Transcript of Dell 10G Eval Wiki Web Chat of 12/11/07 (edited for brevity and accuracy)

DELL-davej We'd like to welcome everyone to the first ever Dell 10G Eval Wiki Webchat!
DELL-davej Today we'd like to show off the features of the wiki and get your initial feedback on the 10G Blades...plus talk about whatever's on your mind
DELL-davej Let's start out by talking about the 10G Eval wiki in general
DELL-davej You've probably figured out that we are covering both the R805 (Veso) and 10G Blades eval programs in one wiki
DELL-davej We will move each section to our public wiki at delltechcenter.com when the products ship
DELL-Todd_Muirhead Dave is leading the eval wiki for 10g Blades and I am leading the R805 eval wiki.
david_young joined.
david_young hello every one
DELL-davej Welcome David Young, our first customer!
david_young really
DELL-ScottH well, I wouldn't say in all of Dell's history, but the first to the chat. -- how's your eval going ?
david_young good so far ...
david_young i was going ttry to how it work with Deployment Services
DELL-davej Well to introduce ourselves, Scott, Todd, Roger and I are in the Dell TechCenter team, Aaron is the outbound marketing leader for 10G blades, and Kristin does customer case studies
david_young nice to meet everyone
david_young been really look forward to this eval...
DELL-davej David, is that the Altiris program?
david_young Yes
DELL-davej Todd and I have worked Altiris on blades in the past but we haven't checked out the new stuff yet
david_young We basically have more 1955's close to 300 so we depend on Altiris
DELL-davej How far have you gotten with your blades and Altiris?
DELL-davej 300 1955s! Yes!
david_young Built them all via Altiris
DELL-davej have you met Eric from Altiris? Big guy with a crewcut? He comes in the lab about every year or two to do a proof point with us
david_young no I have not ...we are a fairly new client for the Blades ( 1 year)
david_young We are migrating from our HP BL20p's..
david_young When we went at the excutive briefing we were really salivating over the 10G blades
DELL-ScottH what OS and apps are on the blades ?
david_young 90% Windows 10% Linux
david_young Majority is running our Student information System for a 400K student school disctrict
DELL-DaveJ Can you tell us a bit about how you are currently architected - which blades run which apps, storage, etc
david_young 100 of run the multi tier Presentation and Application for the SIM app and the rest our various Web and Application severs.
david_young We are still in the middle of our migration
david_young ANy storgae its back end with EMC Sym
david_young we have two enclosures with SAN
DELL-DaveJ where do you see the 10G blades being used initially?
david_young It another reason we are excited over the 10 G's we Need 4 nic and SAn capabilities
DELL-DaveJ That what one of the key design criteri for the new blades
david_young At first , we will be using them for SAN connected Exchnage clusters and oteh SAn connect server we are migrating from
DELL-DaveJ Exhange 2007?
david_young yes
david_young and Sharepoint 2007 current on the 1955's
DELL-DaveJ Todd and I have been working with E2K7, both on real and virtual servers
david_young on the 10G's?
DELL-Todd_Muirhead Not yet on the blades - our testing so far has been on 2950s
david_young there is some hesitation using blades on Exchange from our teams
DELL-DaveJ What's the hesitation about?
david_young the performance and clustering capabilties of the blades
DELL-DaveJ With all the IOs they shouldn't be much different from our standalone servers
david_young i will have to look into that give give some info tou teams on that
DELL-DaveJ Yes, we would very much like to hear what they are concerned about
DELL-DaveJ Do you have a QLogic daughtercard and Brocade switch in your eval unit
david_young neither
david_young unfortunately
david_young we had issues McData's in the 1955 Enclosure so we have pass thru for them
david_young We have not test the Brocades at all
DELL-DaveJ Passthrus make sense for a lot of reasons, if you can handle the extra cabling coming from the chassis
david_young At the moment I think we are ok.. we have relook at when and if we move the Exchnage over
DELL-DaveJ How far are you in your 10G Blades evaluation? Any issues?
david_young Not as far as I would like...
david_young None sofar
DELL-DaveJ Well stay plugged in to this site and give us your feedback as your evaluation progresses
david_young thx
david_young Any why you guys did not add a internal USB
david_young to the blade
DELL-DaveJ Good question. I wasn't involved in the design process. I'll see if I can find out
david_young We have need of a current HP blade that has it and we need to migrate it to a new platform. We would like use a blade.
DELL-DaveJ What's the requirement for the internal USB?
aaron_hanson regarding the internal USB, mostly a matter of lack of real estate internal on the blade
david_young its for licensing USB dongle
DELL-DaveJ The external USB ports won't work?
aaron_hanson stay tuned though, we are exploring a future blade to feature internal USB, and embedded SD for embedded hypervisor
david_young the dongle stick out and unable to close door...
DELL-ScottH if that is the only issue, you might want to try a USB extension cable ... just a work around
DELL-DaveJ So let's talk a little bit about the wiki. We've created four main sections corresponding to the enclosure, the blades, the CMC/iDRAC/KVM, networking and power management, plus a section on deployment that contains an excellent cookbook for getting started
DELL-DaveJ Right now there's not much there - that's where you guys come in. Everybody has been given Writer permission so you all can create pages and add content
DELL-DaveJ Content can be tips, questions, usage scenarios, entirely up to the community
david_young it looksa good
DELL-DaveJ Let's say you want to add something about the enclosure. Click on the M1000e Chassis link and then click on Add a new page in the right hand margin
DELL-DaveJ Add your content there, then go back up one level and add a link to it in the table
DELL-DaveJ You'll find the Wetpaint GUI pretty user friendly but the four of us are here if you have problems
david_young it looks like it
DELL-DaveJ We've been extending invitations to the whole community - Dell account reps, system engineers and system consultants, and customers. We hope to get a good discussion going around the 10G products
david_young awsome
david_young we have your r900 also about to have it run vs a Itanium server next week
DELL-Todd_Muirhead Is there any type of info that you would really like to see on the wiki?
david_young with 128 GB of RAM
DELL-Todd_Muirhead I would be on the R900!
DELL-DaveJ We'd be very interested in your result...we work on all Dell products, not just blades and Veso
david_young Info the 10G technology get include into like the SCOM manag,ent pack and Altiris
DELL-DaveJ the R900 kicked %%% in SPECjAppServer2005 running Oracle recently
david_young we will see
david_young your going vs a 16 way Monticeto Itanuim Server
DELL-DaveJ dual core right?
david_young yes
david_young SQL 2000 load testing
DELL-Todd_Muirhead So that is 16 cores total or 32 cores total
david_young ith Real time SQl DB
DELL-DaveJ Well David thanks for your participation in our initial web chat. We will post the transcript with a link on the homepage. Please come back next week for the next episode. Let us know what topics you wish to see covered
david_young thank you
david_young hope we have other customers
david_young in the mix
DELL-Todd_Muirhead Lots of customers have joined in just the last few days - we expect to get better participation
david_young great
david_young look forward to hearing others
david_young bye evryone