Posts by Michael Duke

HDMI Forum 'blocks AMD open sourcing its 2.1 drivers'

Re: Does AMD

In fact most graphics cards have MULTIPLE DP ports and only one HDMI in-case you are connecting to a TV.

The self-created risk in Broadcom's big VMware kiss-off

I am not sure it is going to take that long.

VMWare under Broadcom is going to slip from ~80% market share to low 30's IMHO. Broadcom will not tolerate that level of revenue drop and will slash heads ASAP.

If you are already a 400VM Windows shop less licensing than you might think.

If they are all Linux VM's then yes.

VMware channel partner rates new product bundles and subs-only licenses 'very attractive'

Re: perpetual licensing still available for vsphere?

New pricing does not kick in down here in NZ until early Feb 24.

The end of Microsoft-brand peripherals is only Surface deep

Re: I'm no friend of MS

I have been using Intellimouse Explorer at home for nearly 20 years.

Currently on the third one and I need to buy a couple of extras before they disappear.

Student requested access to research data. And waited. And waited. And then hacked to get root

Re: Oodles of Space

I still remember speccing my first 386 based PC and getting a Maxtor 245MB hard drive and all of my friends saying "You will never fill that up, 80MB is heaps"

Those were the days.

HPE lobs scale-out storage services into GreenLake subscription vehicle

Re: conflicting stories

The article reads like it is 3Par / Primera / Alletra 9000 SW with Nimble de-dupe grafted in.

Swedish datacenter operator wants to go nuclear

Re: Screw datacenters ...

Well if we want that sort of tech where is my powered armour and FGMP-14 from Travaller?

After long delays, Sapphire Rapids arrives, full of accelerators and superlatives

Re: basic comparisons

The new Genoa CPU's in the DL385 Gen 11 have 12 DIMM's per CPU as the Genoa chips have 12 channel memory controllers and getting to 48 DIMM's in a 2S system has challenges around trace length and timing so 1DPC is the cost effective answer.

The extra memory bandwidth would be useful for heavily virtualised workloads.

The Sapphire Rapid's Xeon systems have more memory slots as they *ONLY* have 8 channel memory so 2DPC is less of an engineering issue.

At the end of the day AMD is significantly further along in performance per watt, so if that is your metric then have another look at the AMD Genoa based systems.

Intel’s axed Optane biz spurts out mixed bag of new SSDs

Re: Flash, aaaaaa, Saviour of the universe!

I can think of another product Intel did the same with.....

Anyone remember Itanium?

Intel accidentally leaked its 34-core Raptor Lake chip. What do the dies tell us?

Re: Yeah (scratches chin like used to in school)

So just like the rest of Intel's "Workstation" class chips then.

Switch and router sales surge, with 200/400 gigabit Ethernet kit growing fastest

Re: A glitch in the matrix

There are two factors driving this.

1. Everyone has put prices up 10-20%.

2. What silicon is available is being put into higher price models and the cheap stuff is just not able to be ordered.

This leads to increased revenue even with long lead times.

VMware’s Amazonian incarnation drops requirement to run on dedicated hosts

Because you have a fully virtualized VMware environment with an ecosystem of management, applications, skills and processes that support a VMware environment but need or want to run some workloads in public cloud.

Because you want to use AWS as your DR site so you do not need to standup a complete replica in another "local"ish data center.

There are a myriad of reasons for it.

All nodes lead to Rome: Epyc leak spills deets on second-gen Zen 32-core AMD server chippery

Re: Can Intel still sell to the Cloud makers

If you are at vSphere 6.5 U1 you can setup EVC so that you can vMotion from Xeon -> EPYC. You cannot go back so mixed production clusters are out but as a migration path it is viable.

Plex plucks media cloud service, sends users scurrying to exit

Re: This is Dell or EMC?

Long term Plex Pass user here who did not use their cloud as it was obviously unsustainable. Too good to be true always is.

Supermicro breathes in, shimmies a PB of Intel flash into one rack unit

Re: No RAID for NVMe

Well AMD Epyc has 128 PCIe lanes in either single or dual CPU configs.

32 Lanes for external comms (4 x 100GbE or 16 x 25GbE ports) and 96 lanes for 32 storage devices (3/Ruler) makes sense. That is nearly 3GB/Sec per device (2,955MB/Sec).

Of course Intel will probably not license the EDSFF form factor for AMD based systems so it might all be for naught.

Re: This is Dell or EMC?

You will not find a traditional RAID card that can keep up.

Core CPU driven Scale Out Software Defined Storage will be the norm for these.

Boeing embraces Embraer to take off in regional jet market

Re: This is Dell or EMC?

Jets are actually simpler to maintain though as you have 90% of a jet in a turboprop + a gearbox and a prop.

Modern turbofans will be lower maintenance cost per mile.

Seagate's Barracuda SSD bares its teeth at PC, laptop upgraders

Re: NVMe is the new SATA

Very few people can tell a real world difference between a SATA SSD and NVMe, this is especially true in a single user (Not server or shared storage) workload.

Unless you are editing 4K video in real time or similar then a 6Gbps SATA SSD is more than fast enough 99% of the time.

Monday: Intel touts 28-core desktop CPU. Tuesday: AMD turns Threadripper up to 32

An article on Ryzen Gen 1 is available at Toms Hardware.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-threadripper-1950x-game-performance,5207-2.html

All is swell at Dell: Look, first storage share gain since closing EMC deal

Re: I have a stupid question

The obvious is they took the eye off of the ball during transition and now that is behind them.

Huawei P20 Pro: Triple-lens shooter promises the Earth ...

After a P9+ that did not get updates in my market for over 15 months Huawei will never again get money from me for a phone.

When the flagship phone is over 12 months behind on security patches there is an issue.

Hot NAND: Samsung wheels out 30TB SSD monster

Re: This is Dell or EMC?

Two things stop it going into a laptop.

12.5mm Z Height

SAS Interface

These will end up in servers and storage arrays.

It does mean that when my vendor qualifies these I will be able to get 3PB raw into 5 rack units. At a monstrous price but that density. 3PB used to be 5+ racks, now it is 5RU.

Hate to ruin your day, but... Boffins cook up fresh Meltdown, Spectre CPU design flaw exploits

Re: Not so great for anyone usign Intel CPUs or those who violate security command structure

WOW Really.

So the exploit was proved on an Mac with MacOS 10 on Intel. AMD is vulnerable, ARM is vulnerable and so are most versions of Linux.

But well done with the Intel and Microsoft hate.

Dell soups up low-end Data Domain deduper

XIV wants you to hold its beer. :)

Pro Evo-lution shocker: Samsung SSDs focus on endurance over capacity

Re: Endurance != Reliability?

Lee

Large SSD's are available, if you have the coin.

Samsung have a 15TB PM1633a in a 2.5" form factor.

The issue is not technology but cost, that 15TB disk is over $10K USD.

Munich council: To hell with Linux, we're going full Windows in 2020

Re: "When it's political, technology cannot do anything."

But without the licensing advantages of Windows 10 Enterprise managing those VM's and their licenses in a 30,000 seat enterprise would be a nightmare of the proportion you have never dreamed and the risk and cost exposure would make any corporate guy run for cover.

What works in a SMB environment does not scale to 30,000 seats very often.

Back-from-the-brink X-IO has a new, bright & shiny all-flash array

I sense 3.2TB or 3.84TB SSD's in this box.

Hyperconverged leapfrog: Dell EMC borg overtakes Nutanix

Re: Experience firsthand

As a DellEMC Solution Architect in the Distribution Channel in the ANZ region I can categorically state that VXRail is *NOT* limited to 8 or 12 nodes.

Also the support for VXRail is *NOT* Dell standard or even Dell ProSupport but is instead supported by the VCE support organisation which also supports vBlock/vxBlock/vxRack.

BTW unlike a lot of you on here not hiding behind AC, happy to post and be held accountable for my posts.

I am the first to accept that VXRail is not perfect, but in a VMWare shop who want to lower their OPEX costs and free resources for future projects VXRail is hard to beat.

Core-blimey! Intel's Core i9 18-core monster – the numbers

Re: Cost of AMD CPU In General

Shadmeister.

Look at the AMD Ryzen 3 1200 mate, much better option compared to a current gen APU.

If you want an APU wait for the Zen based ones towards the end of the year.

Cisco's server CTO says NVMe will shift from speed to capacity tier

SAS SSD's are already shipping at 15.3TB and 32TB will be out either late this year or early next year so unless this sat for 12+ months the article is wrong.

In the Epyc center: More Zen server CPU specs, prices sneak out of AMD

Re: Will They Look as Good on 11th July?

My take on that now is they look even better.

Intel keep playing silly games.

Specsavers embraces Azure and AWS, recoils at Oracle's 'wow' factor

Re: Google Docs more expensive than Office 365

It was adding the Skype for Business functionality to Google that made O365 cheaper.

Not unusual with Microsoft.

'Password rules are bullsh*t!' Stackoverflow Jeff's rage overflows

Re: It only makes it easier to crack...

Nah I use the much more secure P@ssw0rd!

Windows Server ported to Qualcomm's ARM server chip. Repeat, Windows Server ported to ARM server chip

Re: pretty pictures

And two SD card slots just next to it. What are they likely to be for? Are they normal in a server (I have very little experience of servers). As installed in the case shown they are inaccessible.

They are used in X86 servers for hypervisor bootup (VMWare), could install Linux on raided SDHC cards and then use all the disk slots for data drives.

Nutanix makes thundering great loss, stock market hardly blinks

Also have a good look at the new DellEMC VXRail V Series nodes for VDI.

In my admittedly biased opinion they are one of the better ways of deploying VDI.

Give BAE a kicking and flog off new UK warships, says review

Re: Canada, again.

I could just say Avro Arrow and leave it at that.

But then the same fate befell the TSR.2 so the UK did not do any better so....

Britain must send its F-35s to Italy for heavy overhauls, decrees US

Re: Widow Maker

The last Block 60's only rolled off of the line in 2014 IIRC and the add on order from the UAE has restarted production so another 200 would not be an issue.

Pluck-filled platter-stuff: Bold disk drive makers fatten up

Re: I'm glad that everyone else has pointed out the obvious

So the sweet spot for 1 drive is probably 3TB.

When installing 120 of those into 12 drive shelves, each shelf needing rack space, SAS cables and cooling in a datacentre environment then density is king. 10RU vs. 20RU when going from 3TB to 6TB pays for the $/GB difference anyway. For the likes of Google/Amazon/Azure/Netflix/Dropbox who run disks in the tens or hundreds of thousands this makes a major difference.

So while for a home PC with 1-2 disks 3TB is the sweet spot, at scale the higher the density the lower the associated costs will be and that is what drives the research.

Samsung points high-speed Z-SSD smack-bang at XPoint

He COULD be working for Intel....

SPC says up yours to DataCore

Re: "UPS costs $1,000"

Why? Its protecting a single 2U server crammed with PCIe flash. 1500VA will be fine.

HPE spins out enterprise services business into CSC

Having worked for both, albeit 15 years ago, they deserve each other.

Brocade intros FC switch for flash fans with the need for speed

Re: Over Fast Ethernet

Quick someone dust off the FC over Token Ring standard.

Lost little X-IO lays off ~75 staff in Colorado as it shutters factory

It is interesting that datacore was always pitched as the virtualisation engine to use, I always thought it was a better match to IBM's SVC/StorWize platform.

With its per enclosure licensing it was quite a cost effective option.

Quad-core coffee table trumped by dual-Mac garden furniture

I was expecting a Windows ME disc not NT Workstation.

There was nothing wrong with NT at the time, it was a good desktop OS. Rather lacking in server chops back then and well behind the competition in features but a reasonably competent desktop OS for the period.

Computer says: Stop using MacWrite II, human!

I had a war going on with one of my customers for about 8 months back in 1996.

They were a high school and they insisted that they needed 2 "Multimedia" machines in the library with CD-ROM's and Soundblaster cards. Running Windows 3.11 with apps like the Microsoft Encarta and its ilk. The rest of the customers network ran on a NetWare environment with BootPROM equipped PC's running Win 3.11 off of the network with locked down and well managed.but we could not use that for the library for a variety of reasons.

It got to the point where I was replacing all of the Windows/DOS configuration files on NetWare login via login script to stop the kids installing games under Windows or DOS and having a "Shutdown" button that removed key Windows and DOS system files on Windows exit so that they could not use the machine outside of the controlled Windows environment.

Worked well but was quite time consuming to install new apps.

HPE targets Nutanix, squeezes into hyperconvergence suit

Re: VxRail is based on Dell Power edge servers

A few points.

1. VXrail is available today and it is NOT on Dell hardware.

2. The Dell/EMC deal, while being on track, has NOT yet closed and there is no hardware partnership between EMC and Dell at this point in time.

3. I am not 100% sure which ODM is being used for the VXrail kit but it will PROBABLY be Quanta who are the ODM for the VXRack and ScaleIO nodes.

*I work as an EMC Solution Architect in the Distribution Channel in APJ.

Two flashy VMAX bridesmaids bare ankles at EMC's DSSD groom

Re: funny

Once you hit 8 controllers,4+PB of raw capacity , 16TB of memory, 384 CPU Cores and 256 16Gbps front end ports do you really need more scale in a single system?

There comes a time where the complexity of the scaling is more than it is worth.

If you need monster scaling then look at a solution like ScaleIO, Isilon or ECS depending on the data type.

*DIsclaimer - I am an EMC channel pre sales guy working in the distribution channel.

Spectralogic CTO talks up hybrid flash-tape cartridge. Welcome, tape robot overlords

Re: 12 years later...

I was just going to mention that.

There is nothing new just old ideas rehashed and tried again. :)