Freed of Executive Constraints, Jonathan Schwartz Blogs on Threats from the Competition
With his tenure in Sun’s executive suite behind him, Jonathan Schwartz exercises his new found liberty to disclose two incidents involving Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and their respective threats to sue Sun for patent infringement. Schwartz relates how Sun successfully played the countersuit card, staving off the threatened litigation.
Oracle VM 3 Expected to be Released This Spring
The Oracle virtualization portfolio got a boost with the company’s acquisition of Sun, and it has signaled a willingness to take on VMware. Oracle VM 3, which is expected this spring, will give Oracle credible Xen-based server virtualization that could challenge VMware, Microsoft and Citrix Systems Inc. — at least in the tens of thousands of Oracle database and application shops. A SearchServerVirtualization.com article explores Oracle’s virtualization play.
Work Still Needed to Interest Enterprises, But Potential is There
Oracle plans to make VirtualBox part of its enterprise virtualization portfolio, right alongside its server virtualization hypervisor Oracle VM, according to a SearchServerVirtualization.com article. Oracle aims to integrate Sun’s VirtualBox hypervisor (rebranded as Oracle VM VirtualBox) with Oracle VM, allowing administrators to use VirtualBox as a sandbox to create virtual desktops and deploy them to Oracle VM pools.
Screencast Offers Step-by-step Instructions
The Sun Ops Center 2.5 comes with the ability to patch Windows operating systems through Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager. A recent screencast highlighted by Owen Allen in the Ops Center blog takes viewers through the Windows update process, which involves configuring Ops Center to work with SCCM 2007 instance, discovering and managing the Windows systems and then using the Reports section for the actual Windows update.
Sun SEC Filing Reports Planned Job Cuts
The European Union (EU) confirmed that Oracle President Safra Catz met with EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes for negotiations over the company’s acquisition of Sun, which disclosed in a SEC filing this week that it plans on cutting up to 3,000 jobs due to the delay in the acquisition.
10 FOSS-on-Windows Treasures Selected by ITBusiness.CA
Many don’t know that there are compelling open source software solutions for Microsoft Windows. Besides the free and open source Mozilla Firefox web browser, which is widely known, used and definitely part of this top 10 list, there are many more undiscovered FOSS-on-Windows treasures and Randall Kennedy with itbusiness.ca has picked out another 9 applications he believes all Window users must have.
Recover Deleted or Previous Versions of Files via a Windows Tab
ZFS snapshots can help users view or recover files on a Windows desktop by simply using the Previous Versions tab. Snapshots are accessible via the Previous Versions tab in Windows Explorer using the Shadow Copy client, which is available by default on Windows XP SP2 and later. For Windows 2000 and pre-SP2 Windows XP, Microsoft offers a download. Alan Wright explains how to recover deleted or previous versions of files on Windows in a recent blog entry.
New Price-Performance Mark on TPC-H Benchmark 
A recent TPC-H benchmarking exercise at the 300GB scale factor involving Windows running on the Sun Fire X4600 M2 Server resulted in 2.80 $/QphH@300GB (USD) price-performance. The benchmarking employed Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 Enterprise database along with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 operating system. Similar benchmarking results were obtained for the HP DL785 and the IBM x3950 M2. This result is 14% better price performance than the HP DL785 result.
Microsoft White Paper Describes Virtualizing Windows on Sun Ray Thin Clients
The Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center (EEC) reproduces customer environments and conducts product validation. To accommodate the constant demand for the EEC, Microsoft has expanded the facility’s capabilities and increased the size of the data center. Part of this expansion focused on the integration of two core technologies: virtualization technology from Microsoft and Sun Ray thin client technology from Sun. Learn more about virtualizing Microsoft Windows on Sun Ray thin clients in a Microsoft white paper.
The Economist Reports on the Sector’s Evolving Bottom Line
While surely no one likes a recession, open-source software firms are finding an encouraging number of adoptions as the tightening economy forces companies to seek the best price point for their IT infrastructure. The Economist recently reported on the open-source sector, noting double-digit growth in the sector as a whole.
