Hi,

Recently I had to use the support of two different vendors we have started using more in the last year or so.

I have had my share of dealing with support at random large enterprise software and hardware vendors. And I have had my share of “uhh…have you turned it on and off again” with a 50000$ server. Which I was not so willing to reboot just so a first level support agent could go through his script (yes, I am a evil customer!).

So, the first case was with a hardware vendor. I had mentally prepared my self for a fight with first level support. I opened a case, gave them as much detail as I could and went on with my day.
In about 30 minutes someone contacted me (this was not a system down issue so I just opened up a “normal” ticket) and gave me access to a site where I could upload the relevant hardware logs. Around 20 minutes later I got a response from a very knowledgeable person which gave me a solution. Case closed in less then two hours.

Another case I had recently was that I have been installing and configuring new machines to host our databases. I had a question that I needed to get an answer for so I could finish building out the master which I would use to duplicate to our new fancy database virtual machines.
My experience with our previous OS vendor for our database servers have been horrible, slow responses and pretty much all had the classic “have you tried to turn it off and on again”. So, a case was opened where I layed out my question. Again, I prepared my self for loads and loads of script-based answers and even pretty much gave up any hope that I would get some answers.
Well, to say the least I got a reply in about two hours asking for some more info, and after providing the info I had a well backed answer from a very knowledgeable person in another 20-30 minutes. This was a support ticket with a very low priority.

My faith in support has been restored. HP and Oracle, keep up the good work!

Bgrds,
Finnur

I have been going through the Oracle VM feature set.

As a virtualization solution it actually looks pretty good. The cost is in the lower end and it seems pretty feature complete.

But there is one thing missing…one huge feature.

VM snapshot based backups. I’m betting that if they would throw a API for taking snapshot based backups and make a deal with Veeam to support it this would actually make quite a lot of system administrators take a harder look at using Oracle VM for at least some projects (i.e, virtualizing Oracle applications).

From my standpoint this is my biggest issue. Oracle has already gotten servers from multiple vendors certified (hcl) and it seems that Oracle is playing nicely with the larger hardware vendors (IBM/Lenovo, HP, Cisco).

Oracle – your techs might want to take a hard look at this feature – this will actually help you guys gain larger market share in data center virtualization!

Just my two cents!

Bgrds,
Finnur

I was doing some googling around Oracle VM and found some nice tutorials at unixarena.com.

If you are looking at Oracle VM you should go through these tutorials – they give you some idea about what Oracle VM is about 🙂

Bgrds,
Finnur

Howdy all,

If you are a IBM Storwize/San Volume Controller user you might want to checkout the new Easy Tier features in the 7.5.0 release.

It includes a “acceleration” feature where data is moved a lot faster between tiers then before.

See this document for more information.

Bgrds,
FOG

Hi,

Checkout this whitepaper on IBM’s HyperSwap. The product is somewhat 1.0 and a little crippled (from my point of view anyway) but a large giant told me that most of the complicated stuff will be fixed in next version……

Bgrds,
FOG

Hi!

If you are looking for some information on HP OneView I recommend that you take a look at this site.

It is amazing how fast the development of OneView is progressing. I started using it back in January when we installed two HP C7000’s and 13 blades. Since then I have met a VP from the group which owns the OneView product inside HP, which was very clear on where HP was taking this product and how much HP is listening to the customers regarding features and development.

Now that version 2.0 is about to be released (FAQ here) I am really excited to see the new features, especially the features around storage (3PAR and the SAN). Having a single pane of glass to manage and monitor your whole infrastructure is great. The only “bad” thing is that of course OneView is mostly bound to HP products. It can monitor some third-party switches but with limited feature set.

Now, I guess we will have to wait for few more weeks for 2.0! 🙂

Bgrds,
FOG

Disclaimer: I do not work for HP or a HP Partner. My views here are my own and have nothing to do with my employer!

Howdy,

If you are a user of the IBM San Volume Controller and/or the Storwize you should really checkout this announcement.

What I found most interesting was HyperSwap – now you can present a single volume from two different storage controllers which use metro mirror for a two way replication (although I do not have any more details on this). This is something like the Active-Active function in EMC’s Metro VPLEX installations. Cool stuff!

Bgrds,
FOG

Howdy,

I recently started using a “old” (4 year old) desktop tower to play Diablo 3 in co-op with my son. Last weekend I dug it up and installed Windows 10 on a spare 256GB SSD I had.

Damn! I must say they have actually out-done what they did when going from XP to Vista (I have to mention, I am probably one of the ten people in the world who actually liked Windows Vista:)). Everything is so smooth, even on hardware this old.

The new start menu is what the start menu should have been in Windows 8.1. However, after using Windows 10 I guess I have to forgive them….can’t wait until I can deploy this on my work laptop.

I have yet to use the browser they ship with it though….my Chrome habit is not something I see my self getting away from anytime soon!

Anyway….I must say, if you have a extra machine lying around (or some resources to run a VM), I suggest that you go grab the Windows 10 and give it a test run.

Bgrds,
FOG