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February 19, 2003
Linux Networx and Bernard Daines
In 1996, someone named Bernard Daines came to BYU, where I was teaching, and gave a talk about a brand new company he'd founded named "Packet Engines." Packet Engines made the first gigabit ethernet switch. Since I was chair of the capital equipment committee, I bought one. We had one with a very low chassis number. I didn't realize at the time, that Bernard had founded Grand Junction and sold it to Cisco in 1995. He'd later sell Packet Engines to Alcatel amid some controversy (for some interesting reading, see this article on Bernard Daines).
I've recently discovered two other interesting connections. Bernard Daines is the founder and former CEO of World Wide Packets, the company that makes the break out boxes being used by Provo City in their network. Its a cool little box about the zie of a paperback book that has a fiber connection in one side and four 100 Mb ethernet connections and two digital TV connections on the other side.
Bernard Daines is also the man behind Linux Networx, perhaps the coolest start-up in Utah at present. I had a chance to visit Linux Networx today and spend a little time with Steve Hill, the CEO. (Steve has an an interesting history in his own right.) Linux Networx puts together Linux clusters and sells them (the last part is important if you want to keep doing the first part). They built a 1150 node machine for Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (each node has 2 processors and 2 Gigs of RAM). They also build four node clusters that run Oracle. Every order is custom made on the assembly room floor in Sandy Utah. If you like Linux, big iron, or just like opening up new hardware and putting it together, this would be an incredibly cool place to work.
Seems like I keep bumping up against things Bernard Daines is involved in. I'd love to meet him again. He's got a talent for finding cool things to do and getting them done. It doesn't hurt that thanks to two successful start-ups he also has the money to be self-funding.
08:31 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Book Review: IT Web Services by Alex Nghiem
Last week, I mentioned that I was reading a book called IT Web Services: A Roadmap for the Future by Alex Nghiem (pronounced "neem"). I've worked my way through it and have some comments.
Nghiem is the President of a consulting company called Blue Samba Solutions. The first five chapters of the book are the requisite introduction to web services. If you already have a good handle on it, you can probably just skim this or even skip it altogether. On the other hand, its well written and it managed to clear up a few cloudy issues for me. What's more, I appreciated getting Nghiem's take on some things. Chapters six through nine are the heart of the book and make it well worth the price.
Chapter Six is entitled "Web Service Networks" and takes the form of a brief introduction to the topic followed by two interviews: one with Craig Denato, the CEO of Grand Central Communications, and the second with David Spencer, the CTO and CEO of Flamenco Networks. Both companies have similar goals: fill some of the holes in web services implementations. Grand Central operates a fee-for-service value-added network for web services and Flamenco sells software that creates a P2P network through proxies installed in-between communicating partners. I found this chapter to be very interesting and informative. I had a better understanding of what these two companies do and what their business model is after reading it that I got from visiting either company's web site.
Chapter Seven is entitled "Web Service Architectural Patterns." I was really looking forward to this chapter and came away slightly disappointed. The material was good, but pretty skinny. Maybe web services just aren't mature enough yet to have developed a significant of patterns. Nghiem discusses four patterns:
- Native web services
- Web service proxy
- Document-centric web services
- Orchestration web services
I'll probably come back to this topic later in my blog and discuss Nghiem's patterns and solicit others.
Chapter Eight gives a high-level plan with analysis for adopting web services. Much of this is common sense that any good CTO would probably understand, but its still a good check list to review as you begin a web services project.
Chapter Nine discusses software as a service and doesn't really seem to belong until you read the included interview with John Alberg, the VP of Engineering for Employease, an HR ASP. John talks about how they use XML and web services to implement their service.
The rest of the book (another 100 pages) is appendices that cover ebXML, case studies, interviews with web service platform vendors, and a product review of Iona Technologies XMLBus product. A review copy of the product is included on a CD in the book.
Overall, I found the book to be informative---the interviews alone are probably worth the price. The formatting has some errors and there's some diconnectedness leading to a "thrown together in a hurry" feeling, but that doesn't really affect the ability of the book to deliver on the information. I recommend it.
02:32 PM | Recommend This | Print This
SLC Public Library
I needed to meet with some folks in downtown Salt Lake today and didn't have immediate access to a meeting facility, so I had them meet me at newly opened public library. If you're local and haven't seen it yet, you really ought to visit---its a great facility. Plenty of meeting space, study tables, reservable conference rooms, and even some retail space for newspapers, comics, coffee, and cards. Its right across from the Salt Lake City building on 4th South.
As an aside, Jon Udell's library lookup service works for this library.