Data Center Management Articles
With the increased merging of disparate core business systems in the enterprise - as well as the emergence of additional systems in the form of enterprise resource management, customer relationship management, hierarchical storage strategies, and other business-driven initiatives - many companies today find themselves moving mountains of data on a daily basis. Business intelligence (BI) initiatives in particular typically rely on data warehousing strategies to provide critical information and reports to management in support of business decisions. Such strategies often require the timely transfer of enormous amounts of data from line-of-business systems. Too much time taken in data transfer can adversely impact a company's agility and could mean lost windows of business opportunities. It can also encroach on processing resources better devoted to core business applications.
Posted January 11, 2010
Enterprises that downplay the importance of storage management may be putting other key enterprise objectives at risk. That's the message from Kyle Fitze, Director of Marketing, Storage Platforms Division, HP StorageWorks. With IT shops facing constrained budgets and data volumes continuing to escalate, Fitze says, greater efficiency in the IT infrastructure is a requirement so that more money and time can be targeted at IT projects that will drive business growth. "Today, we believe that most customers spend upward of 70% of their budget just keeping the systems running and the lights on and everything cooled, on maintenance and operations, and the remainder of their budget on innovative IT projects," he observes. What HP would like to do, "is flip that ratio, so that customers, while they spend less on IT overall, are spending a smaller percentage of their budget on operations and the larger percentage then on innovation and business intelligence, and the kind of IT projects that can help them navigate these rough waters of economic decline."
Posted January 11, 2010
If you have ever been involved in configuring, installing and maintaining enterprise software, I don't have to tell you that it's time-consuming and complex. The cumbersome process of installing and tuning the operating system (OS), middleware, and database, then integrating and configuring the software is manual and error-prone. Even if you get it all correct, the process alone can delay time-to-value for the end user and introduce challenges for independent software vendors (ISVs) looking to shorten sales cycles. The whole process is daunting and expensive, discouraging customers and inhibiting sales. In order to maximize their financial return and eliminate installation and maintenance challenges, many ISVs are building appliances - versions of their product, packaged with a "just enough operating system" required to perform the desired tasks. Pre-configured for specific use cases, these compact, self-contained appliances can be deployed in a matter of minutes, requiring only last mile setup.
Posted January 11, 2010
Lotusphere 2010 is the premier event for the enterprise collaboration community, it's all about helping you achieve better business results through collaborative software and solutions.
Posted January 06, 2010
Virtual Bridges has introduced the newest version of its virtual desktop infrastructure suite with the release of Virtual Bridges' VERDE 3.0 software. Key new features in VERDE 3.0 include full support for Microsoft Windows 7 clients; VERDE Cloud Branch support, which provides the ability to replicate centrally-managed gold master images to remote sites, eliminating WAN latency; VERDE LEAF (Live Environment Accessible Format) technology, which allows any computer to be turned into a thin client with VDI and telephony integrated; enhanced clustering, enabling management of multiple virtual machines per user; and integrated VOIP integration for Skype support built into the SMART client. VERDE 3.0 reaches out to the Mac community by providing access to Windows and Linux virtual desktop sessions from Mac clients. Mac users can now participate in VDI deployments together with Windows and Linux access points.
Posted January 06, 2010
The Linux technology, development model, and community have all been game-changing influences on the IT industry. Recently, the Linux zone on the developerWorks website reflected on the important events and technological advances of the past 10 years surrounding the open source operating system, and framed up the significance of each.
Posted January 06, 2010
Lotusphere 2010 is the premier event for the enterprise collaboration community, it's all about helping you achieve better business results through collaborative software and solutions.
Posted January 06, 2010
Virtual Bridges has introduced the newest version of its virtual desktop infrastructure suite with the release of Virtual Bridges' VERDE 3.0 software. Key new features in VERDE 3.0 include full support for Microsoft Windows 7 clients; VERDE Cloud Branch support, which provides the ability to replicate centrally-managed gold master images to remote sites, eliminating WAN latency; VERDE LEAF (Live Environment Accessible Format) technology, which allows any computer to be turned into a thin client with VDI and telephony integrated; enhanced clustering, enabling management of multiple virtual machines per user; and integrated VOIP integration for Skype support built into the SMART client. VERDE 3.0 reaches out to the Mac community by providing access to Windows and Linux virtual desktop sessions from Mac clients. Mac users can now participate in VDI deployments together with Windows and Linux access points.
Posted January 06, 2010
The Linux technology, development model, and community have all been game-changing influences on the IT industry. Recently, the Linux zone on the developerWorks website reflected on the important events and technological advances of the past 10 years surrounding the open source operating system, and framed up the significance of each.
Posted January 06, 2010
Antony Satyadas is Marketing Strategist for IBM Lotus Software. He focuses on global marketing strategy and leads competitive initiatives for IBM Lotus Software. In this issue, Satyadas explains the market needs driving IBM's new desktop software initiatives and discusses how that market segment is rapidly evolving.
Posted January 06, 2010
Antony Satyadas is Marketing Strategist for IBM Lotus Software. He focuses on global marketing strategy and leads competitive initiatives for IBM Lotus Software. In this issue, Satyadas explains the market needs driving IBM's new desktop software initiatives and discusses how that market segment is rapidly evolving.
Posted January 06, 2010
EMC Corporation, a provider of information infrastructure solutions, yesterday announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Kansas-based Archer Technologies, a privately-held provider of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) software. According to EMC, the combination of Archer with industry-leading technologies for information risk management and information security from EMC's RSA Security Division will significantly extend EMC's solutions portfolio for visualizing and managing risk, enabling customers to automate GRC visibility and policy enforcement across both physical and virtualized IT environments. Archer will remain in Overland Park, Kan., upon completion of the acquisition and operate as a part of RSA, The Security Division of EMC.
Posted January 05, 2010
Attunity Ltd., a provider of real-time data integration and event capture software, is expanding its partnership with Open Text Corporation, an enterprise software company. Through the partnership, Open Text will market advanced data connectivity solutions, including legacy decommissioning, data lifecycle management and real-time data warehousing, which will leverage Attunity's legacy data connectivity and low-impact change data capture (CDC) technology.
Posted January 05, 2010
Novell recently announced advancements in the joint development agreement between Novell and SAP AG. As part of an ongoing initiative, SAP has integrated PlateSpin Orchestrate, part of the virtualization and workload management suite from Novell, with the SAP NetWeaver Adaptive Computing Controller tool within the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. Additionally, SAP has chosen SUSE Linux Enterprise as the operating system for the latest version of the SAP Discovery system, available for the first time as a virtual appliance. These advances are intended to enable customers to increase the manageability and portability of SAP applications and simplify the installation of SAP Discovery system.
Posted January 05, 2010
Sybase, Inc. today announced that its IQ 15.1 column-based analytics server, working with the IBM Power 595 system and running the AIX 6L version 6.1 Operating System, achieved the best overall performance result currently published among all non-clustered systems for the TPC-H benchmark at the 3TB scale factor . In addition, the Sybase and IBM solution also recorded the best current overall price/performance result among non-clustered systems that deliver over 100,000 QphH for the TPC-H benchmark at the 3TB scale factor .
Posted December 16, 2009
Sybase, Inc. has announced it is leveraging the newest version of its column-based analytics server—Sybase IQ 15.1—and its global mobile messaging reach, enabling the company to provide deep analytics functionality on the Sybase 365 mobile services platform that will address the needs of mobile operators, financial institutions and enterprise customers. The first offering, to be launched in Q1 2010, will be a hosted analytics solution for mobile operators, providing them with improved quality of service, a greater insight into their off-network messaging traffic, and enabling them to better execute revenue generating activities around these trends.
Posted December 16, 2009
Symantec Corp. has made enhancements to Veritas Storage Foundation, Veritas Cluster File System and Veritas Cluster Server, which are heterogeneous storage management and high availability solutions for Unix, Linux and Windows environments. These latest releases are intended to help organizations to employ the latest storage innovations—from SSDs to thin provisioned hardware and virtual environments including Hyper-V. The new releases also provide capabilities needed to optimize any storage or server platform. Additionally, the vendor says near instantaneous recovery of applications is now possible with Veritas Cluster File System through tight integration with Sybase, Oracle and IBM DB2-enabling faster failover of structured information and near-linear scalability.
Posted December 16, 2009
Sybase 365 , a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc., has announced a strategic partnership with the New York State Emergency Management Office (SEMO) to deploy SMS messaging services through NY-ALERT, the state's All - Hazards Alert and Notification System. The web-based portal allows state agencies, county and local governments, emergency service agencies and institutions of higher learning, to provide emergency alerting information and private notifications to a def ined audience through SMS alerts.
Posted December 16, 2009
Looking for an easier way to develop and test applications? Join IBM on Thursday, December 17, 2009, at 12pm ET to hear how Linux and IBM software can expedite the development and test of applications in the cloud More than just a presentation, this webcast will take you from the theory of cloud computing to practice in a few simple steps and give you the confidence to explore cloud computing further with the IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud.
Posted December 16, 2009
The IBM LinuxLine will be taking a break in its publishing schedule until January 6, 2010. Our news coverage in 2009 has focused on Linux and open source product news, Linux adoption trends, research that has tracked the spread of Linux technology throughout the enterprise, interviews with Industry leaders in Q&A format, events and training as well as key developments at IBM Linux.
Posted December 16, 2009
IBM is expanding its reach into growing nations with the opening of the first IBM Innovation Center in the Philippines, which aims to help the local business and academic communities to build skills and develop new technologies that support demand for digital infrastructure projects in banking, energy, telecommunications, transportation, retail and government industries.
Posted December 16, 2009
Lotusphere 2010 is the premier event for the enterprise collaboration community, it's all about helping you achieve better business results through collaborative software and solutions.
Posted December 16, 2009
The Fedora Project, a Red Hat, Inc.-sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration, recently announced the availability of Fedora 12, the latest version of its free open source operating system distribution. Fedora 12 includes new features to appeal to desktop users, administrators, developers and open source enthusiasts alike.
Posted December 16, 2009
As reported in the last edition of LinuxLine, IBM's supercomputer lines are among the "greenest" in the industry. Another "super computer," System z, is also reported to lead the industry in energy efficiency. IBM has announced, for example, that it has completed installation of what it calls the "world's greenest data center" at Syracuse University. The Syracuse data center, announced in late May 2009 and constructed in slightly over 6 months, is a $12.4 million, 12,000-square-foot facility that uses an innovative onsite power generation system for electricity, heating and cooling, and incorporates IBM's latest energy-efficient servers, computer-cooling technology and system management software.
Posted December 16, 2009
In a recent interview with CNET's Matt Asay, Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, discusses what is positioning Linux for growth in the coming decade, what affect industry consolidation may have on open source development, and what he sees looming ahead for Linux and open source in 2010.
Posted December 16, 2009
The Linux Executive Report from IBM will be taking a break in its publishing schedule until January 6, 2010. Our news coverage in 2009 has focused on Linux and open source product news, Linux adoption trends, research that has tracked the spread of Linux technology throughout the enterprise, interviews with Industry leaders in Q&A format, events and training as well as key developments at IBM Linux. More widely deployed than ever, Linux has proven to be a key enabling technology in the enterprise and The Linux Executive Report will continue to follow developments and provide insight for our readers.
Posted December 16, 2009
IBM is expanding its reach into growing nations with the opening of the first IBM Innovation Center in the Philippines, which aims to help the local business and academic communities to build skills and develop new technologies that support demand for digital infrastructure projects in banking, energy, telecommunications, transportation, retail and government industries.
Posted December 16, 2009
Looking for an easier way to develop and test applications? Join IBM on Thursday, December 17, 2009, at 12pm ET to hear how Linux and IBM software can expedite the development and test of applications in the cloud More than just a presentation, this webcast will take you from the theory of cloud computing to practice in a few simple steps and give you the confidence to explore cloud computing further with the IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud.
Posted December 16, 2009
Lotusphere 2010 is the premier event for the enterprise collaboration community, it's all about helping you achieve better business results through collaborative software and solutions.
Posted December 16, 2009
The Fedora Project, a Red Hat, Inc.-sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration, recently announced the availability of Fedora 12, the latest version of its free open source operating system distribution. Fedora 12 includes new features to appeal to desktop users, administrators, developers and open source enthusiasts alike.
Posted December 16, 2009
As reported in the last edition of The Linux Executive Report, IBM's supercomputer lines are among the "greenest" in the industry. Another "super computer," System z, is also reported to lead the industry in energy efficiency. IBM has announced, for example, that it has completed installation of what it calls the "world's greenest data center" at Syracuse University.
Posted December 16, 2009
In a recent interview with CNET's Matt Asay, Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, discusses what is positioning Linux for growth in the coming decade, what affect industry consolidation may have on open source development, and what he sees looming ahead for Linux and open source in 2010.
Posted December 16, 2009
Ian Abramson, president of the Independent Oracle Users Group, traveled to Brussels last week in order to present the IOUG position on the pending acquisition of Sun by Oracle to the European Union's Competition Committee. Abramson was asked by Oracle, on behalf of the IOUG, to be a part of the company's presentation to the EU. Upon arriving in Brussels, it was determined that since the IOUG and the UKOUG (represented by chairman Ronin Miles), were both there that they should combine statements, according to Abramson.
Posted December 16, 2009
To help midsize industrial manufacturing companies streamline their IT implementations, Oracle and HP have launched the HP and Oracle Consulting Accelerate Solution for Industrial Manufacturing.
Posted December 16, 2009
CommVault announced yesterday that it has formed a partnership with Informatica to deliver an integrated archiving solution that extends support to leading databases and applications, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel and other custom or legacy applications. This new technology partnership will enable CommVault Simpana software customers to easily archive large databases from mission-critical business applications, such as CRM and ERP systems, to better streamline e-discovery and improve database space management.
Posted December 15, 2009
Microsoft Corporation has acquired Opalis Software, an IT process vendor. Opalis will be integrated into the Microsoft System Center product line. Opalis' IT process automation tools are designed to enable the streamlining of IT operations by removing of the overhead associated with manual response to IT problems. The acquisition "means that IT process automation will become a mainstream offering throughout all levels of IT shops, large and small," according to Todd DeLaughter, president and CEO of Opalis Software. "No coding or scripting is required to use Opalis so IT experts from operations to development teams can participate in driving IT efficiency."
Posted December 15, 2009
Symantec Corp. has made enhancements to Veritas Storage Foundation, Veritas Cluster File System and Veritas Cluster Server, which are heterogeneous storage management and high availability solutions for Unix, Linux and Windows environments. These latest releases are intended to help organizations to employ the latest storage innovations — from SSDs to thin provisioned hardware and virtual environments including Hyper-V. The new releases also provide capabilities needed to optimize any storage or server platform. Additionally, the vendor says near instantaneous recovery of applications is now possible with Veritas Cluster File System through tight integration with Oracle, Sybase and IBM DB2 - enabling faster failover of structured information and near-linear scalability.
Posted December 14, 2009
Microsoft Corporation has acquired Opalis Software, an IT process vendor. Opalis will be integrated into the Microsoft System Center product line. Opalis' IT process automation tools are designed to enable the streamlining of IT operations by removing of the overhead associated with manual response to IT problems.
Posted December 14, 2009
Clerity Solutions, a provider of mainframe migration, modernization, and optimization solutions, announced the availability of an application development tool that provides a graphical user interface environment for the design, creation, and maintenance of former mainframe-based 3270 "green screens" on cost-effective open systems.
Posted December 14, 2009
SOA Software says it will soon be shipping a new product to extend the capabilities of the IBM WebSphere Service Registry Repository (WSRR). This new product called Policy Manager for IBM WSRR complements the policy management capabilities of WSRR enabling customers to define policies for services and service consumers regardless of their platform and can audit the policies implemented and enforced by the platform in a closed-loop process.
Posted December 14, 2009
As we enter the next decade of the millennium, we will see information technology becoming more ubiquitous, driving an even greater share of business decisionmaking and operations. IT has proven its muster through the recent downturn as both a tactical and strategic weapon for streamlining, as well as maintaining competitive edge. Now, as we begin the next round of economic recovery, companies will be relying on IT even more to better understand and serve their markets and customers. Yet, there are many challenges with managing a growing array of IT hardware, software, and services. To address these requirements, businesses continue to look to approaches such as analytics, virtualization, and cloud computing. To capture the trends shaping the year ahead, Database Trends and Applications spoke to a range of industry leaders and experts.
Posted December 14, 2009
When a company like Microsoft talks about the future of computing, you can expect a fair bit of self-serving market positioning - public software companies need to be careful to sell a vision of the future that doesn't jeopardize today's revenue streams. But, when a company like Microsoft releases a new version of its fundamental development framework - .NET, in this case - you can see more clearly the company's technical vision for the future of computing.
Posted December 14, 2009
Listen to a group of database professionals talk for awhile and someone will eventually bring up the topic of data deduplication. Data deduplication is a means to eliminate redundant data, either through hardware or software technologies. To illustrate, imagine you've drafted a new project plan and sent it to five teammates asking for input. That single file has now been reproduced, in identical bits and bytes, on a total of six computers. If everyone's email inbox is backed up every night, that's another six copies backed up on the email backup server. Through data deduplication technology, only a single instance of your project plan would be backed up, and all other instances of the identical file would simply be tiny on-disk pointers to the original.
Posted December 14, 2009
Corporate management is complacent about data security. Efforts to address data security are still ad hoc, and not part of an overall database security strategy or plan. Companies are not keeping up with the need to monitor for potential risks. More monitoring tends to be ad hoc or on-the-fly, versus more organized or automated systematic approaches. These are the findings from new research from Unisphere Research and the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), which shows that the recent economic downturn has taken a toll on data security efforts within enterprises.
Posted December 14, 2009
Credit card security is a top priority - for both consumers and businesses. But what happens if there is a security breach exposing critical data to unknown sources? What can businesses do from an IT perspective to ensure they're protecting consumer information? When sensitive cardholder information resides in legacy host systems, host access technology can be a critical tool to help organizations successfully achieve PCI DSS compliance.
Posted December 14, 2009
Unisys Corporation has announced that its Unisys ES7000 Model 7600R Enterprise Server has demonstrated record performance and reductions in cost of ownership among servers featuring more than four sockets in the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) TPC-E benchmark. The server also registered strong results in the TPC-H benchmark test.
Posted December 09, 2009
Attachmate Corporation has achieved Common Use Passenger Processing Systems (CUPPS) certification for its INFOConnect Enterprise Edition for Airlines Print and Transaction Router (PTR32) solutions. The certification addresses a need among airlines that are working to migrate their technology to the CUPPS platform, gradually replacing the Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE), which is the current check-in and boarding standard. Attachmate is one of the first application vendors to receive this certification.
Posted December 09, 2009
At the recent UNITE conference in Minneapolis it was announced that the 2010 conference would be in San Antonio in November. During the conference, UNITE surveyed its constituents, including members, vendors and Unisys, by using focus groups and other discussions. This initiative looked at a number of factors impacting the conference—among them timing, location and cost. The consensus from this effort showed that a spring conference would be most effective for all parties. The UNITE board of directors has therefore decided to move the conference to May 2010.
Posted December 09, 2009
SOA Software today announced its "Atmosphere" cloud services governance initiative, which creates a unifying brand for a suite of SOA and cloud services governance products that the company will deliver through 2010. Atmosphere's integrated set of products will implement, enforce and audit common policies through various stages of service life cycles, enabling cloud service platforms to automatically scale based on the SLAs and measured performance of the services and processes.
Posted December 07, 2009
BMC Software has introduced a solution that helps IT operations managers to see impending performance bottlenecks and other issues before they actually happen. The vendor's latest product, BSM for Proactive Operations, features enhancements to its line of IT operations solutions that are part of its Business Service Management (BSM) platform. The predictive analytics capabilities have been built into the latest BMC BladeLogic, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management, BMC Capacity Management and BMC Atrium solutions.
Posted December 07, 2009