Software application development
This blog is intended to provoke discussion and exchange between like minded software application developers, engineers, architects, project managers - and keen hobbyists too.
Tuesday 26 February 2008, 12:37 PM
The evolution of virtualisation
This blog continues coverage of the VMworld Europe conference and exhibition and features info from VMware CEO Diane Greene.
Here’s a potted history of virtualisation technology as VMware sees it, to provide a marker for where we are now.
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1 – SEPARATION: the process of being able to test for all possible system configurations before deployment.
2 – CONSOLIDATION: after separation, the move to server consolidation can happen.
3 – AGGREGATION: this is the point at which a virtual data centre is built to run services as per the requirements of the system. (British Telecom was present to give a short presentation on its work building 11 data centres where it has apparently seen a 50% reduction in the cost of physical servers.)
4 – AUTOMATION: this is the day-to-day operation of a self-managing data centre.
… and finally (and this is where we’re at today).
5 – LIBERATION: this is where data is utilised from the ‘greenest available resource’ and workloads are moved around (globally) to make sure this happens on the biggest and best scale possible. In Greene’s own words this type of technology is an, “Early step towards cloud computing.”
GREENE GOES GREEN
Greene also spent some time talking about the environmental aspects of virtualisation as the opportunity exists to reduce server power consumption. VMware’s “green calculator” claims to be able to calculate a server’s CO2 emissions - and equate the power consumption savings through virtualisation - to the number of cars taken off the road or tress planted. Whether companies will actually do this (until they see the value in putting out a press release to say they have gone green) remains to be seen.
This conference is directly billed as business-focused - but it has a decidedly technical slant too, as VMware TSX Europe, the company’s annual technical symposium, has been incorporated into the show. When they’re not outside the Palais des Festivals conference centre rasping on an unfiltered Galois, customers, partners and developers themselves are dipping from one session to another.
On the hardware side, Dell took the stage to announce that it will ship VMWare will all PowerEdge servers from April this year.
In a Q&A session with press and analysts Greene declined to comment on virtualisation security concerns as Dr Mendel Rosenblum VMWare’s chief scientist was currently on a plane on his way to the show for tomorrow’s keynote.
Time for lunch – only in France is Grand Marnier a condiment rather than an after dinner liquor.
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Tuesday 26 February 2008, 6:56 AM
VMworld Europe: Conference Blog Day 1
As dawn (and the last of the night's facelift victims) shuffle slowly off past Monte Carlo they leave behind a grey and wet Cannes with 4,500 attendees anticipating the start of the first VMworld Europe virtualisation conference.
Most of us are shuffling towards a last minute croissant and café noir right now as we get ready for VMware CEO Diane Greene’s keynote. Pre-show rumours suggest that security issues will be especially high on the agenda in light of alerts highlighted yesterday (and reported on ZDNET.co.uk) by security vendor Core Security Technologies.
Let the show commence…
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What else would you expect from a keynote intro session? Smoke, lights, lasers, rock music, applause etc… and we’re off. With a carefully memorised “bienvenue” and a “merci beaucoup” from VMware CEO Diane Greene, the statistics and feel-good facts started to flow.
This is only VMware’s tenth year of business, a fact that’s hard to grasp if you look at the big name sponsors (such as BEA, EMC, IBM and Intel) dutifully lining up to stamp their name on the virtualisation scene.
That said, analyst predictions from Gartner/Forrester and the like state that the full impact of virtualisation (in terms of its growth peak and adoption) will not be seen for another half decade or so.
THE PROMISE OF VIRTUALISATION
Greene’s keynote detailed claims that virtualisation can push up server utilisation to the 80% mark – and that it can increase data centre capacity – and reduce the possibility of human error…
… and if you really trust the value of statistics, you may be interested to know that, for one Italian company, it increased the time to deploy applications by 2000% - presumably they had only just moved on from punch cards and valves.
Saturday 23 February 2008, 12:20 PM
DNA database difficulties
This morning the BBC is reporting on the issue of building a nationwide database to store double-helix data on all of us.
Those ministers against the proposal seem to be keen to sit on the ethical issue more heavily than the technical issue don't you think? I'm quite happy to have my DNA stored (apart from the fact that I don't like needles too much) if it helps us track criminals.
Home Office minister Tony McNulty says that building a national database would raise practical and technical issues. "How to maintain the security of a database with 4.5m people on it is one thing. Doing that for 60m people is another."
Well, the government hardly has a great record of being able to look after our data I suppose. Let's assume that they won't copy it all on to a laptop and leave it in the loos at the closest McDonald's to Whitehall.
But practical and technical issues - really? I know people who build databases for a living and they always tell their clients that anything is possible given the time and the money. So is it effort and expenditure that's really holding the government back? Or do they really find big databases that frightening?
Friday 22 February 2008, 12:55 PM
Is your software spawning variants?
So I got chatting to this developer at a lunch I went to today. He was something of a purist and was quite precious about his projects, which it was plain to see he regarded as his 'babies'. Now, I'm not suggesting this chap - let's call him Felix after the cat - was not a team player. It's just that the commercial reality of the environment he works in means that he is constantly asked to re-code and push out variants to satisfy the needs of a diversified market.
His problem, the source of his headaches, were the additions & extensions he constantly had to plan for - while still keeping sight of the original goal (which may in itself be a moving target) of the software project and product in hand. Not to mention of course the scaling back he had to do for the 'hobbyist' and non-professional versions of his software.
I empathised with Felix by trying to suggest that at least he wasn't developing in the mobile space where as much as 50 per cent of development costs (for a game for example) have to be sunk into porting and testing procedures for the variety of devices that exist. In fact, "variant management" as a discipline in its own right is starting to be openly discussed as the solution to these challenges. I would have personally suggested SCM (software change management) or plain old CM (configuration management) tools as the best solution, but maybe I'm being too old school.
Are you under attack from the spawning variant swarms? Is variant management within your head-space? Should Felix have a large glass of 'wino-strength' cider and accept that this type of variance as part and parcel of modern software development? Answers on the back of a well worn beer mat please.
Wednesday 20 February 2008, 9:44 AM
Games gurus given greater gunning power
For those of us in foggy old London town this morning, news from the San Francisco Games Developers Conference seems all but a misty dream. But inbox's must be opened and the voracious appetites of game gurus everywhere must be satiated.
So gaming aficionados will no doubt be keen to hear that Intel's latest Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform (the artist formerly known as "Skulltrail") is one of the first enthusiast desktop platforms to support two Intel quad core processors for a total of eight processing engines and a choice of multi-card graphics solutions.
If you're a gamer…
– this means you'll get the opportunity to enjoy the manifold pleasures of multiple simultaneous graphics card functionality … and it's easy to see how eight processing cores will be good news for 3-D animation, digital audio and high-definition video.
If you're a developer…
– this means you'll be able to make your games work faster, no surprise there. What, in theory, it should also mean is that you can "test" your game development faster – and in today's highly developed games business, that may be good news. Also, asset generation processes for games development can be one of the most time consuming elements of the job – again, in theory, this could be shortened.
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