Here is my collection of trends and predictions for year 2014:
It seems that PC market is not recovering in 2014. IDC is forecasting that the technology channel will buy in around 34 million fewer PCs this year than last. It seem that things aren’t going to improve any time soon (down, down, down until 2017?). There will be no let-up on any front, with desktops and portables predicted to decline in both the mature and emerging markets. Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system: PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks to differentiate PCs from other devices. As a result, PC lifespan continue to increase. Death of the Desktop article says that sadly for the traditional desktop, this is only a matter of time before its purpose expires and that it would be inevitable it will happen within this decade. (I expect that it will not completely disappear).
When the PC business is slowly decreasing, smartphone and table business will increase quickly. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone: the mobile business is much bigger than the computer industry. There are now perhaps 3.5-4 billion mobile phones, replaced every two years, versus 1.7-1.8 billion PCs replaced every 5 years. Smartphones broke down that wall between those industries few years ago – suddenly tech companies could sell to an industry with $1.2 trillion annual revenue. Now you can sell more phones in a quarter than the PC industry sells in a year.
After some years we will end up with somewhere over 3bn smartphones in use on earth, almost double the number of PCs. There are perhaps 900m consumer PCs on earth, and maybe 800m corporate PCs. The consumer PCs are mostly shared and the corporate PCs locked down, and neither are really mobile. Those 3 billion smartphones will all be personal, and all mobile. Mobile browsing is set to overtake traditional desktop browsing in 2015. The smartphone revolution is changing how consumers use the Internet. This will influence web design.
The only PC sector that seems to have some growth is server side. Microservers & Cloud Computing to Drive Server Growth article says that increased demand for cloud computing and high-density microserver systems has brought the server market back from a state of decline. We’re seeing fairly significant change in the server market. According to the 2014 IC Market Drivers report, server unit shipment growth will increase in the next several years, thanks to purchases of new, cheaper microservers. The total server IC market is projected to rise by 3% in 2014 to $14.4 billion: multicore MPU segment for microservers and NAND flash memories for solid state drives are expected to see better numbers.
Spinning rust and tape are DEAD. The future’s flash, cache and cloud article tells that the flash is the tier for primary data; the stuff christened tier 0. Data that needs to be written out to a slower response store goes across a local network link to a cloud storage gateway and that holds the tier 1 nearline data in its cache. Never mind software-defined HYPE, 2014 will be the year of storage FRANKENPLIANCES article tells that more hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical. The only innovation is going to be around pricing and consumption models as vendors try to maintain margins. FCoE will continue to be a side-show and FC, like tape, will soldier on happily. NAS will continue to eat away at the block storage market and perhaps 2014 will be the year that object storage finally takes off.
IT managers are increasingly replacing servers with SaaS article says that cloud providers take on a bigger share of the servers as overall market starts declining. An in-house system is no longer the default for many companies. IT managers want to cut the number of servers they manage, or at least slow the growth, and they may be succeeding. IDC expects that anywhere from 25% to 30% of all the servers shipped next year will be delivered to cloud services providers. In three years, 2017, nearly 45% of all the servers leaving manufacturers will be bought by cloud providers. The shift will slow the purchase of server sales to enterprise IT. Big cloud providers are more and more using their own designs instead of servers from big manufacturers. Data center consolidations are eliminating servers as well. For sure, IT managers are going to be managing physical servers for years to come. But, the number will be declining.
I hope that the IT business will start to grow this year as predicted. Information technology spends to increase next financial year according to N Chandrasekaran, chief executive and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information technology (IT) services company. IDC predicts that IT consumption will increase next year to 5 per cent worldwide to $ 2.14 trillion. It is expected that the biggest opportunity will lie in the digital space: social, mobility, cloud and analytics. The gradual recovery of the economy in Europe will restore faith in business. Companies are re-imaging their business, keeping in mind changing digital trends.
The death of Windows XP will be on the new many times on the spring. There will be companies try to cash in with death of Windows XP: Microsoft’s plan for Windows XP support to end next spring, has received IT services providers as well as competitors to invest in their own services marketing. HP is peddling their customers Connected Backup 8.8 service to prevent data loss during migration. VMware is selling cloud desktop service. Google is wooing users to switch to ChromeOS system by making Chrome’s user interface familiar to wider audiences. The most effective way XP exploiting is the European defense giant EADS subsidiary of Arkoon, which promises support for XP users who do not want to or can not upgrade their systems.
There will be talk on what will be coming from Microsoft next year. Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a series of updates in 2015 that could see major revisions for the Windows, Xbox, and Windows RT platforms. Microsoft’s wave of spring 2015 updates to its various Windows-based platforms has a codename: Threshold. If all goes according to early plans, Threshold will include updates to all three OS platforms (Xbox One, Windows and Windows Phone).
Amateur programmers are becoming increasingly more prevalent in the IT landscape. A new IDC study has found that of the 18.5 million software developers in the world, about 7.5 million (roughly 40 percent) are “hobbyist developers,” which is what IDC calls people who write code even though it is not their primary occupation. The boom in hobbyist programmers should cheer computer literacy advocates.IDC estimates there are almost 29 million ICT-skilled workers in the world as we enter 2014, including 11 million professional developers.
The Challenge of Cross-language Interoperability will be more and more talked. Interfacing between languages will be increasingly important. You can no longer expect a nontrivial application to be written in a single language. With software becoming ever more complex and hardware less homogeneous, the likelihood of a single language being the correct tool for an entire program is lower than ever. The trend toward increased complexity in software shows no sign of abating, and modern hardware creates new challenges. Now, mobile phones are starting to appear with eight cores with the same ISA (instruction set architecture) but different speeds, some other streaming processors optimized for different workloads (DSPs, GPUs), and other specialized cores.
Just another new USB connector type will be pushed to market. Lightning strikes USB bosses: Next-gen ‘type C’ jacks will be reversible article tells that USB is to get a new, smaller connector that, like Apple’s proprietary Lightning jack, will be reversible. Designed to support both USB 3.1 and USB 2.0, the new connector, dubbed “Type C”, will be the same size as an existing micro USB 2.0 plug.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
94% of Brit tech bosses just can’t get the staff these days, claims bank
But most want to hire more talent this year, according to suit survey
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/28/silicon_valley_bank_employment_report/
No matter how optimistic British tech supremos may be, they’re still battling to hire and keep skilled hands, according to a new study.
Some 94 per cent of UK suits surveyed “consider it extremely or somewhat challenging to find the right talent they need to grow”, according to the bank. “Virtually all UK execs have a difficult time finding people with the skills and experience they need.”
None of the UK companies surveyed expect workforces to shrink this year: 84 per cent say they’ll hire more staff will grow
Another eyebrow-raising thing in the report, now in its fifth year, is that SVB sees the recovery in the world’s tech economy as “firm” rather than fragile. It’s also firmer in the UK than the US, and the surveyed suits appear to agree.
In the US, the majority of investment is from venture capital funds, while in the UK angel investors tend to be the biggest source of cash for startups.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP preparing to announce first Google-blessed touchscreen Android notebook
http://9to5google.com/2014/04/27/hp-preparing-to-announce-first-google-blessed-touchscreen-android-notebook/
HP’s upcoming Slatebook 14. As the name implies, the machine comes with a 1080p 14″ touchscreen display. What’s really interesting about this computer is the software. Instead of the usual Windows or Chrome OS options, the Slatebook will reportedly run Android.
The machine has apparently been given Google’s blessing
Tomi Engdahl says:
PCIe Still Strong Despite Alternatives
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322106&
PCI Express (PCie) has proven itself to be superior to technologies such as SATA and SAS, but does it have an expiry date?
Diablo Technologies is offering one alternative to traditional PCIe implementations through its Memory Channel Architecture.
McFarland said handling such large amounts of flash creates complexity that ultimately limits performance and reliability of the controller, so despite having access to a wide pipe, PCIe-based SSDs aren’t able to really take advantage of the bandwidth. As outstanding I/O requests scale beyond controller thresholds, he said, latency increases dramatically.
n Gartner’s recent “Cool Vendors in In-Memory Computing, 2014” report, Michele Reitz, Gartner senior research analyst for semiconductors, writes “as a result of sitting directly on the faster memory channel, the SSDs can achieve drastically lower latencies than any existing solid-state storage solution, and can function as a less expensive and nonvolatile alternative to DRAM memory, if the slower access speeds are acceptable for the application.”
Meanwhile, PCIe still has its advantages, said Reitz, particularly its scalability
There is a roadmap for PCIe for the next five years, noted Reitz. Products with gen 3.x will be available roughly from now until 2017, with gen 4 coming in the 2018 timeframe
Tomi Engdahl says:
8 ways the cloud is a no-brainer for manufacturers
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/8-ways-the-cloud-is-a-no-brainer-for-manufacturers/366ea5e82616dff083c2f10f0ecf3bc6.html
Cloud computing: Some people still debate the merits of using cloud computing in manufacturing, but there are specific cases when a cloud solution is the obvious choice. Here are eight reasons why cloud computing works for manufacturers. Cloud computing is the quickest, most economical way to make things happen in a hurry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD adds ARM security core to new, low-cost x86 mobile processors
Fan-free Beema and Mullins chips add Android support
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/29/amd_adds_arm_security_core_to_new_lowcost_x86_mobile_processors/
AMD has two new, low-power system-on-chip (SoC) designs for laptops and tablets ready to roll that include an ARM processor core built into the die to handle security and virtualized Android support for Windows systems.
The two new SoCs, dubbed Beema and Mullins, are based on the same type of design as Brazos and its successors Kabini and Temash
AMD is also adding fully optimized Android support within Windows via its partnership with BlueStacks. The new processors will run an Android Jelly Bean environment concurrently in a Windows system, rather than as a dual-boot system, and can access files and data shared between both operating systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Using Self-Driving Car Data To Make Cars Smarter
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/28/1838207/google-using-self-driving-car-data-to-make-cars-smarter
“One thing Google has perfected is using massive data sets generated from users to improve user experience. Google’s self-driving cars may be subject to the same cycle of improvement, as they have racked up considerable mileage on public roads, and each mile generates data that Google engineers can use to ‘teach’ vehicle”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Between the Glamor changes to X, and the XWayland patch-set landing upstream, 2014 is primed to show us some rather profound changes to the graphics landscape in Linux. The X server is becoming more versatile across a wider array of graphics hardware – GLAMOR makes porting X to new video cards much easier since you can skip having to write hardware-specific 2D acceleration now.
The XWayland support in X Server 1.16 may prove even more revolutionary, since it finally will allow using the stock X server to run X applications under Wayland. With Canonical pushing Mir as a default in Ubuntu 14.10, we can expect to see other distributions taking a serious look at using Weston as their system compositor, running applications (or perhaps entire user sessions) under that inside XWayland clients. If they see tangible benefits to running Weston instead of X, we may well finally see the transition to Wayland get under way with spirit. Or, however, if performance regressions, glitches, and incompatibilities rear their heads, we could see a stronger re-embrace of X.org for another LTS cycle.
Source: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-graphics-news-2
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hit the Nytro: LSI’s PCIe cards now even faster with SQL Server 2014, says firm after upgrade
Less spinning rust, more flashy goodness for you all
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/29/lsi_speeds_sql_2014_with_buffers/
Chip-making chappies LSI have added some go-faster SQL 2014 juice to their Nytro PCIe server flash cards.
SQL Server 2014 can run in-memory; LSI’s updated Nytro cards provide a server with PCIe-connected flash. SQL 2014 has a Buffer Pool Extension feature which puts an, erm, buffer pool extension into flash memory where it functions as a level 2 cache, subordinate to the level 1 cache which is DRAM.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brit IT workers are so stressed that ‘TWO-THIRDS’ want to quit
And nearly a fifth polled say they’ve lost relationships thanks to work
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/29/it_crowd_are_so_stressed_they_want_to_quit_their_jobs/
About two-thirds of IT workers are so stressed that they want to quit their jobs, a survey has claimed.
The poll, conducted in the UK on behalf of GFI Software and published this month, found that 67 per cent of tech bods consider their job stressful, while some 68 per cent want to quit.
36 per cent of the 200 respondents said they worked so hard they didn’t spend enough time with their families, while the same number claimed long hours had prevented them from attending social occasions.
“Providing realistic IT budgets and staffing levels helps a lot,” added Galindo, “but there are productivity changes that can also significantly de-stress the IT department, such as investing in technology to automate personnel-intensive activities like deploying software updates and managing sprawling Wi-Fi networks, and the myriad of mobile devices that users are bringing to work.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Programming Education Making A Comeback In Primary Schools:
A is for algorithm
A global push for more computer science in classrooms is starting to bear fruit
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21601250-global-push-more-computer-science-classrooms-starting-bear-fruit
When computer science was first taught in some American and European schools in the 1970s, generally as an optional subject for older pupils, computers did little unless given instructions in a specialist language. So classes focused on programming. But the advent of ready-made applications and graphical user interfaces in the 1980s saw a shift to teaching “ICT” (information and communications technology): how to use computers for word-processing, creating presentations and the like. The result was that pupils left school with little idea how computers work. England’s ICT curriculum has come in for particular criticism. It “focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it’s made,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman (and a director of The Economist’s parent company), in a lecture in 2011. “That is just throwing away [England’s] great computing heritage.”
Digital technology is now so ubiquitous that many think a rounded education requires a grounding in this subject just as much as in biology, chemistry or physics. That is one reason that the pendulum is swinging back towards teaching coding.
In many places, enthusiasts have moved faster than governments.
Doing some coding is essential, says Michael Kölling, a specialist in computing education at the University of Kent: it motivates pupils and means they find out whether their algorithms work. But should pupils start with programming and leave principles till later, or the other way round?
How a country answers such questions depends partly on what its economy needs. Estonia is short of programmers for its burgeoning tech industry; it puts great emphasis on programming, with some schools teaching it to pupils as young as six. Denmark devotes more time to topics such as the design of user interfaces, which interests its big firms, and the impact of digital technology on society.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Here comes the black market for XP patches
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247873/Steven_J._Vaughan_Nichols_Here_comes_the_black_market_for_XP_patches?taxonomyId=125&pageNumber=2
A Microsoft spokesperson told me that “Custom Support is provided to large enterprise customers whose migration from Windows XP was not completed by April 8, 2014. It is a temporary measure designed to help large customers with complex migrations
the new Custom Support minimums were 750 PCs, with a minimum payment of $150,000 for a year’s worth of support.
What you’ll get for that $150 grand is patches for critical vulnerabilities.
Even at the bargain basement price of $25, many large companies can’t afford Custom Support. But plenty of them are in need of it.
And we know what happens when you have something that’s in short supply and with limited access with a large potential market, right? We’re going to see a black market in XP patches.
Unless, of course, someone “generously” puts XP patches on BitTorrent. The problem with BitTorrented patches is that you can’t really know whether you’re getting the real patch or malware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Beema and Mullins Low Power 2014 APUs Tested, Faster Than Bay Trail
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/04/29/1247201/amd-beema-and-mullins-low-power-2014-apus-tested-faster-than-bay-trail
“AMD has just announced their upcoming mainstream, low-power APUs (Accelerated Processing Units), codenames Beema and Mullins.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Beema and Mullins Low Power 2014 APUs Tested
Read more: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Beema-and-Mullins-Mainstream-and-LowPower-2014-APUs-Tested/#ixzz30HwjjlzF
Tomi Engdahl says:
ASRock Rack C2750D4I Review: A Storage Motherboard with Management
by Ian Cutress on April 29, 2014 9:00 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7970/asrock-rack-c2750d4i-review-a-storage-motherboard-with-management
One of the purposes of Intel’s Avoton CPUs is cold storage. ASRock produced the C2750D4I for that need – a mini-ITX motherboard with a 25W eight core CPU, support for 64GB of DRAM, external server management and twelve SATA ports.
Despite the high price tag for the motherboard($398), there seems to be a buzz around this setup, so ASRock provided one of its C2750D4I 1U servers for review.
ASRock C2750D4I Overview
There is something about the combination of the phrases ‘mini-ITX’, ‘8-core’, ‘64GB DRAM’, ‘twelve SATA ports’, ‘dual Intel NICs’, ‘server management’ and ‘discrete GPU support’ in combination that almost seems a little unreal.
The SATA ports are organized such that those in white are SATA 6 Gbps, and those in blue are SATA 3 Gbps.
So while the C2750D4I has many interesting features, perhaps describing what is missing is more telling. Ideally we would have USB 3.0 on board, either via a header or ports on the rear. There is also no audio
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Continues To Lose Money With Each Surface Tablet It Sells
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/14/04/30/0023229/microsoft-continues-to-lose-money-with-each-surface-tablet-it-sells
Tomi Engdahl says:
Customisation is BAD for the economy, say Oz productivity wonks
Bakers today, modders and makers tomorrow
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/30/customisation_is_bad_for_the_economy_says_productivity_commission/
Australia’s Productivity Commission is complaining that high-value, highly-customised – artesan, in fact – products are a drag on national productivity.
In its latest productivity report, the nation’s flint-eyed economists have decided that the best thing for the economy is for every possible product to sink into an identical low-cost, indistinguishable grey goo, apparently, like the generic “food” from the 1984 cult classic Repo Man.
Even worse, it’s really difficult to come up with any way to measure the economic value of product quality: “the higher quality of some of the output produced with these additional inputs may not be fully reflected in the measures of real value added growth for the subsector”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ITU says IT industry must become ‘resilient’ in face of climate change
Your data centre needs a levee and comms should go wireless, say UN techies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/30/itu_says_it_industry_must_become_resilient_in_face_of_climate_change/
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency responsible for information and communication technologies, has declared the information and communications technologies industries must “design and implement strategies for the sector to better prepare for, respond and adjust to the impacts of short- and long-term climatic manifestations.”
In a new report titled “Resilient pathways: the adaptation of the ICT sector to climate change” ((PDF), the ITU hedges on the causes of warming but says it is happening and has the potential to cause the following unpleasant outcomes for the ICT industries:
Accelerate the degradation of physical assets and ICT infrastructure,
Affect the supply of materials, interrupt transport and logistics,
Disrupt the availability and reliability of ICT services,
Increase operational business costs across the sector, reduce revenue, and challenge the sector’s ability to conduct repairs and recover from the effects of climatic events, among other direct and indirect impacts.
Other recommendations suggest building more redundancy into everything.
The report says climate change is also an opportunity for our sector
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Microsoft Wrong to Retire Windows XP?
https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/03/is-microsoft-wrong-to-retire-windows-xp.html
Microsoft has justified its stoppage of Windows XP patches by reminding everyone that it has supported the OS longer than any others, which is true: Its normal practice is to patch an operating system for 10 years. And it has argued that Windows XP is old, outdated software that is less secure than its newer operating systems: Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.
That’s all true, Keizer says. But the problem is that the user base remains massive. He cited figures from Internet measurement company Net Applications, reporting that 29.5 percent of the globe’s PCs ran XP just a month ago. Using estimates of the number of Windows PCs now in operation, that “user share” translates into approximately 488 million systems, he wrote.
As for Microsoft’s argument that people have had more than enough time to switch to more updated versions of Windows, Keizer says, “If every PC sold in the next 12 months was one destined to replace an existing Windows XP system, it would take more than a year and a half — about 20 months — to eradicate XP. Windows XP isn’t going anywhere.”
I agree about the danger this poses to those who still rely on XP for their home machines. But I’ve also seen businesses that continue using the antiquated OS.
Most Windows shops are using Windows 7 and 8, and those versions are far more secure than their predecessors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Preloaded’s Katie Goode looks at the plethora of ways the VR revolution can impact our lives
http://www.develop-online.net/opinions/virtual-reality-with-purpose/0192224
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fast, but compromised: Gigabyte’s AMD-powered mini gaming PC reviewed
The Brix Gaming box is hobbled by heat, noise, and mediocre Linux support.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/04/fast-but-compromised-gigabytes-amd-powered-mini-gaming-pc-reviewed/
Mini desktops are a growing market, but so far it’s a market that Intel has had the run of. The company’s own “Next Unit of Computing” (NUC) and efforts like Gigabyte’s Brix Pro are diminutive but much more capable than the wimpy “nettops” of yesteryear.
Now it’s time for AMD to get in on the fun. The company sent us two Gigabyte mini PCs that are roughly the same size as the Intel versions, but these machines use AMD A8 chips instead of Intel ones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cash slump a Seagate problem, or a hard disk industry problem?
We need a peek at other vendors’ numbers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/30/seagate_slumps_slightly/
Seagate revenues and profits have slumped in its third fiscal 2014 quarter, reflecting ongoing difficulties in the disk drive market and product transitions.
market-leading product portfolio produced a revenue and profits decline
Seagate’s shipped disk drive capacity rose eight per cent y-o-y to 50.8 exabytes; it was 52.2EB in the prior quarter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fresh evidence Amazon is ARMing its huge cloud against Intel et al
Attention, CPU gurus: Web bazaar wants to pour your brains into its servers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/30/aws_hiring_silicon_optimization_team_to_build_next_generation_cloud_server/
In early April, Amazon Web Services’ chief technology officer Werner Vogels told The Reg that “there is absolutely room for ARM in the data centre” because “power management for ARM is considered state of the art” and AWS is “always looking for efficiency”.
It now transpires that AWS is also looking for a “CPU architect / micro-architect.”
Why would Amazon need those skills in-house?
If the team and the hires are a signal that AWS wants to design custom silicon to power those servers, it’s terrible news for Intel because any challenge to its dominance of high-end silicon will hit it in the place it hurts most: high-margin products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Red Hat Acquires Open-Source Storage Vendor Inktank for $175 Million – See more at: http://www.eweek.com/storage/red-hat-acquires-open-source-storage-vendor-inktank-for-175-million.html#sthash.yqwM7j1y.dpuf
Ouida says:
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Coding Bootcamps Already 1/8th the Size of CS Undergraduates
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/05/01/0117234/coding-bootcamps-already-18th-the-size-of-cs-undergraduates
“programming bootcamps are expected to grow by 2.8x in 2014, meaning that bootcamps will graduate a student for every 8 CS undergraduates.”‘
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things gets its own NAS
Synology emits a rugged, palm-sized unit that slurps power over Ethernet
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/01/the_internet_of_things_gets_its_own_nas/
Some of the many, many, nodes promised to connect to the internet of things are going to do two things: make a lot of data but not always be able to send it anywhere.
How to store that data in the often-inhospitable locations sensors and small computers will find themselves seems to have exercised some minds at Taiwanese vendor Synology, which has just created a small, rugged network attached storage device in the form of the new Embedded DataStation EDS14.
The NAS is an odd one as it can hold no spinning rust or solid state disks. It does, however, boast a single SD card slot, two gigabit ethernet ports, a USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0 port. The USB 3.0 port is intended to connect to a disk. The USB 2.0 slot is said to be 3G compatible, meaning this NAS can probably fire up a connection to the outside world as and when needed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIOs to Become In-House Brokers — and That’s a Good Thing
http://www.cio.com/article/751520/CIOs_to_Become_In_House_Brokers_and_That_s_a_Good_Thing?taxonomyId=3123
In their new role as brokers and consultants, CIOs will be in an even more powerful position. According to a new survey, two-thirds of C-level executives and business unit leaders expect the IT department to have more influence on technology decisions in the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony develops tape tech that could lead to 185 TB cartridges
Sony has created a magnetic tape material that can store up to 74 times more data per unit area than materials in use today
http://www.itworld.com/storage/416783/sony-develops-tape-tech-could-lead-185-tb-cartridges
Sony has developed a magnetic tape material that can store data at 148 gigabits per square inch, roughly 74 times the density of standard tapes.
The technology represents the world’s highest recording density for the medium, the electronics giant said, and could allow the creation of tape cartridges with a capacity of 185 TB.
By comparison, LTO-6 (Linear Tape-Open), the latest generation of magnetic tape storage, has a density of 2 gigabits per square inch, or 2.5 TB per cartridge uncompressed.
To make the new recording material, Sony used a kind of vacuum thin film-forming technology called sputter deposition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Licensed to BILL: How much should you cough for software licences?
Nobody really knows – so we all get screwed
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/02/licensed_to_bill_storagebod/
“Yet another change to a licensing model. You can bet it’s not going to work out any cheaper for me,” was the first thought that flickered through my mind during a presentation about GPFS 4.1 at the GPFS UG meeting in London.
This started up another train of thought: in this new world of software-defined storage, how should the software be licensed? And how should the value be reflected?
And if I fully embrace a programmatic provisioning model that dynamically changes the storage configuration, does any model make any sense apart from some kind of flat-fee, all-you-can-eat model?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oh Sony. Have we learned NOTHING from SuperAIT?
I don’t care how brilliant it is, proprietary tape is OVER
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/02/sony_tape/
Consider these two recent stories:
Sony reckons it will make a $1.3bn loss after selling off its failing PC business, and may contract its Blu-ray manufacturing as optical disk sales collapse, as well as sell the Bravia TV line.
Sony techs devise a new tape manufacturing format that could produce a 185TB tape cartridge (uncompressed data).
Really? At this time in its corporate existence? The AIT and SuperAIT tape formats failed because the LTO format, supported by IBM, HP and Quantum, wiped out all other proprietary tape formats except the mainframe-class ones from IBM and Oracle/StorageTek.
There are only two practical ways Sony could get its new developing tape format productised. One is to work with Fujifilm and get IBM and/or Oracle to adopt it. The other is to go to the LTO Consortium and pursue adoption there
Developing a new proprietary tape format these days will be a heroic enterprise. Inevitably it will fail unless partnership, with replacement of one or more of the existing IBM, LTO and Oracle formats provides an effective route to market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Acer: We’re not giving up on the PC market, but our laptops are not selling
Although sales of Windows 8 devices are on the up
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2342466/acer-were-not-giving-up-on-the-pc-market-but-our-laptops-are-not-selling
NEW YORK: ACER HAS SAID that it has no plans to exit the PC market, despite poor sales of its devices.
In the PC market, Acer still holds a spot in the top five vendors, although the firm is struggling to compete with HP, Lenovo and Dell, which rank higher in market share.
“The PC market is very tough, but we will not give up our PC business,” Kao said. “The cruel reality is that notebooks are our core business, but they are not very popular commercially.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SanDisk announces 4TB SSD, hopes for 8TB next year
SanDisk’s new drive family has up to 4TB capacity for data center use
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9248070/SanDisk_announces_4TB_SSD_hopes_for_8TB_next_year
SanDisk this week announced the industry’s first 4TB enterprise-class SAS solid-state drive (SSD) in its Optimus MAX product based on 19-nanometer process technology.
The company also unveiled three new Lightning II 12 Gbps performance SAS SSDs with capacities of up to 1.6TB.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA Jetson TK1 “supercomputer kit” hits shelves
http://www.slashgear.com/nvidia-jetson-tk1-supercomputer-kit-hits-shelves-01327278/
NVIDIA’s palm-sized supercomputer, the Jetson TK1, has begun shipping, offering developers 192 Tegra K1 cores to turn to things like feature-detection and tracking, object recognition, and 3D scene analysis. The $192 reference board uses the same CUDA core technology as NVIDIA has been supplying to researchers and universities for recent supercomputer projects, and was announced earlier this year at the company’s GDC 2014 conference.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Introduces Power8 Motherboard, Intel in Trouble?
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/2014/05/02/google-introduces-power8-motherboard-intel-trouble/
Ever since the announcement of the OpenPower Foundation (or consortium) there has been a lot of wondering about whether or not IBM would actually make something of it.
many saw IBM’s move to create the OpenPower Foundation as a desperate move to make something of their new Power8 processor technology
In a statement on Google+, Gordon McKean of Google talked about this new board that Google has developed and is showing off at the OpenPower booth at the IBM IMPACT 2014 conference. Obviously this statement was meant to be a significant one as this was Gordon’s first and last post on Google+ and it makes a pretty significant statement about Google porting over to Power8 from x86.
Clearly, Google and IBM are making progress with their OpenPower Foundation and companies like Intel should be watching them very closely because they have everything that they need from all of the key companies to be able to turn this OpenPower Foundation into something seriously competitive with Intel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenPOWER Foundation
http://openpowerfoundation.org/
OpenPOWER Foundation was founded in 2013 as an open technical membership organization that will enable data centers to rethink their approach to technology. Member companies may use POWER for custom open servers and components for Linux based cloud data centers as well as optimizing Linux software on POWER.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who’s top Microsoft shareholder? Uh oh, it’s STEVE BALLMER
Sweaty ex-CEO now owns more shares than Bill Gates
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/03/steve_ballmer_top_msft_shareholder/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephen Hawking: The creation of true AI could be the ‘greatest event in human history’
Unfortunately, ‘it might also be the last’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/02/stephen_hawking_ai/
Pioneering physicist Stephen Hawking has said the creation of general artificial intelligence systems may be the “greatest event in human history” – but, then again, it could also destroy us.
We are, in Hawking’s words, caught in “an IT arms race fueled by unprecedented investment and building on an increasingly mature theoretical foundation.”
These investments, whether made by huge companies such as Google or startups like Vicarious, have the potential to revolutionize our society. But Prof Hawking worries that though “success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. … it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
GitHub language trends and the fragmenting landscape
http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2014/05/02/github-language-trends-and-the-fragmenting-landscape/
Tomi Engdahl says:
High Performance Embedded Computing: A Technical—and Mental—Breakthrough
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103586
It may come as a surprise to no one that there seems to be something in the human mentality that resists change. I only say that because we swim daily in an industry that is forever touting innovation. This is in marked contrast to most of the rest of the world, where selling new ideas and perspectives is a constant struggle. So when I notice such apparent resistance in this industry, it tends to stand out as unusual. There seems to be, at least in a few quarters, a disinclination to embrace the idea of high-performance embedded computing. That is not to say there are not advocates and promoters, but I am still struck by the occasional resistance.
Nobody has the slightest doubts about “high-performance computing.” It’s when you add the word “embedded” to the phrase that some eyebrows raise.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Buh Bye, PCI
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103305
The long run of the parallel PCI bus may be over from a design point of view. We’ve reached the beginning of the end, at least.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM tests: Intel flops on Android compatibility, Windows power
Cambridge lab rat’s verdict: ‘We’re still beating ‘em’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/02/arm_test_results_attack_intel/
ARM has rolled out a battery of test results that fire two shots across the bow of Intel’s x86 dreadnought now sailing into Android waters.
The first set of results addresses the fact that when running native apps that haven’t been recompiled to run on Intel-based Android devices, those apps need to be emulated using “binary translation,” which converts native ARM code into native Intel x86 code.
Intel says that users shouldn’t worry – its binary translator will “just work” with “very minimal power implications” and “unnoticeable performance impact for most applications.” ARM – as you might expect – would beg to differ.
“Binary translation – despite what you may have read or despite what you may hear – does have a huge impact to the user and to the performance of the system,” ARM senior technical marketing engineer Rod Watt told attendees at his company’s 2014 Tech Day this week in Austin, Texas.
Watt was only concerned the performance of apps containing native code. But it’s worth noting that only around 20 per cent of the 100 apps he surveyed ran exclusively on Android’s Dalvik virtual machine; the rest contained at least some native components.
Of course, there could be any number of reasons why a developer might choose to not bother to use the Android NDK to port their app to x86 – verification time and trouble, for example – but Watt has a more-straightforward analysis. “It’s an ARM world,” he said. “Developers are writing for ARM; they’re not writing for Intel.”
Maybe those developers writing for ARM should rethink their decisions not to port their apps to x86 Android,
Tomi Engdahl says:
EMC ships 17TB of biz flash, brags it’s NAND numero uno … That’s cute, says HDS
Hitachi gang says it’s shipped 25 petabytes in array flash
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/05/nand_shipper_numero_uno_aint_who_you_think/
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest flash shipper of them all?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Speedy storage server sales stumps sysadmin scribe: Who buys this?
Our man Trevor is left with more questions than answers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/05/flash_server_sans/
Every once in a while I need to ask a question I know is going to get me in a world of trouble.
The first question for which I have no answer involves VMware’s marketing around VSAN. I’m baffled.
No doubt someone will be along to tell me which marketing droids are correct and which are wrong.
Storage speed-up: Is it really worth it?
The other big question I have concerns centralised storage acceleration (CSA) products.
There are innumerable other products out there but they all boil down to “we will make centralised storage suck less.”
Considering how many SANs and NASes are sold every single day, and how many of the things are deployed around the world, the CSA world’s claim of “making your centralised storage go faster” seems pretty enticing. Buying new centralised storage is expensive, and it’s only the newer (and most expensive) ones that come with the native ability to “insert SSD, watch it go faster.” CSA gear isn’t going away anytime soon.
The economics of some CSAs, however, fail to make sense to me.
CSAs of any variety only make economic sense if the cost of deploying them is lower than the cost of upgrading your centralised storage to achieve the same benefit.
Time spending tuning your system isn’t necessarily time spent wisely
A properly implemented CSA has virtually no operational overhead.
Every button you need to push to make your CSA useful is time you could be spending doing something more important, and time is money.
If a flash disk dies in a simple read cache setup, it sucks a little for the server that is no longer “going faster,” but you’re not really losing any essential functionality. In some of the more alarming CSAs out there, you now have to worry about getting those SSDs replaced ASAP, otherwise you risk some of the write cache elements not having a redundant copy**.
None of my tests show there to be a $/IOPS benefit in choosing a CSA product over just using a server SAN***. There can be a $/TB benefit, but the low cost of software-only server SANs, such as Maxta, turn those into edge cases.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Cool Project for Microsoft: Adopt Linux
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/cool-project-microsoft-adopt-linux
“Do you know Linux? WE AE HIRING!” That’s what billboards from HostGator have been saying for the past several years. That company is not alone. Demand for Linux talent is high and getting higher. In a February 2014 report, the Linux Foundation and Dice detailed a picture that was already obvious:
The explosive demand for Linux talent is intensifying. Seventy seven percent of hiring managers have “hiring Linux talent” on their list of priorities for 2014, up from 70 percent a year ago. More than nine in ten hiring managers plan to bring Linux professionals on board in the next six months. Furthermore, 46 percent plan to boost their hiring of Linux pros in 2014, a 3-point increase over 2012.
Microsoft’s sundowning of Windows XP seems to have given cramps to nearly the entire retail banking industry, which finally will move its ATM machines from XP to Windows 7 or to Linux. It’s not going to Windows 8
According to Ali R. Babaoglan, who, presumably, pays to read Gartner’s expensive reports:
90 percent of enterprises will bypass broad-scale deployment of Windows 8. Gartner claims that most enterprises and their trusted management vendors are not yet prepared for the change to Windows 8
Microsoft would be far wiser to join that juggernaut than to fight it. And, if it does, here are a few things Microsoft could bring to the Linux/Android table that nobody else will, including Google
Remember how Bill Gates didn’t get the Internet at first, and then turned a 180 in 1995?
Linux wasn’t on Bill’s radar at the time, but BSD was.
Today the reality of Linux is of a piece with the reality of the Internet. Neither is going away. Both are co-evolving in the minds of every geek adding value to them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Download of the Week: Tails OS
http://www.techspot.com/news/56521-download-of-the-week-tails-os.html
Tails received a lot of press a couple of weeks ago when it was disclosed that Edward Snowden was using it to avoid NSA snooping. This portable operating system’s sole purpose is preserving your privacy and anonymity online by relying on the Tor network and other tools to keep your activity secret.
It’s designed to boot from a USB flash drive, CD/DVD or SD card and leaves no trace on the computer you are using unless you ask it explicitly.
If haven’t given Linux a try before, the camouflage feature is also a great way to get acquainted. With this skin Tails not only looks like XP but you have a working start menu, tray, and explorer — all the Windows basics.
As mentioned above, Tails comes preloaded with productivity and other useful software. OpenOffice is used for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, Pidgin for IMs, Tor for browsing, and Claws for your emails.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cubans line up to buy their first legal PCs
http://www.cnet.com/news/cubans-line-up-to-buy-their-first-legal-pcs/
As of Friday, citizens of the communist-controlled country can for the first time be the proud legal owners of a brand-new–if antiquated–desktop computer.
More than a dozen prospective buyers were lined up Friday outside Havana’s state-run Carlos III shopping center for a chance to buy the tower-style Qtech PC and CRT monitor for $780, according to the report.
Intel Celeron processors with a 80GB hard drive and 512MB of RAM and running Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system.
DVD players, motorbikes, and plug-in pressure cookers also went on sale for the first time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD is working on K12, brand-new x86 and ARM cores
http://techreport.com/news/26417/amd-is-working-on-k12-brand-new-x86-and-arm-cores
At a press event just now, AMD offered an update on its “ambidextrous” strategy for CPUs and SoCs. There’s lots of juicy detail here, but the big headline news is that the company is working on two new-from-scratch CPU core designs, one that’s compatible with the 64-bit ARMv8 instruction set ISA and another that is an x86 replacement for Bulldozer and its descendants.
AMD has given the ARM core the code-name K12.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WordPress.com Parent Automattic Raises $160 Million, Valued at $1.16 Billion
http://recode.net/2014/05/05/wordpress-parent-automattic-has-raised-160-million-now-valued-at-1-16-billion-post-money/
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and other Web publishing tools, has raised $160 million from investors, including Insight Venture Partners, CEO Matt Mullenweg confirmed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Cheaper To Use Than Open Source Software, UK CIO Says
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/05/06/0052203/microsoft-cheaper-to-use-than-open-source-software-uk-cio-says
“Jos Creese, CIO of the Hampshire County Council, told Britain’s ‘Computing’ publication that part of the reason is that most staff are already familiar with Microsoft products and that Microsoft has been flexible and more helpful. ‘Microsoft has been flexible and helpful in the way we apply their products to improve the operation of our frontline services, and this helps to de-risk ongoing cost,’ “
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft cheaper to use than open source software, UK CIO says
British government says every time they compare FOSS to MSFT, Redmond wins.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-cheaper-use-open-source-software-uk-cio-says
A UK government CIO says that every time government people compare open source and Microsoft products, Microsoft products always come out cheaper in the long run.
Jos Creese, CIO of the Hampshire County Council, told Britain’s “Computing” publication that part of the reason is that most staff are already familiar with Microsoft products and that Microsoft has been flexible and more helpful.
“Microsoft has been flexible and helpful in the way we apply their products to improve the operation of our frontline services, and this helps to de-risk ongoing cost,” he told the publication. “The point is that the true cost is in the total cost of ownership and exploitation, not just the license cost.”
Creese went on to say he didn’t have a particular bias about open source over Microsoft, but proprietary solutions from Microsoft or any other commercial software vendor “need to justify themselves and to work doubly hard to have flexible business models to help us further our aims.”