This TechTuesday chat is open-topic discussion format. Bring your questions, comments, ideas, and expertise on any enterprise data center technology or subject you'd like to discuss with the group.


Technical Community - Background Reading

Chat Transcript

david So when is the Deployment Pack for ConfigMgr going to be released?
DELL-ScottH Deployment Pack was pushed just a little; that's why we pushed out the chats to next week. So any day now
david Heard that at MMS last year :)
DELL-ScottH Ah yes, like any big company, "any day now"
david I know how that goes...
david So the chat is not going to be until next week? I noticed the lists next week and today still
DELL-ScottH Yes, the chat is still on for next week, so high confidence pack will release
DELL-ScottH Today is just a generic chat. About to tweet it, maybe get some people in here
david Okay. Sounds good
lynxbat joined.
DELL-ScottH Hey Lynxbat…still rebooting VMs?
DELL-ScottH :-)
lynxbat Lol. No, now I am trying to prove a storage bottleneck
depping joined.
lynxbat I am kicking myself for not turning up Virtual Center metrics earlier last year
DELL-ScottH 3 drive RAID-5? :-)
lynxbat Worse
DELL-ScottH Depping can help with that
depping Good evening
lynxbat Hola
DELL-ScottH Hello Depping
DELL-ScottH Worse? Like one spindle TB drive?
DELL-ScottH From Frys
lynxbat Yeah that would be worse
terpmeister joined.
DELL-ScottH Hola Termpmeister
DELL-ScottH Geez, misspell your name and that's what I get?
terpmeister Hola, browser freaked out. Lol :)
lynxbat Hey Scott, so now that Cisco and Dell are in bed, what happens to PowerConnects?
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I don't know yet...I think it all stays the same for right now and to keep them in check. Kind of like when we got EqualLogic...that helped a little with somebody else, which I probably shouldn't talk about in a public forum
lynxbat Lol
DELL-ScottH We should really have a tweetup and beers. That's when information really flows :-)
lynxbat I am all in just for the beers
DELL-ScottH You get any traffic off my blog post? Or is it still just me and my mom reading my blog? We can't all get rich off of it like Depping
terpmeister Ditto, oh wait. You guys are in another state :(
DELL-ScottH State of denial
terpmeister Lol
brennels joined.
DELL-ScottH So I don't have much this week; was supposed to be a chat on Deployment Pack for Microsoft ConfigMgr, but the pack pushed out a few weeks
DELL-ScottH Hey Brace
astorrs joined.
DELL-ScottH So I decided to hang out here anyways
DELL-ScottH Hey Astorrs
brennels Hey Scott, how are you?
depping Yes, I just bought a new BMW from my Adsense income
DELL-ScottH doing great
DELL-ScottH Lol
astorrs Lol
DELL-ScottH You are Internet rich!
Dell-RogerF joined.
DELL-ScottH I'm reinstalling XP Pro on my Mini 9
DELL-ScottH Hey Roger
depping Well, I did okay on Adsense yesterday... :)
DELL-ScottH Yeah, how much per day?
astorrs No, like Windows 7?
depping Yesterday, 30 dollars.
terpmeister XP, what happened with Windows 7?
depping Usually average of around 5–7 dollars
DELL-ScottH I got a USB TV tuner and no Windows 7 love
terpmeister Doh!
Dell-RogerF Afternoon
DELL-ScottH Coolness, you are buying all the beers at VMworld Europe
depping Good evening
terpmeister Wonder if Vista drivers would work?
DELL-ScottH Tried them
depping You know I don't drink alcohol
DELL-ScottH Didn't work
terpmeister :(
astorrs He didn't ask you to drink them, just buy them :p
DELL-ScottH Yeah, you are not the one drinking, you are buying!
DELL-ScottH :-)
depping Same thing for me, alcohol = the devil ::tongue
terpmeister Hear a bunch of IM and Skype no worky with Windows 7 as well
lynxbat (Dell-scotth, you get any traffic off my blog post? Or is it still just me and my mom reading my blog)—Just you and your Mom; tell her I said hi
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I'm sticking with XP until all the support for all my stuff comes out
DELL-ScottH Lol @lynxbat
astorrs Supposedly Vista works well (if you Vlite it first) on the Mini 9
DELL-ScottH Vlite?
depping Strip the OS
DELL-ScottH Quick thing on MD3000i and drive firmware: www.delltechcenter.com/thread/2304110/md3000i%3a+seagate+barracuda+7200.11+inside%3f
astorrs I have a ton of links I can send you on Vista on the Mini 9 if you want Scott, just e-mail me
astorrs If mine would ever show up I could tell you how well it works (grrr—delayed again)
DELL-ScottH Yeah, the XP and SP3 and all driver updates are just about done. I'm going to stick with it for a while
DELL-ScottH Delayed again—geez, and all the parts you ordered after are just sitting there
astorrs Yup, they arrived in about two days :)
DELL-ScottH Oh, cool demo on Thursday
depping Did you already get the chance to test the Mini 10?
DELL-ScottH Shelley from our executive briefing center is doing DMC (Dell Management Console) demos every two weeks
lynxbat Hey Depping, do you know good articles on how to analyze storage performance bottlenecks in VMware (VC)?
DELL-ScottH Let me find the link
depping VC?
lynxbat Virtual Center
depping Yes, I know
lynxbat Performance tab
Dave_Graham joined.
DELL-ScottH http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/systems_edge/archive/2009/01/26/dell-management-console-dmc-live-demo-this-week.aspx
Dave_Graham Finally in!
astorrs Hi Dave
DELL-ScottH Hello Dave
lynxbat In other words, not just esxtop
Dave_Graham I see we have the usual suspects. ;)
DELL-ScottH Got it to work I see :-)
lynxbat Or is esxtop the way to go?
depping But a command-line guy like you should be looking at esxtop
lynxbat Lol
depping Most definitely yes!
Dave_Graham Firefox this time. No Chrome, Chromium, IE 7
DELL-ScottH What's the storage in question?
lynxbat Damn it, I knew you would say that
lynxbat EMC CX3-20
DELL-ScottH White box?
depping You could dump the information to CSV if you want to
lynxbat I got a development group that kept wanting more servers, and I kept warning them
Dave_Graham Oh, CX3-20
astorrs Better be co-branded "Dell/EMC” for this chat ;)
DELL-ScottH Dave, can probably help too; he's from EMC
lynxbat Actually it is
Dave_Graham Dell black or purple…same difference ;)
lynxbat Lol
depping I would ditch it and start using Netapp ;)
DELL-ScottH Yeah, just lie to me! :-)
lynxbat Dell black
Dave_Graham Better faceplates on the Dell boxes versus EMC
lynxbat Matches the 2950 and R900s too :)
depping What kind of problems are you experiencing?
lynxbat I am not lying, I can send screenshots ;) 15 disk SATA DAE, 65 VMs :(
lynxbat I warned them
Dave_Graham On SATA?
lynxbat Disk read latency is 100–150 average
lynxbat Terrible
Dave_Graham What RAID configuration?
DELL-ScottH Wow, sounds a bit overloaded
lynxbat 5 and 9 standard at RAID-5
Dave_Graham So no meta LUNs, right?
lynxbat Nope
DELL_AndyF joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello Andy
Dave_Graham You're getting creamed then. I/O rates there are ridiculous. Should get some NAR data to identify hotspots
lynxbat I went forward with a Dell quote for new DAE to add, but they are balking
DELL_AndyF Hello
lynxbat NAR?
DELL-ScottH So you need justification
lynxbat I got the justification. Now they are talking about dropping unnecessary VMs. But they will have to cut very deep
Dave_Graham Navisphere Analyzer Data
lynxbat Ah
lynxbat NA is an extra license
Dave_Graham So, there's a way to pull it off the array if you don't have it enabled
lynxbat Need to order
lynxbat Really?
Dave_Graham Definitely will help, as will Navisphere QoS Manager
lynxbat I think NA runs 10 K with the CX3
lynxbat Not too bad
Dave_Graham Well, pulling it off as an encrypted file for Dell to read. ;)
DELL_Aaron joined.
Dave_Graham BTW, I'm from EMC (in case you didn't know)...so, I can work with Dell on this if you need help
Dave_Graham ;)
lynxbat Very cool
DELL-ScottH Hello Aaron
lynxbat I am going to hit it with esxtop (depping is usually right) also
Dave_Graham So, hope I didn't shanghai the conversation at all
DELL-ScottH FYI, if anyone needs to catch up on the chat, use Action, Recent Room History
depping Might be worth checking the vmkernel log
DELL-ScottH Nope not at all; we are open lines, open chat, open clobber all over anyone today
depping Are they also running snapshots?
lynxbat Snaps in VM not SAN
Dave_Graham Lol, good to know
lynxbat Only a few servers
Dave_Graham VMFS volumes correct? Not virtual/physical RDM?
lynxbat Yup, straight VMFS
depping Then I would suspect a whole bunch of SCSI reservation conflicts. Check the queues, and the queue depth
astorrs left.
lynxbat Okay (taking notes)
Dave_Graham Are you running NPIV at all?
Karim joined.
CLaudeH joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello Karim, welcome
lynxbat NPIV? No problem in Venice?
Karim Evening all
DELL-ScottH Hello Claude, welcome
Dave_Graham Lol
depping But in the end , that amount of VMs on a VMFS volume...brrr
Dave_Graham N-port virtualization, basically "channeling" 4GB/S Fibre
lynxbat Yeah, I know
DELL-ScottH We're trying to solve Lynxbat's disk problem, which is really just an "I need a bunch more disks" problem
lynxbat Lol
Karim Lol
lynxbat DG, never heard of it
Dave_Graham 64 VMs on a single VMFS volume (or even multiple VMFS volumes across SATA in general)...wow!
depping More disks, more VMFS volumes, fewer snapshots, fewer VMs per volume :)
Dave_Graham Lb, never mind then. Chances are no
lynxbat It is always $$$
lynxbat They will drop money for giving away TVs but not to buy DAEs
DELL-ScottH Hard fight, especially now
Dave_Graham Lol...I'll take a TV
lynxbat Okay, enough about me. Someone else hijack. I came to listen, or read that is
DELL-ScottH Well, I'd like to re-invite everyone to the DMC demo on Thursday: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/systems_edge/archive/2009/01/26/dell-management-console-dmc-live-demo-this-week.aspx
Dave_Graham Scott, the M905s support 237x/238x processors, right?
DELL-ScottH DMC is Dell's next version of one-to-many systems management
DELL-ScottH Let me look
Karim Basically the replacement for ITA, no?
Dave_Graham Aka "Shanghai"
lynxbat How big is the scope on DMC?
DELL_AndyF Exactly
lynxbat Is it just hardware involved?
DELL-ScottH Yes, ITA follow on, but ITA gets one more revision
CLaudeH left.
Karim What’s the Linux support with DMC? Last I looked it was pretty limited
depping Could you ask the people that package OpenManage to create separate packages for each OS, Scott?
DELL-ScottH DMC is based on Altriris Notification Server 7, so if you're familiar with that, that should define a scope for you
CLaudeH joined.
DELL-ScottH Uh, yeah on the Linux—maybe Roger can answer that one
depping Really annoying—you visit the Web site, chose an OS, download the package, and end up with all operating systems included
Karim Hmmm, if I remembered to burn a copy, could try it on my weeks away from the Glasgow site
DELL-ScottH I will take that back, Depping
Karim I think the original support site a year or two back had better OS-specific information
DELL-ScottH @dave, yes, the M905s support Shanghai, the 838x processor
lynxbat Okay. Scott, I will attend it
DELL-ScottH Cookie for you
Dave_Graham Scott, thanks. Means that Instanbul support will be there too. HT3 for the win!
DELL-ScottH I'm going to hack HyperTansport 4 and skip 3
Dave_Graham Lol
depping Are you guys already actively testing the next version of ESX?
Dave_Graham You read the HT3 manual at all?
DELL-ScottH Nope, can you bullet some highlights for us?
Karim Heh, the crash course :S
DELL-ScottH Yeah, some speeds and feeds and what the estimated 3dmark05 score would be :-) Did you guys see the liquid hydrogen-and-nitrogen-cooled AMD to 6.5 Ghz break the record?
Dave_Graham Yeah
Dave_Graham Woo!
Karim Nice
terpmeister 6.5 Ghz, wow!
DELL-ScottH http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/01/65-ghz-overcloc.html
lynxbat Cool, no pun intended
DELL-ScottH Funny, all the legal disclaimers in the video
DELL-ScottH The one at 6:26 is the best..."AMD does not recommend pouring liquid nitrogen on your head or your friend's head." They celebrate with a liquid nitrogen dumping on each other
Dave_Graham That'd be a cool video by itself. ;)
Dave_Graham Darwinism in action
DELL-ScottH I wonder if you could snap off pieces of your hair. I gotta get some of that stuff. I remember fondly playing with mercury as a child
Dave_Graham It shows. ;)
DELL-ScottH Lol
a joined.
DELL-ScottH Welcome a ...cool, the letter “a”
Dave_Graham As in aardvark? ;)
DELL-ScottH Apple
a left.
DELL-ScottH Good job, Dave :-)
Karim Yikes, think you scared them
terpmeister Or antidisestablishmentarianism
Dave_Graham Me? Dude, I'm the friendliest guy in the bloody world!
DELL-ScottH Yes, you are
Dave_Graham Lol
DELL-ScottH I appreciate everyone stopping by and taking time away from your tweets :-)
Dave_Graham So, what else is kicking out there?
DELL-ScottH Remember to join the DMC demo...you can get the link in the transcript tomorrow...same link that got you here
DELL-ScottH And if you have MD3000i's, keep an eye out for a drive firmware update on 2/6. And other than that, we'll be back on a systems management topic next week and the week after
DELL-ScottH You can find upcoming topics listed here: www.delltechcenter.com/page/chat+topics+and+transcripts
Dave_Graham Nice
DELL-ScottH Thanks again for stopping by; I think it is supposed to freeze here tonight—pretty quickly. Anyone else in Austin?
karim It's freezing most nights here in Scotland
Dave_Graham Lynxbat, if need be, feel free to contact me on twitter (davegraham) or via e-mail: Graham_dave@emc.com. Happy to help with diagnosing the CLARiiON activity
brennels Nope 6–12 inches of snow in Boston. I would gladly trade that for Austin weather. Take care
Dave_Graham 6–12?
DELL-ScottH Yeah, don't miss that
lynxbat Thanks, Dave, I will do
Dave_Graham Good lord, I've gotta get ready for that...shovel and ice melt. Grrr...I'm in Central MA. This is gonna suck
brennels See ya guys
DELL-ScottH Later
terpmeister left.
brennels left.
david left.
lynxbat @DG, followed
karim Scott, I know some of the trainers here are going to go into a conference call about DMC, but it keeps getting put back
DELL-ScottH @lynxbat <-- stalker
Dell-RogerF left.
atxtraveler joined.
DELL-ScottH The training?
DELL-ScottH Hey Mark
atxtraveler Howdy all
lynxbat @scott me? You RT more than me :)
atxtraveler What's the latest enterprise news?
DELL-ScottH Wrapping up and signing off here, but will hang out for you
DELL_Aaron left.
DELL-ScottH Yeah :-)
Dave_Graham left.
lynxbat Bye all, I got a pointless meeting to go to
DELL-ScottH Later
DELL-ScottH gl
lynxbat left.
atxtraveler Boy, I need to use better deodorant; I show up, and everyone drops
DELL-ScottH Yeah, you stink :-)
karim /me moves away from atxtraveler— kidding
DELL-ScottH How was the VMware meeting? Todd show up?
atxtraveler @karim, thanks
DELL-ScottH You kick out all that HP junk?
atxtraveler Yes, Big Head Todd was there
DELL-ScottH And Josh hist monster?
atxtraveler HP is so 1998
DELL-ScottH What was lunch?
atxtraveler Jason's Deli
DELL-ScottH Ugh
atxtraveler And a chat about how awesome the CIM Smash data is out of VMware's API
atxtraveler Nothing like managing your Dell environment from your preferred management suite!
DELL-ScottH Yes
DELL-ScottH Finally arriving on a set of standards that will work for everyone and that is not 1970s SNMP
atxtraveler Move the MIBs over
karim Yeah, but "most" people I talked to still work on SNMP or MOMs
atxtraveler Because the alternatives were not always there
karim Would be nice for something more standard
DELL-ScottH Yup, “eubiquitous” (did I spell that right?)
karim True
atxtraveler Drop the "e"
DELL-ScottH The “e” is silent. :-)
atxtraveler SNMP—that still stands for slow Network management protocol, right?
DELL-ScottH So what are you, Doug, and Kyle up to tonight? More trouble?
atxtraveler I think it is third base for the Baylor Texas basketball game
CLaudeH left.
atxtraveler You and all Dell TechCenter Chat members are welcome!