Welcome to Cisco’s Project California
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Business, networks, Standards, Green IT, IBM, hardware, HP on
With apologies to The Eagles:
Cisco stood in the doorway; I heard the marketing yell
And I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell
Now that Cisco Systems has landed with both feet firmly in the server business with the launch of its Project California ‘Unified Computing System’ the big question is will it rock the competition?
Certainly the whole point is to try and top the data centre charts with a mix of networking and virtualisation beats that Cisco hopes will worry the likes of old rockers IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Talk by Cisco CEO of “25 percent or more of the data centre market” might, however, be a little premature.
Not that there is anything inherently wrong with the UCS concept, which brings together both Ethernet networks and Fibre Channel storage with a single 10 Gbit/s FCoE link and so reduces cards and cabling while embedding a VMWare co-developed virtualisation module for server hopping fun in the switch.
Tim Stammers, a senior analyst at Ovum, reckons that Cisco’s move could “signal a milestone in the convergence of computing and networking.” According to Stammers businesses will want to buy their unified management systems from one supplier rather than stitching it together from multiple sources, which puts Cisco in a strong position. “Alongside the servers” Stammers explains “Cisco is also promising networking gear that it says will simplify connections to racks of virtualised blade servers.” Which could, in effect, mean Cisco server blades in the Nexus switch, eliminating complex I/O protocols between server application and network transport layers.
The small matter of competition is also something that Cisco might not need ne as worried about as some, generally speaking the competition itself it has to be said, are claiming. After all,
Cisco is already in competition with HP and IBM on the networking front. While HP has a small share of the high-end data centre networking market (Procurve switches) and IBM partners with Juniper, Cisco pretty much owns the data centre network side of things. “That” Stammers insists “highlights Cisco’s huge strength in a coming unified market.”
Of course, the question remains as to whether a networking giant such as Cisco can become a systems management player? But then again, on the flipside, server and systems suppliers need to become networking management specialists in order to survive in this new space.
There will be an avenue of opportunity as the Cisco market stalls, waiting for industry standards ratification for the FCoE protocol, but that is expected to close by the start of the summer. Which happily coincides with the scheduled release dates for the new Cisco blade server family of course.
As The Eagles sang: “They gathered for the feast, They stab it with their steely knives, But they just can’t kill the beast.” Which just might sum up the problems IBM and HP face in dealing with Cisco over the coming year.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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Business to take data protection lesson from Government? ROFL!
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Business, Standards, Data Protection, Blog, Security on
This has to be one of the most absurd press releases I have seen for a long time, in fact it had me rolling around the floor in stitches for the first 10 minutes after reading the title alone. Get ready for some ROFLing, here it comes:
“Companies can learn from Government when it comes to protecting data, says BeCrypt”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Bonk.
Is this the same Government which recently all but admitted that data security is a myth? The same Government that lost a memory stick with details of all 84,000 prisoners in the UK? The same Government which lost the financial data of some 25 million people? The same Government that wants a Big Brother database which contains details of every email, every text message, every phone call you make?
Look, I am sorry, I can agree with the premise that the Facebook Generation mindset which expects, nay demands, easy access to as well as the sharing of data has to change because security dictates. Especially as the average cost of a corporate data breach has just been revealed as being USD $6.65 million by a new report.
However, when this perfectly sensible argument is then immediately followed by the assertion that “companies need to learn from government if they are to protect confidential and sensitive data from theft or loss” I am afraid I can only assume that the cold weather has frozen a common sense circuit.
Yet that would appear to be exactly what the CEO of security outfit BeCrypt, Dr Bernard Parsons, is suggesting in a recently published paper. He claims that the technology of today has placed similar demands on both the private and public sector, and the UK Government response to high profile data breaches last year means there is now a published framework of culture change that can be adopted by organisations in the private sector.
While admitting that established systems of classifying data have failed to meet today’s demands, Dr. Bernard Parsons says “The Government’s response has been to shift the focus to measure data loss in terms of risk, associated with loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability and the impact to the organisation. Companies can learn from this framework to manage their own data security, however, a ‘sea change’ to a risk management culture is required. There are also technological solutions available today that provide the security assurance to government graded levels and that can be deployed across the organisation to manage the access, flow and safeguarding of data.”
Ok, so what seems to be happening here is that the Government Security Policy Framework and the Information Assurance Maturity Model have both been published, and Parsons is arguing that both provide a practical framework for IA compliance. “They contain effective guidelines that are open to review by all, the lessons for Corporations are there to be learnt and adopted” he says.
Possibly, but my problem is that this Government has reached a position where it finds itself without any measure of trust, where nothing it does or says is going to convince anyone that it knows what it is talking about when it comes to data security. If it can go a full year without losing any data, then maybe I will take this whole thing a little more seriously. But then again, maybe Lord Lucan is still alive and little green men really do hold positions of power in the US military.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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Google warns that Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo could damage Internet development
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Standards, Blog, Google, Internet, Microsoft on
I guess it was only a matter of time: before Microsoft made a real effort to buy Yahoo, and once it did before Google started stamping feet and shouting that it just isn’t fair. Considering that Google has something like 80% of the search market as far as the UK is concerned at least, compared with around 10% combined for Microsoft and Yahoo, it does rather stick in my craw when it starts complaining about ‘unacceptably dominant positioning’ to be honest. Yet that is exactly what Google is doing, warning anyone within earshot that if Microsoft buys Yahoo then it will create a dominating email and instant messaging monster which could jeopardise future development of the open standards Internet.
Of course, similar concerns have not come to the fore when Google itself has been on the acquisition trail to strengthen its position as a provider of online services. Of course, it is just the kind of puff and bluster to add fuel to the fire after the US justice department announced it would investigate (for antitrust reasons) any deal between the two online giants.
If you ask me it just confirms that Google is worried that Microhoo could become the first serious competition to its own position in the marketplace, the online advertising marketplace that is. Funnily enough, that is one area of unacceptably dominant positioning that Google has been suspiciously quiet about…
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
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Who needs another set of web standards?
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Standards, Internet on
So, BSI British Standards is expected to publish the first set of specifications regarding web standards in the first half of 2008. Well whoopy-doo, that’s all we need, web design by committee.
The publicly available specification (PAS 124) is to be developed by a BSI steering group before being released to the public for comment. Here’s mine in advance: we don’t need another set of standards, even from the BSI, to determine and govern effectiveness, function and appearance of websites thank you very much.
To be honest, the very thought of a BSI standard that covers, as I am led to believe this will, such things as Search Engine Optimisation, Accessibility, Usability and Branding within its remit sends a shiver right the way up and down my spine.
Mike Low, Director of BSI British Standards, calls is an “important first step towards a framework for best practice in web standards. The PAS will enable organizations and their suppliers to better understand the need for web standards and consequently provide more structured web solutions.”
I’m not so sure. There are enough functional but boring, boring, boring business websites out there already, without giving lazy designers and unimaginative executives yet another excuse to stamp all over the innovating creatives.
Rated: 100% (2 votes)
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