ITNews

Mrvirtualization at ITComparision commented on my Hyper-V Hype posting

“If you are looking for a good comparison between Hyper-V & Vmware you might want to take a look at Microsoft Windows Hyper-V (WSV) VS VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.5

its very detailed and healthy.

Enjoy,
Mrvirtualization.”

Other site related comparisons are:

Xen Server Enterprise VS VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 VS Xen Server Enterprise

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 VS VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3

Thanks for the info Mrvirtualization.

…John

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and not responded to the market and faces serious competition that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts. Never the less, they are reported to be optimistic about Windows’ revival.

Joe Wilcox isn’t. His Microsoft Watch posting Broken Windows Can’t Be Fixed disagrees with those thinking Windows can be fixed.

It’s the problem of legacy and Microsoft’s ridiculous integration strategy. Windows is a fat client for a thin world. There’s no future place for the desktop client. Computing is shifting from the desktop to the device and server. Windows, particularly Vista, has too much middle-age girth to dance with the lithely crowd.

Operating systems are commodity products, and no wishful thinking by Microsoft will change that. Commodity status is one reason why Microsoft maintains its Windows monopoly. In the 1990s, Microsoft reached monopoly because Windows provided a platform from which so many third parties could make money. The company maintained the monopoly, at least since the turn of the century, because of the operating systems’ declining importance. Windows was a checklist item for consumers or IT organizations, something that came with new PCs.

The supporting ecosystem remains significant, but not the commodity operating system. Most businesses and consumers don’t buy operating systems. OS decisions are predicated by applications or hardware.

Microsoft could have maintained a happy, commodity-driven sales situation, if not for the Web 2.0 platform’s success and Windows Vista’s failure. The Web 2.0 platform and Vista are juxtaposition. Web applications tend to be light and simple, with complexity pulled to the server and new features easily made available; service updates go out to all users instantly. The Web platform can deliver up applications to most any client—anytime and anywhere.

By contrast, Vista dramatically increases operating system complexity and hardware requirements. But, with the increasing business and consumer shift to mobile devices, the market demands less complexity and lower-powered hardware. Microsoft’s inability to offer Windows Vista for low-powered laptops is example of the problem’s size. Vista demands too much. Something else: Deployment complexity plagues Windows and many supporting applications, particularly in the enterprise.

Windows is now in an inevitable state of decline that can only accelerate as people use more powerful, smaller devices. Web 2.0 is ideally suited to lower-powered, highly-functional mini-laptops and smart phones. Vista is not. When I say, “inevitable state of decline,” I don’t mean immediate. Windows will have a place as a commodity operating system for many years yet. But real computing and informational relevance has shifted to the device, server, IP network and anytime, anywhere access on anything.

I agree with Joe. The rest of his posting delivers more details. Give it a read if you’re interested in the ongoing story of Microsoft slipping from its zenith.

…John

The InfoStor posting Data de-duplication: Questions and answers

Eight questions that every IT organization should ask about data de-duplication before they deploy or upgrade.

Just what is data de-duplication?

Data de-duplication is arguably one of the most important new technologies to hit the storage market in years, and it’s a game-changing technology that can have an immediate impact on end-user environments.

By reducing the amount of physical disk capacity that is needed to store information, data de-duplication allows organizations to keep more information on disk-based systems-making it more accessible to the people and applications that need it.

What data de-duplication ratios can I expect? Survey says

De-duplication trade-offs

Currently, there are two distinct types of data de-duplication available: inline and post-process. Which is which can be determined by the answer to the following simple question: When is backup data de-duped? If it’s done before it is written to the target, then it is inline de-duplication. If it’s done after, then it is post-process.

There can be some performance degradation with inline de-duplication approaches as data is being ingested, and there is an up-front capacity consideration with post-process approaches. The performance impact of the inline approach depends on a number of variables, including the de-duplication technology itself, the size of the backup volume, the granularity of the de-duplication process, the aggregate throughput of the architecture, and the scalability of the solution. Some inline functions occur at the server, some as a “bump in the wire,” but most take place at the target itself.

With the post-process approach, more disk capacity is needed up-front to store the backup volume. But the size of this capacity reserve also depends on a number of variables, including the amount of data being backed up and how long the data de-duplication technology needs to hold onto the capacity before releasing it. Solutions that wait for the entire backup process to complete before releasing capacity have a greater “capacity overhead” than solutions that start the de-duplication process earlier as backup data is being stored.

Read the article for the rest of the Qs and As.

…John

I chuckled at the Inquirer posting last month Dealing with Ballmer is like dealing with an estate agent, over the remarks of an EC regulator dealing with the recent judgment against Microsoft.

Neelie Kroes revealed how in meetings she found him more slippery than a well-greased eel.

She said that she could remember at least four times when, if you were naïve, you could have thought everything was fixed.

However, it turned out that nothing was ever fixed and Microsoft was not even trying to “deliver and implement.”

In short, negotiating with Steve ’sounds of silence’ Ballmer was like dealing with an estate agent who is trying to convince you that the kitchen really is not falling into a Victorian cesspit and will be cheap to repair.

Unfortunately for the Vole, Kroes really thinks that Steve is the sort of person where you have to count your fingers after shaking hands. This might cause a few problems for Microsoft when it comes to the EU deciding about any take overs of Yahoo.

Today over breakfast I read the eWeek story “Steve Ballmer On Vista, virtualization and open vows”. Baller was interview by Senior Editor Peter Galli. (sorry, there doesn’t seem to be a link to the article on eWeek.com).

I was struck by the responses beginning with “Well,…” An insurance adjuster advised me some time ago to not believe anything after the “Well,…” I don’t. This sage advice has proven itself again and again.

Steve Ballmer has proven his marketing genius over the years. I think Microsoft would be just a shadow of itself if it weren’t for Ballmer’s marketing talents.

In the end, I think Ballmer always gets his pound of flesh. Late last month during a conference call billed as “significant, ” Steve Ballmer and others divulged some details of opening some API’s and protocols. See Microsoft Opens Kimono - Somewhat.

Oh, about that pound of flesh. In the interview Steve says

Open-source developers can write software that uses those patents. Their customers, the users of the products, must get a license. The developers themselves don’t need to get a patent license.

Slick, Steve. Slick.

…John

The Techworld posting Predictive model to flush out software bugs title got it wrong. There is no such thing as a software bug. Fortunately, the German researchers mentioned in the posting got it right. They use the word defect instead of bug.

Once upon a time, I was a software engineering manager. I railed against programmers foisting their logic defects onto the mythical “bug.”

Read more about my rant in Bugs are Defects.

…John