IT Channel News Briefs, Dec. 11 |
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By Staff
11 Dec 2008 | SearchITChannel.com |
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Information technology (IT) channel news in brief for Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008.
Novell, Avnet ink virtualization deal
Novell and Avnet Technology Solutions are partnering to offer virtualization and workload management solutions to data center customers. The companies announced yesterday that Avnet will sell Novell's Platespin line of workload management products, including Recon, Migrate, Protect and Orchestrate, through its solution provider network. They will also offer joint training and sales support for partners.
Wind-powered data center picks Atrato disk arrays
A new wind-powered green colocation and hosting facility in Wyoming has switched out an aging EMC Corp. Clariion disk array in favor of denser 2.5-inch self-healing arrays from Atrato Inc.
Green House Data Inc. said the V1000 system from newcomer Atrato won by offering capacity and performance, reducing the footprint required to pack in virtual machines for its cloud architecture, according to SearchStorage.com. Green House Data president Shawn Mills said his company opened a 10,000-square-foot data center last January in Cheyenne, Wyo. The facility is in the midst of a Class VII wind zone -- the strongest wind zone with the highest annual average wind speed -- and an area dense with dark fiber. Green House Data sources almost all of its electricity from local wind farms and supplements it by purchasing renewable energy credits.
Evaluating IBM's mainframe for midmarket push
IBM announced in October the z10 Business Class (z10 BC) a compact mainframe server aimed squarely at the midrange market. With a $100,000 starting price, the z10 BC accommodates up to 232 x86 servers and is said to be 40% faster than its predecessor, the z9 BC. And, with the exception of scalability, it has most of its larger sibling's strengths, including partitioning, encryption and Linux support. The question is, does a mainframe make sense for a midsized shop?
Super WLAN: Able to defy a shrinking market
A tiny ray of good news in the glum tech sector: The WLAN market defied macroeconomic trends in the third quarter by growing 15%, according to research by the Dell'Oro Group released Thursday. The research firm predicts the trend will hold into 2009. Growth thus far has been fueled by a strong demand for 802.11n-based access points and the growing size of WLAN deployments. "The combination of twice the speed, twice the distance, but less than twice the price of legacy 802.11a/g equipment is making 802.11n an increasingly attractive option for enterprises to provide network connectivity to their users," said Ben Kwan, wireless analyst at the Dell'Oro Group.
Sprint Nextel goes Google
In an attempt to take on the Apple iPhone, Sprint Nextel will offer a phone powered by Google's Android operating system within a year, Bloomberg.com reported Wednesday. In October, T-Mobile released its Android-based G1 device, which has a touch screen and runs games and applications created by independent software developers. Sprint's stock has dropped 82% this year and the company is hoping that a high-profile handset will boost or at least steady sales. Google formed the Open Handset Alliance last year to develop Android, which competes against Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
Check out yesterday's IT channel news briefs.
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