Here are comes my long list of computer technology trends for 2015:
Digitalisation is coming to change all business sectors and through our daily work even more than before. Digitalisation also changes the IT sector: Traditional software package are moving rapidly into the cloud. Need to own or rent own IT infrastructure is dramatically reduced. Automation application for configuration and monitoring will be truly possible. Workloads software implementation projects will be reduced significantly as software is a need to adjust less. Traditional IT outsourcing is definitely threatened. The security management is one of the key factors to change as security threats are increasingly digital world. IT sector digitalisation simply means: “more cheaper and better.”
The phrase “Communications Transforming Business” is becoming the new normal. The pace of change in enterprise communications and collaboration is very fast. A new set of capabilities, empowered by the combination of Mobility, the Cloud, Video, software architectures and Unified Communications, is changing expectations for what IT can deliver.
Global Citizenship: Technology Is Rapidly Dissolving National Borders. Besides your passport, what really defines your nationality these days? Is it where you were live? Where you work? The language you speak? The currency you use? If it is, then we may see the idea of “nationality” quickly dissolve in the decades ahead. Language, currency and residency are rapidly being disrupted and dematerialized by technology. Increasingly, technological developments will allow us to live and work almost anywhere on the planet… (and even beyond). In my mind, a borderless world will be a more creative, lucrative, healthy, and frankly, exciting one. Especially for entrepreneurs.
The traditional enterprise workflow is ripe for huge change as the focus moves away from working in a single context on a single device to the workflow being portable and contextual. InfoWorld’s executive editor, Galen Gruman, has coined a phrase for this: “liquid computing.” The increase in productivity is promised be stunning, but the loss of control over data will cross an alarming threshold for many IT professionals.
Mobile will be used more and more. Currently, 49 percent of businesses across North America adopt between one and ten mobile applications, indicating a significant acceptance of these solutions. Embracing mobility promises to increase visibility and responsiveness in the supply chain when properly leveraged. Increased employee productivity and business process efficiencies are seen as key business impacts.
The Internet of things is a big, confusing field waiting to explode. Answer a call or go to a conference these days, and someone is likely trying to sell you on the concept of the Internet of things. However, the Internet of things doesn’t necessarily involve the Internet, and sometimes things aren’t actually on it, either.
The next IT revolution will come from an emerging confluence of Liquid computing plus the Internet of things. Those the two trends are connected — or should connect, at least. If we are to trust on consultants, are in sweet spot for significant change in computing that all companies and users should look forward to.
Cloud will be talked a lot and taken more into use. Cloud is the next-generation of supply chain for IT. A global survey of executives predicted a growing shift towards third party providers to supplement internal capabilities with external resources. CIOs are expected to adopt a more service-centric enterprise IT model. Global business spending for infrastructure and services related to the cloud will reach an estimated $174.2 billion in 2014 (up a 20% from $145.2 billion in 2013), and growth will continue to be fast (“By 2017, enterprise spending on the cloud will amount to a projected $235.1 billion, triple the $78.2 billion in 2011“).
The rapid growth in mobile, big data, and cloud technologies has profoundly changed market dynamics in every industry, driving the convergence of the digital and physical worlds, and changing customer behavior. It’s an evolution that IT organizations struggle to keep up with.To success in this situation there is need to combine traditional IT with agile and web-scale innovation. There is value in both the back-end operational systems and the fast-changing world of user engagement. You are now effectively operating two-speed IT (bimodal IT, two-speed IT, or traditional IT/agile IT). You need a new API-centric layer in the enterprise stack, one that enables two-speed IT.
As Robots Grow Smarter, American Workers Struggle to Keep Up. Although fears that technology will displace jobs are at least as old as the Luddites, there are signs that this time may really be different. The technological breakthroughs of recent years — allowing machines to mimic the human mind — are enabling machines to do knowledge jobs and service jobs, in addition to factory and clerical work. Automation is not only replacing manufacturing jobs, it is displacing knowledge and service workers too.
In many countries IT recruitment market is flying, having picked up to a post-recession high. Employers beware – after years of relative inactivity, job seekers are gearing up for change. Economic improvements and an increase in business confidence have led to a burgeoning jobs market and an epidemic of itchy feet.
Hopefully the IT department is increasingly being seen as a profit rather than a cost centre with IT budgets commonly split between keeping the lights on and spend on innovation and revenue-generating projects. Historically IT was about keeping the infrastructure running and there was no real understanding outside of that, but the days of IT being locked in a basement are gradually changing.CIOs and CMOs must work more closely to increase focus on customers next year or risk losing market share, Forrester Research has warned.
Good questions to ask: Where do you see the corporate IT department in five years’ time? With the consumerization of IT continuing to drive employee expectations of corporate IT, how will this potentially disrupt the way companies deliver IT? What IT process or activity is the most important in creating superior user experiences to boost user/customer satisfaction?
Windows Server 2003 goes end of life in summer 2015 (July 14 2015). There are millions of servers globally still running the 13 year-old OS with one in five customers forecast to miss the 14 July deadline when Microsoft turns off extended support. There were estimated to be 2.7 million WS2003 servers in operation in Europe some months back. This will keep the system administrators busy, because there is just around half year time and update for Windows Server 2008 or Windows 2012 to may be have difficulties. Microsoft and support companies do not seem to be interested in continuing Windows Server 2003 support, so those who need that the custom pricing can be ” incredibly expensive”. At this point is seems that many organizations have the desire for new architecture and consider one option to to move the servers to cloud.
Windows 10 is coming to PCs and Mobile devices. Just few months back Microsoft unveiled a new operating system Windows 10. The new Windows 10 OS is designed to run across a wide range of machines, including everything from tiny “internet of things” devices in business offices to phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops to computer servers. Windows 10 will have exactly the same requirements as Windows 8.1 (same minimum PC requirements that have existed since 2006: 1GHz, 32-bit chip with just 1GB of RAM). There is technical review available. Microsoft says to expect AWESOME things of Windows 10 in January. Microsoft will share more about the Windows 10 ‘consumer experience’ at an event on January 21 in Redmond and is expected to show Windows 10 mobile SKU at the event.
Microsoft is going to monetize Windows differently than earlier.Microsoft Windows has made headway in the market for low-end laptops and tablets this year by reducing the price it charges device manufacturers, charging no royalty on devices with screens of 9 inches or less. That has resulted in a new wave of Windows notebooks in the $200 price range and tablets in the $99 price range. The long-term success of the strategy against Android tablets and Chromebooks remains to be seen.
Microsoft is pushing Universal Apps concept. Microsoft has announced Universal Windows Apps, allowing a single app to run across Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 for the first time, with additional support for Xbox coming. Microsoft promotes a unified Windows Store for all Windows devices. Windows Phone Store and Windows Store would be unified with the release of Windows 10.
Under new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft realizes that, in the modern world, its software must run on more than just Windows. Microsoft has already revealed Microsoft office programs for Apple iPad and iPhone. It also has email client compatible on both iOS and Android mobile operating systems.
With Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome grabbing so much of the desktop market—and Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Google’s Android browser dominating the mobile market—Internet Explorer is no longer the force it once was. Microsoft May Soon Replace Internet Explorer With a New Web Browser article says that Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system will debut with an entirely new web browser code-named Spartan. This new browser is a departure from Internet Explorer, the Microsoft browser whose relevance has waned in recent years.
SSD capacity has always lag well behind hard disk drives (hard disks are in 6TB and 8TB territory while SSDs were primarily 256GB to 512GB). Intel and Micron will try to kill the hard drives with new flash technologies. Intel announced it will begin offering 3D NAND drives in the second half of next year as part of its joint flash venture with Micron. Later (next two years) Intel promises 10TB+ SSDs thanks to 3D Vertical NAND flash memory. Also interfaces to SSD are evolving from traditional hard disk interfaces. PCIe flash and NVDIMMs will make their way into shared storage devices more in 2015. The ULLtraDIMM™ SSD connects flash storage to the memory channel via standard DIMM slots, in order to close the gap between storage devices and system memory (less than five microseconds write latency at the DIMM level).
Hard disks will be still made in large amounts in 2015. It seems that NAND is not taking over the data centre immediately. The huge great problem is $/GB. Estimates of shipped disk and SSD capacity out to 2018 shows disk growing faster than flash. The world’s ability to make and ship SSDs is falling behind its ability to make and ship disk drives – for SSD capacity to match disk by 2018 we would need roughly eight times more flash foundry capacity than we have. New disk technologies such as shingling, TDMR and HAMR are upping areal density per platter and bringing down cost/GB faster than NAND technology can. At present solid-state drives with extreme capacities are very expensive. I expect that with 2015, the prices for SSD will will still be so much higher than hard disks, that everybody who needs to store large amounts of data wants to consider SSD + hard disk hybrid storage systems.
PC sales, and even laptops, are down, and manufacturers are pulling out of the market. The future is all about the device. We have entered the post-PC era so deeply, that even tablet market seem to be saturating as most people who want one have already one. The crazy years of huge tables sales growth are over. The tablet shipment in 2014 was already quite low (7.2% In 2014 To 235.7M units). There is no great reasons or growth or decline to be seen in tablet market in 2015, so I expect it to be stable. IDC expects that iPad Sees First-Ever Decline, and I expect that also because the market seems to be more and more taken by Android tablets that have turned to be “good enough”. Wearables, Bitcoin or messaging may underpin the next consumer computing epoch, after the PC, internet, and mobile.
There will be new tiny PC form factors coming. Intel is shrinking PCs to thumb-sized “compute sticks” that will be out next year. The stick will plug into the back of a smart TV or monitor “and bring intelligence to that”. It is likened the compute stick to similar thumb PCs that plug to HDMI port and are offered by PC makers with the Android OS and ARM processor (for example Wyse Cloud Connect and many cheap Android sticks). Such devices typically don’t have internal storage, but can be used to access files and services in the cloud. Intel expects that sticks size PC market will grow to tens of millions of devices.
We have entered the Post-Microsoft, post-PC programming: The portable REVOLUTION era. Tablets and smart phones are fine for consuming information: a great way to browse the web, check email, stay in touch with friends, and so on. But what does a post-PC world mean for creating things? If you’re writing platform-specific mobile apps in Objective C or Java then no, the iPad alone is not going to cut it. You’ll need some kind of iPad-to-server setup in which your iPad becomes a mythical thin client for the development environment running on your PC or in cloud. If, however, you’re working with scripting languages (such as Python and Ruby) or building web-based applications, the iPad or other tablet could be an useable development environment. At least worth to test.
You need prepare to learn new languages that are good for specific tasks. Attack of the one-letter programming languages: From D to R, these lesser-known languages tackle specific problems in ways worthy of a cult following. Watch out! The coder in the next cubicle might have been bitten and infected with a crazy-eyed obsession with a programming language that is not Java and goes by the mysterious one letter name. Each offers compelling ideas that could do the trick in solving a particular problem you need fixed.
HTML5′s “Dirty Little Secret”: It’s Already Everywhere, Even In Mobile. Just look under the hood. “The dirty little secret of native [app] development is that huge swaths of the UIs we interact with every day are powered by Web technologies under the hood.” When people say Web technology lags behind native development, what they’re really talking about is the distribution model. It’s not that the pace of innovation on the Web is slower, it’s just solving a problem that is an order of magnitude more challenging than how to build and distribute trusted apps for a single platform. Efforts like the Extensible Web Manifesto have been largely successful at overhauling the historically glacial pace of standardization. Vine is a great example of a modern JavaScript app. It’s lightning fast on desktop and on mobile, and shares the same codebase for ease of maintenance.
Docker, meet hype. Hype, meet Docker. Docker: Sorry, you’re just going to have to learn about it. Containers aren’t a new idea, and Docker isn’t remotely the only company working on productising containers. It is, however, the one that has captured hearts and minds. Docker containers are supported by very many Linux systems. And it is not just only Linux anymore as Docker’s app containers are coming to Windows Server, says Microsoft. Containerization lets you do is launch multiple applications that share the same OS kernel and other system resources but otherwise act as though they’re running on separate machines. Each is sandboxed off from the others so that they can’t interfere with each other. What Docker brings to the table is an easy way to package, distribute, deploy, and manage containerized applications.
Domestic Software is on rise in China. China is Planning to Purge Foreign Technology and Replace With Homegrown Suppliers. China is aiming to purge most foreign technology from banks, the military, state-owned enterprises and key government agencies by 2020, stepping up efforts to shift to Chinese suppliers, according to people familiar with the effort. In tests workers have replaced Microsoft Corp.’s Windows with a homegrown operating system called NeoKylin (FreeBSD based desktop O/S). Dell Commercial PCs to Preinstall NeoKylin in China. The plan for changes is driven by national security concerns and marks an increasingly determined move away from foreign suppliers. There are cases of replacing foreign products at all layers from application, middleware down to the infrastructure software and hardware. Foreign suppliers may be able to avoid replacement if they share their core technology or give China’s security inspectors access to their products. The campaign could have lasting consequences for U.S. companies including Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Intel Corp. (INTC) and Hewlett-Packard Co. A key government motivation is to bring China up from low-end manufacturing to the high end.
Data center markets will grow. MarketsandMarkets forecasts the data center rack server market to grow from $22.01 billion in 2014 to $40.25 billion by 2019, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.17%. North America (NA) is expected to be the largest region for the market’s growth in terms of revenues generated, but Asia-Pacific (APAC) is also expected to emerge as a high-growth market.
The rising need for virtualized data centers and incessantly increasing data traffic is considered as a strong driver for the global data center automation market. The SDDC comprises software defined storage (SDS), software defined networking (SDN) and software defined server/compute, wherein all the three components of networking are empowered by specialized controllers, which abstract the controlling plane from the underlying physical equipment. This controller virtualizes the network, server and storage capabilities of a data center, thereby giving a better visibility into data traffic routing and server utilization.
Large data center operators will be using more and more of their own custom hardware instead of standard PC from traditional computer manufacturers. Intel Betting on (Customized) Commodity Chips for Cloud Computing and it expects that Over half the chips Intel will sell to public clouds in 2015 will have custom designs. The biggest public clouds (Amazon Web Services, Google Compute, Microsoft Azure),other big players (like Facebook or China’s Baidu) and other public clouds (like Twitter and eBay) all have huge data centers that they want to run optimally. Companies like A.W.S. “are running a million servers, so floor space, power, cooling, people — you want to optimize everything”. That is why they want specialized chips. Customers are willing to pay a little more for the special run of chips. While most of Intel’s chips still go into PCs, about one-quarter of Intel’s revenue, and a much bigger share of its profits, come from semiconductors for data centers. In the first nine months of 2014, the average selling price of PC chips fell 4 percent, but the average price on data center chips was up 10 percent.
We have seen GPU acceleration taken in to wider use. Special servers and supercomputer systems have long been accelerated by moving the calculation of the graphics processors. The next step in acceleration will be adding FPGA to accelerate x86 servers. FPGAs provide a unique combination of highly parallel custom computation, relatively low manufacturing/engineering costs, and low power requirements. FPGA circuits may provide a lot more power out of a much lower power consumption, but traditionally programming then has been time consuming. But this can change with the introduction of new tools (just next step from technologies learned from GPU accelerations). Xilinx has developed a SDAccel-tools to to develop algorithms in C, C ++ – and OpenCL languages and translated it to FPGA easily. IBM and Xilinx have already demoed FPGA accelerated systems. Microsoft is also doing research on Accelerating Applications with FPGAs.
Universal Memory for Instant-On Computing will be talked about. New memory technologies promise to be strong contenders for replacing the entire memory hierarchy for instant-on operation in computers. HP is working with memristor memories that are promised to be akin to RAM but can hold data without power. The memristor is also denser than DRAM, the current RAM technology used for main memory. According to HP, it is 64 and 128 times denser, in fact. You could very well have a 512 GB memristor RAM in the near future. HP has what it calls “The Machine”, practically a researcher’s plaything for experimenting on emerging computer technologies. Hewlett-Packard’s ambitious plan to reinvent computing will begin with the release of a prototype operating system in 2015 (Linux++, in June 2015). HP must still make significant progress in both software and hardware to make its new computer a reality. A working prototype of The Machine should be ready by 2016.
Chip designs that enable everything from a 6 Gbit/s smartphone interface to the world’s smallest SRAM cell will be described at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2015. Intel will describe a Xeon processor packing 5.56 billion transistors, and AMD will disclose an integrated processor sporting a new x86 core, according to a just-released preview of the event. The annual ISSCC covers the waterfront of chip designs that enable faster speeds, longer battery life, more performance, more memory, and interesting new capabilities. There will be many presentations on first designs made in 16 and 14 nm FinFET processes at IBM, Samsung, and TSMC.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
The hyper-collapsed data centre: Vapor IO’s all-in-one info chamber
Contain your data in a micro-embedded tube of smartness
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/27/hyper_collapsed_datacenter_vapor_io/
Hyper-modular data centre Vapor IO exited stealth mode recently to publicly push its vision for the hyper-collapsed data centre.
The start-up’s mission is to improve management of data centres while delivering greater intelligence at the network edge.
So what is involved in Vapor IO’s vision of the hyper-collapsed data centre?
First, there’s Vapor IO CORE (Core Operating Runtime Environment). This is designed to provide an open interface that applications and operating systems can query to make decisions about scale, efficiency and power consumption
The second part of Vapor’s vision is the Vapor Chamber. Instead of using a traditional server rack line with a hot side and a cold side, the Vapor Chamber assembles server blades in a 9-foot diameter cylinder, so that a single fan system can rationalise airflow to control temperature as required.
“Hyper-collapsed data centre” appears to be Vapor IO’s own term: another way of describing this formation of server architecture might be to call it a metropolitan or industrial micro-embedded data centre, i.e. one that is located in a city or engineering-related location very possibly serving Internet of Things-related sensors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software developer shortage hits Eastern Europe: Romania’s plan to stay ahead in the game
http://www.zdnet.com/article/software-developer-shortage-hits-eastern-europe-romanias-plan-to-stay-ahead-in-the-game/
Summary:With more and more IT companies expanding or opening offices in the country, Romania has to come up with solutions.
Romania needs to increase its number of IT professionals in order to maintainits advantage as an outsourcing location and to nurture its startup environment. A shortage of skilled developers, a trend that hit the US before moving to Western Europe, is now beginning to extend to the Eastern border of the European Union. Companies currently require up to two months to hire a developer, and many of the more niche job offers posted online barely get a handful of applications.
“Over 100,000 specialists are estimated to work in IT, and between 60,000 and 70,000 of those are software developers. The others work in telecoms, networking, or [systems] integration,” Andrei Pitiș, head of Romanian Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry, told ZDNet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chrome OS Receives Extreme Makeover With Material Design and Google Now
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/03/29/2112200/chrome-os-receives-extreme-makeover-with-material-design-and-google-now
Late last week, Google quietly began inviting people to opt into the beta channel for ChromeOS to help the company “shape the future” of the OS.
New in this version is Chrome Launcher 2.0, which gives you quick access to a number of common features, including the apps you use most often (examples are Hangouts, Calculator, and Files).
Chrome OS Receives Extreme Makeover With Material Design And Google Now Support
Read more at http://hothardware.com/news/chrome-os-receives-extreme-makeover-with-material-design-and-google-now-support#fCboo5e9lgriAg94.99
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIOs discuss how they nurture IT talent
http://www.cio.com/article/2901518/cio-role/cios-discuss-how-they-nurture-it-talent.html
In the latest installment of CIO Quick Takes, three IT leaders discuss how they nurture tech talent.
It’s no epiphany to point out that the CIO’s world is changing. Technology budgets are moving to other departments, apps and infrastructure are moving to the cloud, CDOs are moving in, the bad guys are moving to steal your data … so what’s the CIO’s best move?
Having the right people on his or her team is a good place to start. Of course, that’s no easy task.
Recruiting and hiring IT staff remain top challenges for CIOs. In our 2015 State of the CIO report, IT leaders listed big data and analytics, security and risk management, application development, mobile technologies, and enterprise architecture as the IT skills in greatest demand. However, we know that finding technology professionals in any discipline is a challenge.
Finding those talented workers is also only half the battle (actually, probably less than half). Once those IT pros are on board, you need to develop and challenge them if you hope to retain them. Recruits don’t just become productive and motivated employees on their own. You need to nurture talent for the benefit of both your company and your workers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slightly more than one million active power workstations
Power workstationi called a personal computer, the performance is sufficient, for example, CAD design or software development. Jon Peddie Research, these machines were sold in October-December, 1.03 million.
Basic computers sales waned workstation is a PC manufacturer in the product portfolio increasingly important role. HP has now holds 41 percent of the market. Dell is the number two market share of 32 per cent.
China’s Lenovo increased its sales by the end of last year the most. Its share of the power workstations is now 14 per cent.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2617:hieman-yli-miljoona-tehotyoasemaa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
India announces open source policy; Big win for FOSS
http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/india-announces-open-source-policy-big-win-for-foss/46738776
The government on Sunday announced a policy on adoption of open source software, which makes it mandatory for all software applications and services of the government be built using open source software, so that projects under Digital India “ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs”.
The government on Sunday announced a policy on adoption of open source software, which makes it mandatory for all software applications and services of the government be built using open source software, so that projects under Digital India “ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs”.
“Government of India shall endeavour to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations, as a preferred option in comparison to Closed Source Software,” said the policy statement, put on the website of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology.
The move is also in line with several governments across the world which prefer open source and open standards for development of their applications and services.
The United States, United Kingdom and several countries in the European Union also prefer use of open source over proprietary software.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Will Deep Learning Change SoCs?
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326149&
Deep Learning is already changing the way computers see, hear and identify objects in the real world.
However, the bigger — and perhaps more pertinent — issues for the semiconductor industry are: Will “deep learning” ever migrate into smartphones, wearable devices, or the tiny computer vision SoCs used in highly automated cars? Has anybody come up with SoC architecture optimized for neural networks? If so, what does it look like?
“There is no question that deep learning is a game-changer,” said Jeff Bier, a founder of the Embedded Vision Alliance. In computer vision, for example, deep learning is very powerful. “The caveat is that it’s still an empirical field. People are trying different things,” he said.
There’s ample evidence to support chip vendors’ growing enthusiasm for deep learning, and more specifically, convolutional neural networks (CNN). CNN are widely used models for image and video recognition.
Earlier this month, Qualcomm introduced its “Zeroth platform,” a cognitive-capable platform that’s said to “mimic the brain.” It will be used for future mobile chips, including its forthcoming Snapdragon 820, according to Qualcomm.
Cognivue is another company vocal about deep learning. The company claims that its new embedded vision SoC architecture, called Opus
Nvidia is banking on the all aspects of deep learning in which GPU holds the key.
China’s Baidu, a giant in search technology, has been training deep neural network models to recognize general classes of objects at data centers. It plans to move such models into embedded systems.
One thing is clear. Gone are the frustration and disillusion over artificial intelligence (AI) that marked the late 1980’s and early ‘90’s. In the new “big data” era, larger sets of massive data and powerful computing have combined to train neural networks to distinguish objects. Deep learning is now considered a new field moving toward AI.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Over at Dice, there’s a breakdown of which tech jobs have the greatest return on investment, with regard to high starting salaries and growth potential relative to how much you need to spend on degrees and certifications.
IT Jobs With the Best (and Worst) ROI
http://news.dice.com/2015/03/30/it-jobs-with-the-best-and-worst-roi/?CMPID=AF_SD_UP_JS_AV_OG_DNA_
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why You Should Choose Boring Technology
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/03/30/2245223/why-you-should-choose-boring-technology
Dan McKinley, a long-time Etsy engineer who now works at online payment processor Stripe, argues that the boring technology option is usually your best choice for a new project. He says, “Let’s say every company gets about three innovation tokens. You can spend these however you want, but the supply is fixed for a long while. You might get a few more after you achieve a certain level of stability and maturity, but the general tendency is to overestimate the contents of your wallet.”
“The nice thing about boringness (so constrained) is that the capabilities of these things are well understood. But more importantly, their failure modes are well understood.”
Choose Boring Technology
http://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology
What counts as boring? That’s a little tricky. “Boring” should not be conflated with “bad.” There is technology out there that is both boring and bad [2]. You should not use any of that. But there are many choices of technology that are boring and good, or at least good enough. MySQL is boring. Postgres is boring. PHP is boring. Python is boring. Memcached is boring. Squid is boring. Cron is boring.
The nice thing about boringness (so constrained) is that the capabilities of these things are well understood. But more importantly, their failure modes are well understood. Anyone who knows me well will understand that it’s only with a overwhelming sense of malaise that I now invoke the spectre of Don Rumsfeld, but I must.
When choosing technology, you have both known unknowns and unknown unknowns [3].
A known unknown is something like: we don’t know what happens when this database hits 100% CPU.
An unknown unknown is something like: geez it didn’t even occur to us that writing stats would cause GC pauses.
Both sets are typically non-empty, even for tech that’s existed for decades. But for shiny new technology the magnitude of unknown unknowns is significantly larger, and this is important.
Adding technology to your company comes with a cost.
The problem with “best tool for the job” thinking is that it takes a myopic view of the words “best” and “job.” Your job is keeping the company in business, god damn it. And the “best” tool is the one that occupies the “least worst” position for as many of your problems as possible.
It is basically always the case that the long-term costs of keeping a system working reliably vastly exceed any inconveniences you encounter while building it. Mature and productive developers understand this.
Choose New Technology, Sometimes.
One of the most worthwhile exercises I recommend here is to consider how you would solve your immediate problem without adding anything new.
It can be amazing how far a small set of technology choices can go. The answer to this question in practice is almost never “we can’t do it,” it’s usually just somewhere on the spectrum of “well, we could do it, but it would be too hard” [4]. If you think you can’t accomplish your goals with what you’ve got now, you are probably just not thinking creatively enough.
It’s helpful to write down exactly what it is about the current stack that makes solving the problem prohibitively expensive and difficult.
New technology choices might be purely additive (for example: “we don’t have caching yet, so let’s add memcached”). But they might also overlap or replace things you are already using. If that’s the case, you should set clear expectations about migrating old functionality to the new system.
Just Ship.
Polyglot programming is sold with the promise that letting developers choose their own tools with complete freedom will make them more effective at solving problems. This is a naive definition of the problems at best, and motivated reasoning at worst. The weight of day-to-day operational toil this creates crushes you to death.
Mindful choice of technology gives engineering minds real freedom: the freedom to contemplate bigger questions. Technology for its own sake is snake oil.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building IT for worst-case scenarios
http://www.cio.com/article/2899130/it-strategy/building-it-for-worst-case-scenarios.html
The World Bank overhauls IT so it’s better prepared to do business in global hotspots where war, disease and poverty may be among the challenges of everyday life
The World Bank had been through six IT leaders in as many years when Stephanie von Friedeburg took the role in 2012. A 20-year development and investment veteran of the World Bank Group and an expert in Russian studies, von Friedeburg had previously taken on the unexpected role of CIO at the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group focused on private-sector development.
Six weeks later, Jim Yong Kim became president of the World Bank. He saw technology as critical to his vision of reducing the global poverty rate from 14.5 percent to 3 percent by 2030.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Google announces an Asus-made Chrome OS HDMI stick called Chromebit for less than $100 and new ARM Chromebook laptops from Hisense and Haier starting at $149 — Google pushes Chrome OS software, with or without Chromebooks
Google pushes Chrome OS software, with or without Chromebooks
http://www.cnet.com/news/google-pushes-chrome-os-software-with-or-without-chromebooks/
Google announces new Chromebook laptops and an intriguing new device called the Chromebit that pushes Google’s operating system without trying to sell you a laptop.
Move over, Android.
Google’s mobile operating system may be the most popular software in the world for powering phones and tablets. But Google is also making a push for its other operating system, Chrome OS, which mostly powers laptop and desktop computers.
Consider a few of the new devices the search giant announced Tuesday. The Asus Chromebit is a small device that looks like an oversize flash drive that turns any screen or monitor with an HDMI video port into a full-blown computer. With the Chromebit, you can connect to a Wi-Fi network and run Google’s Chrome browser, check Gmail and watch YouTube — all through Google’s Chrome operating system.
The device will sell for less than $100, Google said. It’s set to be released this summer.
Google first introduced the Chromebook laptop in 2011, but its market share remains small. Of all laptops sold worldwide in 2014, only 3.5 percent were running Google’s Chrome OS, according to research firm IDC. PCs running Microsoft’s Windows software, the market leader, accounted for 86 percent of laptops sold, while Apple’s MacBook notebooks had an 8.7 percent share.
But Chrome OS devices have gotten much better traction in the education market in the United States. In 2014, Chromebooks accounted for about one third of the education market with a 29.9 percent share. Windows still had the majority with 39 percent, while Apple had 32 percent, according to IDC.
Google has good reason to tout Chrome OS. The software is the entry point to people using more Google apps and services. The more information the company can glean from users, the more potential revenue it can make from showing them targeted ads, which marketers deem the most valuable.
Chomebit, hawks Chrome OS without even trying to sell a Chromebook laptop.
The device has a USB port at one end and can connect to other accessories via the Bluetooth standard for connecting wireless devices. The Chromebit also works similarly to Google’s $35 Chromecast
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook’s new “Scrapbook” feature lets parents tag their children in photos, giving kids an official presence without full profiles — Facebook’s New Photo “Scrapbook” Lets Parents Give Kids An Official Presence — For the first time, children under 13 are allowed to have an official presence on Facebook.
Facebook’s New Photo “Scrapbook” Lets Parents Give Kids An Official Presence
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/31/step-1-identify-baby-photo-step-2-hide-baby-photos/#gypjlZ:x6PD
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eileen Yu / ZDNet:
Indian government mandates that all systems used by its public sector are deployed on open source software
http://www.zdnet.com/article/indian-government-mandates-use-of-open-source-software/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The LibreOffice office suite arrives in the cloud
http://linux.softpedia.com/blog/LibreOffice-Online-Announced-a-Free-Alternative-to-Google-Docs-and-Office-365-476731.shtml
The Document Foundation, through Italo Vignoli, had the pleasure of informing Softpedia today, March 25, about a new product that is set to be released sometime in the near feature, called LibreOffice Online, which will attempt to be a free alternative to proprietary solutions like Google Docs and Office 365.
This is fantastic news for all open-source users around the world, as LibreOffice finally arrives in the cloud thanks to the soon-to-be-released LibreOffice Online platform, which will basically allow you to create all sorts of office documents online, from anywhere, independent of a computer operating system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s all about the popularity of the main distro
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Debian-Won-t-Replace-Ubuntu-as-the-Base-for-Linux-Mint-Says-Project-Leader-477167.shtml
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but its makers are also working on a Debian-based one. The leader of the project has confirmed that they have no intention to replace one with the other unless the Debian edition becomes immensely popular.
When the Linux Mint team decided to make a separate operating system based on Debian, many users thought that they are planning to replace the Ubuntu base that’s been in use for years. The Debian edition has been in the works for quite some time
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joel Hruska / ExtremeTech:
Intel quietly launches 14nm Braswell, Bay Trail’s successor
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/202389-intel-quietly-launches-14nm-braswell-bay-trails-successor
Intel has quietly launched its first 14nm Braswell cores this week. These new 14nm chips are the successor to Intel’s 22nm Bay Trail-D (meaning the Celeron / Pentium flavor of Bay Trail) and will target ultra-mobile systems and low-end desktop PCs. Just as Broadwell is a die-shrink of Haswell, Braswell is Bay Trail’s die shrink — which means the 14nm “Airmont” CPU core inside the SoC isn’t expected to offer dramatically new features or other capabilities compared with its predecessor. Increased efficiency, lower TDPs, and better thermals are the order of the day. Intel’s Cherry Trail, which will debut later this year, will offer the same silicon in a tablet power envelope.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung takes Google into third dimension of flashy storage
Flash-flood: Korean 3D flash-furtler melts heart of the Chocolate Factory
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/samsung_taking_google_into_third_dimension/
It’s a 3D flash flood: Korean 3D flash-furtler Samsung has landed Google as a customer, according to the Korean Times.
The report says Google’s data centres will use Sammy’s 3D NAND, which the paper has previously reported will also be used in forthcoming MacBooks from Apple, and which we understand is also utilised by Amazon, and is currently used in Kaminario K2 all-flash arrays.
Neither Google nor Sammy commented in the report. If true it’s further confirmation that, by stacking 32 layers of planar 2D NAND built using 39-30nm-class cell geometry in a die, Samsung has got itself a significant price/performance advantage over other flash fabricators.
Its 3D NAND is generally available while Intel/Micron and SanDisk/Toshiba’s have just entered the sampling stage with GA late this year or in 2016. SanDisk/Toshiba is sampling a 48-layer chip, but we can expect Sammy to hit that level soon enough.
These supply deals with Amazon, Apple and Google – Facebook is also mentioned in passing by the report – mean that these hyper-scale data centre operators will be buying less planar NAND than otherwise from the other flash suppliers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Seagate preps for 30TB laser-assisted hard drives
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2846415/seagate-preps-for-30tb-laser-assisted-hard-drives.html
Seagate is also working on 2D magnetic recording
Seagate Technology is boosting investments in laser-assisted hard disk drive technology that it projects will allow it to increase capacity five-fold.
The laser technology, known as heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), is able to write smaller, more-stable bits onto the magnetic surface of a spinning disk. Today, Seagate’s largest capacity drive using conventional recording is 6TB. Using HAMR, that capacity could theoretically increase to 30TB.
The marketing campaign Seagate has used is “20TB by 2020,” but Seagate CTO Mark Re told Computerworld that’s just a target. Seagate is planning to release its first HAMR-enabled drives in 2016.
Along with HAMR and its ability to increase drive density, Seagate is also working on something known as two dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR), which places one more data reader onto a drive’s read/write head.
Conventional recording technology, known as perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), is able to lay down 750Gbits per square inch on a spinning platter.
Seagate has also bolstered the capacity of its 3.5-in data center drives using PMR along with shingled magnetic recording (SMR), which overlaps data tracks like shingles on a rooftop; SMR has increased bit density on platters by 25% or more, to about 1Tbit per square inch.
HAMR technology will increase it to 5Tbits per square inch, Re said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Seagate gives Ethernet-connected drives their own IP address
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2841847/seagate-gives-ethernet-connected-drives-their-own-ip-address.html
Seagate Technology today announced a new object-based storage hard disk drive — the Seagate Kinetic HDD — that gives each hard drive its own IP address.
The new drives eliminate the need for storage servers, allowing storage applications to talk directly to tens, hundreds or thousands hard drives over Ethernet, something Seagate said can increase performance.
“We’re taking the management servers … out of the stack. Now the storage application goes to the IP address of the individual drive,” said David Burks, a director of product marketing at Seagate. “Instead of associating a bucket of storage with one IP address and using a storage server to retrieve information for you, you’ll have more IP addresses in your storage system and each one will represent [a] spindle or hard drive.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google’s ARC now runs Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux
Google’s ARC now runs Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux
“App Runtime for Chrome” takes a big step toward making Android a universal binary.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/googles-arc-opens-up-to-developers-runs-android-apps-on-most-desktop-oses/
In September, Google launched ARC—the “App Runtime for Chrome,”—a project that allowed Android apps to run on Chrome OS. A few days later, a hack revealed the project’s full potential: it enabled ARC on every “desktop” version of Chrome, meaning you could unofficially run Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. ARC made Android apps run on nearly every computing platform (save iOS).
ARC is an early beta though so Google has kept the project’s reach very limited—only a handful of apps have been ported to ARC, which have all been the result of close collaborations between Google and the app developer. Now though, Google is taking two big steps forward: it’s allowing any developer to run their app on ARC via a new Chrome app packager, and it’s allowing ARC to run on any desktop OS with a Chrome browser.
ARC runs Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS thanks to Native Client (abbreviated “NaCL”). NaCL is a Chrome sandboxing technology that allows Chrome apps and plugins to run at “near native” speeds, taking full advantage of the system’s CPU and GPU. Native Client turns Chrome into a development platform, write to it, and it’ll run on all desktop Chrome browsers. Google ported a full Android stack to Native Client, allowing Android apps to run on most major OSes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SATA III solid-state drive stores nearly 2 Tbytes
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439072/SATA-III-solid-state-drive-stores-nearly-2-Tbytes?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_systemsdesign_20150401&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_systemsdesign_20150401&elq=2a6fb3acc7c84eadb53f0e1ea4531252&elqCampaignId=22333&elqaid=25105&elqat=1&elqTrackId=72a2c9b1258f45b490d977f067604ed4
Joining OCZ Storage Solutions’ Intrepid 3000 portfolio of enterprise SATA III solid-state drives (SSDs) is the Intrepid 3700 series, capable of delivering sustained performance and I/O latency responses that improve application performance and I/O efficiencies, while providing storage capacities approaching 2 Tbytes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Permabit OEM deal de-stealths Chinese all-flash array maker
Sihua Tech has also opened a Cupertino office. Can’t imagine why
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/02/chinese_allflash_array_maker_appears/
Permabit says it has a new Albireo dedupe software OEM, and in so doing has revealed a brand new all-flash array vendor, this one from China.
Sihua Technologies is an iCDN content delivery and NeuStor cloud storage product provider to the Chinese market. It is based in Shanghai and Hangzhou, with an office in Cupertino.
Sihua Tech is introducing a new product, the Kaixiang Flash Storage Array. It comes in either SAS SSD or nVME SSD versions. Both use Permabit’s Albireo Virtual Data Optimiser (VDO) for inline deduplication, compression and thin provisioning to increase their storage efficiency. Sihua says that it offers “its customers the most scalable, highest-performing and resource-efficient inline deduplication, compression and thin provisioning in the industry”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft dumps ARM for Atom with cut-price Surface 3 fondleslab
Well, that just about wraps it up for RT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/microsoft_dumps_arm_for_atom_with_cutprice_surface_fondleslab/
Pic + vid Microsoft’s brief flirtation with ARM-powered Windows RT tablets looks to be over: the Redmond giant has unveiled its latest fondleslab, the Surface 3, which is a dinky Atom-powered slate running a full version of Windows on Intel hardware.
Up until this latest tablet, Surfaces have sported ARM-compatible processors, and Surface Pro devices have used Intel chips. Now it appears Microsoft is going all-Intel.
“It feels like yesterday that Surface came onto the scene, but the products you see today are the result of years of iteration through many development cycles,”
The new Surface 3 is a 10.8-inch device, slightly smaller and lighter than the Surface 3 Pro’s 12 inches. Inside, the 14nm Intel 1.6GHz quad-core Atom x7-Z8700 processor runs 64-bit Windows 8.1, and owners will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free later this year. Microsoft is also bundling a one-year subscription to the Office 365 cloud with the device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel shipping Bay Trail SoC successor Braswell to budget laptop OEMs
SoC will hit the market for the ‘back to school’ season
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2402680/intel-shipping-bay-trail-soc-successor-braswell-to-budget-laptop-oems
INTEL HAS ANNOUNCED that it is now shipping the Bay Trail system on a chip (SoC) successor codenamed Braswell to OEM partners.
Announced almost exactly a year ago at Intel’s Developer Forum in Beijing, Braswell is a more powerful version of Bay Trail running on the 14nm fab process, designed to power low-cost devices like Chromebooks and budget PCs.
The chip maker said that devices will hit the market sometime in late summer or autumn.
“We expect Braswell-based systems to be available in the market for the back to school 2015 selling season,” an Intel representative told The INQUIRER. “Specific dates and options will be announced by our OEM partners.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
N64 and Nintendo DS games available on Wii U Virtual Console from today
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/04/02/n64-and-nintendo-ds-games-available-on-wii-u-virtual-console-from-today/
Nintendo has announced that it’s bringing Nintendo 64 and DS games to the Wii U via its virtual console service beginning today.
The virtual game service will allow you to configure your Wii U controller to better match the layout of the N64 games or the DS. Some games will use the main TV screen for both screens and others will utilize both.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CoreOS Raises $12M Funding Round Led By Google Ventures To Bring Kubernetes To The Enterprise
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/06/coreos-raises-12m-funding-round-led-by-google-ventures-to-bring-kubernetes-to-the-enterprise/
CoreOS, a Docker-centric Linux distribution for large-scale server deployments, today announced that it has raised a $12 million funding round led by Google Ventures with participation by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fuel Capital and Accel Partners. This new round brings the company’s total funding to $20 million.
In addition, CoreOS is also launching Tectonic today. This new commercial distribution combines CoreOS with Google’s open source Kubernetes container management and orchestration tools. This makes CoreOS the first company to launch a fully supported enterprise version of Kubernetes. Overall, the new distribution, which for now is only available to a select group of beta users, aims to make it easier for enterprises to move to a distributed and container-based infrastructure.
“When we started CoreOS, we set out to build and deliver Google’s infrastructure to everyone else,” CoreOS CEO Alex Polvi said in a canned statement. “Today, this goal is becoming a reality with Tectonic, which allows enterprises across the world to securely run containers in a distributed environment, similar to how Google runs their infrastructure internally.”
CoreOS, a Docker-centric Linux distribution for large-scale server deployments, today announced that it has raised a $12 million funding round led by Google Ventures with participation by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fuel Capital and Accel Partners. This new round brings the company’s total funding to $20 million.
In addition, CoreOS is also launching Tectonic today. This new commercial distribution combines CoreOS with Google’s open source Kubernetes container management and orchestration tools. This makes CoreOS the first company to launch a fully supported enterprise version of Kubernetes. Overall, the new distribution, which for now is only available to a select group of beta users, aims to make it easier for enterprises to move to a distributed and container-based infrastructure.
“When we started CoreOS, we set out to build and deliver Google’s infrastructure to everyone else,” CoreOS CEO Alex Polvi said in a canned statement. “Today, this goal is becoming a reality with Tectonic, which allows enterprises across the world to securely run containers in a distributed environment, similar to how Google runs their infrastructure internally.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brad Linder / Liliputing:
Intel Compute Stick now available for pre-order: Linux version starts at $110, Windows at $150 — Intel Compute Stick mini PC now available for pre-order — The Intel Compute Stick is a tiny computer with an HDMI connector on one end. Plug the device into the HDMI port on your TV or monitor
Intel Compute Stick mini PC now available for pre-order
http://liliputing.com/2015/04/intel-compute-stick-mini-pc-now-available-for-pre-order.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
AppleInsider:
LG may have accidentally revealed Apple’s 8K iMac plans in a press release about display tech
Apple to release super-high resolution ‘iMac 8K’ later this year, display partner LG says
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/04/06/apple-to-release-super-high-resolution-imac-8k-later-this-year-display-partner-lg-says
In a rather unusual reveal, a supposed “iMac 8K” has been outed in a press release that was published by Apple display supplier LG, suggesting the all-in-one desktop will get an even higher resolution screen this year.
The announcement was actually made by LG a week ago, but AppleInsider was tipped to the press release on Monday. In declaring the “next-generation of high-resolution 8K,” LG detailed its pixel-packing display technology and talked about its partnerships, including its alignment with Apple.
“Apple has also announced that they will release the ‘iMac 8K’ with a super-high resolution display later this year,” the press release states. Apple, however, has not publicly announced plans for a new iMac update.
Apple’s 27-inch iMac was given a super-resolution 5K display in an upgrade that arrived last fall.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Win Server 2003 addict? Tick, tock: Your options are running out
A Reg guide to breaking up and moving on
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/07/windows_server_2003_what_next/
Windows XP is officially gone but its server companions Windows Server 2003 and Server 2003 R2 live – just not for much longer. Mainstream support for the server duo ended on 13 July 2010 but the expiration of extended support is now just three months away: 14 July 2015.
The date is critical as that’s when security updates and paid support incidents are no longer available from Microsoft.
Should you care if your Server 2003 boxes only sit in a corner running some old application?
If they are not connected to the network, perhaps not. In most cases they are, though, and lack of security updates or official support is a concern. If it is picked up in a network scan for PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance, you will fail, and this means you should not process card payments or handle related data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel shows Google how to stick it real good
Chipzilla sticks it to Chromebit with Atom-powered Compute Stick
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/07/intel_gives_google_a_small_smackdown/
Intel has loosed its Chromebit-killer, the Compute Stick, on the market with pre-orders open at NewEgg, Amazon and other outlets.
It’s more expensive than the expected sub-$US100 price tag on Chromebit: a Linux Compute Stick is available at Newegg for $US109.99 and a Windows 8.1 version is $US149.99.
Google seems to have done a little more work on physical design, with a swivel-head on Chromebit for convenience (and for that matter, product longevity, since something laying more closely to the screen it’s attached to is less likely to get broken off by accident).
Both outfits pitch the sticks as either adding smarts to TVs, or turning any HDMI screen into a computer (admittedly of limited grunt – the Compute Stick runs at a hardly-screaming 1.33 GHz), but Intel also sees its product as handy in industrial environments.
Here’s how the competing devices stack up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VirtualBox v. 5.0 beta 1 spins up for desktop virty lab chuckles
First major update to Oracle’s desktop hypervisor since 2010 adds paravirtualisation
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/07/virtualbox_v_50_beta_spawns_onto_the_desktop/
Snoracle has decided the time is right to upgrade its VirtualBox desktop hypervisor.
Version 5.0 is billed as a “new major release”
Adding paravirtualization will be welcomed by many, because it improves GuestOS performance. Combined with the new “detach mode”, which allows the creation and operation of headless VMs, VirtualBox looks like it will tool up to handle lots of VMs on the desktop. Which should be handy for testing purposes. Oracle’s certainly keen on the tool for testing: it offers a library of ready-to-run VMs of its own key products for developers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
GCC 5 is coming up for release in the next few weeks and is presenting an extraordinary number of new features: C11 support by default, experimental C++14 support, full C++11 support in libstdc++, OpenMP 4.0 with Xeon Phi / GPU offloading, Intel Cilk Plus multi-threading, new ARM processor support, Intel AVX-512 handling, and much more.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GCC-5-Coming-This-Month
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Supports Targeting Linux
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Visual-Studio-2015-Linux-Suppor
Microsoft announced their Visual Studio 2015 line-up this week, but why is it important for Linux users/developers?
With the new Visual Studio 2015 product line-up, Microsoft hasn’t brought their Visual Studio development environment over to Linux, but it seems that it now supports targeting Linux!
The Visual Studio 2015 product page mentions, “Build for iOS, Android, Windows devices, Windows Server or Linux.” Yes, Linux output from VS!
I don’t recall this ability for former versions of Visual Studio (aside from Android targeting)
It’s nice to see the apparent ability of Visual Studio 2015 to now generate Linux binaries, albeit it’s likely laced with .NET and part of that push. For the past year Microsoft has been pushing .NET Linux support, has open-sourced various .NET components, and made other Linux/OSS progress.
Visual Studio 2015
https://www.visualstudio.com/products/vs-2015-product-editions
Introducing the newly announced Visual Studio 2015 product editions, including the all-new Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN, Visual Studio Professional with MSDN, and the free Visual Studio Community edition – coming later this year.
Tools and services for projects of any size or complexity
C#, Visual Basic, F#, C++, Python, Node.js and HTML/JavaScript
Build for iOS, Android, Windows devices, Windows Server or Linux
Advanced debugging, profiling, automated and manual testing
DevOps with automated deployments and continuous monitoring
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Years of Git: An Interview with Git Creator Linus Torvalds
http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/185-jennifer-cloer/821541-10-years-of-git-an-interview-with-git-creator-linus-torvalds
Ten years ago this week, the Linux kernel community faced a daunting challenge: They could no longer use their revision control system BitKeeper and no other Software Configuration Management (SCMs) met their needs for a distributed system. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, took the challenge into his own hands and disappeared over the weekend to emerge the following week with Git. Today Git is used for thousands of projects and has ushered in a new level of social coding among programmers.
To celebrate this milestone, we asked Linus to share the behind-the-scenes story of Git and tell us what he thinks of the project and its impact on software development.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 10 Successor Codenamed ‘Redstone,’ Targeting 2016 Launch
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/04/07/1956243/windows-10-successor-codenamed-redstone-targeting-2016-launch
Windows 10 isn’t even out the door yet, so what better time than now to talk about its successor? Believe it or not, there’s a fair bit of information on it floating around already, including its codename: “Redstone.
Redstone: The codename for the next Windows update coming in 2016
http://www.neowin.net/news/redstone-the-codename-for-the-next-windows-update-coming-in-2016
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows XP is still clinging on, one year later
Some organisations are going to get stung for millions
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2402985/windows-xp-is-still-clinging-on-one-year-later
365 DAYS have passed since Windows XP, the stalwart operating system beloved and hated in equal measure by computer users from Bali to Broadstairs, popped its clogs after Microsoft elected to pull the final plug.
The operating system moved from the ‘extended support’ to ‘end of life’ phase on 8 April 2014, meaning that Microsoft would no longer offer any sort of protection or security updates for the software.
But Windows XP hasn’t gone quietly. A user-created Service Pack 4 was produced to increase the lifespan of the operating system for consumers, while many organisations that had failed to heed the warnings ended up paying large sums of money to Microsoft for continuing bespoke support.
Windows XP gets an unofficial Service Pack 4
Developer community steps into Microsoft’s shoes
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2362314/windows-xp-gets-an-unofficial-service-pack-4
Tomi Engdahl says:
IT outsourcing is now a buyer’s market
For your convenience, IT outsourcing prices are within a short time tipahtaneet up to 40 per cent. The reasons for this are new technologies and cloud-based delivery models.
Service providers have been forced into a price war by the market has not seen in 15 years, the research house ISG (Information Services Group), a senior partner Steve Hall believes.
“Those most at risk are the cheap labor competing for the Indian offshore service providers, but price pressures oppress the traditional, multi-national IT outsourcing vendors,”
In particular, autonomous solutions (rpa, robotic process automation) thanks to some service providers have in recent months been able to drop their offers up to 40 per cent lower than competitors’ prices.
“Autonomous Solutions, robotics and automation are present in almost all of the large IT outsourcing contracts. This will drive the market prices continue downward,”
“Everyone wants to reduce wage costs and get rid of offshore service centers in a large number of employees of IT outsourcing, global delivery routes following similar paths: the focus is on speed, consistence, flexibility and automation,”
ISG’s Hall, all large IT service vendors are striving to reduce prices. Savings targets are the IT infrastructure support services, applications, service and maintenance, as well as in general IT process outsourcing services.
Service Providers of investments payback periods are getting longer, not least because it customers want of course, their share of the savings.
On the other hand a variety of cloud services unexpectedly rapid development of more outsourcing services vendors pain.
Who will win and how?
The cloud-based service providers such as Amazon, Google and Rackspace seem to benefit the most current developments.
“Automation to transfer large service providers in the market shares of the other, while prices continue to fall. Again a large number of agreements made only accelerate this pace for the benefit of the cloud,”
“Everything will ultimately depend on the service provider’s strategic choices and the ability to adapt to new business models,”
IoT to sellers lifeboat
“Digitalization requires extensive new software and applications in production. In these areas, the service providers can not compete alone prices. Success requires large investments into automation, analytics and planning of production, at the price that a short period of time the sales figures are declining investment,” the research house HFS Research CEO Phil Fersht notes.
The more automation, the less manpower outsourcing service provider needs. Agreements dollar amounts may be reduced, but their profitability will improve.
“Ten million dollar contract to 20 percent margin becomes seven million contract 50 per cent profit margin,”
Caveat emptor, CIO
IT outsourcing based upon Roman law caveat emptor principle has not disappeared anywhere. Freely translated as, this means that the buyer bears the responsibility always on what was bought.
HFS’s Fersht warns customers to squeeze IT service providers too strained:
“A stone hard price puch because of a client company may drop the service provider in the eyes of the c-Class and receive poorer service. This has happened many times before,”
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/CIO/2015-04-08/It-ulkoistuksessa-on-nyt-ostajan-markkinat-3218497.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
A historic turning point: the tablet passes laptop
ABI Research, the proportion of tablets mobile computers will increase to 52 per cent. The traditional notebook or laptop market share dropped to 48 per cent this year and next year to 47 per cent.
According to IDC, all PCs sales volume drops this year to 293.1 million. Even though the market is shrinking by almost five per cent for the past years, it is still more than $ 200 billion of the total market.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2651:historiallinen-kaanne-tabletti-ohittaa-lapparin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Review: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC’s electronic signatures are its killer app
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2906502/review-adobe-acrobat-pro-dcs-electronic-signatures-are-its-killer-app.html
No other competing PDF utility has anything like the new electronic signature features in the new Acrobat. But you’ll have to subscribe to Document Cloud to get it.
With the new Acrobat DC, Adobe offers a killer app that could lure at least some users back from cheaper PDF editors: electronic signatures. Signatures are an essential part of business, and one that’s now made much easier with the new Document Cloud service you can get on subscription with Acrobat. No other competing PDF utility has anything like it.
The new Acrobat pushes PDFs to the cloud. No, not that cloud: Instead of incorporating new features into its Creative Cloud subscription service, Adobe is introducing a new cloud, called the Document Cloud (DC for short), a document-management and document-signing service for which Acrobat is the interface, on desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.
Adobe’s EchoSign electronic signature service is no more—because its features are now built into Acrobat Pro DC and the Document Cloud (it’s also included with Creative Cloud subscriptions). You get unlimited signatures
You’ll need a desktop version of Acrobat DC that includes a Document Cloud subscription to send PDFs out for electronic signatures.
Adobe has created a very useful cloud service, albeit one that’s segregated from other cloud services, but the integration of electronic signature sending and tracking is the thing that sets it apart from other PDF applications. If you don’t need signing but you still need Acrobat for other functions, then you might consider using the perpetual version with the cloud service of your choice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Drexel University finds a brilliant (and crazy?) new way to use iPads
http://bgr.com/2015/04/03/ipad-vending-machines-drexel-university/
These days, it’s not surprising to see all sorts of strange and unusual items in vending machines. Even on the consumer electronics front, it’s easy to spot vending machines sporting high-end earphones and even iPods. But what we haven’t yet seen is a vending machine that dispenses iPads.
Until now.
Drexel University recently partnered up with the Free Library of Philadelphia to roll out vending machines that lets library card toting users check out an iPad for up to 4 hours of use.
Security minded users can also rest easy knowing that each iPad is wiped clean upon return.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Is Making a Stripped-Down Windows to Rival Linux
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/super-slim-windows-microsoft-eyes-future-cloud-computing/
Today, big Silicon Valley names like Google and Twitter run their online services across thousands of machines. And to efficiently execute their software with so much hardware in the mix, they use the open source Linux operating system and a technology called “containers.” What they don’t use is Windows.
Microsoft’s flagship operating system operates quite differently from Linux—which could be a problem as containers become the preferred way of computing in the cloud. But now, as so many others follow the lead of giants like Google and Twitter, Microsoft is reshaping Windows so that it doesn’t get left behind.
In the fall, Microsoft announced that it would add Linux-like container technology to a future version of Windows. Today, the company revealed that it’s also developing a super-slim version of Windows that will run what it describes as a new kind of container—one that provides an added level of security. The OS is called Windows Server Nano.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft to add virtualized containers, Nano Server mode to Windows Server 2016
Microsoft to add virtualized containers, Nano Server mode to Windows Server 2016
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-add-virtualized-containers-nano-server-mode-to-windows-server-2016/
Summary:Microsoft confirms it will have a Nano Server mode in Windows Server 2016, along with new Hyper-V containerization technology.
Microsoft is positioning Nano Server as an optimal platform on which to run Windows Server containers.
Microsoft officials plan to demonstrate the Windows Server container technology (but not the Hyper-V containers) at the Build conference in San Francisco in late April, officials said today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything’s code, ‘zero tolerance for assholes’: Yup, it’s ChefConf
Featuring DevOps Kung fu – and how open source Windows is “definitely possible”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/09/insights_from_chefconf_everything_is_code_and_zero_tolerance_for_assholes/
ChefConf 2015 took place last week in Santa Clara, with around 1500 attendees focusing on DevOps using Chef software to automate infrastructure configuration and application deployment.
What is DevOps? Defining it is a struggle, according to Chef CTO Adam Jacob who devoted a large part of his entertaining keynote to the subject.
The word is derived from “development and operations”, but if you thought it was merely about these two aspects of IT working together in a sensible way, think again.
According to Jacob, “it’s like Kung fu”, which doesn’t mean martial arts in this context but rather “the excellence achieved through long practice in one’s skills.”
What, then, is DevOps Kung fu? After a tour of good and bad principles and practices, Jacob settled on “a cultural and professional movement, focused on how we build and operate high velocity organizations, born from the experiences of its practitioners.”
If that sounds like a reprise of the Agile Manifesto, published in February 2001, it is not a coincidence. Like Agile, DevOps as understood by the ChefConf crowd is about collaboration as much as technology, and a focus on people rather than products was a notable feature of the event.
There is a clue about why a particular approach to managing IT has become an all-encompassing philosophy of business in the term “high velocity organizations,” part of Jacob’s DevOps definition. Since almost all companies are to some extent software companies (that is, the success of their business depends to some degree on software), then the ability to change and improve that software quickly is critical in fast-growing, adaptable organizations.
Rapid software iteration is only possible if you can automate the process of software delivery. In software development, techniques such as automated testing, revision control and software configuration management enable fast and reliable updates.
One possibility is that Microsoft is fearful that increased focus on DevOps will favour Linux, which with its text-based configuration is more amenable to automation. The relationship with Chef is not driven solely by Microsoft, though.
A panel at ChefConf featuring Russinovich proved to be a talking point, when panel chair Cade Metz (late of this parish) asked if Microsoft would ever open source Windows itself.
“It’s definitely possible. It’s a new Microsoft and every conversation you could imagine about what we should do with our software, it’s happened,” said Russinovich. Possible does not mean likely, though, so do not hold your breath.
Software has always been code. Now infrastructure can also be code, making it easy to manage, version and scale. There is a third piece now emerging though, which is compliance as code.
Everything is code then; and perhaps that will do for a more concise definition of DevOps. Along with “zero tolerance for assholes”, of course
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Closes Acquisition of Revolution Analytics
http://blogs.technet.com/b/machinelearning/archive/2015/04/06/microsoft-closes-acquisition-of-revolution-analytics.aspx
Earlier this year we announced our intent to acquire Revolution Analytics and today I’m happy to say we have closed the acquisition agreement.
It is my pleasure to welcome the Revolution team to Microsoft. Together we will help unlock the power of the R language for advanced analytics on big data.
R is the world’s most popular programming language for statistical computing and predictive analytics, used by more than 2 million people worldwide. Revolution has made R enterprise-ready with speed and scalability for the largest data warehouses and Hadoop systems. For example, by leveraging Intel’s Math Kernel Library (MKL), the freely available Revolution R Open executes a typical R benchmark 2.5 times faster than the standard R distribution and some functions, such as linear regression, run up to 20 times faster. With its unique parallel external memory algorithms, Revolution R Enterprise is able to deliver speeds 42 times faster than competing technology from SAS.
Moving forward, we will build R and Revolution’s technology into our data platform products so companies, developers and data scientists can use it across on-premises, hybrid cloud and Azure public cloud environments. For example, we will build R into SQL Server to provide enormously fast and scalable in-database analytics that can be deployed in an enterprise customer’s datacenter, on Azure, or in a hybrid combination. In addition, we will integrate Revolution’s scalable R distribution into Azure HDInsight and Azure Machine Learning, making it much easier and faster to analyze big data, and to operationalize R code for production applications. We will also continue to support running Revolution R Enterprise across heterogeneous platforms including Linux, Teradata and Hadoop deployments. No matter where their data lives, customers and partners will be able to take advantage of R more quickly, simply and cost effectively than ever before.
http://www.revolutionanalytics.com/products
Tomi Engdahl says:
What type of storage does your application really need?
Server? Check. Network? Check. Storage? Mmm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/09/what_type_of_storage_do_your_applications_need/
When you are doing the spec for some new server hardware, what do you consider?
Well, first you decide whether you will go for a physical server infrastructure or a virtual one. For the former you buy several modest-sized servers, and for the latter you look at a small number of socking great machines or perhaps a blade-based offering.
Either way you calculate the CPU and RAM requirements and spec the kit accordingly. You pick your virtualisation platform if you have gone for the virtual option (and let’s face it, that will be VMware or Hyper-V), then figure out the operating systems you will use.
If you already have sufficient LAN capacity then you will just plug it into the existing switch platform. If not you probably have a favourite design that lets you procure some switches, trunk them together with EtherChannel and dual-connect the servers.
These days 10gig Ethernet is pretty much a no-brainer as it is very cheap to implement, but at the very least you will use 1Gbps connections. And, of course, you will work out how much storage you need.
Okay, I may have exaggerated the “storage as an afterthought” point a bit but I am not far out. In many companies’ eyes, storage is something that you buy by quantity, and perhaps by brand, not by type.
With today’s storage options, though, there is such a choice of media and connectivity that you can’t just say “I want six terabytes of disk” without answering a dozen questions about what type, colour and flavour you want.
Different types of storage lend themselves to different types of applications, so it is worth knowing what they are.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google sticks anti-SQL injection vaccine into MySQL MariaDB fork
Encryption tables to trip up rogue data
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/09/mariadb_google_security_injection/
Google is dropping encryption into MariaDB, the fork of Oracle’s MySQL, to help shut out SQL injection attacks.
Mountain View is credited with developing and testing tablespace encryption in MariaDB Server 10.1 – the community edition of MariaDB.
The development has been branded a “major enhancement” for MariaDB security by those running the project, particularly for customers building PCI and other types of applications that need encryption at rest.
Appearing in a MariaDB community edition means Google’s crypto will be picked up by commercial and non-commercial spins of the open-source database.
The news of Google’s contribution accompanied today’s announcement of the Spring 2015 edition of MariaDB Enterprise. MariaDB Enterprsie Spring 2015 has been expanded to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1, SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 12, Ubuntu 14.04 and binaries for IBM’s POWER 8 architecture.
That means Google’s SQL-injection-blocking will be available in MariaDB on three of the industry’s most popular brands of Linux.
SQL injection is one of the most frequently used tools in the hacker’s toolbox.
Google’s code shows up in the MariaDB database firewall filter. It will debut in the upcoming community MariaDB Server 10.1 and follow in a later version of MariaDB Enterprise Server that’s based on community server.
Google, of course, is a MySQL convert to MariaDB. Last year it dumped MySQL 5.1 for MariaDB 10.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Agencies Block Technology Exports for Supercomputer in China
Moves comes as U.S. technology companies grapple with Beijing’s proposed restrictions
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/u-s-agencies-block-technology-exports-for-supercomputer-in-china-1428561987-lMyQjAxMTE1NDAwOTUwMTk4Wj
U.S. officials are blocking technology exports to facilities in China associated with the world’s fastest supercomputer, a blow to Intel Corp. and other hardware suppliers that adds to the list of tech tensions between the two countries.
Four technical centers in China associated with the massive computer known as Tianhe-2 have been placed on a U.S. government list of entities determined to be acting contrary to U.S. national security or foreign-policy interests.
Intel was denied an export license late last fall to supply more chips associated to Chinese supercomputer projects, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said Tuesday.
The blockage comes at a time when U.S. technology companies are grappling with Beijing’s proposed new restrictions on their ability to do business in the vast Chinese market amid rising concerns there over cybersecurity. The companies are protesting China’s new banking-technology procurement rules as well as a proposed counterterrorism law that they say are overly invasive and involve handing over sensitive material. The Obama administration has called on Beijing to hold back on those efforts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIOs discuss how they nurture IT talent
http://www.cio.com/article/2901518/cio-role/cios-discuss-how-they-nurture-it-talent.html
In the latest installment of CIO Quick Takes, three IT leaders discuss how they nurture tech talent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtual Desktop Makes Windows OS Oculus Rift-Capable
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/04/09/2130242/virtual-desktop-makes-windows-os-oculus-rift-capable
Virtual Desktop is a free program that makes the Windows operating system compatible with the Oculus Rift VR headset.
Latest Version of ‘Virtual Desktop’ is Here, The Free App That Makes Your Entire Windows Computer Oculus Rift-capable
http://www.roadtovr.com/the-latest-version-of-virtual-desktop-is-here-the-free-app-that-makes-your-entire-windows-computer-oculus-rift-capable/
While futurists have contemplated for years what virtual reality computing might one day look like, there’s a simple solution to using your Windows computer in VR today, it’s called Virtual Desktop, and we’ve got a look at the latest version (0.9.25) that you can download and use right now.
Virtual Desktop fills a curious usage gap for the Oculus Rift. Newcomers to the VR scene are often bewildered that plugging the VR headset into their computer doesn’t provide a VR view of their operating system by default. While we might have that sort of functionality built into the OS one day, in the meantime usage of the Oculus Rift requires a constant on and off of the headset as you users move from one native VR experience to the next, with no ability to use Windows itself or apps that haven’t been specifically designed for virtual reality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: How To Introduce a 7-Year-Old To Programming?
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/04/09/2046200/ask-slashdot-how-to-introduce-a-7-year-old-to-programming