Read more:

• Five Functional Facts about FabricPath
• Five Features of Brocade VCS

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2012. | Cisco FabricPath vs. Brocade VCS
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Networking

Cisco’s UCS B-Series is an exemplary modern blade system

Blade servers are easily recognized in the data centers, trade shows, and product catalogs of today: They’re the ones that nestle together in an enclosure, sharing some resources rather than standing on their own in a rack or on the floor. But what is the essential element that separates a blade from any other kind of server?

Let’s consider some defining characteristics of the blade server species:

1. Physically, a rack-mounted blade enclosure contains a number of server blades. Each blade is smaller than a 19″ rack, allowing more to be packed into the same space. This contrasts with larger, self-enclosed tower or rack-mount servers.
2. Server blades rely on the blade enclosure for critical supporting functions like power, cooling, and I/O ports, so they cannot stand alone. This further improves density and efficiency. Stand-alone servers, on the other hand, include these functions in their case.
3. Blade systems include some sort of management device that monitors the blades and can control some of their functions. Conventional servers do not always have this kind of consolidated management.
4. The blade chassis includes consolidated and shared I/O channels, ranging from keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) to networking and storage (usually Ethernet and Fibre Channel). These add flexibility, since external ports can be shared by multiple blades and reconfigured without disruption.
5. Blade systems are optimized for high availability, with hot-swap components everywhere from power to fans to the blades themselves. Since these are shared, it is more efficient to purchase redundant parts for a blade system than for each server individually.

HP’s blade systems (like this loaded c3000) make up half the market today

To me, these five elements are key to a modern blade system. Without them, a blade solution cannot meet the expectations of buyers (or the promises of vendors!) And what are these benefits? I took a look at the marketing materials for the leading companies in the space (HP, Dell, IBM, and Cisco), and this is what they promise:

1. Efficiency – More processing power in a smaller footprint (physical size, power consumption, cooling, and weight)
2. Manageability – Simpler and cheaper systems management
3. Reliability – High availability thanks to redundant components
4. Performance – Improved I/O performance thanks to shared network and storage features
5. Flexibility – Simplified cabling that can be reconfigured in software

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2012. | What Is a Blade Server?
Read more posts categorized as Cloud Computing, Featured, Server Virtualization

This is Tom. Ask him about NAT!

After reading the post, I had some thoughts come to mind that I just had to throw into a reaction post.

New Culture

As new generations of individuals grow up and mature, it is expected that cultural shifts will take place. What I do not understand is how a culture of technological availability has morphed into an expectation that an individual can bring anything into the corporate environment and expect to use it for their job.

Too many times, I am approached by users bringing their personal laptop into the office and wanting to know how to connect it to the internal network. Or, users that want to connect their iPhones to the network so they can use Spotify or YouTube without using their cellular data plans… as though the corporate infrastructure and services are there to do their bidding.

This new culture developing assumes that everything in the outside world must be the same as in the corporate world. Their iPad can connect to GMail, so why not just connect it to the Exchange server?

What the user sees.                            What IT sees!

Unknown/Unowned Devices

The IT ecosystem is a carefully designed and tightly guarded world.

None shall pass!

Systems are selected carefully to ensure a proper balance between functionality, supportability, and stability. The discovery of an unknown device is enough to throw an IT professional into a fit of rage. The environment has been compromised in some fashion and there is potential to throw off the carefully designed balancing act.

The presence of an unknown device opens up a venerable Pandora’s Box and raises a huge red flag. Suddenly, the corporate environment is now vulnerable to a machine or device infested with trojans, a honeypot of virus infections, access to corporate resources, and not managed by IT.

IT has been assigned a critical role in modern businesses… provide tools that enable the business to function. Traditionally, this included the workstation, network, monitors, servers, etc… With more people feeling as though it is acceptable to provide their own devices, who is responsible for supporting them? What happens when the “S” key breaks off or the monitor is too blue for their liking. When IT owns and manages a device, IT is responsible. When the users owns the device, but is using it in a corporate environment, the answer is much foggier. An IT persons says the user is responsible. However, the true answer lies somewhere in the depths of politics and policy.

Unknown devices also introduce the loss of data control. The moment a user is allowed to bring in a USB drive, iPod, access GMail, or Dropbox, the data is no longer under any control of the company.

Corporate IT Adaptation

First and foremost, IT has a responsibility to the company to ensure the protection and function of corporate technological resources and systems.

However, with that said, IT needs to acknowledge the changing ways of technology. Anyone who has been in IT longer than 1 month knows that times have a way of changing and the minute you buy your phone, it is obsolete. That is the way of the world and 42 is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of live, the universe, and everything.

Is Google “Deep Thought”?

IT departments need to be cognoscente of what exists in the marketplace, impacts (both positive and negative) to overall productivity/security, and the long term viability of those entities. A tablet, for example, may seem like a large phone (cough iPad cough). However, for an executive that spends more time meeting customers and reading email, it is a perfect tool to enable them to get their job done without needing a laptop… but how is it secured?

Security becomes one of the most important concerns for IT in a time where users have expectation of providing their own devices. NAC/NAP/Port Security ensures authorized devices are allowed on the network. Remote technologies (Application Presentation (XenApp/RemoteApp) and VDI (View, XenDesktop)) allow users to interact with applications running on protected and trusted infrastructure from unknown endpoints. Proper backups, snapshotting, and antivirus on the server and storage side ensure the data consistency is proper and recoverable in the event of a break in security.

Finally, IT needs to engage with the business to keep them abreast of concerns. Open dialogue with the business will help ensure technological expectations meet some sort of equilibrium between what IT feels is appropriate and what the business feels is necessary.

What do you really think, Bill?!

I whole heartedly do not like the idea of users bringing in their own devices for business use. Maybe I am cruisin for a bruisin (politically speaking), but I see my environment as known and trusted. The introduction of a new device takes some planning and testing because I have a responsibility to the company to provide a stable and operational environment. The introduction of a Mac laptop into my environment is not smooth. Exchange and SharePoint support is so horrible that Mac users need to use a Fusion VM running Windows 7 to fully function.

However, while it is possible to be completely restrictive and be more like “The Man”, I feel that the best way to manage the user owned devices converging on my environment is more political.

- I encourage the business to adapt corporate policies addressing the need to not bring personal devices into the environment.

- I encourage the business to develop a stricter definition of who needs email outside of the office, partial compensation for use of personal devices OR providing a company owned and managed phone, and which devices are supported.

- Have an open and friendly dialogue with those users that approach IT for assistance with personal devices. Being honest and frank about not supporting devices, needing management approval, and being unsure as to the functionality/operation of the device goes a long way.

I love the idea of new devices and new technology in the workplace. But, I want the introduction to be more structured and tested.

Tom – Thanks for the awesome post. Definitely food for thought and got my wheels spinning!

© Bill for Gestalt IT, 2011. | BYO(a)D Reaction
Read more posts categorized as Desktop, Featured

The great battle of enterprise storage is on!

The time has come to take sides on the core question of storage for virtual servers: Do you want storage intelligence to live in the hypervisor or the array? Most administrators are already lining up on one side or the other, unintentionally casting their vote while the rest flounder. But the storage industry must wake up and embrace the divide.

Hypervisor Huggers Unite!

Do you “heart” virtualization?

VMware’s vSphere dominates the world of enterprise server virtualization and has become the core element of the modern open systems datacenter. Microsoft recognizes this but has been unable to field a competitive hypervisor ecosystem for the virtual datacenter. Today, vSphere is the state of the art and nowhere is this more apparent than in storage.

In just a few years, VMware has delivered and updated a host of advanced storage functionality, from provisioning to migration and load balancing to backup and data protection. vSphere 5 includes an advanced and scalable storage virtualization layer, delivering everything a datacenter needs. VMFS sculpts basic block storage into a shared resource for virtual machines, with snapshots, policy-based layout and movement, and flexible allocation and thin provisioning.

Most VMware administrators are “server guys” and relish these features. They have never experienced an automated “storage service” like this, and the enterprise storage world has never been able to construct anything remotely as flexible, user-friendly, and functional. And Hypervisor Huggers don’t need complex enterprise storage arrays to do it: They can use basic iSCSI or Fibre Channel devices to provide performance and capacity and let VMware do the rest!

Storage DRS is exemplary of the new virtual datacenter world. Introduced in vSphere 5 (and restricted to the pricey Enterprise Plus license), Storage DRS uses the core technology of Storage vMotion to dynamically balance I/O and capacity across a diverse pool of storage. Storage DRS even uses Policy-Driven Storage and VASA to enforce tiered storage and data placement strategy. This kind of virtualization has been a “holy grail” quest for the enterprise storage industry, but they’ve never delivered on their promises.

Cheers for Storage Stalwarts!

Do you wish all this virtualization nonsense would just go away?

But not every IT environment wants be 100% vSphere focused, and many aren’t convinced that dumb storage is the smartest place for their data. These Storage Stalwarts want smarter and better-integrated storage arrays, and VMware is innovating here as well.

VMware’s Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) technology is squarely aimed at this market. VAAI allows vSphere to hand off heavy storage operations to the high-end storage arrays from the major players. It works transparently, too, coordinating cloning without the kind of scripting and hair-pulling that used to require. VAAI in vSphere 4.1 also includes block zeroing support and something called “atomic test and set” which we’ll get to in a moment. Microsoft announced their own cloning integration, ODX, but it won’t ship until Windows Server 8 appears sometime next year.

But cloning is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Hypervisor-to-array integration. The rising army of NAS users have seen the glory of more-complete array integration for a while, and they’re not quiet about it. They love that VMware’s NFS protocol support makes storage “disappear” in vCenter, becoming just another resource with integrated thin provisioning and flexible allocation and movement.

VMware is moving aggressively to please their Storage Stalwarts, adding more VAAI support for block and file in vSphere 5. But, as the company laid out at VMworld 2011, neither access method is ideal for virtual servers. So VMware has been pushing the enterprise array vendors for ever-greater integration. They see a future where a VAAI-based protocol enables arrays to de-multiplex I/O streams from the hypervisor and intelligently handle per-VM data.

Stephen’s Stance

You can spot a Hypervisor Hugger by their big LUNs: They would rather treat storage as a bulk commodity, and array vendors should be lining up to get their business. Storage Stalwarts will jump on each new VMware innovation, finally making use of the capabilities they have spent over a decade paying for but not utilizing. The only untenable stance is trying to keep a foot in both worlds: It’s foolish to buy an enterprise array and use it as bulk storage!

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Are You a Hypervisor Hugger or a Storage Stalwart?
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Server Virtualization, Storage

The PXE environment components included with the VCVA are not configured and turned off by default. So, if you’re ready to configure your VCVA for PXE, time to roll up your sleeves, crack those knuckles, and get ready to get your hands dirty.

Before we get started, though, and little caution (and disclaimer so I can sleep better at night):

I know nothing about your environment. You are following these instructions at your own risk. This setup will impact DHCP functionality on your network. Follow these instructions at your own risk and make the appropriate adjustments to work in your environment.
Additionally, I do not know everything about everything. So, you are going to need to rely upon your sleuthing abilities to help resolve issues that may arise.

These instructions assume some knowledge of CLI-based file editing (vi). So, please research how to use it if you are unsure.

Overview

A PXE environment via the VCVA requires the following components in your environment

• DHCP server
• TFTP server
• Web Server (for kickstart scripts)
• SYSLINUX (for pxeboot.0)
• Access to an ESXi 5.0 installation CD (perhaps you created on using my Image Builder tutorial)
• vCenter Virtual Appliance deployed
• Blank server to PXE boot and install ESXi 5.0 on (aka – the client)
• ESXi 5.0 installation .ISO
• HTTP server on the network (for hosting kickstart files – customization during installation)

For this exercise:

• Network: 192.168.226.0/24
• VCVA: 192.168.226.21
• DHCP Range: 192.168.226.200 – 254
• Default Gateway: 192.168.226.1

Configuration

0 – Log into the appliance as ‘root’

1 – Configure DHCP

‘dhcpd‘ will listen to IP address requests, provide an IP to use, direct the client to the “next-server” to continue PXE booting, and which file (filename) to download from the server.

• cd /var/lib/dhcp/etc
• cp -a dhcpd.conf dhcpd.conf.orig
• vi dhcpd.conf

Once inside of the file, ensure the following exists (highlighted for your ease of identification)

ddns-update-style ad-hoc;
allow booting;
allow bootp;

#gPXE options
option space gpxe;
option gpxe-encap-opts code 175 = encapsulate gpxe;
option gpxe.bus-id code 177 = string;
class “pxeclients”{
match if substring(option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = “PXEClient”;
next-server 192.168.226.21;
filename “pxelinux.0″;
}
subnet 192.168.226.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.226.200 192.168.226.254;
}

Save the file and exit (hint: :wq)

2 – Configure TFTP

TFTP services are provided by the ‘atftpd’ daemon

• cd /etc/sysconfig
• cp –a atftpd atftpd.orig
• vi atftpd

Once inside the file adjust the “ATFTP_OPTIONS” line to read: “–daemon –user root”. Typically, the atftpd daemon runs as ‘nobody’. However, the TFTP root (/tftpboot/) is configured as owned by the ‘root’ user.

Save and exit the file.

3 – Get the SYSLINUX packages on the server

There is one package missing to make the PXE installation process work: ‘pxelinux.0′. ‘pxelinux.0‘ is an executable that is downloaded by the client in order to properly continue the PXE process (aka – download the files, execute the installer, etc…). ‘pxelinux.0‘ is provided by the SYSLINUX package. In order for PXE to work properly with the ESXi 5.0 installation, SYSLINUX version 3.86 (or higher) is needed.

• cd /tmp
• wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/3.xx/syslinux-3.86.tar.gz
• gunzip syslinux-3.86.tar.gz
• tar xvf syslinux-3.86.tar

Note: you can use YUM or copy the files to the server another way if you’d like. Regardless, get the files there. This example will continue to use the /tmp file as the landing area for the SYSLINUX files.

Copy the pxelinux.0 file to your TFTP root

• cp /tmp/syslinux-3.86/core/pxelinux.0 /tftpboot

4 – Prep the TFTP root for PXE

The TFTP root configured on the VCVA is located at /tftpboot. We are going to need to get the directory structure built out to support PXE.

• cd /tftpboot
• mkdir esxi50

By adding a directory, we are able to organize the TFTP server and support additional versions of ESXi going forward.

5 – Get the ESXi 5.0 CD contents onto the server

Seeing as the VCVA is a virtual appliance, it is easy to get the contents of the installation media onto the server.

• Mount the installation CD to the VCVA as a CD-ROM drive using the vSphere Client.
• mount /dev/cdrom /media
• cp –a /media* /tftpboot/esxi50/
• umount /dev/cdrom

6 – Configure PXELINUX

pxelinux is the utility that enables the PXE functionality. As mentioned before, pxelinux.0 is an executable that the server downloads. The executable provides functionality to parse a menu system, load kernels, options, customizations, modules, etc…, and boot the server. Since PXE can be used by multiple physical servers for multiple images, we need to configure pxelinux for this specific image.

• cd /tftpboot
• mkdir pxelinux.cfg
• cd pxelinux.cfg

pxelinux.0 looks for configuration files in the TFTP:/pxelinux.cfg directory.

pxelinux looks for a large number of configuration files… specific to a default/generic value. This allows server administrators to define a file based on a complete MAC address, partial MAC address, or none at all to determine which image to boot from. Since this is the first configuration on the VCVA, we are going to configure a default. Do your research if you want to adjust this from the default value.

The installation media contains a file called isolinux.cfg. We can use this as the basis for our file called ‘default’. Copy it from the installation media and start customizations:

• cp –a /tftpboot/esxi50/isolinux.cfg default
• chmod a+w default
• vi default

Ensure the appropriate lines match the following lines:

DEFAULT /esxi50/menu.c32
KERNEL /esxi50/mboot.cfg
APPEND -c /esxi50/boot.cfg

Save and Exit

7 – Configure the Kickstart file

Using a kickstart file, we can configure ESXi 5.0 automatically during installation. This requires that a file be placed on a server that is available to the client.  Sadly, the HTTP areas on the VCVA are not readily available… and, they may be erased during future upgrades. So, we need to use an external HTTP server somewhere on your network. (Note: NFS and FTP are options as well).

Add the following contents:

# Accept the EULA
vmaccepteula

#Set root password
rootpw supersecretpassword

#Install on first local disk
install –firstdisk –overwritevmfs

#Config initial network settings
network –bootproto=dhcp –device=vmnic0

 

In this example, we are saving the file to:

• HTTP Server: 192.168.226.1
• Directory: ks
• File: esxi50.txt
• URL: http://192.168.226.1/ks/esxi50.txt

8 – Configure the installation files

The CD installation media for ESXi 5.0 assumes a single installation point. Thus, all the files are placed at the root of the image. However, since we want to actually organize our installation root, we added the ‘/tftpboot/esxi50‘ directory and copied the files into it. We need to adjust the installation files in /tftpboot/esxi50 to reflect the change.

• cd /tftpboot/esxi50
• cp -a boot.cfg boot.cfg.orig
• vi boot.cfg
• Using the following picture as reference, add “/esxi50” to the paths for ‘kernel’ and ‘modules’

Save and quit

9 – Restart services to load the service configurations and configure to start with server

• /etc/init.d/dhcpd restart
• /etc/init.d/atftpd restart
• chkconfig –add dhcpd
• chkconfig –add atftpd

10 – Take a break

You made it this far… great job. At this time, we have configured DHCP, TFTP, pxelinux, copied installation media to the TFTP root, and configured the installation for our organizational purposes.

11 – Start your host and install away

[BELOW] Reading the Kickstart Script. No need to enter customization info anymore.

[BELOW] Checking contents of Kickstart file. You will see errors here if errors in file.

© Bill for Gestalt IT, 2011. | vSphere 5–PXE Installation Using vCenter Virtual Appliance
Read more posts categorized as All, Featured, Server Virtualization, Top Story

EMC FAST

EMC FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) is actually a suite made of of two different products. the first, called FAST Cache operates by keeping a copy of “hot” blocks of data on SSD drives. In effect it acts as a very fast disk cache for data that is currently being accessed while the data itself is being stored on either 15K SAS or 7200 RPM NL-SAS (SATA) drives.

FAST Cache provides the ability to improve the performance of SATA drives, as well as to turbo charge the performance of fiber channel and SAS drives as well. In general, this kind of technology helps to divide performance from spindle count, which helps drive down the number of drives required for many workloads, thus driving down the cost of storage, and the overall TCO of storage.

The other product in the FAST suite is FAST Virtual Pool.  This is the product that most people associate with FAST since it is the one that leverages  three different disk technologies, SSD, high speed drives such as 15K RPM SAS, and slower high capacity drives such as 7200 RPM NL-SAS. By placing only data that requires high speed access on the SSD drives, data that is receiving a moderate amount of access on the 15K SAS drives, and putting the rest on the slower, high capacity disks EMC FAST is able to drive the TCO of storage downward.

NetApp FlashCache

NetApp approaches the overall issue of improved performance while simultaneously driving down the TCO of storage in a different way. NetApp believes that using fewer disks to store the same amount of data is the best way to drive down TCO. Therefore NetApp has spent a significant amount of time developing storage efficiency tools to help their customer’s store more data in less space.  For example, they developed a variant of RAID-6 called RAID-DP which provides the protection and performance of RAID-10, while utilizing significantly less space. NetApp has also developed block level de-duplication which can be utilized with primary production data.

However, as with many technologies of this type there could be a performance penalty paid for it’s utilization. Therefore, Netapp needed to develop a way to improve the performance if it’s arrays while also supporting it’s storage efficiency technology. With the advent of Flash memory, Netapp found a way to do this without any need for significant changes in the architecture of it’s arrays. Thus was born FlashCache.

FlashCahce provides a secondary read cache for hot blocks of data. This proves a way to separate performance from spindle count,  and thus not only allows workloads intended for Fiber Channel or SAS drives to potentially run on SATA drives, but it also addresses some of the performance issues with the storage efficiency technologies that NetApp developed. For example, with FlashCache utilized in a virtual desktop environment Netapp de-duplication allows many individual Windows images to be represented in a very small footprint on disk. However a problem arrises when a large numer of desktops all try to access their Windows image at once. However with the addition of FlashCache, most, if not all of the Windows image would end up being storage in Flash memory, thus avoiding the performance issue of a boot storm, virus checking storm, etc.

Conclusion

Both EMC and Netapp have developed ways to help both improve the performance, and drive the TCO of storage downward. the two vendors approached the problem is somewhat different ways, but in the end they have both solved the problem in unique and effective ways.

The NetApp technology requires that the user buy-in completely to the NetApp vision of storage efficiency. If the user ignores the advantages of de-dupication in particular, or has data or workloads  that simply don’t allow for the application of the NetApp storage efficiency technology then the TCO saving that NetApp promises will not be achieved. Utilizing FlashCache to seperate performance from spindle count is also critical in maintaining the performance of the array. This separation of performance from spindle count also in and of itself drives dwn the number ofd drives needed to support a workload, and thus also drives down the TCO.

The EMC technology requires a very good understanding of your application workloads, and careful planning and sizing of the different tiers of storage. EMC could do more to make the two sub-products work together so that a single solution could provide both the TCO and the performance improvements at the same time. However, EMC FAST is a product that provides the TCO improvement promised, and doe it with a clean and elegant solution.

Finally, a little on the future. With the cost of Flash memory coming down 50% year over year, it will soon reach the same price point that we currently see 15K HDD’s at. Once that happens one has to wonder what role 15K HHDs will fill? If 15K HDDs are, indeed, squeezed out of existence by this reduction in the price of Flash memory, what purpose will 3 tiered automated storage tiering fill? Or, will the future simply be 2 tiers of storage, one that provides bulk capacity, and one that accelerates the performance of this bult capacity? if that predication is correct, then FAST VP will have a limited life, and FAST Cache and FlashCache will be the longer surviving technology.

© Joerg Hallbauer for Gestalt IT, 2011. | EMC FAST and NetApp FlashCache a Comparison
Read more posts categorized as All, Featured, Storage, Top Story

Sure there is a need for the experience of IT, rebuilding Windows systems (or the OS of your choice) for family and friends will get you started and maybe taking some classes at the community college to get an idea of what all the funky acronyms mean (and finding out that they are all different when you know them) might be something to consider as well.  But what does the new to IT talent need to understand to be comfortable in this business?  This post is going to try and point some of that out, maybe some of the things I wish I would have known when I started out too, just for good measure.

Be careful what you wish for

In any new career path there are bells and whistles that you see from the outside that get you very interested in what might be going on.  Sure there may be some IT pros making gobs of money and doing all kinds of fun things, but you need to be realistic about your own expectations.  Sure you need to get paid, everyone has to eat, but be careful about the amount of work you tackle for the money coming in.  If you set your own rate, be fair but not too cheap.  Sure you can get a lot of potential clients  with a low rate, but you need to evaluate them just like they evaluate you. Making sure the customers are worth your time is a good idea.

Find things you like

Maybe there is a technology that you just like to work with, regardless of how much you use it at a particular organization.  If this is the case, continue to do what you can to learn the technology. Maybe these things become a hobby, but having something that keeps you motivated to keep learning is a great way to start.

For me, at least lately, Windows NT Permissions and Privileges are that thing… this week.  Next week it will likely be something different.

Most of the IT Pros I know live, eat, and breathe some portion of their career.  A particular area they excel in or just plain like is something they cannot get enough of.  I am not sure I have found that specific of an area (other than technology in general).  Maybe being a generalist isn’t quite as bad as it seems, but having some piece of tech that you find fun is always good.

Ask for help if you need it

You cannot know everything there is to know about technology.  Sure you can know a lot about a few technologies.  If you encounter something that you don’t quite understand or need clarification, ASK!  With all of the communication tools available on the Internet, finding someone who can help you is really not as hard as you might think.  Twitter and Linked in are great places to start.

The trouble is knowing when to step back and understand that your brain is not going to produce the knowledge that you don’t have.  I am not trying to imply that these things cannot be learned, but this comes from studying, mentoring, trial and error (of which, hopefully there will be a good amount).

One other thing

Another thing that seems to help me learn things, teaching others.  Sure it takes practice and can be a bit of work, but having the guts to help others is a step in the right direction.  Maybe there are people in the room who have more knowledge than you might, but there is something about getting up in front of the room is good for both sides.  The person on the stage wins just for being up there.  Not to mention there are tons of networking opportunities with those who attend your session(s).

The bottom line is to experiment with technologies and try to learn something new and interesting to you. It will pay off likely in more ways than one.

© derek for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Getting your feet wet in IT
Read more posts categorized as All, Featured

Ekahau and MetaGeek are working together to bring Wi-Fi site surveying and spectrum analysis to the masses in a portable format

The most interesting products and companies at Interop Las Vegas 2011 were found around the edges of the show floor. Companies like NEC, Synology, Ciphertex, and Endace may have gone unnoticed in the shadows of towering booths of the industry titans but deserve attention. One such pairing was two Wi-Fi analysis companies, MetaGeek and Ekahau. Both work together to enable spectrum analysis and site surveying on portable devices – smart phones and tablets.

MetaGeek Makes Spectrum Accessible

One of my personal favorite presentations at Wireless Field Day in March was the awesome startup tale told by Ryan Woodings, founder of MetaGeek. While working on a wireless mouse dongle, Ryan and company noticed RF interference and turned lemons into lemonade: They repurposed the USB dongle as a spectrum analyzer and started a company to make this formerly esoteric technology accessible.

Although MetaGeek’s Wi-Spy is nowhere near as full-featured as the big guys, it’s far more accessible at 1/10 the cost. It’s cheap enough that a home hobbyist could pick one up as a way to learn about Wi-Fi and 2.4 and 5 GHz wireless spectrum. And the Windows software is easy enough that even a storage guy like me could figure out that my home Wi-Fi router was on the wrong channel.

At Tech Field Day, Ryan wowed the crowd with an early peek at an iPad app to interact with Wi-Spy captures. I ran into Ryan at Interop, and he showed me a more-polished version of that app, promising it would hit the App Store soon. He also hinted that an iPhone version would follow, and showed off email and Dropbox integration.

Ekahau Site Survey: Laptop to Android

MetaGeek had a guest in their booth from another company I’d heard of from my Wi-Fi engineer friends: Ekahau makes site survey products for laptops and was talking about an Android version as well. Ekahau’s Mobile Survey supports a variety of Android devices, including the popular Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola Droid.

Stephen’s Stance

Wireless Field Day exposed me to a whole new world of enterprise IT. The wireless engineers there spend days roaming through corporate facilities doing site surveys, planning Wi-Fi access point installations, and troubleshooting connectivity and interference. Most use Windows laptops, but it’s exciting to think that Apple iPhones and iPads and Android phones and tablets may also be used in the future. These devices are much more portable, with great battery life and interactive screens. And it looks like MetaGeek and Ekahau are leading the way. I can’t wait to get an update from these companies at Wireless Field Day 2 in early 2012!

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2011. | MetaGeek and Ekahau: Wi-Fi Analysis To Go
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Networking

However, deduplication is slowly sneaking into new areas of IT… and we are seeing more and more benefit elsewhere. Backup clients, backup servers, primary storage, and who-knows-where in the future.

As deduplication is being deployed across the IT world, the technology continues to advance and become quicker and more efficient. So, in order to try and stay on top of your game, knowing a little about the techniques for deduplication may add another tool in your tool belt and allow you to make a better decision for your company/clients.

Deduplication is accomplished by sharing common blocks of data on storage environments and only storing the changes to the data versus storing a copy of the data AGAIN! This allows for some significant storage savings… especially when you consider that many of file changes are minor adjustments versus major data loads (at least as far as corporate IT user data).

So, how is this magic accomplished? – Great question, I am glad you asked! Enter Fixed Block deduplication and Variable Block deduplication…

Fixed Block deduplication involves determining a block size and segmenting files/data into those block sizes. Then, those blocks are what are stored in the storage subsystem.

Variable Block deduplication involves using algorithms to determine a variable block size. The data is split based on the algorithm’s determination. Then, those blocks are stored in the subsystem.

Check out the following example based on the following sentence: “deduplication technologies are becoming more an more important now.”

Notice how the variable block deduplication has some funky block sizes. While this does not look too efficient compared to fixed block, check out what happens when I make a correction to the sentence. Oops… it looks like I used ‘an’ when it should have been ‘and’. Time to change the file: “deduplication technologies are becoming more and more important now.”  File –> Save

After the file was changed and deduplicated, this is what the storage subsystem saw:

The red sections represent the changed blocks that have changed. By adding a single character in the sentence, a ‘d’, the sentence length shifted and more blocks suddenly changed. The Fixed Block solution saw 4 out of 9 blocks changed. The Variable Block solution saw 1 out of 9 blocks changed. Variable block deduplication ends up providing a higher storage density.

Now, if you determine you have something doing fixed block deduplication, don’t go and return it right now. It probably rocks and you are definitely seeing value in what you have. However, if you are in the market for something that deduplicates data, it is not going to hurt to ask the vendor if they use fixed block or variable block deduplication. You should find that you get better density and maximize your storage purchase even more.

Happy storing!

© Bill for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Fixed Block vs Variable Block Deduplication – A Quick Primer
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Storage

The Tech Field Day staff have added live streaming from Tech Field Day 5 in San Jose this week.

Tech Field Day always includes innovative companies and sometimes sees launches, but it’s rare to have a company launch itself at an event like this. Nimble Storage was successful in using our 2010 Seattle event as their springboard, and remote data protection newcomer Druva followed their lead this week.

Druva is not as new a company as the “launch” nomenclature indicates. The company has spent years building a data protection product, inSync, for remote enterprise PCs and already boasts hundreds of customers. The company is profitable and successful already, but decided to come to the United States and initiate a growth effort.

The Druva staff felt that the influential delegates invited to Tech Field Day 5 would be key to achieving notice in the crowded enterprise IT market, and their February 10 presentation was the first time the company engaged with this audience.

Following the Druva presentation, W. Curtis Preston and I met with Jaspreet Singh, co-founder and CEO of Druva to discuss the product and the market.

A 30-day trial of inSync is available for download if you would like to try it out.

The entire presentation is embedded below.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2011. | Druva Launches at Tech Field Day 5
Read more posts categorized as Desktop, Exclusive, Featured, Storage, Top Story