Piling on to whatever new buzzword has the attention of the public is as old as marketing. But marketers that engage in these tactics are doing themselves and their companies a disservice. This is especially for major purchases that require deliberation and invite comparisons. Over time, the truth will come out and real buyers won't be fooled. Usage is Fluid Too often, when … [Read more...] about Marketers: Fudging the Meaning of Buzzwords Matters (To You!)
Virtual Storage
Diablo Memory 1 Takes Memory Channel Flash To The Next Level
I've written about Diablo Technologies in the past, and they're been part of Tech Field Day and my other events. The company's products have always blurred the line between storage and memory, placing flash chips on memory modules and leveraging the fast, low-latency memory channel rather than the PCI or SATA/SAS bus. Memory 1 does one better, delivering a true flash DIMM that … [Read more...] about Diablo Memory 1 Takes Memory Channel Flash To The Next Level
Adding a Second Ethernet Port to an Intel NUC via Mini PCIe
As I mentioned in my previous post about Raspberry Pi power monitoring, I recently built a VMware vSphere "datacenter" from three Intel NUC mini PC's. One limit of the NUC is that it has just one Ethernet port. But there's a Mini PCIe slot inside the fourth-generation NUC that can be used to add a second Ethernet NIC! Here's my story. A Bit About the Intel NUC … [Read more...] about Adding a Second Ethernet Port to an Intel NUC via Mini PCIe
Automated UPS Monitoring for vSphere with NUT and Raspberry Pi (Cheap!)
As many folks following me on Twitter have noted, I've been building quite a nice vSphere "datacenter" lately. Part of this build was integrating UPS monitoring and automatic shutdown, and I'm pleased with the result. I'm using a Raspberry Pi connected to two UPSes via USB as a NUT server and have installed a native ESX version of upsmon to monitor and react as UPS events … [Read more...] about Automated UPS Monitoring for vSphere with NUT and Raspberry Pi (Cheap!)
Musing: Could We Replace Ethernet With PCIe?
Greg "EtherealMind" Ferro recently "mused" that it might be a good idea to replace PCI Express (PCIe) inside servers or rack-scale infrastructure with Ethernet. But this seems to be the exact opposite of the direction the industry is headed. Rather than replacing PCIe with Ethernet, companies like Intel seem set on replacing short-range Ethernet (in rack-scale systems) with … [Read more...] about Musing: Could We Replace Ethernet With PCIe?