Links for October 11th through October 12th

A little something extra…

After getting AT&T U-verse last week, I figured I’d finally be eligible for a MicroCell. I picked one up yesterday, and it seems OK so far. After a few more days – maybe a week – of usage, I’ll write a review, also for U-verse which is great so far.

Back to the MicroCell, I just made my first call this morning, to Charles. It worked splendid from my living room where calls usually (a.) flat out don’t work, (b.) get dropped after a few minutes, (c.) the “I am now!” where my phone call gets broken up. Sending txt messages is super fast too, compared to my previous speed: not working at all.

As I Tweetered yesterday, it proves the iPhone QoS rule: the solution to any iPhone problem is to spend more money.

The Links

• Your 1st UCS Product Briefing
  Jesse nicely rounds up all sorts of info for checking out Cisco's UCS.
• Scaling Up vs. Scaling Out: Hidden Costs
  Call it "Atwood's Law of Microsoft Scaling": "scaling out is only frictionless when you use open source software."
• Only 25% of all server workloads will be in a VM by year-end 2010 says Gartner
  "..only 25% of all server workloads will be in a virtual machine by year-end 2010."
• An Unexpected Pleasure
  "To me the overarching motivation is obvious. Both IBM and Oracle have a shared interest in assuring their enterprise customers that Java was, is and always will be the safe technology choice that they’ve been selling for the past ten to fifteen years." –Mike Milinkovich, Eclipse Foundation. And, indeed: "The actions of Google, SAP and VMware in particular will all be interesting to watch." Also, the rest of his detailed analysis is well done.
• Gartner Survey Reveals How the Cloud Is Changing IT Budgets
  "The survey indicates that cloud computing services from external service providers are estimated to comprise 10% of the spending on external IT services. 46% of respondents with budget allocated to cloud computing said they planned to increase the use of services from external providers."
• Netflix’s Transition to a Key_v3 – Powered by Google Docs
  Read about how Netflix transitioned over to cloud storage and such.
• William Vambenepe — CMDB in the Cloud: not your father’s CMDB
  William expertly picks apart how CMDBs need to change to keep up with highly virtualized – even "cloud" – environments. Good reading for those who worry about IT Management architectures. Check out this mind-hack: "The fact that there is a clean line between the infrastructure model and the application model is not a limitation. It is empowering. Even if your Cloud provider was willing to expose a detailed view of the underlying infrastructure you should resist the temptation to accept. Despite the fact that it might be handy in the short term and provide an interesting perspective, it is self-defeating in the long term from the perspective of realizing the productivity improvements promised by the Cloud. These improvements require that the infrastructure administrator be freed from application-specific issues and focus on meeting the contract of the platform."
• How Do You Measure ‘Value’ in IT Innovation?
  Andi discusses some of the things CIOs find valuable – the "value" their IT spend gets them. Nice, quick yet level-headed look at what IT department heads are looking to accomplish.
• Economic downturn results in better business for outsourcersService Assurance Daily: Anything and everything that affects IT performance, from the mundane to the bizarre – Network Performance Blog
  "IT outsourcing expenses consumed 3.8% of IT budgets in 2008. In 2009, outsourcing services were responsible for 6.1% of total IT dollars invested, and this year, 'median spending on outsourcing as a percentage of total IT spending rose to 7.1%.'"
• YouTube – Introducing HP POD-Works
  Hey, pretty nice, if slightly over-produced video, on HP's containerized datacenter work.
• Software evolution storylines
• IBM backs Oracle against Apache and Google's Android • The Register
  'Explaining IBM’s switch, Sutor said it became clear that first Sun and then Oracle had no intention of releasing the TCKs. “Rather than continue to drive Harmony as an unofficial and uncertified Java effort, we decided to shift direction and put our efforts into OpenJDK,” he said.'
• Windows Phone 7: 'Different,' delightful,' and…unfinished
  Gavin Clarke calls it a "non-launch event": 'November 8 is the big date when phones will be available in the US. But only one model is debuting that day: the Samsung Focus. The Surround and Quantum will be available "a few weeks later," AT&T mobility and consumer markets CEO Ralph de la Vega said.'
• Windows Phone 7: Apple has a problem | Mobile Industry Review
  Mobile Industry Review predicts big things: "Windows Phone 7 devices will sell like hotcakes."
• LogMeIn Central Adds IT Automation
• AccelOps provides winning diagnostics for healthcare provider
  'And this, he adds, really helps IT talk in a way that business understands. "It's much better that they can say, ‘We have this problem with our digital imaging application' vs. 'We're seeing processor spikes on the South Austin Medical Center routers,' which doesn't mean anything to the business.'
• Java EE 6 Conversation / Glassfish Podcast Part 2 : Adam Bien's Weblog
  Talking about JEE 6, being more lightweight and all that enterprisey functionality.
• Analyst Reports – BMC Software
  Read what all the IT industry analysts are saying about BMC – at least the ones BMC wants to link to.
• Ballmer On Windows Phone 7: All About ‘Mine’
• HP to cut 1,300 jobs in UK, says Unite
  Press quote by Twitter: 'Many were sceptical of this explanation, however. “If you can replace 9,000 jobs with ‘automation’ you must have just invented some earth-shattering technology,” remarked RedMonk analyst Michael Coté [in Twitter] at the time.'
• Windows Phone 7: A Fresh Start for the Smartphone: The phone delivers a new user experience by integrating the things users really want to do, creating a balance between getting work done and having fun.
  "They want one thing that they can access their work e-mail on and then put in their bag and go to the party, and they want it to be easy to use. That’s exactly what we’re delivering."
• The iPad is Nice!! « The IT Manager (ITMGR.org)
  "Cotes and Willis had an interesting dialogue in their June 4 “IT Management and Cloud Podcast” about the iPad as the perfect interface to the cloud and desktop replacement. After personally seeing the RDP run on it giving it access to a native Windows desktop, I think there is much validity to their argument."
• GroundWork Open Source Releases GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 6.3 :: GroundWork Open Source (GWOS)
  New release from GroundWork.
• BMC Buys Neptuny Software to Bolster Cloud Portfolio – Cloud Computing from eWeek

Disclosure: see the RedMonk client list for clients mentioned.