This is a Mandatory hotfix and can be installed on the following vWorkspace roles:

This is a mandatory hotfix and can be installed on the following vWorkspace roles -

• vWorkspace Connection Broker

 This release provides support for the following -  

This hotfix is available for download at: https://support.quest.com/vworkspace/kb/254153

This is a Cumulative Mandatory hotfix and can be installed on the following vWorkspace roles:

This is a mandatory hotfix and can be installed on the following vWorkspace roles -

• vWorkspace Management Console

 The following is a list of issues resolved in this release.

This hotfix is available for download at: https://support.quest.com/vworkspace/kb/254155

This is a mandatory hotfix and can be installed on the following vWorkspace roles -

• Web Access

 The following is a list of issues resolved in this release.

This hotfix is available for download at: https://support.quest.com/vworkspace/kb/254156

This is a mandatory hotfix for: 

• Android Connector

The following is a list of issues resolved in this release.

This hotfix is available for installation directly from the Google Play store and can also be downloaded from: https://support.quest.com/vworkspace/kb/254191

This blog post is written by Dell EMC Operating systems Engineering team

Quick Boot is a new type of “soft” reboot mechanism introduced in vSphere 6.7. Unlike a regular host reboot operation (warm or cold), Quick Boot does not involve going through the actual hardware reboot process. When you initiate a Quick Boot, ESXi restarts in a way similar to normal reboot operation but the hardware does not go through the normal process of reboot operations such as POST, firmware load, re-initialization of hardware resources, reload ACPI/SMBIOS tables etc...

This feature helps to speed up server management workflows which do not require a hardware reboot. For example, applying an ESXi security patch or upgrading the ESXi hypervisor will most likely not require you to have the host/hardware rebooted. Please refer to vSphere Update Manage Installation and Administration Guide for instructions on configuration/ use this feature.

Dell EMC and VMware have worked together to enable Quick Boot on the following platforms.

• PowerEdge R740
• PowerEdge R740xd
• PowerEdge R640
• PowerEdge R730
• PowerEdge R730xd
• PowerEdge R630

The following script verifies that the hardware and softwareconfiguration of a given host supports Quick Boot. Dell EMC recommends end users to run this script manually to make sure that the configuration is compatible for quickboot. 

$ /usr/lib/vmware/loadesx/bin/loadESXCheckCompat.py

NOTE: Refer to VMware KB 52477 , Installation Instructions and Important Information Guide and vSphere Update Manager Installation and Administration Guide to ensure your host meets the minimum requirements to support Quick Boot. 

Are you looking to create Chef cookbooks to manage your Dell EMC servers ? This blog talks about how to write a cookbook module to manage DellEMC machines.

What is Chef?

Chef is a powerful automation platform that transforms infrastructure into code. Whether you’re operating in the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment, Chef automates how infrastructure is configured, deployed, and managed across your network, no matter its size.

This diagram shows how you develop, test, and deploy your Chef code.

1. The Chef DK workstation is the location where users interact with Chef. On the workstation users write and test cookbooks using tools like Test Kitchen and interact with the Chef server using the knife and chef command line tools.
2. Chef client nodes are the machines that are managed by Chef. The Chef client is installed on each node and is used to configure the node to its desired state.
3. The Chef server acts as a hub for configuration data. The Chef server stores cookbooks, the policies that are applied to nodes, and metadata that describes each registered node managed by Chef. Nodes use the Chef client to ask the Chef server for configuration details, such as recipes, templates, and files. 

Let's first review the basic system requirements for installing ChefDK workstation, Chef client nodes, & Chef server:

• Ensure that each machine that will be a node is running a platform
• Ensure that the machine that will run the Chef server is sufficiently powerful
• Ensure that any network and firewall settings are configured correctly

More detailed system requirements are listed below.

https://github.com/chef/chef-web-docs/blob/master/chef_master/source/chef_system_requirements.rst

A simple Hello World Chef recipe file.

A simple hello world cookbook to create a file in the local server look like this: (Click on the below JPG image to view it in Full Screen)

As you can see the file.rb didn’t throw an error but gave the output as “up to date”. This is because the file we are attempting to create already exists. When removing the file, the Chef-apply command successfully executes the recipe locally creating the specific file.

Chef maintains different folders as part of metadata and more than one recipe can also be part of the cookbook. Below is an example on how to Power Off a DellEMC machine using a recipe.

Case 1: Power Off a server (Click on the below JPG image to view it in Full Screen)

Executing the following recipe turns the server off:(Click on the below JPG image to view it in Full Screen)

Additional Chef Recipes for Dell Systems can be found on the Chef Supermarket.

Disclaimer :- This Chef Recipe modules are not officially supported on any Dell Servers. 

To learn more about Dell Custom Solutions Engineering visit www.dell.com/customsolutions

Upgrade Wyse 5060 to WIE10 using Wyse USB Imaging Tool (General BIOS instructions work for other units as well)

1. First, please verify that you have a valid WIE10 license from your license vendor (If you purchased the 5060 with only the WES7P license, then you are ineligible to upgrade to WIE10). Also, this upgrade is irreversible.

2. Open your browser and go to this page and download the exe file starting with 5060 (It will say WIE10 in the notes section)

3. You have 3 options to choose from to deploy this WIE10 image:

a.             Using Wyse Device Manager

                                 I.            After the download is complete, extract the contents to a local storage location.

                               II.            Configure the thin client to register itself to WDM server.

                              III.            Register the extracted image package onto WDM server.

                             IV.            After the package/device registration is complete, follow the WDM imaging process, and start the image update task. For more information about WDM imaging process, see WDM 5.7.1 Administrator’s guide at http://downloads.dell.com/wyse/

                               V.            After the update process is complete, the thin client reboots into Windows 10 IoT enterprise, and the first boot process is initiated.

b.             Using Microsoft SCCM

                                 I.            To update a master image, deploy the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise update image using USB imaging tool ready pen drive to a single thin client.

                               II.            After the completion of update process and thin client is booted onto Windows 10 IoT Enterprise desktop, carry out image customization (if any), and run the ConfigMgr sysprep scripts.

                              III.            After the sysprep process is complete and client is shut down, the master image is captured using SCCM server and the image is deployed onto other update ready thin clients.

c.             Using the Wyse USB Imaging Tool

                                                               i.      Download USB Imaging Tool v2.1.3 from here: http://downloads.dell.com/wyse/USBFT/2.1.3/

                                                             ii.      Install the USB tool.

                                                            iii.      Insert a 32 GB or larger flash drive and format it.

                                                            iv.      Run the USB tool

Instructions on Image Push (From XML Help):

1. Start USB Imaging Tool.

The tool displays the Image Pull screen by default.

1. Click Image Push to display the Image Push screen.

1. Plug in the USB drive to the system running USB Imaging Tool.
2. Select the USB drive from the drop-down list.

If your USB drive contains other images, the screen displays the images in the Images on USB section.

1. Select the OS architecture that you want to push to the target device. Select the following:

• 64 bit— Select this option to push the 64 bit architecture based OS to the target device.

1. Select one of the following options:

You can view the OS and BIOS check boxes selected or cleared as per the contents of the image files you have chosen. For example, if the image file contains only the BIOS configuration, only the BIOS check box is selected for that image.

If both the OS and BIOS check boxes are selected and you clear one of the check box, then that image component is not added on the USB drive.

1. Click Configure USB Drive.

The system displays the following options:

• Update (If target unit has WES7P)- Select this option to add or delete images to an existing configured USB drive.
• Note: If a previous update attempt failed, or target unit does not have WES7P for any reason, chose “Setup” and not “Upgrade”-in this scenario, upgrade will fail as it will look for an existing OS-this has nothing to do with the WIE10 DPK in the BIOS.

• Format and Update— Select this option if your USB drive is corrupted or not configured. This option will back up contents, initialize the drive and add or delete the selected image.

Select the appropriate button and proceed with the preparation.

The progress is indicated on the Overall Progress bar.

                                   I.            Boot the 5060 unit and enter BIOS using the Fireport password

                                 II.            Make sure you enable “USB Boot” under BIOS>Advanced>”Boot From USB”

                               III.            Make sure you set “Boot Mode to both” under BIOS>Advanced>”Set Boot Mode to [Both]

                               IV.            I like to disable Secure Boot and TPM just as a precaution

                                V.            Reboot the unit, enter BIOS for a second time and promote your USB drive to the top of the Boot Priority Order.

                               VI.            Reboot and let Merlin load

                             VII.            Select “Push an Image” and then enter and yes as prompted

                           VIII.            You’ll notice that once WI10 is updated, system will prompt you to do a disk check-skip this always.

                               IX.            You’ll notice that there are 2 BIOS beeps after the upgrade-this is normal as the newer BIOS implements the ePSA (from Dell BIOS) and some new beep codes.

 This Blog will try to help you understand how CPU and memory choices affect memory performance on Dell PowerEdge servers, as it relates to new Skylake processors.

Let’s start with the Skylake Processors architecture. The new Skylake Processors have 6 Memory channels per CPU, These are controller by 2 internal memory controllers, each handling 3 memory channels. See the figure 1 & 5 below to better visualize how this is implemented. These memory channels must be populated in certain ways and combined with the right processor choice to achieve the best memory performance that Dell PowerEdge Servers can deliver.

 Figure 1. SkyLake Memory controller layout.

Another consideration on the Skylake Processors is the memory controller speeds are different for the classes of Skylake CPUs (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze). Below is a memory speed table for the different classes of Skylake processors. Use this table when choosing the CPU as well as the memory for the server workload requirements of the Dell PowerEdge systems.

Figure 2. Memory Controller Speed Vs. CPU selection

The CPU vs. Memory Controller Speed table above shows there is up to a 20% difference in memory controller speed vs. the 81xx and 61xx Skylake processors and the 31xx Skylake processors. There is a 10% difference between the 81xx and 61xx and the 51xx and 41xx Skylake processors. If the server workload is memory intensive, it would be better severed by choosing an 81xx or 61xx Skylake Processor over the other classes of Skylake Processors.

Figure 3. DIMM types vs. Ranks and Data Width

Memory Ranks and Data Width can also affect memory performance in Skylake Processors. The table above helps explain why the 16GB RDIMMs gives the best memory performance on Skylake processors as seen in figure 4.  The 16GB RDIMMs have 2 Ranks and a Data Width of 8 vs. other RDIMMs or LRDIMMs only have a Data width of 4 with 2 Ranks. The Skylake’s internal memory controller when combined with 16GB RDIMMs give up to 5% better memory performance over the other DIMM memory sizes. The combination of memory type and memory controller speed, there can be up to a 48% difference in memory performance between the highest Skylake CPU 8180(2667 MHz) vs. the 3106(2133MHz) the lowest Skylake CPU. The table below shows the memory speed differences between the Skylake classes of CPUs, as well as the difference between DIMM Ranking and Data Width. 8GB RDIMMs are only single rank and are generally 2 to 5% slower than the dual ranked 16GB and 32GB DIMMs. 32GB RDIMMS only have a Data Width of 4 vs. 8 for the 16GB RDIMMs, so the 16GB DIMMs are generally 2 to 3% faster than the 32GB RDIMMs.

Figure 4. Memory speed difference by CPU class and memory size

In this section of the blog, we will discuss the difference between balanced and unbalanced memory configurations and how it affects memory performance.

Figure 5. Balanced vs. Unbalanced Memory vs. DIMM Count

Let’s start with keeping the memory balanced while adding DIMMS to the Skylake’s memory configuration. As you can see in the figure above, memory must be added to the Skylake Processors in a certain way to keep the memory controllers and channels balanced. Sometimes it’s better to keep the memory on just one controller, especially when the memory configuration only has 1 or 3 DIMMs. But when you have 2, 4, or 6 DIMMS it is better to place 1, 2, or 3 DIMMS on each integrated memory controller. In addition, the table shows that there is no way to make 5 or 7 thru 11 DIMMS configurations balanced. This is because, there will be either 2 DIMMs per Memory Channel in the case of 7 thru 11 DIMM configurations or a Memory Channel without a DIMM, As in the 5 DIMM configuration in the table above. This also explains why if the memory configuration of the Dell PowerEdge system has 5 or 7 thru 11 or 13 thru 23 DIMMs there is no way to make it balanced. It is important to keep the memory balanced because it can result in a performance impact of up to 65%. See figure 8 for more details.

              Now that we have an understanding of how the memory controllers works on a Skylake processor, let’s put it to practice on Dell Systems that have more than 6 Memory slots per CPU. The Dell Modular systems have 8 memory slots per CPU, which mean due to how the Skylake’s memory controllers works, if all 8 memory slots are populated you will achieve the Max Memory size of the Dell PowerEdge modular System. But the memory will be unbalanced and result in lower memory performance as seen in Figure 8. The figure below shows the Dell PowerEdge Modular Systems have 8 DIMM Slots, if the black slots on Memory Channels 0 and 3 of these systems are populated, it will result in an unbalanced memory configuration and effect memory performance. Placing memory in these black slots will place memory channel 0 and 3 in 2 DIMMs Per Channel mode while leaving memory channels 1,2,4,5 in single DPC mode, as explained in the section above.

Figure 6. Skylake memory controller implementation on C6420, FC\M 640

Below is a table of the max memory supported in the balanced configuration for the C6420 & FC\M 640 PowerEdge Servers. A good rule on these Dell Modular Systems is as the memory size requirement increases, the memory DIMM size must increase to keep the memory balance, so not to impact memory performance.

Figure 7. Max Performance Balanced Memory DIMM configurations

The black slots on the C6420 & FC\M640 can be used to increase the overall memory size of the system, but at the cost of up to 65% of the memory bandwidth. This must be kept in mind when choosing the memory for the server workload. To achieve the max memory performance on the Dell PowerEdge C6420 & FC\M640, only use the 12 white DIMM slots in a dual CPU configuration to increase the memory size. It is better to increase the DIMM size as seen in the table above to achieve maximum memory performance on these systems.

The table below shows the unbalanced memory performance impact of up to 65% by using all 16 DIMM slots to achieve the max configurable memory size of the Dell Modular Systems.

Figure 8. CPU choice (memory controller speed) vs. DIMM count vs. DIMM size.

The figures below of the Dell PowerEdge C6420 and FC\M 640 show that the memory slots A7, B7, A8, B8 place memory controller channels 0 and 3 in 2 DIMMs per channel mode. Since the other 4 memory controller channels are in single DIMM per channel mode, this will cause a drop in memory performance, as reflected in the performance tables above.

Figure 9. FC\M640 Memory Configuration table

Figure 10. C6400\C6420 Memory Configuration table

In conclusion, Processor and memory configurations must be considered when creating the system configurations of the 14G Dell PowerEdge Modular systems. Failing to choose the correct processor and memory configuration can cause dramatic performance impacts on Dell PowerEdge Modular Servers.