cisco router
Preparing For Your Cisco Ccna Exam
Preparing for the CCNA exam
CiscoKits CCNA Study Plan If you want to pass your ICND1, ICND2 or CCNA exam on the first try, it is essential you have a sound, effective study plan that is proven and other Cisco CCNA students have followed to successfully pass their 640-802, 640-822 or 640-816 tests. Here at CiscoKits, we have on-staff seasoned CCNA, CCNP, CCVP and CCIE instructors. These instructors have helped develop Cisco training curriculum, delivered boot camps and have authored various books you will find in Barnes & Nobel or Borders. So we know the material and how to help you prepare for the Cisco certification exams.
We believe that an effective self-study plan is going to consist of a variety of tools and techniques to help you pass your Cisco certification exam. We will outline each of these tools below and then provide our suggestions on how to use them in your CCNA self-study plan.
1) Real Routers and Switches – How can you really be confident and work on Cisco equipment if you never opened a Cisco router or Cisco switch? If you do get a job working with Cisco routers, will you be intimidated by the router the first time seeing it knowing you never actually worked on one? That said, there is so much to learn about these units by having the actual hardware. You cant duplicate what happens when you have a serial cable come loose or are using the wrong type of cable(straight-thru versus cross-over) daisy chaining switches with a simulator. I dont know about you, but I learn so much more effectively using real equipment. I also find that most of our CCNA students say the same. The only way to actually see routing and such work and know that you made it work is to have real Cisco routers and switches for your Cisco certification training lab. What I find is that when I mess up a lab about 10 times in a row due to a typo or trying to enter a command at the wrong level of the IOS, when I actually figure out what I was doing wrong.well, I am never going to forget that again! This is actual real hands-on experience! That translates into you actually understanding what went on and helps you obtain the troubleshooting skills so you can methodically work through issues. Again, there is no way to recreate this by just reading a book and understanding theory. So to help you pass your Cisco certification exam, I suggest you invest in some Cisco routers and switches for your lab. You will find it to be some of the best money ever spent on your education!
2) Study Guide ” When you purchase a lab kit form us you will get a lab workbook to help guide you through your labs. But the lab workbook does assume that you have some basic knowledge about Cisco routers and switches. We want to be very clear, just having routers, switches and a lab workbook is not enough to pass your Cisco exam. Most CCNA study guides are about 800 pages so there are lots of concepts and nuisances that are covered and we highly recommend you purchase a CCNA study guide to assist you in your self study efforts. Many people ask us what study guide we recommend. I will give you a few suggestions. For a low cost solution, you can go with the basic Sybex CCNA study guide. It is written in laymans terms for very green students and it the cheapest solution. However I have found that it does not go as in-depth to some topics as I might like. But it is a solid solution. The next suggestion is the Cisco Press CCNA study guide. This is a more expensive solution and is written in technical terms and probably does not explain some of the concepts as clearly as the Sybex Guide. So if you are already familiar with Cisco routers and TCP/IP, this may be a better solution for you. Finally, we recommend the Bryant Advantage Ultimate CCNA Study Package. You can find a link to his site at the Bryant Advantage. The Bryant Advantage probably has the most comprehensive study package that is well written using lots of analogies so it can be understood easily by new CCNA students as well as seasoned Cisco professionals. It is on par with the Cisco Press as far as price and another nice benefit is he also has a lab workbook too. We also sell the Bryant Advantage CCNA Lab Hardware Topology to compliment his lab workbook so you can follow through all the labs step by step.
3) Lab Workbook ” Something that always amazed me is people will spend hundreds of dollars and buy some Cisco routers and switches and have no lab workbook. Well what are you going to do with them if you have no labs to follow? If you are new to Cisco, you will need something to guide you along in your studies. That is where we suggest our Lab Workbook. It is written generically. You can see all the concepts that are covered by clicking on this link 640-802 CCNA LAb Workbook. But at a high level it covers everything from creating static routes, dynamic routes, NAT, SDM and IPv6. Probably not things a new CCNA student can do off the top of their head.
4) Test Engine ” A test engine is another invaluable piece of your CCNA study arsenal. A good test engine will help you identify what areas you need to brush up on before paying $125 for your CCNA exam. Our CCNA test engine will help prepare you for the types of questions you will see on the exam. The biggest thing I want to emphasize here is you do NOT want to memorize the questions! You need to be able to understand why the answer is correct or incorrect. Memorizing questions and answers is not learningit is just memorization! What would happen if you see a similar question on the test that is slightly reworded? You need to understand how to read the question and pick out the right solution. Using a test engine properly will help you develop this test taking skill. Click here view the details of our CCNA Test Engine.
5) CRAM Sheet ” This is a great addition to your CCNA exam prep material. The CRAM sheet we have developed consolidates all the major concepts from the 800 pages of a full blown study guide to a full color, laminate six page CRAM sheet. Please click on this link CCNA 640-802 CRAM Sheet to view the full details on this product. This is very handy to carry around with you when you have a few free minutes to study here and there so you are not lugging around a big bulky book. You can also easily bring the CRAM sheet with you to cram to your exam. In fact, we suggest you do use it to brush up on the main concepts just before you pass your CCNA 640-802 exam!
6) CiscoKits Premium Content ” This is a monthly subscription service we offer(to be launched March 2009). For the low price of just $10 a month, you can have access to our members only training section. In this section you will get more in-depth articles, training videos, tutorials and labs. This portion of the site is much more interactive and is a great value for only $10 a month. What do you have to loose at $10 a month versus gaining a ton of valuable information for your education and success in passing you CCNA 640-802 exam!
Ok, now that we covered the major tools you will use in your ICND1, ICND2, and CCNA self study journey, we are going to provide you some guidance on how to use them effectively. Here is our eight step plan.
1) Read the first few chapters of the full blown CCNA study guide you purchased. These first three or four chapters are usually mostly your base theory and then around the third or forth chapter you get into basic router configuration and how to login to the router.
2) At that point you will want to configure your Cisco CCNA hardware lab. You will pick out some of the corresponding labs in the workbook to follow along with the study guide you purchased. That is why we wrote the lab workbook in a generic sense as there is no way we can know what study guide you will be using or what actual hardware you will have. But now you should be able to perform some of the basic CCNA labs in the lab workbook. Continue through your study guide performing the corresponding labs that are in the lab workbook.
3) One you complete the study guide, now you should go through one of the CCNA Test Engine exams such as CCNA exam A*(Important note, only do one exam!). After you complete the exam, you want to print out the entire exam so you can review the sections and concepts you got wrong. Also note what your score was for that exam.
4) Now go back to the study guide and brush up on the concepts you scored poorly on in exam number one.
5) You should now have a baseline of where you were at with the test score. We want to make sure you are scoring about an 80% before you even think about attempting the real Cisco CCNA exam at $125 a pop.
6) Here is where you will want to start to work in additional items such as the CRAM sheet and the Members Only Premium Content training material. These tools will present the information to you from a different perspective as everyone learns using different techniques and via different communication mechanisms. Some will benefit from the full blown study guides, some from the hands-on of the labs and workbook, some from the videos of the Members Only Premium Content, others from the full color CRAM sheet and finally some from the test engine. You want to use all the tools at your disposal for all they are worth.
7) Once you reviewed all the material once, now go back and take CCNA exam B. Hopefully you are scoring close to 80% by now. You will then want to repeat the above process of printing out the exam, reviewing the sections or concepts you scored poorly on and again leveraging the tools at hand.
8) You should see how you can continue to repeat this methodology while learning and not memorizing the questions. If you memorize the questions, you defeat the purpose of trying to learn the actual concepts. I am quite sure if you follow this road map, you will be scoring close to 80% by the time you get to exam C. Just continue refreshing the material and in no time you will be holding your passing exam score for your CCNA certification!
Visit CertificationKits for your free Cisco CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE Training along with many options for Cisco CCNA Certification home lab kits!
Alienware Launches First Linux Gaming PC
This isn’t the first time that Dell has sold PCs with Ubuntu, a free computer operating system based on Linux. Not too long after it bought out Alienware, then an independent maker of gaming PCs, it started selling Ubuntu-powered desktop and laptop PCs, but only online, and only on a limited selection of models.
Recently, Dell launched its XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop, a MacBook Air-style ultrabook that’s preloaded with Ubuntu and tools for developers. Its latest offering, however, is a little less "work" and a little more "play."
The Alienware X51
Pre-empting "Steambox" PCs like the Piston by several months, the Alienware X51 is a box roughly the size of a game console, but with actual PC hardware and a PC operating system inside. It comes in a variety of price points, depending on how powerful that hardware is, but the least expensive one starts at $599 — $100 less than the identically-specced Windows 7 version.
What kind of specs does it have?
An Intel Core i3 processor clocked at 3.3 GHz, 6 GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM, a 1 TB 7200 RPM hard drive, and a 1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 645 are the highlights. More expensive configurations have more powerful hardware, and don’t match the available Windows configurations 1:1, possibly due to driver issues.
Does it count as a Steambox?
Dell isn’t advertising it as being such, although the promo shots show it running Valve’s Steam digital distribution service. Since the grand opening of Steam on Linux, it’s gotten "over 165" titles, including some of Valve’s finest like Team Fortress 2. Most Humble Bundle games and many indie titles also run on Linux.
What about Windows-only games?
One option is to put Windows on the X51 after buying it. You’d need to buy your own copy, though, and you might have to pay the full retail price since a PC manufactured by Alienware might not qualify for OEM licensing (and the price discount that you get by foregoing Microsoft technical support).
Another option is the Wine compatibility layer, which can let you run some Windows games like World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2. This is unofficial, however, and may require some troubleshooting.
What other options are there for Linux gaming systems?
System76, a small PC vendor which has been making Ubuntu PCs for more than five years now, sells the 17-inch Bonobo Extreme gaming laptop for $1,499. Home-built gaming rigs can also be made to support Linux by checking sites like Phoronix for benchmarks and compatibility of hardware components.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
http://news.yahoo.com/alienware-launches-first-linux-gaming-pc-170200300.html
What Type Of Web Hosting Should I Use?
1. Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is a kind of hosting service in which a number of customers share a individual server. All the customers have a standalone website directory where they can publish their files. This is normally the most inexpensive choice as all the customers distribute the total price of the server. The server is managed by the hosting company and the technical tasks like handling servers, setting up server software, security improvements, technical assistance, etc. are the responsibility of the server administration. These servers typically use control panels like cPanel, Directadmin, Plesk, Interworx, etc which allow the users to take care of their websites.
2. VPS ( Virtual Private Server )
VPS is a virtual machine developed on a physical server. The hosting service creates several VPS (Virtual Private Server) on a physical server and offers access to their customers. VPS is as sound as a dedicated server but with restricted resources. VPS offers root access to the customer so the customer can set up any software/OS and carry out any root level tasks. This choice is a little costly as it is a lot more powerful than a shared hosting account and has more features.
3. Dedicated Server
Dedicated server is a plan where the customer leases the whole physical website server and is not shared by anybody else. As opposed to VPS and Shared hosting the customer has full regulation over the server. The customer can select the hardware, software, OS, etc. Dedicated server is beneficial because of the advantages like high overall performance, safety, email stability and control. This choice is the most expensive as you are the only one who is paying the expense of the whole server. Most of the companies offer Managed dedicated server where the server is maintained by the company up to some degree.
Who should use Shared hosting?
The customers who just want a company website and do not require much resources can go for shared hosting as the price included in shared hosting is inexpensive. If you are a start up business and want online visibility shared hosting is the perfect choice for you.
Who should use VPS?
The customers who have websites with large amount of visits and complicated tasks being carried out VPS hosting is suggested. This is mainly because such websites demand high amounts of resources and continuous monitoring on the part of the server administration. VPS can be a bit pricey but if you require more resources it is much better to go for a VPS.
Who should use a Dedicated Server?
Dedicated server is suggested for big businesses and institutions who have massive data and carry out many tasks and calculations. Dedicated servers are pricey but you have complete management over the server and you can set up anything you require for your website. With a dedicated server you have significant resources to deal with any volume of requests for your website.
The largest and most reliable Web Host out there in my opinion and many others is Hostgator. This is a good place to host a WordPress Blog or any type of website you build for that matter. They even provide a WYSIWYG Website Builder for those who are new to website building. Hostgator has a 25% Off and Free Coupon Code you can use if you want to try it out. Visit http://www.hostgatorwebhost.com
Frost & Sullivan: Revenues for Cell Therapy Companies Magnified
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ — The market for cell therapy, which had been growing slowly since 1988, exploded in 1996 when revenues jumped to $65.8 million, an extraordinary 322 percent increase over 1995.
And that is just the beginning, according to new strategic research by Frost & Sullivan called World Cell Therapy Markets. By the end of the forecast period, Frost & Sullivan analysts predict that revenues for the cell therapy industry could reach $6.4 billion.
Cell therapy can be loosely defined as any use of cells that have not been modified genetically. Its aim is to develop treatment modalities by addressing diseases at the cellular level. When disease results from the loss or dysfunction of cells, transplantation with similar cell types is more useful than with chemicals produced by the lost cells. “With this realization began a new era in biotechnology involving cell therapy,” said Frost & Sullivan medical analyst Archana Asthana.
In 1988 there was but one cell therapy product. Today, there are 76 products being developed by 46 companies. Cell therapies can be applied to everything from procedures requiring plastic, periodontal and reconstructive surgeries, to life-threatening conditions such as cancer, AIDS and liver failure, to chronic illnesses such as diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.
Virtually every cell therapy product represents some sort of innovation. Research is moving forward so quickly that many products are rendered obsolete before they have even entered the market.
From a marketing standpoint, the less-invasive the product, the better. Companies are striving to develop products that will use blood taken from peripheral blood vessels, rather than from the bone marrow, maximizing patient comfort at a lower cost. In addition, cell-containing devices such as the bio-artificial pancreas will be injectable rather than surgically implanted.
On a corporate level, mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships will help shape the cell therapy market. Many companies delving into cell therapy research are biotechnology start-ups for whom funding is a definite issue. “Most of them are privately funded by venture capital,” says Asthana. “Others are beginning to periodically release initial public offerings (CTRF CTRF Cancer Treatment Research Foundation
CTRF Connecticut Renaissance Festival (Woodstock, Connecticut)
CTRF Celestial and Terrestrial Reference Frames ), Circe Biomedical Inc., CryoLife Inc., Cytel Corporation, CytoTherapeutics, Inc., DePuy Inc., Diacrin, Genzyme Tissue Repair, Hemosol Inc., Hepatix Inc., RPR (Resilient Packet Ring) A packet-based protocol that provides fault tolerance and statistical multiplexing for the metropolitan and national SONET and Ethernet networks of the carriers. Gencell, Somatix Therapy Corporation, SyStemix Inc., Targeted Genetics Corporation, Theracell Inc., VivoRx Inc., Amgen Inc., Arthrex Arthroscopy Instrument Co., Astra AB, Akzo Nobel Faser AB, Biomet Inc., Bionix Inc., BioTransplant Inc., BioWhittaker Inc., Cellex Biosciences, Celtrix Pharmaceuticals, Corixa Corporation, Chiron Corporation, Chiron Technologies Center for Gene Therapy, Enzon Inc., Gambro Group, Genetic Therapy Inc. (Novartis), Genentech Inc., Innovasive Devices, TLS (1) (Transport Layer Security) A security protocol from the IETF that is based on the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 3.0 protocol developed by Netscape. TLS uses digital certificates to authenticate the user as well as authenticate the network (in a wireless SFTU SFTU San Francisco Tenants’ Union (San Francisco, CA)
SFTU Southern Farmers Tenant Union # 7 07:50
How Customized LCD and LED Backlight Display Has Changed the Modes of Outdoor Viewable Display
The present day lifestyle scenario is definitely going through a silent revolution especially in the field of technology. There are various electronic gadgets scattered in the market with high end output. The common man is updating himself and being savvy enough to purchase and use these smart gadgets in his daily life.
This is when the outdoor viewable LCD made its entry to attract the viewers. The display solutions are now a common sight at public places where you find the Plasma, projection display installed for high end usage.
Back home or in the offices too you have TV and computers with touch panel integration ensuring for better picture sharpness and clarity of contents projected. Surely the recent step has been a great one for both televisions and computers with the introduction of open frame panel computer.
Talking of the marketing strategy, the latest trend is to incorporate interactive phenomena. This is made possible successfully by the introduction of outdoor viewable display solution where mounting and correct offers to the main aspect of fruitful digital signage. You just hop outside your house and your eyes meet the big screens all for a purpose to cater.
In shopping malls look at the electronic price chart. Waiting at the railway stations or at the airport check the digital screens for the needed information as well as catch the glimpses of your favorite programmes. You get to see your wanted promos of the upcoming films, product ads or the worldwide news. This all are so easy with the outdoor viewable display solutions. Due to some unfavorable conditions or environmental problems the LCD display cannot produce images or contents to the satisfying level. Bright sunlight is generally responsible for this. Customized LED backlight is integrated in these cases to ensure a clearer image visibility and sharpness to read the contents easily even in bright sunlight.
Latest development in technology has incorporated Core i5 SBC to welcome the personal approach of the viewers or the prospective customers. Now it is possible to touch and adjust the brightness, contrast, resolution or the sound by yourself without a remote.
You could choose other LCD options too in the area long life motherboard which could be used in various other applications. As less power consumption is observed with the customized back light, a long life is predicted thus.
Digital signage is at its height owing to the discovery of touch screen enabled outdoor plasma screens. Delivering the commercial message to the end users is now a platform to offer with the interactive interface. Touch screen integration is used in varied aspects to create an impact as never before. The company’s manufacturing the screens meet to the different needs like from digital signage, retail, sale hospitality, healthcare or industrial purpose. Sonographs, AMRI or the military monitors are the gadgets for high end uses. For a better vision and clarity even in the bright sun, high bright LCD is used to mark the difference.
It is now a utility as well as status quo when one talks about mobiles. The handsets now aren’t just phones with many features. They are palm size computers to operate and give high end use. The best and the attractive ones are all featured with customized display solution. The mobiles along with the laptops and desktops are adapting a sleek appearance and touch screen feature for a picture and content clarity.
http://www.isnare.com/?aid=1821362&ca=Computers and Technology
Is Windows Phone the Answer for the Microsoft-Based Office?
And that brings us to the biggest issue that currently faces the Windows Phone: Android and iOS are simply too big to fail right now. Microsoft will not be able to compete on price with Google, and despite an innovative new design strategy, will struggle to match Apple’s “cool” factor. Microsoft certainly has compelling features in its Windows Phone product, but it simply doesn’t have the third-party support or user base that will attract customers and app developers to the platform. Therefore, this becomes a self-perpetuating problem for the OS: it is a huge gamble to invest in the phone until many others have done so, yet failing to invest means that it will continue to struggle. Ultimately, businesses should be aware that, at least at this stage, adopting the Windows Phone would be a gamble with somewhat long odds.
At an individual level, the Windows Phone offers an attractive alternative to the incredibly popular Android and iOS phones. But from a business perspective, it is difficult to recommend the Windows Phone primarily due to its uncertain future and the fact that it just doesn’t have the support that the major smartphone OS developers have. There is simply very little in the way of advantages offered by the phone to counterbalance these major issues for companies. That being said, mobile strategies are highly specialized from business to business, so the Windows Phone certainly deserves consideration. In the rapidly changing mobile marketplace, things may be very different even a few months from now.
What is your take on the Windows Phone as a primary business device? Does it provide any functionality that cannot be found in the more popular iOS and Android operating systems?
Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx. Founded in 1996, Journyx automates payroll, billing and cost accounting while easing management of employee time and expenses, and provides confidence that all resources are utilized correctly and completely. …
How To Perform Lost Mpeg Recovery
MPEG (pronounced M-peg), which stands for Moving Picture Experts Group, is the name of to family of standards used for coding audio-visual information (and.g., movies, video, music) or to digital compressed format. The major advantage of MPEG compared to other video and audio coding formats is that MPEG files till much smaller for the be me quality. This is because MPEG use very sophisticated compression techniques. When you have eats into possession of to file with go. MPG or. MPEG extension, you usually have either MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video. MPEG-1 video is used on VideoCD (VCD) discs and MPEG-2 video is used on Super VideoCD (SVCD) and DVD discs. Now we learn about what is MPEG stand for, the next problem is how to recover them when you lost them from your PC. But the first thing we need to gave is to find out the reasons of MPEG loss, then we can recover them with ease. Symptoms of MPEG Loss Loss of precious videos or your PC could bring troubles toyou. The damages of the files can also make the access impossible. The main reasons of MPEG loss till listed ace follows. 1. Accidentally deleting the MPEG files 2. Wrongly formatting the hard drive 3. Corruption or damage of the storage device 4. Suddenly power off 5. File system corruption 6. Read/write error messages How to Achieve MPEG Recovery To solve the problems above, wounds I recommend you to have to try on uFlysoft MPEG Recovery, which is high-efficiency recovery tool for the lost MPEG files. All you need is to follow the "3 steps" operation. First of all, install uflysoft MPEG Recovery on your computer. Secondly, launch the program. There is not need to worry about the using skill because adialog pit will pop up and guide you to use or. You just need to choose your hard drive where your lost MPEG files were stored before and click "Scan". The program will scan your hard drive deeply to find your lost MPEG files. Finally, click "Recover" after scanning finished. You will find you recover MPEG successfully and all of them eats back to you again just or to few bill.
The author of this article is full of experience to help you to recover dates loss problem with powerful average dates recovery tool you eat from uFlysoft studio-Photo Recovery for win.
Outsourcing IT Support will be a smart choice for small business owners
When someone decides to start up a new business, he would have thought of every aspect like rent, bills, employees but not IT Support. It means services like setting up websites, payment gateways, remote servers and other services that require a computer.
It is a common misconception that IT support is not required for all kinds of businesses. It is not true as the help of a computer is something which we cannot say no to. Small Business IT Support does make everyone’s work a lot easier as the computer does not make computational errors and works faster than a human being. The other reason that business owners refrain from going in for IT support is that they might not find quality IT support staff.
Why should I outsource my IT support?
This question would have crossed every business owners mind. While there is an option of setting up your own IT support, that path is not as easy as it looks. Some companies do go in with the choice of managing IT services with their own employees who have questionable knowledge of these services. The problem arises when the service goes down and these “computer people” do not have the expertise to solve these problems and the company makes a bad impression of itself in front of the customer.
When it comes to setting up remote server support, the cost of a server is a little too high and a lot of space would be wasted. A better option would be to go in for cloud computing services which lets you rent just the space you need and is very cost economical.
How can Cloud Computing Service help me?
This is a recently introduced concept that has reduced the cost of setting up remote servers. When it comes to businesses, employees under the company usually work on a set of data that are constantly changing. These data need to be stored somewhere and It is not economical to buy storage space separately for each terminal and it is impossible for the employees to work on the same system as well. Therefore, cloud computing service gives us a choice to store our data on a remote server and lets us access it whenever we want.
This increases the reliability as the data is stored on a remote server, no one can delete it accidentally or intentionally. Whenever someone makes changes to the data, it is reflected in all the databases and therefore the chances of mistakes are very slim. The best part about cloud computing services is that it is very cost economical compared to investing on a new server.
Network Support London is a customer-focused Small business IT support company offering a passionate team of IT professionals who specialise in network security, cloud hosting and IT services for medium to large enterprises across London and the UK. They are providing top cloud computing services and IT Support. They are able to provide you access to a team of specialised professionals that have a passion for technology and the many benefits it can bring to your business.
Energy Efficiency In The Data Center
Hardware, licenses, applications, remote hands, even the expense of redundancy—none of it compares to the price of power in the data center; and power needs are increasing exponentially as processing intensifies and demand for rack space rises.
More Power Equals More Heat
Data center power is partly to keep physical servers running, but it’s also to keep them cool enough to run: as servers increase in processing power, so does heat generation. A rack that five years ago produced about five kilowatts of heat may today produce as much as 28 kilowatts. To give some idea of how much heat that is: 28 kilowatts equals 95,000 BTU or roughly 8 tons of air conditioning. A typical house air conditioner is three tons, 10 kilowatts, or 34,000 BTU. That means that it takes as much power to cool a high density rack as it would to cool about three single family homes—if it was high noon in that equatorial neighborhood 24 hours a day.
Sources of Inefficiency
Data centers have traditionally been inefficient environmentally. Compared to other costs, power has been cheap, and computing precious—if a little power was wasted, the result was incredible amounts of information analyzed, communicated and stored. The world seemed to have plenty of power, and a data center from the 70s or even the 80s would only be a blip on the power grid.
These days, data centers are much more prevalent: the Data Center Map, a free web service linking data center providers and customers, lists 1,297 colocation data centers in 59 countries. In addition, power has become more expensive and less available. However, data centers still use power like it’s cheap: a McKinsey & Company report on data center efficiency, released in 2008, says that on average, only six percent of server capacity is being used, and the data center facilities run at no more than about 56 percent capacity.
Three Ways to Cool Down the Data Center—and Save Money
Virtualization, resource management and physical server consolidation are three methods your hosting company and you can use to increase data center efficiency.
Virtualize Servers
One way to conserve power is to get every bit of computing power out of each piece of hardware. That’s where virtualization comes in. Virtualization allows you to consolidate your server requirements onto fewer physical machines, with the virtual machines consuming only about 1/50th the amount of power. Email servers, web servers and applications all act just as if they were running on individual boxes, but for a fraction of the cost, both in capital expense and power consumption.
According to many sources, including The Green Grid and the EPA, virtualization is one of the key ingredients of a more efficient, greener data center. In implementing virtualization, a product such as VMware provides some of the highest consolidation rates on a secure and reliable platform. With VMware, unused physical servers can even be powered off, and turned back on when needed.
Of course, virtual servers, especially VMware’s hardware-based virtualization, also offer increased application access for users, faster installation of new servers and better uptime. So not only will your virtual servers help reduce your carbon footprint and save you money, they’ll also improve your company’s competitiveness.
Allocate Resources with VMware DRS and DPM
Virtualization from VMware provides two additional technologies that help you reduce your costs through virtualization.
VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) allows a hosting company and its clients to continuously monitor utilization and intelligently assign resources as needed. With DRS, resources can be allocated to higher priority applications, according to your rules, ensuring that your mission critical activities always have what they need. It also provides dedicated infrastructure for business units, without letting resources stand idle.
Supporting DRS, Distributed Power Management (DPM) optimizes power consumption by continuously monitoring power usage and automatically consolidating workloads and powering down unneeded resources. During lower use periods, DPM moves virtual server workloads onto the optimum number of physical servers and turns off the others. When requirements increase, DPM brings physical servers back online—without impact on the virtual server or the customer.
Consolidate Servers with Blades
Blades help reduce the energy footprint of servers by allowing multiple physical servers to be consolidated on one chassis, with one management interface per blade, while adding more advanced management features. The ProLiant BL490c Virtualization Blade solution being adopted by Infinitely Virtual will more than triple the number of virtual machines hosted in the same energy footprint.
According to HP, the BL 490c blades offer several key performance and management advantages: eighteen DIMM slots allow more virtual machines to be housed on each blade; integrated dual-port 10 GbE server adapter with Flex-10 technology offer the ability to fine-tune network bandwidth; conserve power without performance impact with the built-in HP Power Regulator, and reclaim trapped power in your data center by safely limiting server power consumption with Dynamic Power Capping.
The Future of the Green Data Center
Projects and organizations are being formed all over the world to address the problems of power consumption and heat generation. Here are three:
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are working to reduce the portion of electricity used to cool data center equipment by as much as 15 percent. In a simulated data center, Georgia Tech scientists are trying to optimize cooling strategies and develop new heat transfer models.
The Green Grid is an organization created by many of the big names in computers, power conditioning and data centers, including HP, AMD and Intel. Together, they are developing standards to measure data center efficiency, with the goal of reducing power requirements, waste heat and carbon emissions.
In the future, waste heat like that in a data center could be recycled into energy. Engineers at Oregon State University are taking waste heat and using it to run a cooling system.
To Save Money (and Help Save the Planet), Think Infinitely Virtual
Contact Infinitely Virtual to find out how virtualization and data center efficiency affect your company’s bottom line. Let us show you how hosting with Infinitely Virtual can help you reduce your company’s server costs, while simultaneously making your applications faster, your data more secure, and your planet a little bit cooler.
Find out more about the power and cooling advantages of VMware, HP Blade servers and virtualization at InfinitelyVirtual.com.
Lisa Gecko is a staff writer for InfinitelyVirtual.com.
IV Newsletter
InfinitelyVirtual
Say Hello to Top 5 Evergreen Windows 8 Apps
#4 RealPlayer Express To Find and Play the Desired Video Never face difficulties watching the latest released or shared video on famous platform like boing boing, youtube, reddit etc. as well as keep yourself informed about the latest and popular videos from around the world by just adding this single App from Real Networks Inc.
#5 Search the Web Using Google
Though, Microsoft has inbuilt the BING Apps with Windows 8 to search local files and documents or even the web. Google Inc. has also created the App for Windows 8 enabling you search and experience the web without navigating to the browser.
It’s fully compatible to use with desktop, laptop or tablets with certain limitations such as it couldn’t play videos without installing the flash player or couldn’t provide you the search bar always at the top. However, you are free to use the rest of Google search features like voice search, image search, Google instant etc.
Related Reading: Explore amazing Windows 8 facts you aren’t aware of yet.
I am an Internet Marketing Professional
Recent Comments