Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

Dell EqualLogic Auto-Replication and VMware Site Recovery Manager

Oooo, more new stuff for EqualLogic customers!  Now if only GCC were using VI3...

Dell EqualLogic Auto-Replication and VMware Site Recovery Manager

Simple, Affordable, Automated Disaster Recovery

New Solutions for Automated Site Recovery from Dell and VMware: The virtual infrastructure enabled by Dell EqualLogic and VMware VI3 technologies now automate disaster recovery planning and execution by natively integrating the PS Series Auto-Replication feature directly into VMware’s Site Recovery Manager software.
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is a new product that is tightly integrated with Dell EqualLogic PS Series to offer centralized disaster recovery management, automation, and testing for the entire virtualized datacenter. Using the PS Series’ native Auto-Replication feature integrated directly into Site Recovery Manager using specialized storage adapter software storage adapter software.  MORE

Honey, there's a SAN in our dinning room!?

Thanks to Alan Hunt and VR6 Systems, this is the view tonight from my dinning room.  Shouldn't every home have an EqualLogic SAN? :-)

Wife says this is not an acceptable location, but I just had to fire it up tonight to "play" ... it'll travel back and forth between several locations while we run various tests.

More details and who/what/why/how to follow ...

EqualLogic App-aware Snaps for Exchange

Tasty features coming for EqualLogic users!  I've been under NDA on this, but it's now free to air news :-)

Round Rock, Texas, April 28, 2008

• In a move that further enhances the Dell EqualLogic^TM  PS5000 Series as the midrange SAN of choice for Microsoft^®  Exchange Server, Dell is announcing Auto-Snapshot Manager Smart Copy for Exchange as the latest in a series of “application-aware” snapshot, cloning and data replication capabilities. This application awareness can simplify how IT application specialists can work with PS Series SANs to help improve data protection, disaster recovery and testing-and-development procedures. Smart Copy enhances the PS Series’ host integration capabilities to help reduce the amount of time IT administrators spend managing and protecting Windows^® -based business applications. In the case of Exchange, Smart Copy allows administrators to easily automate data validation checks and quickly recover from data loss or corruption. The first Smart Copy feature was announced for Microsoft SQL Server^®  in July 2007 (press release), furthering the Dell EqualLogic product line’s integration with Microsoft environments and helping to improve the speed and reliability of database and file recovery operations.
• “The Smart Copy feature set is yet another way the PS Series is simplifying storage and enhancing Dell’s overall vision of simplifying IT,” said Kevin Wittmer, senior manager, product marketing, for Dell EqualLogic storage solutions. “Evolving Smart Copy to include Exchange data protection and recovery is part of our initiative to make PS Series storage more application aware. This can empower application administrators by putting sophisticated data management and protection features at their fingertips – at no additional cost – in a safe and easy to-use package.”
• Smart Copy for Exchange will be available in May at no extra cost with all new purchases of Dell EqualLogic PS5000 Series iSCSI SAN storage arrays and for all existing PS Series customers under warranty or with a current support agreement.

Others related links:

EqualLogic and Exchange

EqualLogic and SQL

Want more info on EqualLogic Storage?  Contact VR6 Systems 

Our VMware Server Host Whitebox Servers

A couple people have asked about the specs on our whitebox Intel servers after the various webinars and presentations Ed and I have done.  It's been almost a year so I'd forgotten the exact specs myself ... a quick dig through my email and here's the dope...

But first here's the back story on these boxes.  Over a year ago we built 2 of these Intel workstations for video editing work running XP 64bit ... I think 1 box had 4GB ram and the other had 2GB and just a single processor.  After several months of fighting strange 64bit driver issues I yanked these boxes from production and bought 2 Dell Precision workstations for our guys.  This left us with 2 identical Intel boxes with lots of grunt.  Oddly enough it's about this time we were maxing out our aged servers with all the VM's we were placing on them.  So we loaded up each Intel box with 16GB ram and added a proc so they were both dual dual-core boxes ... the hope was that these would make great VMware Server host servers.  To take advantage of all the ram we bought Server 2003 64bit as the host OS.

Here are the specs:

- Intel Server Chassis SC5299WS - Tower - 6U - dual 670 Watt PS - black

- Intel Workstation Board S5000XVN - LGA771 Socket - IDE/Serial ATA-300 (RAID)

- Processor - 2 x Intel Dual-Core Xeon 5150 / 2.66 GHz - LGA771 Socket - L2 4 MB ( 2 x 2 MB )

- Kingston ValueRAM - Memory - 4 x 4 GB ( 16GB total ) - FB-DIMM - DDR II - 667 MHz - CL5 - 1.8 V - fully buffered - ECC

- Western Digital WD2500YS - 2 x 250 GB - 16MB buffer - 7200 rpm - RAID 1

 

~ $4400 each (with today's RAM prices these would cost significantly less)

One of the boxes had a goofy mobo so we got that replaced and since then these 2 have been solid workhorses for us.  Would I purposely build a whitebox server if given the choice?  Hmm, that's a tough call ... pros/cons on both sides ... that'll make a good future post.  Next time we need new server gear we'll look at Intel, HP and Dell.

These 2 servers drive almost all our production needs ... and all our VM's live on the 2 EqualLogic PS100E's (pictured above the servers).  We've been running the free VMware Server offering for over 2 years now and it's it's been a rock.  We may someday upgrade to VI3/ESX, but so far the free product has worked so well it's hard to justify paying for anything :-)

EqualLogic Lunch and Learn Friday 2/22 postponed

In case you were not already contacted directly, the Lunch and Learn we had scheduled for tomorrow (2/22) at GCC has been postponed to a later date.

Most Powerful Telescope Ever - will consume 30TB of data nightly!

Think you have data storage issues?

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University physicists and computer scientists are part of a national project to create the most powerful telescope ever constructed. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will capture a 10-square-degree field of view - 3,100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope's - and will include the largest digital camera ever constructed with 3,200-megapixels [that's over 3 Gigapixels!].

On Jan. 3, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope partnership announced a $20 million gift from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and $10 million from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. It is estimated that $389 million will be needed for the telescope's construction.

"In just its first week of operation, LSST will survey a volume of the universe larger than all previous telescopes combined," said Shipsey, who also is a member of the project's camera construction team. "Over 10 years it will continuously search the universe for change and evolution, making an unprecedented 3-D movie of the universe - the greatest movie ever. the telescope will produce 30 terabytes of data per night that dedicated data facilities will process in real time. "LSST will catalog 10 billion galaxies and 10 billion stars, creating 60 petabytes of astronomical image data, which is equivalent to 100 million CDs, and a 30-petabyte database," he said. "Analyzing this data in real time and making it available to the public is an enormous computing challenge."

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is designed to be a public facility. The database and resulting catalogs will be made available to the community at large with no proprietary restrictions. A sophisticated data-management system will provide easy access to enable simple queries from individual professional and amateur users, as well as computationally intensive scientific investigations that utilize the entire database.  Read full article.

Thanks to Tom Templin for the heads up on this.

Steak And Array

Tonight Alan Hunt of VR6 Systems drove down to GCC to help us get our newest EqualLogic PS100E array into production.  Alan didn't have to come 3.5 hrs to help us with this, but he really wanted to come and make sure everything went smooth with the firmware upgrade of our current PS100E and then joining the two units together.  I love it when vendors go above and beyond!

Alan arrived around 4:30 and since all our VM's live on the SAN we couldn't do any real work until 5:30pm ... when our maintenance window starts.  So we chatted a bit then decided to grab a bite to eat before digging in.  When I asked Alan where he'd like to eat he pointed across our parking lot to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.  I let him know that I've heard that RCS is quite salty price wise ... but he insisted ... and who am I to say no to a free steak!  I was pumped!  I figured I'd never get a change to eat at CRS unless someone else took me ... I would have to wait no more :-)

We arrived at 5 right as they were opening ... and from the minute we arrived we were treated like special guests.  Service staff were amazing.  Our waiter Chris was very gracious to us newbies and explained everything in great detail.  Ed and I both went for a NY Strip and a salad ... remember we're watching our diet :-)

Oh my goodness, the streak was amazingly good ... it comes to you on a super hot plate still sizzling away.  I meant to take a picture, but it was so good I couldn't focus on anything else ;-)  The three of us had a great meal and even greater conversation around storage technologies and just life in general.  It was great to get to know the person "behind" the salesman.

Once we were stuffed, did I mention how awesome this steak was?, we headed back and started powering everything down.  We had to move a few items around in the rack to make room for the new array and we soon had it racked up.  We up'd the firmware on the old array then powered on the new.  After maybe 5 minutes of configs the two arrays saw each other and began distributing data between them ... yes, it's just that easy to add another array into your storage pool.  So we doubled our storage to 4.36TB and doubled(?) our performance from 3 to 6 controllers.  w00t!

Again, a huge thanks to Alan for spending the evening with us ... this is a partnership I look forward to growing.  If you're looking at storage you really should contact Alan.  We also talked a length about Data Domain for offsite storage/deduplication ... but that'll have to wait for a future post.

Here's a few cruddy pics from the cam phone ...

Alan and Ed working on firmware update

I'm trying to get Ed to "strike a pose" and he can't stop laughing ... who knew inserting drives into an array was so hilarious ;-)

 
The twins

2 servers and 2 arrays ... this is the core of our network ... 20+ virtual servers live on this storage and run on either of the 2 physical servers.  It's amazing that just 3 years ago to do the same would have required an entire rack of servers producing gobs of heat and requiring loads of electricity.  Thank goodness for VMware Server!

EqualLogic Lunch and Learn at GCC Feb 22

Interested in learning more about EqualLogic, SANs, VMware?  Do you like free lunch?

Come join us Feb 22nd at Granger Community Church to get the dope on

all the above from Alan Hunt of VR6 Systems and PJ and Jack of EqualLogic.

We'll prob meet around noon and chat into the afternoon.

Interested?  Leave a comment and I'll get ya more deets as they're available.

Some More EqualLogic Love

New EqualLogic PS100E arrived at GCC last week while I was on break.  We'll wait until we get back from Sharepoint training to fire this bad boy up :-)

Dell buys EqualLogic

Ed and I were supposed to be meeting with our EqualLogic reps today, but that's been pushed back to tomorrow due to this surprising news (at least to Ed and I) ...

ROUND ROCK, Texas (AP) -- Computer maker Dell Inc. said Monday it agreed to buy data storage systems provider EqualLogic Inc. for $1.4 billion in cash to strengthen its position in the growing virtualization market.

I hope this is a good thing.  EqualLogic is one of my favorite companies, Dell better not screw it up ;-)

I guess tomorrow we'll find out more info on what that means for customers like us.