Firewall vs Application</h1> <article> <h1>Firewall vs Application</h1> <p>hpnzdba — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:20:00 GMT</p> <p>Putting firewalls between application servers and database servers seems to be becoming more popular.</p> <p>One negative side effect of this is when the firewall decides to end a connection due to inactivity. Some networking devices have a timeout period so idle connections are cut off. This can have unpleasant results for the users of an application.</p> <p>I first came across this problem while working for a new customer a long time ago. I was frequently asked to kill database sessions that held row level locks and were blocking other transactions. After a while, I noticed a pattern. The locking problems always started after the blocking session had held the lock and been idle for at least 900 seconds. When this was described to the users, they added that they have to log in again after lunch, or coffee breaks, etc. I referred this issue to the network administrator, (who sat next to me and so couldn't ignore me), who soon realised that the cause was a NAT'ing router. The router cut off the (fat client) application's session after the user had been idle for 15min. The timeout was increased and users were asked to log out of the application when finished for the day. Problem solved.</p> <p>The SQLNET.LOG on a database server can show a DBA that idle connections are being cut off, eg a recent example I saw on Solaris:</p> <pre>***********************************************************************<br />Fatal NI connect error 12170.<br /><br /> VERSION INFORMATION:<br /> TNS for Solaris: Version 10.2.0.3.0 - Production<br /> Oracle Bequeath NT Protocol Adapter for Solaris: Version 10.2.0.3.0 - Production<br /> TCP/IP NT Protocol Adapter for Solaris: Version 10.2.0.3.0 - Production<br /> Time: 01-JUL-2009 03:31:04<br /> Tracing not turned on.<br /> Tns error struct:<br /> ns main err code: 12535<br /> TNS-12535: TNS:operation timed out<br /> ns secondary err code: 12560<br /> nt main err code: 505<br /> TNS-00505: Operation timed out<br /> nt secondary err code: <span style="color:#ff0000;">145</span><br /> nt OS err code: 0<br /> Client address: (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=nn.nn.nn.nn)(PORT=57922))</pre> <p>In this example, the Solaris error <span style="color:#ff0000;">145 </span>shows that the disconnection was not due to an Oracle setting or database problem, (as some parties were insisting), but was actually from a connection timeout at the OS level. (Look up error number 145 in /<i>usr</i>/<i>include</i>/<i>sys</i>/<i>errno</i>.<i>h ).<br /> </i>In this case I needed more evidence to prove my explanation to others, so I recorded the connected database sessions and their idle times, then matched these errors to idle sessions that had disappeared at the same time. Recording this data for a while showed that only sessions that were idle for a certain amount of time were cut off. Later, the network support staff were able to confirm the idle connection timeout setting.</p> <p>Over the years, my attempts to persuade network administrators to increase the timeout period have often met resistance, because the timeout exists to free up resources. An alternative is to use some sort of <i>keep alive</i> packets. There are various places <i>keep alives</i> can be enabled, eg at the Windows OS level or in PuTTy. For Oracle databases, SQLNET.EXPIRE_TIME can be used. Although SQLNET.EXPIRE_TIME was intended as a dead connection detection (DCD) method, a side effect of sending probe packets between the database server and client/application server is that the connection remains active. Set the SQLNET.EXPIRE_TIME to less than the firewall timeout and the problem is solved.</p> <p>Another work around for applications that use connection pools is to keep each connection active by checking running a simple SQL statement at regular intervals.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Imagine... What a decade it has been.</h1> <p>jgvanides — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:10:00 GMT</p> <p><i>Imagine a future where all students<br /> are confident in approaching the unknown,<br /> armed with the ability to explore and<br /> the desire to constantly learn...</i></p>...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/highered/archive/2009/11/07/imagine-what-a-decade-it-has-been.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>Three ways to thrive</h1> <p>Charlie Bess — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:35:00 GMT</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/nextbigthingeds/innovation-eye.jpg"></a>Jim Miller and Mateen Greenway (a couple of other fellows here at HP) just posted an article on hp.com about <i><a href="http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/messaging/feature-enterprise-management-upturn-challenges.html">Three Ways to Thrive in an Uncertain Economic Upturn</a>. </i>These are a different perspective of some of the same issues Jean and I talked about in our <em>Innovation During a Downturn</em> podcast a few weeks back.</p> <p>(Please visit the site to view this media)</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Lower energy costs and safeguard your HP ProLiant servers from catastrophic events</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:16:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;">By Mark Lackey,</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;">Product Manager, Insight Control power management</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;">HP is introducing Data Center Power Control, the newest power management feature of Insight Control.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>I want to share a cool story about how this product was invented after a nearly catastrophic event at an HP site.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>We used our experience to innovate and make sure your company doesn’t go through a similar experience.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;">Last summer, a water chiller failed in the computer room at an HP site.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>As a result, our engineers had to run around manually turning off the systems before they crashed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>We were fortunate because the right people were in place to do this as it happened, even though it was a manual process. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>That got our engineers thinking… if only there were a way to set pre-defined policies to automatically shutdown servers or lower the power state during catastrophic events.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Today that’s a reality because of HP Data Center Power Control.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>In a nutshell, you set the guidelines in advance so that you can extend the ride-through time for mission critical apps by reducing power usage by non-critical workloads when there’s a failure.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;">Another important perk is the ability to lower your energy bill by taking control of your power usage during peak times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Imagine the utility company contacts you and says you need to shed 50 KWh of power today from 3 – 6 PM.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>That’s no problem with HP Data Center Power Control.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>You can also drop power usage during peak or coincident peak times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>This helps you drive your infrastructure into a more efficient operating range.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>It’s also good for scheduled maintenance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>At the given maintenance time, you can shed power to make sure certain servers are powered down.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>The best part is that it’s as easy as pressing a button.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:small;">What are your thoughts on Data Center Power Control?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Has your company had a catastrophic failure or needed to shed power quickly where this capability would have been useful?</span></span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>SOA buzz for a new year</h1> <p>kellyemo — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:32:00 GMT</p> <p>Happy New Year! Well, actually it is a happy new year for Hewlett-Packard as our Fiscal year 2010 began November 1<sup>st</sup>. </p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/soa/happy_5F00_new_5F00_year_5F00_fireworks.jpg"></a></p> <p>As I look back at 2009 it was a very interesting year for SOA... First, SOA was dead, and then the SOA zombies started blogging and talking about what is working about SOA. </p> <p> Later in the year, given the economic situation, the blogging turned much more pragmatic with discussions regarding whether SOA efforts could be sustained in this cost-cutting environment. </p> <p> I think we've ended up in a good place now in terms of the energy and discussion around SOA. Most of what I'm reading now and throughout the discussions I'm engaging in involve talk about best practices and pragmatic advice. We know SOA is here to stay, now let's talk about those organizations and proven processes that really put SOA to work and return results to the business.</p> <p> That said, there's been a bunch of good discussion on <a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ebizq_forum/soa/">eBizQ</a>. Last week, eBizQ had their SOA in Action virtual conference. One of the best sessions was the keynote from Forrester's Randy Heffner who laid out how to resolve the biggest SOA mistakes (the "seven deadly SOA sins" of sorts) - and two of them dealt with not enough focus on Governance. <a href="http://www.ebizq.net/webinars/11483.html">Listen to Randy's replay here</a>.</p> <p> Secondly, the eBizQ forums are buzzing with practical SOA advice... Check out these threads:</p> <p><a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ebizq_forum/2009/10/in-soa-governance-who-has-the-authority.php"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ebizq_forum/2009/10/in-soa-governance-who-has-the-authority.php">In SOA Governance, who has the authority? </a></p> <p> This thread has some great discussion about thinking about governance -vs.- authority and the benefits of using a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) to define, communicate and manage governance decisions and accountability.</p> <p> <a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ebizq_forum/2009/10/is-soa-ever-a-tactical-discipline-or-is-it-always-strategic-but-mapped-into-tactical-requirements.php"> Is SOA ever a tactical discipline or is it always strategic?</a></p> <p> This thread has some lively dialog about what does it mean to be tactical or strategic. The statement, "SOA, by its nature, is a strategic concept but can be executed tactically" provides the crux of the dialog but as you will read, the devil is in the details... How do you stay focused on strategic goals while executing in the trenches? Read the thoughts in this thread.</p> <p> Make sure you catch the discussions around Cloud and SOA for instance, <a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ebizq_forum/2009/10/what-are-the-the-top-issues-companies-face-as-cloud-computing-and-soa-converge.php">what are the top issues when cloud computing and SOA converge?</a></p> <p> The buzz is out there, join in! Let us know what you think on these and other topics, post a comment here or on the <a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ebizq_forum/soa/">eBizQ SOA Forum</a>. </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Gaining a 4D view of your data center</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:50:00 GMT</p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span>By Brandon Fears</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;line-height:normal;" class="MsoNormal"><span>Product Manager, HP Data Center Environmental Edge</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span>Part of the focus of the HP Data Center Smart Grid is not only monitoring / managing power at the IT level, but also visualizing and optimizing the power and cooling infrastructure. This is where the newest version of the HP Data Center Environmental Edge solution is key to achieving the insight needed to measure and understand current energy usage and historical trends.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>The solution helps both IT and facility managers understand how their cooling infrastructure is operating and visually show where they have issues to be addressed.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><span>As the team began the development on the Environmental Edge Program, we conducted customer visits and formal market research to better understand how customers monitor and optimize their data centers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>The one item that kept coming to the top was the lack of knowledge on how much power in KWh was consumed in a day, week or a month.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>The most common answers were, “Maybe if I look at our electrical bill”, or “I don’t know because the data center is part of the office and facility managers pay the bill”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Therefore we began working on the second half of the Environmental Edge solution: power visualization.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span>In the view below, as the customer scrolls over their data center layout, they can see real time results from the energy base stations to understand power, and environmental base stations to get information on cooling at the rack level.</span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-no-proof:yes;"></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/reality-check-server-insights/IEOblogimg1.jpg"></a></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><span>Customers can also provide drill down on an energy meter and get more robust information, amps per phase, voltage per phase, KWh, and power factor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-no-proof:yes;"></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><span><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/reality-check-server-insights/IEOblogimg2.jpg"></a></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><span>Additionally, the solution can show power usage for the past 18 months, and provide several different reports.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>This is just part of the new power visualization capabilities.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Customers can also opt to have real-time PUE, see power consumption at the rack level with our branch circuit monitoring solution (BCMS).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>The goal of our solution is to help customers use their infrastructure more efficiently and help match the output to the needs of IT.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Bringing technology into printing your photos</h1> <p>Steph K — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:42:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">I don’t mean to sound like an advertisement for HP, but like everything else in our lives, this is pretty fast-evolving so I thought it might be helpful to highlight some of the technology my friends and I use, as well as one I want to try.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Admittedly, I’m a geek about having fun with technology.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">A lot of photos these days sit on cell phones and media cards sitting in a camera, but I’ve found that HP can help me get those photos out in some pretty cool ways.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">1)</span><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">Your iphone and your wireless networked printer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>This one is cool.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Download the free “iprint” app from the iphone apps store.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Make sure you are on your wireless network and that your printer is set up for wireless.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Put photo paper in your printer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Then, this is the cool part – stand near your printer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>The app will recognize it and you can select and print photos from your iphone camera roll, printing them without hooking anything up.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">2)</span><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">The portable printer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Also very cool, and fun for the kids.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>I met the engineer at HP who led the team that created that product and I really like the vision they put behind this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>I have the HP Photosmart A626.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Hand the kids a camera and this printer and it’s great entertainment for them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>So simple, a 5 year old was printing out pictures.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">3)</span><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">The all-in-one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Shoeboxes full of photos?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Use your scanner to get those onto your computer and upload to Snapfish, Facebook, and make some photo books for gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>My home all-in-one is a HP Officejet Pro L7780.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">4)</span><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">This is the one I still want to try: <a href="http://www.magcloud.com">MagCloud</a>. If you try it first, let me know how it turns out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>I’ll post more on this once I get a chance to try it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Make your own magazine with pictures from an event or a club or even a family get-together, which people can print on demand.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Tons of potential here.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">5) <a href="http://www.snapfish.com">Snapfish</a>. </span></span></span><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">HP bought Snapfish several years ago, and to me, this was a match made in heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>In Snapfish, you can do all of the traditional things like upload and share photos, and make holiday cards.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>But there is a lot more if you know where to look.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">Some of the unique features are group rooms, photo books, and social media linkage.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">You can set up free group rooms – you send that link to the people you want, and you can all upload and order prints of photos from anything your group members upload into the room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>It’s like a collective photo album, and you don’t have to wait for someone to make a print for you, you can order that yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>Our extended family has done this, and it works great.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">I’ve made photo books for gifts, which is a great way to give a unique gift to grandparents, and I always order two so I have a copy for myself, saving me from having to create scrapbook pages.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>And try the Flip Books – they are inexpensive and great to have your kids make as gifts to their friends. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">If you’re on Twitter, follow @snapfishbyhp, so you can get coupon codes and updates on new functionality.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;">What are other ways you’re having fun with your photos?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;"><span style="font-family:Calibri;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=Check%20out%20this%20great%20%blog%20post%20http://bit.ly/1i4eQB "><span style="color:#00ccff;">Tweet this!</span></a></b></p> <p> I'm on twitter: @StephKinHR</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Multi-core, where will it end?</h1> <p>Charlie Bess — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:31:00 GMT</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/nextbigthingeds/cores.gif"></a>A number of times I've mentioned the rise of <a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/nextbigthingeds/archive/2008/09/03/the-power-of-processing-in-parallel.aspx">parallel processing</a> and <a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/nextbigthingeds/archive/2006/04/10/multi-core-marches-on.aspx">multi-core</a> as well as the <a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/nextbigthingeds/archive/2008/03/14/it-development-organizations-needs-to-heed-moore-s-law.aspx">effect on development</a> and the <a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/nextbigthingeds/archive/2008/03/18/opportunistic-computing-in-the-cloud.aspx">kinds of solutions that are consumed</a>. I was talking with some folks at TI the other day about the projections of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manycore_processing_unit">multi-core processors</a> on the market and the attached chart was discussed.</p> <p>If you place this information on a logarithmic scale it definitely appears to be exponential in nature and we all know examples of the shift in thinking that exponential growth causes - essentially a shift to a view to one of abundance and not scarcity. In addition to the core growth there is also the growth in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_multithreading">number of threads a processor can run</a> simultaneously to pump more computing through the cores.</p> <p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/28/windows-7-details-galore-interface-tweaks-netbook-builds-medi/">Windows 7 supports up to 256 processors</a>, and Linux supports a large number as well, but it is the applications that actually add value, not the operating system. What <em>can</em> be written that takes advantage of these advances may start to shift what is <em>actually</em> written.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Converged Infrastructure: Block based storage virtualization podcast</h1> <p>CalvinZ — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:55:00 GMT</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/datastorage/CartoonCalvin100X100.JPG"></a> By Calvin Zito, <a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/HPstorageGuy">@HPStorageGuy</a></p> <p>This is the third in a series of three podcasts focusing on our HP Converged Infrastructure announcement. In part 1, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/datastorage/archive/2009/11/04/converged-infrastructure-podcast-with-sr-vp-and-gm-of-storageworks-dave-roberson.aspx">I spoke with Sr. VP and GM of HP StorageWorks Dave Roberson</a>. In part 2, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/datastorage/archive/2009/11/06/converged-infrastructure-the-new-x9000-podcast.aspx">I talked to the former CEO of IBRIX Milan Shetti and Marketing Director Lee Johns</a> about the new X9000. </p> <p>In today's podcast, we talk about block-based storage virtualization. Storage virtualization is often a confusing topic because there are different types of storage virtualization. Today's podcast discusses two types of block-based storage virtualization: within an controller array (like our HP StorageWorks EVA) and network or SAN based (our StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform or SVSP). Each of these products had enhancements that were announced with the November 4th Converged Infrastructure announcement. </p> <p>With the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.hp.com/go/svsp">SVSP</a> (link goes to the hp.com product page), we announced a "new" management tool - Command View SVSP. This will be very familiar tool to EVA customers as Command View SVSP is very consistent with Command View EVA. But it also simplifies and automates the task of provisioning a LUN. For the details, listen to the podcast.</p> <p>The advancement with the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.hp.com/go/eva">StorageWorks EVA</a> (link goes to EVA family page) is with our Cluster Extension EVA. This software manages the failover and failback between EVAs in a cluster. What's new with the software is support for Microsoft Hyper-V Live Migration. We are the first array to support the new capabilities and again, there's more about this in the podcast. I also have a guest blog from one of our engineers below that goes into more details. </p> <p>So with that, here's the podcast:</p> <p></p> <p> </p> <p>By Matthias Popp, HP StorageWorks Architect, Storage Systems Integration</p> <p><strong>Migrating a running server across data centers, servers and storage?</strong></p> <p>Are you tired of planning weekend downtime for storage system upgrades, server patches or network changes in your data center? Are you getting the same "Not this weekend ..." response from your business managers and users?</p> <p>HP worked with Microsoft to enable Live Migration of virtual machines (VMs) in Hyper-V R2 - not just between servers but also between your storage systems and hence between your data centers!</p> <p>The latest release of HP StorageWorks Cluster Extension EVA orchestrates the interaction between Microsoft's System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Windows Failover Clustering and Hyper-V Live Migration to move running Server VMs between servers and storage in one single step.</p> <p>The newest version of Cluster Extension checks the disk array replication process and prepares for a Live Migration and swaps the replication direction when the VM's target server is connected to the remote disk array. All automatic with no further administrator interaction. You decide when to Live Migrate and Cluster Extension makes sure the data can be accessed. Simple as that.</p> <p>Since your servers and storage are distributed between data centers, the same configuration and software is used for disaster protection. No need to learn additional tools. Use the ones you have! </p> <p>Finally a simple solution to proactive maintenance with no downtime! </p> <p>The new Live Migration support in Cluster Extension configurations will make a radical impact on your IT and business teams. Clustering software manages unexpected failures at any time and Live Migration enables maintenance during the work day. The IT team can now do server and storage maintenance during working hours. They no longer have to plan for downtime way ahead of a change. The IT management doesn't have to budget for expensive weekend and night working hours. Get your server and storage patched now, because you can!</p> <p>The following paper explains the configuration and will soon be updated for Windows 2008 R2 and Hyper-V R2 Live Migration support: <a target="_blank" href="http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/getdocument.aspx?docname=4AA2-6905ENW.pdf">Disaster Tolerant Virtualization Architecture with HP StorageWorks Cluster Extension and Microsoft Hyper-V</a><sup><a target="_blank" href="http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/getdocument.aspx?docname=4AA2-6905ENW.pdf">TM</a> </sup>white paper </p> <p>Visit the HP booth at Microsoft's Tech·Ed Europe in Berlin next week for a demonstration and <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.technet.com/virtplanet/">visit Microsoft's blog</a> for more info about the webcast <a target="_blank" href="http://searchwindowsserver.bitpipe.com/data/document.do;jsessionid=A62722F1FCBFABA0BBCFDCF69D5AE73A?res_id=1256150149_996">Building Effective and Highly Available Disaster Recovery Solutions Using Microsoft Virtualization</a></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Чем однопроцессорный башенный сервер отличается от десктопа?</h1> <p>AKazmin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:55:00 GMT</p> <p>Небольшая компания, решившая купить свой первый сервер, часто обнаруживает, что предлагаемые для СМБ модели башенных однопроцессорных серверов (например, HP ProLiant ML 110, ML115 и ML310) мало отличаются от обычного десктопа не только по габаритам корпуса, но и по таким параметрам, как тактовая частота процессора, объем оперативной памяти и емкость жесткого диска. Однако если более внимательно проанализировать конфигурацию сервера, то обнаружатся серьезные отличия.</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/hport/_210435044004320435044004_-HP-ProLiant-DL150.jpg"></a></p> <p><strong>Начнем с процессора</strong>. В младших моделях башенных серверов используется процессор Xeon либо Opteron, хотя как опция поддерживается и Pentium или Celeron. Xeon и Opteron имеют более высокий объем встроенного кэша, чем процессоры, предназначенные для настольных ПК (если у процессоров Intel для десктопов он не превышает 3 Мбайт, то младшие модели Xeon оборудованы кэшем от 6 до 12 Мбайт), а это означает более высокую производительность при выполнении большинства приложений. В результате однопроцессорный сервер быстрее обрабатывает запросы пользователей, чем десктоп, а это напрямую транслируется в улучшение продуктивности сотрудников небольшого офиса. Кроме того, Xeon и Opteron специально разработаны для серверов, поэтому рассчитаны на более жесткие условия эксплуатации, чем процессоры на настольных ПК, и способны работать непрерывно в течение нескольких суток.</p> <p>Второе отличие - это <strong>мощная дисковая подсистема</strong>, которая поддерживает как стандартные десктопные винчестеры SATA 7200 оборотов/мин, так и более скоростные жесткие диски с интерфейсом SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) 10 или 15 тысяч оборотов/мин. Применение дисков SAS существенно улучшает скорость чтения/записи приложений с интенсивным обращением к системе хранения, например, базы данных. Кроме того, винчестеры SAS имеют более высокую надежность, чем SATA-диски и способны обрабатывать запросы чтения/записи в круглосуточном режиме. Как правило, даже младшие модели башенных серверов оборудованы аппаратным RAID-контроллером для объединения внутренних дисков сервера в RAID-массив, который повышает общее быстродействие дисковой подсистемы, так и защищают данные в случае выхода из строя одного из дисков сервера.</p> <p>Наконец, многие модели башенных серверов поддерживают горячую замену неисправного диска без отключения машины (эта функция практически не применяется в десктопах, которые как правило, используются только с одним винчестером), которая позволяет свести к минимуму ущерб от поломки винчестера. Также для защиты от порчи данных из-за ошибок в оперативной памяти в серверах используется модули памяти с контролем четности DDR ECC.</p> <p>Еще одно важно отличие сервера начального уровня от десктопа - это расширенные <strong>возможности удаленного управления</strong>. Например, в HP ProLiant ML 110 и 115 устанавливается специальная плата HP ProLiant Lights-Out 100c Remote Management Card, с помощью которой можно дистанционно контролировать состояние сервера и выполнять его диагностику (в более продвинутой модели HP ProLiant ML 310 установлен контроллер iLO2, реализующий веcь мощный функционал средств удаленного управления и обслуживания многопроцессорных HP ProLiant). Поскольку основные покупатели этих моделей HP ProLiant - небольшие фирмы, где часто нет своего системного администратора, то с помощью этого контроллера служба технической поддержки HP может провести диагностику сбоев, а владельцу сервера не придется тратить деньги на вызов специалиста из сервисного центра или отвозить туда сам сервер.</p> <p>Не следует забывать, что в отличие от десктопов, которые их производители не предназначают для использования в качестве сервера, все модели HP ProLiant ML сертифицированы на <strong>совместимость с серверными редакциями Microsoft Windows</strong> и поставляются с программами-мастерами для быстрого развертывания сервера в сети, что гарантирует отсутствие проблем совместимости компьютера с серверной операционной системой и сетевым окружением.</p> <p>Сам дизайн корпуса HP ProLiant ML разработан так, чтобы упростить изменения в конфигурации их внутренних компонентов, а если по мере развития своей локальной сети компания захочет собрать всю свою компьютерную технику в 19-дюймовой стойке, то эти <strong>серверы с помощью специального набора деталей легко трансформируются из башенных в стоечные</strong>.</p> <p>Таким образом, башенные серверы начального уровня ProLiant ML превосходят обычные десктопы не только по производительности, но и по возможностям быстрого ввода в эксплуатацию и предотвращения сбоев, поэтому их применение в качестве ядра локальной сети гарантирует эффективную и надежную работу ИТ-инфраструктуры небольшого офиса.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Converged Infrastructure: the new X9000 podcast</h1> <p>CalvinZ — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:18:00 GMT</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/datastorage/CartoonCalvin100X100.JPG"></a> By Calvin Zito, <a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/HPstorageGuy">@HPStorageGuy</a></p> <p>On Wednesday, I did the first of three podcasts talking about our HP Converged Infrastructure announcement. If you missed that one, I highly recommend <a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/datastorage/archive/2009/11/04/converged-infrastructure-podcast-with-sr-vp-and-gm-of-storageworks-dave-roberson.aspx">that you listen to it</a>. My guest was with our Senior VP and General Manager of StorageWorks Dave Roberson. Today in part 2, I talk with Milan Shetti, former CEO of IBRIX and Lee Johns, Director of Product Marketing about the HP StorageWorks X9000 Network Storage Systems family. As you might have guessed, the X9000 is based on IBRIX. Because the discussion was longer than my normal podcasts, I split it into two parts. In part one, Milan talks about the integration of IBRIX into HP StorageWorks and Lee and Milan give an overview of the X9000 family. Note that the volume on both of these is a bit low but since these were already a day late, I didn't want to make you wait longer to hear these. So turn your volume up a bit higher than usual. Here it is: </p> <p></p> <p>If you have difficulty with the embedded player in your browser, <a target="_blank" href="http://h30431.www3.hp.com/?fr_story=d92d3b41220002420b254b9db1657c9bfea9adb4&rf=bm">click here to listen</a> to the podcast. </p> <p>In part 2, I continue the conversation with Milan and Lee. In this part, we answer the question what's happening PolyServe, how the X9000 fits into the HP Converged Infrastructure, and discuss the strategic implications of the X9000. </p> <p></p> <p>If you have difficulty with the embedded player in your browser, <a target="_blank" href="http://h30431.www3.hp.com/?fr_story=f1e0d51e5034f30406b7fdfefb8b632b254660a0&rf=bm">click here to listen</a> to part 2.</p> <p>Here are a couple of things that can help you learn more about the X9000:</p> <ul> <li>Visit the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.hp.com/go/X9000">X9000 product page</a></li> <li>Attend <a target="_blank" href="http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=173980&s=1&k=81207460671D03EA24EABC85AAC170E4&partnerref=17JBWHBanner">an IDC webcast</a> next week on 12 November at 2 PM EST/11 AM PST. </li> </ul> <p>In the next podcast in the series, we'll discuss what's new with the HP StorageWorks EVA and SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP).</p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>HP’s recently introduced ProLiant SL “skinless” server line snags top spot in performance per watt benchmark</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:48:00 GMT</p> <p>By Dave Peterson, group manager, Industry Standard Servers Product Marketing <br /><strong>HP’s recently introduced ProLiant SL “skinless” server line snags top spot in performance per watt benchmark</strong> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Earlier this year at the 2009 World Championships Jamaican runner Usain Bolt sprinted into history as he became the first man ever to hold the 100m and 200m world and Olympic titles at the same time. In the process he shattered a few world records, shaving 0.11 seconds off the record he had previously set in Beijing at the 2008 Olympics. One thing I find interesting about this man who is clearly the fastest man in the world is that he says he doesn’t run to set world records. </p> <p>Though I would not want to directly compare the almost superhuman feats of Usain Bolt to the work done by the HP ProLiant engineering teams, I believe there is a parallel here. Earlier this year HP released our Extreme Scale-out (ExSO) x86 server line, dubbed “SL” for “scalable line” and often referred to as “skinless” for it’s stripped down, light-weight design. </p> <p>One of the key design goals for ProLiant SL was to improve power efficiency as much as possible. When you have thousands of servers running scale-out workloads day in and day out, squeezing every cycle out of those servers for the lowest possible wattage is incredibly important from an OpEx (energy cost) perspective. Thus HP’s engineers set about to improve performance per watt on this platform so our customers could have the most cost effective scale-out platform possible. They didn’t set as their goal to create a new world record. But by focusing on the challenge of saving our customers money on energy, these amazing HP engineers have also shattered a world record. </p> <p>The just-published SPECpower_ssj2008* benchmark result for HP ProLiant SL2x170z G6 is the best ever SPECpower_ssj2008 result of 2316 overall ssj_ops/watt*. That is 3.81% better than the previous record held by IBM*. As a comparison, Usain Bolt’s 9.58 second 100m world record was 1.34% faster than his closest competitor, Tyson Gay, who clocked a 9.71. If Bolt had run 3.81% faster than Tyson Gay in that particular race, his world record would have been 9.34 seconds, an unheard of time for 100 meters. </p> <p>I’d love to hear your thoughts – what could you do with the money saved from improving your performance per watt by running HP ProLiant servers?</p> <p><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk','sans-serif';">----------</span><span style="color:black;"></span></span></p> <p>SPEC® and the benchmark name SPECpower_ssj® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Benchmark results stated above reflect results published on <a href="http://www.spec.org/" title="http://www.spec.org/">www.spec.org</a> as of 11/04/2009. For the latest benchmark results, visi <a href="http://www.spec.orgpower_ssj2008/" title="http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/"><span title="http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/">http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/</span></a></p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Cloud Computing Excitement</h1> <p>markjgrindle — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:39:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">It's amazing how much attention Cloud Computing is receiving. I was just at a data center conference in New York City the end of last week and Cloud was the topic of almost every session. People in the audience had lots of questions and some were even wondering if they could establish their own "clouds". Now Cloud is pretty exciting, and the potential is enormous, but I think some folks are not only focusing on a technology that they aren't ready for but a technology that isn't ready for them! </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Many of the people and companies that I've talked with that are looking into Cloud haven't even driven shared services into their organization and some have barely done virtualization. Not that either of these are mandatory steps to implementing Cloud but if you've been unable to position these technologies in your company then I think going to Cloud will be a tough sell and a challenging journey. Cloud requires a new mindset, a new way of managing IT, and still has a lot of implementation and security concerns. Yes, there are a lot of great cloud offerings already. In fact, HP has workshops and consultants that can help with the evaluation, provisioning, and implementation of Cloud services but that still doesn't mean its right for your company. Yes, it needs to be studied, evaluated, and piloted but there is foundational work that has to be done be done if you want the transition to Cloud to be successful. To me, Cloud is a logical extension to shared services and virtualization and both are tested and proven technologies. If you've virtualized and have at least some Shared Services then you might be in a good position to go to Cloud services. If you haven't, you might be "biting off more than you can chew". Cloud requires application changes (some of which would have been done if you have shared services) and still has a lot of security concerns. In fact, just recently there was some news on a cloud provider losing data.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Don't get me wrong, as I said Cloud computing is an amazing change to our industry and I fully support it, but make sure it is the right answer for your company. What are the benefits? How will you support it? Are you ready for true shared services where your data and applications are in the hands of someone else? All these and other questions must be thought out and answered before you start chasing the latest technology. Like anything, this is a technology that needs to be investigated and implemented based on meeting business needs, not because it a brand new technology. So, is it "technology for the sake of technology" or is it providing true value to your organization?</span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Transforming IT organization into a service provider</h1> <p>7836857 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:08:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk';">Are you going through mergers, acquisitions, continuous cost cutting pressures turning consolidation into a continuous program? Well.. have you seen worsening IT-business relation in the process? Little hostility from business may be because you took away their servers, retired application, decreased support? Ok what have you given back other than 'cost savings'? First lets ask this qustion to ourselves as IT.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk';"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk';">Are we missing any opportunity to do something better here while consolidating?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>IT executives who have cultivated a broader business-IT perspective realize that achieving IT agility and operational excellence requires not only cutting costs but also transforming IT so it focuses on service rather than technology management, on customers instead of users, and on integrating people, process, and technology. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk';"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk';">At the same time, IT departments must reassess their core competencies, changing them to enable the delivery of new services. The process may require rethinking and restructuring services and underlying infrastructure to position their organization for the future. HP has just announced a revolutionary architecture and services for converged infrastructure</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Futura Bk';"> (<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><a href="http://www.hp.com/go/ci">www.hp.com/go/ci</a>) </span>to help organizations move to shared service model. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Futura Bk';"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Futura Bk';">A converged infrastructure matches the supply of IT resources with the demand for business applications in an optimal way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>By transitioning away from a product-centric approach to a shared-service management model, customers can accelerate standardization, reduce operational costs and accelerate business results (link <a href="http://www.hp.com/us/go/CIServices">www.hp.com/us/go/CIServices</a> )</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-language:NE;"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Times New Roman;"> </span></span></p> <p class="HPBodytext10pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk';">Simply put, transforming an IT organization into a service provider requires a return to the basics. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>From an internal customer’s perspective, transforming IT into a strategic service provider means aligning the IT organization with business goals, focusing on the value-added services that businesses want, and delivering them. If you like to know more, HP has developed number of best practices in this area based on years of consolidation and shared services project experience </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Futura Bk';">(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/controlpanel/blogs/www.hp.com/us/go/CIServices" title="www.hp.com/us/go/CIServices">www.hp.com/us/go/CIServices</a>). </span><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:'Futura Bk';"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Two strategies for your new data center</h1> <p>pspielvogel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:33:00 GMT</p> <p>I read an interesting article in eWeek on “<a href="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/HP-vs-Cisco-Polar-Opposites-in-Data-Center-Strategies-582377/%20" title="eWeek article">HP vs. Cisco: Polar Opposites in Data Center Strategies</a>.” </p> <p>The article focused on whether it is better for companies to choose from a collection of partners or a one-stop shop. From my personal experience with my home electronics purchases, I prefer to purchase components from a single vendor, as the integration and support generally runs more smoothly. On the other hand, I have other friends and colleagues (many of whom are more technical than I am) who follow the opposite approach, picking what they believe are the best in class components and integrating all the pieces themselves. </p> <p>In both cases, when the systems run smoothly, both approaches work equally well. The challenge, of course, is when things do not go as planned - either during the setup or when something breaks. In a home environment (at least mine), things are pretty static. I don’t add or update components very often. A corporate data center is another story. Data centers are very dynamic, with companies adding servers, applications, and other components daily in many cases. And, add to that the changes from virtualization, where business services are created on-the-fly, based on changing demands. And, if you want to leverage runbook automation, it’s probably easier if you are automating software from a single vendor. </p> <p>The data center has no time for finger pointing or blame storms. When an incident occurs, I want a single console to see what broke, its impact on the business, and the shortest path to resolving the problem. In my mind, this is a clear reason to follow the one-stop approach. </p> <p>For <a href="http://www.hp.com/go/opc" title="HP Operations Center">HP Operations Center</a>, Peter Spielvogel. </p> <p>Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps <a href="http://twitter.com/HPITOps">http://twitter.com/HPITOps</a></p> <p>Join the <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=62552&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1244654582519_1" title="LinkedIn group">HP OpenView & Operations Management group on LinkedIn</a>. </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>How will the HP Data Center Smart Grid solve the #1 data center constraint?</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:37:00 GMT</p> <p>By Steve Cumings, Director, SCI Marketing, ISS</p> <div></div> <p>How will the HP Center Smart Grid solve the #1 data center constraint?</p> <p>As we talk to customers around the world, they continue to tell us their #1 challenge is power and cooling. The problem is this: When a power or cooling limit is reached in the data center, it can slow or halt deployment of additional IT. And that in turn can slow business growth. </p> <p>In many cases though, these limits are artificial; the data center has enough power or cooling capacity, but it’s stranded in silos and isn’t actively monitored or managed for most effective use The solution is to approach the data center holistically, and integrate the data center energy elements so they can work at maximum effectiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>HP’s Data Center Smart Grid will do exactly that, and extend our existing portfolio to actively monitor and manage IT.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></p> <p>Result?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>A data center where energy capacity is understood, is flexibly architected, and is delivered where it’s needed – in exactly the amount that’s needed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>When IT and facilities are actively managed and linked, they can work in concert:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>the IT working at maximum power efficiency, and the facility delivering exactly the right amount of support.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>This not only adds data center capacity and thus postpone capital expense, but allows maximum energy savings – giving customers faster ROI, and the opportunity to align with utility and green initiatives.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Toronto City Innovation Conference</h1> <p>Charlie Bess — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:34:00 GMT</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/nextbigthingeds/Toronto.gif"></a>Earlier this week I was the keynote speaker for the <a href="http://www.toronto.ca/toshowcase/">Toronto Innovation Showcase</a>. One of the things the mayor announced was the <a href="http://toronto.ca/open">Toronto Open</a> project. This activity opens up <a href="http://www.toronto.ca/open/catalogue.htm">much of the cities information</a> for the residents of <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=toronto">Toronto</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)">mashup</a> into applications. They also announced an effort to coordinate the release of even more information.</p> <p>By end of the first set of presentations there were already applications created for the iphone using some of the data.</p> <p>The Toronto residents are being asked:</p> <ul> <li>What matters to you?</li> <li>What data do you want to access?</li> <li>What datasets and applications would you find useful?</li> <li>What's missing from this site?</li> </ul> <p>This project is definitely looking to tap into the creativity the focus in Toronto can apply to problems on those cold winter nights. <a href="http://www.opengeodata.org/2009/11/04/open-data-from-toronto/">Here</a> is another blog post on the event.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Sonja Hickey has joined the HP Operations Center team</h1> <p>pspielvogel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:23:00 GMT</p> <p>My name is Sonja Hickey and I just joined the <a href="http://www.hp.com/go/itopsblog" title="HP Operations Center">HP Operations Center</a> team 3 days ago. I will be focusing on the data collection aspects of the Operations Center product line and working with Peter Spielvogel and Jon Haworth as a Product Marketing Manager.</p> <p>I’m really excited to be working for Hewlett-Packard for several reasons. First, I like <a href="http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-irhome" title="HP financial information">HP’s financial strength</a>, which I think is due to its diversification in many different areas. It’s pretty obvious that HP doesn’t put all of its eggs in one basket and that has paid off. You’ll learn through my posts that I am very much into investing and as I read through my latest financial newsletters, I take note of comments like “HP has a pragmatic culture” and “HP was better positioned than most when the recession hit”. I think you can now see why I’m very happy to be part of the HP team. </p> <p>I also truly believe in the products that I will be representing - products that help IT teams effectively monitor and manage their IT infrastructure and environment. In my opinion, these are not “nice-to-have” products, but rather “must-have” products for any company that want to be successful in today’s marketplace. </p> <p>On a different note, I’d like take this opportunity to let you know a little about me. From a work/career perspective, I’ve primarily worked in the high-tech space in either product management or product marketing roles for the past 12 years. Outside of work, my free time is spent with my family (3 children and a wonderful husband) as well as reading historical fiction books and honing my investing skills (sorry, I don’t provide stock tips!).</p> <p>I’d like to end this post with a request. Pease do not hesitate to post a comment should you have any questions, concerns, issues, etc. around the Operations Center products. This will help me understand the problems and issues you face and how our products can help solve them. I may not have an immediate answer or I may not be the right person to answer your question, but I <span style="text-decoration:underline;">will</span> get back to you. That’s a promise.</p> <p>Thanks so much for reading my blog and I look forward to hearing from you. </p> <p>For <a href="http://www.hp.com/go/opc" title="HP Operations Center">HP Operations Center</a>, Sonja Hickey. </p> <p>Get the latest updates on our Twitter feed @HPITOps <a href="http://twitter.com/HPITOps">http://twitter.com/HPITOps</a></p> <p>Join the <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=62552&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1244654582519_1" title="LinkedIn group">HP OpenView & Operations Management group on LinkedIn</a>. </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Energy savings with HP Superdome vs z10 mainframe - a bright idea</h1> <p>john.pickett@hp.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:07:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;line-height:115%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">By John Pickett</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;line-height:115%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;line-height:115%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;line-height:115%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">We hear from data center managers about their growing concerns about energy in the data center.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span>According to US Environmental Protection Agency, data center </span><a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24106/"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">energy consumption has doubled from 2000 to 2006, and expected to double again by 2010</span></a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes;"> </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;line-height:115%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">Some may think the only option for increasing compute capacity is to build another data center to support the growing power needs of their servers … or is it the only option?</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;line-height:115%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">Since the IBM z10 mainframe and HP Integrity Superdome are both large centralized servers and can run a large number of applications, you may be interested to know the HP Integrity Superdome requires 42% less energy than the IBM z10 mainframe, with both servers maximally configured.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;line-height:115%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">Putting the energy savings in to perspective, the 8 kwatts savings for using the HP Superdome instead of the z10 mainframe, is enough to </span><a href="http://www.electriciandirectory.com/basics/conservingenergy"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">light 80 homes for 1 year</span></a><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;">. </span></span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Time to connect datacenter IT with facilities and unleash their trapped energy capacity</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:21:00 GMT</p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p>By: <b>Doug Oathout, VP of Green IT Enterprise Storage and Servers<br /></b> </p> <p align="center"><strong>Time to connect datacenter IT with facilities and unleash their trapped energy capacity</strong></p> <p> IT organizations have been building infrastructure in silos for twenty years; the network administrator builds the interconnects, the storage administrator makes sure the data is accessible and secure, the servers administrator monitors application and server availability and the facilities manager makes sure everything is getting enough power and cooling to run safely. This all sounds good until you run out of space, power and above all money, now what do you do?</p> <p align="center"><strong>Enter HP Data Center Smart Grid</strong></p> <p>The <a href="http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/converged/datacenter-smartgrid.html">HP Data Center Smart Grid</a> creates an intelligent, energy-aware environment across IT and facilities to optimize and adapt energy use. It collects and communicates thousands of power and cooling measurements across IT systems and facilities in real-time to give customers more efficient insight and control over energy use. This lets customers support business growth by hosting more applications and services within the same energy footprint, thereby making more effective use of existing capacity and capital investments. </p> <p><b>Key benefits: </b></p> <ul> <li>Increases the capacity and useful lifespan of the data center, postponing or eliminating additional capital expense</li> <li>Reduces operating costs required to power and cooling IT systems</li> <li>Improves reliability by optimizing power and cooling efficiency of IT and facilities</li> <li>Provides insight and control over energy costs and environmental impact</li> </ul> <p><a href="http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/converged/datacenter-smartgrid.html">HP Data Center Smart Grid</a> works in concert with the <a href="http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/converged/infrastructure-operating-environment.html">HP Infrastructure Operating Environment</a>, <a href="http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/converged/flexfabric.html">HP Flex Fabric</a>, and <a href="http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/converged/virtual-resource-pools.html">HP Virtual Resource Pools</a> for continual optimization of your Converged Infrastructure. </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Reduce application deployment times with HP BladeSystem Matrix ISV Solutions</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:01:00 GMT</p> Joe Sullivan Microsoft Technical Solutions Engineer - APS With the HP BladeSystem Matrix, you can radically change the way applications are deployed in your datacenter. Matrix provides an integrated platform of infrastructure (server, storage, and network) resource pools which can be dynamically allocated as application services are provisioned. This allows you to quickly adapt to the changing demands of your business and addresses the efficiency and agility challenges facing many datacenters today...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/eyeonblades/archive/2009/11/04/reduce-application-deployment-times-with-hp-bladesystem-matrix-isv-solutions.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>Extending BladeSystem Matrix through ISV partnerships</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:55:00 GMT</p> By Karl Paetzel HP Enterprise Solution Alliances This week HP announced new investments to extend the value of BladeSystem Matrix through our ISV partnerships. Matrix is HP’s integrated offering of platform hardware, software, and services that delivers a shared-service IT infrastructure. It greatly simplifies the way organizations can deploy resources for business applications. Because it’s standards-based, Matrix works out-of-the-box for many enterprise business and infrastructure software...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/eyeonblades/archive/2009/11/04/extending-bladesystem-matrix-through-isv-partnerships.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>Time to connect datacenter IT with facilities and unleash their trapped energy capacity</h1> <p>C Purcell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:55:00 GMT</p> Written by Doug Oathout , VP of Green IT Enterprise Storage and Servers IT organizations have been building infrastructure in silos for twenty years; the network administrator builds the interconnects, the storage administrator makes sure the data is accessible and secure, the servers administrator monitors application and server availability and the facilities manager makes sure everything is getting enough power and cooling to run safely. This all sounds good until you run out of space, power and...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/eyeonblades/archive/2009/11/04/time-to-connect-datacenter-it-with-facilities-and-unleash-their-trapped-energy-capacity.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>Swifter, higher, stronger… It’s not just the Olympics’ motto anymore</h1> <p>Kristie Popp — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:48:00 GMT</p> By Nick van der Zweep Director of Product Management, HP Insight Software I hope you’ve heard some of the recent noise we’ve made around key enhancements to our Converged Infrastructure story. If not, I urge you to check out the news . We’re accelerating the creation of the industry’s first ‘Infrastructure Operating Environment’ with several cool enhancements to our HP Insight Software portfolio. Swifter, higher, stronger…! As you might guess, Insight Software...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/eyeonblades/archive/2009/11/04/swifter-higher-stronger-it-s-not-just-the-olympics-motto-anymore.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>Flexing the data center with network intelligence</h1> <p>Kowshik1 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:30:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Change is the one constant factor IT and I seem to count on in today’s economic uncertainty. Businesses are quickly discovering that building separate compute, storage and network resources managed by separate IT teams is ineffective and far too complex. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">As organizations deploy virtual architectures, they are finding sharp limitations around virtualization due to multiple hierarchical networks and the separate administration teams that support them. </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">The result is stifled IT responsiveness and escalating data center costs. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Today, data center computing is shifting into a service-centric model – static pools of compute resources are being replaced by dynamically-provisioned, highly-utilized server infrastructures that can continuously-evolve in response to application and user requirements. </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Therefore a converged infrastructure is needed to rapidly adjust current systems and processes to meet changing business needs. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">This combination of server, storage and network connectivity into a single fabric provides a more coherent, flexible, and agile infrastructure for greater scalability, increased performance and virtualization. </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">The logic is simple, a ‘wire once’ virtualized network interface that allows you to realize the benefits of a single fabric.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';"></span></i></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Why continue to let data center networks hand-cuff your business when you can thrive with converged infrastructure? </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';"><strong>Connect, unify, and virtualize today </strong></span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>GS1 Announcement of the Food Recall Portal</h1> <p>StevenSimske — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:45:00 GMT</p> <p>Yes, this is an HP blog, and so you forgive me when occasionally (and inevitably) I take an HP line on an announcement, event or trend. Out of interest of serving the broader anti-counterfeiting/anti-fraud/anti-tamper/customer safety community, I point you to our partner, GS1's, announcement on the HP/GS1 Product Recall program:</p> <p><a href="http://www.gs1ca.org/Page.asp?LSM=0&intNodeID=6&intPageID=1396">http://www.gs1ca.org/Page.asp?LSM=0&intNodeID=6&intPageID=1396</a></p> <p>I couldn't agree more with their opening statement:</p> <p>"<em>November 3, 2009</em> – GS1 Canada, as part of a coalition of leading Canadian industry associations representing over 65,000 manufacturers, distributors and retailers, today launched a national product recall program that will enhance consumer safety and reduce the administrative burden for business. With the increasing complexities of a global supply chain, this launch could not have come at a more important time."</p> <p>Further down, you find the statement:</p> <p>"The Program is founded on a standardized process created by GS1 Canada, the neutral, non-profit supply chain standards organization most well-known for creation and management of the universal product code (bar code), used by millions of businesses worldwide. This global online platform uses robust HP cloud-computing technology and is based on global GS1 standards."</p> <p>This is a good approach. GS1 provides accepted and well-considered global standards through GTIN, GDSN, etc., as noted in past posts here. Who wants to spend time dickering over competing standards? Not I. A better use of time is working with the industry experts to create a single standard that is simultaneously useful, fair and globally available, and then spend time differentiating applications built atop these standards.</p> <p>Cheers,</p> <p>Steve</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Farewell VSE; Hello ID-VSE</h1> <p>jacob.van-ewyk@hp.com — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:21:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-size:9.5pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">It is announcement day here at HP [http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/091104xa.html], so there are a large number of new and updated products, services, and visions to take a look at. Many people in the Business Critical Systems group, and actually across Enterprise Servers and Networking, have been working on the new Converged Infrastructure Architecture [http://h20219.www2.hp.com/services/us/en/consolidated/converged-infrastructure-overview.html].</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:9.5pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">Converged Infrastructure, in a nut shell, is about switching the IT budget from mostly maintenance and operations to mostly innovation and upgrades. Normally, this means moving to a shared service model, and naturally, with the announcement, there are products and services to help you get there. BCS, and all the OSes that we support, are part of the Converged Infrastructure strategy.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:9.5pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">However, there was one little tidbit that I knew was coming that particularly hit home. Many years ago, on a Friday afternoon, I was speaking with my manager about her idea of bundling a bunch of our server virtualization products together, at least from a naming perspective. From that and a few other discussions, the HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE) was born. Virtualization became popular in the industry shortly thereafter, and I was busy for many years speaking with the sales force and many customers around the world about the VSE.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:9.5pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">The idea around the VSE became popular enough, and the products effective enough, that we ported some of the management products to the x86 side, where they were named Insight Dynamics - VSE. While the product suites were somewhat different (ex. utilized VMware and MS Hyper-V on HP ProLiant servers and the HP Partitioning Continuum on HP Integrity servers), the reality is that we had two similar names for two similar suites of products on two separate product lines, and I can tell many firsthand stories about how much confusion it caused! I would be asked to do an ID-VSE presentation, and when I was prepared to speak about managing VMware, someone would mention that they only HP-UX servers, and vice versa. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:9.5pt;color:black;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';">So, with today's announcement, the HP Virtual Server Environment on HP Integrity servers is going away, and being replaced with HP Insight Dynamics - VSE for Integrity servers [http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/insightdynamics/vse-overview.html]. While it is with a feeling on melancholy that I say goodbye to that Friday afternoon idea that grew bigger than any of us imagined, it is with great relief that I welcome the simplicity of one name - Insight Dynamics - VSE - onto the HP Integrity server family. The fact that ID-VSE has grown beyond what the VSE started as, is more capable, and is a key part of HP's Converged Infrastructure, makes this an exciting day for the many people who have worked on and often still are working on server virtualization and management technologies.</span></p> <p>Jacob</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Did you read the news today, oh boy! HP Converged Infrastructure.</h1> <p>Duncan Campbell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:29:00 GMT</p> HP is making headlines today with the introduction of an impressive new strategy and architectural framework: HP Converged Infrastructure ( click here to view the news release ). The timing couldn't be better. I've heard from a lot of CIOs lately who have indicated they have more aggressive plans to invest in infrastructure innovation to attract new customers and tap new markets to combat economic conditions. This is exactly how convergence of new and existing technologies can, and is, creating...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/adaptiveinfrastructure/archive/2009/11/04/did-you-read-the-news-today-oh-boy-hp-converged-infrastructure.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>The HP Converged Infrastructure strategy represents HP’s IT architecture of the future to help customers gain the benefits of a next-generation data center.</h1> <p>Duncan Campbell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:19:00 GMT</p> The HP Converged Infrastructure strategy represents HP's IT architecture of the future to help customers gain the benefits of a next-generation data center. This 'breakthrough' direction is based on the extensive work done over the past few years based on the HP Adaptive Infrastructure strategy and portfolio investments - convergence of the critical "enablers" into a defined architecture that leverages our past investments and provides a roadmap for the future. Click here to...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/adaptiveinfrastructure/archive/2009/11/04/the-hp-converged-infrastructure-strategy-represents-hp-s-it-architecture-of-the-future.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>Did you read the news today, oh boy! HP Converged Infrastructure.</h1> <p>Duncan Campbell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:11:00 GMT</p> <p>HP is making headlines today with the introduction of an impressive new strategy and architectural framework: HP Converged Infrastructure (<a href="http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/091104xa.html">click here to view the news release</a>). The timing couldn't be better. I've heard from a lot of CIOs lately who have indicated they have more aggressive plans to invest in infrastructure innovation to attract new customers and tap new markets to combat economic conditions. This is exactly how convergence of new and existing technologies can, and is, creating exciting opportunities. </p> <p>Converging the infrastructure isn't a new concept, but being able to convert that vision into reality today, is. This is where the breakthrough <a href="http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/solutions/converged/main.html">HP Converged Infrastructure architecture</a> has me excited. In my mind, it's the most thorough and complete framework - all built through the pioneering work of the HP Adaptive Infrastructure - by which customers can gain the pure benefits of a services-centric IT approach that has been elusive for years.</p> <p><b>Why a converged infrastructure ... a look back in time?</b></p> <p>I know time flies, but if you look back a few decades, IT organizations have been adding servers, storage, and networking in silos to keep pace with business demand for applications and the terabytes of data they generate. The problem is, because of this sprawl, those resources are tangled up in legacy architectures that have created inflexible stacks of IT. </p> <p>This sprawl has wide-reaching implications that are driving businesses to a breaking point - starting with cost. It's a fairly well known fact that the average business spends around 70% of their IT budget on operations versus innovation. This is unacceptable in today's market. The effects of sprawl have caused business to suffer from a lack of agility ... sluggish time to revenue ...lost opportunity and higher costs to operate through lost time ... and the lack of integration with business processes. This has placed IT under tremendous pressure. Because of sprawl, these rigid, aging infrastructures have all led to over-provisioning and underutilization ... complex physical and virtual management ... stranded capacity ... and exponential opportunities for error. Plus, back to my earlier point ... the amount of money it takes to operate and manage all of this has put a noose around the already slim IT budget. </p> <p>The solution to sprawl lies in a converged infrastructure that unifies business, application, and infrastructure functions to optimally deliver faster time to business value, simplified management, increased utilization, and lower power cost across a scaling set of applications. This balances the 'cost-innovation' ratio - among the many other benefits - because it both addresses IT cost optimization and provides new value that directly impacts business results!</p> <p>Imagine being able to deliver any application anywhere, on the fly, in the cloud; have ready resources that flex 'on demand' in an optimized way; unleash the trapped & strapped productivity of administrators, systems and facilities; have complete predictability and continuity of service; and achieve all this now while working from your current IT investments and infrastructure (we are not talking about rip & replace like other vendors).</p> <p><b>Why I believe the HP approach is optimal for our customers? </b></p> <p>For customers to truly benefit from a Converged Infrastructure - in ways never achieved or seen before - it's about bringing "innovation" into the game ... and not in a small way. As more and more businesses begin to rely on fewer, more strategic vendors (and selective partner solutions), they need the best products, the best services, and the expertise and track-record that delivers the biggest bang for the lowest cost ... and at lowest risk. This is exactly what CIOs told me at the recent HP IT forum in Hong Kong (<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/adaptiveinfrastructure/archive/2009/10/28/hp-it-cio-forums-the-ultimate-collaboration-zone.aspx">see my last blog</a>).</p> <p>Simply put, it requires the convergence of servers, storage systems, network, management software, and energy optimization, which is no small feat. It requires an architectural approach where all technologies and services come together - having been designed for convergence from the get-go - through years of experience delivering IT infrastructure solutions to our customers.<b></b></p> <p>The HP approach uses a unique value proposition and infrastructure requirements that are Virtualized (heterogeneous and end-to-end), Resilient, Orchestrated, Optimized and Modular (needs to scale).</p> <p>The bottom line: All the core areas that need to merge and converge - based on standards - cannot simply be loosely assembled or pulled out of thin air. No business I know has that kind of extra budget or resources available for long implementation cycles - or the business security and solvency to even take that risk. What HP is announcing today is very exciting with the new introduction of the HP Converged Infrastructure strategy and architectural framework.</p> <p>I invite you to take a look for yourself and "break through to the other side" with HP Converged Infrastructure!</p> <p><a href="http://www.hp.com/go/convergedinfrastructure">www.hp.com/go/convergedinfrastructure</a></p> <p>Duncan Campbell, HP Converged Infrastructure</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Creating the business case for converged infrastructure</h1> <p>7836857 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:05:00 GMT</p> Hi, did you go through one of these business case development processes that just seemed like an endless exercise to you? is it really important to spend couple of weeks collecting data, facts and building financial business case for your infrastructure investments? After all economy just stabilized and budgets are little more relax now. I know how that process can be a hassle when analysis turns into paralysis or your light weight business case is simply not taken serious because you just used the...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/infrastructure/archive/2009/11/04/creating-the-business-case-for-converged-infrastructure.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>The HP Converged Infrastructure strategy represents HP’s IT architecture of the future to help customers gain the benefits of a next-generation data center.</h1> <p>Duncan Campbell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:04:00 GMT</p> <p>The HP Converged Infrastructure strategy represents HP's IT architecture of the future to help customers gain the benefits of a next-generation data center. This 'breakthrough' direction is based on the extensive work done over the past few years based on the HP Adaptive Infrastructure strategy and portfolio investments - convergence of the critical "enablers" into a defined architecture that leverages our past investments and provides a roadmap for the future. <a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/adaptiveinfrastructure/default.aspx">Click here to see recent Adaptive Infrastructure blogs</a>. </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Winners of 2009 Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award announced</h1> <p>ulrikehaug — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:41:00 GMT</p> <p>You might have seen my earlier blog entries about our support for the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/csremea/archive/2008/09/15/challenging-tomorrow-s-leaders-on-sustainable-innovation.aspx">Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award</a> and the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/csremea/archive/2009/03/23/wwf-movie-on-sustainable-innovation-supports-ashridge-award.aspx">video produced by WWF</a> to support the award. Today, I am pleased to share with you the names of the winners of the essay competition! </p> <p>First place went to Jonathan Alexander from the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bath.ac.uk">University of Bath</a>, second was awarded to Luc Petit from <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ashridge.org.uk">Ashridge Business School</a> and Srikanth Madani from the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.unisg.ch/hsgweb.nsf/wwwPubhomepage/webhomepageeng?opendocument">University of St. Gallen</a> came third. They were awarded their prizes (EUR 7,000; EUR 5,000 and EUR 3,000 respectively plus career advice from Spencer Stuart) on Monday at the Swedish EU Presidency Conference called ‘<a target="_blank" href="http://www.se2009.eu/en/meetings_news/2009/11/2/eco-efficient_economy_-_towards_innovative_and_sustainable_competitiveness">Eco-efficient Economy – Towards Innovative and Sustainable Competitiveness</a>’. </p> <p>If you want to learn more about the winners and the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award, which was supported by HP, EABIS and WWF, you can listen to a <a target="_blank" href="http://h41131.www4.hp.com/uk/en/citizenship/podcasts.html">podcast </a>with Matthew Gitsham from Ashridge Business School and Jonathan and Srikanth or read our <a target="_blank" href="http://h41131.www4.hp.com/uk/en/stories/ashridge-sustainable-innovation-award.html">feature story</a>. </p> <p>If you’d like to read the 3,000 word essays by Jonathan, Luc and Srikanth, you can also download the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ashridge.org.uk/Website/Content.nsf/FileLibrary/B0D4FF3851E611DE8025765B004F0124/$file/FARACB_Sustainable_Innovation-Award2009_ACCA.pdf]%20sponsored%20by%20ACCA%20[http://www.accaglobal.com">Award Publication</a>, which includes all the shortlisted essays. </p> <p>Ulrike Haug</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Converged Infrastructure podcast with Sr. VP and GM of StorageWorks Dave Roberson</h1> <p>CalvinZ — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:01:00 GMT</p> <p>A podcast with Sr VP and General Manager of HP StorageWorks Dave Roberson discussing how StorageWorks will help power the HP Converged Infrastructure. </p>...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/datastorage/archive/2009/11/04/converged-infrastructure-podcast-with-sr-vp-and-gm-of-storageworks-dave-roberson.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>VIDEO: Meet our HP Integrity Customers (Part 1)</h1> <p>Kirksblog — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:06:00 GMT</p> <p>I just am amazed and inspired by the important and forward-looking things our customers are doing with Integrity and Integrity NonStop servers. As I mentioned in a previous blog, last month I was at the <a href="http://blog.itaniumsolutions.org/2009/09/itanium-shines-at-innovation-awards-gala/">Itanium Solutions Alliance Innovation Awards ceremony</a> in San Francisco. The <a href="http://www.itaniumsolutions.org/">ISA</a> is a global community of hardware, operating system and application vendors dedicated to accelerating the adoption and ongoing development of Itanium®-based solutions. For this ISA Innovation Award, customers from around the globe submitted entries which demonstrated their ground-breaking use of their Itanium-based solutions. </p> <p>These customers are not "just" running applications inside the 4 walls of a data center. Some are using our systems to monitor a patient's heart through a wireless network, to ensure that blood transfusions are available when a patient arrives in critical condition, or to manage entire stock market systems. Ensuring system availability for these types of solutions can be the difference between millions of dollars retained or lost or even between life and death. </p> <p>Please take a look at the highlights video from the event here: </p> <p>(Please visit the site to view this media)</p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:LuzSans-Book;">and let me know what you think.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:LuzSans-Book;">In the next several posts, I’ll feature some of the contest winners we interviewed and talk more about their tremendous innovations using HP Integrity servers.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:LuzSans-Book;">Lorraine</span></p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Security Trends Report by Microsoft and McAfee: Phishing Scams Relying More Heavily on Worms and Trojans</h1> <p>marcocasassamont — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:04:00 GMT</p> <p>Based on a recent <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/SIR.aspx">security trends report by Microsoft and MAfee</a>, it looks like that social networks have been targeted with phishing scams and relying more heavily on worms and Trojans to attack computers. Rogue security software also remains a big issue.</p> <p>Some related articles on this topic can also be found <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10387768-245.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0">here</a> and <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/02/microsoft_security_report/">here</a>.</p> <p>--- Posted by Marco Casassa Mont (<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/mcm/Default.aspx">here</a> and <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">here</a>) ---</p> <p>--- NOTE: use this <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">mirror blog</a> if you prefer posting on an external blog site ---</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>3rd PrivacyOS meeting</h1> <p>marcocasassamont — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:00:00 GMT</p> <p>The 3<sup>rd</sup> PrivacyOS meeting has taken place in Vienna, 26-27 October 2009.</p> <p>I attended, along with a few colleagues from HP Labs Bristol, the 3<sup>rd</sup> PrivacyOS meeting, in Vienna. </p> <p>It has been a very interesting meeting, with presentations from various stakeholders of the privacy community and debates.</p> <p>A summary of presentations and related notes can be found <a href="https://www.privacyos.eu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page">here</a>.</p> <p>--- Posted by Marco Casassa Mont (<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/mcm/Default.aspx">here</a> and <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">here</a>) ---</p> <p>--- NOTE: use this <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">mirror blog</a> if you prefer posting on an external blog site ---</p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Article - Malware is bound to hit smartphone devices as users do not consider security</h1> <p>marcocasassamont — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:57:00 GMT</p> <p>Interesting <a href="http://www.scmagazineuk.com/Malware-is-bound-to-hit-smartphone-devices-as-users-do-not-consider-security/article/156858/">article</a>, by Dan Raywood (called "Malware is bound to hit smartphone devices as users do not consider security"):</p> <p>"Smartphone attacks are likely to increase, as users are encouraged to take as much care with their device as with their PC. According to a report by CNN, smartphone security threats are likely to rise as the popularity of smartphones is on the rise and malware could be heading for them. ..."</p> <p>I believe this is a real threat. At risk, among many, are business corporate executives and senior people relying in and using more and more smartphones as their core device for their communications, including handling emails and storing confidential data.</p> <p>I predict that more efforts (in terms of products, solutions, services) will be paid to address these issues, at least at a corporate level ...</p> <p>--- Posted by Marco Casassa Mont (<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/mcm/Default.aspx">here</a> and <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">here</a>) ---</p> <p>--- NOTE: use this <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">mirror blog</a> if you prefer posting on an external blog site ---</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Update about TSB UK EnCoRe Project – Ensuring Consent and Revocation</h1> <p>marcocasassamont — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:54:00 GMT</p> <p>The 5<sup>th</sup> Quarter Summary of EnCoRe (<a href="http://www.encore-project.info/">http://www.encore-project.info</a>) R&D activities in the space of Consent and Revocation management is now available online at: <a href="http://www.encore-project.info/press_archive/Q5%20summary.pdf">http://www.encore-project.info/press_archive/Q5%20summary.pdf</a> </p> <p>In addition, a new "service" has been launched, about "Latest EnCoRe Tidbits" aiming at providing links to snippets of news related to consent and revocation: <a href="http://www.encore-project.info/news.html#story1">http://www.encore-project.info/news.html#story1</a> </p> <p>More to come. Enjoy.</p> <p>--- Posted by Marco Casassa Mont (<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/mcm/Default.aspx">here</a> and <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">here</a>) ---</p> <p>--- NOTE: use this <a href="http://research-on-identitymanagement.blogspot.com/">mirror blog</a> if you prefer posting on an external blog site ---</p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>UNIX and Real-World Performance</h1> <p>jacob.van-ewyk@hp.com — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:20:00 GMT</p> <p>In the UNIX world, performance is often one of the big decision factors, especially for scale up workloads. Over the years, I've taken part in a lot of performance discussions, both with customers and with the engineers that design systems and write software. While reliability, availability, serviceability, virtualization, management, and more are all important factors, performance influences everything from server sizing, hardware, operating system, and software licensing costs to ongoing power, cooling, floor space, and support costs.</p> <p>However, analyzing performance, especially between vendors and different types of servers and applications, can be challenging. For instance, the very well known TCP-C benchmark is a great way to size transaction processing if you have no latency requirements and want a benchmark that is based on character-based terminals. This is a starting point, but let's face it, it probably doesn't reflect the workload you are actually running (for instance, do you have any queries?)..</p> <p>On the other hand, vendors and customers don't have the ability to run realistic benchmarks for every single workload and publish them. So, how do you get an idea about what the real-world performance will be for a new server or application?</p> <p>This will be the topic of discussion on an upcoming webcast, based on the 2009 UNIX servey results from Gabriel Consulting Group. If you are interested, more information on the web cast on November 17th is available at http://www.cio.com/webcast/502060/?source=ciocli.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Fault and Performance management webinar with Analyst, Customer and HP</h1> <p>aruna13 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:18:00 GMT</p> <p>Hello,</p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;color:#333333;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-ansi-language:EN;mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;" lang="EN">Listen to an on-demand webinar where leading consumer customer, analyst Jim Metzler, and HP discuss <span style="color:#000000;">integration of fault and performance management, discuss some of the relevant best practices, while identifying some of the key features in Hp's integrated fault and performance management solution. The panelists on the Webcast present three different perspectives – that of an industry analyst, a senior IT manager and HP's view on network management solutions.</span><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;color:#333333;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-ansi-language:EN;mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;" lang="EN"></span><span style="font-size:10pt;color:#333333;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-ansi-language:EN;mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;" lang="EN">Webinar recording: </span></p> <h4 style="background:white;margin:0in 0in 3.15pt 0.5in;text-indent:-0.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .5in;"><span style="font-weight:normal;font-size:10pt;color:#333333;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-ansi-language:EN;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;" lang="EN"><span style="mso-list:Ignore;">·<span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;color:#333333;font-family:'Arial','sans-serif';mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-ansi-language:EN;mso-bidi-font-weight:normal;" lang="EN"><a href="http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/cli_NMCBlog/7/50673494/"><span style="color:#0000ff;">http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/cli_NMCBlog/7/50673494/</span></a></span></h4> <p>Thanks<br />Aruna Ravichandran</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Cloud Security - New ISACA Whitepaper on "Business Benefits with Security, Governance and Assurance Perspectives"</h1> <p>ArchieReed — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:09:00 GMT</p> ISACA put out a paper on 29th Oct, 2009, titled " Cloud Computing: Business Benefits with Security, Governance and Assurance Perspectives " While somewhat short, this paper is a must read for senior IT and business folks, as it shows that cloud computing still fundamentally requires work in terms of new and updated strategies to mitigate risks and manage governance and regualory requirements in order to truly suceed in broad enterprise computing solutions. Not barring the success of vendors...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/reed/archive/2009/11/02/cloud-security-new-isaca-whitepaper-on-quot-business-benefits-with-security-governance-and-assurance-perspectives-quot.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>What will EVA customers benefit from new NetApp program be? Zip! Zilch</h1> <p>CalvinZ — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:51:00 GMT</p> <p> By Calvin Zito, <a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/HPstorageGuy">@HPStorageGuy</a></p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/datastorage/archive/2009/10/23/hp-storageworks-tech-day-videos.aspx">In my last post</a>, I included a couple of summary videos from our recent HP StorageWorks Tech Day. The hands-on lab really stirred up a few folks over at NetApp. The week after our Tech Day, they did a WebEx session to try to address some of the comments made by the bloggers about how difficult the management of their FAS system was. I won't go into details about that but I counted at least three different GUIs that they showed during that demo. The HP StorageWorks EVA has one - Command View. But, that's not the topic I want to cover today.</p> <p><strong>The old "switch-a-roonie"</strong></p> <p>During their online demo, Vaughn Stewart from NetApp also discussed the NetApp vSeries - a network based storage virtualization product - and suggested that HP and NetApp were partnering to help EVA customers. Vaughn thanked me for attending the demo and talked about partnering with HP. I thought he was trying to connect the fact that I attended as being an HP endorsement of the vSeries. It wasn't. I made it very clear that HP wasn't working with NetApp to put vSeries products in front of our EVA's. I told the demo audience that HP has our own network-based SAN virtualization product called the SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP) that competes with the vSeries and in no way do we recommend EVA customers use the vSeries to virtualize a pool of EVAs. We have talked about the SVSP <a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/datastorage/archive/tags/SVSP/default.aspx">several times on this blog</a> and it will be discussed in a podcast later this week. </p> <p>I initially didn't understand why Vaughn brought the vSeries into the demo. But a week or two after the NetApp demo, they announced a new marketing program targeting EMC CX series and HP EVA installed base customers with their vSeries. Now it's pretty clear to me what was going on then. This new NetApp marketing program asks customers to consider putting a vSeries in front of an EVA or CX. </p> <p>So I want to spend a few minutes now discussing why I think it would be a bad decision for any EVA customer to consider such a thing. It's my belief that the benefits to an EVA customer would be zip (and interestingly that is the name of NetApp's program). </p> <p><strong>Improve storage efficiency at what price?</strong></p> <p>The claim NetApp is making is that EVA customers are not efficiently using their storage capacity. That's a bit laughable given that with an EVA, every spindle is used for data and unless using tiering, we recommend a single disk group which gives incredible storage capacity efficiency. To be in the program, NetApp has to approve the customers' application. The customer is basically signing up to purchase the vSeries in 90 days if it delivers what NetApp will stipulate. Be sure NetApp also stipulates the peformance hit you'll take - but I'm ahead of myself on that one. </p> <p>My guess is the number of customers that actually get into the program will be rather small and maybe that's a NetApp objective of their marketing program. I suspect that NetApp's real motive is to develop a list of CX and EVA customers that they can continue to call on.</p> <p>The NetApp claims of improved storage efficiency will come from a couple of categories of services that the vSeries provides for the arrays attached to it. </p> <ol> <li>Thin provisioning</li> <li>Data replication (snapshot, clones, etc)</li> <li>Deduplication</li> </ol> <p>The EVA customer already enjoys capacity efficiencies with the first two categories of thin provisioning and data replication. (Note that the EVA doesn't use traditional thin provisioning today but uses a product called Dynamic Capacity Manager that accomplishes similar results by integrating with the OS). </p> <p>For that matter, if customers wanted to pool their capacity of multiple EVAs and manage it as one pool, the SVSP offers thin provisioning and replication services too. What we don't offer today is primary LUN deduplication. But should customers running an EVA rush to deduplication their block-based mission critical storage? I think the answer is absolutely not and here's a few things to consider:</p> <ul> <li>NetApp has recently claimed 37,000 deployments of deduplication (via their PR department) but in a recent earnings call, their executives said 37,000 downloads. I don't know about you but there's a big difference between the number of customers who download some free software versus who are actually using it, especially in production environments.</li> <li>There's a trade-off to implementing deduplication with primary, block based storage - and that trade-off is performance. Data that I've seen from a few different sources has said that a top customer concern in a virtualized environment is performance. I've seen throughput testing results that say the performance degradation on a FAS system with dedup can be as high as 65%. Their own recommendations say to run it during low activity and not all of the time. NetApp also makes you sign a waiver stating you understand the risks of lower performance. </li> <li>We haven't tested to see what the actual deduplication capacity savings would be and frankly there are a lot of factors that would play into that. Since the controllers in the vSeries are the same controllers in the FAS system, it's worth noting that we have found that the percentage of capacity savings is roughly equal to the percent of slowdown. </li> <li>And that performance hit from deduplication doesn't include any other latencies that the vSeries introduces because of their in-line architecture. </li> </ul> <p>So should an EVA customer put their arrays behind a NetApp vSeries for a potential small capacity savings when the potential performance penalty is high? And keep in mind the vSeries is based on the FAS controller. We've <a target="_blank" href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/datastorage/archive/2009/09/26/understanding-fas-esrp-results.aspx">shown in a recent blog post</a> that based on our testing, the performance of that degrades rapidly. </p> <p>There are some good reasons to implement SAN-based virtualization with a product like the StorageWorks SVSP or the NetApp vSeries. However, for an EVA customer, NetApp's value proposition of getting better capacity efficiency of the physical storage just isn't one of them. A far better answer for the EVA customer is the StorageWorks SVSP. We'll cover this topic in podcast later this week so stay tuned for that.</p> <p><strong><a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=A%20new%20post%20talking%20about%20HP%20%23StorageWorks%20EVA%20capacity%20efficiency%20and%20NetApp%20Zip%20from%20@HPstorageGuy%20http%3A//bit.ly/3PYu32%20"><span style="color:#00ccff;">Tweet this!</span><span style="font-size:medium;color:#0000ff;"> </span></a></strong></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Woolsey and Swanson</h1> <p>woodsps56 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:31:00 GMT</p> <p>Hi. My name is Steve Woods and I work in HP Enterprise Services Application Modernization. I’ll be posting on topics that involve how we use some fairly innovative approaches to legacy transformation. In particular, I’ll discuss our Visual Intelligence Tools. Let me begin by covering the Woolsey and Swanson rule. In 1969, Woolsey and Swanson published a great book on operations research, Operations Research for Immediate Application: A Quick & Dirty Manual. Chapter Twelve: Final Instructions has the following warning to his students.</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/modernizationexperts/Woolsey.jpg"></a></p> <p>I recently showed this slide to the CIO of a large financial services company. He asked for a copy to frame and put on his desk. Seems every time he asks his staff to provide him with transformational opportunities this is the expression he gets. Legacy applications are around today for many reasons, but many organizations are living with the problem, not accepting the solution. I believe the toughest part of the “acceptance” is the acceptance of a transformational approach. Most accept that modern architectures work, but how do we get there? Can you even get there from here? In future posts, I’ll be addressing the Woolsey and Swanson impasse. I look forward to your comments. </p> <p> </p> <p>I’d like to invite you to our virtual event; I’ll be discussing the Visual Intelligence Tools. Application Transformation: Getting to the bottom line.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">For a quick preview check out Dana Gardner’s recent post:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:yellow;"><a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/?p=3300"><span style="color:yellow;text-decoration:none;text-underline:none;"><span style="font-size:small;font-family:Calibri;">http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/?p=3300</span></span></a></span></p> <p> <p>Nov 5th, Americas: <a href="http://www.bitpipe.com/hpsolutionsconference/america">http://www.bitpipe.com/hpsolutionsconference/america</a></p> <p>Nov 4th, Europe, Middle East, Africa: <a href="http://www.bitpipe.com/hpsolutionsconference/europe">http://www.bitpipe.com/hpsolutionsconference/europe</a></p> <p>Nov 3rd, Asia, Pacific and Japan: <a href="http://www.bitpipe.com/hpsolutionsconference/asia">http://www.bitpipe.com/hpsolutionsconference/asia</a></p> <p> </p> </p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Why Add a Finish to Your Prints?</h1> <p>Eileen Fritsch — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:09:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;font-size:11pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><a href="http://www.davidsaffir.com">By David Saffir</a></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:'Calibri','sans-serif';color:black;font-size:11pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"></span></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;font-size:11pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/graphicarts/SaffirBlogPix.jpg"><span style="color:#ffffff;"></span></a><span style="color:#ffffff;">I’ve long felt conflicted about finishing my prints. When I first tried it years ago, most of the products available used smelly, potentially toxic chemicals. I didn’t have time to experiment with some of the creative effects that could be achieved with gels and I was skeptical that a spray or liquid clearcoat could add to the archival life of a print.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="color:black;font-size:11pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Those days are gone. Today there are many non-toxic/non-hazardous sprays and liquids that can applied to protect the entire print surface as well as gels that can be applied either to the whole print or selected areas of the print for artistic effects. Plus, independent testing groups such as Wilhelm Imaging Research have shown that products such as Premier Eco Print Shield can extend the display life of a print.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="color:black;font-size:11pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Finishing products can be applied with a spray gun, roller, brush, and even one’s fingers! <br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">What are some of the reasons one would want finish a print?<br /><br /></span><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">Protection of Print Before They Are Framed.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">Even if a print will ultimately be framed and displayed behind glass, a good, evenly applied spray can protect the print from the accidental scuffing, scratching, fingerprints, or sneeze-damage that can occur as the print is handled and packed up for transport from your studio.<br /><br /></span><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">Protection of Unframed Prints</span></b></span></span></span><span style="color:black;font-size:11pt;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;">. Some photographers and artists regard the glass or acrylic used with frames as a barrier to accurately viewing all of the colors and details in their work. And canvas is typically displayed unframed or framed without glass, so the viewer can fully appreciate the subtle textured weave of the canvas.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">Any print that is framed without glass needs to be protected, not only from UV light and abrasion, but also from airborne contaminants such as cooking fumes, cigarette smoke, and insect residue. Printed canvas that will be stretched to create a gallery wrap needs to be protected from the abrasion that can occur while the print is being stretched. Even inkjet-printed pages that will be bound into an album or portfolio book need protection as the pages will be frequently touched and turned.<br /><br /></span><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">Appearance</span></b></span></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:black;mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="color:#ffffff;">. Some sprays can change the appearance of an inkjet print to better resemble continuous tone printing, by reducing or eliminating gloss differential and bronzing. The </span><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/graphicarts/archive/2007/09/21/HPPost4493.aspx"><span style="color:#ffffff;">gloss optimizer</span></a><span style="color:#ffffff;"> used during printing with the HP Designjet Z-series printers greatly reduces or eliminates these problems, but many enthusiasts and professionals who use printers without gloss optimizers have discovered that the right spray can even out the gloss on a print surface.<br /><br /></span></span><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;"><span style="color:#ffffff;">Artistic Effects</span></span></b></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">. Some photographers and artists now use different types of gels and varnishes to embellish their prints before they are matted and framed. These gels can either subdue or enhance overall contrast and color or add texture or brushstrokes.<br /><br /></span><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">Perceived Value</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;">. If done well, print finishing may make a print more attractive to a potential buyer or collector. Hand-embellishing a print by brushing on a gel makes each print a unique piece of art.</span></span></span></span></p> <p></p> </span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>The Tangibles and Intangibles of Supply Chain Collaboration</h1> <p>christianverstraete — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:38:00 GMT</p> The latest recession has gotten a profound impact on many supply chains and forced rethinking strategies . In a quest to reducing costs, many have diminished safety buffers, established lean thinking, and redesigned their flows. In that process they have made themselves more vulnerable to variance, while their objective is to maximize sales. Doing so implies a much closer relationship with ecosystems partners. Cross Supply Chain collaboration is critical to gain visibility, address issues early and...(<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/manufacturing-distribution/archive/2009/11/02/the-tangibles-and-intangibles-of-supply-chain-collaboration.aspx">read more</a>) </article> <article> <h1>Application Transformation virtual conference</h1> <p>pevans@hp.com — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:56:00 GMT</p> <p>I should have posted this earlier but here's the details for a useful event if you have an interest in Apps Transformation & Modernization.</p> <p>We have a star-studded line-up of speakers, some of whom will be available for chat during the event. You can here from Geoffrey Moore, Crossing the Chasm etc, Dale Vecchio, VP, Gartner, Steve Woods from HP on the code visualization tools. We'll also hear from Paolo de Santis, Italian Ministry of Education discussing a recent application modernization project together with other case studies from around the world. And if that wasn't enough we'll have our Mainframe Alternative team led by John Pickett discussing how to seriously save money & improve service levels.</p> <p>If you'd like to attend just click on one of the links below for your particular regional event.</p> <p>If you have comments on the event we'd like to hear from you.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>Paul Evans</p> <p>Dates:</p> <p>November 3 (Asia Pacific & Japan) 12:00 SGT <a href="http://bit.ly/4qULnS" style="color:#66e4ff;text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:9pt;">Register here</span></a></p> <p>November 4 (Europe, Middle East & Africa) 14:00 CET <span style="word-spacing:0px;font:medium Arial, Helvetica;text-transform:none;color:#e4e4e4;text-indent:0px;white-space:normal;letter-spacing:normal;border-collapse:separate;orphans:2;widows:2;webkit-border-horizontal-spacing:0px;webkit-border-vertical-spacing:0px;webkit-text-decorations-in-effect:none;webkit-text-size-adjust:auto;webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-size:11px;color:#ffffff;" class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://bit.ly/4qULnS" style="color:#66e4ff;text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:9pt;">Register here</span></a></span></span></p> <p>November 5 (Americas) 10:00 EST <a href="http://bit.ly/2TlKKJ" style="color:#66e4ff;text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:9pt;">Register here</span></a><span> </span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>6-гигабитный SAS для 6-го поколения HP ProLiant</h1> <p>AKazmin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:40:00 GMT</p> <p>Нынешним летом HP начала поставки полного пакета компонентов для использования в серверах HP ProLiant технологии <b>Serial Attached SCSI</b> (<b>SAS</b>) 6 Гбит/с, включая 2,5-дюймовые жесткие диски 7200 об/мин и скоростные диски 15k и 10k об/мин, RAID-контроллеры Smart Array и внешние дисковые полки StorageWorks D2000.</p> <p><a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/hport/sas6gbps.jpg"></a></p> <p>Внедрение SAS 6 Гбит/с обеспечивает удвоение скорости обмена данными с дисковой подсистемой серверов по сравнению с SAS 3 Гбит/с, что особенно важно для таких приложений с интенсивным вводом/выводом и большими объемами данных, как базы данных и системы обработки транзакций, серверная виртуализация, работа с потоковым видео и резервное копирование данных.<br /><br />Также в новой версии SAS реализованы дополнительные механизмы устранения ошибок при передаче данных и улучшена гибкость конфигурирования и масштабирования дисковой подсистемы, обслуживающей несколько серверов. Также по сравнению с SAS 3 Гбит/с увеличилась c шести до десяти метров максимальная длина кабеля, что позволяет объединять в единую систему дисковые массивы из нескольких стоек, и появилась возможность использования миниатюрных коннекторов Mini SAS, рассчитанных прежде всего на подключение 2,5-дюймовых винчестеров.<br /><br />Диски SAS 6 Гбит/с уже поставляются для стоечных моделей серверов HP ProLiant DL380, DL370, DL360, DL180 и DL160, блейд-серверов HP ProLiant BL460c и башенных серверов HP ProLiant ML370 и ML350. Также доступна дисковая полка HP StorageWorks D2000 с накопителями SAS 6 Гбит/с.<br /><br />SAS 6 Гбит/с обладает обратной совместимостью с интерфейсом SAS 3 Гбит/с, который широко используется в серверах и системах хранения с 2007 года, а также SATA 1.5 и 3 Гбит/с, поэтому новые диски и RAID-контроллеры можно устанавливать и в серверы предыдущего поколения HP ProLiant G5, однако в этом случае пропускная способность дисковой подсистемы сервера останется на уровне 3 Гбит/сек, поэтому для реализации всех преимуществ шестигигабитного SAS следует использовать новейшие HP ProLiant шестого поколения.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Data Virtualization: Essential but Approach with Caution</h1> <p>Fred Cummins — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:34:00 GMT</p> <p>Data Virtualization is the current marketing banner for Enterprise Information Integration (EII). It is an important adjunct to SOA, but must be undertaken with caution.</p> <p>David Linthicum, Linthicum Group, and Bradley Wright, Progress DataDirect, recently presented an ebizQ webinar on "<a href="http://blogs.datadirect.com/2009/10/top-data-virtualization-experts-offer-free-advice.html">Putting Your Data to Work for Your Cloud, BPM, MDM and SOA Project</a>." The thrust of this presentation was that data virtualization will provide consistent, cross-enterprise access to data in heterogeneous data stores. This is not a new capability, but was introduced as EII a number of years ago.</p> <p>When asked the difference between data virtualization and EII, Bradley Wright indicated that data virtualization includes the capability to perform updates. While not all EII products supported updates, some did, so it appears the primary difference is marketing. At the same time, as I will discuss, below, data virtualization should not be used for updates.</p> <p>The fundamental concept of data virtualization and EII is that data is accessed from multiple, heterogeneous databases through a virtual database that provides an integrated, consistent view of data from these multiple sources. Queries are expressed in terms of the virtual database schema and translated as required, and data from multiple sources is transformed and integrated to provide a response that is consistent with the virtual database schema.</p> <p>SOA increases the importance of data virtualization because SOA is likely to increase the number and diversity of databases. I discussed this in my blog last year entitled, "<a href="http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/nextbigthingeds/archive/2008/06/16/data-management-for-soa.aspx">Data Management for SOA</a>." A service should be loosely coupled and its data stores should be hidden from the service users to maintain flexibility in the implementation of the service. This conflicts with needs for cross-enterprise views of data for planning and decision-making. Data virtualization can provide such visibility; however, there are certain realities that must be understood when using data virtualization. Loraine Lawson touched on some limitations in an interview with Peter Tran and Bob Reary of Composite Software two years ago entitled, "<a href="http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/interviews/blog/when-data-virtualization-works---and-when-it-doesnt/;jsessionid=7618A740508F87C8A77E703CCB1B06CF?cs=22733&decorator=print">When Data Virtualization Works - And When It Doesn't</a>," but there are additional concerns.</p> <p>The following paragraphs outline key limitations of data virtualization that must be considered when setting expectations and when using data virtualization to obtain composite views.</p> <p><b>Data inconsistencies</b>. A data virtualization product can perform data conversions (e.g., feet to meters), but it can't create data that isn't stored. For example, if one organization maintains weekly production figures and another maintains monthly figures, these two different measures cannot be reconciled. If one organization tracks numbers of defects in one set of categories, and another uses a different set of categories, the figures cannot be compared or added.</p> <p>Such problems are fundamental to the business, and if it is important to examine such data across the enterprise, then there must be a transformation initiative to make the data collection and storage consistent with a common scheme.</p> <p><b>Process inconsistencies</b>. Some enterprises will have similar business operations that are in different geographies or produce different categories of products or services. What they do may be similar, but they may have business processes that cannot be compared. There may be different stages of production or service delivery that are of interest to top management. The different operations may use the same terminology for phases, but the terms are not applied consistently to the business processes. This may lead to top management comparing apples to oranges. Such discrepancies might extend to inconsistent metrics such as the definition of rework, and inconsistencies between sales and the cost of goods sold.</p> <p><b>Timing inconsistencies</b>. An enterprise does not operate instantaneously and in lock step. The orders being received are not the same as the orders being filled and the orders being shipped. The engineering change issued by the engineering department may be delayed until current inventories are consumed. Payment is not due on orders shipped but not yet delivered. A query that combines data from different operations will not represent a consistent view of the enterprise. That requires the definition of cut-off-points and the time for various activities and transactions to reach and record consistent points in their operations. This is why financial information is not immediately available at the end of a period.</p> <p>It is not practical to eliminate all such inconsistencies or wait to accumulate consistent results. Users of data virtualization must understand such limitations when using the composite data.</p> <p><b>Resource overload</b>. A data virtualization service will access data from various production databases. These databases are not necessarily configured to handle an increased volume of queries. Some queries may add unexpected workload to a database, or the workload from many potential users may be quite unpredictable. This ad hoc resource demand could interfere with mainstream business application performance. In cloud computing, the resource may be available on demand, but there could be unacceptable increases in costs.</p> <p><b>Update errors</b>. If data virtualization is used to update databases, it will bypass the applications designed to validate, control and coordinate the updates. The updates may also be inconsistent with the current state of the production operations. Furthermore, updates normally performed by associated applications may require coordination and propagation to related operations and applications. It is very dangerous to bypass the responsible organizations and their applications to update their databases-it should not happen. Any update should go through the appropriate processes for validation, authorization, control and coordination that are the responsibility of those business operations and their applications.</p> <p>I think data virtualization (a.k.a., enterprise information integration) is an important technology that should be part of a SOA strategy, but users must adopt it with their eyes wide open. It's a long-term investment, and it is likely there will always be the need to understand and allow for inconsistencies in the data.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> <article> <h1>It must be getting closer to the end of the year than I thought</h1> <p>Charlie Bess — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:29:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:'Calibri','sans-serif';font-size:11pt;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:'Times New Roman';mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;">I am seeing more of the “<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10378782-264.html"><span style="color:#0000ff;">technologies you can’t ignore</span></a>” or “<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/173778/5_new_technologies_that_will_change_everything.html"><span style="color:#0000ff;">technologies that will change everything</span></a>” articles. I usually don’t see a rush of these until December</span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div> </article> </main></body></html>