In January, I made one of my semi annual pilgrimages to WeirdStuff, the amazing computer salvage store in Sunnyvale California. While prowling the back halls, between a smoke testing apparatus and a broken plotter, I spotted a Cubix ERS chassis. This brought back a flood of memories, since I purchased just such a device early in my career. This proto-blade server system was a … [Read more...] about Reminiscing About the Cubix ERS, My First Bladed Server System
Compaq
Where Did Blade Servers Come From?
Blade systems allow compact, stripped-down servers to be mounted in a chassis with shared power and I/O support. Among the benefits of blade servers, efficiency, manageability, reliability, performance and flexibility stand out as unifersal. There are lots of blade systems available today, and even more produced in the past, that include some or all of these capabilities and … [Read more...] about Where Did Blade Servers Come From?
HP’s Mighty Stumble
HP stumbled mightily in 2011, and it had nothing to do with product or people. Even sales remained strong, though the PC business is changing. HP's mighty stumble was a crisis of confidence due to a chain of shenanigans at the very top. This culminated with the short reign of Léo Apotheker, leaving HP to reassure the market of its strategy. HP And the Enterprise IT … [Read more...] about HP’s Mighty Stumble
Stephen’s HP Product Line Decoder Ring
HP has always been an alphabet soup company, assigning just about every item in their bewildering array of products a unique product number. Like Mercedes-Benz cars, even the product names are a mix of letters and numbers that can be off-putting to browsers. Now that they have grown to supersize proportions through internal expansion and acquisition, just about everyone outside … [Read more...] about Stephen’s HP Product Line Decoder Ring
Meet the Enterprise IT Superpowers
After years spent focusing on personal technology, businesses are increasingly turning back to the enterprise. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest one is the poor economy. Individuals simply have less free cash to spend on gadgets and software, and the meagre profits are increasingly going into the pockets of a single company: Apple. The corporate IT market is … [Read more...] about Meet the Enterprise IT Superpowers