Latest Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 27

Mac Mini servers remain a possibility

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/20/why-an-apple-blessed-mac-mini-server-has-big-possibilities/

I have personally used Mac minis as servers since shortly after the first G4 models came out on the market. In fact, at one point I personally had two of them at Macminicolo.net, a wonderful little company that was founded on the belief that Mac minis were great servers. I’ve installed at least a dozen for clients, and they are excellent for small businesses for the following reasons:

Another great article talking about Mac Mini as a server, I still remain a fan of the concept, yes there are a few issues in terms of remote systems management and they might not be your 1u industrial strength unit, but in an application where the code can handle a few servers going offline, where you might just want to try something for ‘validation’, or have a small form factor low voltage pc, I still think they have the edge as I have written before:

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 27

Failure isn’t always a bad thing

NBR

A failed oil pressure sensor on a backup generator could be the reason Air New Zealand’s computer system crashed on Sunday for six hours, IBM confirmed this morning.

The IT failure caused disruptions to more than 10,000 Air New Zealand customers, who were delayed by two hours on average. The computer failure affected the company’s booking and check in systems. Passengers had to be manually checked in, which caused further delays.

Air New Zealand apologised to its customers yesterday saying the incident should never have happened.

We’re becoming increasingly dependent on our IT infrastructure whether it’s for front office processing, back office reporting or simple things like internet access and email. I wonder if by talking more about outages or ‘failures’ if we want to call it that, we might help prevent others experiencing the same events? Much the same as we talk about ‘best practice’ could that not also include – this is what happened when something failed and this is how we could have done it better – what haven’t you thought about in that disaster recovery plan? The list of servers, so you know where the domain controllers are, will that be available if your data center is offline?

In reference to the title, sometimes failure can help remind different groups about different things – that your platform is out of support, that your application needs some inbuilt redundancy, for the technology people that the processes need improved, that we need to ‘own our infrastructure’ that in essence regardless of how many redundant factors we put in place, it can be the simple things that de-rail success – you do have a restart plan in the event of power failure in the data center – you know it’s network, storage, then server, and in server, it’s dc/sms/file and print, then application? There’s no point switching on servers only to find that nothing works because the domain is offline or the storage isn’t mounted.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 27

Carbon Foot prints and the data center

http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/ME2/Sites/Default.asp?SiteID=EE8582B9FFC0440995B4C1A20D141431

The “big squeeze” is upon us and the UK is at centre stage with the roll out of the first regulated Carbon Trading scheme. With the eyes of the world looking on, the Data centre industry is squarely in the firing line. But will this be “boom or bust” for one of the most important data centre hot spots on the globe?

A main theme of this year’s conference agenda will be the assessment of the opportunities and risks that the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment [CRC] presents to the UK DC market. So how are organisations dealing with it? What are the strategic and tactical options for data centre operators? Will it make us more competitive or less so?

A great article from DataCenterDynamcs, do read the whole thing, it was an interesting read and I see they’ve got an event next month in London.

This is something that I know my data center colleagues and a few CIOs have been talking about, will the need to reduce the carbon footprint of my data center, of my business not only create new ways of thinking and doing business, but also new technology deployment in areas like virtualization and cloud?

Could tools like VMware, Hper-V and Xen be the next generation infrastructure? Simply by reducing the physical server count and combining it with more energy efficient servers, more effective data center best practice and technologies could reduce our carbon footprint. Is utilizing virtualization and consolidation not though the first step? Should we not also be examining our business processes – the forms I have to fill in for data center access, for getting a phone or a new pc, can we not move them all to online systems where we don’t need paperwork signed and stored for the next seven years. That my application can’t co-exist with the one we buy-in from the market access vendor, is that not an additional carbon cost? If we took this to the fullest extent would we not only start to see ‘the cost of doing business’, we might identify those back office/administration activities that might not be adding value to our core business – my prime example do I want to have four guys looking after my Exchange servers or, just buy in Exchange paying a set fee per user? Exciting times are ahead not only in terms of business and IT, but in terms of revenue, in the nature of how ‘we do business’ and what opportunities are created going forward.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 27

T3 Technologies and mainframes

Tampabay.com

Can Tampa’s T3 somehow become the “Terminator” of IBM’s monopoly grip on the world’s mainframe computer business? Legal actions brewing last week may test that notion.

T3 Technologies, based on West Shore Boulevard, has operated here since the early 1990s. Online, T3 touts itself as “the Other Mainframe Company” by providing mainframe and software services that compete directly with IBM.

Did I say mainframe? It sounds so 1980s, but mainframes remain a huge global business serving giant corporations, banks and defense agencies in need of massive computing power. IBM owns 85 percent of that industry.

I was doing some more work reading up about Linux on IBM Mainframes, something a colleague has been saying “I just have to look at” in the process I came across this article talking about T3 Technologies, a company I confess that I hadn’t heard about. I’m off to read up more, but I wonder if they might be something we should be looking at in the future? Do check them out.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 27

DB2 gains further possibilities

Information Week

IBM (NYSE: IBM) is seeking to make DB2 more competitive with Oracle by bringing a level of scalability to its rack-mount servers that was previously only associated with DB2 on the mainframe.On Friday, the eve of Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL)’s massive annual user group meeting in San Francisco, IBM announced DB2 pureScale, a version of DB2 that runs on its rack-mount 550 Express and p5 Power 595 servers.

Extending the supported systems and possibilities for the IBM’s DB2 database platform has to bring more opportunities in revenue and exposure for IBM and further exposure and possibilities for the DB2 end user community, I’m off to read up more.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 27

HP TouchSmart 600 rocks

Washington Post

With Windows 7, Microsoft has built support for multitouch gestures directly into the operating system. And though using your fingers to tap, flick, and pinch your way around probably won’t replace the humble mouse anytime soon, HP has almost three years of experience in producing multitouch-capable all-in-one PCs. It shows.

Aesthetically, the new TouchSmart 600 retains the familiar and elegant TouchSmart design, including ambient lighting that casts a soothing colored glow. Its 23-inch display puts it between HP’s existing 22-inch TouchSmart IQ500t and 25.5-inch TouchSmart IQ816 in terms of size. Like the latter, the TouchSmart 600 supports a resolution of 1920 by 1080 (1080p)–perfect for watching high-definition movies and TV via its built-in Blu-ray slot drive and HDTV tuner. You can also stream shows wirelessly over 802.11n, and suck in photos with the integrated multicard reader. A remote control is included, as well.

I saw one of these over the weekend when I was shopping with my wife, it was interesting to see her reaction to it, two statements were made: “it looks nice….” and “wow it’s touch screen, like an iPhone”, needless to say, I can sense this might be the next computer to replace her Dell OptiPlex, do check out the great review.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 26

Everything ILO/RIB/RILOE

A reminder about Compaq/HP lights out functionality. Originally we had the RIB card which was then superseded by the RILOE card, both were external PCI cards which gave separate lights out independent of the operating system and the slot where the card was fitted dependent on the server itself. The next generation of Compaq/HP servers came with ILO (Integrated Lights Out) and now ILO2 which provided on board remote lights out administration. Below is a mixture of posts, web links and documents to help with your ILO/RIB/RILOE challenges.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 21

Apple launches new iMac and MacBook

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/

Apple Unveils New iMac With 21.5 and 27-inch Displays

Apple today unveiled an all new iMac line featuring brilliant LED-backlit 21.5 and 27-inch widescreen displays in a new edge-to-edge glass design and seamless all aluminum enclosure. The new iMac line, starting at $1,199, is the fastest ever with Intel Core 2 Duo processors starting at 3.06 GHz, and Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors for up to twice the performance. Every new iMac ships with a wireless keyboard and the all new wireless Magic Mouse, the world’s first mouse with Multi-Touch technology. Filed under: Mac. Read more: apple.com/imac

Apple Introduces Magic Mouse

Today Apple introduced the new wireless Magic Mouse, the first mouse to use Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch technology. Pioneered on iPhone, iPod touch and Mac notebook trackpads, Multi-Touch allows customers to navigate using intuitive finger gestures. Instead of mechanical buttons, scroll wheels or scroll balls, the entire top of the Magic Mouse is a seamless Multi-Touch surface. Magic Mouse comes standard with the new iMac and will be available as a Mac accessory at just $69. Filed under: Mac. Read more: apple.com/magicmouse

Apple Updates MacBook

Apple today updated its popular MacBook with a new, durable polycarbonate unibody design featuring a brilliant LED-backlit display, a glass Multi-Touch trackpad and Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life. Inheriting technology and design features from the MacBook Pro line, the new MacBook is an ideal consumer notebook for students and new Mac users, and is available for $999. Filed under: Mac. Read more: apple.com/macbook

I love the new iMac it does look cool and has great storage support, with a 27″ screen it makes me wonder bout my Mac Pro. The new MacBook looks an impressive package and well finished, I’ll be excited to see them in the Apple store.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 21

Windows 7 review

Telegraph

Windows 7 is the operating system Vista should have been – it starts up relatively quickly, drivers already exist to make peripherals such as scanners and printers work with it, and it does clever things that XP, the version of Windows most people still use, just doesn’t.

The installation process took over an hour, but once up and running Windows 7’s advantages were impressive. Gathering information from 168,941 user files, settings and “programs” was time consuming for the automated installer, and so was expanding 2340MB of files. However, at least the process was clearly saying what it was doing, and made it obvious that it hadn’t in fact crashed midway through.

Check out this review of Windows 7. I’m genuinely excited about it and can’t wait to get my hands on a copy, it’s meant to be much better than Vista. It will be interesting to see what the user experience is and how it will perform on my Dell Lattitude D430 which don’t get me wrongs Windows Vista, but does cause me to sigh at times.. “Come on little laptop, you can get there…”

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share
Post By Martin 0 Comments
October 2009 21

Thanks to all for bladewatch drinks

We had bladewatch drinks in the city last week and it was great fun meeting people, if you weren’t able to attend, see if you can come next time, it would be great to meet more readers and colleagues from the industry.  We’ll put some pictures up soon.

Share and Enjoy

Bookmark and Share