Ocasionally, we look at the Federal Register, and earlier this month there was an interim rule announced for small business, for which most of our partners qualify. I’m going to give you the summary here, but if you want details, go to the Federal Register and take look at Volume 76, Issue 212, issued November 2nd.

DoD, GSA, and NASA are issuing an interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement section 1331 of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (Jobs Act). Section 1331 addresses set-asides of task-and delivery-orders under multiple-award contracts, partial set-asides under multiple-award contracts, and the reserving of one or more multiple-award contracts that are awarded using full and open competition. Within this same context, section 1331 also addresses the Federal Supply Schedules Program managed by GSA, DoD, GSA, and NASA are coordinating with the Small Business Administration (SBA) on the development of an SBA proposed rule that wil provide greater detail regarding implementation of section 1331 authorities.

While that seems like typical government speak, you can go out and talk to your end users about 1331 and let them know you are on top of what’s going on. The government needs to spend our tax dollars with small business. Use this information with your System Integration partners as well

Good $elling!

Posted under Government, Vertical Markets

Last week, I was in DC for the second inaugural Gridwise Global Forum, something I would describe as a “thought leadership” event that was well attended by numerous constituents in the energy ecosystem: customers, vendors, regulators, government policy makers, and of course media and analysts who cover this dynamic industry. In many ways, no stone was left unturned and many if not all of the major issues facing the industry, not just in the U.S. or North America but also globally, were discussed, as we’re all recognizing the changes needed in power generation, distribution and how we consume energy. I thought I’d spend the next several weeks blogging about some of the key issues we discussed.

Gaining insight into the health of the grid in a more proactive way is a desire of many constituents. If we can predict usage spikes or potential issues that will cause a disruption in power, and address them proactively versus reactively, I think all of us would be happier. Can you imagine a time when you get a text from your utility alerting you to a pending outage and providing you with information on how and when the utility will get power restored? Researchers have uncovered that from a psychological point of view, people experience heightened levels of anxiety when waiting in lines when we have no idea how long we’ll wait. After Hurricane Fran wreaked her havoc on us in 1996 and caused widespread power outages, I felt that heightened anxiety with each day of no power because I had to get on with life, go to work and try to live and sleep in a house that was up to 95 degrees inside. Not fun!

Technology is available today that can help utilities better predict and manage outages. It will take more consumer demand — and partnership from regulatory bodies — for utilities to invest in these technologies at the rate and pace I think most of us intuitively want. Will we have to be open to paying for it now with the faith it will pay off in more reliable service when we need it, like after a natural disaster, and lowered costs eventually? And will we, like Boulder, CO, decide there may be a better way to manage our energy service in the communities in which we live?

Posted under Energy

You hear a lot of buzz words in the IT industry, and within the storage arena, it is especially true. Two such terms buzzing around these days are “unstructured” data and “big” data. Although in no way the same, they are often related and represent an increasing percentage of all data stored. So what is unstructured data? Unstructured data is data that does not easily fit into a predefined pattern or a relational database.

You can generally divide unstructured data into two major categories: textual (which is the majority of unstructured data) and non-textual. The former would include files such as emails, word processing documents, legal documents such as a “purchase and sale agreements,” or medical records. Examples of the later would include medical studies, e.g., CT Scans, X-Rays, PDFs, CAD files and video or audio files. A typical example of unstructured data is the ubiquitous (descriptive) metafile data which contains information about the unstructured file and helps us understand the files contents and how it should be classified.

The problem with unstructured data is two-fold. First, there is too much! We’re creating data at an ever-increasing rate and according to IDC, by 2014 there will be more unstructured data than all data stored today. It is generally agreed to already represent approximately 80 percent of stored data in most organizations.

Second, this type of data can be problematic because it’s not in a predefined format, e.g., spreadsheet, so it is hard to identify, classify and search. How many of you have lost a file and can’t remember the name? When this happens, the file is essentially gone because you can’t search file contents.

The issue boils down to how one manages the volume, plus how one classifies and makes use of (via search and analysis) the data.

“Big data,” on the other hand, does not refer to a typical size but rather large data sets of typically unstructured files. The data becomes so large as to essentially break current tools and methodologies used for its capture, storage, and analysis. This is especially true in fields of science such as molecular biology, meteorology or industries such as energy or security that depend on frequent data collection from a variety of sources such as software logs, video and audio files, and especially meter and sensing devices. Finally, businesses that require predictive analysis of multiple data sets could easily end up with big data issues.

So what do we do with this “new data?” Look for my next post about “New Data – New Opportunities” coming soon. In the meantime, if you want to learn more, please contact me at kim.hofmann@avnet.com.

Happy Selling!

Kim

Posted under Data Center Technologies, Storage