3Leaf Systems to Demo Silicon Enabled Server Virtualization Technology at Supercomputing 08

3Leaf Systems (www.3leafsystems.com), a provider of next-generation virtualization solutions for enterprise data centers, today announced that the company will showcase new silicon enabled virtualization technology enabling dynamic resource utilization using commodity servers from Super Micro Computer Inc. 3Leaf will demo the solution at Supermicro’s Booth# 1033 at SC08 being held in the Austin Convention Center, Austin, Texas from November 15-21.
Virtualization within high performance computing (HPC) environments presents particular challenges to today’s enterprises. HPC environments require ultra high speed message passing between applications in order to operate in high computing environments, and many of today’s virtualization solutions fall short in providing this capability. In addition, CPU and memory demands from HPC applications continue to drive over-provisioning of servers within the data center.

Now, rather than having to overbuild their infrastructures to allow for high compute or memory intensive jobs, and/or sacrificing performance to achieve virtualization, enterprises have another choice. 3Leaf’s silicon enabled technology demonstrates how enterprises can pool CPU and memory resources across multiple x86 servers to create a cloud environment, enable up to one terabyte of DRAM for memory intensive applications, and achieve low-latency messaging between applications.

“Virtualization, along with compute and memory constraints within today’s scale-out servers, provides many challenges for HPC environments,” said B.V. Jagadeesh, CEO and president, 3Leaf Systems. “With this technology, working together with companies like Supermicro, 3Leaf helps enable virtualization for HPC environments while lowering the capital and operational costs of their HPC infrastructures. Supermicro shares our vision and we are pleased the company is an early adopter of this revolutionary technology.”

“We recognize the strong, unique value that the 3Leaf technology achieves, and are excited to partner with 3Leaf to help enterprises overcome pain points in their HPC environments by optimizing resources and dramatically reducing data center costs,” said Charles Liang, CEO and president, Supermicro. “With the 3Leaf enabled Supermicro servers, enterprises can achieve a terabyte of DRAM at a dramatically low cost and enable low-latency messaging for fast performance.”

About SC08

SC08, sponsored by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Scalable Computing and the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Architecture, will showcase how high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in research, education and commerce. This premiere international conference includes technical and education programs, workshops, tutorials, an exhibit area, demonstrations and hands-on learning. For more information, please visit http://sc08.supercomputing.org/.

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rPath's Billy Marshall Interviewed on how Enterprises can Virtualize Applications as a Precursor to Cloud Computing

Billy Marshall, founder and chief strategy officer of rPath, recently spoke with Dana Gardner to find out more about how enterprises should begin moving to application-level virtualization that serves as an onramp to cloud benefits.

Many enterprises are factoring how to bring more applications into a virtual development and deployment environment to save on operating costs and to take advantage of service oriented architectures (SOA) and cloud computing models.

Finding proven deployment methods and governance for managing virtualized applications across a lifecycle is an essential ingredient in making SOA and cloud-computing approaches as productive as possible while avoiding risk and complexity. The goal is to avoid having to rewrite code in order for applications to work across multiple clouds -- public, private or hybrids.

The cloud forces the older notion of "write-once, run anywhere" into a new level of "deploy correctly so you can exploit the benefits of cloud choices and save a lot of money."

Here are some excerpts from that interview:


We're once again facing a similar situation now where enterprises are taking a very tough look at their data center expenditures and expansions that they're planning for the data center. ... The [economic downturn] is going to have folks looking very hard at large-scale outlays of capital for data centers.

I believe that will be a catalyst for folks to consider a variable-cost approach to using infrastructures or service, perhaps platform as a service (PaaS). All these things roll up under the notion of cloud.

Virtualization provides isolation for applications running their own logical server, their own virtual server. ... Virtualization gives you -- from a business perspective -- an opportunity to decouple the definition of the application from the system that it runs on. ... Then, at run-time, you can decide where you have capacity that best meets needs of the profile of an application.

I can begin sourcing infrastructure a little more dynamically, based upon the load that I see. Maybe I can spend less on the capital associated with my own data center, because with my application defined as this independent unit, separate from the physical infrastructure I'll be able to buy infrastructure on demand from Amazon, Rackspace, GoGrid, these folks who are now offering up these virtualized clouds of servers.

That's the architecture we're evolving toward. ... For legacy applications, there's not going to be much opportunity. [But] they may actually consider this for new applications that would get some level of benefit by being close to other services.

[If] I can define my application as a working unit, I may be able to choose between Amazon or my internal architecture that perhaps has a VMware basis, or a Rackspace, GoGrid, or BlueLock offering.

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Intel Core i7 chip launches in Tokyo

Irasshaimase! Stores in Tokyo districts such as Akihabara have launched sales of Intel's Core i7 processor, due to be officially rolled out at U.S. resellers on Monday.

Computerworld reported that "several hundred people crowded stores" that opened around 10 p.m. Saturday. The top-of-the-line 965 chip sold out, according to one retailer.


Sofmap store in Akihabara is selling boxed Core i7 processors

(Credit: Sofmap)The Core i7 represents the vanguard of Intel's new Nehalem microarchitecture. The i7 is a desktop processor targeted initially at gaming boxes.

(See CNET review of Falcon Northwest Mach V tower system based on Core i7-965 processor.)

Sofmap, a large Japanese computer reseller, is showing Core i7 processors, motherboards, and systems on its Web site.

Sofmap lists the boxed Core i7-920 (2.66GHz) at 32,800 yen or close to $340. The i7-940 (2.93GHz) is listed at 63,800 yen or about $660. The high-end i7-965 (3.20GHZ) goes for 112,800 yen or $1,160.

A series of i7-920 processors bundled with Windows Vista Home Premium "DSP version" are shown ranging in price from 45,800 yen ($470) to 54,800 yen ($565).

Specification details (listed by Sofmap) include: LGA1366 socket, Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) rated at 4.8GT/sec (gigatransfers per second), 8MB L3 cache, and a 130 watt TDP (Thermal Design Power).

The DSP, or Delivery Service Provider, version of Windows Vista is being promoted heavily in Japan and is typically bundled with other components.


Sofmap advertisement for Core i7

(Credit: Sofmap)Motherboards and systems are also on sale. Motherboards are based on the Intel X58 chipset. DDR3 memory is being promoted along with the i7 too.

Tower systems using the Core i7 chip range in price from 179,800 yen ($1,852) to 219,800 yen ($2,264).

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Where is Google voice-powered search?

Reporters were put into a frenzy this week when Google announced it was set to launch version two of its mobile search application for the iPhone that included the addition of voice-powered search, allowing you skip the keyboard altogether. But now the question is, where is it?

My colleague Josh Lowensohn reported on the application on Thursday, and duly noted on Friday afternoon that it still wasn't available in Apple's App Store. But as of Saturday afternoon, the application was still MIA. A search on the App Store returned only the older version of the Google Mobile App.


According to The New York Times, Google planned to release the free application through the iTunes Store "as soon as Friday." The application, an update to Google Mobile App, is meant to allow you to talk into your phone, ask any question, and the results of your query will then be offered up on your iPhone.

One reason for the delay could be that it has been bogged down by Apple's App Store approval process, which can take days or even months. Indeed, the Google Earth app for the iPhone took several days to appear in the App Store after its release. And Buzzd CEO Nihal Mehta noted that it took three months for his company's application to arrive in the App Store after it had been submitted. In other words, it's difficult for third-party developers to determine exactly when the application is going to be made available.

Perhaps from now on, when developers release an iPhone app, they'll learn to add a caveat that while the application has technically been released, it may take several days or even longer for it to actually show up in the App Store.

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Adobe wants to bridge gap between PCs and cloud

Adobe Systems wants to have it both ways.

Microsoft's power with programmers is tethered to desktops and laptops, the vast majority of which run Windows. Google is trying to dominate what it believes is the new frontier, cloud computing, where applications run on the Web. Adobe, though, is trying to run down the middle with a strategy that touches on both domains.


"It's a balance of the client and cloud together that makes for the most effective applications and the best development," said Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch, who's planning to speak on the subject in a keynote speech Monday at the company's Max conference in San Francisco.



Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)
Since Adobe's $3.4 billion Macromedia acquisition in 2005, programming technology has been rising in importance within a company that got its start with publishing software such as Photoshop. The technology that brought the two companies together, Flash, will hog the spotlight at the conference.

Flash got its start as a way to give Web pages animations and basic applications such as games, but it's grown up since then. The Flex technology has given developers a more mature programming model, and the addition of video-streaming abilities to the Flash Player that's plugged into the vast majority of Web browsers has given Adobe's technology incumbent status. Who can live online without YouTube?

Adobe is still working on Flash, releasing Flash Player 10, aka Astro, in October. At Max, though, a Flash cousin called AIR--the Adobe Integrated Runtime--will share the stage with the release of version 1.5.

Flash and AIR are key to bridging the cloud-PC gap. For example, Adobe has launched an online Photoshop.com service, where members can upload, edit, and share photos. The site uses Flash to run the processing-intensive editing software on people's own computers, not Adobe's servers, Lynch said.

"Our operational costs for hosting that application are much lower than if we had server-side processing," and users get better performance, Lynch said.

But Flash still lives largely within the browser. Adobe hopes to uproot it with AIR, a "runtime" foundation for housing applications. AIR runs Flash programs but also has a built-in engine for showing Web pages and for running programs written in JavaScript, which is widely used for Web-based applications. And AIR is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and programmers who write AIR applications don't have to worry about what operating system is on a person's computer.

But there's a risk to choosing a hybrid strategy: gains in flexibility often come at the expense of specialization, and specialized applications often work better. Sun Microsystems tried for years to get Java to catch on as a cross-platform runtime, but 13 years after its launch, it has yet to catch on with mainstream computing applications.

Google's cloud computing is limited by the comparatively feeble abilities of JavaScript running in Web browsers, but extensions such as Gears are bringing some advanced features. But Google gets the advantage of software that's available from all sorts of computing devices--your own, a friend's, a kiosk in an airport, your iPhone--as long as you have a network connection. And there's a natural collaboration component that comes with online applications that matches well with business needs.

Microsoft is moving slowly cloudward, but its cash cows remain Windows and Office. Its software is more powerful and responsive than any Web-based application--as long as you have your PC with you.

AIR applications can take advantage of local computing power, though--and the big new feature of AIR 1.5 is that it uses Flash Player 10, which brings 3D graphics, better text handling, the ability to mix different audio signals, and other abilities that make it a more reasonable competitor to Windows.

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Revived Fervor for Smart Monitors Linked to a Server

SAN FRANCISCO — Instead of having a big, loud and complex computer on your desk, what if you could have a quiet, thin machine that rarely needed an upgrade or a fix?

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Hewlett-Packard’s version of a so-called thin client and monitor, top, and the Hot-E device from ThinLinX, above.

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JetBlue Airways
Employees of JetBlue at Kennedy Airport using thin clients connected to remote servers that handle the processing of data.
That has been the goal of many technology companies over the last 15 or so years. They have tried to disrupt Microsoft’s dominance of the PC desktop by creating what amount to intelligent monitors.

Rather than relying on their innards for handling work, these so-called thin clients send it out over the network to much larger servers that hold all of the necessary software and handle data-processing jobs.

For a variety of reasons, including slow data connections and clunky software, this model failed to live up to its promise and turned into an industrywide joke. But now the technology is making a comeback, and large companies like Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Samsung are increasing their investments in thin client systems. Plenty of start-ups are looking at the market as well.

Thin-client backers have by now mostly given up on challenging Microsoft — in fact, in most cases they make it easy to use Windows over the network. But they continue to bill thin clients as a way to save companies money and make their systems more secure.

“The hype cycle that has followed thin clients started at this enormous level, disappeared into negativity and now is bubbling back up,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst at the consulting firm IDC.

The benefits of the technology seem obvious. Software glitches, updates and security are much less of a problem. The thin-client model places the burden of managing computers on professionals monitoring servers in a large warehouse.

Perhaps best of all, the users’ data is stored on the network. If the machine on your desk breaks, you just get another one and connect to the data warehouse, and off you go.

The biggest changes driving the interest in thin clients stem from networking and software improvements. The spread of high-speed Internet connections means that people working in a cubicle and at home can rely on an effective link back to the data warehouses.

H.P., Citrix Systems, Microsoft and others are also fine-tuning the software that controls communication between thin clients and the servers. This has led to smoother-running machines that can handle even video and audio applications.

Most significantly, the pool of programs thin clients can use has grown thanks to so-called virtualization software, which lets companies package up an entire operating system and all of its applications. Instead of picking and choosing certain software to send over the wire, companies can ship entire “virtual desktops.”

The reinvigorated buzz around thin-client technology has caused a scramble to address the market in innovative ways.

For example, Teradici, a start-up near Vancouver, produces a microprocessor that can speed the flow of software from data warehouses to thin clients. Dell and I.B.M. offer systems based on this chip and say that they can deal with even the most demanding software, like design programs.

Next month, Samsung will ship the 19-inch SyncMaster 930ND monitor, which relies on Teradici’s chip. Business customers can plug an Ethernet cable into the monitor and turn it into a full-fledged computer by connecting back to their data centers.

Customers of the Silicon Valley start-up Pano Logic plug their monitors, keyboards and mice into a small device that manages connections with servers holding full virtual desktops. The Hot-E from the Australian company ThinLinX is similar. One longtime player in the thin-client business, Wyse, manufactures an array of slim hardware, including laptops, that handle much the same work.

Noting rising interest in thin clients and virtual desktops, H.P. created a new group six months ago to address the technology, after buying the thin-client company Neoware for $214 million in late 2007.

“What you are seeing is that a lot of the right technology elements are starting to be there,” said Roberto Moctezuma, the vice president in charge of H.P.’s “desktop solutions” organization. “I think five years from now you will see a lot of thin computing in businesses.”

JetBlue has bought into thin clients for 20 percent of its computers using a combination of H.P.’s hardware and Citrix’s software. The technology will take center stage at the airline’s new terminal at Kennedy Airport.

“Thin clients represent a strategic direction for us,” said Pat Thompson, director of technology operations at JetBlue. “They are pretty much behind every customer-facing piece of technology that you see out there.”

By next January, the Regional Transportation District of Denver, which handles public transit in the Denver area, plans to replace about one-quarter of its systems with thin clients from Wyse running virtualization software from VMware.

“We’re looking at saving about $30,000 per year just in energy costs,” said Trent Ratcliff, the technology infrastructure manager. “And we’ll probably replace these every seven to nine years instead of every three years with PCs.”

Despite the budding interest, thin clients remain a tough sell for cultural reasons. People are used to keeping confidential and personal information on their own machines, and many companies see moving away from traditional desktops as a risk. In 2008, only 3.7 million thin clients were shipped, compared with 300 million PCs, according to IDC.

That should start to change in 2009 as companies begin a number of test projects and in 2010 when large-scale commitments to the technology begin, Mr. O’Donnell said.

Wall Street firms looking to make things easier for employees and save money, especially in these tight times, are driving some of the early tests.

“Financial services companies in the U.S. are very interested in using thin clients,” said Scott Woodgate, director for the Windows business group at Microsoft.

Microsoft has developed its virtualization software and acquired a pair of software makers — Calista Technologies and Kidaro — whose products could complement thin client technology.

Looking ahead, the thin client model could creep into the home, with PC-like functions arriving via TV set-top boxes or through devices that plug into the back of televisions. Internet service providers have started to explore the idea of selling these products to consumers and then offering monthly subscriptions to computing services.

Consumers would benefit by buying a device that’s cheaper than a PC but can still tap into a full virtual computer back in a managed data warehouse.

“There are companies that are talking about peeling off an infinite number of virtual systems and renting them to consumers,” said Roger L. Kay, president of the analysis firm Endpoint Technologies. “This is an idea whose time has come, and the argument is growing every day in favor of thin computing of some sort.”

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Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User

“One of these days, I’m going to write a book called, ‘The Basics.’ It’s going to be a compendium of the essential tech bits that you just assume everyone knows–but you’re wrong.
“(I’ll never forget watching a book editor at a publishing house painstakingly drag across a word in a word processor to select it. After 10 minutes of this, I couldn’t stand it. ‘Why don’t you just double-click the word?’ She had no clue you could do that!)”
Many readers chimed in with other “basics” that they assumed every computer user knew–but soon discovered that what’s common knowledge isn’t the same as universal knowledge.
I’m sure the basics could fill a book, but here are a few to get you started. All of these are things that certain friends, family or coworkers, over the years, did *not* know. Clip, save and pass along to…well, you know who they are.
* You can double-click a word to highlight it in any document, e-mail or Web page.
* When you get an e-mail message from eBay or your bank, claiming that you have an account problem or a question from a buyer, it’s probably a “phishing scam” intended to trick you into typing your password. Don’t click the link in the message. If in doubt, go into your browser and type “www.ebay.com” (or whatever) manually.
* Nobody, but nobody, is going to give you half of $80 million to help them liberate the funds of a deceased millionaire…from Nigeria or anywhere else.
* You can hide all windows, revealing only what’s on the computer desktop, with one keystroke: hit the Windows key and “D” simultaneously in Windows, or press F11 on Macs (on recent Mac laptops, Command+F3; Command is the key with the cloverleaf logo). That’s great when you want examine or delete something you’ve just downloaded to the desktop, for example. Press the keystroke again to return to what you were doing.
* You can enlarge the text on any Web page. In Windows, press Ctrl and the plus or minus keys (for bigger or smaller fonts); on the Mac, it’s the Command key and plus or minus.
* You can also enlarge the entire Web page or document by pressing the Control key as you turn the wheel on top of your mouse. On the Mac, this enlarges the entire screen image.
* The number of megapixels does not determine a camera’s picture quality; that’s a marketing myth. The sensor size is far more important. (Use Google to find it. For example, search for “sensor size Nikon D90.”)
* On most cellphones, press the Send key to open up a list of recent calls. Instead of manually dialing, you can return a call by highlighting one of these calls and pressing Send again.
* When someone sends you some shocking e-mail and suggests that you pass it on, don’t. At least not until you’ve first confirmed its truth at snopes.com, the Internet’s authority on e-mailed myths. This includes get-rich schemes, Microsoft/AOL cash giveaways, and–especially lately–nutty scare-tactic messages about our Presidential candidates.
* You can tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one screenful. Add the Shift key to scroll back up.
* When you’re filling in the boxes on a Web page (like City, State, Zip), you can press the Tab key to jump from box to box, rather than clicking. Add the Shift key to jump through the boxes backwards.
* You can adjust the size and position of any window on your computer. Drag the top strip to move it; drag the lower-right corner (Mac) or any edge (Windows) to resize it.
* Forcing the camera’s flash to go off prevents silhouetted, too-dark faces when you’re outdoors.
* When you’re searching for something on the Web using, say, Google, put quotes around phrases that must be searched together. For example, if you put quotes around “electric curtains,” Google won’t waste your time finding one set of Web pages containing the word “electric” and another set containing the word “curtains.”
* You can use Google to do math for you. Just type the equation, like 23*7+15/3=, and hit Enter.
* Oh, yeah: on the computer, * means “times” and / means “divided by.”
* If you can’t find some obvious command, like Delete in a photo program, try clicking using the right-side mouse button. (On the Mac, you can Control-click instead.)
* Google is also a units-of-measurement and currency converter. Type “teaspoons in 1.3 gallons,” for example, or “euros in 17 dollars.” Click Search to see the answer.
* You can open the Start menu by tapping the key with the Windows logo on it.
* You can switch from one open program to the next by pressing Alt+Tab (Windows) or Command-Tab (Mac).
* You generally can’t send someone more than a couple of full-size digital photos as an e-mail attachment; those files are too big, and they’ll bounce back to you. (Instead, use iPhoto or Picasa–photo-organizing programs that can automatically scale down photos in the process of e-mailing them.)
* Whatever technology you buy today will be obsolete soon, but you can avoid heartache by learning the cycles. New iPods come out every September. New digital cameras come out in February and October.
* Just putting something into the Trash or the Recycle Bin doesn’t actually delete it. You then have to *empty* the Trash or Recycle Bin. (Once a year, I hear about somebody whose hard drive is full, despite having practically no files. It’s because over the years, they’ve put 79 gigabytes’ worth of stuff in the Recycle Bin and never emptied it.)
* You don’t have to type “http://www” into your Web browser. Just type the remainder: “nytimes.com” or “dilbert.com,” for example. (In the Safari browser, you can even leave off the “.com” part.)
* On the iPhone, hit the Space bar twice at the end of a sentence. You get a period, a space, and a capitalized letter at the beginning of the next word.
* Come up with an automated backup system for your computer. There’s no misery quite like the sick feeling of having lost chunks of your life because you didn’t have a safety copy.

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