Practical Technology

for practical people.

July 1, 2009
by sjvn01
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London Stock Exchange to abandon failed Windows platform

Anyone who was ever fool enough to believe that Microsoft software was good enough to be used for a mission-critical operation had their face slapped this September when the LSE (London Stock Exchange)’s Windows-based TradElect system brought the market to a standstill for almost an entire day. While the LSE denied that the collapse was TradElect’s fault, they also refused to explain what the problem really wa. Sources at the LSE tell me to this day that the problem was with TradElect.

Since then, the CEO that brought TradElect to the LSE, Clara Furse, has left without saying why she was leaving. Sources in the City-London’s equivalent of New York City’s Wall Street–tell me that TradElect’s failure was the final straw for her tenure. The new CEO, Xavier Rolet, is reported to have immediately decided to put an end to TradElect.

TradElect runs on HP ProLiant servers running, in turn, Windows Server 2003. The TradElect software itself is a custom blend of C# and .NET programs, which was created by Microsoft and Accenture, the global consulting firm. On the back-end, it relied on Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Its goal was to maintain sub-ten millisecond response times, real-time system speeds, for stock trades.

It never, ever came close to achieving these performance goals. Worse still, the LSE’s competition, such as its main rival Chi-X with its MarketPrizm trading platform software, was able to deliver that level of performance and in general it was running rings about TradElect. Three guesses what MarketPrizm runs on and the first two don’t count. The answer is Linux.

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July 1, 2009
by sjvn01
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Ubuntu heads to the clouds

On July 1, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu in partnership with Eucalyptus Systems, an open-source cloud infrastructure firm, will be launching Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services.

According to sources at Canonical, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services "is a set of new professional services to help and support users building ‘private clouds’, that is cloud infrastructures behind a corporate firewall."

This follows up on Canonical’s technical preview of UEC (Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud) in April. an open-source system that enabled organizations to build their own clouds that can work with Amazon EC2. UEC will be incorporated into the Ubuntu Server Edition technology stack.

The idea, as it always is with cloud computing is to save organizations money by optimizing server use, while lowering costs and providing end users with self-service IT. With Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services, Canonical will help businesses build private clouds

In a statement, Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical’s CEO said, "Enterprises are realising that building ‘private clouds’ enables them to better manage variable workloads, while reducing the waste of idle servers. Building on an open-source technology also avoids the issue of vendor lock-in. Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud enables businesses to do this–and the addition of these services helps them to do it with confidence."

Simon Wardley, who heads up Canonical’s cloud strategy, said that, "One of Canonical’s objectives is to ensure that companies not only get the best available open source products but also get the best available support from the people closest to the source of the technology." Wardley added, "Ubuntu is the only distribution which provides an open source cloud system that matches market standards. We’re building upon real solutions built with open source technologies and backed up by real services."

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services will enable users to scale up from a five-machine environment all the way to a site license covering all machines, physical and virtual, in a single location. The Enterprise Cloud is built with Ubuntu 9.04 servers.

Support pricing starts at $4,750 and goes up from there based on the usual factors such as the number of servers and support level. To find out more about this new service, you should visit the Canonical Server Cloud page.

Once more Canonical is showing that, while its reputation is based on Ubuntu, the popular end-user desktop Linux distribution, the company has every intention of competiting with Red Hat and Novell for the business server market.


A version of this story first appeared in ComputerWorld.

June 30, 2009
by sjvn01
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Firefox 3.5: Back on top… for now

Sorry Opera; too bad about what happened to you, Netscape; and Internet Explorer, please, don’t make me laugh. The best Web browser on the planet is Firefox 3.5… for now.

I’ve been using Firefox since day one, and, for the most part, I’ve liked it. And, folks, since I’ve been using the Web since before there were Web browsers I know what I’m talking about.

The new Firefox is fast, filled with new features, and solid as a rock. I’ve been working with this latest update since its beta days on a pair of PCs. The first is my dependable Windows XP SP3 system, running on a was a Dell Inspiron 530S with a 2.2-GHz Intel Pentium E2200 dual-core processor, 4GBs of RAM, a 500GB SATA drive and an Integrated Intel 3100 GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator). The other is my Fedora 11 PC. This Linux box is a Gateway GT5622 desktop with a 1.8GHz Intel Pentium E2160 dual-core CPU, 3GBs of RAM, a 400GB SATA drive, and an Intel 950 GMA.

Windows or Linux, Firefox, and its extensions worked like a charm. Unfortunately, while Firefox is back to being a fast browser, it’s not the fastest browser. First place continues to go to Google’s Chrome.

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June 29, 2009
by sjvn01
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Hulu locks out PS3 Users, Others to follow?

Hulu says that it’s “free online video service that offers hit TV shows including Family Guy, 30 Rock, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, etc.” Unless, though, you own a Sony PlayStation 3. If that’s you, you’re out of luck.

PS3 users discovered starting over the June 27th weekend that when they tried to watch a video that instead of their TV show or movie, they got the annoying message: “Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.” That didn’t go over so well with PS3 users.

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June 29, 2009
by sjvn01
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Never reboot again with Linux and Ksplice

I usually have to reboot my Linux systems about once every six months. Linux is as stable as a rock. Windows, while it’s gotten better, is another story entirely. While I no longer need to reboot Windows on a daily basis, I still must reboot my Windows PC at least twice a month-one “what the heck was that” problem and Patch Tuesday. For some users, telecommunication server/carrier grade administrators in particular even twice-a-year reboots is twice a year too often and that’s where Ksplice comes in.

Ksplice, according to its developers, “enables running systems to stay secure without the disruption of re-booting. Specifically, Ksplice creates re-bootless updates that are based on traditional source code patches. These updates are as effective as traditional updates, but they can be applied seamlessly, with no downtime.”

Guess what? It works.

I don’t have a carrier-grade server in the house, but I do have an Ubuntu 9.04 desktop and the developers have just released a version of Ksplice Uptrack for it. So, I installed this Python-based update system on my Gateway 503GR. This PC has a 3GHz Pentium IV CPU, 2GBs of RAM, an ATI Radeon 250 graphics card, and a 300GB SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) hard drive.

Before installing Ksplice, though, I zapped my hard disk and reinstalled Ubuntu 9.04, aka Jaunty Jackalope, from a CD of its first release. You won’t want to do that, but I wanted to give it as much of a workout as I could manage.

I had a bit of trouble installing it at first, although the installation routine itself is as easy as can be. My problem was that the Ksplice installation routine ran afoul of the automatic update system. I solved this by killing that system off, resetting the Debian package system.

After that, it was smooth sailing and I had replaced Ubuntu’s default update system with Ksplice. A few minutes later I’d updated the entire system with Ksplice with all the latest patches, without even a hint that I might need to reboot for a security upgrade. Nice.

By default, Ksplice shows up in your system menu-bar so you can keep an eye on what’s happening with your updates. While Ksplice itself is open-source software, and the service for individual users is free, you’ll need to pay a service fee if you’re a business using Ksplice to keep your servers up-to-date.

Since Ksplice doesn’t require any changes to the Linux kernel I strongly suspect you’ll soon be seeing its technology used with other Linux distributions. After all, as great as Linux is about letting you run for months on end without wasting time or money on a reboot, it will be even better when we can run Linux for years without rebooting.

A version of this story first appeared in ComputerWorld.

June 26, 2009
by sjvn01
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Google will slowly let new Google Voice users in

Remember when Google first started Gmail and you had to have an invitation to get in? It’s going to be the same kind of deal with Google Voice.

Google Voice, if you haven’t heard of it yet, is a free Web-based application that lets you control all your various phone numbers — work, home, mobile, you name it–from a single, central phone number and Web page. It also includes most of the features of a PBX (Private Branch Exchange)–call forwarding, voice mail, call recording–for free.

Until recently the only way you could get Google Voice was to have been a user of its predecessor service, GrandCentral. Starting immediately, Google is finally letting more users into the service.

Don’t get too excited yet though. Sources at Google tell me that, “We are planning to start a gradual roll out of invitations to people who signed up on our Google Voice wait list. This won’t be open, general availability.”

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