February Holidays - Boring? |
As you all know by now, beginning the newsletter takes me to the calendar and the weather. Well, February has President's Day and Valentine's Day, but not a whole lot of excitement there (unless you just fell in love, or own a jewelry/candy/flower store). The weather is absolutely not a good topic. Even in Florida we're complaining about the cold. Our comments are preceded by "I know I've got no reason to complain compared to…" but the truth is everyone's cold. So it's a good time to stay inside and work, thus the article on Updating TechRef®.
It's a good time to update yourself too. Check out TechRef®, keep following me on Twitter, read my blogs, etc. I'll keep you posted on Private Clouds, Virtualization, Social Business, Mobile Computing, The Personalized Web, and Video-Enabled Business Processes. Did that list catch your attention? It's from a list of "technology trends for 2011." We'll see.
Here's the schedule or you can view the complete schedule on our Website:
CSTA Web sessions:
March 2, 3
April 13-14
May 25-26
July 6-7
Aug. 17-18
Sept. 21-22
Nov. 2-3
Dec. 7-8
UITJ (Understanding IT Jobs) Web sessions:
March 3
May 26
Aug. 18
Nov. 3
TR Web sessions:
May 4
Aug. 3
Nov. 16
Keep in touch - I love hearing from you - and keep up with technology!
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What's up with processors?
Lots and lots! Speeds are up, of course; 64-bit processors are common; and multi-processors are expanding – from dual processors to quads to octos. Now, what does all that mean?
Processors are the heart of the computer, the part that actually does the work. Work is executing instructions. All processors have an instruction set which has categories of instructions, specifically math, move, compare, I/O (Input/Output). All of these instructions work with data that's sitting in memory, so the computer has to move that data into the processor in order to, e.g., compare. The next thing to look at is how much data can be processed at a time: 32-bits, 16-bits, or 64-bits. And finally, a processor can only execute one instruction at a time. Or can it? We now have multi-core processors – each core can execute an instruction at the same time. These three things really describe processors.
When we talk about processors, there are four vendors to look at. Most of us think Intel, but they're not the only game in town. AMD actually has the reputation for the fastest processors; IBM and Apple make processors for their own systems, and Intel, of course, makes the processors that run most desktop computers.
Processor Speeds
First the terminology. Processor speeds are described in MHz (Megahertz = 1 million computer cycles per second) and GHz (Gigahertz = 1 billion computer cycles per second). So we know GHz computers are faster than MHz (a lot!). IBM's zEnterprise System (called zEnterprise 196) contains 96 of the world's fastest, most powerful microprocessors running at 5.2Ghz. This means the mainframe can execute more than 50 billion instructions per second. Our desktop machines don't run quite this fast. The current fastest is AMD's Phenom II (Intel disputes this with their i7 core). AMD released a Phenom II model in December that runs at up to 3.7GHz. Not as fast as the mainframe, but a lot faster than any of us are.
Bit Size
Bit size is very important. It refers to the number of bits that can be accessed at a time. All processors started out as 8-bit processors, which meant that a computer cycle was required to move 8-bits from memory to the processor for processing. If you wanted to access four characters (each character exists as an 8-bit code in the computer) you would execute four computer cycles. We quickly moved to 16-bit, then to 32-bit, and finally are at 64-bit. All mainframes have been 64-bit machines for decades, desktop machines moved into this arena starting in 2003. One thing to note with desktop machines.
Multi-processors
Mainframe computers have been built with multi-processors for decades, however this is a very dynamic area in processor design for desktop systems. For many years these machines were built with a single processor that could execute a single instruction. Well, again times have changed. Multi-processing is a computer architecture where a single piece of silicon (a chip) holds two or more processing cores. Dual-core architecture, building two processing cores on a single chip is common, quad-core (4 processors) is growing, and octo (8) exists. All of the chip vendors are currently making both single- and multi-processing chips. Dual-core processing became available in 2005 and currently quad- and six-core chips are common.
What's going to happen in the future? Well, of course, we don't really know. And, some of the predictions are a little far out. But, most of the gurus expect some major changes in the way computers are used – meaning in the way we write programs. Our GHz speeds, 64-bit access, and especially multi-processing, present many possibilities in what a computer can do. Life in the computer world stays dynamic (and interesting).
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1. What's the latest "save the…" charity? Hint – it won't cost you any money.
2. Which of the following does not belong?
Brownie
Cupcake
Donut
Éclair
Flan
3. Which of the following does not belong?
Cassandra
Dynamo
MongoDB
Raven
Vertica
4. Which of the following does not belong? (Easy one – maybe)
Panther
Lion
Tiger
Leopard
Snow Leopard
5. What's unique about Agresso Business World?
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I'm still working on updating TechRef® – in fact, I'm always working on updating TechRef®. But I found some cool stuff last month. I actually found lists of the modules included in both SAP's ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system and Oracle's ERP systems. This is all three of them – E-Business Suite, JD Edwards World and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. It really helps when you hear one of these names (and there are lots of them) to be able to find it through a simple search. I'm also taking the time to consolidate some of the older material in TechRef®. There are enough definitions in the knowledgebase now that sometimes searches come back with too many hits and it takes a while to find exactly what you need. That's no good, so consolidating older products and skills makes sense. Anything we can do to make TechRef® easier to use is also always on our to-do list.
If you have any comments or suggestions for improvement, I'd love to know about them. Your input is a necessary part of keeping this tool working as the definitive reference for business men and women who work with IT. Just email me: Susan Hodges.
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Content Delivery
We're getting more and more used to getting information over our laptops, tablets and smartphones – whenever we want it and wherever we are. Next month we'll look at how this all happens.
CDN (content delivery network) Communications. A system of computers networked together across the Internet to deliver content to end users. Used for multi-media content including video and audio as well as text. Used to download movies, books, etc. Companies can build their own CDNs, or use commercial products. Content is delivered through downloads (Web pages and recorded videos) or streams (live events). Content is distributed to strategically placed, redundant core, fallback and edge servers. This provides automatic knowledge of server availability and offer 100% availability, even with large power, network or hardware outages. Different kinds of CDNs: P2P (Peer-to-Peer) such as Limewire and BitTorrent, and Client/Server networks such as Limelight and Amazon CloudFront.
client/server Communication (or online) system architecture that encompasses a "server" system that can service many "clients" over a network. Applications are partitioned into tiers (programs) which run on different systems. There must be at least two tiers, the back-end, which is the server tier and the front-end, which is the client tier. The back-end can be partitioned into many tiers for complex systems, and the application is referred to as multi-tiered or n-tiered. The front-end runs on personal computers and uses a GUI (Graphic User Interface). The back-end runs on a server and accesses data from any relational database and executes the program logic. Term is often used interchangeably with distributed processing, cooperative processing and network computing. Written with both a slash (client/server) and a hyphen (client-server), and often expressed as client/server computing or client/server architecture.
P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Communications technology. Building a network of computers that act as peers. Each computer can accept and send information to every other computer in the network. This is an alternative to client/server communications where one computer is the server and controls the traffic to the other computers in the network. P2P technology is used in CDN (Content Delivery Networks), file sharing systems, and streaming media.
streaming media Multimedia video and sound that is sent in compressed form over the Internet. The information is displayed as the images arrive so the Web user does not have to wait for the entire file to be downloaded. Requires a special program called a player that de-compresses the data. Players can be downloaded separately, or are part of browsers. Streaming media includes both video and sound, streaming video is just video.
streaming software Software streaming provides operating system and application software to desktops on-demand. Works with a central repository of operating system and application images that contain the configuration required to support various business uses or functions (e.g. Middle Management Configuration, Point of Care/Sale, Engineering, Marketing, Accounting) that a computer might perform. When the computer is booted, the software streams the required image to the desktop from a central pool of images. This is similar to video streaming in that rather than downloading the whole OS to each desktop, the software-streaming approach sends just enough of the software so that each desktop can begin to execute. As the system requires more libraries, those elements are delivered as needed, on-demand.
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1. I couldn't resist this one – it's dear to my heart. Save the words! Or, adopt a word. As words are dropped from the English language, any of us can adopt one with only a promise to keep it alive through use. Check it out at: Save the Words.
2. Brownie does not belong. All the rest are development names for the releases of Andriod's SDK (Software Development Kit).
3. Vertica does not belong. It's a columnar database – all the rest are NoSQL databases. Columnar databases are relational databases that retrieve data by columns rather than by rows.
4. Lion does not belong. These are all releases of Mac OS X – Lion has not yet been released. (I know, this is a little off).
5. Agresso Business World is a ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system designed for very dynamic companies. Companies who have to constantly react to an ever-changing environment. The IT Services industry has companies that use this software!
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