Apr 24th, 2009 |
You know, there are some topics around the data center that folks are just reluctant to talk about. Maybe they don’t seem “sexy” enough — things like cables or air conditioning — but the avoided topics tend to be nuts & bolts things that have high utility (and frequently, high value) but that don’t change often enough or with enough hoopla to be “glamour” items. Take print servers, for example — I’m guessing you haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about them, lately, and you’re not alone; lots of folks decided that print servers were passe around the time network-attached printers became common.
For a lot of organizations, though, print servers are still crucial bits of network infrastructure. At the top end, they can serve as aggregation point to allow dozens or hundreds of users to efficiently spool jobs to central printers, and even small companies can minimize hardware costs while maximizing asset utilization through careful print server deployment. Do I spend my days thinking about print servers? No, can’t say that I do. But I was reminded of the many print servers I’ve known and loved when a press release from Interop exhibitor SEH came across my desk earlier today. They’ll be at the Interop Expo showing new print servers that are considerably faster and far more capable than the boxes most of us were seeing even a few years ago. It’s good to have your thoughts jogged out of their usual patterns — that’s one of the things that shows like Interop are so good at doing.
Speaking of getting your thinking out of its rut, you didn’t think I was going to let this post go by without mentioning the Interop conference, did you? There are too many great sessions for me to miss a chance like this. If you really want to expand your IT horizons, consider a session like Is Your Next Notebook a SmartPhone? in the Mobile Platforms and Devices track. If you’ve already decided that the answer is “Yes”, then you might be ready for one of the platform-specific implementation sessions on Thursday: Catch any or all of Understanding and Implementing the Windows Mobile Platform, Understanding and Implementing the BlackBerry Ecosystem, or Understanding and Implementing the Symbian Platform. It might be amazing, the things you can accomplished with a freshly-expanded mind.
