Links - 08/06/2007

In the interest of increasing my post frequency while not increasing the workload it imposes, I thought I'd take a hint from some of the more popular bloggers in my blogspace. Starting today, I will try to show everyone what I am reading online, and why I think it has importance (if any) to Service Level Automation and utility computing.

This will not replace my longer posts covering key topics in SLAuto or utility computing. I simply intend it to replace my tendency to put an interesting post or article aside saying "I'll blog on that some day", never to return.

Here goes day 1:

Sometimes 69 million > 143 million (Isabel Wang): I've talked before about the great consolidation of computing capacity that is coming our way. (Not a complete consolidation, mind you--there will always be private data centers for highly secure applications, and I believe there will be dozens of "boutique" capacity providers.) Isabel is covering Amazon's new payment service here, but her last paragraph on the winning providers supplying framework and application layers in addition to pure hardware capacity is right on the money.

EPA sends final report on data center energy efficiency to Congress (SearchDataCenter.com): It should be obvious why is important to SLAuto/Utility Computing/whatever. The chart from the executive summary says it all: we are on the hook as an industry to improve our practices as it relates to both utilization and power management. Have you thought about what that will take in your data center?

Virtualization users say, 'Better management tools, please' (SearchServerVirtualization.com): Another Survey reinforcing what we've been saying all along; if you jump into the virtualization bandwagon, that's great, but be prepared for a management nightmare. While I would agree that improving the "virtualization awareness" of traditional management tools might help, I would argue that you still have too much volume to handle without automation. In this context, when you see "management", I recommend that you think automation.

Microsoft Building the Ultimate Spyware System (Jek Hui): Of the many posts covering Ray Ozzie's overview of Microsoft's utility computing play, I chose this one a) for the headline, and b) for the generally succinct coverage of Ray's comments. Believe me, if Microsoft can really overcome the "innovator's dilemma" and make this work, they will knock two or three of the utility computing competitors out of the race. So far, it's Google vs. Amazon (see above), but I like Microsoft's chances here. Will the service be sensitive to the needs and privacy of its users? I know where I'd put my money...