Sjur Usken

I had two blade centres that I wanted to run virtualization on. Then it was timely that Ubuntu released their 11.04 version, cloud ready.

I read myself up on the Cloud controller, Cluster controller and the Node controller and started installing.

The first problem was when I did a PXE boot for the Node Controller. During the setup, the Node Controller contacts the Cluster Controller and the PXE server value is overwritten with the Cluster controller IP. The network configuration stopped further OS installation. I mounted the CD through the ILO management on the server instead, worked like a charm.

But the process of handling the images is not straight through. To setup a new image, you either need to do command line and remember IDs of the different images, or pay for the Landscape service.

I spent quite an amount of time to get the Ubuntu Cloud up and running, but dropped it and installed VMWare ESXi instead since I already used it for several years.

I fancy the idea of femtocells, to take the wirless traffic down into “earth” as fast as possible, but is this femtocell effoert just too late?

I have a NEC G3 femtocell to test out. It can do 3G with speeds up to 14Mbit, and have 4 or 8 (license issue…) concurrent calls. The range is approx 25 metres indoor, 150+ metres outdoor it states in the manual.
The price is estimated to approx 200 USD for the devices at the moment.

But how can this match a WiFi access point capable of 300Mbit already and costing a fifth of it.

It is still sensible since these address to different service markets at the moment, but this services will be Internet based and then who cares if you use 3G/4G/5G or your WiFi. It should only give you Internet access to all your over the top services. And the mobile operator will be just another access provider….

And then a new era has arrived, the time of the machines. No, they will not take over the world today, but start helping you out more and more with your life. All those little things..

From the robot vaccum cleaner (i’ve had one for 5 years already) to the built in intelligence in the microwave, more and more technology around you will get connected. Just like Web 2.0 brought the social web to the Internet for human beings, M2M (machine to machine) communication will get a lot of your technology gadgets to talk to each other, cooperate and give you an even better service.