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Don't get 'Green Scammed'. Listen now!
Cisco opens ISR routers to developers; SaaS providers cut costs with open source. Listen now!
Migrating to a new messaging system is a tedious, complex and risky process. And since this isn’t something you do everyday, you need to know "best practices" to ensure a successful migration.
Get the latest on storage technologies that allow IT professionals to better cope with new IT demands. Learn how storage technologies can help you successfully tackle e-Discover, regulatory compliance, green data center initiatives and the data explosion. Get all the details now.
Watch this webcast to learn in six modules how to more cost effectively consolidate your Windows servers with virtualization. This unique program allows you to pick and choose which of the six modules you would like to view or watch the entire webcast at once. Topics covered: Performance, Use Cases, Enterprise-level Support, Managing Windows Workloads, Setup and Configuration and The Future. Find out how you can simplify server consolidation within your organization today. Register below to learn more and be entered to win an Archos 605 Portable Media Player.
If Microsoft does nothing to fix the problem in a timely manner, that is wrong and makes for poor business...- Anonymous
The powerful tape technology can address data security with tape encryption as well as long term data protection.
Discover what disk and tape really cost -- and which solution provides lower total cost of ownership and optimizes energy use for your organization
The Clipper Group explores the truth behind the myths of tape, digging into the misconceptions in the disk vs. tape debate.
Over two thirds of disk-only users look to add tape back into storage infrastructure according to recent survey.
Computing architectures seem to be attached to a pendulum, swinging every few decades from centralized to de-centralized and back again.
The first computing architectures were centralized and monolithic. The mainframe contained all the computing and storage using “dumb” terminals as an interface for the user. Client-server computing changed that equation, distributing the computing resources out to the end users, who now had powerful workstations with sophisticated graphics and local storage.
Web-based applications and various types of thin clients seem to have pushed the pendulum back to a centralized architecture. In fact, with the emergence of blade computing, clustering and data-center consolidation, it sometimes seems as though we’re headed right back to the mainframe era.
Appearances are deceptive, however.
The current trend for centralization is very different from the past, and the mainframe era is not coming back. A fundamentally new paradigm is emerging, defined by a mix of de-centralized resources on a much more fine-grained scale and centralized management - a mix of past eras which takes the best elements from older architectures. Here are some of the key differentiators of this new paradigm:
* That “thin client” is looking quite chubby. Web-based applications started out as quite thin clients. The earliest browsers had fewer features than a sophisticated (think 1372) mainframe terminal. They did graphics, but not forms or screen-refreshes, for example. The limitations of Web-based applications were addressed with client-side runtimes such as Java and ActiveX, turning the thin client into a computing platform again. A newer model based on JavaScript and XML (AJAX; see last week’s article) strikes a balance between anorexic clients (plain HTML) and Jabba the Hutt (Java and ActiveX).
* Web services are shifting the balance back to the client also. For now, Web services are mostly used to build portals, but the longer-term trend is for the desktop to consume Web services directly. Agent-based computing, with the agent on your desktop, could become a powerful new model for the Web.
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