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Cisco and the youtube video on the new Cisco rack server

BOSTON – Cisco Partner Summit – June 3, 2009 – Cisco today announced plans to grow, motivate and evolve its global community of data center channel partners and customers to further accelerate the market transition toward virtualized data centers.  Cisco introduced several channel programs designed to help partners gain new revenue opportunities and evolve their businesses toward a unified data center practice.  To meet the growing need for information technology (IT) skills that span the full spectrum of data center technologies, Cisco introduced two new IT career certifications.  Cisco also announced an expansion of the Unified Computing System Family with the new C-Series of Rack-Mount Servers designed to help accelerate the adoption of unified computing and data center virtualization solutions.

Cisco are continuing their work and evolution of their Unified Computing System with announcements of new rack servers which sounds very cool and should bring more choice for the end user community, and further moves towards virtualization of the infrastructure for easier provisioning, management and support, to reduce the time to live. I note they are also set to offer certification in the Unified Computing System, I wonder if we wont see more movements in this area, in terms of production support specialists, with exposure to Unix/VMware/Citrix/Windows and the server? As the infrastructure becomes more blur, more complex and linked in a service offering, I no longer need engineers that only know Citrix, I need engineers that know Citrix as well as the underlying operating system, VMware, and application experience? We’ll see, I’m off to check out more to answer the thoughts below:

On the rack servers/blades a few things that will be of interest to me:

• Operating systems supported
• Hardware specifications and memory support/disk support etc
• Remote sytems management features – like lights out/ILO
• Driver pack information – features and layered applications like the HP IML etc
• Firmware upgrade process – can we do it online and reboot later
• If we change the firmware do we need to upgrade the drivers?

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Eweek

The Apple Xserve rackmount server has been significantly upgraded and is now among the first servers to run the latest generation of quad-core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processors. However, the bundled Apple OS X operating system–while feature-rich–makes the Xserve most appropriate for use in departments where users work on Apple Mac clients.

Organizations that want to take full advantage of Intel’s new 5500 family of Xeon processors–in particular, the extensive virtualization features–should consider using hardware platforms that don’t mate the hardware and operating system.

That said, the Xserve is competitively priced.

The system I tested was configured with two 2.26GHz quad-core Intel Xeon processors, 12GB of RAM, two 1TB SATA 7,200-rpm drives and dual 750W power supplies. The server, which also came with a rack mounting kit, is priced at $5,278 at Apple’s online store.

I remain a fan of the Apple Xserve server and the new Xeon processor should create further opportunities for Apple’s Xserve as a platform and improvements for existing customers with the energy efficiency and performance improvements, do check it out.

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An interesting article talking about IBM having consolidated their servers that power the French Open web site, it’s an interesting read, do check it out:

Bleachereport

“If you’re having trouble following the action from  Roland Garros Stadium, simply visit the official French Open Web site. IBM consolidated 60 servers that once powered to Web site to six Power 550 Express servers using POWER6 processors and PowerVM virtualization technology.

Information generated through technologies such as intelligent sensors on the court that calculate the speed of a players server — coupled with real-time data analytics — gives tennis fans the chance to track matches and their favorites”

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HP have announced new servers running the 6 core AMD processors which brings further choice for the end user community for virtualization or hpc solutions.  The announcement is below:

HP and the quick specs

Since 1996, HP and AMD have been delivering unmatched quality, variety and value in computing technology. This collaboration provides end customers with technology innovation and performance-per-watt competitiveness while helping to drive a balanced computing market. HP currently offers a broad range of desktops, notebooks, servers, and workstations powered by AMD processors. The addition of HP ProLiant G6 Servers powered by AMD Opteronâ„¢ processor technology extends this collaboration with affordable, energy efficient solutions designed to give businesses of all sizes a competitive advantage.

• HP ProLiant BL465c G6 Server Blade
• HP ProLiant BL495c G6 Server Blade
• HP ProLiant BL685c G6 Server Blade
• HP ProLiant DL165 G6 Server
• HP ProLiant DL385 G6 Server
• HP ProLiant DL585 G6 Server
• HP ProLiant DL785 G6 Server
• HP ProLiant ML115 G5 Server

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Check out this review of the Dell PowerEdge R610, it might be great for those small scale virtualization solutions or for HPC projects, I wonder if it might also be an ideal platform to replace your legacy 3u server in terms of performance and storage? It will depend on your requirements, but do check out the review.

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Check out this article talking about the new AMD processor featuring 6 cores, it does look cool and brings impressive performance results and uses the same socket infrastructure allowing systems to be more easily upgraded to the new processor. I’m off to read up more.

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IBM have identified that there is a disconnect between their objectives and delivery in corporate social responsibility and it’s right in many ways. This is as a result of a number of issues, comprising marginal environmental and organizational cost, with delivering shareholder value and meeting the affordability of our products or services to our partners or clients. We need to be implementing Green IT best practice within our IT strategy with our business strategy. We should be looking at the business and operating requirements, and deploying energy and operationally efficient solutions, energy efficient servers with efficient power supplies, appropriate processors coupled with efficient storage and networking. Looking at all the areas of the IT infrastructure to deliver a wholistic approach. Keep in mind if Green IT isn’t mandated it might not be considered as part of your infrastructure deployment, it takes board level demand for we’re going carbon neutral, we’re going virtual infrastructure only etc, we’ll have to see, check out the announcement below, I’m off to download the report:

PR Newswire

ARMONK, N.Y., June 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – IBM’s second annual global corporate social responsibility survey of senior business executives again shows significant gaps between their goals and their ability to attain them.

Nearly all of the 224 respondents said they remain committed to incorporating CSR principles into their business strategies — despite the global recession — to improve business performance, societal contribution and reputation.

But the survey results (www.ibm.com/gbs/csrstudy) identified three specific problems:

• Companies aren’t collecting and analyzing all the right information about CSR or aggregating it often enough. That means they can’t implement real changes that would fundamentally increase efficiency, lower costs, reduce environmental impact and improve reputation with key stakeholders;

• Few are collecting enough CSR data from global supply chain partners — missing a major opportunity to reduce inconsistency, inefficiency, waste and risk that can ripple through a global supply network;

• Most still don’t understand the concerns of their key stakeholders, particularly customers, and are not actively engaging them. That means they’re not capturing valuable insights that could improve their businesses and provide access to new opportunities.

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HP have announced a campaign highlighting energy consumption from users pcs which has to be commended. The more we inform users, illustrate how small changes to usage and configuration can produce real results in terms of energy utilisation and carbon footprint. The concept of switching off the pc overnight rather than sleep can be good for your pc and for the environmental impact of the pc in terms of energy consumption and your energy bill. The article is below:

HP

HP today announced the launch of Power To Change, a campaign that encourages personal computer users around the world to make behavioral changes in support of the environment.

The campaign encourages users to download a new desktop widget that tracks the cumulative energy savings associated with participants turning off idle PCs when not in use.

The Power To Change widget is available for download by individuals and companies across the globe and is compatible with all PC computing platforms. With the widget, computer users worldwide can watch and explore the energy savings the campaign generates through the power of behavioral changes across individual and global users.

“Power To Change is the manifestation of HP’s long-held philosophy that industry leadership is about an ongoing contribution to society,” said John Frey, Americas sustainability executive at HP. “With Power To Change, individuals and organizations can make a small environmental commitment that has the potential for a large impact on addressing sustainability challenges today.”

HP estimates that if 100,000 users shut down their work computers at the end of each day, energy savings could total more than 2,680 kilowatt-hours⁽¹⁾ and carbon emissions reductions could total more than 3,500 pounds per day.⁽²⁾ This is the equivalent of eliminating more than 105 cars from the road each day.

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Emulex announced that their new FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) adaptors have been certified for use with HP Proliant Servers and their StorageWorks products providing further opportunities in combining the network and storage connections using their Converged Network Adaptors.

It’s always great to see further innovation in the Fibre Channel over Ethernet space, anything the vendors can do to reduce the barriers to entry in terms of cost, energy efficiency and support, being able to reduce the time to live, the time it takes to provision servers, storage and networks has to be a good thing.

The press release provides more information, and is below:

OSTA MESA, Calif., June 2, 2009 – Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX) today announced its LightPulse® Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) are now available and certified for HP ProLiant DL100, DL300 and DL500 series servers and HP StorageWorks MSA, EVA and XP arrays running Windows, Hyper-V, VMware and Linux operating systems, and are compatible with both Cisco and Brocade FCoE-based switches. HP’s certification of Emulex LightPulse CNAs provides customers with the ability to begin testing and deploying trusted, interoperable end-to-end converged networking configurations now.

“Today’s IT managers are increasingly tasked with improving operational efficiency, business responsiveness and competitive advantage,” said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. “Emulex and HP are providing integrated network convergence solutions today that enable IT managers to dramatically reduce capital and operational expenditures through increased data center consolidation, virtualization and efficiency.”

The Emulex family of LP21000 FCoE CNAs converge multiple traffic types onto a single 10Gb/s Ethernet link, enabling network infrastructure simplification, increased efficiency and business agility, while extending Emulex’s trusted Fibre Channel interoperability and scalability to existing customers’ infrastructure. By enabling consolidation of server I/O, Emulex CNAs reduce the number of NICs and cables used by as much as 50 percent.

“As technology architectures become more complex, customers need proven data center solutions that consolidate hardware, simplify networking infrastructure and improve the way critical data is managed,” said Bob Wilson, vice president of Storage Platforms, StorageWorks Division, HP. “HP ProLiant and StorageWorks platforms paired with Emulex’s new converged network adapters provide a cost-effective solution for customers faced with growing data and shrinking budgets.”

Emulex LP21000 FCoE CNAs provide:

· Infrastructure Simplification – Reduces networking complexity by consolidating multiple fabric types on to a single 10Gb/s Enhanced Ethernet infrastructure.

· IT Efficiency – Streamlines and eliminates repeated administrative tasks such as server and network provisioning with a “wire once” deployment model using the same software stack and management tools across all generations of LightPulse Fibre Channel HBAs and FCoE CNAs.

· Business Agility – Improves business agility by letting data centers managers dynamically and rapidly respond to requests for new or expanded services, servers and configurations.

· Investment Protection – Leverages existing investments in Fibre Channel equipment, drivers, management tools, fabrics and storage.

· Enterprise Scalability – Centralized, scalable management and installation using features such as reboot-free firmware updates.

· Performance – Provides stateless offload for networking traffic and full-hardware offload for Fibre Channel over Ethernet-based storage traffic, improving overall data center performance.

· VM Level Services – Efficiently provisions virtual adapter resources, providing granular I/O reporting and monitoring, facilitating I/O consolidation and by providing quality of service (QoS), scalability and mobility for individual VMs, applications and service level agreements.

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Silicon have an article talking about when CIOs are deploying Windows 7 in light of it becoming available in the near future. As the article suggests it is not something that CIOs see as key to their strategy or a key project for the next year. I think we’ll see organizations hold off for a number of reasons:

• Windows XP is still good enough for many users – unless your application requires it – and the hardware requirements are relatively light – it runs ok on a mid range Pentium III
• Windows 7 will probably involve a hardware/desktop refresh at the same time adding additional cost – particularly if you’ve upgraded those late Pentium III or Pentium IV pcs which run XP but would not be suitable for Windows 7.
• Applications and layered components will need re-tested on the new operating system – a possible issue for any legacy applications or those with specific .NET, database or layered components
• Organizations could be (or are already) looking at desktop virtualization – could we not combine the two? Virtualize on to Windows 7 rolling out new thin clients running the new operating system?
• If it is deployed in the enterprise it will tend to be phased in for specific user groups, ‘the standard user’ and only rolled out once application packaging and sign off has been obtained, enteprise clients normally start looking at a desktop or server operating system when the first service pack has been released.

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