Posts by Trevor_Pott 6991 publicly visible posts • joined 31 May 2010
Ah, you're right, I goofed on the calculations. Still, $30k for such a system isn't bad at all, mate. That's a hell of a lot of compute for that price.
"Is there any other reason to choose this server unless you need to drive 4 Tesla cards in 2U? And, as you propose scenario of a rack full of such servers why not go for 4U units such as the 4028GR-TR that can take 8 such cards? What would be the benefit for either approach?"
There isn't, really, a good reason to pick one over the other that is universal. The world isn't quite so black and white and each of these systems have a reason to be. It really boils down to "can your workloads make use of X amount of oomph per node". To be perfectly honest, we're running in to issues driving 4 GPUs in a single node, and these aren't the top end GPUs. 8 per node starts getting into the "having specialist HPC code" territory.
I suspect 2 GPUs is the sweet spot for many workload, with 4 GPUs being the border of what's workable with selfware today.
"You mention that "the maximum amount of compute capacity you can cram in to 2U of rack space" but that's only the amount of GPU compute power you can cram into this - there are 2U servers with 4 Xeons and which can take more RAM."
GPUs > CPUs in terms of compute. Though I do understand you on the RAM thing. Believe it or not, I have a pretty in depth article on the discussion between both and why sometimes RAM matters (holding billions of variables, etc.)
"Why didn't SM settle for PCIe M.2 if they oppose industry standard USB and SD?"
Actually, this is an emerging standard where power is supplied as part of the SATA port. It's quite common on a number of systems. NVMe setups use it, for example. (Though in the case of NVMe there is also a connector for the PCI-E lane.)
Those (M.2) are not capacity limited, they're cheaper, abundant and several times faster
M.2 connectors are, for the most part, better. There are issues about "where do you put the smeggling thing" on a system crammed that densely, which is why I suspect that they've stuck with the SuperDOM. I should point out here, however, that SuperDOM is not entirely proprietary. Plenty of folks make SATA flash drives that are powered by the SATA port in much the same way. For reasons I don't entirely understand the industry seems to be moving to M.2 for consumer/SMB level hardware and these powered SATA drives for server stuff. I actually have been gathering info to deep dive into the whys of it.
So it worked according to the specs. How about that!
Which is actually quite amazing. Plenty of systems I've tested don't work within the claimed operating temperatures. Supermicro consistently does. Given the power density of this unit, I'm quite surprised that they managed it.
The evidence is that Elliott is an asset stripper that guts companies, sells off everything worth selling and then exits just before the stock price implodes and the company finally collapses. They, like Carl Ichann, are all about massively increasing short term gain at the expense of any semblance of long term viability.
Citrix is completely and utterly fucked. Done. Finshed. Kaput. Last one out the door turn off the lights.
Where in this article does Jennifer express an opinion that privacy is worthless? Such an opinion would be entirely against everything she has ever written. I might as well say that you are attacking her simply because she is female author, call you a misogynist and imply you shove your overinflated head up your ever so tightly close asshole.
But I wouldn't, because you haven't said anything that indicated that you're actually being a misogynist. You are, however, clearly illiterate, so I'll recommend remedial education instead.
4037 at present. No sarcasm.
For every article I am currently researching and/or writing there is a browser window open with potentially huge numbers of tabs. I don't have to track all tabs; only what each window in the stack's "topic" is.
I have a window for communitcation/evangelism (read: twitter and blogs)
I have a window for Path of Exile related tomfoolery
I have a window for multimedia (read: youtube) that I periodically listen to/watch.
These are all "living" windows. The tabs change frequently as things are opened and closed. Bookmarks don't cut it. Entire windows full of tabs - sometimes hundreds of tabs - will be closed all at once as soon as the relevant article for that topic is done.
I'm a writer. And I write for you lot. That requires absolutely stupid amounts of research. Commentards are vicious, remorseless internet piranhas that enjoy nothing better than tearing writers' very souls apart for the smallest mistake.
So: no sarcasm. 4000+ tabs.
And this 2011 Alienware MX18 just fucking delivers. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! And if you think that's torturing a system, you should see what I'm doing to the Broadwell Xeon I'm testing.
Oh wait, you will, because I'm writing that review right...about....>clickty<
All of us make someone else rich - government, CEO, shareholders, partners, etc.
But why would or should I give up even a second of unpaid time to do so? Hmm?
You signed up to do your job and, let me guess, "other duties as assigned" or some other vague, open ended clause. If not, quit, and find a new job. Either way, stop acting like a teenager who doesn't get their way.
I did quit, ya arse. That doesn't mean I, or anyone else should take it on the chin from others just because you personally enjoy making other people rich in your spare time.
Because if there is a data breach and you work for an SME, then kiss your job and income goodbye.
Then do it now and don't delay. There will be data breaches. They are inevitable and cannot be fully prevented. Prevention is only one part of security. There is also detection/monitoring mitigation and incident response.
If you are in a position where you will lose your job because of a data breach then get the hell out right now. Period. Especially since you cannot properly educate or control an unwilling company or it's employees, not matter how many other people's jobs you do while trying.
Its different work, for the same pay. A company pays for your time and skills. As long as they deem to utilize them properly, then I see no problem.
It's more work for the same pay. The company doesn't pay per hour. They never do. They pay a flat salary and expect you to deliver on X deliverables. Because of this it's seen as okay to just ask IT to do the work of multiple people.
No problem, right? Wrong. We didn't sign up to be learning technology, sales, marketing, and politics and implementing that all in the job. Where and when are you going to learn this? Are you paid for that training time? For the courses? Are you going to be paid for all the overtime? Are the expectations on deliverables and timeframes for the technology projects going to become more reasonable as a consequence of having to take on these other jobs?
Of course not. You are just expected to stand and deliver. Well fuck that. Fuck that hard.
If you want to give up your personal time making someone else rich, then you're nuts.
If it improves security and makes our job easier - fuck yes!
Why should IT care about security unless they're being paid to? And why should they do anything that "makes their job easier" if it means more work for less pay? That's the opposite of an easier job! If the job is more crap then pay more. Simples.
Now stop being a whiny bitch, its not like its your personal money!
It's my personal time. And if I don't bitch about people treating IT staff like shit, they'll just keep dumping on IT staff and treating them like shit. IT staff are worth more than that.
You are an IT journalist and you think things should not change in IT?
Lots of things should change in IT. Clearly, you and I disagree with which ones.
What world are you living in?
A world in which discrimination against introverts is considered to be every bit as discriminator as discriminating against women, or individuals of colour, or...
IT evolves faster than most fields, not only in tech but in what IT does
I agree. But you are attempting to say that in addition to IT staff having to keep up with their own specialty evolving at breakneck pace that - to be perfectly blunt - most people wouldn't be able to cope with, they need to take on ever more other people's jobs so that those people can do less and less work.
That's bullshit of the highest order.
Decades ago there was not such a big pool of people to fill IT jobs. You could be that asocial guy. Now there is a huge glut of people who can fill those jobs and so they also need to have other skills to gain an edge over the competition to get those jobs. One of those skills is communication, welcome to IT in 2015!
Actually, there's a dearth of experts and specialists today and a whole lot of barely competent "feelers". You seem to think the latter are a good thing. You are wrong.
IT is about technology. It should retain the top talent for that technology. If you want somewhat technically literate people who specialize in social niceties make them managers, train them as such and have them run interference between the actual people applying the technology and the lazy shits in the rest of the company demanding that IT do everything while they pound their puds all day long.
It is IT's job to communicate about their specialties. Just like it is everyone else's job to communicate about their specialties!
No. nobody else has to communicate about their specialties. Everyone else either has individuals in their departments (typically managers) whose job it is to be that point of contact or they have laws that put the onus on everyone else to learn and obey.
IT is the only department in the modern business place that is being asked to become a "company within a company". Everyone else can balloon in personnel size, have sub specialties, layers of management or simply force other departments to learn by fiat.
IT shouldn't put up with being the whipping boy. Predators prey on the weak, and you are advocating nothing but weakness amidst a sea of predators.
C.O.M.M.U.N.I.C.A.T.I.O.N <-- Learn this.
You still haven't convinced me why I should. Are you bad at communication or something?
@LDS you go to work to work with cool tech and are willing to pay the price of doing multiple people's job to do so.
I want to work with technology specifically because it's a means to make a living without having to deal with people, and I really don't care if the tech is "cool" or not.
I expect in either situation the company will buy the tech that is required to meet their legal and business objectives. Maybe if you politic you can get tech that is beyond those requirements. I'm content to work with tech that is exactly what is required. But yes, I absolutely expect the people in charge to either know enough to select the tech they need, or to read the documents I send them explaining what they need.
Unlike some, I don't gussy up the requests in order to get "cool" tech. I only list what is required. If they can't understand or believe that then they need to hire someone they believe will, in fact, tell them the truth. I should emphatically not have to "sell them" on the idea.
Perhaps you see the difference now between the two approaches and goals?
Would you train a dog by reading procedures to it and threatening it with a stick?
Dogs are willing and able to learn. Most employees aren't.
You'd make it fun and engaging, showing the dog their is a benefit in it (i.e. a treat)
So you want to give treats to everyone in a business in order to do their job by making IT do things they hate?
Fuck you. In the face. With a metric tonne of battery acid.
Personally, I hate the whole fucking idea of "IT" taking responsibility to educate users, thats not what I signed on for - but it looks like we've been lumped with it, so we may as well do it properly.
Why should I do a single thing that isn't what I signed on for unless there is a substantial reward for doing so? Preferably in a large number of additional dollars.
Every job requires some social interaction so in reality you are being asked to do your job
Bullshit. Lots of jobs require no, or extremely marginal amounts of social interaction. For decades IT was one of those. There is no reason for this to change.
If you don't like it, fine, go get another job that you like
And thank you very much, I will. But not because you give me permission. Because fuck you and your arrogant douchbaggery.
or go move to some place in the woods that no human has ever set foot.
Sounds great!
This article is about educating users. If you don't want to educate them then you don't have to, but don't expect end users to know how to do things the way you want them done
The job of the user is to read the information provided about how to use the tools they are provided and comply with that information. If users are "special" and unable to read then the company should provide them a wetnurse who can read the documentation and explain it to them in small enough words. That isn't IT's job, and in no rational world should it be.
Compromise is not weakness.
Yes it is.
It is the only way to work with others for the best solution for everyone.
Except that what is being described isn't the best solution for everyone. It's the best solution for everyone but IT. Compromise involves both sides giving ground in order that both sides achieve gains. IT being the only one who gives ground isn't really compromise. It's defeat.
Yes, sometimes you might get everything you want but most of the time you will have to compromise in life.
Compromise in which both sides give up equal amounts in order to achieve a mutually beneficial end is find. "Compromise" in which you capitulate in order to save those in power a bent pittance (so they can get bonuses) and so that everyone else can get away with doing less while you do ever more isn't "compromise". It's defeat.
An oak and a reed in a storm and all that.
You don't have to worry about oaks, reeds or storms if you live in a sealed underground bunker that is at all times prepared for war. And make no mistake, this is war.
If you are going to work in society then you have to work with people.
I don't want to work "in society". I want to work with computers so that I don't have to work in society. Fuck society.
Is it that hard to understand?
Yes. For decades IT was where people who explicitly didn't want to work with people could go. Those who preferred machines to men; logic to emotion; code to politics. I don't understand why this should change, excepting that corporations are increasingly cheap fucking bastards seeking to save money by forcing IT to have more and more and more and more skills instead of investing in the necessary layers of translation required to allow specialists to remain specialists without trying to force them to also be salespeople, marketers and politicians.
If you are an employee at a company, unless you are one of the lucky few who don't have to deal with people, you have to deal with people on some level.
Do you even read what you write?
Look, for decades IT were "the lucky people" who didn't have to deal with people. Why should we, as IT staff gracefully accept an end to this, instead of fighting the demanded changes with every ounce of our being?
Get used to it.
No.
If you want to be asocial then you can do it on your own time.
Wrong. If you want me to be social then you can pay me significantly more to put up with that shit as well as fix your technowidgets. They are two jobs. You want me to work two jobs then you pay me two salaries.
Yes, it sounds harsh but it is a fact of life.
No: you want it to be a fact of life. I say "fuck you", stick my middle finger up in the air and take my skills elsewhere. To hell with you and everyone who believes in your vision of a homogenous society. I support diversity. There should be many niches for many types of people, and any asshole who thinks otherwise can get bent.
"Right, but in any environment you have to speak in a language understandable by your audience"
"IT people think they are being asked to be everything when all they are being asked to do is to learn to communicate with others"
The whole reason I went into IT in the first place was so that my audience would be computers, and those who preferred communicating with computers instead of people! FFS, why the metric monkey fnord is that so bloody hard for people to understand? We are not all social creatures. We do not all want to be social creatures. We will never all be good at being social creatures
This relentless drive to punish those who are not gregarious extroverts is beyond annoying and borders on predjudice. Quit trying to eliminate every place where asocial people can hide. If you want to kill us off be man (and woman) enough to pick up a fucking gun and do some genetic cleansing. At least then you're honest about things, rather than trying to make millions of people choose between a life of employment misery or dying in the street.
We spend a third of our lives at work. That time should be as interesting and engaging as possible. It shouldn't be a prison where you are tortured every day. For many of us, having to act like sales and marketing people, being socially gregarious and extroverted is a form of torture.
Society should support people of all types. Not just those who conform to the social norm of business-class extroversion.
Comptuers aren't people. That's the attraction. We don't want to teach. We want to program. We don't want to coddle emotions, we want to install applications. We don't want to deal with office politics, we want to implement policies from a centralized management application.
Why should we, the technologists, have to make up for the deficits of everyone else int he entire bloody company, hmm? The company should be providing a body who translates between nerd and whatever it is that populates the rest of the company. Typically that's a manager of some variety.
It's always "give, give, give". IT must change. IT must compromise. IT must adapt. IT must give up everything that makes their jobs worth doing.
Why? For what? The rest of the company is never satisfied. The more IT gives up, the more they demand IT give up. The fact that IT bends at all is merely showing weakness...a weakness that is ruthlessly exploited so that the others can do less, learn less, care less and yet get paid more.
Fuck 'em. All of 'em.
Again with the "IT must not only be technical experts, they must be sales and marketing experts without any additional training, pay, etc."
Fuck IT. There's way easier work that pays the same (or better) out there. Turn a wrench and make some oil come out of the ground. You're only expected to do one job. Unless you want to upcertify to get your WHIMIS or EMT or something...but then you get extra pay. The expectation that IT will be all things to all people is utter bullshit.
Working to transform a $25B a year company so that it can thrive in a new world is hard.
It is quite an ambitious endeavor.
It requires a sort of communal ambition combined with a series amount of pride in one's work. That's totally different from the sort of "shank your grandma for a bent copper" personal ambition that is what has largely driven the exodus from EMC. And EMC isn't alone, I should point out. For the past 5 7 years you've basically been able to find VMware executives on Craigslist. That's before we get into the madness at NetApp!
Gleeful critics and disruption greet you at every turn. It isn't for the feint of heart.
Everyone has to deal with critics. Nobody gets a free pass. And I'd say that being a $25B company makes you better able to deal with disruption than a startup.
Look at EMC. A number of different disruptive technologies have appeared in the storage landscape and EMC has been able to lollygag for years, planning their next move. Meanwhile, companies like Maxta, SimpliVity and others have seen their disruptive "product" (hyperconvergence) become a mere feature.
Nutanix sees it, is researching, adapting, moving beyond "just hyperconvergence" to a much larger and more complete vertical stack. The others are trying, but Nutanix has stolen a big march. EMC sees all of this (we hope) as well as where it is going and should (if they don't screw up) be able to not only catch up with Nutanix (and the others) but be able to leapfrog them as well.
But that won't come from those scrabbling for personal position and gain. It will come from the really long, hard work of those who will labour for years in secret and then earn little more than their individual paycheques. Just another day's work. Just punching the clock. (EMC could buy, but it may be too late to buy Nutanix, and it's entirely possible that none of the others would be both far enough along and a good enough cultural fit to assimilate for hte 5-10 years required to bring a full stack product to market.)
Vaughn is a class act, by the way.
He's seemed okay enough. Bit snippy, but I actually rather like that about people; usually means they're being honest. Lives and breathes rarefied air though. Doesn't seem to have much time for plebians. Pretty normal in his line of work; can't really complain about it much.
They may be, Vaughn. But they'll go through a slump here right soon as the legacy arrays struggle to catch attention, especially at the eye-watering prices they are charging. Heck, people are even willing to buy from you over at Pure at your prices rather than EMC, and they do it in a big way! And you guys charge $virgins!
But hyperconvergence is coming. It's driving down costs. Datacenter convergence is already emerging, driving down costs further. Software defined infrastructure plays are being researched and endgame machines are being assembled.
Worse, companies are managing to build just fine arrays on commodity hardware. Those afraid of the future and wishing to cling to arrays are increasingly able to find tried and tested arrays for a fraction the cost of EMC. That's bad for them.
That said, unlike NetApp, EMC seems to understand the above. Or, at least, some people at EMC understand the above and haven't been fired yet. The really ambitious, aggressive people that could see change was coming all left for Pure ages ago. The ambitious but not aggressive people that could see change was coming left EMC to form their own startups. And the ambitious but socially gregarious people that could see change was coming came from all over to join Solidfire.
That still leaves a huge collection of very technically talented, albeit not overly ambitious people at EMC that see change is occurring and have more than enough talent to drive innovation internally. Nobody at EMC seems to be interested in purging them, so EMC won't head down Netapp's path.
The $64B question is: will EMC tap those unambitious, but technically talented individuals who can see the changes required by soliciting their opinions and then listening to them? This is the "good management" question. The ambitious people all left. Ambition is required to raise one's head above the parapet and volunteer opinions.
EMC will, or it won't. If it doesn't, it will have to rely on acquisitions to see it through. Again: it isn't NetApp here. Sometimes the acquisitions go okay with EMC. Unfortunately, that's only "sometimes". And EMC probably doesn't have too many chances to play "marry the sweetheart" before its star starts permanently fading.
So who will be around to compete with it? Netapp? Pure? Solidfire? Tintri? Nutanix? SimpliVity? Coho?
There are dozens upon dozens of storage, CI, HCI, DCI and IEM companies out there now, beavering away in stealth or evolving organically from other concerns. There isn't room for them all.
It isn't just tech that will pick the winners. Good tech is part of the story. You need a company where the sales, marketing and evangelist roles are populated by people whom you don't want to blend and then pour into the sewer. You need prices that companies can afford. You need continual development to not only meet the challenges of this refresh, but the next and the next after that.
I, for one, am curious to see whom the people that actually matter - the customers - pick to survive.
Which is a wonderful lie you tell yourself so that you can go on living a wasteful, energy intensive life as inexpensively as possible without any guilt, feelings of remorse or need to think about the world we are leaving for future generations.
Yeah, you're awesome. Fuck reality, you da goddamned man! Da goddamned man!
A multi-billion dollar company could easily maintain grub-legacy. For that matter, it could preserve the concept that "every config must be editable as a flat text file" thusly producing a sane and rational distro. None of this neo-registry bull that's all the rage.
Red Hat is perfectly happy to throw its weight around in order to try to own new markets, or become relevant in markets where it dropped the ball. It's not remotely so interested at throwing its weight around to help ensure important packages in Linux adhere to concepts like flat text files or "doing one thing and doing it well".
Red Hat has let the inmates run the asylum and the result is the first Red Hat distribution in my entire career that I flat out refuse to work with.
Still, Red Hat gave 20 years of solid awesome. It was probably insane of me to think that this would continue indefinitely (or at least for the duration of the rest of my career). I'm sad about the steaming pile that Red Hat has become, but I don't have the will to fight.
Red Hat's resources are billions of times my own. The mad hatters that want to ruin Linux in order to build their own little empires of ego and hubris are more charismatic, wealthier and better connected than I. If I leveraged every single connection I have, called in every favour I am owed, used every last penny I could beg, borrow or steal my discontent would register upon Red Hat not at all.
So, to put things fairly bluntly: fuck 'em.
There are alternatives. I am investigating them. I can do literally nothing to even get Red Hat's attention, but if I throw the full force of my capabilities towards helping some of the alternatives succeed maybe I can help a truly open, community-focused and user-oriented distribution grow.
When life hands you OpenOffice by Oracle, you make LIbreOffice. I hope enough other people agree that this needs to occur that, combined, we can make it happen.
...why, for the love of Jibbers, why?
Buy Tintri. Or Pure. Actually, do they have enough money for Pure?
Fuck it. Buy SimpliVity. They're already close buddies anyways. At least then they'd be buying the future (hyperconvergence) instead of the past (arrays). Besides, Cisco's customers don't mind proprietary bits, so the accelerator card shouldn't bother them.
Or you could learn to chill the fuck out and take a breather. A few seconds extra between this set of lights and the next won't change your life.
When asshats honk at me because I'm a little bit slow out of the gate on a set of lights - usually because some pedestrian looks like they are considering YOLOing across the street - I drive extra slow, just for them. I will continue to do so.
Traffic sucks everywhere. Plan accordingly.
Pillory the overly expensive licensing, lack of innovation and bizarre bundling (EVO:RAIL, hullo!) all you want, but VSAN is slouch. vSphere 6 is a solid release and VSAN has been a solid storage solution. Good tech, well tested, well supported.
Now, if only anyone other than the elites could afford it, and there were sane, smooth progressions from one tier of licensing to another. Ah well, that's what competition is for, no?
The CRTC stood by and refused to allow Bell Canada to disconnect the service. Great support from a government body.
Ah, back in the days when our government served us. Now it's been captured by the intustries it proposes to regulate. And our choices for leader are between a religious control freak crazy man, a traitor and coward, and a flip-flopping liar.
Woo!
*looks south*
Don't see no border.
*looks north*
Don't see no people.
Doesn't matter anyways. CRTC rulings that benefit the people will be overturned.
I don't care. Just get me affordable fibre. But not here, no. On the island, please. I aim to head there in about 10 years, which is about the timeframe for a fibre rollout.
How much effort does it take to fire all the vile, sociopathic, money-grubbing executives and their hellions in the licensing department directly into the sun and burn everything, everywhere that contains even a single line of Adobe source code? That is the only thing that is required for Adobe. Ever.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/03/java_cleanup/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/30/i_hate_java/
FFS, how many times do I have to write "Java is a piece of shit stop using it unless there's a gun to your head making you do so"?
There is no need for Java in the browser. Many/most people aren't installing it anymore. Bloody everyone is still installing flash. The drum needs banging until we treat the bug ridden piece of shit that is as being at least as toxic as the bug ridden piece of shit that is Java.
Whereas I don't believe that front line staff not giving a damn is an accident or a mistake. I believe that those services are designed to be demoralizing and are purposefully staffed with the bottom of the barrel. I believe that most government services - but especially American ones are purposefully sabotaged.
Some times they do it for malicious intent: rooting out political dissidents, putting "the proles" in their place, etc. But just as often such things are led to ruin purposefully because having a given service degenerate suits the political machinations of someone fairly high up the food chain.
This could be because they covet the budget for their own projects/district/etc. It could be out of spite towards an enemy who supported something they didn't like and is not in charge of that department. It could be any of a number of things.
In my experience however - and, increasingly, as we are learning through all sorts of leaks about all sorts of departments - failure in government and the failure of government are not accidents. Nor is incremental (and protracted!) government overreach.
This is all by design. Petty, hateful, spiteful, covetous, vengeful, prideful, megalomaniacal and yes, even terrified, design.
Governmental degeneracy isn't the result of millions upon millions of individual and coincidental acts of apathy and incompetence. It is the result of purposeful sabotage and thwarting by a mere few thousand near the top.
Hanlon's razon just doesn't apply to government. At least as I see it. Not ever.
It's not just DHS. It's that every time someone is pooh-poohed for "tinfoil hatting" about the US governments ignoble intentions - typically using the premise of Hanlon's razor in order to attempt to silence the cynic - the tinfoil hatter is actually proved right.
I submit to you sir that this is can no longer be considered coincidence: it is design.
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