Hyperconvergence and OS

In the good old days (rose-tinted spectacles required), there was only one operating system in the stack. It took care of device drivers and file IO. There were many flavours of OS, depending on the period, from UNIX and Windows to OS/2 and MacOS, and many, many others. Over time, the selection of operating systems in the data center reduced …

From Mainframes to Containers

A few days ago, Stevie Chambers tweeted about the evolution from mainframe to container: “Why is it a surprise that VMs will decline as things miniaturise? Mainframes → Intel → VMs → Containers, etc. Normal, I’d say.” By “Intel” here, I’m going to take Stevie to mean “rackmount servers.” I’m also going to assume that by …

David and Goliath

I, like most in the modern IT industry, have spent most of my working life installing, configuring, and maintaining Microsoft products, ranging from Active Directory and Exchange through Terminal Services and MSSQL Server. Most of these products have had extra layers of third-party software on top (Citrix MetaFrame, anyone?) or blended in to make them …

VMware Log Insight Just Became a Whole Lot Free-er

Early last week, VMware made its vRealize Log Insight product available in a free limited form. The short version is that every copy of vCenter (full fat, not just essentials, as far as I can see) gets twenty-five restricted licenses of Log Insight now, rolled out through the usual software channels. This is an automatic upgrade, and …