Several videos were made, and the following 7 videos are of my tour around the HP booth.

The HP Booth tour

HIMSS 2010 in HD #1: HP Healthcare & Life Sciences Strategy from absolutelywindows on Vimeo.

A talk with Jared Walker, Lead Industry Technologist for HP Healthcare/Life Sciences Initiatives

HIMSS 2010 in HD #2: Talking with Jared Walker from absolutelywindows on Vimeo.

Secure printing using plain paper

HIMSS 2010 in HD #3: Secure Printing from absolutelywindows on Vimeo.

The Digital Hospital

HIMSS 2010 in HD #4: The Digital Hospital from absolutelywindows on Vimeo.

PDI Patient Information & Entertainment Systems

HIMSS 2010 in HD #5: - PDI Patient Info Systems from absolutelywindows on Vimeo.

Nurse Call/Notification Systems

HIMSS 2010 in HD #6: Nurse Call & Notification Equipment from absolutelywindows on Vimeo.

The Microsoft Surface Table

HIMSS 2010 in HD #7: Multitouch in Healthcare using the Microsoft Surface Table from absolutelywindows on Vimeo.

In the market for servers of any kind, HP is a leader, and when this opportunity to reprise my 2009 visit to the (HP) Blades Team presented itself, I just had to take it.

Fact: HP manufactures a server every 12 seconds.

A pedigree like that is not easy to live up to, and surpass, especially in the challenging economic environment we have had recently around the globe. However, I am a believer in innovation, an HP has shown itself to be innovative.

Alyson Griffin welcomed us to the event, and Gary Thome, VP for Blades then took over.

Data Center Trends
Datacenters around the world have found out some looming and costly side effects of datacenter sprawl: power and cooling concerns.

I should know. For we have the same issues at our datacenter, which, unfortunately, is located in California. (Not unfortunate that it is in lovely California; unfortunate that it is located in California where power is muy expensive.)

At the ProLiant G6 launch last year, I had the opportunity to be briefed on the new servers, and be introduced to blade computing. Gary Thome introduced us to blades, Brad May and his Blade Server SWAT Team were educated us on the benefits of blades, and Dan Bowers broke down several of the new blades. It was at this time that I had an epiphany: for Logikworx and our clients going forward, we were no longer going to consider rackmounts as the next step in the evolution of our datacenter, it would be blades, and blades only. Unless, of course, something better showed up.

Fact: HP is the world leader in Industry-Standard servers

Since that launch, HP hasn’t been sitting still. It has released the SL-series of blades and also storage blades.

Power Capping* and Thermal Logic functionalities are built into HP blade servers. These technologies allow data center admins to granularly control the power and thermal footprints of servers deployed in datacenters. Power capping can also be selective.

If you include the ‘sea of sensors’ and the multiple options available for the servers, including the usage of Intel Xeon ‘Nehalem’ CPUs, 1333 MHz RAM, and Virtual Connect, you have a world-class series of server blades. Don’t forget HP Insight Suite.

* Power capping functionality is hardware-based.

Virtual Connect
One of the innovations in HP blades is Virtual Connect.

Just what, you might ask, is Virtual Connect?

Virtual Connect is a technology devised by HP that allows network administrators to add, replace, recover, and manage server blades on an ad hoc basis. The most visible part of Virtual Connect is Flex-10.

From HP:

Virtual Connect Flex-10 technology is a hardware based solution that enables server administrators to partition each 10 gigabit Ethernet port into 4 and regulate the data speed of each partition. HP Flex-10 technology is available only with Virtual Connect (VC).

The Virtual Connect Flex-10 feature set enables VC to configure a single 10Gb network port of BladeSystem servers to represent four physical NIC devices, also called FlexNICs, with a total bandwidth of 10Gbps. These four FlexNICs appear to the operating system (OS) as discrete network interface controllers (NIC), each with its own driver. While the FlexNICs share the same physical port, traffic flow for each one is isolated with its own MAC address and virtual local area network (VLAN) tags between the FlexNIC and VC Flex-10 interconnect module. The bandwidth available to each FlexNIC is controlled by the server administrator through the Virtual Connect Manager interface.

Suffice it to say, when you have technology like this at your disposal, those <censored> dreams of on-the-fly configuration of network resources become a pleasant reality.

Fact: HP Blade Servers were used in the production of Avatar, the best-selling movie of all time.

Furthermore, we were told, the amount of headroom built into Virtual Connect Flex-10 future-proofs your investment in the product.

That added benefit alone makes it a good buy.

Insight Software
HP Insight is a suite of software management products from HP that provide hooks into the hardware.

Insight Software consists of two suites: Insight Control for essential management, and Insight Dynamics for advanced management. A third layer is the Insight Manager.

Some of the functionality in Insight Control is direct ProLiant management for deployment, system health, power management, and remote access.

As usual, Insight integrates with HP OpenView, as well as Microsoft SCCM (Systems Center Configuration Manager) and VMWare.

StorageWorks CTO Perez
Calvin Zito, @HPStorageGuy, was able to persuade Paul Perez, HP StorageWorks VP and Chief technologist, to come over and talk to us about HP StorageWorks, and how the products relate to innovations in storage.

One thing I like in a product manager/owner is confidence in their products, and their choices. Paul was able to exude that confidence about HP’s storage, a condition that permeated the room.

He led us through the fruits of the IBRIX acquisition.

Then he laid a good one: he thinks memristors will be at the vanguard of evolutionary advances in storage over the next few years. Furthermore, he added, he considers spindles to passé, declaring the era of spindles for IOPs to be over!

Asked about SSDs, he informs us that they are viewed within his OU as an extension of RAM (main computer memory).

HP ProLiant Blades Labs
My second visit in as many years to the HP Blades Lab was just as informative as the first.

This time though, the focus was on the HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosures.

We were walked through several configs, and a few facts were also revealed:

BladeSystems have four fan zones with variably spinning fans and 23-stage fans.

Unquestioned efficiency

Client Virtualization
One of the technologies I am enamored with is client virtualization, and the promise it holds for compat mediation.

Joseph George walked us through HP’s strategy in this space.

HP is committed to bringing its products and technologies to market here. HP has been in client virtualization for several years, and has been making company and technology buys to round out their offerings, despite the fact that most of the technology is home grown.

HP’s offerings are designed to work with client virtualization products from most of the major client virtualization vendors, especially Microsoft Med-V, formerly SoftGrid.

Microsoft Windows 7

Server Operating System 
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
With the release of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, the best server operating system on the planet got 1000% better. The list of impreovements are too numerous to detail here, but the ones I am most enamored with are DirectAccess, File Classification Infrastructure, Failover Clustering, BranchCache, and AppFabric. SmallBizWindows Absolute Best Award.

Virtualization Solution 
 Microsoft Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
Free, with a small footprint. Built on Windows Server 2008 R2. SmallBizWindows Superstar Award.

* VMWare Vsphere. We do not have enough expertise with (market-leading) VMWare to definitively make a recommendation. However, I can count on several friends who are specialists in the product to recommend it. Furthermore, John Troyer, a social media specialist with VMWare, was kind enough to send recommendations my way in order to get my lead virtualization specialist on his way to gaining enough competence in the product so we might see if we should add it to our current virtualization offering.

Collaboration solution: Hardware
HP SkyRoom

Collaboration solution: Software
Microsoft SharePoint

Client Security Suite 
Symantec Norton 360. SmallBizWindows Superstar Award.

Honorable Mention: F-Secure Internet Security 2010 

Server Security Suite 
Microsoft Forefront Suite 
This is a full-featured server security suite comprised of the following components: Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010, Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010, Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint, and Forefront Identity Manager 2010. SmallBizWindows Superstar Award.

Client Antivirus
Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010

Honorable Mention: F-Secure Anti-Virus 2010. SmallBizWindows Business Ready Award of Excellence

Free Antivirus 
Microsoft Security Essentials
This product has already won kudos from users and analysts alike, with it performing better than some commercial packages

Windows Home Server Security Suite 
F-Secure Home Server Security 2009

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For this Tech Day, I expect nothing less from the StorasgeWorks team as I have gotten from other Tech Day I  attended: a series of deep dives, followed by one-on-one sessions with product managers.

The list of bloggers is impressive:

• Rich Bramley; VM/ETC; @RBramley
• Nina Buik*; 4th Source; @NinaBuik
• Stephen Foskett; Steve Foskett, Pack Rat; @sfoskett
• Robin Harris; StorageMojo; @storagemojo
• Greg Knieriemen; StorageMonkeys; @Knieriemen
• Ray Lucchesi; RayOnStorage; @RayLucchesi
• Frank Owen; TechVirtuoso; @fowen
• Davang Panchigar; StorageNerve; @StorageNerve
• Nigel Poulton; RupturedMonkey; @NigelPoulton
• Simon Seagrave;TechHead; @Kiwi_Si

From HP:

• Becca Taylor, @BeccaTaylor
• Calvin Zito, @HPStorageGuy

Ivy Worldwide:

• Tom Augenthaler
• Halley Bass; @IvyWorldwide

Tomorrow is already looking like a winner.

See you soon.

* Nina Buik is also President of HP CONNECT, HP’s global partner & user community

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A few seconds ago, they delivered.

HP SkyRoom, at $149 US, is the most affordable, high-definition business videoconferencing solution available right now.

HP SkyRoom is the only videoconferencing tool to offer live collaboration for up to four people over a standard business network for $149 – less than the cost of round-trip airfare from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

“Finally, video meetings with genuine eye contact and natural human interaction are as easy as starting an instant messaging connection,” said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Workstations, HP. “It takes business productivity and collaboration to a completely new level when we can connect people around the world in a day via HP SkyRoom and let them get home to family dinner and bedtime stories – without the wear and tear of travel.”With HP SkyRoom, users can share any type of application supported on their PC or workstation, including office documents, streaming video and interactive 3-D applications:

• Digital content and engineering teams can collaborate on sophisticated design concepts, allowing tremendous flexibility and performance for sharing content and visually rich human conversations.
• Production houses can preview animation clips to dispersed teams for live, instant feedback.
• Financial teams spread across the world can run live models for discussion and collaboration.

Using HP SkyRoom is as easy as beginning an instant message conversation. Users simply click a contact to connect, which quickly initiates a live SkyRoom session. Another click shares the desktop or rich media content, and participants are instantly collaborating. During an HP SkyRoom session, information is transferred at a rate four times faster than the blink of an eye. 

HP SkyRoom is the culmination of three years of research to design video and image compression algorithms by HP Labs into a customer-centric implementation by the HP Workstation team, which designs professional-quality solutions in collaboration with industry-leading brands around the globe.

The breakthrough innovation behind HP SkyRoom comes from the combination of high-definition, multiuser videoconferencing and a sophisticated capability to share display information more securely than with actual transfer of data and processing functions. HP SkyRoom’s video engine enables all participants to see the presenter’s display and each other through a multiway videoconferencing session. The video engine is multithreaded to take advantage of the power of today’s multiprocessor and multicore processing technologies.

HP SkyRoom’s image engine gives remote users a view of the host presenter’s desktop and its applications as if they were using a local machine. It enables the display of 2-D and 3-D graphics, full-motion video and multidisplay on a system that only has a 2-D graphics card.

The HP SkyRoom software on the presenter’s system monitors and updates only changes in screen appearance – not the entire display – then compresses and encrypts the information before sending it to the participants, where it is decrypted, decompressed and updated. In this way, network traffic is greatly reduced, latency and bandwidth requirements are reduced, and the need for dedicated networking hardware is eliminated.

HP SkyRoom is based on breakthrough video and image communication technology developed in HP Labs, the company’s central research arm. Elements of this technology were used by NASA’s Mars rovers to transfer high-resolution images back to Earth.

The SkyRoom Technology

The innovation behind HP SkyRoom is the combination of high-definition, multi-way video conferencing and a sophisticated capability to share display information rather than actual data and processing. This way, technical limitations on a presenter’s system do not disrupt the entire collaborative environment. The HP-developed Image Engine and Video Engine represent the core technology.

IMAGE ENGINE: The Image Engine gives remote users a view of the host presenter’s desktop and its applications as if they were using a local machine. It enables display of 2-D/3-D graphics, full-motion video and multi-display on a system that only has a 2-D graphics card. In the example in Figure 2, the presenter is executing an MCAD application and sharing the application images with one or more participants.

Internally, the presenter’s computer is executing an application using standard X, OpenGL, DirectX and/ or Graphics Device Interface application program interfaces (APIs). The HP SkyRoom software on the presenter’s system monitors and records any changes in screen appearance, compresses and encrypts that information, and sends it to the participant(s) as required. The participant decrypts and decompresses the information and then updates the local display appropriately. The presenter also sends audio (compressed and encrypted) to the participant(s).

By only sending information that describes changes in the display, network traffi c is greatly reduced from sending raw video. Latency and bandwidth requirements are reduced, and the need for dedicatednetworking hardware is reduced or eliminated.

VIDEO ENGINE: HP SkyRoom also includes the Video Engine—a high performance video conferencing environment. All of the participants can see the presenter’s display and each other through a multi-way video conferencing session. The Video Engine is multi-threaded to take advantage of today’s multi-processor and multi-core processing technologies.

The Video Engine uses an HP-developed video processing technology that is capable of supporting multipoint conferences with an aggregate video resolution that surpasses HD video resolution. With the webcam offered today, resolution is up to 960 x 720 dpi at 15 Frames Per Second (FPS) for a point-to-pointconference.

The HP SkyRoom delivers audio using the MPEG compression/decompression (CODEC) algorithm, and video delivery can be MPEG-2 or H.264, as selected by the user. Echo control—often an issue with desktop video chat or conferencing systems—is based on software algorithms within the HP SkyRoom solution.

COMPREHENSIVE FEATURES

The modular architecture of HP SkyRoom, combined with industry-standard components, provides a comprehensive set of features not found in any other collaboration technology in its price range. These features include:

• Easy-to-use, intuitive interface: The HP SkyRoom user interface was developed with HP consumer design methodologies, making it simple and intuitive. Users can get started immediately without the need for special training. And HP SkyRoom integrates with Microsoft® Office Communication Server 2007 or Jabber servers. The integration allows the users to easily share contacts.
• Customizable desktop session sharing: The presenter can easily select and define the area to share, or share the entire desktop. What is shared can be anything on the presenter’s desktop, including documents, videos, 3D models and other rich media.
• High security: HP SkyRoom uses multiple security techniques, including encryption of all media streams and video as well as extensive authorization and authentication. All graphics traffi c is encrypted, using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with 256-bit keys.
• Full utilization of graphics hardware on the presenter system: HP SkyRoom is not limited to specifi c hardware solutions; since participants deal only with image data, they need only be capable of displaying 2-D images. This vastly reduces the graphics card, CPU and other system requirements on the participant side and enables high-fi delity, real-time content sharing without high-priced hardware proliferation.
• High quality, high performance compression/decompression technology: HP SkyRoom uses high quality compression/decompression (CODEC) technology to deliver both outstanding image quality and performance. The compression ratio reduces bandwidth requirements and permits communication across standard networking hardware.
• Industry-standard, network-based design: HP SkyRoom uses TCP/IP—the industry standard— with no requirements for proprietary networking, special cables or limited distances. This allows HP SkyRoom to be deployed in an existing network environment. HP SkyRoom can also be extended beyond the fi rewall boundaries of an organization through VPN connections, allowing collaboration with people in remote locations.

HP SkyRoom will be included as a standard feature – at no cost – on select HP business desktop and mobile workstations and for free for a trial period on many upcoming HP premium business PCs and notebooks. HP SkyRoom can be used on workstations or PCs from Dell, Lenovo or Sun that meet minimum technology requirements. Companies now have the power to change the economics of travel and reduce their carbon footprint while preserving the value of personal human interaction.

To run HP SkyRoom on any vendor PC, minimum requirements are Intel® Core 2™ Duo 2.33-GHz or equivalent processor with 2 GB RAM, a webcam and Microsoft Windows® XP or Vista®. Minimum network requirement is a broadband network with a minimum transfer rate of 400kb/second. HP SkyRoom must run over a corporate VPN to connect to systems outside the local firewall.

HP SkyRoom is available worldwide preinstalled at no cost on the HP Z800, Z600, Z400 and xw4600 workstations. Select premium business PCs and notebooks due out from HP in the coming months will include a 90-day trial of HP SkyRoom, which will be available for purchase thereafter. Customers using current HP workstations, desktops, notebooks or non-HP systems can purchase HP SkyRoom for $149.

More information is available at www.hp.com/go/hpskyroom

One of the most distressing things about the banking– and Wall Street-induced financial meltdown of the past year has been the perception that companies can reduce manpower indiscriminately, and automagically get themselves back to readiness for the forthcoming upturn.

That is a really crazy notion.

Many a CEO, bereft of new ideas, and adhering unfortunately to The Peter Principle, i.e., that he/she/it has risen to their level of incompetence, and stays there — in these cases, the top of the company — resorts to pruning, especially R&D pruning, as a way to revive the fortunes of the company.

While these staff cuts work relatively well in the short term, they invariably show the errors of such wanton layoffs as time goes along. When the stuff hits the fan for those clueless CEOs, their introduction to John Obeto’s Maxim on Murphy’s Law, that Murphy was the shameless blue-sky re-incarnation of Pollyanna, is usually swift, and thankfully, career-ending.

That said, it is encouraging to know that several American companies, see innovation as The Way.

This is a very good thing.

This past month, I have had the good fortune to engage, work with, and use products from some American companies that incorporate innovation into their very DNA: Symantec. HP. Microsoft.

I have had the opportunity of playing with reviewing some of the most innovative hardware and software products just introduced into the US market.

I have also had the pleasure, again, of talking to two of the partners of Ivy Worldwide, formerly known as BuzzCorps, on the expansion of the mission of their company.

I would like to introduce Uwa Eribo, as our Associate Editor at SmallBizWindows. Uwa has been a valuable analyst for Logikworx here in California, and previously in the UK. I look forward to his reviews and timely analyses as a counterfoil to mine.

Finally, I have finally gone nuts with Web 2.0, Facebooking and Twittering to my heart’s delight.

In closing, I cannot thank HP, Microsoft, and Symantec enough for their continuing commitment to innovation. For it goes without saying that our prowess in the world is not due to our military might, but due to the innovations that have created great American corporations.

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This editorial previously appeared in the July 2009 issue of The Interlocutor.

2008 was one of those years when there seemed to be innovative products everywhere.

Resultantly, we are compelled to laud those products that moved us.

Announcing the SmallBizWindows Annual Product Awards 2008.

HP xw8600 Personal Workstation

Of all the products we reviewed this year that passed muster, and for which reviews were either posted online at AbsoluteVista.com or published in The Interlocutor, the HP xw8600 Personal Workstation stood out the most, and was duly awarded our first ever Absolute Best Award back in October.

Consequently, it now receives our first ever Product of the Year award.

Honorable Mentions
Sun SunFire X4450 Server
A very affordable 4-socket, hexa-core (6-core) capable rack mount server, the X4450 is very well suited for the data center.

AMD’s ATI RADEON 4000-series GPUs
To say that ATI kicked heiny this past year in computer graphics technology would be the understatement of the year in that space!

When we were privileged to experience the launch at the AMD campus in Austin last June, I wondered if ATI’s movement to a multi-core strategy would enable them to surpass NVIDIA’s seemingly entrenched dominance in GPUs at that time.

In the months since that release, not only has the strategy won out, but it has also allowed AMD to drive up performance steadily, while simultaneously driving down prices relentlessly, something they had not done in a while.

 
Live Mesh

One of our greatest problems is keeping our data in sync across the myriad number of devices we use in our daily lives.

Attempting to solve this is Live Mesh, which not only tried to do that, but can also be used as a full-fledged remote desktop controller.

Honorable mention
Microsoft Azure Services Platform

BuzzCorps
Chris Aarons l Geoff Nelson l Nick White

By the Community.

A simple concept that seems to escape the mental prowess of others in Social Media.

Not so for BuzzCorps. They have leapt over the pretenders to become the definers in Social Media.

• 31 Days of The Dragon.
• The HP Magic Giveaway.

Yeah, they were there!

Honorable Mention
The Windows Live Team

 
Windows Essential Business Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 EBS is the product that truly redefined modularity in the server space.

Honorable mentions
Norton Internet Security 2009
NIS2009 is the rebirth of a venerable product that had lost its way.
Thankfully, the adults at Symantec listened, and decided to re-architect this product which has regained its place at the pinnacle of the antivirus/anti-malware software field.

LumaPix FotoFusion
When Jason Dunn of Digital Home Thoughts introduced this product to me (and members of the Microsoft Featured Communities), I must confess I was both confused by YAIEP (yet another image editing program), and the unusual interface.

However, FotoFusion is NOT a photo editing program, it is a photo layout program.

One of the things that makes FotoFusion stand out, apart from the gorgeous UI is the fact that it maintains the fidelity of your source images regardless of the size of the canvas you decide to place your layout on. This allows you to scale the output to unprecedented levels.

If you do any layouts, troff over to LumaPix.

 
HP Color LaserJet CM6040f

The recipient of the SmallBizWindows Superstar Award, the HP Color LaserJet CM 6040f is wicked fast, accurate, networkable, and affordable.

What more can you want?

Honorable mentions
Intel Modular Server
This is a device series that we are seriously looking at to upgrade our datacenter, since one of the benefits it should bring to us is easier installation and configuration, and maintenance.

Epson WorkForce 600 Personal AIO
Lost in the fray sometimes is the fact that most executives needs a quick, laser-class color desktop printer. The Workforce 600 fulfils that need.

Dell PowerEdge 2900 III Tower Server
While rack mount servers  are all the rage, if you need a powerful and affordable dual-socket tower server, look no further than the Dell PowerEdge 2900 III.

 
Windows Live Essentials

From a seeming mish-mash of disparate products to a unified suite of indispensable products, the evolution of Windows Live Essentials has been swift, and filled with innovations, large and small, that simplify and empower computing for the average user.

All this for the low, low price of free!

Honorable mention
HP TouchSmart IQ508
Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth

 
Windows Hyper-V Server 2008

Hyper-V Server 2008 brings virtualization to all IT pros and enthusiasts.

Virtualization is upon us, virtualization is upon us….

 
Microsoft Assessment & Planning

Now in version 3.2 and still free, Microsoft Assessment & Planning is the one tool you cannot do without in your census of your computing infrastructure.

Honorable mentions
CoreConfigurator
One of the innovations delivered with Windows Server 2008 was the ability to create a minimum role called Server Core.

However, as defined by Microsoft, Server Core could best be configured by using the command line.

Good, but not for me. Enter CoreConfigurator, a GUI-based config utility for Server Core.

Now, I’m happy.

PowerGUI
Like Server Core, PowerShell is probably the best product to hit developers in a very long time.

PowerGUI takes away the need for me to have to learn the intricacies of PowerShell in order to be productive.

Free, and it works!

 
Microsoft Hosted Services

How nice is it to have your cloud services actually hosted by Microsoft?

With entry prices that set off 3-alarm fires at the executive suites of potential rivals, and entrenched but complacent competitors, Microsoft Hosted Services will enable the sapient VAR to create a subscription-based revenue stream, while reducing or eliminating support costs.

Honorable mention
Silverlight

 
Azure Services Platform

 
Microsoft Windows 7