Rackable puts desktop CPUs in low-cost servers - Network World

How’s this for a new approach to application serving:

Rackable Systems has turned to low-cost desktop components for a new server design that aims to provide a cheaper alternative for companies running busy Web applications, the company announced Wednesday. The design uses Athlon and Phenom desktop CPUs from Advanced Micro Devices and allows for highly dense servers that can be priced under US$500 because they are based on commodity PC parts, said Saeed Atashie, director of server products at Rackable.

Rackable puts desktop CPUs in low-cost servers - Network World

People have been using desktops as server for years. Hell, my first publically accessible web server ran an a Mac SE30. And it ran commercial sites driven by an Oracle Database that ran on a PC!

But that was a one off test bed, not a large scale web farm. It was also 1994.

Rackable makes high density x86 servers. Until now they utilized Xeon and Opteron processors. The systems were designed so as many as 84 servers could fit into a standard server cabinet. At about $3K a piece, they were not cheap, but were in the same ball park as the much lower density 1U servers from everyone.

This offering fulfills the RAIC paradigm. This is really an array of inexpensive computers. While the reliability won’t be as high as with server grade parts, that doesn’t matter that much in this use model. Quickly pulling out a failed server and replacing it is the story here and dumping a $500 box is much easier to justify to the CFO than a $3500 one, even if you could make the case that the $3500 one was cheap too.

Very interesting.

The shifting tides of heterogeneous storage virtualization :: Wikibon

A few months ago I’d embarked on research concerning external virtualization, here called heterogeneous storage virtualization. I like that term better and the TLA, HSV, works pretty well too. 

The article points to the same drivers I’d identified in my research:

1. Tiered storage - in an effort to create a default tier 2 strategy and avoid expensive tier 1 platforms;
2. Migration capability - especially for customers facing a rolling financially-forced lease conversion every year or those with particularly frequent migrations due to acquisition strategies;
3. Storage consolidation - in an effort to pool heterogeneous storage assets;
4. VMware and server virtualization - to support backend storage virtualization for virtualized server environments.

So far, my research has focused on how the main players: IBM with SVC, EMC with Invista, Hitachi  with USVP (and HP which sells Hitachi built storage, customized to HP specs, but still using Hitachi technologies) with and LSI with Storage Virtualization Manager. In the past few weeks, HP has brought to market its own version of the LSI product, renaming it SVSP and adding some features and capabilities.

It’s very hard to compare how these products differ in delivering their functionality as the costs are fairly high, but Edison hopes to begin some testing in the next several months. For now, it looks like the market will have to depend upon what the sales folks say. But in the future, perhaps, Edison will have some nuts and bolts information to help organizations make more educated decisions.

Vista doesn't like to update

I've been having a problem with one of my computers that's running Vista. (I know, I know: why am I running Vista? Probably so I can go through this crap and understand what the fuss is about.)

Anyhow, a few months ago, Windows Update started having problems. It would automatically update, but I couldn't access the tool to change settings and if I also wanted to update other Microsoft products, I couldn't access the Microsoft Update site, nor install nor run Microsoft Update or even MS Office auto updates.

I discovered that this might not be an unusal problem - there was a link on the error page to get support from Microsoft. I clicked it.

Microsoft support people started a long, e-mail discussion of things to try. I've tried them all over the past many weeks. Install this, run that command line utility, download that other thing, do an upgrade installation (which failed because I'd installed SP1 and the Vista DVD was pre SP1; MS kindly sent new software media, but it too was pre-SP1 and also came on CD not DVD. Oh, and it didn't work).

Additional research on the Microsoft forums has shown that this problem is common enough to have several threads about it.

Everyone seems to go through the same steps. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I know that Microsoft is at a disadvantage over Apple in this - every PC has different hardware and software installed and not all of those products are made to the same high standards. And updating live software is always a challenge. Windows (and earlier MS OS) biggest advantage over Macintosh OSes is that it runs almost any Intel compatible hardware. It's biggest disadvantage is that it also may not run on almost any Intel compatible hardware.

The fruits of this conflicting agenda is the failure of Vista to gain market acceptance and the on-going concerns about next generation operating systems.

Sad.