vBrainstorm by Roger Lund

Dell Storage Forum 2012 : day 2

2012-06-12T08:06:00.001-05:00

Dell announced today a flood of new storage products.

Below is the press release.

More to come on the below technology's.

"
Dell Storage Forum, BOSTON, June 12, 2012 – At Dell Storage Forum, Dell today announced new solutions that continue to advance its Fluid Data architecture to help customers efficiently manage their data and protect business information.

The new advancements include updates to the Dell Fluid File System for a common, enterprise-class distributed file system across the company’s three primary storage solution families, a new Compellent platform that dynamically unifies block and file data, a new version of its AppAssure backup and recovery software to address larger data sets, and a new entry-level Brocade 16GB Fibre Channel switch to support next-generation applications.

―The Dell Fluid Data architecture is designed to manage the growth of our customers’ data, so they can manage the growth of their business,‖ said Darren Thomas, vice president and general manager, Dell Storage. ―We are delivering a new customer experience across a tightly integrated set of products and solutions with shared capabilities across our portfolio – driving up optimization, driving out the cost of forced end of life, and driving forward the speed and flexibility required by IT.

‖
Fluid File System Spans Compellent, EqualLogic and PowerVault
Following the introduction of the Dell Fluid File System in 2011, the company today unveiled the latest release of the Fluid File System with the new Dell Compellent FS8600 NAS.

http://www.compellent.com/Products/FS8600.aspx

The integration of the Dell Fluid File System within the Compellent architecture represents the final step in offering customers file capabilities across each of Dell’s primary storage platforms – Compellent, EqualLogic and PowerVault. This provides customers with a common, enterprise-class distributed file system featuring snapshots, replication and built-in data protection features, and the ability to manage file and block information on a single enterprise storage platform.

SAN and NAS Scale on a Single Compellent Platform
The next generation Compellent array, comprised of the SC8000 and FS8600, is designed to lower the total cost of ownership by managing a virtualized, scalable pool of disks to expand up and out across block and file data without forklift upgrades. The new array includes new 2U, 6GB SAS enclosures that provide 12 3.5‖ or 24 2.5‖ disk drives per enclosure.
The Dell Compellent SC8000 is based on the latest 64-bit Compellent Storage Center 6.0 operating system and 12 generations of Dell design experience for a resilient platform that scales to meet business and data growth.

http://www.compellent.com/Products/Hardware/Controllers.aspx

As a single platform for both block and file data, the SC8000 helps eliminate the costs and complexity of supporting separate solutions. Additional savings may be achieved through SC8000 advancements that enable greater energy efficiency as well as the ability to operate at higher temperatures, supporting fresh air initiatives.

The SC8000 builds on the existing SC40 Compellent architecture that gives customers 99.999 percent availability(1) across 26 million hours of continuous operation. The new unified solution allows businesses to grow with a reliable storage environment that provides greater agility for customers to expand their business and existing storage environment simultaneously.

The Dell Compellent FS8600 delivers high-performance, scale-out file storage that integrates with Dell Compellent automated tiering to enable efficient SAN and NAS within a single solution. This helps provide high performance and a low total cost of ownership across a single, scalable platform. The new Compellent unified solution helps manage data growth and control costs by seamlessly scaling up to one petabyte of automated tiered storage capacity within a single namespace.

The FS8600 is available in two options that support 8GB Fibre Channel connections and a choice of 1GbE or 10GbE connectivity to the client network. The new Compellent solutions are protected by the award-winning Copilot support team, which maintains a more than 96 percent customer satisfaction rating.(2)

The FS7600 (1GbE) and FS7610 (10GbE) systems integrate with new or existing EqualLogic PS Series arrays to deliver scale-out unified storage for 1GbE and 10GbE environments. File and block storage, including new support for asynchronous replication, are managed through the EqualLogic Group Manager and can scale to 509TB within a single namespace.
Less than four months after its AppAssure acquisition, Dell today introduced AppAssure 5 to help customers continuously protect business information and move and recover data anywhere with high levels of scale, speed and efficiency.

New AppAssure capabilities include greater scalability and performance utilizing a newly architected object based data repository to back up and protect larger data sets as well as Big Data applications. The solution also utilizes built-in, block-level deduplication and compression across data sets to automatically reduce the storage capacity required for backups and decreases WAN bandwidth requirements for replication by only transmitting optimized data. Additional support for Linux and localized language support is expected later this year.

AppAssure goes beyond traditional backup solutions by leveraging snapshot and replication technologies that allow the software to enable incremental backups that provide efficient use of network and storage resources while providing quick recovery.

http://www.dellstorage.com/appassure/

Unlike legacy backup products, AppAssure images the entire software stack, protecting the entire application—not just the files. Snapshots can be taken every five minutes and replicated to virtual, physical or cloud environments, enabling systems and data to potentially be brought back online in minutes in any location. If an application or server fails, the entire application can be started up on a standby environment or run real time during a data recovery scenario. AppAssure also automatically tests and verifies backup integrity daily to validate and ensure complete recoverability.

Availability:
 The Dell Compellent FS8600, EqualLogic FS7600 and FS7610, will be available in the second half of this year
 The Dell Compellent SC8000 will be available worldwide this month.
 AppAssure 5 is available in English language beginning today.
" source dell.

Enjoy

Roger Lund.

New Blog Post #dellsf12

Location:Summer St,Boston,United States

Dell Storage Forums 2012 : day one

2012-06-11T15:59:00.001-05:00

Today Dell has released a array of new storage products.
I have a attached the press release, along with a few photos. You'll see more to come as content comes out.

"
BOSTON, June 11, 2012 – At its second annual U.S. Dell Storage Forum customer and partner event, Dell today announced new solutions and services designed to help customers benefit from the further convergence of storage, servers, networking and IT management for improved data center simplicity and performance. These latest offerings advance the Dell Fluid Data architecture and support Dell’s approach to deliver customer-inspired, end-to-end solutions that simplify IT management and deliver efficient results.
According to analyst firm IDC, while virtualization has reduced data center costs by 25 percent, IT organizations still spend 80 percent of their annual budget on maintaining and managing existing systems and only 20 percent on value-added activities and initiatives.1 A converged infrastructure can provide a single, tightly integrated system that reduces the complexity of running IT systems and enables a shared service model of computing that maximizes hardware utilization, improves availability, contains management costs, and reduces time to deployment.
“Dell is redrawing the lines among servers, storage, networking and management to offer customers technology convergence that provides simplicity and improved performance while reducing the operational costs associated with running today’s data centers,” said Brad Anderson, president of Enterprise Solutions Group at Dell. “Our holistic approach helps customers cost-effectively manage the physical, virtual and cloud environments that deliver flexible IT services to support their business goals.”
New Dell EqualLogic Blade Arrays Enable Blade Data Center Convergence
http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/campaigns/equallogic-ps-m4110-series.aspx
The scalable and easy-to-manage Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Arrays provide customers all of the functionality and enterprise-class features of traditional EqualLogic arrays inside a Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis. The new blade arrays combine with Dell 11th or 12th generation PowerEdge blade servers and Dell Force10 or PowerConnect networking switches, enabling customers to run an entire data center within a single compact blade enclosure that helps streamline IT management and operations.

Dell’s first storage blade arrays, like all EqualLogic solutions, are highly virtualized, scale performance along with capacity, and provide automated load balancing to optimize performance and reduce costs associated with running storage systems. They are designed to support virtualized environments, data center infrastructure convergence, and the general storage needs of small and medium-sized deployments.

Multiple EqualLogic Blade Arrays can be configured in less than an hour with a fraction of the set-up time required by other available blade storage solutions. The new arrays also can provide nearly double the usable capacity - 96 percent more – than competitive arrays.2 In addition to leveraging the ease-of-use and all-inclusive software model native to EqualLogic, users can benefit from:
Four different EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Array configurations and the ability to store up to 14 terabytes of data per array, up to 28 terabytes per group inside a blade chassis, and up to 56 terabytes with two groups inside one blade chassis
Unique peer-scaling architecture that allows for simultaneous scalability of performance and capacity within and outside the blade chassis
The ability to scale outside the chassis to more than two petabytes of storage in a single group and provide approximately double the usable capacity of a competitive solution inside the chassis 2
EqualLogic set-up and deployment capabilities closely integrated with the blade chassis management console
Flexibility with blade arrays that fit into any slot within the blade chassis
Centralized monitoring and reporting tools that gather and provide in-depth information on performance, capacity and alerts across multiple groups of arrays, enabling improved performance and effective allocation of group resources
Advanced data protection, such as snapshots, clones and replicas, and advanced integration with Microsoft, VMware and Linux platforms wrapped into every solution
Support for multi-generational EqualLogic systems, allowing existing SAN arrays to receive continuous advancements and capabilities as storage and business requirements grow.
Combining the new EqualLogic blade arrays with the latest Dell PowerEdge 12th generation M420 blade servers and Dell Force10 MXL switches, Dell also announced the first pre-tested and certified Dell Converged Blade Data Center solution, a simplified and dense, end-to-end, 10GbE data center contained within a single Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade chassis.
With the convergence of Dell technologies, customers can support up to 48 percent more Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint users and up to 42 more users per watt of power compared to a competitive blade server and storage offering.3 Additionally, Dell’s converged solution is notably easier to deploy, with 55 percent fewer major configuration steps to set-up storage alone.2
With the new Dell Converged Blade Data Center solution, customers additionally can benefit from:
A compact, shared footprint that reduces the need for excessive licenses, space, cable configuration and power and cooling costs
Flexible Dell Force10 MXL networking switches, scalable for 1GbE, 10GbE or 40GbE using interchangeable FlexIO modules

The PowerEdge M420, the world’s only quarter height 2-socket blade server, offering extreme computational density, performance and efficiency
End-to-end 10GbE Data Center Bridging (DCB) that enables fabric convergence to help reduce costs as well as enhance quality of service through Ethernet
An integrated approach to infrastructure management that allows administrators to manage the underlying Dell server and storage hardware from their familiar VMware or Microsoft management consoles.
The new EqualLogic Blade Arrays and Dell Converged Blade Data Center solution are complemented by new releases of EqualLogic software that tightly integrate SANs with hosts and applications. With an all-inclusive software licensing model, EqualLogic storage systems include all supporting software applications and tools without additional licensing fees. New software releases include:
EqualLogic Array Software 6.0 - provides real-time data protection with synchronous replication, improved data security, and increased efficiency with snapshot borrowing, volume unmap, and volume undelete features
EqualLogic SAN Headquarters 2.5 - monitoring and analysis tool introduces the Dell Integrated Support feature for automatic diagnostic data collection and transmission to Dell for improved customer experience
EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for Microsoft 4.5 - offers enhanced reliability and availability for Microsoft SharePoint deployments with new Auto-Snapshot Manager for Microsoft SharePoint.
New Dell vStart 1000 for Dell Private Cloud Speeds Application and IT Service Delivery
As customers’ virtualization needs grow, a fully integrated system can simplify virtualization infrastructure. Dell vStart systems include the servers, storage, networking and management tools to help customers quickly create or enhance a virtualized IT environment. With Dell’s latest vStart 1000 for Dell Private Cloud, customers can focus on delivering IT services by taking advantage of Dell’s ability to rapidly provide a pre-integrated, virtualization and private cloud infrastructure while lowering risk from a tried, pre-tested and certified configuration.
The vStart 1000 for Dell Private Cloud includes the first Dell Compellent storage and Dell Force10 networking-based vStart solution, providing the latest example of Dell technology integration from recent acquisitions into its end-to-end solutions portfolio. The new vStart systems include Dell’s VIS Creator cloud automation software that improves IT responsiveness through highly personalized private, public and desktop cloud services by leveraging existing systems and processes. Dell vStart 1000 also is Microsoft Fast Track Private Cloud validated with Microsoft System Center 2012.

By leveraging the new PowerEdge M620, Dell Force10 networking and Compellent fibre channel storage, vStart 1000 provides a mission critical application and private cloud platform with incredible scalability, resiliency and performance." quote from dell

New Blog Post : #Dellsf12
Roger lund

Location:World Trade Center Ave,Boston,United States

Pure Storage, Pure Performance.

2012-03-29T21:52:00.001-05:00

While at Tech Field Day – Virtualization Field Day, I had a chance to sit through a Presentation by Pure Storage. Below are my thoughts.

Pure Storage is all about giving you and your VMware Server or View environment SSD performance, at a reduced cost.

Check out the message about the Products they have at the Pure Storage Web Site.

Here are a few slides from the Deck they gave us.

Below I have included some pictures provided while at Pure Storage with Tech Field Day – Virtualization Field Day http://techfieldday.com/2012/vfd2

Some Spec’s.

Here are some Video’s they provided.

Other Tech Field Day Blogger’s, Blog Posts.

Pure Storage – Pure Genius (Brandon Riley)

Pure Storage Tackles Storage Shenanigans (Chris Wahl)

Pure Storage’s Impact on VDI – Tech Field Day (Dwayne Lessner)

Tech Field Day Video on Pure Storage.

All content provided by Pure Storage, CC Pure Storage.

I hope you enjoyed this.

Roger Lund

Tech Field Day 7 -- Austin : Roger Lund Day 1 Overview at Dell

2011-10-11T20:43:00.001-05:00

We started off the afternoon at Dell, Talking about the Dell Acquisitions and Solutions, then diving into Scalable Storage Systems, and then Equallogic.

Below is my overview.

Some existing information on Dell Acquisitions.

http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/newsroom-acquisitions

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/data-center/228300266/12-dell-acquisitions-and-what-theyve-brought-to-the-company.htm?pgno=2

More information on the Dell Scalable File System. Including Dell PowerVault NX3500 Unified Storage Platform, and Dell EqualLogic FS7500 system

http://www.dellstorage.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=1578

More information on the Dell Equallogic San’s.

http://www.equallogic.com/products/default.aspx?id=5621

More information on the PS6010 and PS6510

http://www.equallogic.com/products/ps6010-series.aspx?id=8945&slider6010=1

Also make sure to check out Tech Field Day’s blog post.

Blog post link:

Dell Presents at Tech Field Day 7

Until Next Time!

Roger Lund

Tech Field Day 7 -- Austin : Day 1 Overview -The Symantec Backup Appliance Overload!

2011-10-04T20:39:00.001-05:00

My Thoughts on our Mid Morning visit at Symantec.

My two cents are, these are great for remote sights, and offices. But, I wish we could run these with the same licensing, as below, but within a virtual appliance.

Check out the Tech Field Day video also.

More info.

“Symantec Backup Exec 3600 Appliance

Backup Exec 3600 Appliance provides Backup Exec software and optimized hardware integrated into a single affordable backup solution from the industry leader in Backup – Symantec. Easily protect both physical and virtual environments while reducing storage costs and improving backup performance through integrated deduplication. Reduce business downtime with V-Ray technology that recovers data through a single pass backup in second”

Link to appliance http://www.symantec.com/business/backup-exec-3600-appliance

“Licenses Included with the Backup Exec 3600 Appliance :

•Backup Exec 2010 R3 Server
•Agent for Windows Systems (AWS)
•Remote Agent for Linux Systems (RALUS)
•Remote Agent for Mac Systems (RAMS)
•Agent for Microsoft Exchange
•Agent for Microsoft Active Directory
•Agent for Microsoft SQL
•Agent for Microsoft SharePoint
•Agent for Oracle (Linux/Windows)
•Agent for Lotus Domino
•Deduplication Option
•Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructures
•Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V”

“NetBackup Appliances

Symantec understands the shifting needs of the data center and offers the NetBackup appliances as an additional option for customers to simplify deployment and maintenance of marketing-leading NetBackup and NetBackup deduplication.
The NetBackup appliances are ideal for customers looking for turnkey solutions for their organization. The appliances enable efficient, storage-optimized data protection for the data center, remote office and virtual environments.
Product Families
Symantec's NetBackup Appliance family consists of two series:

NetBackup 5200 series - a single-vendor enterprise backup appliance with deduplication

5200: enterprise backup appliance with 32TB storage
5220: enterprise backup appliance with expandable storage starting at 4TB.

NetBackup 5000 series - a scalable deduplication appliance for the enterprise

5000: global deduplication pool scalable from 16TB to 96TB
5020: global deduplication pool scalable from 32TB to 192TB “

Video Demo

Link to appliances http://www.symantec.com/business/theme.jsp?themeid=nbu-appliance

Enjoy!

Roger Lund

Tech Field Day 7 -- Austin : Day 1 Our first stop at SolarWinds

2011-09-29T21:28:00.001-05:00

Below I overview the first stop at Austin on Tech Field Day 7.

My Self Giving a Overview of Stop one, at Tech Field Day 7.

Check out the Tech Field Day video also.

SolarWinds presents at Tech Field Day 7 from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

More information on SolarWinds http://www.solarwinds.com/products/virtualization-management.aspx

A couple of of products discussed.

“SolarWinds Virtualization Manager takes you from the early stages of virtualization deployment and all the way to implementation of private cloud initiatives and IT-as-a-Service. Our unified approach to VMware® capacity planning, VM sprawl control, performance monitoring, configuration management, and chargeback automation makes it easy to take control of your virtualized environment—regardless of whether you manage as few as fifty virtual machines or a corporate cloud the size of a small planet.”

Live Demo http://virtualization.demo.solarwinds.com/

“Storage management in a virtualized environment used to be a real nightmare. But not any longer! SolarWinds Storage Manager optimizes the performance and capacity of your physical and virtual storage infrastructure and delivers visibility and insight into how your storage infrastructure maps to your virtualized environment. And unlike element management tools from storage hardware vendors, Storage Manager gives you a comprehensive view into the real-time status of your entire multi-vendor SAN—through a single pane of glass.”

Live Demo http://storage.demo.solarwinds.com/

Enjoy

Roger Lund

Dell Storage Forum 2011– Dell DX Object Based Storage Lab Setup

2011-06-16T21:24:00.001-05:00

Earlier on my other blog http://itblog.rogerlund.net , I posted a blog post on Dell DX object based storage, with regards to the hands on labs at Dell Storage Forum 2011.

Here is the video , if you missed it..

Well, I wanted to show what was running the labs, and give you some more information on the architecture on Dell DX object based storage.

As a overview, of what OSD is

“ Object storage device

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An Object-based Storage Device (OSD) is a computer storage device, similar to disk storage but working at a higher level. Instead of providing a block-oriented interface that reads and writes fixed sized blocks of data, an OSD organizes data into flexible-sized data containers, called objects. Each object has both data (an uninterpreted sequence of bytes) and metadata (an extensible set of attributes describing the object). The command interface to the OSD includes commands to create and delete objects, write bytes and read bytes to and from individual objects, and to set and get attributes on objects. The OSD is responsible for managing the storage of objects and their metadata. The OSD implements a security mechanism that provides per-object and per-command access control.
Several research projects have explored object storage and implemented prototype systems with various semantics. The early research spawned a standardization effort that lead to a standard OSD command set for SCSI.”

Here is Dell’s introduction to their product.

“
What is object storage?

Object storage is the intelligent evolution of disk storage - creating, storing and distributing variable-sized data objects, and their associated metadata, rather than simply placing blocks of data on tracks and sectors. Each object has its rich metadata inextricably linked to it, enabling long-term preservation while ensuring data remains safe and accessible over time.

Simple architecture
A flat-address-space design removes file-system complexity and the need to manage LUNs and RAID groups.
Cost-effectiveness
Automated management, SATA and near-line SAS based storage and modular scaling approach offers low total cost of ownership.
Metadata
By incorporating metadata into objects, you can apply preservation, retention and deletion policies, lower management resources, and facilitate enhanced discovery.
Enhanced scalability
An extremely large number of available addresses means a common pool of storage can support literally billions of objects.”
Taken from http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/storage/dell-dx/pd.aspx?refid=dell-dx&cs=555&s=biz

Here are some resources form the Dell DX Object based Storage webpage.

“Dell DX Object Storage Spec Sheet

Dell DX Object Storage Platform - Remote Replication Configuration

Dell DX Object Storage Platform - Remote Synchronous Replication Configuration

Dell DX Object Storage Platform - Advanced Storage Node Configuration “

Towards the end of the Dell Storage Forum’s 2011 event, I got some time to look at the rack running the above labs., enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed this blog post.

Thanks!

Roger L

You Tube Channel!

2011-06-14T20:12:00.001-05:00

I have created, or rather, decide to use my you tube channel. Please ignore the dance video... I was put up to it…… @edsai

You'll see a collection of all the video's related to both blogs, and user groups there in the future.

Check it out!

You Tube Channel

Thanks!

Roger Lund

Dell Storage forum 2011 - Dell Equallogic Hands on lab Design Overview.

2011-06-13T22:34:00.000-05:00

I had a chance to get a moment with Will Urban Twitter Linkedin to go over the Dell Equallogic hands on lab at Dell Storage Forum.

Thanks again Will!

I would love to get Will's feedback on the take away's from building a lab like this.

Roger L

Dell Storage forum 2011 - Commvault Design Overview.

2011-06-12T19:35:00.003-05:00

I had a chance at Dell Storage forum 2011 to sit down with Commvault and talk through a design overview on Simpana 9 . I wouldn't call it a deep drive, but it was good overview, and involved white boarding.

More info below, Taken from http://www.commvault.com/simpana.html#t-3

Corporate & Product Information

Simpana 9 Datasheet (PDF)
Simpana 9 Product Brochure (PDF)
Corporate Brochure (PDF)
Corporate Fact Sheet (PDF)

Modern Data Management

Datasheets

Backup & Recovery Product Overview (PDF)
CommVault Simpana SnapProtect (PDF)
Generation 3 Deduplication (PDF)
Simplified Migration & Reporting (PDF)
Simpana Storage Resource Management (PDF)
CommVault Simpana Software for Cloud Storage: Key Benefits Extending data and information management to the Cloud (PDF)

Whitepapers

Combining the Manageability and Efficiency of CommVault Simpana Software With the Speed of Native Snapshots (PDF)
Protecting Data More Effectively in Remote Office and Branch Office Environments (PDF)
Unlocking the Value of Global Deduplication for Enterprise Data Managemen (PDF)
Journey to the Center of Corporate Information Ecosystems (PDF)
Simpana Software – A Unique Cloud-Enabled Platform (PDF)

Data Reduction

Datasheets

Simpana Archive for Microsoft Exchange (PDF)
Simpana Archive for IBM Lotus Domino Server Mailboxes (PDF)
Simpana Archive for Microsoft SharePoint (PDF)
Simpana Archive for File Systems and NAS (PDF)
Generation 3 Deduplication (PDF)
CommVault Simpana SnapProtect (PDF)

Whitepapers

Journey to the Center of Corporate Information Ecosystems (PDF)
Backup=Archive: Can You Tell the Difference? (PDF)
To ILM or Not to ILM, That is the Question! (PDF)

Virtual Server Protection

Datasheets

Scalable Data Management Options for VMware Environments with CommVault® Simpana® 9 Software (PDF)
Scalable Data Management Options for Microsoft Hyper-V Environments with CommVault® Simpana® 9 Software (PDF)
Scalable Data Management Options for Citrix XenServer with CommVault® Simpana® 9 Software (PDF)
CommVault Simpana Software for Cloud Storage: Key Benefits Extending data and information management to the Cloud (PDF)

Whitepapers

CommVault Virtually Perfect Protection (PDF)
Simpana Software – A Unique Cloud-Enabled Platform (PDF)

Information Governance

Datasheet

Content Director Product Datasheet (PDF)

Whitepapers

Managing IT Workflow For eDiscovery
The Fast Track to Enterprise Search and eDiscovery (PDF)
Raising the Bar for eDiscovery Document Review Efficiencies (PDF)
Universal Search Yields Maximum Business Value (PDF)
eDiscovery for Ostriches: Don't Bury Your Head in the Sand (PDF)
CommVault: Addressing eDiscovery and Legal Hold Requirements with CommVault (PDF)
Journey to the Center of Corporate Information Ecosystems (PDF)

Microsoft Solutions

Datasheets

Simpana Archive for Microsoft Exchange (PDF)
Simpana Archive for Microsoft SharePoint (PDF)

Enterprise Applications

Datasheets

Simpana Archive for IBM Lotus Domino Server Mailboxes (PDF)
Simpana Archive for File Systems and NAS (PDF)

Whitepaper

Top Use-Cases for Replication Demand Integration with Backup and Restore Capabilities (PDF)

Man, that is a ton of resources....

Enjoy!

Roger Lund

Resign your Virtual Network, with Cisco 1000V and VSG

2011-05-04T21:07:00.000-05:00

Not long ago, I wrote on designing a VMware Environment for a lab. See A Secure budget VMware LAB Environment - Step one - Design

Well, today I am going to show glimpse of another method of using your existing VMware environment, to build out multiple Network's, while using the same pre existing VMware environment.

This will be using the Cisco 1000v , and Cisco VSG product line. These , you will see me write up on at a later date, on my other blog.

Here are some advantages I came up with over the previous design, or just about any physically segmented data center.

Nexus 1000v & VSG technology advantages:

Allows virtual zone/role based access control, and resource allocation to define multiple networks/environments within a shared VMware Environment.
Provides industry standard compliance, and simplified network management & operations within a virtual environment.
Provides HA and Standard VMware features without the additional costs of a physically separated Environment.
Enables Virtual Service Datapath (vPath), Network Analysis Module (NAM), Virtual Application Acceleration (vWAAS)

I would love some feedback, both from a design side, and presentation side.

Roger L

VMworld 2011, Call for Papers, you tell me what you want to see.

2011-03-26T11:03:00.003-05:00

I will be attending VMworld 2011 this year, and I am considering submitting a paper, so I can speak. But, I want you to tell me what you want to see. Then what? I'll write up a blog with top requests, and we can vote. I'll set a date on the 28th to get the info to me, and the 29th to Vote. Then I'll have to do some writing...

Let's get it rolling!

D me on twitter, rogerlund or e-mail me lundrog@gmail.com , parent of rogerlund@rogerlund.net and the rest.

Roger L.

EDIT: No feedback, Therefor I will assume no one has any requests that have not been covered, so I will see you at the event!

A Secure budget VMware LAB Environment - Step one - Design

2011-01-26T21:19:00.001-06:00

I recently was challenged with designing a VMware Environment for a team within a existing network.

I had some requirements.

I needed to keep the cost low, meaning I could propose some license costs, but I had to use existing backed storage and server's with a little ram.

I had ten users that needed to use Visual Studio with dual monitor's within Windows 7 , but had older computer resources. Staff needed a Environment to that was separated from Production. Staff had a SQL requirement to use in conjunction with Visual Studio in a separated Environment.

I had the following hardware.

A FC San in main Environment.
A VMware View cluster in main Environment

A Hardware Pool with the following.

A Dell MD100 with 14 300GB 10k disk, & PCIe Hardware Raid card.
Two Dell 2950's.
A Dell 2850.
A Dell 2650.

I decided to take the 2850 and make it a openfiler box, connected to the Dell MD1000.

I perposed,the following new hardware for the Lab.

Additional Ram for the three hosts, and the open filer box. I would recommend NFS for ease of use.
A SMB Switch, with enough ports, that has Jumbo Frame and LACP support. The switch had to support the proper VLAN's for the Lab. NFS, iSCSI, etc.
VMware vSphere, vCenter and Windows Licensing.

No redundant requirements ( IE switch, or storage at this time ) , backup's were decided to be done outside of this scope.

My Thought process was to take the above hardware and create the needed environment, the challenge was to deliver the VMware View performance and VMware vSphere cluster performance with the above hardware. Additionally, I needed to provide a segmented secure network, with controlled access in and out.

In this first configuration, I recommended a configuration using a firewall both internal to the segmented network, but going into the main Network.

To me this is a secure solution, but in this case the view desktop's would be on the main domain, and need to be VLAN'D separately off. This would require VLAN access security, as well as a firewall configuration.

To get the VMware View desktop's access into the segmented network, routes would need to be fined.

In this configuration I setup two Trunked ports from the Segmented Network, into the VMware View Hosts. This allows the VMware View Desktop's to be on the Segmented domain.
This would require configuration of Etherchannel on the switches, and a separated vSwitch/vDS that the interfaces would be plugged into on each host. Additionally, a recommendation of using a 1000v Cisco vSwitch with VLAN security, or vShield zones.

Thoughts on each? Other recommendations? Any recommendations to improve each of the above? I'd love to see some comments. Which would you pick, and why?

DM me, or e-mail me.

If you want to see my Prof of Openfiler concept, See my Post:

Lab Powered by vSphere OpenFiler And NFS - A view from Veeam Monitor

Next: backup planning.

UPDATE: To clarify some below questions.

The VMware view host server's on the right diagram are FC connected to a Enterprise San. the desktop's will not saturate the San in term's of I/O.
I also made the recommendation to max the memory on one of the two server's.

The openfiler box is using raid 10, with 1 hot spare.

A VMware essentials bundle was recommend for in the lab. A cluster will be defined, as two hosts are vmotion compatible.

Roger L

vBusy - tools on my mind.

2011-01-04T13:41:00.000-06:00

I've been extremely busy with the holiday's and my new job. one of the things on my mind are along the following lines.

Tools, tools and tools. What does one need for VMware Monitoring tools? What tools are needed to cover all aspects of your virtual environment from Test / Dev Lab to View and even to your Main cluster / Clusters. Then assuming you figure how the tools you need, how do you convince and or show management that you or the company needs these tools?

Roger L.

New Job, time to compel with Compellent at Array Services Group.

2010-11-04T23:31:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is my last day at my current employer. I start a new roll at Array Services Group which is local here in the St. Cloud area. This is going to be a great opportunity for me, as they are a Compellent shop, as well as other in house technologies. I hope to be a great asset to the team at Array Services Group. You'll see me generate more blog posts once this transition is through. Thanks for reading, and your patience.

Roger L.

Inspired by VMworld 2010 Europe - 2011 : the year of the vConference?

2010-10-11T12:47:00.001-05:00

VMworld 2010 Europe has fired off this week. I find my self, not attending again for this event.

And without John Troyer giving me a blogging pass in to VMworld 2010 , I would not have made attendance either. Thanks again John, and VMware!

However, I find my self wondering, at what point VMworld, or like conferences will be turning the event into a vConference.

What do I mean by vConverence? Online? No, in the sense of being online only, but online,as in the presence, or people, and interaction. What do I mean? Well imagine if each vendor that had a booth was responsible to provide web enabled camera's that cover their booths. That when they gave presentations , they had camera's to cover the presentations. That this tied into the Virtual Exhibitor Hall. What if for the Virtual Pavilion had camera's, and that the session's had camera feeds, for online attendee's? What about having area's for discussion, that have video feed's. Places people could go in between sessions, or even after hours to discuss. What about having multiple discussion rooms dedicated for VMUG leader's, and member's that couldn't make it.

What would it mean? what would it prove? wouldn't it be a lot of work? It would show that we can move beyond physical constraints, that people unable attend, could, and possibly could interact. I am not saying it would't be a chore, and that it would all come together at once. But I think it would allow the community that twitter has fed, to grow into more.

I also think it would allow discussion to blossom into great content, and because of the huge amount of information at these sessions at conferences, some of the great info and or idea's that is generated is lost, as you attend a new session.

Picture this, as you walk into a session, you log into the Website, see a video feed of the session, and are able to login to chat, using twitter or facebook login's. You could then chat live, with the people in the room, or people watching on line. Below the chat is a forum dedicated to the session, allowing for non disruptive discussion. Then a VMware mod could either ask questions, or respond later.

Direct video and audio interaction via the VIrutal Exhibitor Hall would allow vendor's to get a idea of the buzz they are generating, and allow them to generate buzz.

Now, there is the cost factor, there may need to be fee's or something to cover this. I am just brain storming here. I just think this could all fit into the world that Twitter, and other online services are developing. Heck, it could even fit in with The evolution of the LAB.

Speaking of that idea, think how a on demand lab could be used by vConference attendees, for each vendor that attends a conference like VMworld, and how it would allow people attending a vConference to interface with a product, not just see it.

Just brainstorming.

Thoughts?

Anyone else care to bring more idea's to the table?

Roger L.

View Brainstorm - Looking for Current VMware View Customer's , first eighteen questions

2010-10-04T10:21:00.000-05:00

Earlier I had posted about view 4.5 design considerations, I had a couple of replies, so I thought I would widen the quarry.

I want to hear from people running VMware View. I have a ton of questions, but here is the first eighteen I could think of.

Below is my brainstorm off the top.

How did you meet your I/O requirements on the storage side?
Are you using a Cache card on your storage?
Did you go 10GB at the same time?
What did you use to get a View I/O estimate?
How did you build / Configure your cluster? IE, scale up or out?
Did you use blade vs Rack?
What version of vSphere are you on?
What build of vSphere are you on?
What type of consolidation ratio do you have?
How could you improve that?
What challenges did you face on the AV side?
What broker as you using, and why?
What desktop / terminal configuration are you using?
Anyone using Multi Monitor?
Are you using single sign-on?
Anyone using view in healthcare?
Anyone using IPad's?
If so, what challenges are you, did you face?

I am looking for a lot of input, so please reply!

Also, if I am missing questions, please let me know!

Thanks!

Roger L.

The evolution of the LAB, is it upon us?

2010-10-03T08:41:00.000-05:00

This year, like years in the past LAB's where in huge demand at VMworld. VMworld Labs, the aftermath has the numbers.

" * Lab Cloud served up 30 lab topics. In 2009 we had 21 lab topics to select from. We had 480 lab seats, with 44 hours of labs resulting in a total of 21120 total lab hours!
* Every hour Lab Cloud was creating (deploying) and destroying (un-deploying) approximately 4000 Virtual Machines
* Lab Cloud delivered 15,344 labs. In 2009 we delivered approximately 4500 labs in total.
* Lab Cloud deployed a total of 145,097 VMs
"

So with the huge interest of lab's, it got me thinking. VMware is pushing cloud, Why isn't there more Lab on Demand access? Why doesn't VMware, offer customer's access to on demand labs? Something to show off a product like vCD. Show us what VMware can do via the Cloud. Why can't resellers that currently offer customer's lab access in house, offer it via the cloud?

What do I mean by on demand? I mean a website, listing the labs, with registration, with help available via staff if needed.

People want to try products out, go through the configuration of the products in non Product environments. But budget's hamper this, and distance makes it hard to vista your local reseller every time you want lab access.

On the other side of things, Think how the VMUG could use something like on demand Lab Access to allow user group members to either shadow a VMUG leader, etc.

Now, what about architecture challenges? Anyone want to come up with some design examples?

What about other vendor's, is this the year for them to have on demand lab access? I would like to see someone step up the game.

Thoughts all? Please comment.

Roger L.

Poll - what do you use in your Virtual environment?

2010-10-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Random Thoughts

2010-10-02T09:45:00.000-05:00

You'll see me post random thoughts, hopefully they make some sense.

Random work thoughts.

Explore Virtual monitoring, reporting, optimization, charge back ( not a provider ).

Random vbrainstorm thoughts.

See above , steps to research, evaluate, discuss and explore the above.

Need to reach out to fellow twitter contacts and blogger's to build content and other view's for site.

Thinking Virtual , moving from 2010 to 2011.

2010-10-01T23:14:00.000-05:00

It is 2010, almost 2011. This year at VMworld the message was as much or more cloud that it was in 09. But I often find my self, am I thinking virtual?

Let's back up, what is it to think virtual, by looking at the term as it is defined.

"
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.
The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real. Colloquially, 'virtual' is used to mean almost, particularly when used in the adverbial form e.g. "That's virtually [almost] impossible""

Well, that is no help at all, what I mean in this case, is when looking at a project, or a problem, do I think phyiscal in the sense, of application, desktop, server, or am I thinking about current methods? ( virtual )

Today, I am running Physical desktop's, when my anti virus needs a subscription update, do I think about the fact that if I deploy view, in the future, I might need to reevaluate my anti virus? When I talk to a vendor about firewall's, do I ask if they have a plans to make a VMware appliance? When I talk to a Security vendor about IPS / IDS , do I ask how it works if my servers are virtualized, or even desktop's?

Are the software devloper's thinking virtual? Are the people making insurance software thinking virtual, banking software? What about Healthcare, are the EMR, EHR developer's thinking virtual?

Without them on board, what kind of challenges does something like vCD in the future?

Maybe, no one else stuggles to shake the troditional Physical world, who knows?

My thoughts are, that to move forward in 2010, and move into 2011, we need to align our thinking, as we align disks in the storage world.

I would like people's commends and views please.

Roger L.

VMware View 4.5 design considerations.

2010-10-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

I am thinking about a possible VMware View 4.5 design consideration.

As some of you may know, we run a NetApp 3140, and a shelf 14 FC drives on each filer. One filer has 14 drives of Sata.

How are those of you running view now meeting your I/O Requirements? How did you build your cluster? Did you choose , blade or standard rack servers? Or maybe a scale up model?

I want to know what you are using. Please comment!

Welcome to vBrainstorm

2010-10-01T15:20:00.001-05:00

Hello all, I am dedicating this site to both Creative thinking, and thoughts, of technology, as well as direct brain storming with a virtualization focus. I want your your idea's as well as my crazy ones.

Thanks!

Roger L.