Looking back about Data Centre location

Looking back about Data Centre location

I just came across some writing I did while working at Sun Microsystems; they/we were considering building a cloud platform in Europe and I was part of the team evaluating the potential location. (This would have been 2008/2009.

The key driver for locations was thought to be firstly the IT infrastructure i.e. networks and power, an EU compliant data protection regime, and political stability, with skills supply coming a 4th.

We argued for London or Amsterdam, which is quite funny 10 years later as London looks to leave the EU and there are growing doubts about its GDPR compliance.

I argued that Sun needed to avoid dis-intermediation and retain brand loyalty; this may have been impossible as part of a Cloud offering but it had the world’s leading software superstructure products at the time. I argued that IaaS was not enough to make it work for Sun and thus initiatives like Project Kenai (a predecessor to GitHub) were important indicators of what we should do, although the font in which I did it was quite small. I didn’t see that this was crucial, but when Sun announced its cancellation, I knew that this was part of the end and a decision taken by those that fetishised hardware. Interestingly Oracle reversed this decsion, and it staggered on for another eight years. It was one of a huge number of destructive decisions taken by a management who won by luck until it ran out.

Interesting to see where I was right and where I was wrong and just how much has changed in 10 years. …

Brexit and Labour’s 2017 Manifesto II

In my article “Brexit and Labour’s 2017 manifesto“, and on my wiki article, “Stability & Growth Pact”, I talk about the reasons supporters of Labour’s 2017 manifesto might believe that they need to leave the EU to run fiscal deficits, nationalise critical businesses and offer state aid. I had come to the conclusion that our current terms of membership allowed the UK to pursue whatever macro-economic policies it chose and to be able to pursue its nationalisations. There would seem to be some questions on state aid and some people have raised the issue of the Railway Directive and its possible impact on the single market and nationalisation. A campaigning comrade of mine, from Southampton Itchen CLP has researched these issues and produced the following report, overleaf,  which he also published on Facebook wall.

He concludes, the notion that all EU activity is driven solely by Neo-Liberal ideology is in my opinion a mistaken assumption. In many instances there are additional rationales underpinning the EU rules that go beyond mere market obsession. The EU has pressed for more open networks in telecoms and energy but open access across national energy networks is critical for renewable energy production being made viable on a grand scale. Whereas in the water sector, where it is not feasible to create overlaying pan-European services, the EU has never shown any interest in legislating for open networks.

I would not go so far as to suggest the EU does not have an over optimistic view of the market system or tend to assumptions about private sector performance vs public sector that are not sustained by the economic models relied upon and it is possible to have a good discussion about Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage.

On the other hand, free market supremacy is a pretty widespread assumption in the modern western world. The victory of the Neo-Liberal ideology has been to shift public perceptions to accept the ‘private good, pubic bad’ mantra as a gospel truth. That human beings in the EU broadly accept the same mantra is not really a surprise. The challenge to us as socialists is not just to reshape the UK economy to provide for greater equality and justice but to begin to reshape the underlying assumptions about human and market behaviour that underpin much of the capitalist economic system. …

Palestine

For the first time, the Labour Party Conference debated Palestine, this was the moving speech.

I hope next time he’s called to order by a small women, he remembers, an army won’t be sent, a small female steward will ask him to keep to the rules.

The motion’s text is below and in CAC Report 3,

ooOOOoo

Conference notes

The Guardian of (31 August) reporting the Trump administration’s confirmation of funding cuts to UNRWA, which provides emergency assistance and basic provisions to Palestinian victims of the Nakba of 1948, when the majority of Palestinian people were forcibly displaced from their homes.

As UNRWA’s largest donor, this US decision is widely understood (Guardian 31 August) as the means to “unilaterally sweep aside” one party to the conflict, get rid of the “main sticking point”: the international rights of the Palestinian people who are now refugees.

Britain’s direct role in the terrible fate of the Palestinian people, who still seek their internationally protected rights to self-determination, and to return.

That UNRWA, established by UN General Assembly resolution 304 of 1949, derives its mandate directly from UN member states to serve Palestinian refugees until their rights are addressed, in a peace process underpinned by the principles of international law.

For several months, thousands of Palestinians have engaged in mass and overwhelmingly non-violent protests in the Gaza Strip.

On Friday the 10th August a volunteer medic Abdallah al-Qatati was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper while on duty during Great March of Return On Friday 17th August another medic Karim Ahmad Ali Fatayer, 28, was fatally shot in the head when Israeli soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters near the boundary fence. More than 100 others were shot with live ammunition that day on Friday.

The Government of Israel has responded to the protesters with heavy repression.165 Palestinians have been killed. Of these, 122 were killed in protests, including 21 children, two journalists, four paramedics, and three people with disability. Another 8,875 people were injured, including 1,611 children, 399 women, 90 paramedics, and 82 journalists; those injured, 4,952 people were hit by live fire.

Conference condemns

This aggressive attempt to rewrite history, and erase the victims of the 1948 war, who were expelled or fled from their homes in Palestine

Conference supports

Developing solidarity with Palestinian refugees, especially young refugees, and to explore developing links with UNRWA schools, its training centres, and its local staff serving across the Middle East

Conference urges

The British government to increase its level of annual assessed contributions to UNRWA, providing much needed reassurance and stability to Palestinian refugees, and to encourage other member states to do the same.

This conference resolves to call for

an independent international investigation into Israel’s use of force against Palestinian demonstrators; a freeze of UK Government arms sales to Israel; and an immediate unconditional end to the illegal blockade and closure of Gaza. …

Leaving our opt-outs behind

It’s one of my fears over Brexit that the loonies will take us into a transition period without an agreement on anything other than the withdrawal terms, about which they are still haggling, and that should we change our minds, we’ll have to reapply and lose our opt-outs, which include Schengen (common borders), the stability & growth pact’s enforcement regime, a promise to join the Euro (we don’t have to) and our famous rebate on contributions. In transition, we lose our Council seat with its veto, our Commission seat, our MEPs and our Judges on the Court. We definitely become rule takers. …

Brexit and Labour’s 2017 manifesto

Some Lexiters claim that the EU treaties will inhibit a Labour Government if it tried to implement its 2017 manifesto. It is argued that the single market would inhibit industrial policy and the stability and growth pact would inhibit macro-economic policy. I don’t think this is so and have written up my notes on my wiki.

The single market does not inhibit an industrial policy, and the stability and growth pact has no enforcement mechanism for the UK. (Another opt-out which we will lose if we leave and seek to rejoin). 🤔 …

Fair Votes

Fair Votes

The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) has produced a report on the general election. It’s subtitled, “Volatile Voting, random results.”  First Past the Post (FPTP) claims to be designed to deliver Governmental stability, but in the last three elections, it has failed to do this twice. Furthermore it exaggerates local & regional differences, e.g. Scotland, Wales and the SE, where the leading parties margin of victory in terms of seats is higher than it’s vote warrants and the losers are under-represented. In this article, I have summarised what I see as the main themes and illustrated what ERS believe to be the impact of implementing a fairer voting system. I also make the point that different systems will cause different behaviour and I finish with a look at Germany’s PR system and a call for smaller constituencies in the belief that it will lead to a better relationship between MPs and their electors. …

TANSTAAFL

While doing some research on “Modern Monetary Theory”, which it would seem is now just short of 30 years old, I started to look for the breakout white paper. It is available on Amazon, of course, for free if you are a user of Kindle Unlimited (about £100 p.a. ) but about £20 as a book or Kindle. Why? The marginal cost of the e-book is close to zero, and I paid a 99p transaction charge for a kindle priced at zero the other day. The high cost of the e-books is to add value to the Kindle Unlimited offer! And this is probably On top of Prime as well and they get to know what you’re researching or otherwise reading! …

Song, Stage, Subsidy and Copyright (of course)

Song, Stage, Subsidy and Copyright (of course)

I walked down to the People’s Museum where Unions 21 were hosting a series of meetings, the one I was planning to attend was about policy for the encouragement of SMEs in the creative industries and had been convened by the entertainment unions, the Musicians Union, Equity and BECTU, (Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union) each represented by their General Secretaries. The meeting was opened by Helen Goodman, Labour’s shadow spokesperson on Culture Media and Sport.She opened with the mandatory eulogy to the attendees, that we have the most successful creative industry in the world.  …

Cruddas Affair

Cruddas Affair

It’s getting to be an old story now, but the other week, the Sunday Times, having obtained quotes by subterfuge and without permission, ran a story that John Cruddas, Labour’s policy review chief had criticised the likely way in which the Leader’s Office would deal with what he saw as Labour’s rich and detailed policy reviews; he may have been most interested in the reviews he’s running himself, and less so in the long term policy commissions and the National Policy Forum processes, the latter of course being the process the membership are most invested in. The criticism’s are also reported in the New Statesman. …

pictfor: the European Debate

pictfor: the European Debate

The Parliamentary Internet Communications and Technology Forum held a meeting entitled “The Europe Debate” and headlined it by inviting Bill Cash MP, not some one who I’d identify as an expert on ICT nor on the European Union. The three speakers were Julian David of “tech UK“, Graham Hobbs and Bill Cash MP, Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee .  The key questions asked, were to be, Do UK technology companies benefit from EU membership? Is the Digital Single Market good for UK business? They also produced a Briefing Paper for delegates. …