Is Facebook aiming at something bigger with its new data center? Rather than commissioning the buildup of its data center, Facebook went for a complete new model, which they call the Open Compute Project. The technology behind Facebook's green data center is developed together with major hardware vendors such as HP, Dell, AMD and Intel which shows that Facebook has the necessary competence and expertise to deal with big IT infrastructures. In the early days of Amazon, the giant online retailer also needed the infrastructure to run its own business, however, some years later it ended up as one of the major cloud computing infrastructures! Watch Facebook's data center video here.
Lenovo are really doing a good job! Lenovo claims that its new Ultrabook, the IdeaPad U300S is the slimmest laptop on the market. It appears that Apple's state of the art hardware is being challenged in terms of portability by this new model from Lenovo. Click here to read more. Check out the specs here.
For those IT Professionals who would like to plan their future career based on a job role rather than technology or platform, I suggest Microsoft's Professional Career Chart. The chart is structured around the different roles we find in IT operations, management and software development based on Microsoft technologies. For example, an application developer can match his current job description, skills and experience with one of the roles defined in the chart, and see what job titles are relevant to his situation. In addition, he/she can check the typical next positions in his/her career and the associated learning roadmap. With every job role or career you decide to pursue, there are a number of certifications and training options that would help you achieve your goal. Microsoft's Training Catalogue is the place to go to find your training requirements by technology, certification or career. This Catalogue also allows you to find training resources according to your preferred method that is, classroom or self-guided online courses. So, if you are a Microsoft-based IT Professional and would like to take your career a step forward check the two sites mentioned above before taking any concrete decisions.
HP has announced that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices (TouchPad and webOS phones) at the end of fiscal year 2011. Although, the platform may have been technically solid, it did not reach the expected financial targets. However, HP will continue to explore alternate options for the webOS software as a separate product. The other hot news from HP is about the future of its Personal Systems (Personal Computers). HP is considering selling the division, creating a separate new entity or keeping it. The PSG (Personal Systems Group) may face the same future as IBM's consumer products but according to the head of PSG, HP will remain one of the largest PC manufacturers in the world. Only time will tell! To read more about HP's company transformation go here.
During any NAP (Network Access Protection) deployment, it is important to have a record of events in particular during the initial stages. During initial stages you will be gathering information about computers and their compliancy levels. Through the NAP logs you identify which computers are non-compliant and can take the necessary actions before going for NAP enforcement. Additionally, you would know which computers will be blocked if you had to enable NAP enforcement. To configure NAP logging, right click Roles\Network Policy and Access Services\NPS and choose Properties. In the General tab, clear the Rejected Authentication Requests and Successful Authentication Requests check boxes. On the NAP server, you can use the Windows Logs\Security event log, available in Server Manager at Diagnostics\Event Viewer\Windows Logs\Security to view NPS clients. These events will reveal which NAP clients are not compliant. To learn more and get detailed information about NAP go here.