MySQL-HA beta 0.6.8 is out

The MySQL-HA project has out dated the recently released Documentation by releasing MySQL-HA beta 0.6.8. I am still running 0.6.6 and may be this weekend I will upgrade to the new version.
MySQL-HA is a project to provide high availability to MySQL database environment. It is a set of utilities that provide high availability for databases using the mysql database server. includes ip address takeover, using a master node and a slave one. You find out more about this project by following the links provided below.

the goal of MySQL-HA is to provide a freely available and community supported clustering tool kit based on MySQL, and focused on service availability. The developers say that they dissect that sentence to reveal that it's not just a quick marketing trick, but a real mission statement.

Links;
MySQL-HA project site
MySQL-HA home page
MySQL-HA blog

Tags: MySQL-HA, MySQL cluster

Run your Linux from a USB drive

How do I keep all those Linux configurations running and keep track of all these distributions and configurations. I kept my VMware images on a USB hard drive. Because I needed to run them or test them at different locations.
I also have some Knoppix live CDs remastered over and over to encompass changes or to add modules that were developed for projects.
But now I have a bunch of USB keys, ranging from 256MB to 4GB. I Stated all this by first getting my Knoppix 5.1 on an USB drive. With the help from Pen Drive Linux article which I have provided the link below.
Get all your Linux on a USB drive, I have a Knoppix DVD image on a usb Drive. So I can do all my work even if I am totally disconnected from the net.
I also have a bootable SD drive on my notebook, I will try to get my knoppix on it!
Links;
Knoppix 5.1 Release notes on PenDriveLinux
Pendrive Linux's Knoppix ready for USB Drive

Tags: Linux, knoppix, USB linux, Knoppix USB

OpenVZ, another player in virtualization space

I was searching for a better server based virtualization software after playing with many a industry players. All worked well, I thought, until I used OpenVZ. I was blown away and my trusty notebook too. We have to test many a grid based technology before we deploy them out. Testing on a Grid is hard to do because, Others use it, part of it is in production, and various other reasons.
Now I can replicate the services I need on our grid, to my notebook, (It a Dual core with 2GB memory and 160GB mirrored raid note book!) and test all core based testing before I even present them to the team.
How do I do them? Virtual Private Servers, kindly provided by OpenVZ. Without going any further telling how I see OpenVZ, here is what OpenVZ.org has to say;

What is OpenVZ?
OpenVZ is an Operating System-level server virtualization solution, built on Linux. OpenVZ creates isolated, secure virtual environments — VEs (otherwise known as virtual private servers, or VPSs) on a single physical server enabling better server utilization and ensuring that applications do not conflict. Each VE performs and executes exactly like a stand-alone server; VEs can be rebooted independently and have root access, users, IP addresses, memory, processes, files, applications, system libraries and configuration files. See Documentation » Technology for more information.

If you want to read about it more you can follow the wikipedia link given below. You also can read in other languages like, German, French, Russian, and Spanish.

OpenVZ is the basis of the Virtuozzo™ — a commercial virtualization solution offered by SWsoft.
So if you need commercial support and backing, it is there through Virtuozzo. I have provided links below.

Links;
OpenVZ.Org web Portal
Virtuozzo
Wikipedia link (For other languages, add appropriate prefix, de, fr etc)

Tags: openVZ, Virtual Private Servers, VPS, Virtuozzo

3Tera gives Grid Provisioning for Service Providers and more

Press Release
3Tera, Inc., the innovator of grid and utility computing solutions for online services and Layered Technologies, Inc., a leading hosting provider of self-managed, dedicated server platforms and services, today announced Layered Technologies will leverage 3Tera's AppLogic grid operating system to offer grid-based private servers and Web hosting services to its customers. The grid-based solution will provide Layered Technologies' customers with a new level of services such as quick and easy resource provisioning, instant high availability and on-demand scalability, and for the first time, they won't have to worry about how many, and what kinds of, servers they're running.

"Layered Technologies can now offer, in addition to the dedicated server model, the new easy-to-manage grid infrastructure to provide affordable Web hosting plans while achieving the ultimate in flexibility for hosting solutions," said Vlad Miloushev, president & CEO, 3Tera, Inc. "AppLogic eliminates the barrier between grid computing and Web applications so hosting providers like Layered Technologies can offer their customers an easy and cost-effective way to manage their own applications without ever having to worry about the infrastructure."



"Deploying Web applications on AppLogic-based private servers provides instant scalability and high availability to our customers," said Jeremy Suo-Anttila, CTO, Layered Technologies, Inc. "For example, grid disk failures become a non-issue as all the data volumes are constantly mirrored on multiple servers so the running application is never interrupted. Even the failure of a server becomes painless, as AppLogic will automatically provision replacement resources on the grid."



About the AppLogic Grid Operating System

AppLogic is the first and only grid operating system designed to run and scale existing transactional Web applications. The system is based on scalable grid architecture, advanced virtualization technologies and 3Tera's ground-breaking disposable infrastructure. AppLogic converts existing commodity servers into scalable shared grids that are easy to manage. Disposable infrastructure packages applications and the infrastructure required to run them into self-contained and portable entities. As a result, AppLogic enables users to easily deploy existing Web applications on a grid, instantiate and scale them without modification, and without requiring a SAN or other shared storage. By completely separating software from the hardware infrastructure traditionally needed to run it, AppLogic is enabling the first true utility services to be offered.

Links;
3Tera Grid OS

Tags: Grid, GRID OS, web application, grid operating system

Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference 2007 San Diego

January 29 - 31, 2007
Marriott San Diego Mission Valley, San Diego, USA
(in parallel with The Open Group Member Meetings, January 29 - Febraury 2)

The Open Group Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference in San Diego will comprise a plenary meeting with a focus on SOA, followed by parallel streams addressing SOA and other aspects of enterprise architecture.
According to a recent report by Forrester, nearly 70% of SOA users say that they will increase their use. SOA is here to stay.

What does this mean for enterprise architects?

Many of the guiding principles of SOA are not new. Re-use, interoperability and compliance to standards (both common and industry-specific) have been championed by the experts and member companies of The Open Group Architecture Forum for more than 11 years. But it is becoming increasingly clear that, while the fundamental principles remain valid, SOA does require new ideas and new skills.

And service-orientation has even deeper implications. It can lead to new business models and organizational structures. It helps the architect to think in terms of an enterprise architecture that includes IT, rather than an IT architecture that supports the enterprise.

Which means that architects must not just master the new technology. They must understand business and technology together, in order to deliver true enterprise architecture.
So don't be left out. Conference information and registration is in the links below.

Links;
Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference
Registration for the SOA conference

Tags: SOA, Enterprise Architecture, gridtech

Grid Technology in mainstream media.

It is good to start new year with reading news published by a leading news paper and being picked up by other news papers. Although a few may know what grid technology is the most will think of grid as it relates to the power, electricity. If you do a google search for grid, now you get a first page all related to grid technology and grid computing.
World Community Grid, SETI are gaining acceptance by general population due to the fact that they use idling computer power to do social work. The publications like Chicago Tribune, Sun Sentinel accepting to publish Grid related article like the ones I have provided links below will further educate the general population about Grid Technology.

Have a happy new grid year.

Links
Chicago tribune, Grid Computing..
Sun Sentinel, Grid Computing...

Tags: grid, grid technology, grid computing, SETI, WCG, World Community Grid

Happy holidays and make a grid with your family and friends.

I hope Santa will come your way and Your holiday will be filled with laughter and Joy. If you pass by an unfortunate person, please try to make him/her smile. Don't forget that all the Kids are the same!

Best Regards!

Tags: santa, holiday, joy

RIAA and Linux Kernel, Linus delivers it straight

Responding to a statement;
"> Numerous kernel developers feel that loading non-GPL drivers into the
> kernel violates the license of the kernel and their copyright. Because
> of this, a one year notice for everyone to address any non-GPL
> compatible modules has been set."

Linus Torvalds has responded in a lengthy message. Although written because of a discussion of restricting Non-GPL drivers, it applies to most of the projects that are open source.
I will just state some of the Linus' statements that most appeals to me and will redirect you to the article. If you are intersted, then you can follow rest of the thread, which carries some gems like;
Bellyfull of fish
Penguins laying under the moon
Dreaming of wings to fly.

Back to Linus;
"The silly thing is, the people who tend to push most for this are the
exact SAME people who say that the RIAA etc should not be able to tell
people what to do with the music copyrights that they own, and that the
DMCA is bad because it puts technical limits over the rights expressly
granted by copyright law."
"The fact is, the reason I don't think we should force the issue is very
simple: copyright law is simply _better_off_ when you honor the admittedly
gray issue of "derived work". It's gray. It's not black-and-white. But
being gray is _good_. Putting artificial black-and-white technical
counter-measures is actually bad. It's bad when the RIAA does it, it's bad
when anybody else does it."
And lastly;
"There's a big difference between "copy" and "use". It's exatcly the same
issue whether it's music or code. You can't re-distribute other peoples
music (becuase it's _their_ copyright), but they shouldn't put limits on
how you personally _use_ it (because it's _your_ life).

Same goes for code. Copyright is about _distribution_, not about use. We
shouldn't limit how people use the code."

All his statements are very true and drawing a line is hard for developers and thinkers as well. If you think you are confused, I do not even know why I even wrote this post!

Links;
Linus' responses to restricting Linux kernel

Tags: linux, linus, kernel, RIAA, DCMA

Grid Comes to Web Hosting,

Media Temple webhosting services has announced that it is providing Grid based hosting plans. According to the media temple, Grid-Server services provide website hosting for others by means of clustering multiple networked servers. (mt) Media Temple’s Grid- Server services utilizes a completely new hosting platform that replaces yesterday’s obsolete shared server technology. We've eliminated roadblocks and single points of failure by using hundreds of servers working in tandem for your site, applications, and email. The Grid-Server program's on-demand scalability means you'll always be ready for intense bursts of traffic and the growing audience resulting from your online success. All of this power, controlled through our brand new AccountCenter, is available today for a price point unmatched by any competing service.

Then hunting the I found this gem, "MediaTemple Grid Server: Not Good for Sites with Multiple Developers" at No.oneslistening.com
So if you are planing to host your multi agent, multi developer development project on this grid based service.
"Here at N1L, we’ve got a number of programmers who collaborate on projects, some that you’ve heard about and others still in the oven. We were active in the beta program for MediaTemple’s new Grid Server (GS). One thing we found is that the GS doesn’t play well with our projects that have multiple developers. Below, I’ll outline three ways that MediaTemple’s GS is not conducive to a collaborative environment. My hope is that this article provides a voice for change and improvement in the GS."

So follow the link and read the rest of the article that describes individual developer problems.

Links;
Media temple grid hosting
Not Good for Sites with Multiple Developers

Tags: grid based hosting, Grid, Grid Service

LA Grid (LAH GRID) kicks up steam, FAU (Florida Atlantic University) joins the grid.

Florida Atlantic University announced today that it has become the 10th member of the IBM-led Latin American Grid (LA Grid), an effort to create professional IT opportunities for the Hispanic community and to advance research in areas such as life sciences, weather modeling and prediction.
By joining LA Grid, FAU will contribute research scientists and the university's supercomputer based on IBM BladeCenter Systems from the university's College of Engineering and Computer Science.
While joint research programs in hurricane mitigation, life sciences and health care are the priority for LA Grid, member universities can also access the joint supercomputing resources for independent research. FAU, for example, plans to conduct research on the human genome, bioinformatics mapping, computational physics, integrated computation and communications, video processing, computer simulation and information security.
With FAU joining the grid, LA Grid will add another 150 servers to the grid and will have 1,500 available member processors for shared use. IBM's goal is to see LA Grid grow to include as many as 30 universities and 10,000 member processors by 2010.
Current LA Grid participants include Florida International University, the University of Miami, the University of North Florida and the University of Puerto Rico, Monterrey Tech (Mexico) as well as the Universidad de la Plata (Argentina) and Instituto Universitario Aeronautico (Mexico). Additional grid members providing computing power and resources include the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Spain) and IBM South Florida.

Links;
LA Grid Initiative

Tags: LA GRID, GRID Technology, Gridtech, FAU, IBM BladeCenter