Change is hard, but it can be done and the benefits of change usually outweigh the concerns which were on our minds before we made the change.

When making the change from running your solution on a RISC architecture to running that solution on a Xeon architecture, the biggest concern usually relates to whether that solution will run at the same level as on the previous architecture. I'm not talking about performance specifically, but usually the question is around whether operating systems like Linux, Windows, and Solaris on Xeon will meet your business needs for yourmission critical solutions.

Like the underlying improvements in the microprocessor, I believe that there have also been major fundamental improvements in the operating systems that run on both today's and the soon to come next generation microprocessors (sorry, my obligatory Nehalem-EX advertisement... coming soon in 2010). A decision made many years ago to run your solution on Unix/RISC was made based on comparing all the different variables at that time to pick what was right for your business. At that time you likely decided that your solution would not run on these operating systems, these operating systems were not suitable for your mission critical workloads etc. Probably right decision at that point, but like everything else decisions get revisited based upon the here and now and what may have been the right solution in the past (and right decision) may not be the right solution for your needs now.

I wanted to share some thoughts specifically on Redhat Linux today. Lets take a little look at Redhat Enterprise Linux. Current versions of Redhat can deliver what is required for your critical solutions. RHEL is ready and here are some of the reasons cited by Redhat in recent webinars on this topic and my interpretation of their comments

• Hosts real-time global mission-critical infrastructures and operations 24 X 7 - its tried and tested by other Enterprises
• Enables 5x9s availability in highly secure environments - pretty important to most critical solutions
• Contributes measurable reductions to TCO and enables, agile, standardized, and virtualized infrastructures - TCO benefits through standardization
• Has major ISVs on-board with the majority of 3rd party Unix applications have Linux and/or Windows versions available - the ISVs that traditionally delivered applications to you based on Unix, also have versions supported on Linux/Windows
• Many customer unique applications are developed with programming languages such as C, C++, JAVA, or J2EE and can be migrated to Linux and / or Windows - your applications can be moved
• Hosts most major database systems standard for your infrastructure - all the major databases run and run well on Linux

One of the other things we encounter a lot is around whether the technical considerations to move from one operating system environment are too high to overcome and outweigh the benefits of moving. There are always technical considerations and things that you need to know to move from one environment to another. However you are not alone in trying to understand these technical considerations. Redhat have done a phenomenal job of documenting the challenges of moving from say Solaris to Linux and have developed a great Strategic Migration Planning Guide. This is available on request. In recent webinars Redhat outline some of the things that you need to consider for the following technical categories

- Development Environment; Kernel tuning; Security; Filesystems; Debugging, tracing, Profiling; Command Differences; Deployment methods; Software Management; Virtualization; Application considerations 

In addition to the current versions of Redhat running on Intel architecture, we are also working very closely on future versions that will take advantage of the 20+ new RAS features that are planned for Nehalem-EX - more on that in a future blog

You are not alone, resources, tools and expertize exist to help you make that move and reap the business benefits while still delivering to the requirements of your business. Check out Redhat online tools for more information that dives deeper into all the areas for consideration http://www.redhat.com/migrate/solaris_to_linux/

We think Redhat Linux and Xeon are ready to run your mission critical workloads and solutions...What do you think?

Are you ready to innovate faster or explore more design options in less time than ever before?

The digital workbench powered by two Intel Xeon 5500 processors gives you the opportunity to create, test and modify your idea right at your workstation. Have no doubt, workstations powered by two processors, with eight total cores, sixteen computational threads, and memory capacities up to 192GB are proving extremely capable at analysis-driven design.

Today’s digital workbench is nothing at all like last year’s workstation, which may have struggled to design and simulate. This new breed of a workstation presents you with the capability to rapidly play “what if?”

What is driving the interest in the digital workbench?

Organizations of all shapes and sizes are looking for opportunities to reduce design cycle times and associated costs without negatively impacting product performance. One potential method of achieving this is by enabling designers to consider the validity of a greater number of design concepts earlier in the design cycle. This may not only shorten design cycles, but it may also enable you to ultimately deliver a more favorable product configuration.

The product development rules are changing.

Manufacturers are recognizing that by reordering product design activities, they may be able to achieve a more efficient product development process. By empowering engineers with easy-to-use and powerful 3D conceptual design tools, together with early access to CAE applications, engineers may be able develop the most advantageous designs before committing them to labor-intensive detailed design processes.

Isn’t this old news?

Many manufacturers agree the greatest opportunity to impact product development cost is by bringing simulation forward. That is old news. Manufacturers know that when product analysis or simulation results trail the detailed design process then product changes become extremely expensive and negatively impact new product release schedules. Worse yet, they also realize that changes made downstream in a design cycle are “last minute” and almost always imply compromises on original design goals. This, of course, cuts into the product performance and profits of the new or updated product.

Using simulation and getting results before the detailed design process begins helps ensure that the CAD models meet performance requirements, mitigating last-minute and expensive design changes.

OK, the product development rules may be changing, but I still need an expert.

No doubt, the expert is still needed. However, advancements at companies like ALTAIR, ANSYS, SIMULIA, MSC, SpaceClaim and others are all making it easier to bring simulation and analysis further upstream in the design process.

As one example, let’s look at the ANSYS Workbench platform. This solution provides an easy-to-use framework that guides the user through even complex multi-physics analyses with drag-and-drop simplicity. It supports bi-directional CAD connectivity and enables the idea of simulation-driven product development.

ANSYS is an example of what ISVs are doing to create tools that learn from the experts and export them to others who need access to their knowledge. Yes, the expert is still very much needed, but leveraging the expert’s knowledge and driving it upstream in the design process is needed even more.

The new model

Using the combined hardware and software technologies delivered through a digital workbench, engineers can now create a single digital model that gives them the ability to design, visualize and simulate their products faster than ever.

This hardware and software suite enables users to create a digital prototype and can help engineers to reduce their reliance on costly physical prototypes and get more innovative designs to market faster.

The digital workbench helps users bring together design data from all phases of the product development process into a single digital model that can be rapidly changed, tested and validated.

What can you do to test the promise of the digital workbench?

Today’s workstation can provide you with a magnificent digital canvas to create tomorrow today. You need to decide if you want to explore reordering your product design activities and potentially achieve a more efficient product development process.

Today’s workstation gives engineers a new tool that can be likened to a digital workbench. This tool, powered by two Intel Xeon 5500 series processors, hosts a suite of software applications that engineers can employ to create and test their ideas. The pliers, hammer and nails found on a workbench in a garage or basement have now been replaced with digital tools that promise to accelerate innovations via a process known as digital prototyping. Its enablers include application tools like detailed CAD, CAE and PIM. Together they represent the new digital workbench—a powerful innovation tool you can use to bring your ideas forward faster than ever before.

Are you ready to use a digital workbench?

Visit www.intel.com/go/workstation to see which workstation is right for you.

     As I’m new to The Server Room, I offer this brief introduction:  I am a marketing manager in Intel’s Software and Services Group – looking after Intel’s collaborative marketing efforts with virtualization solution providers.

     A couple weeks ago, Ken Lloyd blogged about the incredible changes in compute capability and performance brought by the Nehalem microarchitecture – and gave credit to the advances in software, too.  I’d like to take the conversation a step further:  did you know that the launch of VMware™ vSphere 4.0 in April 2009 represented a milestone of collaborative development?  The combination of VMware vSphere and Intel Xeon processor 5500 based systems delivers astonishing performance in part because it is the result of a full cycle of collaboration.

     Intel has a well established rhythm of technology innovation – and a lot of really smart architects who know a thing or two about cpu design – but we get innovative ideas from the outside, too.  Over the years of the VMware alliance, Intel has received (and acted on) many requests for small changes in cpu circuitry…changes that would make virtualizing the cpu easier, more efficient, or add capability.  A whole raft of hardware optimizations for virtualization were included in the Nehalem architecture.  As Intel started to deliver early silicon for Xeon 5500 based platforms, Intel software engineers worked closely with VMware engineers – optimizing vSphere code to take advantage of the new hardware features to improve performance, increase efficiency, and add new functionality.  The results?  Check out this video from the launch of VMware™ vSphere 4.0 to see for yourself what “better together” really means.  And the cycle continues – what can you imagine in the next round of collaborative innovation??

At Intel, we not only pack a lot of performance in a small form factor, we also pack a lot of great demos and theater presentations into our booth at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco (South Moscone, booth #1621).  We have 5 demos from 5 of our customers—Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, and Sun—and 3 other demos showcasing Wind River, Intel’s SOA Expressway product, and last, but certainly not least, Intel’s amazing and upcoming Nehalem-EX processor, which you heard Michael Dell praise in his keynote this morning.

Over the course of the three days of our booth at OOW (Monday through Wednesday this week), we will have over 35 brief presentations that will help you plan your requirements for your next generation data center.  They are short and sweet, and you can ask all the questions you want.  If you simply attend a presentation and get a few more stamps form our demo stations, you can enter to win one of two netbooks that will be given away at the end of each day.

Outside of our booth, you may find us presenting in various partners’ booths and we hope to see you in a session we are having later today (see info below).  We had an amazing session yesterday from resident Intel genius, Steve Shaw.  The huge room was filled to capacity.  At this other session today we will be giving away a netbook.  Here are the logistics for today’s session:

ID#: S309892

Title: Ten Ways to Improve J2EE Application Performance on Multicore Systems

Track: Oracle Develop: Enterprise Java and Oracle WebLogic

Date: 13-OCT-09

Time: 17:30 - 18:30

Venue: Hilton Hotel

Room: Yosemite B

We hope to see you around somewhere at Oracle OpenWorld, but if for some reason we miss you entirely, please visit www.intel.com/server for more info on Intel’s fantastic products.  Also, please visit Channel Intel on youtube for some videos from the event.

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.” Albert Einstein

Today’s workstation can provide you with a magnificent digital canvas to create tomorrow ...... today!

With workstations powered by two Intel® Xeon® 5500 series processors, engineers have the opportunity to create, shape, test and modify products before they become real. Engineers can now design, visualize and simulate products from the conceptual design phase through the entire manufacturing process. This is done virtually before any investments are made in a prototype.

“Any color—so long as it's black.” Henry Ford

Like the automobile, the workstation has morphed into something much more than what it once was. It now has more capabilities and features than its predecessor and, if you allow it to, it can help you accelerate the pace of your innovation.

Today’s workstation gives engineers a new tool that can be likened to a digital workbench. This tool is powered by two Intel Xeon 5500 series processors with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology and Intel® Hyper Threading Technology to take advantage of the processor’s power and thermal headroom to enable increased performance of both multi-threaded and single-threaded workloads. 

Today's workstation can host a suite of software applications from ISV's like Autodesk, SolidWorks, PTC, Bentley and others to create and test their ideas. The pliers, hammer and nails found on a workbench in a garage or basement have now been replaced with digital tools that promise to accelerate innovations via a process known as digital prototyping. Its enablers include application tools like detailed CAD, CAE and PIM. Together they represent the new digital workbench—a powerful innovation tool you can use to bring your ideas forward faster than ever before.

“I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years.” Wilbur Wright

You think all you need is an entry-level workstation with a single Intel® Xeon® processor. After all, you only do CAD—right?  You may be thinking like Wilbur Wright.

Innovation in the workplace is paced by how well you can use technology to test and improve your ideas. As you begin to adopt modern workflows you may realize the dramatic impact that simulation-based engineering or digital prototyping can have on your product development cost and schedules.  You will soon realize that the cost of the second processor and additional memory necessary to support digital prototyping was far less expensive than the cost of multiple physical prototypes and the associated time to produce them. Instead of investigating hundreds of digital prototypes, you only have time to look at a single physical prototype and ask: What if I …?

Those “what ifs” could have been played out on a dual-processor Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based digital workbench faster, and your time and cost of physical prototypes could have been significantly reduced.

Are you ready to adopt modern workflows and accelerate your innovation?

I wanted to follow-up on the pre-IDF blog I wrote and what I and Sean conveyed regarding comprehensive IO optimization for enterprise cloud (based on virtualization infrastructure). A blog I owed to those who could not attend the IDF session.

In the last blog we identified 4 important vectors that drive I/O evolution.

1)      Balanced system that maps to the increases in CPU performance

2)      Scalability

3)      Unified fabric

4)      Security

In my view I state it an evolution as I feel that is the natural state things will head towards in the (near) future.

In a cloud environment you would anticipate automation and policies determine the consolidation possible on a system. If SSDs get broader adoption and virtualization performance increases due to hardware assists, I/O and fabric could become the bottleneck for the degree of consolidation and efficiency as it cannot map to the increased data rates from the storage and CPU performance.

Ways to address this is either to reduce or eliminate the overheads in the I/O stack caused by software emulation of devices in the VMM. VMDq is an example of a technology that can reduce the overhead or offload some of the VMM tasks through hardware assists in the NIC. Direct assignment with PCI-SIG SR-IOV support is a way to eliminate the overheads by by-passing the VMM. With SR-IOV, a single device can be divided into many logical devices known as Virtual Functions (like a pair or independent transmit receive queue). Each virtual function can be directly assigned to a VM using Intel VT-d thereby bypassing the VMM. This can work with Live VM Migration too. At IDF we showcased 4 demos of prototype SR-IOV software solutions running on Intel Xeon 5500 based hardware with prominent VMM vendors like VMware, Citrix and Redhat that have different hypervisor technology. The networking demos showcased working live migration with SR-IOV and VT-d based direct assignment. Direct assigned VMs could be even moved to an emulated mode and brought back to direct assigned mode. Intel has not only been working with software providers but also with other hardware vendors like LSI to demonstrate this capability. These technologies are as important to storage as networking particularly as SSDs gather steam. You can learn more from these blogs below on the demos.

Demo with Intel Xeon 5500 based Dell servers

An analyst view on the LSI solution demonstrated

If those multi 1GbE cables (that make your fabric look like pasta) be replaced by 10GbE and if SR-IOV and VT-d be used for performance, then it answers both the I/O performance and scalability requirements for a flexible datacenter.

Beyond those VT-d provides greater protection by allowing I/O devices to access only the memory regions allocated to them, and SR-IOV allows VMs to access only their portion of the device and restricts access to other Virtual Functions (owned by other VMs) on the I/O device or the entire device itself. Better security through better isolation.

Last but not the least of the requirements is the unified fabric. When IT can use a single I/O device for storage or for LAN traffic, the rigidity associated with provisioning of servers with some number of HBAs and some number of NICs is reduced. The I/O capacity becomes fungible and flexible. FCoE and iSCSI are key technologies in this direction. Adding capability to monitor QoS and shape the traffic makes it a good match for flexible datacenter.

Many of the technologies I discussed above (VT-d, SRIOV, FCoE, iSCSI) are here today… software such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux is already delivering the solution. In my view just a matter of time that ecosystem builds further and hardware is well tuned.

With these in perspective how do you see your datacenter shaping up?

Each of the last 3 years, Rich Uhlig, myself and the rest of our colleagues at Intel focused on virtualization technologies, have had the enviable task of participating in two of the technology industry's biggest events. It is always a pleasure to stretch one abilities, work longer hours than you ever thought capable, work on great product introductions, develop new business models and help to redefine an industry while using these events to make your announcements. This week VMWare's VMworld was held in San Francisco with over 11,000 participants focused on virtualization technology. Intel VP and GM Doug Fisher delivered a keynote on "Transforming Flexible Computing", which nicely communicated the message that Rich delivers in the attached video on the Intel Channel on YouTube. We also announced the support of VMWare View and Intel vPro technology with VMWare's Jocelyn Goldfein. This culminates over 2 years worth of work for our engineering and development teams on bringing together 2 of the virtualization industry's leading platforms.

         This announcement is the beginning of an era of Virtualization Flexibility. Each day we are seeing new usage models emerging, virtualization finding new ways to allow users more flexibility in the Data Center, on the handheld and with their desktop form factors. As we approach IDF 2009, both Rich and I, will be hosting courses on these emerging models and architectural directions. Rich will be hosting a course on architecture, while I have the pleasure of hosting a panel with Simon Crosby, Mike Neil, Ed Bugnion, Lew Tucker and Orran Krieger. It is quite a line up. In addition, one of our colleagues, Charlton Barreto has some breakthrough new usage models to demonstrate that we believe are outstanding. All of these will be available in the IDF Virtualization community for the 3rd year in row. I personally feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such interesting and talented individuals everyday. The conferences provide an opportunity for us to share our enthusiasm for technology, our enthusiasm for innovation and our commitment to excellence with the rest of the world. The feedback has been great and required for us to continue to innovate.

         Come see us, tell us and push us to build technology that delivers value in the way you work, live and play. It is a challenge we embrace and we are thankful we have the opportunity to take action.

See you at IDF!

Japan announced today that it has emerged from recession, following Germany and France’s announcements last week that their economies also grew in the second quarter. 

Moody’s Economy.com Business Confidence survey shows that confidence has been steadily increasing since March ‘09.

For the first time since September ’08, “Economic Recovery” nudges above “Economic Crisis” in Google Search Volume in early August. 

In addition to this, economic forecasts (WW GDP, US GDP, and EU GDP) point to a recovery over the next 6 months.  A couple of quotes:

• The direction of real GDP is even expected to turn from negative to positive in the current quarter. The academic arbiters of the business cycle at the National Bureau of Economic Research will eventually proclaim that the Great Recession ended sometime this summer.
         Moody’s Economy.Com – July 7, 2009
• The global economy is beginning to pull out of a recession unprecedented in the post–World War II era
         International Monetary Fund, imf.org – July 8, 2009

So, why am I bombarding this blog with various optimistic economic data? Because if we really are pulling out of the abyss, I’m worried that many companies out there are sitting on servers that will not be ready for the increased demand right around the corner.         

John Gantz, IDC Vice President in his keynote speech at the start of this year’s CIO Summit in Auckland was quoted as saying there will be an unprecedented amount of IT-driven change in the next four years.  He projected that there will be a three-fold rise in mobile users and information will grow five-fold, resulting in heightened levels of security and privacy and questions on which data to store or throw away. He also mentioned that the number of interactions between people on networks will grow eight times.

So this got me thinking… Is your company looking to differentiate and go after more market share while your competitors are hunkered down and not investing in the downturn? My guess is that there are a lot of IT managers being asked to support more social media, offer more SaaS, deploy more virtual machines, and support more real time analytics to get a leg up on the competition.  My gut tells me that it will be hard to do all of this with older servers that were put into another year of extended warranty because that felt like the right move when the proverbial economic s**t hit the fan last year. 

It’s critical to be prepared for when the recovery comes, and data points to an economic turnaround happening now – are you positioning your department to own it when it arrives?

Bryce