Aero Expo, Drones and the IBM Cloud

The Aero Expo, the Global Show for General Aviation, is running in my hometown Friedrichshafen from today until the weekend. One of the expo and conference topics is drones of the future (AERODrones UAS Expo). Drones or UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) have been and are a hot topic for IBM and its customers. Let me give a brief overview of some interesting work where drones, artificial intelligence, analytics, database systems, Internet of Things (IoT) and the IBM Cloud come together.

Aero Expo and Database Monitoring

Some years back (is my blog really that old...?) I had written about the AERO Expo, a global general aviation show in Friedrichshafen. Today, I received an invitation/marketing email reminding me about the upcoming expo. Looking over the list of exhibits and demonstrations, it is very similar to database systems or even information management. There is the core product (the aircraft/engine or database system) and then a good chunk is about the tooling and maintenance.

What - to me - stands out is the monitoring. It is critical in flight, to keep both your aircraft and your database system up and flying. I am not a pilot and cannot really comment on what is crucial, but for database systems performance monitoring is a very interesting topic. Did you know that InfoSphere Optim Performance Manager Extended Edition is capable of monitoring the application stack ("end to end monitoring")? To me as a frequent traveller this looks like making sure that both the aircraft is running well as well as understanding what is happening in terms of air traffic and on the ground, i.e., it provides the whole picture, not just a fragment.

Not sure whether I will visit the AERO this year (tickets anyone...?), I would look around to see if something similar to end-to-end monitoring is available.

BTW: For those in Switzerland or South Germany, take a look at this cool project for displaying air traffic.

Do you webcam?

With the days getting shorter, darker, and colder (here in Germany) thoughts about nice, warm, and fun Summer days pop up more frequently. It's the time when some people start eating Marzipan, flip through their [online] photo albums, or do other things to keep the spirits high. Do you webcam?

When I am on business trips and back at the hotel, I usually try to check a webcam from "my place" before calling home ("I know how it looks like right now"). Do you webcam, too?

Before talking with co-workers in other locations, you can check webcams to make talking about the weather more interesting ("it is NOT snowing in your place"). Do you webcam?

Here are some webcams I use from time to time:

• Friedrichshafen has a couple of webcams and I will only list three around the airport. The so-called slashcam can be controlled and has nice views. The same goes for the Zeppelin webcam. The aero club located at the airport maintains 4 webcams.
  
• Boeblingen, where IBM's German Lab is located, has at least this webcam.
• For the conditions in San Jose, California, my former home and place of several IBM locations, the SJSU offers a cam.
  
• A very interesting "local" webcam is installed on one of the ships cruising the Lake of Constance, on the St. Gallen. In the archive you can follow the ship on its tours across the lake.
  

Now I want to hear from you, what are your webcams?

A day at AERO 2009: About aviation and databases

To my excuse let me start this post stating that to a database guy everything looks like a database.

On Saturday I took my oldest son to AERO 2009, the biggest European expo for General Aviation that included an air show in the afternoons. We went there half on foot and half by shuttle bus, but many visitors actually flew there with their own planes and Friedrichshafen's airport area and airspace was crowded.

Both I (and to some degree my son) can be labeled "experienced passenger", nothing more. In the database world this would compare to "having used an ATM" (this is not Air Traffic Management) or "received database-generated report in mail". At the expo were many commercial and private pilots, aircraft mechanics, aerobatic pilots, some flight attendants, air traffic controlers, some government agencies, and many more. In my (our?) world this would compare to DBAs and sysadmins, performance specialist, maybe application users, your management, auditors, etc. Of course there was finance and insurance companies present (and possibly lawyers...).

From strolling around I learned how much software is now used even by private pilots. Simulation, flight planning, navigation, in-flight monitoring and control, the electronic fligh bag (EFB), air traffic control/management (ATC/ATM), and many more require special software. The electronic flight bag can even be a collection of XML data. Statistical data such as that from ATADS is nothing more than your typical database application. A very nice air traffic visualization is using XML, web serivces, Google Maps, MashUps, and a database.

Thus, even if you were only an IT guy, you would have gotten your share of information. I won't write about the special deal I could have gotten for a private jet, how the goodies are different from an IT expo, and why I am lucky my wife is not a wing walking lady (or here)...