Mark Burgess

2016

Brains, Societies, and Semantic Spaces

Machine, Machine MessiahThe mindless search for a higher

Controller, take me to the fireAnd hold me, show me the strength

Of your singular eye -Yes

“Smart” means

“fast meaningful (fit for purpose) response to challenges in context”

What is fast?

Managers

CFEngine

Kubernetes

Puppet

Manual

Smart means stability or growth through fast feedback

Smart means stability or growth through fast feedback Kubernetes

CFEnginePuppet

Manual

But scale drives a central controller towards instability

(where dumb works)

Stable

Unstable

Centralized(Vertical)

HumanizedPoints of serviceIdentitiesHomeLocalIntentional

Decentralized(Horizontal)

DehumanizedLogisticsReplicasStorageNon-localEmergent

Does smart imply centralized?

This is all about scale.

If we need a fast response, we could localise the feedback and become relatively “smart” again, at a smaller scale, but over a wider region.

A few large things, or many small things?

Scaling feedback/supply

Question:

Is an AWS datacenter a centralized or a decentralized system?

Question:

What makes an IT system “smart”, and will that scale?

Scale/commoditization drives us to make it “dumber”

experiment - customize— productization - commoditisation - utilities

“IT systems are reaching the kind of size and scope that now force us to understanding scaling … in the physics sense.”

Semantics throughout space

Warehouse analogy

Cloud computing

Some spaces are designed exclusively for one purpose

Humans are the edge of the system

Humans should not be in the belly of the beast …?

Autonomous infrastructure

Pushing at the edge …

Smart cities

Cities / herds evolved for defence, with the side-effect of innovation

Studies from Sante Fe show non-queue spacetime scaling

IoT - services and analytics to adapt in real time

But, a smart city is more than IoT….

Filling space efficiently, not

tidily.

It all boils down to agents, interactions, and scales

We might have to rethink scaling

@markburgess_osl

DESIGNING SYSTEMS FOR COOPERATION

MARK BURGESS

THINKING INPROMISES

“This is where a great quote goes. Excellent book!” –Joe Blough

markburgess.org/blog_smart.html

Scaling and spacetime (2016)

Complexity (strong coupling) means cost

Cable-Free Clos non-blocking fabrics (III) ?

Weak coupling

Addresses that reflect location

3d printed datacenter