Data Center Management Articles
Google recently announced the Google Compute Engine, a service running on KVM that enables developers to have quick access to vast numbers of virtual machines. Cade Metz writes about the new service in an article on for Wired Enterprise in which he interviews Google's Urs Holzle. "Compute Engine was built using the KVM hypervisor, open source software that was built to run virtual machines atop the Linux operating system. KVM, or Kernel-based Virtual Machine, is a little different from the XEN hypervisor that underpins Amazon's service or the VMware vSphere hypervisor that drives applications inside so many other data centers," writes Metz.
Posted July 30, 2012
The oVirt Project develops and distributes an open source virtualization management platform that combines the KVM hypervisor with advanced capabilities for hosts and guests, including high availability, live migration, storage management, system scheduling, and more. As part of its community's efforts to provide education about oVirt and to bring more contributors into the fold, oVirt is hosting workshops at LinuxCon North America and LinuxCon Europe. Interested parties are invited to attend these workshops free of charge, and all workshop participants are eligible for a $200 discount on their LinuxCon registration courtesy of The Linux Foundation.
Posted July 30, 2012
Casio in Japan wanted to optimize the global IT infrastructure within its business development department and create business models to gain a competitive advantage in its industry. Casio installed Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux to enhance optimization of its IBM BladeCenter for increased efficiency and to develop IT systems tailored to specific sections of its business.
Posted July 30, 2012
Adam Jollans, program director, Linux and Open Virtualization Strategy, IBM, provides answers to frequently asked questions about KVM. "In the early days of Linux, it was often the technical people in organizations who knew about it and were already implementing, while management had little awareness of Linux. We are seeing that same trend occurring now with KVM," writes Jollans. "To help further the overall understanding and awareness of KVM and fill in the information gap, here is a list of the most frequently asked questions that we at IBM have encountered in recent panel discussions, conversations, and interviews."
Posted July 30, 2012
Jean Staten Healy, director, WW Linux and Open Virtualization, IBM, writes about why KVM merits a closer look: Virtualization is all about sharing resources of IT systems to get better usage out of them — to lower costs and to make it a more productive environment, with a better return on investment. Of course, you need a sufficiently large server with enough power and capacity so it is worth sharing the resources between different workloads. But once you have decided to virtualize, a key issue to consider is how the source code for the virtualization hypervisor is developed. That brings us to the importance of open source hypervisors, and in particular, KVM (the Kernel-based Virtual Machine).
Posted July 30, 2012
Compuware Corporation has launched a free online cloud service enabling organizations to compare the speed of their website's performance against leading competitor sites. SpeedoftheWeb.org provides a series of industry-relevant indexes with categorized collections of 1,000 of the world's most trafficked websites - as ranked by Alexa and Compuware Gomez benchmarks. As end-user expectations become greater, the cost of poor website performance also grows, both in terms of lost revenues and brand loyalty. In addition, end users are showing less patience for slow-performing websites, according to Compuware. In response to these heightening requirements, organizations need to ensure performance along every spot in the web application delivery chain, Alois Reitbauer, Compuware APM's Web 2.0 and Mobile Performance Expert and author of Java Enterprise Performance, tells DBTA.
Posted July 25, 2012
IBM announced its second-quarter income and revenues, stating that while hardware and systems revenues were down from the same time a year ago, software sales held steady or grew. Overall, IBM's net income for the quarter was $3.9 billion, compared with $3.7 billion in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 6%. Total revenues for the second quarter of 2012 of $25.8 billion were down 3% from the second quarter of 2011. Currency fluctuations negatively impacted revenue growth by approximately $1 billion.
Posted July 23, 2012
CA Technologies announced new releases of its CA Database Management Solutions for DB2 for z/OS and CA Mainframe Chorus role-based workspace to help customers as they upgrade to the latest release of IBM DB2 for z/OS. "We estimate that 75% of customers haven't upgraded to DB2 10 for z/OS," Mark Combs, CA distinguished senior vice president, Mainframe, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "Given the benefits of the new version, and with an end-of-support date set for the previous version, customers need to move critical business applications to DB2 10 for z/OS within the next 18 months."
Posted July 23, 2012
Providing additional tools to managed service providers, Symantec Corp. announced several new cloud capabilities, including the availability of the Symantec Partner Management Console, which is designed to simplify the management and monitoring of Symantec Endpoint Protection.cloud and Symantec Backup Exec.cloud. "The Symantec Partner Management Console provides resellers and emerging MSPs the ability to remotely manage all aspects of their customers' services, including trials, subscriptions, policy updates and customized reporting for Symantec Endpoint Protection.cloud and Symantec Backup Exec.cloud," Dan Nadir, senior director product management of SMB and .cloud for Symantec, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted July 23, 2012
HP introduced new IT management tools intended to help provide organizations better control of their IT services through meaningful insight between software and infrastructure relationships. The new software, HP Configuration Management System (CMS) 10, provides users greater automated discovery capabilities. CMS 10 also introduces new capabilities specifically for service lifecycle design and operations, notably within both business service management and IT service management.
Posted July 23, 2012
ManageEngine, an IT management tools provider, is shipping a new version of its flagship network monitoring software, OpManager. OpManager 9.2 adds features and functionality, including agent-based log file monitoring, discovery rule engine, faster discovery, IPAM plug-in, tab customization and mo
Posted July 23, 2012
GT Software, a provider of technology solutions for enterprise modernization, announced that it has become the primary marketing, sales, and technical support organization for the NEO Suite of solutions. GT Software intends to provide direct support for current and future customers, as well as all existing partnerships and distributor relationships.
Posted July 23, 2012
Maintec Technologies has launched a service that offers corporations a capability to outsource their Linux environment to Maintec Data Center. The service, zLinux-in-a-Box, enables users to take advantage of Linux on System z, which offers combined core strength of mainframe along with the openness and stability of Linux platform.
Posted July 09, 2012
The rise of heterogeneous systems in addition to mainframes makes a cross-platform solution essential, George Faucher, president and CEO of CorreLog, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "First, with more and more organizations deploying security information and event management systems, data for IT security is becoming more centralized. So the question isn't so much 'should we focus on mainframe security less because it is more secure?' It's a matter of collecting all log data from all sources and centralizing it within the systems."
Posted July 09, 2012
CA Technologies has extended its recently launched CA Global Partner Program to include mainframe management solutions. Available now to partners in North America, the mainframe offerings are expected to be rolled out globally to all partners by the fall. The mainframe plays an important role for companies seeking to deliver reliable, high-quality services at low cost through a complex mix of computing platforms and cloud technology, notes David Bradley, senior vice president, Global Channel Sales, CA Technologies. With the addition of mainframe solutions, the CA Global Partner Program enables partners to deliver CA Technologies' mainframe management software to their customers to help reduce costs, sustain critical skills, and increase IT agility in the hybrid data center and the cloud.
Posted July 09, 2012
BYOD, or "Bring Your Own Device," is a perq many employees enjoy; however, most studies and statistics say that companies should carefully evaluate security risks before allowing BYOD. In the final part of the three-part mobile blog series on the SHARE President's Corner, Erika Morphy investigates mobile security issues.
Posted July 09, 2012
IBM stepped up its smarter computing initiative with a broad range of performance and efficiency enhancements to its storage and technical computing systems - the engines of big data. As part of its ongoing smarter computing effort, IBM has announced a new strategic approach to designing and managing storage infrastructures with greater automation and intelligence, as well as performance enhancements to several key storage systems and the Tivoli Storage Productivity Center suite. IBM also announced its first offerings that incorporate software from IBM's acquisition of Platform Computing earlier this year. "Enterprises are dealing with data that is increasing exponentially in both size and complexity," said Rod Adkins, senior vice president of IBM Systems & Technology Group. The enhanced systems and storage solutions have the performance, efficiency, and intelligence to handle this big data, he added.
Posted June 28, 2012
SanDisk Corporation, a provider of flash memory storage solutions, has announced the acquisition of Schooner Information Technology, Inc., an enterprise software company located in Silicon Valley that develops flash-optimized database and data store solutions. SanDisk says that Schooner's products complement its growing portfolio of enterprise solid state disk (SSD) and flash-optimized software offerings.
Posted June 28, 2012
SAP marked the 1-year anniversary of the SAP HANA platform becoming generally available. To celebrate the occasion, SAP AG announced the launch of the SAP HANA Distinguished Engineer program. The new program is focused on promoting SAP HANA expertise in the market and is intended to support a new group of community-driven, hands-on HANA technical professionals.
Posted June 27, 2012
As part of its continued focus on working with startup companies, SAP AG is holding its second SAP Startup Forum. A gathering of select startups, the forum is a full day of collaboration, learning and competition around mobile technologies leveraging the SAP HANA platform to tackle "big data" challenges. This event follows the SAPPHIRE NOW conference where several startups took center stage in Orlando. The next SAP Startup Forum will be held at SAP Labs in Waterloo, Canada, on July 11, 2012.
Posted June 27, 2012
Atlantis Computing, a provider of storage optimization software for virtual servers and desktops, announced it will soon release a new software product intended to help enterprises to change the performance and economics of storage-intensive virtualized server and cloud applications such as databases, big data and custom enterprise applications. Atlantis ILIO FlexCloud 1.0, scheduled for availability this summer, is application-aware storage optimization software designed to complement virtualization solutions from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware.
Posted June 25, 2012
Red Hat, Inc., a provider of enterprise open source solutions, announced the availability of two new platforms for data center optimization and application deployment - JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6, and Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 6, an in-memory data grid solution.
Posted June 25, 2012
Terma Software Labs Inc., a provider of workload automation and job scheduling technologies, says it is now shipping a mainframe-enabled version of its Workload Automation engine, which works alongside CA Workload Automation AE, Cisco Tidal Enterprise Scheduler and Stonebranch Opswise Automation Center. The new release, JAWS for CA 7, is intended to assist mainframe sites address system size and data complexity that is overwhelming most traditional job-scheduling systems.
Posted June 25, 2012
Adaptive Computing announced it is upgrading its data center and cloud management system intended to automate the decisions and process of provisioning diverse resources, against diverse incoming workloads and changing conditions based on business policies and service level goals. The new solution, Moab Cloud Suite 7.1, provides on-demand user self-service resource requests for cloud environments with usage chargeback and an administrative dashboard.
Posted June 25, 2012
Quest Software unveiled NetVault Extended Architecture (XA), a platform unifying its data protection technologies, and enabling organizations to align backup and recovery directly to their service continuity needs. "The changing requirements of the modern business are forcing IT to shift from an infrastructure-centric view of backup and recovery to a services-centric view," says Walter Angerer, senior vice president and general manager of data protection for Quest Software.
Posted June 20, 2012
IBM is working with Syracuse University to help college students build computing skills to manage traditional and new systems in large global enterprises. As business value creation increasingly shifts to software, the skills needed to tackle disruptive technologies like cloud and mobile computing, particularly for enterprise-class, large industrial systems, have become critical. Lack of employee skills in software technologies is cited as the top barrier that prevents organizations from leveraging software for a competitive advantage, according to initial findings in IBM's Institute for Business Value 2012 Global Study on Software Delivery.
Posted June 20, 2012
Quest Software, Inc. says it has entered into an amendment to a previously announced merger agreement with affiliates of Insight Venture Partners to add Vector Capital as a member of the buyout group, and for an increase in the offer from $23 per share in cash to $25.75 per share in cash. According to Quest, the increased purchase price represents a 33% premium to Quest's closing stock price on the day prior to the announcement of the Insight merger agreement on March 8, 2012.
Posted June 20, 2012
Virtualization is relatively new - but not for the IBM mainframe. In a new blog post, Gregory Lotko, vice president & business line executive, System z IBM Systems & Technology Group, reflects on the heritage and features of the IBM mainframe, including a refrigerator-size, energy-efficient footprint and ability to consolidate large numbers of servers into one: Here at IBM, we often smile when we hear some new buzzword around virtualization. The IBM mainframe has a long history of virtualization. We were doing it before there was a name for it.
Posted June 20, 2012
What is PowerLinux? In his latest blog post, Scott Handy, vice president, PowerLinux Strategy and Business Development, IBM, writes about the benefits of combining Linux and Power - including strong support for virtualization, performance, scalability, flexibility, support for clouds, efficiency, reliability, security and availability: When we talk about PowerLinux, what we mean is industry-standard Linux available on IBM Power Systems servers.
Posted June 20, 2012
Companies are scrambling to learn all the various ways they can slice, dice, and mine big data coming in from across the enterprise and across the web. But with the rise of big data — hundreds of terabytes or petabytes of data — comes the challenge of where and how all of this information will be stored. For many organizations, current storage systems — disks, tapes, virtual tapes, clouds, inmemory systems — are not ready for the onslaught, industry experts say. There are new methodologies and technologies coming on the scene that may help address this challenge. But one thing is certain: Whether organizations manage their data in their internal data centers, or in the cloud, a lot more storage is going to be needed. As Jared Rosoff, director of customer engagement with 10gen, puts it: "Big data means we need ‘big storage.'"
Posted June 13, 2012
Oracle has announced the Sun ZFS Backup Appliance, an integrated, high performance backup solution for Oracle engineered systems, including the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. According to Oracle, the Sun ZFS Backup Appliance delivers up to 20TB per hour full backup and up to 9.4TB per hour full restore throughputs, the fastest published recovery rates among general purpose storage systems for Oracle engineered systems data protection. Oracle's Sun ZFS Backup Appliance is available in two configurations, High Performance and High Capacity, and comes pre-racked and cabled, helping to eliminate hardware tuning.
Posted June 13, 2012
To help customers optimize the value of their technology investments, Oracle has announced Oracle Platinum Services. The Oracle Platinum Services are available at no charge as part of a standard support contract to customers with either Oracle Exadata X2-2 and X2-8, Oracle Exalogic X2-2, and SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 Servers with Exadata storage, Sun ZFS Storage or Oracle's Pillar Axiom 600 Storage. To access Oracle Platinum Services, customers install a patented, secure monitoring gateway that will allow Oracle to deploy quarterly updates on their behalf. With the new services, Oracle is delivering what it thinks is the highest level of service in the industry, says Larry Abramson, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Advanced Customer Support Services.
Posted June 13, 2012
Ravi Pendekanti heads Systems Product Marketing for Oracle on a global basis. He has been in the Systems industry for more than two decades, working in the areas of servers, storage, software and networking. In this article, Exabriefing talks with Pendekanti about the Oracle engineered systems approach - what's been learned and why it works.
Posted June 13, 2012
Centrify Corporation, a provider of security and compliance solutions, announced availability of its Centrify Suite 2012 security and compliance solution for the latest Linux operating systems running on IBM z Series. "Today, Centrify supports more than 375 versions of UNIX and Linux operating systems," Tom Kemp, CEO and co-founder and CEO of Centrify, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted June 11, 2012
CiRBA announced Version 7.1 of the CiRBA Control Console, enabling IT organizations to optimize capacity decisions, VM placements and resource allocations for AIX-based IBM PowerVM environments. The PowerVM platform has very strong capabilities but it also some complexity over other environments, Andrew Hillier, CTO and co-founder of CiRBA, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "This is exactly the kind of platform that you don't want to take chances with," he notes.
Posted June 11, 2012
HP rolled out enhanced new offerings to increase collaboration between development, testing, infrastructure and operations teams, helping organizations break down IT silos so they can quickly deliver high-quality, applications for hybrid and cloud environments. The updated versions of HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and HP Performance Center (PC) enable organizations to improve delivery of applications with new Lab Management Automation and Continuous Application Performance Delivery features.
Posted June 11, 2012