#212 - File Not Found - Unpacked Network

In this week’s podcast, Chris and Martin get together to discuss the curious case of missing files. In this instance, the files weren’t actually missing, but according to an article in The Verge, students running a software simulation didn’t know how to determine their location. In a world where the current generation have grown up on iPhones and iPads (or similar devices) that present no inherent file and directory structure, is it any surprise that these concepts seem alien? What benefit is there to retaining strict and rigid file system structures and can we move away from them? Can we depend purely on metadata or is structure still required to avoid challenges of data loss and ransomware?

Elapsed Time: 00:32:54

Timeline

00:00:00 – Intros
00:01:30 – File Not Found – The Verge article
00:03:15 – Why did this problem happen in 2017?
00:04:45 – Is there any point to filing emails in folders?
00:06:30 – Should we rely on search to find files?
00:09:45 – How can we know we’re managing an entire “data set”?
00:10:40 – Windows 95 introduced long file names (to Windows)
00:12:00 – Nobody uses EBCDIC any more!
00:12:50 – Should we put all files in big buckets?
00:16:45 – Could lazy data management be a boon for ransomware?
00:18:00 – In IT we no longer know where anything is
00:20:05 – Does a CMDB make sense in an ephemeral IT world?
00:21:44 – DFSMS started a move towards data abstraction (in 1989)
00:22:45 – Does Serverless offer a chance to change the data paradigm?
00:24:05 – Microsoft and other have attempted metadata-rich file systems
00:26:04 – POSIX must die!
00:28:45 – Content and metadata management needs more development
00:30:30 – So what have we learned?
00:31:45 – Wrap Up

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