plus 3, Cloud and The Death of the Sysadmin - Network World Fusion

Cloud and The Death of the Sysadmin - Network World Fusion
Toyota’s ‘Bargains’ May Boost Sales 30%, Edmunds Says (Update2) - Bloomberg
Toyota faced with 2 more cases of runaway Priuses - USA Today
Column: Parents need to ride herd on picking class schedule - MLive.com

Cloud and The Death of the Sysadmin - Network World Fusion

Posted: 10 Mar 2010 08:30 AM PST

For as long as there have been computer systems, there have been system administrators. These hardy souls are the glue of data centers, provisioning and managing systems: a mix of hardware, storage, OS, middleware, and application software. The best system administrators are like human Swiss Army Knives, armed with every skill needed to keep a system up and humming. In some respects, system administrators function like auto mechanics, needing keen diagnostic skills and repair capabilities to keep a complex mixture of disparate systems operating as a whole.

Of course, data centers have become far more complex over the past decade as systems have been deconstructed into functional components that are segregated into centralized groupings. For example, storage has, in many organizations, been migrated to centralized storage like a SAN or NAS. This has inevitably meant that personnel become more specialized in their tasks and skills. However, for every organization that has a separate storage group, there's another in which the arrival of centralized storage has just meant a new set of tasks heaped upon the sysadmin group.

[For timely cloud computing news and expert analysis, see CIO.com's Cloud Computing Drilldown section. ]

Even in those IT organizations in which functions like networking and storage have been separated from system management functions, sysadmins still monitor, manage, and repair the software stack. IT organizations still rely on human insight, skill, and experience, to keep apps up and running.

I just read an IEEE article, though, that caused me to reconsider the future of sysadmins. The article, surprisingly, did not address developments in IT, but instead looked at the developments in automobiles; specifically, how autos are now rolling data centers in and of themselves. It notes that today's high-end cars (meaning, the low-end cars five to 10 years from now) have around 100 million lines of code in them distributed among 70 to 100 Electronic Control Units (ECU)-essentially, special purpose computers devoted to tasks like lighting, engine management, and yes (as Toyota is now grappling with), braking. Today's low-end cars have around 30 to 60 ECUs. In the near future, the article quotes research firm Frost and Sullivan, cars will contain 200 to 300 million lines of code.

As evidence of what cars have turned into, the author notes that his recent car came with a 500 page manual, along with a supplemental 200 page document describing the car's entertainment and GPS function. Clearly, this is not your father's Oldsmobile-and probably not even your Oldsmobile (or Honda, Ford, Audi, or whatever). Cars are becoming staggeringly complex admixtures of materials and software designed to move us safely, efficiently, and attractively around the earth.

It seems the genesis of the article is the Toyota recall dustup. For perhaps the first time, this issue has brought forward into people's consciousness just how much software is running in cars, or perhaps one could say, how much software is running cars. The potential for bugs or complex interactions between the software in different ECUs resulting in unexpected outcomes is obvious.

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Toyota’s ‘Bargains’ May Boost Sales 30%, Edmunds Says (Update2) - Bloomberg

Posted: 10 Mar 2010 05:02 AM PST

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The shares have declined 11 percent this year as the carmaker recalled vehicles worldwide to repair defects linked to reports ... profit by 290 billion yen next fiscal year, Kurt Sanger , a Tokyo-based auto analyst at Deutsche Bank Group, said in a ...

Toyota faced with 2 more cases of runaway Priuses - USA Today

Posted: 10 Mar 2010 04:05 AM PST

A 56-year-old woman was pulling out of a driveway when her 2005 Prius "shot" across the road, Harrison, N.Y., police said. The driver, who was not immediately named, suffered minor injuries, but the impact sent "some pretty big boulders" fairly far, said Anthony Marraccini, acting police chief.

The Department of Transportation is looking into the New York crash, spokeswoman Olivia Alair said Wednesday.

That Prius is among the 2004-2009 models recalled by Toyota for floor mats that could jam the gas pedal, but Marraccini said the floor mat has been pretty much ruled out since it was tied to the seat base with plastic ties.

Capt. Anthony Marraccini of the police department in Harrison, north of New York City, said that a regional Toyota official asked to collect the Prius involved in the crash but that the police are "not prepared to release it just yet."

He said he wanted to see first if a federal agency wants to join or take over the investigation. "This involved potentially a great safety hazard and could be something of national interest," he said. Besides, he said, the damaged car belongs to the owner, not to Toyota.

When police release the Prius, Toyota will evaluate it to determine the cause of the accident, company spokesman Brian Lyons said.

The silver-gray 2005 Prius was taken to a police parking lot. Its front end was severely pushed in, the hood was buckled and the front bumper and one front headlight were broken.

The new Prius incident came as Toyota (TM) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rushed investigators to San Diego to analyze the 2008 Toyota Prius involved in a runaway incident.

James Sikes, 61, dialed 911 Monday evening to report his Prius was accelerating out of his control.

"I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car. ... It jumped, and it just stuck there" hitting speeds up to 94 mph, Sikes said. A California Highway Patrol officer responded, pulled alongside and told Spikes by loudspeaker to stand on the brakes and also apply the parking brake. Sikes was able to slow the car while the cruiser drove in front, and eventually he could shut it off.

The incident was just a few miles from where the crash of a runaway Lexus last August killed a CHP officer and his wife, daughter and brother-in-law. That crash, attributed to the floor mat jamming the gas pedal, spurred Toyota to recall 5.3 million vehicles — including Sikes' Prius.

Sikes said he took his Prius to his dealer and was told it wasn't on the list. Toyota said in a statement that dealers do not yet have repair parts for the Prius and that it has told owners to remove the driver's floor mat until repairs are made. Sikes still had that mat in his vehicle. Toyota has said repairing all the recalled vehicles could take several months.

Separately on Tuesday, Toyota's national dealer council accused General Motors of using its federal loans to offer "predatory" incentives. Shortly after Toyota's recalls last month, GM launched offers for Toyota owners who buy its vehicles, now including 0% financing and up to $1,000 cash back.

"It is outrageous that GM is using our taxpayer dollars against us," said council head Paul Atkinson.

"We understand why Toyota dealers would be frustrated, but they know better," said GM spokesman Kerry Christopher. "Incentives have always been a part of the auto business."

Contributing: The Associated Press

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Column: Parents need to ride herd on picking class schedule - MLive.com

Posted: 10 Mar 2010 02:03 AM PST

By Julie Mack | Kalamazoo Gazette

March 09, 2010, 9:16AM

Julie MackOne rite of spring for most middle- and high-school students is picking classes for the next school year, and it's not a task that students and parents should take lightly.

The class schedule is key to getting the most out of middle and high school, whether or not the student is bound for college.

Want to be an engineer? Best be on the honors math track. Thinking of becoming a pediatrician? That means taking as much science as possible. Don't want to go to college? The student should be taking a hard look at career-tech programs that can steer students into decent-paying careers such as welding or auto repair.

One mistake that many parents make is assuming that the school will craft the optimal schedule for each child. The reality is that the typical school counselor is overseeing hundreds of students, and just doesn't have the time to thoroughly investigate the strengths, weaknesses, hopes and dreams of each child.

Another reality is that students are likely to choose classes for all the wrong reasons — to be with their friends, for instance, or to keep their homework load as light as possible. For both these reasons, parent involvement in choosing classes is absolutely critical.

Among the issues that parents should consider:

What are the child's aspirations? Does he or she plan to attend college? Go to a trade school? Enter the job market after high school? If needed, schedule an appointment with the child's counselor to ask what classes will best position the child for his or her goals.

What are the child's academic strengths and weaknesses? Is the kid a hands-on learner, who would benefit from that kind of class? Does the child have a special talent that needs to be encouraged and developed? Does the student need to bolster his or her skills in a certain area? What can the child's counselor recommend based on a parental assessment of the child's needs? Besides asking the counselor, these also are good questions to raise at teacher conferences.

What kind of teacher best suits the child? Is it the demanding teacher who pushes students? The one with a more nurturing style? Also, every school has its share of outstanding teachers. Ask other parents to find out who they are, and make sure your child gets that teacher at some point.

Students should take the hardest courses that they are capable of taking. One problem with middle and high school is boredom, and academic challenge is one way to alleviate that. A student who gets a "C" in regular English may actually earn an "A" in honors English because the latter class is more invigorating and inspires the kid to work harder. Academic rigor is especially important for college-bound students; a quarter of students who start four-year colleges and 60 percent of students who enter community college need to take remedial courses. One reason: Those kids didn't take hard enough classes in high school.

Electives should be more than "filler" classes. They are a chance to nurture talents, develop new skills and develop a social network. Band, for instance, is a terrific way to plug a child into a social network that will last through high school. The most important class my son took in middle school was choir: A stellar teacher nurtured a talent in singing that nobody knew he had. Now 21, my son sings in his church choir and two choirs at his college. Another of my children is particularly talented at learning foreign language — something discovered in a middle-school elective.

In high school in particular, parents and the student should sketch out a schedule this spring not just for the upcoming year, but a tentative plan for every year left in high school. If a freshman wants to take calculus before leaving high school, for instance, he or she needs to know what classes to be taken leading up to that goal.

To be sure, most parents can't develop their child's class schedule solely on their own, because they often lack full knowledge of how a child's needs might be best served based on the school's various offerings. But they perform a huge service by making counselors and teachers aware of the child's goals, talents and needs, and actively advocating for a schedule that takes those factors into account. No question, parent involvement can make the difference between a successful high school career and one that was a wasted opportunity.

Julie Mack's column on school success appears Tuesdays in the Kalamazoo Gazette. Are you a parent who needs advice on a school-related problem? Or a parent or educator with a strategy to share? E-mail jmack@kalamazoogazette.com or call (269) 388-8578. Mack also has a blog on school-related issues at blog.mlive.com/schoolzone.

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