Bladewatch.com

Marketwire

SUNNYVALE, CA–(Marketwire – November 9, 2009) – According to an August 2009 survey of more than 200 information technology (IT) professionals, the term “cloud computing” brings a host of definitions and perceptions that may, in fact, stall enterprise adoption of cloud computing technologies.

Proofpoint, Inc. (www.proofpoint.com), the leading provider of SaaS email security, email archiving and data loss prevention solutions, and Osterman Research (www.ostermanresearch.com) found that a large number of IT professionals are still confused about the term “cloud computing.” Nearly 40 percent of IT professionals answered “yes” to the question, “when I hear the term ‘cloud computing,’ I am generally confused given the many definitions” (52 percent answered “no”). Thirty-three percent believe cloud computing is more hype than substance, while 24 percent “weren’t sure.”

As expected, the understanding of cloud computing isn’t any clearer in other areas of the enterprise.

For example, just 24 percent of respondents believe their CEO could define cloud computing while 59 percent responded their CEO would fail at the task. Finance directors would have a more difficult time defining cloud computing according to respondents — only 10 percent said their finance heads could accurately define cloud computing.

Check out this press release talking about a survey of 200 IT professional discussing cloud computing perceptions, it’s an interesting read and highlights how different terms can so easily mean different things to different end users. We need to continue the discussion, the innovation of cloud computing and see what business opportunities and services we can deliver in order to meet business requirements, whether it’s deploying my virtual infrastructure in a ‘cloud’, buying in services using an outsource model or an on demand solution from a vendor or service provider.

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IT Pro

VMware today launched its latest virtualisation product, VMware View 4, designed to enable desktop virtualisation in a cost effective and secure way.

The product sits on top of its vSphere platform and enables thousands of desktops to run from a single console in the data centre as well as allowing users to access their desktop from a number of devices, from laptops to iPhones.

“We have got a perfect storm for desktop virtualisation right now,” said Dave Wright, senior director of technical services in for VMware, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

“We have got the right technology behind it and now also we have the drive from consumers.”

He added: “The problem is that everyone is tied to one device. We need to break that link and change the device from being central to the user being central.”

The company claims that by running virtualised desktops off of a virtual machine on top of its platform, costs will be lowered.

The software-based solution is compatible with a variety of hardware and operating systems – Windows, Linux and Mac – and the simplification of running everything from one console reduces operating costs by figures of up to 50 per cent, the company claims.

I was talking with a few colleagues over the weekend about desktop virtualization, they’re massive fans and were going over the concepts with me, how they had realized the benefits in their businesses, it’s great to see VMware furthering the innovation and possibilities with VMware View 4, being able to host more virtual desktops, to scale out the technologies might create new possibilities in the enterprise and cloud computing environments, very cool, do check it out.

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Business Wire

MORRISTOWN, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. (ASCI), maker of ActiveBatch^® workload automation and job scheduling software and other solutions that enhance Windows™, Linux, UNIX, z/OS and OpenVMS systems among others, today announced the availability of a new VMware Extension for ActiveBatch . For the first time, users and developers have the ability to easily deploy and maintain virtual systems within ActiveBatch while also integrating those systems with other applications, databases and platforms inside and/or outside their VMware environment.

ActiveBatch’s new VMware support is made possible through a new set of production-ready job steps in the application’s integrated jobs library. These job steps eliminate the need for command line use and/or expensive scripting, replacing those actions with a convenient drag-and-drop interface.

“With VMware support, ActiveBatch users can achieve a dramatic new level of resource utilization both within and outside the VMware infrastructure,” said Jim Manias, Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Advanced Systems Concepts. “By combining ActiveBatch with VMware, for example, you can create and/or power on a virtual machine, submit the workflow, and power off the virtual machine when the workflow has successfully completed, enabling the hardware and software involved to be made available for other purposes. The result is reliable, unattended execution of jobs in a fashion that improves service levels and maximizes the efficient use of computing resources.”

Workload automation and task automation is something my colleagues are always talking about, the concept of less human intervention, of having automated steps to manage batches and workloads so that we can reduce the manual steps and support costs, whilst improving the reliability and availability of the application. Anything we can do to reduce the complexity of the infrastructure, and at the same time improve delivery or reduce cost has to be a good thing.

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Business Wire

AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–NextIO, a premier provider of next-generation I/O solutions, today announced that the company will preview its next-generation I/O virtualization (IOV) product direction and architecture at SC09 in Portland, Oregon, November 16 – 19 at NextIO booth #2585 and in IBM booth #1335.

NextIO’s next-generation products are poised to maximize application up-time for data center customers by delivering transparent I/O upgrades and dynamic I/O scalability. With NextIO, any I/O can connect to any server, operating system, hypervisor and storage architecture, using existing, unmodified applications and off-the-shelf software. NextIO delivers an unprecedented combination of benefits, including low cost, lower power consumption, greater ease of use, and greatly reduced maintenance requirements.

The following is a summary of the demonstrations to be showcased at NextIO’s and partner booths at SC09:

• Customer Showcase with Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers (RMSC). RMSC, the leading HPC and super computing center in Montana, will host daily presentations that highlight NextIO’s ability to deliver maximum data center flexibility and will also demonstrate how NextIO’s next-generation I/O virtualization products have met and exceeded RMSC data center performance demands. Location: NextIO booth #2585.
• GPU Expansion Demonstrations. NextIO is pleased to partner with NVIDIA to demonstrate the acceleration of CUDA development using NextIO’s Adaptive Connect PCIe chassis and management software. NextIO will also participate in a hydrodynamics demonstration with IBM and Los Alamos National Labs, the home of “Roadrunner,” the worlds first Petaflop Supercomputer. Locations: IBM booth #1335 and LANL booth #715.
• SSD Performance Demonstrations. NextIO and Texas Memory Systems will showcase “multi-million IOP scalability in the world’s smallest footprint.” This demonstration includes a storage solution that can scale to over one million IOPs and five terabytes of SSD storage in 3U, using less than 500 watts of active power. The solution scales to over 15M IOP’s per rack. Location: NextIO booth #2585.

I was reading up about the SC09 event which is about High Performance computing (sounds interesting) and saw this announcement about NextIO. If you’re attending the SC09 event in Portland, NextIO are previewing their technology, so if you’ve ever wanted to see it in action or have a chat, do take a look.

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CNN Money

NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today unveiled the new NetApp® SnapManager® for Hyper-V(TM) and SnapManager 6.0 for Microsoft® Exchange Server to improve data backup and recovery in Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environments. In addition, NetApp SnapManager for Microsoft SQL Server® and SnapManager for Microsoft SharePoint® Server can now run on Windows Server 2008 R2, enabling customers to take full advantage of NetApp’s unique data management capabilities in their physical and virtualized environments.

NetApp, a Microsoft Global ISV and Gold Certified Partner, and Microsoft Corporation are helping customers build, manage, and maintain dynamic data center infrastructures that enable new levels of efficiency, flexibility, and productivity. NetApp has worked with Microsoft to develop tightly integrated solutions, and in 2009 was selected as Microsoft 2009 Partner of the Year in the Advanced Infrastructure, Storage Solutions category. NetApp solutions for Microsoft based environments have been enhanced with the following new products.

• SnapManager for Hyper-V — SnapManager for Hyper-V enables automated, policy-based backup and recovery for applications and services running on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. The product can help Microsoft customers eliminate backup bottlenecks, reduce human error, and greatly minimize the interruption and performance impact caused by traditional server-hosted backup and restore. In addition, NetApp now enables Microsoft virtualization customers to dynamically expand or shrink volumes to reclaim unused storage capacity in shared storage environments.
• SnapManager 6.0 for Microsoft Exchange Server — SnapManager for Exchange Server can help reduce storage footprint and increase operational efficiencies in the data center by minimizing the number of Exchange data copies that enterprise customers need to deploy while continuing to provide enterprise-class data protection. SnapManager for Exchange Server now fully integrates single mailbox recovery capabilities to enable Exchange administrators to offload routine e-mail restore operations to help-desk personnel, helping to improve productivity and reduce the time and cost associated with recovering e-mail. SnapManager for Exchange Server is integrated with Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) technology to provide efficient and flexible backup and to restore support for the new Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Database Availability Group (DAG) architecture.
• ApplianceWatch PRO 2.0 – NetApp’s new ApplianceWatch(TM) PRO 2.0 management pack offers customers discovery, health monitoring, and performance monitoring of their NetApp storage systems with Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager. ApplianceWatch PRO 2.0 also includes a separate management pack that integrates NetApp storage controller knowledge with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager to provide a comprehensive virtualization management solution. ApplianceWatch PRO 2.0 enables administrators to easily manage storage systems in virtual environments and offers automated resolution from the System Center Virtual Machine Manager console.

It’s great to see NetApp continue to innovate with their SnapManager, anything they can do to improve the backup/recovery process, to help end users improve delivery and productivity has to be a good thing. Being able to backup and recover on demand, creates opportunities in dynamic IT and the efficiency of the infrastructure. With the right backup and recovery processes and technologies, I can safely store less data online and only recall it when we need to, I can reduce the amount of log files for that application that I need to keep from 6 months to a few weeks, I can switch off those virtual machines that aren’t in use and recall them when they’re needed, I can reduce over provisioning data, an issue which continues to affect many organizations. Very exciting if you examine the possibilities, I’m off to read up more.

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IT Pro

Dell has found a gap in the rack server market and aims to be the first to fill it. Is its latest PowerEdge R510 a good fit? We investigate in this review.

Dell’s latest PowerEdge R510 aims to fit neatly into a niche in the server market as it targets small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that want plenty of available storage in their rack but don’t want to invest in a storage area network (SAN).

At only 24in deep, this 2U chassis is also much shorter than standard servers such as HP’s ProLiant DL380 G6 and Dell’s own PowerEdge R710 making for an interesting alternative for space-strapped data centres.

The R510 may not have the depth of the R710 but it matches it easily in the storage department as its front panel has room for up to eight hot-swap hard disks. The carriers accept 3.5in. or 2.5in drives and Dell’s optional RAID controllers support a mixture of SAS and SATA as well. There’s more on the horizon as Dell plans to expand the R510 with even more SFF drive bays.

An article reviewing the Dell R510, Dell’s new server aimed at the small/medium business sector, that we continue to have new products and solutions for the small and medium business sectors, can only help in on boarding new users, new communities and in doing so creating opportunities for business and revenue generation.

The new R510 comes with their LifeCycle Controller, support for 8 disks, 64GB ram, and two Dual or Quad Core Intel Xeon processors, and would be ideal as an application server or where you need extra local storage, I wonder how it would do as a virtual data center in a box solution, where I could send my remote office, their Intranet server, their file server and application servers on one physical server. I’m off to check out more, you can read more information here, and the specifications PDF is here. I remain a fan of the new Dell servers and their blades, they continue to improve the system management features like their LifeCycle Controller and their iDRAC6, long may they continue to do so.

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Crunchgear.com

We’ve already established that your favorite tech company, from Apple to HP to Nintendo, and everyone in between, is being pressured to go green. While some of the tactics may be a bit silly, I think it’s safe to say that you’d rather see these companies green than not green, right? It makes us feel good about ourselves, that even though we’re buying hunks of plastic and metal—Lord knows what chemicals are in these things—the company in question is trying to make everything as environmentally friendly as possible. In the spotlight today is IBM, which continues to develop technology that could, one day, lead to zero-emission data centers.

An interesting article talking about IBM developing a zero emission data center, something we should all be aiming for, if not for the environmental or corporate social responsibility, for the savings in terms of energy costs and limiting our carbon liability, particularly as we have to start declaring the carbon footprint of our data center, our business. The more we can improve the efficiency of the hardware, maximize the air flow, and use technologies like fresh air cooling, powering down systems when they aren’t needed, combined with lights out best practice and raising the operating temperature of the data center, the lower the cost of the data center, the IT and in turn our business. It’s not necessarily about commoditizing the infrastructure, nor using the cheapest technology, it’s managing the business need against the operating costs, using a mixture of best practice, investment and configuration to achieve the lowest cost at the maximum business benefit.

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Microsoft

Version: 1.0

This bulletin summary lists security bulletins released for November 2009.

With the release of the bulletins for November 2009, this bulletin summary replaces the bulletin advance notification originally issued November 5, 2009. For more information about the bulletin advance notification service, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification.

For information about how to receive automatic notifications whenever Microsoft security bulletins are issued, visit Microsoft Technical Security Notifications.

Microsoft is hosting a webcast to address customer questions on these bulletins on November 11, 2009, at 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada). Register now for the November security bulletin webcast. After this date, this webcast is available on-demand. For more information, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Summaries and Webcasts.

Microsoft also provides information to help customers prioritize monthly security updates with any non-security, high-priority updates that are being released on the same day as the monthly security updates. Please see the section, Other Information.

There are a number of security patches for Office and Windows, be sure to check what would be in scope for your business and remember that applying the Microsoft hot fixes will keep you in line with vendor/service provider recommendations and resolve known exploits or issues. I’m off to check out the details, but remember to apply the patches to your non-production systems first to verify if there are any issues for your applications servers.

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Apple

The 10.6.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

• an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
• a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites
• Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
• a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user
• issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers
• the reliability of menu extras
• an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture
• an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server
• Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing
• a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book
• an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet
• Safari plug-in reliability
• general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
• an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account

As with your Linux/Windows or VMware systems, remember to apply the relevant hotfixes/service packs to stay in line with the vendor support recommendations and to prevent known issues.

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Finextra

Lloyds Banking Group says it will cut around 5000 jobs, including information technology positions, from its UK operations by the end of 2010.

However, the bank says redeployment and the release of contractors, temporary staff and offshore personnel, means the net reduction will be about 2600 permanent UK jobs.

The bank, 43%-owned by the taxpayer, has already cut over 8000 jobs this year as it integrates the operations of HBOS, which was acquired in January, and tries to reduce costs by £1.5 billion over the next three years.

This has been covered on the news over in the UK quite a bit, regardless of how you feel about it, the loss of employment to employees and self employed people is tragic regardless of the industry, hopefully though, the anticipated new entrants to the UK banking sector as a result of the announced banking transactions last week might create new opportunities for revenue and employment.

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