Desktop PC's and laptops are called rich clients today as your company has to be very rich to run them. As shown many times thin clients reduce power consumption, reduce maintenance costs, improve security, make disaster recovery, backup & restore faster/simpler etc. I know many customers where they have 2 admins and 2,000 thin clients, instead of 10 admins to 2,000 laptops/PC's. Desktop PC's and laptops used to be called Fat clients but the marketing departments quickly changed their name to rich, now is this because they cost more to run.

People want fat clients so that they can do their work if the network is down, however, how many of us really move around. How often does your companies network go down. Network outages is not one of the problems or recurring issues that I see nowadays.

With laptops if we want to show others our work, we email them the data/pics or docs, or we walk around the building with a laptop to a meeting room. The network is your feet. Sending/rather than sharing the data just causing the extra storage management problems. Walking aroung with laptops is a pain, I have seen many people who no longer do this as carrying laptops to/from work gave them illnesses like "tennis elbow" Yup, I did not believe it when I first heard about this either.

With a thin client Sunray we can also email all data, or just walk to other persons desk take their card out of the thin client on your desk and insert your card and they can see your data. No heavy laptop, no transformers to carry no muscle strain.

Now some workers need laptops, but if your company truely does some analysis who is mobile and who sits behind the desk all day, maybe 80% of your employees do not move so a thin client will be best. Fat clients for those that move around.

Laptops are no longer called fat clients, as the people who carry them around have lost weight and are no longer fat. I'm still fat as I work from home and use a thin client SunRay at work, but I did cycle to work today.

Like most issues logic is not that important, in medieval europe and in lesser developed countries being fat was a sign of power and wealth. With laptops when they were new it was also a subconscious sign of power, wealth and latest tech. Nowadays, being thin and being able to eat less fatty food and having the time to excercise is a sign of wealth and power. Thin is fashionable. With fat/rich clients will we have the same development, a person with no laptop has power and wealth as someone else carries this for him. Maybe a small hi-tech mobile/pda will be the next sign of wealth and power.

Technology as many things get warped into fashions and lifestyle choices. Crackberrys are another interesting phenomenon.

Written on a SunRay which is connected to a HA-clustered server in a unknown location.

Just a quick reminder for all those that read my blog.

There are several reasons why I started blogging, these were. To raise IT issues that I believe were misunderstood, to answers peoples questions once and for all, rather than send endless emails and to try to do some good. As blogging reaches a wider audience,than my mobile phone or email.

Therefore if I write about the following issues, for example:

Environmental/Ecological, it is my belief that we should use less resources, power and fuel.
We should use renewal resources as our planets resources are finite (see Fusion comment below).
Thus, I often write about Sun's Niagara servers which use less power than those from other companies but perform faster or equivalent to others (depending on the application).
I drive a car which uses ethanol (E85) instead of petrol, I believe that this is a good thing, as it is a renewable fuel which sequestrates CO2.
I believe that the ST9990V storage arrays is the largest, most reliable and fastest available on the market today.
The Sun Ray thin client is the most secure, lowest cost and most manageable Windows/Linux and Solaris desktop encironment available at the moment.
I believe that tape storage has to be an integeral part of any reasonably large IT infrastructure, because most data is not accessed daily and often stays unread for years. Tape uses no power when the data is at rest (not being) used. Also, tapes last longer than other types of media e.g. DVD, CD. Tape is all about efficiency and low cost. They are also very fast during sequential writes.

All of the above may change over time,

e.g. Sun may produce and even better server using the Rock chip.
I may change my car and use biodiesel instead of ethanol.
Sun may offer an even larger and faster storge device than the ST9990 in the future.
If the global warming trend changes I may change my beliefs on using less resources, maybe not.
If fusion power is ever implemented sucessfully power may become cheaper.
Competitors leap from each other, someone else may make a better SunRay for example, but no-one has in the last 5 years.
New computer storage media may be invented that surperceeds the cost advantages of tape, this may be using quantum physics or some other type.

I live in Sweden, I think Sweden is a great country with a great social and legal system, generally I have European or more specifically Northern European beliefs, that is why we are very environmetally aware. This comes from my parents, who originate from northern europe. So my blogs may seem strange to people in other countries. For example cars that use ethanol (E85) are not uncommon here.

What I write here are my beliefs and may not be those of Sun Microsystems. But we all knew that.

Why do we always say that rocket science is complicated. Get a pipe, block one end, lite the other, run away or get blasted into space. Fundamentally, put the pipe full of some controllable explosive substance and light the bottom. Where is the complexity? We have been doing this for at least 30yrs. Rocket science is old tech. I had a colleague who was studying rocket science, he told to me stop using this quote/allegory.

What is really difficult is to solve sociological and religious issues. How to stop people harming and killing each other. Look at the problems in the world cause by unfair societies, religion, dictactors and various waring factions.

Political movements have caused so much harm to people and we forget so quickly. Have a look at this article. http://www.thelocal.se/8304/20070827/

Computer poeple always say, "it is not rocket science", inferring to the fact that it is not difficult. We should be more technically correct and socially aware and say "it is not a socialogical problem". Alternatively, we refer to complex problems as "rocket science", whereas we should use a better comparison to describe complex problems as "it is a sociological problem". An example would be, "multi-core, multi-threaded design is a sociological problem, getting everyone to work together in parallel".

Lets give complexity justice, rocket science was solved with a 50yr period. After 1000's of year the people on this planet still cannot live together peacefully. Society is complex, rockets are simple.

Will use this in my next public presentation, you have been warned, rocket science wannabees.

We live in the bad part of town, so the kids here are tuff and deprived. My daughters football team just beat the kids from the good part of town. So it is worthwhile training and practising.

Kids sports is always a good leveller.

Da do do do, da da da da, turn out the red light..... Respect

I am quite sure that the test driver called "The Stig" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stig/ in the BBC's motoring program "Top Gear" http://www.topgear.com/ has been virtualised or abstracted so that the program can change and adapt the underlying driver. This also, avoids the personality cult. If we knew who "The Stig" was, then we would be upset if he left. By always showing "The Stig" dressed up in racing suit and a helmet the BBC avoids this. This also saves costs as they can use whatever driver they want, source from the lowest bidder. For those not familiar with this program here is some background : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_(current_format)/

If anyone has any other ideas please get back to me.

I am a fan of Top Gear, even though I drive a ethanol car, I would like to see some ethanol car tests, especially the SAAB 9-5 2.3t Biopower. My experience is that it drives very well, I test drove other equivalent cars which were not as good to drive as the SAAB. Also, the low tax and road toll exemption in Stockholm helped me make my decision.

Why do we have all these borders, battles, wars and posturing in the IT business, one light hearted way of looking at this;

IT people are grouped into tribes, primitive societies structure themselves in this way into social groups which they are born into or adopted/protected by, people need an identity (similar to sports team tribes) and stay with what is known, understood.

For example in the IT business we have the supertribes and the subtribes. The Megatribe is the IT business itself.

Mainframe: (IBM alive, ICL - dead, DEC – dead, Bull – dead, Amdahl – dead)
UNIX: (Solaris alive, AIX alive, HPUX struggling, Linux (yes it is UNIX) alive), Ultrix – dead, Dynix – dead)
PC/Desktop/Laptop: (Windows alive, OS2 – dead, UNIX alive with MAC OS and Linux flavours)

Various groups have their missions (the groups I have worked with).

IBM Mainframe: keep it going until I reach retirement.
Linux: Brave new world order/structure, I do not want to be part of any club that will have me as a member (Marx Brothers)
Windows: There can only be one, as the Daleks said “ we must exterminate” everything else.
Solaris: Must have technical design, elegance most dials and switches. (Your Bang & Olufsen, BMW types, I have neither but I do appreciate good design and programming/technology).

Only one way out of this cycle is to have been a member of two or three of the above tribes and then you understand the pros and cons. After a while we all end up being in the IT tribe just like a member of the Homo Sapiens tribe.

The cleverest and most successful people I have known are the ones that have embraced and moved with different technologies/projects overtime. I know a Solaris developer who was a DEC VMS cluster developer in a previous job, very wise/experienced person. Anyone that stays with one will be dead sooner or later, rather than to learn from all tribes. The big tribes PC -Windows, IBM MVS tribes are pretty sensitive about this, especially if the members have never been part of another tribe. Micrsoft and IBM tribes have the most weapons (money).

Way out of this cycle is not to identify with a platform but be a technologist within the megatribe and then understand that all tribes have something good to offer.

I have made my own mistakes early in my career when I joined my first tribe, I was part of the IBM MVS mainframe tribe. However, in hindsight they did have good procedures, but did not invent everything as often proposed. I was once an arrogant mainframe guy as I blatantly dismissed technologies from ICL and DEC mainframes. But I do have good memories of the IBM tribe.

Tribes exist across platforms, these are like vagabonds or travellers and can be very successful. To call them hired mercenaries would be to go to far. For example, you have your security, database, network and storage tribes. CISCO and Oracle are such tribes. In the storage business we have our tape, disk and NAS tribes. Guess what you can only be successful if you can understand and work with all of these tribes. Any company/tribe that says tape, disk or NAS is dead limits their options, Easter Island tribe springs to mind.

Related references:

War is good for absolutely nothing, Edwin Starr.

EDWIN STARR lyrics

Two tribes, Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD lyrics

Execellent music if you can download and listen to it.

Writing this to get it out the way and to put following blogs into perspective.

Who am I 

Storage Practice Manager for Central Northern Europe, 22yrs in IT business, 43yrs old.
First computer program written when I was 13: Written in BASIC on paper coding sheet, then transferred to Teletype connected from my primary school to central education authority computer.  Program was about 10-15 lines long, useful as still lots of technology stems from punched card and teletype, where you could see and touch the program.
First "real program", 1978 on Reasearch Machines Z80 (crashed every 20 minutes).
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX80 (did not crash).
First used "Unix" on a VAX VMS around 1983, at Polytechnic Central London, now University of Westminster, studied computer science.
When started work, went with IBM Mainframes with MVS, as that was the best paid.
Worked as Systems programmer, maintaining, de-bugging and writing parts of and OS, Security and Storage. In those days we did everything. Installed first Security software ACF2 using reel to reel tapes in 1988.
Worked as MVS Operator, System Programmer, Storage Manager, Unix Sys Admin, Technical Design Authority, Oracle Admin, Security Administrator, EMEA Storage Architect, Consultancy and Sales.
Worked with following m/f and server suppliers: IBM, Amdahl, HDS, HP, Sun
Worked with following storage suppliers: EMC (since SSD days), STK since their first 3880 disks (now we buy the company), IBM, HDS, HP, DG, Sun
Since graduating, I have worked for a government department, Bank and now a computer company.
I think that is was better to be in the computer business than my first career choice as pilot.  Those parents are right quite often, but not all the time, they said life would be easier if I went to college, jury is still out on this issue.

Background (this will be important in later blogs).

My parents were from Latvia, hence my non-English name. I was born in the UK, and grew up there.  Spent my childhood growing up in Northamptonshire, England and then the largest part of my life in London.  I now live in Stockholm, Sweden. Did not want to work with computers but be a Pilot in the RAF.  My family lost too many relatives due the Soviets and Nazis occupying the Baltic States in WWII so they convinced me to go to college instead of getting back into the military firing line.  Computers was my only other interest and I could see their point as I only had one surviving grandparent.  Reluctantly studied computers.  After studying computer science decided not to work in IT, lasted 18 months until got a job as a computer operator.  Since then I have never got away from a keyboard and worked with all the usual suspects/suppliers as described above.  I speak 2 languages fluently and am learning Swedish by osmosis. Hobbies, Skiing, Golf.

Why start a blog:

1) New Years resolution
2) Share info, instead of answering the same question over again I can refer people to this.
3) Start something new, old publishing methods do not work.

As influenced by Johnathan Schwartz, 5 facts about myself that most people do not know, all have a twist:

1) Icelandair have a plane named after me, confidence building if you grew up in UK with a strange name in 70-80's.
    Twist: In Iceland Valdis is a girls name. I forgive them as Iceland was the first country to recognise Latvian independence twice, 1918 and 1991.
2) I have outlasted my last 10 managers and never done the same job for more than 3 years.
    Twist: I do not know if it is me or my manager.  I do not want to find out, some things are better left as mysteries.  There is a pattern here.
3) I do have a royal title bestowed to me by a King in a now defunct state.
    Twist: Never use it, lost touch with the King, but amusing oddity to discuss over a drink.  Never been able to make a penny or get a free drink out of any title so totally useless.
4) I have nearly drowned twice (Great Yarmouth and San Diego), been in 1 disasterous and 7 minor car accidents and had a gun pulled on me once.  
    Twist: Now I am risk averse and only drive German and Swedish cars.  Do not surf any longer and do not live in dangerous parts of London.
5) Least educated and shortest person at 6ft (1m 86cm) in my family. Least academically qualified person in my family as I only have one degree and a technical qualification.   All other siblings have several degrees from Masters to Doctor level.
    Twist: Most practical person in my family. I am the only one who has built 4 kitchens and renovated 2 houses, including all electrics, plumbing walls, bathrooms etc.  I can fix practical things my tall highly qualified siblings would have no clue about. I think I am related to aliens.