Dell Acquires iSCSI Vendor EqualLogic

• By Peter Varhol
• 11/06/2007

The truly ironic part of this acquisition is that EqualLogic is headquartered in Nashua, N.H., in a building that was once part of the ZKO campus of Digital Equipment Corporation. The ownership of this campus has passed through to Hewlett-Packard and is still owned by HP. The acquisition of EqualLogic by Dell means that Dell will be paying rent to HP. While EqualLogic has only recently moved into that building, I wonder how long this state of affairs can last.

Look for a review of EqualLogic's latest iSCSI storage solution in Redmond magazine next spring. In the meantime, tell me about your experiences with iSCSI at [email protected].

IBM Bridges Server Consolidation and Carbon Markets
Last week, IBM announced a program that will make it possible for its customers to document server energy savings and trade them on one of the emerging carbon trading markets.

Today, you can consolidate applications running on multiple servers onto a mainframe, have the energy savings documented as carbon credits, then trade those carbon credits for cash or other consideration on a carbon trading market. The certificates can be issued for each year of the life of the project.

The program is currently available only for IBM's mainframes, but the company plans to extend it to all of its server lines and as storage systems. This provides flexibility well beyond the mainframe, which few of us are likely to upgrade to.

Does documenting and trading carbon credits make server consolidation more attractive to you? Send me your thoughts to [email protected].

Phoenix Technologies Debuts New Virtualization Platform
Venerable BIOS developer Phoenix Technologies has announced a new virtualization platform running on top of its BIOS that enables the execution of specially configured open source software without having to boot a PC to Windows.

Through the use of Phoenix' own hypervisor technology running on its BIOS, those applications are booting from the hypervisor rather than from Windows, making them available in seconds.

Phoenix plans to offer this technology to system vendors such as Dell and Lenovo as a way to expand their product lines and make more systems available for users. Look for this in upcoming notebook offerings in particular.

Would you like to use certain applications without having to boot Windows to do so? I would. Tell me if you think this is a worthwhile technology at [email protected].

RapidMind Eases Multi-Core Development
RapidMind yesterday announced a major new release of its RapidMind Multi-Core Development Platform. Version 3.0 is the first version that supports the multi-core x86 processors (Intel and AMD). RapidMind lets applications automatically adapt to multiple-core systems without the need for recompilation.

Today, operating systems and applications do a poor job of taking advantage of the now-standard multi-core servers and even desktop systems. RapidMind looks to be changing that, enabling operating systems and applications to be written to take full advantage of additional cores.

Have you looked at Perfmon on a multiple-core system? I have. Tell me what you see at [email protected].

ScriptLogic Delivers New Desktop Authority Release
Yesterday, desktop management vendor ScriptLogic announced the release of Desktop Authority 7.7, giving IT administrators updated platform support and new security tools. The newest version of Desktop Authority offers security for USB drives and other removable storage devices, 64-bit support, and enhancements to patch management and reporting features.

ScriptLogic Desktop Authority now includes Desktop Authority update and patch download service, international language support for patches and upgrades, rollback of patches in case of a problem, and deferment of patch installation, among other features.

Do you use any desktop automation tools? Do they make life simpler? Tell me your story at [email protected].

Mailbag: 'Hacker' Writer a Hack?
Is your child a hacker? T. Reginald Gibbons thinks he's got all the signs figured out -- though most readers think there's good reason not to take him seriously:

The article was originally posted on adequacy.org, which was a spoof news site. So don't worry, it was all tongue-in-cheek! (Lunix indeed.)
-Liza

You've got to be kidding! I hope no one takes this seriously. You could just as easily say, "Your child is a budding software engineer." I work in a group of software engineers and these descriptions of interests, books and programs probably apply to most of them. "Programming in Perl" is a hacker manual? Give me a break. This book is used by most system administrators I know.
-Jim

I suppose the follow-up to this question is, "Is your child a teenager?" I have rarely read such uninformed or intentionally misleading blather presented as fact. First, this was ostensibly written in 2001, making the examples given sorely out of date.

There is more than one reason to switch ISPs. Do some valid research first. Switching from AOL dial-up to a cable modem does not mean your child is a hacker. And "Quake"? Um, fun game but not a hacker's paradise.

Lunix (any relation to lunacy?) -- not illegal now or ever. Initially conceived of by a Finnish programmer, not Russian. Initially released within months of the dissolution of the USSR. Now contributed to by thousands and a significant presence in "legitimate" computing, most notably in the data center.

This is merely evidence of misplaced concepts in parenting and communication and the attempt to stifle the unknown through FUD.
-David

Got something to add? Let us have it! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].