Administrative Stuff

Due in…Two weeks: Rough draftTwo weeks: Midpoint Peer ReviewFour weeks: Book reviewSeven weeks: Final Project report

due; final peer evaluations

Information Technology InfrastructureHardware and Software

Hardware: The first building blockHardware: The first building block

““Hardware: The parts of a computer you can kick”Hardware: The parts of a computer you can kick”-- Source unknown

““Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons”Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons” --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

““But what ... is it good for?”But what ... is it good for?” -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

““There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

The First?: ENIAC

February 15, 1946: Major General Gideon Barnes pushes a button in Philadelphia and changes the world.

Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer represents the dawn of the Information Age

Mauchly and Eckert at UPenn

ENIAC

• Size: 30’ by 50’• Weight: 30 tons• 17,468 vacuum tubes• Needed six technicians

in each shift• 1000 instructions per

second• First bug was a live

one that got grilled• Cost: $486,800 ($10

million present value)

Fixing a problem

ENIAC

“A new epoch in the history of human thought began last night...”

• Philadelphia Enquirer, Feb. 16, 1946

Story ran deep in the paper next to “Judge Frees 5 in Liquor Graft”

The Atanasoff controversy

Eckert and Mauchley were the first to patent the digital computer.

Patent revoked in 1973 after Atanasoff filed an infringement case

Atanasoff and Berry created the first electronic computer at Iowa State University

“It was at an evening of scotch and 100 mph car rides when the concept came, for an electronically operated machine, that would use base-two (binary) numbers instead of the traditional base-10 numbers, condensers for memory, and a regenerative process to preclude loss of memory from electrical failure.”

"I have always taken the position that there is enough credit for everyone in the invention and development of the electronic computer" - John Vincent Atanasoff

The Atanasoff Controversy

Legacy of ENIAC: UNIVAC

First commercially available computer

Univac used in elections

•Manufactured by Remington Rand•Used to predict 1952 US Presidential elections•Adlai Stevenson expected to win•UNIVAC posted 100:1 odds that opponent would win•Cronkite did not report the results because CBS didn’t believe them•Eisenhower won in a landslide

Computer Generations

Four major generations Each distinguished by different base

technology Each generation significantly improved

computational power while lowering costs Cost of 100,000 calculations

1950s: several dollars 1980s: $.025 1995: $.00004

Computer Generations

First Generation (1946-1956)Based on vacuum tube technologiesHuge tubes that burnt out quicklyMain memory 2000 bytesRotating drums used for hard disk and

punch cards used for external storageTypically used for limited scientific and

engineering work

Second Generation (1957-1963) Based on transistor technology Smaller than tubes, generated less heat Main memory reached 32 KB Speeds of up to 300,000 instructions per

second Used for science, engineering and some

business tasks (payroll and billing)

Computer Generations

Third GenerationThird Generation (1964-1979) Based on integrated circuits technology Made by printing hundreds (later,

thousands) of transistors on a silicon chip Known as semiconductors RAM expanded to 2MB Speeds of upto 5 MIPs Introduced software that could be used

without extensive technical training

Computer Generations

Fourth GenerationFourth Generation (1980-present) Based on VLSI (very large-scale integrated

circuits) technology Packs tens of millions of transistors on a

single circuit Memory, logic, and control on a single chip

– hence the term, microprocessor Allowed the development of smaller

machines

Computer Generations

Power, Cost and Moore’s Law

1965: Gordon Moore of Fairchild Semiconductors predicted that the number of transistors would double every 24 months…

This has held for nearly 30 years Intel plans to unveil a one-billion

transistor chip capable of 100,000 MIPs in 2011

Categories of Computers

Mainframes Largest of the

computer types Massive memory Rapid processing

power Business, science,

engineering applications

Demise greatly exaggerated

Categories of Computers

Minicomputers Mid-range Originally DEC

aimed at getting a slice of IBM’s mainframe market (1957)

By 1969, scaled down version referred to as minicomputers

Categories of Computers

Personal Computers Sometimes called a

microcomputer Local storage and

processing Workstations

Powerful math and graphics capabilities

Typical of engineering and design projects

                                           

Categories of Computers

Supercomputers Can perform billions

of calculations per second (GFLOP)

Based on parallel processing

Originally designed for military for weapon systems

Cray XT3™

Scalable up to 30,000 processors)

Cluster Computing Link computers together for faster

performance or more reliable use Two types

High availability clustering• Server A fails, Server B takes over without pause

Performance clustering• Servers A and B work together on single problem

• Finish more quickly than either one could do alone

The Future of Hardware

Limited by physics and economics Physics

Transistors currently etched using ultraviolet optical lithography

Can go down to 45 nanometers (100 atoms)• Comparison: The HIV is 100nm in size

Below 100 nanometers – wavelengths of light too big – IBM using X-rays; Intel using Xenon; Lucent using beams of electrons

Economics As size decreases, cost of fabrication increases Currently, plants cost about $2.5b Need for “affordable scaling”

Cloud Computing Using Web applications and/or server

services that you pay to access rather than software or hardware that you buy and install.

Advantages access a broad range of applications, services, and hardware

that you might not be able to access otherwise cut costs by "renting" software save time by not having to install and or upgrade software and

applications access applications specific to your business needs that are

only available over the Internet

Source: About.com

How important is this thing? Survey of 405 IT professionals involved in

technology investments48% list cloud computing as #1 priority35% researching business intelligence35% looking at business process management32% interested in enterprise data management

Source: January, 2010: CIO Top Technology Priorities

Types of Cloud Computing

Infrastructure as a Service Platform as a Service Software as a Service

Infrastructure as a Service

Provides grids or clusters or virtualized servers, networks, storage and systems software designed to augment or replace the functions of an entire data center. Examples: Amazon's Elastic Compute

Cloud [EC2]Pinterest runs on EC2

Platform as a Service

Provides virtualized servers on which users can run existing applications or develop new ones without having to worry about maintaining the operating systems, server hardware, load balancing or computing capacity. Example: Salesforce's Force.com

Software as a Service

SaaS provides all the functions of a sophisticated traditional application, but through a Web browser, not a locally-installed application. Examples: Salesforce.com

SaaS and the Long Tail

SaaS: Addressing the Long Tail?

Source: Chris Anderson: “The Long Tail”, Wired, Oct 2004

SaaS: Opening new markets

Cloud Computing and Sustainability http://

www.akamai.com/html/misc/ted.html

Akamai is a company that offers infrastructure as a service

Software: The second building blockSoftware: The second building block

““My software never has bugs; it just develops random features”--Source unknown

How does it work?How does it work?

Source Code

compiler

Object Code

ExecutableExecutable

Other modules

linkage

Software GenerationsSoftware Generations

Machine LanguageMachine Language

Assembly LanguagesAssembly Languages

Third Generation LanguagesThird Generation Languages

4GLs4GLs

Natural LanguagesNatural Languages

computer-orientedcomputer-oriented

human-orientedhuman-oriented

The main players

Richard M. Stallman of the Free Software Foundation

Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux Eric Raymond, Author of “The

Cathedral and the Bazaar” Bruce Perens: Co-Founder of the

Open Source Initiative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSn2AJeE52o&feature=related

From Stallman’s Blog

Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.

The key differences between OSS and commercial software.

In commercial software, product innovation is limited to a single author/organization.

In OSS, the user is part of the product innovation process. Users can suggest features. Users can help create new program modules. Users can test out early versions as lead users.

Quicker feedback between user and author. Global community means quick fixes to bugs.

OSS-related revenue models

Installation/Integration/Customer SupportEnterprises want accountability.Version authentication.

Releasing premium version of product that is available for a price.

Certification/Training/Education of Developers.