Archive for July, 2007
July 31, 2007 at 11:25 pm · Filed under environment
http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=22264
On Monday, EMC rolled out new and updated solutions across its storage platforms. Among them:
” The next-generation Symmetrix DMX-4 platform, which incorporates an end-to-end 4 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) architecture and a new Fibre Channel point-to-point back-end for higher levels of reliability.
” The latest version of the Symmetrix Enginuity operating environment, which improves overall performance by 30 per cent, makes local data replication 10 times faster, and doubles replication distances using EMC’s SRDF.
Check out this article, it’s talking about the new products that EMC are bringing out. It’s an interesting read, consolidating your storage on to SAN even on a basic level; by replacing those old storage arrays/disk shelves or moving to SAN boot can bring real quantifiable energy savings, granted my existing switches might not like SAN booting my 2700 servers, but it can be introduced, tested and scaled, consider that each disk not only requires power, but generates heat, increasing your energy and cooling bills.
July 31, 2007 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Other things, vmware
I read quite a few articles talking about how virtualization is set to harm server sales, I’m not going to highlight any particular articles out there, it’s not fair. Let me summarize my opinions on this in the next three minutes in brief:
Virtualization makes server provisioning easier - before to get a server for Mike in Fixed Income a server required me to get budget, sign off, data center space, a guy to build it, a network cable, some storage and then configure it. - With virtualization, it can be a ghosted/scripted deployment, a web based/help desk based request, Mike in Fixed Income wants a server, Mike logs a call, his line manager agrees the ‘rental cost of the instance’, the virtual machine is cut, imaged and powered on ready for use. For that reason the barriers to increasing the server estate are reduced, meaning in the long term we’ll need more physical servers.
We abstract the hardware - swapping the box doesn’t become part of the five year plan. In the olden days I had to plug the new server in, give it a new name, a new ip address/network port, install the operating system and move the application code to the new server. Now, I can move my virtual machines around ESX hosts, I can commoditize the hardware, DL580G2 too slow? Buy a new box, configure it, move the virtual machines on to it - meaning that I have in essence a VMWare ESX farm which continues to grow - I’ll keep buying servers accordingly to accommodate this need.
The ESX platform still needs evolved - a DL580G2 might have been great for virtualization a year or two ago, but with the costs of servers falling, keeping that server for 3 years doesn’t quite give me the same benefit - it might be £6,000 to upgrade to 332GB RAM, or £9,000 for a new server from Dell/HP/IBM.
I’ve written about as have others about how the billing methods/cross charging needs to be brought in line with the new technologies - with this in mind, with me as IT buying all the kit, selling you a virtual server service, it’s my decision when to swap out the kit, and for support/energy efficiency/hardware maintenance cost reasons, I’m more likely to refresh the servers more regularly, particularly if it’s not as difficult as it once used to be.
We’ll see, it’s one of those things that’s going to be discussed for the future, what happens in the future is certainly going to be interesting, as old markets close, old opportunities cease, new ones open up, it’s the cost of doing business.
July 31, 2007 at 11:10 pm · Filed under blades
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/AQTU11031072007-1.htm
SAN JOSE, Calif., July 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Super Micro Computer, Inc. , a worldwide leader in application optimized, high performance server solutions, today announced volume shipping of its new SuperBlade(TM) product line. With industry-leading power efficiency, the SuperBlade architecture supports current and next generation processors at all speeds. For instance, a fully loaded 10 DP blade system using quad-core Xeon L5310 or L5320 processors consumes less than 2,700 watts at maximum performance and still maintains the flexibility to support 4P blades at maximum frequency. SuperBlade supports the latest dual-processor (2P) quad-core and dual-core Intel Xeon(TM) processors as well as quad-processor (4P) AMD Opteron(TM) CPUs. Supermicro Server Building Block Solutions(R) provide versatile hot-swappable configuration flexibility for the enterprise, datacenter, high performance computing (HPC), and office computing environments.
We often hear about Dell/HP/IBM blades etc, but there are many other vendors with interesting blade solutions, this article is talking about Super Micro’s blades. It’s mentioning in particular their energy efficient power supply - energy efficiency of the blade, the blade enclosure are always open to debate, in the meantime, it’s always good to know what’s available on the market place; it also allows me to ask Sun or Dell for example what are you doing about energy efficiency in your blades? (Next time I see them anyway).
July 31, 2007 at 11:06 pm · Filed under How IT works, blades
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070731005781&newsLang=en
Devon IT Launches Podcast Series on iTunes to Support Interest in Thin Clients and Server-Based Computing
Company to reach IT personnel in all industries through series of podcasts
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Devon IT, the fastest growing provider of thin client terminals, today announced the availability of a podcast entitled “Server-Based Computing: The Future Desktop Solution.†The podcast explains the basics of thin client computing, the benefits of server-based models such as cost-savings and energy conservation, and the future of remote access solutions.
The seven-minute podcast is narrated by Devon IT’s application analyst Marcus Ricci and can be downloaded at http://www.devonit.com/resources/whitepaperform.php?id=8. It is also available on iTunes.
Very cool, do check this out, it’s an interesting podcast. Devon IT have been making great progress in this field and it’s interesting to hear their commentary and viewpoints on the technology. Granted we might not be thinking about virtualization of the desktop, or looking at the blade pc rather than the desktop, though having spoken to people about it, the benefits from centralization in terms of management, adaptability and energy efficiency it’s the way forward.
July 31, 2007 at 11:03 pm · Filed under blades
I got this email when I got home (whilst plugging in my ipod and preparing to blog):
Hi Martin,
We’ve just ordered our first batch of IBM Blades, (HS21 model), I’ve been working with HP servers for years and am a bit nervous about the switch, are there any documents/sites you’d recommend that would help me in setting everything up? I’m concerned everything will work differently, and want to read up before they arrive.
Let me know,
Jane
This is my response (I emailed Jane first to check she didn’t mind me posting it):
Hi Jane,
Great, IBM HS21 blades are a good model to go for, in terms of switching from HP they’ll be fine.
Don’t worry about the whole switching vendor thing, it really isn’t that big a deal, as with anything new you just need to learn the basics. In summary. the only things to think about are the image you’re going to deploy having the right drivers, checking out IBM Director, and remembering that in the IBM BladeCenter rather than 14 patch cables for each blade’s remote management (ILO), you have one patch into the enclosure and then you select the blade you want to use.
Anyway, I remain a big fan of the IBM Redbooks - they contain (typically) everything you need, http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/sg246495.html?Open, check them out and if you have any problems with them do let me know and I’ll be happy to assist, or we’ll do a post and get an answer for you.
Regards
Martin
If you have any links/comments email me/post a comment!
July 31, 2007 at 10:11 am · Filed under Abn Amro merger
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/805c139c-3ee3-11dc-bfcf-0000779fd2ac.html
ABN Amro on Monday indicated its continued support for a take-over bid by Barclays, even after the Dutch bank formally withdrew its recommendation for the agreed deal.
Rijkman Groenink, chief executive, said it would have “looked a bit silly†for the bank to continue recommending Barclays’ bid, which is currently worth about €34.60 a share – substantially below a €38.10-a-share break-up bid from a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland.
However, he said: “We continue to support the Barclays bid, but we will engage with both parties.â€
The deal is set to continue and ABN Amro still seems to support the Barclays deal.
July 31, 2007 at 9:04 am · Filed under Abn Amro merger
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aOxn.fydI6f0&refer=uk
July 30 (Bloomberg) — ABN Amro Holding NV, the target in the world’s biggest banking takeover battle, withdrew its support for Barclays Plc’s offer because of a higher bid from a group led by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.
While the Barclays offer matches ABN Amro’s “strategic vision,” the board can’t recommend it from “a financial point of view,” the Amsterdam-based company said today. The 72 billion-euro ($98.3 billion) bid from Royal Bank, Fortis and Banco Santander SA is 9.8 percent higher than Barclays’s offer.
..“The Barclays offer is dead,” said Gary Clarke, a fund manager who helps oversee about $260 billion at Schroders Plc in London, including shares of ABN Amro and Barclays. Only an objection by the Dutch regulator or a decision by Royal Bank or Fortis shareholders to reject financing for the deal could revive Barclays’s chances, he said…
Very interesting, I wonder how the deal will progress? Does this mean Barclays will examine their deal? We’ll need to watch what happens..
July 30, 2007 at 10:36 pm · Filed under environment
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028441
July 30, 2007 (Techworld.com) — The Gartner Group has criticized The Green Grid, an environmental consortium, saying it misses the greater opportunity to influence legislation and behavior for broader green issues. Gartner also suggests that member self-interest may prevent the group from delivering tangible standards.
The Green Grid, announced in February, is a nonprofit consortium with over 80 members. It has an 11-person governing committee with members from companies such as American Power Conversion Corp. (APC), Intel Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., IBM and Microsoft Corp. The organization also has four working groups aimed at developing processes and metrics for making data centers more efficient in the way they use energy for power and cooling.
Specifically it is promised to “foster discussion and information sharing between the best minds from the vendor and end-user communities to address critical issues,” and “develop a collective, vendor-neutral knowledge base so as to provide end-users with a trusted resource for vendor-agnostic solutions and information.”
An interesting read, is it not that The Green Grid seems to have been going quiet, keep in mind that standards, best practices, even ideas and comments are needed if we’re going to show energy efficiency is a business enabler, a business benefit not just another thing, if we’re going to do that we need to be more vendor neutral, more platform specific or case study driven? I commend The Green Grid but they need to get more people involved through talking and maybe do more case studies and practical information?
July 30, 2007 at 10:32 pm · Filed under blades
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-24-2007/0004631456&EDATE=
CLOSTER, N.J., July 24 /PRNewswire/ — Ericom Software, a leading provider of Enterprise-Wide Application Access solutions, today announces the availability of its next-generation desktop virtualization solution for IBM BladeCenter, PowerTerm(R) WebConnect DeskView. Ericom’s VDI connection broker, PowerTerm WebConnect DeskView, provides secure access to virtual Windows and Linux desktops running within virtualized environments on IBM BladeCenter. With desktop virtualization, desktops are hosted and managed from a centralized location — reducing the cost and complexity of desktop management. Desktop virtualization empowers users with anywhere, anytime access to their desktops — providing organizations with a cost-effective solution to key business challenges, such as enabling remote access, reducing the cost of managing desktops, ensuring privacy of information, and facilitating business continuity and disaster recovery.
Very cool, desktop virtualization has been a hot topic, anything the vendors can do to improve the platform, to evolve functionality, maintenance or support has to be a good thing, check out the article, it sounds very interesting.
July 30, 2007 at 10:29 pm · Filed under vmware
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2163992,00.asp
VMware, on the eve of its highly anticipated initial public offering, finds itself with a new partner and investor—Cisco Systems.
On July 27, the two companies announced that Cisco will invest $150 million in VMware and receive about 1.6 percent of the virtualization vendor’s common stock. The investment also means that VMware will appoint a Cisco executive to its board of directors after the IPO is formally announced later this year.
The Cisco investment follows a similar move by Intel, which announced on July 9 that it would invest $200 million in the company and also have an representative sit on VMware’s board.
Very interesting and good news for VMWare, hopefully this will further improve virtualization as a platform, a business enabler, which has to be a good thing, do check out the article.
Next entries »
