Archive for May, 2009

VmWare is a annoying company in that it changes the names of it’s offerings at frequent intervals, leading to the need for a translation facility to make sure you are talking about the correct technology.

But there is no avoiding them if you run sizeable infrastructures – therefore this article is a good introduction to their newest releases:

VMware vSphere 4, out today, is a big release, with plenty of new features and changes, but it’s not your run-of-the-mill major update. The new features, which range from VM clustering to agentless VM backup, are especially significant in that they may mark the moment when virtualization shifted from the effort to provide a stable replica of a traditional infrastructure to significantly enhancing the capabilities of a virtual environment.

In short, if you’re running a VMware infrastructure, life should get easier. For anyone who’s ever tried to provide rock-solid OS-based clustering services, the new VM clustering feature, called Fault Tolerance, should be a vast improvement. Hot Add of CPUs and RAM has never really been an option for most shops, but it suddenly is (with the right OS, of course). These moves show that VMware is still pushing the virtualization envelope.

[From VMware vSphere 4: The once and future virtualization king | Virtualization – InfoWorld]

So it would be interesting to see how accurate Forrester’s 5 year report looked like 5 years ago to satisfy my curiosity on how valuable their research really is:

The latest edition of AOP’s monthly aggregation of research, trend and forecast information is available for members to download from today. The May edition includes a new report from Forrester looking at the expected transformation of social networks and the impact on brands over the next 5 years. Ecommerce, affiliate marketing, search, social networks, B2B and email marketing are all also covered in this month’s report. [From AOP Digital Landscape Report Vol. 4 – May 2009]

As usual Bruce Schneier is (IMHO) spot on in his analysis of the latest round of “anto terrorist” arrests in the states – so following the link to his blog is highly recommended:

This Week’s Terrorism Arrests Four points. One: There was little danger of an actual terrorist attack: Authorities said the four men have long been under investigation and there was little danger they could actually have carried out their plan, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported. […] In their efforts to acquire weapons, the defendants dealt with an informant acting under law enforcement supervision, authorities said.

The FBI and other agencies monitored the men and provided an inactive missile and inert C-4 to the informant for the defendants, a federal complaint said. The investigation had been under way for about a year.

“They never got anywhere close to being able to do anything,” one official told NBC News. “Still, it’s good to have guys like this off the street.” Of course, politicians are using this incident to peddle more fear: “This was a very serious threat that could have cost many, many lives if it had gone through,” Representative Peter T. King, Republican from Long Island, said in an interview with WPIX-TV. “It would have been a horrible, damaging tragedy. There’s a real threat from homegrown terrorists and also from jailhouse converts.” Two, they were caught by traditional investigation and intelligence. Not airport security. Not warrantless eavesdropping. But old fashioned investigation and intelligence. This is what works. This is what keeps us safe. Here’s an essay I wrote in 2004 that says exactly that. [From This Week’s Terrorism Arrests]

Entrapment springs to mind – these guys were uncommonly stupid to boot.