Jennifer Mears

 

 

jlmears@gmail.com

Recent articles by Mears

Blades and virtualization, a perfect match, Part 1
Apr. 10, 2007
Three years ago I stopped by the Server Blade Summit in San Jose. It was a pretty small event and mostly vendor-attended at that time. Blades were still trying to shake their negative image of being power hungry, hard ...

Apple's speedy new Xserve
Mar. 22, 2007
Apple continues to raise its profile as an enterprise alternative – check out a story by my colleague John Fontana on the rising corporate interest in Mac software.

Avocent aims to ease deep server management
Feb. 13, 2007
These days, there is so much focus on how servers are managed. Some of the most pressing areas of management include the power demands and heat output of the systems. But there is also the desire to simply make the ...

Rackspace angles for bigger fish
Apr. 21, 2003
Although the hosting market has experienced many bankruptcies, Rackspace Managed Hosting says it has been profitable for two years. We recently spoke with Rackspace CEO Graham Weston.

Corio service to tackle legacy applications management
Dec. 04, 2000
New offering provides hosting, storage and account management for a single monthly fee.

Search tool sifts through business data
Nov. 27, 2000
Credit Suisse is first to put new ClearForest software service to use.

Plumtree and USinternetworking partner on portals
Nov. 27, 2000
Software maker Plumtree wants to team with application service providers to deploy, host and maintain portals that will also deliver an integrated package of application services.

Microsoft invests $50 million in USinternetworking
Nov. 20, 2000
Microsoft last week took another big step into the ASP market, announcing a $50 million equity investment in USinternetworking as part of a strategic alliance to develop, market and deliver managed application services ...

Managed services on tap from HarvardNet
Nov. 20, 2000
Web hosting company HarvardNet will roll out managed hosting services this week in an effort to meet the growing demand for advanced services, especially from small and midsize companies looking to get on the Web.

Saying goodbye
Aug. 09, 2007
This is the final Servers Newsletter. As my editors have noted, you will continue receiving server-related information through the Data Center Alert newsletter that is mailed out on Tuesdays.

Sun back in black
Aug. 07, 2007
Last month, I talked about Sun's efforts to reinvent itself and turn things around. It seems like the company is indeed regaining its momentum.

VMware releases VMmark to measure applications performance in virtualized environments - ...
Aug. 02, 2007
We've talked a lot about virtualization in this newsletter. There is no denying that those organizations not yet plotting their virtualization strategy likely will be left at a disadvantage. I wrote a newsletter a few ...

IBM iSeries gets a Power6 boost
Jul. 31, 2007
Earlier this month, IBM announced an overhaul of its System i division that resulted in the blending of System i sales with System p sales in two distinct units: the Business Systems Unit, focused on small and midsize ...

Owen Bird law firm flies from VMware, Part 2
Jul. 26, 2007
What follows is the conclusion of my talk with Stephen Bakerman, IT manager at Owen Bird, a law firm in Vancouver, British Columbia. In this newsletter, Bakerman talks in more specifics about Virtual Iron and why the ...

Owen Bird law firm flies from VMware, Part 1
Jul. 24, 2007
This summer, I've been talking with some organizations that have decided to reach out beyond VMware as they deploy virtualization in their data centers. Probably not surprisingly, the journey into x86 server ...

IBM opens up AIX 6
Jul. 19, 2007
In May, IBM took the wraps off of its Power6 processor, rolling out systems based on the chip that Big Blue claimed was more powerful and less power hungry than any Power processor before. The chip offers better energy ...

VMware gets a boost from Intel
Jul. 17, 2007
VMware is likely feeling at least a little bit more competitive pressure this year, now that companies are getting more familiar with x86 server virtualization and with VMware's competitors. Check out some of the ...

Sun continues to reinvent itself
Jul. 12, 2007
Sun is becoming very interesting to watch. The company that was still struggling just a year ago seems to be making strides again. Chalk one up to Sun for saying that it will open source the clustering software for its ...

Are you ready for virtualization?
Jul. 10, 2007
Late last month, AMD said that, yes, it would indeed start shipping its long-awaited quad-core Barcelona Opteron processors in August. Times definitely are good for server buyers, with Intel saying that it, too, would ...

Data centers going green
Jul. 05, 2007
My former colleague Deni Connor, who also was the previous author of this newsletter, and I wrote quite a bit about power and energy concerns in data centers during my time at Network World. Read one of our more recent ...

Intel, AMD chips power most of the world's fastest supercomputers
Jul. 03, 2007
The Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers http://www.top500.org/lists/2007/06 was released June 23 and the list reflects how high performance computing is changing. Once reserved for the most complex of ...

How National Association of Home Builders moved beyond VMware, Part 2
Jun. 28, 2007
What follows is the continuation of the edited transcript of my talk with John Yanekian, director of network services at the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C. The NAHB has been running SWsoft in ...

How National Association of Home Builders moved beyond VMware, Part 1
Jun. 26, 2007
A few weeks ago, I began a series that puts the spotlight on enterprise users who are virtualizing x86 servers, but with technology other than VMware. There is no denying that VMware remains the dominant force in the ...

Emerson helps customers get a handle on power and cooling
Jun. 21, 2007
Power and cooling continue to be big issues as systems become smaller and more powerful, so I'd guess that most data center managers are looking for easy, effective ways to keep tabs on power demands and cooling needs.

Burning question: Blades or rack?
Jun. 19, 2007
Blade servers are no longer on the bleeding edge, but there continues to be a lot of debate about when and where the slimmed-down servers make sense. It seems they're starting to make sense in a lot more situations. ...