Salam to all,

I have finally started working on Virtualizaion CBTs, and released few on my website, here : http://www.wbitt.com/news/166-virtualization-cbts-xen-english.html

More action packed CBTs of this series will be posted shortly.

Regards,
Kamran

I have uploaded an article on wbitt.com. Re-producing it here for your comments.

Easing your web-hosting life with XEN Virtualization.

For all system administrators, there is a (pretty painful) frequently occurring incident, which they hate the most. That is: Migrating a server, for one reason or the other!

For those who still couldn’t get it, assume you have a fully functional web/mail server working flawlessly for more than two years (which you take pride in). One morning, you find a mail from your service provider, that the server you were using for your web/mail services, has reached end-of-life (EOL) and it is advised to move your services to another server. There may be other reasons too, like faulty hardware, such as hard drive crash, etc. You quickly feel your stomach throwing up, because you recall, that how much pain it was to setup qmail, anti-spam, the Apache web-servrer with all those extra modules and MySQL tweaking, hosting 200+ websites, mail boxes, etc etc. And now it is obvious that you have to redo the whole thing again. (Oh my God!). Plus the migration. If it was your own personal server, it might not be such a gruesome picture. However, if this is one of your clients’ server, then you might be cursing yourself to be a system admin at the moment. It is not fiction! This happens to every sys admin. For some (strange) reason, the system admin throws his head down again, and starts building up the new server.

Read more…

I have put an article on my other website, in special relation to 14th August, the independence day of Pakistan. This is the url. The text is below.

Independence day special

Start thinking… Better start acting…….

Another 14^th August has arrived. And instead of going forward, instead of progressing, we are moving towards past. We keep making the same mistakes. The countries who got freedom from british rule with us, have the currency value twice powerful then ours. Yes, I am talking about India. Their work-force more known in the entire world than ours. Their products more in verity and more wide-spread. Take an example of Malaysia. They got their freedom one decade later than Pakistan. Today, Malaysia is an Asian Tiger, with currency value of twenty times the value of Pakistani Rupee. Why? They focused and achieved what they set out to achieve. It is a long story and a debatable issue and I better be focused on my point as well.

We need to have freedom in our IT infrastructure too. We need to get freedom from the microsoft rule / closed-source rule, the same way we got freedom from british rule. One of the key factors that can help us achieve that is awareness. Know what these companies are doing by creating Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) in hearts and minds of everyone related to IT, from top to bottom. By creating this FUD, they sell their own products. Products which are in-efficient, poorly designed, crappy, buggy, full of unwanted stuff (e,g, easter eggs), easily effected by viruses and worst, in-secure. The licenses stop you from looking under the hood of these software.

---

For a third world country like mine, Pakistan, taking away millions of dollars in the name of software licenses is just insane. In a country where people are dying of hunger, committing suicides with their families (YES, sadly, this is happening). Where prices of wheat, bread, simple vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes , simple food items like daal (lentils), and cooking oil has sky rocketed, does it make sense to throw away millions of dollars on the sake of software licenses. That to be on software which you do not need in the first place? DOES IT ? NO. IT DOES NOT.

It is just plain and stupid. Ninety percent of computer usage in Pakistan is just office automation, internet and email. That’s all. Why do you need expensive, crappy and overly bloated software to get that done? Are you too rich a country to do that? Are you too rich a person to do that? Look at the irony. The software companies always crying of having low financial strength and in-turn paying low salaries to their employees. On top of that they spend much more amount of time and effort trying to cope up with the virus and spam problems. If they would have used Open-Source Software in the first place, they would have saved sufficient amount of money, which , they can use to take care of their employees.

The point is save money on all levels. Increase productivity on all levels. Have better utilization of resources on all levels. Educate yourselves about Open-Source and educate the decision makers. Increase awareness and help others. Shun and boycott any corruption, bureaucracy, politics and bribery. We all have a goal to achieve. Make Pakistan independent and self reliant.

Just an assurance I want to give you all. Whatever you do on proprietary / commercial software, 99% of that is fully do-able on Open-Source technologies, with much more peace of mind, efficiency and security.

Most of you, I can safely say, based on my experience, never consult the technical support people of the software they are using (except “very few”). And when you do, you hardly get a timely sensible response from them. There are only a very few exceptional software companies, (microsoft NOT one of them), where I have seen a fast response with sensible solution. So why pay for expensive support, if you are not utilizing that support in the first place?

A little, technical note: When I ask you to stop buying microsoft and similar closed-source software products, I am not asking you to start buying RedHat products. That is again sending big amount of money outside the country in another way. I want you to have total independence from these vendors. I want you to avoid vendor lock-up. CentOS and Fedora are “exactly” as RedHat Enterprise Linux (in general terms). They are totally free. No support charges, nothing. If you have experienced linux professionals taking care of your infrastructure, you can easily use these products, with confidence. If you want independence from all RPM based distributions, you can use Debian and derivatives.

I fully understand that this conversion / independence will not come easy and will cause some pain and hurt, and at times sacrifice (not life of-course). Didn’t we (our elders) suffer from pain hurt when they were getting independence in 1947 on independence day? Even before, when the whole freedom movement was going on for years? Didn’t they sacrifice? They did. So in the same manner, you will need to run this software independence movement, until you get freedom. You will suffer at times as you are not used to Open-Source psychology. But as soon as you understand the psychology, you are free. And when you are free, you will progress and prosper. It is that much simple.

In the end, I will give reference of other countries. They all have stronger economies and wealthier companies and people owning various businesses. They also selected Open-Source Software for themselves. Because they wanted to make the right choice.

First one is our neighbouring India. Reference link :

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/PMOs-email-system-infected-for-three-months/articleshow/4266663.cms

PMO’s email system infected for three months. (Times of India. 15 March 2009)

E-mail system of the Prime Minister’s Office was under the grip of a computer virus for three months last year forcing officials to replace the software. The technical glitch plagued the e-mail communication system of the PMO, which was based on the Microsoft Outlook Express, from February to April in 2008. Although the extent of damage was uncertain, the PMO said that most of the e-mails addressed to it were not received. The problem was detected only in late April after which the Microsoft Outlook Express email software was discontinued and replaced by another software – Squirrel mail.

From the following link, you can view the rest of the testimonials:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software

• In 2005 the Government of Peru voted to adopt open source across all its bodies.[8] The 2002 response to Microsoft’s critique is available online. In the preamble to the bill, the Peruvian government stressed that the choice was made to ensure that key pillars of democracy were safeguarded: “The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of a state of law.”[9]
• In December 2004, law in Venezuela (Decree 3390) went into effect, mandating a two year transition to open source in all public agencies. As of June 2009 this ambitious transition is still under way.[10][11]
• The Netherlands has an initiative called Open Source en standaarden in het onderwijs, “Open source and standards in education”. http://www.buseco.net/news/netherlands_open_source_7.html
• Vietnam – the Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an instruction on using open source software at state agencies.[13]
• Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Software Program launched in 2004 saved millions on proprietary software licences till 2008[14][15]
• The Government of India has set up a resource centre for Free and Open Source Software managed jointly by C-DAC Chennai and Anna University, Chennai. It has one of its node in Mumbai at VJTI College[16]
• The Ministry of Defence in Singapore began migrating its computers from Microsoft to free software in 2004, while South Korea, China and Japan agreed to cooperate in creating new Linux-based programs.
• In Germany’s federal state Thuringia the Ministry for culture and education has launched a project called “Linux für Schulen” (Linux for schools) which is intended to further the influences of Open Source software in public education.
• Munich city civil service in Germany, 2003 started migrating to free software. http://mis-asia.com/technology_centre/open_source/open-source-infiltrates-government-it-worldwide .
• In February 2008, the Dominican Republic passed a law to facilitate the migration of all public entities (government, education, etc.) to Software Libre, and to adopt open standards in the public sector.
• In April 2008, Ecuador passed a similar law, Decree 1014, designed to migrate the public sector to Software Libre.
• As of September 2008 there is a similar proposal, currently under debate in the Bolivian Congress, which stipulates the migration of the public sector to Software Libre.

So, my question from you all is: What is stopping you to claim your freedom?

.

(Original article here on my primary website: http://www.wbitt.com )

Note: This article is mainly addressed to the young IT generation of my home country, Pakistan. But, anyone from any part of the world can read this and benefit from it. The ultimate objective though is to do something useful for the world at large, without any classification, discrimination of nationality, gender, race or religion.

Salam to all,

In my previous article, “A supercomputer on every desk!” Videos released! , I pointed out that the how can you have a multi-node ‘virtual’ HPCC / Beowulfish cluster on your own desk. The videos released with this article showed how can you build one, by following simple steps and using open-source technologies.

After that, article, I received a lot of criticism and complaints. People mentioned (angrily) (to me), that it would be better if I can answer these questions first: (a) “What is a super computer/HPCC?”, (b) “What is the use of an HPC Cluster/Super-Computer?”, and (c) “Why should we bother?” . And I admit that is truly my fault. I should have explained them in the same article, before going on and trying to open my heart out on the Horizontal Cluster.

Read more…

This is really an interesting one. Look at Method # 2 . !

From the link : http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_bizarre_microsoft_workaround.htm , I have the following for you. And if you don’t believe me, go to the Microsoft site about the same, here : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/168702

Microsoft issues bizarre Oracle workaround

Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting
May 26,  2009
For anybody using ODBC with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, we all know how crappy Microsoft products are, some of the worst implementation in the history of software engineering.

However, this one redefines crapware.

The Microsoft page on XL97: Data Not Returned from Query Using ORACLE Data Source.  Check this out, workaround #2:

Method 2: Move Your Mouse Pointer

If you move your mouse pointer continuously while the data is being returned to Microsoft Excel, the query may not fail. Do not stop moving the mouse until all the data has been returned to Microsoft Excel.

PS – It’s been reported that a more elegant workaround is to stand on your head and chant “Bill is better than Larry” 7 times.

The info link: http://www.redhat.com/certification/faq/

RHCE/RHCT Exam Changes
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Reinforcing its commitment to provide IT professionals with the best training and performance-based assessments in the industry, Red Hat has improved the format and delivery mechanisms of the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) exams . The changes make for a more efficient use of testing time and do not impact the overall content nor the scope of the exams.

• What is changing?
• How have the exams been made shorter?
• Are the exams easier or more difficult now?
• Can I still take the old format exams after May 1, 2009?
• Why are the exams being changed?

Read more…

This is the news from Vimeo website:

The story of two strange characters exploring a capricious and seemingly infinite machine. The elder, Proog, acts as a tour-guide and protector, happily showing off the sights and dangers of the machine to his initially curious but increasingly skeptical protege Emo. As their journey unfolds we discover signs that the machine is not all Proog thinks it is, and his guiding takes on a more desperate aspect.

Read more…

I have found the following interesting news from SquirrelMail.org’s website (http://www.squirrelmail.org/index.php) . It is enough to open eyes and minds of the government of under-developed countries (as ours), and a signal to act accordingly.

Here is the text directly from that site, from their News section.

NEWS: SquirrelMail replaces Microsoft Outlook in the office of the Indian Prime Minister

Mar 25, 2009 by Paul Lesniewski

Several news outlets (Techgoss, infopackets, The Register, The Times of India, etc.) are reporting that after a virus prevented email retrieval for three months in the office of the Prime Minister of India, SquirrelMail was chosen as part of a replacement system that had previously been based on Microsoft products. This surely means that several other Open Source products were included in the switch, and we applaud both the Office Of the Prime Minister and its technology consultants who made the switch to Open Source Software!

I have released the first free CBTs on Beowulf/HPCC/SuperComputing (in English language) on my other website (http://www.wbitt.com) .

Here is the article text:-

I feel great pride and satisfaction today, to announce to you gentlemen, that I have made (first?) “free” CBTs / videos of HPCC in English language, and released them (free of cost) on my website: http://www.wbitt.com . This is my first step towards the objective to see “A SuperComputer on every desk!”. And I hope to have more strength and ability to continue serving the community.

The ultimate goal is kind of too big to summarize in words. By sharing these videos (and more), I hope to see more educated, more experienced HPC system administrators / cluster administrators in future. Also, a whole new breed of HPC programmers, as now, they should have a very affordable platform to develop their HPC programs. I also hope to see HPC being utilized in almost all fields of life. In my opinion, industry giants have somehow, made HPC, sort of an “un-touchable” technology for all, but for a very few. The brains and thoughts are also locked in a sense that super computing can only be used to make nuclear weapons, or to launch satellites, etc etc. ( I know scientific / health uses as well). I intend to have this barrier removed. Once every one will be using this technology, I am sure, people will find other uses as well, trickling all the way down to various aspects of our daily lives. I am sure that, just as internet was once un-heard of, has now become an integral part of our lives, supercomputing will also become the same. Time will tell.

Please feel free to refer/distribute these videos to anyone. They are for the community.

Check the downloads page for the file links.

Muhammad Kamran Azeem
26 April 2009

A depressing start of the day today. I heard the news that Oracle has acquired SUN. And Since SUN acquired MySQL about a year+ back, MySQL is now served as a desert.

Let me warn you that I have a love/hate relationship with Oracle. And, it is complicated. My views may be biased. But right now, I am worried about MySQL. Seems like worlds largest commercial database vendor buys the worlds most popular opensource database! And we don’t know, what Oracle will do with it? Is it just to kill the competion, at the lower end as well? (Well, the word “competition” may not suite much, but anyway). What about people who are using MySQL now? There are literally thousands of businesses / shops woven around MySQL technology. What is their fate ? Will Oracle be introducing complex (clever and evil) licensing for MySQL products? Or will they allow it to remain free, and allow them proper exposure and support? Nothing is for sure. Will we be able to see more MySQL releases in future with more features ?

I don’t know, I am one of those, who think that Oracle bought MySQL just to kill it. That makes PostgreSQL the next available candidate in the “free / opensource” slot . PostgreSQL is worlds most advanced open-source database. For some reason, it is not as popular and widely used as MySQL is. So even if PostgreSQL becomes the next platform of choice, what about the existing MySQL database users? (that includes DBAs, programmers, SysAdmins, everyone). The migration cost is just too high to think of. It is kind of dreadful to the sysadmins as well, as most of the management and monitoring utilities are painlessly configured ove mysql. I am also wondering about the famous Qmail+MySQL setups .

I can only hope to see a much “free(er)” version MySQL in future. Possibly by fork(ing) out / branching from the current MySQL code, by the open-source freedom fighters.

I suppose that, “Lets see what happens!”, will do not good. Something “needs” to be done about it. I remember NCR once acquired TeraData, but later spun it off as a separate entity. Can we libertate MySQL from Oracle, by convincing Oracle to spin it off ?

One line of silence for MySQL …………………