Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Dalits and "izzat"

I had a delightful long leave recently which resulted in a few key changes in me. A key experience during this leave was watching this scene from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gam, where Amitabh advises his son about how he should earn/maintain "izzat" and not merely "paisa" - a message which his father gave him many years ago and which he is passing on to his son. It reminded me of multiple conversations with my father on similar lines. My father choice of expressions in communicating these messages were rather more colourful than Amitabh's sophistry, but I recognized while watching this scene that the essence of those messages was universal and eternal.

This message and reminiscing about my father was important because I had occasion during this leave to debate the legacy of my father Pandurang Ganpat Tambe as well as the father of dalits, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. I have recorded my view of this legacy in various articles (1, 2, 3). I was discussing this again with a friend today and how the above scene from Kabhi Khusi Kabhi Gam relates to this legacy. Let me explain.

The dalit community has less "paisa" and "izzat" compared to non-dalits. Given that Dr. Ambedkar's constitution has changed the rules of the game, there are many routes to progress available and being followed by dalit individuals. Some are not ethical and do not give "izzat". Others give "izzat", but do not challenge the basis of how "izzat" is awarded  in Indian culture (due to hidden pre-assumption that higher castes have in-borne "izzat" and lower castes do not). Following Ambedkarite Buddhism and the 22 vows given by Ambedkar is one way of beginning the process which will eventually challenge and change this assumption. More importantly even if one is ethical and follows Ambedkarite Buddhism, does that mean that "izzat" and "paisa" will come easily. In this world "izzat" and "paisa" can hardly be given. They have to be earned. For dalits, they have to be earned by doing good kamma and working against the legacy of the "system" (prejudices, vested interests, etc). Denied the route of politics to obtain re-distribution of national wealth and positions, the short and simple manifesto of the common Ambedkarite is to earn wealth and position by moral means. The specific choice of each common Ambedkarite may vary. Some may be wage-laborers, some public/private sector employees/executives, others businessmen. It is only through stellar achievements based on moral means that "izzat" and "paisa" can be earned together. Each common Ambedkarite needs to choose a national bastion and scale it through moral (non-violent, ethical, legal) means. This is a war that every dalit needs to fight every day and everywhere. There is nothing else needed to create the India that the constitution exhorts us to.

Dr. Ambedkar accumulated wealth through moral means and left a monument to his views in this matter in terms of his large house in Dadar. Some people find creative means of interpreting Ambedkar and find short-cuts justifying running away from fighting this war, denying the dalit movement of much more potent contributions and satisfy themselves with token contributions away from the real battlefields of the modern world. But the rest of us will fight this war with our lives and careers until our dying breaths. So my message to young dalits is to join the Ambedkarite tribe and live the manifesto of the common Ambedkarite by fighting this holy war by moral means.

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, May his tribe increase (A la Abou Ben Adhem)

Regards

Pratap Tambe
A common Ambedkarite

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Will as-a-service business models lead to utility computing?

Just like humanity evolved from each human family building the things they needed to networks of supply chains leading from natural resources to markets through which customers bought the things they need, software services is evolving from even enterprise developing its operational IT platform to "as-a-service" IT platform interconnecting supply chains of providers of specialised algorithms and sources of different types of data (internal and external). Just like electricity/broadband comes through a point in the wall, the computing each house/office needs will come off a point in the wall. Home/work based devices will exchange data/computing-agents with the point in the wall and provide the interface to use/configure the computing capability. We will get monthly bills for the data/computing resources used and pay them using the same. This is the utility computing destination we are headed towards.

Utility computing will need "as-a-service" customising/configuring the computing needs as well as "as-as-service" operational support. There are many ways in which these can evolve. There is a huge amount of financial wastage in the current way of building and managing the evolving software needs of enterprises despite there being a lot common in the needs of enterprises around the world. Industry level thought is needed. New community, industry, country, global IT institutions are needed as part of the global IT operational framework to support the global utility computing model. One can of course start distributed and converge later. If one looks carefully, the process is already underway. It is the software industry which is lagging in terms of the way it does things and the tools/offerings it  provides.

Why should there be multiple implementations of each algorithm/code-component within the Internet as connectivity and computing becomes cheap and reliable? Why can't code for specific algorithm/code-component be sourced as needed from central repository? Why do customers have to pay for setup and operations of new IT platforms - assemblies of such algorithms/code-component? Why can't they merely pay for their usage of services from the IT platform and expect a specific SLA for each service they use from it?

Things are moving towards this in substantial measure as ISV's seek to keep their product/services updated through better service oriented architectures. Enterprise IT platforms are beginning to get automatically updated with new versions of code components with minimum down time

Need to simplify aggregate global technosphere

As I have said multiple times before, complexity is increasing in day to day life. Daily lives of humans, which were dependent on natural uncertainties for the most part are increasingly dependent directly or indirectly on man-made uncertainties embedded in network of machines and/or computers. Some of the natural uncertainties like climate have changed with large impact, but man-made uncertainties continue to increase in number and complexity as the technosphere around humanity deepens.

I wish to reflect here about the changing nature of our ways and means of carrying out our activities in modern life. Computing power is becoming cheaper and easily available. The nature of problems to which computing is being applied is increasing. The number and types of algorithms being deployed are increasing. But there are certain complex categories of problems to which simple algorithms can be proved not to exist. The equivalence class of real-life problems where one encounters these limitations is significantly large by itself and I contend that as systems (of systems(of systems...)) increase, this equivalence class is increasing in size. Essentially there are more and more significant aspects of our day-to-day lives which are limited only by the computational complexity of these algorithms.

Now consider the complexity of enterprise IT architectures (including code and data) where such code and data is embedded in. I recently saw a Gartner video about why the only way that digital transformation can meet the goals of reducing TCO and improving agility of adapting to business change is to reduce complexity of IT architectures. Actions by CIO's to reduce the complexity of enterprise IT architectures while adapting to business change are the only way of reducing future cost of change, the need for which in a very dynamic business environment will always be high.

In my view every human needs to be actively involved in managing the complexity of the technosphere around him and how his/her technosphere connects to the enterprise technosphere, community technosphere, national technosphere and global technosphere. Unless we together actively manage the complexity in this inter-network of techosphere, the aggregate technosphere will increase in complexity thereby increasing the future cost of change and/or future inequality of service delivered through the technosphere. Every individual and enterprise need to do their bit to keep the aggregate technosphere simple. The service environment architecture that is emerging as the technosphere around each individual/home/car/factory also need to be managed and interconnected in ways which preserve good "network" properties (e.g. equality of opportunity and freedom of speech within the network), else our humanity might waste a lot of money later due to increased complexity to modify the network to create these properties.

Netneutrality illustrates type of principles we need to ensure and I am sure we will see more and more debates of the net neutrality kind as the Internet (the BIG NEW WORLD)  continues to be colonized, just like democracy emerged and grew in America during the colonization.

Regards

Pratap

13th May 2015

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Thinking of the As-a-Service Economy

I have really tried hard to understand the  emerging As-a-service economy. I am glad to say that I think I now understand the term better and agree that things are evolving in that direction. Let me explain what I have understood in my words.

Organisations use business service catalogues delivered to them through a mix of people and technology. Typically the business service catalogue has a back-to-back IT service catalogue. Business staff orchestrate the business services from the catalogue into business processes achieving business outcomes. IT staff orchestrate the IT services from the catalogue to support the business services. The agility (through flexible capability and flexible capacity) of the above business processes (and recursively those of its business services and IT services) and their cost are key to business success/failure. Business always wants more agility and ever lower costs. Depending on the people and technology portfolio of each organisation, its agility and cost get determined.

The As-a-service Nirvana is that the people portfolio is highly skilled, good at learning-unlearning-relearning and value-add focused supported by a technology portfolio which provides flexible capability and capacity. In the As-a-service Nirvana these are delivered through the IT service catalogue, business service catalogue forming the business processes supporting the business with a high degree of fast flexibility to vary services their providers as per the needs of the business to produce specific outcomes in the context of its business environment. The most important point about the As-a-service Nirvana is that it assumes a huge amount of automation and a huge amount of cloud usage, so that the cost structure options that BPaas/SaaS/Iaas can deliver are leveraged to the full.

Why is this important what is new about this?

Till date, the focus has been on each customer making one-time and on-going investments (and/or expenses) in infrastructure, software applications and (IT and business process) staff which tied up capital, made reducing people cost through offshoring/outsourcing the only way of reducing cost and reduced agility due to high cost/duration of change. It is a bit like building, maintaining and driving one's own manually driven car using T&M/Fixed price service and standard components and being locked into it when all you need is a car and Avis/Hertz can provide on-demand selection of car's with various configurations (including more automated self-driving ones) for a much lower operating cost overall. The key difference between this example and As-a-service Nirvana is that Avis/Hertz in the As-a-service economy will assemble the "car" on-demand from services provided by multiple providers and the next time you need a car, you can change any of these providers easily.

As I described in this article I think that things are moving towards utility computing provided through "standardised access" infrastructure just like electricity. Everyone does not need their own power generation, transmission infrastructure to use electricity. "Standardised "access" infrastructure is enough to leverage flexible computing as described in that article. As we reach there enterprises will primarily interconnect multiple "standardised access" infrastructure elements which separately/jointly plug into the computing coming through the wall. It is basically a more evolved way of living and it will locate the responsibilities in a more socially optimal manner.

Regards

Pratap Tambay

23 May 2015

Thursday, May 07, 2015

What is poetry? An elaborate definition

A long time ago, when I was at IITB, I thought hard about my poetry. What did it mean and what was its place in my life. What was the benefit of writing poetry to my life and to society? Those days there was a particular hindi song illustrating the regularity with which outstanding poets tended to be failures in practical life, which used to scare me. I had realised that I had some talent for writing but hadn't realised exactly how much I had. I knew I liked to write, needed to write and felt better by writing, but did not really understand my relationship with my writing, particularly poetry, which was the mainstay of my writing. But I was worried big time that I might become a failure in practical life like poets in many movies of those days were shown and like even the might Ghalib was a failure in practical life. One of the good things about living in IITB campus was that I was able to reflect deeply on what is poetry and what it meant to my life.

I realised that if one stays true to one's self and lives life on the front foot emotionally i.e. follows one's heart, one tends to be hurt far too easily. This was my experience too and I will skip the detail of that/those experience because that is not central to what I have to say. Essentially life is challenging and following one's heart leads to difficult emotional situations of various kinds. Some might be of not being sure, about so sure that one has doubts, of hope, of loss and lots and lots of other typical human emotions related to searching and finding one's goals and then achieving one's goals. I investigated myself deeply and found that I carried an emotional burden with me and wrote due to that emotional burden. Forcibly ditching the emotional burden did not seem possible and emotional burden tended to influence my life far too much in ways which were not always good. Even through writing the burden did not seem to go away. It seemed almost like my heart had some scars/lacunae which needed healing/filling. When I realised this, I also realised that I wanted to feel light and whole hearted again. But I did not know how this would happen but felt that poetry somehow would help me understand how this would happen. I decided that I would go deep into myself and make sense of what I felt deeply and write poetry about my deepest feelings. That helped me write some good poetry and helped release some of the burden. It helped me move on. I realised the truth of this song.

Writing poetry based on sense made out of one's deepest emotions (which might be shared with others for social/national/religious poetry) is articulating a problem and CHOOSING to view it in a particular way, which makes emotional and practical sense. I am writing this article for few friends who have mentioned that they do not get release from writing poetry. I KNOW that writing poetry helps one to move on. For these people who have tried and have not been able to move on, I would suggest that they explore themselves even more deeply and try to articulate the "problem" and review the various ways of looking at the "problem". If they do this, the heart and mind will tell them the right way of viewing the "problem", so that they can come out of it. There was a time when I felt good about poetry celebrating pain. Perhaps there are some people for whom, there is no way of viewing the "problem" in a way that provides release/meaning. But for most people, I think that viewing one's pain at a deep level differently can help find a way away from it to a richer experience of life. Most of the time, we never celebrate what we have and keep crying over what we do not and/or cannot have. Your problem and your view may vary. But going deep within oneself, reviewing one's pain and CHOOSING the right view can help release the pain.

So poetry is a way of making and sharing sense of the residue of one's experienced and imagined reality. It can help in healing scars and filling gaps so that one can experience life more deeply and whole heartedly. If one spends life with scars and gaps in the heart, one is likely to live lives of a particular kind. I believe that those who live more deeply and wholeheartedly are likely to be more socially responsible and sensitive. So poetry is a good thing. It is an intensely practical tool for anyone wishing to live a life emotionally on the front foot to get in and stay in touch with one's deepest self and live a life that really makes sense from the core, despite the very nature of life expressed in this song. Living a dignified and practical life is easier if one uses poetry as a tool.

Regards

Pratap