Bladewatch.com

IT Pro

IT could help Europe reduce carbon emissions by 15 per cent by 2020 and boost its own bottom line while doing it, according to the European Commission.

While the IT sector itself uses eight per cent of EU energy and creates two per cent of emissions, technology like smart grids and smart metering systems can be applied to other sectors – especially buildings, logistics and transport – to help them get greener.

The commission called on tech firms to create a common way to measure energy use and emission creation by next year, to help create better data and drive rollouts of new systems.

Is it just IT – what about end users? We need to do both – infrastructure and application, business and end user – what elements of our requirements are core, what can be virtualized/outsourced/put on less energy demanding systems?

Do we not need to look at the supply and demand chain? Can we do things differently, is it a full blown desktop/pc that I need or a thin client, a Nokia tablet? Only when we identify the requirements can we start not only changing the supply but also the demand side elements – is it unlimited storage you need online or actually, 3GB of online storage and 5GB retrievable storage?

I was having a chat with an IT Manager working in the city, he’s been testing virtualization (using VMware) internally and is trying to put together some points for a presentation, a sales pack if you like for funding and for buy-in from the business to get the go ahead. I had a chat with him and went over some of the concepts, and emailed him this presentation that I had put together some time ago.

The presentation goes over more the concepts about virtualization, some things to think about as well as how important the ownership and delivery of the platform is. Now I admit that many people will already have virtualization in their business, that they might be using it in production, they might have high availability and fail over, but for those that have not, for those who want to learn more or just have a think about it, here’s a non technical document for your review and I do hope it is of value.

I have removed any virtualization on blades or servers, that is not what the document is for, it is a brain storming exercise:

• The benefits
• The considerations
• The project issues
• The technical and non technical issues
• The things to think about in terms of delivery
• The key concept that you bolt virtualization to your business, not your business to virtualization – a simple concept but an important one.

Here is the PowerPoint version

Here is the PDF version

PEER 1

SOUTHAMPTON, UK, 23 October 2009: A study commissioned by PEER 1 Network Enterprises, Inc. (TSX: PIX), the global online business hosting  provider has found that 88% of IT decision makers do not use cloud technologies, with 39% of respondents claiming that lack of knowledge is putting them off. The independent study which canvassed the opinions of over 200 IT decision makers reveals that concerns about security put off 24% of would-be cloud users, whilst 21% perceive that lack of control outweighs the benefits of cloud hosting.

Despite the concerns, 49% of those surveyed say that they are considering the technology. The availability and reliability of cloud computing are viewed as key benefits for 69% of respondents, whilst another 63% are attracted to its performance benefits. Scalability and flexibility are both factors that appeal to over 60% of potential cloud hosting users, with 43% citing security as being a reason to choose cloud hosting.

Dominic Monkhouse, Managing Director of PEER 1 UK commented: “PEER 1 commissioned this research to gain a better understanding of IT decision makers’ perceptions of cloud hosting. The results clearly illustrate that there is lot of confusion around the benefits and limitation of cloud hosting.  A case in point here is feedback on the security of cloud: 23% cite a perceived lack of security as a deterrent, whilst 43% see security as a benefit. There are some very mixed messages out there.

I wonder how much of this is to do with compliance or regulation as much as process, oh you can’t do that and here are seven olden days reasons why not coupled with viewpoints from the business, buying in a service for some specific activities might appear directly cheaper, but we have to look at the indirect, the not quoted costs. So to outsource the restores costs £50,000 a year, but what is the per restore cost £350? Could I not hire a guy full time to do that and know that because he/she is working for our organization the level of effort and site knowledge would be higher than using a bought in service? It’s a dual way thing and requires quite a lot of business and IT intelligence around what is core to our business and operations, what we want to achieve, how this affects our business and employees and therefore how we ‘sell it’ within our business remains key. An interesting study, do check it out.

Finextra

Financial services firms need to make substantial and sustained investments in IT infrastructure if they are to overcome severe underlying weaknesses in their risk management capabilities, according to a report by financial regulatory agencies.

The Senior Supervisors Group (SSG) that comprises watchdogs from seven countries (United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, United Kingdom) says that underlying weaknesses in governance, incentive structures, information technology infrastructure and internal controls require substantial work to address.

The SSG report evaluates how weaknesses in risk management and internal controls contributed to industry distress during the financial crisis. Among other failings, it concludes that inadequate and often fragmented technological infrastructures at most firms hindered effective risk identification and measurement.

Found this on the Finextra site and it raised a few thoughts. We need to invest in IT not just in terms of the technology, the nuts and bolts, but the process and the best practice, discussions around disaster recovery or high availability with energy efficiency and end user experience, combined with meeting risk management and compliance issues. Simple steps to improve audit or logging, combined with more efficient use and storage of data can transform the support and delivery function in terms of the end user experience.

http://australia.tmcnet.com/news/2009/10/21/4436605.htm

Rolling Meadows, IL, USA (21 October 2009)—Employees plan to spend nearly two full working days (14.4 hours) on average shopping online from a work computer this holiday season, according to a survey conducted on behalf of ISACA, a nonprofit association of 86,000 information technology (IT) professionals. One in 10 plans to spend at least 30 hours shopping online at work. Convenience (34%) and boredom (23%) are the biggest motivators, according to those polled.

Despite an economy expected to show flat or declining holiday retail sales, the second annual “Shopping on the Job: Online Holiday Shopping and Workplace Internet Safety” survey found that fully half of those surveyed plan to shop online for the holidays using a work computer. Less surprising is a growing uncertainty—the number of employees who are unsure about whether they will spend more or less time shopping online compared to a year ago has doubled.

I got this emailed to me and it was highlighting employees spending time browsing the web and the possibility of them carrying out ‘high risk’ activity, it’s one of those reports that can so easily be taken out of context, the figures are relevant as are the concepts, but we should be working more on a basis of fairness and ‘benefit of the doubt’ so to speak. If you’re spending all day browsing the web, you’re not doing work or meeting SLA’s then we need to address the reason for this, at the same time though, if you’ve done your work, your on helpdesk and the calls are all closed/handled fill your boots. It’s an interesting read, do check it out.

Finjan

San-Jose, Calif., October 20, 2009 – Finjan Inc., a leader in secure web gateway products and the provider of unified web security solutions for the enterprise market, today announced the launch of its Vital Cloud and Vital Cloud Hybrid. These enterprise web security solutions address the needs of enterprises as well as Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs).

More and more enterprises are becoming “borderless”, with an increasing number of remote workers and branch offices. As a result, companies turn to cloud-based web security to cost-effectively protect their users and data everywhere. Companies realize that they need to maintain full control of their web security and policy both on-premise and in the cloud.  They also demand that corporate data remain within the corporate boundaries and is not stored in the cloud for privacy and regulatory compliance reasons.

Finjan’s cloud-based, hybrid and on-premise enterprise web security solutions offer the industry’s most versatile set of web security solutions for enterprises. Utilizing its patented active real-time content inspected technology, Finjan’s solutions protect all users against crimeware and Web 2.0 attacks. Finjan Vital Cloud Hybrid seamlessly integrates Amazon’s EC2 robust cloud-based platform with Finjan’s on-premise web security solution.

I’ve had exposure to Finjan’s web product (I think it was their secure browsing product) as an end user and was interested to see that they’re going to offer in the cloud space, I’m off to check out more.

Blade Systems Insight

A revolution is happening in the data center, and that demands a revolutionary approach to information-sharing. BladeSystems Insight is a new concept in executive summits. Now in its fourth year, this invitation-only event brings together North America’s top IT executives for intimate discussions, networking and demonstrations of the newest concepts in data center technology and management. Delegates collaborate with thought leaders, peers and best-of-breed solution providers to assess applications of technologies like:

I was checking out the Blade Systems Insight site to check when their next summit is, I wonder what the core topics of conversation will be amongst the end user communities and what content will feature in next years event, I’m off to check out more.

Business Wire

The global IT industry continued to be plagued by the economic turmoil in the first half of 2009 and the server industry was no exception. Although having seen market volume and vale declines in the first half, the server market has begun to show signs of slow recovery due to the launch of x86 server processors and product features of slim design, energy saving, and low price tags.

Driven by issues including virtualization, green IT, and cloud computing, it is projected that the trend of integration will play an even more important role in the development of the global server market in the second half. This report analyzes the development trends of the global server market in the second half of 2009 and beyond, profiling the current status of new server products and technologies.

Check out this article talking about server sales. It’s one of those benchmarks people often use to identify the health of the IT market and for revenues of the main vendors in terms of market share  and servers sold. Server sales might not be as fast as they were in specific markets, however I wonder if in the next 6 months or so if this wont change for several reasons:

• Mergers/acquistions and de-mergers – all those companies  and banks that have been split up or re-organized will need their own infrastructure
• Small and medium businesses seeking to extend the possibilities of their IT – they don’t have the process/non technical barriers to entry that an enterprise does
• Energy efficiency and costs – it’s just not economic long term to keep running your servers over decades (particularly in the x86 market)
• Growth of the service/cloud based market – Compute or virtualization on demand
• Vendors themselves looking at the services market for revenue – so we can’t sell you a server, how about some process, best practice or data center transformation services, even out sourcing services?
• Virtualization and consolidation – more sessions or virtual machines per physical asset, the concept that I can buy more cheaper servers or fewer higher spec servers for a virtualization infrastructure project than simply continuing to buy per application, per project physical servers.

I’m off to check out the report.

Finextra

Japan’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ has signed for IBM’s smart business desktop cloud service.

The bank’s systems division will use the service to establish a thin client environment which Big Blue says will improve security and business continuity as well as cut costs. Implementation is slated for completion by December.

Check out this article illustrating how this bank is signing up to IBM’s desktop cloud service, very cool, I’m off to research more about this IBM service.

Business Wire

RALEIGH, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that customers can now deploy fully supported virtualization environments that combine Microsoft Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In response to customer demand for interoperability in their IT environments, Red Hat and Microsoft have completed testing and validation for mutual customers using server virtualization. Joint support from Red Hat and Microsoft for these configurations is available today.

In February 2009, Red Hat and Microsoft announced agreements to validate and support the companies’ corresponding virtualization and operating system platforms. The agreements have enabled today’s delivery of expanded virtualization interoperability through the cross-certification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows Server.

Customers can now deploy tested and supported heterogeneous, virtualized Red Hat and Microsoft solutions. The completed certifications include:

• Validation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, using the Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor, with Windows Server 2003, 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 guests.
• Certification of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 host with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 guests.

Anything Microsoft and Red Hat can do to bring enhanced functionality to their virtualization offerings has to be a good thing for the end user community.  I’m off to check out more.