Barton's Blog

Shuttleworth raves about Dell XPS13 developer edition

Barton George — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:15:34 +0000

At the OpenStack summit last month we caught up with Ubuntu and Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth.

Below is a quick snippet taken from our chat with Mark where he talks about the Dell XPS 13 developer edition aka Project Sputnik. Mark dubs the system “freakin’ awesome” and the “environment of choice for anyone doing web or cloud development.”

Extra-credit reading

Laptop Week Review: The Dell XPS 13 Developers Edition With Ubuntu – TechCrunch
It just works: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition Linux Ultrabook review – Ars Technica

Dell to go Partner route for public cloud

Barton George — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:25:37 +0000

As you may be aware Dell has been offering and hosting a public, multi-tentant IaaS cloud offering. After getting that business off the ground and many customer conversations, we’ve come to realize that the greatest way we can provide value for our customers is to focus our investments on more strategic components of the cloud and provide our customers with maximum choice and flexibility.

As a result, rather than building out and supporting our own multi-tenant public cloud, we will partner with companies in order to provide customers access to the cloud(s) of their choice.

Enter Enstratius

A sampling of some of the public clouds Enstratius provides access to.

With our recent acquisition of Enstratius not only are we are able to provide our customers with the ability to manage and govern a multi-cloud environment but we are now able to offer access to over 20 prominent clouds from Amazon to Rackspace, to Google, to AT&T.

A new Partner Program

Beyond the partners that Enstratius provides access to, today we are also kicking off today a partner program to provide access to IaaS through an ecosystem of options. The first three partners we are announcing are: Joyent, Scale Matrix, Zero Lag:

Joyent: An IaaS provider for real-time web and mobile applications. Joyent has out-of-the-box compatibility with Enstratius’ multi-cloud management.
ScaleMatrix: Cloud hosting platform, Services are offered from proprietary world-class data centers, and leverage enterprise hardware, storage and cutting-edge security and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation services.
ZeroLag: Combines VMware-powered on-demand cloud infrastructure with professional services and custom-designed solutions.

Customers will be able to purchase products from these partners through their Dell sales representatives and you can find out more information at dell.com/cloud-partner-program.

Private Cloud and Project Sputnik

On the Private Cloud front nothing has changed. We are still huge supporters of OpenStack and will continue offering our Open Stack-based private clouds. Additionally we will continue to provide cloud-to-on-premise connectivity via Boomi.

On the Project Sputnik front the cloud launcher that we continue to work on is being designed to provide access to a host of clouds.

Extra-credit reading

Dell to Deliver Public Cloud through Partner Ecosystem – Press Release

Pau for now..

Update: Project Sputnik Profile Tool and Cloud Launcher

Barton George — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:22:09 +0000

During last week’s DevOps Days here in Austin, Matt Ray of Opscode and Charles Lowell of the Frontside did a demo showing the status of the Project Sputnik profile tool and the cloud launcher. The profile tool is still at a very early stage, and while the Cloud Launcher exists today in the form of LXC + JuJu, we are working on a version that works using Chef.

After Matt and Charles’ talk I grabbed sometime with them as well as Chris McClimans of Opscode to talk about where we’re at, where we’re going and what’s a spice weasel.

Extra-credit reading

Project Sputnik page on github
Project Sputnik: Profile Tool update and the thinking behind it - 11/6/12
Chris’s project http://ii.can.cd/

Pau for now…

Dell Acquires Enstratius — So what do they do?

Barton George — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:36:48 +0000

Last week at DevOps Days Austin, I did a couple of interviews with John Willis (aka @botchagalupe), VP Client Services and Enablement at Enstratius. The first video dealt with devops and the idea of culture as a secret weapon in the war of hiring. The second one was about Enstratius the company, which coincidentally today Dell announced it was acquiring.

I’m very excited about the move because, besides the great technology, with Enstratius we are getting some top talent like John, James Urquhart, George Reese, Bernard Golden, David Bagley and many more.

Take a listen as John explains what exactly it is that Enstratius does:

Some of the topics John covers:

Enstratius’ common open API structure
Governance: e.g. Role based access, a federated view of resources, encrypted key management storage yadda, yadda
Direct integration with Chef and Puppet
Integration points with APM companies like AppDynamics and New Relic

Extra-credit reading

Dell Moves Deeper Into The Software Business, Acquires Enstratius, One Of The Most Recognized Cloud Management Startups – TechCrunch
Building a Great Team (Dell buys Enstratius) – Cote
DevOps Days Austin — John Willis: Culture as the secret weapon in the war of hiring - Barton’s blog

Pau for now…

DevOps Days Austin — John Willis: Culture as the secret weapon in the war of hiring

Barton George — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:05:04 +0000

DevOps Days Austin took place earlier this week here in our fair city. Kicking off the festivities was Mr. John Willis who delivered the DevOps state of union.

I grabbed sometime with John on day two to discuss what he talked about:

Some of the ground John covers:

Culture as the secret weapon in the war of hiring
Comparing and contrasting the cultures of Netflix, Gighub and Etsy

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

DevOps Days Austin: Patrick Debois

Barton George — Thu, 02 May 2013 04:17:42 +0000

Yesterday and today DevOps Days was held here in Austin and it was quite the event. The number of attendees seemed to really have increased from last year with at least half the attendees coming from outside our fair city, including representatives from Europe and Asia.

One of those European attendees was none other than Patrick “Don’t-call-me-the-godfather-of-Devops” Debois. It was Patrick who organized the original DevOps days back in 2009 in Belgium.

Take a listen to a talk I had with Patrick at the end of the first day covering where DevOps started, what it means and the importance of culture.

Here are the slides from Patrick’s presentation that kicked off day two.

Extra-credit reading:

What Is This Devops Thing, Anyway? – Patrick Debois

Pau for now…

Sputnik satellite sited in Portland Oregon

Barton George — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:50:08 +0000

Last week, during the OpenStack Summit that was held in Portland, Oregon, a 55 year-old soviet satellite was spotted a various indoor locations. Rumor has it that the satellite was named after a project at Dell to create a developer client-to-cloud platform.

Sputnik satellite streaks through warehouse where Mirantis/Dell party is held during OpenStack summit.

Sputnik satellite spotted hovering above Dell booth on the expo floor at the OpenStack summit.

Extra-credit reading

Sputnik Laptop and Why Dell Supports OpenStack – SiliconAngle

Pau for now…

Talking OpenStack, DevOps and Project Sputnik at the OpenStack Summit

Barton George — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:01:39 +0000

Last week Dell’s cloud group was out in force at the OpenStack Summit in Portland, Oregon. Its amazing to see how the event has grown since the first design summit back in July of 2010.

I got to catch up with a bunch of people, and attend a few sessions and some parties. I also got to spend a fair amount of time in our booth and was impressed by the amount of interest we had in the XPS 13 developer edition.

Near the end of the first day I joined John Furrier and Jeff Frick in the Cube for a chat. We talked about the growth of OpenStack, DevOps and Project Sputnik.

Extra-Credit reading

Thoughts on OpenStack Summit in Portland – Spectors blog
Sputnik Laptop and Why Dell Supports OpenStack – SiliconAngle
Introducing OpenStack — an open source cloud platform – Barton’s Blog July ’10

Pau for now…

Ars Technica provides detailed review of Dell XPS 13 developer edition

Barton George — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 02:31:10 +0000

If you’re thinking about getting a Dell XPS 13 developer edition you might want to check out the comprehensive review published by Ars Technica this weekend:

“It just works: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition Linux Ultrabook review — Dell’s substantial investment in making a functional Linux Ultrabook pays off.”

Here is the summary intro:

In an effort originally known as Project Sputnik, Dell dedicated resources into doing Linux on an Ultrabook “right”—writing code where necessary (and contributing that code back upstream like a good FOSS citizen) and paying attention to the entire user experience rather than merely working on components in a vacuum. The result is a perfectly functional Ultrabook with a few extra tools—that “Developer Edition” moniker isn’t just for show, and Dell has added some devops spices into the mix with this laptop that should quicken any developer’s heartbeat.

Check out the entire review

Extra-credit reading

Dell XPS 13 Ubuntu Edition – first impressions — Seravo
Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition: windows-free – Webnews (Italian)
Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition con Ubuntu – prova su strada – HTML.it (Italian)
Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition con Ubuntu: recensione – OneOpenSource (Italian)
Dells Ubuntu-Ultrabook im Test – Heise Open Source (German)
Putting Dell’s Ubuntu Ultrabook to the test — The H Online

Pau for now…

Game on! Ubuntu comes to Alienware

Barton George — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:07:07 +0000

Ubuntu has been available on Dell business laptops for quite awhile, including the recently introduced XPS 13 developer edition. A few weeks ago we announced that we were expanding our Ubuntu certification beyond our cloud servers to include Dell’s 12G servers.

Today we are announcing that Ubuntu is coming to another member of the Dell family, the Alienware X51 gaming desktop.

You can easily install Steam on to the X51 and although there aren’t tons of games supported yet, the list is continuing to grow and now includes classics such as Team Fortress 2 and Serious Sam.

To learn more and get a first-person account of using Ubuntu on the X51 check out the Direct2Dell blog post.

Update: corrected Ubuntu logo on above screenshot

Extra-credit reading

Ubuntu OS now an option on Alienware x51 – Dell blog
How to install the Steam gaming client on Ubuntu (Gallery) | ZDNet
Steam for Linux – Ubuntu Wiki
Dell, Canonical tag team on Ubuntu Server tune-up for PowerEdgies – The Register

Pau for now…

Time Lapse: Building Dell’s Big Data/OpenStack MDC — allowing customers to test at hyper scale

Barton George — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:48:28 +0000

Back in September I posted an entry about the Modular Data Center that we set up in the Dell parking lot. Here is a time lapse video showing the MDC and the location being built out.

The MDC allows customers to test solutions at scale. It is running OpenStack and various Big Data goodies such as Hadoop, Hbase, Cassandra, MongoDB, Gluster etc…

Customers can tap into the MDC from Dell’s solution centers around the world and do proof of concepts as well competitive bake-offs between various big data technologies so they can determine which might best suit their environment and use case.

Extra-credit reading

Dell Solution Centers – About, locations etc.
MDC in our parking lot, serving up OpenStack & Hadoop

Available online in Europe, the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

Barton George — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:59:39 +0000

Last week we announced the arrival of the 1080p version of the XPS 13 developer edition, code name Sputnik 2. At that time the system was available online in the US and Canada and from Dell reps in Europe. Today the system is available online in the following European countries:

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK (see below for the links to the individual product pages). Norway will be coming online next week.

The Ubuntu logo graces the base plate of the XPS 13 developer edition

Product pages for XPS 13 developer edition by country/language

Austria www.dell.at/linuxentwickler
Belgium (French) www.dell.be/developpeurs
Belgium (Dutch) www.dell.be/ontwikkelaars/linux
Denmark www.dell.dk/udviklere/linux
France www.dell.fr/developpeurs
Germany www.dell.de/linuxentwickler
Ireland www.dell.ie/developers
Italy www.dell.it/developers/linux
The Netherlands www.dell.nl/ontwikkelaars/linux
Norway www.dell.no/utviklere/linux
Spain www.dell.es./developers
Sweden www.dell.se/utvecklare/linux
Switzerland (French) www.dell.ch/developpeurs
Switzerland (German) www.dell.ch/linuxentwickler
United Kingdom www.dell.co.uk/developers

Available by calling Dell

In the following three countries you get your hands on an XPS 13 developer edition by calling your local Dell office:

Finland +358 (0)207 533 533
Luxembourg +352 26 30 47 1
Poland +48 22 579 59 99

Working on

We are currently working out a strategy to try and support the following countries. Stay tuned for updates.

Israel
Morocco
Russia
Saudi Arabia
South Africa
Turkey
UAE

With regards to the Asia Pacific region, we currently do not have plans to introduce the XPS 13 developer edition in that region. We continuously listen for customer feedback and demand and will reevaluate accordingly.

Extra-credit reading

A month with Dell’s project Sputnik – Matt Spitz
Dell’s thin, high-res XPS 13 laptop does Linux – CNET
Dell upgrades its developer edition Ubuntu Linux laptop – ZDNet
Dell’s Linux Ultrabook gets more pixels, European availability – Ars Technica
Project Sputnik forum
XPS 13 developer edition: Specsheet and a short overview
Sputnik 2 is here: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition goes 1080p and lands in Europe

Pau for now…

XPS 13 Developer Edition: Specsheet and a short overview

Barton George — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:32:06 +0000

On Monday, we announced the new 1080p display for the XPS 13 developer edition and its upcoming availability in Europe and beyond. To support that launch, here is the official spec sheet as well as a brief presentation on the project and resulting product.

Stay tuned for more news.

Pau for now…

Sputnik 2 is here: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition goes 1080p and lands in Europe

Barton George — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:58:20 +0000

Sputnik 2 & Laika source: greatbigcanvas.com

When we launched the Ubuntu-based XPS 13 developer edition at the end of November we got a lot of great press. That being said, the two complaints we heard loud and clear were 1) the resolution is too low, and 2) it needs to be available outside the US and Canada. Since that time we have been working hard to address both.

As of today the XPS 13 developer edition comes with a Full HD (FHD) display (1920 x 1080) and has begun rolling out in Europe.

On beyond North America

For those in the USA and Canada Sputnik 2, the XPS 13 developer edition with the FHD display, is now available online. Across the pond Sputnik 2 has started rolling out and will be available online next week. I will post the links when they become available but here is the list of the countries where Sputnik 2 will be landing:

Available online – France, Germany, UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
Available from your Dell rep – Israel, Luxembourg, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, UAE

With regards to the Asia Pacific region, we are currently evaluating options to introduce the XPS 13 developer edition in Australia and other countries in Asia, but don’t have details to share at this time. That being said, if you would like to help with the introduction, share your opinion in the comments

Product specs

The new FHD version of the XPS 13 developer edition will replace the existing unit. All other specs of this client-to-cloud solution will stay the same.

Here are the highlights:

Processor: 3rd generation Intel i7
Display: 13.3″ Full High Definition (1080p)
System memory: 8GB
Graphics: Intel HD graphics 4000
Hard drive: 256GB SSD drive
Standard Service: 1 year Dell ProSupport and onsite service after remote diagnostics
Operating system: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Community projects: Cloud launcher and Profile tool

To reflect the upgrade to the improved display the new price for the solution will be $1,549.

What about the Cloud Launcher and Profile Tool?

Ever since we first announced that we were launching a project to explore the creation of an open source developer laptop, we talked about two associated community beta projects: The Cloud Launcher and the Profile Tool.

Profile Tool: The idea behind the profile tool is to provide access to a library of community created profiles on github, such as Ruby and Android, to quickly set up your development environments and tool chains.
Cloud launcher: The cloud launcher enables you to create “microclouds” on your laptop, simulating an at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud.

With the mad rush to get Sputnik and then Sputnik 2 out the door we haven’t focused as much attention on the associated projects as we would have liked. Now that the systems are going out the door we are looking to kick them up a notch. We will soon be taking the Profile Tool effort off of pause.

With regards to the Cloud launcher, we have big plans for it (its what puts the “cloud” in “client-to-cloud” solution). Today the launcher uses Juju to jettison application environments from the laptop, to the cloud. Recently though we have been working with Opscode to create another version that leverages Chef and that will connect to the Dell Cloud on Demand. We should have a demo and more available soon!

Links and Extra-credit reading

XPS 13 developer edition landing page: dell.com/developers (also dell.com.sputnik)
XPS 13 developer edition: Specsheet and a short overview
Repository for Cloud launcher and profile tool: https://github.com/sputnik
5/7/2012: Introducing Project Sputnik: Developer laptop
7/18/2012: Project Sputnik to go from Pilot to Product
11/29/2012: Sputnik has landed! Introducing the Dell XPS 13 Laptop, Developer Edition

Pau for now…

Intel and ARM systems in same chassis and managed remotely

Barton George — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:21:00 +0000

Last week I was out in the Bay Area attending the Open Compute (OCP) Summit. The event was packed and full of energy. My employer Dell was a platinum sponsor and we were showing off some pretty cool stuff:

At today’s Open Compute Summit in Santa Clara, California, Dell showed off a new generation of X-Gene 64-bit ARM-based servers that the company is developing for data center customers. It also demonstrated new management software based on Open Compute Project standards allowing remote control of both Intel and ARM-based servers. The software and server designs Dell demonstrated would allow Intel and ARM-based systems to run in the same chassis. – Ars Technica

Here is the schematic of the management system (check out the client running the ipmitool

As part of the first day plenary sessions, Dell VP and Senior Fellow Jimmy Pike gave a brief historical overview of computing and management, leading up to the above solution.

The next Open Compute Summit will be in Vegas in the fall. Look for us there.

Extra credit reading

Ars Technica: Dell ups ante in ARMs race with 64-bit Iron server– ARM and Intel can live together in an Open Compute Summit management spec demo.
Dell Blog — Tracy Davis: Walking back the “hype” in hyperscale
Dell Blog — Jimmy Pike: Using open standards to untangle hyperscale systems management

Pau for now…

Emerging cloud solutions and driving innovation at Dell

Barton George — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:58:19 +0000

Here is the second interview I did from the floor of Dell World. I talk about the following three topics:

The Web vertical – understanding and meeting the needs of web companies
[1:20] The 4 emerging cloud solutions we were showing at Dell world
[2:25] How Dell is promoting innovation internally

Check it out:

Extra-credit reading:

Pau for now…

Talking about Project Sputnik and the importance of Devs to Dell

Barton George — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:58:57 +0000

At Dell World I was interviewed about Project Sputnik, the resulting XPS 13 Developer Edition we launched and the importance of developers.

Here’s the interview (notice my fashion forward blue Dell shirt

Extra-credit reading

Dell World Triples Attendance, Rewards Attendees with Prizes & Expanded Online Experience

Pau for now…

Developers — Where the rubber meets the road

Barton George — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:53:24 +0000

Happy New Year! Right before we left for break Dell held Dell World here in Austin. Thousands of our customers make the trek here for three days of BBQ, bands and technology. We also had a great line up of speakers from Bill Clinton to the Freakonomics guys.

I was on the floor showing our brand new XPS 13 developer edition and met with customers. At one point I broke away and did an interview with Dave Vellante on the Cube along with Michael Cote. Check it out:

Some of the topics we tackled

How project Sputnik went from project to product
DevOps
OpenStack
VMware’s spin out of Pivotal labs
Hadoop and Big Data and Dell’s second innovation project, RIPtide

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

2012 in review – my blog

Barton George — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:58:36 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog.

Here are some stats:

This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2012.

The busiest day of the year was May 9th with 15,457 views. The most popular post that day was Introducing Project Sputnik: Developer laptop.

Visitors came from 188 countries

The top referring site was slashdot.org

Click here to see the complete report.

Hau’oli Makahiki Hou – Happy New Year

Pau for now…

XPS 13 Developer Edition takes off

Barton George — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 21:18:04 +0000

Pitching Sputnik at Dell World (photo credit: Ryan the lawyer)

I wanted to get one more quick post in before I head out for the holidays. Things have been crazy since the XPS 13 Developer Edition launched almost three weeks ago.

In fact no sooner did we start to catch our breath from the product’s launch that Dell World took place. We had a lot of interest at the event and Im looking at following up with the folks I met.

Launch response

For the actual launch we had fantastic press, see the list below. That having been said, there were two areas where we got dinged by folks:

Price — This turned out to be due to an internal pricing inconsistency and we were able to jump on it right away and dropped the price by $100 by the afternoon.
Monitor resolution — We have heard the community loud and clear and are looking at ways to address this, stay tuned.

Partial Media Coverage

Dell launches Sputnik Linux Ultrabook – The Register
Dell releases powerful, well-supported Linux Ultrabook – Ars Technica
Dell ships lightweight XPS 13 laptop with Ubuntu Linux – IDG
Dell XPS 13 laptop: The Ubuntu developer edition arrives – ZDNet
Dell’s ‘Sputnik’ Ubuntu Linux ultrabook: First in a new line? – PC World
Dell launches Ubuntu-powered Sputnik for developers – The H-Online
Dell’s Ubuntu Ultrabook goes on sale in the US – PC Pro
Dell Ships High-End Ubuntu Laptop for Cloud Developers – The Var Guy
Dell Unveils Powerful Linux Ultrabook for $1,449 – Mobile Magazine
Dell Launches XPS 13 Ultrabook Developed Edition, Comes With Ubuntu Linux – StudentNews.ie
Dell’s $1,549 Ubuntu-based XPS 13 goes on sale, $50 more than Windows variant (update: $100 price drop) – Engadget
Dell is selling a nicely configured version of its XPS 13 ultrabook with Ubuntu Linux – CNET
Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook With Linux Ubuntu Almost Ready For Launch – iTech Post

Thanks to everyone for helping to turn this idea from project to product. Stay tuned as we we continue to refine and expand on developer offerings in 2013

Happy Holidays!

Pau for now…

Sputnik has landed! Introducing the Dell XPS 13 Laptop, Developer Edition

Barton George — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:45:12 +0000

A little over six months ago we announced a scrappy skunkworks project to pilot a developer solution based on Ubuntu 12.04LTS and our sleek XPS 13 laptop. Thanks to the amazing feedback and support we have received from the community, today we are announcing the availability of the resulting official product – the Dell XPS 13 laptop, developer edition.

What’s exactly is it?

Here is an overview of the components of this client-to-cloud solution and some key facts:

Hardware: XPS 13 laptop, high-end config

I7 CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD

Software

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Basic set of drivers, tools and utilities (complete list)
Beta community projects: Profile tool, Cloud launcher

Price: ~~$1,549~~ $1,449* (includes 1 yr ProSupport)

*Updated 11/30/12: the community pointed out we had not priced consistently across our online stores, this has been fixed. This offering was always intended to be priced less than Windows.

Availability

Small office/consumer - U.S.
Enterprise – U.S./Canada
Outside the US – early 2013

Community projects: Profile tool and Cloud Launcher

The profile tool and cloud launcher are beta open source projects that we have just kicked off on github. These projects are quite nascent at this point and we are looking for more people to get involved and help get them going (hint, hint ) .

Profile Tool: The idea behind the profile tool is to provide access to a library of community created profiles on github, such as Ruby and Android, to quickly set up your development environments and tool chains.
Cloud launcher: The cloud launcher enables you to create “microclouds” on your laptop, simulating an at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud. Today the launcher utilizes Linux Containers to model your environment on your laptop and then uses Juju to jettison that environment to the cloud. The launcher project on github will allow for community expansion on this concept using different technologies and approaches.

How did we get here?

As I mentioned at the beginning, project Sputnik began as a skunkworks effort. It was made possible by internal incubation fund designed to bring wacky ideas from around the company to life in order to tap innovation that might be locked up in people’s heads.

Just weeks after the basic concept was greenlighted by the innovation team, it was publically announced as a pilot project at the Ubuntu developer summit. The big focus of our efforts, particularly in the beginning, has been to work with Canonical to make sure that we had the appropriate drivers for all functionality including the pesky touchpad.

From the start, the idea was to conduct project Sputnik out in the open, soliciting and leveraging direct input from developers via our Project Sputnik StormSession, comments on this blog, threads on the Sputnik tech center forum as well as the project Sputnik beta program. In fact it was the tremendous interest in the beta program that convinced us to take Project Sputnik from pilot to product.

I would like to give a special shout out to the beta cosmonauts who signed on. They were an intrepid lot who were patient and diligent working through issues to help make sure that when we went to production we had a product that developers would want.

Where do we go from here?

The next big thing for XPS 13 developer edition is availability outside the United States. We are working with teams inside of Dell to make this so as quickly as we can. The other direction we are looking at potentially expanding is offering a bigger beefier platform for developers. The XPS 13 is perfect for those who want an ultra light and mobile system but we have heard from a bunch of devs who would also like an offering that was more workstation-like with a bigger screen and more RAM.

Today is a very proud moment for our team, putting together an official Dell offering for developers with their input and suggestions through out the process. Stay tuned for more to come!

Pau for now…

Project Sputnik: Profile Tool update

Barton George — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:00:37 +0000

I thought I would take a break from feverishly preparing for the project Sputnik product launch, to give an update on the Profile tool.

As you may remember, besides the needed drivers and basic utilities/tools there are two “extra-bits” that are part of the overall project Sputnik solution: the Profile tool and the Cloud launcher. I will use a future post to give an update on the Cloud Launcher but today I want to focus on the Profile tool.

Project Sputnik Profile tool

With regards to the Profile tool we are doing a bit of reset on this effort and going forward will be doing the development out in the open and asking the community to dive in.

What is the Profile tool

In short, the profile tool provides access to a library of community created profiles on github, such as Ruby and Android, to quickly set up your development environments and tool chains.

As alpha cosmonaut Charles Lowell (aka cowboyd), who originally teed up the idea, put it

What I’d like to see is not only a gold-standard configuration, but also a meta-system to manage your developer configuration… The devops revolution is about configuration as code. How cool would it be if my laptop configuration were code that I could store in a source repo somewhere?

Here’s how it would basically work, when a developer creates a profile based on a development framework e.g rails, this profile template is published to central catalog. On another machine, the same developer—or another developer if the authoring developer makes his template shareable—grabs the template and runs it. The profile tool then reads the template, brings in any necessary dependencies (packages, package archives, SCM repositories, keys, dotfiles, etc) and places them in a sandbox within the user’s home directory.

Making it so, with a little help for our friends

Our original idea was to build out the profile tool in two phases: Phase I – “System Configuration” and Phase II – “User Configuration.” We started down the path of building out Phase I but have realized two things 1) we cant look at the two phases separately and 2) we need to be developing this out in the open and incorporating direct feedback.

Given this we are opening up development at the Sputnik page on github and are looking for people like you to steer the course we eventually take. At this stage nothing is set in stone and the profile tool is experimental beta work with several different prototypes. If this is something that appeals to you please dive in and help shape the future of project Sputnik!

Extra-credit reading

One Miiiiiiiiiiiiillion Cloud Servers

Barton George — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 13:59:20 +0000

Today we are celebrating the shipping of our 1 millionth cloud server! What started a little over five years ago as a sketch on the back of a napkin to address a specific customer’s needs has multiplied a million times and now addresses the needs of many the Web’s biggest and most demanding customers.

To get a feel for not only how powerful, but more importantly how efficient these million servers are, check out the video bellow. It gives a quick history of Dells Data Center Solutions (DCS) group behind these servers, shows the one millionth server being built and features short clips from a couple of big customers.

Extra-credit reading

One Million Reasons to Celebrate – DCS Ships its One-Millionth Server
Did you use a DCS server today? The answer might surprise you
All the best ideas begin on a cocktail napkin — DCS turns 5

Initial thoughts from the Project Sputnik Beta Cosmonauts

Barton George — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 04:28:31 +0000

The Project Sputnik Beta program has been going for several weeks now. We have an intrepid group of cosmonauts and there have been a bunch of blogs posted, tweets tweeted and a flurry of activity on the forum.

In general the feedback has been very positive with some folks having issues around wifi and the touch pad.

So far four of the cosmonauts have posted detailed entries around their Sputnik experiences. Here are excerpts from the postings.

The Sputnik Out of Box Experience

For a good look at the OOBE, complete with photos, check out Theron’s “#ProjectSputnik – first impressions“. Here’s the summary at the end:

After initial load and getting my standard working environment up and running, I’ve got to say this little beast is pretty amazing. From the tight OS integration to the feel of the laptop, it looks and feels like a solid build. I’m going to be busy working with OpenStack over the coming months and I’m excited to see how closely integrated I can get my build envionment on this laptop to the ubuntu server I’m using for testing. After watching Mark Shuttleworth talk this year at Oscon about JuJu and #ProjectSputnik, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be amazing. More blog posts to follow.

One man’s journey back to Linux

This next blog kicked off a huge discussion on hacker news around developer laptops, OS’s and the merits of their various incarnations. Geoffrey Papillion wrote about his odyssey through time and across various OS’s which has led him to the present and Linux once again.

Here is how he concludes his post “Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it seems I can use a linux laptop now“

Two days ago I got my Dell XPS 13 as part of a Dell beta progam called project Sputnik. I got a special version of Ubuntu, with some kernel patches, and some patched packages for sleep and hibernation. After an hour of struggling with making a bootable USB drive from my Mac for my Dell(turns out it was an issue with the USB drive), I had a working computer. By 8pm I had my development enviroment setup, I had chef up and running, and even my VPN was working. I was amazed.

So, far its been good; most apps I use are web apps. I spend 70% of my time in a terminal, and 30% of my time in a web browser. Honestly its the perfect computer for me right now. So, I’m waving goodbye to the ecosystem Mr. Jobs built, and moving to the world of linux full time.

On Beyond ThinkPad

Matt Urbanski who is coming from a linux mint based Lenovo ThinkPad x220 that he has been really happy with, gives his initial thoughts in Project Sputnik Beta Day one. He concludes his post with:

I sound much like a crochety old man who dislikes change. I’m going to give this a go and see what happens. I’m now embarking on the always annoying task of getting my homedir and configurations from one machine to the other. I’ll report back after some real usage.

The Woodward Trilogy

The most prolific cosmonaut award goes to Matt Woodward who has been putting his project Sputnik laptop through its paces and written three entries about it.

Dell Sputnik: Initial impressions

Conclusion: The Dell XPS 13 is a huge winner in my book. It’s exceedingly well built, light, quiet, and has all the bells and whistles you need in an ultrabook — particularly one aimed at developers — and Dell made intelligent omissions across the board with the possible exception of the amount of RAM pre-installed.

If like me you’ve had Dells in the past and hadn’t thought about Dell in a while, this machine may well change your mind about Dell. After only a few hours of using it it’s certainly starting to change mine, and I can already see myself gravitating to the Sputnik as my go-to machine.

Dell Sputnik: Battery life test

Results: The results are quite impressive, with a run time of about 8 hours 20 minutes in my usage

A week at a conference with Dell Sputnik

Summary: After living with the Sputnik as my only machine for a week I continue to be extremely impressed. Particularly in a developer conference situation where power isn’t available at every seat and you have to fight for the few outlets that are available, the Sputnik’s fantastic battery life let me focus on the conference instead of worrying about whether or not my laptop was going to conk out.Other than the occasional issues with the trackpad I thoroughly enjoyed using the Sputnik at DjangoCon — it makes a great conference companion!

So that’s the initial round up. Stay tuned for more!

Extra-credit reading/Resource links

Project Sputnik Forum
Twitter feed
ProjectSputnik Bugtracker

Pau for now…

Introducing the Webilicious PowerEdge C8000

Barton George — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 14:59:31 +0000

Today Dell is announcing our new PowerEdge C8000 shared infrastructure chassis which allows you to mix and match compute, GPU/coprocessor and storage sleds all within the same enclosure. What this allows Web companies to do is to have one common building block that can be used to provide support across the front-, mid- and back end tiers that make up a web company’s architecture.

To give you a better feel for the C8000 check out the three videos below.

Why — Product walk thru: Product manager for the C8000, Armando Acosta takes you through the system and explains how this chassis and the accompanying sleds better server our Web customers.
Evolving — How we got here: Drew Schulke, marketing director for Dell Data Center solutions explains the evolution of our shared infrastructure systems and what led us to develop the C8000.
Super Computing — Customer Example: Dr. Dan Stanzione, deputy director at the Texas Advanced Computing Center talks about the Stampede supercomputer and the role the C8000 plays.

Extra Credit reading

Case Study: The Texas Advanced Computing Center
Press Release: Dell Unveils First Shared Infrastructure Solution to Provide Hyperscale Customers with New Modular Computational and Storage Capabilities
Web page: PowerEdge C8000 — Optimize data center space and performance

Pau for now…