Practical Technology

It’s a computing truism that when it comes to delivering the fastest possible speeds with high-performance computing (HPC), you must use native computing instead of virtualization. Recent studies have shown that, in some configurations, VMware’s vSphere can actually deliver faster performance than native computing. Yes, virtualization is faster (sometimes) than native hardware. More >

The New York Times (NYT) Web site is down. The site went down at approximately 11:40 AM Eastern Daylight Savings time (EDT). New York Times Website goes down. More >

Most Mac and Linux users think anything Windows can do their operating systems can do better. Often, they’re right, but then there comes that day when they really need to run that one special Windows application and then they’re stuck. Run Windows apps on both OS X & Linux with CrossOver 12.5. More >

No one doubts that Android is the number one smartphone operating system and that Apple’s iOS is number two. The real question is “Who will be number three?” Windows Phone is moving up; Blackberry is imploding; and, the Linux-based Ubuntu and Firefox want to be in the mix as well. What’s a would-be number three […]

What I find most remarkable about all the hubbub about the National Security Agency’s Prism program is how little new “news” there is to Edward Snowden’s “revelations.” After all, the NSA’s mission has been to intercept communications and break codes ever since it was founded in 1952. Combine that with the Patriot Act, and anyone [...]

The OpenDaylight Project, the Linux Foundation-led industry-supported open source framework to advance Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is coming together more quickly than many people expected. On July 25, OpenDaylight announced that many new technology contributions are being integrated into the project. OpenDaylight Software-Defined Networking Codebase coming together. More >

Anyone can set up and run a single server instance on a cloud. That’s easy. Few people can set up multiple server instances on a cloud that can efficiently and automatically shift gears to match the rise and fall of user demand. That’s hard. And that’s where cloud configuration management programs such as Puppet, Chef, [...]

Three years ago, on July 19th, 2010, Rackspace and NASA introduced OpenStack. Then, it was just another cloud stack project, a promising one but only one among many. Fast forward to today and OpenStack’s list of backers is a technology giant’s who’s who: HP, IBM, Red Hat, VMware, the list goes on and on. How [...]

Say you want a private cloud, but you also want to be able to expand out into the public cloud when you must? What can you do? One answer is use Eucalyptus 3.3, which can work hand in glove with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. Eucalyptus 3.3 arrives with additional Amazon cloud features. More [...]

Cheap, low-end PCs – such as the Raspberry Pi and Parallella — have become quite popular with do-it-yourself fans. Now, CompuLab, an Israeli computer OEM, is throwing its hat into the ring with its $99 Utilite mini-PC, which might also serve businesses well. Meet Utilite, new Raspberry Pi rival. More >

Oracle has decided to stop development on its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Sun Ray Software and Hardware, and Oracle Virtual Desktop Client product lines. Some Oracle partners, which received the news over the weekend, are not happy with this change. Oracle to halt development of Sun virtualization technologies. More >