TechSwammy

Intel's Cloud Storage Infrastructure

2011-04-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Intel's Ajay Chandramouly, Cloud and Data Center Manager, shares his best IT practices for deploying cloud technologies with peers in the industry at SNW. His big trends are cloud, IT consumerization and security.

Cloud Scoreboard

2010-12-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

There have been some meaningful acquisitions in the cloud and data center space recently, not the least of which was Dell’s offer to buy enterprise storage maker Compellent Technologies for nearly $1 billion earlier this week. Dell hopes this will help them close the gap in the storage arena with HP, who recently won the Dell-HP bidding war for 3Par. Other notable acquisitions include Juniper’s $95 million acquisition of Altor Networks, which provides virtualization security for data centers, and Cisco’s purchase of LineSider Technologies, a privately held provider of network management software that makes it easier for businesses to create their cloud computing infrastructures. The latter two acquisitions emphasize the importance of management software and security in cloud computing.

Some of the key Data Center vendors like: Cisco, Intel, VMware, Oracle, Dell, HP and IBM are purchasing other companies in order to provide vertical data center solution stacks to their customers, but none of them have the “best of breed” in all the verticals such as network, storage, server and enterprise applications. Its back to the future in terms of proprietary vertical stacks.

What the Cloud is NOT...

2010-11-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

Given all the various interpretations of what exactly the cloud means, I've decided to take a different approach to articulating what the cloud is by calling out what the cloud is not! Make sense? Its kind of like the SATs when you had to pick the right antonym of a word.

If you can't buy it on your personal credit card, its not the cloud.
If there is a consultant in the room, its not the cloud.
If someone is trying to sell you hardware, its not the cloud.
If you own all the hardware its not the cloud.
If you need to install software to use it, its not the cloud.
If you can't connect to it from your own machine, its not the cloud.
If it only runs one OS, its not the cloud.
If you need to specify beforehand the number of machines you want, its not the cloud.
If you know where the machines are physically located, its not the cloud.
If you can't provision or de-comission in less than 10 mins, its not the cloud.
If there is no API, its not the cloud.

What do you think? Did I miss anything?

Does Cloud Computing = Outsourcing??

2010-10-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

No different as far as I can tell. You may want to ask yourself the following:
1. Do you have a dedicated or shared environment?
2. If shared, how is it managed?
3. What information do you host publicly?
4. How do you define and what are your controls? Controls will vary from each environment so translations will be required.

Upshot: If your cloud provider can meet your security goals then you're good. Simple as that.

Can Virtualization Reduce Risk?? You Betcha!

2010-10-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Server consolidation is one of the biggest use cases of virtualization. But with consolidation, comes the serious risk that one virtual instance can compromise others. Definitely a good idea to manage risk by keeping the most sensitive data separate from public data.

But virtualization can be used to greatly reduce risk too. How? Rather than going from say 10 servers to one, virtualize to two instead. This serves as a counterbalance to a single point of failure. Further its much faster to bring up a virtual server than a physical server. Q.e.d. you can can leverage virtualization to mitigate availability risk.

What does the Ideal Data Center Look like?

2010-10-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

Secure
Service-Oriented
Agile
Performance and Energy Efficient

How can the Cloud Help:

On-Demand Self-Service Administration
Shared Multiple Tenants
Responsive and Capable Elasticity
Broad Network Access
Resource Pooling
Measured Services and Reporting

Automatic
Self-provisioning

Cloud Computing: Myth or Legend??

2010-10-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

Is cloud computing real? Is it just another name for the public internet? Is private cloud just another name for a data center. Or is there really more to it than that?

Cloud computing is real. It enables services on demand to a wide range of devices such as PCs, notebooks, tablets, smartphones, etc. These services are delivered via a shared and scalable pool of compute, storage, and networking infrastructure. Many common online applications such as email, search, and social networking are delivered via the "cloud".

Cloud computing is changing business and infrastructure paradigms within IT more than any other issue.

How to Sell

2008-01-28T15:50:00.000-08:00

I work for a big technology company. I know this is supposed to be a technology blog, but I recently took an awesome sales class and thought I'd share what I learned. Even though my day job has little to do with selling a product, I found this class to be extremely useful and practical. Whether it be selling an idea, point of view, or oneself for a raise/promo, we all engage in selling in one form or another. And after I learned how to sell, I then took a Negotiation class to figure out how to get the most in return for what I'm selling! A powerful combination indeed.

In a nutshell, the key to selling is politics. Every major buying decision is a political decision. Different people are striving to advance their particular agendas. This is a key point I'll return to later. The political power base of an organization is often not what it appears to be. It transcends the formal org chart and structure. Identifying pockets of informal influence and positioning yourself for political advantage is even more important than the objective merit of your idea.

Any organization with more than 1 person has politics. A person's authority in a company is usually obvious from an org chart. A person's standing and influence in an organization is more subtle and requires investigation. Adding value by doing good work is not enough to earn influence within an organization. To become influential, one must be recognized by powerful people. Therefore, to sell effectively to someone entails understanding their personal agenda and helping them advance that agenda.

One particularly effective tactic that smart people use is to socialize ideas first before formally proposing them. Its effective for two reasons:

When people are bought-in to your idea, they'll defend you.
It prevents someone from surprising you with something you hadn't thought of at an inopportune moment

Intel to Eventually Exit NAND Flash

2008-01-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

First the context

Intel announced record revenue and unit shipments in Q4'07 that beat their previous record by a half billion dollars. Intel netted $2.3B from a gross of $10.7B. Gross margins, a highly watched indicator of profitability, came in at a whopping 58%, almost unheard of in any business. Further, profits grew significantly faster than revenue, another sign of a keenly improving operation. The primary drivers for the impressive gross margins were: higher unit volumes, lower unit costs, and lower 45nm costs. The 45nm process is a breakthrough technology that utilizes for the first time hafnium based high-k metal gate technology.

Yet Intel's stock price got spanked, down 15% immediately in after-hours trading. What was the underlying reason behind the seemingly dichotomous market reaction? Weaker than expected Q4 results, uncertainty in the overall economy, and less than anticipated Q1'08 guidance contributed to the stock price demise. But the primary reason was Intel's NAND flash business.

Flash History 101

Intel pioneered the non-volatile Flash memory technology in the late 1980s. The key distinguishing advantage of flash memory was that it was non-volatile, meaning that the memory chip didn't lose data when powered off unlike DRAM for example. After transitioning to the much more lucrative microprocessor business, Intel's primary motive for remaining in the NOR flash business was to keep open a second flank on AMD so that they couldn't compete as effectively in the higher-margin processor business. Recently NOR flash started to lose out to another flash technology called NAND, which was much better suited for the growing data storage market that is utilized in devices such as mp3 players, digital cameras, and just about every other device that needs to retain data after power is turned off. And NAND was the fastest growing semi-conductor segment, period. Intel was even willing to enter the NAND business late because it found a way for it to complement its main processor business by including flash memory on its computer motherboards in its vPro platform and its still to be proven Turbo Memory offering.

The Rub

This all sounds promising for NAND, so what's the rub? Despite the near ubiquitous nature of Flash memory, Intel never found a way to make a profit with it, even when it was #1 in the NOR market for years, much less now with NAND where it's #5 with 3% market share behind Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix, and Micron respectively. In 2006, the Flash business lost $555M when Intel finally had enough and spun it off with STM to get their Flash assets off the books.

So the obvious reason Intel will jettison its remaining NAND flash business is profitability, or lack thereof. In the current environment, Intel has made clear that it no longer has the patience to tolerate money losing ventures as they have demonstrated by selling off numerous unprofitable businesses over the last two years. There's also a strategic reason that makes this prediction a near certainty. Competing in NAND exacerbates a conflict with a potentially important and strategic customer - Samsung. Samsung currently purchases significant quantities of processors for PCs and is working with Intel to develop the next generation of DRAM technology to benefit Intel's primary PC business. Further, Intel is counting on Samsung to be a strategic customer in a key future growth area, the $10B mobile internet device consumer electronics market.

The only issue that is preventing Intel from exiting NAND immediately are its existing contractual obligations. So the question is when, not if Intel will sell off NAND.

Beware: Web Photos Can Now be Searched and Identified

2008-01-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

For all of you who have posted or have friends who have posted brazen pics of you on the web - Beware. A new search engine called Polar Rose uses sophisticated facial recognition algorithms to reconstruct a 3D shape of someone's face to generate a "face print". This face print is then used to search against other photos for matches.

Facial recognition isn't new. However, Polar Rose has demonstrated that its method is more accurate than previous attempts attempts at this technology. Now Polar Rose has made its best in class facial recognition software available for use on the internet. The Polar Rose plug-in for Firefox is in beta and will be released this month. The Internet Explorer plug in will follow shortly.

The plug in allows users to:
1. Identify the name of any person in a public photo on the web
2. Search for more photos of the same person across the entire internet
3. Create alerts to be sent when new photos of a person are posted
4. Collectively add information and tag people in online photos
5. Sort online photos by the people appearing in them

Polar Rose's reach extends to online photo sharing sites such as: Snapfish, Webshots, and Flickr. There is no question that there will be more tracking of online photography. Further, no search engine "opt-out" is available at this time.

Users however can take precautions to ensure privacy. For example, only use password protected sites. Better yet, use other means of sharing photos with friends and family. Always assume that photos you post will be available and seen by the broader public and select which photos you post accordingly. Lastly, beware of other people posting photos with you in them, especially at public events that may be publicized. And always exercise utmost discretion

Why Did Intel Pull Out of OLPC?

2008-01-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

Intel announced today that it will terminate its formal relationship with Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC initiative. Although both Intel and Negroponte share the common goal of supporting a billion children with computer technology, Intel cited philosophical differences with Negroponte on how best to realize the common vision.

If Intel remains committed to the common goal, what was the problem? The problem was Negroponte's unreasonable demand that Intel exclusively support the OLPC XO laptop and break all other commitments with governments and customers considering other solutions, including the Classmate PC.

Intel remains steadfast in its support of the OLPC mission. There is more than rhetoric to back up the claim. Intel has donated over a billion dollars over the last ~10 years to advance the use of computer technology in schools. In over 30 countries, millions of teachers have been trained and they in turn have helped countless more students.

Negroponte's recent actions indicate that he seems to think that he owns this effort alone. Its either his way or not at all. History tells us that this kind of hubris precedes the fall. Given his lackluster success so far, mediocre arrogance might be another way to describe the reason for these recent events. But with Intel still committed to the goal, thankfully the children should still realize the benefit they deserve.

Intel vs. AMD

2008-01-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

On November 19, 2007, AMD launched its first quad-core desktop processor based on the much awaited Barcelona microarchitecture. Two processor SKUs were launched: the AMD Phenom 9600 and the AMD Phenom 9500. No OEM officially responded until today. HP was the first OEM to announce that it would begin selling a consumer desktop, the Pavilion Media Center m8330f, that will use AMD's quad-core Phenom processor and will be displayed at CES starting 1/7/2008. AMD still has a number of issues to work through in 2008, not the least of which is delivering the chips to its customers on time and as promised. AMD has proven with recent missteps that this is no certainty. Its therefore no wonder that the rest of HP's desktops and notebooks that will be on display at CES will feature a combination of Intel dual-core and quad-core processors.

Intel's current quad-core processor that has been shipping for some time now has already shown superior clock performance compared to Phenom. In fact, the current Intel bottom bin quad-core proc has outperformed the top bin AMD Phenom 9600. Further, Intel's imminent 45nm offering will further extend the lead.

One of AMD's more notable woes was a bug within the chip's translation-lookaside buffer that caused problems from data being transferred from the Level 2 to the Level 3 cache. Still no word of an official OEM quad-core Opteron announcement.

Expect AMD to divert attention away from its performance deficiencies and towards its perceived advantage in graphics.

The Status of WiMAX

2008-01-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

Wide scale mobile WiMAX deployments will start globally in 2008 with collaboration from service providers, infrastructure equipment vendors, and device and PC OEMs. Soon Wi-Fi and WiMAX will be integrated together on the lapotop to deliver cost effective, high speed broadband on the go. Korea is at the vanguard of this revolution having already deployed their version of WiMAX dubbed "WiBro". Other high profile WiMAX announcements have come from Taiwan, Japan, and Europe.

Several OEMs such as Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Panasonic, and Toshiba have announced embedded WiMAX into their next generation PCs. The integrated Wi-Fi/WiMAX module will have advanced multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) antenna technology and multi-band radio support. It supports the IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX and IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n air interfaces and will be available in a variety of form factors.

Asus announced at CES 2008 that it will adopt WiMAX in its VX2 and U6 notebooks in addition to the enterprise class V1, UMPC R50A and mainstream F88. The next generation Eee PC will also have built-in WiMAX. In total, WiMAX will comprise 15% of its self-branded notebooks. Prices will begin from under $1,000. Asus predicts that 20% of notebook users will start using WiMAX by 2009.

WiMAX will bring about a new business model that enables low-cost embedded devices and provides low-cost and flexible service plans for consumers. It takes advantage of new spectrum and open Internet access while spurring new activation and distribution models. The technical benefits of WiMAX features use of a flat and simple all IP-based infrastructure. Operatiors will therefore have the increased ability to pick and choose interoperable and standards-based equipment which will eliminate proprietary premiums and lower deployment costs. WiMAX IEEE 802.16e is based on OFDMA, which enables advanced antenna solutions, multi-megabit bandwidth, spectral efficiency, and volume economics.

The performance of this new technology will benefit greatly from MIMO antenna technology. The general goal of WiMAX is to provide users with mobile boradband throughput comparable to typical throughput at home with DSL broadband. The key additional benefit here is the mobility while not comprimising throughput. Maximum download speeds of 10Mbps for wide area connectivity and up to 450Mbps for local Wi-Fi connectivity. These throughputs are based on theoretical maximums achievable in a zero path loss or free space environment. In practical use, wireless systems tend to deliver ~30% of this throughput.

How will WiMAX modules affect the form factor of laptops? Since OEMs will use an integrated Wi-Fi and WiMAX module on a single or half MiniCard, there will be no additional laptop real estate required. Hence no compromise of the overall laptop will be necessary thereby preserving the most critically desirable feature of mobile notebooks.

Thin vs Fat Clients

2007-12-28T15:37:00.000-08:00

New client compute models have been garnering a lot of press lately. Businesses continue to face steep challenges by way of security, management, regulatory, staffing and cost issues. Almost all major IT shops have either evaluated or are contemplating moving to a thin client compute model to meet their management, security, and TCO needs. I'll present a model and framework to evaluate the various options and recommendations of each usage model for particular scenarios.

The framework to apply in considering future compute models should be broken down into the following 5 categories: Terminal Services, Virtual Hosted Desktops, OS and Application Streaming, Application Streaming, and Rich Clients. Each has its merits and tradeoffs. It is also important to separate analysis of the problem, the compute model, and client device before coming to a conclusion. These are all separate issues and should be discussed in this order. Often, decision makers erroneously tightly link the compute model to the client device.

Most IT shops deploy a mix of some form of the above options depending on the weighted value placed on data security, performance, and mobility for each particular business group. For example, IT may apply a different compute model for their mobile salesforce than for their call center workers.

Next time, a deep dive into how to decide which compute model and client device best addresses your problem...

What is vPro and What can it do for Me?

2007-12-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

vPro processor technology is beginning to take hold in the enterprise. What is it? Its a new array of technologies designed for businesses that brings new built-in management and security capabilities to solve critical IT enterprise-class problems.

The key underlying technologies that comprise vPro are Active Management Technology (AMT) and chip level virtualization. This allows IT administrators to spend less time on routine maintenance and security tasks, increase uptime with down the wire security and patches even when PCs are off, reduce desk-side visits, and lower power consumption by being able to remotely power off machines at the end of the day.

In the past manageability solutions were confined to software based solutions only. SW solutions were adequate but their functionality was limited to only when the OS was functioning and agents were present. Now with vPro, enterprise management consoles can reach the bare metal of the PC - even if the OS is not functioning or the machine is powered off. vPro technology is not meant to replace SW manageability solutions. Rather its meant to extend the functionality of SW. Therefore it enables the complete enterprise management promise.

Almost all major PC Manufacturers and software vendors as well as leading IT Outsourcers support vPro.

Now, What exactly is Active Management Technology...

Manageability tends to be overused as a buzz word. The root of its meaning can be broken down into 3 primary categories: Discover all assets in an enterprise (ie. Remote HW and SW Asset Inventory), Heal machines that are infected with viruses (ie. Remote diagnostics and repair), and Protect machines from a compromised network (ie. Agent presence checking, Virtualized configuration management, Platform Stability).

Lets go one level deeper into how these 3 categories are enabled in the chipset.

Discover: HW and SW asset information is accessible to IT anytime, even if the OS is hung or PC is off, by storing the information in non-volatile Flash memory. Access to this information doesn't depend on sw agents thereby preventing accidental data loss

Heal: IT has access to remote out-of-band diagnosis and repair in the event of SW, OS, or HW failures. This can be done through Remote Boot, Serial over LAN, or IDE Redirections. Further, alerts and event logging help IT proactively detect these problems to prevent them before they occur and reduce end-user downtime.

Protect: vPro machines on the network are protected from virus and worm attacks through packet filtering and heuristics. Further, IT is able to keep sw versions and virus protection current.

To summarize, the core benefits for IT are:
1. High Availability and Out of Band Remote Management - provides remote manageability in all system power and health states. It runs on auxiliary power.
2. OS-Independent - Complete access to vPro machines regardless of OS state
3. Tamper Resistant - vPro agent is bound to the PC hw and configured by IT. The end-user is unable to modify or disable.

New Manageability Features in 2008 (AMT 2.5)
1. Environment Detection - allows IT to determine if a system is inside or outside the enterprise.
2. 802.1x Support - allows connection to a network requiring 802.1x authentication during shutdown
3. Cisco NAC Support - allows connection to a network requiring Cisco NAC authentication during shutdown