Bladewatch.com

http://blog.twinstrata.com/2011/12/06/hp-partner-twinstrata-offers-their-view-on-hp-cloud-services/ and HP.com

From time to time, we’ll post articles about how specific partners and customers use HP Cloud Services.  Today, I’d like to introduce TwinStrata’s CEO and co-founder Nicos Vekiarides and Engineering Manager Mark Aldred.

Check out these two posts talking about this partner exploring and testing HP’s Cloud Services, it’s interesting to see what they’re talking about, what the usage cases are and their perceived benefits for using Cloud technology. I’m off to read more.

The last day of HP Discover was spent walking around the booths speaking to the different vendors and HP blogging team to discuss the event, it was great to provide feedback and discuss the highlights for me.

So what memories resound when discussing HP Discover?

• The Keynote from Meg Whitman – very much an introduction, from my standpoint a line under the sand, and a clear strategy moving the company forward with a focus on its core products/services and customer requirements.
• The presentation from Autonomy’s Mike Lynch – illustrating the power of using the information you have for your business – the examples were very compelling
• HP’s Storage announcements were interesting – their new Microsoft Storage offering the HP X5000 G2 Network Attached Storage System, as well as their backup solution, the B6200 StoreOnce backup system.
• The talk and demonstration of HP’s Cloud offering, the ability to setup up applications on demand in minutes using their interface illustrated the possibilities not only for the start up, the SMB but also the business, do I want to speak to IT and request a server, a wordpress instance, or just log on to the cloud, press go?
• Exploring Vienna both for Christmas decorations and mineral water
• Witnessing the live increased downloads of FindMyFirmware – our application for the end user community for server information on the go.

MarketWatch

–  Demonstrating the outstanding performance of its SPARC T4-4 servers and the benefits of hardware and software engineered to work together, Oracle today announced a best-in-class TPC-H benchmark result at the three TB scale factor(1).
–  With this latest addition, Oracle’s SPARC T4 servers now claim 12 world records set on various business-critical enterprise workloads and industry-standard benchmarks.
–  In this TPC-H benchmark, which evaluates the performance of various Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing and Decision Support Systems for several standard database sizes, referred to as the scale factor(SF), Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Solaris 11, the first cloud OS, running on a SPARC T4-4 server with four SPARC T4 3 GHz processors, achieved a stellar result of 205,792 QphH@3000GB with a price of $4.10/QphH@3000GB.
–  The SPARC T4-4 server with Oracle Database 11g demonstrated over two times better performance per processor with 36 percent lower price per query (reported as $/QphH@3000GB) than IBM’s most recent result by an eight processor Power 780 server running Sybase. Additionally, Oracle’s solution offers better long-term value to its customers, as the TPC-H price/performance metric includes maintenance costs over a three-year period(2).

Check out Oracle’s announcement about their performance metrics and benchmarks achieved on their Enterprise SPARC T4 servers, it’s always great to see what the vendors have to say in the performance announcements. I’m off to read up more.

Hi

An open post to the mobile manufacturers, the cloud providers and the service providers.  Could I please rent a virtual handset, all I need is the base OS and an internet connection so that I can test my applications:

• Windows Mobile
• Apple IOS
• Android
• Blackberry
• Tablet platforms

Yes I can load an image and test in that, but it’s not the same, being able to interactively use a handset in its raw state can be transforming to application development and most importantly create opportunity. How many devices are held back not by the quality of their operating system, the design of the device but because ‘it didn’t have the apps’?

Could I therefore not have a developer/end user account where I can rent a virtual mobile handset with internet connectivity using VMware or whatever appropriate technology there is, the key thing being that i log into a portal, click start phone and use it without any barriers to doing so real or perceived.

http://www.hp.com/go/discovervienna

Day 2 of the HP Discover Vienna event was well received with a mixture of keynote sessions, in depth customer sessions and an opportunity to meet some of the sponsors/vendors at their booths.  The highlights for me were:

• The keynote by Dr Mike Lynch which not only explained the background to the Autonomy value proposition and the mechanics but displayed the technology in the end user context which you can see here – it really is amazing.
• David Donatelli on HP’s Cloud System and how they are not only preparing the technology, but also helping customers with their transition into the cloud and using cloud technology as a real empowerment, both in terms of on demand capacity as well as using it as a vehicle to consume infrastructure as a service, reducing complexity and cost in the enterprise.
• Learning about HP Peer Motion was interesting and illustrated how with the right technologies in place we can reduce the complexity of storage as a platform and at the same time enhance the functionality and accessibility of it.
• Participating in a live demonstration of HP Cloud which saw us building out a dual hosted WordPress platform in minutes, comprising of the database and application load in a series of mouse clicks based on template configurations, stunning technology which looked easy to use and developed with the end users’ application requirements in mind.

It’s been great to attend HP Discover in Vienna this year, and I look forward to seeing how HP will continue to innovate their technology and solutions to meet the business need.