This week with stuff from Cisco,
Citrix, Dell, EMC,
Fusion-io, HP,
IBM, Microsoft, NetApp,
Synology, Tintri, and
VMware.
Cisco
Next
Generation Encryption – April 2012
Nice table for Cryptographic Algorithms
– avoid, legacy, acceptable, and NGE (Next Generation Encryption.)
Cisco
(28 Jun) 3D
Data Center Models for your iPhone/iPad available from the Apple
App Store "Cisco 3D Interactive Catalog"
Cisco
Data
Center Interconnect using nV Edge Clustering by Jake Howering (13
Jul).
"The ASR
9000 product family has recently come out with a new
feature called nV Edge (nV =
Network Virtualization) ... Ultimately, the nV Edge clustering+ VPLS
topology can be as simple as shown below, while maintaining your
resiliency requirements.
The benefit of an nV Edge + VPLS and
this is why it can be awesome...
1) Increased
physical link utilization
2) Up to 75%
decrease in VPLS Pseudowire requirements
3) 50
millisecond or less recovery times"
Cisco
IPv6
Extension Headers Review and Considerations (actually from
October 2006 ...)
Citrix
Blog post (27 Jun) on Microsoft
licensing for XD vs. View
Citrix XenDesktop: Scaling for 500
Users
(2) XenDesktop
Controllers
(2) XenApp
Servers (Application Streaming)
(2) Microsoft
SQL 2008 Servers (SQL Replication)
VMware View: Scaling for 500
Users
(2) View
Connection Servers
(2) ThinApp
Servers (Application Streaming) (File Server)
(1)
vCenter\View Composer Server
(2) Microsoft
SQL 2008 Servers (SQL Replication)
Citrix XenDesktop: Scaling for 20,000
Users
(3) XenDesktop
Controllers
(2) XenApp
Servers (Application Streaming)
(2) Microsoft
SQL 2008 Servers (SQL Replication)
VMware View: Scaling for 20,000
Users
(10) View
Connection Servers
(2) ThinApp
Servers (Application Streaming) (File Server)
(2)
vCenter\View Composer Server
(2) Microsoft
SQL 2008 Servers (SQL Replication)
Citrix
Extracts from the Citrix
Branch Repeater Specifications Sheet (July 2012)
"BR-SDX
2000 delivers the highest density of HDX optimization,
with 5000 simultaneous HDX optimized
sessions. With its capability to support 2Gbps
of optimized traffic, BR-SDX 2000 also delivers the
highest broad based WAN Optimization capability in the market,
period."
Citrix
Nice pdf guide for a Citrix
XenServer Unattended Installation by Christian Ferber (Jul 10)
Citrix
Making
VDI work in poor bandwidth locations "...Citrix VDI-in-a-Box
– deployed across 50 training centers."
Dell
Review of the Dell
EqualLogic PS6100XS (23 May.) Check out www.itpro.co.uk
for their storage reviews and more – including:
EqualLogic
PS6100XS
Price as reviewed (23 May 2012) =
£49'420 exc. VAT.
Rating = 6/6
Nimble Storage
CS240
Price as reviewed (21 May 2012) =
£65'540 exc. VAT
Rating = 4/6
Broadberry
CyberStore 424DSS
Price as reviewed (9 May 2012) = £8'880
ext. VAT.
Rating = 5/6
Dell
Review of the Dell
EqualLogic PS4100E (9 Jul.) Check out www.pcpro.co.uk
for their storage reviews and more – including:
EqualLogic
PS4100E
Price as reviewed (9 Jul 2012) = £9'521
exc. VAT.
Rating = 5/6
D-Link
DSN-6120
Price as reviewed (19 Jun 2012) =
£4'688 exc. VAT
Rating = 5/6
Fujitsu
Eternus CS800 S3 Entry (Dedupe Appliance)
Price as reviewed (6 Jun 2012) = £8'851
exc. VAT
Rating = 5/6
QSAN
Technology P300Q-D212
Price as reviewed (15 May 2012) =
£4'750 exc. VAT (diskless)
Rating = 5/6
Dell
Dell Customer Stories (1 Jun): AECOM
– Engineering, Research & Development company, with 45'000
employees
Services:
Dell Compellent Copilot Support –
24x7 Support, Priority Response
Dell Pro Support with Mission Critical,
4 hours onsite response service
Hardware:
Dell Compellent
Storage Center SAN
Dell EqualLogic
PS6510E and PS6010XV
Software:
Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager
Dell Compellent Data Progression
Dell
Dell Customer Stories (May): AURUM
Holdings – Retail & Wholesale company, with 1'700
employees
"Since moving to Dell EqualLogic,
we've improved the performance of our SAP environment by around 50
per cent."
Services:
Dell ProSupport with Mission Critical
Hardware:
Dell
EqualLogic PS6000E/ PS6500X/ PS6000SVS storage arrays
Dell
Article from silconANGLE about the Dell
OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution
"Dell, one of the very first
backers of the OpenStack project
... architecture components
> The latest OpenStack
version, Essex
> The latest 12th generation Power
Edge Dell Servers, R720, and
R720XD
> Canonical OpenStack distribution
and Operating System: Ubuntu 12.04
> Dell
Force 10 switching: S60
> Next version of our innovative
OpenStack deployment and operations software: Crowbar"
Dell
YouTube video Dell
Announces the Release of EqualLogic Array Software 6 (11 Jun)
Dell
Cloud,
Big Data and Mobility are much more than IT by Josh Neland (10
Jul)
"1. Cloud unbridles customer
growth"
"2. Cloud enables rapid product
enhancements"
"3. Cloud enables experimentation,
as a business"
Dell
Dell
Announces the EqualLogic PS-M4110 Blade Array (11 Jun 2012)
EMC
EMC
Networker 8.0 is out (July 2012)
Fusion-io
Fusion-io
server strokers show off 2.6TB RAM extension – The Register (11
Jul)
Interesting use of Fusion-io cards
"Fusion-io and Princeton University boffins have used a PCIe
flash drive to virtually extend a server's
main memory into the terabytes."
HP
Nice blog with lots on HP 3PAR
http://cloud-land.com/
Building
the business case to choose HP 3PAR - The Ninja's Way (10 Jul) –
information on the assessment HP will run, to help you evaluate your
data utilisation rates and more....
IBM
IBM Case Study PDF: ACH
Colombia profits from high availability with IBM XIV (11 Jun)
Hardware:
IBM XIV
Storage System
- Function in use: Thin provisioning,
snapshots, data migration, synchronous mirroring, host attachment
kits.
Software:
Symantec
Veritas Storage Foundation
Symantec
Veritas Cluster Server
IT Environment:
OSes = Red Hat Enterprise Linux &
Microsoft Windows Server
Databases = Oracle & Microsoft SQL
Server
Virtualization = VMware
Microsoft
Links to TechEd sessions 2012:
Microsoft
More on Windows
Server 2012 licensing (11 Jul 2012):
"Windows Server 2012 will be
available in four editions: Datacenter,
Standard, Essentials, and Foundation ... Customers with
active SA (Software Assurance) coverage at the time of 2012 release
will receive migration rights to the new editions as follows:"
Microsoft
Microsoft
Cloud Self Assessment Tool by Wilfried Schadenboeck (9 Jul)
NetApp
Paralized NFS solution using pNFS
"... allows you to scale
an NFS environment seamlessly while simultaneously
offering the ability to optimize data paths from client to volume,
even as your data moves within the storage cluster..."
NetApp
NetApp
Customer Claton Companies on Keeping it Simple, Doing More with Less
(10 Jul.) 700 employess. Using
FAS3240's and a FAS2240
for DR location. Using NetApp
OnCommand. Using FlexVol,
Snapshot, SnapManager, and SnapMirror.
NetApp
Infinite
Volume Technology for Enterprise Content Repositories by Jason
Blosil (10 Jul)
"NetApp developed Infinite
Volume specifically to address the scalability needs of
enterprise content repositories; it eliminates the complexities of
managing data in multiple small containers. NetApp Infinite Volume is
a software abstract hosted over Data ONTAP
8.1.1 operating in Cluster-Mode. Now, you may ask, “How
infinite is an Infinite Volume?” Well, it doesn’t have unlimited
capacity. But, it’s pretty darn big. It provides a single mount
point that can scale to 20PB or 2 billion
files."
NetApp
Moving
To The Cloud? Don’t Forget Storage Workflow Automation by
Michael Harding (12 Jul.)
Highlights the value of OnCommand
Workflow Automation as a tool for quick Cloud Storage
provisioning.
NetApp
Five
Strategies for Using Flash in Your Next Storage Project by Paul
Feresten
"1. Understand Your Workload
"> What is the read-write
mix for the workload?
"> What are the typical
IO sizes?
"> How much is random
versus sequential?
"> How
large are the working sets
for the application?
"2. Employ Virtual Storage Tiering
"3. Evaluate Price/Performance at
a Systems Level
"4. Use Flash Pools for Data
Persistence
"5. Deploy Flash with
Capacity-Optimized Drives"
Synology
Wow!
Synology Released DSM 4.1 Beta w/vSphere VAAI Support! From Jason
Nash's Blog (Jul 12)
Tintri
YouTube video (17 Feb) where The
Norwegian School of Economics (3700+
users) talks about their experiences using Tintri
VMstore
VMware
A post (16 Mar) on How
To Install VMware vCloud Director 1.5 From Beginning to End by
Kendrick Coleman
VMware
VMware
vCenter Server 5.0U1a is out! (July 2012)
VMware
VMware
VCAP5-DCA Exam Released! (9 Jul)
VMware
YouTube video (11 Jun) from Steve
Kaplan, VP, Data Center Virtualization Practice, Presidio West –
"VMware vSphere Delivers Greater
Value and Lower TCO than Microsoft Hyper-V"
"... Microsoft's claim that their
solution is far less expensive than VMware's ... flaws in their
methodology.
"> Microsoft compares their
significantly discounted volume
price, without support, to the VMware list price including
support
"> Microsoft pits their
products against VMware's highest editions, but when based upon
functionality they should be comparing against VMware's lowest
product editions
"> The VMware Cloud
Infrastructure Suite delivers far more features and functionality
than the Microsoft ECI bundle used in that comparison
"> Microsoft's comparison also
ignores the VM density advantage that vSphere has over Hyper-V ....
this means that vSphere deployments require less money, less money
spent on servers, on network switches, cabling, rackspace, power,
cooling, and even on guest OS licensing."
VMware
Useful VMware KB article Keeping
a vSphere Environment Up To Date (updated 12 Jul)
"It is important to apply
updates/upgrades in the correct order. An overview of the product
update/upgrade order is:
"1. vCenter Server
"2. vCenter Update Manager
"3. ESX/ESXi Hosts
"4. VMware Tools (inside virtual
machines)
"5. Virtual Machine Hardware
Version
"6. Distributed Virtual Switches
and Datastores"
Phew, all in one week - I'll have to
stop retaining so much!
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