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Racks of Cisco Unified Computing Systems gear supporting 23 different labs at VMworld. Source: Cisco Systems

In previous blog postings, I've attempted to pique your interest in the rapid technological changes that are transforming the data centers that we all rely on. Very soon these changes will revolutionize how folks around the world will use the Internet and what they will be able to do with it.

You don't have to just take my word for it, though. Tomorrow (Wednesday, 9/29) Cisco Systems will host a live Internet TV broadcast and Q&A session to discuss its vision for Data Center 3.0 and how the company's core technologies and new solutions are mapping to its overall corporate business strategy. Best of all, you don't have to be anyone special to attend. The session will be distributed free to all. No registration required. Just visit the event URL at 10:00 a.m. PDT and select "Play" to launch the live presentation.

Presenters will include:

Rajiv Ramaswami, vice president and general manager of the Data Center Switching Technology Group, will discuss how storage networking technology is evolving, including a glimpse at Cisco's future technology for storage networking innovation.

Ed Chapman, vice president of product management, Server Access and Virtualization Group, Cisco, will discuss how IT organizations are evolving their data centers with new protocols such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) to reduce operating costs and simplify management. The presentation will include a glimpse at new technology being developed for unifying SAN and LAN networks in the data center.

Derek Masseth, Senior Director for Infrastructure Services at the University of Arizona, will describe how the university recently united its data center networks using Fibre Channel over Ethernet to create a unified fabric. Masseth will explain the reasons for choosing this technology and the upgrade process, as well as benefits and cost reductions achieved.

The event will air Tuesday, September 29, 2009, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. PDT. Attendees who experience difficulties connecting can contact support at (866) 614-0208 or (617) 778-9652. Phone support is available 30 minutes prior to and after the event, as well as during the videocast. Attendees may also submit an Online Support Request to CiscoTV_help@external.cisco.com or ciscotv_help@btci.com if necessary.

I've just spent some time debating with my book publisher at Whitehorse Press about what we should put into a new chapter to be included in the third edition of my book How to Set Up Your Motorcycle Workshop. The reason there's any debate is because we're in the middle of a change in computer architecture that's bigger than the introduction of the PC. (See my July 8 blog entry "Why a Thin Layer of Chrome Will be the New Thick.")

First of all, I need to specify what I mean by "PC." Some folks want to reserve the term for stand-alone desktop machines running a Windows operating system (OS). I, on the other hand, am old school. To me "PC" is just shorthand for "personal computer," and that means a computer made for personal use by, well, a person. It includes all the offerings of such machines from Acer to Zenith . Main PC OSs include Mac OS, certain distributions of Linux, and, of course, the various versions of Windows. It also includes laptops, tablets, etc. that are just modified packages for computers meant to be used in exactly the same way that the desktop systems are used.

Closely allied are workstations, which are intended for use in an intensive work environment. They are generally connected to an enterprise intranet, rather than directly to the Internet. They usually have enhanced processors and memories, and data-storage capabilities. They generally run larger and more involved programs appropriate to meeting enterprise-level needs.

Also similar to PCs are netbooks, which are essentially stripped-down models intended for thin-client applications, such as surfing the net. They have far less memory storage space, and may even lack hard drives. What distinguishes netbooks from what I call PCs is their intended use as thin-client terminals at the expense of making them practically useless for anything else.

Just as PCs' performance is sandwiched between that of workstations and netbooks, their price range is as well. Workstations are generally more expensive (often several times more expensive) than PCs, while netbooks typically cost far less.

In the past, any introduction to computer use would have to start with choosing an operating system. That's no longer the case, however. The choice of operating system has become pretty much moot, as there's application software available for every popular OS to do pretty much anything, and non-PC architectures are becoming increasingly important.

Advanced networking technologies, such as virtualization and cloud computing, are driving this shift by making it possible to serve up most applications, from email to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as Web applications. With this technology, the user's computer becomes a thin client - little more than a terminal to display the system's user interface. Since Web applications are OS agnostic, choice of OS to run on your personal computing station (PC, netbook, mobile platform, or whatever) is immaterial.

These are not future technologies. As a technology journalist, I get to see these things develop years before mainstream media. I've been watching these technologies - and using them - for about five years. They are quite ready for prime time, and in regular use by mainstream computer users today.

All major ISPs use virtualization and cloud computing technology to run their operations. Most e-commerce sites are built on MySQL databases. This generation of PCs are capable of virtualization using software downloadable from Xen. Every bank website is a thin-client Web app.

Dell's already seeing PC sales crash. Microsoft's scrambling to react. Apple's already made the transition, as have Google and leading chip makers like Intel.

In the end, PCs as such will be squeezed practically out of existence. Very soon PCs will be dinosaurs. Ordinary folks won't have or want to have them. It'll all be netbooks and mobile computing. Even Kindle may be obsolete before it really gets started! It'll just be an application on next years' iPods and Blackberrys.

What will count will be the application you run, and not the OS.

The trend is moving much faster than I thought it would. I figured we'd still have another 2-3 years for it to roll out. Now it looks more like a matter of months.

The PC, as such, is already dead, the general public just doesn't know it, yet. PC sales will not recover significantly from the present slump. "Computer" sales growth has already moved to other platforms, such as products from Apple, RIM, and Palm.

The media is painting it as a wrestling match between giants: Google vs. Microsoft. Operating system king Microsoft recently introduced a new Bing! browser, followed last night by search engine titan Google's announcement that it's working on an operating system for netbooks.

As usual, the mass media have somewhat missed the mark. What's actually happening is the whole landscape of computing is changing, and a race is on to see who's going to plant their flag on the new territory first.

The change in computing is the steady migration of computer technology from a thick client model to a thin client model for most routine computing needs. If you haven't yet heard about this, yet, let me explain:

Thick Clients are powerful stand-alone computers with network access. To do something useful, you download the file you want to do it to from a server; do it; then upload the file to the server again, keeping (or not) a copy of the updated file on your local computer.

Thin Clients are computers with powerful communications and display capabilities, but which are otherwise pretty anemic by conventional computer-performance standards. To do something useful, you visit an extremely powerful server, which is actually a supercomputer based on cloud-computing architecture (see "Computing With Your Head in the Clouds"). This server creates a virtual computer (See "Virtualization flies under the mass-media radar") with enough resources to run an application program (which it preloads onto the virtual computer) to do whatever it is you want to do with the file (which is stored somewhere in the computing cloud). When you're done doing your thing, the server updates the file and dissolves the virtual computer into - nothing.

Thin clients have been around for a long time. The old time-shared computer terminals we used in the 1970s to access minicomputers were very much like today's thin clients, which you know as netbooks.

The term was coined in the early 1990s by Tim Negris, VP of Server Marketing at Oracle Corp. The technology has been growing in popularity and usefulness ever since. Expect in the future (probably less than 5 years) that this style of computing will be almost universal, with everything from mobile devices to home entertainment centers architected as thin clients allowing users to interface over the Internet with service providers, such as banks, online stores, news providers, and entertainment content providers. I'm already writing this blog entry using exactly this technology!

Don't invest in companies that make personal computers.

So, how does the Google vs. Microsoft struggle fit into this landscape? They both see it coming and want to provide you with the means to partake of its bounties. The problem is that they have competition. All the makers of mobile devices, household appliances, TV set-top-boxes, telecommunications suppliers, and virtually anyone who makes anything with even the potential for Internet connectivity sees it coming, too. Especially, all the Internet service providers building all the computer clouds see it coming. Google and Microsoft are really just struggling to avoid being left behind!

Google does have one advantage, at least relative to Microsoft. Google is wisely basing its Chrome OS on Linux, which is the Open Source leader. To develop application software in a Linux-based thin-client environment, a company can hire a few pimply-faced ex-hackers who learned to roll their own Linux distribution before they reached puberty. Software engineers with expertise in the latest of the never-ending stream of Windows versions are harder to come by.

Basically, the days when anybody cares what operating system or browser your Internet-connected device uses are gone. In the thin-client/cloud-computing world of the future, like in the post-Civil-War land of Gone With the Wind, frankly, my dear, nobody is going to give a damn.

Before I get into this posting, I want to apologize for going "silent" for a few weeks. I spent a week clearing a bunch of on-deadline projects off my desk so I could spend a vacation week obsessing about my "new" boat.

At 25 years old, most folks would not call my boat "new." Welcome to my life, in which Charlie spends inordinate amounts of time hunting the greater Chicago area looking for a fixer-upper that will provide an excuse for endless hours of puttering around in the workshop.

Anyway, I finally got the thing:
1. Legally titled and registered;
2. Tested to the point where I could believe it would both float and take me where I want to go;
3. Moved from the far side of Lake Michigan up the Illinois river to its berth at the (name suppressed on account of paranoia) marina, stopping for a week along the way to haul the thing out to check for damage after hitting a massive object drifting just under the surface in the middle of the channel;
4. Moved again to another (and far more expensive) berth to satisfy my wife's insistence on being in the Ritzy-cratic part of town; and
5. Finally getting in a one-day fun cruise.

Now that I list it all out, it does seem like an awful lot to have accomplished in less than a month!

Now to business: before wandering off to play boats, I'd started covering developments at (mostly) Cisco Systems surrounding virtualization technology. Mainstream media, including business media, haven't said much of anything about this development, despite 2-3 press releases coming over the wire per day. I know 'cause I've watched.

Apparently, virtualization, which is going to end up being built into every operating system for nearly every computer on the planet and will change the way we use computers forever, is too sophisticated for the liberal-arts majors running mass media. So, as usual, they're ignoring it.

In previous posts, I've explained what virtualization is and a little of what it brings to the party. Today, I want to give you a link to a series of seminars sponsored by Schneider Electric's APC unit that can help you learn a little more about it and other landscape-changing developments. To learn more about the seminars, visit the company's APC Learning page, and look for events with NetApp Alliance in the title. The series kicks off on 2 June with a seminar located in Chicago.

Entitled the "Go Green and Stop the Red" event series. The half-day seminars, co-hosted by APC, Microsoft and NetApp, at their technology demonstration centers across the United States, will examine how to leverage advances in data center applications and architecture to yield a more positive impact on the environment and the company's bottom line. One of those advances, as I've subtly intimated, is virtualization.

"Businesses are continually faced with the challenge of how to maximize efficiency and savings, while minimizing space and waste," said Alistair Pim, APC's vice president of global strategic alliances. "This event series features presentations from experts that look at how adopting sustainable IT practices, such as virtualization, can be cost effective solutions for long-term business growth."

"Deploy virtualization projects to save assets, support and energy costs. Such projects can produce a reduction of more than 80% in energy consumption," stated Rakesh Kumar, Gartner's research vice president, in the May 7, 2009 report "How to Cut Your Data Center Costs.

Seminars will feature industry experts who will demonstrate how to:
* Connect virtual and physical infrastructures to achieve a holistic view of your data center energy consumption.
* Accelerate business breakthroughs and achieve cost efficiencies by
implementing data management solutions.
* Build pay-as-you-grow data center architecture to reduce operating expenses today and plan more effectively for tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, the CEO of a large, very competent computer services company made me feel much better by publicly admitting that he didn't know what people were talking about when they mentioned cloud computing. I, too, had been made to feel inadequate by the term.

Like "fuzzy logic," the term "cloud computing" sounds like its meaning should be obvious, but it isn't when you actually think about it. If you ask the average technophile what cloud computing is, you're likely to get a response like: "Cloud computing is ... unh ... I'm not sure what it is!"

So, I did a little digging to start coralling a meaning for this slippery term. Here's what I've been able to piece together:

Cloud computing seems to be a way to monetize unused capacity of large data storage and analysis facilities by "renting out" the extra capacity on a more-or-less short term basis. Statistics are available that indicate that large distributed computer systems (such as the server farms maintained by Internet service providers) typically run at 10% of capacity most of the time. They need the extra capacity for peak loading, but peak loads appear only occasionally.

This is, of course, similar to the issue that led to the rise of multi-tasking computer operating systems during the 1970s. The solution is similar: provide systems that allow multiple users to time share the unused computing resources at off-peak times.

The difference is a matter of scale. Multitasking operating systems allow multiple users to independently access single-processor computing hardware. Cloud computing systems allow multiple users to independently access large multi-server installations. The effect is the same: as long as the computing resources do not become overloaded, users gain low-cost access to computing resources they never could afford to install themselves.

Users access the resources on an as-needed basis via the Internet. So, a scientist or engineer with a large compute-intensive problem, such as simulating how a protein folds, might rent out unused capacity from, say Yahoo, or Google, or another provider that has a large server farm. Servers are, after all, just high-speed computers with really, really big hard drives, whose sole raison d' etre is to download web pages to every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who makes a request via the network. For big server farms, "the network" is usually the Internet, but it could be a corporate intranet.

The provider's cloud-computing system would create a virtual machine (VM), which appears to the user like a supercomputer dedicated to his or her problem, while looking like just another application program running in the background on the provider's massive multiprocessor system. During peak loads (which appear more-or-less randomly for relatively short periods), the server farm drops the scientist's problem and handles the load for its owner. When the load peak passes, it again activates the VM, which picks up the protein-folding problem where it left off. Since any problem big enough to make cloud computing worthwhile would take a very long time on a desktop machine, the user doesn't even notice the hiccup as the virtual supercomputer runs off to take care of its file-serving duties during the load peak.

After solving the scientist's protein-folding problem, the VM downloads the results (perhaps by emailing them to the user, or by storing them in a file for later download by the user) and disappears. The scientist pays only for the computing time actually used. The cloud-computing provider earns extra income from spare capacity that would otherwise be wasted. Everybody wins.

We like that!

Goooood technology. Nice technology. Now, roll over like a good puppy and I'll scratch your tummy.

Our friends at virtual infrastructure developer Virtual Instruments, and IT technology research firm Taneja Group plan to host an interactive and educational webinar on April 29 titled "Virtual Infrastructure Optimization: What You Can't See Can Hurt You." This live session will feature Dave Bartoletti and Jeff Byrne, both senior analysts and consultants at the Taneja Group, and Mark Urdahl, CEO of Virtual Instruments.

Our March 18 blog entry "Cisco, HP, and the forgotten factor of virtualization" introduced the concept of software virtualization in the context of data servers. These systems should be on the minds of everyone interested in infrastructure expansion and modification while the U.S. economy shifts from contraction to expansion later in 2009. While most folks who think of "infrastructure" as bridges, highways, and buildings, the real infrastructure of the technology-driven U.S. economy, as well as the economies of the fastest growing nations globally, is information technology (IT).

While brick-and-mortar infrastructure is certainly important, and woefully in need of attention, most of the effect of the Federal government's stimulus efforts will be to boost IT infrastructure. That is, it will drive expansion of public and private sector organizations' abilities to store and communicate mountains of data. We will be modernizing, building, and expanding data servers and the networks that interconnect them.

Virtualization will surely be an important core technology built into most, if not all, of this expanded IT infrastructure. As pointed out in the 3/18 blog entry, virtualization provides critical capabilities to data server operators, whether they are in government, financial, healthcare, or other sectors. Anyone involved in any of these sectors needs to understand what virtualization is, what benefits it provides, and how it provides them.

Attending the 4/29 seminar on optimizing virtualized data servers is a good way to bone up on the critical information everyone involved in activities enabled by data-server technology needs to know. To attend, visit the webinar's free registration website. the webinar will be held live on April 29, 2009 at 8:30 a.m. PT (4:30 p.m. GMT)

According to Virtual Instruments, the webinar will introduce new research on the topic of virtual Infrastructure optimization (VIO) - the market category of solutions designed to significantly improve the performance of virtualized applications and to help optimize the utilization of both storage and server resources. The hosts will highlight how IT managers and administrators can:

* Tackle challenges associated with deploying virtualization for performance sensitive, business-critical applications, including visibility into and managing the internal cloud.

* Proactively avoid over-provisioning and under-provisioning of server and storage assets

* Track system interdependencies to accelerate identification of performance choke points

* Select monitoring and analysis tools with the instrumentation needed to address today's scale and complexity

* Gain clear visibility into real-time virtual SAN performance

* Confidently deploy virtualization in business-critical environments

Speakers and audience participants - who will be able to ask questions during the event - will discuss how new solutions enable administrators to peer into multiple dimensions of the infrastructure in real-time and obtain the integrated monitoring and analytics required to optimize and troubleshoot virtual infrastructure performance holistically across every element of the system - from the application to the spindle.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) surprised, if not everyone, at least a lot of people, Monday (3/16) by announcing the launch of a line of data servers based on what the company calls "Cisco Unified Computing System." What surprised many is the fact that the new system invades turf that Cisco has long left to Hewlett Packard (HP). In the past, so the thinking goes, the two companies cooperated in the enterprise data system market, with HP providing the computers that store and retrieve the data (the servers), and Cisco content to provide the networking infrastructure to interconnect them. Cisco's new blade-style server product, however, competes directly with HP's offerings in the enterprise data system market.

The product, called Data Center 3.0, is said to reduce total cost of ownership, accelerate business growth, and extend the lifecycle of current infrastructure.

Where have we heard that before?

Cisco, however, is doing things to make good on this promise. What media pundits might wake up to is the business strategy behind it. At least as important, however, is the fact that it is designed as a fully functional virtualized platform. This is something that I haven't heard any reports pick up on, so that is what I'll spend most of this blog describing.

Business Strategy
From a business strategy standpoint, Cisco has pulled together an "ecosystem" of partners making software and hardware components needed to make a complete solution. Partners include storage-disk maker EMC, enterprise software developers VMWare and Red Hat, and several others.

Such alliances are generally the best way for a single company to approach a technically complex market like enterprise data systems. It goes back to Marketing 101: stick to your knitting. That rule (which is often honored in the breach to many CEOs' eventual chagrin) can be paraphrased thus: "Do what you do best, and leave it to others to do the rest."

Each company has its core competence, which is what it does best, and hopefully better than its competitors. That's where it should concentrate its efforts to provide the greatest value added.

Every complex system, however, requires a range of core competencies beyond what virtually every company has at its disposal. The partnership model that Cisco seems to favor can, if done well, bring together the set of core competencies needed to make a technologically superior product. Products developed by any other strategy are doomed to be a combination of best solutions in some areas and less-than-optimal (read "amateurish") solutions in others.

Virtualization
But, that's not what I want to talk about today. What I want to talk about is one of the core competencies Cisco has managed to incorporate into its new product through this team approach: virtualization.

Virtualization is a relatively recent software development that most people, including most engineers, haven't a clue about. It's actually a simple idea with profound implications.
Conventional computer architectures have a microprocessor-hardware base, with an operating system (OS), such as Windows or Linux, linking that hardware with the world of application software (think Word, Excel, Quicken). The user interacts through a human-machine interface (HMI) consisting of a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor, and other peripheral devices.


Figure 1: Conventional computer systems have an OS running directly on the microprocessor hardware.

Some such systems (such as that clanky old monster in my basement) allow the user to chose from a number (usually two) of available systems when turning on the computer. For example, the monster in the basement is set up to normally boot up with the Mandrake Linux OS, but has an option for booting up with Windows XP. Sometimes I want to use Linux, and sometimes Windows. With this machine, I can have either -- but not both at the same time.

Virtualization includes an extra layer, called a "hypervisor" inserted between the operating system and the OS. This runs directly on the hardware, representing itself to the hardware as a complete, monolithic OS.


Figure 2: Virtualized computer systems insert an extra software layer, called a hypervisor between the hardware and OS.