Bladewatch.com

I saw this on twitter and it sound quite interesting:

http://www.commensus.com/blog/Free-Breakfast-Seminar-And-Demonstration-On-VMware-vCloud-Director

Join us next Thursday 12th May for an interactive demonstration of VMware’s latest product – vCloud Director. VMware vCloud Director is a cloud computing management solution that seamlessly virtualises and integrates onsite and off-site server resource. This enables IT managers to create and deploy virtual resources such as desktops or servers in minutes rather than days.

We have the privilege of hosting Alex Parker, the Chief Technical Officer at Commensus PLC, who will be leading an engaging discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of virtualisation for small to medium sized businesses.

If you’ve been wanting to check out VMware’s vCloud Director solution, it might be worth attending, do take a look.

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http://cloudofdata.com/2011/05/talking-with-hewlett-packard-in-madrid/

I took part in a podcast yesterday with Iain Stephenson and Martin Riley discussing the event, their products and services as well as what they see happening in the industry and the blade/server space. It was great hearing everyone’s ideas and interesting to hear what both Iain and Martin had to say about the event from a HP perspective.

Topics included:

• Converged infrastructure
• How the market has changed
• HP Technology @ Work – what it means to customers and HP
• Drivers for change

Do check out the podcast and let me know your views.

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What are the alternatives to the HP MicroServer in terms of similar price and feature wise? I got asked via email:

• Dell 11G T110
• Fujitsu MX130 S1 – we also have one of those
• Gateway GT110
• Lenovo TS200V

We used google for the above search, we will have missed some vendors, for that we apologize.

The email was asking about alternatives to the HP MicroServer in terms of a user buying their first server, but equally they could be ideal for virtualization in the right conditions with the correct specifications and user requirements defined for example in a lab scenario.

Drop me an email if I’ve made any mistakes or you want your server added to the list.

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http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.jsp?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/7/877/ENUSZG11-0127/index.html&breadCrum=DET001PT022&url=buttonpressed=DET002PT005&specific_index=DET001PEF502&DET015PGL002=DET001PEF011&submit.x=7&submit.y=8%E3%80%88=en_US

The next step of the road map is to incorporate select IBM System x® technologies, originally targeted for the first half of 2011. The reaction to delivering IBM System x capabilities has been very positive, with our clients also asking that we support Microsoft® Windows®. Therefore, today we are revising our road map to include planned support for Windows on System x as well as a revised schedule for IBM System x blade delivery on the IBM zEnterprise Systems.

I saw this interesting post talking about IBM zEnterprise support for Windows, it’s an interesting read and could result in a series of interesting announcements and innovations or opportunities for a high available or high capacity x86 platform I’m off to read up more.  With Windows support on the zEnterprise platform, could we see virtualization also coming on stream, an enterprise scale virtualization in a box platform?

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http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/vision-solutions-announces-availability-appliance-powered-by-ibm-server-technologies-1508785.htm

IRVINE, CA–(Marketwire – May 2, 2011) - Vision Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of information availability software and services with over 25,000 customers running Windows, Linux, IBM Power Systems and cloud computing environments, today announced the Vision Solutions Availability Appliance. This offering enables businesses to benefit from pre-installed high availability solutions on industry leading IBM Power Systems and System x servers.

Through the Premier Partnership with IBM, Vision is offering the Vision Availability Appliance, a low cost solution that will support mid-market customers with high availability for Windows and IBM i operating environments. The OEM (original equipment manufacturing) Computing Solutions business of Arrow Electronics Inc. is providing installation and shipping support for the appliance.

It’s interesting to see that this new appliance is based on IBM server technology and uses high availability technology from Double-Take and MIMIX, I’m off to read up more about this announcement.

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http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110428b.html

HP today announced that three healthcare providers serving thousands of patients have chosen HP Networking solutions to improve service delivery and simplify their IT infrastructures.

San Francisco-based Brown & Toland Physicians, Enloe Medical Center of Chico, Calif., and the Kantonsspital Graubunden (KSGR) in Chur, Switzerland, evaluated several competitive solutions, including HP and Cisco. These customers are among the many that select HP’s high-performance, easy-to-manage and affordable networking solutions to improve service delivery without downtime.

HP Networking solutions are core to HP Converged Infrastructure, which integrates servers, storage and networking into pools of interoperable resources.

Upgrading networking equipment without downtime

Brown & Toland Physicians, an independent practice association serving residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, needed to upgrade its networking equipment. The association approached HP to discuss options for replacing an existing Cisco Catalyst 6509 switching solution, which was nearing end of life. The replacement option from Cisco, the Nexus 7000 Series, exceeded Brown & Toland’s budget, without offering significant advantages.

“From patient records to billing, technology has become the backbone of our operations,” said Mark Grace, supervisor, Infrastructure Management, Infrastructure Engineering and Design, Brown & Toland Physicians. “HP enabled us to upgrade our networking equipment without downtime, allowing us to deliver the best patient service rapidly and securely.”

HPM Networks, a provider of networking solutions and HP channel partner, delivered a custom implementation for Brown & Toland Physicians, including the HP A9512 modular core switch and HP Intelligent Management Center management software. Combined with its existing HP ProLiant blade servers and HP storage solutions, Brown & Toland Physicians built a powerful and flexible infrastructure that can easily scale, while reducing complexity and cost.

Check out this post illustrating how these health care providers opted for the HP Converged Infrastructure solution to replace their existing legacy network infrastructure, it’s always interesting to read the business drivers for upgrading infrastructure and to understand the benefits and return on investment from doing so.

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HP MicroServer likes:

• Small form factor and Quiet
• Specification is good and supports several drives
• Support for lights out with their separate PCI slot card
• Many USB ports and support for eSATA
• On board support for ESXi is fantastic and makes it an ideal test lab

HP MicroServer hesitations:

• DVD drive should be included in the base model even if it’s only a reader (some colleagues thought I was missing the point when I mentioned this)
• Form factor is great but could it put people off working on it or upgrading it in the ultra SMB space? Though fitting disks is relatively easy

Fujitsu Primergy MX130 S1 likes:

• I love the fact that a keyboard is included sure in the office, we would typically have one, but it just shows attention to detail – here’s your server get started
• Quite powerful processor, more so than the MicroServer
• Familiar form factor – getting your desktop guy to fit a disk or do maintenance should not be too hard, it looks very similar
• Many USB ports and DVI which will work with your atypical desktop purchased recently

Fujitsu Primergy MX130 S1 hesitations::

Rather desktop looking in some respects I want it more server based – but does that target market?

Lack of remote management features – again does that target market need that option?

Hard drive is extra on base model – again colleagues told me that I was missing the point when I mentioned this.

It could be easier to fit hard drives, in the HP you just slot them into the custom made bays

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I’ve uploaded Photos from HP Technology @ Work 2011, so you can see some of the demonstrations and the hardware that have been on display, the 3PAR solution looks very interesting and it was great to see an example of BladeSystem Matrix in action, in this case two web servers were running at maximum capacity, SiteScope detected this and powered on an additional web server to help balance the load – very cool if you’re an end user or wanting to maintain a level of service. The demonstration illustrated the management and deployment of both physical and virtual servers through the HP Orchestration tool for BladeSystem Matrix.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24561473@N00/sets/72157626644725976/

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http://www.cio.com/article/681279/VMware_Causes_Second_Outage_While_Recovering_From_First?source=CIONLE_nlt_datacenter_2011-05-04

Network World — VMware’s (VMW) attempt to recover from an outage in its brand-new cloud computing service inadvertently caused a second outage the next day, the company said.

VMware’s new Cloud Foundry service — which is still in beta — suffered downtime over the course of two days last week, not long after the more highly publicized outage that hit Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud.

I never take pleasure in reading about outages, as someone who’s experienced a system outage, had to do the reports or been the user experiencing the outage, it’s not good. We have to though as an industry and a user group accept two things, outages are going to happen, and that we need to perform the due diligence that we can to limit them where possible.

Regardless the recent realm of outages from gmail some time ago to Amazon through to VMware, all plant that extra element of doubt in the platform, but as we heard today in the conference, hours of downtime might still fall within the 99.995% service level agreement, I think with buying in a service the issue is more that as an end user I can’t just walk downstairs vent my frustration and know that everything is being done to resolve the issue.

Could the companies involved not consider releasing elements of the outage reports real time in some kind of blog format, I’m not asking for names or anything, just a bit more helpful open information with a few more regular updates, not minute by minute, but updates as we have them, it makes the world of difference.

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http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110503b.html

HP Enterprise Services today announced Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group (DTG) has signed a three-and-a-half year, $72 million technology outsourcing services agreement to continue supporting DTG’s applications portfolio and managing its technology infrastructure as a foundation for the company’s future growth.

With this agreement, DTG will move to a hybrid delivery model using a combination of dedicated HP onsite support and leveraged services. This delivery model allows DTG to build, manage and consume technology services that will optimize planning, deployment and management.

“In today’s competitive market, our technology needs to evolve in a way that increases its flexibility to grow with us while continuing the reliability with which we are accustomed,” said Rick Morris, executive vice president and chief information officer, Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group. “Together with HP, we will continue creating innovative solutions to help us deliver outstanding results to our shareholders and customers.”

HP will continue providing strategic Data Center Services from its next-generation client data centers, including Network Management Services to manage the company’s LAN/WAN environment and Security Services to protect the network from viruses and malware. The agreement also includes management of 200 midrange servers with an additional 200 virtual images. Additionally, Storage and Backup and Restore Services will ensure a high availability of IT services and continuous reliable operations.

It’s always interesting to read these kind of announcements, to understand what organisations drivers behind such activities as outsourcing and what technologies and services they are seeking to deliver as part of the agreement.

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