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BridgeHead Software Data Management Healthcheck 2010 Reveals Only a Quarter of Hospitals Surveyed Had a Specific CO2 Reduction Target

Health Informatics Congress 2010, Birmingham, UK – 27th April 2010 – Research results from a global survey by BridgeHead Software, the Healthcare Storage Virtualization (HSV) company, suggest the healthcare industry’s movement towards “green IT” may be more of an aspiration than a reality.

Regardless of the motivations and real world success of the ‘green IT’ agenda, that we have the dialogue, the discussion is the first part and progress nonetheless. That we continue to examine how we utilize our IT, what it is that we actually need and how we can do things better is the way forward, right sizing and right managing the IT to meet the business need.

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ZDNet
A critical vulnerability affecting Microsoft Windows 2000 Server running Windows Media Services will remain unfixed until Microsoft re-releases a patch for it, the company said last Friday.

A patch for the hole, which could allow an attacker to take control of a system, was released during Patch Tuesday last week. However, Microsoft pulled the patch this week because it failed to work.

“Shortly after we released the update we received several reports that it did not protect against the vulnerability reported to us. At that time, we pulled the update and notified customers,” Jerry Bryant, group manager of response communications for the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote in a blog post last Friday afternoon. “The main reason for pulling the update was to save a reboot for customers who had not yet installed it. The original issue was missed due to focusing on a variant of the original report early in the investigation. We are addressing this issue and plan to re-release the update next week.”

There will be a mixture of results with this, regardless that we know the vulnerability remains is key, we can then offset or acknowledge the risk until the new fix is released, I’m off to check out more, Microsoft should be releasing their next set of patches for May in the next few weeks.

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I got an email from Jane:

I read one of your posts talking about SmartStart and then talking about the drivers/Proliant Support Pack, what’s the difference, aren’t they one in the same thing?

Thanks

Jane

Hi Jane,

Thanks for your email, you’re right in a way, the Proliant Support Pack can be found on the SmartStart cd/dvd, but they are separate but related tools.

• SmartStart is the free tool which is used to help in configuring the server ready for the operating system, and can assist in loading the operating system by copying the relevant drivers during the installation, making server deployment a bit easier and it’s quite intuitive from an end user viewpoint.
• The Proliant Support Pack is the software pack which includes the system management software and system drivers, installing the Proliant Support Pack will upgrade or install all the drivers and system software for that specific server to that version saving you from downloading the components separately or worrying about dependencies as it loads the relevant ones.

Loading the Proliant Support Pack will also install the System Management Agents which will include the management web page which shows the system status and includes product information, it’s accessible using the address http://servername:2301

The version of the support pack is point in time, so there may be specific newer drivers or system software at any particular time, but what you will find is that often when logging a call or identifying an issue, HP or your service provider will ask what Proliant Support Pack is loaded to determine if the drivers and system software are up to date.

The model and age of server will determine the version of SmartStart and Proliant Support Pack, for example the DL580 G2 uses version 8.25 when you go to the HP site to download it.

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I got the following email from Derek:

Your site mentions, G1 and G2 or even G6, I’ve seen, can you tell me what that means? For example the specifications of a DL380 G2, what do you mean by G2?”

The G means generation, so with each new processor or significant innovation, HP have released a new generation of server, so for example the DL380 G3, is their third generation version of their DL380 series server and comes with significant differences from the G2 and the G1 or DL380 server.

In this case, the DL380 G3 has on board lights out and uses the Xeon processor, the DL380 and DL380 G2 both used Pentium III processors and required pci lights out cards for lights out functionality.

Points to note in numbering in the HP space are generations, normally the first version of a server for example the DL760 is not called the G1, but as new versions of the server are released, engineers sometimes refer to them as G1 servers. The other thing to note is “80″ typically refers to Intel and “85″ refers to AMD, so a DL385 is an AMD server, DL380 is an Intel based server, so a DL380 G6 is the sixth generation of HP’s Proliant DL380.

There are exceptions to the rule of course, but that should cover most of their servers, the exceptions were in the blade server and AMD rack server space in order to bring all models to similar numbers/versions to avoid confusion – there was no BL460 G2 for example, it either went BL460, BL460 G5, and BL460 G6.

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I had to set the oldauth value in the EMC Legato Networker client and put together some notes, this assumes that the legato networker client is specified in the path statement, otherwise you will need to be in the directory that legato is installed in.

At the command prompt, type the following, *note that it’s .space NSRLA(, and enter after each line, when you type the update bit, it will ask if you’re sure you want to do this.

nsradmin -p nsrexecd

. NSRLA

update auth methods: “0.0.0.0/0,oldauth”

The Legato Networker client should not need restarted in order for the settings to apply. To restart the client if you wish to, you can either go to the services tab and restart, or type:

net stop nsrexecd (to stop)

net start nsrexecd (to start)

If you wish to check it, type print, and you should get a list of values including the version of the Legato client installed as well as the operating system set and the type of auth set.

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IBM

ARMONK, N.Y. - 21 Apr 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new storage products — part of its 2010 lineup of workload-optimized systems — that are designed to reduce the cost and complexity of storing vast amounts of data while making it easier for clients to apply analytics and gain insight from the data.

Driven by a rapidly growing pool of sensors and gadgets that are digitizing information, the world’s data already vastly exceeds available storage space — yet enterprise demand for storage capacity worldwide continues to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 43% from 2008-2013 (1). Companies and governments need to better prioritize and classify their data so they can analyze and extract intelligence from it, but at the same time need to reduce the complexity and cost of storing and protecting vital information.

Certainly storage remains an area of interest for many CIOs, both in terms of the cost and the rate of consumption, comments like deduplication being turned on are being seen as a solution for the time being. I wonder though if we don’t need to start looking at application architecture and the infrastructure in the same light, linking what it is the application needs combined with what we are able to facilitate, even more so as we look at cloud, at virtualization of the infrastructure and the application. Writing log files which are 30MB a day is fine in the olden days world providing we have the archiving and restore policies around that, going forward though what level of logging do we need and can we not build that logging into the existing monitoring platform, so we have 48 hours of online logs, everything else is archived on to lower cost, less available platforms to reduce cost and unnecessary online data?

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Dell

Incredible Performance & Flexibility — Dell’s Latest PowerEdge Servers
Based on industry standards and the x86 architecture, the latest PowerEdge offerings help customers reap the benefits of the “Virtual Era” in an open, capable and affordable manner. The new PowerEdge servers include:

• PowerEdge R910: The PowerEdge R910 is an ideal platform for RISC/UNIX migrations, large database deployments and server virtualization implementations. This 4U rack server is available with a high-performance four-socket Intel Nehalem-EX processor, up to 64 DIMM slots for memory, redundant power supplies and a failsafe embedded hypervisor to give customers the performance, reliability and memory scalability they need to run mission critical applications.
• PowerEdge M910: A high-performance four-socket Intel Xeon 7500 based blade server, the PowerEdge M910 is best suited for customers looking to maximize the advantages of server virtualization and consolidation or for use as a medium or large database platform. This full-height blade can scale up to 512GB of RAM across 32 DIMM slots.
• PowerEdge R810: The PowerEdge R810 is best suited for customers looking to consolidate server hardware through virtualization and deploy email messaging and database applications. The 2U offering is available in high-density two- or four-socket varieties and is powered by Intel Nehalem-EX processing technology. Through advances in memory management, up to 32 memory DIMM slots can be accessed by just two low cost processors, enabling it to manage four socket workloads.
• PowerEdge R815: Ideal for virtualization, high-performance computing, email messaging, and database workloads, the PowerEdge R815 powered by AMD Opteron processors offers customers an excellent balance of memory scalability of up to 32 DIMMs with the ability to deploy up to 48 processing cores. This four-socket, 2U solution is ideal for customers seeking a capable and affordable computing platform.

This has been quite a topic of interest when talking with colleagues, in particular the iDRAC enhancements combined with comments about memory support nad number of cores, it’s great to see the innovation of the PowerEdge platform, I’m off to read up more.

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HP

HP today announced that its newest internal data center is experiencing faster information throughput and lower energy consumption by running entirely on HP Networking equipment.

The new data center, located in the Houston area, is one of six internal facilities running HP’s worldwide business operations. It currently includes 34 3Com core switching and routing devices, more than 300 HP ProCurve switches and four TippingPoint intrusion detection and prevention devices.

The new HP Networking portfolio – which integrates the 3Com portfolio – has enabled the company to achieve twice the port and capacity density, and a 50 percent reduction in power consumption versus previous solutions. Using an architecture built on open standards, the company’s global IT organization worked with HP Networking teams to redesign the architecture with new products.

Improvements within the data center include the core router throughput performance of the 3Com product, which exceeds 2.1 billion packets of data per second, versus less than 1 billion for the current market leader’s fastest data center product. 3Com also has full multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) in all chassis, while competitive offerings do not.

It’s great to see how HP are achieving enhanced throughput and power consumption using their ProCurve and 3Com network technologies, that we can illustrate the concepts of improving efficiency of the stack, from the network, the server and the storage up is a great message, and it’s interesting to see what innovations they are making in this space, do check it out.

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IBM
ARMONK, N.Y. - 13 Apr 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today added new servers, services and software to its lineup of 2010 systems designed to put a lid on the rising costs and complexities of operating modern data centers. The new offerings help clients reap the benefits of IBM’s three-year, $3 billion investment in POWER7™ systems that are ready for new workloads, such as the growing use of powerful, real-time business analytics.

They include blade servers built on IBM’s POWER7 workload-optimized systems’ design, new systems software that can reduce the deployment of workloads from weeks to minutes, and new services to remotely implement the systems, reducing costs by up to 25%.

I confess I need to read up more about this announcement, but anything IBM can do to bring further choice and innovation to the marketplace has to be a good thing. I wonder if there have been any improvements around the systems management space with their IBM Director product, I’m off to check out more, the POWER7 does sound interesting!

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VirtenSys

MANCHESTER, England, and BEAVERTON, Ore. April 16, 2010 — Virtensys™, Ltd, a leader in next-generation I/O solutions for data centers, today announced that NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and Virtensys have formed a partnership to develop an I/O Virtualization (IOV) blade switch module for the NEC blade systems.

“We are pleased to be partnering with Virtensys to develop unique I/O Virtualization technology solutions for our customers,” said Tomoyasu Nishimura, assistant general manager, NEC Server Division. “The Virtensys solution will give our customers the flexibility to dynamically manage and allocate the I/O resources to optimize their infrastructures while reducing their costs, energy requirements and management expenses.”

“We are delighted to be working with NEC to allow their customers to take full advantage of our I/O virtualization solutions,” said Ahmet Houssein, president and CEO of VirtenSys. “We look forward to delivering these solutions to the market in collaboration with NEC.”

I remain a fan of VirtenSys and their I/O virtualization solution, it’s great to see them extending their support for NEC based blade systems. Anything we can do to continue I/O virtualization innovation and consumer choice has to be a good thing, promoting the benefits of storage and networking convergence, of being able to wire once, have the storage and network capacity requirements change in line with the business need has to be a good thing. To be able to move to a next generation way of doing a business where, making slight changes to the infrastructure configuration might not mean a re-patch, a reconfiguration and three teams all of which can so easily result in delays to excellence or delivery.

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