Daily Archives: May 20, 2017

Automation is the focus in many data centers, and the term has achieved the sort of buzz that cloud did a few years ago. Everyone is scrambling to adopt IT automation trends. In some cases, IT pros are unsure even what or why to automate, but that doesn't stop them from going full speed ahead.

This complimentary guide helps readers determine the pros,cons and key considerations of DevOps by offering up 5 important questions you should be asking in order to create a realistic DevOps assessment.

By submitting your personal information, you agree that TechTarget and its partners may contact you regarding relevant content, products and special offers.

You also agree that your personal information may be transferred and processed in the United States, and that you have read and agree to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy.

IT personnel have a huge range of products designed to help them automate data center tasks, but taking that first step can be daunting. While there are plenty of resources available to help you get started, they won't answer the most basic question: Why are you looking to automate?

There are a dozen Automation benefits to explore, ranging from cost savings to speed of delivery. While accurate for some shops, many people see these potential advantages and don't stop to ask whether automation will actually help their IT environment. Your business is unique, and so is your data center. Your specific situation may or may not benefit from automation.

Like cloud computing, automation is one of the most important technologies to come along in years. Automation, however, is only worthwhile if it brings business value to your environment; otherwise it becomes a drain on your resources.

As you start to look at IT automation trends and tools, consider what it is you're doing in your data center. Will automation even help? If you look at your IT functions and processes and find very few repetitive tasks or duties, then automation products may not be worth the cost.

If you choose to adopt automation, it will certainly change your data center, its processes and, yes, even some job duties.

Not everyone needs automation. This is especially true if many of your data center's functions are customized. Since no one knows your data center and its processes as thoroughly as you do, evaluate what an IT automation tool can do and see if it makes business sense for your data center -- and not simply technological sense. Everything you do should have a business value. This value may come in the form of better security, more efficient resource consumption or quicker response times. Simply adopting technology because marque IT organizations are setting IT automation trends doesn't necessarily add business value.

Automation is a powerful tool, but it's still just a tool. It has the power to vastly improve your data center operations, but it's important to establish a good foundation before rolling it out widely. It can be a bit hard for IT folks to start small, but this approach can pay off in big ways.

Among IT admins, automation can be a scary topic for various reasons, including the fear of automating yourself out of a job or of automation running amok. In reality, these fears are often overblown. If you choose to adopt automation, it will certainly change your data center, its processes and, yes, even some job duties. But IT pros don't have to be afraid of automation if they do it right. Starting small and gaining ownership is a huge piece of a much larger puzzle.

Of course, it is possible to push automation from the top down, but it will be more beneficial to start at the bottom and let it grow. Not only does this help minimize the damage if something goes wrong, it allows you to engage the people whose tasks automation might claim, such as patching, software maintenance and deployment, and let them champion these new processes. This helps free up staff for more important tasks and establishes a base of people familiar with the newly arrived IT automation tools.

The challenge with IT automation trends, just like any other idea that has the ability to make substantial changes in your data center, is knowing how and where to get started. While management may want to see large-scale improvements from an expensive automation tool, it can be better to start small. This is good for both the overall health of your business and the IT staff. While patching and maintenance items -- such as account resets, reboots and file system clean-up -- may seem minor, they help introduce staff to the process and set expectations. This will help establish a path to more involved automation projects, where the stakes are higher and which come with significant payoffs.

Each successful automation deployment will continue to expose more staff to the advantages of automation and build on previous success. When this happens, automation will no longer be something to add or install into your data center; it will be the foundation upon which you build.

Try these scripts to jump in with IT automation

Site reliability engineering takes automation to the extreme

How orchestration bridges business and IT automation

Follow this link:

Look closely at IT automation trends before rushing in - TechTarget

Do androids dream of taking your job?

Nearly 40 percent of jobs in the United States may be vulnerable to automation, computerization, artificial intelligence, robots and other machines within 15 years, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. USC experts in manufacturing, technology, labor, education and business discuss the continued growing pains for work and society in the age of automation.

As more sophisticated products are created that do not rely on cheap, human labor, automation will increase both profits and the wages of jobs where human workers are still needed.

Automation assists humans in overcoming their inherent limitations in speed, strength, size, accuracy, consistency and reaction time. It also helps in realizing products that have complex shapes and small feature sizes, and which also require high accuracy. People would never be able to create these products on their own.

Finally, automation can be leveraged to create innovative products that cannot be made using manual operations.

SATYANDRA GUPTA Smith International Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the director of the USC Center for Advanced Manufacturing

Automation is never going to stop.

The Luddites had a similar thought a century ago when they tried to destroy the machines. Taxing them is a more refined approach, though it wont necessarily be any more effective than the Luddites hammers were.

Today, the problem is technology is changing very rapidly and companies are coming up with very innovative ways to replace people, and its happening quickly enough that we dont have enough time for people in society to adjust in real time.

The problem is that automation often takes away jobs that are very good matches for peoples unique skills, and then its very hard for that person then to have another job that pays as well.

There are robots that are being deployed right now in parking lots that are taking the place of security guards, and security guard has been one of the last safe places for somebody who doesnt have an advanced college degree who, in the past, might have gotten a job on a manufacturing line that now doesnt exist anymore either. (Adapted from comments to BBC Radio)

ALEC LEVENSON Senior research scientist at the USC Marshall School of Business Center for Effective Organizations

Artificial (i.e. machine) intelligence will play a more prominent role in learning environments shared by people and computers.

The challenges include human-machine communication and the ability of computers to interact with people using natural (spoken and written) language, images, animation or perhaps video.

Some learning systems may be more effective with intelligent computers working along with people to offer real-time support and predictive analytics.

People and computers will literally need to educate each other, and the emerging collaborations and interactions will be unprecedented.

ANTHONY MADDOX Professor of clinical education and engineering at the USC Rossier School of Education and the USC Viterbi School

Supply managers must have the foresight to recognize that employees who fear new technologies may be resistant to adopting or investing in them. Thus, communication about job stability as well as training programs can help C-suite personnel integrate new technologies into employees work functions and assist supply managers in overcoming that resistance.

In addition, conversations throughout the organization about how new technologies will increase both employee and organization efficiency and productivity and how that benefits employees can assist in overcoming employee anxiety.

By helping employees embrace a holistic view of the organization and its evolution, employees gain a vantage point from which they can review an organizations entire logistics network. (Comments excerpted from Inside Supply Management)

NICK VYAS Assistant professor of clinical data sciences and operations at the USC Marshall School and the director of the USC Center for Global Supply Chain Management

A USC professor studies how robots can assist emotional, physical and social rehabilitation. Will the next two decades see them become the best managers of our well-being?

The annual Robotics Open House gives visiting schoolchildren a chance to see how the next generation of robots will change the world.

Two USC schools launch a new center to advance the research of AI and solve social problems ranging from climate change to homelessness.

April marks National Autism Awareness Month, and USC experts weigh in with the latest developments in research, treatment and more.

See more here:

Invasion of workplace automation: What happens when a robot has ... - USC News

Kickstagram co-founders Ronan Galvin and Casey Mathews developed a platform to help businesses automate engagement on Instagram. But according to the duo, it wasnt until they started using InfusionSofts marketing automation platform that they were able to simplify a complicated and time-consuming onboarding process that improved the customer experience. And within eight months, Kickstagram achieved 5,000 more leads generated, a 282 percent increase in revenue and a 336 percent increase in customers.

I had an opportunity to speak with the two cofounders at last months InfusionCon User Conference (ICON) to learn more about how automation made such a sudden impact on their business, as well as to get a few tips on how to get more traffic from Instagram.

Below is an edited transcript from our conversation. To see the entire interview, click on the embedded video below.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Lets talk a little bit about how you guys got started. Maybe give us a little bit of your personal backgrounds and how you guys got started with Kickstagram.

Ronan Galvin: After college I went over to China and started sourcing and manufacturing products for clients back in the States, and then Casey and I hooked up because it was too hard to do it just from China. So Casey was in the States, and he would travel back to China and meet up and, visit factories, and whatnot.

As we were starting our business, Kickstarter was also taking off, and social media, Instagram, too, around that time, 2012, 2013, something like that.

We would get a lot of clients. They would be successful with their Kickstarter, then they were like, now how do we fulfill our products, whether its watches, or a new little tech device or something like that. Friends of friends were like, Hey, you guys are in China. Can you get this product? Then we would oversee the manufacturing and the development of that, and then ship it back to them.

Now after we fulfilled on the Kickstarters, we had selfish interests in the fact that the more they sold, the bigger our commission would be, so it was like after the Kickstarter they were like, Well, now what do we do? Can we go into retail? They didnt really have access to a retail distribution chain, so it was obviously eCommerce. One thing with eCommerce was, social media. So 2012, 2013, 14-ish, it was able to post on Instagram, or Facebook, or Twitter and get traffic back to your website. Once you got the traffic back to your website, you can convert into sales. We found that Instagram was a good solution. Casey was sitting around one night, and

Casey Mathews: I was working on one of our clients at the time, their Instagram, and I just started liking pictures based off hashtag words that were relevant to their wood and steel watch, people that were into watches, that fit that type of vibe, or different things like that. The next day I was pretty surprised they got a lot of followers back. I was like, Wow. They were telling me how much theyve been struggling lately, and yeah, my thumb hurts. I did about two or three hundred likes, but I was actually really pleased with the results. Obviously I did it for a couple more days just to make sure it was the real deal, it kept working, and then I realized how do I do this without my thumb falling off, more or less, you know.

Initially we looked into automating this process, but we knew when you do something automated youve got to be careful because you have to put filters in place, and so we partnered with a developer and made our own software on the back end, and really just being like students of Instagram, and also knowing our clients, I think we did a pretty good job of finding the happy medium of being able to do these 2,000 engagements a day. But at the same time be extremely targeted cause you dont want to waste that when you have such only a limited amount of engagements.

That was kind of the birth. Initially kind of a hobby. Liking and picking up 5, 10 clients at first. We were like, Wow. This is cool. People are interested. Lets try to email a hundred people this week or something. We sent them out of Gmail. Four, five responded. Theyre interested. Thats pretty good return. Next week, 200, and then we got to the point were like, Wow. We could actually We had 20, 30 clients, and were like, Yeah, we should probably stop the other things were doing and focus on this, because we see the potential in this industry.

Ronan Galvin: Its kind of, I guess, ironic, we started out doing this automation for social media, and now were using this Infusionsoft that automates a lot of our stuff.

Casey Mathews: Automation, automating our automation.

Small Business Trends: Whats been the impact overall What are some of the results youre seeing?

Ronan Galvin: One of the biggest stats we like to share is we had a hundred clients and four employees, and everything. Theres a lot slipping through the cracks, and kind of unorganized. Everything was out of Gmail, and just a lot of manual work. We started to implement Infusionsoft, and now were sitting at 700 clients with six employees, so the biggest things is for us is we were able to get to 700 and only add two more employees. A lot of it were getting sales in now. We brought our whole team here [to ICON]. Everyone whos signing up now is getting a sequence of automation; they think someones sending it, which is cool.

Small Business Trends:How has that been able to enhance the way that you do your work with your customers?

Casey Mathews: I think a big thing were starting to get into is providing that extra value that, I guess like you were saying, we didnt have time to provide or create. Video, were doing a lot more in-house video, because the better their Instagram is, our software and our service is going to do better stuff for them.

The better their Instagram account is, the more were going to send traffic to them. We create new videos on whatevers hot or trending on Instagram. Show them that. Send it out to them. Thats something we couldnt do before. Hand hold them a little bit more on the onboarding, but make sure some of its going to be through a personal touch.

Small Business Trends: Give us something that the folks dont know about Instagram that they should know about it.

Ronan Galvin: Just be consistent with posting each day, and be consistent with the content that you post. Sometimes we have people who will sign up their brand, and they have great jewelry, for example. The jewelry is flawless, but then you go and look at their Instagram, and theyre posting selfies, or a picture of their dog, or what they had for dinner on their brand profile, and no ones following you because of that. Theyre following you because of your jewelry. Show off the lifestyle, the jewelry. Dont intermix the personal.

Casey Mathews: Unless its the most high quality picture and

Ronan Galvin: Theres a good reason.

Casey Mathews: Yeah, theres some good reason, but seems like people really co-mingle that personal and brand thing a little bit too much.

Ronan Galvin: Being a smaller business, you probably are the one who is handling the social media, and so its probably easier to say, Oh Im at this cool event. Snap a photo.

Casey Mathews: My tip too would be dont be afraid to emulate other people that are doing it great.

Ronan Galvin: We always say look in your space at the big players. So if Im starting an athletic shoe brand, I would look at Nike because Nike has the team of 15 social media managers, and they know what content to produce, when to post it. Theyre already doing it, just take what you can and tweak it to fit your brand and your voice. Thats the easiest way to do it.

Small Business Trends: Tell folks where they can learn more about what you guys are doing.

Ronan Galvin: You can go to Kickstagram.io, and all the information is right there.

This is part of the One-on-One Interview series with thought leaders. The transcript has been edited for publication. If it's an audio or video interview, click on the embedded player above, or subscribe via iTunes or via Stitcher.

Read the original here:

Ronan Galvin of Kickstagram: Marketing Automation Led to 282 ... - Small Business Trends

New details are emerging on a proposed open process automation architecture, an interestand now an initiativethat manufacturers across most industry segments are supporting in an effort to add flexibility into industrial control. An open approach would also enable their technology infrastructure to scale and evolve, as well as avoid vendor lock-in.

While discussions of the need to create a standards-based, open and secure interoperable control system have been happening for a while, last year, the Open Process Automation Forum was officially formed. The group brings together end users, suppliers, academics and system integrators to map out a blueprint of what the future system should look like. To do that the group has had to have a whiteboard moment, meaning, erasing the current control picture and reinventing what a DCS or PLC looks like in a federated environment where different vendors offerings will work together.

The problem with the current set up is it is rooted in decades of legacy systems that are difficult to integrate to meet the current business needs. But we are entering the fourth industrial revolution where digitization of systems is required to support todays business drivers that include speed, safety, agility and the need to incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

The business of industry is moving into a real-time realm, said Peter Martin, vice president of business and innovation at Schneider Electric Corp., during his presentation at the ISA Food and Pharmaceuticals Industries Division (FPID) Symposium this week. Just as an example of the dynamic nature of business, Martin points to the price of energy, which changes every 15 minutes. Therefore [business] requires control technology.

The problem is, executives dont know how to deal with real-time control, but industrial engineers do. It is time for us to step up, Martin said.

And thats what the Open Process Automation Forum intends to do.

Dennis Brandl, founder of BR&L Consulting, who is part of the team defining the new requirements for this next-generation system, provided a glimpse into what that might look like using modern technologywhich consists of CPU, memory and networking processing power that are thousands of times faster than what was available in the 1980s and at a fraction of the cost.

It is a system that gets any information from any source with history from any device and any place, optimized for situational awareness, Brandl told a group of attendees at the ISA event. It will be capable of handling things weve not even imagined yet.

Brandls unofficial name for such a system is the Federated Automation Logic Control on Open Network Systems (FALCONS), which is based on distributed control nodes (DCN), a single-channel I/O module that supports both real-time application processing and interfaces with other network protocols. The system is a collection of DCNs with I/O and without I/O, and a DCN connection to the cloud for centralized applications. The set up would provide an execution environment of potentially tens of thousands of nodes.

A modular system allows paced, online, component-by-component migration toward any new platform, Brandl said. Every time you pull [a DCN] out and put a new one in you have more power, speed and capabilities. The system evolves naturally without ever having to do shutdowns.

The DCN infrastructure would consist of: High speed IP-Based wired and wireless Ethernet switch fabric supporting layer 3 switching, VLANs and QoS to enable network flexibility and segmentation. And, even the smallest single point device would have at least a 2GHz multi-core processor, 1GB of memory, 10MB to 1GB network support and multiprotocol support. In addition, a real-time virtual machine enables a shadow mode that would check software patches or updates before they become active to ensure they wont break the system.

The other big gain, Brandl said, is not from a better PID loop. We are darn good at keeping systems under control. Rather, it will come from higher levels of activity including data collection, production execution management, scheduling, tracking and performance analysis. It provides an environment for control at all different levels to close the loop of control.

The systems, too, would take care of communication and DCNs can pick up configuration from a neighboring DCN upon startup.

Timing for delivering this will happen in two stages. First, ExxonMobilwhich was been leading the effort toward an open, standards approach to controlhas a contract with Lockheed Martin to deliver a proof-of-concept using existing technologies by the end of this year. At that time, the specifications for the new architecture should be available with products rolling out in 2018/2019 timeframe.

While it may seem like an insurmountable task to deliver such an open and secure system, Schneiders Martin said it is certainly possible in this age of unconstrained automation.

If we can figure out what the problem is, we have the technology to solve it, Martin said. We can provide control functions in new ways that create incredible value. So technology is not the constraint. Imagination is.

Continue reading here:

Industry is Reinventing the DCS - Automation World