it was just over 3 years ago when my colleague, Ray Kingdon, explained to me the concept of Virtualisation (Virtualization to those 'over the pond') and the work he was project managing for numerous UK banks. When he explained under-utilisation, reduced energy footprint, disaster recovery gains and one machine replacing 100, I was sold. In fact, my mind was exploding with the possibilities of what this could mean.
While there is clearly no question of the gains virtualisation offers to enterprise and datacentre environments, can the same technology truly deliver the comparable gains to the Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMB) market? Most importantly, can the general SMB be bothered, especially with the current economic environment.
We're convinced the gains are there. From a server perspective SMB may have up to 10 servers but more than likely 2 to 3. Virtualising these individual servers down to the single machine almost irrespective of platform, has proven cost effective with excellent gains in resource use and disaster recovery implications.
It's becoming easier and less costly to achieve, with significant vendors now in the mix.
From a desktop perspective, earlier versions of Virtualisation enabled simultaneous operating systems to function, if not a little shakily. They did work though. From our perspective this meant businesses looking to depart from the PC platform could still keep a toe in. Earlier versions of VMware and Parallels have now been replaced by stronger, easier and more integral versions.
The possibilities continue to grow, from the Mac-based business wishing to run a SAGE Accountancy network (Windows only) up to the financial institution consolidating thousands of server instances. In fact, some commentators are questioning where it will all end. How many virtual machines can you realistically operate and maintain? Welcome, the virtual server farms or elastic compute clouds. It's big and it's happening.
As with change, it's a commitment and belief in both the gains for the business and the concrete technological gains the new concepts can bring to the table.
Further reading:
http://bmighty.informationweek.com/hardware_software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218600641&cid=RSSfeed_bMighty_All
http://blogs.zdnet.com/virtualization/?p=1226
http://www.parallels.com/uk/products/server/mac/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/virtualization/?p=1240
A commentary on current and future technology for SMB's with a specific interest in Apple Mac, Cloud and Mobile working.
20 September 2009
6 September 2009
Snow Leopard Mail and Exchange
So it's here and in the consumer hands. The questions I expected to be thick and fast have been more of a trickle. When can we switch over, what applications will be disabled (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258), do we need new hardware and what happens if we've just bought new hardware with the previous Leopard OSX (http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/uptodate/)?
Initial upgrade installations have all gone well. Performance does seem enhanced. Many changes have been made away from the standard users eye, but these should manifest themselves in the simple tasks like starting, shutting down, TimeMachine speeds and Mail's general efficiency!
We've long been stuck with the Mail app, it's random SBOD (spinning ball of death), the sent Mail sitting in the Outbox quirk, and the incompatibility with the most common Mail server, 'Microsoft Exchange'.
Well, now a large change has been made. Apple have licensed Microsoft's Exchange technology, to enable Mail, iCal and Address Book to integrate with Exchange Mail systems (http://www.apple.com/macosx/exchange/). Previously, this has been barely possible and has notoriously involved numerous additional points of failure via third party apps etc… Otherwise, it has meant the purchase of the 'full version' Office 2008 suite. This is the only version with a copy of Entourage capable of dealing with Exchange (costing approximately £260 per seat)!
With such a claimed level of integration, Apple must be aiming for SMB market share.
However, I haven't come across any other users who think the acknowledgement of local calendar, contact data and the mix with Exchange based calendars (including global contacts lists and groupings) is a huge jump on for the Apple Mail app!
Sources used:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8227071.stm
http://www.bmighty.com/blog/main/archives/2009/08/does_apples_sno.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8224517.stm
Initial upgrade installations have all gone well. Performance does seem enhanced. Many changes have been made away from the standard users eye, but these should manifest themselves in the simple tasks like starting, shutting down, TimeMachine speeds and Mail's general efficiency!
We've long been stuck with the Mail app, it's random SBOD (spinning ball of death), the sent Mail sitting in the Outbox quirk, and the incompatibility with the most common Mail server, 'Microsoft Exchange'.
Well, now a large change has been made. Apple have licensed Microsoft's Exchange technology, to enable Mail, iCal and Address Book to integrate with Exchange Mail systems (http://www.apple.com/macosx/exchange/). Previously, this has been barely possible and has notoriously involved numerous additional points of failure via third party apps etc… Otherwise, it has meant the purchase of the 'full version' Office 2008 suite. This is the only version with a copy of Entourage capable of dealing with Exchange (costing approximately £260 per seat)!
With such a claimed level of integration, Apple must be aiming for SMB market share.
However, I haven't come across any other users who think the acknowledgement of local calendar, contact data and the mix with Exchange based calendars (including global contacts lists and groupings) is a huge jump on for the Apple Mail app!
Sources used:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8227071.stm
http://www.bmighty.com/blog/main/archives/2009/08/does_apples_sno.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8224517.stm
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