Virtual Machine’s are not the answer to everything
By farseeker | May 15, 2009
I love Virtual Machines. Consolidating servers, saving space, saving electricity, saving emissions, saving the world.
There are dozens of virtualisation products at the server end of the market. SuSE and Novell have one, there’s the venerable VMWare ESX, Microsoft Virtual PC, HP and Dell even ship servers with VMWare ESXi HyperVisor installed on a flash chip. There’s VirtualBox, Parallels, Virtuozzo, the list goes on.
At our datacenter, our sysems administrator started making the move to virtualisation 12 months ago. He moved four terminal servers and two web servers onto his first application server (A dual-quad-core Xeon with 24gb of RAM for those who were wondering). Since then we’ve moved countless terminal servers, web servers, backup domain controllers, certificate authorities, DNS servers, nameservers (yeah they’re the same thing I know), and backup databases onto Virtual Machines, over about 6 application servers (all similar specs to the one above).
From four fully-packed racks down to less than one rack. Which has meant that he’s been able to afford the rack space in a better co-location faculity and thus we’ve gone from a 2Mb copper link to a 1000Mb fiber link directly into a major backbone and MAN network in Sydney. Brilliant.
When I was on holidays recently (see my post about my trip to Adelaide a few weeks ago), our primary database server (which was not a virtual machine, it was a dedicated dual-quad-core Xeon with 4Gb of RAM and RAID10 SAS drives) went to hell in a handbasket, and it took everything with it.
Now, we’re not stupid. We had live mirroring to our backup servers, and it only took them a few minutes to take the backup servers out of recovery mode and flick the switch to turn them into production machines (we don’t have the licenses for the version of MSSQL that does this for you, as a few mins of downtime is not the end of the world).
Boy though, were we in for a surprise. Even though it was only for a few days, and technically the application servers were superior in specs than the database servers, we fielded countless complains about the speed of EVERYTHING. And of course with the database server under load, it stole resourceses from the other machines on that server.
After the replacement server arrived, we moved everything back to that server (except for one database) and everyone was happy again. Why did we leave one database? I don’t know - I think we just forgot. It’s not a heavily used database, however yesterday someone who was using it complained of incredible slowness when saving records. According to the profiler it was taking FOUR SECONDS to execute a single “update” command.
We thought, rather than take it offline and move it in the middle of the day, I’ll see if I can bandaid it and find the query that’s obviously screwing it up. Well, I found the query, analysed it, and it was perfect. Indexes were OK, it wasn’t waiting on any locks, SQL analyser found nothing wrong with it.
So, after 20 minutes of farting around with the query, I decided to just bite the bullet, kick everyone off, and move the database to where it was meant to be in the first place. So I did, people were grumpy while it was offline (it may have been slow but at least it worked), but I think we’ll survive.
The result? The statement that took 4143 milliseconds to run on the virtualised server - took 45 milliseconds on the proper server. Thats almost a 100x (or 10,000%) increase in speed. On a machine with less ram (4gb vs 24gb) and slower processors.
Topics: General | 1 Comment »
The hip bone has millions of transistors in it
By sparky | May 5, 2009
Health practitioners learn anatomy; IT practitioners learn computer architecture
This was part of the opening line that my Computer Systems lecturer began with.
Too many times people don’t understand the problems they’re having, or experiencing. They may see the symptoms, but can’t actually work out what is the cause of them.
Back when I worked in a Helpdesk & Support role, I’d often get phone calls saying “I can’t connect to the internet - is it down?”. On occasion, it was accurate that the fault lay with the proxy server, or the internet connection itself; however, up to a quarter of the time it was simply because the wireless switch that was on the front of the notebooks being used by the staff, had been switched off.
It is possible to understand - and even expect - that the average end user does not know how their wireless works, or how to increase the systems virtual memory (For those playing in the Windows world).
The bare minimum one would hope is that they know that there is a switch that turns the wireless on and off - just like a car has a switch to turn the lights on and off.
Many geeks out there have a fascination with Science Fiction writings, television shows, and films. This isn’t a ‘given’, but it’s a natural part of being interested with computers, science and technology. These artistic representations talk about and deal with elements that appeal to these individuals.
In a discussion with a fellow systems administrator once, he noted that as time goes on, the things that are once taught at the higher academic levels, becomes more ‘common knowledge’, so that the learning becomes more and more complex.
This would appear to be true - to a point.
In the case of my course, we went back to the very basic level of computer architecture; looking at how computers developed from simple counting machines, through to the theorising of ‘logic’, which resulted in boolean algebra - and with the transistor, allowed for the creation of logic gates for circuit design and construction…
And all this is very important, because you need to know and understand where you’ve come from, to know where you currently are, and where you are heading - or may end up.
It appears not everyone in society feels this way.
There’s no denying that people have it easy these days - speaking of course for the ‘Westernised’ world here. As a result of that ease, they no longer thing or struggle with certain concepts. They live their lives day-to-day, getting by, doing their work, and then go home, do whatever, and then get up and continue the cycle. There doesn’t appear to be that ‘thirst for knowledge’ or wanting to understand how or why things are done. People seem to just accept it.
A large part of this would defintely be a personality trait; and it would be what makes people like us (the writers on this blog, and various others in the computer field) the way we are. It’s knowing that through learning and understanding we can increase our ‘usefullness’, putting us in better positions to help others - which is often an intrinsic part of our makeup - and ultimately, slowly allowing the change in society to happen.
If only there was a way to get others interested - but perhaps they wont, because they have no need. “The path of least resistance” is too often the one that is chosen.
Truely a testament to how lazy our society has become!
Topics: Evironment, General | 1 Comment »
Technology & The Economy: Part 2.
By sparky | April 9, 2009
Windows 7. It’s really just around the corner, especially with how time seems to move so much quicker these days. The public ‘Release Candidate’ will be released in May - supposedly.
And at this point in time, there’s a lot of speculation around the ‘hype’ of Windows 7’s ability to perform on older hardware.
Vista suffered from the ‘lets throw more hardware at it‘ syndrome - where you don’t ensure enough backward compatibility, and tried to bring about too much change in one hit.
Funnily enough, many users expect their computer of 5 years to be able to handle the next operating system - not being fully aware of the changes in technology. Which is fair enough - to a point; It’d be nice if users actually read the ‘minimum’ and ‘recommended’ requirements for the program they’re trying to install, and to then follow that thinking, investigate what they have, and then learn a bit along the way.
A lot of people don’t always want to upgrade their system. It’s a comfort thing. They know where their files are. They know how things look, and feel, and where to find elements of the system (control panel, programs, games, etc). Others are willing to throw away a computer that’s two years old (and was top of the line when they bought it) simply because it’s running slow.
What they might find is that they have some virus’s or malware - or just too many programs running, causing the slow down. More RAM and a clean up would help it - but they don’t care. Like many organisations, they just throw money at the problem, and that should fix it.
Right? Wrong.
So, we’re hoping people are going to start appreciating what they have, and maybe take maintainance measures to draw out the life of their computers - Perhaps this is also part of the reason why windows 7 is ’said’ to be able to work on a:
- 1 Ghz 32-Bit or 64-Bit Processor or higher
- 1 GB of system memory or more
- 16 GB of available disk space
- DVD-R/W Drive
Apart from the ‘16 GB’ of disk space, that’s pretty much a standard PC. That’d almost work on my old 900 Mhz Duron - which is 9 years old!
If you have a 40 GB Drive - which many systems come with as a basic setup, especially in corporations- Then that might be starting to get too close. With half your drive spent on the Operating System, you’d be possibly dealing with a bit of a slow system. Possibly.
There are some people (Farseeker, of this site, and more notably - John C Dvorak) who think that the current state of Windows 7 (The beta of which runs quite happily on my EEE 701) is only a facade: That whilst it runs nicely, and efficiently now, the final product will be bogged down with ‘crap-ware’.
And, as John Dvorak happily notes - he feels that the success of Microsoft - indeed, the entire Windows line - is based on whether Windows 7 works - and works well.
I agree - in part - with this opinion. Vista was a bad move by Microsoft. Even they’ve admitted to that. However, whether people like it or not - They still hold the market in most corporate environments. But part of the key to Windows 7 is how it will be priced - especially given the current ‘economic crisis’.
Windows XP, whilst great for its time - is buggy. More and more security holes / flaws are being discovered, and I don’t think that patching the Swiss-cheese like architecture that is XP is going to work forever.
The real ‘key’ to Microsoft’s success with Windows 7 is two fold.
1. Pricing. They need to price it in such a way that it wont be hideously expensive, but still represent a value for money. Both in terms of features and security. Corporations aren’t going to spend $400 per machine to upgrade. Especially in an environment consisting of 500+ desktops and laptops.
And the average Joey Bloggs isn’t going to upgrade his nicely working year old Vista machine - especially if he’s just layed out a pretty sum for it.
2. Upgrade path. At the time of writing, every indication has said that there’s no way of ‘upgrading’ from Windows XP. The architecture is just too different. However, you *could* go from XP - Vista. Hmm.
Win7 is based on Vista - but I wonder how much of the ‘base system’ they actually changed that you can’t go from XP - Win7.
Or is this another ‘push’ to customers to do a clean install? Those of us in the industry know the benefits and ‘psychology’ of a clean install. Things are fresh, and you don’t bring your old garbage to the new house. Microsoft tried the ‘push’ strategy with Vista by forcing people to upgrade their hardware. That went down like the Titanic.
It’ll be interesting to see how much the economy of current times will affect the release and adoption of Windows 7.
Topics: Hardware, Hype, Public Perception, Software, Windows | No Comments »
Great Southern Land
By farseeker | April 8, 2009
Whilst we await the 2nd installment of Kris’s musings about the economy, I wish to share some interesting things about my last week.
See, my wife, myself, my brother and his girlfriend recently made an (almost) 3000km trek across the country to visit my parents in Adelaide.
Now, my car is just a normal car. A normal 3.8L V6, a normal manual gearbox, and most importantly, a normal stereo. On the way down the stereo played a collection of CDs, and on the way back it was tuned to JJJ (gotta love JJJ - 1400km each way and only about 20 minutes where we couldn’t get their signal).
When you get about 100km from a town called Hay on the Wimmera Highway, two things happen. 1) The road ups itself to 110kph and 2) the land plains out. It’s flat. Incredibly flat.
Now, most families these days, in their Ford Territories and their Audi’s and their Statesmans would probably have popped on a DVD for the kids as soon as they hit the M5 out of Sydney and just kept the DVDs flowing until they made their stop for the day. It goes without saying that back when I was a kid this would have been a distant dream - but even more so, when our PARENTS were kids, that trip would have been slow, uncomfortable (no aircon, smaller cars), harsh (leafspring suspension and 13″ wheels), and exceptionally dangerous (back then, no lines on the roads, and often no sealed surface).
Oh how technology has changed the way we travel. Today even bothering to drive 3000km rather than catch a 90 minute plane ride would (and has) boggle the minds of many people. Rather than cross-ply rubber we have steel belted radials. Rather than a AM radio (if you were lucky) we have CD Players, iPods, and DVD players. We’ve got synchromesh gearboxes (actually, most people have automatic transmissions), cruise control, and (when it gets hairy) ABS and traction control.
And all of this is fantastic. Except for one thing. The DVD players. Take a moment to look at these pictures (I don’t have any better ones right now, I stole these from my wife’s facebook page - trust me, there’s better ones):
There are so many beautiful places to see in the flat desert that is the Wimmera. The Hume highway is pretty boring, but when you turn off after Gundagai it’s beautiful. The salt pans, the dust storms, the harvesting. The arid landscape, the ochre colours, and the pounding white lines down the middle of the black tarmac. Putting your foot down in 3rd gear when you’re already doing 120 to get past a road train (a big truck with either two over-length trailers or at least three normal trailers - think of a B-Double and then make it a longer).
That’s what this great country is all about. And when you go and chuck a DVD player in the back seat, your kids will miss it. All of it. Sure, it shuts them up for a few hours, but when I was a kid we would do drives like that all the time, three of us jammed in the back seat. Sure, there’s moments when our parents probably wanted to leave us on the side of the road (and it sure as hell was too expensive to fly back then). But it left an unmistakable impression on me, and now as a young adult, I really appreciate all those days spent in the back of Dads falcons driving to exotic-sounding places (like The Daintree, Cairns, Flinders Ranges, etc). I know my wife (who has never driven anywhere like this before, let alone flown there) is really appreciating it.
Please, don’t pack your kids into the car with a DVD when there’s so many beautiful scenes to be watched out the window.
Topics: Evironment | No Comments »
Technology & The Economy: Part 1.
By sparky | April 2, 2009
The world-wide economy is - interesting - to say the least.
We’ve had the credit bubble go *pop*, the subsequent mass hysteria of everyone pulling money out of investments so fast (thanks to the wonder of technology: High speed Internet and Internet banking) causing entire countries to become bankrupt, and generally society starting to panic and think “Is this the next Great Depression?”.
That question, I’m not in a position to answer - nor is it the purpose of this post. Rather, considering where consumerism has taken technology.
So, there was this lovely scene. Everyone was working for someone, making some money - and then you had these people in the financial sector willing to give out credit to the workers - it didn’t matter how much you earned, you could get a line of credit from as little as $2000, to as much as $20,000. Whether you could repay it or not they wouldn’t care.
Some people don’t really think about that. They just thought: “You beauty, quick money - I can get all those cool things I want” - but don’t really need.
That well suddenly dried up - and the horse drinking from it: no one’s seen him since.
The last 10 years has seen some dramatic growth and change in technology: I point it squarely at the consumer market.
Advertisers are always trying to get the everyday person (consumer) to feel that they need something to fill their otherwise boring life. That new 52 inch Plasma. That 10.2 surround sound system.The latest Mac Book pro. Anything they think will help them get on with everyday life in a more ‘interesting’ fashion.
The huge profits that this generated for the companies allowed them to push Research and Development, to make things better, & to find new technologies. Along the way, the additional hype of a growing energy crisis and shortfalls in resources has prompted certain companies to rethink what resources they are using. Never a bad thing - provided they could come up with a reason why they’re wasting it all on products that in 8 years are going to sit in a rubbish dump.
It’s always a ’short lived’ focus.
People used to go out every 6 - 12 months and get the newest, greatest digital camera. People will now stick to the one they’ve got. The number of mega pixels is irrelevant these days. They all do a fantastic job of capturing an image. That’s all it has to do.
People are no longer throwing out computers that are a year or two old because they’re “getting slower”. They’re putting more memory in it, running maintenance procedures, and trying to make it last a little bit longer. One has to wonder how long they’ll really last - but it’s reasonable to expect at least a 5 - 8 year life span.
I’d like to think hope that we’re going back to a different mindset. Sure, the ‘throw away’ society will remain to a degree, but maybe people will hold off on throwing away technology that still works for a little while longer.
Topics: Hardware, Hype, Public Perception, Software, Windows | No Comments »
The world gone crazy
By farseeker | March 30, 2009
This is a re-post from my personal blog.
I was reading Nadine’s blog this morning, and just after she says the word that most men dread *cough*tampon*cough*, she links to a brand named called Moxie. So, out of morbid curiosity (and I’m bored, and I’ve never heard of that brand before, which in itself is not entirely unusual) I clicked the link. Low and behold, it’s one of the WORST websites I’ve ever seen. Let me explain.
Ok. That’s a screenshot of the website. No it’s not a splash banner or an intro movie, that’s the website. You navigate by clicking on some (but not all) of the objects on or around the mirror. And, there’s no clear distinction about what is and what isn’t a link. There does not seem to be any corrolation between the items you click on and where they take you (clicking the bottom drawer takes you to Events, clicking on the bottle of perfume takes you to Where To Buy).
I can’t even begin to list all the reasons why this is poor design - it’s just too long and I would have a buffer overflow if I tried to locate a starting point.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m all for progressive design. Many of the sites we develop we’ve thrown out the traditional design and gone for something different. But at least they’re usable. Logical. And they don’t open every single link in a new window.
Let’s just take one example. I went to the Moxie website because I was interested to see what they would sell that would make women want to put their most personal items inside it. Do you think I found anything? Hells no. Maybe thats because I’m a man - I don’t know. Do I click on “Collection” (a tin, which is a container, and thus I thought the logical thing to click on given my research reason), or do I click on “Designer Series” (an incredible unrealistic barbie-doll shaped woman designed to lower teenage girls self-image in a corset). Turns out neither.
Topics: General | No Comments »
Technological Complacency
By sparky | March 2, 2009
It seems that as society has progressed, people have become lazy - complacent.
No longer are we required to think innovatively to solve problems - we’ve become relient on machines to work it out for us. A classic example was in a historic show I watched a few years back.
Their goal was to try replicate how the Ancient Romans built a huge Dock that went out into a harbour. The difficulty was in creating a machine to place these huge pillars into the water, hammering them down somehow at the right angle, then building the supports and planks on top, move the machine out, rinse-repeat.
These days they’d just use cranes or something to that effect. But the historical team had to resort to innovation- using only materials found in that time period. They worked it out in the end, but it did demonstrate how much our thinking had changed, and our relience on machines became evident.
Things in the Techno World aren’t much different these days. It seems that ‘Hardware is cheap’ = ‘rough enough is good enough’. In a recent Security Now Podcast (185a) the presenters were talking about how in the early days of computing, memory was expensive. They’d constantly be trying to re-write their code to make it leaner and more effecient.
Window’s Vista is a good example of modern day thinking: Just throw more resources at it, it’ll be fine.
Another area that will be spurred on due to recent economic issues is the games industry. No longer can they just turn out ‘crap’, it seems they’ll be focussing on creating more ‘quality’ products, less in ‘quantity’.
I’ve not been much of a gamer in recent years, largely because I didnt feel any of the games looked or felt any different to what’s become the ‘norm’. Even Mirrors Edge was quite disappointing: A case of interesting idea, and good design, but limitations in gameplay, and a story line which weakens as the game continues, leaves you feeling “Why did I bother?”. They couldn’t do that 15- 20 years ago. They had to develop games that would generate continued interest for continued revenue.
Perhaps its nostalgic of me, but I really do believe that things were better in the past. Largely because people have just become lazy and, well, complacent.
Topics: Hardware, Principles, Programming, Software | 3 Comments »
Genesis
By sparky | February 18, 2009
I did something silly.
In my current line of work, I do a lot of tech-support, and trouble-shooting/repair of infected and non-working systems. This means having to install programs from my USB Memory Stick on occassion, which means this little stick does get into some dangerous territory.
I’m not one that usually has protection (AntiVirus or Firewall) on my desktop at home - since I stay away from the types of sites you might get your computer sick from.
Alas, I have learnt my lesson. It took 2 mins. 2 mins of innocence, where I plugged the stick into my system, and the deed was done. 98 Infections - well, trojans and various ‘messy’ malware; all found using MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. I backed up the critical documents, and then wiped the drive.
It may have been safe, but I just dont trust these critters these days. They’re smart, and hide deep. Nothing beats a full wipe.
No matter how geeky, technical, or Boffin-like you are: It seems no one is safe anymore.
Topics: Evironment, Humerous, Windows | No Comments »
FilePhile: Transfer Files between friends
By sparky | December 19, 2008
A slight deviation from the idea of “P2P”, this utility that runs on all platforms (Win/*nix/Mac), allows for users to share files with one another of any size and type. It also allows you to control the ammount of bandwidth being used, so that you don’t kill something (like your internet) in the process.
Topics: General | 3 Comments »
Emotional gMail
By sparky | October 27, 2008
Further to the discussion about gmail’s Beta-state, I recently noticed they’d incorporated a new button for mail.
I suppose this is a clear example as to why it’s still in Beta! 
In other news, we apologise for the slightly quieter state of this site; two of us are currently in exam / assignment mode, and another of us is getting married; Look forward to some more posts in the coming weeks as we’re freed from the shackles of university!
Topics: General, Networking | 2 Comments »
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