Bookmarks & Notes for 12 April 2013

Below are a few bookmarks and notes I wanted to keep track of from the last month or so - with stuff on/from: CIFS, CISCO, CITRIX, MICROSOFT, NETAPP, NETAPP KB, SCAN.CO.UK, VEEAM, VIRTUALIZATION, VMWARE

## CIFS: RESEARCH ON EXCESSIVE OPEN AND CLOSE REQUESTS ##

Batch OpLocks were created originally to support a particular behavior of MS-DOS batch file execution operation in which the file is opened and closed many times in a short period, which is a performance problem. To solve this, a client may ask for an OpLock of type "batch". In this case, the client delays sending the close request and if a subsequent open request is given, the two requests cancel each other.”


Oplocks and Roaming/Mandatory Profiles

Access to a redirected folder or a home drive disconnects regularly on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7

## CISCO ##

Interesting article from Menno de Liege: “When using a Cisco MDS environment with the Inter VSAN feature on a 9222i for example, it can take a lot of work to complete the zoning configuration….” READ ON!

## CITRIX ##

- What are the limits of CloudPlatform hosts, clusters, pods and zones?
- Which version of XenServer works with CloudPlatform?
- How do we deliver multiple cloud-based services to our end users?
- Why use basic zone vs. advanced zone?
- Who/what is SolidFire?

This article describes how you can configure Citrix CloudBridge 4000 and 5000 to optimize NetApp SnapMirror traffic between two Data centers.

Image: NetApp SnapMirror Async with Repeater SDX (DC to DC Test Topology)

“Citrix is pleased to announce the new WAN-optimization appliances: CloudBridge 2000 and CloudBridge 3000. These appliances come loaded with our WAN-optimization and XenDesktop acceleration technologies including rich protocol optimization, advanced TCP flow-control, adaptive compression and smart acceleration.”

Image: CloudBridge 2000 & 3000 range

## MICROSOFT ##

Including:

“… I use a Linux based firewall/router running as VM …”
“… There are a few options in this realm including pfSense, m0mwall, and DD-WRT …”

## NETAPP ##

NetApp Communities post on the NetApp Flash Accel and LSI Nytro WarpDrive solution.

Image: LSI Nytro WarpDrive

NetApp Communities post:
“To those of you deploying Microsoft Windows 2012, you may have noticed a new feature called 'Windows Storage Management Service". This feature lets a Server administrator do what have historically been storage management functions directly from the windows Server Manager pane.”

Get visibility into your NetApp storage system with Splunk!

It was Pi Day on March 14th!

Image: Pi in Clustered ONTAP

## NETAPP KB ##

Clustered ONTAP - the command below reports false!
> sto fail show -node ha104-105-01 -fields possible
Cause 1: Takeover is disabled due to the operator disabling takeover
Cause 2: Takeover is disabled due to a version mismatch
Cause 3: Takeover is disabled due to Degraded mode (mailbox disks)
Cause 4: Takeover is disabled due to interconnect errors
Cause 5: Takeover is disabled due to the disk shelf being too hot
Cause 6: Takeover is not possible due to the NVRAM log being unsynchronized
Cause 7: Takeover is not possible due to 'Partner node halted after disabling takeover'
Cause 8: Takeover is not possible due to the local node already being in takeover state
Cause 9: Takeover is not possible due to the Local node about to halt

Check for the locks showing up on the data constituents.
> vserver locks show -fields lockid
Solution - run the following command:
> vserver locks break -lockid {lockid you found}

This client bug is fixed in newer Linux patches, for example, the latest update of Fedora 18 has this bug fixed.

Clustered ONTAP - An NDMP backup operation fails to start.
Cause 1: Resource limitation: no available thread
Cause 2: Too many concurrent backups are running
Cause 3: Unable to obtain vol ref for Volume "volume_name"
Cause 4: Unable to lock a snapshot required by a dump message
Cause 5: Volume is temporarily in a transitional state

Data ONTAP 7-Mode & Clustered ONTAP - AutoSupport has real world time and size constraints!
Clustered ONTAP:
system node autosupport> modify -node local -max-http-size 0 -max-smtp-size 8MB 
system node autosupport> show -node local -fields max-http-size,max-smtp-size
Data ONTAP 7-Mode:
> options autosupport.max_smtp_size 8388608
> options autosupport.max_
*read the article for more CLI

## SCAN.CO.UK ##

A nice tool!

Image: eten USB powered 8 port mini 10/100 metal switch

## VEEAM ##

Beta’s available for:

## VIRTUALIZATION ##

With: VMware vSphere, RedHat RHEV, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer

## VMWARE ##

Now see:
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools> VMwareToolboxCmd.exe help

“Deployment of vSphere on IP based storage is becoming more common and this paper provides a technical overview of deployment considerations and best practices for running vSphere on Network File System shared storage….”

“There have been some recent questions about upgrading to the latest version of VMware Tools in vSphere 5.1 and the benefits it may bring with future upgrades of VMware Tools….”

“Have you noticed that for a powered on virtual machine in vSphere 5.1, there is now an additional VMX file that ends with an ~ (tilde) found within the virtual machine's configuration directory?”

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