it will be, but which model of Open Access will be the future, as there is not just one, but several ones.

In the so-called green model of OAJ corporate publishers release articles after 6-12 months for OA publishing.

In the gold model, articles are immediately published online and there are author fees. The commodity logic is just transfered from readers to authors, who pay for getting published!

In the diamond model, articles are published open access without the commodity logic. These journals are non-profit, non-commerical and non-commodified and make the articles available based on a non-commercial Creative Commons License or a similar license.

Regular corporate academic publishing a) exploits the free labour of academics, b) commodifies academic knowledge, c) is injust and unfair because those who cannot pay or are not part of a rich university do not get access, d) is racist and imperialist because poor readers and universities in developing countries are excluded from access.

The “gold model” of OAJ results in new capital accumulation models. My experience is that those who run such models tend to undermine peer-review: they tend to publish most articles just for the profit-sake. The author fees are often very high and when you are not rich or not part of a rich unversity or do not have large research projects, then you are excluded from publishing. This model creates a two-class structure in publishing, it is an expression of class divisions in academia. It is also again racist and imperialist because scholars in developing countries tend to be excluded.

The only model that I consider appropriate, democratic, fair and just is the diamond model of Open Access Journals. If you ask me, then this should be the future of academic publishing. The model can also be applied to academic book publishing and there are already a few publishers around focusing on this model. But of course this model that strengthens the academic public sphere and democratic access to knowledge needs a support infrastructure, it is very important to look at political economy here and not to be idealistic: If this model should be the future – which is an at the moment undecided, political and normative question – then diamond model journals need public funding and general funding schemes need to be implemented. This means that public money needs to be dedicated to this task. If this is not then, then academic publishing will remain as undemocratic and closed as it is today. There is a potential for change, we’ll see if it will be realized or not.

Open Access Journals and Capitalism: An Interview with Christian Fuchs | Simon Schöpf and Dimitris Masvoulas | May 24, 2012 | fuchs.uti.at at
http://fuchs.uti.at/901/
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Forms of inquiry in design and research | Erik Stolterman | May 17, 2013 | Transforming Grounds

Extending Churchman’s inquiring systems to design, by @estolter and Harold G Nelson with (i) the true, (ii) the ideal, and (iii) the real.

… in the chapter “The Ultimate Particular” [...] we discuss three forms or designs of inquiry and action that humans can engage in. We suggest “… that design, as presented in this book, is based on a compound form of inquiry, composed of true, ideal, and real approaches to gaining knowledge.” It is possible to also make the case that research and science also in most cases consists of compound forms of these three. There is not simple and direct mapping between them even though it may be tempting to assume that.

I will not here go into any detail about this, just copy two of the schemas we use in the chapter to show what kind of considerations are involved when anyone makes a decision on how to design a particular form of inquiry.

In Figure 1.4 (below) we present a schema that lays out several aspects of inquiry and action and how they can be understood for each of the three forms of inquiry, that is, the real, the true and the ideal. This is a quite rich schema with dense concepts, but reading each line carefully gives insights about how different the three are, but also where they are somewhat overlapping. So, in making choices about what form of inquiry to choose in your research or design, a schema like this may help since it not only explains but also provides with concepts that can guide the understanding of purpose and measure of success. For instance, you can examine what your intention is, what you motivation is, what your preferred form of understanding is, etc. Given any choice also tells you what the measure fo success should be. So, if you are truly looking for inquiry for understanding (under ‘fundamentals’) that can lead to ‘enlightenment’ of some kind, it is not appropriate to see ‘facts’ to be part of the measure of success.

However, choosing a research approach or a design approach is not a simple question of deciding which ‘design of inquiry and action’ to “use”. The richness and specifics of the particular situation, your purpose and intention leads to complex considerations regarding how all three forms can inform and enrich an inquiry. This is shown in Figure 1.5 below.

Design or research is never a question of finding out what the correct or best existing approach is, instead it is a complex process of judgment that weighs all aspects in an attempt to reach an approach that makes sense, that is guided by intention, that has a purpose and is based on a clear understanding of what the measure of success is.

Forms of inquiry in design and research | Erik Stolterman | May 17, 2013 | Transforming Grounds at
http://transground.blogspot.com/2013/05/forms-of-inquiry-in-design-and-research.html
.

Ditch the resume and pick up a badge, they’re not just for Boy Scouts | Brent Herbert-Copley | May 1, 2013 | The Globe and Mail

If credibility of universities in credentialing declines, can alternative institutions such as badging recognize skills and knowledge in broader T-shaped people?

Both students and postsecondary institutions are increasingly embracing the ideal of the “T-shaped” graduate, who combines deep “vertical” knowledge in a particular domain with a broad set of “horizontal” skills: teamwork, communications, facility with data and technology, an appreciation of diverse cultures, advanced literacy skills, and so on.

This kind of shift is readily visible on campuses across the country. [....]

The trick, however, is how to recognize and validate the skills and abilities that emerge from these diverse learning experiences. How can students demonstrate the value-added from extra activities? And how can employers separate the wheat from the chaff if grade-point averages alone don’t tell them what they need to know?

Traditionally, of course, students have relied on the resume to describe their skills, profiling work and other experience that they hope will set them apart from the pack. But the resume is a distinctly analog tool in our digital age – a flat file in an era of linked data sets. While it’s still an indispensable calling card, it doesn’t allow students to present the richness of their experiences or draw attention to concrete products. And because it lacks external validation, it’s inevitably subject to doubt – even more so as the diversity of student experience broadens. Was that trip to southeast Asia a vital learning experience? What kinds of skills really emerged from that summer leadership program? Did that volunteer internship with a local not-for-profit provide a meaningful foray into independent research and analysis?

Enter the “co-curricular transcript,” which allows postsecondary institutions to recognize student learning beyond the classroom – everything from involvement in student government and varsity sports, to international exchanges or internships. An increasing number of institutions now provide these alongside academic records, giving students and prospective employers an officially-sanctioned record of achievement beyond just courses and GPAs. It’s a significant advance, but still limited in the story it can tell. A list of co-curricular activities can’t capture the nuance of individual students’ experiences, and given the complexity of assessing learning outcomes, the transcripts necessarily focus on inputs – numbers of seminars, teams, or hours spent on particular activities.

There is another, complementary approach, and interestingly it’s one that has its roots in young people’s own increasingly digital world. Thinkers like Cathy Davidson of Duke University have drawn inspiration from the world of on-line gaming, where communities of gamers award digital “badges” to recognize particular achievements by players. Davidson and others in the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC – pronounced “haystack” – which held its annual conference at York University in Toronto last week) have been experimenting with the use of similar “badges” to recognize learning experiences and outcomes, both for students and for adult learners.

The beauty of the model is the way it democratizes credentialing. Skills and experiences are validated – but that validation involves a diversity of expert groups, institutions and communities, mirroring the kind of diverse learning environment students are embracing. And because the model is inherently digital, it holds out the promise of a rich, multilayered record of results and achievements, with links to video, audio and text resources.

Ditch the resume and pick up a badge, they’re not just for Boy Scouts | Brent Herbert-Copley | May 1, 2013 | The Globe and Mail at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/ditch-the-resume-and-pick-up-a-badge-theyre-not-just-for-boy-scouts/article11639205
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At #ibmimpact, Mike Rhodin says big data is more than volume, have to deal with variety, veracity and velocity.

Deterministic programming can’t handle big data, have to use probablistic programming

The Future of Intelligent Middleware, IBM Research at Impact 2013 Conference

Contextual analytics
Continuous insight
Demos
Key technical problems: unstructured, unstructured, semi-structured; have been working on scale OR performance, not both, which will happen in a clustered environment

Why is contextual analytics important?
An urgent need to understand information, particularly asynchronous ones

Scenario: financial company with transactional credit card swipes, want to know as fraudulent or not
Fraud detection could be on scoring, but could have gang using card quickly over a short period of time
Scenario: Homeland security
Scenario: In-store video analytics
Scenario: Healthcare, sensors on patient

Want improved time to decision-making
Think of Continuous Insight as a Platform, with an engine that could scale up

This is an application server redux: not just three tier, now want transactions in memory not as a single JVM, but as in memory clustered
Challenge is analytics across JVMs
Would use MapReduce and Hadoop, except those are for scaling up, not in a cluster

Today, can have sales pipeline management, sales exec wants to see SmartSeller with Sales Challenge Alerts

Demo trains with hidden Markov Model

Started project on scale out computation, previously funded by DARPA, open source language called X10, for place-centric, asynchronous computing
Generates both C++ and Java
Will have programmer deal with place and asynchrony
Don’t have to code in X10, have a global programming model above that

Next steps to make this work: what is a good way to provide an analytics language at scale?

2013/04/28 15:00 Tamar Eilam, Gosia Steinder, Seetharami Seelam (IBM Research), “Future Clouds: Software Defined Environments and Polyglot”

IBM Research (Tamar Eilam, Gosia Steinder, Seetharami Seelam, Yuqing Gao), IBM Impact Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada

This digest was created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker’s presentation(s) and comments from the audience. The content should not be viewed as an official transcript of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. The digest has been made available for purposes of scholarship, posted by David Ing.

Following the GTO session by Steve Abrams, in the first track that IBM Research has run at the Impact conference

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Polyglot:  allows you to run different programming models in the same runtime

Two trends that are motivating this work

1. Evolution of workloads:

• Traditional was few, stable and known workloads, configured manually once to run; then required manual intervention to change
• Current is now diverse workloads (mobile, analytic), dynamic requirements, may benefit by special hardware, can have different components that require different configuration, have APIs that don’t give configuration of the hardware, can run in pools but not cross pools
• Future, with cloud, would like to see more flexibility to configure hardware, but can’t have manual and slow, would like dynamic automatic composition of heterogenous systems

2. Other trend is bottom-up, software design of architecture

• Decision logic buried inside switches is being moved out
• Software controlling networks in a flexible way
• A way to program the infrastructure in code
• Emergence of standards:  OpenStack, to define in a uniform way

Goal: How to leverage Software Defined Infrastructure for both agility and optimization

• Agility to respond to changing business needs: changing the structure of the workload (e.g. from big data to more security, as changes in middleware and hardware
• Optimization:  changes in hardware, or making best use of hardware you have in place, non-functional constraints

Software Defined Environment

• Hardware at bottom
• Then resource abstraction
• Agile Workload Development Services that do Workload Orchestration and Optimization
• Then have Workload Abstraction as Transactional, Web, etc.

Layers:

• Want to enable many-to-many mappings, due to life cycle
• Service may evolve in the cloud:  initially want to get to end user quickly, the requirements evolve, and will want to scale
• Software patterns mapped to infrastructure patterns

“Desired State” Based Management

• IBM pioneers and champions TOSCA(with OASIS) as an open standard to represent all parts of the workload

How to define the work cloud?  Then once you have the description, how do you optimize?

In IBM Research, developed Weaver, a Domain Specific Language

DevOPS:  don’t design the application, and throw it over the wall, to find that don’t know what’s wrong

• Get teams to work from inception, through build and deploy
• Weaver is the basis of such a project

Weaver has three parts to collaborate

• Infrastructure topology:  e.g. web server, Hadoop
• Application topology:  application-specific properties
• Environment topology (that maps the two together)

Have validators and rules

• Used in the base of the IBM SmartCloud product

[Gosia]

Workload orchestration and optimization

• Think of this like configuring Java virtual machines
• Want to include computer, storage and networking requirements
• Desired state is what you want to provision
• Have to be able to provide diagnostics, if something breaks

Workloads are complex wirings, embodying requirements

[Seetharami]

Polyglot

In the future of the cloud, have discussed the infrastructure

Will now talk about what languages that programmers will use, which implies challenges for infrastructure

Java has ruled enterprise application space for 15 years, but some erosion, in terms of new applications

Middleware platforms are changing in cloud centric era

• Cloud Middleware (PaaS) market is sprawling:  a few vendors provide limited support for multiple languages e.g. AppFog, Heroku, Azure, CloudFoundry

So the cloud middleware (PaaS) will be an integrated polyglot

What does a polyglot application look like?

• Web UI (HTML5/Javascript) with web app (node.js) and enterprise logic (Java)
• Then add on PHP applications (e.g. Yelp, Twitter)

Top languages on Github:  Javascript, Ruby, Python, Java, Shell, PHP

Since Javascript is so popular, where is it being used in cloud-centric runtimes?

• IBM Cast Iron, IBM Worklight, IBM BPM products

Research will be the foundation for the IBM next generatoin (polyglot) cloud application platform

• Initially will target node.js applications
• Want to build a language-agnostic platform with tight interplay of services and capabilities

2013/04/28 13:30 Gabi Zedik (IBM Research), “Mobile First: Future Directions in Mobile Development and Runtimes”

IBM Impact Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada

This digest was created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker’s presentation(s) and comments from the audience. The content should not be viewed as an official transcript of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. The digest has been made available for purposes of scholarship, posted by David Ing.

Following the GTO session by Steve Abrams, in the first track that IBM Research has run at the Impact conference

---

Mobile First isn’t just a name, it’s a way of thinking of mobile

Mobile has GPS, personalized

Unlike other technologies where think about processes first, have to put the person in the centre

New consumption patterns

• Omnichannel:  physical, mobile,social, video and web
• Context fusion: apps used to perform an single task, based on context (roe, mobile)
• App-centric
• Activity burst
• Apps chained

Re-imaging businesses

• Radical simplification: core objective, enable in one or two interactions, e.g. Instagram, Bump
• Extreme personalization
• Participative behavior
• World-as-an-interface
• Zero barrier to entry

Mobile First has disruptive impact on IT delivery infrastructure

• “Systems of engagement”:  read about these on web
  • Engagement capabilities
  • Scalable delivery infrastructure
• “Systems of record” are legacy systems

Challenge:  data used to live on the system of record, life was easy, would access from a fat client or browser

• For mobile devices to work effectively, some of the data needs to move off systems of records, to be cached on the device in continuous client experience
• Then need to synchronize data, make sure it’s secure

Mobile First Delivery Middleware is different from Traditional Web App Server

• Functional requirements
• Programming model attributes
• Run-time deployment and management attributes: heteorgeneity in middleware stacks, number of programming languages

Emphasis on mobile developers, different from those in cloud

• Need a higher level of abstraction, a layer above a cloud
• Focus on building mobile application:  usability is important
• Would like to configure a dashboard on server side, and access that
• Care less about virtual machines, who started the service, they just want them there
• Would like to avoid writing code on the server side (although sometimes do need to write)

Mobile Enteprise Application Platform Solution (MEAP) 2011-2012

• Familiar Worklight diagram

Other companies more focused on mobile developers

• Convergence: mobile enterprise platforms are converging with mobile infrastructure services

IBM Mobile Runtime Platform (with Systems of Engagement)

• Mobile Industry  Platform and App Services
• Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) — non-SQL, more JSON or SOAP, need a transformation
• Foundational Services — different security models
• Cloud runtimes and frameworks (PaaS Fabric)
• Software Defined Environment

Research Runtime and Industry Services

Session 1169:  Space-Time Aware Services for the IBM Platform

• Location is becoming central for what we do
• Linking operational decision management becomes important
• Link with uncertainty, work in a proactive event-driven way (so that if have situations, handle, or change)
• Combine with visual analytics, to define investigative services

Spatial extension to Websphere eXtreme Scale

• Important on how to represent data, structure in an efficient way so don’t have to go across all of the servers

Secure Mobile First Enterprise Data Services

• Unlike a laptop that could be owned by an enterprise, mobile devices are much more exposed
• Bringing device into enterprise, have to manage private and enterprise data, e.g. e-mail that requires authentication, and can’t be copied to the private side of the device

Omnichannel:

• Have many mobile devices
• Vision, would like seamless way of moving across devices and across people
• e.g. start on desktop, them move to device on car (without sending it by e-mail) to start in the same point
• Ability to synchronize across applications, across operating systems, across users, in a seamless experience
• Challenge:  want to share across devices, operating systems, applications
• For an application doing it across devices

Scalable enterprise mobile messaging service

• A lot happens in RESTful APIs
• Sometimes using messaging, delivering system to system with certain throughputs
• Sometimes pub-sub mechanisms
• MessagingSight to handle so many devices at throughput required

Want agility from development point of view

• Looking at how to simply:  Rapdi App Development of Data-Centric Mobile Enterprise Apps, session 1211

Research Development Lifecycle Tools as a Service

• Testing
• Application security and certificatoin
• NitroGen:  Rapid LOB app constructoin
• Usability and accessibility
• DevOPS:  delivered in an Enterprise App store

Mobile challenges and accessibility support are more important in devices, e.g. could have light outside, can’t hear in a noisy environment

Research projects:

• Smarter mobile commerce:  customer context –> omnichannel interaction –> authentication and payment
• Context inference engine
• Presence zones, enabling in-store personalized services
• ARISTO:  Actionable, personally tailored knowledge ad the decision point, e.g. augmented reality application that could sort, compare prices, filter out (as opposed to calling your wife)
• Smarter mobility:  e.g. transportation, logistics

In Brazil lab:

• Smart Board
• Citizen Sensor: reporting on city problems when they encounter them
• City Companion: helping tourists, the blind