ITE221 – Fall 2011 – Chapter 14

Site reviewed: http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/news/1355038/Hardware-standardization-benefits-cloud-computing-virtualization

For Chapter 14, I visited SearchCloudComputing, a TechTarget website (free registration is required), to read an article on standardizing corporate IT hardware as applied to cloud computing. In the article, the author (Bridget Botelho) argues that standardizing server hardware has made sense in the past and makes even more as more and more companies move to a cloud-computing environment. She states that virtualization and cloud computing will drive standardization, since organizations will want to move their applications and data from one cloud environment to another, which will be much simpler if the organization’s hardware is relatively standardized (as opposed to a collection of widely-disparate parts). She does point out that even as virtualization and cloud computing push organizations towards standardization, OEMs are producing more and more different hardware options for various market segments – branch offices, smaller businesses, data centers, etc. – leading at least part of the market away from complete standardization.

Ultimately, I think that there are pros and cons to the argument that standardization will be helpful to organizations wanting to get into cloud computing. I don’t believe that complete standardization is the answer, personally – there are always going to be market segments where it just won’t make sense to buy a server rack to meet organizational computing needs, because a laptop is a better fit. However, for a given market segment, specifically, that segment looking to use cloud computing – standardization of associated hardware, at least to some extent, does make sense to me.

ITE221 – Fall 2011 – Chapter 13

Site reviewed: http://www.isoc.org/

For Chapter 13, I visited the Internet Society’s website. ISOC, according to their “About ISOC” page, is a non-profit organization founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education and policy, dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. They are also the home for the groups responsible for the Internet’s infrastructure standards, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). According to their Membership section, anyone can join at either a free or sustaining (paid-membership) level, and participate in conferences, lectures, and local group chapters. At http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml, they have a “Brief History of the Internet", written by some of the individuals responsible for the Internet as we know it today; at http://www.isoc.org/tools/blogs/scenarios/, ISOC lays out several scenarios detailing how the Internet might evolve over the next 10 years or so; and at http://www.isoc.org/internet/issues/, they address a number of issues with the Internet as it is and as it is developing, such as access to the Internet, innovation, intellectual property, IPv6, Net neutrality, security, and spam, among others – each of these has its own page, going into a fair amount of detail on the subject. All in all, for anyone researching the early days of the Internet, technical details about how it works, the possible directions it might be going – really, just about anything having to do with the Internet! – this would be the best place I could think of to start. There’s a lot of fascinating reading here – I’ll be coming back here once I have a little more time to spend on exploring, I think.

ITE221 – Fall 2011 – Chapter 12

Site reviewed: http://www.freenas.org/

For Chapter 12, I visited FreeNAS.org, a site dedicated to creation and support of an open-source network-attached-storage solution. The main page is pretty bare-bones, with no ornamentation and few links. It has the fairly-standard dropdown menu across the top of the main page, with an About tab (news, information about project members, and partners & sponsors), a Features tab where you can compare the newest release of FreeNAS with earlier versions, a Support tab with chat, community-forum, commercial support, mailing list subscription links, and bug reporting, a Documentation tab, and a Search bar, along with small icons linking to social-networking sites. Down the page, there is a section for the latest FreeNAS news, with much of the rest of the site appearing to act as copies of the links accessible through the top toolbar. It wasn’t until I got most of the way to the bottom that I found a “What is FreeNAS” link, which takes the reader to a page which offers brief, friendly descriptions of what network attached storage is and why it might be useful, and what FreeBSD (the OS which runs FreeNAS, a Unix-like OS) is. Overall, there’s not a whole lot to this website – most of the action appears to be on the user community, in the forums, where one can find do-it-yourself guides to building and/or setting up one’s own NAS device, and tweaking it to give the best possible performance. If you’re looking for generic information on network-attached storage, this might not be the best choice for you. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for information on how to build your own, or hack existing hardware to run FreeNAS, you’d be well served by spending some time browsing the forums.

ITE221 – Fall 2011 – Chapter 11

Site reviewed: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/home.

For Chapter 11, I visited Microsoft.com’s Windows site. Windows, of course, is the industry-leading personal computer operating system. The Windows website, like most product websites from major manufacturers, provides links across the top of the page to things like a products page, a page dedicated to exploring Windows’ various capabilities, the Microsoft online store, a downloads page for both Windows and add-ons, and a “Help & How-to” page for customer support. There is a series of links to associated Windows-related social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, the Windows team blog – and a host of assorted ad links for Microsoft/Windows-related add-ons and products such as SkyDrive (a Windows Live cloud-storage service), Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft’s free antivirus program), and a preview of the upcoming Windows 8 OS. The page is heavily oriented towards consumers, as opposed to IT professionals, hyping the entertainment options afforded by Windows, but there is a row of links towards the bottom of the page which includes info for IT professionals and developers, among others. For troubleshooting problems with Windows, or evaluating version suitability for home or office, this is the go-to site.

ITE221 – Fall 2011 – Chapter 10

Site reviewed: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/index.html

For Chapter 10, I visited Oracle’s site for Java developers. Java is an Object Oriented Language widely used for small web-page applications referred to as applets, which can be run on a wide variety of hardware. The site provides links to Oracle’s main site (Products, Solutions, Downloads, Store, Support, Training, Partners, About, and Oracle Technology Network), with the rest of the page devoted to Java Developer links. There is a section for downloading various versions of Java, a series of links to APIs, technical articles, certification and training, a Java bug database, and to a variety of Java-oriented social-networking sites and forums. The “Developer Spotlight” section has a number of news articles, and there is also a blog section for the very latest Java news from Oracle. For those interested in learning about Java, beginning certification training on it, or attempting to resolve Java-related issues on one’s system, this would be THE place to start.

ITE221 - Fall 2011 - Chapter 9

Site reviewed: http://www.vonage.com/

For Chapter 9, I reviewed Vonage’s United States webpage. Vonage is one of the major commercial providers of Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) telephone services in the U.S., and offers worldwide phone service at reasonable prices. The site has links along the top for a number of important pages, including overview and FAQ pages, a calling plan page with pricing for various levels of service, a features page, and a support page. The service will function with most regular phones, as Vonage will provide customers with an adapter which connects phones to the Internet. Like most VOIP services, Vonage-connected phones will not function during power outages – they inform customers that they should enter a Network Availability Number, which will forward calls to a landline or mobile phone when the Vonage adapter is affected by an outage – and they state that home alarm systems do not work with Vonage. There is a link at the bottom describing their workaround for 911 services – the user fills out a registration for during sign-up, and Vonage passes the user’s home address and phone number on to the appropriate 911 emergency call center during a 911 call, if the user is in an E911 area.  Under certain circumstances, the user will still have to tell the dispatcher their phone number and address, and of course the service will not function during a power or Internet service failure. As long as the limitations are understood, this seems like a viable alternative for phone services for users in areas not subject to frequent power or Internet service interruptions.

ITE221 - Fall 2011 - Chapter 8

Site reviewed: http://www.wimax.com/

For Chapter 8, I reviewed Wimax.com, a page from Broadband Solutions Incorporated. WiMAX, as we learned in our Chapter 8 reading, is a wireless broadband standard (IEEE 802.16) which is intended to permit high-speed mobile wireless access over a large geographical region like a city (a metropolitan area network, or MAN), or long-distance, high-speed Internet access between widely separated fixed points, as much as 50 kilometers apart. It is not a competitor to 802.11 wireless networks, which tend to be much smaller in size (a few dozen to a few hundred meters), but does face competition from more-standard Internet service networks, as they continue to expand their service areas. The page provides resources along the left side, including an overview and FAQ page, as well as white papers, webinars, and a community form. Though small in size, the links to the left constitute the bulk of useful content on the page, as the rest of the main page is comprised of a few fairly brief blurbs with links to larger articles, and a page scroller at the bottom of the site leads to older stories. This is a provider’s website, and thus is prone to bias, but there is enough useful information in the left-side linked pages to make this a worthwhile visit for someone seeking more detail on how WiMAX works and what its benefits might be.

ITE221 - Fall 2011 - Chapter 7

Site reviewed: http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html

For Chapter 7, I reviewed Nvidia.com’s US website. Nvidia is one of the two major manufacturers of video cards and integrated-video chipsets (the other being Advanced Micro Devices). As is typical for manufacturers’ websites, Nvidia’s has links to their products, to places where they may be purchased, a user-community forum for discussions relating to their products, a downloads section for acquiring updated drivers for their products, and a troubleshooting/customer support section.  Also on their front page were promotional links to some of their top draws, in this case to their new 3D display technology, a new Sony tablet using an Nvidia chipset, a GPU technology conference taking place in Beijing in December, and instructions on how to get a free copy of the upcoming game ‘Batman: Arkham City’ with the purchase of one of Nvidia’s graphics cards. Below the main links described above, there are also assorted other text links, including a sweepstakes giving away an Alienware laptop (one in October and one in November), information geared towards use of Nvidia’s business-related graphics cards, and promotional materials about Nvidia’s Tesla GPUs as used in parallel processing and heterogeneous computing, which will be one of the topics at SC2011 in Seattle (SC 2011 is a conference on supercomputing, being held in Seattle WA in November; the keynote speech will be given by the CEO of Nvidia).

As always, a manufacturer’s website will be biased in favor of its own products, but for a place to start research on graphics capabilities in modern computers, to acquire specs on existing hardware, or to troubleshoot a malfunctioning GPU, Nvidia would be a good place to start.

ITE221 - Fall 2011 - Chapter 6

Site reviewed: http://flac.sourceforge.net/

For Chapter 6, I visited FLAC.sourceforge.net. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and is (just like the name says) a lossless compression codec for audio files. It is open-source. According to the site, it is fast and offers the user a number of features similar to those available in lossy compression formats such as MP3 - things like widespread hardware support, metadata tagging, seeking functions, and streaming capability. As a lossless format, it is well-suited to archiving purposes – if the user wishes to use FLAC to store copies of his personal CD collection, he can be assured of exact, bit-for-bit copies in an error-resistant format. The site has a large FAQ, which instructs the user in installing and using FLAC on Windows, Mac, and Linux/Unix personal computers, along with a Download section, News, Documentation, and even a Comparison page to compare FLAC to a variety of other lossless audio codecs. Free to download and use, archival-quality, and user friendly, FLAC sounds like a near-ideal choice for anyone needing to make lossless copies of his audio files.

ITE221 - Fall 2011 - Chapter 5

Website: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/

For Chapter 5’s website review, I’m looking at the manufacturer’s website for Seagate, one of the major manufacturers of consumer- and business-grade hard-disk drives. As with any manufacturer’s website, it is an excellent resource for technical details on their own products, but exposes the reader to the possibility of bias in favor of their own products. There are promotional links to various flagship products made by Seagate, touting the speed and reliability of their drives; there is a support section for contacting Customer Service with a problem, reading through the Knowledge Base to fix a problem yourself, directions for installation of a drive or other Seagate product and registering a newly-purchased drive, or acquiring up-to-date firmware for one’s own drive; and sections for each of Seagate’s various product families (internal desktop or laptop drives, network attached storage units, servers, etc.), as well as a promotion for a webinar covering “Enterprise vs. Client SSDs’, taking place next week on October 18^th. With Seagate drives being found in numerous major manufacturers’ computers, and their drives populating rows of shelves in computer-parts stores like Micro Center, an easy-to-navigate site like Seagate’s is a pleasure and arguably a necessity.

ITE221 - Fall 2011 - Chapter 4

Website: http://forwardthinking.pcmag.com/chips/285876-coming-this-fall-amd-s-bulldozer-vs-new-versions-of-intel-s-sandy-bridge#fbid=pAVsMrRsll6
(edited due to incorrect link)

For Chapter 4’s website review, I look at an article from PCMag.com’s ‘Forward Thinking’ column, by Michael J. Miller. In his article dated August 4, 2011, Mr. Miller compares upcoming processors from Intel (code named ‘Sandy Bridge-E’, and marketed under the Core i3, i5, and i7 names) and AMD (using that company’s new ‘Bulldozer’ technology). He briefly examines the architecture of AMD’s Bulldozer CPUs, which are built on modules which each contain two integer cores and a single floating point core, plus a shared instruction cache and fetch and decode logic. The first implementations of this architecture are planned to use 4 modules (so 8 integer/4 floating-point cores per CPU), as compared to Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E chips which have 6 or 8 cores, each of which has both an integer and a floating-point core and is “hyperthreaded” (able to handle two processing threads at once). AMD reportedly hopes to use this new technology to pursue gains in midrange desktop units, leaving the high-end desktop system market to Intel (a position AMD has taken for several years now), and also to capture some of the server market, where Intel has shown massive dominance. Mr. Miller expresses interest in seeing how the actual chips in question perform respective to each other, once they reach market (the Bulldozer chips have just recently been released, while the newest Sandy Bridge-E chips are not yet on the market).

ITE221 - Fall 2011 - Chapter 3

Site reviewed: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa289148(v=VS.71).aspx

The site I looked at in connection with Chapter 3 in my text was Part 1 of “An Extensive Examination of Data Structures”, as applied to Microsoft’s .NET Framework, and was hosted on Microsoft’s MSDN Library page. Part 1 (of 6) is the Introduction to the full article (including a look at what topics will be covered in the other sections), takes a look at efficiency of data structures and why that’s important, and examines the Array and ArrayList structures, which are the most common structures used in .NET. The author points out why efficiency is important in consideration of data structures – they’ll need to be searched, and search time will determine performance of the overall program, so if you can use a data structure which can be searched faster, the user will be more satisfied with the program’s performance. He goes on to give information about arrays – they are the simplest, most-widely used data structures in .NET. The contents of an array are stored in contiguous memory, and must all be of the same type (arrays are homogenous structures); arrays can be accessed directly, without going through each element of the array, if you know what location the desired element is stored at. He goes on to lay out some code for an example of array construction, and points out that in order to redimension an array (change it’s size), a new array must be created which copies the old one’s data into itself and has the desired extra room.

            Next, the author introduces ArrayLists, and explains why one might wish to use them instead of arrays. Where arrays are homogenous and must have a specifically-allocated amount of space (a specified number of elements), arraylists may have multiple data types through the use of objects containing potentially-different data types and the number of elements in an arraylist need not be specified (although they can be, if the programmer wishes) – an arraylist automatically is created with 16 spaces for data elements, and if an addition would exceed the space available for elements, the arraylist is automatically redimensioned to double its size. This can make it more convenient to use, but comes at the cost of performance, since more actions take place when reading or writing to the arraylist. The self-redimensioning, on the other hand, should not cause a performance hit compared to an array, according to the author.

            Overall, this seems like a fairly trustworthy look at data structures used in Microsoft .NET – the author is not trying to sell anything, and seems to be a sufficiently-authoritative source. This and the follow-on sections appear to be a good source for information.