May 01, 2008

Lab test: Infortrend EonStor B12S Iometer results

Enterprise storage is typically fast, reliable, large, and heavy, and consumes a good amount of energy. Infortrend's EonStor (see Mario Apicella's review) is fast, reliable, thin (1U), and a scant 45 pounds with 12 disks. All because it uses 2.5-inch, Small Form Factor SAS drives instead of the usual 3.5-inch disks. Better yet, Mario's tests show the EonStor draws significantly less energy than like-configured arrays based on 3.5-inch drives -- about 40% less. The key thing, of course, is that it doesn't sacrifice performance or reliability features. Spinning at 15,000 rpm, the little SAS drives hold up their end, and... more

TAGS: Green IT, Small Form Factor storage

April 25, 2008

One Fewer Excuse for Deploying Policy (aka NAC)

While most network staff give a nod to the general idea of policy-based networking, there have been a number of hurdles to its adoption, not the least of which is a need to understand the current state of the endpoints on the network. Without knowing what is happening with the endpoints, it's virtually impossible to know the implications of implementing policies. Answers to questions like, "How many non-compliant systems do we have?" "What kinds of non-Windows endpoints do we have?" and "What kinds of non-compliance issues are the most prevalent?" are exceedingly difficult to gather manually. Enter Great Bay Software's... more

TAGS: Network policy enforcement

April 22, 2008

Red Hat backs AMD virtualization

Red Hat is announcing Tuesday its support for virtualization capabilities offered by AMD processors in new HP servers. The company's Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 platform supports AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing technology, for more efficient use of memory management on Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors. HP now is offering systems equipped with these processors in its HP ProLiant DL585 G5 servers, Red Hat said. Rapid Virtualization Indexing improves the efficiency of virtual guest operating systems' memory management, Red Hat said. Red Hat also is offering para-virtualized device drivers to make IO workloads in virtual guests perform close to the bare-metal performance... more

TAGS: Linux

April 21, 2008

Fujitsu double encryption on mobile drives

Fujitsu, (I mean Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc) is announcing today the MHZ2 CJ series, a new line of  2.5 drives with FDE (full disk encryption) capabilities, joining rivals Hitachi GST (Global Storage Technologies) and Seagate who have been shipping similar hardware based encryption on some of their models. The additional twist that Fujitsu puts on  their MHZ2 CJ drives  is 256 bit AES encryption, which should ensure an even stronger protection than what rival solutions provide, Fujitsu suggests.  During a briefing, David James,  vice president of  advanced product engineering for Fujitsu suggested that  without the right key  it's... more

TAGS: Full disk encryption

April 17, 2008

Trixbox 2.0 spins up some new trix

I've been working with Fonality's Trixbox for a little while now. I've run Asterisk via the old Asterisk@Home code (later, Trixbox CE) for years, so taking a close look at the Pro version has certainly been interesting. Fonality just released Trixbox Pro 2.0 this week, and my test system has been upgraded to this rev, which gives me the chance to take some of their new features for a spin. Trixbox Pro is a centrally-managed, Asterisk-based PBX in a box. It's managed through Fonality's Web portal, not locally on the server, and offers an extensive GUI to control and... more

TAGS: Telephony/VOIP/Wireless, VoIP

April 16, 2008

Why a change to an AutoCAD file format is throwing some WAN accelerators for a loop

An innocent change to an AutoCAD file format has cut sharply into the ability of some WAN acceleration solutions to speed the transfer of these files, and caused grumblings in some widely distributed AutoCAD shops over slowed WAN performance. The problem affects users of AutoCAD 2007 and 2008 (specifically those who open and save the design program’s files over a WAN) and stems from a change to the DWG file format for AutoCAD 2007. Ironically, Autodesk’s changes to the DWG file format were designed to improve performance and reduce file size, among other things. But the new format, when... more

TAGS: Wide Area Networks

April 16, 2008

Connecting Vista to MySQL

Geometry quiz: Can we draw a straight  that joins together Vista, virtual disks,   a new version of  Ajax development tools and MySQL?  Well, geometry has nothing to do with that but I would bet dollars against pennies that a similar line can be easily  drawn in your data center. Virtual to the core Depending on who you are talking to,  and sometimes you may get different answers at different times, Windows Vista is described as either an embarrassing fiasco or the best OS you can ever load on a desktop or laptop. My personal opinion? Glad you asked. I am... more

TAGS: Test Center Tracker