Pillar kicks Intel's SSD to the curb, upgrades storage array

Pillar Data Systems Inc. said this week that it's replacing Intel's X25-E solid state disk (SSD) drive as an option for its storage arrays with a drive from STEC Inc. because of firmware problems with the Intel's drive that lead to performance slowdowns. The company also said it is now doubling the available cache on the array to 192GB , shipping boxes with 2TB hard drives - double the capacity of previous drives - and replacing the current dual-core processor controller blade with a quad-core AMD Opteron 2354 chip. The SSD change was one of several upgrades to Pillar's modular storage array, the Axiom.

The new hard disk drives push the Axiom's overall usable capacity to more than 1.6 petabytes per system, while cutting overall power consumption by 50% and reducing the space required for the array. Intel's X25-E, which has had firmware problems in the past, causes operational timeouts, Maness said. The change-over to STEC's SSD also means the company will be able to offer higher capacity 256GB flash drives, since Intel's X25-E tops out at a maximum capacity of 64GB. Bob Maness, Pillar's vice president of worldwide marketing and channel sales, said the company decided to go with STEC's Mach8 SATA SSD because it proved to have better performance in the array. Pillar is continuing to test its arrays with the X25-E and said Intel is working closely with it to solve the issue. Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pillar's decision.

Intel has admitted to firmware problems with the X25-E SSD in the past, but said it resolved them with an upgrade. Based on commodity hardware, the Pillar Axiom acts as an application-aware storage-area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) server all controlled by a single management interface. In June, Pillar announced it would begin shipping the Axiom storage system with Intel's X25-E solid state drive as one option. The company's claim to fame is the software used to manage the array by automatically allocating CPU, cache and storage capacity separately to applications as they need more resources. STEC's Mach8 SSD is a consumer-rated drive not normally used in high-performance storage arrays.

Maness said Pillar's Axiom achieves the maximum performance capable with the Mach8 SSDs, which use a serial-ATA interface and are less costly than the Zeus SSD. "I'd like to get back to Intel's SSD, but I think STEC has a corner on the market," Maness said. "STEC is just a little further along in terms of their drive." The Pillar Axiom enables users to use any number of drive types, from serial-ATA hard disks to SSD in order to tier storage and utilize the level appropriate to the application being supported. STEC's Zeus-series SSDs have a Fibre Channel interface normally used for enterprise-class data center operations. Maness said a single tray that houses SSD drives for the Axiom will retail for $49,000, roughly the same cost as six trays of Fibre Channel hard disk drives.

Oracle profits rise but sales fall in Q1

Oracle's first-quarter net income rose by 4 percent year-over-year to US$1.1 billion, but revenue fell by 5 percent to $5.1 billion, the company said Wednesday. New software license sales fell 17 percent year-over-year to $1 billion, indicating that customers are still reluctant to make new software investments amid the ongoing recession. Earnings per share were $0.22. Excluding one-time charges, Oracle reported earnings per share of $0.30, partly meeting the expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who had on average predicted earnings of $0.30 per share and $5.25 billion in revenue. Oracle managed to increase profits even as revenue fell by "substantially improving" its operating margins, company President Safra Catz said in a statement.

Associated expenses were just $226 million, meaning the profit margin for this part of Oracle's business was greater than 90 percent. Oracle's results were also bolstered by growth in revenue for software license updates and support, which jumped 6 percent to $3.1 billion. Oracle blamed the dip in new license sales partly on weak business at other software vendors. "They sold less of their applications, and so they drive less database with them," Catz said in a conference call. Oracle announced plans to acquire Sun earlier this year, but the acquisition is being held up by an antitrust review by European authorities. The earnings report comes a day after Oracle announced a new Exadata data warehousing and OLTP (online transaction processing) appliance jointly developed with Sun Microsystems.

Oracle executives offered no new details about the deal Wednesday, but said integration planning work is proceeding. The company is well-positioned to compete against IBM with its recently updated database and middleware products, he said. During the call, CEO Larry Ellison repeatedly targeted IBM, who Oracle will soon be battling in both software and hardware markets. Oracle shares were down $0.78 in after-hours trading to $21.35.

AT&T to offer remote PC repairs without system booting

AT&T is upgrading its remote PC repair service that will allow technicians to resolve issues without a customer fully booting a computer, the company said on Thursday. With the upgraded service, PC problems can be solved even when the system cannot be booted due to hardware problems or OS failure. Technicians from AT&T's Tech Support 360 service were previously able to remotely fix customers' PC problems only when the operating system was loaded and a browser session was running, said Ebrahim Keshavarz, vice president of business development at AT&T, during a conference call.

The capability allows technicians to fix more PC problems than was previously possible. Users need to enter a specific keystroke sequence to connect the failed PC over the Internet with AT&T technicians. For example, technicians will now be able to fix hardware-level issues like corrupted BIOS, as well as reset system passwords, repair and update network card drivers, and remove malware more effectively, Keshavarz said. "There are times when you cannot get a functioning browser to connect to the Internet," Keshavarz said. To enable that capability, AT&T is adopting Intel's Remote PC Assist Technology for the service. AT&T launched Tech Support 360 in 2008 as a service to remotely solve PC problems, including software, hardware and peripheral issues, for small and medium-size businesses.

The remote support technology is a part of Intel's vPro hardware and software management for PCs mainly used in business environments. For example, it troubleshoots Windows OS issues and hardware problems like faulty hard drives and wireless networking configurations. Monthly subscriptions will start at US$19 per month, Keshavarz said. It can also solve malware problems on PCs. AT&T will begin offering the service in the first half of next year. If a remote technician is unable to solve a problem, AT&T will dispatch technicians on site at an extra charge. The pre-boot support service won't work on PCs with chips from Advanced Micro Devices, as the underlying technology is based on Intel's vPro technology.

However, there are certain limitations attached to AT&T's upgraded service. The service also won't work on Apple's Macintosh systems. Tuhy said that the technology will be available with laptops based on Intel's Calpella platform, which will include a set of processors based on the Nehalem processor. Right now only desktops support Intel's vPro remote support technology, but it is expected to reach laptops soon, said David Tuhy, general manager of the business client group at Intel. Intel has said it would reveal details about the first chip belonging to the Calpella platform, code-named Clarksfield, next week at the Intel Developer Forum.

Linux driver chief calls out Microsoft over code submission

After a kick in the pants from the leader of the Linux driver project, Microsoft has resumed work on its historic driver code submission to the Linux kernel and avoided having the code pulled from the open source operating system. The submission was greeted with astonishment in July when Microsoft made the announcement, which included releasing the code under a GPLv2 license Microsoft had criticized in the past. Microsoft's submission includes 20,000 lines of code that once added to the Linux kernel will provide the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology.

Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Linux driver project lead who accepted the code from Microsoft in July, Wednesday called out Microsoft on the linux-kernel and driver-devel mailing lists saying the company was not actively developing its hv drivers. If they do not show back up to claim this driver soon, it will be removed in the 2.6.33 [kernel] release. HV refers to Microsoft Hyper-V. He also posted the message to his blog. "Unfortunately the Microsoft developers seem to have disappeared, and no one is answering my emails. So sad...," he wrote. They are not the only company." Also new: Microsoft forms, funds open source foundation Kroah-Hartman said calling out specific projects on the mailing list is a technique he uses all the time to jump start those that are falling behind. Thursday, however, in an interview with Network World, Kroah-Hartman said Microsoft got the message. "They have responded since I posted," he said, and Microsoft is now back at work on the code they pledged to maintain. "This is a normal part of the development process.

In all, Kroah-Hartman specifically mentioned 25 driver projects that were not being actively developed and faced being dropped from the main kernel release 2.6.33, which is due in March. On top of chiding Microsoft for not keeping up with code development, Kroah-Hartman took the company to task for the state of its original code submission. "Over 200 patches make up the massive cleanup effort needed to just get this code into a semi-sane kernel coding style (someone owes me a big bottle of rum for that work!)," he wrote. He said the driver project was not a "dumping ground for dead code." However, the nearly 40 projects Kroah-Hartman detailed in his mailing list submission, including the Microsoft drivers, will all be included in the 2.6.32 main kernel release slated for December. Kroah-Hartman says there are coding style guidelines and that Microsoft's code did not match those. "That's normal and not a big deal. But the large number of patches did turn out to be quite a bit of work, he noted.

It happens with a lot of companies," he said. He said Thursday that Microsoft still has not contributed any patches around the drivers. "They say they are going to contribute, but all they have submitted is changes to update the to-do list." Kroah-Hartman says he has seen this all before and seemed to chalk it up to the ebbs and flows of the development process. The submission was greeted with astonishment in July when Microsoft made the announcement, which included releasing the code under a GPLv2 license Microsoft had criticized in the past. Microsoft's submission includes 20,000 lines of code that once added to the Linux kernel will provide the hooks for any distribution of Linux to run on Windows Server 2008 and its Hyper-V hypervisor technology. Follow John on Twitter