31 Aug
For organizations considering a public-cloud solution, there are a number of underlying technologies that offer use cases to get started. One such area is data protection solutions, which in most situations is based on cloud storage providers such as Amazon S3, Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network, Azure Blob and others. Regardless of the level of interest an organization would have with a cloud solution, one of the first things is a basic cost comparison.
Read the full post on HPC In the Cloud.
31 Aug
One of the great things about VMworld is that the greater virtualization and related technologies converge. This includes hardware, evidence by my opportunity to converge on some of the HP events here at VMworld. Today I attended an invitiation-only blogger event on HP’s Performance Optimized Data center (POD). Call it an arms dealer to the cloud at face value, but HP’s spin is that it is an attractive alternative to purchasing new facility space.
Here’s the basic principle, the HP POD is effectively a small datacenter contained in either a 20 or 40 foot long box. This box was initially built into industry standard shipping containers for the generation one (G1) pod, but the generation three (G3) pod is slightly modified from the traditional shipping container to allow for better airflow management, access and accommodate additional length. The 20 foot model contains 10 racks and the 40 foot model contains 22 racks. Speaking in scale, there could be a half-million virtual machines in one of these puppies!
HP’s Wade Vinsen presented to us on the POD. We had an overview of the basic architecture and the sub-components, which are ProLiant SL series servers and StorageWorks 600 Modular Disk Systems (MDS 600). He had a mock-up POD that was a miniature model, which worked well to illustrate the features.
In the spirit of social media, I’ve pulled out my Flip camera and caught Wade in a number of segments. Here is the POD overview video:
POD virtual tour, MDS 600 and right-sizing comments:
One of the questions that I brought up is POD accessibility. I posed questions about swapping out servers and how do you get into the racks. There is 39” from the front of the server to the wall of the POD. From the rear, there is between 16” and 19” to the wall. This means that you have to usually open the door for full access to the rear. The units are capable of being used outside, but I’m not wild about having to check the weather to install a new component or troubleshoot something. The units can be used indoors as well in warehouse settings. Here is a video on the accessibility of the POD:
The POD is really positioned as an alternative to additional datacenter space. A 20 foot pod starts at around $600,000 empty (no servers and storage) and the 40 foot unit is in the $1,100,000 range. Considering the facility-based alternative, especially as a new purchase; it may not be that far off.
One of the measurable that Wade talked about was the magic of 50U that is a design element for the POD. Here is a video on the rack design and the logic around the power management. I had asked why the UPS backups were on top of the rack:
Wade simply wouldn’t stop with the whole cost-per-Megawatt topic. I don’t deal with the scaling of facilities, so it is new information to me. As you and I know, the business world revolves around ratios and if we can prove a solution that drives a better ratio – we’ll take it. This video is a little dated from the basic principle of the G1 pod, but Wade explains the cost-per-Megawatt in one of the driving factors for a POD to scale out:
My questions revolve around accessibility to support the internal contents going forward. This is especially important as partially populated pods are available. This means that the end-user or HP professional services would need to get in there to install systems.
Aside from that critique, I see the POD is an attractive single source solution for quick scaling. Wade floated timeframes in the 6 month range for turnaround from purchase order to power-on. This is the first access to technology like this for me, and aside from the cool factor there is a use case.
26 Aug
Next week is the big week, VMworld 2010 in San Francisco. This will be my third trip to the virtualization conference. I don’t expect this year to be very different from previous visits, except that I think I can squeeze more in this time.
I’m not looking forward to being exhausted at the end of the week, but it goes with the territory. I’ve compiled a few posts at Virtualization Review on my take on the event:
I am definitely looking forward to the week ahead, yet not looking forward to being totally wiped out. I will surely have a good time and learn a few things along the way. I should count how many times I hear the word “Cloud” at the event, but in all seriousness I am up to the challenge to go and build a private cloud to the level I’m able.
If you will be at VMworld, you can catch up with me and my fellow Virtumaniacs at the Virtumania/Infosmack Tweetup.I’ve got a Flip camera now, so I may just pipe up and make an interview out of it!
Let’s make it a great show. Ciao for now.
26 Aug
The old saying that history repeats itself does indeed manifest itself in the IT realm. Recently, I read Brandon Riley’s Virtual Insanity post where he asks: Is VMware the Novell of Virtualization?
Virtual Insanity is a blog I read frequently. Regular contributors include a number of VMware and EMC employees. Now that the transparency topic is out of the way, let’s talk about the whole idea that VMware is acting like Novell years ago when NetWare was pitted against Windows NT. A consultant working with me back in the mid 1990s when I was mulling going to Windows NT for file servers asked me, "Why would you replace your file server with an inferior product?"
Read the entire post in the Everyday Virtualization post at Virtualization Review.
26 Aug
One of the aspects of vSphere from the recent 4.1 release is the introduction of per-VM pricing for advanced features. My initial reaction is negative to this, as I’d like my VM deployments to be elastic, to expand and contract features without cost increases. With my grumblings, I decided it was important to chew on the details of per-VM pricing for vSphere.
The most important detail to note is that per-VM pricing is only for vCenter AppSpeed, Capacity IQ, Chargeback, and Site Recovery Manager virtual machines. Traditional VMs that are not monitored or managed by these add-ins are not (yet) in the scope of per-VM pricing. Other vSphere products that are not included in per-VM pricing: vCenter Heartbeat, Lab Manager, Lifecycle Manager, and vCenter Server.
Read the entire post in the Everyday Virtualization blog at Virtualization Review.
26 Aug
One of the most contentious issues that can come up in virtualization circles is the debate on whether to use blades or chassis servers for virtualization hosts. The use of blades did come up in a recent Virtumania podcast discussion. While I’ve worked with blades over the years, most of my virtualization practice has been with rack-mount chassis servers.
After discussing blades with a good mix of experts, I can say that blades are not for everybody and that my concerns are not unique.
Read the entire post in the Everyday Virtualization blog at Virtualization Review.
26 Aug
If you have ever had to go through a number of configurations to get a new set of Group Policy Objects (GPOs) working correctly, one of the biggest inconveniences is frequently going in and out of the Group Policy Editor to manipulate the policies in question. There’s an easy way to make this process a shortcut. The first thing to understand is the globally unique identifier (GUID) that is associated with every Active Directory object.
Read the entire post (including the how-to) on the Servers and Storage blog at TechRepublic.
26 Aug
There are few things more important than troubleshooting a permissions issue only to find that a nested global security group is the culprit. The nesting of global security groups can cause so many issues, especially when any deny permissions come into play. Take into account any group policy-based deny permissions, and the tracing effort can be quite cumbersome.
For Active Directory domains, do you allow nested global security groups? The troubleshooting aspect of group membership is made complicated at first glance in most tools. Many tools will report effective rights, but not necessarily that they are there because of a nested group, much less a group membership at all.
I would love to say that nesting group membership is prohibited, but there are occasional situations where it makes sense.
Read the entire post at the Network Administrator blog on TechRepublic.
26 Aug
I am not sure when service packs became incremental updates to product functionality, but that is the case in today’s competitive landscape. Microsoft is working feverishly to keep pace with demanding IT environments — so much so that new features are being rolled into products via service packs.
The very competitive virtualization race between VMware and Microsoft drives this behavior; for instance, after Windows Server 2008’s release, the R2 release of Windows Server 2008 added even more functionality to Hyper-V to try to keep pace with the competition. The Service Pack (SP) 1 Beta for Windows Server 2008 R2 continues this trend with two new features optimized for virtualization: RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory.
Read the entire post at the Servers and Storage blog on TechRepublic.
26 Aug
Storage vendors are very passionate about the topic of storage deduplication. Vendors who offer storage deduplication, tout it, while vendors who don’t offer it, discredit it. Before I go too far, let’s agree on what we are talking about so we can disagree later: When I say primary storage, I’m referring to non-backup storage, so these are the logical unit numbers (LUNs) that are providing storage resource for file servers, databases, and virtual machines. When I say deduplication, I’m referring to a technology (blocks, pages, or files) that removes the storage consumption of like areas on disk.
Read my entire post on the Servers and Storage blog at TechRepublic.
