More bang for less bucks June 29, 2009
Posted by Steve in Uncategorized.Tags: opinion
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With the global recession forcing many businesses to slash costs I started thinking about the Microsoft slogan for the 2003 product launch. Yes way back in 2003 Microsoft were telling us about “doing more with less”. The reality for many IT projects was almost the opposite for many reasons that I won’t dwell on here.
As I see it we can increase Return on Investment (ROI) in two ways. Reduce costs or increase returns.
Lowering costs:
Salaries of highly skilled IT staff are a major overhead over the long term. Lowering costs by using contractors rather than employing internally helps in two ways. Internal staff are not able to focus on a specific project like a contractor can. As projects take longer to complete the return on investment is delayed and eroded. Once the project is complete do you really want to keep paying the salary? Contractors are often cheaper in the long run.
Telco’s are often a big cost with long contract lengths. Make sure telecommunication costs are reviewed before they rollover. New generation fibre networks can be a very competitive alternative to traditional WAN links.
Consider new technologies that can lower costs. Make sure you take a long term view on the technology. Investigate the licensing costs and how this can be used to your advantage. Make sure your capacity planning is done accurately to avoid unexpected future costs.
Increasing returns:
Talk to the end users of the system and ask questions to find out how the systems could be improved to streamline processes, improve decisions, reduce service delivery time and communicate with customers. Many systems will have capabilities that are not being used or aren’t used in the best way. Often this is simply because the designer of the system hasn’t anticipated how it will be used or times have changed since it was implemented.
Extending the life-time of a solution increases the return. Calculate the amount of time you expect to recover the initial investment (including running costs) and then look how much longer the solution will be useful for. Making good technology choices at the beginning will allow lower cost updates and improvements to the solution and this will almost always be cheaper than a redevelopment. At the same time you must ensure you are not being left behind. What happens if you competitors make a technological jump?
Concentrate on the right things:
Make sure you are concentrating on the right things. For example, the term “green computing” is currently buzzing out of marketing departments, but how long will it take to save the power the manufacture claims and are you able to get bigger savings quicker in other areas? The answer of course depends on many things but my point is not to follow these things blindly, crunch the numbers before taking the plunge.
Finally talk to experts and research the options before making a decision. Long term costs and benefits will vary for many different reasons. Quality decisions will result in better returns.
Why Virtualize? June 28, 2009
Posted by Steve in windows 2008.Tags: virtualisation
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I read recently that 50% of CIO’s couldn’t see any benefit in virtualizing. My initial reaction was less than flattering and then I realised it probably isn’t that they don’t like virtualization. They just don’t understand the long term benefits of virtualization.
The key thing virtualization does is remove dependence on physical hardware. Basically it allows you to change the underlying hardware without having to reinstall the operating system and applications that run on the hardware.
5 things virtualization can do to save you time and money:
- Migrate to new hardware without a reinstall. Great if you lease hardware and want to replace it every 3 years because you simply move the Virtual Machines, no expensive reinstallation required.
- Run more servers on less hardware and take advantage of the virtual OS entitlements e.g. Windows Server 2008 Enterprise allows 1 physical and 4 virtual servers or unlimited virtual servers with Data Centre edition.
- Use server templates to cut server build time.
- Do a physical to virtual migration of old servers so you can power them on in the future if needed.
- Simplify your disaster recovery plans.
The ability to rapidly change the resources allocated to services, build a test environment, expand a web server farm or do an upgrade with a simple role back are other great reasons to consider virtualization.
Virtualization is a strategy decision and for many is quite a mind-shift. Many of the benefits will appeal to systems administrators, but if you want to convince the CIO you need to show how it will improve productivity, increase agility and lower costs.
Configuring c3000 Blade Enclosure Onboard Administrator June 20, 2009
Posted by Steve in c3000.Tags: Blade, c3000
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Judging from the large number of search engine referrals over the past few days you may need help with configuring c3000′s. Once you have unpacked a c3000, attached various modules and turned on the power is how do you configure the enclosure. Configuration is done via the Onboard Administrator (OA) web interface. Here are the basic steps:
- Connect the the OA/iLO port on the back of the enclosure to you LAN
- Using the small LCD console on the front of the enclosure, assign an IP address for OA
- Use a web browser to connect to the OA’s IP address assigned above (HTTPS)
- Login with username : Administrator (the A is a capital)
- Password is attached to a paper tag on the front of the enclosure
Once you have logged, you are able to configure many aspects of the enclosure and attached blades with iLO.
See this article for a more detailed description of the c3000 OA
HP Generation 6 Servers June 16, 2009
Posted by Steve in HP Servers.Tags: HP Server
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HP have recently launched the G6 range of servers across the ML, DL and BL series servers. The first thing you will notice when looking at the specs for these servers is the new CPU options and impressive RAM limits. These machines are built for virtualisation.
At the low end of the scale the ML150G6 supports 1 or 2 Intel Xeon 5500 series dual or quad core CPU’s, 48GB RAM and up to 8 SAS or SATA drives. Not bad for a low end server with a price of starting at $US849. This is an ideal server for smaller networks and can be purchased with SBS 2008.
The G6 release of the popular ML350 now features 1 or 2 Intel Xeon 5500 series dual or quad core CPU’s, 144GB RAM and up to 16 SAS or SATA drives. This is a huge amount of power for server aimed at the small to medium enterprise. This server is an ideal system for larger SBS 2008 sites or even virtualizing EBS 2008!
Rack mount servers like the popular DL380 have been given the G6 treatment too. The DL380G6 now features 1 or 2 Intel Xeon 5500 series dual or quad core CPU’s, 144GB RAM and up to 8 SAS or SATA drives. The DL385G6 features the AMD Opteron 2300 series 6 core CPU and 128GB RAM.
If you are looking for a high end server for virtualization or high performance computing then the DL785G5 will be on your list. Supporting up to 8 AMD quad core CPU’s and 512GB RAM. The 700 series is still Generation 5, so it will be interesting to see where Generation 6 takes this model.
One of the more interesting new servers in the DL family is the DL1000 which squeezes up to 4 servers into 2U of rack space. This effectively doubles the density of servers, reducing rack space requirements. Servers in the enclosure have shared power and cooling reducing the total power requirements compared to standard rack mount servers.
Blades haven’t missed out with the BL series Blade Servers getting new CPU’s and more RAM similar to the servers above but with the usual 2 drive configuration.
Forefront Security for Exchange June 14, 2009
Posted by Steve in EBS.Tags: Exchange 2007, Security
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Forefront Security for Exchange (FSE) is the Microsoft solution to protecting your Exchange environment from viruses and malware. Small Business Server 2008 includes a 180 free trail version (installation is optional), while Essential Business Server 2008 includes a 1 year subscription. Forefront for Exchange can also be purchased as a standalone product.
It is common to find multiple anti-virus solutions in a network environment with desktop scanners provided by one vendor and server based scanners by another. This means that viruses must get past two vendor products to infect a network. The downside of this strategy is cost and administration overhead. FSE supports up to 5 scanners from different vendors in a single management console and one license cost. In addition enhanced anti-spam capabilities are included building on the existing functionality included in Exchange 2007.
The installation process is straight forward and asks a series of questions to determine which options you want to enable, choice of scanners and anti-spam signature downloads. FSE can install on either Exchange Edge or Transport roles allowing scanning of email coming in and out of your system or being routed between servers internally.
One of the first things that struck me about FSE is that the interface is not the standard Microsoft MMC style interface. Lack of Active Directory integration is also an obvious omission e.g. AD groups. Centralised administration of multiple servers appears to be missing in this release.
FSE does have a comprehensive set of rules and configuration options. It would be easy to spend a lot of time fine tuning scanning rules after the initial installation e.g. defining safe attachments etc. I recommend taking time to review the configuration options rather than installing and forgetting about it.
My overall impression of FSE is that it is a step in the right direction from Microsoft but that it does require more work to improve the integration with other Microsoft technologies. Multiple scanners and anti-spam features provide excellent protection with simplified management of updates. It does appear to be a good anti-virus solution for protecting Exchange and I look forward to seeing the next release.
Hyper-V Overview June 6, 2009
Posted by Steve in Networking, windows 2008.Tags: Hyper-V
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Virtualisation was once found almost exclusively in large data centres. These days it can be found in many small to medium size businesses, thanks in part to powerful lower end servers and the advent of “free” virtualisation software.
Server Virtualisation comes in two main forms:
- Host based virtual machines that run on top of an existing operating system e.g. VMware workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Sun VirtualBox and Parallels Desktop.
- Hypervisor systems where the Virtualisation layer sits directly on top of the physical hardware and doesn’t require a host operating system. e.g. Microsoft Hyper-V Server, VMware ESX and Citrix XenServer.
Hyper-V Server 2008 is available as a free download and is essentially a modified version of Windows 2008 Server Core without the ability to add roles other than Hyper-V. The user interface is PowerShell command line only i.e. no GUI. A remote management console can be used to configure the Hyper-V environment or for larger environments you have the choice of either System Centre Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) or Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V.
System Requirements:
- x64 Based Intel (with VT extensions) or AMD (with AMD-V extensions) CPU
- Data Execution Prevention must be enabled in hardware
- 2GB RAM plus RAM for each guest Operating System
- Either Hyper-V Server or a copy of Windows 2008 Standard, Enterprise or Datacentre
Note that you shouldn’t automatically assume all server hardware will support Hyper-V. In some cases it may be necessary to update firmware or install hardware vendor supplied updates.
Hyper-V systems can host a number of different operating systems include:
- Windows 2003 and 2008 Server 32bit and 64bit Editions
- Windows Vista SP1
- Windows XP SP2 or later
- SuSE Enterprise Linux (other versions of Linux may work but are not supported)
Limitations:
Hyper-V is currently in its first release and as such has a number of limitations when compared to VMWare ESX. Limited support for hardware pass through e.g. SCSI tape devices can’t be accessed from Hyper-V hosts but some USB devices can. Hyper-V doesn’t currently have a VMotion type function used in high-availability systems. Many of these features are enterprise type functions and may not be needed in small to medium size networks and given the cost of getting those features these limitations are accepted by many people.
Some applications may not be supported in a virtual environment and this should be taken into consideration when designing a solution. Applications that require high disk I/O are often in this category, this doesn’t mean they won’t work but you may not get the level of performance you would expect.
Watch this space:
Windows 2008R2 is due for release on the 22nd of October 2009 and will feature many improvements to Hyper-V. One of the key new features is Live Migration which provides VMotion type functionality and will help narrow the feature gap. Hyper-V is a hot technology and a key part of Microsoft’s network strategy and as such I am sure we will continue to see rapid improvement in functionality in the future.
HP BL460c Blade overview June 1, 2009
Posted by Steve in c3000.Tags: Blade, c3000
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I have written a couple of articles about the HP c3000 Blade Enclosure in this blog which should give you an overview of the basic infrastructure, but what about the blade servers themselves? HP have a wide range of Blades that can be slotted into the c3000 or C7000 enclosures. The BL460c is a great mid-range blade that is in my opinion one of the best options in the range.
The BL460c is the blade equivalent of the DL380 rack mount server and is a good choice if comparing blade vs rack mount server offerings from HP. If storage is required then it is important to factor either a direct attached storage option or SAN when doing the comparision.
Specifications
- CPU – single or dual Intel Xeon dual or quad core CPU’s.
- RAM – up to 64GB in 8 DIMM slots
- 2 x Small Form Factor hot swap SAS or SATA drives
- 2 x mezzanine expansion slots
- 2 x 1Gbit Ethernet adapters with TOE and iSCSI support
- 1 x iLO remote management port
- occupies a single blade slot
- Supports Windows, RHEL, SuSE, Netware, Solaris, VMWare and HP Citrix Essentials for XenServer
Performance and scalability
The BL460c offers impressive scalability thanks to a large number of CPU options and an impressive RAM limit of 64GB. Mezzanine card options include single and dual headed NIC’s, 10Gbit Ethernet and Fibre Channel adapters. An SB40 direct attached storage blade can be installed to provide a further 6 small form factor SATA or SAS drives.
Virtualisation
The BL460c features an internal USB2 port which can be used to boot VMware ESXi from a USB key (download your own or purchase a key from HP) allowing the BL460c to run virtual machines in diskless configuration by using a SAN for the disk images. The BL460c is also certified to run Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix Zenserver.
Microsoft Storage Server
HP sell a Blade Storage Solution which bundles a BL460c with an SB600c storage blade and Microsoft Storage Server 2003. This solutions occupies 2 blade slots and provides up to 1.5TB of storage accessible via iSCSI.
Summing up
I have installed and managed many HP blade servers over the past few years. The BL460c is a great performer whether it is running Essential Business Server 2008, ESXi or Windows 2003 Enterprise connected to EVA SAN via Fibre Channel. It is a significant improvement on the previous generation HP Blades and I think it will remain a good work horse well into the future.
If you prefer AMD over Intel, then the BL465c is well worth a look. It is a very similar server but built around AMD technology. Lower end BL260c blades don’t support hot swap drives or the internal USB port and has a standard 1 year warranty vs the 3 year warranty that is included with the BL460c. Higher end blades are available from HP, but for most the BL460c will be offer more than enough features at a price point similar to the DL380 rack mount server.
HP BL460c World Wide Quick Specs
HP c3000 Blade Enclosure Posts on this blog
