New survey shows Linux as the preferred platform for Big Data, virtualization, and cloud computing trends.
Submitted by Rikki Endsley on Thu, 01/19/12 - 10:11am.
Released today, Linux Adoption Trends 2012: A Survey of Enterprise End Users is based on responses from 428 IT professionals from organizations with US$ 500 million or more a year in revenues or 500+ employees and is available for download from the Linux Foundation site. Among the key findings, the study shows that 8 out of 10 respondents say that they've added Linux servers in the past 12 months and plan to add more in the next year. Read more
One IT executive's experience with Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Submitted by markbowker on Tue, 12/06/11 - 1:46pm.
I just spoke with an IT executive at a large marketing and advertising firm. He has completely moved his data center to a local colocation facility. He has two cages at the facility. One cage is dedicated to the IBM Mainframe and the other to his x86 environment. About 40% of his x86 environment is virtualized with the plan to keep virtualizing systems as the opportunity presents itself. Read more
Invests along with Google and VMware in IP automation start-up's C round
Submitted by Jim Duffy on Wed, 11/30/11 - 4:48pm.
Cisco has invested in Puppet Labs, a maker of IT automation software. Actually, Cisco was but one new investor in Puppet Labs' C round of financing, which totaled $8.5 million.
Other new investors in the company include Google Ventures and VMware. They join existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, True Ventures, and Radar Partners in the round. Read more
Non-IT workers' poor security skills make organizations vulnerable to attack
Submitted by joltsik on Tue, 11/15/11 - 12:29pm.
As the old security cliche goes, "people are the weakest link in the security chain." ESG tested this theory in its recently-published research report, "U.S. Advanced Persistent Threat Analysis."
http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2011/11/apt/?utm_source=Homepage&...
According to the security professionals surveyed for this report, non-IT employees' security skills remain poor:
* 49% of respondents rated their organization's non-IT employees general security knowledge as "fair" or "poor." Read more
What better way to consolidate your Windows servers than put them on some big iron?
Submitted by Andy Patrizio on Fri, 11/11/11 - 2:29am.
A CA exec once told me if a mainframe crashes three times in year, that is an unreliable computer. If your PC crashes three times in one day, it's been a good day. Ok, so this was in the days of Windows 3.1, but the joke always stuck with me.
One thing that hasn't changed is mainframe reliability. They are still the gold standard for uptime and reliability, and with 40 years of development, there isn't much for alternatives. Maybe that's why despite repeated declarations that the mainframe, it continues to survive, thrive, and see significant updates from IBM. Read more
Virtualization, social media, energy are top issues IT will have to contend with
Submitted by Layer 8 on Mon, 10/17/11 - 7:07pm.
ORLANDO -- If you had to pick 10 technology-related trends that will impact your enterprise infrastructure in the coming year, Gartner says you'd do well to start with virtualization and move to other issues such as social media influence, energy issues and flat networks to name a few. Read more
Cisco is at the forefront of embracing the consumerization of IT - here's how.
Submitted by Frank Kobuszewski on Mon, 10/17/11 - 9:06am.
It’s painfully obvious that the consumerization of IT isn’t going away. You hear it in the news, from manufacturers, and the loudest voice of all – your end-users.
Most likely, helpdesk requests about configuring, updating or using consumer devices has eked their way into your top 10 most common calls list. (A personal favorite, though not a top 10: “How do I get that bird game on here?”) Read more
Microsoft uses Hyper-V to virtualize a massive SharePoint environment and other apps in its data centers
Submitted by Microsoft Subnet on Tue, 10/04/11 - 6:06pm.
The following is a guest blog by freelance editor and self-confessed keyboard geek Marco Chiappetta. In the eat-your-own-dogfood category, Microsoft recently released a pair of documents that showcase its use of Hyper-V in its own datacenters. Microsoft has been chanting for years about how much more affordable Hyper-V implementations are than VMware and few people dispute that. But they do argue that you get what you pay for, particularly with VM density, memory over-commit and management features. Read more
Microsoft didn't just whip up Server 8 out of the blue. Its experience running Azure played heavily into the new server's design.
Submitted by Andy Patrizio on Thu, 09/15/11 - 3:12pm.
So by now the cat's out of the bag on Windows Server 8 and how much of a monster upgrade it will be. But Microsoft didn't just come up with this list of features in a vacuum, or out of some desire for Paul Maritz's head (well, maybe…). Server 8 is the culmination of almost two years of being a cloud service provider. Read more
If you want a cloud OS, you're in for a treat. If not, too bad.
Submitted by Andy Patrizio on Mon, 09/12/11 - 2:20pm.
Microsoft held a mind-meld with about 40 journalists and influences at its Seattle headquarters last week to discuss Windows Server 8, the follow-up to Server 2008, and I've been able to extract a few details, NDAs and not being there not withstanding.
PRODUCT TESTER'S REACTION: Windows Server 8: The Microsoft Server Fork Read more
Martin Casado, inventor of OpenFlow and CTO of stealth startup Nicira, talks about the future of OpenFlow, networking and the job of the network engineer.
Submitted by Art Fewell on Thu, 09/08/11 - 3:15pm.
2011 has been an exciting year for Openflow and software defined networking (SDN). Continuing my informal series on Openflow, I recently got the chance to have a conversation with Nicira CTO Martin Casado to discuss the future of SDN generally and OpenFlow specifically. Read more
Server Fabric aimed at eliminating switch-, port-based connectivity management for virtual data centers
Submitted by Jim Duffy on Mon, 08/29/11 - 9:56pm.
So back from vacation, digging out and catching up after two weeks fishing and boating, and I come across one of the more interesting data center networking products announced during my absence: Server Fabric from Cisco irritant Xsigo Systems. Read more
ESG Senior Analyst Brian Babineau's take on Oracle VM 3.0 launch
Submitted by markbowker on Thu, 08/25/11 - 2:40pm.
My colleague Brian Babineau had the opportunity to attend the Oracle VM 3.0 launch where the company outlined its “Application-Driven Virtualization” strategy and solution portfolio. Although I personally have not dug into the details of the entire announcement (it is a busy time of year for anything virtualization), I wanted to share a couple Brian’s thoughts and provide some quick analysis. Read more
Despite a general dislike of the concept, Linux creator gives a guarded thumbs up to Xen while Kroah-Hartman praises KVM.
Submitted by Source Seeker on Thu, 08/18/11 - 11:25am.
Ask the world's most famous kernel developer what he thinks of the virtualization wars going on the Linux community between KVM and Xen and you'll hear a condemnation (of a sort) of them both. "I'm not a virtualization kind of guy. I think virtualization is evil," Linus Torvalds told the crowd at LinuxCon on Wednesday during his keynote interview session with Greg Kroah-Hartman.
Virtualization takes Torvalds away from the hardware and that's not where he wants to go. "I built a kernel because I wanted to get my hands grubby with things like I/O ports." Read more
2011 XenSummit Features Keynote from Amazon Web Services
Submitted by Mark Hinkle on Wed, 08/03/11 - 1:05pm.
One of my favorite sayings is, “Open source software is as much about people as it is about technology.” This week in Santa Clara, CA over one hundred people active in the open source Xen hypervisor community – largely developers and power users – gathered to discuss the state of the popular open source hypervisor. Read more
The software giant has sent out invitations to a special event in Redmond right before the big BUILD conference.
Submitted by Andy Patrizio on Tue, 08/02/11 - 1:49pm.
Microsoft has sent out invitations to a select group of guests, including industry journalists, to a preview event for the next version of Windows Server. The event will take place September 8-10 at Microsoft's Redmond campus, one week before the BUILD developer conference in Anaheim, Calif. Read more
Herrell discusses how Vyatt'as software approach fits in with the cloud, compares to hardware switches and why the company hasn't engaged in more head-to-head product testing.
Submitted by Larry Chaffin on Tue, 07/19/11 - 1:32pm.
Vyatta believes that networking hardware is old school and that its Layer-3 virtual networking stack can do it all while being cheaper and greener than traditional gear. In my ongoing series with industry CEOs, I talked with Vyatta CEO Kelly Herrell for his viewpoint on where his company fits into the market today.
Where is the market when it comes to network virtualization technology and where do you still see growth? Read more
Microsoft talks up new versions of Windows Server, SQL and System Center
Submitted by Jon Brodkin on Tue, 07/12/11 - 4:49pm.
Workloads running in Hyper-V will be far more reliable after the release of Windows Server 8 because Microsoft is boosting the ability to replicate mission-critical databases and other applications. Read more
One thing we all have is lots of old software, and we always need to worry about how we will run that one crucial application next year, the year after, or a decade down the road. Will the hardware be available? Will the drivers and libraries required still be available?
My recent quest to run up an old computer game -- "Star Wars Episode I: Racer," published in the 1990s -- has been a good example of this problem, though, admittedly, rather more fun than dealing with some moldy accounting app. Even so, the same principles and complexities are involved.
Read more
A few weeks ago I wrote about trying to get an old computer game, "Star Wars Episode I: Racer" published by Lucas Arts back in the 1990's, running in a virtual machine under VMware Fusion on my iMac.
Read more
