Chris Almond, member of the Dell PG Storage Interoperability team, joins the TechCenter Community to talk about what Dell's Storage Interop Lab does. Chris leads development and publication of all whitepapers and other web facing content the SIE team creates. Here is a recent sample:


In this chat we are looking for feedback on what we can do to make our content more useful and easier to consume. Specifically:

  • What content types are preferred- whitepapers, tech notes, video demos, etc?
  • What should the length of papers/notes be. Depth/breadth? Downloadable vs online? Format types, and methods to best facilitate community interaction around content?

Chat Transcr



Dell-JeffS Welcome to this week's chat topic, a Q&A for the Storage Interoperability team.
Dell-JeffS Chris Almond and Mark Reinke from the Storage Interoperability Team are here. Chris, can you expand on what you guys do at Dell?
Chris_Almond Thanks, Jeff. SIE (Storage Interoperability Engineering) is part of the Dell Enterprise Product Group Storage Engineering Team. I lead the development and publication process for all white papers and other web-facing content the SIE team creates
mark_reinke I am the manager of the Enterprise PG Storage Interoperability Team and Chris's manager.
Chris_Almond We are currently focused on supporting Dell EqualLogic, with two primary activities: Best Practices (whitepaper) development.
Chris_Almond And Validation (switches, NICs/ iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface), HBA’s (Host Bus Adapters), etc.
Chris_Almond We are ramping up our projects in support of white papers and are looking for feedback on what we can do to make our content more useful and easier to consume.
Dell-JeffS One of the papers we recently did is this: * Apply to be a Writer * Report page * Share this storage. This featured page is a list of Dell-produced white papers and collateral on storage in chronological order. Please add your Dell-produced papers to this list. Add this page to your watch list to be notified when new white papers are released. 2010 deploying Microsoft Sql Server 2008 based Decision Support Systems using Dell EqualLogic 10gbe iSCSI Storage by Dell Storage Interoperability Engineering configuring a Dell EqualLogic PS series array as a Backup Target for CommVault Simpana-v1.1 by Dell Engineering configuring an EqualLogic PS series array as a Backup Target for Symantec Backup Exec-v1 0 By Dell Engineering configuring Dell PowerEdge 11G Servers Running Windows Server 2008 for iSCSI San Boot is here http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/storage+whitepapers
Dell-JeffS What I was trying to share was "configuring Dell PowerEdge 11G Servers Running Windows Server 2008 for iSCSI San Boot"
erson Why the need to login to get to most documents on Dell EqualLogic? I'm hearing a lot of people complaining about that.
Dell-JeffS If you check back on Dell TechCenter next week, you should see all of the Tech Reports un-gated.
Dell-JeffS In other words, what's behind the support? Dell Equallogic.com today as a 'Tech Report” will be posted on www.delltechcenter.com without login required starting next week.
Chris_Almond Besides working with our engineers to create and publish white papers, I'm also keenly interested in how we can break the mold (mold = downloadable read-only PDFs) as our publication medium. Web-facing content and presentation modes are the key to community engagement. This is where we need to focus, and your input is valuable in helping to guide that strategy.
erson I like the ability to post comments on articles/reports, much like the discussion page on Wikipedia. Or, for example, the MSDN/TechNet documentation.
Chris_Almond Erson, I've noticed that. Thanks for your feedback on the Boot from iSCSI thread in Dell TechCenter.
Dell-JeffS It's something we've been working on for a while now. Also, Dell EqualLogic oriented Dell TechCenter Forum questions are now being answered by L3 Dell EqualLogic support engineers.
erson I very much enjoyed the papers from the Dell EqualLogic conference. That was high quality material.
Chris_Almond The discussion page like in Wikipedia is what I call "meta" content. Tooling to facilitate that type of discussion is key.
Chris_Almond And very platform dependent.
erson I’m using Hyper-V primarily and am quite disappointing in the lack of Hyper-V R2 information on EqualLogic.com.
Chris_Almond What about length of papers and Tech Notes? Depth/breadth of content? Downloadable versus online?
erson I prefer online articles that you can download as a PDF.
Chris_Almond Erson, I agree with that format. Online means search engines can find it and you can link to specific sections. It’s great for tech bloggers.
Chris_Almond I'm discussing ways of supporting online (what I call "Web Facing") content with the Dell TechCenter team right now.
erson I'm very impressed by this document about best practices for Hyper-V R2 by one of Dell EqualLogic competitors. http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3702.pdf
Emptyone I also like to have quick guides that just shows the steps, but with more information available for those wanting a more in-depth look.
Chris_Almond Erson, what specifically do you like about that NetApp document?
erson I primarily like that they encapsulated the entire solution for getting a good Hyper-V R2 setup.
Chris_Almond Erson, that document is about 100 pages. Does length matter?
erson You can use the information in that document and its links to set up your entire Hyper-V R2 solution.
erson Chris, as long as a document contains important information and guidance the length doesn’t matter. I have no trouble reading something long if it has concise, clear and fact-filled information
Chris_Almond In my experience, as long as the document is logically structured and searchable, then length only matters to the people who print it.
erson But I'm the guy that read the manual to my new NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) games before I played them when I was 10.
mark_reinke Would it be fair to say that a best practices document that offers guidance and options is more valuable than a click-by-click implementation guide?
erson Best practice would be much more valuable, yes.
Chris_Almond .And click-by-click implementation guides have a very short shelf life.
erson Your audience should primarily be IT Pros and not people without any knowledge about this at all. That doesn't mean IT Pros don't like or need suggestions on how to set up simple things. You just don't need the step-by-step approach to lead them to the finish line.
mark_reinke That makes sense. The NetApp example seems pretty thorough without being overly prescriptive.
erson For example, I liked how NetApp had a suggestion on how to name NICs/networks. It doesn't matter for the performance or anything like that but it’s nice to get such suggestions. It makes me feel like you actually care and are passionate about educating people on how to make a really thoughtful set up.
erson So start getting those pickiest engineers to talk about how to really make an optimized set up.
Chris_Almond Erson, this is exactly what the Best Practice focused engineers on the SIE team are doing. And you will see more content like that coming from us.
erson That’s great to hear. But, as always, you have to prioritize. I would start to document about the Dell EqualLogic specific things and then branch out if time is available.
erson Tell us how to best use your product with Hyper-V, VMware, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server or whatever it might be.
Chris_Almond The NetApp doc is an example of a 'horizontal' topic.
erson Many people have requested information about best practices for LUN (Logical Unit Numbers) sizes.
erson Is it wise to make a 5TB LUN for use with Hyper-V CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) or is it better to have five 1TB LUN’s? And tell us the advantages and disadvantages.
erson But if time is limited I would suggest you focus on things specific to Dell EqualLogic, since we can't get that information from anyone else.
Chris_Almond Erson, your example question illustrates one of our challenges right now. We have limited bandwidth to attack these topics, which are prioritized by our Storage Marketing Team. Right now we are working on two SIE lab projects that focus squarely on virtualization integration (with EqualLogic).
erson That sounds fair. I think that without question the most common scenario is that Dell EqualLogic customers are using the storage system for virtualization.
Chris_Almond The Dell TechCenter team has asked us if we can provide short sections of our lab results (Tech Notes, Configuration Guidelines, etc.) in advance of full paper publication.
Chris_Almond How should we post that type of content?
erson Just as with your other content, I would prefer online publication with a downloadable option for portability and printing.
Chris_Almond We also want to use Dell TechCenter as a publication channel for "draft" or "interim" versions of white papers to get feedback on them before they are locked in as a version. That makes sense only if we have a hosting platform capable of collecting the community feedback on the content. Email is not the answer.
erson I have no problem with unfinished work as long as you make me aware that’s what it is. Just get out that Beta-stamp.
Dell-JeffS Any additional comments for Chris and Mark?
Chris_Almond Jeff, can we post this chat into a wiki doc here and invite other Dell TechCenter members to continue commenting on it offline?
Dell-JeffS Good idea. We can do that.
erson JeffS, I had a conference call with a guy from Dell UK about Dell PowerConnect.
Dell-JeffS About last week's question?
erson Yes, I talked with Mike Regan, who was a very knowledgeable guy.
erson I got a good update on Dell PowerEdge 5500 (contax) and Dell PowerEdge 6300 (zeiss) and how they have transformed completely into new interesting things.
erson JeffS, I'm guessing most of it was under NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement).
Dell-JeffS Erson, no doubt. :)
erson JeffS: http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/364/200/html/04.jpg.html
erson and http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/kaigai/20100428_364200.html
erson That's 12th Generation Dell PowerEdge.