Monthly Archives: August 2015

When the Lights Go Out: Protecting Personal Digital Assets

Photo of a man reading a book by candlelight.Earlier this month I wrote a post about how our digital assets are protected in the cloud in the event of a disaster such as an earthquake. A recent incident at my house helped me understand the importance of protecting my personal digital assets. I was reminded how essential it is to protect my data and my equipment in the event of a disruption.

When The Lights Go Out

Last week I lost power at my house for several hours because a driver barreled down my gravel road at twice the posted speed, at night, missed a corner, and plowed into a power pole. Luckily he was fine, but the pole was not and neither was his truck. My work came to a crawl as I realized that while my laptop would last a few more hours, I was an island in terms of my Internet connection. Without power I had no router and without a working router I had no access to my remote files. I was uncomfortably aware of the holes in my personal continuity plan.

Backups

In the event of an outage I want to know that my cloud data is secure and that I have backed up my local disks. The cloud data is largely up to my service provider, whether it be Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or any number of other providers that store data. If it is a localized interruption then my data will be secure in a remote data center. If I have data on a local disk then I need to remember to back it up onto another physical disk or back it up to the cloud. The key here is “remember,” which I sometimes forget, so an automatic scheduler is important.

Line Conditioning

In case of a power outage of any kind, it is important to ensure that your computing equipment is safe from voltage spikes and drops. A line conditioner attached to your home equipment will mitigate these problems. Even better is a line conditioner with battery backup such as the APC home unit. This will protect against voltage spikes and drops but it will also give you enough time after an outage to close all of your files and shut down your equipment properly. If your router is plugged into this unit, it could give you time to download important files to a local drive in the event of a prolonged outage.

Alternative Power

Portable battery chargers are useful for rescuing dead smartphones but they can also extend the life of a tablet or even a laptop. If you are experiencing a long outage, this could give you the power you need to post that last tweet or answer that important text message. It is necessary to make sure that you keep your backup battery charged at all times or it will be useless in an emergency. Some portable batteries charge using solar energy. The Biolite camp stove charges a device by burning small twigs and leaves, which is perfect if you want to warm yourself and charge your device at the same time.

Thoughts

It is important to have a personal continuity plan for your digital devices as well as for your own personal safety. It takes planning and preparation but can pay off if you ever face an emergency where someone or something interrupts the power supply. Tell me about your personal continuity plan. Has it ever been put to the test? Did it work? Let me know.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Congratulations to Our 2015 Graduates!

Photograph of AIM Program Director Kara McFall, EdDThis week’s post is the transcript of AIM Program Director Kara McFall’s 2015 commencement address. Commencement took place Saturday, August 15 on the University of Oregon main campus in Eugene.

To our 2015 AIM graduates, their families and supporters; our AIM faculty and staff; and all others who are here to join in the celebration of our 2015 AIM graduating class—welcome. I’d like to start by asking the graduates, faculty, and staff to stand and join me in honoring the families and friends who supported our graduates throughout the AIM Program. Every one of our AIM graduates has worked hard to achieve the right to stand here today as a graduate of the program; but every graduate also had the help and support of their families and loved ones, who agonized along with them over proper APA citations, assignment deadlines, and their nitpicky Capstone 1 instructor. The role that each of you played—as supporters of our AIM graduates—is an important one, and I would like to say thank you.

Today is a big day. Each of you started the AIM Program with a plan, and with hopes—for the knowledge you would gain in the program, the connections you would make with your classmates and faculty, or the impact this degree would have on your career upon graduation. I hope that now, with no looming paper deadlines facing you, you can stand back and take stock of what you achieved and realize that you achieved your hopes, or replaced them with even greater achievements that you couldn’t even visualize when you started this journey.

I also have hopes for you as AIM graduates. Most of you have more experience with me as an AIM faculty member than as the AIM director. My ten years in the AIM Program serving as a faculty member have been a pleasure, and I am honored to now serve as the AIM director. As I was preparing this first commencement speech, I thought about what I wanted to say to you as we all celebrate your achievements in the program. I decided to keep it simple and share my hopes for you as you graduate from the AIM Program. I’ll keep the message short and focus on my top three hopes for you.

I hope you met with adversity during your AIM studies. For some of you, this may have meant a team member who had a different philosophy of how to approach a team project, or who submitted work right before a due date while you liked to get the work done early. For others, it might have been a faculty member whose teaching style did not perfectly gel with your learning style, or a class whose content did not immediately capture your interest. Whatever adversity you were faced with in the AIM Program, I hope you took the opportunity to learn the lessons of compromise, seeking out guidance from trusted colleagues and advisors, delayed gratification, and working hard to achieve a goal even when the work required is unpleasant. As an instructor and now as director, I sometime receive phone calls and e-mails from students who are faced with challenging issues like team conflicts. I usually remark at some point in the conversation that I’m glad the student is getting the opportunity to work through the issue in my class; typically, the response to this statement is less than enthusiastic. But my point is that no one makes it through life without adversity. For our AIM graduates, we fully expect you to be successful in your chosen careers—to be leaders. You are the people that others will turn to when times are tough and there are adversities to overcome. I hope that the AIM Program provided you with sufficient adversity to hone your skills in meeting a challenge with grace.

I hope you missed out on some things while you were in the AIM Program—sleep, the luxury of kicking back on the couch when you got home from work, or even a special occasion. I recognize that this sounds cold hearted, so let me explain my point. No worthwhile goal is achieved without sacrifice. Getting a master’s degree is not meant to be easy or effortless; if it were, more people would pursue their master’s. Instead, you join only 12% of Americans who currently hold a master’s or professional degree. I hope you take away from the AIM Program not only new knowledge and abilities but also the recognition that any goal that is worthy of your time and passion is going to require you to sacrifice something in order to achieve it. Those of you who are parents already know the huge sacrifices that come with having children, mainly from loss of sleep and an astonishing diversity of ways that your kids can spend your money, but you also know that no sacrifice is too great for your children. I hope that your achievements in the AIM Program provide further proof that any meaningful goal is worthy of your time, your passion, and the occasional sacrifice.

Finally, I hope you take the time to appreciate the role your family, friends, classmates, and support system played during your pursuit of your the AIM degree. All of you are high achievers—you would not have pursued a challenging master’s degree, or even qualified to enter the AIM Program, unless you were goal-oriented individuals who know how to work hard to achieve those goals. But the pursuit of a challenging goal is rarely an individual effort. This can be a humbling thought for the high achiever, who has been taught that individual talent and hard work lead to success. At some point during the program though, you undoubtedly faced a situation where you couldn’t succeed on your own—you needed someone to take care of things at home while you finished a final paper, you needed an understanding boss to let you leave early to work on homework, or you needed to vent to a classmate in order to relieve the pressure you felt in a particularly challenging class. Instead of feeling like you need to rely only on yourself to achieve your goals, I hope that the AIM Program taught you that relying on others makes you more capable of aiming high and succeeding.

AIM class of 2015, I am proud of each one of you. I hope you will take the opportunity to keep in touch with us as you move into your next phase as AIM graduates. Congratulations to you, AIM Class of 2015!

High Tech Fire Watch

Photograph of smoke from wildfire in the mountains.We are in the middle of fire season here in the Northwest. This has been a hot, dry summer so the threat of wildfire is great. Several of my friends have worked on fire crews at some point so I wondered about the role technology plays in fighting wildfires. I was delighted to find that someone had blazed that trail before me and technology plays a role not only in fire fighting but also in fire protection. In this blog post I will focus on technology in fire protection. I will dedicate an upcoming post to technology in fire fighting.

Eye In The Sky

I was amazed to find that many of the rustic fire towers perched on mountaintops in California, Oregon, and Washington are decommissioned. In a recent article in Outside magazine the authors report that fewer than 35% of the towers are still manned. Due to budget cuts, fire watchers have largely been replaced by a network of cameras. According to the article, a camera can spot a fire up to 100 miles away and can spot fires at night through near infrared vision.

ForestWatch

Oregon has a network of cameras called ForestWatch by Envirovision Solutions. These cameras are networked to provide coverage over the most fire prone areas of the state. They are all monitored remotely and can detect a change in the terrain from a digital model. Through mathematical algorithms, the cameras send an alarm when it detects anomalies or pattern differences such as fire or smoke. The remote monitoring station can then focus the camera or cameras on the suspicious area and collect GPS coordinates in case they need to send in a ground or air crew. Fires are spotted quicker and their specific location is known much faster, which may reduce the spread and damage of a fire.

Education

This is a great use of technology but what kind of education does it take to install, program, and monitor these cameras? My research shows knowledge in the following areas is required:

GIS—A strong background in geographical information systems (GIS). This includes mapping and data analysis.

Data modeling—A strong background in data modeling and database management. There are many data points involved here, from GPS coordinates to topographical data to wind speed to moisture index, and they all need to be combined and modeled to show the monitor what fire crews will encounter.

Wireless networking—These cameras are networked to the central monitoring station and often to each other. In a suspected fire, multiple cameras from various angles can verify the validity of the alarm. A person would need a strong background in wireless networking to establish and maintain these cameras.

Thoughts

Fire watch cameras are a good use of technology and a reminder that new jobs often require a strong education in math and science as well as specific technical skills. As the technology moves from human fire watchers to sophisticated data collecting cameras, we must continue updating our education to be prepared for these jobs of the 21st century.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

All Shook Up: What Happens To Your Data When The Earth Moves?

Illustration of seismometer graph, indicating a period of seismic activity.On the morning of July 4 there was a magnitude 4.2 earthquake just east of Eugene. The jolt shook everyone, but there was no significant damage to homes and businesses or the road system. The earthquake temporarily rattled nerves and it has renewed the conversation about “the big one” here in the Pacific Northwest. The Cascadia subduction zone, running off the west coast between California and Vancouver, BC is overdue for what is expected to be an 8.0–9.0 magnitude earthquake and accompanying tsunami. While it is important that we plan ahead to protect our homes and infrastructure from earthquakes, I wondered what we are doing to protect our digital assets. I decided to do some research.

Data Centers In The Northwest

There are several data centers in the Pacific Northwest, primarily because of inexpensive power, relatively cool weather, abundant water, and a talented workforce. These data centers are operated by companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook. They were all built after we began to emphasize earthquake ready infrastructure.

New buildings are designed to withstand at least some lateral movement due to seismic activity. They are secured to the foundation and multistory buildings are heavily braced but they can still sway up to a certain amount to counteract the effects of an earthquake. The new data center for Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) for example is designed as a geodesic dome to “…provide superior resistance to seismic events.” While doing this research I came across an inventive solution in Japan that floats a home or building on air during an earthquake and then returns it to the foundation after the event.

Inside The Data Center

Servers inside the data center are often housed in seismic frame cabinets, which are anchored to the building but still allow for a minimal amount of movement. This keeps the server rack from falling over or dancing across the floor. Another option for flexibility is a product called ISO-Base, a two-part device that uses an isolation base. The bottom of the base is bolted to the floor and the top is bolted to the bottom of the server rack or cabinet. There is significant flexibility between the two levels of the base so in an earthquake the cabinet has controlled movement within the confines of the base. This means that cabling has to also be flexible.

Components that are seismic rated, including the backup generator outside, are tested on a shake table. This is a platform that simulates an earthquake and can test buildings or components to make sure they can withstand seismic force. The largest shake table is outside of Kobe, Japan and measures 65 x 49 feet and can hold structures weighing 2.5 million pounds. The shake table test is part of a seismic certification process for equipment, including computer infrastructure and components.

Thoughts

Computer centers in earthquake prone areas of the country have secured your cloud data as part of their business continuity plans. They employ several products and techniques to secure facilities, equipment, and data in the event the earth moves under their feet.

In a future blog post I will talk about products that let us secure equipment and data in our home office.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.