The curious incident of Oracle and HP-UX on Itanium

 

The curious incident of Oracle and HP-UX on Itanium

Comment When I saw the news on Wednesday morning, I thought I had picked the wrong week to give up sniffing glue. Or maybe Oracle did. Either way, Oracle’s announcement that it is halting development on HP-UX/Itanium versions of its products touched off a firestorm of phone calls, emails and tweets that just won’t let up.

TPM covered the basics in his excellent story here. Snarky ‘Itanic’ jibes in the headlines aside, HP-UX based Unix systems are in use in a large number of customer data centers, as are IBM Power Unix systems and Oracle SPARC boxes.

These big iron boxes have moved from being the hot new thing a decade ago into more of a mission-critical, mainframe-esque role in mid-sized and large data centers.   What first struck me about the Oracle press release is the claim that “Intel management made it clear that their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing end of life”.

Funny, that directly contradicts what I’ve heard for years directly from Intel and HP. Intel has been more forthcoming about Itanium roadmaps, dates and specifications than at any time in recent memory. Oracle, by contrast, has reinforced its reputation as the North Korea of the server business … only without the charisma and cool Texaco flag.

Why would Intel publicly discuss Itanium roadmaps if it was near end-of-life? Why would it tell Oracle one thing about its plans and HP, industry analysts and the press another? Why would Intel do something that would make them look either deceptive or stupid? Answer: it wouldn’t. Intel doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes.

Gold in them thar processors

Intel is making good money on Itanium processors – more than enough to justify future development. HP is making good money on Integrity (HP-UX + Itanium) systems. Hell, even Oracle is making money on software installed on HP-UX systems. In fact, it is making even more since it tweaked licensing terms to jack up database pricing on HP Unix systems. So if everyone is making bank (including Oracle), why disrupt things now?

This is what Ellison meant when he said that Oracle wants to be the IBM of the 1960s

I think that Oracle simply wants to cut a competitor out of the Unix running and make a play for their installed base. I’ve been in the enterprise server business for more than 15 years now (God, I’m old). For the last five years, I’ve run comprehensive Unix vendor surveys among data center respondents.

They compare the major Unix vendors (HP, IBM and Sun/Oracle) on a wide variety of technical and customer support criteria. In general, IBM and HP tend to beat Sun/Oracle on the majority of questions, which include OS qualities, RAS, performance, and vendor support. (We’ll publish the results from our most recent survey in coming weeks.)

Our survey respondents also indicate that Oracle’s installed base isn’t very comfortable with Oracle’s plans, the way the company communicates those plans, or the support they receive This is quite a change from the Sun days, when most respondents may not have been all that wild about the systems, but they seemed to always like the company and the support it provided.

Let’s say I’m right, and Oracle is playing every card they can to build up its hardware business and drive customers away from HP. Why stop there? How long until it announces it is halting development on IBM AIX versions of its software? Or change the licensing terms to make it even more expensive to deploy on Power vs. any Oracle alternative? Taking it a bit further, is there an Oracle plan to find a way to charge customers a bit more if they run Oracle software on Dell, HP, or IBM x86 hardware? Maybe crank up the support costs a bit higher?

Lock-in

To me, this is the reality of what Ellison meant when he said that Oracle wants to be the IBM of the 1960s. Oracle wants to have the incredible margins that IBM enjoyed back then. It wants to have that lock-in that IBM had in the days when there were few alternatives and even fewer standards that would allow customers to easily move from vendor to vendor.

But we don’t live in the 1960s, or even in the 1990s. Back in the 90s and early 00s, Oracle had the power to push server vendors out of the business simply by announcing that it was moving its DB port to a vendor’s OS to second-tier status. If Oracle dropped support of an OS entirely, it was the kiss of death – something that was widely speculated about in vendor and customer communities.

But it’s a different world today. There are a lot of alternatives for HP-UX customers to consider. The current version of IBM’s DB2 database, for example, is fully supported on HP-UX.   There is also a difference in vendor scale today. It used to be easy for Oracle to bully small vendors like Sequent, Pyramid, Data General, NCR and even DEC. They could even intimidate the Unix brands of larger companies such as HP and IBM.

But  today’s systems vendors are larger, more diversified and have more options. Customers today are different too, more sophisticated and not as frightened when it comes to changing systems, databases, or applications. Perhaps most importantly, customers have greater control than ever over their IT choices.

Will Oracle’s gambit work? Will it result in greater system sales? Higher database sales on their own iron? Or will there be a backlash from customers who now see the Ghost of Christmas Future – Oracle tightening the screws and reducing their options until they buckle under and start buying Oracle iron to run Oracle software?

It’s too early to tell. But based on what I’m hearing from clients and what I’ve seen in my own research, I’m betting on backlash. ®

The curious incident of Oracle and HP-UX on Itanium

Good Mood: 10 Ways To Get Yourself Back Into On

 

Good moods are great - but sometimes it can be hard to maintain those moods. Here are some tips on keeping your days upbeat and positive.

Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Or feeling depressed for no particular reason? And are you positive that this is not the way you want to go through your day? Here are a few quick mood fixers to get you going in a better mode.

Take a bubble bath. I know that seems more like an evening treat, but that's exactly why it helps on a bad morning. The warm water soaks away any small aches and pains, and the bubbles and scent relax your mind. Close your eyes. Just inhale, feel the warm water embracing you. Take a deep breath - use scents that stimulate and yet relax, like lavender.

And then you dry off, don't forget to treat yourself to some fragrant bath powder. That way you can enjoy the lingering after-effects of your soothing bath all day long.

Put on something nice - one of those things you are saving "for good." Often the way we dress reflects our mood. Putting on shapeless, baggy clothing only reinforces the negative. Take a moment to look nicer and you'll discover that you feel nicer, too.

Give yourself permission to take a break. Take a look at your to-do list - even if it's only a mental list. Take one item off of it - and spend the time you would have spent on that chore relaxing with a cup of tea and that magazine you've been promising yourself you would get to.

Making a deliberate choice to not do something eases our conscience. Simply not getting to it often makes us feel guilty - usually without reason.

Write it out. Whatever it is. Clear your mind by getting it out of yourself and onto a piece of paper. Write out the vague worries, the chores, the things that you are frustrated with, the reasons why you think you're in a bad mood.

And now that you have all those negatives on the paper instead of just in your mind, take a few minutes more to list three good and positive things. Hold onto those and leave the rest on that piece of paper.

Reward yourself. Promise yourself a walk in the garden. When you're racing through the supermarket treat yourself to a bouquet of flowers along with the groceries. Call an old friend for a chat. Make these rewards - one reward for each chore that you manage to get through.

---

---

Get it out of the way. Often when we wake up disgruntled it's because we know that the day holds at least one chore we're not happy about doing. So just do it. Get it out of the way and over with. The whole rest of the day will be spent with a feeling of relief instead of overhanging guilt.

Count your blessings - Yeah, I know - it sounds like sermonizing. But when we are feeling down it is because we're letting the negatives outweigh the positives. Making a list of the positives reminds us that all is not misery. While you're at it, make a list of the things you like about yourself. You can throw the paper away if you like - but remember those good things when the bad seems to be descending.

Look for that silver lining. It may sound Pollyanna-like, but in almost every situation there is a bright spot. It may be miniscule compared to everything else that seems to be pressing on you - but it is there. Find it. Concentrate on it. If you can't find it alone, call a friend and let them help you to search for the good aspects. Friends often have to listen to us bemoaning things - think how pleasant a change it will be for them to help you focus on the positive.

Name five people that you love. Take a few minutes to call one of them, or send them a postcard. Promise yourself that you will treat the next person on the list tomorrow.

Tackling the whole list will make you feel pressured instead of relieved. Remembering five people who are worth loving will make you feel better, and doing something for one of them will make you feel better still. The promise to take care of the others later is simply a matter of giving yourself permission to take time to think of nice things you could do for the others on your list.

Do something nice for someone else. It is amazing, but this one act can bring us more relief from depression than anything else. It focuses your mind on something outside of yourself, makes someone else happy - and therefore makes you feel positive and giving. It doesn't have to be something big. Just something that person will appreciate.

An even bigger spirit lifter is to do something nice for someone anonymously. Send flowers to a friend - but don't sign the card. Imagining their pleasure and all the fun they will have speculating about their mysterious benefactor will keep you smiling all day.

Of course few of us have the time to do all of these - some days are too hectic for leisurely bubble baths or long journal entries. But if you notice, some of our mood lifters are very personal treats and some involve treating others.

9.0 Japan earthquake shifted Earth on its axis

 

Scientists in Pasadena say data from the temblor will show how Earth is deformed during massive earthquakes at sites where one plate is sliding under the other, including the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Seismologists look at a seismograph showing the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan on a monitor at the British Geological Survey office in Edinburgh, Scotland. (David Moir / Reuters / March 11, 2011)

By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times

March 13, 2011, 10:02 a.m.

Friday's earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan was upgraded to a magnitude 9.0 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, the Kyodo News agency reported Sunday.
The agency's scientists probably had access to new data, said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough. "If they've upgraded, I expect USGS might follow suit," she said, adding that it was not unusual for magnitudes to move up or down by 0.1, because large earthquakes can be tricky to measure.
"It's not surgical precision," she said.
Other details are emerging. The quake probably shifted the position of Earth's axis about 6.5 inches, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, in an e-mail.
The temblor also should have caused Earth to rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds, he said.
Down the road, data from the quake will provide an unusually precise view of how Earth is deformed during massive earthquakes at sites where one plate is sliding under another, including the U.S. Pacific Northwest, scientists said.
Interactive map: Track hundreds of temblors before and after the great quake
The rich detail comes from an extensive network of sensors placed at sites across Japan after that country's Kobe earthquake of 1995, a magnitude 6.8 quake that killed more than 6,000.
"The Japanese have the best seismic information in the world," said Lucy Jones, chief scientist for the Multi-Hazards project at the U.S. Geological Survey, at a Saturday news conference at Caltech in Pasadena. "This is overwhelmingly the best-recorded great earthquake ever."
Already, just over 36 hours after the quake, data-crunchers had determined that the temblor's force moved parts of eastern Japan as much as 12 feet closer to North America, scientists said, and that Japan has shifted downward about two feet.
Jones said that USGS had determined that the entire earthquake sequence -- including associated foreshocks and aftershocks -- had so far included 200 temblors of magnitude 5 or larger, 20 of which occurred before the big quake hit. She said the aftershocks were continuing at a rapid pace and decreasing in frequency although not in magnitude, all of which is to be expected.
Researchers have many items they hope to study.
Caltech seismological engineer Tom Heaton said the tragedy would provide unprecedented data on how buildings hold up under long periods of shaking.
"We had very little information about that before now," he said. Though precise numbers are not yet available, he predicted that the data would show that buildings in Japan shook for a full three minutes.
Many of the lessons will apply to other parts of the world than California, because the state's fault topography is different from that involved in the Japanese quake. The data are relevant, however, to the Pacific Northwest, where the Cascadia Subduction Zone extends 600 miles south from British Columbia.
Geological evidence as well as historical records of tsunami deaths in Japan -- from giant waves believed, based on modern analysis, to have come from a Cascadia quake -- suggest that the most recent large earthquake in the Pacific Northwest occurred in 1700.
Another massive quake in the Pacific Northwest is "inevitable," the USGS's Jones said, though it may not occur for hundreds of years.
"They have an opportunity," she said. "This will help the Pacific Northwest understand what they should be ready for. I wouldn't be sleepless in Seattle, but I'd be studious."
eryn.brown@latimes.com

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Improving ROI of your time: 18 simple questions you should keep asking

 

February 20, 2011, 7:57 AM PST

Takeaway: Your time is precious. Life is too short. Fortunately, there is something you do to dramatically improve return on your time.

“Of course, I can help you with your IT strategy,” I said to a caller. “Since you mentioned that this is urgent, can you meet for an hour? The next week? The week after? Well, when will you have the time?”

No organization or individual has unlimited resources, and we certainly cannot buy more time, no matter how much we are prepared to pay. Yet the calendars of executives, managers, and professionals are booked solid with activities that don’t belong there in the first place: phone calls to “touch base,” meetings “to be in the loop,” projects that shouldn’t have started in the first place. With the “wrong” items taking up all the space, there is no way for the “right” things to get the attention they deserve.

Your time is precious. Life is too short. Fortunately, there is something you can do to dramatically improve return on your time. I would like to share with you a handful of simple questions you should be asking in a variety of business situations. Is this a comprehensive list? Of course not, but I am being respectful of your time.

On receiving a proposal or request to initiate an action or project — anything that will require investment of time from you or your team

You don’t want to spend any time on half-baked ideas, projects that are misguided or that generate no value, or complex solutions to simple problems.

1. Why? The old consulting technique of posing this question five times in a row might at times annoy the other party. That should not matter to you as much as the fact that you have just gotten to the bottom of an obscure problem.

2. What other alternatives did we consider? People forever jump to solutions before the problem at hand is well understood. IT is notorious at throwing complex technology and processes at simple issues. Challenge yourself and others to look at all potential solutions.

3. How does it align with our strategy/values/key priorities? Projects are often initiated for the wrong reasons, such as sudden availability of funding or someone’s flight of fancy. Nip them in the bud.

4. Why is this important at this time? Timing is everything, as the old adage goes. Why now?

5. How would you like me to be involved going forward? This is how you save yourself from being dragged into endless meetings. Let the other party state their preference, and if it does not match your expectations, offer an alternative that would meet the same objectives at a lesser cost to you.

6. What would be the best outcome from your perspective? This is one of the best questions to ask a client or a sponsor of a project. Getting them to state it explicitly will enable you and your people to concentrate on the right things. Additionally, you will be able to measure progress toward what is considered to be a success.

7. Who else needs to be consulted before we proceed? I have seen numerous projects initiated on the whim of a self-appointed sponsor, just to be stopped soon thereafter by someone with more clout within the organization. The effort of all participants could have been directed to a more worthy cause.

8. Is there business on the table? As an IT leader, you often get offers to collaborate, to get together to participate in a committee, and so on. These are potentially huge time wasters. Asking a polite but pointed question helps to protect you from the time vampires.

In a meeting - planning, problem solving, group decision making

The typical problem here is the inefficiency due to lack of facilitation skills, deficiency of the process, or the obscure objective. I have no patience for these things and neither should you.

9. How do we know that? What evidence do we have? You want to hear objective facts. Massive projects are launched based on attribution bias, and countless hours are spent on solutions to problems that don’t exist. You don’t want to be a part of that.

10. Are we disagreeing on the goal or on the method of implementation? This is the best question I know to get control of a disagreement. You will find that it is the implementation that is a problem, not the final goal. Getting an acknowledgment of that sets you on a path to a speedy resolution. Otherwise, you will spend hours listening to bickering.

11. What are the next steps? There is a rampant problem of meetings and discussions from which participants emerge without a sense of what is expected of them in the light of the conversation that just happened. This is a horrible waste of time and energy.

12. Who should be responsible for this step/item? This is similar to the previous point. You want to make sure that accountability is clearly defined.

13. What is the agenda of the meeting? How can we prepare to make it more productive?

14. May I summarize? I learned this technique from Dr. Alan Weiss. It is great for controlling a conversation, especially if it is starting to look like a runaway train. You will be able to wrap up and move the group onto the next topic.

15. Is this A or B ? Frame the conversation through a series of dichotomous questions to focus people on the key concern and not on the vast confusing perimeter. Is the problem with performance or functionality? Is it all functionality or a specific area? Is it geographically dispersed or concentrated? This will save you hours of unstructured discussions.

16. Can you please elaborate/explain? If you don’t understand an argument, ask to clarify. This is never a sign of an inadequacy but a sign of confidence.

17. What’s the right thing to do? This is a great question to ask to accelerate resolution of a difficult or contentious issue. It works remarkably well.

18. Is there further information available on this issue? If you have a group discussion on your hands that seems to spin around the same issue and there seems to be no interest of moving on, simply ask the audience if there is any new information on this issue, point out that it has been discussed at length, and move everyone onto the next topic.

By TechRepublic

Lookout Identifies Which iPhone And Android Apps Want Your Sensitive Data

 

Lookout, a company that offers security data backup services for smartphones, is announcing the results of its App Genome Project, a continued effort to map and study mobile applications to identify security threats in the wild, and determine how apps are using users’ personal data.

The App Genome Project has already scanned nearly 300,000 free applications, and fully mapped nearly 100,000 applications available in both Android Market and the App Store.

Early findings show differences in the sensitive data that is typically accessed by Android and iPhone applications and a proliferation of third party code in applications across both platforms.

For example, results found that Android applications are generally less likely than iPhone apps to be capable of accessing a person’s contact list or retrieving their location, with 29% of free applications for Android having the ability to access a user’s location, compared to 33% of free applications on iPhone. Of course, this isn’t a huge difference, but again, this is early data.

Additionally, Lookout says that nearly twice as many free applications have the capability to access people’s contact data on iPhone (14%) as compared to Android (8%). The App Genome Project also found that a large proportion of applications contain third-party code, which is used generally for advertising or analytics. The project found that 47% of free Android apps included third-party code, while that number is just 23% on iPhone.

Lookout’s web-based, cloud-connected application indentifies and block threats on a consumer’s phone. Users simply download the software to a device, and it will act as a virus protector much like security software downloaded to a computer. Lookout, which just raised $11 million from Accel, Khosla and others, says the growth in smartphone adoption, mobile app downloads and increased consumer awareness of mobile security threats have helped make the offering a popular and necessary option for users.

For now Lookout, which is on more than 400 mobile networks in 170 countries and recently topped one million users, is only available for BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile devices. Lookout has over 80% of its users on Android and BlackBerry with the remaining users on Windows Mobile. And 70% of users are in the US.

VMware ouvre la porte aux clouds hybrides avec vSphere

 

VMware d’annoncer officiellement vCloud Connector, un plug-in gratuit pour vSphere qui doit simplifier la mise en oeuvre de clouds hybrides.

vCloud Connector permet aux utilisateurs d’infrastructures vSphere de migrer de manière transparente leurs machines virtuelles entre nuages publics et privés. Un module qui vient compléter vCloud Director : celui-ci, anciennement connu sous le nom de code «projet Redwood» permet d’assurer le provisionning et la gestion de clouds privés et publics. Sylvain Sioux, directeur technique de VMware France, nous expliquait, lors du lancement de vCloud Director, que cette solution permet de créer des pools de ressources virtuelles - machines virtuelles, réseau (avec plan d’adressage IPv4 interne), et stockage - comme autant de mini centres de calcul virtuels avec, chacun, ses stratégies d’administration, son niveau de service et sa tarification. Mieux, au sein d’un même groupe, il est possible de créer des vApp, un ensemble de plusieurs machines virtuelles dédié, par exemple, à la production d’un service précis. Avec, là encore, un plan d’adressage IP interne spécifique et une exposition, à l’extérieur, des seuls ports TCP/UDP utiles à l’exploitation du service produit, avec, en prime, une couche de translation d’adresses IP.

Une couche d'abstraction

De son côté, vCloud Connector doit offrir une vision de plus haut niveau, regroupant l’ensemble des machines virtuelles sans distinguer celles qui fonctionnent dans le cloud privé de celles qui s’exécutent sur une infrastructure en nuage publique. Bref, on parle là d’un niveau d’abstraction supplémentaire. Et pour VMware, c’est bien là tout l’intérêt : «en tant qu’administrateur vSphere, votre boulot consiste à vous assurer que le service est fourni par votre Cloud, peu importe qu’il le soit grâce à des ressources internes ou externes», explique l’éditeur. Pour autant, vCloud Connector permet bien de transférer automatiquement des machines virtuelles d’un nuage privé à un nuage publique et vice-versa. Enfin presque.

Car, comme le précise VMware, «il ne s’agit pas de vMotion à longue distance», à savoir transférer des machines virtuelles en activité : il s’agit de commutation entre copies de machines virtuelles dans le nuage privé et dans le nuage public.

Source MagIT