January 27, 2012

I Don’t Care If You Claim It Works (The Support Matrix Blues)

Now this is a respectable support matrix! (Saint Vitus' Cathedral, Prague)

As an IT professional, I subscribe to a simple rule: I won’t recommend a solution that’s not listed in the support matrix or HCL. “I don’t care if it works, only that it supported,” is really a cynical overstatement of this position. Of course I care whether or not a solution works! But merely claiming that something works is not sufficient for me to recommend it. I need to be able to demonstrate that it’s a supported configuration. Show me the listing, and I’ll start recommending it.

Western Digital IntelliPark: Feature or Design Flaw?

Western Digital's Caviar Green series of hard disk drives has proven popular, but the IntelliPark feature is controversial, leading to drive failures in some use cases

Being one of the few remaining mechanical components of the computer system, the hard disk drive is also one of the major power consumers. A spinning hard disk platter effectively turns power into heat, working contrary to user expectation. Not surprisingly, most hard disk drive manufacturers have implemented a number of power saving features, reducing the impact of disk drives on one’s electric bill. But one power saving feature from Western Digital has come under increasing fire: the Intellipark system found in their Caviar Green hard disk drives is a serious liability when used in many “always-on” scenarios.

Zoom H1 “Handy Recorder”: Hands-On Review

The Zoom H1 is a remarkable value in a portable stereo audio recorder

The H1 is a very handy device, produces excellent quality recordings, and is reasonably priced. It does just about everything I could want, including recording directly to MP3 on solid-state microSD storage. But I cannot recommend it with the battery drain issue I have experienced. Hopefully the replacement unit will remove the single concern.

Why Can’t We Prime Our Devices For Upgrades?

Why should my data be left unprotected for more than two days? Devices should allow us to "prime the pump" for upgrades and migrations.

Upgrades are an inevitability in our modern technological world. A new phone comes out every year or two, and the migration process begins. So why don’t devices have a special mode, priming them for upgrade and migration? This really hit home recently, as I upgraded the hard disks in my Drobo, but it applies equally to laptops, phones, and services like e-mail.

Changes in Technology Drive Changes in IT Organizations and Roles

Servers, storage, and networks may be interconnected, but most large IT organizations keep the administrative teams from mixing. But the next-generation virtual data center might change that!

Lots of my IT infrastructure management clients are talking about how the advent of Ethernet/IP and virtualization is changing the roles of storage, server, and network administrators. The evolution of the storage role in particular in enterprise IT organizations has been a topic of particular interest to me for a while: I definitely remember thinking about [...]

Where Will Virtualization of Data Center Infrastructure Take Us?

Virtualization decouples the

Virtualization of IT systems decouples physical infrastructure from logical resources, hiding complexity and enabling new capabilities. However, not all potential benefits of virtualization have meaningful value outside IT circles: Too many of our discussions revolve around the very complexity that virtualization technology should be hiding! True business value is derived from transformed virtual resources in the next-generation data center, not the incremental capacity gains of virtual servers. But how will we get there, and what will this future look like?

The First Thunderbolt Peripherals On Display At NAB Show

Intel's "Olympus 2" is a Thunderbolt prototype board

That NAB Show is a hotspot of Thunderbolt interest should come as no surprise: The broadcast and media professionals present represent a nexus of Apple customers and storage power users. Because they have been dragging their feet on eSATA and USB 3, Apple ran the risk of alienating this core customer group. But Thunderbolt promises to deliver a new level of performance and a whole world of peripherals. The excitement was palpable!

Interop: Giving Back To Local Schools Through DonorsChoose.org

We should all step up to support math and science education

Although I am a big believer in personal face-to-face meetings, it often seems like a waste of energy to attend big tech conferences. I’m certainly making the rounds this year, having already made multiple trips to the West Coast and even the UK, and heading out again three times next month. That’s why I was pleased to see that one of the conferences I’m speaking at is trying to do some good for the local community: Interop will donate to math and science related projects in Las Vegas, and I encourage others to do the same.

Promise SANLink Thunderbolt Preview

The SANLink promises massive I/O performance, even on a laptop!

Although the SANLink appears to be something of an oddball, it indicates the shape of things to come. Thunderbolt will transform the use cases for portable and all-in-one computers, likely spelling the end of the empty boxes for desktop use. In fact, I would not be at all surprised if Apple soon canceled the Mac Pro line entirely in favor of a beefed up Mac Mini and iMac stable. And the dozen or so MacBook Pro users wanting to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN will finally have the opportunity to do so sometime later this year.