One of the big threads running through SC09 last year was giving users more flexibility in how they configure systems to attack various workloads. At the show, we took a look at three different companies who are, in one way or another, providing large system images. (Click to see our posts on ScaleMP, 3Leaf, and SGI.)

One company we didn’t get a chance to talk to at SC09 is RNA networks, a Portland, Oregon-based start-up that has a unique take on pasting together small commodity hardware to give it big iron capabilities. Over the holidays, we ventured downtown to RNA’s headquarters and spent some time with Product Manager Don Whitehead. As we sat down to meet, the steady rain had somehow turned to heavy snow, but we didn’t anticipate any problems driving – surely it wasn’t going to stick.

The introduction of the Google Nexus One ‘super phone’ has fired a shot across the bow of every cell phone service provider, but perhaps none more than Apple, purveyors of the iPhone or – as some call it – “The…

In case our lengthy papers and tedious blogs aren’t enough – here’s commentary by Dan Olds on what the future holds for the Unix market. It’s really worth a look, though, because we share some of the charts from our…

I recently returned from IBM’s annual STG Analyst Conference, and it was way, way different than any I’ve attended in the past. Those differences are very instructive: they show the metamorphosis of IBM from a company that makes money selling computers, storage, networking, software, and stuff to a company whose mission is to help customers solve their business problems with technology. When you strip it down to the fundamentals, it’s really about helping customers become more competitive. This can mean helping public agencies become more efficient, or it can mean giving business clients the tools they need to out-compete their competitors.

Many a cross-country business trip concludes with a lesson learned – the hard way. Today’s bit of wisdom: how to successfully utilize the town car service that your hosts may thoughtfully provide for your convenience. You client pals are trying to do you a solid, but they can’t control everything. Don’t think that just because there’s a guy holding your name on a piece of cardboard, you can let your guard down. A bit of attentiveness and forethought will pay big dividends in this situation. Here are some key points to remember:

Now that every vendor has a shipping container (pod) computing solution, how do you differentiate your offering? You can’t go bigger and stick to the form factor. But wait a minute: you can go smaller… hmmm…

While stalking the floor at SC09, we believed we found Hewlett-Packard pursuing this strategy with their new pod. The diminutive container measured around 4’ long, 10” wide and about 18” tall – perhaps enough to hold 10 blades with storage, or more without storage. For non-US readers using unconventional measurement systems, I’ll translate:  1.22 meters x 25.4cm x 45.72 cm… or, using the Roman cubit/palm measure: 2 cubits 4 palms long x 3.43 palms wide x 1.03 cubits tall. (Click here for details and additional conversions.)

‘Read More’ to see our video interview with Hewlett-Packard…

In one of my earlier Register blogs, I wrote about how tiny ARM-based compute nodes were assembled into a 16-way cluster and displayed at the recently concluded SC09 supercomputing conference. The nodes were put together by Plugcomputer.org and contain a single 1.2GHz Marvell Sheeva Processor (ARM compatible), 512MB RAM, 512MB flash, and one each Gigabit Ethernet and USB sockets. While my blog was scintillating and packed full of useful information, it was not a substitute for actually seeing this beast in person.

‘Read More’ to see our video interview on plug computing…

Mellanox was a big presence at SC09. Not only did they have a good-sized booth of their own, but their products were featured or referred to at a significant number of other booths. They also made a major announcement with NVIDIA about a joint effort to provide technology that allows GPUs to talk directly to storage, thus taking load off of the general purpose CPUs and driving performance up even higher.

‘Read More’ to see our video interview with Mellanox…