Andy Patrizio
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Andy Patrizio
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IT budgets shift away from capital expenses thanks to the cloud
IT organizations are enjoying a slow but steady increase in budgets, but their capital expenses and hiring trends are essentially flat, reflecting the effect of the shift to cloud computing. That’s the takeaway from Computer Economics’ annual IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks study for 2017/2018. The study finds that the greatest effect has been a decrease in the total amount of spending that goes toward the capital budget."Unless you are an IT equipment manufacturer, this is good news," said David Wagner, vice president of research at Computer Economics in a statement. "The cloud transition is far from over, and we're already seeing more efficient IT departments, particularly on a cost-per-user basis, which is at a new low. Business applications and network infrastructure are the top areas of new IT spending, while the data center, for the first time, is at the bottom. We take this as a sign the cloud transformation is continuing in earnest."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IT budgets shift away from capital expenses thanks to the cloud
IT organizations are enjoying a slow but steady increase in budgets, but their capital expenses and hiring trends are essentially flat, reflecting the effect of the shift to cloud computing. That’s the takeaway from Computer Economics’ annual IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks study for 2017/2018. The study finds that the greatest effect has been a decrease in the total amount of spending that goes toward the capital budget."Unless you are an IT equipment manufacturer, this is good news," said David Wagner, vice president of research at Computer Economics in a statement. "The cloud transition is far from over, and we're already seeing more efficient IT departments, particularly on a cost-per-user basis, which is at a new low. Business applications and network infrastructure are the top areas of new IT spending, while the data center, for the first time, is at the bottom. We take this as a sign the cloud transformation is continuing in earnest."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Yahoo selling its ‘chicken coop’ data center design
Verizon has closed on the purchase of search engine pioneer Yahoo, thus ending the independent run of one of the original internet firms that launched in the early 1990s and the reign of error of Marissa Meyer. But the company is still having a fire sale of its patent portfolio, and one of them is a unique data center design.The company announced in 2009 an unusual data center design in Lockport, New York. The building was shaped like a chicken coop and would use outside air for cooling with a flywheel-based energy storage system, and it would have an annualized PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of under 1.1, which was better than what Google was reporting for its data centers at the time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Yahoo selling its ‘chicken coop’ data center design
Verizon has closed on the purchase of search engine pioneer Yahoo, thus ending the independent run of one of the original internet firms that launched in the early 1990s and the reign of error of Marissa Meyer. But the company is still having a fire sale of its patent portfolio, and one of them is a unique data center design.The company announced in 2009 an unusual data center design in Lockport, New York. The building was shaped like a chicken coop and would use outside air for cooling with a flywheel-based energy storage system, and it would have an annualized PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of under 1.1, which was better than what Google was reporting for its data centers at the time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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PCI Express 4.0 is done, 5.0 spec nears approval
This is one of those stories that isn’t very sexy, but it is important. The PCI Express 3.0 data transfer standard has been around longer than it should have, and now it seems the PCI-SIG that develops the standard is making up for it with two new specs in two years. The SIG—a consortium of 700 hardware vendors, including IBM, Intel and HP Enterprise—develops the spec, which is the standard for moving data around within a computer. Plug-in peripherals, like video cards and SSDs, use the PCI Express bus for data transfer. + Also on Network World: SSD shootout: PCI Express blows away SATA and M.2 in throughput testing + PCI Express 3.0, or PCIe, was finished in 2010, and motherboards began to appear in 2011. The 4.0 spec should have been done within three years but only now is being finished because if there’s one way to screw up development, it’s to have it done by committee, and 700 cooks can really spoil the broth. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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HPE, Hedvig announce hybrid cloud storage partnership
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has partnered with a software-defined storage startup to create a hybrid cloud storage platform customized for HPE servers. HPE and Hedvig, started by a former Amazon and Facebook engineer credited with creating the Cassandra database, announced that HPE will offer Hedvig’s software-defined storage with HPE’s Apollo 4200 servers to create a distributed storage platform.+ Also on Network World: Software-defined storage: Users reveal the best (and worst) features + The platform is available in 48- and 96-terabyte configurations. They are aimed at enterprises deploying private, hybrid and multi-data center clouds. Hedvig also said the combination supports private cloud storage for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and other hypervisors. The storage platform also supports hybrid cloud storage services running on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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HPE, Hedvig announce hybrid cloud storage partnership
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has partnered with a software-defined storage startup to create a hybrid cloud storage platform customized for HPE servers. HPE and Hedvig, started by a former Amazon and Facebook engineer credited with creating the Cassandra database, announced that HPE will offer Hedvig’s software-defined storage with HPE’s Apollo 4200 servers to create a distributed storage platform.+ Also on Network World: Software-defined storage: Users reveal the best (and worst) features + The platform is available in 48- and 96-terabyte configurations. They are aimed at enterprises deploying private, hybrid and multi-data center clouds. Hedvig also said the combination supports private cloud storage for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and other hypervisors. The storage platform also supports hybrid cloud storage services running on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cloud-native architectures will be the default soon
Cloud-native architectures will become the default option for customer-facing applications by 2020, according to a new study from IT consultancy Capgemini, Cloud Native Comes of Age. However, that move is predicated on whether the business leaders will allow it.Capgemini surveyed more than 900 senior professionals across 11 countries and found that 15 percent of new enterprise applications are cloud-native today, and that figure will jump to 32 percent by 2020.The main reasons for the shift to cloud-native apps was a desire to improve velocity (74 percent), collaboration (70 percent) and improved customer experience (67 percent). Companies with strong cloud practices leadership are taking the lead in this trend, using agile and DevOps methodologies and automated app deployment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cloud-native architectures will be the default soon
Cloud-native architectures will become the default option for customer-facing applications by 2020, according to a new study from IT consultancy Capgemini, Cloud Native Comes of Age. However, that move is predicated on whether the business leaders will allow it.Capgemini surveyed more than 900 senior professionals across 11 countries and found that 15 percent of new enterprise applications are cloud-native today, and that figure will jump to 32 percent by 2020.The main reasons for the shift to cloud-native apps was a desire to improve velocity (74 percent), collaboration (70 percent) and improved customer experience (67 percent). Companies with strong cloud practices leadership are taking the lead in this trend, using agile and DevOps methodologies and automated app deployment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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British Airways’ outage, like most data center outages, was caused by humans
An IT outage on May 27 that caused British Airways (BA) to cancel more than 400 flights and strand 75,000 passengers in one day was because of human error—and a simple one at that.An engineer had disconnected a power supply at a data center near London’s Heathrow airport, and when it was reconnected, it caused a surge of power that resulted in major damage, according to Willie Walsh, CEO of BA’s parent company IAG SA. Walsh made the comment to reporters in Mexico, and it was picked up by Bloomberg and other news outlets.+ Also on Network World: We’re learning the wrong lessons from airline IT outages + The engineer in question had been authorized to be on site and was part of a team working at the Heathrow data center hit by the power outage. The facility is managed by CBRE Works Solutions, a U.S. property services company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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British Airways’ outage, like most data center outages, was caused by humans
An IT outage on May 27 that caused British Airways (BA) to cancel more than 400 flights and strand 75,000 passengers in one day was because of human error—and a simple one at that.An engineer had disconnected a power supply at a data center near London’s Heathrow airport, and when it was reconnected, it caused a surge of power that resulted in major damage, according to Willie Walsh, CEO of BA’s parent company IAG SA. Walsh made the comment to reporters in Mexico, and it was picked up by Bloomberg and other news outlets.+ Also on Network World: We’re learning the wrong lessons from airline IT outages + The engineer in question had been authorized to be on site and was part of a team working at the Heathrow data center hit by the power outage. The facility is managed by CBRE Works Solutions, a U.S. property services company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Florida wants to be a major host of data center facilities
Welcome to the relaunch of my blog. We are undergoing a slight change in direction here at Network World, and with it a change in direction for this blog. Instead of covering Microsoft issues, I will be focused on data center issues, a change I am looking forward to because I love all things big iron. So, on to the show.-----------------------------------------------The state of Florida is not the first place you think of when it comes to tech. IBM had that legendary Boca Raton facility, and there are a few firms here and there, but it pales in comparison to California, Oregon, Washington and Texas.The state is looking to change that in a unique way. Instead of luring tech firms, it’s looking to lure data centers. The state legislature has passed, and Governor Rick Scott has signed, legislation for sales tax exemptions for large data center projects. The law goes into effect July 1, 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Florida wants to be a major host of data center facilities
Welcome to the relaunch of my blog. We are undergoing a slight change in direction here at Network World, and with it a change in direction for this blog. Instead of covering Microsoft issues, I will be focused on data center issues, a change I am looking forward to because I love all things big iron. So, on to the show.-----------------------------------------------The state of Florida is not the first place you think of when it comes to tech. IBM had that legendary Boca Raton facility, and there are a few firms here and there, but it pales in comparison to California, Oregon, Washington and Texas.The state is looking to change that in a unique way. Instead of luring tech firms, it’s looking to lure data centers. The state legislature has passed, and Governor Rick Scott has signed, legislation for sales tax exemptions for large data center projects. The law goes into effect July 1, 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft rolls out its first Azure container tool from Deis
Just one month ago, Microsoft acquired Deis, an open source software developer focused on making Kubernetes easier to use. One month later, the acquisition pays off in the form of the first product from the group, called Draft.Draft is a tool designed to simplify and ease development of applications running on any Kubernetes cluster. Microsoft made the announcement at the CoreOS Fest in San Francisco, a conference discussing container technology. It also posted the news on the Azure blog. Gabe Monroy, lead project manager for containers on Microsoft Azure and former CTO of Deis, made the announcements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Windows 10 still does a lot of snooping
Microsoft has been roundly beaten up for the aggressive telemetry gathering in Windows 10 (a.k.a. spying) in many quarters, including here. However, the company has proven it’s not tone deaf by working to add greater controls over privacy in its recent updates to the operating system. However, one veteran security analyst and Microsoft MVP said that even a very restricted setup of Windows 10 Enterprise Edition doesn’t go far enough to keep Windows 10 from connecting to Redmond with user data.Mark Burnett, a seven-time MVP and long-time Windows developer (along with many other bonafides), conducted an experiment with Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, the one designed for IT shops with the greatest controls over privacy. He notes that even with documentation, turning off settings can be confusing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft discusses progress in GitHub migration
Just last month, Microsoft announced it planned to close its CodePlex code hosting service in favor of GitHub, which it had been using more and more frequently anyway. This week, the company announced the progress it has made in making the move and issues that cropped up along the way. Microsoft staffer Brian Harry said in a blog posting that the Windows repository is the largest Git repository in the world. Weighing in at 300GB and 3.5 million files, the Git repository catches 8,421 pull requests and 1,760 official builds a day. Overall, Microsoft has nearly 4,000 engineers working on Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Forget the plus-sized screen, the regular iPhone is the best fit
Like a lot of people, I found myself getting a sore neck and eyes from squinting at a smartphone screen for too long. It’s not that the iPhone 6 has a small screen relative to the market, it’s just that prolonged staring at the screen really isn’t a good idea to anyone but a chiropractor looking to boost his business. I had fiddled with the iPhone 6s Plus in the local Best Buy, and I liked what I saw. Also, it didn’t feel too cumbersome in my hand, so I decided to go for it. The iPhone 7 was out. The removal of the headphone jack was a deal-breaker for me. + Also on Network World: One-third of iPhones are the Plus model + I purchased a used iPhone 6 Plus through Glyde, which acts as an intermediary between buyers and sellers of devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops. Swapping phones was easy in my situation. I am with AT&T, which uses a SIM chip. All I had to do was pop the chip out of the old phone and insert it in the new one, and I had service. I restored the app and settings backup from Continue reading
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WannaCry was a Windows 7 phenomenon
The WannaCry ransomware outbreak may have spurred Microsoft into updating its abandoned operating systems to protect against the malware, but it turns out virtually all of the action was around Windows 7, which remains in wide use. A researcher with Kaspersky Labs noted that virtually all of the infections they found involved Windows 7, especially the 64-bit version. That’s hardly surprising, since there haven’t been 32-bit x86 processors on the market in years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft takes the Build show on the road
Microsoft’s annual Build developers conference is becoming a must-see for developers, given the huge amounts of information and technical deep dives available over the three days of the show. However, the show has been biased toward American developers, since it’s been held in only U.S. west coast cities: Seattle, before that San Francisco, and originally in Anaheim, California. So, recognizing some folks can’t make the trip, Microsoft is bringing the show to them on a global tour this June. It’s rather short notice for some folks. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Write apps with zero code using Microsoft Windows Template Studio
For some reason, Microsoft has unleashed a flood of developer news after its Build developers conference. One of them is the announcement of the new Windows Template Studio, an evolution of Windows App Studio it launched a few years back for building Windows Universal Apps without actually writing code. Universal Windows Platform (UWP), or universal apps, is an ongoing project from Microsoft to develop software once that can run on a variety of devices running Windows, from PCs to tablets and phones and the Xbox console. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here