Doting on Data on Sunday Sept 13

NoSQL meets SLAs

As NoSQL technology continues its march into the enterprise, the story has a different tenor. Now we are talking models, and SLAs.

As Web-scale NoSQL technology looks to find a deeper footing in the enterprise, there may be as many stumbles as steps forward. That was an underlying theme at the NoSQL Now 2015 conference, where issues with service-level agreements (SLAs), data analytics challenges and a lack of skills were often part of the discussion.

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Looking forward, what we may see is a branching, where raw, original-style NoSQL serves the needs of pedal-to-the-metal developers, and something else evolves to meet the stricter needs of enterprise shops.

Yes, some folks, like the bandits in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 'don’t need no stinkin' badges,' but, to the extent that Big Data is all about mining that Web trove, we will find people trying to bring SQL to NoSQL just as we do in Hadoop. - Jack Vaughan

Read the story on SearchDataManagement.com. 

Hand-picked data ferment

The debate of clashing memes - The problem of hand-picked data is not new. Truth battles its way to surface or oblivion everyday. People smarter than their predecessors, or not, make decisions. Is something new a foot? No, you find it in a quote attributed to Mark Twains, and others. “People commonly use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post; for support rather than illumination.” George Johnson's Raw Data column suggests this phenomenon is exacerbated by the Internet. Perhaps, perhaps. - Jack Vaughan

Check out out data preparation podcast

Gentlepeople, start your data preparation engines - Talking Data Podcast http://t.co/jV4JXGRK2h via @ITKE

— Jack Vaughan at TT (@JackVaughanatTT) August 31, 2015

Doting on Data Daily - Aug 31 2015

Im going down to Stasiland behind a cloud

In the era of the Stasi there was an overarching NSA style apparatus. Projections  were mainly of 'grays and dour greens.'Citizen informants were networked nodes. These were the browser cookies of the time. But they were embedded not in a browser but in a physical world. This was when humans were computers, or computers were humans, have it as you will. It may have been an apex of sorts, though "the jury is still out." The platform as you might say was East Germany, or GDR  (1946-1990). To read more.

Build, Ignite, Azure

In the Spring, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about Microsoft's enduring mission to make technology available to the masses. It is an assertion that has some grounding, but it is hard to speculate whether Microsoft can find that kind of magic again. This podcast is a recap of Ignite 2015 and Build 2015 SQL Server and Azure announcements that look to move the traditional mission forward. Can Microsoft steal a march on Amazon Web Services? Well the matter is open for discussion. Some background: this former Webmaster used Front Page to bring an organization kicking and screaming into the Web era, and the Microsoft tool ($99) played a big part. Click to download podcast.

Dremel drill doodling

Think of SQL tools that let the large numbers of ''SQL-able'' people ask questions of data. If the developers can build the tools, they can enable other people to do the work, and get on with the job of building more tools. And we are back on the usual track of technology history.

Big Web search company Google created Dremel as a complement to, not a replacement for, MapReduce, to enable at-scale interactive analysis of crawled web documents, tracking of install data for applications on the Android Market site, crash reporting for Google products, spam analysis and much more. It brought some SQLability to MapReduce.

For a Wisconsin Badger like me it does not go without saying that the Google project takes its name from the Dremel Moto-Tool from the Dremel Co. of Racine, Wisconsin. That company, beginning in the 1930s, was among the region's pioneers in small electric motors – not data engines, but engines of progress nonetheless. - Jack Vaughan

Holes in Mass. Halo: Sitting on Public Records.

When I was a young reporter it was very challenging to get information out of the State of Massachusetts or City of Boston. It was like a scene from Citizen Kane. The archives were dark and closed. You had to go through conniptions, do leg work. Later, when chance led me to teach Computer Assisted Reporting at N.U., research uncovered some pretty good availability for different types of records on the Web. It seemed  like it was something of a flowering. But apparently it was a false bloom. Massachusetts has gained renown as a liberal bastion – the state spearheaded abolition, voted for McGovern, legalize gay marriage. But for some reason or other it has become a less than liberal fortress when it comes to public records. The statehouse, judiciary and governor's office all claim immunity from records retrieval, as depicted in today's Boston Globe p1 story : "Mass. Public Records Often a Close Book." It has a great lead-in where a lawyer doing researcher on breathalyzers explains that there are states that share such databases for free, states ( Wisconsin) that charge $75, and Massachusetts, where the State Police came up with a $2.7-million tag to share the data. [When pressed they admitted that they had incorrectly estimated the cost – it should have been $1.2 million.] A cast comes through to criticize the situation: Thomas Fieldler of BU's College of Communication; Matthew Segal, of the ACLU, Robert Ambrogi, attorney and exec-director of the Mass newspaper Publishers Assn; Katie Townsend of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press an others. An interesting decrier of bills ("costly new unfunded mandates")  aimed at fixing the situation is the Massachusetts Municipal Assn. Just as interesting is the cameo article appearance of Sec. of State William "What Me Worry?" Galvin, whose office is charge with helping oversee public records, who has no more to say than that "a type of bureaucratic fiefdom" has built up over the years. Maybe the lottery has diverted that dept's attention, and the responsibility for fleecing the poor should be handed over to the Attorney General, another less than bold piece of furniture. With the three previous House Speakers being convicted of felonies, everyone has been pretty busy, keeping a lid on data. - Jack Vaughan