·:[ Stream of Consciousness… ]:·
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How many times have you saved a document only to realize later that you really need that old version back?  Saved on top of an existing but different document? Deleted a file by mistake?

Of course, most of these scenarios are covered by various backup methods (you are performing regular backups, right?) but suppose that something happens between backup cycles or that regulatory requirements specify retention of all versions of a document, etc…  Enter a ‘versioning file system’.

A versioning file system automatically creates snapshots of files each time they are changed/saved.  What you see in your directory listing is the latest version but behind the scenes are maintained historical versions that track all changes made to the file over time.  For example, you can easily recreate the file as it existed last Tuesday at 2PM, a month ago, or 2 years ago.  All this without tapes!

None of this magic is free; the cost is increased disk space utilization.  However, only the changes to the data are stored, not entire copies.  The amount of overhead is dependent on the frequency and amount of changes to a file.  A solution like this is not appropriate for a highly-dynamic file such as a database or email inbox but is a solid solution for document files (MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.).

Welcome

Acording to the Gizmodo piece this is a repeater rather than a full access point.  The difference being that it really just extends the range of a ‘real’ access point.  All the packets still have to make it back to the AP and then uplink from there.

Since you’re going to loose some percentage of packets on each hop (…repeater->repeater->access point) the more hops away you get the worse your service will become.

It’s rather cool in that it is useful where you have no power such as in a remote location (Scout camp) or temporary setups.  I don’t think I’m going to run out and buy them for my neighborhood however.

Free Wi-Fi: Meraki’s Solar-powered Repeater Lets You Create Your Own Neighborhood Network - Gizmodo

This piece by George Ou starts out with a description of carrier peering arrangements and moves into the various pieces of legislation pending to regulate Internet traffic & services.  A worthwhile read by an informed party with no skin in the game.

» A rational debate on Net Neutrality | George Ou | ZDNet.com

Almost every geek knows the bandwidth of thier home internet connection.  But a painful few have any clue what, nor the impact of, it’s latency.

edgeblog » It’s Still the Latency, Stupid…pt.1

This piece covers a finding by Google engineers that in some ways contradicts commonly heald beliefs that high temperatures and/or high utilization will cause a hard disk to fail sooner.

Basically, they found that there is a weak coorelation between temp and failure rates. It also found that drives up to 3 years old that are used infrequently are more likely to fail than those that have a high utilization.

They also found that a drive with any scan errors (surface errors) is 39 times more likely to fail than a drive with none.

What I took away was this:
- Expect to replace drives after 3 years
- If a drive is showing scan errors, replace it.
- Don’t worry so much about temp & ‘thrashing’.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Hard disk test ’surprises’ Google

Here is a direct link to the paper itself:  http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf

300 10Gbps network ports, 1Gpbs to each desktop, and over 300TB of disk storage…  Whoa…

CNet has done a short piece on the Lucasfilm datacenter.  I found two things very interesting about this operation.  First, they have a very short time horizon on technology with some of it consider ‘legacy’ within 6 - 7 months.  The second is that they put a high value on performance per watt of electricty.

As our machines become more powerful it takes more power to operate them.  That power turns to heat which then takes even more power to remove lest the machine pull a China Syndrome.  AMD has long been a leader in creating power-efficient CPUs but Intel has recently gotten some religion about it and now isn’t far behind.

I’m a big fan of AMD (as is LucasFilms it turns out with 198 dual-core, dual-processor Opteron machines) for this reason as well as they are generally cheaper per CPU cycle than Intel.

Inside the Lucasfilm data center | CNET News.com

I’m not really a fan of Outlook.  I find it to be overly complex for most users, hell, even for seasoned technology professionals, but it is the defacto standard email/contact/calendar tool for corporate America.

This free plug in from Microsoft (free?  Microsoft?  Wow, Bill musta been distracted that day.) alegedly allows sending SMS messages via an attached GSM phone (such as my much loved Audiovox 5600).

I’ve not yet tested it and considering the source I take it’s operation far from granted.  I don’t send many SMS messages but I can see the utility in such a function.

Download details: Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Outlook SMS Add-in (MOSA)

This is a nice overview of the systems design behind the Google machine.

One of the interesting points in this article is a quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, “We believe we get tremendous competitive advantage by essentially building our own infrastructures,”. This is in line with my approach to building infrastructure. (more…)

This geek stuff gets me all aflutter.  After groking this two-parter it seems to me that the GooFS would be a fab candidate for large media libraries.

StorageMojo » Google File System Eval: Part I

This site offers a TON of apparently free web services.  From address verifications, weather forecasts, IP address geolocation and even barcode generation.

Sweet.

WebserviceX.NET :: XML Web Services solution provider