Blog Title: Bladewatch

What’s this white labelling stuff about?

Chris called (from a rather windy Canary Wharf)  to say he’d written up the document comparing the Dell and HP blades, originally he’d asked me here what the Dell version of  a BL460c was. Anyway, I was asking him how stuff was when he asked, “What’s white labeling and why do you go on about read more..

Are you Cisco, VMware and Citrix certified – no are you?

What skills do you want from an engineer? Mike (that’s what we’ll call him) called me, like myself, he’s looking for work as a wintel engineer and he’d got a phone call from an agent: “We’ve got a Wintel role here, it’s to move some blades running Windows physical and virtual machines as well as some running read more..

Talking about blades in my business – Join the debate as an end user, as a business

http://www.bladewatch.com/2009/07/02/why_blades/ So far we’ve got some interesting comments, on the whole people would recommend blades to others, the survey shows that they are being used in different size sites. The most interesting comments we’ve had about issues experienced with blades are: Limited expansion Issues with management or support Cost Remember negative comments are just as effective as positive ones. If read more..

ILO broken on HP blade

I got an email from Janet: “Hi The ilo on my blade doesn’t work, what steps would you try before logging a call to HP? Thanks Janet” Thanks for your email Janet, you don’t say the model or the operating system. On the basis it’s Windows and you have the driver pack installed, I’d do the following: Log on to the read more..

IBM to help customers with their HPC requirements

PC World IBM on Thursday said it is now offering high-performance computing services to customers who want to get supercomputers up and running faster. The company is offering services that include installation of supercomputers, training and porting of applications to high-performance systems, the company said. The services are being provided by IBM’s deep computing group, which is read more..

Why do we use blade servers?

I thought we’d do a quick survey, I would be very grateful if you filled it in for me, as ever there are only 7 questions and I don’t ask for any personal or company information (on the basis that we’re all busy). The survey is to examine the mind set on blade servers, why we’re read more..

What’s the Dell version of a HP BL460c?

I got called on the mobile whilst loading the dishwasher this morning, “What’s the Dell version of a HPBL460c?” asked my good friend Chris in his air conditioned office in Canary Wharf (it’s rather hot in the UK today between 28-30 degrees C). I’m in italics. At this point in case we’re not at the same read more..

Tesco to buy Northern Rock?

The Times Tesco has emerged as a potential bidder for Northern Rock as the Government races to sell the state-owned lender before a general election, The Times has learnt. The supermarket chain has shown provisional interest in buying the bank nationalised as the credit crisis brought the financial system within hours of collapse. Virgin, read more..

Lloyds Banking Group announce job cuts

Finextra Lloyds Banking Group is to cut another 2100 jobs in the UK, with the axe falling on operational support functions and payments services in offices across the country. The bank says the jobs will be shed over the next three years as it merges operations and wholesale functions across Lloyds TSB and HBOS. Lloyds will be seeking read more..

The 1u server with onboard GPU

Taragana Super Micro Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: SMCI), a leader in application-optimized, high performance server solutions, is showcasing the fastest 1U server on the planet, its new, 2-Teraflop SuperServer 6016GT-TF-TM2, this week at ISC ‘09 in Hamburg, Germany (booth 310). This massively parallel processing dual-GPU server is the first 1U multi-GPU (graphics processing unit) system with a read more..