Research Links & Info - 16th April 2015

Just a place to put some links and notes collected in my inbox since the last one on the 13th December 2014… Wow, it is over a third of a year since I last did one of these. In a break from tradition (and start a new tradition), I’ll put the latest received stuff at the top and work down backwards in time.

PS Apologies if I’ve failed to reply to any emails/comments this year, it’s been a hectic 2015 so far...

13th April 2015

## NetApp Clustered Data ONTAP ##

- SnapVault volumes automatically get the Volume Autosize mode of grow_shrink.
- SnapVault volumes have Autosize settings independent of the source, whereas SnapMirror volumes inherit the Autosize setting on the source.

## Microsoft ##

Image: Hyper-V Containers
 
“Nano Server is a deeply refactored version of Windows Server with a small footprint and remotely managed installation, optimized for the cloud and a DevOps workflow.  It is designed for fewer patch and update events, faster restarts, better resource utilization and tighter security.”

## Amazon ##

 “Today we are introducing Amazon Elastic File System, our newest storage service. It provides multiple EC2 (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud) instances with low-latency, shared access to a fully-managed file system via the popular NFSv4 protocol, and is designed to perform well for a wide variety of workloads, with the ability to scale to thousands of concurrent connections.”

6th April 2015

## VMware ##

“FT support upto 4 vCPUs and 64 GB RAM

“This issue occurs when you expand a virtual disk .vmdk file which has Change Block Tracking (CBT) enabled past any 128 GB boundary. When the disk is extended the change tracking data becomes unreliable.” - still exists in ESXi 6.0.x!

30th March 2015

## VMware ##


19th March 2015

## NetApp ##

From Tech OnTap:

Image 1-1: The journey from 7-Mode to NetApp clustered Data ONTAP
 
Image 1-2: High-Level view of the transition fundamentals framework
 
Image 2-1: The NetApp product portfolio has solutions for both shared and dedicated storage requirements
 
16th March 2015

## Intel ##

Intelligent: Xeon performance and features - RAS, Intel Virtualization Tech, Platform Storage Extensions, Intel AES-NI
Dense: Integrated Intel Ethernet & I/Os ~25-45 W

## Google ##

“Google is also partnering with a number of backup and storage providers to help enterprises move to Nearline – partnerships announced thus far include Veritas, NetApp, Iron Mountain and Geminare. These vendors cover backup, de-duplication, encryption, compression, ingestion and disaster-recovery.”

5th March 2015

## NetApp ##

Secure Data to and from the Cloud with New Solutions for Amazon Web Services‏
Cut Down Data Backup, Recovery, and Archive Times
Hybrid Cloud - “Choose Your Cloud, Control Your Data ...”

## Veeam ##

yum install -y perl-Data-Dumper

## VMware ##

“First and foremost: there is no performance impact of setting it one way or another...” but...

23rd  February 2015

## VMware ##

“Transparent Page Sharing (TPS) no longer allows inter-VM TPS by default”
“Prompted by security concern...”

10th February 2015

## NetApp ##

Note: Especially check out Table 1 “New Features in 8.3”


Image: Cloud ONTAP is able to run as an EC2 instance within the AWS cloud. It uses EBS GP2 for underlying storage while delivering the enterprise features of clustered Data ONTAP.
 
Image: OnCommand Cloud Manager provides a simple, wizard-based interface for deploying and monitoring Storage Virtual Machines in Cloud ONTAP and NetApp Private Storage.
 
26th January 2015

## Microsoft ##

“The era of holographic computing is here.”

20th January 2015

## PowerShell ##

More PowerShell Excel operations:

$Excel.workbooks.OpenText($file,437,1,1,1,$True,$True,$False,$False,$True,$False)
$Excel.Application.ActiveWindow.SplitRow = 1
$Excel.application.activewindow.freezepanes = $true
$Excel.Rows.Item(1).Font.Bold = $true           # Bold text
$Excel.Rows.Item(1).VerticalAlignment = -4108   # Centre (vertically)
$Excel.Rows.Item(1).HorizontalAlignment = -4108 # Centre (horizontally)
$Excel.Columns.Item(1).columnWidth = 10
$Excel.Cells.Item(1,5) = "Path"
$Excel.range("F3:F3").cells.formula = "=b2-b3"

15th January 2015

## NetApp KB ##


12th January 2015

## IT Miscellany ##


## VMware ##

Important for anyone considering VMware VSAN or EVO:RAIL!
“VSAN also uses L2 multicast to communicate between nodes. Back in the dark ages when I was a network guy multicast was an iffy thing.”

## PowerShell ##

“It can be difficult to monitor and assess resources in large Hyper-V environments. This Powershell based script helps you to understand virtualization inventory, capacity and general resource availability in your Standalone or Clustered Hyper-V Environment.”

Image: Hyper-V Reporting Script HTML Report
 
## Veeam ##

“Free monitoring and reporting for VMware and Hyper-V”

## Intel ##


Image: The NH1
 
15th December 2015

## Veeam ##


## IT Miscellany ##

“Vendors tout hyperconverged systems like EVO:RAIL as less expensive than more conventional storage systems. After pricing my own EVO:RAIL-like system, I found otherwise.”

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