Keeping our heads in the cloud

We all know the feeling of loss. Whether it’s our car keys, phone, or data. It’s a sinking feeling that something we want, need, or depend on, is no longer at our disposal.

Data is the new world currency and it is not only mined data on us that has value to many corporate and governmental agencies. It is the personal data that we collect, gather, generate, created, and distribute that is of interest to everyone.

It used to be that things of value were tangible. A car, a house, a horse, a canteen. Nowadays, to the growing generations, the most valuable things are our tunes, videos, movies, pictures, and artificial constructs in cyberspace like walls and zones. These all exist as ones and zeros, and while they serve to absorb our time and soul, they really don’t exist in hard form.

That’s why it is so painful to lose all your accumulated pictures, documents, correspondents, and business information when a hard disk crashes or a computer bites the dust. We most all now depend on our intangibles.

Hard disks are still the most dense and cost-effective mass storage systems available to us, but are not the best choice when it comes to portable and handheld computers. The mechanical nature coupled with shock, vibration, and temperature variations is harder on mechanical assemblies then electronics for the most part.

Solid-state memory cards are dense and cheap, but can fill up quickly as movies and videos accumulate. They can be swapped out, but then they can be lost.

The cloud offers that confident hope that as hardware comes and goes, our data is preserved. Like an automated backup system that lets you access your personal data from virtually any computer anywhere in the world.

And, cloud data is not just for personal use. Remote and distributed sensors for example can send raw data to a cloud service that can log, format, and re-transmit the data in dashboard form. Hand-held devices and remote computers can retrieve and see data as graphs, gauges, or text. This means that civil-infrastructure data and control can be a part of this cloud service offering, and it is.

Of course, you are giving up privacy rights to any data you store. Cloud providers, governments, and hackers can gain access. But people don’t seem to care that everything they post can be used against them. It’s more about the moment.

The backbone and infrastructure of data centers is expanding more quickly as a result of the increased demand in remote data storage and retrieval. It adds traffic that would normally never be seen since file accesses from a local hard disk doesn’t eat up communications bandwidth. Cloud data accesses do.

This means that present- and next-generation data-center topologies, routers, switches, protocols, and storage arrays need to be faster, denser, and use less power. That’s a pretty tall order, but not a new problem. Companies like Avago have been solving these issues for a long time, and are poised to be the innovators going forward. With several advanced technologies for data centers and enterprise connectivity and storage, Avago has a distinct focus on accelerating cloud deployment, reducing data-center costs, and streamlining computing and scaling, especially using the advanced ExpressFabric PCI Express to streamline rack-to-rack, box-to-box, and server-to-server level communications.

Fig. 1: The challenge to provide end-to-end communications from wired, fibered, and wireless networks is increasingly more important as cloud-based computing depends on reliable connectivity and bandwidth.  

Innovative firsts include Coherent Technology for next-generation 100 and 400 Gb/sec networks, fabric switches for convergent in rack switches, and advanced SerDes technology for leveraging copper connectivity.

And, expect more to come. With expertise in fiber, wireless, and server storage, Avago is poised to be an end-to-end provider of advanced communications going forward. Good to know as you map out your future data needs and strategies.