- Microsoft links design tool to Visual Studio 2008
- Review: GrandCentral is one number for all your phones
- Review: RingCentral online telephone service makes small businesses sound like enterprises
- Test Center Tracker: Taking a Spider from BI to Zoho
- Test Center Tracker: Maybe you can take it with you
- Test Center Tracker: Leopard scores big
- Preview: Early peek at the HP c3000 - Part 2
- Test Center Tracker: Our Thanksgiving menu
- Test Center Tracker: Balanced Loads, Valid Rules, and Limited Open Source
- IBM makes SOA, telecom rollout
November 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft links design tool to Visual Studio 2008
Microsoft this week released an update to its Expression Blend application design tool to enable Blend projects to work in the newly released Visual Studio 2008 application development platform, said S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, in his blog.
Expression Blend Service Pack 1 can be downloaded on this Web site.
"Earlier this year, we released Expression Blend that is tailored to the designer community. Last week, we released Visual Studio 2008 for the developer audience. These are two products that together can help to build this seamless workflow and relationship between developers and designers," Somaseger said. "Obviously, we all want the latest versions of these products to work together."
Posted by Paul Krill on November 30, 2007 07:07 AM
November 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: GrandCentral is one number for all your phones
Andriod and interest in the 700 MHz wireless spectrum may be generating the majority of recent press about Google’s future telephony plans. But GrandCentral, the VoIP online product that Google purchased in July 2007, shows this strategy in action.
Upfront, GrandCentral doesn’t have the small business features (such as toll-free numbers, multiple extensions, and faxing) that you’ll find with RingCentral. Still, after testing the GrandCentral beta, I found more than enough benefits to justify business people taking a look.
Put simply, GrandCentral gives you a single local phone number (which are available for most areas of the United States). At this point, you easily define which of up to six phones (and one temporary number) ring based on who’s calling your main number. One advantage is as you change service providers or jobs, you just update GrandCentral set-tings; your GrandCentral number never changes and users are transparently routed to any of your new phone numbers.
GrandCentral’s other features – including voicemail, call recording, and notifications – then help you mange your communications from one spot.
The heart of GrandCentral, which is operated from a simple Web interface, is the Address Book. Unfortunately, the beta won’t currently let you import contact lists (Outlook, Out-look Express, CVS, vCard, Yahoo, and Gmail should be supported at some point). But once I manually added a contact, GrandCentral routed calls from that person (as detected by Caller ID) to any device I specified or to voicemail.
These options are easily changed on the fly – but rules can’t be created based on the time or day as you find with RingCentral. Still, GrandCentral has enough flexibility to, say, automatically forward a call from an important client to your cell phone if you’re away from the office. Additionally, I recorded a custom greeting for each person.
Besides e-mail and SMS notifications of voicemail, the Address Book has an Inbox showing messages from that person. From here it’s especially easy to return the call, forward to an e-mail address, and reply using e-mail. In an early look at how this system integrates with other Google technologies, I clicked the Map tab to see the caller’s location using Google Maps. Optionally, you view messages from everyone on the main Inbox page.
To accommodate wholesale routing changes, I placed contacts into one of four available groups (friends, family, work, and others). You then select which phone rings for each group. However, there’s currently no option to add custom groups.
GrandCentral’s ListenIn feature, which is controlled from your physical phone, gives you several answering machine features. For instance, I heard what people had to say before picking up the call and listened to voicemails as they were recorded. Also, I blocked un-wanted callers from ever reaching me.
CallSwitch is a neat feature that let me change phones in the middle of a call; for in-stance, I switched from cell phone to landline and the caller wasn’t even aware of the change.
Finally, there’s Visual voicemail, which works on just about any mobile phone with a Web browser. Sorry, but this implementation doesn’t look elegant next to the iPhone’s feature of the same name.
Still, I enjoyed access to GrandCentral messages and other basic settings from my cell phone without the need to install any client software.
GrandCentral is clearly a work-in-progress. Google won’t publically discuss its plans for the product – though based on the beta I doubt they’ll add many more features for an initial launch.
Yet it does solve a fundamental business problem: simplifying communications for managers and other mobile professionals. As such, there’s enough here to merit considering GrandCentral once it’s in general release.
Availability: Private beta that requires invitation from current tester to join.
Pricing: Free for light use; cost for paid features to be announced.
Verdict: GrandCentral reaches you through a single phone number, yet lets you answer the call using up to six devices. The system offers voicemail, which is accessed by phone, e-mail, or online. You customize greetings for each user – and decide what to do when re-ceiving a call from that person. GrandCentral notifies you of messages using e-mail or SMS. And basic functions can be performed from a cell phone with Web browsing capability.
Posted by Mike Heck on November 29, 2007 10:42 PM
November 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Review: RingCentral online telephone service makes small businesses sound like enterprises
The first contact – and impression – of your organization is often by phone. To make clients and prospects feel welcome, enterprises typically use expensive Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems that route calls efficiently and offer fancy features such as automated directory assistance. With RingCentral, an affordable virtual phone system, professionals and small businesses can sound like a Fortune 500 organization. (For another communications option, please read my review of Google’s GrandCentral.)
Signing up for RingCentral, which takes a few minutes, gets you a new phone number (toll-free, custom vanity, or local; extra fees apply to the first two options). You may also transfer an existing number to RingCentral. The latest version of the service I tested also offers DigitalLine VoIP, where your calls to and from RingCentral go through your broadband Internet connection. This option (an extra $4.99 per month) lets you use your PC as a telephone; alternately, you can integrate an IP Phone or any unlocked SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) compatible device with this service.
RingCentral has a plethora of features, yet I think most users should be able to get the basics of their system setup and functioning within an hour – steps that are done through a decent Web user interface. However, some of the more advanced options are either down a few levels or not completely obvious – so I’d recommend the company consider further simplifying the user experience. In the meantime, RingCentral provides several good online tutorials and videos if you get stuck at any point.
I first established core settings for my main phone number, including business hours, and then recorded custom greetings. RingCentral offers great flexibility in creating rules. For example, I built a rule that automatically routed calls from an important client (based on their caller ID) to a specific helpdesk agent.
Similarly, I created rules for when someone could not answer the main number, which included call forwarding and voicemail. Further, the system has multiple notification options such as e-mail alerts when voice and fax messages are received.
In all my test calls to RingCentral, the system operated just as my rules specified. I also successfully used other functions, including call screening (where you see who is calling and accept, reject, or send the call to voicemail) and blocking unwanted calls forever. Moreover, audio quality of announcements and voicemail was very good.
As you’d expect, RingCentral’s Web interface provides an overview of calls received, lets you play messages, and perform other tasks, such as adding the caller to your contact list – all that I easily accomplished.
Extensions represent another advantage of RingCentral compared to other services. I easily created extensions for co-workers and added them to my company directory. Just like your main business number, each user can create rules and set notifications for their ex-tension. For instance, if I didn’t answer my extension in four rings I had RingCentral sequence the call to my home phone, cell phone, and finally to voicemail.
Similar to the Overview page, the Extension Summary lets each user see their new and saved messages. For security, access to extensions is password protected.
RingCentral provides client software – Call Controller – to perform many call functions from a Windows PC. I liked the way this application let me answer incoming calls (using a headset), screen voicemail, make conference calls, and transfer calls. If you have DigitalLine, you can also dial outbound calls from Call Controller. RingCentral Mobile (for Windows Mobile 5.0 devices) let me make outbound calls – plus access my online mes-sages and call logs – from my HP iPAQ PDA.
Internet Fax, included with every account, is a nice bonus. Incoming faxes were quickly processed and delivered to one of my extensions. Moreover, you can send faxes from any Windows application (outbound fees apply, which start at 3.9 cents per page).
SMB owners have other telephony options, yet many involve hardware purchases and ex-tra complexity. One example is Microsoft’s Response Point. Therefore, RingCentral’s feature breadth and depth, generally intuitive operation, and pricing structure make it a very good pick.
RingCentral
Pricing: Monthly payments from $14.99 to 99.99, with annual payment discounts
Verdict: RingCentral is a notable system that offers a local or toll-free phone number. This sophisticated, yet easily managed service routes calls (based on sophisticated rules) to other numbers or alternately takes voice messages. You can screen or block calls, record calls, send and receive faxes, and access the system from both a browser and Windows Mobile device. Integration with VoIP and Internet Faxing complete this unified small business communications offering.
Posted by Mike Heck on November 28, 2007 11:34 AM
November 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Taking a Spider from BI to Zoho
A powerful new computing platform, more smarts for business and a Web office suite that promises to work offline are all in a day work (or two) at the Test Center.
Say "Hi!" to a Phenom platform What happens when you marry a 64-bit quadcore Phenom processor with ATI graphics? Surprisingly you get Spider, a new platform from AMD that should catch more than just flies. In the words of Tom Yager the new platform is "agile on any terrain" and "has exceptional vision". It's all in today's Ahead of the Curve.
Pervasive BI? To paraphrase the words of Gandhi, BI would be a very good idea. Like Western civilization, BI hasn't exactly won everybody's hearts and minds, which is probably why Microsoft is injecting more BI features in the upcoming SQL Server 2008. Read what Sean Gallagher has to say in Enterprise Windows.
Not just online Q: What's the ultimate challenge for a suite of Web office applications? A: Getting some work done also when a Web connection is not available. On a plane, for example. That's where Randall Kennedy took Zoho Office for a test ride. Find out how Zoho Office performs when airborne in Enterprise Desktop.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 28, 2007 09:06 AM
November 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Maybe you can take it with you
There are libraries to carry around, green power sources for I.T. centers, and good business in open source for today's Test Center Tracker.
Take it all:If you can take everything you need with you, why wouldn't you? That's the question Brian Chee is asking in Geeks in Paradise after looking at the new Amazon Kindle. It's not so much the idea of grabbing the local newspaper on the electronic reader--what if you could have your entire reference library on a portable, easily searchable tablet that accompanied you to your desk and to jobs in the field? Now you're talking...
A mighty wind: HP is taking big green steps with their newest data centers, powering one with solar power and another with wind. Ted Samson is all over this in Sustainable IT, and it looks like a decent model for other tech firms to follow.
Happy days...: The high-tech sector has been up and down for months, but one segment seems to be on a consistent upward path -- open source businesses are starting to flourish. Zack Urlocker takes a look at the businesses and their business plans and likes what he sees for the long run.
Posted by Curt Franklin on November 27, 2007 01:27 PM
November 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Leopard scores big
A perfect 10: Apple has achieved perfection with the release of Mac OS X, at least in the eyes of InfoWorld Chief Technologist Tom Yager. He's given the OS a bottom-line score a 10, a feat no other company has achieved (at least as far back as I can remember). "Leopard will change the way you work with computers, and entirely for the better," Yager writes. Why? Best read his review and find out.
Don't venture toward Vista: While Tom Yager is singing the praises of Mac OX X, Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy has some less-than-favorable assessment of Windows Vista: "For the vast majority of enterprise IT shops, Vista is not -- and likely never will be -- the right choice for their immediate desktop computing needs." Ouch. What's his beef with Vista? Find out right here.
Scrub your Web services: Testing a SOAP-based Web service may seem simple enough -- but simple, it ain't. Tools abound to ease the task, fortunately -- and Test Center Contributing Editor Rick Grehan has taken a close look at five such solutions: AdventNet's QEngine, Crosscheck Networks SOAPSonar, iTKO's LISA, Mindreef's SOAPscope Server, and Parasoft's SOAtest.Readers. He shares some great insight, differentiating the five products and pointing out their respective strengths and shortcomings. Looking to scrub you Web services clean? Then check out his review.
Posted by Ted Samson on November 26, 2007 11:55 AM
November 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Early peek at the HP c3000 - Part 2
Please note that this article has been updated to correct some information
Welcome to part two of our exploration of the HP c3000 Blade System. If you need a recap, part 1 is here.
Last time we looked at the front of the system that can host up to eight half-size blades but can mount also larger blades, up to four, after removing the center divider.
The back of the unit has room for up to six power supply modules, six fans and four switches, but while I had all six fan slots filled, only 1 switch and 4 power supplies were installed on my system.
Those six fans are noisy, especially at power on. However, after a few seconds of much louder noise the system quiets down to the point where its humming is indistinguishable from the racket of other machines in my lab. Nevertheless, this is not a system that I would install in an open space office nor close to my desk. It should live behind a closed door either in a computer room or in a wiring closet.
The power supply modules of the c3000 can be configured for maximum resilience and optimal use of energy. To do that you use the browser- based client of the Onboard Manager, one of the administrative tools of the system, where you can find intuitive steps to adjust the behavior of the power supply to your preference. I also liked Dynamic Power, in essence an option to optimize the energy used consolidating the supply on fewer modules.
If keeping the energy cost under control is a concern, Onboard Manager includes an applet that reports several metrics of power usage. For example, the average, minimum and peek watts used by the system over time.
Speaking of administrative tools, the c3000 ships with a small built-in console that slides out of the Administrator Module on the front of the unit.
After you pull it out, the console opens like a clam to reveal a small LCD display and a Spartan set of navigation keys.
Installing the c3000 on the lowest shelf as I did makes using the built-in console very uncomfortable. However, after setting the IP address of the Administrator Module all other configuration settings can be done, more comfortably, from Onboard Administrator.
Interestingly, the browser client offers also a perfectly working replica of the built-in console, in case you really want to use that interface. 
You shouldn't and you don't need to, because Onboard Administrator covers all what the built-in console can do and more. For example, you can manage multiple blade systems from the same screen.
The c3000 doesn't ship with a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) module, so without one access to each server's console is either via remote connectivity or using a dongle that plugs into a dedicated server port and has USB connections for mouse and keyboard, plus a VGA and a serial port.
The dongle can be hot plugged into any server, but gets in the way of the on-board display when connected to the first server on the bottom left. In alternative, one of the USB ports can be used to connect a USB drive to a server.
To sum up my first impressions after this second peek at the c3000, I like the management tools, not sure that saving money on a KVM is such a good idea, and can only give thumbs up to the environmental features of the system.
Although it was not installed on my system, an optional KVM module is available and mounts in one of the empty slots in the back of the unit, just above the left bank of power supply modules.
Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more. In future reports we'll focus on how the c3000 behave when we make it work.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 23, 2007 03:07 AM
November 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Our Thanksgiving menu
Our Thanksgiving menu
It wasn't planned (as far as I know) but our selection of articles for today appropriately brings to mind the abundance of a Thanksgiving banquet.
Getting SOA right David Linthicum proposes an enticing appetizer with thoughts and suggestions on how to get your SOA projects in top shape. Testing, testing and then more testing, of course, but what and how? Read all about it in Real World SOA
Beware of the Orcas Not the whales of course, but the gold version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 that just became available for download, a fact that didn't escape Tom Yager. Could this new release help developers inject a friendlier behavior in Windows apps? Read on to find out.
Virtually free Speaking of next year and Microsoft, Sean Gallagher shares his thoughts on what could be the impact of Windows Server 2008 Virtualization Component, an add-on to the Windows server license oddly priced $28. Makes you curious to know how did Microsoft come up with that $28 license fee.
Leopard's first roar Our main course, the turkey of our Thanksgiving menu if you wish, is Tom Yager's first installment of his review of the new OS from Apple. Savor it while it's hot, but be sure to leave room for part two of the review, expected next week.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 21, 2007 09:25 AM
November 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Balanced Loads, Valid Rules, and Limited Open Source
It's the hump day of a very short week for many people, but that doesn't mean a lack of useful stories. In the Test Center, there are reviews of appliances for dealing with unbalanced network loads and unwieldy network rules, and an Open Source Blog entry on possible limits to the open source model.
A Network in Balance: When you're network is large, busy, and critical to your business, it can make sense to balance the overall load across the available network segments. Logan Harbaugh looks at Coyote Point's load balancer and finds an appliance that dispenses with frills in favor of solid performance on its designed task.
Business Rules that Work: It's hard enough trying to figure out what your business processes really are; making sure that your I.T. rules actually implement the rules can be a nightmare. Steven Nunez's review of Blaze Advisor 6.5 finds a system that it powerful and complete, though the power comes at a price. The latest version of the Fair Isaac tool isn't simple or easy to use, so it's not a system to be taken up lightly. If your enterprise needs to be sure that the rules fit the process, though, it can be a life-saver.
JBoss Leads: The open-source software model has many strengths. Making it easy for a company to thrive in a business built on open-source software really isn't one of them. In a blog post with serious real-world implications, Savio Rodrigues looks at JBoss and finds a company that's had no trouble generating sales leads, but some difficulty converting those leads into paying customers. Why do you care? In the business world, IT products require support, and a company that can't build revenue streams has trouble keeping support staff employed. This isn't an indictment of the open-source system, but it is a serious look at a very real issue for this vitally important branch of the software industry.
Posted by Curt Franklin on November 20, 2007 12:27 PM
November 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IBM makes SOA, telecom rollout
IBM is announcing products and product upgrades Tuesday to assist telecommunications carriers and others to use SOA and Web 2.0 to deploy voice, video and data services.
Service providers can deliver IP-based services. Product lines involved in the release include the Rational, WebSphere and Tivoli lines.
"IBM is helping to enable service providers to create, combine and deploy new telecommunications services based on emerging technologies," said Tim Greisinger, vice president for communications sector solutions in the IBM Software Group, in a statement released by IBM. "With IBM's Web 2.0, SOA and IP technology leadership, service providers may also have the capability to deliver innovative services with greater speed and quality in a much more open and flexible environment."
Products featured in the plan include:
* IBM Rational Performance Tester Extension for SIP, to enable testing of SIP-based applications.
* IBM SIP Modeling Toolkit for Rational Software Architect, to model SIP applications.
* IBM WebSphere XML Document Management Server, to manage XML documents including group lists, user profiles and contact information.
* An upgraded IBM WebSphere Telecom Web Services Server, to leverage Web 2.0 technologies to deliver a secure gateway for third parties to access personalized capabilities such as location-based services. Parlay X 2.1 Web services capabilities are supported.
* An upgrade to IBM WebSphere Presence Server, to collect and distribute real-time information about access. Performance and functional enhancements are featured.
* IBM WebSphere IMS Connector, to enable applications running on WebSphere Application Server to communicate with IP Multimedia Subsystems core elements like Call/Session Control Function. The new release supports pre-paid or credit-based charging.
* IBM Tivoli Netcool, which is software to monitor WebSphere IMS.
Products are available now.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 20, 2007 07:33 AM
November 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Apple updates, Linux failures, fast storage, and cracks for crackers
Apple updates survivor's guide: Tom Yager offers a guide through the flurry of fixes (count em, 23 updates) that Apple released this week. Where else but in Enterprise Mac.
Rock and a hard place: Randall Kennedy tried to love Ubuntu Desktop, but he could not. Read about his week-long adventure on planet Linux in Enterprise Desktop. And now back to Windows... and a fight with Vista SP1.
How fast can storage go? Mario Apicella discusses DataDirect Networks' and SGI's approaches to increasing the G's. See Storage Insider.
Your underwear is showing: Intruders don't always need fancy tools to worm their way into your network; sometimes the door is wide open. Roger Grimes reveals the many ways in, and what you can do to plug the holes in today's Security Advisor.
Posted by Doug Dineley on November 16, 2007 10:44 AM
November 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
TC Tracker: Take the Internet with you, but which way?
InfoWorld staffer Matt Hines writes that (the other) Internet inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, is weighing in on the mobile Internet. Berners-Lee seemed an unlikely podium-gripper at at Mobile Internet World, where, as Matt Hines relates, MTV and Sprint-Nextel were laying out their plans to capitalize on consumers' demand for Internet in their hands. Er, for the public good, of course.
Google, meanwhile, has taken the wraps off Android, its Linux-based mobile device platform. Debuting only as a handful of Java tools and a device emulator, Android aims to be the soul of the near-desktop handsets. I wonder how many of us will live long enough to see it implemented in a device.
Apple has done it again: The latest release of iTunes "improves" iPhone and iPod Touch devices by re-locking those that have been unlocked by freedom-loving crackers to run on non-AT&T networks and to support native software. Every time Apple seals the latest improvised window into iPhone, more crackers rally 'round the cause and attract more publicity to the battle.
Posted by Tom Yager on November 15, 2007 03:58 PM
November 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IBM is unveiling nine "Product Lifecycle Management centers" Thursday designed to help customers launch new products in less time.
The intent is to leverage proven business methodologies and software development models, IBM said. Clients get access to IBM experts to help integrate processes and transactions typical of a product lifecycle. PLM best practices are applied to new product development initiatives. Featured are value creation seminars, enterprise workshops, interoperable software technologies and business process management modules.
The centers will offer expertise in areas such as SOA and Web 2.0, PLM process transformation and application integration. Also part of the effort is a "Proof-of-Concept Factory," featuring software developers. PLM emerging technologies are highlighted such as mobile 3D viewers that render three-dimensional models on Linux-based PDAs and Pocket PC devices.
The centers are located in Nice-La Gaude, France; Beijing; Bangalore; New Delhi; Boeblingen, Germany; Yamato, Japan; Montreal; Hawthorne, N.Y. and Dallas.
Clients already benefiting from early visits to the centers include Harley Davidson and Canadian-based transportation solution manufacturer Bombardier, IBM said.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 15, 2007 07:09 AM
November 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft readies ESP simulation platform
Microsoft announced Wednesday a visual simulation platform, Microsoft ESP, which uses games-based technology to enable use of simulation for learning and decision-making.
Supporting off-the-shelf PC hardware and software, ESP enables simulations to be built faster and more effectively, Microsoft said. Leveraging the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise, partners and developers can build Windows solutions using games-based learning as training tools. Initially, ESP will be targeted to military and commercial aviation audiences. Future versions will be extended to ground and maritime operations, indoor and avatar-centric simulations for commercial, government and academic learning.
ESP provides a simulation engine, tools, APIs, documentation and content that can be tailored for custom solutions. Geographical, cultural, environmental and scenery data is included.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 14, 2007 10:56 AM
November 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: More virtualization for you
This edition of Test Center Tracker is all about virtualization with a preview of the new VMware server version, first thoughts on Oracle's just revealed virtualization server, and a preview of Accellion's file transfer virtual appliance.
VMware builds more muscles is probably a good summary of Paul Venezia in depth look at the new VMware Server 2. It's still in beta so nobody should fret learning that not everything runs smooth after install, but don't miss Paul's preview
Accellion cuts the hardware addiction The popularity of VMware has convinced many vendors that offering a virtual machine version of their products could both improve sales and even serve their customers better. The latest to follow that trend is Accellion with a VMware guest version of their file transfer appliance. It's also a shameless self promotion as I did that preview, but I'll try not to blush.
A 900 pound virtual gorilla? No blame meant, but dealing with business rivals Oracle has often shown its tough side, which along with its financial muscles makes the company probably the last one you would want to quarrel with.
If you had a choice, that is, because Oracle announcing, and actually making available for free, its own virtualization server doesn't leave much of a choice to other vendors in that space: It's fight or surrender, but to learn more read what David Marshall has to say.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 14, 2007 09:11 AM
November 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Red Hat, Hyperic join on systems management
Red Hat and Hyperic are extending their agreement to co-develop a common systems management platform, with development to continue under a new open source model.
Hyperic offers monitoring and management software for large-scale online businesses and SaaS providers. The arrangement with Red Hat means Hyperic will collaborate with Red Hat and JBoss on open source system management software for Red and JBoss products, including Red Hat's Linux distribution.
Previously, JBoss licensed Hyperic's software to create the JBoss Operations Network, a management offering that is re-branding of Hyperic's product. Now Red Hat, which has acquired JBoss, will contribute updates and enhancements to the project. Red Hat and Hyperic will include this base in both future Hyperic and Red Hat systems management products. The two companies also will share an open source code repository and collaborate on a development and governance roadmap for their common technology.
Hyperic became an open source vendor last year. "We did it so that we could get this technology into more people's hands," said Javier Sultero, Hyperic CEO.
The community at large will have access to the jointly developed code base via the GPL (GNU General Public License).
Posted by Paul Krill on November 14, 2007 07:03 AM
November 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: VMware Server 2 beta unleashes big changes
The next generation of VMware's free server virtualization product has hit public beta, and it's a doozy. So much has changed between the current version and what this beta promises that it's almost a completely different product. Briefly, these changes include
- A completely new Web-based UI
- Integration with VirtualCenter (though I haven't seen this yet)
- NFS datastores available from the UI
- Support for up to 8GB of RAM per virtual machine, up to two virtual SMP processors, and up to 64 virtual machines per host
- Enhanced OS support, including Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 Beta, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and Ubuntu 7.x
In fact, you can even generate a specific URL to access the VM console from any browser. Pasting the URL into an e-mail, for example, will give the recipient the ability to just click and get to that specific console. Nice.
Of course, this being beta software, I ran into problems getting the console to actually function on my brand-new install, and I'm sure that others will too -- the fix was decidedly non-obvious. The symptoms were that nothing could connect to the VM consoles under Windows and Linux, IE and Firefox. The fix (on a CentOS 5/RHEL5 host) is to modify /etc/services to accurately reflect the port description that xinetd requires. Namely, replace ideafarm-chat with vmware-authd for TCP/902. Suddenly everything works, because xinetd can now start the service when requested.
Another issue may be IPv6, which is enabled by default on newer RHEL releases. When running the vmware-config.pl script, there's a new warning about this at the top, although the steps listed to disable IPv6 on Red Hat systems are inaccurate.
For the record, to really disable IPv6, add
alias net-pf-10 offalias ipv6 off
to /etc/modprobe.conf and reboot.
Also for the record, disabling IPv6 didn't appear to help the problem, which is definitely related to the installer not modifying that file, or conversely, an incorrect xinetd parameter file, and I have seen some bizarre netstat output showing localhost listeners on several dozen ports, repeated dozens of times. I also had Firefox quit abruptly during the creation of a Windows VM. Beta, to be sure.
Once I had the console up and running, it was surprisingly smooth, essentially feeling exactly like the VMware Server Console application used to manage the current version of VMware Server. A big downside is that the "fat" client is no longer supported.
I can recall talking with a VMware product manager a year ago about VirtualCenter, VI3, and VMware's Windows-only management server and clients. His comment was, "Well, if we had to do it all over again, we certainly wouldn't be using .NET; it would be closer to AJAX." It seems that VMware is doing it all over again, if this UI is showing us what might be on the way for ESX server management in the future.
Adding NFS datastore mounting to the UI significantly simplifies the process of adding external storage to a VMware Server system. Prior to this, NFS mounts were done at the OS level, and VMware Server was essentially none the wiser. Now, NFS mounts are managed in the UI much like ESX datastores are managed in VirtualCenter. SAN support isn't included though, so iSCSI volumes will still need to be mounted at the OS level.
The increased CPU counts and RAM levels are substantial, but beg the question of why anyone would run such high-spec VMs under VMware Server and not ESX. I doubt anyone would in production, but in QA and lab environments, this could certainly come in handy.
I'll be poking at VMware Server 2 over the next few weeks, but given the fact that this is beta code, and I've already tripped over several relatively major issues, I won't be putting anything valuable on this box.
My first impressions are that this is certainly a step in the right direction for VMware, and shows a genuine focus on cross-platform support. Now if I could just run the VirtualCenter client on my Linux workstation...
Posted by Paul Venezia on November 13, 2007 06:00 PM
November 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hands on preview: Accellion Virtual Appliance
It's no mystery that e-mail systems can't handle easily numerous large attachments. Companies that need to transfer large files know all too well that crowding with large attachments an e-mail server is a poor solution that impairs the latter without improving much the delivery of the former, much like trying to pull a heavy trailer with a sport car.
Alternative methods to transmit large files, FTP for example, are not as user friendly and have the additional disadvantage of requiring a different transmission path, separated from person-to-person messaging.
Accellion has been shipping for quite some time its Secure File Transfer Appliance (SFTA), an effective solution that combines the ease of use of e-mail attachments with efficient data transfers and robust monitoring and security features.
In addition to the applications installed on the appliance the Accellion solution includes an agent, unimaginatively named Attachments, that installed on users machines creates a seamless link between their e-mail client and the Web server present on the SFTA box.
At send time Attachments will automatically upload all attached files to the appliance, replacing each attachment with a link to its location. Along with those links, the recipient will find instructions on how to download the attachments, nice and easy.
Last week Accellion made available a virtual version of the appliance, the full name is Secure File Transfer Virtual Appliance (SFTVA), that installs as a virtual machine under VMware ESX or VMware Server.
The virtual appliance delivers the same functionality of the hardware based solution but has a sensibly lower entry price.
On the road to conversion
The actual delivery method of the virtual appliance to customers could be different but I received my evaluation copy as files attached to an e-mail message.
If Accellion wanted to impress me, they did. At about 360MB for the appliance image plus 4-5MB of documentation those attachments would never have been accepted by my corporate Exchange server.
On the contrary, that message was delivered to my inbox without hiccups because as shown below, it contained only secure links to those large files.
In fact, that message had added only a few KB to my e-mail server, leaving to me the choice of when physically move the files to my machine. It's also worth noting that as a recipient I only needed a browser and access to the Internet to retrieve my attachments.
Downloading, unzipping and converting my appliance image using VMware Converter were uneventful steps but took some time because of the rather large capacity of my evaluation machine that expanded to occupy 200 GB on my ESX server.
Accellion supports appliances with larger capacity but those will cost you more as the price increases according to the amount of disk space and the amount of memory allocated.
After completing the installation steps above I just powered on my new VM from the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client. From that point on, no VMware skill is needed to manage and use the appliance.
In fact, to access the management GUI I just pointed my browser to the virtual appliance IP address and logged using an account with administrative rights.
Look out for that agent
The Accellion appliance has an extensive set of management options to fine tune the behavior of its applications and to monitor users and resources.
For example from the admin GUI you can authorize users to download and install Lotus Notes and Outlook plug-ins on their machines, or prevent others from using the appliance for their attachments.
Authorizing a user to download an agent automatically creates a notification message that contains the agent install file and set up instructions.
I did not have Lotus Notes on my test bed, but judging from my experience with Outlook, installing and using the agent shouldn't be a problem for most users.
After the install I had to restart my desktop, but although the agent creates a dedicated button to upload attachments to the virtual appliance, the familiar paper clip was still available on the Outlook GUI so that users won't have to change their habits.
An interesting management feature sets a threshold on the size of the files that are automatically uploaded to the appliance, which gives admins a powerful tool to route small files via the e-mail server reserving the appliance only for attachments larger than the threshold.
The Accellion agent handles those transfers with aplomb. For example in the above message to a Gmail test account the small spreadsheet file was embedded as a regular attachment while the 40 MB movie clip was sent as a link.
Keeping track of who did or saw what is becoming increasingly important as more regulatory bodies assimilate digital files to paper documents.
Appropriately, the Accellion appliance maintains a log of all file transfers and can produce several built in reports that should facilitate the work of your auditors and your attorneys when some investigation is needed.
Accellion Secure File Transfer Virtual Appliance
Availability Shipping
Price Starts at $2,000 per year for a VM with 63GB of storage and 1GB RAM
Verdict
It may not come cheap but the Accellion Virtual Appliance solves the thorny problem of large e-mail attachments with responsive and efficient agents and well thought management tools.
Perhaps the most convincing image of what the solution can do is seeing the Outlook agent upload 1.6 GB worth of attachments to the virtual appliance.
If you already can do (or couldn't care less about doing) a similar feat from your e-mail client, the Accellion Virtual Appliance is not for you. Otherwise, you should give some thoughts to reserving a virtual machine and some disk space on your VMware servers for this intriguing virtual appliance.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 13, 2007 03:00 AM
November 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Enterprise search poses a dilemma for knowledge managers. Search engines must be easy for IT staff to manage, and results must be equally straightforward for users to navigate. At the same time, you have to index growing numbers of complex information sources – each with their own access rights. Coveo Enterprise Search 5.0, with its numerous new features, satisfies both sides of this equation.
Like past versions, Coveo 5.0 requires minimal administration. Using the Web interface’s point-and-click forms, I performed the initial setup, indexed a Web site and two document repositories, and customized the search interface – in a few hours.
More advanced features are equally accessible – and leave no major gaps. For example, the system indexes relational databases, SharePoint, XML documents, plus Novell NetWare and IBM Lotus Notes servers. This version adds Salesforce.com, Microsoft Exchange, EMC Documentum, and Symantec Enterprise Vault to the no-extra-cost library of connectors. Another important addition is an API for connecting to Google OneBox for Enterprise; this lets you federate query results from business applications including SAP, Cognos, and Business Objects (which the separate Google search appliance would handle).
Coveo 5.0 security is strong, with results restricted to users and groups listed in Windows domains and based on Active Directory credentials. Additionally, the system respects user permissions on individual documents. Version 5.0 adds early- and late-binding document security; early-binding is especially important for performance, since the search engine doesn’t waste time pre-processing documents that the user shouldn’t view.
In all my tests, with indexes of about 50,000 items, Coveo Enterprise Search returned results in less than one second. This was even true querying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 libraries, which are indexed in real time. Another new feature (which I didn’t test) is distributed indexing. Here, you can index systems in different geographies separately; when a user performs a query, results from those various indexes are federated into a single result. Coveo representatives indicated this feature can reduce network load caused by indexing by as much as 40 percent.
Moreover, I liked that Coveo lets administrators make changes to the index, such as deleting documents or adjusting rankings, without stopping the service.
Coveo 5.0’s new Ajax-based search interface is well designed while offering several convenience features, such as subscribing to RSS feeds of search results. Moreover, I found search results very accurate. Yet for more precision, a new feature, also found in Vivísimo Velocity (see my preview), lets users rank search results. These “query ranking expressions” then adjust a document’s position within results in real time.
I don’t feel that Coveo Enterprise Search matches the clustering or other social features of Velocity – though Coveo offers straightforward ways to filter results by author or document type and you can save these filtered results for personal use. Still, Coveo does a fine job exploiting Ajax, showing document results with inline summaries and a thumbnail, presenting lists of concepts found within the document, and providing pop-up quick views of documents. A separate Coveo Audio-Video Search (CAVS) module ($40,000 to search 2,000 hours of rich media) could be valuable if you archive Webcasts or other media files. Additionally, CAVS now has a media player for Microsoft Silverlight.
In total, Coveo Enterprise Search 5.0 not only turned in excellent performance, but proved easily managed and hit other enterprise search requirements including document-level security.
Coveo Enterprise Search 5.0
Availability: Now
Pricing: Starts at $10,000 for indexing 100,000 documents
Verdict: Coveo Enterprise Search should be considered by enterprises faced with growing document repositories, yet need an affordable, high-performance, easily managed search solution. Version 5.0 satisfies these needs with secure search of Microsoft SharePoint repositories and other enterprise systems, distributed indexing for speed, and a new user interface. Moreover, this version has some social features such as real-time ranking.
Posted by Mike Heck on November 13, 2007 03:00 AM
November 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Penguin buck-passing and Citrix app-speeding
Blame game: Enterprise Desktop Blogger Randall Kennedy has immersed himself in desktop Linux of late. He's been pleasantly surprised by Ubuntu -- but he still sees one key barrier (at least) to widespread Linux adoption: a lack of accountability. When dealing with a recent ACPI bug, for example, he observed plenty of finger-pointing at both nVidia and the Linux kernel team. But a user, or a company, would rather have one place to go for answers, rather than turning to the community for help -- or rolling their own solutions.
Citrix revs Web-app delivery: Waiting is the hardest part, at least according to certain song lyrics. Waiting for a Web page to load can certainly be maddening. Citrix has a solution in NetScaler 8.0, and Test Center contributor Logan Harbaugh recently got his hands on it. He finds that the package offers "a very sophisticated suite of load balancing, Web application acceleration, Web application firewall, security, and logging features, at a good price."
The Android SDK is a Java API: Strategic Developer Martin Heller probes the SDK for the much-hyped Google Android Open Handset. Lo, he discovers that it's essentially a Java API that supports XML-based layout files, and contains a variety of development tools -- such as an emulator, an Eclipse plug-in, a debug monitor, a debug bridge, an asset packaging tool, and much more.
Posted by Ted Samson on November 12, 2007 12:28 PM
November 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Going for LEED Gold: LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, offers a certification for buildings that were constructed with environmentally friendly materials, make efficient use of water and energy, and provide a clean and healthy environment for inhabitants. It's not just for new buildings, and even parts of an old building can qualify -- as demonstrated by Digital Realty Trust's LEED-certified transformation of a 20,000-square-foot datacenter in a 90-year-old Chicago site. Learn more about LEED and the project in yesterday's Sustainable IT, including a Q&A with Digital Realty's VP of Engineering, Jim Smith.
Self-inflicted wounds: End users are always a step ahead of security, thanks to newfangled applications and devices they can't do without. For security managers, resistance to IM, Wi-Fi, and USB sticks was futile, and resistance to YouTube, SMS, and social networking sites will be futile. What can you do about it? The Security Advisor knows.
A grid in every datacenter?: Application grid platforms share some of the head-turning automation capabilities that many shops are looking to server virtualization to provide. Could application grids emerge as a general purpose infrastructure? 3Tera seems to be moving in that direction. Check out today's Storage Insider.
Lunch with the Borg: Database Undergrounder Sean McCown writes this week about his recent visit to the Oracle campus, and the start of his testing of Oracle Database 11g. Turns out that Oracle employees aren't bizarre aliens with tubes and wires sticking out of them, and the new database installs real smooth. It also has some eye-popping new features... even a time machine.
Posted by Doug Dineley on November 9, 2007 10:01 AM
November 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Search vendors sometimes give away feature-constrained or capacity-clipped versions of their enterprise solutions. An example of the latter is IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition – a very good pick for intranets or moderate-sized Web sites. But it's almost unheard of to find a freebee enterprise search server with hardly any gotchas. Yet that's exactly what Microsoft introduced earlier this week with Search Server 2008 Express, which is based on the core SharePoint technology.
Setting up Express required about an hour. This included software installation on a Windows Server 2003 system running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and then configuring search settings using the Unified Administration Dashboard. This interface, which is built around SharePoint Web Parts, should become second nature to new admins after a few hours; SharePoint jockeys will immediately feel right at home.
Out-of-the-box, Search Server 2008 Express had no trouble indexing content on file servers, Web sites, SharePoint, and Exchange Server public folders. Microsoft-provided iFilters discovered content in many common document formats (text, HTML, Microsoft Office documents, and TIFF); additionally, I installed third-party iFilters that recognized content in .ZIP archives and other document types.
Free connectors to index content from EMC Documentum and IBM FileNet repositories should be ready in early 2008, when the not-free Search Server 2008 is due to arrive, according to Microsoft. Yet what I found most intriguing is that all Microsoft's search products (which include Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 as well as Search Server 2008 and Express) will have federated search capabilities based on the OpenSearch standard. While this feature also wasn't ready for testing, representatives from OpenText, Business Objects, and Cognos stated they are building OpenSearch connectors for their systems.
As with SharePoint search, Express respected various types of security. During indexing, Access Control Lists (ACLs) are captured for content residing in file shares, SharePoint sites, and IBM Lotus Notes databases. Additionally, user-level security (basic, NTLM, Kerberos, forms-based, and cookies) restrict which results are returned based on a user's identity when submitting a query.
Search Server Express shouldn't take much maintenance. For example, the search index is continuously updated. As a result, new content from my large intranet test site quickly appeared in the search results even when the server was still crawling other content repositories. Also, I deleted several Web pages and documents from the index – and created Best Bets (featured results) – without needing to re-crawl the source.
The minimalist design of the search interface (which looks and works like SharePoint 2007) enabled me to easily construct both simple and advanced queries. Because Search Server 2008 Express uses a ranking engine similar to what's behind Windows Live search, I found results were very relevant without any manual intervention. In fact, the default results page includes Internet Live Search results. Spelling correction, Best Bets, and duplicate removal further contribute to quickly finding the right information.
As is commonplace with search applications, you can subscribe to search results using e-mail alerts and RSS and Atom feeds. However, there are no social features as you find in Vivísimo Velocity 6.0 or Coveo Enterprise Search 5.
Showing its SharePoint heritage, I easily revised the search interface's appearance using Microsoft SharePoint Designer without rewriting any code. Furthermore, I rapidly changed and added Web Parts to search results and administration pages (using standard SharePoint editing functions that are built in to Express).
After testing this newest addition to Microsoft's enterprise search cast, I found it fast to set up, easy to use and customize, and capable of producing reliable results. It's tempting – but unfair – to characterize Search Server 2008 Express as a "Trojan Horse" that you'll quickly outgrow. I suspect Microsoft hopes some enterprises will get hooked on SharePoint after tasting Express. But the only notable restriction I could find is that you can't cluster servers, which will be possible with Microsoft Search Server 2008.
If OpenSearch connectors are delivered, I feel Express will pose a real challenge to established enterprise search vendors.
Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express Release Candidate
Availability: Release Candidate available for download now.
Pricing: Free
Verdict: Search Server 2008 Express delivers essential enterprise search features with few restrictions, solid security, and simple administration. The Web-style Search Center interface is easy to use for both basic and complex queries, and can be localized for 25 languages. Express has no pre-set document limits. Federated search of other vendors' document repositories, based on the OpenSearch standard, should be ready in early 2008.
Posted by Mike Heck on November 9, 2007 03:00 AM
November 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
BEA Systems has posted a technology preview of the WebLogic Server 10.3 application server, which features Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 compatability.
Also featured is Web 2.0 rich Internet application support and improved interoperability with platforms such as Microsoft .Net and Spring 2.1. The download is available free here.
The application server has been set for general release in 2008.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 7, 2007 12:34 PM
November 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: From Cupertino to Oslo
Cut short on backups What would you do if your laptop would die and there was no quick replacement in sight? That's what Tom Yager had to face when his MacBook Pro suffered a sudden demise.
What can Tom do while waiting for a replacement to arrive? Can he make the Web his own virtual workstation? Can he fall back on smart phones and PDAs at least for e-mail? It's a somewhat different but always captivating Ahead of the Curve this week.
Tip-toe in and enjoy the peace 'n quiet After weeks of a strained relationship Randall Kennedy's tumultuous love-hate affair with Ubuntu Gutsy (that's version 7.10 for the non-initiated) seems to have reached a new apex.
You may not believe your eyes reading that Randall is "actually starting to enjoy" his new digs. It's all here in Enterprise Desktop
Slipping on SOAP? Sean Gallagher takes us on a thoughtful exploration of the state of Windows interoperability, eight years after the company first announced its strategy.
Sean reaches the conclusion that despite some remarkable progress there is room for improvement, a point of view that Microsoft seems to share, while they renew commitment to Oslo. It's well worth reading this week's Enterprise Window to find out more.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 7, 2007 10:51 AM
November 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
CollabNet is announcing Wednesday the latest release of the CollabNet Desktop for Eclipse, providing Eclipse developers with access to CollabNet application lifecycle management (ALM) tools for distributed teams.
CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition 1.1 features integration with the CollabNet Cubit virtualization technology, giving developers access to build and test servers and environments allocated to their project, CollabNet said.
With the CollabNet product, Eclipse developers can from their Eclipse desktop track and manage project assets, Subversion-related activities and tasks managed in CollabNet tracker repositories. Also featured are links to resources including technical tips, discussion forums and blogs available on openCollabNet.
Developers also can search from Eclipse any publicly accessible community sites that run CollabNet Community Edition, such as tigris.org, java.net and dev2dev.bea.com.
CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition 1.1 is available as a free download. The company plans later this month to make CollabNet Desktop available to users of the SourceForge Enterprise Edition ALM platform, which CollabNet acquired from VA Software in April. It is being integrated into CollabNet products.
Later this year, CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition will become the first graphical user interface for the Subversion Merge Tracking capability.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 7, 2007 10:50 AM
November 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The sudden news of Dell putting on the table $1.4 billion in cash to purchase EqualLogic must have caught not only me but also many storage pundits by surprise.
May be that's why so many commentaries seem to focus mainly on two easy to spot technologies that EqualLogic brings to the merge, iSCSI and virtualization.
Are these the only two jewels that motivated Dell to engage in the most expensive purchase in its history? I beg to disagree. However important, iSCSI and virtualization are not the main motivation for Dell, and here is why.
Dell is not new to iSCSI. In fact, Dell already has well established iSCSI products in its portfolio, including the recently announced PowerVault MD3000i and the AX150i.
Moreover, unified storage products such as the NX1950 can be configured also as iSCSI targets in addition to working as file servers.
Still thinking that Dell needs more iSCSI solutions? I don't think so.
To those who wave the "virtualization" flag I respectfully ask to explain what they mean.
That word has a very precise significance in the servers world, perhaps thanks to companies such as VMware, but in storage the term virtualization without further qualifications means nothing, zero, squat.
I don't think that Dell is going to bet all that money on an empty term, so what attracts the company toward EqualLogic must be something else.
Try, clustered storage? Resilience beyond RAID? Scalability without many restrictions? Near-linear performance increase? Yes, yes, yes and again yes.
Those are the same tangible characteristics of EqualLogic products that have intrigued our reviewers since 2003.
Perhaps nobody said it better than Paul Venezia, in his fairly recent review:
There are many ways to build and scale an iSCSI SAN, but the general rule is that as you add capacity, you also add bandwidth. With EqualLogic, this is part and parcel of the overall solution: You can’t add capacity without adding bandwidth.
This is what makes EqualLogic products not just another iSCSI solution. This is what will give Dell, if the deal goes through, one of the most comprehensive and diversified portfolio of storage solutions to date. I can't wait to see what new products will come out of this merge.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 6, 2007 12:31 PM
November 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Server On, Server Off; The View from 2008
With the writers in Hollywood on strike, we'll look to classic films for the links in today's Test Center Tracker. First, Mr. Miyagi's training advice to the kid can help save data center energy dollars. After earning your green belt, fire up the flux capacitor to head back to 2008 for the latest news on Microsoft's newest operating system. Are you ready for the strike to be over, yet?
Server On, Server Off: In most data centers, there are hours that go by with servers sitting on "idle". Ted Samson reports on new software from Cassatt that monitors applications and servers to intelligently turn hardware off and on as needed. Active Response is a suite of tools that lets system admins set policies and control the way that applications use systems for best efficiency and power. Sometimes a greener future is just a silent server away.
The View from 2008: Microsoft is unveiling Windows Server 2008 to the press, and Geeks in Paradise blogger Brian Chee is there. In his first post from the two-day event, Brian blogs the keynote address and promises posts from coming speeches. You'll want to check Geeks in Paradise often (or, better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed) to make sure you're up to date on the server operating system that will be the big news of 2008.
Posted by Curt Franklin on November 6, 2007 09:32 AM
November 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: SOA, the right way, plus a meeting with Shorty
Another ride on the ESB: Embracing SOA (services-oriented architecture) is a downright complex endeavor -- even with some great real-world examples to serve as a guide. One critical component is an ESB (enterprise service bus). But where to begin choosing there? Well, you might start by reading this head-to-head review of two promising ESBs, one for Cape Clear and the other from Progress Sonic.
Heeeere's Shorty!: What do you get when you combine two servers, an all-in-one storage system with six drives, a tape unit, a DVD reader, and more? Shorty, of course, which is the nickname for HP's new 6U Proliant c3000 Blade System. Why Shorty? Only HP knows for sure. But Test Center Analyst Mario Apicella has a c3000 unit and is taking us on a tour. Read on!
Posted by Ted Samson on November 5, 2007 10:02 AM
November 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Curl this week is unveiling a beta release of Curl Rich Internet Application Platform Version 6, for building enterprise Web applications.
The product works with the Curl language and is intended for applications with large data sets. The company is announcing version 6 of its desktop system as a well as an IDE for building applications.
Curl could be considered an alternative to AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript) and supports implementation of dynamic Web applications, said Richard Treadway, vice president of product marketing at Curl.
"Curl is on the far end of that scale on the enterprise side, where you have hundreds of thousands of records and you have to visualize on the client," Treadway said.
APIs, toolkits and underlying libraries for Curl are open source.
New in version 6 is Macintosh support and skinnable controls for making the UI and components. AJAX interoperability in the release enables Curl applications to be called from an AJAX HTML page and vice versa. "If you wanted to use Google Maps from a Curl app, you would need this," Treadway said.
Curl requires a plugin, which serves as a runtime piece hosting applications that execute on the desktop.
Version 6.0 is available in late-November, with a base entry price of $12,000 for the runtime and $859 for the developer component.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 5, 2007 05:10 AM
November 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Infragistics previews tools for Microsoft apps
Infragistics on Monday is releasing previews of tools built for Microsoft's Windows Presentation (WPF) and ASP.Net AJAX as well as a new gauge to work with the Microsoft Silverlight platform for multimedia applications.
For the Infragistics NetAdvantage for WPF 7.2 toolset, the company is releasing as a preview a chart component allowing developers to build chart types in 2D and 3D rendering styles. Also being released is a preview of ribbon control incorporating capabilities found in the Microsoft Office 2007 ribbon. NetAdvantage for WPF 7.2 ships in January.
Also on tap from Infragistics is a preview of its Aikido framework for the NetAdvantage for ASP.Net toolset, which leverages ASP.Net AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). The Web user interface in the framework provides for lighter and better-performing controls. The framework is designed to leverage Web development technologies such as XHTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and AJAX.
Infragistics also is unveiling several controls to boost Web development in NetAdvantage for ASP.Net, which are built on top of Aikido.
With Infragistics's Silverlight gauge control preview for NetAdvantage for Silverlight, developers can add to executive dashboards gauges that can reveal, for example, how many units have been sold or the level of hits on a Web site. Availability of NetAdvantage for Silverlight is contingent on Microsoft shipping Silverlight 1.1.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 5, 2007 05:00 AM
November 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Previews: Early peek at the HP c3000 - Part 1
A clear sign of technological obsolescence is the form factor of a product. Disk drives for example have moved from massive packs such as the IBM 3330 (a relic of the mainframe era, if you are too young to remember) to today's one inch drives.
Servers is another area where all the size reduction rage is today, and the transition from traditional, individual rack-mounted units to blade systems is already happening.
One of the latest additions to the blade systems space comes from HP with the Proliant c3000 Blade System, a 6U box that, similarly to the SUN Blade 6000, targets small and medium businesses. IBM is also expected to come up with a blade system in that space, if they haven't already.
I have in my lab a c3000 for evaluation, and after spending some time getting acquainted with it I have realized that there are so many aspects to consider in a blade system that would be difficult to squeeze them all in a single article.
So, I am going to run a few preliminary, ice-breaking pieces, to describe essentially the architecture and the hardware components mounted in my system.
Feel free to let me know if you have questions or suggestions: I'll certainly answer the questions, and will do my best to accommodate the suggestions. Let's get started.
Here is Shoooorty!
Why Shorty? Because that's the nickname the HP folks pinned on the system. With that out of the way, this c3000 hosts 2 servers, an All-in-One storage system with 6 drives, a tape unit, a DVD reader and other components that are not visible in that photo.
Can you recognize all the parts I mentioned in the photo? let me clarify one more thing before we go into more details. One top section on the left and two on the right are empty (and filled with blanks). In that space we could mount more servers and/or more storage.
Compare that to the HP Proliant ML370, for example, a device that occupies 5U, just a notch less than the c3000, with only one server.
All drives, both the two in each server and the six units in the All-in-One storage are 2.5", SAS drives. The two in the server shown below spin at 10K RPM and have a capacity of 72GB. Obviously capacity and other drive characteristics can vary.
The servers mounted on the blade system can connect to external iSCSI or FC storage using connectivity slots that are in the back of the c3000.
You may have noticed that all components beside the DVD have the same size. Those components can also be moved around to a different slot without affecting their functionality, although there are some rules to follow. More on this later.
Here you have an interesting comparison: Pulling out the blade and laying it on top of a 1U server, a Dell Poweredge 1850 in this case, the blade covers perhaps just one third of area occupied by the 1850.
Can you update a server blade? Removing the cover reveals some of the internal parts of the server, where 2 processors slots and two memory banks are easy to identify. Other circuitry include components such as a video card, NIC etc, but it's not so easy to discern each of them.
To answer the update question. This server, (its full name by the way is HP Proliant BL465c Server Blade) has room for one more processor and only 2 of its 8 memory slots are filled. However, we can't mount more than two disk drives.
The back of the blade doesn't reveal much but it's worth noticing this odd looking connector because it plugs into the backbone of the c3000 and is the main path to exchange data with other blades and with the world outside the blade system.
Curious to know how that works? Very well, but we'll save that for another chapter. Stay tuned.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 5, 2007 03:00 AM
November 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Shacking up with Leopard: Apple's OS X Leopard hit the North American market one week ago this evening, prompting Tom Yager to swing by the Apple store, MacBook Pro in hand, then make a beeline for an isolation chamber (the local Holiday Inn) for an intensive evaluation. (Nothing gets between Yager and a new Mac OS.) While we wait for the resulting review, you can track his progress on Enterprise Mac. For the quick-and-dirty on what Leopard will mean to users, the best places to start are two of Tom's recent posts to Ahead of the Curve, "Apple OS X Leopard: A beautiful upgrad" and Tom's "Leopard: Not an OS, but a system you operate".
Small (and cheap) project management: If Microsoft Project is more than enough, free and open source OpenProj might be just enough. Curt "Dr. Gantt" Franklin takes the tidy project manager for a spin in SMB IT.
Help your datacenter help itself: The self-checking and "phone home" features in many server and storage systems use the Axeda ServiceLink service-monitoring system. A new offering from Axeda, called ServiceLink for Datacenters, brings these remote access links under a central management portal -- reducing the risk of data exposure, reports Storage Insider Mario Apicella.
Welcome to Estonia: If you think your business is immune to the kind of massive distributed denial of service attack that shoved Estonia off of the Internet, think again, advises our Security Advisor, Roger Grimes.
Posted by Doug Dineley on November 2, 2007 12:05 PM
November 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Open Sourcery
Apple's delivery of Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) has Mac users all a-tingle, and somehow that success brought to mind Sun's turnaround idea of using open source to sell hardware.
In a story on Sun's open source program, InfoWorld related the plans of Simon Phipps, who holds the intriguingly-titled post of Chief Open Source Officer. I don't expect to find that on a Microsoft business card any time soon, but someone at Apple should have that job, and Steve Jobs should let him or her appear in public now and then. Sun has been an exceptional open source citizen, and that is winning Sun business. Sun has a volunteer skunkworks, and Sun's treatment of OpenSolaris would make an excellent model for Apple's Darwin.
It turns out that you can't milk a GNU without its consent. Monsoon Multimedia drank deeply of some GPL covered software, specifically, BusyBox, a very cool lightweight UNIX utilities bundle for embedded systems. The Software Freedom Law Center--I'm pleased just to know that the SFLC exists--filed suit on behalf of BusyBox's creators. Odd business, though: If the SFLC argues that Monsoon accepted the GPL as a contract or license, then the spoils of victory will be lost revenue. But BusyBox is free.
I'm far from a lawyer, but perhaps the judge can award damages to the authors of BusyBox based on what Monsoon would have had to pay them as consultants to do the job for them. I'd love to see the BusyBox developers hand Monsoon a tally of billable hours, with a note of thanks for Monsoon's support of the project.
Posted by Tom Yager on November 1, 2007 05:05 PM