Innovative Infrastructure

OpenSolaris with Linux usability?

2009-11-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

Well, you read it. My good colleague suggested this for a storage appliance

http://www.nexenta.org/

ZFS, nice... When they include dedupe, even nicer! Now I've just gotta remember what other alternative storage platforms are out there...

2009-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Some links...:

http://vmwaretraining.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-of-vcp4-exam.html

http://www.thinkvirtually.co.uk

Distributed Resource Scheduler

2009-04-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

I'm getting to grips with this today... I'm a little excited and a little disappointed... So that's what all the fuss is about? Ok, to be fair... I've only have two hosts and a not very many guests running. I'm trying to get all my idle operating systems to generate some load so DRS will make it's recommendations. Screenshot above, recommending me to shift a VM to my other box... I've not figured out HA just yet.

VMotion, open source NAS, NFS rantings

2009-04-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

Got VMotion working after a few teething problems with mounted CD/iso images on my guest OS. Now, the real problem was actually this: The guest-mounted iso's where stored on a NFS share, not shared by both ESX hosts.

Anyway. Using lefthandnetworks iSCSI appliance (in a VM of course) to host the shared storage of my guest worked very well. It was so easy to set up. Unmounted the iso's and VMotion worked a treat. It missed two pings when migrating using high priority.

My setup is a bit cheap at best (and I've purchased a gigabit switch, just waiting for delivery); for storage networking I have two NICs and two subnets in my Windows PC, and each of my ESX hosts attached to one, and mounted the same NFS share. Since ESX mounts it using different IP addresses, each host does not consider it the same storage... I've since then, bridged the NICs (Windows terminology) and everything is on the same subnet, fixed the NFS shares on each host, meaning I should be able to VMotion guests that have mounted an iso.

After becoming familiar with lefthandnetworks iSCSI appliance, I've become aware of two other interesting free NAS filer projects, they be:

www.freenas.org

www.openfiler.org

To cut it short, OpenFiler is claiming to be opensource but charge for the documentation, it's Linux based. FreeNas is 100% open source, more mature, BSD based... During my battles with Windows Services for Unix NFS implementation (I can't work out how to force async writes, and it doesn't work well with SATA drives, I read a lot) I also read that NFS on BSD type *nix performs better than Linux - lots of people complaining about sluggish performance of Linux NFS servers.

http://www.lifeessay.com/it/nas/freenas-vs-openfiler-the-better-choice/

My primary interest in NFS is to do with it's potential as shared storage for VMware - with the advent of 10Gbit networks, NFS becomes a viable alternative to FC and iSCSI. But only if it's not sluggish... It is said NetApp's NFS implementation is excellent and very fast - and right enough, ONTAP is based on FreeBSD.

I know it's sad, but I'm really excited about getting the NetApp/ONTAP simulator up and running.

All the very best

Jesper

Messing about with iSCSI

2009-04-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

i had some time at work today, and figured I'd check on some of the groups I'm subscribed to in Linkedin... A well informed chap in the IT Core Infrastructure group, mentioned he used Open Filer, from well... www.openfiler.com.. I will defo take a look. On the home front, I've setup my lefthand iSCSI appliance on vmware server, but I'm probably going to get the ESX version as my workstations disk is too slow. But I have managed to install Windows 2003 in a VM using the shared iSCSI storage. It's a little too easy sometimes.

Annoyingly, now also (see earlier post on MS virtual server) vmware server is using a funny (unstable) web interface that didn't work well with any of my browsers. I uninstalled vmware server 2 and got the latest edition of 1, and it's flawless... Thank God they keep earlier versions available.

Sorted. Second DL380 in the house.

2009-03-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

I was a little suspicious when I was on my way to Maidenhead to pick up my bargain server on Saturday at 7am... Traffic was a breeze, didn't even bother with all my smart*rse shortcuts through Fulham & Hammersmith. When I won it, I first email seller to ask if he wants cash or paypal. He didn't respond. 24hrs later I was contacted by an ebayer who had also bid on his items, but communication hadn't worked out and he never got his stuff (a server presumably). Bless him. I decided to pay up with Paypal immediately after reading this email, to force the seller into the deal and to avoid the seller saying oh you didn't pay. It worked. If you don't what to do: RAP.

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

2009-03-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

I need to run some VM's outside my DL380 and thought I'd give Microsoft Virtual Server a go. Got the latest download, set it up, and installing Windows Server 2003. It's come as far as formatting 20% of the hard disk and now stuck for 5 minutes with no indication is might continue. Less impressive than VMware version 1, which I used on Windows NT about a decade ago. VMware never let me down, not even in those days. But this MS VS, beggars belief... Remote management through an ActiveX control in IE! It is worse than Raritans remote console software!

Setup is formatting... Forever stuck at 20% under MS Virtual Server latest edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 NFS and ESX

2009-03-08T04:35:00.000-07:00

Yo. Just a quick update before I go to work. My purchase of Gbit NICs so far has fixed my problem: I had a NFS share on Windows Server 2003 R2, which I got working relatively well. On 100Mbit (through a hub, so half duplex as well), I tried to configure a hard disk in a VM. It was impossible to format this hard disk within the VM (Windows 2003 again). With my flashy new £6 Gbit NIC, I'm now able to format the disk, and it works pretty well. So, what I've done is, wired the second NIC of my DL380 to a the new Gbit NIC in my Windows Server. Removed the old NFS share configuration via the VI client, and added the NFS configuration. The only catch was that I had to restart the Windows NFS daemons (user name mapping and server for NFS namely). Now I am just waiting for my second DL380 to turn up, then I can do some serious home work... God bless who ever reads this.

Ebaying for bargains on a saturday night.

2009-03-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

Ha! Got a DL380 G3 with 4GB RAM, 2 x 3.20GHZ CPU & 2 X 36GB HDD... For the meager sum of £41, and in Maidenhead, so I can pick it up on my way to or from work...! Saaaw-weet!

Some useful links in relation to VMware

2009-03-07T11:47:00.001-08:00

London VMware users group: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/emea/london

VMware questions for VI3 http://www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=15947

Stuff to know for the test http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/1714/VCP3.5Blueprint.PDF

Excellent blog... NetApp emulation, SRM, hot sh*t... http://www.holy-vm.com/

VMware Certified?

2009-03-07T10:28:00.001-08:00

VCP is the way to go, that is now decided. I'm gathering my sh*t and preparing for it. So far, bought a DL380 G3, added some memory and installed ESX3.5, VirtualCenter, deliberately installed 3.5 no update, so I could patch it up by hand.

Patching ESX by hand first seemed difficult... I thought I was struggling with the format of the update repository, and then with the esxupdate command. But I was doing fine all along.. Just that it didn't click until I figured out I needed contents.zip from the very top of the patch download page http://support.vmware.com/selfsupport/download/

http://download3.vmware.com/software/esx/ESX-3.5.0-contents.zip

Today I'm reading through some blogs. Bidding on another DL380 G3 server later on ebay later on. Found out that lefthandnetworks has what appears to be a great iSCSI SAN emulator. I was going to use StarWind from rocketsolutions, but their demo only allows for a 2GB size lun. What a great way to discourage any serious users from trialing the software. I shall be using lefthand, not StarWind, that you can count on http://www.lefthandnetworks.com/vsa_eval.aspx.

I got that idea from here http://day2dayadmin.blogspot.com/2008/12/passing-vcp.html

So, if all goes well, I'll be the owner of two DL380 G3's before long. One cost around £100, with one or two 72GB drives. I was going to buy a managed switch (supports vlans). I want gigabit copper, but they're so bloody expensive. So to get my NFS "SAN" going, I've bought some cheap 1Gb NICs and will try to use them as my VMFS store connectivity to another machine with NFS exports...

That aside, I'm going back reading blogs... Bye for now.

Funny old world

2009-01-24T07:51:00.000-08:00

So, here I am again, blogging, FROM WORK! The day after my first blog, I landed a brilliant contract, at a reputable digital media management company... Maybe I'm lucky, or maybe it was just that I applied for every Wintel role on jobserve every day. I don't know. But it taught me not to give up... All I know is that I still get phone calls about work, mostly permanent work, and a few have been of particular interest. I've made my mind up about what technologies I want to work with, namely VMware, storage, and possibly Exchange, and it somewhat seems to sink in with the people I speak with. I've nearly completed my first book on VMware, my £80 DL380G3 is running, with ESX3.5 installed, and looking to get VirtualCenter and some monitoring up soon'ish... I've also installed RedHat, and planning to get the NetApp Ontap emulator running in a guest some time soon. Thank God, I seem to be doing ok.

How to pick up work then....

2009-01-05T08:54:00.000-08:00

So here I am. Out of work, applying for contracts and permanent roles every morning through jobserve, and attending a few interviews here and there. Nothing that truly excites me so far. My wish is to set up my own business or become a very successful IT contractor. But I'm struggling with focusing on one thing at a time, and in particular struggling with belief in my abilities... I'm not struggling with ideas. I am knee deep in potential ideas, in fact, I'd say, I'm up to my third eye in ideas; they never seem to blossom however. This is the cusp of where I'm at.

I've just realised, that in order to get on the contract market 100% I now need to work like a recruiter... Screw the job boards. That is, I me myself and I, have to do business development, when I'm out of work AND when I'm in work. Cold, luke warm, hot calls and emails, siphoning the internet and my network for contacts, yes, networking for my sick grandmother... Hey... Sounds like fun, yet incredible daunting... What do I do????

This blog, will be about my efforts from here on... It will be about me, about my work, about technology that excites me or baffles me, recruitment, contracting, networking, my projects...