Is your organization ready to go serverless? The trend toward serverless computing is clearly on the rise, but that doesn’t mean it works ideally for every scenario or organization.Serverless computing is a software architecture model in which a cloud service provider runs the server for a customer and dynamically manages the allocation of computing resources. The term “serverless” is a misnomer, in the sense that servers are still involved in the process.
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A survey conducted by Informa Engage and Data Center Knowledge finds data center workers overall are content with their job, so much so they would encourage their children to go into that line of work despite the heavy demands on time and their brain.Overall satisfaction is pretty good, with 72% of respondents generally agreeing with the statement “I love my current job,” while a third strongly agreed. And 75% agreed with the statement, “If my child, niece or nephew asked, I’d recommend getting into IT.”To read this article in full, please click here
A startup called MemVerge has announced software to combine regular DRAM with Intel’s Optane DIMM persistent memory into a single clustered storage pool and without requiring any changes to applications.MemVerge has been working with Intel in developing this new hardware platform for close to two years. It offers what it calls a Memory-Converged Infrastructure (MCI) to allow existing apps to use Optane DC persistent memory. It's architected to integrate seamlessly with existing applications.[ Read also: Mass data fragmentation requires a storage rethink ]
Optane memory is designed to sit between high-speed memory and solid-state drives (SSDs) and acts as a cache for the SSD, since it has speed comparable to DRAM but SSD persistence. With Intel’s new Xeon Scalable processors, this can make up to 4.5TB of memory available to a processor.To read this article in full, please click here
Companies migrating to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) systems are usually doing so to simplify their virtualization environment. Since backup is one of the most complicated parts of virtualization, they are often looking to simplify it as well via their migration to HCI.Other customers have chosen to use HCI to simplify their hardware complexity, while using a traditional backup approach for operational and disaster recovery. Here’s a look at cover both scenarios.To read this article in full, please click here
A growing number of enterprises are pulling selected applications out of the cloud and returning them to their brick-and-mortar data centers. Cloud repatriation is gaining momentum as enterprises realize the cloud isn't always the best solution to IT cost, performance and other concerns.Dave Cope, senior director of market development for Cisco's CloudCenter, believes that technology has evolved to the point where enterprises now have the unprecedented freedom to locate applications wherever maximum cost, performance and security benefits can be achieved. "There’s an ability to place workloads where they best reside based on business priorities, not IT constraints," he notes. "We’re starting to get this natural distribution of workloads across existing and new environments … where they make the most sense."To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco has released a cloud-service program on its flagship software-defined networking (SDN) software that will let customers manage and secure applications running in the data center or in Amazon Web Service cloud environments.The service, Cisco Cloud ACI (application centric infrastructure) for AWS lets users configure inter-site connectivity, define policies and monitor the health of network infrastructure across hybrid environments, Cisco said.[ Check out What is hybrid cloud computing and learn what you need to know about multi-cloud. | Get regularly scheduled insights by signing up for Network World newsletters. ]
Specifically, this connectivity includes an "underlay network for IP reachability (IPsec VPN) over the Internet, or through AWS Direct Connect; an overlay network between the on-premises and cloud sites that runs BGP EVPN [Ethernet VPN] as its control plane and uses Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) encapsulation and tunneling as its data plane,” Cisco says.To read this article in full, please click here
Still struggling to get its Google Cloud business out of single-digit marketshare, Google this week introduced new partnerships with Lenovo and Intel to help bolster its hybrid cloud offerings, both built on Google’s Kubernetes container technology.At Google’s Next ’19 show this week, Intel and Google said they will collaborate on Google's Anthos, a new reference design based on the second-Generation Xeon Scalable processor introduced last week and an optimized Kubernetes software stack designed to deliver increased workload portability between public and private cloud environments.[ Read also: What hybrid cloud means in practice | Get regularly scheduled insights: Sign up for Network World newsletters ]
As part the Anthos announcement, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) said it has validated Anthos on its ProLiant servers, while Lenovo has done the same for its ThinkAgile platform. This solution will enable customers to get a consistent Kubernetes experience between Google Cloud and their on-premises HPE or Lenovo servers. No official word from Dell yet, but they can’t be far behind.To read this article in full, please click here
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has partnered with Nutanix to offer Nutanix’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) software available as a managed private cloud service and on HPE-branded appliances.As part of the deal, the two companies will be competing against each other in hardware sales, sort of. If you want the consumption model you get through HPE’s GreenLake, where your usage is metered and you pay for only the time you use it (similar to the cloud), then you would get the ProLiant hardware from HPE.If you want an appliance model where you buy the hardware outright, like in the traditional sense of server sales, you would get the same ProLiant through Nutanix.To read this article in full, please click here
As part of its massive data center event on Tuesday, Intel formally launched the Optane persistent memory product line. It had been out for a while, but the current generation of Xeon server processors could not fully utilize it. The new Xeon 8200 and 9200 lines take full advantage of it.And since Optane is an Intel product (co-developed with Micron), that means AMD and Arm server processors are out of luck.As I have stated in the past, Optane DC Persistent Memory uses 3D Xpoint memory technology that Intel developed with Micron Technology. 3D Xpoint is a non-volatile memory type that is much faster than solid-state drives (SSD), almost at the speed of DRAM, but it has the persistence of NAND flash.To read this article in full, please click here
The quest to find more efficient methods for cooling computers is almost as high on scientists’ agendas as the desire to discover better battery chemistries.More cooling is crucial for reducing costs. It would also allow for more powerful processing to take place in smaller spaces, where limited processing should be crunching numbers instead of making wasteful heat. It would stop heat-caused breakdowns, thereby creating longevity in components, and it would promote eco-friendly data centers — less heat means less impact on the environment.Removing heat from microprocessors is one angle scientists have been exploring, and they think they have come up with a simple, but unusual and counter-intuitive solution. They say that running a variant of a Light Emitting Diode (LED) with its electrodes reversed forces the component to act as if it were at an unusually low temperature. Placing it next to warmer electronics, then, with a nanoscale gap introduced, causes the LED to suck out the heat.To read this article in full, please click here
Intel on Tuesday introduced its second-generation Xeon Scalable Processors for servers, developed under the codename Cascade Lake, and it’s clear AMD has lit a fire under a once complacent company.These new Xeon SP processors max out at 28 cores and 56 threads, a bit shy of AMD’s Epyc server processors with 32 cores and 64 threads, but independent benchmarks are still to come, which may show Intel having a lead at single core performance.And for absolute overkill, there is the Xeon SP Platinum 9200 Series, which sports 56 cores and 112 threads. It will also require up to 400W of power, more than twice what the high-end Xeons usually consume.To read this article in full, please click here
After teasing out details about the technology for a year and half under the code name Falcon Mesa, Intel has unveiled the Agilex family of FPGAs, aimed at data-center and network applications that are processing increasing amounts of data for AI, financial, database and IoT workloads.The Agilex family, expected to start appearing in devices in the third quarter, is part of a new wave of more easily programmable FPGAs that is beginning to take an increasingly central place in computing as data centers are called on to handle an explosion of data.
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FPGAs, or field programmable gate arrays, are built around around a matrix of configurable logic blocks (CLBs) linked via programmable interconnects that can be programmed after manufacturing – and even reprogrammed after being deployed in devices – to run algorithms written for specific workloads. They can thus be more efficient on a performance-per-watt basis than general-purpose CPUs, even while driving higher performance. To read this article in full, please click here
A collapse in price for NAND flash memory and a shrinking gap between the prices of PCI Express-based and SATA-based solid-state drives (SSDs) means the shift to PCI Express SSDs will accelerate in 2019, with the newer, faster format replacing the old by years' end.According to the Taiwanese tech publication DigiTimes (the stories are now archived and unavailable without a subscription), falling NAND flash prices continue to drag down SSD prices, which will drive the adoption of SSDs in enterprise and data-center applications. This, in turn, will further drive the adoption of PCIe drives, which are a superior format to SATA.To read this article in full, please click here
Microsoft has introduced Azure Stack HCI Solutions, a new implementation of its on-premises Azure product specifically for Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) hardware.Azure Stack is an on-premises version of its Azure cloud service. It gives companies a chance to migrate to an Azure environment within the confines of their own enterprise rather than onto Microsoft’s data centers. Once you have migrated your apps and infrastructure to Azure Stack, moving between your systems and Microsoft’s cloud service is easy.To read this article in full, please click here
Hybrid cloud is pretty much the de facto way to go, with only a few firms adopting a pure cloud play to replace their data center and only suicidal firms refusing to go to the cloud. But picking the right balance between on-premises and the cloud is tricky, and a mistake can be costly.Enter Right Mix Advisor from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a combination of consulting from HPE's Pointnext division and software tools. It draws on quite a bit of recent acquisitions. Another part of Right Mix Advisor is a British cloud consultancy RedPixie, Amazon Web Services (AWS) specialists Cloud Technology Partners, and automated discovery capabilities from an Irish startup iQuate.To read this article in full, please click here
Nvidia used its GPU Technology Conference in San Jose to introduce new blade servers for on-premises use and announce new cloud AI acceleration.The RTX Blade Server packs up to 40 Turing-generation GPUs into an 8U enclosure, and multiple enclosures can be combined into a "pod" with up to 1,280 GPUs working as a single system and using Mellanox technology as the storage and networking interconnect. Which likely explains why Nvidia is paying close to $7 billion for Mellanox.Instead of AI, where Nvidia has become a leader, the RTX Blade Server is positioned for 3D rendering, ray tracing and cloud gaming. The company said this setup will enable the rendering of realistic-looking 3D images in real time for VR and AR.To read this article in full, please click here
The upper limits on fiber capacity haven't been reached just yet. Two announcements made around an optical-fiber conference and trade show in San Diego recently indicate continued progress in squeezing more data into fiber.In the first announcement, researchers say they’ve obtained 26.2 terabits per second over the roughly 4,000 mile-long trans-Atlantic MAREA cable, in an experiment; and in the second, networking company Ciena says it will start deliveries of an 800 gigabit-per-second, single wavelength light throughput system in Q3 2019.High-speed laser
MAREA, translated as “tide” in Spanish, is the Telefónica-operated cable running between Virginia Beach, Va., and Bilbao in Spain. The fiber cable, initiated a year ago, is designed to handle 160 terabits of data per second through its eight 20-terabit pairs. Each one of those pairs is thus big enough to carry 4 million high-definition videos at the same time, network-provider Infinera explains in an Optical Fiber Conference and Exhibition published press release.To read this article in full, please click here
With the increase in compute density making air cooling less and less feasible, liquid cooling is going mainstream. For data centers. Overclockers have been doing it for years.For the most part, liquid cooling involves piping in cooled water to a heat sink attached to the CPU. The water then cools the heat sink, and is pumped away to be circulated and cooled down.But there are some cases where immersion is used. That is where the entire motherboard is submerged in a nonvolatile liquid. Immersion is used in only the most extreme of cases, with the highest compute density and performance. For a variety of reasons, it isn’t widely used.One startup that hopes to change that showed its wares at the Open Compute Project Summit 2019, which ran last week in San Jose. The OCP has a special project called Advanced Cooling Solutions to promote liquid cooling and other advanced cooling approaches.To read this article in full, please click here
Power failures are a common cause of data-center outages, but they’re not the only culprit. As enterprise computing environments grow more complex, IT system and network failures are bringing down data centers in greater numbers.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)
Cisco Webex has rolled out a package of AI-based features that brings together recently acquired technologies it says will make business meetings more efficient and intuitive.The Webex conferencing tool enhancements, which include faster meeting startup, a better way to know the people attending a meeting and facial-recognition improvements will help customers more effectively collaborate from any location, the company said.
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Cisco bought Webex in 2007 for about $3.2 billion with an eye toward competing more effectively with Microsoft and other collaboration software vendors. Today Webex conferencing tools are used by over 130 million customers a month, Cisco says.To read this article in full, please click here