The mystery deepens.. what exactly was the technology used in the Seal-6 helos used in the Bin Laden black Op

Don't you just love a good conspiracy?

Pakistan has returned the wreckage of the helicopter used by Navy Seal 6 to kill Osama Bin Laden earlier in the month. Notwithstanding the utter embarassment Pakistans military must be feeling about having a couple of huge helicopters fly right up to the doorstep of their premier military academy in the middle of the night, it's also pretty embarassing for the US military that a high tech stealth helicopter had to be blown up as part of the mission.

I'm sure the Seal Team 6 commandos didn't have any issue with blowing up a several million dollars of tax-payers money, they are trained to think on their feet, after all. What interested me more is the actual technology involved. The published picture of the tail of the helicopter sure doesn't look like your standard MH-60 Blackhawk, which is the bird you you expect them to be using.

  Look at the very unusual 

exhaust port (dark trapezoid shape),

 the tapered cover on 

the top of the rotor, and the

 five rotor blades. 

All screams stealth technology.

Supposedly the MH-60 Blackhawk is normally used by seals for covert ops. American Special Ops had this to say. "The MH-60 series of helicopters are a highly modified UH-60 Black Hawks, the U.S. Army's utility helicopter, flown exclusively by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR)"

Take a look at this image instead of the cancelled RAH-66 Comanche. Look at the at the tail structure, and exhaust port outlets around the engine, which appear to be ported right down low by the tail just before the enclosed rear rotor in order to reduce the heat signature.  I would say there are a lot more similarities between the tail rotor left in the Bin Laden raid and the Comanche, than the existing MH-60 models. Supposedly the Comance program was cancelled, but it is hard to believe the that military makes do with only the Bell Kinowa Warrior (based on Bell Jet Ranger, proven design by not exactly state of the art) as the only small helicopter used for reconnaissance.  

Above Top Secret had some interesting things to say about both the noise reduction technology and the Comanche. They theorized was Eurocopter Blue Edge rotor blade noise reduction. I'm not sure about the credibility of this site, but assuming the technology is as effective as the demo, it does seem credible that these helicopters were indeed very quiet.






Black Ops being what they are, I see no reason why secret helicopter designs couldn't be out there.


Lets keep guessing.

The Cloud that Could

Cloud Computing has had increased visibility weekly recently, with offers from the major vendors competing for attention on many different fronts, and articles everywhere. It's also taken center stage for me personally, as I'm moving from a decade of deploying corporate IT infrastructure, to a new role within HPs cloud computing delivery group.

While most CIOs realize that successfully executing a shift to some degree of cloud based compute will save money, the question of what will occur with the savings is one not often addressed. This is a hypothetical scenario, to illustrate some of the potential cost and transformation issues.

Lets say you are CIO in of a company  that outsources 1000 servers to a hosting provider. You currently purchase all the server hardware, the outsourcing provider installs it an runs it for you. Typical problems with this model include time to provision hardware, keeping patching up to date, standards and application design consistent, and underutilization of capacity.

 The cloud provider convinces you that many of these servers can be hosted within a provider private cloud. The increased server utilization efficiency of the cloud means that the number of physical servers can be reduced by 30%, a substantial cost saving. The new billing model is a pay-per-server image model, where instead of buying hardware, the number of active server images is billed based on daily, automated daily usage statistics.

Over a two year time frame, you move to the provider cloud instead of refreshing end of life servers in your existing outsourced server hosting operation.  Indeed the savings work out, and IT capital budget reduces because of reduced purchasing of new servers. Operational costs go up, but this was to be expected due to the transition from spending money on hardware to spending on a pay-per-server image model.

Your CFO starts to ask you 

if you are reducing headcount in 

your IT operation because 

the costs of providing the 

infrastructure required by 

your business applications

 has reduced.

Your CFO starts to ask you if you are reducing headcount in your IT operation because the costs of providing the infrastructure required by your business applications has reduced. However, business groups are still demanding many changes to their applications, and the pipeline of backlogged project work for IT is as great as ever. In fact, many of the application groups quickly grasped the new flexibility offered by the cloud computing environment. The number of requests for approval of new development and test environments has risen substantially as these business groups realize they can get a new server image stood up within hours after approval  instead of the previous months.

Possibility one - CFO loves this option. Cut IT staff numbers, because you are saving money on hosting and don't need all those guys that used to be supporting hardware installs.

 Possibility two - HR director loves this option.  Retrain former IT staff that used to be working on supporting hardware installation, standup and support, to address more of the project pipeline. You know this is a difficult option, it's debatable whether retaining will be effective, especially as many of the staff were previously  to low cost offshore locations, have narrow, low level skill sets, and a pretty poor track record of showing innovation or autonomy.

Possibility three - you as CIO love this option. Cloud computing has enabled a rethink of the role and structure of your whole IT shop. Instead of an embattled operational focus and constant hardware refresh struggle, you've got staff that can be directed towards working with business groups on increasing the innovation and response times for their new ideas. This is a challenging cultural change, but judging by the new motivation that you are seeing from many staff, it's one worth pushing for.

Cloud computing might be still sky high in terms of turning vision into reality, but if we think it through, the possibilities for organizational change, culture change and cost saving are huge.

Ellison and Hurd play hardball against HP

The Itanium debacle has Mark Hurd and Larry Ellison in a spite filled rampage against HP.

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/itaniums-not-dead-say-parents-intel-and-hp-10022057/