Category Archives: Miscellaneous IT

HP, Miscellaneous IT, SMB

RECAP: HP Discover 2012 Event

If you are going to do something, make it matter.  That was the key phrase that was posted throughout the conference at HP Discover 2012 in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago.  With some of the new announcements, HP did just that.

One of the biggest announcements in my opinion is the HP Virtual Connect Direct-Attached Fibre Channel Storage for 3PAR. In a nutshell, it helps to reduce your SAN infrastructure by eliminating switches and HBAs. You connect your Blade System Servers directly to the 3PAR array.  This allows you to have a single layer FC storage network.  Since you won’t have a fabric to manage, you can increase your provisioning process by as much as 2.5X.  Also, by removing the fabric layer, you can eliminate up to 55% latency.

This will allow organizations to reduce costs by eliminating the SAN fabric.  It will save on operating costs by cutting down on capital expenditure.  It also scales with the “pay as you grow” methodology allowing you to purchase only what you need.

Complexity is greatly decreased with the wire-once strategy.  If new servers are added to the Blade Chassis, they simply access the storage through the already connected cabling.

Virtual Connect Manager allows for a single pane of glass approach.  It can be used through a web interface or CLI, for those UNIX lovers.

The new trend in IT is Big Data.  Some of the biggest customer challenges are the velocity and volume of data, the large variety and disparate sources of data, and the complex analytics that are required for maximizing the value of information.  HP introduced Vertica 6, which does all of
these.

Vertica 6 FlexStore has been expanded to allow access to any data, stored at any location, through any interface.  You can connect to Hadoop File Systems, existing databases, and data warehouses.  You can also access unstructured analysis platforms such as HP/Autonomy IDOL.

It also includes high performance data analytics for the R Statistical Tool natively and in parallel without the in-memory and single-threaded limitations of R. Vertica 6 has expanded their C++ SDK to add secure sandboxing of user-defined code.

Workload Management simplifies the user experience by enabling more diverse workloads.  Some users experienced up to a 40X speed increase on their queries.  Regardless of size, Workload Management balances all system resources to meet SLAs.

Vertica 6 software will run on the HP public cloud.  Web and mobile applications generate a ton of data.  This will allow business intelligence to quickly spot any trends that are developing and act accordingly.

Not to be overlooked are the enhancements made to the core components that are already part of the system.

Over the past few years, there has been a big interest in disk to disk backup and deduplication.  HP’s latest solution in this space is the B6200 with StoreOnce Catalyst software.  It has over 50 patents that deliver world record performance of 100TB/hr backups and 40TB/hr restores.  This claims to be 3X and 5X faster, respectively, than the next leading competitor.

The hardware is scalable.  It starts at 48TB (32TB usable) and can grow to 768TB (512TB usable).  With a typical deduplication rate of 20X, the system can provide extended data protection for up to 10PBs.

This is a federated backup solution that allows you to move data from remote sites to multiple datacenters without having to reduplicate it.  It integrates with HP Data Protector, Symantec NetBackup, and Symantec BackupExec giving the administrator one console to manage all deduplication, backup, and disaster recovery operations.

The portfolio also includes smaller units for SMB customers. They take advantage of the same type of technologies allowing companies to meet those pesky backup windows.

As a leading HP Partner, GreenPages can assist you with these or any of the products in the HP portfolio.

By Mark Mychalczuk

Miscellaneous IT

Office 2010 Has More Than You Think

Microsoft’s Office 2010 has been out for a couple of years now, but how many people actually know about it and its full capabilities? It’s like those people who are just discovering Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby. I mean peanut butter inside of a pretzel inside of a pint of ice cream, is that even possible? I guess so because we landed on the moon. Well Microsoft Office 2010 has been around for some time as well and I bet a lot of people are still using older versions of Office mainly because, hey it works. Sometimes Microsoft’s biggest competitor is itself, but in this case Office 2010 does have some nifty features that older versions of Office don’t have, and I find that these useful features save me time during the day that I can spend doing more appropriate things, like say eating ice cream.

Office 2010 includes a lot of interactive and collaborative technology that ties into other products such as SharePoint, Lync and InfoPath, but the reality is not everyone has fully invested in those other products so one may think, what’s the point of going to Office 2010 because we’re not going to even use those other products at this point. Well the good news is Office can do more than just play with those collaboration products; in fact it actually has a lot of subtle useful tools that make the everyday work experience just a little bit easier on you.

Email is a very important messaging tool that that we know and love, in fact we probably interact through email more than our phones, so Microsoft has provided some practical tools to make our daily use of email a little simpler. One is the Out of Office message. Like Marty McFly Office 2010 can also see into the future. Once you add a contact name into the “To” Box, Outlook will let you know that your contact is out of the Office so as you’re about to type your message you can decide to abort the email all together or format your message differently knowing that the person you’re about to send it to may not immediately read their email. Doc Brown would be proud. Office also has Mail Tips, where it lets you know that you’re about to Reply to All, which is nice to know just in case you’re about to send a very regrettable email to everyone in your company. HR would be proud. It also has a Forgotten Attachment detector. If you’re sending out an email that reads please see attachment, Office recognizes that you’ve written the word “attachment” in the body of the email so it will let you know to actually attach the file if you have forgotten to do so, because as you know it’s always rewarding when the person you wrote the email to asks “what attachment?” Doh! Homer Simpson would be proud. Lastly, when someone sends you a meeting request, Outlook shows you what other meetings are sandwiched between your meeting, that way you can see how much of a crazy day you’re going to have or how much time you have to recoup from you lunch food coma. Yikes, I have a ½ hour to suck down a 5 Hour Energy! Dyn-o-mite!!! Jimmie Walker would be proud.

If you’re still running an older version of Office, one of the great things about Office 2010 is that it allows you to work anywhere. It’s incorporated a lot of functionality into mobility products such as the Windows Phone and iOS devices. If you’re stuck in a cab in NYC and have to make a few edits to a presentation, Office 2010 allows you to view and edit PowerPoint presentations and Word documents on the fly right on your phone as Microsoft has made an investment in the fidelity of the product to make the application look exactly the same on the phone as it is on a PC. However, it’s much smaller especially if you’re using the Derek Zoolander ridiculously good looking tiny phone. In addition if you don’t have a collaboration tool like Lync or WebEx, Microsoft has built in presentation capabilities right into Office 2010 which allow you to broadcast PowerPoint presentations on your PC or phone right on the web through a shared URL.

Office 2010 also added hundreds or more commands, which at first is a bit overwhelming, but they did it in such a way that it’s organized into a variety of tabs on a ribbon. For instance if you click on a picture it brings you right to a tab where you can make any edits to that picture on that tab without having to jump around all over the document.

Lastly if you purchase Office 2010 with Software Assurance you’ll receive a whole bunch of other benefits, the first of which is Office Home Use Program which lets employees download a copy of Office for their personal PC for $9.95. The cool thing is the employee has a full functioning copy of Office that they can use at home for work or let their kids do their science projects on. Ok, so maybe it’s not that cool, but from a manageability standpoint when an employee downloads Office the employee would sign a separate EULA from the one provided to the company under their Volume License Program. With this agreement the employee would be required to remove the Office from their PC if they were to leave the company, keeping the company off the hook in trying to retrieve the Home User license. In fact, if someone does leave, the employer can redistribute that Home Use license to another employee. Also, with Office 15 coming down the pike, Software Assurance would provide new versions rights to have access to Office 15, when it’s finally released, allowing the end user to enjoy the new features of Office (which may include touch capabilities).

If you’re on an older version of Office and are looking to upgrade, now is a great time to do so. With the purchase of Office, as well as other products, Microsoft is offering their Big Easy promotion which provides subsidy dollars for implementation of future solutions and products including software and services. Basically, depending on the quantity and type of software you purchase, Microsoft will give you money back in the form of a check that you can use for future purchases!

applications, Miscellaneous IT

Changing World of End User Devices

Let me start out by saying that I am not an Apple fan boy. I am not a Microsoft zealot or a Linux aficionado. I use them all daily; it is all about usability to me.

I wanted to talk about the shift I have seen in technology that we use in business every day. This transformation has been just as large and disruptive as virtualization. 10 years ago, the end user hardware and software was set and had very little diversity or customization. It was Win/Tel (Windows running on Intel processors) all the way with Microsoft Office. There was very little or no working from home, and you had to be in the office or have a VPN to the office to do your work.

Fast forward to today and the end user client and software environment has a lot more options. The other architects and I have daily conversations about thin clients, zero clients, iPads, iPhones, Android phones, VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructures) so workers can work from anywhere. I am also seeing many more Apple Macintosh’s in business environments. Exchange is moving into the cloud as in storage, social networks and many companies we work with consider Instant Massaging as a key business application.

You can blame Apple and the usability of the iPad and iPhone, Samsung and other Android tablet and phone manufacturers or the continued advances in technology, but you cannot deny that providing applications and data to end users is not just Windows, Office and a desktop anymore.

I had an interesting personal experience with this recently. I have been a Windows user for most of my life. I do have an iPad and have been using that more and more. I needed a new personal laptop and after much soul searching and justifying the additional cost, I purchased a MacBook Pro. It took me years to talk myself into paying more money for essentially the same hardware. Well, I am very happy that I did. I find the Mac has almost all of the applications that I use, and I have VMware Fusion for any Windows applications that are not supported. I really enjoy using the Mac more and find it much more usable than the Windows laptop I use for work. Gestures and the awesome usability of the mousepad (trackpad) make this my personal choice of hardware going forward.

The bottom line is that today’s IT department has many more choices in how to deliver applications and data to their end users. This can be a management nightmare, if not planned correctly, but does offer end users many more options to stay connected and do the work they need to anyplace, anytime, and on (almost) any device.

Miscellaneous IT, Windows 8

Exploring Microsoft Windows 8: Search Functionality

Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system is bringing some of the most radical changes to the OS since Windows 95.  Our own Chris Ward gave a great preview of what’s to come, and I’d like to focus on some of the baked-in features which have received a complete overhaul.  It’s very clear that not only is Microsoft improving the functionality & performance of the OS (what can it do & how fast does it do it), but they are also paying extremely close attention to usability (how easy is it to use).  And this feat is made all the more complicated because not only do they need to focus on the classic desktop, which we’ve come to know & love, but they now must also consider the experience of someone using a tablet which is a dramatically different way to navigate around the operating system.  This is the first part in a series of discussions around the features of Windows 8, some old, some new.

consumption, Miscellaneous IT

The Taxonomy of IT – Part 4: Order and Family

The Order level of IT classification builds upon the previous Kingdom, Phylum and Class levels. In biology, Order is used to further group like organisms by traits that define their nature or character. In the Mammalia Class, Orders include Primates, Carnivora, Insectivora, and Cetacea. Carnivora is pretty self-explanatory and includes a wide range of animal species. However, Cetacea is restricted to whales, dolphins and porpoises and indicates more of an evolutionary development path that is consistent between them.

In IT, the concept of what we consume and how we got to that consumption model correlates to the concept of Order. So, Order focuses on how IT is consumed and why it’s consumed that way.

Business needs drive IT models, and as business needs change so does the way we leverage IT. An organization may have started out with a traditional on-premise solution that met all needs, and over time has morphed into a hybrid solution of internal and external resources. Likewise, the way users consume IT changes over time. This may be due to underlying business change, or possibly due to “generational” changes in the workforce. In either case, where IT is today does not always reflect its true nature.

Using consumption as a metric, we can group IT environments to bring to light how they have evolved, and expose their future needs. Some examples of different Orders might be:

Contra-Private – IT is mostly a private resource and is not specifically consumption driven. The IT organization uses their own internalized set of standards in order to identify the technical direction of the platforms. Shunning industry standards and trends, they often take a less-is-more approach to the tools and services they provide to the business. Ironically, their platforms tend to be oversized and underutilized.

Mandatorily-Mixed – here IT leverages a mix of internal, external, hard-built and truly consumed resources because the business demands it. IT may have less power to make foundational decisions or affect policy, but they typically will be better funded and be encouraged to work with outside groups. Often the internal/external moat is drawn around the LOB application stack, and these tend to be overly scaled.

Scale-Sourced – In this Order, IT would be incented to make efficiency and flexibility their guiding principles for decision-making. The business allows IT to determine use of and integration with outside services and solutions and relies on them to make the intelligent decisions. This Order is also user driven, with the ability to adopt new services and policies that drive user effectiveness.

The Family classification is the first real grouping of organisms where their external appearance is the primary factor. Oddly, what is probably the most visually apparent comes this deep in the classification model. Similarly within IT, we can now start grouping environments by their IT “appearance,” or more fundamentally, their core framework.

If you dissect a Honey Badger, it would probably be evident that it’s very much like other animals in the weasel family. It’s overall shape and proportions are similar to other weasels, from the smallest Least weasel to the largest Wolverine. So size is not the factor here, what is more important is the structure, and what type of lifestyle that structure has evolved to support. Therefore, in IT, Family refers to the core structure of data flow within IT systems.

Here are some examples:

Linear – IT is built along a pathway that conforms to a linear work flow. Systems are built to address specific point functions such as marketing, financials, manufacturing, etc. Each system has a definitive start and stop point, with end to end integration only. Input/output is translated between them, often by duplicated entry, scripted processes, or 3rd party translation. One function cannot begin until another has completed, thus creating a chain of potential break-points and inefficiencies.

Parallel – Workstreams can be completed concurrently, with some form of data-mashing at the end of each function. While this structure allows for users to work without waiting on others to complete their functions, it does require additional effort to combine the streams at the end.

Linked – Here, systems are linked at key intersections of workflow. Data crosses these intersections in a controlled and orderly fashion. Often, the data conversions are transparent or at least simplified. The efficiency level is increased, as dynamic information can be utilized by more than one person, however the complexities of this approach are often fraught with underlying dangers and support challenges.

Mobius – If you know the form of a Mobius strip, you get the idea here. In this form, it doesn’t matter what side of the workflow you are on, everything flows without interruption or collision. If this is delivered by more than one integrated system, then the integration is well tested and supported by all parties involved. More likely, this form is enabled by a singular system that receives, correlates, and forwards the data along its merry way.

Both the Order and Family are where we start to see the benefits of a Cloud IT architecture. Built to specification, consumed in a flexible, on-demand way, and enabling the true flow of information across all required systems may sound like nirvana. But, consider that our limiting factor in achieving this goal is not technology per se, but our ability to visualize and accept it.