Archive for December, 2007
December 31, 2007 at 1:08 pm · Filed under Apple type things, Grid, Other things, blades, virtualization
The new year is approaching (or is here dependent on your location), so what does the new year offer in the blade/grid/virtualization space? I’ve put together a few ideas and if you have any comments, do get in touch.
- Apple - are we in store for any new products? I keep reading about a more portable laptop? What about .mac.com are we going to integrate this more closely with the Apple products? Is there a new iPhone on the way? We’ll have to wait and see.
- Blade servers - will we find blade server sales continuing to increase? Will we get more blades with solid state drives? Will the blade desktop take off on the trading floors?
- Datacenter - are we going to find more people going down the greeen data center route? Will DC power or fresh air cooling become standard? Are more people going to run their data centers at higher temperatures to save on cooling?
- Grid - are more companies going to start using grid technologies? We’ll need to see what new services come online or products are developed to aid the end user in working out if their applications are ‘best suited’ for grid.
- Virtualization - is 2008 the year in which we virtualize and consolidate the desktop to thin client? Are we going to witness this kind of solution for the small/medium business or even the end user? Will I be using a company device with all my data online?
- Vista/Longhorn - will the new hotfixes and service pack that I’ve read about bring new life into Vista? Will moving to Vista?Longhorn going to be bundled in with desktop virtualization projects in 2008?
We’ll have to see what the next year brings us, regardless the coverage continues, and may you have a successful and happy new year.
December 31, 2007 at 12:41 pm · Filed under Other things
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/31/royaldutchshell.bp
Royal Dutch Shell plans to outsource thousands of IT jobs in a drive to slash costs and simplify its structure, following in the footsteps of its arch-rival BP.
Shell’s information technology division will bear the brunt of the changes with 3,200 staff thought likely to be affected by a decision to turn operations over to three outside companies.
Shell’s chief financial officer, Peter Voser, has reportedly told staff that he wants “a leaner and meaner” finance division. The company said yesterday that it was seeking to move selected finance operations to shared (Shell-owned) service centres.
Shell has decided to outsource a “substantial” part of its IT infrastructure services, according to an email written by Goh Swee Chen, vice-president of IT infrastructure. The companies chosen from a list of six suppliers are named as EDS, T-Systems and AT&T.
This article is talking about Royal Dutch Shell considering a move towards outsourcing the IT. Outsourcing components of your business can be very successful, and a great way of reducing/changing your costs base.
The decisions will need to be made about what is IT service and what is IT infrastructure or investment? Who owns the server build? Who determines what services are offered and how they are charged back? Does this mean more companies are seeking to avoid the capex (the capital cost) and now the opex (the operational costs)?
December 29, 2007 at 8:31 pm · Filed under datacenter, environment
http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=15525&SectionID=2
The manufacturing industry has encountered a call to action to improve its green efforts on not only the shop floor, but also its IT infrastructure. Today, many data centers act as energy gluttons, wasting costly — and limited — energy resources. Would you leave your car running in the garage overnight, eating up gallons of gas and electricity? Of course not, so why are organizations still wasting multitudes of energy resources to run the data center?
Modern servers, in order to handle the magnitude of today’s data and processing needs, have grown larger, increasing the cost to power, cool and maintain them. IDC estimates the total power and cooling bill for servers in the U.S. costs a whopping $14 billion a year, and if the current trends persist, the bill is going to rise to $50 billion by the end of the decade. It’s clear the data center is a major consumer of power, not to mention a major contributor to any company’s energy bill.
Check out this interesting article which is talking about the green data center, it raises some interesting points and was a good read. We’ll need to see what new products and services will be coming online in 2008 to evolve the data center both in terms of energy efficiency, cooling and virtualization.
December 29, 2007 at 8:29 pm · Filed under Grid, Platform
http://www.gridtoday.com/grid/1962899.html
TORONTO, Dec. 18 — Platform Computing announced a partnership agreement with FedStage Systems for the distribution of FedStage’s Distributed Resource Management Application API (DRMAA) for Platform LSF. The FedStage DRMAA library for LSF is an open source implementation of the Open Grid Forum’s DRMAA 1.0 specification. Under the terms of the agreement, FedStage Systems will make the DRMAA library for LSF available under the Apache 2.0 open source license. Platform Computing will have the right to distribute and provide support for this library as part of the LSF family of products. With the integration of the DRMAA specification into LSF, customers and developers will be able to take full advantage of a standardized interface, making it quicker and easier for them to access and write applications for grid environments, at a lower cost and with reduced integration times.
Very cool, anything Platform can do to evolve their grid offering has to be a good thing for the users and the industry, I’ll need to read up more to see what benefits this will bring.
December 29, 2007 at 8:27 pm · Filed under virtualization, vmware
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/top/?p=244
Virtualization is a broad term that refers to the use of fewer pieces of hardware to run more operating systems and applications. In practical terms, it is the hosting of more than one OS on a single physical machine. That description alone suggests the different, albeit related, reasons that CIOs and CFOs like virtualization.
There is a fly in the ointment of money savings and increased productivity, however. These environments are extremely vulnerable because security approaches haven’t caught up. This NewsFactor story looks at four of the top security concerns surrounding server virtualization. The first is the possibility that the system which oversees all the virtual machines — the hypervisor — could be hacked in such a way that it infects everything under its control.
Check out this article talking about virtualization in the enterprise, it’s an interesting read. Many companies have already started looking at virtualization or have implemented it as a way of consolidating or improving the way they provide there infrastructure. Does this leave the infrastructure at risk? As with anything your infrastructure is only as secure as you configure and maintain it. Applying the security hotfixes and service packs to the virtual machines as well as the applications running on them, is just as important as securing and patching the hypervisor, the ESX server, a good article, do check it out.
December 29, 2007 at 8:24 pm · Filed under datacenter, environment
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/5054/cisco-hires-environmental-guru-071219/
Cisco has hired one of the founders of the ‘Green Grid’, Paul Marcoux, to be its new environmental guru.
The Green Grid, is an industry consortium - of which Cisco is a contributing member - dedicated to improving data center power efficiency through the use of agreed metrics. Marcoux was APC’s director of education and training.
The Green data center continues to be a topic of debate and interest, whether you’re talking about it or actively implementing ways of being more energy or cooling efficient with your data center will depend on your business. Implementing such actions as DC power, the lights out data center or reducing KVMs are examples in which you can reduce the operational cost of your data center which has to be a good thing. We need to deliver service absolutely, but if we can spend a little to gain real financial return on investment it can be good operationally and financially.
December 29, 2007 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Apple type things, Other things
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/12/18/first_builds_of_apples_mac_os_x_10_5_2_leopard_update_due_shortly.html
People familiar with the matter say developers could receive an initial test build as early as this week. Mac OS X 10.5.2 will serve as the second maintenance and security update to Leopard since the software went on sale in late October.
Thus far, details of what to expect from the 10.5.2 update are unknown, though rumors published last month by MacBidouille suggested the software was being positioned for a release alongside new hardware at next month’s Macworld Expo.
Very cool, I wonder what fixes/enhancements will be included in this release, we’ll have to wait and see.
December 29, 2007 at 8:18 pm · Filed under datacenter, environment
http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9835281-54.html?tag=newsmap
Thomas Edison had it right, say the founders of start-up Validus DC Systems. Direct current is the way.
Validus on Tuesday announced that it has raised $10 million from Oak Hill Venture Partners to further develop its data center power supplies that use direct current (DC) to lower power consumption. Products are expected to be released in late January next year.
By using direct current, rather than drawing electricity from outlets that supply alternating current, data center managers can reduce their energy consumption by up to 40 percent, according to the company.
There is a growing awareness of the cost and waste associated with electricity in data centers. Companies are also struggling to get enough electricity to power their gear.
I keep reading about companies offering new solutions for DC in the data center, and people thinking about DC in the data center. It can bring real benefits in terms of reducing your energy consumption in the data center. It will be interesting to see if this becomes more mainstream.
December 29, 2007 at 8:14 pm · Filed under Other things, virtualization
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071217006145&newsLang=en
SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–3Leaf Systemsâ„¢ (www.3leafsystems.com), a provider of next-generation virtualization solutions for enterprise data centers, today announced that it has established Research and Development (R&D) operations in China. This expansion will facilitate the delivery of 3Leaf’s solutions to meet the growing market demand of enterprise-class virtualization deployments.
“3Leaf’s global expansion in China highlights our commitment to deliver best-of-breed virtualization solutions to meet our customers’ next generation data center requirements,†said B.V. Jagadeesh, CEO, 3Leaf Systems. “Virtualization is one of the fastest growing markets worldwide due to the over-provisioning and strain of data center resources. Our new engineering and development facilities overseas are a testament to the performance and value proposition our products deliver to customers.â€
“We applaud 3Leaf in their continuous market growth and ability to attract world class talent,†said Alex Mendez, general partner, Storm Ventures. “3Leaf’s global expansion signifies the company’s leadership position in the market. This expansion will provide 3Leaf with additional resources and talent to meet the growing demand for the company’s server virtualization solutions which efficiently address the unique business and technical requirements of today’s data center applications.â€
Great news for 3Leaf, anything which allows it to evolve its products has to be a good thing for the market, and allows them to continue to meet their customers’ expectations. Very cool.
December 29, 2007 at 8:10 pm · Filed under Other things, blades
http://cossacks.org.uk/computers/smaller-businesses-embrace-blade-servers-3/
The blade server wars are heating up, and this time the battlefield is the small and mid-sized businesses, whose specific needs and volume potential have led market leaders Hewlett-Packard and IBM to tailor specific new platforms to meet their requirements.
IBM since June has been touting its BladeCenter S platform, which has a Dec. 18 roll-out scheduled and is targeted specifically at SMBs. Hewlett-Packard last month introduced a new blade server chassis dubbed «www.informationweek.com» that the company claims will provide mid-size companies with an “easy-to-configure data center in box.â€
The efforts to provide mid-size businesses with tailored blade platforms represent something of a “catch-up†effort for IBM and HP, which both were caught by surprised at the high level of server blades into data centers of medium-sized businesses, said Gordon Haff, an analyst with Illuminata, in an interview.
Check out this commentary on blade servers for the small/medium businesses, it was an interesting read. I wonder how small/medium businesses will react to these new servers, what benefits they see with this new platform. Evolving the platform to the small/medium sector has to be a good thing for the market as a whole, I wonder if the small/medium business blade servers wouldn’t be great for those proof of concept or development grids? Where you’re wanting to test if the application is suited to grid or needs anything special when working with DataSynpase or Platform?
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