People complain that they don’t have enough machines, and when they need servers, they’re available. Two of the problems that were prevalent in my workplace. I set out to attempt to rectify this by firstly measuring the utilization rate on some of our busiest servers.

Instead of installing and managing software that monitored CPU/Memory/HDD/Network utilization,  I merely converted the whole machine to a virtual one – and offered it as a replacement under the same IP to all the users. This was done with a quick P2V conversion of the server into a VMware image pushed to a dedicated IBM Blade server running ESX 4.0 – which had far more grunt than the originating server. A few tweaks on the DHCP server to assign the right IP to the new born, and we were away. NOTE: the usage shown is of the machine running on the Blade, not on its original hardware; I’ll come back to this later in the post.

CPU Usage - 1 Machine

Disk Usage - 1 Machine

Memory Usage - 1 Machine

Before I continue, I’ll just tell you more about the software stack that is deployed on this specific machine. There is WebSphere + AppServer as well as a local instance of DB2. Mostly as you can see, its Java based, so memory usage will be fairly straight forward as it all gets eaten up on app start, and the variations that we see are from DB2. (I could use a remote DB and alleviate the memory variation all-together, which is something I will be doing with all deployments from now on).

Firstly now, the CPU Usage, throughout the day with constant use of the machine, averaged out to ~5%. Am certain this isn’t unheard of, for those that actual look at their data centres and the individual/un-optimized servers. Disk usage, aligns quite nicely with the Memory footprint, which once again points to DB2 doing its job.

So what can I improve here? -  I can do several things:

1. remove local DB, and deploy into a contained VM cluster, or just point it at a dedicated machine (which will also be a VM)
2. if I offload the DB, I can increase the heap size within WebSphere for increased startup time, and overall performance
3. put more machines onto this single Blade

Realising the first two points only after looking at the graphs (to write this post), I still haven’t implemented them. I did though – do the third.

CPU Usage - 3 Machines

Disk Usage - 3 Machines

Memory Usage - 3 Machines

Very quickly you realise that although there’s an abundance of processing power, there’s just not enough RAM on the host blade. The ration of Ghz to Gbyte’s of RAM is about 3:1, instead it should be at the very least 1:1. Keep this a consideration next time have to put a new purchase order for more machines.

In the beginning of the post, I mentioned that the current blade host although more powerful than the original home of this software stack, it is far more scalable, and that is one of the reasons why I wanted to transfer and consolidate the numerous x345’s we have onto several blades. Most of the x345’s that were hosting servers are now turned off, the remaining few, I’m building a storage cluster with, to act as a iSCSI target server for the ESX’ed Blades.

What was satisfying was some people commenting on how fast the servers responded, little did they know that they were virtualized. Lesson: don’t buy 20 cheap and nasty servers, but a blade centre and start populating it as your budget permits.

The logical progression of the thin-client cloud movement is that it comes to the masses. We’ve seen numerous advances in Virtualisation technology purchases from the Citrix mob with Xen, VMWare’s long pedigree, and the new entrant Sun’s VirtualBox. All these are great, but are missing the point of mainstream adoption outside the enterprise. This can only occur when virtualization is no longer about just server consolidation and cycle saving.

Apple is building a server-farm, can this be a prelude and foundation of what is to become the delivery mechanism for the VOS (Virtual OS) ? My prediction is that within 2 years, not only will there be a smaller device that you are able to take around in the form of a tablet, but more importantly is its integration with your persistent presence.

A simple scenario is you working on a document or watching a movie on your Mac at home, after which you must leave. Without turning anything off, you merely take your tablet/light-weight computing unit, and proceed on your trip. Once on a bus, you will be able to resume your document editing, movie watching experience exactly where you left off.

Current core strengths within Apple do not include OS abstraction and Virtualization (I’m not counting Rosetta, as that wasn’t developed inhouse), so Apple’s next purchase should be a player in Virtualization delivery, or at least see a partnership emerge – Citrix – wink*wink*nudge*

Going green? Or going neat? Get rid of that paper!

Think of all the bills, invoices, warranty cards, tax refunds and bank statements that you file away, day after day. The problem here is that paper is bulky, and takes up a lot of physical space, especially if you’re an owner of a filing cabinet.

My hope for this task was to achieve a state where I can be light on my feet, Read more »

To add to the ever increasing arsenal of gadgets to never leave at home, comes the BT-1000P GPS Logger.

Having recently purchased the unit, especially for the purpose tagging all the photos for an upcoming trip, I flew away extremely happy, Read more »

Apple and their quality control leaves to be desired, especially on their last revision of the MacBook Pro’s.

Late last week I purchased the MBP from Apple’s Online store. Thinking about the resale value, I decided to spec up the bottom model. I added: Read more »

This morning, Apple announced the much speculated and predicted MacBook Air. An ultra portable laptop that in the price range sits between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro [that's if you're considering the old decrepit PATA drive, instead of the SSD], otherwise it is the most expensive laptop in the MacBook range. Read more »

Photos are the most precious material possession anyone owns, and should be the first to be saved in the case of a fire.

So how does one provide the appropriate backup solution to safeguard their cherished memories? My general approach to backing up the photos is by no means simple, yet it does the job. Read more »

It is no secret that Google wants to be ‘the’ company of the millennium and beyond, especially with it [Google] courting medicine. Without a doubt that you will within 10 years see Google as the dominant force in ALL advertising, be it your fridge, washing machine, television and the soon to be supposedly unveiled GPhone.

Although what does this mean for the likes of Apple? Who just recently unveiled the much sought after iPhone. Will the company that lives and breathes innovation and the ‘betterment’ of your personal computer experience come under fire from those at Googleplex?

Google’s strategy is great, and I applaud its flawless execution. They design and develop a great search engine, and with the profits buy their way into each and every foreseeable industry – thus not limiting themselves to the cash-cow that is AdWords. With each acquisition they will ‘Googlify’/tweak it to the users. Where to from here?

The Romsturdamus Predictions:

• Products
  • GPhone
  • GNav [incar navigation]
  • GOOS [Google Online OS - online/web]

• At first it will be the iPhone, and the trampling of the market-share of Apple
• It is always about the actual hardware design as it is about software; at the moment, the TomTom ‘package’ – is simply the best, software and units.
  • Either Google will partner up with TomTom (especially now that most of the maps provided to Google in Europe are owned by TomTom’s recent acquisition of TeleAtlas), or buy them out. Simply doesn’t make sense to have TomTom produce units with Google’s GNav software on it.
• Last but not least, GOS – Google Online Operating System. Sooner or later this too will happen, and what will happen to the incumbents such as Apple and Microsoft?

Google Logo – Google Inc.

Globe – PixEmonkey

I just tried out Joost – the P2P Online TV. Must say, am very impressed.

Not only at the variety of channels offered, but also the quality of the stream – mind you, a decent connection is a must.

A friend of mine I did notice that given some more unpopular channels, such as Poker – WPT, there does seem to be some intermittent dropping of video. Although this is a given, since this is only a BETA – and not all users are saturating the pipes yet.

Speaking of pipes. I noticed that having Joost running grabs at least 80-100kb/s on average, which must be the reading ahead that it does.

Unfortunately I was unable to run Joost when having no Internet connectivity. “Obviously” some will exclaim, yet the reason I wanted to try it – is, if I want to pre-buffer say an episode of FifthGear Porche review and watch it on the train on my way home, as I currently do with my Media Centre and it’s recorded programmes. Well no can do. Perhaps it’s something that might come out in the final release (am not holding my breath).

I enjoyed the experience, so should everyone else. If you’re short of an invite, drop me a line.