OpenStack is not for the enterprise

OpenStack backers scoff at the notion that the open source platform is not meant for enteprises. “We’ve seen significant traction from service providers globally, but we’ve also seen significant demand for OpenStack on-premise, hosted private and hybrid cloud by both medium and large enterprises,” wrote Lauren Sell, who manages public relations for OpenStack. Bloomberg, Fidelity, Best Buy, Cisco WebEx and Comcast have all shared their experiences using OpenStack, she notes.

via VMware CEO: OpenStack is not for the enterprise – Network World.

Hyperloop

The Hyperloop or something similar is, in my opinion, the right solution for the specific case of high traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart. Around that inflection point, I suspect that supersonic air travel ends up being faster and cheaper. With a high enough altitude and the right geometry, the sonic boom noise on the ground would be no louder than current airliners, so that isn’t a showstopper. Also, a quiet supersonic plane immediately solves every long distance city pair without the need for a vast new worldwide infrastructure.

via Hyperloop | Blog | Tesla Motors.

Microsoft to Squeeze Datacenters on Price of WinServer 2012 R2

Microsoft Corp. plans to raise the price of the Datacenter edition of the upcoming R2 release of Windows Server 2012 by 28 percent, adding to what analysts call a record number of price increases for enterprise software products from Redmond.

According to licensing data sheets available for download from the Windows Server 2012 R2 Website (PDF), the price of a single license of Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter will be $6,155, compared to $4,809 today—plus the cost of a Client Access Licenses (CAL) for every user or device connecting to the server.

via Microsoft to Squeeze Datacenters on Price of WinServer 2012 R2.

The evolution of the NSA’s XKeyscore

In the current generation of Narus’ system, the processing systems run on commodity Linux servers and re-assemble network sessions as they’re captured, mining them for metadata, file attachments, and other application data and then indexing and dumping that information to a searchable database.

via Building a panopticon: The evolution of the NSA’s XKeyscore | Ars Technica.

To Our Customers | Silent Circle Blog

However, we have reconsidered this position. We’ve been thinking about this for some time, whether it was a good idea at all. Today, another secure email provider, Lavabit, shut down their system lest they “be complicit in crimes against the American people.” We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now. We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now.

via To Our Customers | Silent Circle Blog.

Hybrid Drives Don’t Need More Than 8GB Of NAND

The study essentially proves that, at least in the workplace, any amount of NAND memory larger than 10GB would have a limited impact on performance. Of course, data-intensive tasks like analytics or video rendering, where fresh data is being accessed all the time, would benefit from larger amounts of faster memory, but an average user is unlikely to notice the difference between SSD and SSHD.

via Seagate: Hybrid Drives Don’t Need More Than 8GB Of NAND.