What Will the Fallout Be as IBM Leaves the x86 Market?

With the sale of its x86 server division for $2.3B, IBM exits the marketplace it started in the early 1980s. Some have argued that this is a good move for IBM and tolls the death knell for the x86 server marketplace. “Well, if IBM is closing shop, surely the end is nigh. What with all …

Unified Computing: Collective Group or Single Responsibility

I have spent a great deal of time lately working with the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). This computing platform is really quite impressive with its power and flexibility, but my expectations about the platform have really changed since I completed the UCS training. During the training classes that I attended, both the design and install courses emphasized that the Cisco UCS platform would be a collaborative platform that would bring the different groups like Storage, Network, and Server each working their own functional area of responsibility within UCS based on role permissions. That sounded great. The network team can create and trunk the VLANS and the storage team could add the boot targets as well as assign the LUNS. This platform is a true collective effort by all teams right?

Measuring Hypervisor Footprints

There have been several interesting posts in the blogosphere about virtualization security and how to measure it. Specifically, the discussions are really about the size of the hypervisor footprint or about the size of patches. But hypervisor footprints from a security perspective are neither of these. The concern when dealing with hypervisor security is about Risk not about the size of the hypervisor or the size of a patch it is purely about the Risks associated with the hypervisor in terms if confidentiality, availability, and integrity.