IT seems to be growing again. Gartner forecasts worldwide IT spending will increase 4.5% this year to $3.68 trillion, driven by artificial intelligence, big data analytics, blockchain technology, and the IoT.
Digital transformations are fashionable. You won’t find an enterprise that isn’t leveraging some combination of cloud, analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to better serve customers or streamline operations. But here’s a hard truth about digital transformations: Many are failing outright or are in danger of failing. Typical reasons for failing are not understanding what is digital transformation (different people understand it differently), lack of CEO sponsorship, talent deficiency, resistance to change. Usually a technology-first approach to digital transformation is a recipe for disaster. Truing to just push trough technically unfeasible transformation idea is another way to fail.
The digital era requires businesses to move with speed, and that is causing IT organizations to rethink how they work. A lot of IT is moving off premises to SaaS providers and the public cloud. Research outfit 451 standout finding was that 60 per cent of the surveyed enterprises say they will run the majority of their IT outside the confines of enterprise data centres by the end of 2019. From cost containment to hybrid strategies, CIOs are getting more creative in taking advantage of the latest offerings and the cloud’s economies of scale.
In 2018 there seems to be a growing Software Engineering Talent Shortage in both quantity and quality. For the past nine years, software engineers have been at the top of the hardest to fill jobs in the United States. And same applies to many other countries including Finland. Forrester projects that firms will pay 20% above market for quality engineering talent in 2018. Particularly in-demand skills are data scientists, high-end software developers and information security analysts. There is real need for well-studied, experienced engineers with a formal and deep understanding of software engineering. Recruiting and retaining tech talent remains IT’s biggest challenge today. Most CIOs are migrating applications to public cloud services, offloading operations and maintenance of computing, storage and other capabilities so they can reallocate staff to focus on what’s strategic to their business.
The enterprise no longer is at the center of the IT universe. It seems that reports of the PC’s demise have been greatly exaggerated and the long and painful decline in PC sales of the last half-decade as tailed off, at least momentarily. As the sales of smartphones and tablets have risen, consumers had not stopped using PCs, but merely replaced them less often. FT reports that PC is set to stage a comeback in 2018, after the rise of smartphones sent sales of desktop and laptop computers into decline in recent years. If that does not happen, then PC market could return to growth in 2019. But the end result is that PC is no longer seen as the biggest growth driver for chip makers. An extreme economic shift has chipmakers focused on hyperscale clouds.
Microservices are talked about a lot. Software built using microservices is easier to deliver and maintain than the big and brittle architectures or old; these were difficult to scale and might take years to build and deliver. Microservices are small and self-contained, so therefore easy to wrap up in a virtual machine or a container (but don’t have to live in containers). Public cloud providers increasingly differentiate themselves through the features and services they provide. But it turns out that microservices are far from being one-size-fit-for-all silver bullet for IT challenges.
Containers will try to make break-trough again in 2018. Year 2017 was supposed to be the year of containers! It wasn’t? Oops. Maybe year 2018 is better. Immature tech still has a bunch of growing up to do. Linux Foundation’s Open Containers Initiative (OCI) finally dropped two specifications that standardise how containers operate at a low level. The needle in 2018 will move towards containers running separately from VMs, or entirely in place of VMs. Kubernates gains traction. It seems that the containers are still at the point where the enterprise is waiting to embrace them.
Serverless will be talked about. Serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Serverless architectures refer to applications that significantly depend on third-party services (knows as Backend as a Service or “BaaS”) or on custom code that’s run in ephemeral containers (Function as a Service or “FaaS”), the best known vendor host of which currently is AWS Lambda.
Automation is what everybody with many computers wants. Infrastructure automation creates and destroys basic IT resources such as compute instances, storage, networking, DNS, and so forth. Security automation helps keeping systems secure. It bosses want to create self-driving private clouds. The journey to self-driving clouds needs to be gradual. The vision of the self-driving cloud makes sense, but the task of getting from here to there can seem daunting. DevOps automation with customer control: Automatic installation and configuration, Integration that brings together AWS and VMWare, workflows migration controlled by users, Self-service provisioning based on templates defined by users, Advanced machine learning to automate processes, and Automated upgrades.
Linux is center of many cloud operations: Google and Facebook started building their own gear and loading it with their own software. Google has it’s own Linux called gLinux. Facebook networking uses Linux-based FBOSS operating system. Even Microsoft has developed its own Linux for cloud operations. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a very fine idea.
Memory business boomed in 2017 for both NAND and DRAM. The drivers for DRAM are smartphones and servers. Solid-state drives (SSDs) and smartphones are fueling the demand for NAND. NAND Market Expected to Cool in Q1 from the crazy year 2017, but it is still growing well because there is increasing demand. Memory — particular DRAM — was largely considered a commodity business.
Lots of 3D NAND will go to solid state drives in 2018. IDC forecasts strong growth for the solid-state drive (SSD) industry as it transitions to 3D NAND. SSD industry revenue is expected to reach $33.6 billion in 2021, growing at a CAGR of 14.8%. Sizes of memory chips increase as number of layer in 3D NAND are added. The traditional mechanical hard disk based on magnetic storage is in hard place in competition, as the speed of flash-based SSDs is so superior
There is search for faster memory because modern computers, especially data-center servers that skew heavily toward in-memory databases, data-intensive analytics, and increasingly toward machine-learning and deep-neural-network training functions, depend on large amounts of high-speed, high capacity memory to keep the wheels turning. The memory speed has not increased as fast as the capacity. The access bandwidth of DRAM-based computer memory has improved by a factor of 20x over the past two decades. Capacity increased 128x during the same period. For year 2018 DRAM remains a near-universal choice when performance is the priority. There is search going on for a viable replacement for DRAM. Whether it’s STT-RAM or phase-change memory or resistive RAM, none of them can match the speed or endurance of DRAM.
PCI Express 4.0 is ramping up. PCI-standards consortium PCI-SIG (Special Interest Group) has ratified and released specifications for PCIe 4.0 Specification Version 1. Doubling PCIe 3.0’s 8 GT/s (~1 GB/s) of bandwidth per lane, PCIe 4.0 offers a transfer rate of 16 GT/s. The newest version of PCI Express will start appearing on motherboards soon. PCI-SIG has targeted Q2 2019 for releasing the finalized PCIe 5.0 specification, so PCIe 4.0 won’t be quite as long-lived as PCIe 3.0 has been. So we’ll See PCIe 4.0 this year in use and PCIe 5.0 in 2019.
USB type C is on the way to becoming the most common PC and peripheral interface. The USB C connector has become faster more commonplace than any other earlier interface. USB C is very common on smartphones, but the interface is also widespread on laptops. Sure, it will take some time before it is the most common. In 2021, the C-type USB connector has almost five billion units, IHS estimates.
It seems that the after-shocks of Meltdown/Spectre vulnerabilities on processors will be haunting us for quite long time this year. It is now three weeks since The Register revealed the chip design flaws that Google later confirmed and the world still awaits certainty about what it will take to get over the silicon slip-ups. Last pieces of farce has been that Intel Halts Spectre, Meltdown CPU Patches Over Unstable Code and Linux creator Linus Torvalds criticises Intel’s ‘garbage’ patches. Computer security will not be the same after all this has been sorted out.
What’s Next With Computing? IBM discusses AI, neural nets and quantum computing. Many can agree that those technologies will be important. Public cloud providers increasingly provide sophisticated flavours of data analysis and increasingly Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Central Banks Are Using Big Data to Help Shape Policy. Over the past few years, machine learning (ML) has evolved from an interesting new approach that allows computers to beat champions at chess and Go, into one that is touted as a panacea for almost everything. 2018 will be the start of what could be a longstanding battle between chipmakers to determine who creates the hardware that artificial intelligence lives on.
ARM processor based PCs are coming. As Microsoft and Qualcomm jointly announced in early December that the first Windows 10 notebooks with ARM-based Snapdragon 835 processors will be officially launched in early 2018, there will be more and more PCs with ARM processor architecture hitting the market. Digitimes Research expects that ARM-based models may dominate lower-end PC market, but don’t hold your breath on this. It is rumoured that “wireless LTE connectivity” function will be incorporated into all the entry-level Window 10 notebooks with ARM processors, branded by Microsoft as the “always-connected devices.” HP and Asustek have released some ARM-based notebooks with Windows 10S.
Sources:
Ohjelmistoalan osaajapula pahenee – kasvu jatkuu
PC market set to return to growth in 2018
PC market could return to growth in 2019
PC sales grow for the first time in five years
PCI-SIG Finalizes and Releases PCIe 4.0, Version 1 Specification: 2x PCIe Bandwidth and More
Hot Chips 2017: We’ll See PCIe 4.0 This Year, PCIe 5.0 In 2019
Outsourcing remains strategic in the digital era
8 hot IT hiring trends — and 8 going cold
EDA Challenges Machine Learning
The Battle of AI Processors Begins in 2018
How to create self-driving private clouds
ZeroStack Lays Out Vision for Five-Step Journey to Self-Driving Cloud
2017 – the year of containers! It wasn’t? Oops. Maybe next year
2018′s Software Engineering Talent Shortage— It’s quality, not just quantity
How Central Banks Are Using Big Data to Help Shape Policy
Digitimes Research: ARM-based models may dominate lower-end PC market
Intel Halts Spectre, Meltdown CPU Patches Over Unstable Code
Spectre and Meltdown: Linux creator Linus Torvalds criticises Intel’s ‘garbage’ patches
Meltdown/Spectre week three: World still knee-deep in something nasty
What’s Next With Computing? IBM discusses AI, neural nets and quantum computing.
PCI Express 4.0 as Fast As Possible
Microsoft has developed its own Linux!
Microsoft Built Its Own Linux Because Everyone Else Did
Facebook has built its own switch. And it looks a lot like a server
Googlella on oma sisäinen linux
Is the writing on the wall for on-premises IT? This survey seems to say so
12 reasons why digital transformations fail
7 habits of highly effective digital transformations
857 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
IT Pro Panel: Eight ways to manage your technology teams
http://www.itpro.co.uk/business-strategy/32217/it-pro-panel-eight-ways-to-manage-your-technology-teams
Build the right team, but leave the creativity to them
Fail fast, but fail safe
Mix your team up – get out of the IT bubble
Ask them to question everything
Give them something to own
Find what motivates each team member
Keep the train on the track
Always focus on the end result
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tivi.fi/CIO/nain-it-tiimi-pysyy-ruodussa-kahdeksan-vinkkia-asiantuntijoilta-6747274
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 10 most popular programming languages, according to the ‘Facebook for programmers’
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-popular-programming-languages-according-to-github-2018-10?r=US&IR=T
#10: Ruby
#9: C
#8: Shell
#7: TypeScript
#6: C#
#5: C++
#4: PHP
#3: Python
#2: Java
#1: JavaScript
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
HPE’s Spaceborne Computer, the first commercial off-the-shelf computer launched into orbit to run a teraflop in zero gravity, now available for scientific use
Spaceborne Computer brings supercomputing capabilities to ISS astronauts
https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/01/spaceborne-computer-brings-supercomputing-capabilities-to-iss-astronauts/
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in August 2017 announced the Spaceborne Computer experiment, which saw the Palo Alto firm team up with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and SpaceX to launch a supercomputer into space. Today, a little over a year later, HPE says it’s making the Spaceborne Computer’s high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities available to astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The new “above-the-cloud” services, as HPE has cheekily dubbed them, will enable scientists in the ISS’ U.S. National Laboratory to run analyses on-station without having to beam data to a terrestrial way station for processing.
Beyond a range of 400 to 1,000 miles above Earth’s surface, communication latencies to and from the planet can reach up to 20 minutes
If all goes according to plan, ISS space explorers will be to dissect and process large volumes of data with the Spaceborne Computer.
If all goes according to plan, ISS space explorers will be to dissect and process large volumes of data with the Spaceborne Computer.
it’s had to contend not only with flaky network connectivity, but unpredictable radiation, inconsistent power, solar flares, subatomic particles, micrometeoroids, and irregular cooling
The Spaceborne Computer is based on HPE’s Apollo pc40 server, a dual-socket Intel Xeon Processor Scalable platform featuring up to four Nvidia Tesla graphics processing units (GPUs), 12 2666MHz DDR4 DIMMs, two SFF hard drives or solid state drives, and dual 2000-watt power supplies. But it’s more rugged than off-the-shelf models
https://news.hpe.com/spaceborne-computer-still-flying-high-one-year-later/
Tomi Engdahl says:
IDC: Tablet shipments decline for 16th straight quarter
https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/02/idc-tablet-shipments-q3-2018/
The tablet market has now declined year-over-year for 16 quarters straight. Q3 2018 saw an 8.6 percent year-over-year decline: 36.4 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 39.9 million units in the same quarter last year.
The only silver lining is that the Q3 2018 decline wasn’t double digits again. While 2017 quarters only saw single-digit declines, Q1 2018 and Q2 2018 were in the double digits.
The estimates come from IDC, which counts both slate form factors and detachables, meaning tablets with keyboards included.
Huawei was the only company in the top five to ship more tablets than the year before. The top five vendors accounted for 68.4 percent of the market
The replacement cycle for tablets is still closer to that of traditional PCs than smartphones, and 2018 hasn’t been able to change that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Three Horror Stories about Terrible Software Decisions
https://blog.oneio.cloud/resources/three-horror-stories-about-terrible-software-decisions?utm_campaign=ONEiO-ReTa&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=display&utm_content=Horror+stories&hsa_acc=46212948&hsa_ver=3&hsa_src=%5BSITE_SOURCE_NAME%5D&hsa_grp=6111918797386&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ad=6111918799386&hsa_cam=6111918789186
In this blog we take a look at some of the terrible things that can happen when integration projects don’t go to plan. Partly for the fun of it… to look back and laugh. But also, to help you learn from other people’s mistakes and hopefully avoid a similar fate. So where to start?
Tomi Engdahl says:
There are now 100 million Macs in use
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/there-are-now-100-million-macs-in-use/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
During its press event in Brooklyn, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared some numbers on the Mac in particular. The active install base of all Macs is currently 100 million.
Obviously this number is much smaller than the iPhone install base, but it’s also a smaller market overall. More important than the number of active Macs, Apple is still converting a lot of new users to the Mac.
51 percent of Mac customers are new users overall. And in China in particular, 76 percent of buyers are buying a Mac for the first time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A global view of IT – where it’s going right and where it is not
https://blog.oneio.cloud/resources/global-view-going-right-not?utm_campaign=ONEiO-ReTa&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=display&utm_content=Global+view+IT&hsa_ad=6111920083386&hsa_grp=6111918797386&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ver=3&hsa_cam=6111918789186&hsa_src=%5BSITE_SOURCE_NAME%5D&hsa_acc=46212948
Juha Berghäll, CEO of Service-Flow reflects on a busy year of discussing the future of ITSM with people around the world. And presents is somewhat challenging view of the industry today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/cyberspace/the-strange-birth-and-long-life-of-unix
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gizmodo:
A history of the ongoing quest to build a viable 2-in-1 tablet-laptop hybrid and why they are so hard to design — In a recent barrage of new products, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Lenovo, and HP have all shown off computers that are trying to tackle one of the industry’s most vexing problems …
https://gizmodo.com/the-quest-to-build-the-impossible-laptop-1830124994
Tomi Engdahl says:
Now available: The open source guide to DevOps monitoring tools
https://opensource.com/article/18/8/now-available-open-source-guide-devops-monitoring-tools?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
In the first of a new series focusing on DevOps monitoring tools, we review the various types of system observability tools.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Single Sign-On Made Easy with Keycloak / Red Hat SSO
https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/03/19/sso-made-easy-keycloak-rhsso/?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
If you’re looking for a single sign-on solution (SSO) that enables you to secure new or legacy applications and easily use federated identity providers (IdP) such as social networks, you should definitely take a look at Keycloak. Keycloak is the upstream open source community project for Red Hat Single Sign-On (RH-SSO).
Tomi Engdahl says:
What happens when you move SIAM up a gear?
https://blog.oneio.cloud/resources/happens-move-siam-gear?utm_campaign=ONEiO-ReTa&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=display&utm_content=SIAM+up+a+gear&hsa_ad=6111920334986&hsa_grp=6111918797386&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ver=3&hsa_cam=6111918789186&hsa_src=%5BSITE_SOURCE_NAME%5D&hsa_acc=46212948
list of other things it can be called, related to or indeed confused with. Two speed ITSM is also often used to describe the concept. Gartner’s definition of the term looks a bit like this:
“Bimodal IT is the practice of managing two separate, coherent modes of IT delivery, one focused on stability and the other on agility.”
So what does this mean in real words? Effectively what you are being asked to do is recognise that some IT projects and activities require a long and slow game approach, where you have to invest more in the reliable and stable infrastructures. And that activities which require a faster and more agile approach
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is PS/2 or USB Better for Keyboards and Mice?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWkvzycD5PE
Should you still be using those old PS/2 ports for your keyboards and mice?
Tomi Engdahl says:
I know what you’re thinking: Outsource or in-source IT security? I’ve worked both sides, so here’s my advice…
The pros and cons of using internal and external talent, or a mix of both
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/02/cyber_security_sourcing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The old strategy of building small, focused applications is new again in the modern microservices environment.
Revisiting the Unix philosophy in 2018
https://opensource.com/article/18/11/revisiting-unix-philosophy-2018?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
The old strategy of building small, focused applications is new again in the modern microservices environment.
In a nutshell that philosophy is: Build small, focused programs—in whatever language—that do only one thing but do this thing well, communicate via stdin/stdout, and are connected through pipes.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, I thought so. That’s pretty much the definition of microservices offered by James Lewis and Martin Fowler
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside a Huge Data Center Filled with Apple Mac Computers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b46E4mp_V8
Snazzy Labs visits a company that takes Mac mini and Mac Pro to the next level!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chris Williams / The Register:
Intel announces Xeon E-2100 CPUs aimed at low-end servers and Cascade Lake AP, a top-end variant of the next gen Xeon Scalable processors, with up to 48 cores
Intel peddles latest Xeon CPUs – E-series and 48-core Cascade Lake AP – to soothe epyc mygrayne
The AP does not stand for ‘AMD P**-off’
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/05/intel_cascade_lake/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Should You Buy Refurbished Electronics?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL8YMdsEJu8
Is buying refurbished electronics a great way to save money, or a risky gamble on a mistreated gadget? Techquickie explains.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Combines Optane Options with New Processor Class
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333939
Only months after announcing it would slowly wind down its 3D Xpoint collaboration with Micron Technology, Intel Corp. has outlined where it sees the persistent memory delivering the most benefits.
Its latest data center strategy includes two new members of its Xeon process family. The Xeon E-2100 processor is available immediately, while its Cascade Lake advanced performance processor will be released in the first half of next year.
The E-2100 processor is aimed at small- and medium-size business and cloud service providers to support workloads on entry-level servers, as well as across all computing segments for sensitive workloads that need enhanced data protections. Cascade Lake, however, is a new class of scalable Xeon processor, said Lisa Spelman, vice president and general manager of Intel Xeon products and data center marketing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arm’s Data Center Two Step
Smart offload chips point the way to servers
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333933
Arm put smart offload processors in the spotlight at its annual developers’ conference because they are stepping stones to its data center ambitions. The cloud is the latest target for the still-small designer of cores that investor Softbank is betting will be a semiconductor giant someday.
The name is a relatively new handle, but the chips have been around for years. They first emerged as TCP offload engines more than 15 years ago. Now, they sometimes ride network interface cards called smart NICs.
Along with the new smart names, the chips have taken on more jobs. Today, they handle a flexible basket of security, storage, and virtualization tasks.
The chips have big, high-volume customers. Microsoft’s Catapult uses Intel FPGA cards as smart NICs. Amazon’s Nitro uses Arm-based controllers that it acquired in 2015 from startup Annapurna.
Arm hopes to bridge its way into the big bucks in part with CCIX, a cache-coherent extension of PCI Express. CCIX is basically the Intel processor bus for the rest of the industry, linking CPUs to accelerators and more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 ‘How to tips’ for taking a more agile approach to service integration.
https://blog.oneio.cloud/5-how-to-tips-for-taking-a-more-agile-approach-to-service-integration?utm_campaign=Ongoing-ONEiO-ReTA-Traffic&utm_medium=paid&utm_source=facebook&hsa_acc=46212948&hsa_ad=6119482029386&hsa_src=%5BSITE_SOURCE_NAME%5D&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_cam=6111918789186&hsa_grp=6111918797386&hsa_ver=3#
It is an undoubted and obvious truth that Agile has grown in popularity over the last decade, much to the point where many agile principles are now embedded into the norms of project management. However, many businesses are still failing to apply this into their service integration projects. I know this because I have worked across countless ITSM, SIAM and Service Integration projects over the years
Tomi Engdahl says:
Human brain’ supercomputer with 1 million processors switched on for first time
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/human-brain-supercomputer-with-1million-processors-switched-on-for-first-time/
The world’s largest neuromorphic supercomputer designed and built to work in the same way a human brain does has been fitted with its landmark one-millionth processor core and is being switched on for the first time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.nitor.com/fi/uutiset-ja-blogi/ketteryys-ja-virheiden-pelko
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIO Handbook for managing multiple Service Providers
https://blog.oneio.cloud/cio-handbook-for-managing-multiple-service-providers?utm_campaign=Ongoing-ONEiO-ReTA-Traffic&utm_medium=paid&utm_source=facebook&hsa_acc=46212948&hsa_ad=6119482200986&hsa_src=%5BSITE_SOURCE_NAME%5D&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_cam=6111918789186&hsa_grp=6111918797386&hsa_ver=3
Tomi Engdahl says:
WHY BLAMING YOUR ITSM TOOL MIGHT BE THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO
https://blog.oneio.cloud/resources/why-blaming-your-itsm-tool-might-be-the-worst-thing-you-can-do?utm_campaign=ONEiO-ReTa&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=display&utm_content=Blame+ITSM&hsa_ad=6111919053186&hsa_grp=6111918797386&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ver=3&hsa_cam=6111918789186&hsa_src=%5BSITE_SOURCE_NAME%5D&hsa_acc=46212948
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maailman ensimmäinen 7 nanometrin x86-prosessori – eikä se tule Inteliltä
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8677-maailman-ensimmainen-7-nanometrin-x86-prosessori-eika-se-tule-intelilta
Tomi Engdahl says:
Monday: Intel teases 48-core Xeon. Tuesday: AMD whips covers off 64-core second-gen Epyc server processor
Chipzilla more like Tyrannosaurus Rekt
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/07/amd_zen_2_epyc/
AMD said on Tuesday it’s going to roll out a 7nm 64-core second-generation Epyc server processor, dubbed Rome, in 2019.
Samples of the processor are in the hands of selected organizations for testing and evaluation. This comes a day after Intel promised on Monday a 14nm 48-core Cascade Lake AP Xeon chip also for 2019.
AMD’s Rome will sport PCIe 4.0 interfaces, and the usual PCIe-based Infinity Fabric that interconnects processor sockets and any GPU accelerators. With up to 64 physical Zen 2 CPU cores, the chips can run up to 128 hardware threads.
The physical x64 core count blows away Intel’s Xeon compute family, which only just set itself a high-water mark of 48 cores with Cascade Lake AP. Also, that line is still on Intel’s 14nm process, whereas AMD is nudging ahead with TSMC’s 7nm. AMD also claimed a single-socket Rome can match or outperform a dual-socket Intel Xeon Scalable 8180M setup, when running the ray-tracing C-Ray benchmark, at least.
Tomi Engdahl says:
W3C launches internet hippie manifesto: ‘We’ve lost control of our data and that data is being weaponised against us’
Why can’t we all go back to being nice to each other, like in the Usenet and IRC days, er, wait…
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/05/w3c_hippie_manifesto/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Is Adobe Flash Dying?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZegM4vx7MUo
Adobe Flash was once a mainstay on the Web, but it’s suddenly become far less common. What happened to it?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Finds Pirated Windows on Too Many New Computers
Company also discovers malware and coin miners on these PCs
https://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-finds-pirated-windows-on-too-many-new-computers-523595.shtml
Microsoft has conducted its own investigation on the Asian new PC market, only to discover an insane number of computers sold with a pirated Windows license.
As reported by The Economic Times, Microsoft purchased PCs between May and July from Asian markets in an attempt to determine how many of them are shipped with counterfeit Windows licenses and malware pre-installed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft is deprecating the old Windows Volume Mixer
https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/9u1okb/microsoft_is_deprecating_the_old_windows_volume/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: Do Older IT Workers Doing End-User Support Find It Gets Harder With Age?
https://ask.slashdot.org/story/18/11/05/2328230/ask-slashdot-do-older-it-workers-doing-end-user-support-find-it-gets-harder-with-age?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook’s GraphQL Gets Its Own Open-Source Foundation
https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/11/07/0026207/facebooks-graphql-gets-its-own-open-source-foundation?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Tomi Engdahl says:
Does your team need to learn how to break things?
https://opensource.com/article/18/11/security-devops-steps?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Steps to building tools (automation) and changing people (culture).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 10 Bug Removes Activation, Downgrades Pro to Home
https://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-10-bug-removes-activation-downgrades-pro-to-home-523674.shtml
As if the critical file deletion bug in Windows 10 version 1809 wasn’t enough, users of Microsoft’s operating system are now encountering a new issue that causes activation problems on their machines.
A growing number of users are reporting an error on reddit, explaining that all of a sudden, their Windows 10 installation is no longer activated.
UPDATE: Microsoft has confirmed the bug and says that it’s working on a fix. For now, users are recommended to wait as the issue should be resolved within the next two days. Original story below.
Tomi Engdahl says:
16 Places To Buy A Laptop With Linux Preloaded
https://www.cyberciti.biz/hardware/laptop-computers-with-linux-installed-or-preloaded/
The hardest part of using Linux is to find out the correct hardware. Hardware compatibility and drivers can be a big issue. But where one can find Linux desktops or Laptop for sale? Here are sixteen places to buy a preinstalled Linux Desktop and Laptop.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gitbase: Exploring Git repos with SQL
https://opensource.com/article/18/11/gitbase?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Gitbase is a Go-powered open source project that allows SQL queries to be run on Git repositories.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Doctors Hate Their Computers
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-hate-their-computers?mbid=nl_Humor%20110818&CNDID=17865996&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Humor%20110818&utm_content=&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=Humor%20110818&hasha=7318c10d1b60bdc56af91a7dcb980c4c&hashb=5553a5aec19be70eb3e650c9543d8cdff6e33d54&spMailingID=14584405&spUserID=MTQxNzkzNDQyMTY1S0&spJobID=1520624800&spReportId=MTUyMDYyNDgwMAS2
Digitization promises to make medical care easier and more efficient. But are screens coming between doctors and patients?
Digitization promises to make medical care easier and more efficient; instead, doctors feel trapped behind their screens.
daily routines would come to depend upon mastery of Epic, the new medical software system on the screens in front of us. The upgrade from our home-built software would cost the hospital system where we worked, Partners HealthCare, a staggering $1.6 billion
When it came to viewing test results, though, things got complicated. There was a column of thirteen tabs on the left side of my screen, crowded with nearly identical terms: “chart review,” “results review,” “review flowsheet.” We hadn’t even started learning how to enter information, and the fields revealed by each tab came with their own tools and nuances.
With Epic, paper lab-order slips, vital-signs charts, and hospital-ward records would disappear. We’d be greener, faster, better.
But three years later I’ve come to feel that a system that promised to increase my mastery over my work has, instead, increased my work’s mastery over me. I’m not the only one.
A 2016 study found that physicians spent about two hours doing computer work for every hour spent face to face with a patient
- whatever the brand of medical software.
the average workday for its family physicians had grown to eleven and a half hours. The result has been epidemic levels of burnout among clinicians. Forty per cent screen positive for depression
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony’s PlayStation Classic uses an open-source emulator to play its games
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/09/sonys-playstation-classic-uses-an-open-source-emulator-to-play-its-games/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
The worm has turned, it seems. Emulators, which let people run old console games on their computers, were once the scourge of the gaming industry. Now Sony is using one of the very pieces of software the industry decried as the basis for its PlayStation Classic retro console.
Tomi Engdahl says:
96-core ARM supercomputer using the NanoPi-Fire3
https://climbers.net/sbc/nanopi-fire3-arm-supercomputer/
Building a high performance 12-node NanoPi-Fire3 supercomputer for under £100 (£550 including twelve Fire3s
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to develop functions-as-a-service with Apache OpenWhisk
https://opensource.com/article/18/11/developing-functions-service-apache-openwhisk?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Write your functions in popular languages and build components using containers
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to explain APIs in plain English
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2018/11/how-explain-apis-plain-english?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
APIs play an important role in building today’s apps, but how do you explain them to people who aren’t developers? Let’s talk definitions and business benefits
Interest in APIs is getting re-stoked because of the central role they occupy in cloud and cloud-native development.
So why are APIs still so often misunderstood?
What is an API?
Barry Walker, software architect at CYBRIC: “An API is a documented way for developers to share pieces of functionality. It’s meant to give developers an easy and standard way to build functionality without having to write all of their own code.”
“This allows developers to connect different systems, or components of a system, without having to understand all of the complexity.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Flash & The Future of Interactive Content
https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/
Two open source alternatives to Flash Player
https://opensource.com/alternatives/flash-media-player?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Adobe will end support for Flash Media Player in 2020, but there are still a lot of Flash videos out there that need to be watched. Here are two open source alternatives that are trying to help.
Lightspark
Lightspark is a Flash Player alternative for Linux machines.
GNU Gnash
GNU Gnash is a Flash Player for GNU/Linux operating systems including Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian. It works as standalone software and as a plugin for the Firefox and Konqueror browsers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computing Way Outside Of A Box
https://semiengineering.com/computing-way-outside-of-a-box/
Arm’s CTO talks about how AI and the end of Moore’s Law are shaking up processor design.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:
A look at nascent efforts to stream video games, as latency seems set to drop even lower with the proliferation of data centers and 5G rolling out
The Tricky—but Potentially Lucrative—Task of Streaming Videogames
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trickybut-potentially-lucrativetask-of-streaming-videogames-1541673000
By making game consoles unnecessary, streaming could dramatically broaden the videogame market
Technology giants are trying to bring to videogames the same streaming capabilities that gave rise to Netflix and Spotify, a transformational leap that could usher in a new wave of growth for an industry bigger than Hollywood.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Alibaba sold $30.8B worth of goods during the 24-hour Singles’ Day shopping event, topping the 2017 Singles Day sales of $25.3B — – Singles Day got off to a strong start with sales hitting $1 billion in one minute and 25 seconds. — Alibaba on Sunday tore through last year’s Singles Day sales record …
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/11/alibaba-singles-day-2018-record-sales-on-largest-shopping-event-day.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
What is optimisation-as-code?
https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/CW-Developer-Network/What-is-optimisation-as-code
There’s code optimisation, which, obviously, is a process where software application developers focus on an existing code base and work to improve it in terms of its total number of executable lines, its demands upon memory and other system resources such as its need to perform input/output (I/O) operations.
Then there’s also optimisation-as-code, perhaps not quite so obviously.
The latter of these two processes is delivered as an often comparatively small chunk (lines) of code designed to empower cloud applications inside any given ‘instance’ with a degree of self-awareness of the cloud resources they need based upon both business and application demands.
Additionally, optimisation-as-code tools allow the application itself to automatically self-optimise in terms core execution based upon the higher-level ‘health check’ it has received in terms of system resource needs.
Why the clarification?
Because cloud optimisation company Densify has now come forward with its Cloe Aware [it’s deeply backend, so the brand marketeers used a human name] optimisation-as-code product.
The company claims that Cloe Aware allows cloud operations teams to automate application optimisation by simply adding one line of code into their infrastructure-as-code template.
As such, it is reasonable to argue that it is near (if not completely) impossible to align each application’s needs with the right cloud technologies available while optimising each penny spent.
Densify Launches Cloud Industry’s First Optimisation-as-Code Product, Allowing All Applications to Self-Optimise, Saving Cloud Customers Millions
http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/news-post/densify-launches-cloud-industrys-first-optimisation-as-code-product-allowing-all-applications-to-self-optimise-saving-cloud-customers-millions/
Densify, the Cloud Optimisation software company, today launched Cloe Aware, the industry’s first cloud optimisation-as-code product. Dedicated to bringing cloud costs dramatically down while improving application performance, Cloe Aware enables applications to self-optimise. Leveraging the industry’s first optimisation-as-code product, Cloud operations teams can automate application optimisation by simply adding one line of code into their infrastructure-as-code template.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Apple says its T2 chip in newer Macs will run a diagnostic after some repairs that may make the computer inoperable if not repaired by Apple or its network — Newer Macs now require a proprietary diagnostic tool be run after replacing the logic board or Touch ID sensor
Apple confirms its T2 security chip blocks some third-party repairs of new Macs
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18077166/apple-macbook-air-mac-mini-t2-chip-security-repair-replacement-tool
Newer Macs now require a proprietary diagnostic tool be run after replacing the logic board or Touch ID sensor
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
Q&A: AMD CTO Mark Papermaster on the company’s strategy for its EPYC server processor line and its chiplet approach of combining 7nm CPU dies with 14nm IO dies
http://www.anandtech.com/show/13578/naples-rome-milan-zen-4-an-interview-with-amd-cto-mark-papermaster