Blog with Integrity
Archive for the ‘Storage’ Category
Converging networks and condensing server footprints have been major trends in computing for the last several years. Examples of this range from protocols like Fiber Channel of Ethernet (FCoE) to blade centers to interconnect technologies like HP’s Virtual Connect. In the blade world, shared interconnects have changed how connectivity is defined to a blade chassis [...]
- In: Computing|Convergence|Networks|Storage|Virtualization|VMware
- Tags: HP, NextIO, Testing, Virtu, Virtual Connect, VMware, vNet, vNet I/O Maestro, vNetwork
All IT solutions will experience problems at some point in their life. Supporting IT solutions is difficult, time-consuming and costly, but also a fact of life – a fact as a systems administrator I am thankful for. It means, I have a job. Problem solving skills are absolutely necessary, but all administrators need the expert [...]
Simplify. Eliminate duplication of effort. Reduce costs. Play to your core competencies. Standardize. All of these are themes I have heard in my own company as we have looked at ways to improve our IT operations. Like many companies, we try to form a plan of where our IT operations should move, motivated by making [...]
VMware PowerCLI rocks
23, Mar 2011Its pretty easy to see where I stand on PowerCLI from the headline on this entry. Disclaimer, I haven’t used it extensively, but I can already see the why VMware has chosen to embrace PowerCLI for scripting. These are some of my initial thoughts after some light usage — in short, I think PowerCLI is [...]
- In: Everything Else|HP|Storage|Virtualization|VMware
- Tags: ESX, EVA, Hewlett Packard, HP, PowerCLI, Storage, VMware
SafeCopy: My answer to the Mozy changes?
10, Feb 2011I got a comment on my recent Mozy post which offered SafeCopy as an alternative to Mozy. When my current subscription to Mozy ends, I’m certainly in the market for a more favorable solution to meet my needs. Mozy’s new plans, in my opinion, do not offer enough space for the price they charge and [...]
Finally bought a Drobo for home
14, Jun 2010Last week, I found a deal I could not pass up. B&H Photo has a deal on a Drobo for $299 though 6/30/2010. If you’ve never heard of a Drobo, it is an external storage enclosure from Data Robotics that offers some enterprise-class, automated mirroring/striping for your data across multiple hard drives. Data Robotics calls [...]
Path failures on ESX4 with HP storage
8, Apr 2010Since we began upgrading our clusters to ESX4, we have been having strange “failed physical path” messages in our vmkernel logs. I don’t normally post unless I know the solution to a problem, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Our deployment has been delayed and plauged by the storage issues that I mentioned [...]
(For PowerCLI commands to accomplish the same best practices, see this post). HP provided us with the best practices document for ESX4 connected to an HP EVA array. There is a major change in ESX4. For the first time, ESX is ALUA (Asymmetric Logical Unit Access) aware. (See this post on Yellow Bricks for more [...]
- In: Storage|Virtualization|VMware
- Tags: HP, Storage, Virtualization, VMware, vSphere
Growing a Virtual RDM in ESX
11, Jan 2010Short version: To grow a VM with and RDM in virtual compatiblity mode, you must VMotion the VM after performing your storage rescans to recognize the additional space. After the VMotion, the guest OS will see the additional space and be able to access it.
Carefully planning ESX4 and HP Storageworks EVA
6, Jan 2010As in my post about Lessons Learned on ESX4 rollout, we had a pretty serious hiccup with our storage and the ESX systems in December while trying to bring up our ESX4 environment. The primary trouble uncovered was what I’ll call “controller ping-pong”. An EVA normally has two (maybe more, I’m not primarily a storage [...]