A new definition of computer systems 'performance'
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Moore's Law - the theory that the number of transistors on a chip would double every two years - accurately predicted the ability of the computer industry over the past three and a half decades to produce smaller, faster and better chips and computer syst
That’s all changing now. “Speeds and feeds” are no longer the measurement by which computer systems should be judged. We need to assess computer systems’ performance not just by the computer itself, but by the effectiveness of the applications that reside on them and the problems that systems are solving.
Our world has nearly 7 billion people living in 183 countries. Every moment becomes a transaction. There are more than 40 billion computer applications in use, and every application serves someone or some thing. Every interaction generates a clue about what’s needed and what can be made better. Every piece of information that is generated is a building block of insight that can predict what happens next.
In just the past few years, we’ve gone from passively doing e-mail to a digital world of sharing music, videos and podcasts, with trillions of devices connected to one another, to the Internet, to cellphones, as well as traditional computers. This new highly connected world is producing an avalanche of information.
We’ve moved beyond “serial” computing, where mathematical calculations perform in a sequence to massively parallel computing, continuously assessing new information, predicting outcomes and making adjustments to new information.
For example, Con Edison Company of New York has 5 million customers in the New York City area and used to read their electricity meters once a month and issue bills. The company is switching to a “smart grid” setup, where those same 5 million utility customers will have their electricity usage monitored constantly, or about 85 million transactions per month.
Smart grids are just one example of intelligence infused systems and processes, giving organisations the opportunity to see the potential to solve problems with predictive analytics, broader instrumentation and automation, as well as brand new applications able to solve complicated issues.
Forward-looking leaders in industries hard hit by the recession need systems to perform at massively higher levels than at any other time in history. From banking to retail or government leaders trying to solve urban problems of traffic congestion and aging water utilities, there’s a place for smarter computing.
Every organisation, no matter how large or small, is part of a larger system, which creates grand challenges from an engineering and technical perspective that are unprecedented:
• How will they deal with exponentially more and different transactions than ever before?
• How will they make use all their data to tap into insights for new opportunities?
• How will they maintain security and privacy when everything is interconnected?
• While the opportunities for growth and differentiation from competition will be infinite, resources will be finite. Stewardship will become a new measure of leadership, whether it’s looking after energy and physical space, financial capital, or placing employees in roles where they can be most effective.
Humans have an insatiable thirst for progress. Every great leap forward fosters new opportunities, new challenges, new needs and new wants. It is this insatiability that drives us, and we need the right systems to help us.
Tanapong Ittisakulchai is country manager, IBM’s Systems & Technology Group.
