Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Today, Cisco announced two new 802.11n wireless router lines that aim to make home wireless networking easier and more accessible.
The Valet ($100) is intended for the wireless networking neophyte; instead of configuring a few dozen settings through a complicated Web-based interface, you can use the Cisco Connect software on the included Easy Setup Key USB flash drive to get a secure wireless network with Internet access up within five minutes. Once your network is up, simply plug the Easy Setup Key in each additional PC to configure them to use the Wi-Fi network--no control panels or complicated passwords necessary.
Alternately, the Valet Plus ($150) gets you the same functionality as the Valet, plus 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports (instead of the Valet's 10/100 Ethernet ports) and an extra antenna for better wireless coverage. The Valet product line also includes the Valet Connector ($70), a USB Wi-Fi dongle for older PCs that don't have Wi-Fi networking capability already.
The included Cisco Connect software also provides a few extra features besides basic network setup; you can set time- and content-based access limitations to prevent children and teenagers from accessing mature content, enable extra Safe Browsing security features to warn you about potential malware and viruses, and more.
More advanced users, however, will likely opt for the four new Linksys E-Series routers--all of which include the Cisco Connect software to simplify the setup process, though advanced network features are still accessible via the usual Web-based GUI configurator. The entry-level Linksys E1000 ($80) doesn't have any extras besides four 10/100 Ethernet ports for wired networking, but the E2000 ($120) upgrades those to Gigabit Ethernet and includes dual-band functionality, so you can use the 2.4GHz or 5GHz spectrum depending on which one has less interference in your area.
At the high end is the E3000 ($180), which includes a USB port for sharing external storage over your network and a UPnP media server for streaming media to your Xbox 360, PS3, or other compatible device.
The new Linksys lineup also includes the E2100L ($120), a wireless router that includes the USB port and UPnP features of the E3000 but only has 10/100 Ethernet (meaning slower wired transfers). Unlike the other new Linksys models, the E2100L is advertised as "utilizing the Linux Operating System for flexibility to customize the network".
While it's not yet clear how Linux is implemented in the E2100L, Linksys routers have long been popular with homebrew router firmware developers, so it's likely that the E2100L will cater to a do-it-yourself crowd.
Finally, there's a new Linksys-branded USB adapter for PCs which don't have 802.11n functionality--the Linksys AE1000 High Performance USB Adapter ($70) includes dual-band support as well as a USB extension cable to make it easier to move the antenna to a spot with a strong signal without having to move the whole laptop.
Both the new Valet and Linksys routers are available immediately.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
2010年5月31日星期一
Adobe considers more frequent patch schedule
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Adobe Systems is considering patching its applications more frequently after moving to a quarterly patching schedule for its Acrobat and Reader programs last year.
Brad Arkin, director for product security and privacy, was asked during a Microsoft security event in Redmond, Washington, earlier this week whether Adobe was considering a monthly rather than quarterly patch cycle. Adobe now patches Reader and Acrobat every three months on the same day Microsoft issues its monthly patches, on the second Tuesday of the month. Patches for other Adobe applications are issued on an as-needed basis.
"As for the patch cycle, this is something we are carefully evaluating in trying to provide the best possible solution for our customers," Adobe said in a statement. "We are taking all factors into consideration, including the cost of patch deployment in managed environments."
In June 2009, Adobe announced an aggressive program to beef up the security of its applications after hackers increasingly focused on finding vulnerabilities in its products.
Hackers used vulnerabilities in Acrobat and Reader to craft exploits that would give them remote control over a person's PC if they opened a PDF, which is one of the most widely used document formats. By crafting clever e-mails that appear to come from an acquaintance, hackers sought to trick users with unpatched applications or ones with existing vulnerabilities into opening the rigged files.
Adobe also said last year that it would undertake a comprehensive review of the legacy code in the applications, harden the code in applications, perform human code reviews and use "fuzzers," or tools that try to inject code into an application to see if it accepts data it shouldn't.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Adobe Systems is considering patching its applications more frequently after moving to a quarterly patching schedule for its Acrobat and Reader programs last year.
Brad Arkin, director for product security and privacy, was asked during a Microsoft security event in Redmond, Washington, earlier this week whether Adobe was considering a monthly rather than quarterly patch cycle. Adobe now patches Reader and Acrobat every three months on the same day Microsoft issues its monthly patches, on the second Tuesday of the month. Patches for other Adobe applications are issued on an as-needed basis.
"As for the patch cycle, this is something we are carefully evaluating in trying to provide the best possible solution for our customers," Adobe said in a statement. "We are taking all factors into consideration, including the cost of patch deployment in managed environments."
In June 2009, Adobe announced an aggressive program to beef up the security of its applications after hackers increasingly focused on finding vulnerabilities in its products.
Hackers used vulnerabilities in Acrobat and Reader to craft exploits that would give them remote control over a person's PC if they opened a PDF, which is one of the most widely used document formats. By crafting clever e-mails that appear to come from an acquaintance, hackers sought to trick users with unpatched applications or ones with existing vulnerabilities into opening the rigged files.
Adobe also said last year that it would undertake a comprehensive review of the legacy code in the applications, harden the code in applications, perform human code reviews and use "fuzzers," or tools that try to inject code into an application to see if it accepts data it shouldn't.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
VMware vSphere 4 best practices: A review of what's new for storage administrators
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
vSphere 4 is VMware's latest bare-metal hypervisor that is the successor to Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3) and includes more than 140 new features. vSphere competes with several other hypervisors including Microsoft's Hyper-V, Citrix's XenServer and Oracle's Oracle VM. This review of vSphere looks at some of the features in vSphere that are most important to data storage managers as well as best practices for vSphere.
vSphere 4 and different storage types
Data storage is critical to virtualization, and vSphere supports several different data storage types including local storage using SCSI, SAS or SATA drives; network-based storage using iSCSI or NFS; and more expensive Fibre Channel (FC) data storage. To take advantage of many of vSphere's advanced features like VMotion and high-availability (HA), you should use a shared storage device. Fortunately iSCSI and NFS are both supported and provide affordable solutions that perform well enough as alternatives to Fibre Channel for all but the most intensive disk I/O workloads. vSphere has a software iSCSI initiator and NFS client built right into it so connecting to iSCSI or NFS storage targets is simple to set up. Also, vSphere supports using hardware iSCSI initiators with TCP/IP offload engines to reduce the CPU overhead on the host.
In addition, vSphere uses a special high-performance cluster file system called Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) that allows concurrent access by multiple host servers. VMFS volumes take away the backend storage complexities from the virtual machines (VMs) by presenting a single unified storage volume to them. One of vSphere's best storage features is thin provisioning, which makes more efficient use of disk space by growing a virtual disk and blocks are written to it instead of allocating it all at once when it is created. This allows you to overcommit your storage and take advantage of the often un-used disk space inside a guest VM's operating system. Some additional storage-related features of vSphere include the following:
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) support
• Jumbo frame support for iSCSI and NFS
• Ability to hot extend virtual disks
• Ability to grow VMFS volumes
• Storage paravirtualization
• VMDirectPath for VM direct I/O access
• vStorage APIs
vSphere 4 and networking
The vSwitch is the heat of a virtual nework, and vSphere has several options you can use based on your requirements. The simple standard vSwitch is easy to use, and provides fault tolerance and load-balancing across NICs. For larger environments that have many hosts and vSwitches, the vNetwork Distributed Switch lets you create global vSwitches to configure multiple hosts instead of configuring each host sepearately. vSphere can also support third-party vSwitches. Cisco's Nexus 1000v is the first virtual switch with vSphere support. This allows for tighter integration between the physical and virtual networks. All vSwitches in vSphere support advanced features such as VLAN tagging, NIC teaming and layer two security policies. Some additional network-related features of vSphere include:
• Support for IPv6 networks
• Support for private VLANs
• Support for Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)
• Support for network VMotion
vSphere 4 and high-availability
Virtualization is all about putting all your eggs in one basket, so maintaining high-availability is critical. If a single host fails, then all the VMs running on it will also fail, but vSphere includes features that can minimize or eliminate the amount of time that VMs are down due to a host failure. vSphere's high-availability feature allows VMs on shared storage to quickly be re-started on other hosts in the event that a host fails, minimizing downtime for the VMs. The fault tolerance (FT) feature takes this a step further and offers continuous availability by keeping a secondary VM on another host that is continuously updated in real-time using a Lockstep technique. This completely protects a virtual machine against a host hardware failure and results in zero downtime and data loss for the VM. While these features protect against unschuled hardware failures, there are also features that make planned maintenance easier. VMotion allows a running VM to move from one host to another on the same storage volume and Storage VMotion allows a running VM to move from one storage volume to another on the same host. These features let you perform maintenance on host hardware or storage devices without downtime.
vSphere 4 management
vSphere 4 also has tools for managing the virtual environment. The vSphere Client is a Windows application that serves as the primary management tool for vSphere. There is also a web user interface for managing virtual machines on ESX hosts (not ESXi) and command line management tools such as the vSphere CLI (vCLI) and the VMware Management Assistant (vMA). vCenter Server provides centralized management of hosts using the vSphere Client, and has features such as alarms, performance reporting, automation, and templates. Features such as high-availability, distributed resource scheduler (DRS) and VMotion require a vCenter Server. Multiple vCenter Servers can run in linked mode to provide centralized management of multiple virtual environments.
Ease of use
The vSphere hypervisor comes in two editions, ESX and ESXi. ESX has a larger footprint (1.7 GB) and a more complex Service Console that runs a full Linux OS. ESXi has a simpler management console, and smaller footprint (70 MB). As a result, ESXi can be installed in a few minutes and with almost no interaction. VMware also has a free service called VMware GO that helps users who are new to virtualization get up and running quickly. VMware's free Converter product and vCenter Server's Guide Consolidation feature also simplify virtualization by converting a physical server into virtual machines.
Security
vSphere is a controlled and secure environment, and the hypervisor has never been compromised. vSphere's security is due in part to a set of security APIs called VMsafe that allows third-party applications to have tight integration for providing even better security controls. vSphere also includes a product called vShield Zones that provides a virtual firewall and IDS that can be used to provide better protection for virtual machines.
Data backup and data protection
vSphere has several data backup and recovery features that come with it. For example, virtual machine snapshots can be used to roll back to a previous virtual machine state. This feature is useful when patching guests or installing applications, so you can easily recover from any problems that may result. vSphere also includes a product called VMware Data Recovery (VDR) that can perform backups of virtual machines to any disk storage device using inline deduplication and compression. In addition, the vSphere APIs for data protection allow third-party backup applications to have tight integration for backing up and replicating virtual machines.
Scalability
vSphere hosts and virtual machines scale well enough to allow almost any application or workload to be virtualized. With support for 1 TB of physical memory and 64 logical CPUs, vSphere hosts can support up to 256 running VMs per host. Plus, virtual machines can be assigned up to eight vCPUs and 255 GB of RAM to support even the most demanding applications. Using advanced memory techniques like transparent page sharing (TPS) and memory overcommitment, vSphere can allow more virtual machines to run with less physical resources.
Cost savings
Virtualization can help save money on power and cooling, but vSphere takes it even further with advanced features like Distributed Power Management (DPM) and Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS). DPM allows hosts to be automatically powered down and virtual machines migrated to other hosts during periods of low activity. When the resource demands increase, hosts are powered back on and VMs move back onto the hosts. DVFS allows host CPUs to dynamically change power states (p-states) when resource demands are low to reduce a host's energy consumption. CPU frequency and voltages are lowered and raised based on demand from virtual machines. When these two features are combined, it can help save money, especially in environments with regular extended periods of inactivity.
Extensibility
vSphere has many APIs and SDKs that developers can use to write applications for vSphere. There are also scripting languages available such as Javascript, Perl and PowerShell to automate tasks and help manage the virtual environment. This allows for many free tools and scripts to be developed that can be used in place of more expensive add-on software.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
vSphere 4 is VMware's latest bare-metal hypervisor that is the successor to Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3) and includes more than 140 new features. vSphere competes with several other hypervisors including Microsoft's Hyper-V, Citrix's XenServer and Oracle's Oracle VM. This review of vSphere looks at some of the features in vSphere that are most important to data storage managers as well as best practices for vSphere.
vSphere 4 and different storage types
Data storage is critical to virtualization, and vSphere supports several different data storage types including local storage using SCSI, SAS or SATA drives; network-based storage using iSCSI or NFS; and more expensive Fibre Channel (FC) data storage. To take advantage of many of vSphere's advanced features like VMotion and high-availability (HA), you should use a shared storage device. Fortunately iSCSI and NFS are both supported and provide affordable solutions that perform well enough as alternatives to Fibre Channel for all but the most intensive disk I/O workloads. vSphere has a software iSCSI initiator and NFS client built right into it so connecting to iSCSI or NFS storage targets is simple to set up. Also, vSphere supports using hardware iSCSI initiators with TCP/IP offload engines to reduce the CPU overhead on the host.
In addition, vSphere uses a special high-performance cluster file system called Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) that allows concurrent access by multiple host servers. VMFS volumes take away the backend storage complexities from the virtual machines (VMs) by presenting a single unified storage volume to them. One of vSphere's best storage features is thin provisioning, which makes more efficient use of disk space by growing a virtual disk and blocks are written to it instead of allocating it all at once when it is created. This allows you to overcommit your storage and take advantage of the often un-used disk space inside a guest VM's operating system. Some additional storage-related features of vSphere include the following:
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) support
• Jumbo frame support for iSCSI and NFS
• Ability to hot extend virtual disks
• Ability to grow VMFS volumes
• Storage paravirtualization
• VMDirectPath for VM direct I/O access
• vStorage APIs
vSphere 4 and networking
The vSwitch is the heat of a virtual nework, and vSphere has several options you can use based on your requirements. The simple standard vSwitch is easy to use, and provides fault tolerance and load-balancing across NICs. For larger environments that have many hosts and vSwitches, the vNetwork Distributed Switch lets you create global vSwitches to configure multiple hosts instead of configuring each host sepearately. vSphere can also support third-party vSwitches. Cisco's Nexus 1000v is the first virtual switch with vSphere support. This allows for tighter integration between the physical and virtual networks. All vSwitches in vSphere support advanced features such as VLAN tagging, NIC teaming and layer two security policies. Some additional network-related features of vSphere include:
• Support for IPv6 networks
• Support for private VLANs
• Support for Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)
• Support for network VMotion
vSphere 4 and high-availability
Virtualization is all about putting all your eggs in one basket, so maintaining high-availability is critical. If a single host fails, then all the VMs running on it will also fail, but vSphere includes features that can minimize or eliminate the amount of time that VMs are down due to a host failure. vSphere's high-availability feature allows VMs on shared storage to quickly be re-started on other hosts in the event that a host fails, minimizing downtime for the VMs. The fault tolerance (FT) feature takes this a step further and offers continuous availability by keeping a secondary VM on another host that is continuously updated in real-time using a Lockstep technique. This completely protects a virtual machine against a host hardware failure and results in zero downtime and data loss for the VM. While these features protect against unschuled hardware failures, there are also features that make planned maintenance easier. VMotion allows a running VM to move from one host to another on the same storage volume and Storage VMotion allows a running VM to move from one storage volume to another on the same host. These features let you perform maintenance on host hardware or storage devices without downtime.
vSphere 4 management
vSphere 4 also has tools for managing the virtual environment. The vSphere Client is a Windows application that serves as the primary management tool for vSphere. There is also a web user interface for managing virtual machines on ESX hosts (not ESXi) and command line management tools such as the vSphere CLI (vCLI) and the VMware Management Assistant (vMA). vCenter Server provides centralized management of hosts using the vSphere Client, and has features such as alarms, performance reporting, automation, and templates. Features such as high-availability, distributed resource scheduler (DRS) and VMotion require a vCenter Server. Multiple vCenter Servers can run in linked mode to provide centralized management of multiple virtual environments.
Ease of use
The vSphere hypervisor comes in two editions, ESX and ESXi. ESX has a larger footprint (1.7 GB) and a more complex Service Console that runs a full Linux OS. ESXi has a simpler management console, and smaller footprint (70 MB). As a result, ESXi can be installed in a few minutes and with almost no interaction. VMware also has a free service called VMware GO that helps users who are new to virtualization get up and running quickly. VMware's free Converter product and vCenter Server's Guide Consolidation feature also simplify virtualization by converting a physical server into virtual machines.
Security
vSphere is a controlled and secure environment, and the hypervisor has never been compromised. vSphere's security is due in part to a set of security APIs called VMsafe that allows third-party applications to have tight integration for providing even better security controls. vSphere also includes a product called vShield Zones that provides a virtual firewall and IDS that can be used to provide better protection for virtual machines.
Data backup and data protection
vSphere has several data backup and recovery features that come with it. For example, virtual machine snapshots can be used to roll back to a previous virtual machine state. This feature is useful when patching guests or installing applications, so you can easily recover from any problems that may result. vSphere also includes a product called VMware Data Recovery (VDR) that can perform backups of virtual machines to any disk storage device using inline deduplication and compression. In addition, the vSphere APIs for data protection allow third-party backup applications to have tight integration for backing up and replicating virtual machines.
Scalability
vSphere hosts and virtual machines scale well enough to allow almost any application or workload to be virtualized. With support for 1 TB of physical memory and 64 logical CPUs, vSphere hosts can support up to 256 running VMs per host. Plus, virtual machines can be assigned up to eight vCPUs and 255 GB of RAM to support even the most demanding applications. Using advanced memory techniques like transparent page sharing (TPS) and memory overcommitment, vSphere can allow more virtual machines to run with less physical resources.
Cost savings
Virtualization can help save money on power and cooling, but vSphere takes it even further with advanced features like Distributed Power Management (DPM) and Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS). DPM allows hosts to be automatically powered down and virtual machines migrated to other hosts during periods of low activity. When the resource demands increase, hosts are powered back on and VMs move back onto the hosts. DVFS allows host CPUs to dynamically change power states (p-states) when resource demands are low to reduce a host's energy consumption. CPU frequency and voltages are lowered and raised based on demand from virtual machines. When these two features are combined, it can help save money, especially in environments with regular extended periods of inactivity.
Extensibility
vSphere has many APIs and SDKs that developers can use to write applications for vSphere. There are also scripting languages available such as Javascript, Perl and PowerShell to automate tasks and help manage the virtual environment. This allows for many free tools and scripts to be developed that can be used in place of more expensive add-on software.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
SUSE Linux users nervous as Novell explores options
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Novell reportedly put itself on the market last week, leaving SUSE Linux Enterprise users unsure about the fate of that open source operating system and other Novell products.
If the report in The Wall Street Journal is true, the bidding kicks off two months after Waltham, Mass-based Novell's board turned down Elliott Partners $2 billion buyout offer. At that time, Novell said the price was inadequate, and it would explore other options, including stock buy-backs, cash dividends and more alliances.
A Novell spokesman provided no comment.
In the mean time, Novell last week released SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1.
Still, the questions around the vendor's prospects have SUSE Linux users wondering what will become of the products they built their infrastructure on.
David O'Berry, a consultant and CIO for South Carolina Department of Probation, became a Master Novell Certified Engineer in the 1990s and has watched the company struggle since then.
"Novell is getting very close to irrelevance," O'Berry said. "It's no longer the battleship it once was, and the company seems to be very confused right now. I'm frustrated at their lack of ability to execute on roadmaps and plans for the future."
O'Berry runs about 50 SUSE Linux servers said he was relieved when Novell turned down Elliot's offer, but worries about the integrity of other potential buyers.
"When you have a consortium of private investors or private equity firms looking at a technology company, you know they plan to tear it apart and suck the cash out. They don't care about the technology itself," O'Berry said. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this -- because I don't think the company that provides the needle should also provide the drugs - but someone like Microsoft or IBM needs to step in and take over."
Microsoft would be a logical suitor, he said, because the company already collaborates with Novell and SUSE Linux interoperates with Microsoft management offerings.
But other IT pros have given up on SUSE; O'Berry said he is one of the few he knows still using it in the field.
David Reynolds, IT manager with the Rhode Island Blood Center in Providence, uses Linux but hasn't used SUSE Linux since 2003 and he also worked with Novell's flagship Netware network operating system.
"[SUSE Linux is] a dying OS I'm afraid," Reynolds said. But, as a Linux fan, he wants someone to rescue Novell. "If someone can find value in Palm, there's hope for anyone I guess." (In late April, Hewlett Packard announced plans to buy Palm, the handheld device pioneer, for $1.2 billion.)
But, since Novell's legacy business has fallen on hard times , the SUSE business unit is its focus, so users shouldn't be nervous about losing it, said John Locke, President of the Seattle-based open source IT services firm Freelock Computing.
"While I really don't think SUSE is at risk, the other Linux desktop software projects might be," Locke said.
Novell is the steward of many Linux desktop applications, including Evolution, a Linux equivalent to Outlook; F-Spot, a photo manager; Tomboy, a sticky note application; Banshee, a music player/manager; and Mono, an open source implementation of the .NET platform.
It also offers the collaboration product GroupWise, which competes with Microsoft Exchange.
"Novell has done some tremendously important work in making desktop Linux as good as or better than Windows and Mac, as well as doing a lot to promote interoperability," Locke said. "I would hope whoever purchases Novell sees the importance of continuing to support these projects -- the entire Linux community benefits from this work, and it's largely paid for by the success of SUSE."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Novell reportedly put itself on the market last week, leaving SUSE Linux Enterprise users unsure about the fate of that open source operating system and other Novell products.
If the report in The Wall Street Journal is true, the bidding kicks off two months after Waltham, Mass-based Novell's board turned down Elliott Partners $2 billion buyout offer. At that time, Novell said the price was inadequate, and it would explore other options, including stock buy-backs, cash dividends and more alliances.
A Novell spokesman provided no comment.
In the mean time, Novell last week released SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1.
Still, the questions around the vendor's prospects have SUSE Linux users wondering what will become of the products they built their infrastructure on.
David O'Berry, a consultant and CIO for South Carolina Department of Probation, became a Master Novell Certified Engineer in the 1990s and has watched the company struggle since then.
"Novell is getting very close to irrelevance," O'Berry said. "It's no longer the battleship it once was, and the company seems to be very confused right now. I'm frustrated at their lack of ability to execute on roadmaps and plans for the future."
O'Berry runs about 50 SUSE Linux servers said he was relieved when Novell turned down Elliot's offer, but worries about the integrity of other potential buyers.
"When you have a consortium of private investors or private equity firms looking at a technology company, you know they plan to tear it apart and suck the cash out. They don't care about the technology itself," O'Berry said. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this -- because I don't think the company that provides the needle should also provide the drugs - but someone like Microsoft or IBM needs to step in and take over."
Microsoft would be a logical suitor, he said, because the company already collaborates with Novell and SUSE Linux interoperates with Microsoft management offerings.
But other IT pros have given up on SUSE; O'Berry said he is one of the few he knows still using it in the field.
David Reynolds, IT manager with the Rhode Island Blood Center in Providence, uses Linux but hasn't used SUSE Linux since 2003 and he also worked with Novell's flagship Netware network operating system.
"[SUSE Linux is] a dying OS I'm afraid," Reynolds said. But, as a Linux fan, he wants someone to rescue Novell. "If someone can find value in Palm, there's hope for anyone I guess." (In late April, Hewlett Packard announced plans to buy Palm, the handheld device pioneer, for $1.2 billion.)
But, since Novell's legacy business has fallen on hard times , the SUSE business unit is its focus, so users shouldn't be nervous about losing it, said John Locke, President of the Seattle-based open source IT services firm Freelock Computing.
"While I really don't think SUSE is at risk, the other Linux desktop software projects might be," Locke said.
Novell is the steward of many Linux desktop applications, including Evolution, a Linux equivalent to Outlook; F-Spot, a photo manager; Tomboy, a sticky note application; Banshee, a music player/manager; and Mono, an open source implementation of the .NET platform.
It also offers the collaboration product GroupWise, which competes with Microsoft Exchange.
"Novell has done some tremendously important work in making desktop Linux as good as or better than Windows and Mac, as well as doing a lot to promote interoperability," Locke said. "I would hope whoever purchases Novell sees the importance of continuing to support these projects -- the entire Linux community benefits from this work, and it's largely paid for by the success of SUSE."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
The evolution of IT certification: broadened skill sets for converged infrastructures
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
The other day I had an opportunity to talk to Brian Beneda, the director of strategy and business development for the HP Certified Professional Program. Beneda shared his insight on the quiet evolution taking place within the HP certification program. Anyone who is responsible for hiring, managing or developing IT professionals should like HP's approach to broadening a person's technical skill set and knowledge.
To understand what HP is doing with its training and certification program, we need a little context about what is happening in general in the IT industry. Whether you call it "convergence," "service-oriented architecture," or simply the "collapsing" of the data center, there's a trend toward companies purchasing a much more integrated core set of servers, storage and networking solutions. This allows companies to move away from spending time and money on integrating separate silos of technologies and toward a flexible IT environment that is more responsive to business needs.
As CIOs contemplate this converged IT platform, they also have to look at the way their departments are organized today. Over the past decade or two, people have been put in silos to support specific technologies. For example, you have the server guys, the storage guys, the networking guys, the systems management guys, and so on. These people tend to have deep technical skills pertaining to their specific technologies, but only surface-level knowledge of the other technologies. CIOs need to rethink the way the organization is structured -- and the people are trained and skilled -- in order to create much more activity across the technology domains.
"As we talk to CIOs and the guys that are operating their data centers, they are very excited about the Converged Infrastructure from HP and what it can do, but they are starting to realize they've got a skills gap," Beneda says. "Typically there are three or four people in a large company that have the skills and knowledge to look across the data center today and are able to architect solutions or think about the evolution of their IT at a company level. They need some kind of training program and certification that is going to help them get deeper around how they can evolve their data center to take advantage of some of these new technologies."
The skills and knowledge that are required to operate in that integrated world are quite different from the typical product- or technology-specific training and certification programs available in the marketplace today, according to Beneda. "If the platform is moving toward merging networking, storage and servers, then the server guy needs to have a way to have some skills in the networking and storage space. These skills need to be much deeper than what they've had in the past because they are going to be integrated into that converged data center environment. The same is true with networking and storage guys. They need to broaden what they know. And from a systems management perspective, a person needs to be able to look at everything through a single pane of glass." In other words, companies need to have people with skills that are much more "integrated" to go along with the integrated technologies.
HP is evolving its training and certifications to enable both of those paths -- for the high-level architect who is looking across the data center, as well as for the individual who is deep in a technology domain (like storage) who needs to broaden his skill set into other technology areas.
HP is in the process of creating a high level certification for this data center/Converged Infrastructure architect. This will be a flagship certification in the IT industry, and the person who attains it will be very valuable to any organization because he will have the proven knowledge and skills to architect an enterprise IT platform that can adapt to rapidly changing business needs.
For the technology specialist, Beneda says that a "well-kept secret" is that HP already has cross-domain content in its training and certifications. "If you get a server certification from HP today, there's already embedded content pertaining to storage, networking and management. Our storage certifications require some server, operating system and networking knowledge to be able to enable storage networking technology. HP has actually done a pretty good job up to this point to make sure people have good solution skills. We have some opportunities to broaden this in the context of where the market is going and to enable the value of the people who hold those skills," Beneda says.
He adds that this isn't an enterprise-only play; many of the same market dynamics exist in the small-midsize business (SMB) space as well. "Think about how a small company gets IT support," Beneda says. "There's typically one guy who is the techie. He sets up the infrastructure and supports the PCs. This is the primary kind of resource that an SMB has. In addition, some functions might be outsourced to a local systems integrator. The individuals who are in-house as well as the people who provide outside service and support need an integrated skill set across the technology domains, and perhaps even more so because they deal with everything from printers to applications to VoIP. You need individuals with much broader skill sets across the entire domain in the SMB space."
Beneda says it is HP's intent to create skill sets, at enterprise and SMB levels, for people who operate consistently in a converged IT environment.
One of the first outward signs we'll see from HP will be more interaction with and within the HP Certified Professional community. "We want to be much more collaborative with our community," Beneda says. "Some of the best times that we have are when we get a group of ASEs in our product lab and generate some interaction between our product engineers and the people who are actually out in the field, working with these products every day -- designing solutions, integrating products, supporting them. Our product engineers love to get feedback from the people who are out there doing the job today."
"These forums have been extremely successful for us," Beneda adds. "HP Certified Professionals are able to impact product roadmaps, and there's a lot they can learn from the product engineers. It's a great dialogue. We've done a lot of these sessions in the past; our intention will be to do a lot more, and not only around an event or by bringing people in to our facilities, but also online. We've already started to do some of that and we want to broaden these efforts."
Another key area that HP will be targeting is students, specifically people in college who are pursuing an IT career. According to Beneda, "We're working on some partnerships right now in the academic space which will help students come into the job market with much more applicable skills, given where the industry is going [with convergence]."
Beneda invites everyone with a vested interest in HP certified skills to get involved in the evolution of the HP Certified Professional Program. "When HP creates new certifications, we invite CPs and partners from around the world who perform this job for a living to help us define the skills and knowledge required for certification. It's a great way for technical people to contribute to the direction of the certification program because they actually help us define the content that goes into the training and the tests. If they have an interest in that, they should send an e-mail with a resume and some background information on the kinds of work they do and the kinds of engagements they've had to their regional program office and express an interest in specific certification. Right now we're looking for input on the Converged Infrastructure certifications."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
The other day I had an opportunity to talk to Brian Beneda, the director of strategy and business development for the HP Certified Professional Program. Beneda shared his insight on the quiet evolution taking place within the HP certification program. Anyone who is responsible for hiring, managing or developing IT professionals should like HP's approach to broadening a person's technical skill set and knowledge.
To understand what HP is doing with its training and certification program, we need a little context about what is happening in general in the IT industry. Whether you call it "convergence," "service-oriented architecture," or simply the "collapsing" of the data center, there's a trend toward companies purchasing a much more integrated core set of servers, storage and networking solutions. This allows companies to move away from spending time and money on integrating separate silos of technologies and toward a flexible IT environment that is more responsive to business needs.
As CIOs contemplate this converged IT platform, they also have to look at the way their departments are organized today. Over the past decade or two, people have been put in silos to support specific technologies. For example, you have the server guys, the storage guys, the networking guys, the systems management guys, and so on. These people tend to have deep technical skills pertaining to their specific technologies, but only surface-level knowledge of the other technologies. CIOs need to rethink the way the organization is structured -- and the people are trained and skilled -- in order to create much more activity across the technology domains.
"As we talk to CIOs and the guys that are operating their data centers, they are very excited about the Converged Infrastructure from HP and what it can do, but they are starting to realize they've got a skills gap," Beneda says. "Typically there are three or four people in a large company that have the skills and knowledge to look across the data center today and are able to architect solutions or think about the evolution of their IT at a company level. They need some kind of training program and certification that is going to help them get deeper around how they can evolve their data center to take advantage of some of these new technologies."
The skills and knowledge that are required to operate in that integrated world are quite different from the typical product- or technology-specific training and certification programs available in the marketplace today, according to Beneda. "If the platform is moving toward merging networking, storage and servers, then the server guy needs to have a way to have some skills in the networking and storage space. These skills need to be much deeper than what they've had in the past because they are going to be integrated into that converged data center environment. The same is true with networking and storage guys. They need to broaden what they know. And from a systems management perspective, a person needs to be able to look at everything through a single pane of glass." In other words, companies need to have people with skills that are much more "integrated" to go along with the integrated technologies.
HP is evolving its training and certifications to enable both of those paths -- for the high-level architect who is looking across the data center, as well as for the individual who is deep in a technology domain (like storage) who needs to broaden his skill set into other technology areas.
HP is in the process of creating a high level certification for this data center/Converged Infrastructure architect. This will be a flagship certification in the IT industry, and the person who attains it will be very valuable to any organization because he will have the proven knowledge and skills to architect an enterprise IT platform that can adapt to rapidly changing business needs.
For the technology specialist, Beneda says that a "well-kept secret" is that HP already has cross-domain content in its training and certifications. "If you get a server certification from HP today, there's already embedded content pertaining to storage, networking and management. Our storage certifications require some server, operating system and networking knowledge to be able to enable storage networking technology. HP has actually done a pretty good job up to this point to make sure people have good solution skills. We have some opportunities to broaden this in the context of where the market is going and to enable the value of the people who hold those skills," Beneda says.
He adds that this isn't an enterprise-only play; many of the same market dynamics exist in the small-midsize business (SMB) space as well. "Think about how a small company gets IT support," Beneda says. "There's typically one guy who is the techie. He sets up the infrastructure and supports the PCs. This is the primary kind of resource that an SMB has. In addition, some functions might be outsourced to a local systems integrator. The individuals who are in-house as well as the people who provide outside service and support need an integrated skill set across the technology domains, and perhaps even more so because they deal with everything from printers to applications to VoIP. You need individuals with much broader skill sets across the entire domain in the SMB space."
Beneda says it is HP's intent to create skill sets, at enterprise and SMB levels, for people who operate consistently in a converged IT environment.
One of the first outward signs we'll see from HP will be more interaction with and within the HP Certified Professional community. "We want to be much more collaborative with our community," Beneda says. "Some of the best times that we have are when we get a group of ASEs in our product lab and generate some interaction between our product engineers and the people who are actually out in the field, working with these products every day -- designing solutions, integrating products, supporting them. Our product engineers love to get feedback from the people who are out there doing the job today."
"These forums have been extremely successful for us," Beneda adds. "HP Certified Professionals are able to impact product roadmaps, and there's a lot they can learn from the product engineers. It's a great dialogue. We've done a lot of these sessions in the past; our intention will be to do a lot more, and not only around an event or by bringing people in to our facilities, but also online. We've already started to do some of that and we want to broaden these efforts."
Another key area that HP will be targeting is students, specifically people in college who are pursuing an IT career. According to Beneda, "We're working on some partnerships right now in the academic space which will help students come into the job market with much more applicable skills, given where the industry is going [with convergence]."
Beneda invites everyone with a vested interest in HP certified skills to get involved in the evolution of the HP Certified Professional Program. "When HP creates new certifications, we invite CPs and partners from around the world who perform this job for a living to help us define the skills and knowledge required for certification. It's a great way for technical people to contribute to the direction of the certification program because they actually help us define the content that goes into the training and the tests. If they have an interest in that, they should send an e-mail with a resume and some background information on the kinds of work they do and the kinds of engagements they've had to their regional program office and express an interest in specific certification. Right now we're looking for input on the Converged Infrastructure certifications."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
2010年5月28日星期五
Microsoft warns on Windows 7 upgrade tool
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Parallels, known for using virtualization to solve consumer problems, thought it had a surefire new use for its technology.
Why not use the same approach it used to put Windows on a Mac to help ease the move from XP to Windows 7. The solution was elegant, helping users both make the move and even run older programs that weren't compatible with the new version of Windows. At first, the signs from Microsoft were encouraging; the company even invited Parallells to a Windows 7 momentum event in Paris to publicly talk about the program, Parallels Desktop Upgrade to Windows 7.
There was only one problem: the way the product works runs afoul of Microsoft's license rules, at least for most users. That's because the $50 software puts the user's old Windows XP system into a virtual machine, running alongside Windows 7, a concurrent use not allowed under most Windows licenses.
CNET raised the issue with both Microsoft and Parallels after learning about the product last month. Parallels said it is up to users to make sure they are in compliance with Redmond's terms. Microsoft, meanwhile, said it was talking with Parallels, but declined to publicly call out the company. Until now.
"Microsoft does not endorse moving the user's desktop from a physically loaded OS into a VM as a consumer solution, because the vast majority (more than 90 percent) of consumers do not license Windows under a license that would allow them to transfer Windows into a virtual machine, move Windows to a different machine, or run a secondary virtual machine that is not running XP Mode on the same machine," Microsoft's general manager, Gavriella Schuster, said in a statement to CNET. "Without these license rights, most consumers will not be properly licensing Windows when using the virtualization features of Parallels' product."
Schuster pointed out that enterprise customers with a Software Assurance contract covering Windows could properly use the software. Users who buy a full retail boxed copy of Windows (or possibly of both Windows XP and Windows 7), as opposed to the an upgrade version might also be properly licensed for the Parallels software.
For its part, Parallels continues to say it is up to users to make sure they are properly licensing Windows in conjunction with the upgrade tool.
"We require customers to verify they have the proper license," a Parallels representative said on Tuesday.
Microsoft suggested it is looking for a little more than that.
"Microsoft is working with Parallels to ensure that the Windows licensing requirements are made clear to customers in their product," Schuster said.
Despite the legal issues, Parallels' upgrade tool would appear to address an important need.
Although Windows 7 has proven popular, upgrading can be a hassle, requiring users to back up their data and programs, reinstall software, and then figure out what to do with programs that aren't compatible with the newer Windows.
A Parallels representative said on Tuesday that the product remains available for sale.
"It's out there," the representative said. "We're very excited about the product."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Parallels, known for using virtualization to solve consumer problems, thought it had a surefire new use for its technology.
Why not use the same approach it used to put Windows on a Mac to help ease the move from XP to Windows 7. The solution was elegant, helping users both make the move and even run older programs that weren't compatible with the new version of Windows. At first, the signs from Microsoft were encouraging; the company even invited Parallells to a Windows 7 momentum event in Paris to publicly talk about the program, Parallels Desktop Upgrade to Windows 7.
There was only one problem: the way the product works runs afoul of Microsoft's license rules, at least for most users. That's because the $50 software puts the user's old Windows XP system into a virtual machine, running alongside Windows 7, a concurrent use not allowed under most Windows licenses.
CNET raised the issue with both Microsoft and Parallels after learning about the product last month. Parallels said it is up to users to make sure they are in compliance with Redmond's terms. Microsoft, meanwhile, said it was talking with Parallels, but declined to publicly call out the company. Until now.
"Microsoft does not endorse moving the user's desktop from a physically loaded OS into a VM as a consumer solution, because the vast majority (more than 90 percent) of consumers do not license Windows under a license that would allow them to transfer Windows into a virtual machine, move Windows to a different machine, or run a secondary virtual machine that is not running XP Mode on the same machine," Microsoft's general manager, Gavriella Schuster, said in a statement to CNET. "Without these license rights, most consumers will not be properly licensing Windows when using the virtualization features of Parallels' product."
Schuster pointed out that enterprise customers with a Software Assurance contract covering Windows could properly use the software. Users who buy a full retail boxed copy of Windows (or possibly of both Windows XP and Windows 7), as opposed to the an upgrade version might also be properly licensed for the Parallels software.
For its part, Parallels continues to say it is up to users to make sure they are properly licensing Windows in conjunction with the upgrade tool.
"We require customers to verify they have the proper license," a Parallels representative said on Tuesday.
Microsoft suggested it is looking for a little more than that.
"Microsoft is working with Parallels to ensure that the Windows licensing requirements are made clear to customers in their product," Schuster said.
Despite the legal issues, Parallels' upgrade tool would appear to address an important need.
Although Windows 7 has proven popular, upgrading can be a hassle, requiring users to back up their data and programs, reinstall software, and then figure out what to do with programs that aren't compatible with the newer Windows.
A Parallels representative said on Tuesday that the product remains available for sale.
"It's out there," the representative said. "We're very excited about the product."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Adobe patches 'critical' holes in Photoshop CS4
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Photoshop users like to expand what the software can do by downloading new brushes, gradients, and color swatches, but the ability to make those additions also turns out to have been a potential avenue for attack.
Adobe Systems on Wednesday released a Photoshop 11.0.2 security update to its earlier CS4 version of Photoshop for both Windows and Mac OS X versions to close off that avenue.
"Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 and earlier for Windows and Macintosh that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to take control of the affected system. A malicious .ASL, .ABR, or .GRD file must be opened in Photoshop CS4 by the user for an attacker to be able to exploit these vulnerabilities," Adobe said in an advisory. ASL, ABR, and GRD files refer to swatches, brushes, and gradients, respectively.
The newly released Photoshop CS5 is not vulnerable, Adobe added.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Photoshop users like to expand what the software can do by downloading new brushes, gradients, and color swatches, but the ability to make those additions also turns out to have been a potential avenue for attack.
Adobe Systems on Wednesday released a Photoshop 11.0.2 security update to its earlier CS4 version of Photoshop for both Windows and Mac OS X versions to close off that avenue.
"Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 and earlier for Windows and Macintosh that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to take control of the affected system. A malicious .ASL, .ABR, or .GRD file must be opened in Photoshop CS4 by the user for an attacker to be able to exploit these vulnerabilities," Adobe said in an advisory. ASL, ABR, and GRD files refer to swatches, brushes, and gradients, respectively.
The newly released Photoshop CS5 is not vulnerable, Adobe added.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Google and VMware: Unlikely bedfellows?
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Google and VMware jumped into bed this week, outlining a partnership that will allow Java developers to build applications on Google App Engine.
The news, unveiled during a keynote at Google's I/O conference, piqued the interest of some developers in attendance but many others couldn't wait to leave for the free snacks and soda.
The collaboration will allow Java developers to build and run Spring-based Java applications on Google App Engine. Perhaps it was the choice of demo material -- the two companies built an expense reporting app on stage -- that sent developers out in droves. What a snoozer!
Still, VMware and Google have something important in common. Both face increasing competition from Microsoft and with that in mind, the partnership makes sense.
Developers will be able to write apps using Java development tools VMware obtained through its acquistion of SpringSource (including the SpringSource Tool Suite and Spring Roo) as well as Google's Web Toolkit. These applications can be launched on Google App Engine for Business (a new, souped up version of App Engine with SSL security), or on any VMware vCloud service, or on VMforce, the previously announced Platform as a Service (PaaS) partnership between VMware and Salesforce.com.
"By working with VMware to bring cloud portability to the enterprise, we are making it easy for developers to deploy rich Java applications in the environments of their choice," said Vic Gundotra, Google vice president of developer platforms.
The idea behind application portability across clouds is a good one, especially when competing with the likes of the nascent Microsoft Azure cloud, as it offers developers more choice. However developers were not completely convinced it will work.
"How long will it take to export data from App Engine into VMforce?" said Matthew Heidemann, web developer and consultant for Parity Creative. "Each cloud has unique services, App Engine uses Google Big Table, you can't replicate that in a VMware private cloud; VMforce uses the Chatter APIs from Salesforce, these are not portable," he said.
Google-VMware cloud faces continued skepticism
Moreover, not all developers are convinced that cloud -- any cloud-- is the way to go for their business.
"It's important for us to have our infrastructure inhouse," said Marcel Lanz, senior developer at Auktionshaus-Zofingen, a Swiss online auction site built on Java. "If the internet fails our business goes down." The auction house does, however, use Amazon Cloudfront to distribute its catalogue. "There is less risk to our business if this is not available than the whole service going down," Lanz noted.
It's a classic example of how companies all over the world are figuring out which applications and data are safe to run in the cloud, versus those they will keep inhouse.
Parity Creative's Heidemann said he doesn't think companies are going to put their data in App Engine. "It's not PCI compliant, it's not HIPAA compliant, the security is not there," he said.
Others are more bullish.
The Google-VMware partnership "makes Java much more appealing," said Justin Fields, a Ruby developer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. He said he needs to be able to develop quickly and change direction fast and if Spring Java apps on Google App Engine would enable him that flexibility, "I'd be into it," he said.
Java developer Andrew Denyes, tech lead at Rhapsody International Inc. said the partnership definitely makes the Google toolkit more interesting. He also recently signed up with VMforce. "I'm not totally clear what we will do yet though," he said. "We're experimenting."
Analysts say the application development platform wars are reigniting; only now the infrastructure is in the cloud. "You can bet the Microsoft Azure team stood up and took notice today," said Jeffrey Hammond, principal analyst at Forrester Research.
Google/VMware and VMforce: Compare and contrast
Broadly speaking, VMware is trying to do three things with respect to cloud computing, according to VMware CTO Steve Herrod: It wants to help IT build private clouds; to enable "differentiated but compatible public clouds," and to provide management capabilities that bridge between the two.
Herrod said the Google/VMware joint initiative caters to a different set of users than VMforce. "This gets back to the "differentiated but compatible story," he said. Salesforce.com is a strong enterprise company, has a terrific customer database technology, and a huge customer base that wants to extend that database with custom applications.
"Google is a completely different story," Herrod said. "It's an extremely developer-focused cloud, and it integrates well with Google Docs and identities." Thus, VMware Spring applications that run on Google App Engine will likely have less of an enterprise focus than those running on VMforce.com.
But the two partnerships share a common thread. "As a developer I should be able to write my Java code and run it in my data center, or upload it to VMforce or Google App Engine," Herrod said. In the future, developers working in the Eclipse IDE will have the option to publish their Spring applications directly to Google App Engine.
Before VMware and SpringSource came around, both Salesforce.com and Google App Engine required developers to write in their own proprietary languages. "Paul Maritz refers to this as the Hotel California effect -- you can check in but you can never leave," Herrod said.
VMware's CEO, Paul Maritz addressed this directly during his keynote. VMware is creating an "open source layer to cloak the clouds," he said. "The more choice you give developers to deploy their technology, the greater the motivation and the greater the resulting apps."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Google and VMware jumped into bed this week, outlining a partnership that will allow Java developers to build applications on Google App Engine.
The news, unveiled during a keynote at Google's I/O conference, piqued the interest of some developers in attendance but many others couldn't wait to leave for the free snacks and soda.
The collaboration will allow Java developers to build and run Spring-based Java applications on Google App Engine. Perhaps it was the choice of demo material -- the two companies built an expense reporting app on stage -- that sent developers out in droves. What a snoozer!
Still, VMware and Google have something important in common. Both face increasing competition from Microsoft and with that in mind, the partnership makes sense.
Developers will be able to write apps using Java development tools VMware obtained through its acquistion of SpringSource (including the SpringSource Tool Suite and Spring Roo) as well as Google's Web Toolkit. These applications can be launched on Google App Engine for Business (a new, souped up version of App Engine with SSL security), or on any VMware vCloud service, or on VMforce, the previously announced Platform as a Service (PaaS) partnership between VMware and Salesforce.com.
"By working with VMware to bring cloud portability to the enterprise, we are making it easy for developers to deploy rich Java applications in the environments of their choice," said Vic Gundotra, Google vice president of developer platforms.
The idea behind application portability across clouds is a good one, especially when competing with the likes of the nascent Microsoft Azure cloud, as it offers developers more choice. However developers were not completely convinced it will work.
"How long will it take to export data from App Engine into VMforce?" said Matthew Heidemann, web developer and consultant for Parity Creative. "Each cloud has unique services, App Engine uses Google Big Table, you can't replicate that in a VMware private cloud; VMforce uses the Chatter APIs from Salesforce, these are not portable," he said.
Google-VMware cloud faces continued skepticism
Moreover, not all developers are convinced that cloud -- any cloud-- is the way to go for their business.
"It's important for us to have our infrastructure inhouse," said Marcel Lanz, senior developer at Auktionshaus-Zofingen, a Swiss online auction site built on Java. "If the internet fails our business goes down." The auction house does, however, use Amazon Cloudfront to distribute its catalogue. "There is less risk to our business if this is not available than the whole service going down," Lanz noted.
It's a classic example of how companies all over the world are figuring out which applications and data are safe to run in the cloud, versus those they will keep inhouse.
Parity Creative's Heidemann said he doesn't think companies are going to put their data in App Engine. "It's not PCI compliant, it's not HIPAA compliant, the security is not there," he said.
Others are more bullish.
The Google-VMware partnership "makes Java much more appealing," said Justin Fields, a Ruby developer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. He said he needs to be able to develop quickly and change direction fast and if Spring Java apps on Google App Engine would enable him that flexibility, "I'd be into it," he said.
Java developer Andrew Denyes, tech lead at Rhapsody International Inc. said the partnership definitely makes the Google toolkit more interesting. He also recently signed up with VMforce. "I'm not totally clear what we will do yet though," he said. "We're experimenting."
Analysts say the application development platform wars are reigniting; only now the infrastructure is in the cloud. "You can bet the Microsoft Azure team stood up and took notice today," said Jeffrey Hammond, principal analyst at Forrester Research.
Google/VMware and VMforce: Compare and contrast
Broadly speaking, VMware is trying to do three things with respect to cloud computing, according to VMware CTO Steve Herrod: It wants to help IT build private clouds; to enable "differentiated but compatible public clouds," and to provide management capabilities that bridge between the two.
Herrod said the Google/VMware joint initiative caters to a different set of users than VMforce. "This gets back to the "differentiated but compatible story," he said. Salesforce.com is a strong enterprise company, has a terrific customer database technology, and a huge customer base that wants to extend that database with custom applications.
"Google is a completely different story," Herrod said. "It's an extremely developer-focused cloud, and it integrates well with Google Docs and identities." Thus, VMware Spring applications that run on Google App Engine will likely have less of an enterprise focus than those running on VMforce.com.
But the two partnerships share a common thread. "As a developer I should be able to write my Java code and run it in my data center, or upload it to VMforce or Google App Engine," Herrod said. In the future, developers working in the Eclipse IDE will have the option to publish their Spring applications directly to Google App Engine.
Before VMware and SpringSource came around, both Salesforce.com and Google App Engine required developers to write in their own proprietary languages. "Paul Maritz refers to this as the Hotel California effect -- you can check in but you can never leave," Herrod said.
VMware's CEO, Paul Maritz addressed this directly during his keynote. VMware is creating an "open source layer to cloak the clouds," he said. "The more choice you give developers to deploy their technology, the greater the motivation and the greater the resulting apps."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
2010年5月27日星期四
Newly Updated Resources (Microsoft, VMware, CCNP, CISCO, HP, VCP, Business Objects, BCMSN, BSCI)
Here 's the resources http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
News
Members please take old CCNP exams before July. Check CCNP section of Product List for details.
Business Objects RDCR08201 Q&A 231 questions updated.
VMware VCP-410 Q&A 300 questions updated.
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 335 questions updated.
HP HP0-066 Q&A 75 questions updated.
HP HP0-P20 Q&A 117 questions updated.
HP HP0-S26 Q&A 60 questions updated.
Microsoft 70-686 Q&A 96 questions updated.
Microsoft 70-685 Q&A 108 questions updated.
HP HP0-S25 Q&A 58 questions updated.
CISCO BSCI 642-901 Q&A 458 questions updated.
Recent Updates:
Business Objects RDCR08201 Q&A 231 questions updated. (2010/5/27)
VMware VCP-410 Q&A 300 questions updated. (2010/5/26)
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 335 questions updated.(2010/5/26)
HP HP0-066 Q&A 75 questions updated.(2010/5/25)
HP HP0-P20 Q&A 117 questions updated. (2010/5/25)
HP HP0-S26 Q&A 60 questions updated.(2010/5/25)
Microsoft 70-686 Q&A 96 questions updated.(2010/5/24)
Microsoft 70-685 Q&A 108 questions updated.(2010/5/24)
HP HP0-S25 Q&A 58 questions updated.(2010/5/24)
New Demo
Business Objects RDCR08201
HP HP0-066
HP HP0-P20
HP HP0-S26
HP HP0-S25
For more details, please access http://www.test104.com/en/news/news.asp
News
Members please take old CCNP exams before July. Check CCNP section of Product List for details.
Business Objects RDCR08201 Q&A 231 questions updated.
VMware VCP-410 Q&A 300 questions updated.
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 335 questions updated.
HP HP0-066 Q&A 75 questions updated.
HP HP0-P20 Q&A 117 questions updated.
HP HP0-S26 Q&A 60 questions updated.
Microsoft 70-686 Q&A 96 questions updated.
Microsoft 70-685 Q&A 108 questions updated.
HP HP0-S25 Q&A 58 questions updated.
CISCO BSCI 642-901 Q&A 458 questions updated.
Recent Updates:
Business Objects RDCR08201 Q&A 231 questions updated. (2010/5/27)
VMware VCP-410 Q&A 300 questions updated. (2010/5/26)
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 335 questions updated.(2010/5/26)
HP HP0-066 Q&A 75 questions updated.(2010/5/25)
HP HP0-P20 Q&A 117 questions updated. (2010/5/25)
HP HP0-S26 Q&A 60 questions updated.(2010/5/25)
Microsoft 70-686 Q&A 96 questions updated.(2010/5/24)
Microsoft 70-685 Q&A 108 questions updated.(2010/5/24)
HP HP0-S25 Q&A 58 questions updated.(2010/5/24)
New Demo
Business Objects RDCR08201
HP HP0-066
HP HP0-P20
HP HP0-S26
HP HP0-S25
For more details, please access http://www.test104.com/en/news/news.asp
2010年5月26日星期三
What's driving investments in Windows servers?
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Every organization makes periodic investments in new server hardware, and chances are that you have new servers budgeted for sometime this year. Across the industry, there's no question that the demand for Windows servers is the strongest that it's been in years.
For example, IDC reports that part of the uptick is due to stronger sales of x86 server hardware. The quarterly revenue for Q4 2009 hit $5.4 billion for Windows servers, representing over 41% of overall quarterly factory revenue -- that's huge.
But when you look past the sales figures, what factors are really driving the acquisition of new servers – especially platforms running a current operating system like Windows Server 2008 R2? The answer to that question might partly be found in current research such as TechTarget's Data Center Decisions survey for 2010, which gathered input from almost 1,000 IT professionals across a variety of roles, locations and vertical markets.
Infrastructure considerations
Respondents reported that most new server purchases in 2010 are related to data center infrastructure improvements. More than 43% chose new servers to enhance server virtualization capabilities, 26% sought better energy efficiency to manage power costs, and 25% want larger and more powerful servers to achieve better levels of hardware consolidation (reducing floor space demands). This is an important combination of factors that complement each other. For example, virtualization allows consolidation which reduces power and floor space, and in turn allows organizations to purchase fewer advanced servers.
Microsoft's development of Hyper-V (most notably with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2) has likely contributed to the emphasis on server virtualization capabilities. Current versions of Hyper-V make it easier to provision new virtual machines (VMs). It also supports live migration which eases workload balancing and server maintenance. Experts note that Windows Server 2008 R2 provides a licensing structure that readily supports the operating system on a number of virtual machines. In short, Windows Server 2008 editions can lower the cost to create and support VMs, allowing more Windows Server VMs to appear in the enterprise -- driving more data center growth.
"The reduction in technical complexity, the movement of spending from capital expenditures to operating expenditures, and the flexibility of the deployment are all significant," said Dave Sobel, CEO of Evolve Technologies, a solution provider headquartered in Fairfax, VA.
Growth in the data center
But the need for growth is not attributed to virtual machines alone. Data center growth also allows an organization to support more users and workloads more effectively. Over 43% of IT professionals reported server purchases to address normal increases in computing capacity, while 38% had needs geared toward handling new applications. Windows Server 2008 R2 deployments -- especially with Hyper-V -- have proven popular in organizations that are implementing new Microsoft server technologies like Exchange Server 2010, SharePoint 2010, and so on. Only about 10% of respondents bought new servers to build or extend their internal cloud computing efforts.
The intense competition that Microsoft brings to the virtualization market has put enormous pressure on other virtualization vendors. Experts report that even dedicated VMware customers are deploying new servers on Hyper-V because it's proving more cost-effective for them to do so. "Better technical support, better assistance…it just makes no sense for them to spend money (lots of money) for something that Microsoft provides out of the [Windows Server 2008 R2] box," said Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing, a solution provider located in Oakland, CA.
Business needs
There is also an assortment of business-related factors that drive new server purchases. Over 40% of IT professionals acquire new servers to replace existing systems that are reaching end-of-life or coming off lease -- organizations can typically replace this aging hardware with more powerful systems with full warrantees. New servers usually ship with advanced management tools, and almost 14% of respondents note that new servers reduce administrative workload.
In terms of business needs, Windows Server deployments also appear to complement Windows 7 rollouts. Experts report that the move to Windows 7 typically involves the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010, so organizations are deploying that toolkit on Windows 2008 R2 servers and upgrading Active Directory 2003 to Active Directory 2008 R2 to accommodate virtual servers. "Windows 7 rollouts are driving Windows 2008 R2 server and virtual server deployments," Morimoto said.
The tip of the iceberg
With many economic worries ending and support for Windows XP entering the last stages of its lifecycle, organizations are taking a fresh look at their IT roadmaps and justifying new server acquisitions. Windows Server 2008 R2 figures prominently in those plans, largely due to the native availability of Hyper-V and close coupling of Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows 7. Even organizations that don't currently use virtualization will have the tools in place to deploy that technology in the future.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Every organization makes periodic investments in new server hardware, and chances are that you have new servers budgeted for sometime this year. Across the industry, there's no question that the demand for Windows servers is the strongest that it's been in years.
For example, IDC reports that part of the uptick is due to stronger sales of x86 server hardware. The quarterly revenue for Q4 2009 hit $5.4 billion for Windows servers, representing over 41% of overall quarterly factory revenue -- that's huge.
But when you look past the sales figures, what factors are really driving the acquisition of new servers – especially platforms running a current operating system like Windows Server 2008 R2? The answer to that question might partly be found in current research such as TechTarget's Data Center Decisions survey for 2010, which gathered input from almost 1,000 IT professionals across a variety of roles, locations and vertical markets.
Infrastructure considerations
Respondents reported that most new server purchases in 2010 are related to data center infrastructure improvements. More than 43% chose new servers to enhance server virtualization capabilities, 26% sought better energy efficiency to manage power costs, and 25% want larger and more powerful servers to achieve better levels of hardware consolidation (reducing floor space demands). This is an important combination of factors that complement each other. For example, virtualization allows consolidation which reduces power and floor space, and in turn allows organizations to purchase fewer advanced servers.
Microsoft's development of Hyper-V (most notably with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2) has likely contributed to the emphasis on server virtualization capabilities. Current versions of Hyper-V make it easier to provision new virtual machines (VMs). It also supports live migration which eases workload balancing and server maintenance. Experts note that Windows Server 2008 R2 provides a licensing structure that readily supports the operating system on a number of virtual machines. In short, Windows Server 2008 editions can lower the cost to create and support VMs, allowing more Windows Server VMs to appear in the enterprise -- driving more data center growth.
"The reduction in technical complexity, the movement of spending from capital expenditures to operating expenditures, and the flexibility of the deployment are all significant," said Dave Sobel, CEO of Evolve Technologies, a solution provider headquartered in Fairfax, VA.
Growth in the data center
But the need for growth is not attributed to virtual machines alone. Data center growth also allows an organization to support more users and workloads more effectively. Over 43% of IT professionals reported server purchases to address normal increases in computing capacity, while 38% had needs geared toward handling new applications. Windows Server 2008 R2 deployments -- especially with Hyper-V -- have proven popular in organizations that are implementing new Microsoft server technologies like Exchange Server 2010, SharePoint 2010, and so on. Only about 10% of respondents bought new servers to build or extend their internal cloud computing efforts.
The intense competition that Microsoft brings to the virtualization market has put enormous pressure on other virtualization vendors. Experts report that even dedicated VMware customers are deploying new servers on Hyper-V because it's proving more cost-effective for them to do so. "Better technical support, better assistance…it just makes no sense for them to spend money (lots of money) for something that Microsoft provides out of the [Windows Server 2008 R2] box," said Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing, a solution provider located in Oakland, CA.
Business needs
There is also an assortment of business-related factors that drive new server purchases. Over 40% of IT professionals acquire new servers to replace existing systems that are reaching end-of-life or coming off lease -- organizations can typically replace this aging hardware with more powerful systems with full warrantees. New servers usually ship with advanced management tools, and almost 14% of respondents note that new servers reduce administrative workload.
In terms of business needs, Windows Server deployments also appear to complement Windows 7 rollouts. Experts report that the move to Windows 7 typically involves the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010, so organizations are deploying that toolkit on Windows 2008 R2 servers and upgrading Active Directory 2003 to Active Directory 2008 R2 to accommodate virtual servers. "Windows 7 rollouts are driving Windows 2008 R2 server and virtual server deployments," Morimoto said.
The tip of the iceberg
With many economic worries ending and support for Windows XP entering the last stages of its lifecycle, organizations are taking a fresh look at their IT roadmaps and justifying new server acquisitions. Windows Server 2008 R2 figures prominently in those plans, largely due to the native availability of Hyper-V and close coupling of Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows 7. Even organizations that don't currently use virtualization will have the tools in place to deploy that technology in the future.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Pros and cons of the DACPAC with SQL Server 2008 R2
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Microsoft has combined SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 to give us a new feature called data-tier applications, or DACs. Deployment of DACs from Visual Studio into SQL Server is done through a data-tier application package, also known as a DACPAC.
The good
DACPACs are great for small shops that are deploying minor application changes to SQL Server. It allows the code to be kept within the existing source control and gives developers an easy way to edit SQL Server objects from within the already familiar Visual Studio environment. This means that developers can work against their development database for all their coding, and then package up all the changes into a single DACPAC for release to production. The DACPAC can also be handed off to a DBA for release into a production or quality assurance (QA) environment.
The DACPAC handles versioning of the database through data-tier editing, providing the developer with an easy way to use the database editing system. The .NET developer has the ability to edit the tables, procedures, views, and functions of the database.
The bad
Data-tier applications have a few issues in this first release. The first problem is that not all features of the SQL Server engine are supported by DACPACs. This includes the SQL Server Service Broker, CLR Objects, and most importantly, SQL Server security.
Now all these features can be supported by using a post-release script. This is not the best solution, however, as developers need to know all the appropriate T-SQL commands in order to create and manage the objects and security.
Currently DACPACs can only be pushed to SQL Server 2008 R2, and they must be developed using Visual Studio 2010.
The ugly
The biggest problem with DACPACs has to do with the way a data-tier application is released to push version changes from the DAC into SQL Server. This is done by creating a new database with a temporary name, generating the new objects in the database, and then moving all the data from the existing database to the new one. After all the data has been transferred and the post-release scripts run, the existing database is dropped and the new database is given the correct name.
This release technique causes the database to require at least twice as much data space as it is in size, as well as enough log space to hold at least the largest object within the transaction log of the destination database. For example, if your database is 5 GB in size with the largest table being 500 MB, you will need room on the disk to hold both 5 GB databases with enough space for the transaction log to hold the entire 500 MB table.
There are a few problems with this technique. First of all, your transaction logs become useless. This is because the database is being renamed and you can’t restore the transaction logs over the course of the database upgrade.
Another problem is created if you are using SQL Server Service Broker within your database, as any messages that were in queue during the upgrade process will be lost. The same goes for any data changes made to tables after the release but before it’s completed; they will be lost as well.
Now you can make a DACPAC out of an existing database so it doesn’t need to be used for only new projects, but not all databases can be successfully turned into DACPACs. As of this writing, if you try to turn the sample database pubs into a DACPAC (a database which has been around since the days of SQL 6.x), you’ll get an error from Visual Studio when it tries to create the DACPAC.
OK, so why use data-tier applications?
After reading all of this, the first question is probably going to be, why use DACPACs? The answer here is simple -- SQL Azure. As you may have noticed, the features that are supported by DACPACs line up with the features that SQL Azure Database supports in its current version. Because of the small amount of data that can be fit into a database through Azure (1 GB or 10 GB as of this writing, depending on the database size you have purchased) this release technique will probably work OK. With SQL Azure, you don’t have to worry about backups since they are handled through the redundancy of the solution.
While data-tier applications were designed for SQL Azure Database, they are perfectly capable of being used against your local in-house databases -- provided you are able to work within the limits of the DACPAC platform.
Because of the release technique used by the DACPAC system, it is recommended that you not use DACPACs for your Tier 1 applications or apps larger than the 10 GB database size supported by SQL Azure. Doing so will require longer downtimes during upgrades as the data is moved between the old and new databases.
Obviously Microsoft hasn’t made any announcements about DACPAC version 2, which will hopefully support the rest of the SQL Server 2008 R2 feature set and allow DACPACs to be released to older versions of Microsoft SQL Server.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Microsoft has combined SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 to give us a new feature called data-tier applications, or DACs. Deployment of DACs from Visual Studio into SQL Server is done through a data-tier application package, also known as a DACPAC.
The good
DACPACs are great for small shops that are deploying minor application changes to SQL Server. It allows the code to be kept within the existing source control and gives developers an easy way to edit SQL Server objects from within the already familiar Visual Studio environment. This means that developers can work against their development database for all their coding, and then package up all the changes into a single DACPAC for release to production. The DACPAC can also be handed off to a DBA for release into a production or quality assurance (QA) environment.
The DACPAC handles versioning of the database through data-tier editing, providing the developer with an easy way to use the database editing system. The .NET developer has the ability to edit the tables, procedures, views, and functions of the database.
The bad
Data-tier applications have a few issues in this first release. The first problem is that not all features of the SQL Server engine are supported by DACPACs. This includes the SQL Server Service Broker, CLR Objects, and most importantly, SQL Server security.
Now all these features can be supported by using a post-release script. This is not the best solution, however, as developers need to know all the appropriate T-SQL commands in order to create and manage the objects and security.
Currently DACPACs can only be pushed to SQL Server 2008 R2, and they must be developed using Visual Studio 2010.
The ugly
The biggest problem with DACPACs has to do with the way a data-tier application is released to push version changes from the DAC into SQL Server. This is done by creating a new database with a temporary name, generating the new objects in the database, and then moving all the data from the existing database to the new one. After all the data has been transferred and the post-release scripts run, the existing database is dropped and the new database is given the correct name.
This release technique causes the database to require at least twice as much data space as it is in size, as well as enough log space to hold at least the largest object within the transaction log of the destination database. For example, if your database is 5 GB in size with the largest table being 500 MB, you will need room on the disk to hold both 5 GB databases with enough space for the transaction log to hold the entire 500 MB table.
There are a few problems with this technique. First of all, your transaction logs become useless. This is because the database is being renamed and you can’t restore the transaction logs over the course of the database upgrade.
Another problem is created if you are using SQL Server Service Broker within your database, as any messages that were in queue during the upgrade process will be lost. The same goes for any data changes made to tables after the release but before it’s completed; they will be lost as well.
Now you can make a DACPAC out of an existing database so it doesn’t need to be used for only new projects, but not all databases can be successfully turned into DACPACs. As of this writing, if you try to turn the sample database pubs into a DACPAC (a database which has been around since the days of SQL 6.x), you’ll get an error from Visual Studio when it tries to create the DACPAC.
OK, so why use data-tier applications?
After reading all of this, the first question is probably going to be, why use DACPACs? The answer here is simple -- SQL Azure. As you may have noticed, the features that are supported by DACPACs line up with the features that SQL Azure Database supports in its current version. Because of the small amount of data that can be fit into a database through Azure (1 GB or 10 GB as of this writing, depending on the database size you have purchased) this release technique will probably work OK. With SQL Azure, you don’t have to worry about backups since they are handled through the redundancy of the solution.
While data-tier applications were designed for SQL Azure Database, they are perfectly capable of being used against your local in-house databases -- provided you are able to work within the limits of the DACPAC platform.
Because of the release technique used by the DACPAC system, it is recommended that you not use DACPACs for your Tier 1 applications or apps larger than the 10 GB database size supported by SQL Azure. Doing so will require longer downtimes during upgrades as the data is moved between the old and new databases.
Obviously Microsoft hasn’t made any announcements about DACPAC version 2, which will hopefully support the rest of the SQL Server 2008 R2 feature set and allow DACPACs to be released to older versions of Microsoft SQL Server.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
What's next for Windows Server and beyond?
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
You can tell spring is in the air -- the milder days and nights, the pollen, and a seasonal curiosity about what the future holds.
Well, maybe that last one is just me, but it's no coincidence that the arrival of spring marks, more or less, the midpoint between the launch of Windows Server 2008 R2 and the next big release for Windows Server; at least according to Microsoft's server roadmap, which has been publically announced many times at various conferences.
So this seems like a good time to take a step back and look at what's next for Windows, both on the server and the platform in general.
Windows 8 Server (or Windows Server 2011)
The next major release of Windows Server is expected in the ensuing 18 to 24 months.
We do know a little bit about the company's current plans for this "v.Next" release based on various job postings from the Microsoft career site. Specifically, new features appear to be centered on:
• cluster support
• support for one-way replication
• a reworking of the core engine to "provide dramatic performance improvements"
• file access in branch offices (these features of supposedly "revolutionary")
In this age of big data centers and environmental concerns, it 's safe to bet that Windows Server v.Next will include optimizations to use less power, park more hardware components when not in use (core parking on a processor is already supported in Windows Server 2008 R2), and emphasize a reduction in the "grid load" from clients. How? By moving more intelligent functions to a server. Enhancements to Remote Desktop Services, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) components, and so on would all speak to that goal.
Separately, we might expect that the void between the home-user networks (served by Windows Home Server) and up to 50-user small business networks (served by Small Business Server) might be filled with a revision of Windows Server 2008 Foundation. Expect this Foundation SKU to include tighter integration with Microsoft's cloud services, such as Live Mesh, the Windows Live Wave, and both Exchange Online and SharePoint Online (the company's hosted options).
The overall platform
There will almost certainly be a Windows 8 Server, no matter what it's eventually called. But beyond that the roadmap is muddier, and Microsoft's vision across the company as a whole may or may not mesh well with its server business, depending on your point of view.
It's clear from Microsoft's latest actions and products that it eyes a move toward increasing the occurrences and workloads of cloud computing in enterprises large and small. You might be familiar with [Microsoft chief software architect] Ray Ozzie's "three screens and a cloud" idea: "So, moving forward, again I believe that the world some number of years from now in terms of how we consume IT is really shifting from a machine-centric viewpoint, to what we refer to as 'three screens and a cloud' -- the phone, the PC and the TV ultimately, and how we deliver value to them [via the cloud]."
Microsoft is also playing with deploying services accessible from anywhere via Windows Azure. It's not difficult to imagine that, in time, most of the local functions a Windows server provides could be hosted within a cloud-like infrastructure -- either a global cloud that's accessible to anyone (which evokes sort of a "DirectAccess version two" mindset) or through a private cloud. Why does a branch office need a server at all if it could eventually go out to an Azure-based private cloud, host within a datacenter local to the office, and still have everything managed centrally policy-wise by an enterprise IT team? With this model, you get the control of owning your own infrastructure without having to deal with the headaches of hardware.
On one hand, even if you're betting a platform on a cloud infrastructure, you still need a solid operating system with appropriate functionality and features to host that cloud. Windows Server can fit that bill -- and in some cases already does. On the other hand, is Microsoft making the server irrelevant to all but the largest enterprises? Does Windows Server as a product name and SKU have a long life ahead of it?
Only time will tell. We'll see where we are next spring.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
You can tell spring is in the air -- the milder days and nights, the pollen, and a seasonal curiosity about what the future holds.
Well, maybe that last one is just me, but it's no coincidence that the arrival of spring marks, more or less, the midpoint between the launch of Windows Server 2008 R2 and the next big release for Windows Server; at least according to Microsoft's server roadmap, which has been publically announced many times at various conferences.
So this seems like a good time to take a step back and look at what's next for Windows, both on the server and the platform in general.
Windows 8 Server (or Windows Server 2011)
The next major release of Windows Server is expected in the ensuing 18 to 24 months.
We do know a little bit about the company's current plans for this "v.Next" release based on various job postings from the Microsoft career site. Specifically, new features appear to be centered on:
• cluster support
• support for one-way replication
• a reworking of the core engine to "provide dramatic performance improvements"
• file access in branch offices (these features of supposedly "revolutionary")
In this age of big data centers and environmental concerns, it 's safe to bet that Windows Server v.Next will include optimizations to use less power, park more hardware components when not in use (core parking on a processor is already supported in Windows Server 2008 R2), and emphasize a reduction in the "grid load" from clients. How? By moving more intelligent functions to a server. Enhancements to Remote Desktop Services, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) components, and so on would all speak to that goal.
Separately, we might expect that the void between the home-user networks (served by Windows Home Server) and up to 50-user small business networks (served by Small Business Server) might be filled with a revision of Windows Server 2008 Foundation. Expect this Foundation SKU to include tighter integration with Microsoft's cloud services, such as Live Mesh, the Windows Live Wave, and both Exchange Online and SharePoint Online (the company's hosted options).
The overall platform
There will almost certainly be a Windows 8 Server, no matter what it's eventually called. But beyond that the roadmap is muddier, and Microsoft's vision across the company as a whole may or may not mesh well with its server business, depending on your point of view.
It's clear from Microsoft's latest actions and products that it eyes a move toward increasing the occurrences and workloads of cloud computing in enterprises large and small. You might be familiar with [Microsoft chief software architect] Ray Ozzie's "three screens and a cloud" idea: "So, moving forward, again I believe that the world some number of years from now in terms of how we consume IT is really shifting from a machine-centric viewpoint, to what we refer to as 'three screens and a cloud' -- the phone, the PC and the TV ultimately, and how we deliver value to them [via the cloud]."
Microsoft is also playing with deploying services accessible from anywhere via Windows Azure. It's not difficult to imagine that, in time, most of the local functions a Windows server provides could be hosted within a cloud-like infrastructure -- either a global cloud that's accessible to anyone (which evokes sort of a "DirectAccess version two" mindset) or through a private cloud. Why does a branch office need a server at all if it could eventually go out to an Azure-based private cloud, host within a datacenter local to the office, and still have everything managed centrally policy-wise by an enterprise IT team? With this model, you get the control of owning your own infrastructure without having to deal with the headaches of hardware.
On one hand, even if you're betting a platform on a cloud infrastructure, you still need a solid operating system with appropriate functionality and features to host that cloud. Windows Server can fit that bill -- and in some cases already does. On the other hand, is Microsoft making the server irrelevant to all but the largest enterprises? Does Windows Server as a product name and SKU have a long life ahead of it?
Only time will tell. We'll see where we are next spring.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Businesses lag in moving away from IE6 and its vulnerabilities, study says
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to dominate corporate browser use more so than it does private use, with its nearest rival, Mozilla's Firefox, lagging far behind with one in seven businesses opting for it, according to data collected by Internet-based security service Zscaler.
Businesses are also more careless about upgrading IE than the general public with 27% still using IE6, which has known vulnerabilities, says Zscaler, including the one that led to the notorious Aurora attack against Google and other U.S. corporations in January.
The percentage using IE6 is dropping -- from 33% in January to 27% in March -- and Zscaler strongly recommends upgrading to IE8 for the 74% of companies that use that browser. Firefox lags behind with 10% of businesses using it, and Google Chrome comes in third with just over 2%. IE has worse penetration overall when non-business users are added to the mix, with its share dropping below 60%.
Zscaler's "State of the Web" report for Q1 2010 relies on statistics gathered by the company in providing security services to its customers. So its data depends the particular mix of companies it happens to have as customers and the sites they visit.
Its data found that the United States has the highest number and highest percentage of malicious Web sits visited by its customers during the first three months of this year. The United States hosted 68% of all the malicious Web sites visited, with German second with just under 4%. Of all the U.S. sites visited, 10.2% contained malicious software, the company says, with Honduras coming in second with 7.5%.
As part of its services, Zscaler blocks traffic deemed malicious. The single type of traffic most blocked is for fake antivirus software -- software that rubs out the symptoms of worms that act as if they have found victims' machines infected, then try to sell them the cure. Fake A/V accounted for 13.6% of all the traffic blocked, with Monkif coming in second at 4.4% and Zeus/Zbot coming in third with 2.4%.
Monkif is malware that downloads browser helper objects to compromise a system and display ads or gather browsing data about the machine. Zbot is a network that distribute the Zeus Trojan that steals personal data that enables criminals to steal passwords and compromise victims' accounts.
Zscaler says in its report that the Google's autonomous system -- its block of IP addresses -- is the source of 5% of all the traffic Zscaler blocks for its customers, the highest percentage for any autonomous system. A good number of these come from services supported by Google including Gmail, Google Groups, and Blogger pages.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to dominate corporate browser use more so than it does private use, with its nearest rival, Mozilla's Firefox, lagging far behind with one in seven businesses opting for it, according to data collected by Internet-based security service Zscaler.
Businesses are also more careless about upgrading IE than the general public with 27% still using IE6, which has known vulnerabilities, says Zscaler, including the one that led to the notorious Aurora attack against Google and other U.S. corporations in January.
The percentage using IE6 is dropping -- from 33% in January to 27% in March -- and Zscaler strongly recommends upgrading to IE8 for the 74% of companies that use that browser. Firefox lags behind with 10% of businesses using it, and Google Chrome comes in third with just over 2%. IE has worse penetration overall when non-business users are added to the mix, with its share dropping below 60%.
Zscaler's "State of the Web" report for Q1 2010 relies on statistics gathered by the company in providing security services to its customers. So its data depends the particular mix of companies it happens to have as customers and the sites they visit.
Its data found that the United States has the highest number and highest percentage of malicious Web sits visited by its customers during the first three months of this year. The United States hosted 68% of all the malicious Web sites visited, with German second with just under 4%. Of all the U.S. sites visited, 10.2% contained malicious software, the company says, with Honduras coming in second with 7.5%.
As part of its services, Zscaler blocks traffic deemed malicious. The single type of traffic most blocked is for fake antivirus software -- software that rubs out the symptoms of worms that act as if they have found victims' machines infected, then try to sell them the cure. Fake A/V accounted for 13.6% of all the traffic blocked, with Monkif coming in second at 4.4% and Zeus/Zbot coming in third with 2.4%.
Monkif is malware that downloads browser helper objects to compromise a system and display ads or gather browsing data about the machine. Zbot is a network that distribute the Zeus Trojan that steals personal data that enables criminals to steal passwords and compromise victims' accounts.
Zscaler says in its report that the Google's autonomous system -- its block of IP addresses -- is the source of 5% of all the traffic Zscaler blocks for its customers, the highest percentage for any autonomous system. A good number of these come from services supported by Google including Gmail, Google Groups, and Blogger pages.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
HP tops IBM in recovering server market, Gartner says
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Hewlett-Packard knocked IBM from the top spot in worldwide server revenue during the first quarter, as the market for x86 systems picked up but sales of Unix and mainframe systems continued to decline, Gartner said on Tuesday.
Worldwide server revenue climbed 6 percent from a year earlier, to US$10.8 billion. Unit shipments climbed 23 percent to 2.1 million, meaning selling prices were generally lower.
The economy is on the mend and organizations are upgrading older servers, said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. New Xeon processors from Intel were an added impetus to buy new equipment, he said. But the industry hasn't returned yet to the quarterly highs it posted in 2008.
Revenue from servers based on x86 chips was $7.18 billion, up 32 percent, while unit shipments climbed to 2.06 million. Revenue from high-end RISC and Itanium-based servers declined by 27 percent, and the "other" category -- mostly mainframes -- declined by 15 percent.
The trend favored HP and Dell, who saw the biggest revenue gains during the quarter, and hurt Oracle especially.
HP's server revenue totaled $3.39 billion, up 15.9 percent year over year to give it 31.5 percent of the market. IBM's revenue dropped by 2.1 percent to $3.05 billion, giving it 28.4 percent. In third place was Dell, whose revenue grew by 35.5 percent to $1.67 billion, a 15.6 percent market share.
Oracle saw steep declines despite assuring customers that it will continue to invest in Sun's server business. Shipments dropped 29.5 percent year over year to 42,528 units, while revenue declined 38.7 percent to $598 million. Uncertainty continues to harm the business, but some buyers may also be waiting for new Ultrasparc processors, Hewitt said.
He's not writing off Oracle's hardware business yet, however; he noted that sales cycles on RISC servers are usually longer, and new chips are on the way.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Hewlett-Packard knocked IBM from the top spot in worldwide server revenue during the first quarter, as the market for x86 systems picked up but sales of Unix and mainframe systems continued to decline, Gartner said on Tuesday.
Worldwide server revenue climbed 6 percent from a year earlier, to US$10.8 billion. Unit shipments climbed 23 percent to 2.1 million, meaning selling prices were generally lower.
The economy is on the mend and organizations are upgrading older servers, said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. New Xeon processors from Intel were an added impetus to buy new equipment, he said. But the industry hasn't returned yet to the quarterly highs it posted in 2008.
Revenue from servers based on x86 chips was $7.18 billion, up 32 percent, while unit shipments climbed to 2.06 million. Revenue from high-end RISC and Itanium-based servers declined by 27 percent, and the "other" category -- mostly mainframes -- declined by 15 percent.
The trend favored HP and Dell, who saw the biggest revenue gains during the quarter, and hurt Oracle especially.
HP's server revenue totaled $3.39 billion, up 15.9 percent year over year to give it 31.5 percent of the market. IBM's revenue dropped by 2.1 percent to $3.05 billion, giving it 28.4 percent. In third place was Dell, whose revenue grew by 35.5 percent to $1.67 billion, a 15.6 percent market share.
Oracle saw steep declines despite assuring customers that it will continue to invest in Sun's server business. Shipments dropped 29.5 percent year over year to 42,528 units, while revenue declined 38.7 percent to $598 million. Uncertainty continues to harm the business, but some buyers may also be waiting for new Ultrasparc processors, Hewitt said.
He's not writing off Oracle's hardware business yet, however; he noted that sales cycles on RISC servers are usually longer, and new chips are on the way.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Cisco powers up router, switches for smart grids
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Cisco this week is unveiling a switch and a router designed to help utilities construct IP-based infrastructures for power delivery, monitoring and control.
Cisco has said it expects the market for smart grid communications infrastructure to be $20 billion annually over five years.
The new products are the Connected Grid Router 2010 (CGR 2010) and Connected Grid Switch 2520 (CGR 2520). Both run Cisco's IOS software and are based on existing Cisco products for enterprise networks, but support power utility-specific standards and protocols, such as supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA.
The CGR 2010 is based on Cisco's Integrated Services Router, of which 8 million are installed. It features four slots for housing Gigabit Ethernet fiber or copper LAN and WAN interfaces.
The switch, the CGS 2520, comes in two four-slot versions: one sports 24 10/100BASE-TX ports and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks; and the other features 16 Fast Ethernet SFP ports, eight 10/100BASE-TX and Power over Ethernet ports, and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. These switches are based on Cisco's Catalyst 2000 and 3000 series devices.
Two software images are available for the CGS 2520 -- one for Layer 2 services only and the other for Layer 3 IP services.
The products also support cybersecurity features to help utilities comply with North American Electric Reliability Corp. / Critical Infrastructure Protection standards. They include Cisco's Intrusion-Prevention System and Cisco Network Access Control capabilities, MPLS VPNs, firewalls, user/device identity and access control capability.
The products also adhere to IEEE 1613 and IEC61850-3 standards for utility substation environments, including the ability to withstand a broad range of temperatures, as well as extended protection against electrical surges and electromagnetic interference.
For network and power distribution management, both products are designed to capture and analyze information from multiple intelligent electronic devices in the substation. This helps utility operators identify, isolate, diagnose and, in some cases, automatically repair faults.
Citing industry research, Cisco says implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce carbon emissions globally by 12%.
Pricing for both products start at about $6,000. The router will be available in July while the switch will be available in August.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Cisco this week is unveiling a switch and a router designed to help utilities construct IP-based infrastructures for power delivery, monitoring and control.
Cisco has said it expects the market for smart grid communications infrastructure to be $20 billion annually over five years.
The new products are the Connected Grid Router 2010 (CGR 2010) and Connected Grid Switch 2520 (CGR 2520). Both run Cisco's IOS software and are based on existing Cisco products for enterprise networks, but support power utility-specific standards and protocols, such as supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA.
The CGR 2010 is based on Cisco's Integrated Services Router, of which 8 million are installed. It features four slots for housing Gigabit Ethernet fiber or copper LAN and WAN interfaces.
The switch, the CGS 2520, comes in two four-slot versions: one sports 24 10/100BASE-TX ports and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks; and the other features 16 Fast Ethernet SFP ports, eight 10/100BASE-TX and Power over Ethernet ports, and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. These switches are based on Cisco's Catalyst 2000 and 3000 series devices.
Two software images are available for the CGS 2520 -- one for Layer 2 services only and the other for Layer 3 IP services.
The products also support cybersecurity features to help utilities comply with North American Electric Reliability Corp. / Critical Infrastructure Protection standards. They include Cisco's Intrusion-Prevention System and Cisco Network Access Control capabilities, MPLS VPNs, firewalls, user/device identity and access control capability.
The products also adhere to IEEE 1613 and IEC61850-3 standards for utility substation environments, including the ability to withstand a broad range of temperatures, as well as extended protection against electrical surges and electromagnetic interference.
For network and power distribution management, both products are designed to capture and analyze information from multiple intelligent electronic devices in the substation. This helps utility operators identify, isolate, diagnose and, in some cases, automatically repair faults.
Citing industry research, Cisco says implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce carbon emissions globally by 12%.
Pricing for both products start at about $6,000. The router will be available in July while the switch will be available in August.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
2010年5月24日星期一
Booting a Xen virtual machine from CD-ROM or DVD
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
If something goes wrong with one of your Xen virtual machines, you might want to boot it from the installation disk to run the rescue program. But, booting a Xen virtual machine from an optical disk is not that easy (you can't just connect the disk and expect the machine to boot). In this article you'll learn how to boot a Xen virtual machine from a disk. This tip applies to all Xen solutions that are using Linux as the VM host machine, and is not intended for Citrix XenServer.
In Xen environments, you can install virtual machines as paravirtual machines, or as full virtual machines. To boot a virtual machine from CD-ROM or DVD, it does matter how you installed it. Full virtual machines are a bit easier to boot from CD-ROM or DVD than paravirtual machines. The good news is that you can change the configuration of a paravirtual machine to have it boot from the optical disk anyway.
Paravirtual versus full virtual machines
The starting point to have your VM boot from the optical drive, is the virtual machine startup script. On a SUSE based Xen host, these are the scripts that you find in the /etc/xen/vm directory. In this article, we're talking about the "normal" scripts, not the XML scripts that you also find in this directory. Using these scripts, Xen tries to start a virtual machine. That means that it will initialize the virtual hardware and try to boot the operating system that is installed on the virtual hard disk. This applies to both paravirtual and full virtual machines.
There is a difference though in the way a full virtual machine boots, as compared to the way a paravirtual machine boots. The fact is that full virtual machines are easier to boot from CD-ROM or DVD. But if you just want to boot the virtual machine from an optical disk, it doesn't really matter if you start it as a full virtual machine or a paravirtual machine. The only thing that matters, is that you are able to access the virtual machine disk by booting the machine from the optical drive. To do this, it's enough to create a template virtual machine file and use that for all the virtual machines that you want to boot from the optical disk. The only thing you'll need to do with this template file, is to replace the VM specific items in it. The listing below shows what this template file could look like:
Tempalte VM file to boot virtual machines from optical drive
name="bootfromcd"
memory=1024
maxmem=4048
vcpus=1
on_poweroff="destroy"
on_reboot="restart"
on_crash="destroy"
localtime=1
builder="hvm"
device_model="/usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm"
kernel="/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader"
disk=[ 'REPLACE THIS WITH DISK SPECIFICATION FROM ORIGINAL FILE', ]
vif=[ 'REPLACE THIS WITH NETWORK CARD SPECIFICATION FROM ORIGINAL FILE', ]
boot="d"
stdvga=0
vnc=1
vncunused=1
apic=1
acpi=1
pae=1
serial="pty"
In the example template file there are a few things that you should be aware of. First, there are some generic options that specify how the VM is composed. These are all the lines up to the vmloader line, which specifies the hvm (hardware virtual machine) is used to load this virtual machine.
Following the generic lines, you can find two lines where the disk and network card of the virtual machine are defined. You have to make sure that at least the disk line contains the name of the discs as you are using them in the virtual machine that you are booting. That means, you'll first have the definition of the disk file itself, followed by the specification of the optical drive. The latter could look like phy:/dev/cdrom,xvdb for instance.
The last part in this configuration that you need to consider, is the boot line. Above, it states boot="d". This line is using drive letters as are used in a Windows environment to refer to the device that the VM should be booting from, so this example assumes that there is one virtual hard disk in the virtual machine. Change this according to the number of disks that really are used by your virtual machine.
After creating the template file in this way, you're ready to run the virtual machine and boot it from the optical drive. Before doing that, just make sure that it isn't currently active, as that might lead to conflicts in disk access. Once started from the optical disk, you can run any troubleshooting program you like from it. This should help you fixing whatever is broken in the VM.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
If something goes wrong with one of your Xen virtual machines, you might want to boot it from the installation disk to run the rescue program. But, booting a Xen virtual machine from an optical disk is not that easy (you can't just connect the disk and expect the machine to boot). In this article you'll learn how to boot a Xen virtual machine from a disk. This tip applies to all Xen solutions that are using Linux as the VM host machine, and is not intended for Citrix XenServer.
In Xen environments, you can install virtual machines as paravirtual machines, or as full virtual machines. To boot a virtual machine from CD-ROM or DVD, it does matter how you installed it. Full virtual machines are a bit easier to boot from CD-ROM or DVD than paravirtual machines. The good news is that you can change the configuration of a paravirtual machine to have it boot from the optical disk anyway.
Paravirtual versus full virtual machines
The starting point to have your VM boot from the optical drive, is the virtual machine startup script. On a SUSE based Xen host, these are the scripts that you find in the /etc/xen/vm directory. In this article, we're talking about the "normal" scripts, not the XML scripts that you also find in this directory. Using these scripts, Xen tries to start a virtual machine. That means that it will initialize the virtual hardware and try to boot the operating system that is installed on the virtual hard disk. This applies to both paravirtual and full virtual machines.
There is a difference though in the way a full virtual machine boots, as compared to the way a paravirtual machine boots. The fact is that full virtual machines are easier to boot from CD-ROM or DVD. But if you just want to boot the virtual machine from an optical disk, it doesn't really matter if you start it as a full virtual machine or a paravirtual machine. The only thing that matters, is that you are able to access the virtual machine disk by booting the machine from the optical drive. To do this, it's enough to create a template virtual machine file and use that for all the virtual machines that you want to boot from the optical disk. The only thing you'll need to do with this template file, is to replace the VM specific items in it. The listing below shows what this template file could look like:
Tempalte VM file to boot virtual machines from optical drive
name="bootfromcd"
memory=1024
maxmem=4048
vcpus=1
on_poweroff="destroy"
on_reboot="restart"
on_crash="destroy"
localtime=1
builder="hvm"
device_model="/usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm"
kernel="/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader"
disk=[ 'REPLACE THIS WITH DISK SPECIFICATION FROM ORIGINAL FILE', ]
vif=[ 'REPLACE THIS WITH NETWORK CARD SPECIFICATION FROM ORIGINAL FILE', ]
boot="d"
stdvga=0
vnc=1
vncunused=1
apic=1
acpi=1
pae=1
serial="pty"
In the example template file there are a few things that you should be aware of. First, there are some generic options that specify how the VM is composed. These are all the lines up to the vmloader line, which specifies the hvm (hardware virtual machine) is used to load this virtual machine.
Following the generic lines, you can find two lines where the disk and network card of the virtual machine are defined. You have to make sure that at least the disk line contains the name of the discs as you are using them in the virtual machine that you are booting. That means, you'll first have the definition of the disk file itself, followed by the specification of the optical drive. The latter could look like phy:/dev/cdrom,xvdb for instance.
The last part in this configuration that you need to consider, is the boot line. Above, it states boot="d". This line is using drive letters as are used in a Windows environment to refer to the device that the VM should be booting from, so this example assumes that there is one virtual hard disk in the virtual machine. Change this according to the number of disks that really are used by your virtual machine.
After creating the template file in this way, you're ready to run the virtual machine and boot it from the optical drive. Before doing that, just make sure that it isn't currently active, as that might lead to conflicts in disk access. Once started from the optical disk, you can run any troubleshooting program you like from it. This should help you fixing whatever is broken in the VM.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Google launches cloud storage; competes with Amazon S3
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Google launches cloud storage, competes with Amazon S3
Google Storage for Developers offers 100 GB of storage space and 300 GB per month in data-transfer bandwidth for free; the offering competes directly with Amazon's cloud storage service Simple Storage Service (or S3).
Other features include the following:
• Secure Sockets Layer support
• Multiple authentication methods
• Access controls for sharing with individuals and groups
• Read-after-write data consistency support
• Web-based interface for storage management
Presently, the service is available only by invitation. In addition to initial fees, Google will reportedly charge through a utility-computing model -- that is, the more you use, the more you pay.
HP LoadRunner brings application performance testing to EC2
Hewlett-Packard Co. has brought performance testing to the cloud with HP LoadRunner in the Cloud, an application performance testing offering available via Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
HP LoadRunner in the Cloud enables businesses to do the following:
• protect the integrity of applications and website performance through more ubiquitous testing;
• increase agility for quicker response to unplanned, ad hoc situations with an on-demand, preinstalled performance testing application;
• take advantage of affordable, hourly rates
HP also offers Software as a Service (or SaaS) testing services, including the following:
• HP Elastic Test enables IT organizations to take advantage of cloud elasticity by instantly expanding testing capacity cost-effectively. Specifically designed for spike-load testing, HP Elastic Test provides the ability to scale up to very large loads in a utility-based fashion.
• HP Cloud Assure takes advantage of the speed, flexibility, scalability and cost-effectiveness of cloud services, testing and measuring security, performance, availability and cost control.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Google launches cloud storage, competes with Amazon S3
Google Storage for Developers offers 100 GB of storage space and 300 GB per month in data-transfer bandwidth for free; the offering competes directly with Amazon's cloud storage service Simple Storage Service (or S3).
Other features include the following:
• Secure Sockets Layer support
• Multiple authentication methods
• Access controls for sharing with individuals and groups
• Read-after-write data consistency support
• Web-based interface for storage management
Presently, the service is available only by invitation. In addition to initial fees, Google will reportedly charge through a utility-computing model -- that is, the more you use, the more you pay.
HP LoadRunner brings application performance testing to EC2
Hewlett-Packard Co. has brought performance testing to the cloud with HP LoadRunner in the Cloud, an application performance testing offering available via Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
HP LoadRunner in the Cloud enables businesses to do the following:
• protect the integrity of applications and website performance through more ubiquitous testing;
• increase agility for quicker response to unplanned, ad hoc situations with an on-demand, preinstalled performance testing application;
• take advantage of affordable, hourly rates
HP also offers Software as a Service (or SaaS) testing services, including the following:
• HP Elastic Test enables IT organizations to take advantage of cloud elasticity by instantly expanding testing capacity cost-effectively. Specifically designed for spike-load testing, HP Elastic Test provides the ability to scale up to very large loads in a utility-based fashion.
• HP Cloud Assure takes advantage of the speed, flexibility, scalability and cost-effectiveness of cloud services, testing and measuring security, performance, availability and cost control.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Bugs and Fixes: Security Woes for Windows, McAfee, Firefox
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
The bugs keep marching in, with Microsoft, McAfee, and Mozilla all having to deal with serious security-related software problems in the past month.
Another Windows Fix
According to Microsoft, "two privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Authenticode Verification...could allow remote code execution." In other words, an attacker could take control of your PC by exploiting either of those flaws. The intruder could gain administrator rights, with the ability to add, change, or delete practically any file.
Microsoft has issued an update that addresses the vulnerabilities by performing additional verification operations. This update is critical to all supported versions of Windows, including 98, XP, Vista, and 7, as well as Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2, 2003, 2000, and 2000 Professional.
If you have automatic updates enabled (recommended), you'll get this update and others instantly. If you do not have automatic updating turned on, Microsoft suggests downloading critical updates manually; go to the Control Panel, click the Windows Update icon, and then select Check for Updates.
McAfee Update Makes Windows PCs Crash
McAfee released an update in mid-April that unfortunately caused Windows PCs to fail spectacularly. The update improperly identified a Windows component known as svchost.exe as a virus, which caused McAfee's software to delete it.
The error was so severe that 8000 of the 25,000 computers at the University of Michigan Health System and Medical School crashed, along with thousands of computers around the world.
Put simply, svchost.exe is a process that hosts other services used by various programs on your PC. If you look in Windows Task Manager, you may see quite a few svchost.exe processes running (under "Image Name"), and as you can imagine, attacking all of them could be catastrophic for any system.
The problematic update mostly affected users running Windows XP Service Pack 3. If it affected you, pick up McAfee's SuperDAT Remediation Tool to restore svchost.exe.
Firefox Flaw Corrected
A hole in the Mozilla Firefox Web browser has blossomed into a major flaw. A week after releasing Firefox 3.6.2, Mozilla released version 3.6.3 to address a critical security issue that could allow remote attackers to run commands of their choice.
To fix the bug, download Firefox 3.6.3, or click Help, Check for Updates, Get the New Version in the Firefox toolbar. Mozilla says the bug does not affect versions 3.5 or earlier.
If you still want to obtain and use add-ons that are not compatible with version 3.6, don't worry: Mozilla says that it will issue a patch for Firefox 3.5 in an upcoming release in case another method of exploiting this security hole exists.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
The bugs keep marching in, with Microsoft, McAfee, and Mozilla all having to deal with serious security-related software problems in the past month.
Another Windows Fix
According to Microsoft, "two privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Authenticode Verification...could allow remote code execution." In other words, an attacker could take control of your PC by exploiting either of those flaws. The intruder could gain administrator rights, with the ability to add, change, or delete practically any file.
Microsoft has issued an update that addresses the vulnerabilities by performing additional verification operations. This update is critical to all supported versions of Windows, including 98, XP, Vista, and 7, as well as Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2, 2003, 2000, and 2000 Professional.
If you have automatic updates enabled (recommended), you'll get this update and others instantly. If you do not have automatic updating turned on, Microsoft suggests downloading critical updates manually; go to the Control Panel, click the Windows Update icon, and then select Check for Updates.
McAfee Update Makes Windows PCs Crash
McAfee released an update in mid-April that unfortunately caused Windows PCs to fail spectacularly. The update improperly identified a Windows component known as svchost.exe as a virus, which caused McAfee's software to delete it.
The error was so severe that 8000 of the 25,000 computers at the University of Michigan Health System and Medical School crashed, along with thousands of computers around the world.
Put simply, svchost.exe is a process that hosts other services used by various programs on your PC. If you look in Windows Task Manager, you may see quite a few svchost.exe processes running (under "Image Name"), and as you can imagine, attacking all of them could be catastrophic for any system.
The problematic update mostly affected users running Windows XP Service Pack 3. If it affected you, pick up McAfee's SuperDAT Remediation Tool to restore svchost.exe.
Firefox Flaw Corrected
A hole in the Mozilla Firefox Web browser has blossomed into a major flaw. A week after releasing Firefox 3.6.2, Mozilla released version 3.6.3 to address a critical security issue that could allow remote attackers to run commands of their choice.
To fix the bug, download Firefox 3.6.3, or click Help, Check for Updates, Get the New Version in the Firefox toolbar. Mozilla says the bug does not affect versions 3.5 or earlier.
If you still want to obtain and use add-ons that are not compatible with version 3.6, don't worry: Mozilla says that it will issue a patch for Firefox 3.5 in an upcoming release in case another method of exploiting this security hole exists.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Juniper seeks to out-virtualize Cisco in data centers
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Juniper Networks' announcement this week of switches and routers designed to flatten and simplify legacy networks is the latest sign that this company has no intention of backing off in the face of ever stiffer data center competition from Cisco, HP and others.
Juniper's rollout takes aim at Cisco's Nexus switches and other data center network wares, while setting the stage for Juniper's Project Stratus, a converged data center fabric unveiled in early 2009 but still another eight to 12 months away from delivery.
Juniper is trying to set itself apart by optimizing its product line around increasing use of virtualization technologies within the most compute- and networking-intensive sites.
"Virtualization levels the network playing field," says Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. "The vendor that solves that problem first has a huge upside."
The challenge for Juniper is that Cisco's been targeting virtualization from the networking side for several years, while server titans such as HP and IBM -- a Juniper partner in Stratus -- have been tackling it from the compute side even longer.Meanwhile, Brocade points out that it has been building data center fabrics with partners for years and that Juniper remains vague about how it will support legacy storage networks.
So Juniper needs to deliver sooner rather than later on the bold pronouncements it made this week, last fall at customer site New York Stock Exchange and over a year ago at the Stratus launch.
Early signs are promising. One example: Juniper beat Cisco in landing the NYSE account, a demanding environment in which latency cannot be tolerated when billions of stock market trades are executed daily.
Juniper, well known as the No. 2 vendor behind Cisco of routers to service providers, has been gaining steam in enterprise routers and switches as well. In enterprise routers, Juniper is No. 2 to Cisco, albeit a distant second, with 5% share of the $790 million worldwide market in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to Cisco's 83%, according to Dell'Oro Group. HP/3Com was third at 3%.
In Ethernet switches, Juniper has steadily been building market share since entering the business in early 2008. Its share climbed from 0.3% in 2008 to 1.2% in 2009, according to Dell'Oro, allowing Juniper to surpass longtime player Enterasys and Blade Network Technologies, while catching up to Extreme Networks and Huawei. Cisco still has a hold on market leadership though, with about 70% share.
Juniper seeks to make more headway by addressing what it sees as a need for a new network architecture optimized for virtualized data centers -- an architecture that increases performance while reducing costs, and facilitates more server-to-server -- rather than switch-to-switch -- interaction. At the heart of this architecture is a reduction in the layers of networking in the data center, from three layers -- access, aggregation and core -- to two and then eventually to one, and that's exactly where Juniper is headed with its Project Stratus. Juniper says that $1 billion of the $4.8 billion spent on data center switching is for aggregation -- the layer Juniper seeks to extract.
"The legacy approach can no longer scale to support virtualization," Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson said during this week's Webcast announcement. "Fifty percent of the ports are talking to other network ports" vs. enabling server-to-server interaction, he said. "It's slow."
"It's clear to the industry that, because of server virtualization, a new network needs to emerge," says Cindy Borovick, a data center analyst at IDC. "[Juniper's announcement] is a reaffirmation of that, with proof points."
Specifically, Juniper this week announced products that can deliver a two-tier data center architecture this year: a 48-port 10G Ethernet top-of-rack switch, a 40-port 10G Ethernet module for the chassis-based EX 8200 core switch and an Ethernet router for interconnecting data centers with ASICs tuned for high-performance support of virtualization, server/storage/network convergence and lossless Ethernet.
ASICs and Junos software in all of the new products are designed to support FibreChannel-over-Ethernet (CoE) for storage/network convergence. Junos will have FCoE-specific hooks in it in the second half of this year, Juniper says.
Juniper says the top-of-rack EX 4500 has one-fifth of the latency and 22% lower cost than Cisco's Nexus 5000. The EX 4500 is also Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) and Data Center Bridging (DCB) "capable," and 44% more power efficient than Cisco's Nexus 5000, Juniper says.
CEE and DCB are emerging technologies and standards for making Ethernet a lossless fabric for the data center, capable of supporting storage traffic -- such as FibreChannel -- for converged storage and server access.
Juniper also unveiled a 40-port 10G Ethernet line card for its EX 8200 core switch. This will position the 8200 as an end-of-row switch for aggregating multiple 10G links from servers and server switches.
The new router is the MX 80 3D Ethernet edge services router. It incorporates the Trio chipset Juniper unveiled last fall that's designed to dynamically and simultaneously support more subscribers, services and bandwidth.
The MX 3D is designed for virtual machine mobility between data centers interconnected by Ethernet Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS). VPLS provides a single Layer 2 domain between these data centers, in effect providing the stitching in a cloud infrastructure.
This will compete with Cisco Overlay Transport Virtualization data center interconnect technology. Juniper also says the new MX 80 3D Ethernet router takes up half the power and space of Cisco's ASR 1004, while providing an eightfold improvement in performance.
Cisco declined to comment on the Juniper announcement.
But key to flattening the network architecture is Juniper's Virtual Chassis technology. Currently, Virtual Chassis allows as many as 10 of Juniper's fixed configuration EX switches to be connected into a virtual switch that supports hundreds of Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Ostensibly, this will alleviate the three-tier architecture requirement for an aggregation layer made up of several modular switches collecting links from switches in the server racks so that fatter and fewer pipes can run north and south into and out of the data center core. Virtual Chassis will be added to the EX 8200 line in the first half of 2011. It is also expected to be available on the EX 4500 in early 2011 and on the MX 80 3D in the second half of 2011.
Coincidentally, the first deliverable from Stratus will be in the first half of 2011. As Virtual Chassis spreads out across more of Juniper's product line, expect to see more tangible Stratus products and deliverables emerge. Stratus will essentially be a scaled-out Virtual Chassis architecture capable of supporting thousands of servers and flattening the EX and MX architecture to look like a single Ethernet routing switch.
But analysts expect Cisco to counter.
"Our checks suggest Cisco is working on its own Virtual Chassis technology to address Juniper's marketing edge," states Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Ittai Kidron in a bulletin on Juniper's announcement.
On the software and services side, Juniper unveiled four Junos Space applications. They are Virtual Control, Ethernet Design, Security Design and Services Insight.
Virtual Control includes integration with VMware to manage physical and virtual systems from a common orchestration platform; Ethernet Design and Security Design are intended to enable rapid configuration and deployment of data center networks and security policies; and Service Insight is designed to enable proactive detection, diagnosis and resolution of network issues.
Juniper says the new software and Trio ASICs are also designed to support FCoE, a storage encapsulation technology for converging storage-area network and LAN traffic on a single Ethernet infrastructure. Juniper says it will unveil a version of its Junos operating system software for FCoE in the second half of this year.
Juniper also rolled out software for its SRX Series Services Gateways that gives IT managers application and user visibility into traffic behaviors and changing data flows driven by virtualization, Web 2.0 and cloud services deployment. This new AppTrack software will be available later this quarter.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Juniper Networks' announcement this week of switches and routers designed to flatten and simplify legacy networks is the latest sign that this company has no intention of backing off in the face of ever stiffer data center competition from Cisco, HP and others.
Juniper's rollout takes aim at Cisco's Nexus switches and other data center network wares, while setting the stage for Juniper's Project Stratus, a converged data center fabric unveiled in early 2009 but still another eight to 12 months away from delivery.
Juniper is trying to set itself apart by optimizing its product line around increasing use of virtualization technologies within the most compute- and networking-intensive sites.
"Virtualization levels the network playing field," says Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. "The vendor that solves that problem first has a huge upside."
The challenge for Juniper is that Cisco's been targeting virtualization from the networking side for several years, while server titans such as HP and IBM -- a Juniper partner in Stratus -- have been tackling it from the compute side even longer.Meanwhile, Brocade points out that it has been building data center fabrics with partners for years and that Juniper remains vague about how it will support legacy storage networks.
So Juniper needs to deliver sooner rather than later on the bold pronouncements it made this week, last fall at customer site New York Stock Exchange and over a year ago at the Stratus launch.
Early signs are promising. One example: Juniper beat Cisco in landing the NYSE account, a demanding environment in which latency cannot be tolerated when billions of stock market trades are executed daily.
Juniper, well known as the No. 2 vendor behind Cisco of routers to service providers, has been gaining steam in enterprise routers and switches as well. In enterprise routers, Juniper is No. 2 to Cisco, albeit a distant second, with 5% share of the $790 million worldwide market in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to Cisco's 83%, according to Dell'Oro Group. HP/3Com was third at 3%.
In Ethernet switches, Juniper has steadily been building market share since entering the business in early 2008. Its share climbed from 0.3% in 2008 to 1.2% in 2009, according to Dell'Oro, allowing Juniper to surpass longtime player Enterasys and Blade Network Technologies, while catching up to Extreme Networks and Huawei. Cisco still has a hold on market leadership though, with about 70% share.
Juniper seeks to make more headway by addressing what it sees as a need for a new network architecture optimized for virtualized data centers -- an architecture that increases performance while reducing costs, and facilitates more server-to-server -- rather than switch-to-switch -- interaction. At the heart of this architecture is a reduction in the layers of networking in the data center, from three layers -- access, aggregation and core -- to two and then eventually to one, and that's exactly where Juniper is headed with its Project Stratus. Juniper says that $1 billion of the $4.8 billion spent on data center switching is for aggregation -- the layer Juniper seeks to extract.
"The legacy approach can no longer scale to support virtualization," Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson said during this week's Webcast announcement. "Fifty percent of the ports are talking to other network ports" vs. enabling server-to-server interaction, he said. "It's slow."
"It's clear to the industry that, because of server virtualization, a new network needs to emerge," says Cindy Borovick, a data center analyst at IDC. "[Juniper's announcement] is a reaffirmation of that, with proof points."
Specifically, Juniper this week announced products that can deliver a two-tier data center architecture this year: a 48-port 10G Ethernet top-of-rack switch, a 40-port 10G Ethernet module for the chassis-based EX 8200 core switch and an Ethernet router for interconnecting data centers with ASICs tuned for high-performance support of virtualization, server/storage/network convergence and lossless Ethernet.
ASICs and Junos software in all of the new products are designed to support FibreChannel-over-Ethernet (CoE) for storage/network convergence. Junos will have FCoE-specific hooks in it in the second half of this year, Juniper says.
Juniper says the top-of-rack EX 4500 has one-fifth of the latency and 22% lower cost than Cisco's Nexus 5000. The EX 4500 is also Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) and Data Center Bridging (DCB) "capable," and 44% more power efficient than Cisco's Nexus 5000, Juniper says.
CEE and DCB are emerging technologies and standards for making Ethernet a lossless fabric for the data center, capable of supporting storage traffic -- such as FibreChannel -- for converged storage and server access.
Juniper also unveiled a 40-port 10G Ethernet line card for its EX 8200 core switch. This will position the 8200 as an end-of-row switch for aggregating multiple 10G links from servers and server switches.
The new router is the MX 80 3D Ethernet edge services router. It incorporates the Trio chipset Juniper unveiled last fall that's designed to dynamically and simultaneously support more subscribers, services and bandwidth.
The MX 3D is designed for virtual machine mobility between data centers interconnected by Ethernet Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS). VPLS provides a single Layer 2 domain between these data centers, in effect providing the stitching in a cloud infrastructure.
This will compete with Cisco Overlay Transport Virtualization data center interconnect technology. Juniper also says the new MX 80 3D Ethernet router takes up half the power and space of Cisco's ASR 1004, while providing an eightfold improvement in performance.
Cisco declined to comment on the Juniper announcement.
But key to flattening the network architecture is Juniper's Virtual Chassis technology. Currently, Virtual Chassis allows as many as 10 of Juniper's fixed configuration EX switches to be connected into a virtual switch that supports hundreds of Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Ostensibly, this will alleviate the three-tier architecture requirement for an aggregation layer made up of several modular switches collecting links from switches in the server racks so that fatter and fewer pipes can run north and south into and out of the data center core. Virtual Chassis will be added to the EX 8200 line in the first half of 2011. It is also expected to be available on the EX 4500 in early 2011 and on the MX 80 3D in the second half of 2011.
Coincidentally, the first deliverable from Stratus will be in the first half of 2011. As Virtual Chassis spreads out across more of Juniper's product line, expect to see more tangible Stratus products and deliverables emerge. Stratus will essentially be a scaled-out Virtual Chassis architecture capable of supporting thousands of servers and flattening the EX and MX architecture to look like a single Ethernet routing switch.
But analysts expect Cisco to counter.
"Our checks suggest Cisco is working on its own Virtual Chassis technology to address Juniper's marketing edge," states Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Ittai Kidron in a bulletin on Juniper's announcement.
On the software and services side, Juniper unveiled four Junos Space applications. They are Virtual Control, Ethernet Design, Security Design and Services Insight.
Virtual Control includes integration with VMware to manage physical and virtual systems from a common orchestration platform; Ethernet Design and Security Design are intended to enable rapid configuration and deployment of data center networks and security policies; and Service Insight is designed to enable proactive detection, diagnosis and resolution of network issues.
Juniper says the new software and Trio ASICs are also designed to support FCoE, a storage encapsulation technology for converging storage-area network and LAN traffic on a single Ethernet infrastructure. Juniper says it will unveil a version of its Junos operating system software for FCoE in the second half of this year.
Juniper also rolled out software for its SRX Series Services Gateways that gives IT managers application and user visibility into traffic behaviors and changing data flows driven by virtualization, Web 2.0 and cloud services deployment. This new AppTrack software will be available later this quarter.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Microsoft's private cloud release all about composite applications
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Microsoft Thursday detailed two key pieces of its strategy for helping developers build applications for the Web and private cloud networks, with a heavy focus on using existing components to build composite applications and services.
Microsoft unveiled the Windows Server AppFabric release candidate, saying final availability will occur in June, while also announcing the first public beta for BizTalk Server 2010, which will be released to manufacturing in the third quarter of 2010.
Microsoft described its application infrastructure technology during a webcast in which the company stressed the benefits of bringing cloud-like capabilities to existing IT resources behind the firewall. But the approach also seems reminiscent of service-oriented architecture, a buzz-phrase that has fallen out of favor in an IT industry now obsessed with cloud computing.
In addition to building composite applications, one of the major goals of service-oriented architecture, Microsoft said AppFabric and BizTalk Server will allow composite apps to span from the enterprise to public cloud services, such as Windows Azure.
"What the composite application represents is a model where you will be able to take your existing IT assets, whether it's LOB (line of business) systems, or traditional packaged applications, and seamlessly stitch them together into a model that builds a set of distributed applications that seamlessly span your enterprise, as well as connect up to the broader Internet," said Abhay Parasnis, general manager of Microsoft's application server group.
Building composite applications will help ensure portability of applications, so developers won't be forced to rewrite applications to make them work in new cloud networks, he said.
For Web applications, AppFabric will perform caching, allowing high-speed access to and availability of application data, and will help developers build and manage services for composite apps, Microsoft says. AppFabric will be free to customers who have paid for Windows Server 2008 licenses.
BizTalk Server 2010, meanwhile, works with Windows Server AppFabric to enable developers "to more rapidly build composite applications that connect to disparate line-of-business systems through BizTalk Adapters and BizTalk Transformations from within .NET development environments," according to Microsoft. "This release also delivers simplified trading partner management tools, an enhanced BizTalk mapper that simplifies complex transactions, and a unified dashboard for backup and restore functions."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Microsoft Thursday detailed two key pieces of its strategy for helping developers build applications for the Web and private cloud networks, with a heavy focus on using existing components to build composite applications and services.
Microsoft unveiled the Windows Server AppFabric release candidate, saying final availability will occur in June, while also announcing the first public beta for BizTalk Server 2010, which will be released to manufacturing in the third quarter of 2010.
Microsoft described its application infrastructure technology during a webcast in which the company stressed the benefits of bringing cloud-like capabilities to existing IT resources behind the firewall. But the approach also seems reminiscent of service-oriented architecture, a buzz-phrase that has fallen out of favor in an IT industry now obsessed with cloud computing.
In addition to building composite applications, one of the major goals of service-oriented architecture, Microsoft said AppFabric and BizTalk Server will allow composite apps to span from the enterprise to public cloud services, such as Windows Azure.
"What the composite application represents is a model where you will be able to take your existing IT assets, whether it's LOB (line of business) systems, or traditional packaged applications, and seamlessly stitch them together into a model that builds a set of distributed applications that seamlessly span your enterprise, as well as connect up to the broader Internet," said Abhay Parasnis, general manager of Microsoft's application server group.
Building composite applications will help ensure portability of applications, so developers won't be forced to rewrite applications to make them work in new cloud networks, he said.
For Web applications, AppFabric will perform caching, allowing high-speed access to and availability of application data, and will help developers build and manage services for composite apps, Microsoft says. AppFabric will be free to customers who have paid for Windows Server 2008 licenses.
BizTalk Server 2010, meanwhile, works with Windows Server AppFabric to enable developers "to more rapidly build composite applications that connect to disparate line-of-business systems through BizTalk Adapters and BizTalk Transformations from within .NET development environments," according to Microsoft. "This release also delivers simplified trading partner management tools, an enhanced BizTalk mapper that simplifies complex transactions, and a unified dashboard for backup and restore functions."
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
2010年5月23日星期日
Citrix stokes battle with VMware for cloud hosting market
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Citrix unveiled new tools this week to help hosting/cloud providers sell practical, business-oriented cloud services such as DR and compliance to IT shops. The move stirs up the battle with VMware and open-source Xen for the cloud hosting market.
Citrix, which lags VMware in enterprise virtualization and Xen in public clouds, made its presence felt loudly this week at the Citrix Synergy bash here.
Jaws dropped during the keynote sessions when Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer and president of cloud services at Rackspace, said his company was moving off Xen and over to XenServer for better support. Rackspace is the second largest cloud provider after Amazon Web Services. AWS still runs on Xen.
Citrix claims 460 companies in its service provider program, while rival VMware touts over a thousand service providers for its vCloud initiative. Hosters at Synergy could care less about the numbers and many are playing in both camps. On the Xen front, Citrix is competing with itself, having bought open-source Xen a few years ago. Now it is trying to move users to XenServer.
"Some people like Ford, some people like Chevy," said Nathan Day, CTO of hosting company SoftLayer. "When companies move from internal to external services they want to stay with a common solution."
For that reason, SoftLayer remains agnostic; offering VMware, Citrix (XenServer) and Microsoft Hyper-V-based virtual servers. Companies new to virtualization and going straight for hosted virtual machines are opting for Citrix as it's "a much better price," Day said.
SoftLayer unveiled a service that uses the Citrix Cloud Solution for On-Demand Demos, allowing ISVs to stand-up fully isolated proof of concept (PoC) environments instantly without having to hassle the sales force, channel or customers with provisioning and configuring the PoC hardware and software. It's also working with Citrix on an onboarding cloud service that helps IT shops migrate existing apps and workloads into the cloud.
Hosting provider Terremark announced a cloud-based compliance service using Citrix technology. "Now we can provide our cloud computing customers even greater levels of compliance at a lower cost," said Marvin Wheeler, chief strategy officer at Terremark, in a statement.
Word at the show was Terremark joined the Citrix service provider camp as it needs a cheaper virtual server offering for customers.
"To be competitive it needs to offer virtual servers at a lower cost than the VMware license allows," said an attendee who preferred not to be named. Until now Terremark was the poster child for VMware vCloud services, and even took $20 million in funding from VMware to help build out its infrastructure. News that it's offering a compliance service based on Citrix must smart if you're one of the investors over at VMware.
"I was shocked to see Terremark in the Citrix camp," said SoftLayer's Day. "We'll see how that plays out." Terremark wasn't available for comment by press time.
Giovanni Escobar, an engineer with the San Francisco Housing Authority, said reliability and scalability are more important than the platform wars that vendors wage. That said, his organization is moving away from VMware and over to XenServer "to save money," he said.
Citrix Cloud Solutions: Xen or XenServer?
The new Citrix Cloud Solutions line includes seven configurations of tools, networking and virtualization technology to deliver a cloud environment for different uses. These include testing and development, virtual desktop provisioning, application service delivery, disaster recovery, compliance, on-demand demos and cloud on-boarding.
"We're reading more about [cloud] than we're actually doing," said Mark Templeton, president and CEO of Citrix, during his keynote presentation. This was because IT shops need more targeted capabilities aligned to specific workloads, such as application lifecycle management, migration and regulatory compliance, before they will jump into cloud services, he said.
Citrix' Cloud Solutions offerings are based on XenServer, rather than Xen, the latter being the traditional hypervisor of choice for service providers. However, the tide seems to be turning against Xen in the service provider community .
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Citrix unveiled new tools this week to help hosting/cloud providers sell practical, business-oriented cloud services such as DR and compliance to IT shops. The move stirs up the battle with VMware and open-source Xen for the cloud hosting market.
Citrix, which lags VMware in enterprise virtualization and Xen in public clouds, made its presence felt loudly this week at the Citrix Synergy bash here.
Jaws dropped during the keynote sessions when Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer and president of cloud services at Rackspace, said his company was moving off Xen and over to XenServer for better support. Rackspace is the second largest cloud provider after Amazon Web Services. AWS still runs on Xen.
Citrix claims 460 companies in its service provider program, while rival VMware touts over a thousand service providers for its vCloud initiative. Hosters at Synergy could care less about the numbers and many are playing in both camps. On the Xen front, Citrix is competing with itself, having bought open-source Xen a few years ago. Now it is trying to move users to XenServer.
"Some people like Ford, some people like Chevy," said Nathan Day, CTO of hosting company SoftLayer. "When companies move from internal to external services they want to stay with a common solution."
For that reason, SoftLayer remains agnostic; offering VMware, Citrix (XenServer) and Microsoft Hyper-V-based virtual servers. Companies new to virtualization and going straight for hosted virtual machines are opting for Citrix as it's "a much better price," Day said.
SoftLayer unveiled a service that uses the Citrix Cloud Solution for On-Demand Demos, allowing ISVs to stand-up fully isolated proof of concept (PoC) environments instantly without having to hassle the sales force, channel or customers with provisioning and configuring the PoC hardware and software. It's also working with Citrix on an onboarding cloud service that helps IT shops migrate existing apps and workloads into the cloud.
Hosting provider Terremark announced a cloud-based compliance service using Citrix technology. "Now we can provide our cloud computing customers even greater levels of compliance at a lower cost," said Marvin Wheeler, chief strategy officer at Terremark, in a statement.
Word at the show was Terremark joined the Citrix service provider camp as it needs a cheaper virtual server offering for customers.
"To be competitive it needs to offer virtual servers at a lower cost than the VMware license allows," said an attendee who preferred not to be named. Until now Terremark was the poster child for VMware vCloud services, and even took $20 million in funding from VMware to help build out its infrastructure. News that it's offering a compliance service based on Citrix must smart if you're one of the investors over at VMware.
"I was shocked to see Terremark in the Citrix camp," said SoftLayer's Day. "We'll see how that plays out." Terremark wasn't available for comment by press time.
Giovanni Escobar, an engineer with the San Francisco Housing Authority, said reliability and scalability are more important than the platform wars that vendors wage. That said, his organization is moving away from VMware and over to XenServer "to save money," he said.
Citrix Cloud Solutions: Xen or XenServer?
The new Citrix Cloud Solutions line includes seven configurations of tools, networking and virtualization technology to deliver a cloud environment for different uses. These include testing and development, virtual desktop provisioning, application service delivery, disaster recovery, compliance, on-demand demos and cloud on-boarding.
"We're reading more about [cloud] than we're actually doing," said Mark Templeton, president and CEO of Citrix, during his keynote presentation. This was because IT shops need more targeted capabilities aligned to specific workloads, such as application lifecycle management, migration and regulatory compliance, before they will jump into cloud services, he said.
Citrix' Cloud Solutions offerings are based on XenServer, rather than Xen, the latter being the traditional hypervisor of choice for service providers. However, the tide seems to be turning against Xen in the service provider community .
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
2010年5月21日星期五
BMC Software will add more SaaS products
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
BMC Software is planning to offer more versions of its software in the SaaS (software as a service) model in the next 12 months, as it is seeing growing customer demand for these services, an executive of the company said on Friday.
In January, BMC said that its Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) Suite would be available to customers in a SaaS form. The company also tied up in November last year with enterprise cloud computing company, Salesforce.com to host and offer BMC Service Desk Express, a service desk application. Salesforce.com is offering the software from its Force.com cloud computing platform.
Some of the new SaaS services will be offered through Salesforce.com, while others will be offered directly by the company, said Paul Avenant , senior vice president of products and strategy for Enterprise Service Management at BMC.
The tie-up with Salesforce.com has given BMC access to a larger number of new customers, Avenant said.
Avenant did not disclose which other products would be offered by the company on a SaaS model.
A sub-set of new customers and its current customer base want to buy their software in a SaaS model, and BMC wants to be ready for this opportunity, he said.
A number of BMC's service-provider partners already deliver SaaS services around its software, Avenant said. While some of them will continue to offer their services, others have decided to resell BMC's own SaaS offerings and wrap other services around these offerings, he added.
BMC also sees a business opportunity from telecommunications service providers who are moving fast to offer SaaS services to increase their revenues. "They are trying to set up a new business to drive new revenue, and they are trying to get there first", Avenant said.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
BMC Software is planning to offer more versions of its software in the SaaS (software as a service) model in the next 12 months, as it is seeing growing customer demand for these services, an executive of the company said on Friday.
In January, BMC said that its Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM) Suite would be available to customers in a SaaS form. The company also tied up in November last year with enterprise cloud computing company, Salesforce.com to host and offer BMC Service Desk Express, a service desk application. Salesforce.com is offering the software from its Force.com cloud computing platform.
Some of the new SaaS services will be offered through Salesforce.com, while others will be offered directly by the company, said Paul Avenant , senior vice president of products and strategy for Enterprise Service Management at BMC.
The tie-up with Salesforce.com has given BMC access to a larger number of new customers, Avenant said.
Avenant did not disclose which other products would be offered by the company on a SaaS model.
A sub-set of new customers and its current customer base want to buy their software in a SaaS model, and BMC wants to be ready for this opportunity, he said.
A number of BMC's service-provider partners already deliver SaaS services around its software, Avenant said. While some of them will continue to offer their services, others have decided to resell BMC's own SaaS offerings and wrap other services around these offerings, he added.
BMC also sees a business opportunity from telecommunications service providers who are moving fast to offer SaaS services to increase their revenues. "They are trying to set up a new business to drive new revenue, and they are trying to get there first", Avenant said.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
HP speeds, simplifies cloud deployments
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
HP recently unveiled a product set designed to make it faster and simpler for IT managers to provision applications to either private or public cloud environments. HP Cloud Service Automation (CSA) can not only automate the deployment of applications to the cloud, but it can also optimize the applications for peak performance, the company says.
“By adopting strategic initiatives such as cloud, organizations hope to be able to quickly and easily add new functionality as required for greater innovation and competitive advantage,” said Cameron Haight, research vice president at Gartner, in an HP press release. “However, prospective users of cloud-based computing need to manage these resources from a lifecycle perspective to ensure that related costs and resource utilization do not negatively impact the ROI of the decision.”
HP suggests that CSA offers customers a faster time to value by speeding the delivery of business services and enabling the organization to more quickly react to changes in business demands. The solution set, which features software, services and third-party integrations, could also contribute to reduced costs, HP says, by reducing the time and effort associated with deploying and managing cloud resources. And lower risks are listed another benefit of adopting the CSA solution.
“Minimize risks associated with cloud initiatives by utilizing a proven set of best practices and planning services,” an HP press release reads. According to HP, IT managers using an automated approach to provisioning cloud applications and resources will benefit from consistent IT management processes, regardless of the environment.
HP CSA is part of a large portfolio of cloud-focused products from HP and also draws upon the vendor’s IT management software portfolio. According to HP’s strategy, customers should first plan and design their cloud efforts, then move into the ‘automate and manage’ phase of deployment (the stage in which CSA fits) and then assure that the cloud options chosen are appropriate for the business’ needs.
Industry watchers have determined that for cloud deployments to be cost-effective, they must take advantage of automation technologies, therefore freeing up IT operations managers from forever tweaking the resources and applications in the cloud.
“To realize the value of an internal cloud, not only do developers need autonomy, but your system administrators need to be free of extra work, such as determining the best placement of new workloads and optimizing the virtual pool to make room for more applications,” reads a Forrester Research report entitled “Deliver Cloud Benefits Inside Your Walls.” “These tools manage the pool of resources dedicated to the cloud by following high-level policies or guidelines set by IT ops. The less IT ops has to be involved in managing the cloud, the more cost effective it becomes.”
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
HP recently unveiled a product set designed to make it faster and simpler for IT managers to provision applications to either private or public cloud environments. HP Cloud Service Automation (CSA) can not only automate the deployment of applications to the cloud, but it can also optimize the applications for peak performance, the company says.
“By adopting strategic initiatives such as cloud, organizations hope to be able to quickly and easily add new functionality as required for greater innovation and competitive advantage,” said Cameron Haight, research vice president at Gartner, in an HP press release. “However, prospective users of cloud-based computing need to manage these resources from a lifecycle perspective to ensure that related costs and resource utilization do not negatively impact the ROI of the decision.”
HP suggests that CSA offers customers a faster time to value by speeding the delivery of business services and enabling the organization to more quickly react to changes in business demands. The solution set, which features software, services and third-party integrations, could also contribute to reduced costs, HP says, by reducing the time and effort associated with deploying and managing cloud resources. And lower risks are listed another benefit of adopting the CSA solution.
“Minimize risks associated with cloud initiatives by utilizing a proven set of best practices and planning services,” an HP press release reads. According to HP, IT managers using an automated approach to provisioning cloud applications and resources will benefit from consistent IT management processes, regardless of the environment.
HP CSA is part of a large portfolio of cloud-focused products from HP and also draws upon the vendor’s IT management software portfolio. According to HP’s strategy, customers should first plan and design their cloud efforts, then move into the ‘automate and manage’ phase of deployment (the stage in which CSA fits) and then assure that the cloud options chosen are appropriate for the business’ needs.
Industry watchers have determined that for cloud deployments to be cost-effective, they must take advantage of automation technologies, therefore freeing up IT operations managers from forever tweaking the resources and applications in the cloud.
“To realize the value of an internal cloud, not only do developers need autonomy, but your system administrators need to be free of extra work, such as determining the best placement of new workloads and optimizing the virtual pool to make room for more applications,” reads a Forrester Research report entitled “Deliver Cloud Benefits Inside Your Walls.” “These tools manage the pool of resources dedicated to the cloud by following high-level policies or guidelines set by IT ops. The less IT ops has to be involved in managing the cloud, the more cost effective it becomes.”
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Microsoft issues advisory for Windows display driver flaw
Here’s the resources: http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
Microsoft has issued a security advisory, Tuesday, warning users of a publicly reported vulnerability in the Windows Canonical Display Driver, a Windows component used to handle graphics and DirectX drawing in games and other software programs.
The vulnerability affects Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 systems. So far, the biggest risk posed by the vulnerability is a potential to cause a system to crash and restart, Microsoft said.
"We've deduced so far that reliable exploit code is unlikely," wrote Jerry Bryant group manager of Microsoft response communications in the Microsoft Security Response Center Blog. "We're currently developing a security update for Windows that will address the vulnerability."
Microsoft engineers called successful exploitation of the display driver error tricky and said it cannot be exploited remotely. An attacker would need to write executable content to a specific space in kernel memory. Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), a security feature enabled by default in Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, makes a successful exploitation even more difficult.
The engineers were able to successfully exploit the flaw locally on a Windows 7 64-bit computer with the Aero Glass theme enabled. They warned that there is potential for an attacker to exploit the vulnerability using a malicious image with a third-party image viewer.
As a workaround, Microsoft recommends temporarily disabling the Aero Glass theme.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Microsoft has issued a security advisory, Tuesday, warning users of a publicly reported vulnerability in the Windows Canonical Display Driver, a Windows component used to handle graphics and DirectX drawing in games and other software programs.
The vulnerability affects Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 systems. So far, the biggest risk posed by the vulnerability is a potential to cause a system to crash and restart, Microsoft said.
"We've deduced so far that reliable exploit code is unlikely," wrote Jerry Bryant group manager of Microsoft response communications in the Microsoft Security Response Center Blog. "We're currently developing a security update for Windows that will address the vulnerability."
Microsoft engineers called successful exploitation of the display driver error tricky and said it cannot be exploited remotely. An attacker would need to write executable content to a specific space in kernel memory. Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), a security feature enabled by default in Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, makes a successful exploitation even more difficult.
The engineers were able to successfully exploit the flaw locally on a Windows 7 64-bit computer with the Aero Glass theme enabled. They warned that there is potential for an attacker to exploit the vulnerability using a malicious image with a third-party image viewer.
As a workaround, Microsoft recommends temporarily disabling the Aero Glass theme.
For more news, please access http://www.test104.com/en/tech/
Newly Updated Resources (Microsoft, Win7, LPIC, CCDP, CCDA, CISCO, Oracle, CCNP, BCMSN)
Here's the resources http://www.test104.com/en/misc/all.asp
News
Members please take CCNP exam before July. Check CCNP section of Product List for detail.
Microsoft 70-293 Q&A 153 questions updated.
CISCO Composite 642-892 Q&A 343 questions updated.
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 376 questions updated.
CISCO CCDP 642-873 Q&A 227 questions updated.
CISCO CCDA 640-863 Q&A 133 questions updated.
Microsoft 70-568 Q&A 149 questions updated.
Oracle 1Z0-043 Q&A 217 questions updated.
Microsoft Win7 70-680 Q&A 193 questions updated.
LPIC 117-102 Q&A 126 questions updated.
Recent Updates:
Microsoft 70-293 Q&A 153 questions updated. (2010/5/20)
CISCO Composite 642-892 Q&A 343 questions updated. (2010/5/19)
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 376 questions updated.(2010/5/19)
CISCO CCDP 642-873 Q&A 227 questions updated.(2010/5/18)
CISCO CCDA 640-863 Q&A 133 questions updated. (2010/5/18)
Microsoft 70-568 Q&A 149 questions updated.(2010/5/17)
Oracle 1Z0-043 Q&A 217 questions updated.(2010/5/17)
Microsoft Win7 70-680 Q&A 193 questions updated.(2010/5/16)
LPIC 117-102 Q&A 126 questions updated.(2010/5/15)
New Demo
Microsoft 70-293
CISCO 642-812
CISCO 642-873
For more details, please access http://www.test104.com/en/news/news.asp
News
Members please take CCNP exam before July. Check CCNP section of Product List for detail.
Microsoft 70-293 Q&A 153 questions updated.
CISCO Composite 642-892 Q&A 343 questions updated.
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 376 questions updated.
CISCO CCDP 642-873 Q&A 227 questions updated.
CISCO CCDA 640-863 Q&A 133 questions updated.
Microsoft 70-568 Q&A 149 questions updated.
Oracle 1Z0-043 Q&A 217 questions updated.
Microsoft Win7 70-680 Q&A 193 questions updated.
LPIC 117-102 Q&A 126 questions updated.
Recent Updates:
Microsoft 70-293 Q&A 153 questions updated. (2010/5/20)
CISCO Composite 642-892 Q&A 343 questions updated. (2010/5/19)
CISCO BCMSN 642-812 Q&A 376 questions updated.(2010/5/19)
CISCO CCDP 642-873 Q&A 227 questions updated.(2010/5/18)
CISCO CCDA 640-863 Q&A 133 questions updated. (2010/5/18)
Microsoft 70-568 Q&A 149 questions updated.(2010/5/17)
Oracle 1Z0-043 Q&A 217 questions updated.(2010/5/17)
Microsoft Win7 70-680 Q&A 193 questions updated.(2010/5/16)
LPIC 117-102 Q&A 126 questions updated.(2010/5/15)
New Demo
Microsoft 70-293
CISCO 642-812
CISCO 642-873
For more details, please access http://www.test104.com/en/news/news.asp
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