Wouldn’t it be cool if our computer systems could talk to us like HAL in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”? Instead we get complex and nearly undecipherable messages that read like pure log files. Startup company Nodeable aims to help your cloud-based systems communicate with you in a much more human language. Think of it as tweets from the cloud to provide you with status updates. Cool!
Any computer geek who has ever seen the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” has probably been jealous that the HAL 9000 computer could hold conversations with the astronaut Dr. Dave Bowman. Wouldn’t it be great to have your computer systems just talk to you?
It might not be true conversations, but it’s possible to get easy to understand Twitter-like messages from your cloud services and data sources. Which of these systems messages would you rather receive?
• INFO mapred.JobClientL Task ID: attempt_m_14_0, Status: FAILED java.io.IOexception: Tack process exit with nonzero status of 1. at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.TaskRunner.run(TaskRunner.java:418) WARN mapred.JobClient: Error reading task output
OR
• My #logfile is full. “Add disk space”
IT’S NOT HAL, BUT …: ‘Hold on — my WLAN is tweeting me’
It’s certainly easier to understand — and quickly respond to — the second style of message. This is the premise behind the new service soon to be launched by Nodeable Inc. Nodeable believes that the legacy style of error messages and other types of system messages are relics from the almost-prehistoric days of Cobol and need to go the way of the dodo bird. People are accustomed to communicating with each other via social media, so why can’t computers follow the trend?
Of course, not even IBM’s Watson computer is a sentient thinker like HAL. To get computers to send their context-aware versions of tweets, Nodeable uses big data analytics to understand what is happening with the systems and then communicates that information using a user interface that mimics popular social media. Nodeable’s open API is designed to complement and work with other systems management tools and a range of different data sources, unlocking the intelligence in those data sources to help IT staff make better decisions faster.
Nodeable’s initial focus is on software development and image management within the Amazon Web Services ecosystem, and tools like Github and Jira that support the development life cycle. For application management in the cloud, Nodeable follows and makes available the “change in state” that occurs from development to production in both code and AMIs (Amazon Machine Images).
For example, a developer finds and fixes bugs, commits code, goes through a build process and then deploys the new image to an Amazon server instance. Unless the developer has specifically told his colleagues what he has done, other members of the development and IT teams may have no idea these changes have occurred.
Cloud computing may prompt the subscriber to ask a number of interesting questions, like: Are the AMIs being monitored? Are they up or down? Do we want to be paying for them? What is running on them? Are they a security risk? Nodeable helps answer these questions and provides real time visibility into an organization’s Amazon cloud instances.
Beyond applications, Nodeable tracks changes in state within the infrastructure. For example, it detects the status of on/off switches, changes within an AMI, and an AMI’s unavailability because DNS goes down.
In the above examples, Nodeable captures the message feeds via the APIs of the development tools and the AMIs to feed into their message database, and then translates the complicated text to a more natural language for humans to understand. Nodeable goal is to help cloud subscribers by providing increased visibility into every aspect of the development life cycle by enhancing the system data where it’s not just like a raw log file. The messages allow Amazon subscribers to look for the trends that are occurring within their environment and processes to improve the overall decision-making and automation processes.
When it comes to best practices for cloud management and development, Nodeable transforms the message. For instance, when Amazon sends a message that a server instance is not reachable, Nodeable expands upon the log file-type message by saying, “Machine A is not available in Zone US East,” and the associated social media-type hash tags. This builds a taxonomy of what is going on in a machine as well as a project.
Nodeable also supports collaboration by allowing the team to access the feeds through the interface to enable conversations in context with the messages coming from the machines and other users rather than having to switch context across application and use cases (or communication tools such as Skype, Twitter, etc.).
Beyond the development life cycle, Nodeable’s approach to the cloud management life cycle is to leverage the data store they are creating with a focus on data analysis aspects of what people are doing to make their processes more efficient and less risky. With the Nodeable processes, the data being captured is aggregated into a business intelligence database to enhance visibility into an organization’s cloud instances.
For instance, service subscribers will be able to monitor the productivity of the development team via commits; perform better cost management for Amazon Web Services with detailed insight as to who is doing what to an instance; know what instances are active; know the downtime of the AMI instances; and understand what Amazon services are being used.
Yes, there are other systems management tools that can provide the same kind of information, but Nodeable’s service deciphers the cryptic machine messages so more people can understand and act on them. The Nodeable service is in beta now but is expected to be available near the end of the first quarter of 2012.
Brian Musthaler is a principal consultant with Essential Solutions Corporation. You can write to him at Bmusthaler@essential-iws.com.
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About Essential Solutions Corp:
Essential Solutions researches the practical value of information technology, and how it can make individual workers and entire organizations more productive. Essential Solutions offers consulting services to computer industry and corporate clients to help define and fulfill the potential of IT.
