Barker Bites Back
A look at some newsy stuff and interesting bits as well as those hopefully amusing byways of technology.
Tuesday 21 August 2007, 3:43 PM
Gartner warns about XenSource
XenSource/Citrix deal could upset the open source community, according to a Gartner analyst. Writing in Computerworld, analyst George Weiss said that the XenSource chief Peter Levine has "to make a concerted effort in order to retain the loyalty of the open-source Xen developers".
After Citrix's £150m acquisition of XenSource, there may now be too much uncertainty over the future of the Xen project destiny for the community to continue to support it, he suggested.
"The possible downside here is the open-source community might see that technology being co-opted by a larger conglomerate or proprietary company," Weiss said, according to Computerworld.
After Citrix's £150m acquisition of XenSource, there may now be too much uncertainty over the future of the Xen project destiny for the community to continue to support it, he suggested.
"The possible downside here is the open-source community might see that technology being co-opted by a larger conglomerate or proprietary company," Weiss said, according to Computerworld.
Tuesday 21 August 2007, 2:14 PM
Shocking waste of storage. No surprise
If there was a prize for a piece of research that throws up a blindingly obvious conclusion, that could be won by the latest research from Vanson Bourne, produced for the web hosting specialists, Hostway. One of the key nuggets is that 94 percent of IT managers "invest in more storage than they need".
Well surprise, surprise. It is a common fact that IT managers buy more storage than they need. It is called over provisioning and everyone does it for two simple reason: storage is cheap and the consequences of running short of it are dire. The answer is to over provision.
It is a known issue but only one that has become pressing recently as companies have started to take on board the issues around climate change and the effect of all that excess power use. And the high cost of power, of course.
Storage is part of that problem since storage is based on disks, disks spin and burn power to do so. Cut the disks spinning and you cut back on power use and cut energy use.
But to return to the original fact, Vanson Bourne's research actually asked IT managers the following question. "Do you ever buy more storage that you need, so that you have capacity for your future needs?"
Well who isn't going to answer "yes" to that question? Even allowing for climate change and the need to cut energy use, people are always going to buy storage to ensure they "have capacity for future needs". It is called planning.
But this is to be unduly harsh. There is a reason behind such an apparently obvious question.
Vanson Bourne's client, Hostway, wants to push its on-demand and other storage solutions and quite right too. Storage is currently inefficient and wasteful but there are myriad solutions out there that can make it less wasteful, more cost effective, cheaper and better for the environment too and on-demand can be a key component for many.
So, well-done Hostway/Vanson Bourne for asking the questions of users. I just can't help thinking there might have been better questions. Such as "do you have any intention of using thin-provisioning?" That would have been a good one.
Well surprise, surprise. It is a common fact that IT managers buy more storage than they need. It is called over provisioning and everyone does it for two simple reason: storage is cheap and the consequences of running short of it are dire. The answer is to over provision.
It is a known issue but only one that has become pressing recently as companies have started to take on board the issues around climate change and the effect of all that excess power use. And the high cost of power, of course.
Storage is part of that problem since storage is based on disks, disks spin and burn power to do so. Cut the disks spinning and you cut back on power use and cut energy use.
But to return to the original fact, Vanson Bourne's research actually asked IT managers the following question. "Do you ever buy more storage that you need, so that you have capacity for your future needs?"
Well who isn't going to answer "yes" to that question? Even allowing for climate change and the need to cut energy use, people are always going to buy storage to ensure they "have capacity for future needs". It is called planning.
But this is to be unduly harsh. There is a reason behind such an apparently obvious question.
Vanson Bourne's client, Hostway, wants to push its on-demand and other storage solutions and quite right too. Storage is currently inefficient and wasteful but there are myriad solutions out there that can make it less wasteful, more cost effective, cheaper and better for the environment too and on-demand can be a key component for many.
So, well-done Hostway/Vanson Bourne for asking the questions of users. I just can't help thinking there might have been better questions. Such as "do you have any intention of using thin-provisioning?" That would have been a good one.
Tuesday 31 July 2007, 3:59 PM
IDE not dead, at least not quite
Headlines this week loudly claimed that IDE drives were dead, and died sometime round about Monday this week, or Tuesday, depending on which site you checked. They were sort of right.
A Seagate spokesman was quoted, sort of, as saying that Seagate had stopped producing the disk drive standard after 20 years sterling service.
We asked a Seagate spokesperson to give us the skinny. The spokesperson pointed out that 1) the company had stopped development on the things last year (so no news there then) and 2) would continue producing them until later this year, or possibly next.
Or as the spokesperson put it: "The company will continue to offer PATA drives until late 2007, possibly spilling over into the first quarter of 2008."
So certainly dead, but not quite yet.
A Seagate spokesman was quoted, sort of, as saying that Seagate had stopped producing the disk drive standard after 20 years sterling service.
We asked a Seagate spokesperson to give us the skinny. The spokesperson pointed out that 1) the company had stopped development on the things last year (so no news there then) and 2) would continue producing them until later this year, or possibly next.
Or as the spokesperson put it: "The company will continue to offer PATA drives until late 2007, possibly spilling over into the first quarter of 2008."
So certainly dead, but not quite yet.
Tuesday 10 July 2007, 4:46 PM
Capita see virtual benefits and pitfalls
No chance of falling asleep at the VMware conference thanks to Capita's Shaymus Kennedy. He works out of the financial services side of Capita in Dublin and proved a good spokesman for VMware. Capita have been using VMware for three years now and seeing very good results from it. But Kennedy was no, unthinking spokesman for VMware, pointing out, amongst other things, the poor support from the company for some time before it got it sorted out.
But he had no doubts about the results, citing server utilisation rates of around 5 to 15 percent prior to virtualisation, that are more like 68 percent now.
More from Kennedy tomorrow, but one take away was that the only way to succeed in virtualisation was to spend 80 percent of the effort on preparation and 20 percent on implementation. For that reason, "don't expect quick paybacks", he said. There are some, but the best will be achieved across a longer timescale, he said.
But he had no doubts about the results, citing server utilisation rates of around 5 to 15 percent prior to virtualisation, that are more like 68 percent now.
More from Kennedy tomorrow, but one take away was that the only way to succeed in virtualisation was to spend 80 percent of the effort on preparation and 20 percent on implementation. For that reason, "don't expect quick paybacks", he said. There are some, but the best will be achieved across a longer timescale, he said.
Tuesday 10 July 2007, 4:28 PM
How much is platinum worth for Intel?
On Tuesday, the irony of the day prize went to VMware and Intel. Remember that it had only just emerged that Intel had decided to invest a six figure sum in VMware. That has left VMware, that well know EMC company, with a load of cash to spend on getting more out of virtualisation.
Now VMware with all that EMC money behind them already, can sit and quietly count up all that case. Can a humble virtualisation company spend all that money? I am sure they will find a way.
Part of if is already spent with Intel as the only platinum sponsor of the VMware conference. Can nobody break into this cozy cash-driven circle. The rich do certainly get richer it seems.
Now VMware with all that EMC money behind them already, can sit and quietly count up all that case. Can a humble virtualisation company spend all that money? I am sure they will find a way.
Part of if is already spent with Intel as the only platinum sponsor of the VMware conference. Can nobody break into this cozy cash-driven circle. The rich do certainly get richer it seems.
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