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

Technical Community - Background Reading

Chat Transcript

Prof_ebral I saw this on my Twitter page, so I thought I would join, since it is near time to start
DELL-ScottH Thanks for joining. What's your Twitter ID? Make sure I follow you, I've been bad about follow backs lately; been busy, but about to correct that
Prof_ebral prof_ebral
Prof_ebral I just started using Twitter because of Rick Sanchez
Karim Our training team has three of them here; only one model but they’re hiding them from me atm :P
Prof_ebral I love that guy. He is great on CNN
DELL-ScottH Twitter is great. You have to start using it to really get the meaning of how great it is—hard to explain the concept to people
Karim I just spam there I think; should really try using it for proper ideas
Prof_ebral It is new to me. I have a cool background though, so I will get by
DELL-ScottH Yeah the stars look great :-)
DELL-ScottH So they are hiding the 11g’s from you Karim?
Karim Yep, until the trainers get the NPI run out over here.
Karim Don't know if you've seen this one mad idea for replacing UPS batteries, wouldn't recommend it though: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys1uznq8nys
DELL-ScottH That link didn't work for me
Prof_ebral Me either
DELL-ScottH Hello Koen, good to see you again
Karim Just checking another link here
Karim Hi Koen
Karim http://revision3.com/systm/hackedups/
koen.vdvelde Hi Scott, and every one else. It seems to be so quiet this evening?
Karim That should work; watched it last night
DELL-ScottH Cool, hacking a UPS
DELL-ScottH That link worked
DELL-ScottH Hello John!
DELL-ScottH How goes it?
JOHNADCO Decent. Questions, questions as always :)
DELL-ScottH Well today's chat is a good place to ask: it's open topic, all about you :-)
JOHNADCO Perfect
DELL-ScottH Let's go ahead and start
JOHNADCO Mine relate to MD3000i as always
DELL-ScottH Today is open topic day: anybody, everybody, please add to the chat with your expertise and experience. Jump in anytime, and a couple of reminders…
JOHNADCO How do I know the when, where, why, and what the results of my media scans are?
DELL-ScottH Right-click on links to avoid exiting chat
JOHNADCO I'm not sure I even understand the 15-day interval thing?
Prof_ebral Well, I'm gonna jump on the gun. Dell, the majority, if not all, of your customers really dislike the outsourcing of tech support. Any plans to bring the work force back to America?
Karim Scott, was wondering, do you know if in OMSA they fixed the issue with the encryption for 256 and 512 levels? I did have a fix for it on an old system, but haven’t really noticed if it's been implemented or not
DELL-ScottH Chat is recorded. And you can use Action, Recent Room History to catch up on any thing you missed
DELL-ScottH Hello Chris
JOHNADCO Those are truly broad discussion topics right there :)
DELL-ScottH Okay, so media scans. I will have to research and add a link to the transcript. Unless Jason knows
DELL-ScottH Hello Jason
JasonPowell Howdy Scott. Thanks for your offers during our travel snafus last week
:-)
JOHNADCO Consistency check pre-read? I have no clue, but it is disabled for all my VDs on my MD3000i's
MSI-Chris Hey Scott
DELL-ScottH Outsourcing Tech support. We currently have offers to pay a little more and get North America tech support. Pretty sure we are always evaluating best place to put tech support. I would not be the definitive guy to answer, but I'll be sure the big guy gets this feedback. Always a top topic of discussion
DELL-ScottH @jason, no problems, glad you made it a-okay, even if you had little sleep
Karim Hi Jason/Chris
JOHNADCO I take it the support for devices such as SANs is still here? I'd give it decent marks in all honesty
DELL-ScottH @karim, what is the issue with 512/256? I have OMSA 5.5 installed on a machine; can look if I know what to look for
JasonPowell Hi Karim
DELL-ScottH Yeah, if you have ProSupport options, most times you are routed to a call center here in North America
Prof_ebral Thanks. I'm just wondering. I do a lot of free tech support mainly because I can't stand other people touching my computer. I'll just listen for a little now
DELL-ScottH Oh yeah, aren't we all tech support for our friends and family? :-)
MSI-Chris More true words have never been said on that one, Scott
Prof_ebral Yeah. I think so
DELL-ScottH I've been working on R805, 2950III, and MD3000i in the lab, and about to put out a demo on how easy it is to connect it all with ESXi and ESX
Karim It was for the SSL encryption; I think the old fix was to hack one of the applets in the folders. I'll have a look for the e-mail tomorrow and see if I can find the specific file name
DELL-ScottH Had fun doing that
JOHNADCO I just use the stall strategy with my friends and family. Eventually they get it solved or buy a new one :)
DELL-ScottH Lol, I thought only I used that tactic
DELL-ScottH @karim, let me look on my 5.5 OMSA right now
JOHNADCO I was looking at this document: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/md3000i/en/cli/html/maintsa.htm#wp1159085
MSI-Chris Scott, that demo would have been nice a few months ago; I just finished a 2950, ESXi, MD3000i setup
JOHNADCO I'm not sure I understand best practices for routine maintenance on the MD3000i. Maybe I should hit a storage specialist up through ProSupport with my seemingly million questions?
DELL-ScottH Yeah, let me ping one of the developers and see if they have a document I can link to this transcript. Assume the rate is in days? Not too clear
JasonPowell When are they going to release the next servers? I'm ready to buy! :-)
DELL-ScottH Yeah, but then only you and he would know the answers!
DELL-ScottH Ugh, Jason, I got slapped down today for answering one of our forum questions on that very topic
JOHNADCO Ouch, I saw that Scott
DELL-ScottH I spoke too much about the specs, and goons came and put duct tape on my mouth. I can say...soon, very soon. Or I could say exactly when, and then delete it from the transcript :-)
Karim Lol
JasonPowell Lol
Karim I was about to put my foot in it as well today but caught myself
JasonPowell I expect to learn something in the channel partner Webex tomorrow ;-)
DELL-ScottH Weeks? Can I say weeks?
JOHNADCO I'd also like to make sure we get as much data taken as we can for the MD3000i's periodically, any and all data that could be helpful in any and all possible recovery operation(s)
JasonPowell Lol
DELL-ScottH Definitely save the storage array profile…on the support tab
JOHNADCO So I should run the Gather support information tab every so often and save it to a known location somewhere? I have an employee now that is in charge of corporate redundancy. Of course I will make him do it
DELL-ScottH Yes, you can also enable the automatic collection setting when critical events happen, on the same page
DELL-ScottH Yes, your time is much too valuable :-)
DELL-ScottH I can say from experience that the MD3000i is very resilient
JOHNADCO Yeah, less time to come here for these chats!
DELL-ScottH I did a bad thing about a month ago and tried to upgrade firmware on a running box, and it was able to recover...and I didn't do much to make it recover
JOHNADCO So far so good on them. We beat the lowly thought of SANs pretty darn hard too
DELL-ScottH I've been impressed with the functionality and performance. I really need to get my hands/head around the EqualLogic boxes; we have five of them. Maybe Jason can some down and give me a tutorial, and then we can have some real BBQ and not that Dallas stuff :-)
JOHNADCO I had a good unscheduled test of a controller failover a while back, and I was wiring on the rack and pulled on the cables pretty hard and it was loose enough to cause a controller failure failover. ESXi was very graceful; the SAN was getting slammed and there was no noted interruption or no hiccup was detected
DELL-ScottH I've also been testing some of the VMware vSphere stuff; although, I definitely cannot talk about any of that...I can only say the word "vSphere"
Karim Need to get my hands dirty with the EqualLogic stuff as well as the mid-storage stuff
DELL-ScottH Very good to hear; so are you liking ESXi? I like it more and more—so easy to get a box up and into vCenter. Yeah I scheduled an EqualLogic chat to force myself to dive into it
JOHNADCO Man, ESX is the real deal. We virtualized 12 servers to one host, and we have another host we only use for failover. We are still performing awesomely, we plan some more heavy VMs on it as well. No problemo
MSI-Chris I have been very impressed with ESXi. It is saving me a ton of time
Karim Nice, just started snowing here in Scotland
DELL-ScottH I thought it only rained in Scotland
JOHNADCO I have many friends in the industry fighting holy hell with Windows VM technology. I almost feel guilty being able to run cheap ESX seemingly so much better
DELL-ScottH John what were the applications for those 12 servers?
Karim True, been raining all week so it's nice for a difference
DELL-ScottH Chris, how are you using it?
JasonPowell Scott, I'd love to come down/over and talk EqualLogic and BBQ :)
JasonPowell Hard 8 BBQ will be a tough act to follow though
Karim Got to love ESXi; it just works out of the box. Haven't tried Xen Enterprise yet, but tried setting Xen up through Linux and it's not the easiest thing
JOHNADCO Exchange 2007 64-bit, two SQL servers, one raging imaging server, one flat-file server, PDC; we are beta testing Zetafax VM fax sever, a bunch of XP for RDP, etc., etc.
MSI-Chris I have been very impressed with ESXi performance. We consolidated some basic terminal server and file server stuff and were able to get rid of some real old boxes
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I don't know much that can't be virtualized now. Exchange and SQL were really the last frontiers
JOHNADCO We added 10,000 physical image files to our imaging server per day. No archiving on that one; growth is pretty intense. It uses a 25 GB SQL DB
DELL-ScottH Salt Lick, and that's all I have to say, @jasonpowell :-)
JasonPowell 10,000 images? OMW
MSI-Chris We were able to put these smaller servers on a physical box along with an IP camera system that they said wouldn't virtualize well. All are running great
JasonPowell /me Googles Salt Lick Austin, TX
JOHNADCO I know, with over 14 million physical files, it was hard to see; my redundancy employee charts the growth every day now
JOHNADCO 10,000 average. Many, many images in each physical file
DELL-ScottH Driftwood: www.saltlickbbq.com
DELL-ScottH Welcome, Roger
Karim Yeah I know a lot of MSSB customers for the London area have moved onto ESXi boxes now
Dell-RogerF Hi
DELL-ScottH Talking BBQ, MD3000i, imaging servers, VMware, ESXi, ESX, EqualLogic—across the board :-)
JasonPowell Mmmmmm, BBQ
Prof_ebral I'm just listening. First time here. Hi Roger
DELL-ScottH Help me with acronyms: MSSB? Microsoft Small Business?
JOHNADCO Lol
Karim No managed services
DELL-ScottH Hello Justin
Karim Managed services for small business
JOHNADCO Not too far off, Scott
JasonPowell We're moving to VMware Infrastructure 3, but gotta say our VMware Server implementation has been rock solid for several years: http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/2008/04/our-vmware-serv.html
DELL-ScottH Trying to convince Jason to come down and give me a tutorial on EqualLogic and have real BBQ, not that Dallas stuff :-)
MSI-Chris Are you guys seeing a lot of people running the embedded ESXi?
wantmoore Scott: you buy the tickets and we are there
JOHNADCO We run it, embedded that is
DELL-ScottH I'm seeing more and more, especially now that vendors have stopped doing agent stuff in the console OS—really no need anymore
DELL-ScottH We'll have OpenManage agent embedded in the next update
DELL-ScottH <-- Goons attack and slap more duct tape
Karim For ESX 3.5 you can install from the command line. Thought Todd gave that one away before for ESXi, Scott :P
wantmoore We can protect you from the goons, but it will cost you...in the form of information
MSI-Chris The more I learn about it, embedded just seems to be the way to go
JOHNADCO No install, I mean the host is ready to go out of the box
DELL-ScottH Jason, are you getting some good deals on VMware Infrastructure 3? Are they doing much in the non-profit space for pricing?
JasonPowell No non-profit discounts no matter how loud I plead
DELL-ScottH Yeah, even if it's not installed out of the box, it takes five minutes to get it up from the CD image and just plug in the IP address, so easy
JasonPowell But I have IT volunteers that are VAR who will give me at-cost pricing
DELL-ScottH That's a good deal
Karim If you look at the ninth-generation systems with the on-board Flash sticks and R805/905 with the SD card, it really makes sense these days to go ESX embedded
JOHNADCO Anybody else doing 64 Windows VMs? x64 I mean?
JasonPowell $2950 for VMware Infrastructure 3 foundation acceleration kit with Gold support...seems like a pretty good price
Prof_ebral I'm trying to drop the Windows habit
MSI-Chris I am thinking our next purchase will be one of the embedded machines; I have been more than happy with the ESXi installable
DELL-ScottH Better be careful of people who are going to hit you up for licenses
JOHNADCO With a host, your rep should be able to throw you a better bone than that :)
Prof_ebral I want to get MPX and mod a touch screen on my Mini 9. Instant Linux 7
Karim Prof, take it you've been looking at mymini9.com then? :P
JasonPowell When Dell releases the new servers, I'm hoping we can get VMware Infrastructure 3 bundled in for uber-discount (time will tell)
Prof_ebral I have artwork to buy before I mod my laptop. Redesigning a magazine
JOHNADCO I was reading some Dell stuff, maybe even on this Web site about two physical processors versus four physical processors? It just doesn't seem the additional processor license is really worth it for ESX for the four physical
MSI-Chris That would be a good marketing campaign for Dell
DELL-ScottH Will be some pretty good announcements around the new stuff and virtualization
MSI-Chris Why do we have to wait?
JOHNADCO I mean, in reality? A 2950 with 32 GB RAM, and two 4-core processors kicks some serious &$%#@
JOHNADCO Not now, Scott has already been duct taped over this type of exchange
Karim Scott, what do you think of Hyper-V in comparison to ESXi? Not really played around much with Hyper-V so haven't been diving into it that much
DELL-ScottH I like both
MSI-Chris We are finding that we could probably run our whole company on one of those 2950s
DELL-ScottH Microsoft and VMware are both great partners :-)
JOHNADCO No kidding, we are doing just that
JOHNADCO My friends are running Hyper-V, and all have horror stories every time I get together with them. Man am I glad we went ESX
DELL-ScottH I lean to VMware...mainly because I've worked with it more, and it had all the features I needed before Hyper-V got there
MSI-Chris We are working on getting down to one or two ESXi boxes and a failover somewhere else on our campus
DELL-ScottH And I like ESX or ESXi—take your pick—because I don't have to install Windows first and then add a Hyper-V role
JOHNADCO That alone is worth a friggin’ mint Scott
MSI-Chris I like the bare-metal setup of VMware. I can't get over the fact that Hyper-V is still running on top of windows
DELL-ScottH But if I grew up Windows and was still Windows entrenched, I'd probably like Hyper-V more...my MCSE expired :-(
Karim Didn't think you could do that, combining them both
DELL-ScottH Yeah, even if all you have to do is install Windows Core, still kind of a pain
JOHNADCO Maybe...it seems like Hyper-V hosts can only support like 1/4 the VM-age of ESX though. Same memory and all
MSI-Chris I would like to see a good performance comparison of ESX and Hyper-V
Karim I'm playing with both, laptops running Fedora with VMware workstation on it for testing things and a Windows desktop for games :P
Karim True Chris
DELL-ScottH I'm with you though John and Chris, I can get through a ton of work on a 2950III loaded with RAM
DELL-ScottH Throw
DELL-ScottH Somebody that would be good to hit up on that would be @virtualtodd on Twitter: Todd Muirhead. worked here up until a few months ago, and was doing loads of testing on Hyper-V. Then he went to VMware
DELL-ScottH For performance
JasonPowell Off thread, anyone have any experience getting an iPhone screen replaced cheaply?
Karim TBH was speaking with a friend and he compared ESXi similar to Hyper-V and ESX just being above it
DELL-ScottH I've seen some kits on eBay for iPhone screen replacement...I broke my first-generation iPhone and sold it on eBay for $185. Then just bought the new one for $185! for a broken phone
Prof_ebral I have a PPC-6600 that had its screen replaced. It cost about the same. $187 I think
MSI-Chris I am surprised that neither VMware nor Microsoft hasn't tried to release any type of performance comparison. They must be doing it internally. Is it just too close to be useful in marketing?
JasonPowell 10-4
DELL-ScottH I think all the replacement parts are uber-expensive
DELL-ScottH Chris, I think you are very close to hitting the nail on the head
Prof_ebral The parts are expensive as well as the tech support needed to replace it
JasonPowell Yes, and in a few months the new iPhone will come out :(
Prof_ebral If you can replace it yourself, you are only saving I think $70-80
DELL-ScottH Another new one! Really?
Prof_ebral What does the new iPhone offer?
JasonPowell No specs released yet, of course, but rumors of dual core and Flash
DELL-ScottH So no flash on the old phones?
Prof_ebral Apple patented Multi Touch technology. I wonder how that is going to mingle with Windows 7?
JasonPowell Hopefully the Palm Pre will put some pressure on Apple to upgrade stuff that they should have already done
JasonPowell Correct, iPhones do not do Flash nor background applications (without jailbreaking)
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I have one, but I thought they might be able to do Flash on the current phones in the future
DELL-ScottH Alright, enough Apple talk in my chat room :-)
JasonPowell Lol
Prof_ebral Lol
DELL-ScottH Before everybody heads out, keep an eye out for my demo on MD3000i and ESXi
JOHNADCO Sure. Are you soliciting comments about it? :)
DELL-ScottH And watch out for the chats in the upcoming weeks. I think there are some things around the corner ;-) ;-)
Karim Lol
JasonPowell Things ++
Karim Shiney things?
DELL-ScottH And John, I will follow up with your MD3000i media scan and best practices
JOHNADCO Thanks, I do have a million questions on it
DELL-ScottH Doh, did I say "things"?
JOHNADCO <-- Getting out the duct tape for Scott again
JasonPowell Dell TechCenter Chat Rulez
DELL-ScottH Send me an e-mail: scott_hanson@dell.com for a reminder, and that way I can get you in touch with some inside people as well
DELL-ScottH There's an underscore in there; like you even thought e-mail addresses had spaces :-)
JOHNADCO Thanks again, Scott
Prof_ebral Interesting chat
DELL-ScottH Thanks to everyone for joining. Tell some friends about the Dell TechCenter!
JOHNADCO Lots of broad topics covered for sure; they are usually more focused, Prof
Karim Scott might drop you a spam tomorrow on the *********** and on the OMSA query
DELL-ScottH Yes, usually one topic. Check the previous transcripts for some great topics. Link in a second…
Prof_ebral I'm on Skype talking to a friend about the chat we are having
DELL-ScottH K, no problem, am here for you
MSI-Chris I look forward to new "things" to talk about
DELL-ScottH Skype? Are you talking to Oprah? :-)
erson Dang, got the time zones mixed up
Prof_ebral Oprah? Nah, I'm talking to my D&D buddy.
DELL-ScottH www.delltechcenter.com/page/chat+topics+and+transcripts
JOHNADCO I hate it when that happens, Erson, and remember the time change is this weekend for the U.S. :)
JasonPowell Oprah, Lol
DELL-ScottH Oprah is a big Skype fan. I only know because of my wife...I swear
JasonPowell Same here
Prof_ebral Lol
JOHNADCO Take care, Scott, as always
Karim Yeah, yeah
DELL-ScottH Erson, you can view the transcript tomorrow. Or use Action, Recent Room History to see this past hour of craziness
DELL-ScottH You guys take care too!
erson Dell-scotth, great, will do
Prof_ebral Bye
DELL-ScottH Time to catch up on tweets!
JasonPowell Twitter++
DELL-ScottH E-mail
Karim Take it the role call's been dropped again :P
Dell-RogerF Bye
Karim Cya all
erson Ah well, must make sure to remember this the next time
DELL-ScottH Dang time zones :-)
erson Yeah, 10 pm here in Sweden
DELL-ScottH I thought we were all supposed to be on Swatch time by now
erson Me too
DELL-ScottH Lol
erson Never understand why that didn't hit off. Hmmm, maybe time to hit Google and find out if anyone has reported about the R710 on Cebit
DELL-ScottH Shush
erson In all its supposed glory: www.computerbase.de/bildstrecke/24618/1/
DELL-ScottH That's a very nice pic. There were a few on here earlier that would have loved to have seen that
erson I can imagine
DELL-ScottH I think that is very Tweet worthy...what is your Twitter ID?
DELL-ScottH Am I following you?
erson Twitter, whats that? ;)
DELL-ScottH Dang...Jason
DELL-ScottH Jason
DELL-ScottH Jason
JasonPowell Yo
erson Has there been any talk about the upcoming servers?
JasonPowell Scared the crap out of me
JasonPowell :-)
DELL-ScottH Hey, tweet that last link that Erson sent, pic of an 11g server
DELL-ScottH Then I can re-tweet :-)
JasonPowell One sec...
DELL-ScottH Then I'm covered
wantmoore That looks familiar
erson /me visits Twitter.com for the first time
DELL-ScottH Erson, I'm @dellservergeek, jason is @jasonpowell, and Justin is @wantmoore
JasonPowell So what should I mention about said image?
JasonPowell New Dell 11g server sneak peak?
wantmoore 11g++
wantmoore I have awesome documents to peruse :)
DELL-ScottH Whatever you want; just leave me room to re-tweet
wantmoore Thanks to a friend who works @ Dell
erson http://smolt.fedoraproject.org/client/show/pub_04d6fc39-ee81-442b-b8e0-d3cb77164b32
DELL-ScottH Yes, enjoying that site I see
wantmoore Heh, haven’t been on there much after reading through initial stuff
wantmoore From what I saw, lots of the other folks on there have actual test servers, and I don’t, so my feelings were hurt
DELL-ScottH Erson, that is a great thing about open source, they threw it all out there
JasonPowell Done: https://twitter.com/jasonpowell
DELL-ScottH Yeah, sorry, I didn't get to pick who got boxes :-(
DELL-ScottH You know you guys would be on My list
erson Yeah, but the naming leaves something to be desired there
DELL-ScottH Thanks!
JasonPowell Scott, did you see the pics of those servers in Batman—"The Dark Knight"?
wantmoore URL shortening fail
JasonPowell Just saw it on Imax again and noticed them
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I know the guy that does all the movie placements; they just got faceplates :-)
erson Hmmm, just need to get a matching EqualLogic
JasonPowell I think I saw a Sumo too
wantmoore There was definitely a 4U 11g or EqualLogic panel in there
erson 4U, Xeon MP then?
erson Aka, Beckton
erson Aka, baddest badass server
DELL-ScottH Jason, thanks for doing that tweet; seriously, road trip to Austin sometime!
erson or maybe the EqualLogic I was referring to above
DELL-ScottH Have to run; my improv class is further downtown and traffic == no good this time