HP Blade Systems Matrix Technology

As the need for ever larger data centers grow, the demand for a scalable server infrastructure grows. One should be able to put together the initial solution quickly and then scale up as needed.HP BladeSystem Matrix uses off the shelf solutions available to create this modular solution. rather than a mere collection of components the Matrix puts together tried and tested components proven in the marketplace to
provide value in demanding datacenter environments. Matrix also incorporates the offerings of
leading application, management, network, and storage partners. Making it easy to fit customer environments and continues to work with all traditional application workloads.

HP BladeSystem Matrix is supplied as a factory configured solution. that has the c7000 enclosure, server blades, shared storage, management software for provisioning, optimizing and protecting the infrastructure. Implementation and training is also included to get customers a quick start. Full range of HP ProLiant and Integrity full-height and half-height server blades are supported and one could create over 1500 managed systems of virtual and managed machine instances.
http://resources.idgenterprise.com/original/AST-0003909_Understanding_the_HP_Bladesystem_Matrix_technology.pdf

The key mobile trends emerging from CES 2011

With the rise of mobility there is even more incentive to carrying just one device that can do all our work even on the move. Whether that will be a smarter smartphone of a tablet with voice/video communication added is something we'll have wait and watch. But there are moves for certain that is moving us towards this goal. The following article by Galen Gruman of Infoworld tries to look at what are the significant trends that indicate this.

As you'll see, like most attempts at viewing a crystal ball, there is an inherent danger of going wrong. However, discerning such a high level trend should not be too difficult!

"Samrtphones would ultimately replace Desktop PCs for most users". The evidence he offers is quite convincing. But, there guarantees that things will happen exactly the same way. Currents happening will trend to show a direction in which things are moving. He offers Motorola Mobility's Atrix, that can be docked into a simple desktop and can become a netbook. Google is promoting a cloud only computing paradigm through its Chrome OS. That should contribute to our hook up to computing power to become simpler. Android Honeycomb is coming and should make tablets more powerful. That's a move away from desktop bound computing.

That move away also takes away the need for monolithic applications like the MS Office. Apps come into use. You buy and use a highly focused tool. This is another path to lightweight computing along with everything in the cloud set up. Android is set to take over the tablet world. But that's not important. What would ultimately be meaningful is if the apps phenomenon or the cloud type is going to be favored by users.

The key mobile trends emerging from CES 2011

Wintel No More!!

 The long time partners are certainly looking around. Microsoft announced at the latest CES, this Jan, that it would release a version of Windows on ARM series processors.Other half of the partnership was busy showing off devices that use the 2nd generation core architecture processors (aka Sandy Bridge). Intel was busy promoting all kinds of devices that ran Android and Meego (Intel+Nokia promoted, Linux derivative). The devices included Google Smart TVs, set-top boxes from Boxee and Logitech, and a raft of tablets, of course. Well, the partnership has not exactly broken down, but both partners are playing the field and trying to find opportrunities in this changing marketplace.
Is the Microsoft-Intel marriage finally over? 

Windows 8 on ARM SoC

Windows invariably meant the OS for the x86 processor. that, in turn, largely meant processor chips from Intel. This is picture that started right from the time PC revolution started and continued until now. For a brief time the Windows NT was offered in PowePC , MIPS and Alpha processors. None of the chips achieve any kind of significant numbers and when the next version came out, these supports were not there.

 This definitely looks like the point when the WINTEL stranglehold on the huge majority (remember, AMD too plays!) of PCs might change. Not too soon though, this may take a while.

Faster Forward - Microsoft to ship Windows for ARM processors

Nvidia challenges Intel with PC central processors

A PC and WINTEL were synonymous until now. Not any more. The recent CES at Las Vegas in first week of January brought news that changes that relationship for  ever, I guess. PC meant Intel processors that kept building on the original 8086 architecture. Other than AMD no one else challenged that. NVIDIA was happy to build chips and boards for supporting graphics and video on the huge numbers of PC  being sold. That changes now and NVIDIA has announced a processor that can go inside the PC.

The company is going to build a central processor using ARM architecture. The processors will be integrated on the same chip as NVIDIA's graphic processor and will be aimed at everything from workstations to supercomputers. "We are designing a high-performing ARM CPU core in combination with our massively parallel GPU cores to create a new class of processor," said Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA CEO. This they expect would free the PCs, workstations and servers from the hegemony and inefficiency of the x86 (Intel) architecture.

What makes this really feasible is the announcement from Microsoft that they will be releasing a Windows version (Windows 8!) for the ARM processor.

CES-UPDATE 3-Nvidia challenges Intel with PC central processors | Reuters

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Virtualized servers can make IT management easier. But, what the heck is this VDI or the Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure! VMWare is a well know name in virtualization and they seem to have coined this term. Usual anticipation about this picture is that it is going to need a large data center, powerful servers, a lot of central storage, complex software and all that complications, must surely cost a bundle.

The following article by Keith Schultz take a look at virualization and finds that it is not necessarily so.The VDI is a way of organizing computing resources. With the data centers as we discussed above, all you need are thin clients at the user end to meet his computing needs. That reminds us, those of us who saw it, of the good old days when one powerful computer was connected to number of terminals. They are indeed similar. Now the central computer is replace by this data center organism of many servers, connected together with the necessary storage and software services.

He reviews three different products and finds that they do not have to cost you an arm and a leg. performance differed somewhat between the three products. read details in the original article.
InfoWorld review: Desktop virtualization made easy

OverDrive Helps Connect Libraries and Users with eBooks - AppScout

With the coming about of eBooks, what happens to the libraries!This application from OverDrive is an example of things to come. With the dematerialization of content (everything is just electronic bits and bytes)  one would think the library, as we know it, may cease to exist. instead the libraries are evolving too and they now lend out a lot of electronic books and other contents. This app from OverDrive finds you the library, in your neighborhood that has the content and lets you get connected. The library would lend out the material and use it the way you want to.

The application allows users on multiple platforms to download its OverDrive Media Console app to read eBooks too after the content has been downloaded.  The OverDrive Media Console is available for iOS and Android. You thus have them on iPads as well as Android based tablets. Phones like iPhone as well as other Android phones can be used too. The same app can be used to search for specific books or media in electronic format. The Console app is available for free from iTunes App Store and the Android Market.

OverDrive Helps Connect Libraries and Users with eBooks

iPad Would Not Kill Kindle

Like most such competing trends, iPad book readers and the original eBook reader the Kindle will continue to be in existence for a while. What happens for the longterm is something to watch for. The referenced report from Forrester has some data and predictions on both. 


Tablets are set to grow 130% to 24 million units in 2011 compared to 10. 3 million in 2010. 8.5 million of the tablets last year should be just one brand the iPad! This year though a lot many others are going to take a share of the 24 million pie. The CES show at the beginning of the year showcased more than 75 of these models.


What is to be noted is that Kindle or the other ereaders did not wilt. they are too set for a significant growth. These are predicted to grow to 15.5 million units during the year, showing a growth of 50% over last year's numbers.


These predictions seem to be supported by another source. A J P Morgan report of a survey indicates brand awareness of Kindle and iPad were 76% vs. 84% for iPad. More interestingly, apparently people want both devices. 28% of those who took the survey indicated that they ether already have a Kindle or want to buy one during the year. 40% of iPad owners also own a Kindle. Another 23 percent want to acquire a  Kindle during the current year!
iPad Not Death Sentence for Kindle

Classrooms without Textbooks!!

When are the classrooms going to be all digital! That would have been a naive question even a while back, when it would have been in the realm of the science fiction. But not any more. just look at the proliferation of the ereaders! That is able to give you an equivalent experience to book reading. So if the contents that are similar in quality come cheaper then the choice would swing to the readers. text books already cost quite a lot, anywhere from $50 to $100 or more. EBooks on the other hand costs much less. This year for the first time on-line sales of eBooks have exceeded the on=line sale of printed books! So, digital media is certainly coming.

Then there are the tablets with book reading apps on them. These have the potential of a lot of value add compared to a printed book. Just consider one aspect, the illustrations! In the printed books they are static and takes a while to derive complete meaning out of a chart or a graph or interdependence of events indicated on the illustrations. Not so on the tablets, the illustrations are live, in color and could be animated to show any dependencies easily. Then if you consider the dimension video can add to the learning experience, then it is not difficult to guess which way the future textbooks should go.

It is heartening to see MLTI (Maine’s Learning Technology Initiative) being taken up for schools i the state of Maine in the US towards this goal. Let's watch what they are up to!

Sanford schools on verge of new tech revolution - Keep Me Current: News

Trillion-dollar Market for Gadgets!!

The Consumer Electronics Association predicted, just prior to opening of the CES, that the market of consumer Electronics devices would reach $964 billion and may even hit the magic number of a trillion dollars! That would be a rise of 10% in the sale of mobile phones, computers, television sets and other items.Smartphones, touchscreen tablet computers, electronic book readers and flat-panel liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets are likely to push this movement. The trends seen by them are as follows.


Smartphones, not mobile phone in general, will rise. tablets will double  in sales this year to 30 million units. eReaders like the Kindle will still be strong with shipments of 20 million worldwide.Mobile computers, including tablets, will reach $220 billion out of a PC sales volume of $316 billion. desktop share is going to be only $96 billion out of that.

Web-connected televisions are set to a continuous growth. By 2014 about 52% of all TVs sold will be web capable.It was only 9% last year, 2010. Apps are beginning to get anywhere, from smartphones to tablet computers to TV sets.Half the mobile device owners download and use apps covering areas like communications, weather, maps, music, news, games and social networking. we are in exciting times, alright!

AFP: Trillion-dollar forecast for gadget sales

Tablets Everywhere in CES

We have been discussing, for some time now, how everybody seems to have discovered tablets as the new computing devices segment. The latest CES show had something like 100 tablets on show. Can any market really take this much diversity! Not so, it is already being predicted that consolidation is already here and some of these exhibits may not even get manufactured and come into the market.That certainly is a very highly likely scenario.

What is really interesting though, computing has found another format. This is something people are going to use without abandoning the workhorses, the desktops and the laptops. Eventually the tablets may evolve into the only form of computation people prefer but that is going to be some time away!
With CES raining tablets, some will get flooded out - Computerworld

Freescale quad-core for CE space

Freescale is going to offer pretty sophisticated quad-core processors for high-end consumer electronic devices. And you thought consumer electronics were high end toys for grown ups!  Actually, the way these things have grown, particularly smartphones came on the scene, they need a lot of processing power. What with CE devices doing recording/playback of 3D video, augmented reality, mobile gaming and driver-information systems. HD video combined with 3D is a true heavy load on any processing system, considering you need real time MPEG compression/decompression (particularly the H.264), lightning speeds are called for here.  What is interesting is that the company's new i.MX6 series offers three price/performance points on the same ISA. Thus designers can design devices once and get higher performance versions simply by moving the design to the higher performance processor. These levels will be met by one, two and four core models.


Freescale aims quad-core at consumer apps

Intel Sandy Bridge Processor and Chipset Lineups

Intel released a range of processors and a set of chipsets to support them in building systems this week.This being called the second generation of the core micro-architecture.Features of this micro-architecture (known as the Sandy Bridge) include getting the memory controller, the PCI Express (PCIe) controller, and video functions all located within the processor die. These then can share data and power much more easily. The micro-architecture will scale from the smallest netbooks to the biggest servers. What these push performance will buy are a wide variety of actions while consuming less power. Media processing features have been polished up. Built-in DirectX 10.1 capabilities to new programming that Intel has promised will considerably improve video transcoding, photo editing, and other similar tasks (such as watching Blu-ray 3D content). A major revamping of Turbo Boost has been done to boost performance for short periods.New Advanced Vector Extensions will push floating point–intensive application performance.


Intel Sandy Bridge Processor and Chipset Lineups | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Windows 7 Tablet PC in Early 2011

There's a rush for tablets. It was only a question of time before somebody was going to use Windows 7 on it. Android looks like a hands down winner in Tablets beside the Apple operating system. It will be interesting to see how it fares in this segment. Beyond the mainstream Wintel platforms Windows have not made much of a dent so far. Let's watch!

IN MEDIA Announces $399 Windows 7 Tablet PC, Shipping Early 2011

The Press Association: New ultra-fast processor unveiled

Dr Wim Vanderbauwhede, of the University of Glasgow, and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Lowell have created a processor that has 1000 execution units or cores. This would be the fastest processor as of now. Intel also has announced its plans to create a thousand core monster soon.


In a true MIMD fashion, they have sliced up a large FPGA into execution units which can handle thousand different instruction streams. Dr Vanderbauwhede justifies the use of FPGAs thus;  "FPGAs are not used within standard computers because they are fairly difficult to program but their processing power is huge while their energy consumption is very small because they are so much quicker - so they are also a greener option."


As a benchmark, the chip was used to run a MPEG movie algorithm and it achieved a throughput of 5 Gigabytes per second. That would be at least 20x faster than current desktop performance. the team is hoping to present the findings at the International Symposium on Applied Reconfigurable Computing in March this year. What would be interesting to find out would be how do they make it all work. Memory contention, system bus bandwidth, communication overheads, cache coherence etc. are some relevant problems.

New ultra-fast processor unveiled

E-Book Boom Changes Book Selling And Publishing

This holiday season electronic books sold more than printed books sales on-line. That eBooks have gained a momentum as it brings in the change in reading habits, is without a doubt. The referenced article below had a interesting take on why  things are really changing. Until the tablets came out, an argument offered for printed books was that parents would like to introduce kids with very well illustrated books. Now we have an equivalent to a living book, in almost the same format as a printed book. A tablet is handled much like a book yet can bring in higher value add in terms of living illustration! Illustrations that could be animated, cartoons, videos, movies and what have you! There's no doubt printed books would continue for some time, until a generation who started their reading with tablets/eReaders takes over and the age of the Gutenberg would be over!

E-Book Boom Changes Book Selling And Publishing : NPR