Category Archives: Strategy

Intel acquires InfiniBand fabric technology from Qlogic

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Ray

Intel announced today that they are going to acquire the InfiniBand (IB) fabric technology business from Qlogic. From many analyst’s perspective, IB is one of the only technologies out there that can efficiently interconnect a cluster of commodity servers into … Continue reading →

Posted in Clustered storage, Distributed computing, Ethernet, Infiniband, Information economy, Networking, RDMA, RoCE, Storage performance, Strategic Inflection Points | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

12 atoms per bit vs 35 bits per electron

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Ray

Read a story today in Technology Review on Magnetic Memory Miniaturized to Just 12 Atoms by a team at  IBM Research that created a (spin) magnetic “storage device” that used 12 iron atoms  to record a single bit (near absolute … Continue reading →

Posted in Data density, R&D measures, Storage, Storage density | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Making hardware-software systems design easier

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Ray

Recent research from MIT on a Streamlining Chip Design was in the news today.  The report described work was done  by Nyrav Dave PhD and Myron King to create a new programming language, BlueSpec that can convert specifications into hardware chip design (Verilog) or … Continue reading →

Posted in Decision making, Energy efficiency, R&D measures, Storage architecture, Strategic Inflection Points, System effectiveness | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How has IBM research changed?

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Ray

What does Watson, Neuromorphic chips and race track memory have in common. They have all emerged out of IBM research labs. I have been wondering for some time now how it is that a company known for it’s cutting edge … Continue reading →

Posted in Corporate growth, Data science, Executive leadership, Information economy, R&D measures, SSD storage, Strategic Inflection Points, Strategic planning, Strategy, Visionary leadershp | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Will Hybrid drives conquer enterprise storage?

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Ray

I saw where Seagate announced the next generation of their Momentus XT Hybrid (SSD & Disk) drive this week.  We haven’t discussed Hybrid drives much on this blog but it has become a viable product family. I am not planning on describing … Continue reading →

Posted in Block Storage, Disk storage, File Storage, SSD storage, Storage architecture, Storage Features, Storage performance, Strategic Inflection Points, System effectiveness | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Smart windows

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Ray

Heard a story yesterday about Smart Windows on NPR .  They were talking about new smart glass technology which uses a nano-crystal film coating to window panes that can change heat transmission characteristics of the glass. Apparently the nano-crystal film can … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy efficiency, Strategic Inflection Points, Strategic planning, System effectiveness | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

IT as a service on the Cloud is not the end

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Ray

[Long post] Read another intriguing post by David Vellente at Wikibon today about the emergence of IT shops becoming service organizations to their industries using the cloud to hosting these services.  I am not in complete agreement with Dave but … Continue reading →

Posted in Cloud services, Information economy, Market dynamics, Strategic Inflection Points, System effectiveness, System quality | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

MIT builds analog synapse chip

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Ray

Recently MIT announced a new brain chip, a breakthrough device that simulates a single brain synapse with an analog chip. We have discussed before the digital nueromorphic chip activity going on (see my IBM introducing their SyNAPSE chip and Electro-human … Continue reading →

Posted in Distributed computing, Information economy, Strategic Inflection Points, System effectiveness | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment