Software Defined Data Center

The fundamental tenet of an Software Defined Data Center is Virtualization. It is possible to virtualize Servers, Network and Storage which are the foundations of a Data Center. Among these both Server and Storage Virtualization has reached a mature state with a well defined eco system. However Network Virtualization is slowly moving forward and gaining acceptance in the industry in the form of Software Defined Networking.

Think of a future scenario like a multiple Data Centers operating SDNs can communicate each other to eliminate the overlapping infrastructure to add efficiency and optimal usage.

Open Data Charter

As the term Open is more coined with opensource in our thinking and understanding most like synonym , it pervades into much more areas and going to play very important role in Governments and Administration. As the recent G8 summit, Open Data Charter showing the important role of Open Data in the future.

In my view Open Data should come as the core of the Government functions, where people have the ultimate say and Governments are function just as a facilitator.  At present, it is just an utopia, as the so called people elected government's are operating authoritarianism and serving only the interest of the powerful business houses and corporations. As an example, India is called as the largest democracy in  terms of people participation but the role of the recent Governments are always outward looking and absolutely no concern about the people. If the Open Data can play any role here, it would change the scene for all. I really doubt the business houses and corporations who always wants a veil of secrecy in their operations, will never support it. However, there is a hope which made admitted by the G8 have a pointer to the future. In retrospect, nobody ever imagined that opensource take the driver seat in the entire Software business landscape and now all admits that there is no looking back.

To understand the fundamental idea behind the Open Data, the following points are considered to begin with

1. Open Data can increase transparency of what business houses and corporations doing.
2. Open Data increase awareness among people about how the nations natural resources are being used.
3. Open Data empower accountability, promotes good governance and enhances public awareness which stems out corruption.
4. Providing access to Government data made society to understand where the funds are utilized.



Reference : http://opensource.com/government/13/7/open-data-charter-g8

Data Science

In simple terms Data Science can be thought of the civil engineering of the data. To explain little further, it refers to an emerging area of work concerned with the collections, preparation, visualization, management and preservation of huge collection of information.

Data Products are the outcome of Data Science and it empower others to use data and perform their own analysis. It is about making empirical decisions, which is possible by the higher ability to data acquisition, thanks to the technological advancement. A good example is the spell checker program which have a collection of correct dictionary words match against a set of wrongly written words.

The THREE major tasks associated with Data Science are

     (1) Preparing to run a model 

                 Involves most of the time and effort

     (2) Running the model

                 This can be achieved by the efficiency of the algorithm

     (3) Interpreting the results

                 This task also require much of the time, as the actual
                 data need to be mine out from the model.

Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking or SDN is a completely new way to approach Networking. Conventionally, an Appliance (a Switch or Router, for instance) receives packet and route it to the destination based on the learnings the Appliance's firmware has. The SDN approach is to take out the decision making process from the firmware and give it to a software program called controller. SDN is based on OpenFlow protocol. OpenFlow protocol offers much control to the Network Administrators to remotely control the routing tables.

Overview

The separation of real network infrastructure into control plane and data plane which brings better control for Network Management, future evolution and also the software operating on the control plane can grow independent of the hardware. Control plane  brings the logic for controlling the forwarding behavior of a packet, in other words the functions of routing protocols. Data plane forwards the packet based on the logic induced by the control plane. IP forwarding and Layer 2 switching are typical functions of a data plane.

The fundamental reasoning behind SDN is the evolution of Networks. Traditionally all Network devices are using distributed configurations and operationalize with some Configuration Management mechanisms integrate with the device manufacturer provided tools. This mechanism cannot scale and expandable. Moreover if any error (cause due to any software bug) shows up and difficult to debug. This is precisely being the rationale behind the thought of SDN and its importance now. With SDN it is easy to

•    integrate network devices

•    make use of programming (code make use of the packet header)

Introduced in 2004, RCP gave the basis for the OpenFlow protocol. A significant change from the conventional functionality of independent devices are by eliminating duplication by storing single copy of route on multiple interacting devices and hence avoid redundant computation of the routes. This also works well to accelerate the network routes by excluding affected routes dynamically.