Atlantis Computing

The Rack Endgame: Converged Infrastructure and Disaggregation

September 19, 2014 by Stephen Leave a Comment

As Iâ€™ve written about what Iâ€™m calling the â€œRack Endgameâ€, the specter of converged infrastructure hasnâ€™t been far from my thoughts. As others have pointed out, disaggregation of servers, networks, and storage doesnâ€™t require a rack-sized stack; it can exist in a rack-mountable chassis and is already on sale!

Virtualized and Distributed Storage: This Time For Sure!

September 2, 2014 by Stephen 3 Comments

We were never able to achieve storage virtualization in mainstream enterprise IT because we lacked the ability to identify and move data non-disruptively. This has been solved by caching and distributed storage solutions, and it’s only a matter of time before the legacy need for centralized storage falls away.

GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But They’re Almost Done)

This is week “1111111111” in the GPS system. Tomorrow morning it will roll over to week “0000000000”. How well will various systems handle this change? Not well, judging by what we’ve seen so far!

Ranting and Raving About the 2018 iPad Pro

I remain enthusiastic about the iPad Pro, despite getting a scratched screen and my concerns about durability. It’s a worthy successor to the original and offers enough improvements that I’d recommend the upgrade for just about anyone who uses their iPad for serious work. It’s still not yet a laptop replacement, but this is due more to a lack of desktop-class software for iOS than anything in Apple’s control.

The Ideal pfSense Platform: Netgate RCC-VE 2440

September 21, 2015

After some frustration with stability and latency connecting my virtual pfSense router to my cable and DSL modems, I decided to switch to a physical box. I selected the Netgate RCC-VE 2440 as my hardware platform, since it’s the same box that pfSense themselves use as their OEM bundle. It also checks all the boxes with a dual-core Atom CPU, four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and low-power fanless design. Here’s my first impression and installation notes!

How Fast Is It? A Storage Infographic

October 29, 2010

How fast is a hard disk drive? How about the various flavors of SATA and Fibre Channel? Check out this handy Pack Rat infographic to answer the question, “how fast is it?”

On the Death of Innovation, or “These Kids These Days!”

May 21, 2012

An obnoxious meme has returned to the fore lately, claiming that innovation is dead. The hippies did it, or maybe it was the Internet, or even a decline of America. But nothing could be further from the truth, and statements like this make me question the perspective of the speaker.

Review: American Standard’s Champion 4 Toilet Flushes Almost Anything

July 31, 2012

Although most crappers are crap, plumbing companies like American Standard are hard at work innovating to eliminate the excrement. The current champion is fittingly called the Champion 4, and I have purchased, installed, and tested two examples of the type. The Champion is engineered to reduce the most common causes of clogs, and it has proved effective and “hands-off” in my real-world testing.

Sony QX100 Lens Camera: Ruined by a Flaky iOS App

October 7, 2013

I was thrilled by the possibilities of adding a professional-quality camera sensor and lens to my iPhone, so I immediately pre-ordered Sony’s DSC-QX100 “lens camera”. It held so much promise, not just as a real innovation but also as a major productivity tool. That’s why I’m angry to write this, a scathing review of the horrid software that ruins the QX10 and QX100 experience. Do not buy this device.

Instapaper for iPad and iPhone Enhances My Web World

June 1, 2010

One of my favorite iPad and iPhone apps is Instapaper. Like the iPad itself, Instapaper seems almost foolishly simple and derivative until you experience it. Then it becomes something else entirely: A product so useful you may ask yourself “how did I ever get along without this?”

Scaling Storage Is Hard To Do

June 4, 2013

Data storage isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially at enterprise or cloud scale. It’s simple enough to read and write a bit of data, but much harder to build a system that scales to store petabytes. That’s why I’m keenly focused on a new wave of storage systems built from the ground up for scaling!

It’s Time To Move Beyond Passwords (Especially On Web Sites)

January 8, 2016

Sure, single sign-on puts all your eggs in one basket. But this is vastly preferable to trusting that hundreds of third-party baskets are secure, especially when they prove on a weekly basis that they aren’t! It’s time to put distributed passwords behind us and switch to systems like SAML, both for businesses and consumers.