tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87940474113947422582024-02-21T00:23:49.159-08:00I'm the customer for goodness sakesd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-76155451755980457932009-09-06T12:57:00.000-07:002009-09-06T13:01:10.651-07:00<div>intro</div><div><br /></div>when I was born, I remember, it was the happiest day of my life: it was the first time I was on the center stage, in the spotlight. and look at me now, 39 years later, there I am again, for the 2nd time of my life, in the spotlight, everybody is looking at me, listening to me, waiting for me to ttalk about me...it feels so great...I really thought such a moment would never come back!!<div>thanks to everyone, I have now fullfiled my life</div>sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-23728936427168486292008-04-05T05:23:00.000-07:002008-04-05T06:26:18.160-07:00 <font id="f7xk" color="#000000"><u style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(255, 217, 102);" id="mm4t"><span id="e4lf"><b id="v-jr">Solution:</b></span></u></font><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="zww4"><span id="g53k" style="font-family: Arial;"> A Solution describes the implementation of an Architecture, by defining reusable building blocks. <br id="m2cw">Four solution categories:<br id="k9::">- Product & Services<br id="srvu">- Systems Solutions<br id="r1wj">- Industry Solutions<br id="yaa4">- Enterprise Solution<br id="jwaz"><br id="m31."></span><span id="s54n" style="font-family: Arial;">see </span><a title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOGAF#Enterprise_Continuum" style="font-family: Arial;" id="oc:1" href="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap17.html">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOGAF#Enterprise_Continuum</a><br id="ixei"><span id="h7_t" style="font-family: Arial;">see <a title="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap18.html#tag_19" href="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap18.html#tag_19" id="iv9-">http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap18.html#tag_19</a> </span><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="mkrb"> <font id="j-mm" color="#ffffff"><br style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50);" id="tub1"><font id="yu5o" color="#000000"><u style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50);" id="l2ry"><span id="kdv."><b id="sc_o">"Architecture":</b></span></u></font></font> <br style="font-family: Arial;" id="w:73"><span id="ox0c" style="font-family: Arial;"> An Architecture specifies the structuring of reusable architecture assets, and includes rules, representations and relationships of the information system(s) available to the enterprise.</span><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="m-zb"><span id="rnqo" style="font-family: Arial;"> see </span><a title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOGAF#Enterprise_Continuum" style="font-family: Arial;" id="zcaz" href="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap17.html">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOGAF#Enterprise_Continuum</a><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="mnk0"> <br style="font-family: Arial;" id="to0q"><font id="pqe_" color="#000000"><u style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50);" id="fjvy"><span id="d0jb"><b id="ni48">ANSI/IEEE Standard 1471-2000 </b></span></u></font><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="htdu"><span id="lrum" style="font-family: Arial;"> Specification of architecture: "the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution."</span><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="wtx1"><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="va_8"> <font id="s4w1" color="#000000"><u style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50);" id="ue9e"><span id="l83d"><b id="jgfb">TOGAF:</b></span></u></font><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="vxt9"><span id="f5lp" style="font-family: Arial;"> Architecture is a "formal description of a system, or a detailed plan of the system at component level to guide its implementation", or as "the structure of components, their interrelationships, and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over time."</span><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="n.eu"> <br style="font-family: Arial;" id="xrbf"><font id="unsu" color="#000000"><u id="vwa5" style="background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50); font-family: Arial;"><b id="rh6b">http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/0404brus/papers/rakesh/abb-1.pdf:</b></u></font><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="ccsp"><span id="q:z5" style="font-family: Arial;">Building blocks extend the concept of a framework to architect in IT environment. A </span><span id="ipx6" style="font-family: Arial;">building block approach helps categorize the components of building an IT </span><span id="d0w1" style="font-family: Arial;">architecture into hard, soft, and connector building blocks. Hard building blocks are </span><span id="b2ew" style="font-family: Arial;">a combination of software and hardware, which can further be divided into systemic </span><span id="prab" style="font-family: Arial;">and application tier building blocks. Soft building blocks are software entities like </span><span id="mpre" style="font-family: Arial;">Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). Connector building blocks are the glue that connects all </span><span id="cy0x" style="font-family: Arial;">the components. Building blocks and architectures using building blocks might use </span><span id="v4n1" style="font-family: Arial;">one or more architecture patterns.</span><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="mimj"><font id="uk6:" color="#ffffff"><br style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50);" id="hif_"><font id="ugla" color="#000000"><span id="mhd4" style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50);"><u id="w6yl"><b id="o990">Enterprise Continuum</b></u></span></font></font><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="kc3-"><span id="h7_t" style="font-family: Arial;">This is an important aid to communication and understanding, both within individual enterprises, and between customer enterprises and vendor organizations. Without an understanding of "where in the continuum you are", people discussing architecture can often talk at cross purposes because they are referencing different points in the continuum at the same time, without realizing it.<br id="dcsg">Quote: "</span><font id="mlin" style="background-color: rgb(234, 153, 153);" color="#ffffff"><span id="v982" style="font-family: Arial;">Not only does the Enterprise Continuum represent an aid to communication, it represents an aid to organizing re-usable architecture and solution assets.</span></font>"<br id="l73m"><span id="h7_t" style="font-family: Arial;">see <a title="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap17.html" href="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap17.html" id="v2qa">http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap17.html</a><br id="uu4b">see <a title="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap18.html#tag_19" href="http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap18.html#tag_19" id="iv9-">http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap18.html#tag_19</a> <br id="z3uu"></span><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="eaj:"><font id="qidf" color="#000000"><u style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(241, 194, 50);" id="yauw"><span id="tz8d"><b id="v.7j">References:</b></span></u></font><br style="font-family: Arial;" id="s__v"><font id="hkl1" color="#ffffff"><span id="h-2g" style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOGAF.</span><br style="font-family: Arial; background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" id="haiu"></font> <span id="n-4l" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Arial;"><font id="h-wb" color="#ffffff"><span id="ng9c" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/0404brus/papers/rakesh/abb-1.pdf</span><br style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" id="c7sx"><span id="okrx" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/sodc/SODCwp.pdf</span><br style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" id="p:hz"><span id="rc3b" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/toc.html</span><br style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" id="a.x9"><span id="ztmk" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap18.html#tag_19</span></font><br id="b_nf"><br id="oaqf"></span><div id="i5cb" style="text-align: center;"><span id="n-4l" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Arial;"><div id="h9ym" style="padding: 1em 0pt;"><img id="djk:" style="width: 361px; height: 475px;" src="http://docs.google.com/File?id=dgw956gr_22d96897d9"></div></span></div><span id="n-4l" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Arial;"><br id="ov.l"> </span> sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-50300426477134435452008-03-31T12:59:00.000-07:002008-03-31T13:05:50.790-07:00Reliability ruleshere's an example of what makes a storage box unreliable. this is a bug found on Centera<br />that can make the whole cluster totally unresponsive<br /><pre><br />Symptom The CentraStar software running on Gen4/Gen4LP nodes<br />may begin to restart frequently 30-90 days after upgrading to<br />version 3.1.3. The IPMI driver (Intel's Intelligent Platform<br />Management Interface) is consuming small amounts of memory<br />over 30-90 days without returning it for use by other more<br />critical components which will then ultimately run out of<br />memory and subsequently cause restart of the CentraStar software<br />running on the node. As a result the node will go off online.<br /></pre><br />Reliability is what we (customers) are aftersd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-41234518319046094042008-03-29T12:03:00.000-07:002008-03-29T12:21:15.148-07:00Reliability before PerformancePerformance is a very important metric when shopping for an IT infrastructure and for storage in particular. Machines are continuously gaining in performance and it is now believed by some that performance offered by most of computing components are above what is required by the applications.<br />Although performance is always taken into account when choosing a solution, I believe the highest and foremost criterion to success is <span style="font-weight: bold;">Reliability.<br />Vendors, first build a reliable centric solution, then add performance to it, thanks!<br /></span>sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-23449329124156776322008-03-03T09:49:00.000-08:002008-03-03T10:01:52.624-08:00There are two choices to benchmark IO-stack (storage/OS/filesystem) against a given application:<br /><ul><li>Install the application</li><li>Install an application simulator</li></ul>Installing the application can be complicated...for complicated application.<br />On the other hand, running an application simulator is great, because it's quicker to install and run.<br />As I wanted to find the best filesystem to run a mail server, I stumbled on this great <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=218301&ssid=78339">mailstore simulator</a><br />I was able to run numerous test runs, before deploying my application.<br /><br />other interesting simulator I used:<br />- <a href="http://www.solarisinternals.com/wiki/index.php/FileBench">filebench</a><br />- Netapp Simulator<br />- <a href="http://www.filibeto.org/%7Eaduritz/truetrue/storage/storage_bottlenecks.pdf">vdbench</a><br />- <a href="http://www.iometer.org/">iometer</a><br />- <a href="http://www.slamd.com/">slamd</a><br /><a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=218301&ssid=78339">- mailstore simulator</a>sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-31409067184700693102008-01-11T20:05:00.000-08:002008-02-07T22:06:24.390-08:00Information Technology Data Cycle<span style="font-weight: bold;">I. Storage holds Data</span><br />In the same way that carbon dioxide is captured and becomes part of natural resources, Business data is captured and becomes part of storage systems.<br /><br />Data can be seen as a non-wanted result of business activity: besides the fact that primary goal of a business is to make money it also results in the production and proliferation of data ("data emission"), which, following to the <span style="font-style: italic;">"Information Technology Data Cycle" (ITDC), </span>is captured in storage systems. In the same way a musician will create musique from noise, a businesse will create Information from accumulated data<br /><br />One way of measuring a business efficiency, is Return-On-Investment calculation: assessing the value created from the investments. One way of adding value into a business is to create new products and services out of various sources like, for example, published market intelligence reports or analysis of historical data on sales and customer behavior. In other words, a business creates many financial reports, like sales performance, consumer spending trends or other statistics, so to make a new meaning from all data accumulated over the course of its activity. Finally, every data being potentially a valuable asset, a corporate must preserve it all.<br /><br />Without a doubt, every business emit data, all of which must be kept, as it can potentially generate extra value by extracting Information out of it. On the other hand, excess of information can lead to inefficient decision making, hence a loss of business agility.<br /><br />In the same manner as energy, Storage is a limited resource. We propose an approach to storage management that is as natural as managing energy nowadays: invest in efficient technologies in-line with defined targets<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">II. Storage types</span><br /><br />2) Business critical storage: Tier-1<br />no consumable parts<br />short life time (4-5 years)<br />forklift upgrade<br />high electrical power<br />high cooling power<br />Goal: running business critical services<br /><br />High-End spec storage for business critical applications. Transactional workloads is prime targets. No-downtime allowed. Made out of specialized storage controllers, fully redundant and maintained without disruption.<br />Production lifetime is 4 to 5 years on average. Hardware upgrades are forklift, due to specialized storage controllers. High manufacturing quality control<br /><br />2) General Purpose Storage: Tier-2<br />High performance, high available storage repositories aiming mainly at non business critical applications, while offering storage for transactional workloads.<br />Build out of general purpose components, in order to maintain a low price/GB.<br />price is up to 1/3 of Tier-1, for same performance. Expect possible downtime during some maintenance windows. Quality control is lesser than on Tier-1<br />Lifetime is equivalent to Tier-1 (4-5 years on average). Hardware upgrades are components basis (modular upgrades)<br /><br />3) Capacity oriented storage: Tier-3<br />Made partly from consumable parts (such as tapes/cartridges..)<br />long life time (up to 20 years)<br />very low power requirements<br />very low heat emission<br /><br />Mixed storage systems: tapes+disks, in order to propose very large storage repository while maintaining performance in-line with expectations. Price/GB half of Tier-2.<br />High upgrade level (software and hardware) and long production life expectancy: 4 to 5 times longer than Tier-2 and Tier-3. Migration is is an important process and must be made possible without vendor lock-in (adoption to storage standards is mandatory, opensource is a guarantee). This tier is aiming at offering very large storage for both long term storage and large filesystems storage, while making sure customer controls its data<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">III. Storage Performance Characteristics</span><br /><br />SPC-1<br />SPC-2<br />MTTDL, MTBF<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">IV. Storage Efficiency Characteristics</span><br /><br />Price per unit of storage ($/GB)<br />Watts per unit of storage (W/GB)<br />FRU per unit of storage (#FRU/TB)<br />Lifetime per unit of storage<br />Maximum/minimum storage capacity<br />Usable vs Raw storage ratiosd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-18434488975920032632008-01-10T12:28:00.000-08:002008-01-19T11:44:43.452-08:00Open Doors!<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Vendor:</span> really you should install our latest remote console platform..it's win-win for you and us<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Me:</span> we can, but only to send alerts , we don't want remote control over our infrastructure<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Vendor: </span>in that case we aren't interested in installing it. You know it's a very secure console, with VPN, encryption, strong authentication, CERT compliant, you really don't have to worry about security<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Me:</span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">here we go again with remote monitoring)...</span>we cannot allow external people to take control over our infrastructure and risk downtime, that's as simple as that<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Vendor:</span> Listen, last day we received an alarm for a drive failure at a customer site. I got connected to the box to assess the state of it. That allowed me to check the reconstruct was taking place correctly and I even corrected the alerting plus one or two wrongly set parameters. You see it's very useful for you, we can take proactive actions, isn't that great??!!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Me:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">(is this guy dumb or what I wonder)..<silence></silence></span>..That is exactly what we cannot accept: we cannot allow that a guy, connects to our boxes to make corrective actions...can you understand this? You might correct things, but you can potential disrupt things. I tell you what we are going to do: if something breaks, you receive an alarm, you take your car and you come right away to fix the problem under our supervision; what do you think about that? isn't that what our $1M contract says anyway?<br /><br />Do you think we are a fast-food?<br /><br />As a customer, what kind of remote monitoring solution would fit my IT governance ?<br /><br />1) One way remote monitoring<br />a remote monitoring that is only able to send reports and alarms to my vendor is acceptable system. I must make sure that only authorized data is sent over (non-confidential data is defined by IT security group, in accordance to IT Strategy&Principle policy)<br /><br />2) Two way remote monitoring<br />if vendor puts in place a mechanism whereby we authorize him to<br />a) Only connect to the faulty component<br />b) troubleshoot only the concerned fault<br />The system in place must also record every actions done by storing securely (write-once) all the audit logssd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-48015680666241756722008-01-08T11:33:00.000-08:002008-01-08T11:50:32.606-08:00Building Blocks to Develop1. Risk Management in SAN<ul><ul><li>How to detect and measure risk in SAN configuration<br /></li></ul></ul>2. Change Management in SAN<ul><ul><li>How to track and simulate changes in a SAN<br /></li></ul></ul>3. Storage Provisioning Process<ul><ul><li>3 steps approach to storage provisionning: Reservation, Configuration, Allocation<br /></li></ul></ul>4. Storage Tiering Definition<br /><ul><ul><li>Storage tiering definition varies between a vendor and a customer perspective</li></ul></ul>sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-19838526381196253902008-01-03T21:52:00.000-08:002008-01-04T02:27:32.367-08:00Storage Architecture: Table of Contents<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Table of Contents</span><br /><ul><li>Introduction</li><li>Related Documents</li><li>Strategies & Principles</li><ul><li>Information Technology Principles</li><li>Storage Technology Principles</li><li>Overview of a Software Architecture</li></ul><li>Storage Architecture Building Blocks<br /></li><ul><li>Media Types</li><li>Storage Tiering</li><li>Topology</li><ul><li>Internal Disk</li></ul><ul><li>DAS: Direct Attached Storage</li></ul><ul><li>SAN: Storage Area Network</li></ul><ul><li>NAS: Network Attached Storage</li></ul><ul><li>Consolidated Storage</li></ul><ul><li>Physical Isolation</li></ul><ul><li>Logical Isolation </li></ul><ul><li>Virtualisation</li></ul><ul><li>Storage Transport Technology</li></ul><ul><li>SAN High Level Architecture</li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Data Protection</li><ul><li>Replication</li><li>Mirroring</li><li>Backup</li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Archiving</li><ul><li>General Purpose Archiving</li></ul><ul><li>Compliant Archiving</li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Storage Security Principles</li><li>Storage Provisioning Principles</li><li>Storage Management Principles</li><li>Storage Usage patterns</li><li>Tiering Selection Principles</li><li>Naming convention for Storage</li><li>Storage as a Service</li><li>Storage Services portfolio</li><li>Storage Cost Center<br /></li></ul></ul><ul><li>Summary of Design</li></ul>sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-45052005551267702152007-12-20T11:51:00.000-08:002008-01-08T11:53:11.227-08:00The other day a vendor came and told me he wanted to help me solve my storage problems:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Vendor</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">:</span> we want to help you solve any storage problem you have<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Customer</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">:</span> how's that?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Vendor</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">:</span> because we have a solution approach, we can help you solve your problems<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Customer</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">:</span> right, you bring solutions to my problems! so here's one of my problem: How can I honour storage requests coming from various groups<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Vendor</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">:</span> easy, buy our SRM tool!<br /><br />The term solution can be ambiguous, as it can either mean<br />1. the answer to a problem:<br />the answer to my storage provisioning problem would be a SRM tool<br />2. the process of solving a problem<br />the key word here is process: what "things" can I put in place in order to solve, on a long term basis, my particular problem<br /><br />As a matter of fact, as a customer, I was after the 2nd definition of "solution", when this vendor offered me the 1st one.<br />What I was looking for, was a process to solve my provisioning problem. A good process survives any technology.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic;">In other words, the answer to my problem is a building block, part of an </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.opengroup.org/overview/">IT architecture </a><br /></div><br />Mister Vendor, listen to me, an IT Solution is either<br />* building block, which is part of a framework called: IT Architecture.<br />* Service defined as part of a service catalog<br /><br />If you own the architecture, you own the building blocks and all the components that go into them. Otherwise, just sell the components that make my building block, but don't expect to be my trusted advisor.<br /><br />For an introduction to IT Architecture check <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOGAF">this out</a><br /><br />Next blog, I will post a table of content of an Storage Architecture document. keep coming!sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-85359026744564570572007-12-12T13:05:00.000-08:002007-12-12T13:10:31.485-08:00The time is comingCIFS server for Opensolaris is now reality: first release is available <a href="http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/cifs-server/">here</a><br />anytime soon, it will be integrated into Solaris its self and : bye bye Netapp!<br />Company starts to undestands limits of Netapp, and this is a fact I am not allowed to prove<br />but we are near the time where, from a simple DVD, one will be able to install, on a commodity server (as well as a high end server) a fully functional NAS appliance, with all advanced features such as snapshots, ndmp backup, CIFS/NFS (without addditional cost), FC (as Lun provider), and even archiving features such as SAMFSsd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-84754177407269121862007-12-01T00:12:00.000-08:002007-12-01T00:48:13.500-08:00Parmigiano for my SpaghettisI invited 2 colleagues of mine at a pasta restaurant called "Netapp" to try their speciality "Spaghettis" (see <a href="http://fakoli.blogspot.com/2007/11/do-you-like-spaghettis.html">previous post</a>). I has happily eating the superb pasta with my fork (<a href="http://www.annamariavolpi.com/how_to_eat_spaghetti.html">no spoon!</a>) and suddenly I felt I needed to add <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmigiano-Reggiano">Parmigiano</a> ... I asked the waiter to bring me some when he announced it would cost me...$47.000 to add "cheese from Parma" on those spaghettis !!<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Me</span>: What?? you must be joking! $47k to use a stupid cheese??</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Waiter:</span> <a href="http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php/t-235104.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Mi dispiace</span></a>, parmigiano for 3 plates cost $47.000</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Me:</span> no thanks, next time I need parmigiano, I'll choose another pasta restaurant..<a href="http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2007/09/24/daily67.html?jst=s_cn_hl">crook</a>!</li></ul><br />Frankly, do you think Netapp is really entitled to ask $47.000 to use NFS ??? is this fair when NFS has been around for as long <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System_%28protocol%29">as unix exist</a>.<br /><br />Basically I'll wait a couple of month to have more recent boxes doing NFS without additional licenses (may be <a href="http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/04/03/sun_fishworks/">fishworks</a> or <a href="http://www.nexenta.com/corp/">Nexantastor</a>)<br /><br /><br />bon apetit!sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-15143661123526547902007-11-20T11:21:00.000-08:002007-11-20T17:02:07.230-08:00Old spaghettis with a lovely sauceok, let's face it, Netapp boxes are ugly: spaghettis, daisy chain connections, 32bits snmp..yuk<br /><br />but Ontap is really great, no wonder why some companies want to copy it using commodity hardware/OS (check <a href="http://www.nexenta.com/corp/">nexenta</a> or opensolaris with <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/ramblings/resource/IDC-Fishworks.pdf">Fishworks project</a>)..OnTap is a success and by far.<br />I really appreciate how easy it is to configure (once you managed to untangle cabling):<br /><ul><li>create a trunk (called <span style="font-style: italic;">vif</span>) of four Gigabit Ethernet links is very easy and it works</li><li>clustering is straitghforward...and it works</li><li>GUI interface allows to do 99% of the tasks (ok the interface is ungly..no ajax or anything dynamic)</li><li>snapshot, ndmp backup, snapmirror works first time</li><li>netapp simulator is great as it helps testing configurations<br /></li></ul><br />so, although spaghettis are old..the sauce is really good!sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-5279079206654496922007-11-14T22:22:00.000-08:002007-11-14T22:29:38.916-08:00old spaghettisdid you know that Ontap doesspeak snmpv1 only...i.e in 32bits. so snmp walks are nightmare when dealing with large sizes (above 2GB). Ok it simulates 64bits by sending 2x32bits counters that one has to re-assemble..of course nobody bothers, it's too complicated to modify a monitoring software to do that<br />also, the spaghettis cabling IS a nightmare: even Netapp engineer had to think hard before we could see all the drives.<br />last but not least, you cannot swap tray orders: some of them contain the OS, and they must be placed correctly in the scsi chain if you want to boot successfully (especially in a cluster)<br />these spaghettis are really old<br />ideally, tray connection should be done as a SAN fabrric topology, not a chain. that eases management and storage expansion (basically ou would not need to break the chain to add a storage tray)sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-35729221614586438192007-11-12T11:47:00.000-08:002007-11-12T14:04:35.014-08:00Cold PizzaWe just received delivery of our new pizzas: made by the pizza market leader EMC.<br />our pizzas are made of 8 nodes, with linux as basic toppings, and with some special software on it, which nobody understands, and nobody can tell me where it comes from. this pizza has a name: Centera<br /><br />Does anyone know where Centera comes from? was it built by a clever team of EMC engineers? is it the result of an acquisition?<br /><br />Well I'll tell you: in fact Centera is the product of a $50Million acquisition of a belgium company called "FilePool NV"..by the way the name FilePool appears at boot time of a Centera node..<a href="http://www.emc.com/news/emc_releases/showRelease.jsp?id=871">acquisition happened in 2001</a><br /><br />Have a look at <a href="http://www.hoise.com/vmw/99/articles/vmw/LV-VM-09-99-8.html">this old document </a>(1999) explaining how FilePool works<br /><br />Here again an old technology, cleverly marketed, which I believe has made his time. and is still beeing sold<br /><br />Now during install, one of the node did not work (could not join the centera cluster). So we called EMC for a replacement , here's and excerpt of the conversation:<br /><br />-EMC: connect the box to the phone line and will troubleshoot<br />-The Bank: no way, the centera will not be connected to a phone line<br />-EMC: this is not how it works sir, support must be done remotely over the phone<br />-The Bank: This box will hold client information, impossible to connect it to the outside world and accessed by an external company. It's against the <a href="http://www.admin.ch/ch/f/rs/952_0/a47.html">law</a><br />-EMC: well then, troubleshooting can take up to a month to be resolved<br /><br /><br />imagine that, we spent $200k for 10TB (raw) of data and all we get is several weeks delay for a node replacement....which will not even been done by EMC, but a partner (Unisys).<br /><br />we get much better service at the pizzeria: if the pizza is cold, we get a replacement within minutes!sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-1452198989903752942007-11-07T13:29:00.001-08:002007-11-07T13:49:59.566-08:00Do you like Spaghettis?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgip5MlY7mOlcjKCw_VPq933Cm3xCIuOawJaSUGvuMu3f4_Py6CFa1X9BxW-w4GtdHLtmyiWP8DirAd9Pu_k7xG8_gjUwr4d0sjB0T4W8KY0FACwuLHD43VnGWGcE8aahJUYd5ribl-a82o/s1600-h/mirchb.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgip5MlY7mOlcjKCw_VPq933Cm3xCIuOawJaSUGvuMu3f4_Py6CFa1X9BxW-w4GtdHLtmyiWP8DirAd9Pu_k7xG8_gjUwr4d0sjB0T4W8KY0FACwuLHD43VnGWGcE8aahJUYd5ribl-a82o/s320/mirchb.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130215744376144258" border="0" /></a><br />well if you like bolognaise, try this recipe:<br /><br />take a <a href="http://www.netapp.com/products/storage-systems/enterprise-storage/fas3000.html">NetApp FAS3020c</a> (cluster), with 4 disk trays and cable everything with fibre-channel cables ...power on, don't forget to set the terminator and the tray IDs <span style="font-weight: bold;">manually</span> (yep! like in the old days)..et voilĂ !<br /><br />Here's a diagram for appetizer<br /><br />you end up with more than 16 cables to interconnect the lot and 10 ethernet cables..all this for a mere 4TB of data!<br /><br />gosh these machines are so old-fashion, I thought the time where we had so many cables+trayIDs where revolved for good..but no, NetApp is really getting old<br /><br />bon appetitsd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-3489133173989872552007-10-28T02:34:00.000-07:002007-10-29T12:07:54.016-07:00I am not hungry for food!!I did my "Storage Vision" presentation to a larger audience last week: all the IT organisation was there (70 people showed up, out of 150...basically storage interests people! ). The subject was about my storage strategy and implementation planning ..that was fun<br />Considering I work in an English bank, and that Rugby world cup final was last week-end (England vs South Africa), I used the theme of rugby as a background analogy:<br /><ul><li> Data is to Storage, what "oval ball" is to rugby: an entity that must circulate among the players, must be protected, and the goal is make value (score) out of this ball.</li><li>Rugby is a playfield, rules, players and referees. Storage Architecture is: infrastructure, process, procedures, building blocks, governance<br /></li><li>Rugby game is nothing without a ball, storage is nothing without data</li><li>so forth...</li></ul>Sport analogies are easily used...<br /><br /><br />The long term strategy I presented was: move to a "service oriented storage architecture".<br /><br />So basically:<br />- put in place necessary tools & processes<br />- put in place a storage service catalog<br />- invest in tools to streamline storage demands<br />- tools to report accurate storage usage (gosh how difficult it is in a large environment<br />- manage risk<br />- manage change<br />- manage performance<br /><br />Managers and stakeholders like the idea, but not all my fellow colleagues: I sense some of them are already taking their distance with me..am I presenting a threat somehow??<br /><br />I proposed to invest in a product called SANscreen from <a href="http://www.onaro.com/">Onaro</a> (if you don't know this product, go to their website right now, or buy the company ASAP!!). Product costs 400kUSD (approx. list price) to manage 1500 SAN switch ports, do the reporting and do the storage reservation. It is not a monitoring tool, but a SAN Architect tool, and thus it is not replacing what we already have (HiCommand)<br /><br />Price did not shock managers, but rather my colleagues:<br />"what!! you just arrived and you want to spend all this money in a monitoring tool???"<br /><br />...when you know that, first these guys develop their own tools (based on opensource, costing only extra-time to the company), and second they fight like hell to obtain a new workstation.. you understand their reaction. Of course, an International Bank refuses proliferation of in-house open-source, not supported solutions..this point was made in a recent internal communication, furthermore it's written "black-on-white" (french expression) in the "IT Finance and Planning" document.<br /><br />Talking of opensource, I did not mention IBM's project: <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/aperi/">Aperi</a><br />However, to maintain a "good and saine" relationship with <a href="http://www.onaro.com/">Onaro</a>, I will start a long-term project about evaluating Aperi as a SAN management alternative. Opensource is a good tool to maintain competition!<br /><br />Also, I've been given the task to define the new Backup/Restore infrastructure, and do the migration. So we are going for a couple of SL8500, 20xT10k tape drives, a couple of VTL-V..all this to be in production quickly...budget 1.5m USD<br />Still don't know if I'll buy PS yet..who would do the job anyway?<br /><br />At the same time, I am doing the planning and the build specifications for a couple of Netapp FAS3020c (sold by an ex-Sun) and a Centera stupid-box (also sold by an ex-Sun)<br /><br />Basically, at the moment I am helping Sun to sell these boxes ...in other words, Sun is making more money by having me working for a customer..isn't that ironic...don't you think?<br /><br />One of the advantage of being a customer is to be in touch with all these vendors: IBM, HDS, SUN, NETAPP, EMC..drawback, they all want to get me fat. Listen vendor: "I am not hungry for food!!"sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-13999911613371384832007-10-10T22:03:00.000-07:002007-10-10T22:13:44.257-07:00storage architecture visionyesterday I presented my storage architecture vision<br />for the bank. It was well perceived, and here's the recipe to write such a document:<br />- start by finding the right documents, and who wrote them (owners). Initial document inputs are the global strategy of the company, IT principles, and all the architecture documents you would find<br />- Write a first part, relating to how these inputs apply to storage<br />- List all the storage building blocks and develop how you would use them<br />- Define a set of rules for these building blocks<br />- Define the services you provide to your "customers" (in this case, customers=internal groups)<br />- draw a nice big diagram<br />- Present everything in front of the stakeholders<br /><br />et voilĂ sd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8794047411394742258.post-66263504249028747942007-10-04T15:23:00.000-07:002007-10-04T15:43:12.997-07:00Gimme a price!Principle 1:<br />A vendor works with several cutomers<br />A customer works with several vendors<br /><br />Principle2:<br />A customer has access to (valuable) information, a vendor would like to have: competitive information<br />A vendor has information a customer would love to have (expertise)<br /><br />Example:<br />A vendor such as Sun/IBM... spend a load of money to get competitive price info. Here's what happened to me:my boss gives me a budget of USD250K to find an SRM product. Well, I have the budget, I know what product I want; off course, the budget is not to be given easily, I must first compare prices among potential vendor. I'm lucky, the product that fits my needs (AppIQ) is available from HDS, HP and Sun, I just need to ask a quote, for the same configuration:<br />- HP gives me USD350K<br />- Sun gives me USD1M (yes..that's not a typo)<br />-HDS, well they are not keen on giving me a price, coz the product is "too complex", I should try to get something else, made by HDS...a crap USP centric soft basically.<br /><br />Problem description:<br />How to explain the price difference between HP and SUN? I gave same info to both (1000 FC ports, 500 servers dual attached)...I havent got a clue, but someone knows something I don't..<br /><br />Conclusion:<br />so basically, a customer has info (and money) vendors would love to get....but vendors have info, a customer would love to get also. If the interface vendor-customer is not right (trusted advisor) then we get these kind of excess<br /><br />that's all folkssd-http://www.blogger.com/profile/17388390049951969460noreply@blogger.com0