Guardocs - Gridtech

Monday, September 10, 2007

Embedded VMWare called ESX Lite

VMware is launching a new, embedded version of its flagship ESX Server hypervisor, along with a disaster recovery tool and an update for its virtual desktop broker.
The news aritcle

Quad Core AMD Opteron released

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Advanced Micro Devices Inc. launched its highly publicized new server chip Monday, delivering the biggest jolt to its product lineup in four years.

The company's redesigned Opteron processor is the first from AMD to feature four computing engines on a single chip instead of just one or two.

AMD's belated entry into the "quad-core" market is a critical element in the financially strapped company's offensive against Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor company, whose market value of $148 billion makes it 21 times bigger than AMD.

Intel has outspent its smaller rival on new technologies and better absorbed the pain of a brutal price battle that has led to embarrassing market-share losses AMD hopes its new chip will reverse.

Also Monday, Intel raised its third-quarter revenue outlook on stronger-than expected demand for its microprocessors. The company now expects revenue between $9.4 billion and $9.8 billion, up from its previous range of $9 billion to $9.6 billion.

AMD says the newly redesigned Opteron chip is an important improvement in high-performance computing. It's using a different engineering strategy than Intel.

Intel's four-core chips are actually a package of two chips with two cores each. In AMD's four-core chips, all the cores are placed on a single piece of silicon.

Industry observers have debated whether either strategy matters in terms of performance.

Adding more processors allows chips to handle multiple task at once, a crucial ability, particularly in corporate data centers.

AMD was not a player in the server processor market until it released its first Opteron chip in 2003. Demand soared because of its energy efficiency and other technological features, and by last year, Sunnyvale-based AMD had grown to capture about a quarter of the worldwide market, according to Mercury Research.

But Santa Clara-based Intel fought back last year with a strong new lineup of chips based on a new design, and it also beat AMD to market with its first four-core chips.

Compared with Intel's new products, AMD's product line began to look dated, and its market share plunged. AMD now controls only about 13 percent of the server market.

"What is key about this product is really getting back some of that lost share," said Dean McCarron, Mercury Research's president and principal analyst.

AMD's path toward Monday's launch has been rocky, with AMD Chief Executive Hector Ruiz saying the chips are launching about six months behind schedule. Some analysts and investors expressed disappointment that the chips available at launch are slower than expected — operating at 1.9 gigahertz to 2.3 gigahertz, depending on the model.

AMD said it will boost their speed later this year. By comparison, Intel's fastest Xeon server processors operate at 3.0 gigahertz, which measures processing cycles per second.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Lenovo ready to give you Linux on ThinkPads, Go Vote for your Distro

If you were following the Lenovo blogs, inside the box, they have posted a follow up to the post,
Linux On a Mobile PC and you can vote for your favorite distro that you would like on your ThinkPad. I have had Ubuntu on my Thinkpad(s). I have tried many other distributions but Ubuntu gave me the least trouble and of course that is what I voted for!
If you have been shouting about manufacturers not providing Linux with computers, then this is the chance for influencing one of the largest notebook manufacturers in the world!.
Here is the link to the article,Linux Follow Up by Matt Kohut

Friday, September 07, 2007

3Tera is showcases the AppLogic 2.1 release at the Office 2.0 Conference 2007

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--3Tera, Inc., the leading innovator of grid computing and utility computing services for web applications, announced today at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, CA the commercial availability of AppLogic 2.1. The new 2.1 release of the award winning AppLogic grid operating system adds comprehensive Application Monitoring and support for multiple CPUs per appliance. SaaS and Web 2.0 companies can benefit from greater scalability, improved resource utilization, unprecedented visibility and control over application performance.

“Utility Computing or Cloud Computing is quickly gaining popularity with online service companies,” said Peter Nickolov, president and COO of 3Tera. “Our latest version provides unprecedented control of applications and virtual private data center management for production environments, allowing Web 2.0 and SaaS companies to grow and self manage their services using only a browser.”

“The product we are announcing today has undergone more testing in beta then any previous release of AppLogic,” said Bert Armijo, VP of Marketing and Product Development at 3Tera. “AppLogic 2.1 allows for greater scalability and control of the infrastructure, assuring users of their ability to grow.”

“We’ve been using the new AppLogic for a month. It had a huge impact on enhancing the manageability of our application, especially for scaling Apache and MySQL,” said Joost Schreve, founder and CEO of EveryTrail, Inc., a Web 2.0 startup building an online platform for visualizing travel experiences by mapping and describing geographical locations. “Taking advantage of the monitoring capabilities in the new release helped us easily identify elements that needed more resources. We were able to increase the performance and scale our applications easily.”

3Tera is showcasing the AppLogic 2.1 release at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, CA. Office 2.0 is held at the St. Regis Hotel, September 5 – 7. For more information on Office 2.0, including the conference agenda, visit www.o2con.com/index.jspa.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Network Appliance sues SUN over ZFS

The storage supplier's suit alleges that Sun's ZFS file system, which is available as open source code, infringes seven NetApp patents. The suit seeks damages and a court injunction that would force Sun to take ZFS off the market - or much more likely, make some sort of settlement with NetApp.
In a blog article posted yesterday, Hitz accused Sun of "using its patent portfolio as a profit center." Sun fired back with an email statement alleging that NetApp's action will not succeed, and is a "direct attack on the open source community," and "an attempt to inhibit the meteoric rise of open source technologies."
While NetApp stressed that it would not be chasing down non-commercial use of ZFS users, it said during a teleconference yesterday that it has not decided its answer to the "complex and subtle" question of whether to extend its legal action to third-party ZFS licensees that might be competing with NetApp.
The storage supplier said it is aware that ZFS is already part of some commercial products, and said that it has put in a courtesy call to Apple, which is beta testing an operating system, Leopard, that includes ZFS.
I found this comment and answer on Dave's Blog interesting.
"

Hi Dave,

Is the second part of NetApp's suit retaliatory, or had NetApp planned to pursue legal action all along? This is the first I've heard of NetApp's intent to sue for WAFL infringement - in the 5-plus years since the inception of ZFS - despite the existence of NetApp patents dating back to the mid-90s. It is a fair question given the context and timing of NetApp's suit.

Even if NetApp demonstrates a legal basis, cynics such as myself might see this as a SCO-like attempt to, at the very least, hang a cloud of legal uncertainty over a competing technology in an attempt to stifle its adoption.

Certainly, a company is obligated to protect its IP. I simply found it interesting that NetApp took so long to respond.

-- joseph martins

--------------------------------------------------------------
You asked whether NetApp planned pursue legal action all along, independent of Sun’s action. I think the most accurate answer is that Sun goaded us into paying attention. In our 15 years of existence, we have only filed one other IP lawsuit, so it’s not like we have an aggressive track record, or teams of people standing by, ready to sue.

On the other hand, I won’t pretend that we would never have sued if Sun hadn’t approached us first. We focus on innovation as a company, and we do intend to defend our intellectual property.

-- Dave Hitz"

Monday, August 27, 2007

Acer to acquire Gateway to counter Lenavo's moves

TAIPEI, Taiwan -

Acer Inc. plans to acquire U.S. computer maker Gateway Inc. for $710 million in a deal that will push the Taiwanese company past China's Lenovo Group as the world's third largest vendor of personal computers.

Acer said Monday it is offering to buy Gateway for $1.90 per share in a deal expected to close by December, pending regulatory approvals in Taiwan and the U.S.

The offer price amounts to a premium of 57 percent to Gateway's Friday closing price of $1.21. Gateway traded at $81.50 in 1999.

Gateway shares jumped nearly 49 percent, or 59 cents, to $1.80 Monday.

The acquisition has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both Gateway and Acer and is subject to standard closing conditions, it said.

With Gateway, Acer Foils Lenovo

Saturday, August 18, 2007

White Open Wireless Grid

It will be great to run a dynamic grid using white spaces that are unused by anyone and are unlicensed at the moment. I was wondering about this more after reading a post on Washington Post "The white open spaces". We are already working on a Wireless mesh based grid application. Hey com on FCC, I don't watch transmitted TV anyway, Cable and Satellite are sucking my purse dry!
There are much talk about White space within the TV bands. White space within the TV band is unlicensed, like WiFi, but is physically better suited than WiFi for broadband transmission. Given the innovation that WiFi access has spurred, as well as the potential for broader coverage both in rural areas and in urban community wireless networks (such as the free WiFi network in Dupont Circle), the FCC has already decided to allow WSDs that are fixed in one location starting after TV's digital transition in 2009. The more controversial issue the commission is considering is whether to also allow portable WSDs, which could be used in products such as laptops or personal digital assistants. Portable WSDs are more difficult to design because they'd need to instantaneously identify which channels are being used in different regions.
To test the feasibility of such devices, last year the FCC started soliciting designs for devices that can identify unoccupied channels and then transmit wireless signals that don't interfere with licensed broadcasts. Two prototypes, submitted by Microsoft and Philips, recently failed to meet the proposed sensing and non-interference requirements, the FCC says. Microsoft is disputing the test results for its prototype.

Certainly the FCC shouldn't approve WSDs that will obliterate TV. But just because these prototypes fell short doesn't mean the technology can never work. The limited success of these devices and another designed at the University of Kansas certainly gives hope that someday a non-interfering product could exist. After all, low-power wireless microphone operators often already use white spaces for similar short-distance broadcasts without a license -- although they're supposed to get licenses -- and they coexist peacefully with TV stations. (Wireless microphone operators also oppose sharing white spaces with unlicensed Internet service providers.)
Read the complete report at washington post

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Interactive Linux Kernel Map

Constantine Shulyupin, Freelance Embedded Linux Engineer has created an interactive Linux Kernel map. I was happy to be having clicked through it. I will certainly return there to garner more knowledge when for various reasons I have to DIGG kernel. I am very sure a visit is worth it!, if you are interested in Linux Kernel.

Interactive Linux Kernel Map

Citrix enters Virtualization Market, Acquires XenSource

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Aug. 15, 2007 — Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire XenSource, Inc. of , a privately held leader in enterprise-grade virtual infrastructure solutions, for approximately $500 million in a combination of cash and stock, which includes the assumption of approximately $107 million in unvested stock options. This acquisition moves Citrix into adjacent server and desktop virtualization markets, expected by Citrix to grow to nearly $5 billion over the next four years.¹ The combination of Citrix and XenSource brings together significant customer, technical, channel and go-to-market synergies. This will allow Citrix to extend its leadership in the broader Application Delivery Infrastructure market by adding key enabling technologies that make the end-to-end computing environment far more flexible, dynamic and responsive to business change. The acquisition will also strengthen each company’s strong partnership with Microsoft and commitment to the Windows platform.

The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2007 subject to the satisfaction of closing conditions.

Leveraging the Power of Xen

XenSource is the leading provider of enterprise-class virtual infrastructure solutions built on the open source Xen® hypervisor. Originally created by the founders of XenSource at the University of Cambridge, the Xen virtualization “engine” is now developed collaboratively by an active open source community of senior engineers at many of the industry’s most innovative infrastructure companies, including leading hardware vendors like Intel, IBM, HP and AMD. This open collaborative approach significantly accelerates the innovation of the Xen engine, leading to continual state-of-the-art improvements in performance, scalability and cross-platform support. The next-generation Xen architecture is widely acknowledged for its industry-leading performance, efficiency, security and native support for the latest hardware-assisted virtualization features from Intel, AMD and leading device vendors.

Today’s acquisition announcement comes on the heels of a substantial new release of XenEnterprise™, the company’s flagship commercial product line powered by the Xen engine. XenEnterprise v4 marks a significant milestone in XenSource’s transition from a next-generation technology company into a leading provider of comprehensive enterprise-class virtual infrastructure solutions. With powerful new management, availability and ease-of-use features, XenEnterprise v4 raises the bar as the most open, scalable, high performance virtualization platform on the market. In a recent head-to-head product comparison published this week in CRN, the industry’s leading publication for channel resellers and integrators, reviewers praised XenEnterprise v4 as an “easy-to-use, feature rich offering that is quickly catching up to its main rival”. Channel partner and customer enthusiasm over the XenEnterprise product line has lead to a rapid increase in customer demand. Version 4 will further accelerate an installed base that has more than doubled in the last 90 days to over 650 customers.

“The combination of Citrix and XenSource brings together both presentation and server virtualization to deliver more choice and flexibility to the market, particularly Citrix's strong installed base,” said John Humphreys, program vice president of Enterprise Virtualization for IDC. “By adding mobility, monitoring and storage integration in the recently introduced XenEnterprise v4, XenSource has narrowed the capability gap and delivered a viable virtualization solution for server consolidation.”

Upon close of the acquisition, the XenSource team and products will form the core of the new Virtualization & Management Division of Citrix dedicated to building and growing these important new businesses. Peter J. Levine, XenSource CEO, will lead the new division, reporting directly to Mark Templeton, Citrix president and CEO. Under Peter’s leadership, Citrix is also committed to maintaining and growing its support for the Xen open source community, led by XenSource co-founder and Xen project leader, Ian Pratt. Between now and the close of the acquisition, XenSource will work with the key contributors to the Xen project to develop procedures for independent oversight of the project, ensuring that it continues to operate with full transparency, fairness and vendor neutrality – principles that are critical to the continued role of Xen as a freely available open source industry standard for virtualization.

“Today is a great day for the virtualization market because customers will now have a strong alternative that is open, proven and backed by one of the most successful end-to-end software infrastructure leaders in the entire industry,” said Peter J. Levine, CEO of XenSource. “This move is not about competing for the five percent of the market that is already being served. It’s about steering into the 90 percent white space that is wide open, both at the server and in new emerging opportunities at the desktop.”

“This announcement represents a key milestone for the Xen project,” said Ian Pratt, leader of the Xen project and co-founder of XenSource. “Citrix is committed to our community and the principles of transparency and neutrality that allow us to work together on the reference standard for virtualization, promoting the rapid, ubiquitous adoption of virtualization.”

Strong Alignment with Microsoft

The acquisition will also strengthen each company’s strong partnership with Microsoft and commitment to the Windows platform. As an independent company, XenSource has built a strategic relationship with Microsoft designed to ensure broad interoperability between XenSource products and the upcoming Microsoft Windows hypervisor, code named “Viridian”. This relationship complements and broadens the successful partnership between Citrix and Microsoft in the Windows application delivery, application networking and branch office infrastructure markets.

“Although the market is still in the earliest phase, virtualization already offers significant opportunities for cost savings and innovation,” said Bob Muglia, senior vice president, Microsoft Server & Tools Business. “Citrix and XenSource have long been strong partners for Microsoft and it is exciting to see them team up to help move the market forward.”

Extending Application Delivery Infrastructure from the Datacenter to the Desktop

Virtualization has become one of the most talked-about technologies in recent years because it breaks the “hard-coded” link between hardware and software, allowing individual computing components to be dynamically combined and reassembled for maximum efficiency and agility. Citrix has long been the leading provider of virtualization technologies at the user tier of computing with products that deliver mission-critical applications to end users with the best performance, security and cost savings. This acquisition will allow Citrix to extend its use of virtualization into the logic and data tier of applications, improving overall customer value and enhancing its position as a market leader in end-to-end application delivery infrastructure.

In the datacenter, this means extending virtualization to the servers that run the business logic of applications and the storage systems that manage application data. Citrix customers and partners are increasingly requesting non-proprietary, easy-to-use server virtualization solutions that are optimized to work best on the Microsoft Windows platform. Citrix currently intends to distribute the XenEnterprise product line through more than 5,000 channel partners with proven expertise in enterprise datacenter solutions built on the Windows Server platform. The company also plans to leverage its strong relationships with leading server and datacenter infrastructure partners to create additional routes to market through OEM sales channels.

In the storage market, Citrix will continue the XenSource strategy of leveraging key industry partners to ensure that the open-architecture XenEnterprise product line fully supports leading storage management and infrastructure solutions and a robust ecosystem of storage software vendors. The two companies share a strong belief that customers should be able to manage their virtual environments with the same proven storage management solutions they use for their physical environments. This strategy is exemplified by the recently announced partnership between Symantec and XenSource which ensures that XenEnterprise works transparently with Symantec’s Veritas Storage Foundation and Veritas NetBackup solutions.

"Symantec and XenSource share a common belief that customers want unified server and storage virtualization," said Rob Soderbery, senior vice president, Data Center Management Group at Symantec. "Incorporation of Symantec's Veritas Storage Foundation solution into XenSource open-architecture virtualization technology delivers that capability. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Citrix and XenSource to help customers simplify data center operations and dramatically reduce costs."

At the desktop, the combination of Citrix and XenSource will help make the emerging market for virtual desktop delivery a mainstream reality. Industry experts estimate that up to 30 million office workers will move to virtual desktops over the next five years, creating a new $1 billion market for desktop virtualization.² While much of the underlying technology to realize this vision exists today, the available solutions are still far too complex and expensive for most customers to assemble, integrate and manage. By combining the capabilities of XenEnterprise v4 with the newly-released Citrix Desktop Server™, Citrix will be able to provide customers with a comprehensive set of desktop delivery solutions that offer unparalleled economics, ease-of-use and end user experience. Citrix further intends to enhance this strategy by incorporating other relevant application delivery infrastructure technologies such as Citrix EdgeSight™ end user experience monitoring, Citrix Access Gateway™ for secure application access, Citrix WANScaler™ for accelerated delivery to branch office users, Citrix® GoToAssist™ for remote desktop support and the OS-streaming and provisioning capabilities from its recent Ardence acquisition.

“We are tremendously excited about the opportunity to add the XenSource products, team and culture to the Citrix family," said Mark Templeton, president and chief executive officer for Citrix. "Incorporating XenSource’s dynamic virtualization services into our market-leading application delivery infrastructure will enable our entire product line to be more flexible, agile and dynamic, qualities that have never been more important than they are today. We believe application delivery will be a defining issue for IT over the next decade because applications are the language of business. Companies that are fluent with application delivery will be the winners, while those who do not will lag behind, struggling with the pace of change in an increasingly dynamic world.”

Terms of the Agreement

Under terms of the definitive agreement, Citrix will acquire XenSource for approximately $500 million in a combination of cash and stock, which includes the assumption of approximately $107 million in unvested stock options.

The acquisition has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2007. The acquisition is subject to various closing conditions, including regulatory review and approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, approval by the stockholders of XenSource, Citrix becoming current in its periodic reporting obligations and other customary conditions.

Assuming the transaction closes as expected, the acquisition is expected to add approximately $1 million in revenue and $3 million in cost of revenues and operating expenses to fiscal year 2007. The acquisition is expected to add approximately $50 million in revenue and $60 to $70 million in total cost of revenues and operating expenses to fiscal year 2008. The transaction will also result in approximately an $8 to $10 million non-cash expense charge for the write-off of in-process research and development in the quarter in which the acquisition closes.

These estimates of cost of revenues and operating expenses do not take into account any stock-based compensation expense, amortization expense, or other charges resulting from the closing of the acquisition.

Conference Call Information

Citrix will host a conference call today at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss the financial aspects of this transaction. The call will include a slide presentation, and participants are encouraged to listen to and view the presentation via webcast at http://www.citrix.com/investors.

The conference call may also be accessed by dialing: (888) 799-0519 or (706) 634-0155, using passcode: CITRIX. A replay of the webcast can be viewed by visiting the Investor Relations section of the Citrix corporate Web site at http://www.citrix.com/investors for approximately 30 days. In addition, an audio replay of the conference call will be available through August 17, 2007, by dialing (800) 642-1687 or (706) 645-9291 (passcode required: 13525141).

Grid Computing Term may fade?, Long Live Grid

I read an interesting article on computerworld today. I understand what it is trying to say but I don't by the theme of the article. But it is a good article, extensive, I think you should read it too, if you are interested in Grid computing. Let the author know what you think. Link is at the end.
August 14, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Depending on who describes it, grid computing has grown from its roots in high-performance computing into an enterprise technology that provides for shared resources. Or it's an overhyped, meaningless term that will soon disappear in the wake of advances in virtualization and utility computing.

Arguments abound on what constitutes grid computing. But at its core, grid is really an enabling technology that provides on-demand access to computing resources -- including systems, storage and networking -- and data, regardless of location. And because that sounds so similar to how most vendors currently define virtualization, some analysts say the term grid computing may not stick.

The concept behind the technology will likely live on, though, as customers tap into compute power available on underutilized servers, primarily through virtualization. William Fellows, an analyst at The 451 Group and author of a report entitled "Grid Computing: State of the Market" (download PDF), maintains that the term will likely be both more significant and less used in 2007. "Grid computing will be more relevant as grids are used to support far more than high-performance computing tasks, but less used as vendors seek to be associated with far more activity, far higher up the stack, than grid computing."

Grid computing: Term may fade, but features will live on