Like many others, I have downloaded Google's Chrome Browser (using it to write this blog), and gave it a try. Of course, the first thing people are focused on is the UI and visible features... After reading the comic book explanation (the team did an awesome job at describing the architecture via a comic book - very unique idea), I think people need to look at what this browser really is - it’s not just a browser, it’s a web execution client.

First, they went away from launching a bunch of threads and went to processes, they are extending a well know operating system fundamental, making the browser similar to a sub OS of your OS (one that does not have to care about drivers and such). They went for the overhead of the process model to focus on scalability and stability. Both of these have to be fundamentals if Google Gears is to provide content to this web execution client, as who wants to run a cloud application and have your browser crash, run out of memory, or suffer from many of the other common limitations of browser-based applications (very few truly rich applications run purely in a browser).

Other features that seem to be radically different for this web execution client are the virtual machine manager used to execute Java script, the garbage collection method, the scalable user interface, and the way they are doing the developer testing. They have really taken a different approach here, an approach more focused on how things execute over being an web page rendering engine. The developer testing concept is very neat, they are leveraging the core of Google to test their builds against the most commonly viewed sites, this gives instant feedback about real world usages (but no testing is ever enough, right?).

Now how does a new browser release get into blog on compute models? The way I look at it, this is really a prime time client for executing cloud programs, Google Gears or others. The way they made the browser to not be limited in its processing capabilities and coupled that with common computer science stability models, the browser (even if not launched as a browser) is a prime candidate to become our interface to the rich application capability to cloud computing.

However, my biggest worry with this model is how the application verifies that the virtual machine manager and the other core services of the browser integrity have not been compromised. Is their a TXT style measurement of this browser? If cloud is going where people think it is, I am going to want my client execution engine to be trustworthy as possible.

From my first look, great job Google team. What are your thoughts?
-Jason A. Davidson

After much talking with end users and industry thought leaders, a group of us developed this utility the help people decide which compute model is best for a specific user segment. There are many items to consider when trying determining which compute model is best for your users. I believe this utility does a decent job at calling out the most common questions that help to determine the ones that would be well suited and lists the ones that may not be appropriate.


In this application, you walk through a compute model decision by answering a series of questions for a specific user segment (the user segment you enter is a free form text field and does not change the output). You are presented with a summary screen that will give you recommendations and concern areas based on your inputs. When you mouse over the compute model name, reasons why that model is or is not recommended are in the notes section.
I welcome any feedback.
-Jason A. Davidson
p.s. For compute model reference, please refer to this document: http://communities.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/1518-102-1-1802/Public%20compute%20model%20discussion%20deck%204-17-08.pdf

A few weeks back at the BriForum I attended a session called The Future of Client Computing, where the audience participated in an open discussion around where client computing is headed. It was amazing to see a group of very smart people come to a single consensus...with various interpretations of that consensus I am sure. Being that I am back from the show, and back from vacation, I wanted to take a few minutes to recap what my interpretation of the future...

Therefore, the future from my eyes looks something like the following. I welcome your comments, disagreements, agreements, or snarky remarks. I will try to keep this write-up as vendor agnostic as possible...all characters appearing in this work are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, no animals were harmed in the making of this blog...and if this future plays out, I am not responsible for the results.

Let me start by explaining where many of us are now. We typically live in a world where we boot a computer to a rich operating system that has many features we may or may not use, then we install applications off CD/DVD, downloading installers over the internet, or have it pushed as a local install over the corporate network. We all run local virus scanners, firewalls, and patch/update everything often - less we fall behind and become vulnerable. Each of these software programs we use have been tested to work with our operating system (or we hope), but very few of them are tested to work with other applications, and some are just not compatible with each other (they didn't make it out of kindergarten with the "plays well with others" moniker). Many programs are installed on a ton of computers, with much of the data being the same across those computers, but being that content belongs to the person next to you, it is redundant but not accessible (across a given large group of people the amount of duplicate data is enormous...larger than having copies of the US library of congress in digital format). Some people have started moving away from this model, but often come up with solutions that are either too awkward to become mainstream, or too limited to become useful.

Next, the path to the future... With several compute model choices, people have started using the modern day compute and network resources to revisit solutions that had limited success in the past (I say limited as none of them won out over the model described above, many were very successful in specific environments). To help with the large amount of redundant data, people moved the data to server rooms. To deal with application conflicts people gave each of these programs their own virtual sandbox to play in (now they don't have to play well with others...they get their own sandbox instead). To deal with patches and updates, people developed utilities to maintain compliance with a few button clicks (and several scripts, settings, and close monitoring). And the list goes on...

The future... Now I will put on my rose colored glasses and look at where things are going...in other words, I believe they are taking a turn for the better. Going back to the discussion that was had during the BriForum class, the basic architecture was a "dial-tone OS" with virtual containers that can be streamed and executed locally or presented over the network. The term dial-tone OS was new to me, and as I believe Ron Oglesby described it, the operating system would give a basic level of functionality similar to when you pick up a phone and hear the dial tone. We all have grown to expect a dial tone when you pick up the receiver, and if there is a pause or delay we are very confused as we have grown a very high level of expectation for the quality of service on this device (not talking about coverage areas here - just the basic features). With a dial-tone OS, the client device would quickly respond with some basic features - a GUI (graphical user interface)/window manager, a scheduler, I/O mapper, device drivers, and a virtual machine manager (I may be missing a few OS fundamentals, but the idea here is a truly minimal/microkernel type OS that has a high level of reliability). All application that execute in the environment would work in their own virtual sandbox, which may contain an entire OS emulation, or simply the basics to execute - or in other words virtual containers. These applications would interact with the GUI via the window manager, and negotiate the layout within the systems capabilities. The Virtual Container would execute either locally, on a server, or in the network/cloud based upon the negotiated policies and client device capabilities. For containers executing locally, differences of the container would be archived and ready for use on other machines or as backup (depending on connectivity, etc).

The key here is an environment that from the base up is built with device capabilities in mind - if you're executing a spreadsheet calculation and your device is going to take days to calculate it, have another location process that for you. If you're using the same data as everyone else, make one image of it in the community of users, and everyone works from that image - when the image is upgraded, everyone migrates over time. If the device has Intel vPro capabilities, the virtual containers and dial-ton OS can take advantage of the energy-efficient performance, manageability, and security features. If the device is ATOM based, then a whole new set of features are exposed. Etc... (I had to add in my own Intel fanboy comments, but comments I really believe in).

The road to get from here to there involves a ton of non-trivial solutions, and I believe the good news is that many of the solutions are being thought about by some great minds - however I am sure there are some new and exciting "change the world" ideas left to solve...

The future looks both responsive and reliable, and environment where we are not encumbered by the limitations of our environment, but simply a click away from doing our next task.

-Jason Davidson

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BriForum by Sophia "the intern" Stalliviere

I recently started with Intel as a summer intern, coming from Washington State University (go cougars), and had the privilege of doing something very unique for an Intern - going on a business trip! Last week I went to the BriForum, I didn't have any idea what I got myself into when I went, however, I found it to be a great experience. I think of myself as technically savvy person, but at a show where they have a multi-part series on the "excruciating details" of the logon process challenged my level of tech savvy! To be immersed in the detailed language of computers at this event was both very scary and very exciting at the same time. At this forum there were many people, representing different parts of the world - connected by one thing: the future of computers. Now when I say future, we aren't talking about just computers doing the same things faster, smaller, and cheaper; but we are talking about the changes that will come from the virtual execution world. A world where the application you run may be running on the device your using right now to view this blog, or it may be executing in a number of other places, but viewed just like you are doing right now, with manageability, security, and flexibility at the heart of the solution.

My Intel manager, Jason Davidson hosted one of the sessions, as well as sponsored the food for the BriForum party (details about the party will be on my personal page J). He decided to have a discussion on . In his session he did something a little bit different than the other sessions. Instead of telling everyone his thoughts about his subject, he had questions up on the projection screen and the panel discussed the questions. The panel consisted of Jason Davidson, Brian Madden, Brian Duckering, and Ron Oglesby. All of them had different views on the topic which made it very energizing and intriguing. The audience got into it by asking questions and also waited till after the sessions to approach the speakers on the topic.

Another session that I attended was the "VDI Product Smackdown and Discussion," which was hosted by Brian Madden. He talked about the different VDI components and his thoughts about each of them. He went into detail about Citrix Xendesktop, Qumranent, Quest, Ericom, and VMware. Other sessions were "Optimizing and Understanding Citrix over WAN connections", "Streaming Smackdown", "Provisioning Servers in the Real World", "The Future of Client Computing", and "Customizing Citrix XenApp Web5.0."

The sessions were really great, and I learned a bunch. I also found the networking with people at the event to be one of my strong points and was able to learn about many end-user experiences and products. Jason and I went to each of the demos and I observed him talking to each of the companies about their roles in this forum. Then, in turn, we talked about our roles with Intel. We put the word out about the Emerging Compute Model Forum. Many of the people are interested in looking around the site.

All in all the trip was great...and a great start of my internship!

If you are like me, when you travel, computers break at home - and being a computer person, you are the tech support...your house is most likely your personal lab, in a constant state of flux. If not, I salute you. To make matters worse, I am often the one who messed things up before I leave - luckily, my wife patiently waits for me to get into my hotel and work with her to fix it remotely. She already does a great job at tolerating the wires, keyboards, mice, monitors, and various other computer parts in every corner of our house - so having to wait for me to fix these, is a hassle for her I would like to reduce.

I have a real life scenario from my current trip that is worth sharing with this community. First let me explain a bit about the way I have my house setup. Network wise, I have a standard DSL connection to the house which plugs into a slim & quite desktop that I has 2 network cards on it and runs the http://ipcop.org/ firewall solution, which I have added http://openvpn.net/ onto and use the OpenVPN GUI application on my mobile computer. From the 2^nd^ network connection I serve up my wireless and wired infrastructures and have gigabyte connections to all rooms in the house as well as a great wireless solution, even the printers and TV are networked. I have more than one vPro clients in the house that I have enabled in small business mode. I also have a RAID solution on one of my computers that handles all the file shares - including running various emerging solutions that we talk about on this site (I mentioned I view my home network as a lab, right?).

Now the scenario - while on this trip one of the PC's who is up to date with virus protection and patches developed a virus, and as much as I would like to spend the time looking into how the virus got there - doing this over the phone would not be feasible. Therefore, I did what any modern day geek would do - I VPN'd into my home from my hotel, I took control of the computer over a remote desktop session and started fixing. I found the virus engrained into the system, and to keep my home running until I return, I set the machine to boot to the network instead of the local hard disk using IDE-R (a feature in vPro). Then I rebooted the machine and it booted Ubuntu Linux over my network, and the files that my family uses are accessible over the file shares.

Problem patched - until I return home. Keeping my fingers crossed...

-Jason

p.s. If you have any questions on how to configure your house this way - fire away.

Today Mike Ferron-Jones and I participated on the vPro Radio show. We covered the spectrum of emerging compute models and recommendations for when to consider each model. See this ppt for additional info: Slide Deck and click play below to hear our radio show from this afternoon!

While in Atlanta, I was able to get a few minutes with Brian Duckering from AppStream to have him show us his latest.

Here is the video. (I also learned that I need to do lighting different in this video...novice mistake on my part about having the window in the background - beyond the window is the Atlanta Braves stadium, which would have been a nice backdrop).