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Intel Partners With WMware
Intel has teamed up with Microsoft’s rival VMware to deliver a platform for “trusted cloud.”
The technology will mix Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) and VMware’s vSphere 5.1, platform for building cloud infrastructures. Intel said its hardware-enhanced security capabilities integrated directly into the processor combined with vSphere 5.1 would provide a hardened and high-integrity platform to run business-critical applications in private and public cloud environments.
Intel thinks that the biggest barrier to cloud adoption is the fact that companies are worried about security. Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel’s Cloud Infrastructure Group, in a statement that Intel TXT provides hardware enforcement to help overcome some of the most challenging aspects of cloud security, including detection and prevention of bios attacks and evolving forms of stealthy malware, such as rootkits.
Chase Building 1/2 Billion Dollar Data Center
August 24, 2012 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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The enthusiastic backer of Enron and serial over charger of mortgage payers, JPMorgan Chase has just splashed out on a new $500 million data center.
CEO Jamie Dimon announced the move which practically everyone in the IT industry finds a bit strange. While Chase is the US’s largest bank, the new facilities are a little big by anyone’s standard. It is about the same about of money that Google and Microsoft in their largest data centres for their cloud networks.
Dimon cited the figure as one of the advantages of being a big size. It can afford to invest cash in this way. Size lets Chase build a $500 million data centre that speeds up transactions and invest billions of dollars in products like ATMs and apps that allow your iPhone to deposit cheques, he enthused.
JPMorgan Chase operates two large data centres in Delaware and a 400,000 square foot facility. It also acquired data centres in its deals for distressed rivals Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual in the early days of the 2008 financial crisis. So why it needs a huge new one is anyone’s guess.
China’s Supercomputer Uses Homegrown Chips
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China has built its latest supercomputer based entirely on homegrown microprocessors, a major move towards breaking the country’s reliance on Western technology for high-performance computing.
China’s National Supercomputer Center in Jinan debuted the computer last Thursday, according to a report from the country’s state-run press. The supercomputer uses 8,704 “Shenwei 1600″ microprocessors, which were developed by a design center in Shanghai, called the National High Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center.
Details of the microprocessors and the design center were not immediately available.
The supercomputer has a theoretical peak speed of 1.07 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point calculations per second), and a sustained performance of 0.79 petaflops when measured with the Linpack benchmark. This could place it at number 13 in the world’s top 500 supercomputing list. Photos of the chips used and the supercomputer’s data center can be found here.
China’s Shandong Academy of Sciences built the computer. Officials of the academy could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday.
A report from The New York Times said the supercomputer’s name in English was the Sunway BlueLight MPP.
Apple Previews New Operating System
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Apple today released a preview version of Mac OS X 10.7, also known as Lion, to developers, who can download the new operating system from the Mac App Store.
The preview is developers’ first look at the upgrade scheduled to reach consumers sometime this summer.
Included in the preview, and to be bundled with the operating system when it ships, is Lion Server, Apple’s new server software. One analyst saw that move as an admission by Apple that it hasn’t been able to make inroads into the corporate server market.
“They’ve recognized they’re not going to break into the data center,” said Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research. “They’re admitting that what server sales they’ve made in the past have been to very small businesses.”
Currently, Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server is sold separately from the general-purpose edition for $499.
Late last year, Apple killed its Xserve line of rack servers, halting sales of the hardware on Jan. 31, 2011. Instead, Apple now steers customers toward Mac Pro and Mac Mini systems with Leopard Server pre-installed. The bundling of Lion Server with Mac OS X 10.7 will save customers hundreds of dollars, said Gottheil, assuming Apple sticks to its traditional $129 price point for Lion next summer.
“A very small server should cost about $700 [this summer], not the $1,000 [a server-equipped Mac Mini] costs now,” said Gottheil.
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Coming February 22nd
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According to sources Microsoft will release the first service pack update for Windows 7 on February 22nd. The service pack has reached the RTM stage and sent to OEMs earlier this week.The service pack is said to be a hefty 1.2GB download will feature all prior updates and fixes and Microsoft stated the update will improve networking, security and mobility. Read More….
Benefits of Cloud Computing
In a nutshell Cloud Computing is the process of having on-demand hosted computing services provided outside your own network environment through a vendor’s Public or Private Data Center. Cloud Computing can be broken into three distinct categories. They are SaaS (Software as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), and PaaS (Platform as a Service).
Even though the concepts of Cloud Computing have been around for years, it still remains in its infancy. However, its adoption rate has been rather explosive lately, due in part to its seamlessness and ease of information integration.Cloud Computing has many benefits for medium and small businesses by way of collaboration and Productivity. For instance users will have the ability to work on the same projects in real-time from any location whether it’s the office, at home or an overseas location, at any time. The office never closes.
Another reason Cloud Computing has become so enticing is businesses can cut expenses on hardware and IT staffing to support the very same services as if they were on-site (Break/Fix issues are resolved by the vendor and the customer is never aware since services are redundant). Security is also enhanced because leading vendors adhere to higher levels of security features that are cost prohibitive to most medium and small businesses. In these days of high profile data breaches added security is must have.
Businesses should also consider their IT teams will not have a steep learning curve adapting to Cloud based services, since most user environment applications are similar in design to those they are accustomed to using today. Another added convenience is that Cloud Computing rids businesses of the old and costly software licensing requirement for every application/user. Cloud Computing allows the business to buy services on a time/usage metric.
If your business is looking to stay agile and save money, Cloud Computing may be the right direction to move.