Can your Website Deliver the Goods?

In the haste to get the web store on-line, Businesses must ensure they’ve considered IT Service Delivery.

On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died.

And in one fell swoop, Sony Music Entertainment had its worse Information Technology nightmare on its hands.  Sony’s web servers were bombarded by millions of Jackson fans – most who were wanting to research the highlights of the King of Pop’s career or post public messages of condolences/reflections. 

And, some of the fans actually went to the site to purchase music of the star.

Greg Taylor, senior system engineer at Sony Music Entertainment, knew he had a massive problem on his hands – they were on the eve of the equivalent of a Denial-of-Service event never seen before the company.  The company’s web servers would be inadequate to handle this unexpected level of demand and Taylor had the miserable task of coming up with the game plan to manage the expectations of Sony’s customers.  What would he do?

Taylor’s situation is faced by IT systems managers every day.  Many administrators would approach the problem the “old fashioned way” – quickly order more hardware and find a way to deploy it quickly.  However, that approach introduces risk in that hastily-deployed servers may not be sufficiently hardened to protect the credit card information.  Further, how can a company purchase and deploy multiple servers quickly?

Before doing any knee-jerk actions, somebody within the company has to define the needed service levels for any given system.  This is usually the data owner – the person who is responsible for information collected and the processing that needs to happen.

The needs have to be expressed in some form of performance measurement:   Usually, these are described as follows:

-          The availability of the service:  For example, “up for 99.9% of the time – essentially can only be out of action for .35 days a year”,

-          The Reliability of the service :  “must be able to support X number of transaction requests within a given time frame”; finally,

-          The data owner should express other criteria of importance as well, such as:

o   Is the web site collecting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, expiry dates, CV2 codes?  Or personal information of the customer?

o   How is it protecting that information from “accidental disclosure”?

o   What’s the acceptable timeframe for restoration of service if a systemic failure should happen? 

Pending results of these specifications, the IT support teams can enter into formal Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the data owners within the company.  Based on these agreements, the IT department can then specify the required resources that are needed to fulfill the objectives.

So with precious little time to come up with an operating solution, what did Sony’s Taylor and his team do to fulfill the service delivery objectives of their eCommerce systems?  Per the best practices above, the team stood back from the technology for a moment and studied the needs of the customers.  Essentially, there are two types of customers:

Customers purchasing music:  These customers need secure environments to collect and process credit card transactions.  The Payment Card Industry (PCI) has very rigorous requirements for the handling of credit card information, including the length of time the information is stored, how it should be encrypted, and the nature of the security systems that must protect the data, amongst other things.   There must be sufficient servers in place to allow prompt processing of all purchase requests.  Because of the PCI requirements and Sony’s natural concern over availability and reliability of these servers, it would be near-impossible for Taylor’s team to quickly provide additional server equipment to handle the onslaught of transactions.

Customers who wish to research information:  Specifically, people wanted to lookup elements of the performing artists’ lives, their discography, and the details of specific recordings.  Further, Sony wanted to have people post information about local events – and in particular to Michael Jackson’s situation, the location and times for memorial services/gatherings and celebrations of the musician’s life.  They wanted customers to be able to express their sorrow, pay tribute, and otherwise share their grief or thoughts.  None of this information is terribly sensitive or needing of the PCI-level of data protection.  Further, this type of information look-up and social postings were accounting for the majority of website traffic in the days following Jackson’s death.  Taylor would be unable to deploy server resources to adequately cover this need and maintain adequate server delivery requirements to the customers purchasing music.

Further, both systems had to be readily available to the changing demands of both categories of customers.

Taylor’s solution to meet the service delivery requirements of Sony’s customers:  Have all of Sony’s in-house public-facing server resources devote themselves to the handling of the music purchases.  This decision meant that he could leverage all of their existing security and PCI-compliant technologies into delivery of orders and proper handling of the credit card processing.

For the customers who wanted to look up information about Jackson’s albums, life, etc., Taylor realised that the information was not sensitive in its handling.  What he needed was a mechanism that could dynamically add/remove servers and replicate content as needed to meet the unpredictable levels of the consumer demand.  To solve this, he turned to Cloud Computing for the answer; specifically, Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).  Inquires to the Sony web site would seamlessly be passed to the Amazon EC2 server farm, which would add servers automatically as needed to keep up with the demand for the look-up information.  Information System auditors have raging debates as to how to properly govern/secure information within cloud environments, as much of the information passes out of the data owner’s direct control.  However, Taylor didn’t have time to do proper diligence on this; nor, did he care:  EC2 wasn’t being charged with sensitive information – that was happening back on Sony’s own managed servers.  And the beauty is that Sony only has to pay for the server instances/hours that are actually needed.

Taylor’s quick thinking worked so well at providing for all aspects of the service delivery requirements that Sony is now using the strategy with several of its popular artists.  By clearly understanding the IT service delivery needs of the customer, Sony Music Entertainment was able to come up with a very effective eCommerce site that could scale to handle dynamically changing needs.

The Race to Build Another Tablet

New tablet manufacturers are trying to corner niche markets, not compete against the iPad 

The Apple iPad has cornered the tablet market. Sales of the multimedia miracle account for 95 per cent of all tablets sold. I, however, say that’s about to change.

Apple’s not the only company building tablets. Others have been in the game just as long. It’s just that most of the early tablets were like computers without keyboards. They were too big, too heavy, limited in battery life and, well, not exactly “ubiquitous.” The iPad changed all that. It proved that there’s a market after all for tablet devices. Now other companies are racing to fill niche demands.

After all, the iPad is not without its problems. It’s excellent for playing short multimedia clips — audio and video are great — but cumbersome when watching full-length TV shows and movies. More importantly to business users, the iPad is lousy when creating content. Ever tried writing letters, documents or spreadsheets while using a non-ergonomic, glass-tablet keyboard? Think about it. It’s like writing on a menu with your fingers.

But these are pointless quibbles. The iPad is not a conventional device. I may as well argue for propellers on my car or wheels on my boat.

But that hasn’t stopped other manufacturers from racing to fill  niche markets. Hewlett-Packard (HP), Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung and CherryPal each have different takes on what end users want from tablet devices. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab (to be released in late 2010) features a nice balance between multimedia applications for consumers and content creation for business users, which has been a weakness of the iPad. It includes USB ports for keyboards and data entry devices.

HP, on the other hand, is exploring solutions to the problem of compatibility with Windows-based applications. The HP Slate 500 (to be released in the first quarter of 2011) will run Windows 7, providing corporate users with the opportunity to create and modify the same files used in their workplaces. Think about the ramifications of a tablet that collected data while out in the field. The chance to complete audit checklists within write-up packages such as CaseWare makes many accountants drool.

Research In Motion’s PlayBook (also to be released in the first quarter of 2011) will put a fresh spin on corporate communications: the PlayBook “tethers” to your Blackberry, routing all telecommunications through a device that offers a seven inch screen rather than the relatively tiny screen of the BlackBerry.

Users will be able to easily monitor their email, browse the web, create Windows-based documents and basically do anything currently allowed through the technology of the  BlackBerry Enterprise Server. And the PlayBook will fit easily inside your luggage and overcoat.

None of these competitors, however, can match the battery capacity of the iPad. Hands down, the iPad is the winner at 10-12 hours of average use before recharging. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab claims seven hours of video playback, 10 hours if used for less strenuous tasks, while most Windows 7 devices collapse to about four to six hours, depending upon a variety of intangibles.

To be fair, one of the reasons for Apple’s high performance is the absence of extras such as USB ports, VGA adapters, SD memory card sockets and cameras. These accessories draw power from the unit itself and drain resources. So if you need the convenience of various ports, you’ll pay for it in battery performance.

What about size and portability?

Many of the coming tablets will be smaller than the iPad — chiefly to alleviate portability problems. Samsung and RIM believe that their target users want tablets with screens that are larger than conventional smartphones but overall dimensions to allow people to stuff their products into the pockets of overcoats and satchels. These new tablets will also weigh in at less than a pound — much easier to hold than the bulky iPad if you’re  computing while watching an in-flight movie.

As for price, I believe it’s a non-issue. CherryPal’s CherryPad, for  example, is lighter and smaller than the iPad but almost matches it in consumer-based capabilities. It costs about US$200, almost half the price of an iPad. The HP Slate gets dissed because it’s expected introductory price is about US$800 — about twice the price of a low-end iPad and just a bit more than the high-end one.

But for the business user, that price differential will be immaterial if they can hook up to their Windows-based networks and use all their standard software without having to find or program alternative tools.

Hardware reviewers typically end their columns with a conclusion that none of the new tablets will be “iPad killers.” I think they’re missing the boat. Look at the HP Slate and RIM PlayBook. They’re targeted towards business users who need to easily attach to existing IT systems. Based on the initial releases, it looks like they might do very well — far better than the iPad is currently doing.

The new tablet manufacturers aren’t trying to beat Apple at its own game. They’re racing to corner other markets.

iPads in a Business Setting - Something to WINE About

This morning's news caught me off-guard.  The New York Times had an article, announcing how some upscale restaurants have ditched the traditional leather-bound paper-based wine list in favour of Apple's iPad (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/dining/15ipad.html).  Patrons can check the restaurant's current inventory of selections, sort by all kinds of criteria (type of wine, region, grapes, price, match with food, and wine critic reviews) before making their choices.

Why would a restaurant - upscale or not -- spend US$400 per iPad, let alone the time to develop (presumably) real-time wine inventory applications?  Just to be trendy?  Well per the 'Times' article, the owners noticed that each patron's spending seems to have increased by some 11% -- many trying wines that they had never tried before.  How long will that take to offset the development and equipment costs?

Putting my managerial accountant's training aside for a moment, I believe strongly that this iPad example is the start of a new trend in customer fulfillment.  For those of you who have attended my Technology Trends seminars over the years, you'll remember that I mentioned several examples of how wireless order-taking could be of benefit to retail and service establishments.  For example, the tour bus full of hungry passengers arrives at the local fast-food restaurant.  What if restaurant staff board the bus and start processing orders with wireless handheld devices.  I'll submit that by the time the order takers are even half-way through the coach, runners will be arriving with fresh hot food for the passengers in the front.  Far more efficient that lines of people crowding the inside order counter.

Why hasn't this happened yet?  Well, an obvious answer:  handheld devices were too small, screens weren't very big, keyboard buttons were really tiny -- heck, let's just admit that all the subtle order-taking nuances ("would you like extra pickles on your burger?") just would be a nightmare if you were trying to take orders with a cell-phone-sized device.

But an iPad (or similar sized tablet) is another matter entirely.  Screens are big enough for easy touch virtual buttons, pictures and helpful hints could guide the order-taker or the actual customer in placing their order.  All the gadget would need is a credit card swipe/PIN reader and a receipt printer and all would be perfect!

Apple's iPad isn't really designed for add-on tools such as these.  But there's several touch tablets coming down the pipeline from other manufacturers (most notably running Google's Android operating system) that could easily be customized for portable POS handling.

Will customers expect convenience tools such as computerized wine lists and portable order taking -- with either the restaurant's equipment or the consumer's own gadgets?  I think yes, it will enhance many consumer experiences.  How quickly will we see the roll-out of this technology?

I give it a year.