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by Jeff James
Virtualization: Shimming Applications for App-V4.6
Chris Jackson explains how to make your applications compatible with Windows 7 in a virtualized environment using Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V).
by Chris Jackson
Tip of the day
Get a Free Set of PowerShell Commands for Managing Hyper-V R2
Windows PowerShell doesn’t include this library of functions. But with them, managing Hyper-V directly from the shell is much simpler.
The Solution Accelerator team is working on a new guide: Dynamic Data Center.
The design process in the free Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center allows your organization to strategically plan a Dynamic Data Center infrastructure that is designed for ease of manageability. Key benefits of the guide include:
· The infrastructure is designed using best practices to reduce the administrative burden of managing the Dynamic Data Center.
· A single set of requirements is tracked throughout the entire design process and then transferred to the appropriate supporting Infrastructure Planning and Design guides.
· The infrastructure design of the virtualization hardware and the management software includes determining the scaling and architectural limits of each component.
With this guide, you can design a Dynamic Data Center that will allow your organization to be responsive to changing market conditions by presenting new ways to develop, deliver, deploy, and manage applications and IT infrastructures.
Strategically planning your infrastructure can help you avoid problems before they begin, allowing you to serve your customers more accurately and reliably, as well as saving you time and money.
Meet Google. The noun that became a verb. The world’s favourite search engine, and the company whose motto is “Don’t be evil…”
A recent segment about the search giant on Australian news program The Hungry Beast reveals why people are becoming increasing concerned with the integration of Google into our daily lives.
While this video does paint an overly dark picture; some of Google CEO Eric Schmidts comments should concern you.
Another batch of iPhone appsare, apparently, about to get the axe. Reports are popping up around the net, that “cookie cutter” type apps are starting to be pulled from the App Store. This would include RSS apps, and photo gallery type apps. Any app that just packages an online service, and doesn’t offer any other functionality.
It was just a while ago the Apple was bragging about 100K apps in the App Store, but the past few weeks seem to contradict that, with all the cuts. First we heard about the so called “explicit” apps being pulled, then WiFi stumbling apps were purged, and now the “cookie cutter” apps are starting to go.
Personally, I’m looking at this as a good thing. Not good for developers, but good for consumers. Sure there are a lot of apps to choose from, but so many of them are just the same as another app, that is the same as something else. As a consumer, I would love to see less “crap” and more useful, functional applications. As a budding developer, I can definitely see the other point of view, but I think this could push developers to be more thoughtful and work a little harder on their end product.
So, you may be asking, “What the heck is a cookie cutter app?”. Basically, it is any app that just creates a new user interface for a service that is already available in another form. RSS apps are notorious for this. An RSS feed is pretty much the same, no matter what kind of “packaging” you put it in.
Steve Jobs released the commercial video for the iPad, as part of the Academy Awards this video broadcast is the first commercial from Apple for the iPad, which is also seen on apple.com to. The advertisement was shown at the Oscar night and the song is “There Goes My Love” from the album Man Up The Blue Van.
As Apple confirmed last week, iPad will be available in Wi-Fi models on April 3 in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB
In Seattle, “IE6″ was a trending topic on Twitter thanks to a CNN story on Aten Design Group’s funeral for Internet Explorer 6. The tongue-in-cheek memorial is happening this evening in Denver.
Those mourning the antiquated Web browser, but unable to attend, were asked to send flowers. So, guess who sent flowers….
Microsoft.
In the twitpic photo, a funeral guest is showing off the card that arrived with Microsoft’s bouquet. It’s a little hard to read, so I asked Microsoft to confirm the text. (Microsoft also confirmed it indeed sent the flowers).
The card reads:
Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven.The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft
Microsoft announced the decision to streamline their server product portfolio and will discontinue future development of EBS, effective June 30th, 2010.
Since the launch of EBS, several changes have occurred that drove our decision to streamline our server product portfolio. First, midsize businesses are rapidly turning to technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness. Those capabilities are already available through other offerings, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).
Secondly, Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses. We recognize that ending future editions of EBS could result in additional cost and complexity for our EBS customers. Therefore, we are going to provide a limited offer for all EBS 2008 customers. Beginning on June 30, 2010 through December 31, 2010, current EBS 2008 customers can get the individual component software from the EBS 2008 suite for free (local taxes, shipping and handling charges may apply). To learn more about this offer, EBS customers can visit http://www.microsoft.com/ebs.
This decision not to ship future versions of EBS does not come lightly and will not impact any other Windows Server products and solutions, including the next version of Windows Small Business Server (SBS). As a matter of fact, we are working hard to build the next version of SBS and look forward to a second decade of success with this award winning small business offering.
There is a tremendous amount of talent and expertise on the EBS product development team and Microsoft is committed to transitioning members of the EBS product team to work on other projects within the Microsoft Server and Cloud division.
Finally, in building these products for midsize customers we’ve had the unique opportunity to work closely with customers and partners worldwide. We would like to sincerely thank those of you who provided feedback, participated in the development, and used Windows Essential Business Server.
Gadget nerds: Prepare to lose the rest of your day to awesomeness. PopSci, the web-wing of Popular Science magazine, has scanned its entire 137-year archive and put it online for you to read, absolutely free. The archive, made available in partnership with Google Books, even has the original period advertisements.
Head over to the site and you’ll see a simple search box. Of course, the first thing I typed in was “jet pack”. This, naturally enough, returned plenty of results, including a rather dangerous-looking hydrogen peroxide–powered contraption with a belt-mounted controller. The article was printed in the December 1962 issue.
You can’t go directly to an issue to browse, but once you have arrived somewhere by search, there are no restrictions on scrolling around. You’ll also find a properly hyperlinked table of contents in each magazine. The early years are a little dry: I browsed an issue from 1902, and it made the average math textbook look like a Dan Brown novel (only better paced), so I’d recommend starting in the optimistic, tech-loving 1950s.
Oh, and did I mention it works great on an iPhone? Good luck getting any work done today.
Verizon Wireless CTO promises that the operator will have up to 60 Long-Term Evolution markets up and running by 2012, as we wrap up this week’s news about the upcoming pre-4G networks.
It seems likely that Verizon is saving any major news about its LTE deployment until the CTIA spring show in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks’ time. Nonethless, CTO Tony Melone did give Network Worlda snippet of information on how fast the network might grow after the operator launches its expected 25 to 30 markets in 2010.
“Fifteen months after our initial launch we’re planning to double the number of markets that have LTE,” Melone says. By our count that means Verizon should have between 50 and 60 markets up either in late 2011 or in 2012, depending on exactly when the initial launch in 2010 is.
Wi-LAN Inc. (Toronto: WIN) is said to have its peepers on one of the last remaining assets owned by Nortel Networks Ltd. — its LTE patents. This should come as no surprise to regular readers. Wi-LAN has bought up WiMax- and WiFi-related portfolios in the past; LTE is the next logical step. (See Cisco Relents on Wi-LAN Claims.)
Ready for more Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone rumors? We know we are… Well, here’s the latest: Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) is going to use the LTE chipset from startup Beceem Communications Inc. for the iPhone 4G, which was expected to be ready in the second quarter of 2011, delaying the launch of the mythical beast until, ooh, at least the third quarter. Bwahahahahahahahaha. Design cycles? Yeah, we’ve heard of them.
Could the move to LTE in the US mean a move away from all-you-can-eat data plans? Maybe so.
The next speed grade of Ethernet is only at the beer-and-pizza stage, but discussion is already heating up over whether the jump to Terabit Ethernet should be a consideration.
That would represent a tenfold increase over 100-Gbit/s Ethernet, continuing Ethernet’s tradition of leaping forward by factors of 10.
But Terabit territory is so far off that some Ethernet experts think 400 Gbit/s is a more pragmatic goal.
“When I try to stretch out my imagination to how we would do Terabit, I don’t see an obvious road,” says John D’Ambrosia, who currently works at Force10 Networks Inc. , but who has been a figurehead in high-speed Ethernet standards ever since “high speed” meant 10 Gbit/s. (His comments for this story are personal observations that don’t necessarily reflect Force10’s plans; Force10 is letting D’Ambrosia consult for Ethernet standards efforts.)
“With all of these projects, whether it’s been 10 Gbit/s or 40 Gbit/s or 100 Gbit/s, all these discussions go on in the back room,” says The Ethernet Alliance director Brad Booth. “Even in Geneva, we’ll sit down for a beer and talk about: What is possible? What if we start too early or wait too long?”
The argument for 400 Gbit/s is that it’s clearly reachable. Not all the technology exists yet, but key elements are in the works: 25 Gbit/s optics and electronics, for instance. Speaking at an Ethernet Alliance event in September, Finisar Corp. (Nasdaq: FNSR) director of engineering Chris Cole outlined how 25-Gbit/s componentry could feasibly bring 400-Gbit/s Ethernet into being. (See The 400-Gig Vision.)
Terabit, on the other hand, sounds harder to develop. Remember Bob Metcalfe, the Father of Ethernet and now a Polaris Venture Partners partner, saying two years ago that Terabit Ethernet might require a rethinking of everything, down to the glass used in fiber-optics? (See Metcalfe Pitches Terabit Ethernet.)
Why talk Terabit at all, then? Because the power users say they don’t want to be stung again. (See Facebook: Yes, We Need 100-GigE.)
For example, officials at the Amsterdam Internet Exchange B.V. (AMS-IX) , one of the largest Internet peering points in the world, say they needed 100-Gbit/s Ethernet two years ago and have been in scramble mode while waiting for the equipment to catch up. “We are not going to make the same mistake again,” chief executive Job Wittemen tells Light Reading.
“What you had was those of us who had to build the stuff saying 400 Gbit/s was the more practical leap, while those who were using it said they need Terabit,” D’Ambrosia says.
But vendors say they’ve been stung too, in the form of a prolonged downturn that’s extended well beyond the telecom crash circa 2001. Put simply: They’re worried that demand for Terabit Ethernet will start in low volumes, and that the high price of early equipment could keep those volumes low. That’s not much reward for what promises to be an expensive R&D undertaking.
“If you’ve got one guy saying he’s going to buy 10 ports tomorrow, that’s not going to help you,” says the Ethernet Alliance’s Booth (who used to be at Quake Technologies but says he’s now working on a “new project”). Likewise, 100 interested customers won’t help if none are willing to pay what’s likely to be a hefty price for the first terabit modules.
Vendors are having a tough time gauging the potential hunger for Terabit Ethernet. “At one of the meetings, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) got up and said they need Terabit Ethernet in 2013. The curve we’re using from our charts at 802.3ba [the IEEE group developing the 100-Gbit/s Ethernet standard] says 2015. And someone else said 2020,” D’Ambrosia says. “There seems to be a big differential.”
Another factor to consider is that component and equipment vendors are still busy with this generation’s research. Those that complete 100-Gbit/s devices and interfaces this year will immediately need to work on increasing the density of 100-Gbit/s ports and on lowering the cost. Same for 40 Gbit/s.
So regardless of what speed grade comes next, “the timing is going to be brutal,” D’Ambrosia says. “I think I’m going to be a busy boy for the next few years.”
The implication here, according to Booth, is that amid all that Ethernet work, the truly important issue right now is in the interconnects. If they’re speedy enough, for example, then future generations of optical modules can be kept at a reasonably small size.
That kind of work is better done now, rather than waiting for the Terabit discussion to firm up.
“The discussions that are happening right now are about whether there’s something we can do at 100 Gbit/s that would lay down the foundation for the next generation,” Booth says.
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