Blade Watch

http://www.finextra.com/News/Announcement.aspx?pressreleaseid=32725

The application allows businesses to accept secure card payment transactions through their iPhone.

John Clarke, Head of Product Innovation commented, “The iPhone Virtual Terminal is designed to process credit cards securely over the 3G or WiFi Network and is compatible with Apple’s iPhone 3G or iPod Touch technology. The product supports the secure processing of card transactions through major domestic and international payment processors such as Elavon Merchant Services, AIB Merchant Services and Barclaycard International and is available now for download from the Apple iPhone App Store.”

How cool is this? The more accessible both in terms of technology and in cost that we can bring to the small/medium retail business, the more opportunities for revenue and commerce, I’m off to read up more.

Check out these podcasts/videos from HP, they cover some interesting content and include coverage of the HP BladeSystems day, very cool.

It’s always interesting to hear what people are talking about in the IT space, what their drivers are, the more we discuss what drivers and challenges we have the more we can think about the right solution for my business, whether it’s blades, rack servers or a desktop, that it works is all that matters.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/servers/356029/hp-proliant-dl4×170h-g6

Blade servers have always been the best solution for maximising rack space, but they could be about to lose their monopoly. HP’s latest DL1000 rack server series delivers four server nodes in a 2U rack chassis, and in this exclusive review we take a closer look at the new DL4×170h G6 quad-node model.

The DL4×170h offers a good range of storage options, with the review system providing eight hot-swap drive bays. Options are available for two eight-drive SFF bays that slot in at each end of the front panel. A glance at the back shows each node comes complete with its own power button plus monitor, network, serial and pair of external USB ports.

An interesting review of the HP Proliant DL4×170h-G, a server which has four nodes in the one 2u form factor. I do love the concept for example in a small compute farm or even as a small scale virtualization solution? I am off to read up more about them, but do check out the review, a mini blade solution in a 2u form factor if you like.

A quick reminder about security patching your estate whether it’s updating your laptops or desktops with Windows Update or deploying patches to your server estate, ensuring everything is patched to the latest revisions protects your estate and will be the first thing that a vendor or service provider will ask when logging a call.

The details are below:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-mar.mspx

Bulletin ID	Bulletin Title and Executive Summary	Maximum Severity Rating and Vulnerability Impact	Restart Requirement	Affected Software
MS10-016	Vulnerability in Windows Movie Maker Could Allow Remote Code Execution (975561) This security update addresses a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Movie Maker and Microsoft Producer 2003. Windows Live Movie Maker, which is available for Windows Vista and Windows 7, is not affected by this vulnerability. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent a specially crafted Movie Maker or Microsoft Producer project file and convinced the user to open the specially crafted file. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office
MS10-017	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980150) This security update resolves seven privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. An attacker who successfully exploited any of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart

Microsoft Office

One of the conversations I have been having with colleagues and CIOs is a question that’s been on my mind for some time. What I am about to say is in no way negative and is not to be taken as criticism of the way ahead. There are exciting times ahead for the end user community, for vendors and investors alike. The question is as follows.

As we virtualize and commoditize the infrastructure, the individual components become less significant in a way, whether it’s a server from vendor1 or vendor 11, does the actual underlying tin matter?

1. Absolutely – I have a specific price point that I seek to achieve, that can only be done through our purchasing agreement with vendor8, or absolutely because we want the management software, the extra bits which you just don’t get from any other vendor (real or perceived).
2. No – it will be replaced every few years and besides my servers, my applications are abstracted from it, I want the cheapest hardware financially and operationally.

The problem is that we’re for the time being going forward. (The time being between now and when the data center is virtualized and floats around the enterprise, the cloud or whatever device can power and host it at the lowest cost, a Mac Mini perhaps).  Between now and the future then, data center 3.0 I’ll call it, how do we differentiate ourselves? How do we isolate our servers, our software from the competition?

• Price – but dear me, many a business has gone down that route and volume is key at this point else margins eat your profits – and what about concepts like support costs and service delivery?
• Functionality – great, but dear me reader, functionality is expensive and requires real investment and do our beloved users want to pay for said functionality, everyone says yes until the invoice arrives for approval and sign off
• Apple-ness – by this I mean belief in the product, belief in the service that only Apple seem to be able to achieve in the notebook/pc world – you mean you haven’t got one of these, oh well, maybe next year

I wonder then, going forward as the industry changes, both inside IT and outside the IT industry where the lines are drawn and where go, going forward, is branding enough? Is price or feature competition effective enough as a vehicle to protect revenues. Is Apple’s benefit that regardless of the perceived limitations not that the fans just sit and go wow, look at the design and buy it anyway? How do we then do this in the IT industry? Where commoditization, where hierarchical structures are changing, it used to be that server guy Mike made the recommendations on servers, but Fred who runs trading now wants to know what can be done about this data center space problem, IT is crossing the boundaries that we spent years creating, how then do we change the marketing, the lines of communication and support frameworks to meet this new target audience?

How do we sell servers or software, or a concept to a business unit, a CEO or CFO when concepts of MegaHertz, memory support, or number of PCI slots don’t quite raise the excitement that Mike has when the nice account manager says take a look at this, 5 pci slots and a redundant power supply!

We could go down the services route, indeed, fantastic, would you like  a 2u server or a virtualization product as part of a service? No capex, I repeat No capex, but as the world gets smaller, that poses the old problem, fine I’d love to have my virtual desktops powered by your service, but just one thing, I’ll have it hosted in India, at India prices, not at your UK prices, no they’re too much, and can I have that free mouse mat. I like mouse mats.

We need change, we need progress and development, a move to a scenario where the IT and business merge to create a unified platform for revenue generation, I just wonder if combined the two business units, are ready for this new world as are the vendors. Does this mean a rebrand of IT, a convergence where we offer a range of solutions mixing software and hardware with services and service delivery an overall solution comprising of everything you need, and does that mean the user gets closer or further away from the vendor? We’ll have to see,

I was having a chat with one of my friends who has recently started as a Project Manager for one of the funds companies in West London. Anyway he called me up, he has to organize and prioritize virtualization of servers and asked me three key questions:

1. What is 1GB ready? By that he meant which servers already have a network card capable of 1GB?
2. How can I tell how old a server is?
3. Where can I get an overview of the server specs?

What vendor I asked and was told Compaq/HP, they were upgrading and virtualizing their servers onto a nice new environment as part of a consolidation and data center migration exercise. His issue, he has 237 servers to look at and the project is in three phases:

1. Move all servers on to the new network (except those judge too old to be moved, they should be virtualized)
2. Consolidate infrastructure and application services where possible
3. Virtualize the non production application and where possible production infrastructure servers

So his key requirements for phase one:

• Servers that are 1GB capable without a lot of work
• Anything that might go bang when they touched it

My reply, and it was rather vague, anything pre-G3 (except the DL580 G2) is likely to have an integrated or separate PCI network card rated at 10MB/100MB and will need a separate network card fitted. I pointed him at the HP quickspecs sites and emailed him the spreadsheet that we’ve got published for all to download which states averaged age of Compaq/HP servers.

With this in mind, to make life a bit easier, I have summarized a few of the Compaq/HP servers that we have used and tested over the years here at Bladewatch. The summary contains an overview, the what it has, how big it is and the key parts that we have tested in it for improving performance or management.

I’ve done the DL380 G1 and the DL380 G2 so far and will add more shortly. I’ll do the DL360 / DL380 / DL580 /DL760, and then move on to the Dell and IBM equivalents. Do please check the specifications with the original HP quickspecs as they are the official reference guide or contact your service provider/HP direct.

http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh030110-story01.html

A recovery of sorts is underway in the server market, according to the latest statistics from Gartner that dices and slices the server metrics for the final quarter of 2009. While by no means a full-blown recovery–something no one expects–in server spending, the market seemed to be a little bit stronger than expected, signifying that companies are willing to dedicate some funds to new iron to support new and existing workloads.

“The recovery that began in the third quarter of 2009 based on x86 servers extended into the fourth quarter,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, the research vice president at Gartner who does server box counting, in a statement put out with server sales and shipments by revenue, vendor, and type. And then Hewitt sprayed a little cold water on any excitement you might have for robust spending on servers, which is a leading indicator for overall IT spending as far as I can tell. “However, it is important to put this into context. The fourth quarter of 2008 was quite weak, so the fourth quarter of 2009 did not have to produce huge x86 server numbers to result in an increase. At the same time, other segments like RISC/Itanium Unix and mainframes remained constrained and that exerted downward pressure on overall vendor revenue results.”

I wonder how much of this investment is being driven through consolidation and integration projects, combined with the near end of life support for Windows 2000? For those organizations that need to consolidate to fewer data centers, it might be an ideal opportunity to consolidate and virtualize on to newer hardware simply to reduce the hardware support and energy costs. I wonder if Windows 2008 and x64 is having a dramatic affect on demand for servers, are there that many applications that benefit or are coded and optimized for an x64 operating system or environment?

http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=21137

Barclays plans major IT investment to lure wealthy clients

UK bank Barclays is set to spend around £200 million overhauling technology and infrastructure at its wealth management unit in a bid to win high net worth accounts.

Going forward the IT experience, the online presence, the way your customers interact with your business becomes the way you differentiate your services and your business, that you have an iPhone application, that you have 24/7 banking or direct support managers to aid in customer risk analysis and decision making helps underpin the services you can offer your customer. I wonder what combination of technologies will be used in order to deliver these services and whether the investment will include Citrix and online systems to aid customer experience and management.

http://gestaltit.com/all/tech/networking/stephen/innocence-fairness-technology-benchmarks/

HP recently commissioned Tolly Group to benchmark their BladeSystem c7000 against the Cisco UCS 5100. The short report focuses on two results, and reads like so many competitive benchmarks in the IT industry:

Check out this analysis of the BladeSystem C7000 and Cisco UCS 5100. It’s a report comparing network  benchmarks on the two platforms. These kind of benchmarks can be useful, but as with anything the performance you achieve from your infrastructure is dependent on many aspects of the infrastructure, the network, the operating system configuration, layered components and hardware configuration, not to mention the configuration of your application, there is nothing to comparing the technology in your environment. Benchmarks, testing will always have relevance and always be useful, but as with anything is to be taken at face value and understood that how the infrastructure performs for you is going to depend on your IT, your infrastructure and your business. Little things like system firmware, operating system hot fixes, network configuration and the application or middleware being optimized for the platform all affect such tests, and ultimately any  decisions tend to be influenced more by purchasing agreements, discounts and that old thing of comfort zones, buying a platform that we are comfortable with. We’ll see, it’s worth a read, do check out the report and the analysis on the blog.

It was great visiting Texas, I confess that I hadn’t been there before and it re-affirmed my love of the US on many levels. I enjoyed meeting fellow bloggers who were writing about storage, servers virtualization amongst other things, to see what they were interested in and talking about. The days over at HP’s site in Texas were useful and gave me some interesting topics to write up and hopefully they should follow in the next few days. In the meantime, normal service resumes and might I just thank HP for their hospitality, for the invitation and the chance to meet fellow bloggers, experiencing Texas and their facility in the process. Do check out some further analysis and pictures here.