Reading Material: Abstractions, Virtualisation and Cloud

When speaking at conferences, I often get asked questions about virtualization and how fast databases will run on it (and even if they are “supported” on virtualised systems).  This is complex question to answer. Because it requires a very deep understanding of CPU caches, memory and I/O systems to fully describe the tradeoffs.

Markets – Another View

It seems all of Britain is watching TV and the Internet this Sunday, catching up in the news on a downgraded US and waiting for the opening of a stock market that has once again fallen apart. I am on vacation, but I decided to go for a bit of market research myself. This took  me to Spitalfields Market in London, on the periphery the banking district.

As I stand at the entrance to this chaotic place, I take a moment to reflect on where we are in the world today. Our politicians have failed us, driven by greed and voted in by the champions of the politically correct, the religiously mad – or both. Market risk mechanics go for regular, chaotic walks – with their corporate lapdogs on leash. In order to make money in a society obsessed with the service industries, our best talent is sucked into investment banking to come up with new algorithms to predict the next big move, with about as much certainty as we predict the weather – which is not very certain at all.