Bladewatch.com

http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=19879

Societe Generale has launched a green IT programme designed to cut the bank’s CO2 emissions through the introduction of new technology.

As part of the programme, the bank has published an in-house procedure guide covering the life cycle of office equipment, explaining the conditions for processing its Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) concerning PCs, servers and phones.

The bank has already signed a WEEE collection and reconditioning contract with various organisations coordinated by ACVO and says it plans to encourage overseas subsidiaries to follow the approach.

In addition, a “Smart Building” study is set to be launched to look into integrating a tool that automatically reports on the bank’s buildings’ fluid and energy consumption.

Very cool, it’s always great to see what actions companies are taking within the green space. It’s interesting to note their conditions/policy for decommissioning pcs/servers and phones, and I wonder if this will have any impact on the data centers and the way they are managed.

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Before I begin, this is an industry wide issue which relates to support and procurement and affects all the major vendors I research, talk with and dream of doing business with. At this point bladewatch uses wordpress templates and I’m sure it could be improved.

I wish these comments to be taken as they are with no ulterior motive or to be taken as an emotional outburst.  I simply mean to make it easier for end users to get the information they need, to make it fewer mouse clicks, to avoid ‘information overload’. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get lost within the same site, when you’re just trying to know the difference between one blade to another from the same vendor.

How many processors does blade1 have when compared to blade2. You’d be surprised how many texts/emails I’ll get from colleagues (who know I know specifications too much), who’ll say, DL380 G1 what’s the maximum memory, because going through the site might ‘take forever’. I always end up telling them to google “server type and specifications”, “DL380 quick specs”

Just a virtual directory or re-director would be brilliant please.

Again, I remain a fan of the three companies mentioned below and I don’t wish anything to be taken out of context, it’s a hardware/software issue which affects many of the vendors.

For this test I have done no prior research, I have not used any business cards or fancy secret url’s to access the information I need.

I am happy to be corrected if I have made errors and indeed apologise if this is the case:

• If I want information on a HP server, I know to go to http://www.hp.com/go/proliant, I then  click the type of proliant I wish to view, whether it’s a DL, ML or BL (Blade System), I then get presented with sub options, your DL, is it a 300 series you want? a 100? Or I just type DL380 G5 in google for this url.
• It’s similar for Dell: I get asked to select office, then the business type (small/enterprise), then servers, then rack servers, or google 1950 and get this url.
• For IBM I need to go: IBM then products, then servers, System X, then I get a list of options, I select rack servers, or I do google ibm x3350 and get this url.

What I need are two paths: (what I call, business/management and technical/support)

1. Server information – specifications, pricing, standard features and upgrades – what you need to know
2. Welcome to servering – what a server is, what I need to get going, what SAS means or if it’s SATA I need, energy efficient computing, design, why my server is better than others, that kind of thing.
   1. Keep in mind your core audience, what information it is that they seek
   2. Keep the information clear and concise and then allow the user to click for more information.

There we go, hopefully my most polite and supportive comments to be made, and hopefully no one will take exception to said comments.

If I have upset anyone, or there are quicker ways/better url’s to use do get in touch and I hereby pledge to do just one post about the quick url as compensation.

With all of this in mind, can I in essence have a blog or mini site for each server?

www.hp.com/dl360? Or www.Dell.com/PE1950?

Maybe even have support updates, some running commentary from guys in the field…. “We’ve had problems if the firmware isn’t this… the reason for upgrading your DL360G4 to a G6 is…” It could be invaluable for communicating your business justification and in reducing your support costs. I’ve got to install Windows 2003 on a Dell PowerEdge 1950, what drivers do I need to get the server to boot, to get Windows installed and for it to be on the network? What core drivers are recommended?

How cool would that be? I remember when I was first starting out, I did a Windows NT service pack upgrade on a Compaq Proliant 2500R, the server blue screened. We rebuilt the server and restored. How nice would it have been if there had been a post, telling me the fix, that all I had to do was upgrade the array controller firmware?

Yes we have google, yes we have customer specific customer options/prices, maybe even a very nice sales/customer account manager called Nigel, but I’m talking for the generic off the street I want one of these servery things what does it come with…

For example:

Welcome to the DL360 G6: (www.hp.com/dl360)

• Specifications -it’s got so many processors…. and this much RAM
• Benefits – better array controllers, it’s great for….
• What you need to know – energy improvements over the old model, performance/reliability improvements
• Drivers/firmware – support blog – you need this firmware pack as of November

You get the idea – I could be accussed of being a geek but nonetheless.

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Got involved in a procedural conversation with Fraser. Fraser is “mini me”, rather my little brother, who regularly reminds/corrects me about ITIL, the change process and everything else. He was discussing an issue he had experienced at work a few months ago.

A change was made the san storage, nothing serious, nothing that could be described as outside of ‘business as usual’. At the same time, users found that their shared departmental drives using that storage had a performance degradation, an investigation ensued and a debate then got raised regarding “MR SAN” who was working on the san storage.  Questions like:

• What work was done on the san storage
• Who approved that work
• What impact analysis was done
• What can be done to prevent this
• Was the change done to the san storage linked to the performance degradation.

The problem “MR SAN” had was that there was nothing to indicate why there was a performance degradation, therefore it was assumed that the configuration work on the SAN was the cause.  Discussions about the change process, about how we minimize this activity were had, what changes to the approval, the change mechanism and what best practices needed to be implemented.

As we move to virtualization, to common infrastructure, common platforms cross business lines and per business lines, we need to evolve the processes accordingly.  Can we agree what is a change on a virtual platform and what isn’t?  At the same time if we are to raise a change for every ‘transaction’ made on the infrastructure does that not de-value the change process? How would that fit within business as usual activity and extra-ordinary or planned work?

On the wintel side within the virtualization world, surely:

• Starting a service is a change to the current configuration and operating environment
• A reboot of a server that isn’t in use is a change to it’s operating environment – but if it’s not in use is it production?
• Clearing down disk space, or migrating a virtual machine from one host to another is a ‘change’ to configuration.
• Re-allocating a server to another business unit for billing, is that not a change?

1. We need the procedures for managing the platforms to evolve with the evolution of that platform.
2. We need to manage the ‘value’ of ‘change’ and accept what is a business as usual activity as they come on stream – as I get a san solution, we need to agree, what’s change and what’s business as usual.
   1. For example allocating new disk space is business as usual.
   2. Changing the performance settings is a change?
   3. Could we not discuss this in generic industry wide terms?

It’s difficult and it’s not going to be fixed overnight, we need to manage my ability to deliver – ‘Ken demands his server be rebooted at 3am’, and the audit/reporting process – do I really call a change analyst at 3am to discuss the impact and seek approval?

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I was having an interesting chat with one of my CIO friends, he’s kicked off a virtual desktop project coupled with a few changes in IT policy, to transform his support costs and end user delivery. I was asking him about why he’s looking at a virtual desktop platform despite his comments “I’m getting rinsed on licenses…. But operationally it’s just easier and allows me to tidy up all the legacy issues… Switching to a combined virtual and physical desktop platform should pay for itself in a year or so.”

I wanted to rapidly improve delivery, reduce my operating costs and my desktop sprawl. When looking with the management team at our IT spend, our incidents logged, too much money/time was being spent on end user commodity issues:

• My pc is slow
• I need more disk space or memory on my pc
• I need my pc rebuilt – it’s slow or doesn’t work
• George is starting tomorrow, can we have a new pc, we forgot to tell you
• I need a loan pc for a work experience/intern/training, but there’s no budget, can IT loan me a pc for a month? – but this isn’t logged effectively or billed accordingly

When we looked there were some key issues:

• Desktops were all different platforms, ranging from ‘trader workstations, to different types of
• Compaq/Dell pcs, we had pcs switched off around the office, some of which were used for management, some covered by support contracts, others no, some with owners, some without.
• All the issues surrounding legacy desktops, hardware, application failures, operating system issues, as well as pcs not meeting application system requirments.
• Inflexible existing platform, it was taking too long to deploy a pc from the point of the request to it being on the users’ desk
• Numerous applications which were not packaged for easy delivery to the client
• Business specific desktop build requirements – each business unit had specific customizations – this was a semi manual process.
• Laptops could go months without getting their anti virus or Microsoft patches applied
• Too many users had more than one pc, they might have a laptop and a pc when it wasn’t necessary
• The process we put in place was agreed with the business teams to transform delivery.

It comprised some new technical solutions (virtual pc, packaging applications etc) as well as some new pre-defined and agreed support procedures and processes:

• Unified corporate desktop image with a separate customization job for each business unit simplifying build process
• A new legacy corporate desktop build – streamlined to support legacy desktops/laptops until they are rebuilt – this build only available for ‘legacy laptops/desktops’ and has no upgrade path, minimal drivers to get the system working and no support for new layered components, dot net/mdac etc.
• Unified management desktop image which is locked down with common utilities packaged and installed
• User has a choice between either laptop/virtual pc – legacy not supported and replaced automatically upon failure/ or if a call is logged and issue cannot be fixed in three hours or via a ‘simple legacy rebuild’.
• One support matrix with pre-defined supported models and lifecycle. Laptops are to be replaced every two years.
• Improved energy efficiency, the thin clients use less power and we’ve implemented energy efficient procedures to power down the desktop
• Less incidents and more flexibility with the virtual machines – we can clone machines on demand, if a user is having an existing issue, we can simply give them a pre-provisioned image to rule out the client pc.
• Improved help desk call handling and reporting by changing the call CTI’s (category/type/item) with pre-defined workflows and tasks.
• Abstracted the user from the pc using active directory and more effective configuration, the user only gets the application their groups give them permission to, user data is automatically routed to shared departmental and user drives.
• On demand virtual pcs for temporary users can be created and allocated using an online request system – which obtains approval from their line manager and updates our inventory tool
• Desktop support procedures created to accommodate user requirements for memory/configuration for the new configuration
• Reduced hardware support costs with our service provider, they now only support whatever is covered by warranty – everything else with a hardware failure gets replaced or fixed internally – no more purchase requests for 10GB hard drive for a Pentium III desktop.
• New process for desktop ownership, all desktops must have an owner, this can be ‘finance’ or Mike from Accounts, but there must be a designated owner. If there isn’t it’s billed to IT and IT therefore can decommission or recycle it as appropriate.
• A desktop database owned by the asset team which logs when a pc is bought, it’s model type and ownership/billing information – for reporting, billing and support. Track the lifecycle of the pc for asset/security as well as support. We can then for example state all Dell Optiplex GX240 are out of support, and email their owners accordingly requesting they be replaced with a virtual pc or laptop as appropriate.
• Users with laptops do not get a virtual desktop unless there is business justification – this means majority are used on a daily business on site, and therefore get their security patches applied, anti virus updated and avoids the laptop maintenance/support overhead.

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Stock Traders Daily

Stock Traders Daily (La Jolla, CA) The computer-server market is shaping up to be the next hotly contested battleground for blue-chip technology companies.

The loudest shot fired in recent weeks was the announcement by Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) that it is going to start building its own servers. This strategic decision is a break from the company’s past of focusing on making switches and routers. The move is also likely to ruffle some feathers as Cisco’s blade server will now be putting the company on a collision course with its long-time partner in this space, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ).

There’s been a lot in the different publications in the IT sector and the markets about competition in the industry, in a ‘crowded market place’. Let’s remember that there remains plenty of business, new engaging markets, selling servers as a stand alone business remains tough on a value/revenue proposition, but we see more and more the vendors improving their portfolio of services/products to the end user community and long may this continue.

With competition comes innovation in the market place, improve customer service and price competitiveness, with that arrive vendors targeted at specific markets or sectors, what’s changing is a mixture of things. The real dollar price of servers is falling, we’re moving to the virtual world where the significance of the ‘tin’ as my CIO friend calls it is dwindling but there remains a few issues:

• Brand loyalty/investment – I’ve been an IBM house for years, the perceived ‘conversion’ cost might seem higher than the amount of money saved by switching vendors.
• Purchase cycles tend to change every few years within different sectors as customers seek to ensure they achieve recognition and competitive deals. I might by one vendor for three years, then switch to another for a few years.
• The SME market is coming on stream, it needs and is more willing to buy servers, to invest in the infrastructure creating great opportunities for hardware and software vendors.
• As the cost of the server falls, do I not consider buying more hardware more regularly? Does that not increase my overall technology spend long term?
• Vendors are adopting improved management and virtualization offerings to distinguish their systems from others bringing innovation of the server platform and more choice to the end user.
• I wonder if we wont find this being the new age of vendor end user interaction, by that I mean the helpful vendors, the ones that go the extra mile might be the ones that gain more loyalty more revenue.
• Remember it’s cheaper to keep a customer than sign up a newer one and reducing your support costs might simply mean communicating with your customers more directly in a more structured and informal way.

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Business Wire

DUBLIN, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sybase, Inc. (NYSE:SY), the largest enterprise software and services company exclusively focused on managing and mobilizing information, today announced that Sybase® IQ 15, combined with Sun Microsystems’ Sun Fireâ„¢ X4540 storage server and running the Solarisâ„¢ 10 Operating System (OS), recorded the best price/performance result in the TPC-H benchmark at 3000 GB scale factor for all non-clustered systems1. This benchmark simulates decision support systems that analyze large volumes of data, executes queries with a high degree of complexity, and gives answers to critical business questions. The outcome of this testing further illustrates the effectiveness of Sybase IQ 15 in helping to optimize IT asset utilization and significantly reduce ownership costs.

“Today, enterprises are more than ever searching for ways to give their business decision makers ad-hoc, real-time analytics on large volumes of data while adhering to constrained IT budgets,” said Dan Lahl, director of marketing, Sybase IQ. “This benchmark is proof-positive that the compatibility of these two leading technologies creates an analytics solution which provides the fastest and most affordable method for users to acquire critical business answers from large-scale databases.” 

As with anything, the performance you achieve with the application/platform is dependent on the hardware configuration, the drivers used and operating system configuration/patches as well as the application code and network. Regardless, it’s always interesting to hear what can be achieved and well done to Sun/Sybase for their performance results.

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AECCafe

PALO ALTO, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—March 30, 2009—  HP (NYSE: HPQ) today unveiled the HP Z Workstation series – a reinvention of the product category from the core outward that offers customers unprecedented performance, value and serviceability in a sleek new design.

The HP Z800, HP Z600 and HP Z400 Workstations are the culmination of more than 20 HP design innovations – including a self-checking power supply – and take advantage of the new Intel® Xeon® processor.

HP’s engineering investment in the Z line already is paying off for customers such as Schlumberger, which reports it is realizing step-change performance improvements ranging from 300 to 500 percent on its flagship engineering applications.

“The new Z line marks the first HP workstations to be totally serviceable with your fingers – from the power supply to the motherboard,” said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Workstations, HP. “Early studies show that an HP Z Workstation may pay for itself in a surprisingly short period with its performance and productivity gains.” 

I’ve played and supported HP workstations for years from the AP400, AP550, XW6000 etc and have been a fan ever since, they’ve always been generally very hard working machines, so it was interesting to read an article about their new workstations and check out the details on the HP site here.  Anything HP can do to improve the servicing of the systems, reduce reliance on screwdrivers has to be a good thing for those with large deployments, I’ll need to read up more, having a brief look, the Z600 please, nice and small and hopefully quiet?

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Fox Business

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & YOKNEAM, Israel, Mar 30, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) —-Mellanox(R: 30.4, -0.99, -3.15%) Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ: MLNX: 8.59, -0.01, -0.12%) (TASE: MLNX: 8.59, -0.01, -0.12%), a leading supplier of end-to-end connectivity solutions for data center servers and storage, today announced that its leading 40Gb/s InfiniBand ConnectX(R: 30.4, -0.99, -3.15%) adapter and InfiniScale(R: 30.4, -0.99, -3.15%) IV-based blade switch have been integrated across the new line of HP ProLiant G6 server blades for the HP BladeSystem c-Class platform. The new HP ProLiant G6 server blades incorporate Intel’s recently announced Xeon(R: 30.4, -0.99, -3.15%) Processor 5500 Series (formerly codenamed “Nehalem”), fueling the need for InfiniBand’s industry-leading CPU utilization and bandwidth capabilities. According to Gartner*, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR: undefined, undefined, undefined%) for blade server shipments from 2008 through 2013 is forecasted to be 20.8% and to reach more than 2.5 million units in 2013, representing the fastest-growing server form factor over the next five years. 

Anything we can do to innovate the platform has to be a good thing, I’ll need to read up more about their new adapter for the rack and blade server platforms. Improvements in energy efficiency, performance and connectivity need to continue as we scale up the infrastructure, move towards shared centralized platforms, interesting, do check it out.

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Rackable.com

FREMONT, CA and SUNNYVALE, CA., April 1, 2009 – Rackable Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:RACK), a leading provider of servers and storage products for medium to large-scale data centers, today announced its agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) (NASDAQ: SGIC) for approximately $25 million in cash, subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, plus the assumption of certain liabilities associated with the acquired assets.

The combined businesses will provide customers with market leading hardware and software technology within large-scale x86 cluster computing, HPC, Internet, Cloud Computing, large-scale data storage environments and visualization platforms across many verticals and geographies. This combination is also expected to result in a stronger global services organization; reaching commercial, government and scientific sectors on a worldwide basis.

“The combined company will be positioned to solve the most demanding business and technology challenges our customers confront today,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, president and CEO of Rackable Systems. “In addition, this combination gives us the potential for significant operational synergies, a strong balance sheet, and positions the combined company for long-term growth and profitability.”

This is great news for Rackable and SGI, hopefully this will bring new opportunities and markets for Rackable Systems and more choice/innovation for the end user community. It will be interesting to see how this new deal goes forward and as with any acquisition, I wish them all the very best for the future, there’s more coverage here.

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Mercury News

The arrival of the speedy Intel Pentium Pro server chip in 1995 set the stage for the explosion in Internet usage. Intel said Monday that its new Xeon 5500 server chip will help build data centers ready for the next generation of the Internet.

Intel’s Patrick Gelsinger described the Xeon 5500 as “the greatest leap in performance in the history of data processing.”

Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s digital enterprise group, said the Xeon 5500 is faster, more energy efficient and more flexible than its predecessor. He predicted it will propel advances in cloud computing and virtualization that will be the key to data-center growth and efficiency.

Gelsinger described the new chips as “an engineering marvel,” comparing them to an aircraft that’s as fast as an F-16 with the cargo capacity of a jumbo jet and the fuel efficiency of a glider. The new chips are about twice as fast as the previous Xeon 5400 chips.

I’ve been doing some research on the new Intel Xeon processors, looking at the new servers that have been released on these processors from Dell/HP/IBM etc and found this article, it discusses the processor, do check it out.

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