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Focus on Your Business. NOT on Your Servers.

Do IT staff limitations, sluggish server performance, and fears of possible data loss sound all too familiar? Brookwood School experienced similar challenges until they decided to take actions to turn over its technology support to an Intel solution provider. Brookwood School got more desktop and server performance, reduced expenditures, and lowered their ongoing energy costs for a rapid Return on their Investment (ROI.)

Remember my trip to Georgia and my visit to the school from last month? Well, now I can share more about the impressive results they obtained. Read the attached case study and watch this short video to learn more. Their story of increased performance and real savings may just inspire you to rethink your technology environment with a server refresh or even transition to managed services. And with the recent launch of the next generation of intelligent server processors the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series theres even more to be excited about. This new processor launch makes now a great time to make a change. These processors combine industry-leading energy efficiency with intelligent performance that adapts to your workload to deliver some serious improvements from previous processor generations:up to 15 times the performance of a 2 socket single-core server1up to 95% lower energy costs2So, if youre ready to put more intelligence in your server room (or closet), talk to your talk to your Intel IT solutions provider (http://premierlocator.intel.com)and get ready for great things!1 Claim Up to 15x performance per server Disclaimer: Intel performance comparison using SPECjbb2005* business operations per second between four-year-old single-core Intel Xeon processor 3.8 GHz with 2M cache based servers and one new Intel Xeon processor X5600 based server..Baseline platform: Intel server platform with two 64-bit Intel Xeon Processor 3.80Ghz with 2M L2 Cache, 800 FSB, 8x1GB DDR2-400 memory, 1 hard drive, 1 power supply, Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003 Ent. SP1, Oracle* JRockit* build P27.4.0-windows-x86_64 run with 2 JVM instance. New platform: Intel server platform with two six-core Intel Xeon processor X5670, 2.93 GHz, 12MB L3 cache, 6.4QPI, 12GB memory (6x2GB DDR3-1333), 1 hard drive, 1 power supply, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 64 bit SP2, Oracle* JRockit* build P28.0.0-29 run with 2 JVM instances2 Claim: Up to 95% lower energy costs Disclaimer: Intel comparison replacing 15 four-year-old single-core Intel Xeon processor 3.8 GHz with 2M cache based servers with one new Intel Xeon processor X5670 based server.

NEW Intel Software Partner Program Badge has now arrived!

The software partner program has updated the member badge replacing the existing member badge. This new badge is located at the Intel Software Partner Program website (http://intel.com/partner) under the "Marketing & Sales Resources" section, just select "generate demand" and "logos". The new badge is available in two versions: 1) Worldwide (* except for PRC advertising & marketing) and 2) PRC advertising & marketing only.

This new badge is part of a companywide brand initiative and we are excited to share this update with you, as our valued member. Please remember to follow the Usage Guidelines anytime you use this badge so we continue to jointly build brand recognition and value in the Intel Software Partner Program and your products.

Enroll in Intel Software Partner Program today and learn how the program can help you deliver innovative solutions to meet your users' demands. Learn More

Calling all game developers: what is your great game idea?

Gamers are an enthusiastic bunch when it comes to the latest gaming technology, but its the developers that make the technology come to life. For Level Up 2010, the Intel Visual Adrenaline Game Demo Challenge, independent developers around the world will be pushing the limits to create new experiences and breakthrough game concepts for 2010. The competition, in its fifth year, invites professional, hobbyist and student game developers to submit their original game concepts for a chance to win prizes, including cash, the latest hardware systems, the newest software packages, and agency engagement packages to help developers market and promote their winning game. New to the competition prizing this year are the grand prize awards: a trip to the Toyko Game Show for the professionals/hobbyists and a trip to GDC San Francisco 2011 for students.

Game developers can submit their concepts for judging in three categories:

Best Game for a Desktop
Best Game for a Laptop
Best Game for a Netbook

Judges Choice Awards will also be given for Best Art Design, Best Graphics Performance, Best Sound Design, and Best Character Design.

Submitting an entry is easy!

For the first phase of the competition, developers will be asked to submit their game concept by June 22 at www.intel.com/software/levelup2010. The game concept must describe an idea that will make for an incredible game. In addition to the brief description, developers are invited to include screen shots, visuals or videos of the idea these materials will help provide context for the judges to review and see the complete vision of the game.

Finalists will be selected by July 11 and will have until August 31 to provide detailed game demo abstracts and game executables. Finalist entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges made up of industry experts with the winning game demos announced by October 5.

Follow Level Up on Twitter and Facebook for the latest information on the contest and other resources from Intel Software Network.

Learn more about Level Up 2010

Submit an entry: www.intel.com/software/levelup2010

Contest FAQ: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/level-up-2010-faqs/?cid=sw:LU2010RHN3

Contest categories: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/level-up-2010-contest-categories/?cid=sw:LU2010RHN7

Play the winning demos from 2009: www.intel.com/software/levelup2009

Eucalyptus/Canonical/Intel Cloud Reference Architecture Published

The first output out of the Intel Cloud Builder Program:

For Cloud Service Providers, Hosters and Enterprise IT who are looking to build their own cloud infrastructure, the decision to use a cloud for the delivery of IT services is best done by starting with the knowledge and experience gained from previous work. This white paper gathers into one place a complete example of running a Canonical Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud on Intel-based servers and is complete with detailed scripts and screen shots. Using the contents in this paper should significantly reduce the learning curve for building and operating your first cloud computing instance.Since the creation and operation of a cloud requires integration and customization to existing IT infrastructure and business requirements, it is not expected that this paper can be used as-is. For example, adapting to existing network and identify management requirements are out of scope for this paper. Therefore, it is expected that the user of this paper will make significant adjustments to the design to meet specific customer requirements. This paper is assumed to be a starting point for that journey.http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-cloud-builder/http://blog.canonical.com/?p=348

Intel vPro Technology Virtual Seminar 2010

Many thanks to those of you who tuned in to Intel vPro Technology Virtual Seminar 2010, Getting to know Intel Active Management Technology 6.0.

We used a different format this time and as a result will shortly have about eight recordings, of the various sessions, available shortly for your viewing (or reviewing :-), as the case may be! We had a steady number of attendees and our technical experts did a great job explaining the new features. Then we were able to post the Intel AMT 6.0 SDK immediately following the event. I hope you've downloaded it by now. We are anxious to hear what you think about this new version and look forward to your questions and comments on our Manageability Forums, and your articles and blogs on the subject.

Additional items added to the Community to support the new version include completely revised Use Cases, and the new Start Here Guide.

Our bloggers have been busy too - be sure and read these:

We've also got new versions of Intel Setup and Configuration Service (Intel SCS) along with the new The Intel vProTM Technology Activator Wizard which can help you locally configure an Intel Active Management Technology system.

Then check out the Intel Quiet System Technology (Intel QST) Software Development Kit and the Intel AMT High-level API Intel Manageability Library.

Stay tuned - many new things coming soon. Security is the new key word!

What brings you to our Manageability Developer's Community?

I just wanted to let our community know that we have a new poll avaiable for taking (it's free!) What brings you to our Manageability Developer's Community? If you click on the poll link, you will only be able to see what's in the poll - it won't let you actually vote (I tried....) You will need to go to our Community home page - it's on the right hand side and you'll have to scroll down.

We are always curious about who's who in our community. Are you working on Intel AMT for your company? Are you experimenting with it on your own? Did you land there due to an unrelated search? Do you have Intel AMT and want it disabled because you somehow think your other half is stalking you? (yes, we received that as a question...)

So you have ended up in our Community, we would like to hear from you. Does it fulfill your Intel AMT Development needs? If not, what would make it *the bomb* for you?

IBM servers equipped with the NEW Intel Xeon 5600 series

I'm excited to highlight new IBM servers supporting todays announcement of the next generation of Intel Xeon processors: the 5600 Series (codename Westmere-EP EP for Efficient Processors). IBM refreshed their portfolio of 2-socket racks, towers, and blades. Their Xeon 5600 based-servers (rack and towers) are easy to find with an M3 in the product name, example: x3650 M3; and two Xeon 5600 based-blades are available: BladeCenter HS22 and HS22VSome highlights I found on ibm.com:50% more memory capacity on rack-optimized servers (x3650 M3, x3550 M3)60% more internal storage capacity on rack-optimized servers (x3650 M3, x3550 M3)30%-50% more VMs per server with the virtualization-optimized HS22Vnew iDataPlex (dx360M3) is the first two-socket server to achieve 3,000 operations per wattI encourage you to check out the System x website you will find more information about the 7 (seven!) servers IBM announced, including animated demos for each product:http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/info/x86servers/unleashed/index.htmlhttp://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/29690.wss (press release) I also listened to the Intel-IBM webcast today. Great presentations by Intel's Shannon Poulin, and Bob Galush, IBM's VP of High Volume Servers. For those of you who missed it, you can check out the replay!http://bit.ly/dhQzzyCheers, Raechel

IESC: Team Halong arrives in Vietnam!

Over the last several weeks, our team met virtually several times to discuss logistics and lesson plans for our trip and it was on Sunday night that we had the opportunity to meet our team in person in Hanoi. Our goal for this project is to deploy Intel Classmate PCs to Hanoi Computer Training Center [HCTC], Vinh Phuc and Quang Ninh orphanages in order to give these children greater access to information and technology that they otherwise wouldn't have.

Tam and Greg upgrading the software on the ClassMate PCs

Our team (Team Halong - "Descending Dragon") consists of Greg, Nancy, Tam, and Thao from the US, Brian from Ireland, Thuy, Uyen, and Tram from Vietnam, and Tina from China. We are all very excited about the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of Vietnamese orphans. For some of our teammates (including myself!), this was their first time in Vietnam. Upon our arrival into Vietnam, were pleasantly surprised at how quickly we became millionaires (one million dong =~$50) and even more impressed by the roads, which are shared by cars, motorbikes carrying goods, bikes, and carts carrying produce from nearby farms. At first glance, the traffic appeared chaotic, where traffic signs and lights are generally ignored, but somehow it works as everyone seems to know what the other drivers intentions are. We arrived at HCTC, where we met Tad Kincaid, director of the NGO Orphan Impact, and his team. HCTC is a recently renovated [this week!] building on the outskirts of Hanoi. The building is a credit to the work of Orphan Impact and will act as a training centre for orphans from around Hanoi. With 12 bedrooms it will be able to house orphans who have come in from distant orpahanages and need overnight accomodation. After shaking off the jet lag, our first priority was to unpack the 20 Classmate PCs, keyboards and computer mice, that the team brought with them. Our first assignment was to upload new software onto the Classmate PCs along with the 10 that Tad already had in order to deploy them at HCTC and at Vinh Phuc and Quang Ninh orphanages. The technical knowledge of the team was tested to the fullest to resolve some technical and software issues. However in true Intel style, we resolved all the issues. Greg was able to call on the knowledge of Bernd Nordhausen who has deployed these PCs before. Bernd saved the day! Meanwhile, our Vietnamese teammates Uyen, Tram, and Thuy translated the lesson plans the team prepared into Vietnamese. They found that some of the English words were difficult to translate into Vietnamese but managed to work around this issue. Thao, Uyen, Tram, and Thuy translated the lesson plans

Tomorrow, Team Halong will travel to Quang Ninh Orphanage, where we'll teach our first group of 95 children, a third of whom are hearing impaired. We are all looking forward to this and can't wait to get started! Next stop for Team Halong, Quang Ninh!

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Bluetooth stacks on Windows Mobile

When you need to Access to the Bluetooth hardware on Windows Mobile, You should have into account your devices implementation so You can read the information propertly. There are at least two Bluetooth stacks (implementations) types on Windows Mobil from Microsoft and BroadComm.

Both implementations are the same for the end user, but at low level they use different application interfaces. The Microsofts Bluetooth stack has a Win32 API which main function is BthGetHardwareStatus. As I always comment on demos or presentations, the Windows Mobile documentation depends on the underlying Windows CE version, in this case that method belongs to Windows CE .NET 4.2.

To use statically the Microsofts Bluetooth implementation you must to include the header Bt_api.h and its dependencies: Btdrt.lib y btdrtstubs.lib, as shown on Picture 1.

Picture 1. Additional dependencies.

By other hand, the Broadcomms Bluetooth stack SDK can be downloaded from here. You need to include the header BtSdkCE.h from that SDK and add a reference to its dependency: BtSdkCE30.lib. The method to start using this implementation is IsDeviceReady().

Now, lets jump into code. First, activate the Bluetooth functionality in your device (Smartphone or Pocket PC) to be able to access the Microsoft or Broadcomm hardware, in this sample activation is shown on Picture 2. If you dont activate the hardware, the code provided wont read the hardware information.

Picture 2. Bluetooth activation.

After activating Bluetooth, start a new Smart Device C++ project and copy /paste the following code:

Author: Javier Andrs Cceres Alvis

2009

This code is for academic purposes only.

#include "stdafx.h"

]]>

#define MIN_HW_VALUE 32

void ParseManufacturer(unsigned short usManufacturer, TCHAR *pszValue)

{

switch(usManufacturer)

{

... Many others

case 13:

wcscpy(pszValue,TEXT("TexasInstruments"));

break;

default:

wcscpy(pszValue,TEXT("Unknown"));

}

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])

{

int errorCode=0;

int btStatus=0;

if(errorCode==ERROR_SUCCESS)

{

if(btStatus!=HCI_HARDWARE_NOT_PRESENT && btStatus!=HCI_HARDWARE_UNKNOWN)

{

HRESULT retValue=E_FAIL;

unsigned char phci_version;

unsigned short phci_revision;

unsigned char plmp_version;

unsigned short plmp_subversion;

unsigned short pmanufacturer;

unsigned char plmp_features;

if(BthReadLocalVersion(&phci_version,&phci_revision,&plmp_version,

&plmp_subversion,&pmanufacturer,&plmp_features)==ERROR_SUCCESS)

{

TCHAR pszManufacturer[MIN_HW_VALUE];

ParseManufacturer(pmanufacturer,pszManufacturer);

wsprintf(TEXT("The manufacturer is: %s"),pszManufacturer);

}

return 0;

}

The above code is simple, it uses the Microsoft stack and only accesses to Texas Instruments hardware. But, what about this code running on BroadComm devices? Well, it wont break, but it wont be able to read device information using the method BthReadLocalVersion. In this exercise I used to HP devices with different stacks: a HP iPAQ h4150 and a HP iPAQ Voice Messenger (Picture 3), with Broadcomm and Microsoft implementations, correspondingly.

Picture 3. Broadcomm and Microsoft stacks.

Finally, the next code works for Broadcomms stack implementations:

if(!bRetValue)

{

CBtIf broadInfo;

if(broadInfo.IsDeviceReady())

{

DEV_VER_INFO dvInfo=(DEV_VER_INFO) sizeof(DEV_VER_INFO);

if(broadInfo.IsDeviceConnectable())

{

if(broadInfo.IsDeviceDiscoverable())

{

}

Well, this is the end for now, I hope it saves you time.

Greetings,

Javier Andrs Cceres Alvis

http://speechflow.spaces.live.com/
http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/author/javierandrescaceres/

Are you confused? Domain suffices in the context of provisioning explained...

If you are about to attempt the remote configuration process and will be using a remote configuration certficate, you might have some questions regarding domain name suffices, such as:

Do you need more than one remote configuration certificate?How are different domain names handled?Is a .com domain handled in the same was a .co.uk domain?Is the behaviour consistent across all AMT Firmware versions?Can I input a domain suffix via the OS or a client agent instead of using DHCP Option 15?Up until now this has been a bit of an enigma, but the following document I have just posted contains all the detailed information you require to understand the checks that are being performed and to comprehend how your specific circumstances and domain name will be handled by the AMT Firmware.Domain Suffix Guide for vPro Remote Configuration Process

Chip Chat: This dude really has some passion about the Xeon 5600...for good reason

It's been pretty exciting around the halls of Intel the past few days. I'm not talking about the fact that ABBA was finally recognized for their brilliance with an induction into the Rock & Roll hall of fame (that will need to wait for a future blog). I'm not even talking about the fervor over filling out brackets for March Madness with discussions of relative "game" of Oklahoma State or Georgia Tech (who would YOU take in a fight between a Cowboy and a Yellow Jacket?). I'm talking about the much anticipated release of the Xeon 5600 series processor, formerly known as Westmere. This latest evolutionary step in Intel's tick tock model was released to the market this week, and if you're a visitor to the Server Room you've seen the great response the product is getting.

I recently sat down with Intel's Shannon Poulin to talk about the 5600 series. Shannon carries a lot of passion for Xeon, and when we started to talk about the latest generation processor you'd have thought he was talking about the brilliance of his March Madness bracket. Shannon provided some insight into why the 5600 series offers a wealth of capabilities to data centers around the world and reflected on where customers may see the most value through platform deployments. Check out the interview here.

Intel Bolsters Suport for IHE Profiles at the HIMSS 2010 IHE Interoperability Showcase

This month Intel once again participated in the annual HIMSS IHE Interoperability Showcase, this year held in Atlanta, GA. Intel was one of 69 participating companies and organizations demonstrating healthcare interoperability utilizing profiles within the IHE and HITSP frameworks. Intel showcased its integration software appliance - SOA Expressway for Healthcare - as an XCA Gateway for the HIE infrastructure demonstrations. XCA stands for Cross-Community Access, and the IHE profile to perform federated document exchange across federated health information exchanges, such as in Statewide HIE or National HIN (NHIN) scenarios. This expands our product support for IHE profiles, which includes ATNA, PIX, PDQ, and XDS.b.

The use of a XCA Initiating Gateway allows document consumers to easily query and retrieve patient documents across multiple document domains/communities by providing a single end-point to handle all requests. The burden of maintaining a list of document registries and repositories, along with interacting with them, is handled by the Gateway. In the Showcase, Intel's SOA Expressway for Healthcare was configured and tested to interoperate with numerous clinical and EHR systems issuing federated document queries, including those from Alert, Allscipts, Aware, HMS, ICA, Medquist, Merge, MIE, Patient Keeper, and Quadramed. The Intel XCA Gateway was also successfully tested both as an initating gateway and responding gateway interoperating with Registries from a number of vendors, including MiSYS, Microsoft, ICW, Vangent, Axolotl, Alert, DB Motion, MEDescion, CareFX, GE, and EMC.

Intel SOA Expressway for Healthcare is the first purpose-built SOA integration appliance for healthcare that delivers best in class performance, open standards, and simplified security. It provides real-time, accelerated message processing, legacy connectors, and service enablement capabilities to power best of breed Health information Exchange solution architectures.

Pay Attention: Microsoft PKI - potential pitfalls with Server 2008 (SHA-1 vs. SHA-2)

I am writing this blog posting based on a recent vPro activation project with a customer, specifically in the context of Microsoft ConfigMgr, however the principles would apply to any vPro enabled Management Console. It will specifically address an issue which was encountered which relates to the signing algorithm used by the Certificate Authority (CA). This posting is NOT intended as a general purpose vPro and PKI posting but is meant for uncovering one specific issue and its subsequent fix.

Brief IntroductionA Microsoft Enterprise Certificate Authority is required (e.g. with Microsoft ConfigMgr) where a certificate template is created in order to issue Web Server based certificates to vPro systems as they get provisioned. These certificates will be used to authenticate and encrypt the AMT communications between the vPro client and the vPro enabled Management Console.Up until now most of the Certificate Authority Installations have been performed on Domain Controllers with Windows Server 2003. Naturally, more and more of these installs will occur on Windows Server 2008. When setting up and configuring a CA that will issue certificates on Server 2008 you need to be aware that you need to configure your CA to use the SHA-1 algorithm and NOT SHA256 or SHA512 (aka SHA-2). The reason for that is that the AMT redirection libraries of the Intel AMT SDK only support the SHA-1 signing hash algorithm. This is also mentioned in the Microsoft Technet article - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc161874.aspxHow can you tell which signing algorithm you are currently set to use?Open MMC for your Certificate Authority and select issued certificates, select the certificate that has been issued to the vPro client you are investigating (alternatively you can select the root CA cert). Open the certificate and view the signature algorithm field in the Detailstab - make sure it is set to sha1RSA2. You can also open MMC for your Certificate Authority, righclick and select properties; in the general tab it will state which hash algorithm is used, for example like in the screenshot below:What are the symptoms of the signing algorithm issue?The identification of this issue might not be immediate as provisioning will complete successfully without any issues, WebUI access works without a problem, AMT operations through the ConfigMgr Console and the OOB Mgmt Console all work fine. In fact everything works fine apart from SOL and IDER through the OOB Console. This would generally be indicative of either a PKI or Kerberos related issue or both; however the matter here is more subtle.The certificate with which there is an issue, is the Web Server Duplicate based certificate that was signed by the CA using the SHA-2 algorithm. There will be no apparent errors indicating there is an issue, as there is nothing wrong per-se with the certificate. Although, traversing through the OOBConsol.log file (note this is different to the usual log file that is used for vPro troubleshooting - AMTOPMGR.LOG ) will reflect that the certificate being presented by the vPro client is being rejected.ExplanationThe issue isn't manifested immediately since it is only when attempting an SOL connection that the certificate that is based on the unsupported hash algorithm is called upon.The AMT redirection libraries that are part of the Intel AMT SDK and are used by the vPro enabled Management Consoles are restricted to SHA-1.What is the solution?You will need to change the signing algorithm to SHA-1. Normally that would entail building the CA from scratch; however with the CA based on Server 2008, there is a possibility to change this on the fly.On the Server where you have your CA installed, open a command line prompt and type: certutil -setreg ca\csp\CNGHashAlgorithm SHA1This will update the MMC CA immediately, but to ensure the CA uses this new algorithm when it issues certificates, you must restart Certificate Services.Issue a certificate from the root, and verify that the signature uses SHA1 in the details tab / signing algorithm field on the certificate.Take a vPro machine that hasn't been provisioned before (alternatively unprovision and clear out any traces/residual data on that provisioned system from AD, CA and Management Console/DB) and ensure that as part of the provisioning process a certificate is issued to that vPro machine with a SHA1 signing algorithm.Attempt to use the SOL function via the OOB Mgmt Console.As a reference, please revert to:http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:4A4orLtypUYJ:download.microsoft.com/download/4/7/f/47f81ee5-8593-4b39-871d-2f55eb731ad6/Certificate%2520Services%2520Enhancements%2520in%2520Longhorn%2520Server.doc+SHA-2+algorithm+sub-id+0x800cd=8hl=enct=clnkgl=uk- Caution: It should be noted that it might not be able to avoid having to rebuiled the CA, as there might be residual data in the environment and certificate stores that reflects the previous SHA-2 signing algorithm. We have been able to avoid a full rebuild in our particular case.With the new AMT 6 SDK there might be some added support for SHA-2 algorithms and it might be possible to backport and copy new dlls to enable this support, but this has not been confirmed as a possible option nor has it been validated yet (will update the post if I have some new information on this).The guidance at this point remains that you need to ensure your CA is set to use SHA-1 algorithm.Some additional pointers of what to pay attention to with PKI (this is NOT an exhaustive list, there are more):If you have more than 1 tier in your Enterprise CA (e.g. root and issuing CA) then you will need to have the root certificate but also (and this is where most issues occur) the intermediate certificate in the trusted root certificate store of the system from which you are running your Management Console. Don't get confused with the chain of trust of the provisioning certificate; this pertains to the chain of trust of the Web Server duplicate template certificate that was issued to the vPro client as part of the provisioning processWhen creating a duplicate of the Web Server template, you might intuitively select Windows Server 2008, however you actually need to select Windows Server 2003. Below is a screen shot of the options when right clicking on the Web Server template and selecting duplicate. As mentioned, select Server 2003, as mentioned in the Microsoft Technet article - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd252737.aspx Previously, there was also a requirement that at no point throughout the entire chain of trust of the CA should there be a certificate with public keys larger than 2048-bits. This requirement is no longer as much of a hurdle, as many of the newer AMT Firmware versions support 4096-bit public keys. All you need to do in this case is to upgrade the AMT Firmware.

Intel Science Awards...sometimes inspiration comes from surprising places

Today the winners of the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search will be announced at a black tie gala in Washington DC. For the past week, 40 of the brightest young minds have been touring the capital and presenting on their research projects. Intel’s joined by the Society for Science and the Public in administering this prestigious program. You may have heard of it in years past as the Westinghouse awards…it’s been awarding scientific achievement to high school students since the 40’s, and multiple Nobel prize winners and Fields medalists (you may remember that from Good Will Hunting) have stopped here first for early recognition.

I recently got a chance to talk to Gabriela Farfan and Li Boyton, finalists in the Talent Search and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (another place to find smart young scientists) about what inspired them to take on a research project at such a young age, what drove them to choose their specific research, and what they were doing recently in DC…you’ll be surprised by who they’ve been hanging out with.

After the interview was over and the tape had stopped rolling I told the young women something that I’ll now tell you…they truly were an inspiration to talk to. I hope they are to you as well - check it out here.

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Penetration Testing Who Should Be Doing This Anyway?

If you are responsible for the security of a product in development, you may be wondering what the options there are for security/penetration testing. First, you may need to know what is involved with security testing and more specifically, what is a penetration test? A penetration test, or pentest, is a method of assessing the security of a computer product, system or network by simulating an attack from a malicious source, which can be defined from a threat model. In most cases, a pentest is performed to validate security before shipment of the product with the overall purpose of providing assurance that the security objectives and mitigations are correctly implemented, thus limiting the potential risk of exposure.

One important concept that is needed for anyone responsible for deciding who performs a penetration test is the difference between white box, black box, and grey box penetration testing. The difference is in the amount of knowledge of the infrastructure or product to be tested.

White Box Testing provides the testers with complete knowledge of the product or infrastructure to be tested. Often information provided to the testers includes architectural specifications, source code, infrastructure information including network diagrams and IP addressing information. Black Box Testing - assumes no prior knowledge of the product or infrastructure to be tested. The testers must try to figure out the inner workings of the product or infrastructure based on analysis of packaged documentation, shipped assemblies, inputs and outputs. Grey Box Testing - There are also several variations in between, often known as grey box tests. Penetration tests may also be described as "full disclosure", "partial disclosure" or "blind" tests based on the amount of information provided to the testing party.So, who should perform a Penetration Test?Many organizations are training software developers and architects to improve secure development practices. Some product development teams have begun using static source code analysis tools as a means to determine insecure function calls, nonexistent or improper input validation and less secure coding practices. By all means, the increased security knowledge within a development team will definitely improve security as it is integrated into the Product Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and help in the awareness of potential security issues during requirements gathering, architecting, designing and coding of a product. But in many cases, the investment in security training and tools for developers is expected to pay off in that penetration testing before shipment might be deemed unnecessary. Although, these examples of best practices can really improve the security in development, it should not nullify the need of formal security testing that is provided in a penetration test. It is also important to note that vulnerabilities found in any stage of development or penetration test may not have a known exploit. This means that a buffer overrun discovered during any security testing should not have to be exploited to prove that it is not secure. Writing exploits to prove code is insecure may be out of scope for a security test due to the time it can consume. Any potential security issue should be evaluated for its risk and if necessary, mitigated using secure coding practices. Internal testing within the product development team:Pros - An advantage to this type of testing is that some security related issues can show up early on in the development cycle, allowing adequate time for changes to be made at the architectural or design phases. The developers can perform the security related tests with the white box approach as they would have the most complete knowledge of the product. This can also be beneficial if there are talented individuals within the groups that can share their knowledge, it could be a great benefit to others in the groups. Additionally, if security related tools have been purchased by the corporation, the use of these tools can be leveraged. Cons - There may be a lack of experience for the tester. If an attempt is made to find an experience security tester, the resource may not be available. Another likely con for developers testing security in their own code is that the mitigations or security objectives might not be tested as affectively due to a lack of objectivity which is important for any testing of a product. Quality Assurance (QA) team could get involved but it is important to note that any QA testing team is responsible for ensuring functionality in the deliverables and are not usually specialized in this area.Insource - Testing within the same company using an internal dedicated security validation team:An internal team may be already in place in some organizations and can be engaged to completely manage the security testing for a product. There are positives and negatives to this strategy as well.Pros This option can allow for sharing of knowledge of the product with the security testers and developers who can communicate directly with each other and discuss architecture, design and implementation. The employees may be permanent employees that allows for less legal agreements than a completely outsources solution when there are IP concerns. This can provide the ability for full white box testing if desired. The sharing of security testing knowledge is more possible and can achieve a higher level of objectivity in testing than in the case of a development group performing the security tests. The biggest benefit to this option is that it can allow the most open and direct communication and collaboration between the security testing team and the developers. The Security validation team can use a white box approach as they would have access to the complete knowledge of the product by communicating with the development team.Cons Expert security testers are limited resources these days so it may be necessary to pull in less experienced resources who can request support from those who are more experienced. If a formal certification is required for the product, this option may not be good as the organization would be self-certifying its security in a product.Outsource - Security Penetration Testing using an external dedicated security validation team:In some cases, it is good to have a 3rd party engagement for penetration testing of a product. This option completely outsources the service of penetration testing to an external company that specializes in this service.Pros The external security testers specialize in this type of work and may be dedicated to security testing. Outside source can provide the most objectivity. If needed, external security testing can provide certification to a specific level of security assurance. One beneficial way to achieve the most from this type of testing is to create a collaborative security test environment and work side by side to ensure the knowledge is shared amongst the development team and the security testing team. Cons This is most likely the costliest solution. Additionally, Intellectual Property (IP) protection is an issue and legal oversight with Non Disclosure Agreements NDAs are needed to lower the risk to IP disclosure. This can also limit the amount of knowledge that can be provided to the 3rd party forcing a more black box or grey box approach to security testing but a black/grey box approach may be the intent (pro) in some cases. Location and access to the testing environment for support may be limited for the customer, so validation of the testing environment may be difficult causing less assurance that tests are run with the most stable product(s) or version(s). There may also be less communication and collaboration between the testing team and the development team if the product is sent out for testing without expertise to assist the security testers in fully understanding the product. To summarize, security testing through penetration testing is a valuable approach to validating security during development and the before shipment of a product. If the risk of a product is valued high enough, it may be necessary for all of the proposed options to be utilized in some way so suggestion here can be combined to ensure the best security solutions are planned in from the start. Even though some security testing can be performed at different stages in the development of a product, a pentest is most commonly planned for and scheduled before shipment of a product. But it's important to note that security can never be appropriately tested in to a product after development.

A Water Policy?

This week Intel formally published a company water policy and I’m proud of the result. A water policy? You read it correctly - a water policy. Let me explain.

Like most manufacturing processes, water is a key requirement for making semiconductors. Tap water is piped into the facility, contaminants (minerals, ions, etc) are removed from the water and the resulting ultra-pure water is used to rinse the surface of silicon wafers as they go through the semiconductor manufacturing process. Over the years, we’ve continued to improve the process so that today it takes less than 10 gal of water to make a state of the art microprocessor that powers your PC, less water than most people use in the shower each morning. Not bad, but there is room for improvement.

At Intel we have focused our efforts over the past decade to continuously improve our water efficiency, investing over $100 million which today results in savings of ~3 billion gallons of water each year. So, you’ve got the internal commitment and results, why a water policy? We debated the same question internally. We recognized the changing landscape and rising expectations for companies on this topic - from organizations looking at water as being a human right, to demands from investors for improved reporting and transparency on water use. In the end, after much discussion both internally and externally, including discussions with the socially responsible investment firm NorthStar Asset Management, we concluded that formally establishing a policy that documents our current practices and acknowledges the importance of water as a natural resource would help guide our future decision making, formalize our commitment and perhaps in a small way help raise the recognition of water as a valuable resource. In short, it was simply the smart and the right thing to do.

To learn more about our water conservation practices, see our most recent Corporate Responsibility Report and online water demo.

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Server Parking in Virtualized Cloud Data Centers

Luiz Barroso in his classic 2007 paper posited that given that servers in data centers were loaded between 10 and 50 percent of peak, it would be beneficial from an energy perspective to have servers with a large power dynamic ratio, the ratio of power consumed at full workload to power at idle. The figure below actually represents the state of the art today with a dynamic ratio of about 2:1 and efficiency that can drop below 20 percent. The operating band depicted is more conservative than what Barroso indicated, with a CPU utilization that rarely surpasses 40 percent.

The next figure illustrates what happens if we improve the dynamic ratio to 5:1. This is not possible today for single servers, but it is attainable for cloud data centers and as a matter of fact, for any environment where servers can be managed as pools of fungible resources and where server parking is in effect.

The improved dynamic ratio also dramatically improves the operating efficiency in the operating band of the data centers, but it gets even better: the servers in the active pool are kept in the sweet spot of utilization in the range of 60 to 80 percent. If the CPU utilization in the active pool gets below 60 percent, the management application starts removing servers from the active pool to the parked pool until the utilization starts inching up. If the CPU utilization gets close to the upper range, the management applications starts bringing back servers from the parked pool into the active pool to provide relief and bring the utilization numbers down.

What parallel programmers really really want...

I recently helped run an open forum of developers and project managers in Paris. The attendance was by invite only, and included the great and the good from the world of software development within Europe.

The purpose of the day was to hear from senior project developers\managers\strategists about the reasons why some developers were slow at adopting parallelism. During the day we also gave the latest news on parallel tools from Intel - such as the Intel Parallel Studio. At the start of the day we asked each of the 45 delegates what they considered to be the chief obstacles that were slowing down the adoption of parallelism. The top five most cited issues were legacy code, education, tools, fear of many cores, and maintainability,

This article is first in a series of six. Here I introduce the main topics in subsequent articles I will address each issue in more detail and discuss how these issues can be addressed using various tools, such as the Intel Parallel Studio.

Legacy Code.
The #1 problem was lots and lots of existing code. Some engineers spoke of having several million lines of code in their projects. Inserting parallelism into any existing code can be tough, and when that code is of significant size, the challenge can seem insurmountable. Often the code that one is working on is written by someone else who has long left the company. This point did remind me of an incident where I was helping a company to port their code to the IA architecture. Embedded in the comments was the line " in anyone knows what this code is doing, please ring me on extension 12345". In the next blog I'll show how some of some of these legacy issues can be handled.

Education
It was a common experience that there was usually one 'parallelism expert' in the team. When there were any parallelism issues, then the job went to the expert. This was an eye-opener for me. Back in my early days as a developer, I do remember being in fear of anything parallel, I held in great respect our in-house' parallel expert (I was not with Intel then). That was in the era when the only way to write parallelism was to use WIN32 API or POSIX thread.

Today there is no reason why this should still be the case.

A second strand in our discussion about education was the opinion that customers also need educating about parallelism.

Tools
Good tools are essential. A good tool should speak for itself. Any tool has to be easy to use and productive. Intel has a rich collection of tool offerings for parallelism. In a future blog I'll summarise these, and discuss some ways that might help in choosing the best tool for the job in hand.

Fear of Many Cores
Everyone knows that around the corner are many cores. Today we think that 2, 4, or 8 cores are the norm. What will happen when we say have 64 core CPUs? Developers need solutions that can scale to many cores, preferably without having to rewrite any of their code.

Maintainability
Parallel code, like any other code, need to use abstractions that are easy to understand and have a long shelf-life. Any solution must be capable of working correctly alongside existing code. There must be no conflicts either with the build system or the runtime environment. We don't want today's parallel solution to become tomorrow's legacy code issue, our code needs 'future proofing'.

In the next blog I'll start to discuss these topics in more detail.

So, until next time. Ciao!
-Stephen

Achieving high performance video transcoding with the Intel Media SDK. Episode 2

Synchronous multiple threads model. Fast & Complex

This is the second blog of a sequence. You can follow Episode 1 link to access the beginning part for reference. Here I will present a few optimization tips for single threaded synchronous video transcoding model and describe why the performance gets better on platforms with hardware accelerated graphics.

The way to optimize resource utilization is threading. The application runs Decode, VPP, and Encode in separate threads to allow them working in parallel and start frame processing immediately when data and resource is ready. Figure 1 below describes the difference from synchronous single thread model.

Figure 1: Multi-threaded Frame Processing

Parallel execution in this model enables better resources utilization. The Decode component completes the current frame, delivers it to downstream VPP, and continues decoding of the next frame without waiting for VPP to complete. Same go with VPP and Encode. See the example of simultaneous work below.

Figure 2: Multi-threaded implementation shows few wasted cycles

In this hypothetical example, the Encoder processes data a little bit faster than Decoder and VPP can provide, so there are small Waste blocks of CPU cycles. A different data set could have the Encoder taking longer than both Decoder and VPP. In that case, Waste blocks of GPU cycles would be present.

The tradeoff for the multi-threaded performance benefit of this model is development complexity. Several changes to the application are required for the multi-threading to work properly:

synchronize threads by waiting data to be processed by upstream components and pass it to downstream
organize queue buffers between components to allow upstream component work further while downstream component is busy
handle data relocation between CPU and GPU memory to allow software Encoder work with hardware accelerated Decoder in a pipeline

It is hard to make a complex application work correctly, and lots of resources are needed to develop and support it (this is why I didnt provide a pseudo code here). Of course, there are options to avoid such discomfort. Any ideas? :) I will post some tips in my following blog.

Thanks for reading!

Slava.

Profile: Eva R. Levin

Eva R. Levin has worked at Intel for over 13 years, her passion lies with managing projects, people, the creative side and product launches. She has worked in several different positions including trade show and events, executive speakership program, PR, consumer product marketing, corporate diversity and web marketing. Currently Eva works on the consumer web marketing team managing the game events page, several product pages, graphics, product reviews and decision tools. Eva holds a Journalism degree from University of Oregon. In her spare time she likes to root for her University of Oregon Ducks, exercise, cook and enjoy family time.

From the Desk of the Community Member at Large.

Waiting for Intel AMT 6.0.

As an AMT developer, I started working with AMT 3.X and have been updating to major releases. For me and other colleagues, one of the most important transitions was to the Intel AMT 4.0 mobile version, since that new release had come without a long wait. Now, there are a lot of expectations around Intel AMT 6.0 and I guess a proportional wave of questions will occur.

Intel representatives have mentioned some interesting features I will look for first: the WMI provider; mobile and desktop support; DASH compliance; disk protection and the KVM redirection.

Intel ME WMI Provider - Many developers start working on manageability by using the WMI command line and/or the object browser, so it will be easier than ever to get familiar with AMT, specially for IT administrators, because they will be able to add new manageability scripts to their toolboxes.

Mobile and Desktop Support - From the ISV perspective, Intel AMT 4.0 and 5.0 meant having many development, testing and production machines, so there is an overhead reduction for us.

DASH Compliance - For ISVs, this is valuable because the IT ecosystem market requires particular high standards in order to offer an industry-class product.

Disk Protection - Many enterprise customers request this feature on laptops used by their employees. No one is exempt from being attacked by a thief. My cell phone was stolen last weekend so I do know how important this is.

KVM Redirection - As far as I understand and based on current documentation, users will continue seeing/controlling AMT machines after they boot, I mean when machines enter to graphics mode (usually, when they load the OS).

One of the features in which I am most interested is WiFi/WiMax support. I suspect it will be a kind of out-of-band secure transportation channel for manageability purposes, like the current SOL or IDE-R.

Well thats all for now. In the meantime I will participate on the virtual seminar and play with the latest DTK.

Javier Andrs Cceres Alvis

03/02/2010

Trust, but Verify

The concept of trust is a strange one. Perhaps even more so in the world of computer systemswhere were all used to binary, yes/no answers. Trust is not so easy. It is purely a judgment call. Think about people that you know and trust, and why. Whether we do it consciously or not, were evaluating the words and actions of these people to determine whether we can trust these people. Once we do that, we interact with them in a manner that reflects our trust in them. When the stakes are very high (say letting someone watch your children or manage your money) we typically have very high standards regarding the level of trust we need to have in people to give them that responsibility.But as recent financial scams involving previously well-respected individuals have shown us, it is hard to find evidence that lets us appropriately gauge trustwe need more data. This puts us in a position popularly attributed to former President Ronald Reagan: Trust but verify . As such, we look for people we trust, but increasingly also look to further evaluate their credentials.It is also very important to establish trust in our computing platformsthat we can have higher confidence that they will act in the manner that we expect them to: processing and protecting our data safely and securely. Given the well-chronicled growth and increase in sophistication of attacks on IT resources, this approach makes more sense than ever. From a security point of view, a basic objective is to establish the smallest possible amount of assumed trust and subject more elements to verification. Net: assume few items are good and prove that more are good and use that proof to make the assessment of trustworthiness based on the role you want that system to play. The challenge is: this is very hard to do todayjust when it is most needed.This sets the stage for one of the neat new features available with the Intel Xeon 5600 family processor systems: Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT). Using capabilities in the processor, chipset, BIOS and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Intel TXT provides a mechanism for enabling a very small atomic level of assumed trust while allowing a robust basis for verification of platform components such as BIOS, option ROMs, etc up to a hypervisor or operating system. With Intel TXT, the assumed trust (root of trust) is pushed down into the processor itselfperhaps the best-protected component of any platform. From this privileged and protected location, subsequent components in the boot and launch process can be measured and compared to values of known good components to enforce that desired code executes and unknown code can be blocked. The result of this progressive measurement is often referred to as a chain of trust.Figure 1: Intel TXT provides a hardware-based security foundation to build a chain of trust Source: Adapted from materials by Cong Nguyen and Monty WisemanNote that Intel TXT does not provide the trust. It provides the foundation for assuring that the information about the software that will fundamentally control the platform (the BIOS, hypervisor or operating system) that will be used to make trust decisions is authentic. As a result, one can have greater assurance of the trustworthiness of the platform. In short, Intel TXT provides the basis of trust but verify that is essential to help ward off the growing number of threats to todays IT infrastructure.Note also that Intel TXT does not intrude on the entire software stack of the platform. Intel TXT provides measurement services from platform reset through the launch of an enabled hypervisor. It does not provide measurements of guest VMs, hosted operating systems or applications above the hypervisor. While there could be some value in this, it would probably add increased latency and complexity that are relative enemies of security (i.e. people would turn it off or avoid using it). That being said, it is entirely possible that the chain of trust started with Intel TXT provides and enabling foundation with can be continued as a software-only process with the hypervisor performing subsequent measurements of its guests as an integrity verification method. Such use models are indeed likely to evolve in time.A number of system vendors will be delivering Intel TXT-enabled platforms over the course of 2010. As system vendors complete the testing of the servers with final production components from Intel, many will be delivering support via BIOS updates that will allow customers to activate this powerful new capability in the field, and may begin shipping subsequent products from their factories with Intel TXT ready to go. Software vendors such as VMware, Parallels, HyTrust and RSA are also interested in having the ability to help verify the platform environment as it helps create a predictable, controllable platform that provides a more robust basis for security solutions in cloud and virtualized environments. VMware has been active in past events such as IDF and the recent RSA show to demonstrate software solutions that enhance cloud security. In fact, Intel, VMware and RSA technologists have just teamed up to release a solution brief that outlines the key issues for cloud security and identified some key roles that Intel TXT can help provide. Similarly, vendors such as Parallels and HyTrust are anticipating testing and certification of their software solutions when system vendors make their enabled platforms available. There will be a number of other leading hypervisor and operating system solutions with Intel TXT support released through 2010 and into 2011.With an enabled ecosystem of hardware and software providers, trust will be a lot easier to find. With new Intel Xeon 5600 series processor-based systems and Intel TXT in place, an administrator can now know that his/her trust in the platform has been earned. How important is trust to you? Does wanting verification of the platform make one seem overly paranoid? Or do growing security concerns have you thinking that more protection is better? What defines too much security for you?

Intel Xeon 5600 Series Processors

The new processor series arrived early this morning with the posting of this product page and this press release.

Here are some of the earliest articles:

TechReport has a discussion about it here

Hardware.Info has a review of it here (in Dutch)

PCMag has an article here

ZDNet has an article here with slides

PCWorld has an article here comparing it to predecessors

Plenty more to come as half of the world consumes the content, and the other half wakes up to all the buzz.

Think Globally, Act Locally: or Display Links that Tap into the educational Orchard

"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS."

These were Ernest Shackleton's words advertising for crew to accompany him on his adventure to the South Pole. If we substituted "men and women" for "men", we might be talking about the sometimes process of being a teacher. It resonates with my recent weeks with "the laptop" project, which I just got word from Guinness as a new record category: "Most powerful portable computer". The target is 30 min battery with an overall weight under 10 kilograms.

Intel graciously allowed me to substitute two newly released quad core Xeon chips for the customary gift of a laptop for newly minted blackbelts, allowing me to move a pet project from the back burner to center stage. For some time I wanted to repackage our LIttleFe portable cluster idea into an aluminum attache case: LittleAl.

Instead of "Intel allowed", it is far more important to say "Zander Sprague of the blackbelt program has championed" getting me needed equipment. Zander's accomplishments are going to sound something like the 12 days of Christmas: 12 sticks of memory, four motherboards, two blade cases, two more Xeon chips, and a terabyte SATA hard drive. Even more important, Zander has repeatedly traveled to the college to work with my students in assembling LittleAl. This involved noticing the theory of the motherboard and the chip being compatible is not the same as the practice of the motherboard and the chip being compatible.

After tediously, and rigorously, swapping the various combinations of chips, motherboards, various sizes and ranks of memory, blade cases, and monitors; we came to the conclusion we were stumped by the beep codes and the motherboard error lights did not reveal why we could not power-on to the BIOS. A late night conference call with Zander, myself, and Jun, a very helpful board designer from Intel Shanghai, led to the missing link; we needed to get one of the original chips for which the board was designed, from which we could power-up to BIOS, allowing us to re-flash the BIOS, coaxing the new chip to be in electronic communion with the motherboard. Sweet. Along the way, we diagnosed one out of the four motherboards was bad, which Zander also transformed into a working one, not unlike the way Harry Potter would have, aside from the fact no wand or magic was involved, it took days rather than seconds, and Zander does not have a lightning scar on his forehead (his is a ouroboros.)

I need to mention that somewhere along the way I started channeling my hero Don Quixote in tilting at windmills. I realized that if I could shoe-horn into the case: a keyboard, mouse, screen, and battery; well then, I'd have a laptop. But this enabled me to see the windmill behind it; given these changes I would clearly have the world's most powerful laptop. This revealed the grandest one of all: a Guinness Book of World's Record.

This takes us to today, the day after which I should have marched forth to write this blog. Today is the Friday before the Wednesday when I head to SIGCSE, where I planned to establish the world record. "Safe return doubtful" is certainly a valid way to see describe things. A number of difficulties have hobbled progress. But this would not be seeing things with Cervantes' eyes. What counts is not the way things appear to be, but the way things are and the way things should and will be.

And this, my friends, is a long way around to the title of this blog. Think globally, but act locally. The global world record is not the goal it is just the eye candy to lead people to what is important: the local actors acting locally. This is mainly my students, who keep appearing out of the woodwork to join the team, a new one surfaced today, but more about Stephen in a paragraph or two. It are also the local businesses who have joined us in the project: Intel, DisplayLink, Tap Plastics, and Orchard Hardware. They are choosing to invest in their community and I am grateful. More important, it is the people of these places that are part of the effort Zander, Ron, Jun, Carl the chip supplier, Jesse the server board supplier, all from Intel; Theo from DisplayLink who provided the coolest small video screen for the monitor; Sophia, Harold, Stephen, and Liam from Tap Plastics who provided mounting equipment and illusion films with minute parabolic lenses (just the thing for "The Effect"); Josh and Toni from Orchard Hardware supplying the mounting hardware.

There is a great pride these local people have in West Contra Costa County which I certainly share. People may hear about the shootings in Richmond, and that very real grief has certainly touched us at our college; but there are also a vast number of caring people building community. I must mention Matt Krupnick from the Contra Costa Times who wrote a resonant piece about our project. Thanks Matt for being another local actor and part of the team.

Stephen is a gamer working at Tap rebuilding financial reserves to go back to his computer science program at nearby UC Berkeley. He is interested in joining the Graphics and Gaming Guild for which I am club advisor. We have just decided to go with the freely available Unreal Engine. Stephen is fascinated with the prospect of devising a game that will only run on this 128 Gig memory 51 GHz (aggregate) processor. He may also take some CS classes from us along the way. Welcome Stephen.

More updates to follow from SIGCSE, when I can work with the Earlham College crew, led by Charlie Peck, to help work at outstanding LittleAl problems.

BTW, the Quixote did not think he was tilting at windmills; he was fighting the giant Briareus with his 100 hands. This LittleAl laptop will have the hostname briarius because it will have 32 hyperthreads and 100's of Gigs. More importantly, it will not represent an idle tilting at world records, it will be a giant catalyst for bringing people together.

Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition - get IT, got IT, GOOD!?

The Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition (previously known as Gulftown) has now decended from the heavens… haha! Well, I have one of these new Extreme CPUs and I hope to get it installed soon… Many of you know I have the previous Extreme Core i7 i965 in my home pc.

What am I looking forward to the most?

More Performance! (duh) but what does that mean going from 8 to 12 threads?
Energy Efficiency… wait, wut? Yes, the new 32nm process gives more OOMPH, but can also do it more efficiently and burn less energy.
Make me a better gamer! LOL, well that’s something we’ll have to see…

Stay Tuned for the next EXTREME UPDATE!!!

until then - check out the details on the latest Intel Core i7 980X

Creative What? Educating Teens on the Value of Online Creative Content

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:00:00 -0400

Microsoft is helping students understand the value of creative content in a way thats meaningful and relevant to them.

Social Media Front and Center at 2010 Winter Games

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0400

Olympic athletes, fans, media and winners of Microsoft Office blogging contest used mobile phones, browsers and PCs to watch, report on and participate in the excitement of the Games.

Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Tools Roll Out at MIX10

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:00:00 -0400

Developers get first look at tools for new mobile platform. Spreading the word about the new platform is Charlie Kindel, a key evangelist for Microsoft.

Microsoft Partners Use Silverlight Interactive Lounge at SXSW to Highlight Their Work

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0400

Cynergy, Terralever, Tribal DDB and Razorfish are among the Microsoft partners to showcase their latest Silverlight creations at the SXSW Interactive Festival.

Microsoft Wants SXSW Festival Attendees to Play Tag

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:00:00 -0500

Attendees of the South by Southwest (SXSW) music, film and interactive festival can share information with each other and possibly win a cash prize by using Microsoft Tag technology.

Study: Remote-Work Programs Benefit Employers Too

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500

Policies, technology and good management are key to making employees successful at home, say experts.

Microsofts Elevate America Initiative Launches in State of California

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:15:00 -0500

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announces 166,500 technology training vouchers as part of an initiative to prepare people for 21st-century jobs.

Virtual Senior Center Enhances Lives of Homebound Seniors

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:30:00 -0500

Microsoft, the City of New York, and Selfhelp Community Services use technology to create an interactive experience between homebound seniors and local senior centers.

Chuck Thacker Attains Computings Peak

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500

Chuck Thacker, a pioneer in computer science and a technical fellow with Microsoft Research, has been named winner of the 2009 A.M. Turing Award, the most prestigious honor in computing.

Technology Skills Training Initiative Aims to Elevate Americas Veterans

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:00:00 -0500

Microsoft today launched the Elevate Americas Veterans Initiative to provide technology skills and other resources to veterans and their spouses.

New Tool Creates Arabic Script From Roman Alphabet Keyboards

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500

Microsoft Maren helps Arabic speakers communicate using a completely different writing system.