Bladewatch.com

We had our second bladewatch drinks last night and it was great to meet up with some readers and colleagues that I’d invited along.

I’ll be putting up some videos (featuring myself) hopefully this weekend as well as some content, apologies, we have a lot of posts to publish, but we’ve been quite busy putting together our next series for the blog – ‘welcome to servering’, which is aimed at covering the basics, on boarding new users and adding to our existing community.

The next drinks/meet up will be on the 15th of October (though I’ve just got to confirm this with the venue on Monday).

We’d love you to attend, but we’re going to ask you to email us this time so we can know who’s coming along.  I’ll publish all the details on Monday. 

Everything remains below the radar, we’re not going to publish any secrets or conversations, that’s not the aim of the game. We’re seeking to exchange ideas, create or share opportunities and add value to our community.

Thanks again to those who came along, and apologies for the late notice, this time with the formula a bit more established, with a bit more planning we can make our third meet up brilliant, potato wedges, drinks and good company.

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We’ve got a bladewatch meet up in the city at Henry’s bar in the city, feel free to pop along, it’s just beside London Liverpool Street.

We’ll be doing another one in the middle of October so don’t worry if you miss tonights event. I’ve got my blackberry with me so if you have any problems, email me and I’ll give you a call! martin237@gmail.com

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http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaprograms/thread/34fe5034-c132-4410-9a28-2cd145d99c1c

Open a internet Explorer tab
——click on the tools tab
———click on the programs tab and then click Manage add-ons

Scroll all the way down until you get to the java apps. if any of them are disabled click on it once then click the enable tab then O.K
 
    That should fix your problem it did mine. then go to the java test site you should see the picture in the box now. GoodLuck…

I was having problems in Citrix with a user that couldn’t view a java application using internet explorer despite the fact that java was installed on this server. It seemed to fix the problem, do try it out.

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http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/27612.wss

ARMONK and SYRACUSE, N.Y. – 29 May 2009: IBM (NYSE: IBM), Syracuse University and New York State have entered into a multiyear agreement to build and operate a new computer data center on the University’s campus that will incorporate advanced infrastructure and smarter computing technologies to make it one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world. The data center is expected to use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center today, making it one of the “greenest” computer centers in operation.

Through its “Smarter Planet” initiative, IBM is helping clients take advantage of the fact that the world is becoming more instrumented, intelligent and interconnected. IBM is working with SU and New York State to use smarter technologies in the new data center. For example, the project will focus on the actual infrastructure of the data center itself, not just the computer hardware and software. A key element will be an on-site electrical co-generation system that will use natural gas-fueled microturbine engines to generate all electricity for the center and provide cooling for the computer servers.

The $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center will feature its own electrical tri-generation system and incorporate IBM’s latest energy-efficient computers and computer-cooling technology. SU will manage and analyze the performance of the center, as well as research and develop new data center energy efficiency analysis and modeling tools. IBM will provide more than $5 million in equipment, design services and support, which includes supplying the electrical cogeneration equipment and servers such as IBM BladeCenter, IBM Power 575 and an IBM z10 systems. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is contributing $2 million to the project.

Very cool, I need to read up more about this, it will be interesting to read the range of technologies, processes and best practice used to deploy this green data center.

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http://www.perotsystems.com/MediaRoom/NewsReleases?s=43&item=551

Business Wire

ROUND ROCK, Texas and PLANO, Texas

• Complementary Strengths Enhance Dell’s IT Services Portfolio, Perot Systems’ Global Reach
• Companies Together Represent $8 Billion in Services Revenue
• Acquisition Expected to Be Accretive to GAAP Earnings in Fiscal 2012

ROUND ROCK and PLANO, Texas, Sept. 21, 2009 — Dell and Perot Systems have entered a definitive agreement for Dell to acquire Perot Systems in a transaction valued at approximately $3.9 billion. Terms of the agreement were approved yesterday by the boards of directors of both companies. The acquisition will result in a compelling combination of two iconic information-technology brands.

The expanded Dell will be even better positioned for immediate and long-term growth and efficiency driven by:

• Providing a broader range of IT services and solutions and optimizing how they’re delivered;
• Extending the reach of Perot Systems’ capabilities, including in the most dynamic customer segments, around the world, and,
• Supplying leading Dell computer systems to even more Perot Systems customers.

I wonder if this might open up new markets and opportunities for Dell and Perot Systems alike. This deal should further Dell’s move into professional services to meet customer needs and opportunities, very cool, I’ll need to read up more.

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Cisco

75 countries + Nearly 900 registrants + 110 qualified teams = 10 Amazing finalists!

The final phase of contest closed on August 15^th, 2009. A panel of judges will evaluate the applications developed by the finalists. We will announce the three winners in October 2009.

Stay tuned for updates on the Innovation Blog.

I got an email about this from a colleague, Cisco’s Developer Contest is a great way of driving innovation and discussing/creating new possibilities, there looks like there will be some great entries, do check it out. I’m off to read up about the finalists, and see what new solutions/projects have been developed.

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Finextra

BNP Paribas’ prime brokerage division has sold its hedge fund outsource technology business to vendor Options IT. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As part of the acquisition of the colocation business, a number of BNP Paribas hedge fund clients will have their technology infrastructure provided through Options IT’s Core system. All clients will continue to be BNP Paribas prime brokerage customers and will remain on its platform.

It’s always interesting to read what the different banks are getting up to technically or operationally, an interesting read, do check it out.

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RealWire

..Independent survey shows less than a quarter of IT staff are ITIL® qualified…

Monday 21st September 2009 – According to ILX Group plc (ILX), the blended training services company, just over half of IT departments (51 per cent) believe that having staff qualified in ITIL® would give their organisation or business a competitive edge.  Despite this, less than a quarter of IT staff were found to be trained in ITIL® Version 2 or ITIL® Version 3.

The study, which questioned 100 senior UK IT managers and directors across organisations from a variety of industries, showed the primary reason cited for not having staff trained in ITIL® remained a management level lack of understanding of the benefits. A number of business sectors including manufacturing, retail, distribution and transport identified budget constraints as another significant factor affecting the uptake of ITIL®. Only one per cent of respondents said that it was due to a lack of information in the market.

The study is the second in a series from ILX looking into the uptake of ITIL® in large enterprises. The previous study, which was released in November 2007, found that while the benefits of ITIL® were widely appreciated with 62 per cent of organisations planning to migrate to ITIL® Version 3, only one per cent of respondents had plans in place to migrate in the six months following the survey.

An interesting article talking about ITIL certification, it’s a topic of discussion that I’ve been having with colleagues, should the default standard for that database engineer be not only the middleware, the database they look after but also ITIL certification? At the same time, how many enterprises subscribe to ITIL and do so in the right way for their business? We may say we follow the ITIL standard but when we look at the actual business and operational processes is this the case or are business/operational issues preventing us from doing so? Is it ITIL we need or the bits of ITIL that work for our business, our situation, or is it both combined with effective team management with a focus on delivery?

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HP

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 21, 2009 – HP today introduced a holistic approach to technology integration with solution-focused services that allow customers to strategically manage deployments faster with lower risk and reduced cost.

HP Integration Services offer 10 new modeled solutions to solve the most common industry or technology-based integration challenges. Leveraging the best practices and collective knowledge gained from thousands of customer engagements, these solutions incorporate technology deployment, data migration, relocation, site planning and project management services to successfully deliver the right outcomes.

“Organizations tend to take a tactical approach to integration and deployment projects,” said Ron Silliman, principal analyst, Gartner. “Instead, adopting more strategic, solution-based thinking represents a move forward in providing value to customers in operating their IT eco-systems and optimizing IT resources.”

The new modeled solutions, highly standardized in nature, permit HP to take a best-practice approach while allowing for customer uniqueness. As a result, HP experts deliver faster, cost-effective and lower-risk technology implementations.

“To cope with the growing number of migration, consolidation, virtualization and relocation projects, technology resources are tied up managing integration requirements,” said Ellen Breen, vice president, Datacenter Services, HP. “HP Integration Services is a unique, solution-based offering that allows customers to focus on solving their business problems while HP handles the increasingly complex responsibilities of integration.”

With all the business activities, the mergers and acquisitions of late, I can certainly see the demand for solutions around the consolidation/virtualization and integration space, whether it’s buying in the services, or on-boarding new employees/contractors, it can take time to establish the business and technical/operational issues involved, to be in the place where you can being to not only consolidate an environment, or integrate a new business line whilst managing to continue business and reduce your costs. Interesting, I’m off to read up more.

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EC.Europa.EU

Thanks to this commodity market platform, users can bid on available computing capacity or invite a tender for a specific computing time slot. According to the researchers, the platform developed by GridEcon enables this spot and future market mechanism. The GridEcon partners developed a virtual trading floor for computing resources. The platform allows validation of new market-based services.

GridEcon’s main objective was to improve the functionality of existing grid technology with respect to its capability to allow for the economics-aware operation of grid applications, according to the partners.

The difference between what GridEcon offers and what emerged in the past is that the latter typically offered only their spare capacity. GridEcon’s platform is open, giving users the opportunity to buy and sell computing capacity on their own terms. It also allows buyers to be sellers. A company can offer its spare capacity if it has a large computer park, but it can also bid for increased capacity if it needs it.

‘One of our key goals with the platform was to make it easy to use and set up,’ said GridEcon’s technical director, Prof. Jörn Altmann. ‘So this workflow engine hides the underlying complexity of the system, because we did not want the user to have to deal with that.’

I read this article and found it quite intestering and it reminded me of a discussion with a colleague who works in data and my own thoughts about Rendezvous buying DataSynapse, could we have multicast high availability market access and market data grid solutions on the way? We’ll have to see, do check out the article.

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