James Urquhart, a smart head in Cisco’s cloud

Posted on | December 4, 2008 | 2 Comments

I’m always pleased to come across a blog that I really ought to have known about already. A post from Robert Scoble on Cisco data center technologies (I’ll use the American spelling – center – in deference to Cisco’s origins) led me to the blog of James Urquhart – Wisdom of the Clouds. James is a very recent Cisco hire and an expert on cloud computing. His blog will be a godsend to anyone interested in the more techie aspects of the subject, but there is also a whole lot of careful thinking shining through between the lines of tech stuff.

James also has a cornucopia of cloud computing bits and pieces gathered in his Delicious site. From this, for instance, I got the news that Alchemy Plus is partnering with Microsoft to build a cloud computing complex in Inverness, the capital of the Scottish Highlands. Why Inverness? Because its bracing climate will make it easier to cool the massive bank of servers that the complex will house. This item caught James’ eye because of his own Scottish origins. With a name like Urquhart…..

By the way, you can view Scoble’s video interview with James and his colleagues on Facebook.

Technorati Tags: robert scoble, urquhart, cisco, cloud computing, alchemy plusg, microsoft, inverness

Category: cisco, scotland, technology

Comments

2 Responses to “James Urquhart, a smart head in Cisco’s cloud”

James Urquhart
December 5th, 2008 @ 8:08 am

John,

You are much too kind, sir. I noted with interest your own blog when responding to your follow on Twitter (thanks, too, for that), and am very impressed not only by your very professional work, but also with your nomination at Edublog. Congratulations.

One subject that I admittedly have never really put much thought into is what the effect of the cloud will be on primary education. Seems like you would be just the guys to ask. Any thoughts on what the effect of “pay for what you use” compute resources will be on the primary grades?

I find myself more and more impressed with Cisco, its culture, and its people every day. Guys like you are part of the reason.

James
John Connell
December 5th, 2008 @ 11:05 am

Hi James,

Good to make your acquaintance – I’ll look you up next time I’m in SJ.

Take a glance at a recent post:

http://www.johnconnell.co.uk/blog/?p=1060

…where I express some thoughts that might start to answer the question you ask. This is an area I need to do some heavy thinking on – always difficult for me – so any ideas you can offer would be hugely appreciated.

Glow, by the way, is a national project here in Scotland that I was Director of from its inception in 2001, when we decided to design and build a national, web-based learning platform (ID Management, VLE, Collaboration, lots more) to serve every school in the country. The decision to make it entirely web-based was taken as early as 2002 – as I say in the post, it cannot be described as cloud computing, but it was, and is, a big nod in that direction. When a region or a country can build a ‘Glow’, at scale, from composable elements, we will have cloud computing in education.

Not as far off as some might think, I would guess!