Cameron Sturdevant

My colleague Michael Vizard covered Cisco’s announcement of the ASR 1000 at CeBIT. I’m anxious to get a look at Cisco’s new ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Router with Cisco IOS XE. The platform is supposed to be able to offer high availability for IPsec VPN, firewall services, NetFlow event logging, and DDoS detection and […]

Aside from VKernel, I’m not seeing a lot of choice for IT managers who want to enable chargeback for virtual infrastructure costs. However, I met today with virtual test lab management toolmaker Surgient and got a little more insight into some ways IT managers might think about chargeback. Erik Josowitz, a VP at Surgient, suggested […]

My news colleague Clint Boulton got a look at IBM’s three-dimensional data center modeling software tool. IBM’s 3-D data center management system is actually quite retro … CA developed a 3-D interface for its Unicenter system management platform in 1997. I think 3-D interfaces are as bad an idea today as they were when I […]

Novell announced today (Feb. 25) that it was acquiring PlateSpin, a data center virtualization management tool maker. As I’ve been covering how to prevent virtual machine sprawl, I’m interested in getting a look at what PlateSpin brings to the table, in particular the PowerRecon and PowerConvert products that enable virtual machine chargeback and usage accounting […]

I’ve just returned from the Emerald City (Oracle’s Redwood Shores HQ) where I was given a demo of the latest version of Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control, Release 4. After reviewing Oracle Database 11g I felt it was time to take a look at Grid Control R4, released in November 2007. I was just […]

It was said of the Chicago stockyards that they used every part of the pig except the squeal. The same can be said of the Internet search industry. For some time, ISPs and others, including no-cost DNS provider OpenDNS, have been squeezing every last penny out of Internet search by providing alternative suggestions when users […]

Getting Virtualization Right- Getting Virtualization Right- IT managers must leverage existing knowledge of the physical systems along with the logical network layout of those systems. Virtual systems must exist on physical hosts, and these physical hosts provide clues about the most effective architecture for implementing virtual systems. Getting Virtualization Right- Survey the workloads that will […]

Companies have embraced virtualization for the many efficiencies the technology brings to the data center. But with the increasing use of virtualization comes an increasing challenge: managing and securing all those virtual server instances. In fact, the benefits of virtualization are eroded when virtual machines are not controlled by a life-cycle process. VM sprawl-the creation […]

After a series of service outages drew sharp attention to a server-based system that was built more than 10 years ago, WiscNet decided it was time to look into options for replacing its aging Domain Name System. WiscNet-the education and research network provider for K-12 schools, colleges and universities in Wisconsin-is running a DNS system […]

How did the Apple store get my e-mail address when all I bought was a case for my iPhone? Several readers of this blog pointed out that I gave Apple my e-mail when I registered for iTunes. And that is true. I also now believe that AT&T didn’t give my private information to Apple. And […]

Cisco 6500 Goes Virtual This screen shows two stand-alone Catalyst 6500 switches equipped with the Virtual Switching Supervisor 720-10G blade, both running HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol) and ready to be converted into a single virtual switch with Cisco’s Virtual Switching System 1440. Both switches must have the latest supervisor blade. Cisco 6500 Goes Virtual […]

eWEEK Labs Walk-Through: Brocade DCX Datacenter Backbone The DCX chassis is a 16U (28-inch) box with a maximum of 448 ports. Two chassis can be used in tandem, increasing the maximum number of ports to 896. eWEEK Labs Walk-Through: Brocade DCX Datacenter Backbone – Ingress Rate Limiting Link 3 Port 2 with ingress rate limiting […]