I hear so much lately about innovation with virtually every company claiming that they are innovative. Is that really true, or is it yet another over used buzz word that has no substance? I personally see little true innovation, just claims of being innovative (who would say otherwise, right?). One way to determine if innovative is actually taking place is to ask yourself a few questions:
Are you scared (just a bit)?
Do you have more skeptics than advocates?
If you fail, are there repercussions?
How do you define failure?
How much permission did you need to execute?
I especially like the skeptics vs. advocates question. It directly correlates to a safe zone that is easy to fall into. It’s where little innovation can take place -- a black hole. Some of the best outcomes have occurred when there were few supporters (until it succeeded). Read More »
Two things I greatly enjoy about working in and around Data Centers are that so many different technologies converge within them and that those technologies are constantly evolving. There’s always something new to explore.
It’s no surprise then that Data Center Deconstructed ping-ponged among several topics in 2012, from choosing a site to relocating servers to incorporating alternative energy, and more. I even tried my hand at blogging in real-time, posting live from the annual Technology Convergence Conference.
Here’s are the Data Center Deconstructed topics that received the most attention this year. Check out any you’ve missed: Read More »
Server virtualization has become mainstream and has changed the way resources are provisioned and accessed within the data center. (Did you know the number of virtual machine shipments now exceeds the number of physical servers being shipped?). Effective measurement and characterization of complex applications in virtual environments is critical to both vendors and customers.
The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) today announced a new industry standard benchmark suite, TPC-VMS (Virtual Measurement of Single-system), that enables comparison of performance, price-performance and energy efficiency of database applications in a virtualized environment.
The benchmark suite is built upon existing TPC standards: TPC-C, TPC-E, TPC-H and TPC-DS. The benchmark test sponsor chooses one of these workloads, and runs three equally sized instances of the same workload on three virtual machines on the system under test. The primary performance metric is the slowest of the three instances and is reported as VMStpmC (for TPC-C), VMStpsE (for TPC-E), VMSQphH@Size (for TPC-H) or VMSQphDS@Size (for TPC-DS).
References:
(1) TPC-VMS Press Release
(2) TPC-VMS Specification
(3) W. Smith, Characterizing Cloud Performance with TPC Benchmarks, LNCS vol. 7755, Springer 2013
(4) P. Sethuraman, R. Taheri, TPC-V: A Benchmark for Evaluating the Performance of Database Applications in Virtual Environments, LNCS vol 6417, Springer 2010
In this episode of Engineers Unplugged, Cisco’s Josh Atwell (@Josh_Atwell) talks to WWT’s Jon Duren (@jduren) about his home lab, including Jon’s plan for expansion and wish list. Let’s watch:
Every home lab needs a spy gnome. With Josh Atwell and Jon Duren.
Welcome to Engineers Unplugged, where technologists talk to each other the way they know best, with a whiteboard. The rules are simple:
Episodes will publish weekly (or as close to it as we can manage)
Submit ideas for episodes or volunteer to appear by Tweeting to @CommsNinja
Practice drawing unicorns
What’s on your home lab wish list this season? How does it impact education and training for you and your team? Join the conversation here or by following along on Twitter with @ciscoDC. Thanks to all--next week’s episode is the last of the season!
A common refrain in the wireless world is “everything, everywhere”, but up until now there’s been one place wireless communications has not reached: underground.
When Virgin Media came to us with the opportunity to work together to design and build a Wi-Fi network that would bring mobile broadband to passengers of the London Underground subway system, we jumped at the chance.
Working together with Transport for London, the transportation authority for all London mass transit systems, Cisco and Virgin designed and built a Wi-Fi network that would not only bring a reliable broadband signal to London Underground’s stations, but would be robust and durable enough to withstand the less-than-ideal environment existing under the streets of London. Read More »
