Technology Ramblings

Software Defined Networking or SDN has actually been around for several years now - but new products and solutions are making it more and more attractive and affordable for mainstream data centers. First a little history on data center networking and how we got to the current state.   For many years a three tier architecture was the standard for data center design.  There was the access tier - more commonly known as the "top of rack" - where physical servers connected, then there was the aggregation tier - often at end or middle of row that consolidated the access layer switches and then finally the core tier - a very powerful set of switches that collapsed all the aggregation switches and typically provided layer 3 routing services.  Depending on the size and complexity of your data center - some folks would connect servers directly to the core and other would go from access to core - but the concept was pretty much the same. All of these switches regardless of ven...

On Feb 19, MS released Windows 10 Mobile build 14267 to Fast Ring Insiders running the Lumia 950/950XL, 650, 550 and the Xiaomi Mi4 and Alcatel Fierce XL So first off - this release just blew up my position that MS was not going to support Lumia with the Redstone branch.  So I applaud MS for moving forward with Windows 10 Mobile on Lumia. MS also began direct deployments of firmware updates to Lumia 950/950XL via Windows Insider for select countries/carriers. This means that direct hardware updates that impact thing like WiFi, BT or LTE/GSM radios, etc are not having to wait to be pushed by the carriers.  This is also a good sign - but as of today the support for this is not universal. While I am glad to see Redstone making it's way to Windows 10 Mobile - I am a little concerned over the dropping of support for legacy devices.  Are we seeing the beginning of the end of support for legacy Lumia ?   According to the Windows Blog announcement.  "If you are ...

At the Mobile World Conference (MWC) in Barcelona this week - HP announced the Elite X3 Mobile device.  This flagship specs mobile device runs Windows 10 Mobile and provide 2 very unique accessories - a great docking station and "mobile extender" laptop device that supports Windows 10 Continuum.  The X3 device shown along with the accessories were prototypes and the device will not be available until this summer.  Along with the latest Snapdragon 820 processor Adreno 530 and 4GB of DDR4 ram, the X3 also supports Pogo contacts for 3rd party add on devices and HP announced they were working with some 30+ partners across a number of industry verticals who would provide the device extensions.  So think everything from Card readers to Scanners, etc.   From a specifications perspective the X3 blows away MS's latest Lumia 950/950XL.   One interesting comment that came from the announcement was the choice of Qualcomm Snapdragon versus Intel Atom.  Accordin...

I've been using the modern MS ecosystem now for several years through Windows 8, then 8.1 and now 10.  And it is a mess.. One of the things that folks buy into when they choose an OS today is the "ecosystem".  So to me that includes the devices, the OS itself and then the apps, music, movies, books, etc that you can access..    When compared to the offerings from Apple and Google, the MS Store experience in my opinion is just poor.    Here is why I say that.    Let's start with something simple.  Why can't you purchase the most popular apps for Windows via store ?   Meaning Office.  Whether it's the retail code or Office365 - you can't buy it from the store.  How can MS be so short sighted ? In fact I would even like to see Surface and Lumia devices in there.  Why should I have to go to 3 different places within MS to get what I need ?  With that said you can't buy Office for Mac from iTunes - and that doesn't...

On Feb 18, MS released Redstone branch build 14267 to Fast Ring Insiders. According to the MS Blog here are the new features/fixes for 14267 Search for music easier in Cortana: We have made it easier to invoke music search in Cortana by adding a music search icon to the top right of Cortana. You can now open Cortana on your PC and click on the music search icon to have Cortana listen and search for the song that’s playing. Favorites bar improvements in Microsoft Edge: If you have the favorites bar enabled in Microsoft Edge, you can now right-click on the favorites bar and choose to have it only show the favicons only. You can also right-click to add new folders in your favorites bar as well. Clear browsing data when you exit Microsoft Edge: You can now choose to have your browsing data cleared when you exit Microsoft Edge. Just click on the three dots at the top right in Microsoft Edge and go into Settings, click on the “Choose what to clear” button under “Clear browser data” a...

On Feb 10 - MS released Windows 10 Mobile Build 10586.107 to Fast Ring Insiders - less than a week after 10586.71.  This does again put Windows 10 Mobile on par with production Windows 10 updates - but Redstone branch builds are nowhere to be found. The Windows Blog listed the fixes as... Fixed an issue where in some cases a device could be missing tiles on the Start screen after going through the device out of box experience. Improved support in Narrator to speak in multiple languages. Improvements to the device reset experience when BitLocker\Device Encryption is enabled by enterprise policy or by the user. There was also another level of Insider created called "Preview" which is slower than the "Slow" Ring users get.   To be honest I don't see the value in this new level.  You're either an Insider or not. period.    As always I installed the .107 build on my Lumia 735 and two 635s.  As I mentioned in my post on the .71 build - I'm not...

In the last few years - the term hyper-converged infrastructure along with Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Appliances (HCIA) have started to appear on the market.   So what is hyper-convergence and why should you care... First let's define hyper-converged.   It's really two pieces.. First the hardware.  Most hyper-converged solutions on the market today are based on traditional 1U and 2U rack servers with a combination of SSD and HDD drives or all-flash.   Some vendors increase the density by using the newest 4 in 2U sled designs which have 4 compute sleds and 24 x 2.5 drives or drive sleds that can support 16 drives each.  While some support 1Gb NICs, most of the higher end models all support 2 x 10GB per compute node. Next is the software - which is the secret sauce.  The software came from the web-scale companies out there like Google, Facebook, etc.  The software which typically comes in the form of a VM or a Hypervisor Add-on, performs tw...

Microsoft recently placed Windows 10 on the "recommended" updates category on Windows Update for Windows 8.1 and 7 machines.  This to me meant that MS is pretty confident now that you can safely update a pretty large percentage of the existing Windows 8/7 population without issue. So I decided to put it to the test.  In my household - all but one of my PCs, laptops and tablets have been updated to Windows 10 and if your a regular reader of this blog - you also know I have most on the Fast Ring Insider path.   So that one PC I have been delaying was my wife's HP Smarttouch IQ527 All-in-One that I bought for her nearly 8 years ago now.  I've upgraded the hardware over the years putting an Intel AGN 5300 WiFi Card and Intel SSD into it and with 4GB of RAM it was certainly capable of running Windows 10. I delayed upgrading from Windows 8.1 for several reasons.  The first was stability issues with the early Windows 10 builds.  As I've stated in earlier pos...

On Feb 1 - MS released Windows 10 Mobile build 10586.71.   As always I installed the build on a Nokia Lumia 735 and 635.    The Windows Blog calls out the following fixes... Windows Update performance and reliability improvements Improvements in migration of data profiles and messaging settings when upgraded from Windows Phone 8.1. SensorCore API’s are now upgraded correctly from Windows Phone 8.1; allowing applications, including many fitness applications, to correctly access movement data. SD card detection has been improved on boot and after insertion; File Explorer now handles the removal of an SD card when the default for apps or photos are set to SD. Improvements in the Edge browser, including PDF rendering. Bluetooth improvements when re-connecting to already paired devices and cars; turn by turn directions, and when using Cortana with the Microsoft Band. Improvements in Settings when downloading Maps or changing Quick Settings. Reinstalling Groov...

In pretty short order - MS released Windows 10 Redstone branch builds 14251 and 14257.   According to Gabe Aul from the Windows Blog.. 14251 released on Jan 27 - addressed these issues We fixed the issue where some PC games would crash switching from windowed mode to full screen, upon game resolution change, or upon launch due to a bug in Windows graphics stack. So play your games! If you run into any issues – please let us know by reporting in the Feedback app and include the game title. We fixed the issue where applications such as Narrator, Magnifier, and third-party assistive technologies may experience intermittent issues or crashes. We fixed an issue where File Explorer would crash frequently when DPI settings were at 175%. 14257 released on Feb 3 - addressed these issues The issue of periodic app crashes or other memory related app errors due to a memory management change has been resolved. If you were having issues launching the Git client for Windows, you ...