Google Dropping Price on Cloud Storage

So today Google announced new pricing for storage.  So if you need 16TB for Picasa or Gmail, they have you covered.  It’s cheap too…  16TB is $4096.  By the way, kudos for the Base-2 pricing, I love it.  I hope we see more of this in the future.  I’d love for Apple to let me backup my iTunes and data to a service like this.  MobileMe isn’t up there yet….  Hmmmmm…maybe that’s the plan behind Apple’s new data center here in North Carolina.

Video Demonstration of the Cisco Nexus 5020 and FCoE

First, if your interested in the new Cisco UCS blade system and haven’t checked out the Varrow channel on YouTube lately, you should.  We’ve added several new videos from a customer while doing their UCS install.  Pretty neat stuff.

Just finished up another video for our collection.  This one walks you through configuring Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) on a Cisco Nexus 5020 switch.  As you’ll hear me say several times in the video it’s not hard, especially if you know how to configure a Cisco MDS switch.  It’s very, very similar with just a few new steps on the front-end of the configuration.  In the demo I take a vSphere server with Emulex CNAs and connect it to an EMC CLARiiON array via FCoE over the Nexus 5020.

• YouTube Channel
• ScreenCast (higher resolution)

If there is anything that you’d like to see demonstrated on a video just let us know and we’ll do our best.

Some thoughts on the VCE announcement….

For those of us in the VMware/Cisco/EMC ecosphere it has been an interesting week.  The major news was the announcement of the Virtual Computing Environment coalition.  Basically, it’s a more formal partnership of VMware, Cisco, and EMC..which we already called the VCE partnership so I guess it’s convenient.  So, in simple terms what does all this mean?

In brief it means that the VCE members are working even closer together.  They are building reference architectures (Vblocks) for different goals such as internal cloud, external cloud, virtual desktops, etc.  A Vblock will be a complete technology package that has been built, tested, proven, and documented by the VCE coalition.  Need an internal cloud capable of supporting 2,000 VMs?  There is a Vblock for that.  VMware, Cisco, and EMC all do reference architectures now but they aren’t presented or sold as a complete solution.  That’s where this takes those standard architectures to the next level. Think of them as a prix fixe menu.

Also part of the announcement, and the one that probably caused the most discussion especially with partners, was around Acadia.  As Chuck Hollis says:

“One of the key areas I believe that Acadia (as part of VCE) is different than HP’s and IBM’s approach is motivation.  Acadia is all about enablement of the partner ecosystem, and not competing with it.”

There are organizations, large ones, that want to work direct with the company providing them services.  EMC has plenty of enterprise accounts that only have EMC staff on the floor doing the work.  They have Cisco SEs there doing initial deployments…same with VMware.  But what happens when they do a full large-scale virtualization initiative?  You end up with multiple vendors at the table and a lot more work.  That’s where Acadia comes in.  One note worth mentioning by Chad Sakac here is that, if you notice, Acadia is always referenced as EMC and Cisco, along with VMware technology.  It’s really an EMC/Cisco joint venture.  The idea there is to not compete with the VMware partners out in the world..even though VMware has their own internal professional services, but I digress.  It’s a way for organizations to get direct consulting from EMC and Cisco.  It’s pretty obvious to most people that EMC and Cisco are working together more and more every day…this is just another way.

So partners (me included), don’t be worried.  Even better, we should be happy.  All of the intellectual property that Acadia develops and builds will be shared with partners.

So, in the end what we get is an even tighter working group with more information shared.  Even if your organization isn’t large enough to benefit from the pre-built Vblocks you’ll still benefit from the work that goes in to them and the documentation around them.  You’ll benefit from the interoperability testing that goes in to those solutions.  It’s a win for everyone.

Out of Ports on a Nexus 1000v Port-Profile?

Just a little FYI.  If you aren’t paying attention when configuring your port-profiles which turn in to your VMware Port Groups the default maximum number of ports is 32.  If you try to add another server you’ll get the following error:

The resource vim.dvs.DistributedVirtualPort is not available in vim.dvs.DistributedVirtualPortgroupYourPortGroupHere.

It’s an easy fix.  Just go to the configuration on your port-profile in the Nexus 1000v CLI and do:

vmware max-ports some-number-up-to-1024

The change will happen immediately and you can move on.

Stop Freezing Your Data Center!

Interesting little article came out yesterday about something I’ve been wondering for a while but haven’t had the resources to really test.  How cold do you really need to keep that data center?  I spend a good bit of time in different data centers and some are like a meat locker.  I always question the thought process of consolidating infrastructure to save on power and cooling while they keep the temperatures in the low 60s.  Servers and disks don’t need temps that low.

The article makes a good point in that there is, of course, a maximum to what you want.  If you get too warm fans start kicking in thereby reducing your power efficiency.  Luckily, almost everything has variable speeds fans these days and won’t spin at full speed when not needed.  There is also a requirement to have a good layout in the data center.  If you have a hotspot that’s 10 degrees above the rest of the floor it won’t have the buffer to go higher like everything else does.

Many people see these extra low temperatures as a buffer.  They think that if their AC goes down or isn’t able to run efficiently it gives them more time before hitting that wall where they must shut things down.  But what sense does it make to put money in to that “buffer” every hour of every day?  Take the money you’re spending on that and put in a well-managed DR strategy so for those rare events you can just fail to another room or location.  If that is too much just take that money and put it in to good routine AC maintenance…which most people overlook.

So take a look and put some thought in to it.  Stop freezing your IT staff and consultants!

ESX Host Can’t Download Patches from Update Manager

Just a little tip in case someone else hits this.  If you have an ESX host that can’t scan for updates or gets the following error in vCenter check the DNS config:

Host cannot download files from VMware vCenter Update Manager patch store.  Check the network connectivity and firewall setup, and check esxupdate logs for details.

This can be caused by having the wrong DNS server listed or none at all.

OSX Snow Leopard and WWAN Adapters

I’m sure there are a lot of consultanty-type people out there like me that use Macs and WWAN adapters. One little reported feature of Snow Leopard is that it now directly supports a lot of WWAN adapters. This means you no longer need to use your cell providers software. This let me uninstall Verizon’s VZ Access Manager. If you’re using software like VZAM and have upgraded to Snow Leopard make sure to uninstall that application first. If you don’t OSX won’t recognize the WWAN adapter directly. Also, some applications, like VZAM, don’t uninstall just by dragging them to the trashcan like they should. You have to go in to the menu for the application and select uninstall.

Once that is done just plug in your WWAN adapter. If you go in to System Preferences – Networking you’ll probably see something like this:

This screenshot is for my Verizon Novatel USB adapter. If yours doesn’t show up check to make sure you aren’t running VMware Fusion or Parallels and it’s connecting to the adapter. I suggest you enable the option to put the signal indicator in your menu bar. This will let you see your signal strength and give you quick access to connect and disconnect. The only downside to this is that you don’t get the ongoing statistics as in some apps, like VZAM. I’m on an unlimited plan so it’s not a big deal for me..but you may be different.

SANCalc for iPhone

My worlds collide!  Great little tool for those EMC (and soon other arrays) people out there.  SANCalc is an iPhone/iPod Touch tool that lets you size up RAID Groups, LUNs, etc right on your phone.  It even understands Vault Drives.  Right now it supports the EMC CLARiiON AX4-5, CX3, and CX4 arrays.  Very handy.

Pic below.  Available here for FREE!

Blade Servers or Rack Servers?

I’m still fighting off a cold after like 11 days, so I haven’t been writing too much.  Luckily I think I’ve finally got my voice back so maybe this week will be easier than last.  Some of those 3 hour meetings and presentations were rough!

My favorite type of engagement we do at Varrow is the Plan & Design.  It’s an engagement where I get to work very closely with the customer and dig in to their environment.  We do them for all sorts of technology implementations but usually it’s VMware vSphere and/or Site Recovery Manager.  It’s a way to really dig in to their whole environment, servers, platforms, storage, networking, business processes, applications, etc.  Many times during this engagement they’ll ask us for a recommendation on platform for VMware, and often it’s blade or rack?

Like a good little technical consultant my answer is “it depends”.  There really is no right answer to this question.  It’s really up to the customer and how they want to manage their infrastructure and server platforms.  Some people love blades and some don’t.  Blades can give you very good density.  While they often can’t have the amount of memory as a rack server they usually atleast go to 64GB which is the maximum for most people’s vSphere servers.  They allow for very fast deployment by just sliding in new blades whenever needed.  Also, they are often more power efficient since all blades utilize the same power supplies and cooling fans.  You gain efficiencies of scale.

The problems come in when you look at deployment costs and management.  That first blade costs you a lot of money since you have to buy the chassis as well.  I’ve found that the most successful method for deploying blades is to look at the chassis as “layer 1″ type infrastructure, like you do with 42U racks and cabling.  This is especially true when you look at organizations that have different departments buying their own blades.  No department wants to be the one that has to buy that chassis so IT has to find a way to provide that as basic infrastructure. Management can also be an issue.  In a blade system you are adding another layer of complexity and configuration, especially around the areas of I/O.  Some people see this as a benefit and some see it as a hindrance.

Finally, you have reliability.  It’s rare, but entire blade chassis do fail and if that happens you just lost a lot of hardware at once.  This can also complicate your VMware design to make sure that things like HA and FT are configured properly so that losing a chassis doesn’t take down the redundant systems as well, even if you have multiple blade chassis.

In contrast rack mount servers are simple.  One server to one chassis.  While not as efficient for power and cooling, and usually physical space, you maintain that autonomous environment.  The I/O configuration is more straight forward and normally you can get more hardware in a rack server than on a blade.

In my opinion the benefit of conventional blades are not worth the extra layers of complexity, management, and cost.  Now, there are things changing that might sway my opinion, such as Cisco UCS.  UCS provides for very good I/O throughput and server hardware on the blade.  Pricing on them is also in-line with rack servers plus you get a very good unified management system to manage your entire UCS environment.  Time will tell if the other hardware vendors follow.

Review of the AT&T 3G MicroCell

As reported here and here AT&T released their new 3G MicroCell yesterday in the Charlotte test market.  Hey!  That’s where I live!  I’ve been waiting on this device for a while.  Ask anyone I work with how my cell coverage is at home and you’ll find out it’s abysmal.  Calls are short, frustrating, and futile.  For once I won’t blame AT&T for this.  I live in a low area in my neighborhood and both GSM and CDMA coverage is very bad.  I tried a repeater when the iPhone first shipped with very limited success.  The 3GS iPhone appears better but many times I’ll get a “You have a new voicemail!” notice when my phone never rang.  Frustrating.

Enter the new MicroCell from AT&T.  This is not a repeater, it’s more like a Cell-to-VoIP seamless gateway.  You plug it in to your broadband connection and it acts as a small cell tower in your house.  Your 3G AT&T devices connect to that box directly and all calls and are routed out over your Internet connection.  So even if you have zero coverage you can use this box, unlike a repeater that needs a signal to amplify.  If you originate a call on the MicroCell it will also be handed off to a normal AT&T tower if you leave your house.

Again, I bought this on the day of release in a test market.  When I bought it there was extra paperwork to fill out.  I gave them my contact information so an AT&T rep could call me in a few days to get my purchase, install, and usage experience opinion.  They made sure I lived in the supported area which included Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) as well as a few surrounding counties.  I actually bought my unit from the AT&T store in Salisbury on the way back from a customer.  My sales rep, Nathan, was very helpful and mentioned they had sold 5 or so already that day.  Salisbury isn’t a big town so it shows the anticipation for the device.

Information on the AT&T site for the device is here.  Excuse the fact they have audio with no warning.  Bad AT&T!  Bad!

Cost

There has been some discrepancy on the cost of the device and how it works.  The unit itself is $149.  If you just want to use your cell plan minutes there is no additional monthly fee.  You buy the box and you’re good to go.  That’s what I did.  If you don’t want to use your plan minutes you can get an unlimited plan.  This is useful for people who want to go cell only and I might make that move again now that our iPhones work in the house.  If you don’t have any other AT&T services the unlimited plan is $20/month and you get a $100 mail-in rebate on the device taking it down to $49.  If you have your Internet or voice through AT&T the price goes down to $10/month.  If you have both Internet and voice through AT&T the plan is free.  I need to see if they require VoIP with U-Verse for that plan or a plain AT&T POTS line meets the requirements.  We use U-Verse for Internet and an AT&T POTS for voice so I may get the plan for free anyway.  Do the math for your minute usage and see what works for you.

What You Get for $150

The picture below shows you everything you get when you buy the device.

The basics:

• The 3G MicroCell Unit
• Yellow Ethernet Cable
• A/C Power Supply
• Quickstart Guide
• User Manual
• License Agreement

Your not going to easily hide this device or have it blend in.  It’s white, gray, and AT&T orange.  Here is a picture to give you an idea of scale with my iPhone next to it.  It’s like my AT&T U-Verse router, a good bit larger than I think it needs to be.

Installation

The installation is very easy.  The quickstart guide walks you through everything.  The key is that you have to activate it on the AT&T website first before you can use it.  I imagine some stores will do this for you at time of purchase but I did mine myself at home.  When you get home you’ll unbox the device, go to the AT&T wireless site, and activate the MicroCell.  You’ll need the serial number of your MicroCell and the phone numbers you want to activate on the device.  It’s all done through a wizard-like process.  Picture below shows the management screen.

You’ll notice a list of authorized devices.  AT&T allows you to put up to 10 devices on the authorized list.  At any one time the MicroCell can have 4 active voice/data sessions.  So four people can be talking, or two talking and two checking email.

Once you activate the device on your account the only thing left is to plug it in.  Here is a shot of the back of the MicroCell.  Oh yes, one more thing.  This device has a GPS in it.  What?  That’s right.  AT&T does this so you can’t buy one here in the US and take it to Europe and use it with your phone there.  So, it needs to get a GPS signal.  Mine is on my second floor about 8 feet from a window and has no issue.  If you put yours in a basement it might be a concern.  There is a GPS light on the front to let you know if it can’t get a lock.  Annoying for some, I’m sure.

Connecting the device is very simple.  There are two Ethernet ports on the back.  One marked Ethernet and one marked Computer.  If you aren’t using a router or firewall (and you should be!) you can plug your cable modem in to the Ethernet-marked port and your computer in to the Computer port.  If you have a router or switch just connect the unit from the switch to the Ethernet-marked jack.  AT&T does let you put the device in-line between your cablemodem (or DSL modem) and your router/firewall.  This is “Option C” as named in the User Manual.  The idea here is that the MicroCell can prioritize your cell traffic over data.  I haven’t tested this yet…I don’t know how it affects NAT translation yet.  My network, being the geek I am, is more complex than most so I’m not worrying about it yet.  With my U-Verse 18Mb/1.5Mb connection I haven’t had any issues even when doing large downloads.

So once you’ve plugged in the data cables and the power cable the device will boot.  It takes a few minutes and the first time it might reboot as it is configured to go find the latest firmware and update itself.  There is no management of the device itself.  I checked my DHCP logs and saw the IP it was assigned.  There is no web interface.  You can telnet to the device but I have no way of knowing the login credentials.  It’s pretty hands-off.  Below is a picture of the device once it is booted and operational.

Does It Work?

Yes.  It appears to work pretty well.  Here is a shot of my iPhone before the MicroCell.

Here is one with the new MicroCell.

I’ve had several calls on my phone since switching and the difference is night and day.  Before my phone wouldn’t even ring half the time and I’d just get a voicemail notification.  That hasn’t happened at all.  Clarity seems to be the same as a normal call.  No problems either switching to and from the MicroCell.

Conclusion

AT&T  has caught a bit of flack for this device and the price, especially before people understood the unlimited voice plan.  The #1 problem with the iPhone for most people is AT&T and in many cases I agree with that.  But in my case at home AT&T really isn’t the problem.  I can drive two blocks in any direction and get 4 bars no problem, it’s just where my house physically sits that causes the signal drop.  To me this device is perfect.  It’s not a repeater.  It doesn’t require installation of an antenna.  It sits on my desk in my office and provides 5 bars of 3G everywhere in the house.  I don’t even know it’s there.  Would I be happier with a $99 price point?  Sure, but $150 is a good investment in the productivity I’ll get back when coworkers or customers call me on my cell phone.  You’ll have to do  your own math to decide if the unlimited plans are worth it for you.  Unless I can get it free I won’t bother as we don’t go over our minutes anyway and have plenty in the rollover bank.

Update 1:

Had some questions.  Below is a screenshot from the speedtest.net app with the MicroCell:

Range seems adequate.  I can go to the end of my driveway and have 2 bars.  You won’t be able to cover a large backyard or pool with the device in the house, but it should cover you on a deck or patio next to the house.  Basically, once I got outside I lost a bar about every 20 or 30 feet.  That’s with the unit in my office with 3 walls and the outside brick between us.

There is a GPS antenna jack on the back of the unit so if you can’t get a signal you can run a small antenna.