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Retriever Credit Card Services

Jackson, Miss – Mississippi’s Retriever Credit Card Services is the first payment processor in the nation to assist, validate and honor merchants for PCI Compliance.  This week, Sept. 17, they will recognize Ridgeland’s Soul Shine Pizza and next week, Sept. 25, Jackson’s Pop Fizz Kids.  Both events will be held on site and are open to the public as Retriever presents them with a Certificate of PCI-DSS Compliance.

In this time of identity theft and noncompliance, it is critical for consumers to know where they conduct business is a safe and secure place.  It is also important for business to understand the steps they must take on a daily basis to stay compliant.

Compliance is becoming the next big thing, whether it’s compliance in terms of operational standards, legislation or best practice, anything the vendors and service providers can do to illustrate to the end user community that they have met specific standards has to be a good thing. How we continually evolve those standards, those good ideas will depend on your business, your community, that we all co-operate and continue the discussion and innovation is the first step, from there we can keep moving forward.

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Aster Data

San Carlos, Calif. – September 15, 2009 – Aster Data, a proven leader dedicated to providing the best data analytics and management platform for ‘Big Data’ applications, today announced that database and analytics software industry veteran, Dave Kellogg, has joined its Board of Directors.

Kellogg is CEO of unstructured information infrastructure provider, Mark Logic Corporation, recently named the fourth fastest growing IT company in Silicon Valley. Prior to Mark Logic, Kellogg ran marketing at business intelligence vendor Business Objects during the period it grew from $30M to over $850M in annual revenues. Previously, Kellogg was VP of marketing at object DBMS provider, Versant Corp., and worked in both technical and marketing positions at Ingres Corp., one of original three providers of relational database management systems.

I got emailed this today, I confess I hadn’t heard of Aster Data, they operate in the high performance compute space, it’s always great to read about or be introduced to new organizations in the high performance computing space (it’s an area of interest of mine) , I’ve copied their statement of what it is they do, and in the meantime, I’m off to their web site to read up more, and congratulate Dave Kellogg on his new role.

“Aster Data Systems is a proven leader in high-performance analytic database systems for data warehousing – the first DBMS to tightly integrate SQL with MapReduce – providing deep insights on data analyzed on clusters of low-cost commodity hardware.”

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Before I officially welcome Ewan to bladewatch as a new writer covering gadgets, I thought I just better take the opportunity to re-affirm my commitment to bladewatch going forward. Since 2006 the editorial team and I have been helping me cover developments in virtualization, blades, servers amongst other things. That is set to continue, it’s a passion of mine, and although we go off the radar every now and again, the content, the drive towards our goal remains the same.

It was Ewan that helped me set up bladewatch, it was his skills in the blogging world, in web servers, feeds and everything else that created the blog you read, so it was only natural that we brought him in to help with content. Previously I’ve written a few posts talking about how I wanted to get a MacBook Air, but couldn’t decide, or how I got my G4 PowerBook working with my Nokia E61 to get online, and they’ve proved popular looking at our stats, so going forward though, Ewan will be working on this content more regularly, and I hope our readers will welcome him as much as I do.

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We had our first bladewatch meet-up  last Thursday and it went very well.

Basically I hired out a bar, put my card behind the bar and invited all those that have helped us out previously with interviews or content including some CIOs, server managers and engineers. It was great to meet up and discuss what’s going on in the industry, what different people are thinking about or working on.

In the next few weeks, I’m arranging another meet-up at a bar in the city of London, I would like to open the invite up to my readers, and if any vendors/PR people want to attend, they’re more than welcome to. The idea is it’s just an opportunity to meet people and exchange ideas, there’s no hard sell, no specific theme for the evening and there’s no technical nonsense/requirement or judgment, so do come along, we’ll make sure it’s not too technical and that there is good conversation. I’ll be walking around so if you want to talk, just introduce yourself.

I’ll post when the meet-up will be in the next day or so!

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Hi there I’m Ewan.  The Blade Watch Editor, Martin, invited me to write a regular column (and, perhaps, post a few videos) about some of the rather neat gadgets I’ve been playing with recently.  Whilst I can’t claim to strip a Blade server of it’s parts in 10 seconds flat, I have, as part of my work at Mobile Industry Review, got a ton of interesting gadgets on my desk that I hope might be of interest to Blade Watch readers.  Let’s face it, if you’re reading this site, the chances are you’ve got the top of the range iPod/iPhone/Nokia/Laptop and that you don’t leave the house without your £500 SHURE headphones.  Right?  

I’ll be starting publishing — but meantime, if you’d got a gadget in mind that you think we should try and review here on Blade Watch, let Martin know — just post a comment below — and we’ll contact their PR and see if we can arrange a trial.

In the same vein, if you’re a PR and you’ve got some gadgets we should be checking out, just let us know.

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I was reading up about the new Dell servers that have been launched with the Small businesses in mind, and I fully support the concept from Dell and their competitors. I’ve summarized the announcements below per product with the Dell comment from their release about each product:

I didn’t ask colleagues what they thought of them, I remember the response when I asked them about I think it was a HP Proliant DL120 G5 some time ago and it’s then that you realise the ‘different worlds’ people live in.

 The questions I got asked about HP’s entry level server:

• What lights out capability does it have?
• What CPUs does it have and how many cores?
• What array controller does it use, and the storage support, obviously it has SAS right?
• How many memory slots does it have and what speed is the memory?
• How many PCI slots does it have?
• Does it support redundant power supplies?

They’re all relevant questions, they really are, but they’re not if you see what I mean?

The questions are completely wrong for that server and that target market, they’re not at the right level and the kind of questions that will be asked, and I’ll explain why they’re wrong.

My colleagues live in an industrial strength always available world with standards where a design team have built the Windows architecture, where there is a team dedicated to testing and validating configurations for servers, where an entry level server might typically not be entertained, because it’s “not fast enough, not enough pci slots for SAN, or memory support”. But that’s fine, in their world, they’re concerned with redundancy, with performance and remote systems management, buying a server at the low end of the market other than the odd one of for a specific need would not occur to them, in any case, with a volume enterprise agreement the difference in price between an entry level and a bank standard system might not be that large, particularly if you consider the “not supported issue”, “we don’t do DL160′s, we do DL360′s.”

In the small business world life is different. You need specific functions delivered, an intranet or SharePoint server, something to run Exchange, a box that can store your files so that if your pc breaks they’re safe. That box, that Exchange server might be just a pc, it might just be Janet’s old pc with Windows XP or Windows Server 2000/Linux which has been reclaimed to fulfil that purpose.

With that in mind, the more accessible we can make the technology in terms of price and functionality the more we can onboard, (bring in) new users to servers as a platform. Even if it’s one server just running the company SharePoint, that we have another business ‘connected’ if you like is the first step towards virtualization or grid, towards scaling out their IT to meet their business needs. The small business/start-up can so easily become the next developing medium business, with that in mind, as the enterprises close shop, move towards virtualization and cloud computing, its the small/medium businesses that still have requirements that can create not only opportunities for the big vendors, but service providers, developers and equally other small/medium businesses themselves.

Could we have the welcome to servering community?

May the competition and the innovation in the entry level server market continue, but at the same time, can we also consider offering these teams, these businesses the foundation skills and best practice not only to empower themselves, but to reduce our support costs, our chances of a phone call at 3 in the morning asking what will happen if I swap a failed drive in my server?

I just remember the first time I got presented with a Compaq Proliant 1850R at a small start-up and got told “Install NT4 on it please”. I didn’t know what an array controller was, what SmartStart or what setup steps I needed to take, about driver packs and SNMP. If it hadn’t been documented by the techy working for that start-up I would have taken ages and possibly set the server up incorrectly in the long term.

With that in mind could we examine the idea even on a per vendor basis?

How wicked would it be if I went http://T110.dell.com/support and have the how to’s, the configurations for SharePoint with demos/downloadable guides etc over and above the generic support documents? To have real T110 users commenting on the server, how they set it up and used it? What to watch out for etc? Have engineers/sales or design guys saying, so you’ve got a T110 and you need an exchange server, check out this configuration or maybe scale up to a T310 because….

Or have:

Welcome to HP, to your first DL160 G5, this is how you do… this is what configuration we recommend for, these are the basic setup tips in SmartStart, in Windows, to configure this is what you need. But all in a format that’s subscribable, readable and not in those ‘for release’ official support/installation guides, those never reach your core target market, they reach the technologists, the IT guys, but they don’t reach the guy that’s thinking, “Dell/HP, Lenovo/Dell, actually I’ll go Acer”.

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Dell.com

Dell today introduced new products and services designed specifically to meet the needs of medium and small businesses by simplifying operations, reducing downtime, enhancing information security and reducing operating cost.

The new portfolio includes four 11th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers; Lifecycle Controller 1.2 embedded systems management; the PowerVault NX300 network attached storage (NAS) device; Dell Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) and Dell ProConsult services to help growing businesses achieve greater IT efficiency. The new solutions and services are available through Dell or any of the company’s more than 50,000 Global PartnerDirect Channel Partners.

Anything the vendors can do to reach out to small businesses, in terms of providing more functionality or value, or offering a range of solutions to meet their business needs has to be a good thing. That we continue the innovation of the platform, ‘onboard’ new users and create new opportunities is good not only for the vendors themselves, but for the small businesses in terms of possible revenues gained and functionality realized.

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As we move to a more just in time way of doing business, on demand computing, on demand storage, or grid or application availability, we need to not only transform our processes, move to ITIL framework 4, develop new processes for managing service, availability, workload and customer experience. We need to work on internal processes, internal issues surrounding ownership and delivery. In the olden days where it might have been “there’s a problem with server9, can you investigate?” we need to establish when it is worth investigating and whether with the ability to re-deploy a server, an application or both in minutes even seconds, what is best long term?

If our web application version 4.1 leaks, do we care if it will get fixed in 4.5 which is launched in three months?

With the just in time business, the IT infrastructure moves to a commodity, the server, the layered components and database should all be re-deployable on demand, I should be able to say to IT, “I need another 600 blades for Credit, build 3 please” and have 600 blades built with the credit build, Windows 2008, Oracle client, credit services and DataSynapse. In that world how do we manage what is change, what is a request or an incident or even a project. If I can in theory rebuild a blade in 45 minutes, would it be a project to upgrade my blades from Windows 2003 to 2008 when an engineer can simply click cabinet 7, enclosure a, rebuild with credit Windows 2008 job and simply monitor it?

• How granular do we make the billing?
• Do we really want to be debating 15 minute intervals?
• When a business line takes over their own infrastructure, how does that work in terms of reporting, accountability, billing and delivery?
• Does the blade guy for Credit IT have to manage his help desk queue, his SLA like the generic infrastructure teams and should the two be comparable? 
• How do we manage the want for individual business units to take the elements of the IT function they want whilst still providing all the bits you might want or need but not want to pay for, without being emotional?

You might not want to pay for a domain controller, an active directory infrastructure, SMS and Exchange, but somebody has to, regardless of who and how’s it provisioned. In essence how to we keep good people both sides of the organizational fence, keep evolving the process in line with our business and what new processes or best practice are we working on?

As we move on to organization 2.0, carbon neutral, ISO certified and so on, how about measuring end user expectation and rating that? It’s all fine saying we meet ISO certification 9001 for example, but what value does that represent if?

• A) A new joiner might take three weeks before he/she gets a desk, a phone, a working computer with a log in and the applications they need?
• B) When it might take two business days or more to rebuild a pc, an activity that with the right technology AND PROCESS in place need take an hour or two?
• C) If those designs and strategies are just those, designs and ideals, but not representative of the infrastructure we have.

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Platform

TORONTO, Canada, August 20, 2009 – Platform Computing, the leader in cluster, grid and cloud computing software, announced that it is providing new GPU kits for its Platform Cluster Manager and Platform HPC Workgroup products to support NVIDIA’s CUDA-enabled GPUs, including NVIDIA’s market leading Tesla GPUs for high performance computing. Platform Computing’s GPU kits make it easier for administrators to build, provision, manage and schedule workloads on NVIDIA GPU-based HPC clusters.

“With the market need for GPU clusters rapidly increasing, working with an HPC leader like Platform is key as it creates an easy-to-use set of tools for building clusters with NVIDIA’s Tesla solutions,” said Andy Keane, General Manager of the Tesla Business Unit, NVIDIA. “Together, these products will enable commercial, academic, and research institutions to easily deploy GPU clusters, leading to revolutionary cost and power savings.”

GPU-based clusters are the most rapidly growing segment of the HPC market because they provide significantly more compute capacity at a fraction of the cost. NVIDIA Tesla-based GPUs feature up to 240 cores and 1 teraflop of processing power per processing GPU, as opposed to just 4 cores of processing power found in traditional server CPUs. Platform’s Cluster Manager and HPC Workgroup Manager simplify building, managing and scheduling GPU based clusters. Deployed with a single-click install, Platform Computing’s GPU kits allow users to quickly provision the clusters they need using NVIDIA’s solutions.

I was interested to see this, it’s great news that Platform have released their kits to integrate GPU functionality in their HPC solution, I know a lot of people have been working on GPUs as a vehicle for grid/analytics and hpc solutions, providing extra functionality to plug these devices into the grid has to be a good thing. I’m off to read up more.

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IBM

ARMONK, NY - 10 Sep 2009: A new global study of more than 2,500 Chief Information Officers (CIOs), released by IBM (NYSE: IBM) today, reveals that leveraging analytics to gain a competitive advantage and improve business decision-making is now the top priority for CIOs. More than four out of five (83 percent) survey respondents identified business intelligence and analytics – the ability to see patterns in vast amounts of data and extract actionable insights – as the way they will enhance their organizations’ competitiveness.

These results and other insights are detailed in the just-released Global CIO Study 2009, which is the largest face-to-face survey of CIOs ever conducted. The study, titled “The New Voice of the CIO,” represents the insights and vision of CIOs from 78 countries, 19 industries, and organizations of every size. The study reinforces the increasingly strategic role that CIOs are playing as visionary leaders and as drivers of innovation and financial growth.

Check out this article talking about what CIOs see as their top priority going forward, obviously this will depend on a per sector/business area, but it’s always great to see what people are thinking about. I wonder if there was any discussion around cutting costs/integration of IT within the business? I’ll have to see, I’m off to read the study.

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