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Win a ticket to VMworld Europe 2014!

http://vmwareemeablog.com/uk/competition-time-for-our-fast-lane-racer/ Hopefully you will have been practicing, because things are getting serious! Today we’re launching our Fast Lane Racer competition, which means you could win some great prizes. All you need to do is complete tracks 1, 2 and 3 in under 45 seconds each, and you’ll be in with a chance to win an Audi R8 remote control car! On top of this, this is the first in a series of competitions we’ll be running up until the 30th of September. Anybody entering any of these will be in with a chance to win a ticket to VMworld Europe 2014, worth over £1000! See terms and conditions here. Do check this out, they’re offering a free ticket to VMworld Europe which is well worth entry and is by all accounts a great event. Check out the post for more information or click...

The HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8

I got asked by a colleague what was different about the HP ProLiant Gen8 MicroServer, so we went over the differences and I found myself re-confirming my passion for their MicroServer as a form factor and a product. My thoughts on the HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8: It illustrates that HP get’s their customers – both in the SMB space and those wanting a home lab. A device which is designed to meet it’s objective – it’s quiet, it’s just the right form factor and remains scalable Features Integrated Lights Out 4 which is transfomational There are bundles available to include a Switch and operating systems so it works out of the box If packaged in the right way it could be the gateway or caching device to cloud services I’d love to see the MicroServer be leveraged more as a cloud caching device, as the distribution mechanism, the access point to a range of application services aimed at the SMB or lab scenario. For example could I run my home ESX lab and then when I switch the server to standby it sync the lab up to the cloud?  Or have it stream down applications directly to my end user community from the cloud, providing me with online services but with all the benefits of an on site presence.  ...

HP delivers next generation virtualisation solutions...

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1536854#.Uqbsv8uYbIU BARCELONA, Spain — HP today announced new HP ConvergedSystem and HP Converged Storage offerings that give enterprises the speed, agility and lower economics to build the next-generation data centers that will power tomorrow’s successful organizations. Data centers are reaching an unsustainable point—in the next five years, the average enterprise will see data capacities grow more than 800 percent, according to Gartner.(1) Enterprises need to be able to manage this exponential growth in data while introducing new applications, such as big data and analytics, using delivery models such as virtualized infrastructure and the cloud. Yet, enterprise innovation is constrained by the complexities of outdated IT. Organizations must optimize and modernize to deliver a New Style of IT that accelerates revenue generation, drives innovation and reduces business risk, while at the same time reducing overall costs. The highlights are truly impressive: HP ConvergedSystem for Virtualization helps clients easily scale computing resources to meet business needs with preconfigured, modular virtualization systems supporting 50 to 1,000 virtual machines at twice the performance, and at an entry price 25 percent lower than competitive offerings.(3) HP ConvergedSystem 300 for Vertica speeds big data analytics, helping organizations turn data into actionable insights at 50 to 1,000 times faster performance and 70 percent lower cost per terabyte than legacy data warehouses.(4) HP ConvergedSystem 100 for Hosted Desktops, based on the award-winning HP Moonshot, delivers a superior desktop experience compared to traditional virtual desktop infrastructure. This first PC on a chip for the data center delivers six times faster graphics performance and 44 percent lower total cost of ownership.(5) I called one of the CIO’s I know to ask him about the Hosted Desktop and solution for virtualisation in particular to ask what he thought: “This is game changing… Being able to buy a pre-architected virtual desktop solution or a virtualisation solution based on demand  is fantastic, do you know if they do it on a lease? ..It means I can stop messing about debating technologies, buy a stack and deliver…” The ConvergedSystem 100 for Hosted Desktop is the next generation of their HP Moonshot offering, delivering fantastic results: No compromise PC experience Simple deployment, have it up and running in 2 hours without SAN using Citrix desktop Aimed at atypical pc user workloads and targeted at medium to large enterprises 180 users could be hosted on one Moonshot...

HP Powershell scripting tools for ILO3 and ILO4...

Chris emailed this through to me asking if I’d used it.  It’s HP’s free scripting tools for use with Windows PowerShell to aid in systems administration and automation for ILO 3/ILO4, the details are below: Features Utilizes Proven PowerShell Technology Provides consistent and reliable server configuratio Supports the standard PowerShell architecture and scripting mode Object oriented – output from one command can be passed to another via pipe command All HP PowerShell cmdlets have built-in Help functions that document syntax and usage examples Reliable and Repeatable Scripting Capabilities Ensures consistency and frees up scarce IT resource Scales to support high volume server configuration Delivers consistent server configurations across multiple servers Integrates into other deployment and configuration models that leverage PowerShell The PDF lives here. It’s great to see HP provide common open standard solutions to aid in the management of the systems, and build the foundation for their customers to customize to meet their business...

VDI Project Powered by Tegile Systems Pays Dividends for Bank of Stockton...

http://www.tegile.com/company/news-and-events/press-release-46 Newark, Calif. – November 19, 2013 – Tegile Systems, the leading provider of flash driven storage arrays for virtualized server and virtual desktop environments, announced today that the Bank of Stockton, with 16 branches in Central California, has deployed hybrid storage arrays from Tegile Systems to power its new virtual desktop infrastructure project. The 146-year-old company with nearly $2 billion in assets is the oldest bank in California, but the first in its market to pioneer new technologies like electronic banking, Internet banking and mobile banking. Its VDI initiative’s initial rollout included 80 virtualized desktops running VMware View hosted on NetApp arrays. But users experienced slowdowns when branch activity peaked, and the storage performance could not keep up. The bank chose Tegile over NetApp, HP and Nimble Storage, and installed two Tegile Zebi HA2100EP arrays that leverage the performance of flash storage and the cost and capacity of hard disk drives. Tegile’s Zebi arrays intelligently integrate DRAM, flash and hard disk storage to create an optimized hybrid storage appliance with best in class data protection features and user-friendly interface. Tegile Systems continues to do well, and it’s interesting to read the success that has been realised by the Bank of Stockton in using their arrays to power their new virtual desktop infrastructure. It’s always interesting to read how end users and organizations are using technology to achieve their business objectives, do check it out....

Looking at the InMage Systems 4000 Series backup and disaster recovery appliance...

http://www.inmage.com/news/153/442/InMage-Announces-Unified-Backup-and-Disaster-Recovery-Appliance.html SAN JOSE, Calif. – October 23, 2013 – InMage Systems® today introduced the 4000 Series, a backup and disaster recovery appliance designed to satisfy the needs of a wide range of customers, from SMB, to Enterprises with petabyte sized deployments. Based on a self-contained architecture that includes compute, networking and storage, the 4000 Series is fast and easy to deploy and boasts minimal space and power requirements. The 4000 Series provides the capability to re-instantiate data centers in minutes with near zero data loss, significantly reducing operational time and costs. The 4000 Series can also address hybrid cloud based disaster recovery, replicating from appliance-to-appliance, to a secondary data center, or to a wide range of cloud providers. Built in, best-of-breed features such as compression, encryption, WAN acceleration and bandwidth management enable replication across geographic distances while minimizing bandwidth costs, maximizing capacity, and increasing security. InMage’s proprietary technology allows byte level change protection and in-line de-duplication which results in the most efficient and thorough backup and recovery solution. “We chose the InMage 4000 because it is a cost effective backup and DR solution all rolled into one magic box.” Pat Smith, CIO at Our Kids, a non-profit provider of child welfare services to Florida’s Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. The InMage 4000 Series is based on unique data protection technology that captures data changes in real-time at the byte level, and allows for continuous backup with near zero impact on primary servers and storage. This approach completely eliminates backup windows and surpasses recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) offered by traditional methods. The 4000 Series also provides the ability to recover to any point in time, at the level of granularity required, such as mails or mailboxes, files and folders, volumes, full server or even the entire site.   I got sent this and it looks quite interesting. It’s great to see InMage Systems working on an appliance to meet the business requirements for SMB and enterprise customers in the backup and disaster recovery space. I’ll need to check it out and read up more, particularly about it’s integration and support of virtual workloads. The more alternatives and competition in the market place, the better chances there are for customers and end users to find the solution that meets their business objectives and...

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