Tests: Wireless gear, storage software, operating systems.
More about ExtremeLabs
Recent tests and articles
Tom Henderson is principal researcher for ExtremeLabs, Inc., of Indianapolis. ExtremeLabs performs systems analysis and performance testing in medium- to high-end networking and microprocessor-based systems platforms. While much of the research is published in major trade publications, ExtremeLabs also performs private testing and simulation on network traffic performance-- especially in the field of isochronous applications (multimedia). ExtremeLabs also performs technical investigations for venture capital organizations.
Prior to ExtremeLabs, Tom was the senior vice president of Unitel, and its successor company, publically traded Telecomm Industries Corporation (TCMM). TCMM was one of the largest interconnects in North America, and Tom's responsibilities were architectural/framework design, engineering overview and oversight, as well as serving as principal engineering liaison to business partners.
Unitel acquired Tom's company, Corporate Networks, Inc., in 1993. Corporate Networks was a communications/network integration concern with twenty-one employees. For the eight years prior to the acquisition, Tom and his crew designed and deployed over 500 local networks in the central region, and was a vendor/consultant to universities, Fortune 500 firms, non-profit organizations, and others-- specializing in local networks and network-to-mainframe connectivity.
Tom was a co-founder of the Local Area Network Dealers Association in 1985, whose US organization later merged with the Business Technology Association; the Canadian organization survives independently. Tom was also the founder of the Computer Telephony Resellers Association, which merged with the MultiMedia Telecommunications Association. Tom served for several years as a member of the MMTA board of governors, and voted for the merger between the MMTA and the TIA.
Tom currently serves on the technical program committee of the International Communications Association (ICA), the Conference Advisory Board for COMDEX Spring, Fall, Canada West, and Toronto. Tom is also a director of PBS affiliate WFYI-20 in Indianapolis. The father of two, Tom's non-computer passions are music, travel, and restoring old Jags. He's working on his PhD in computer science research.
His e-mail address is thenderson@extremelabs.com.
Recent tests and articles by Tom Henderson:
The virtual winner: VMware's ESX KOs a roughly built Hyper-V package
Sep. 29, 2008
When the dust settled in the lab after two long months of testing Microsoft's Hyper-V and VMware's ESX in the areas of performance, compatibility, management, and security, it all boiled down to two issues: experience ...
The issue of virtual compatibility
Sep. 29, 2008
Both hypervisors have requirements for the hardware they can run on and the VMs they can support.
VMware edges out Microsoft in virtualization performance test
Sep. 01, 2008
With the recent release of Microsoft's Hyper-V shaking up the hypervisor market, we decided to conduct a two-part evaluation pitting virtualization vendors against each other on performance as well as on features such ...
Parallel's Virtuozzo containers give apps room to play safely on the same server - Network ...
Feb. 11, 2008
Virtuozzo 4.0 is a virtual machine hosting platform that provides application partitioning services. These Virtual Environments operate similar to the way RedHat's SELinux and Sun's Containers provide operating systems ...
Onaro's tool gives SAN-centric view of virtual server storage needs
Feb. 11, 2008
Onaro's SANscreen VMInsight software monitors, tracks and manages VM host hardware and logical hosted VM operating-system instances connected to enterprise-sized heterogeneous storage-area-network fabrics.
Virtugo virtualSuite zeros in on VM performance optimization
Feb. 11, 2008
Virtugo's virtualSuite offers integrated performance monitoring and VM optimization tools. Its cost depends on which tools you drop into your box.
nWorks provides Microsoft management link to VMware
Feb. 11, 2008
The nWorks Management Pack for VMware for Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager 2007 is a long name for a tool that provides strong VMware monitoring and management capabilities that are ultimately driven by ...
NOC infrastructure may thwart green OS ideals
Jun. 09, 2008
Data centers are often designed (or overdesigned) to handle the highest load that might come their way, which really doesn't jibe with the green ideal.
Linux captures the 'green' flag, beats Windows 2008 power-saving measures
Jun. 09, 2008
Our tests point to Linux as the winner of the green flag by margins that topped out at 12%. But we must note that our results are full of stipulations imposed by our test bed, and, therefore, as many classified ads ...
Greener pastures for Web server farms?
Jun. 09, 2008
Generally speaking, Web farms, whether they are powered by open source Apache or Microsoft's IIS, often require serving up Web content so quickly that the CPU/chipset conservation models we tested as part of our "green ...
Virtualization thwarts green OS initiatives
Jun. 09, 2008
There are certain popular system architectures that transcend the operating system and will turn your efforts to build a green network operating system brown, figuratively speaking.
Symark makes its own mark in the privileged access market
Apr. 28, 2008
Symark's PowerKeeper is a password safe that can take on increasing gradients of password control -- from general user account access to servers right up through to root access to administrative accounts on business ...
Quest homes in on Unix password management
Apr. 28, 2008
Overall, QPM requires moderate Unix administrative skills to both install and use. It doesn't, of course, cover Windows, but does cover Solaris and HP-UX (not tested). It's very highly configurable, and puts reasonably ...
Review: New tools control access by privileged users
Apr. 28, 2008
Privileged IT staffers literally holds the keys to the castle. Access to those keys that open the doors to critical operating system and application resources must be carefully managed and legally audited. Enter the ...
Windows Server 2008: Faster, more manageable and secure, but still missing the virtual link ...
Feb. 21, 2008
Microsoft's long-awaited Windows Server 2008 delivers advancements in speed, security and management, but its virtualization and NAC features come up short.
Microsoft shows up for the NAC party
Feb. 21, 2008
The security scheme – Microsoft calls it Network Access Protection (NAP) -- is an ambitious attempt to admit clients to a network based upon adherence to Microsoft's group policies, specifically relating to the client ...
How we tested Windows Server 2008
Feb. 21, 2008
We tested Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition RTM on a switched gigabit Ethernet D-Link network using primarily a Dell 1950 server equipped with a dual quad-core 1.6Ghz CPU, 32GB of DRAM, two Broadcom GBE NICs ...
PlateSpin PowerRecon helps plan for VM growth
Feb. 11, 2008
PlateSpin's PowerRecon is a planning and monitoring application for organizations with a high number of servers and virtual host targets. On the surface, PowerRecon looks similar to traditional network monitoring and ...
Part III: Taming the Virtual Beast
Feb. 11, 2008
Each of the products tested hits our list of ideals in some fashion, but none nail all of them. PlateSpin's PowerRecon and Virtugo's virtualSuite provide availability monitoring, moves-adds-changes tracking, and ...
Reflex IPS adds security to your VM life
Feb. 11, 2008
Reflex's Command Center is itself a virtual machine that sits on VMware's ESX server and acts as an intrusion-prevention system, watching connectivity activity between other VMs and the virtual network interface ...
Taming the virtual beast: Part II
Dec. 17, 2007
In this second of three test pieces focusing on virtual machine management, Network World Lab Alliance member Tom Henderson reviews three commercial products and one open source project that all take a different route ...
FastScale strips VMware machines to the bare necessities
Dec. 17, 2007
We have high hopes for FastScale's combination of products as it cuts away needless junk from virtual instances, making operating system and application instances lean and unencumbered by unused code. FastScale's ...
Virtual Iron offers plausible VM hosting platform
Dec. 17, 2007
Virtual Iron's Enterprise Edition V3 is a virtual machine hosting platform that couples its open source hosting foundation with tools to convert existing servers into VMs and subsequently manage them.
Open source Hyperic offers an alternative for VM management
Dec. 17, 2007
Overall, we have to say that HHQ is a really strong “meta” console for VMWare environments. While it duplicates some of the functionality of the Virtual Center application shipped with VMware ESX 3.x performs, it still ...
Virtual conversion is not an easy task
Dec. 17, 2007
Keeping all of these components in tact with causing as little server downtime as possible is a tall order that both PlateSpin and LeoStream take pretty successful stabs at it.
