Category:

Software

Login VSI 4.1 Released

by Roger Lund August 5, 2014

written by Roger Lund

Login VSI 4.1 was released today. Login VSI is used to load test virtualized desktop environments such as VMware Horizon View, Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop and Microsoft RDS. Testing such as benchmarking, capacity planning, load/stress testing and change impact prediction are all parts of Login VSI. Check out the link below for more information and to watch a video from Login VSI that describes the new features in 4.1.

http://www.loginvsi.com/blog/285-significant-login-vsi-update-whats-new-in-4-1

Here are some screenshots of the new version. These screenshots were provided by Login VSI.

August 5, 2014 0 comments

Datacenter Software Storage

HP has released Powershell for iLO control with more to come

by Philip Sellers May 15, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

HP showed off its new, free Scripting Tools for Windows at Microsoft TechEd this week on the expo floor. The scripting tools are specifically Powershell cmdlets for iLO control in the version 1.1 release. The cmdlets allow you to script a number of functions against the iLO management processors. The Powershell cmdlets work against iLO 3 and iLO4 which roughly equates to Proliant G7 and Gen 8 models.

Talking with Ana Machado on the showroom floor, this release is just the first of many to come that will expand the capabilities of the toolkit to include additional hardware. I logically take that to mean that we will see expanded support for BladeSystem Onboard Administrators and other components in the future, though she didn’t specifically say.

With over 100 cmdlets included in the toolkit, users will be able to common tasks easily from pre-prepared scripts. For instance, if you have a standard username and password assigned for iLO, you can easily create a script to execute and add your standard login using the Add-HPiLOUser cmdlet. The cmdlet either takes parameters through the command line or prompts you parameter by parameter during execution. Another potential goldmine is new deployments of HP Remote Support and registration of iLO4 to the service. The Enable-HPiLOERSIRSConnection cmdlet will easily allow you to set these settings for any number of servers. Just pipe in a list of destinations and then let the Powershell do the heavy lifting.

You may grab the tools from HP by going to www.hp.com/go/PowerShell with no login required.

Quick Reference of All HP iLO cmdlets

Name	Synopsis
Add-HPiLOSSORecord	Add a new HP SIM Single Sign-On (SSO) Server Record.
Add-HPiLOUser	Adds a local user account to the iLO.
Clear-HPiLOAHSData	Clear the AHS information from the AHS logs.
Clear-HPiLOEventLog	Clear the iLO event logs.
Clear-HPiLOIML	Clear the Integrated Management Logs.
Clear-HPiLOPowerOntime	Clears the virtual clock counter without power-cycling the server.
Disable-HPiLOERSIRSConnection	Disables Insight Remote Support functionality and un-registers the server.
Disable-HPiLOSecurityMessage	Disables the display of security text message in the iLO Login Banner.
Dismount-HPiLOVirtualMedia	Dismounts the Virtual Media image if one is mounted.
Enable-HPiLOERSIRSConnection	Connect to the Insight Remote Support server and register the server
Enable-HPiLOFIPS	Enables the Federal Information Processing Standard Enforce AES/3DES Encryption setting.
Enable-HPiLOSecurityMessage	Enables the security text message in the iLO Login Banner.
Find-HPiLO	Find list of iLO in a specified subnet.
Get-HPiLOAHSStatus	Gets the AHS status.
Get-HPiLOAssetTag	Gets the Asset tag.
Get-HPiLOCertificateSigningRequest	Gets the Certificate Signing Request status.
Get-HPiLODefaultLanguage	Gets the default language on iLO.
Get-HPiLODirectory	Gets the current directory configuration.
Get-HPiLODriveInfo	Gets the drive status of the server.
Get-HPiLOERSSetting	Gets the Integrated Remote Support setting.
Get-HPiLOEventLog	Gets the iLO event logs.
Get-HPiLOFan	Gets the Fan health details from the server.
Get-HPiLOFIPSStatus	Gets the current ‘Enforce AES/3DES Encryption’ status.
Get-HPiLOFirmwareInfo	Gets the firmware details for the iLO.
Get-HPiLOFirmwareVersion	Gets the iLO firmware version.
Get-HPiLOGlobalSetting	Gets the iLO global settings.
Get-HPiLOHealthSummary	Gets the health information summary of the host server.
Get-HPiLOHostAPO	Gets the current Automatic Power On and Power On Delay settings.
Get-HPiLOHostData	Gets the host data displayed on the Server Information page.
Get-HPiLOHostPower	Gets the power state of the server.
Get-HPiLOHostPowerMicroVersion	Gets the Power Micro Version number.
Get-HPiLOHostPowerSaver	Gets the state of the processor power regulator feature of the server.
Get-HPiLOHotKeyConfig	Gets hot keys available for use in remote console sessions.
Get-HPiLOIML	Gets the integrated management logs.
Get-HPiLOLanguage	Gets all languages on the iLO.
Get-HPiLOLicense	Gets the license types and keys.
Get-HPiLOMemoryInfo	Gets the memory details for the host server where the iLO is located.
Get-HPiLOModuleVersion	Gets the module details for the HPiLOCmdlets.
Get-HPiLONetworkSetting	Gets the current network settings.
Get-HPiLONICInfo	Gets the NIC details for the system NIC and the iLO NIC.
Get-HPiLOOAInfo	Gets the Onboard Administrator information from the enclosure where iLO is located.
Get-HPiLOOneTimeBootOrder	Gets the current state of the one-time boot.
Get-HPiLOPersistentBootOrder	Gets the current boot order.
Get-HPiLOPowerAlertThreshold	Gets the power alert threshold for the iLO devices.
Get-HPiLOPowerCap	Gets the power cap of the server.
Get-HPiLOPowerOnTime	Gets the virtual clock value, in minutes, since the server was last powered on.
Get-HPiLOPowerReading	Gets the power readings from the server power supply.
Get-HPiLOPowerSupply	Gets the power supply details for the host server where the iLO is located.
Get-HPiLOProcessor	Gets the processor details for the host server.
Get-HPiLOProfile	Gets all the Profile Descriptors and the data stored in them in the perm directory of the blobstore.
Get-HPiLOProfileApplyResult	Retrieves the result of the Invoke-HPiLOProfileApply cmdlet.
Get-HPiLORackSetting	Gets the rack settings for an iLO.
Get-HPiLOSecurityMessage	Gets the security message for the iLO login screen.
Get-HPiLOServerName	Gets the host server name used by iLO.
Get-HPiLOSNMPIMSetting	Gets the respective iLO SNMP IM settings.
Get-HPiLOSpatial	Gets the location information and system data with HP Asset Manager to obtain more precise and complete asset data.
Get-HPiLOSSOSetting	Gets the SSO Setting for the iLO.
Get-HPiLOStorageController	Gets the storage controller of the server.
Get-HPiLOTemperature	Gets the temperature health details of the server
Get-HPiLOUIDStatus	Gets the UID Status of the server.
Get-HPiLOUser	Gets the information for a local user.
Get-HPiLOUserInfo	Gets detailed information for all local users.
Get-HPiLOUserList	Gets a list of all local users.
Get-HPiLOVMStatus	Gets the Virtual Media drive status.
Get-HPiLOVRM	Gets the Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) health details from the server.
Import-HPiLOCertificate	Imports a signed certificate into iLO.
Import-HPiLOSSHKey	Imports an SSH Key and associated username into iLO.
Invoke-HPiLOProfileApply	Applies a deployment setting profile in iLO 4.
Invoke-HPiLOProfileDownload	Modifies a Profile Description, downloads a specific blob, and writes the blob to the blob store.
Mount-HPiLOVirtualMedia	Mounts the specified media image.
Remove-HPiLOProfile	Removes a deployment profile.
Remove-HPiLOSSORecord	Removes an HP SIM Trusted SSO Server record.
Remove-HPiLOUser	Removes an existing local user account.
Remove-HPiLOUserSSHKey	Removes any SSH keys associated with a particular UserLogin.
Reset-HPiLOAdministratorPassword	Resets the administrator password to a default value.
Reset-HPiLORIB	Resets the iLO.
Reset-HPiLOServer	Resets the host server on which the iLO is operating.
Set-HPiLOAHSStatus	Enables or disables AHS logging.
Set-HPiLOAssetTag	Sets or clears the asset tag.
Set-HPiLOBrownout	Turns the brownout recovery feature on or off.
Set-HPiLOComputerLockConfig	Configures the computer lock settings.
Set-HPiLODefaultLanguage	Sets the default language on iLO.
Set-HPiLODirectory	Modifies the directory settings on iLO.
Set-HPiLOFactoryDefault	Sets the Lights-Out device to factory default settings.
Set-HPiLOGlobalSetting	Modifies global settings of the host server.
Set-HPiLOHostAPO	Sets the automatic power-on and power-on-delay settings.
Set-HPiLOHostPower	Toggles the power on the host server.
Set-HPiLOHostPowerSaver	Sets the power regulator setting for the server processor.
Set-HPiLOHotKeyConfig	Configures the remote console hot key settings in iLO.
Set-HPiLOKerberosConfig	Configures the Kerberos authentication.
Set-HPiLOLicenseKey	Applies a license key for the Integrated Lights-Out Advanced Pack.
Set-HPiLOLockConfiguration	Enable the data-center configuration lock for iLO.
Set-HPiLONetworkSetting	Modifies the network settings of the host server where the iLO is located.
Set-HPiLOOneTimeBootOrder	Sets one time boot order.
Set-HPiLOPassword	Changes the password of a local user.
Set-HPiLOPersistentBootOrder	Sets the persistent boot order.
Set-HPiLOPowerAlertThreshold	Sets the power alert threshold value for the iLO.
Set-HPiLOPowerCap	Sets the power cap feature on the host server.
Set-HPiLORBSUPOSTIP	Configures the management processor RBSU to display the IP address during POST.
Set-HPiLOSchemalessDirectory	Modifies the current schemaless directory configuration on iLO.
Set-HpiLOServerName	Assigns the Server Name attribute shown in the user interface and host RBSU.
Set-HPiLOSharedNetworkPort	Configures Lights-Out device to pass network traffic on the shared host network port.
Set-HPiLOSNMPIMSetting	Modifies the respective iLO SNMP IM settings.
Set-HPiLOSSOSetting	Modifies the HP SSO settings for the iLO.
Set-HPiLOUIDStatus	Toggles the UID on the host server.
Set-HPiLOUser	Modifies an existing local user account present in the iLO.
Set-HPiLOVirtualPowerButton	Simulates the physical press of the power button, press and hold of the power button, coldboot and warm boot of the server.
Set-HPiLOVLAN	Configures the iLO Shared Network Port with a user defined VLAN ID.
Set-HPiLOVMPortSetting	Configures the virtual media port functionality for the iLO.
Set-HPiLOVMStatus	Sets the virtual media drive status.
Start-HPiLOERSAHSSubmission	Initiates Active Health System data submission to the Insight Remote Support server.
Start-HPiLOL2Collection	Initiates an L2 data collection submission to the Insight Remote Support server.
Start-HPiLOTestEvent	Initiates a test service event submission to the Insight Remote Support server.
Update-HPiLOFirmware	Update iLO firmware.
Update-HPiLOModuleVersion	Checks to determine if a newer version of the HPiLOCmdlets is available on the HP website for download.

May 15, 2014 3 comments

Datacenter Software Storage

Elitebook Challenge: Day 1 crash, recovery and comparing Elitebooks

by Philip Sellers May 14, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

unrecoverable_error

Sunday was my travel day, so I’m considering Monday as Day 1 full time on the Elitebook Folio 1040. It’s been a doozy of a day with the new Elitebook starting off with an unrecoverable software error from Windows. I cannot blame the hardware – its completely the software and perhaps my botched install of Windows 8.1 to blame. This morning, when I attempted to boot my Elitebook Folio 1040, Windows 8.1 game me an error during boot and auto-repair did not work. I suspect that maybe the drive encryption was to blame – I had not intended to enable drive encryption, but while setting up the fingerprint scanner I enabled it during my time in the airport yesterday. But certainly Windows 8.1 played a part here, so I will have to try it again with Windows 8.1 installed after I return home.

I don’t have a backup system with me this trip and its an incredibly crippling feeling to know that I’m without what I need to both work and attend the conference. But in case you’re not clued in by a new blog post, the Elitebook is working again. I was able to boot the system into HP Recovery and thanking my lucky stars for a recovery partition because I brought no physical media with me. In the end, I’m back to trusty and reliable Windows 7 from the HP image and I’ve already noticed some things working better than when I installed Windows 8.1.

After the reinstall, I was able to quickly recover things thanks to the cloud – Office 365 quickly reinstalled Office, Adobe Creative Cloud quickly reinstalled my Photoshop & Illustrator, OneDrive restored my personal files I needed for the trip and I had an external drive with my VM and VMware Player from their site. So, I’m back in business and so far, the laptop is running much better than under Windows 8.1 It is truly amazing how much difference a functional operating system [Windows 7] makes to getting work done.

Cloud to the rescue. And, I’m hearing a lot about cloud at Microsoft TechEd this week. The mantra is “Cloud First, Mobile First.” But that’s another post…

Comparing to Nerdblurt’s Elitebook 840

The rest of the week has gone without a hitch. The system loaded with Windows 7 is much more usable to me. Its battery life has been excellent. I have noticed with running a VM in VMware Player on the system, it does tend to drain the battery much more than using the laptop on its own. HP’s claims of 9 hours battery life have not quite held up at this point, but I do see myself getting a solid 4 or 5 from my testing – browsing, writing and using less-CPU intensive apps.

One of the things that I do like on this model is the inclusion of HP’s Client Security software. It allows for biometric, fingerprint password control in the system and it allows for drive encryption. I have not re-enabled the drive encryption during this trip, but the fingerprint scanner has been used a lot and its a handy feature – fully integrated into Windows login.

I mentioned the Forcepad in my first post about the Elitebook Folio 1040 – the issue with not accpeting gestures is also resolved with the rebuild from the factory image. Gestures and multitouch seem to work better, though the right click still seems to be an issue for me to learn. I can’t consistently get the system to right-click where I want. I will be watching HP’s Forcepad instructional video again.

I compared my eval Elitebook Folio 1040 to the Elitebook 840 that my good friend Luigi (aka NerdBlurt) was carrying this week. The 840 is a more traditional ultrabook. The 840 includes a touch screen display and the other obvious difference is that the 840 has both traditional trackpad and pointing stick with physical buttons. The Elitebook Folio 1040 definitely looks sleeker in the pointing department, without the extra physical buttons, but there were also no right-click problems on the 840 – just sayin’.

Other than the mouse differences, the Elitebook 840 and Elitebook Folio 1040 are pretty close cousins. The 840 comes in a much lower price point, but ships with a traditional HDD inside instead of the SSD storage in the Folio 1040. The Folio 1040 is about a half centimeter thinner than the 840 at its thickest and the 840 weighs more.

It was a happy run-in to get to compare the two during Microsoft TechEd when I met up with Luigi.

May 14, 2014 1 comment

Datacenter Software Storage

TechEd Session Recap: Future Look at Microsoft Exchange Server (OFC-B310)

by Philip Sellers May 13, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

Microsoft Exchange is the cornerstone for email in many businesses. And a quick poll of the users in the room during this session indicated that the majority of those users are running Exchange on-premise and not Office 365’s flavor of Exchange. So, we were all extremely interested to here where things are going in terms of development in Exchange. This session focused on the future features with previews of some of these feature in Office 365 hosted Exchange and slides showing others. It was intended to be an overview of where things are going for development, but didn’t delve deeply into any one of the features or the technical layers below them.

The development cycle for Exchange has changed some, as many customers witnessed for the first time with Exchange 2013. The newest version of Exchange released to customers on Office 365 before the on-premise version released and our speakers Pavani Haridasyam and Ef Regalado attributed the switch to the nature of cloud and the ability to iterate and release more often on the cloud platform. The development cycle is to first release the newest features internally to Microsoft employees and after getting bugs worked out and feedback from users, those changes are pushed to Office 365 customers and will ultimately be incorporated into a future on-premise version of Exchange. But Microsoft chose to keep all Exchange development, both for the cloud and for on-premise, with a single team in order to keep things consistent for all customers.

Investment in Exchange has not slowed and a considerable amount of effort has been going into creating new features that customers are requesting and that Microsoft believes customers need. This session focused on three major areas of development for customers on Exchange – Security and Compliance, Working Smarter, and Social Email.

In terms of security and compliance, Microsoft has been taking the Exchange compliance views and been working towards creating a unified compliance console for Exchange, SharePoint and Lync. The compliance center aims to be user friendly tool for non-technical compliance officers in companies to perform their job functions – power with usability.

Data loss prevention is also another major focus in the security and compliance area – with the ability to fingerprint documents in Exchange and then pinpoint those to ensure that they do not get sent out of the company. The DLP features are also extended into the OWA apps for mobile devices in attempts to ensure that documents do not leak through email. S/MIME has also been added in the OWA interface, which many customers have requested.

The Exchange team is also working diligently on features that help people work smarter with their email. Admitting that many customers are overwhelmed by the volume of email they receive, OWA has a new People View or Personalized Inbox feature that lets you easily view email with a particular person from an easy People list in the sidebar. This is one of the features making its way into Office 365 hosted Exchange now. In addition to the arranagement by people, the Exchange team has been working to improve collaboration of documents with integration to OneDrive for Business to ‘attach’ files – which are actually stored in OneDrive rather than being attached to an email, which is quickly outdated. It allows for multiple people to collaborate in a document in real time using Office Web Apps and all changes to be stored and updated centrally, rather than having to email multiple revisions between people. Enhanced previews are also a part of Outlook Web App, so that when you paste in a URL, it will give you a Facebook-like preview of the URL and the ability to copy and paste in images is now supported in Office 365 hosted Exchange and will be included in a future on-premise version of Outlook Web App.

Pushing collaboration even further, the Exchange team has been working on a new Groups functionality to allow for social interaction with integration into Yammer. The team is working to unify groups which have existed in various forms in AD and Exchange and in SharePoint separately. The unified approach should allow for things to be logically located and less overlap in features or function to exist between the Microsoft platforms. Azure Active Directory is the mast of the Group identities according to the slides presented and it will be federated with other Office 365 apps. Notifications are sent to groups members when changes are made, but they are not overwhelming in the way that email notifications have in the past – instead they are collected into the unified group. Email conversations and calendars are stored in Exchange. Documents, OneNote and lists are stored in SharePoint and Yammer will be the group feed of activities. The Yammer piece has yet to be implemented.

May 13, 2014 0 comments

Datacenter Software Storage

TechEd Session Recap: The StorSimple Approach to Solving Issues Related to Growing Data Trends (DCIM-B310)

by Philip Sellers May 13, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

Dealing with astronomical data growth is a problem that every business, small to large, is dealing with. Data is expected to grow from about 4.4 trillion gigabytes to over 44 gigabytes by the end of this decade according to numbers reported by IDC this year. But of all the data captured and created, most of it sits idle just a few days after its initial creation, never to be referred to again. So, how do businesses combat this?

StorSimpleTiers Microsoft’s Marc Farley offered one Microsoft solution during his session, The StorSimple Approach to Solving Issues Related to Growing Data Trends. Utilizing StorSimple, a Microsoft owned company, businesses can implement a third tier of storage in the cloud. But storing data in the cloud comes with its own set of challenges. The folks behind StorSimple recognized that most data in the cloud is stored in objects – not file and block like traditional datacenter data. Moving data back and forth between the cloud presents problems because you have to change the data type from file or block into objects going into the cloud and from objects back to file or block from the cloud. StorSimple is a solution to that problem by natively storing the data in object stores locally and providing companies with the ability to transport these objects into the cloud for backup, archive and off-site storage all the while providing applications with fast access to the data on-premise.

StorSimple is an iSCSI storage appliance that combines traditional hard disks with solid state to offer fast storage performance for applications. It uses a queuing technique to store all incoming data as quickly as possible and then uses a ‘spill-over’ technique to move them down to lower tiers of storage. It keeps primary data on the HDD and SDD and then utilizes cloud object stores to create snapshots of the data for backup, archive and off-site retention. StorSimple uses SSD to ingest the data a quickly as possible and then uses dedupe and compression to make better utilization of space on the hard drive and cloud tiers of storage.

Traditionally, businesses have utilized tape for the purposes of backup, archive and off-site storage, but tape comes with its own set of challenges. Marc talked a bit about the challenges of backup and especially backup to tape in business environments – from tracking cartridges to operational challenges of locating and off-siting tapes.

But in addition to the backup, recovery and archive data, what happens when a company runs out of hard disk space in an array? Interestingly, StorSimple utilizes the cloud as another layer of spill over for stale data that will likely never be recalled again. That is a unique take to solving the increasing storage demands for businesses.

In terms of management, StorSimple brings all the functions of primary and backup storage into a single appliance and, more importantly, into a single management interface where all the functions are managed together – rather than in different silos by different administrators. This allows for administrators to have an unified view of their storage.

Living up to the ‘simple’ part of its name, StorSimple is a straight forward solution that doesn’t necessarily offer some of the high availability features that other storage platforms include. The hardware is fully redundant, but there aren’t clustering features built into the platform, although disaster recovery to another site is possible using the cloud transport between the two combined with policies that dictate the recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives.

Find out more at www.storsimple.com or get a copy of Marc Farley’s book Rethinking Enterprise Storage: A Hybird Cloud Model.

May 13, 2014 0 comments

Datacenter Software Storage

Elitebook Folio 1040 Challenge: Attending MS TechEd with a twist

by Philip Sellers May 10, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

Tomorrow morning, I will depart for Microsoft TechEd in Houston, TX, and something will be missing from my bag when I go tomorrow. I’m leaving my Macbook Pro at home and I’m calling the next week my Elitebook Challenge. Instead of taking my Mac, I’m going to spend the next week running on an HP Elitebook Folio 1040 and attempting to use it exclusively for the week. HP sent me an evaluation unit to test drive and how better to test it than making it my primary computer for the week.

This is going to be a challenge for me after spending a decade running on the Mac in personal life. I gifted away my last personal PC back in 2003. Granted, I run PC at work, but this blog, web development and my personal computing has been Apple-centric for years – long before the Intel switch and before the Mac became mainstream again.

HP Elitebook Folio 1040 For the next week, I really want to try and give the Elitebook Folio a good run through and the only way for me to do this for sure is to leave my Mac behind. I’m writing this post on the new Elitebook and I can already feel many similarities between it and my Mac. The keyboard is very familiar to a Mac user. The display is great in terms of resolution and brightness. The trackpad is different – enough so that HP packages a how-to video about the trackpad, but as a Mac user I do miss multi-touch jestures. When I unpacked the Elitebook, I was very impressed with how lightweight but sturdy the hardware felt. I promise a full review of the hardware after I’ve given it a solid test.

In terms of PC’s, I’ve been stuck in Dell hell for years with the devices I had been given for work – both with a lack of sex appeal and horse power. So I was thrilled when I unpacked the Elitebook Folio 1040. The Elitebook oozes sex appeal in the same ways that the Macbook Air and other ultralight notebooks. While its not as razor thin as an Air, but its not far from it weighing in at just 3.3 lbs. As I’m using it for the first time, the thought crosses my mind – this is a PC I could actually see myself using long term. I’ve tried a bunch of Windows tablets out for work while we’ve been looking at them and there has actually only been one that I ever thought I could use for myself – that made sense. This Elitebook is on the same list as that tablet.

Windows 8.1 is by far my biggest challenge so far – its a different animal – and one I have no real experience using since my office refuses to upgrade [for good reason, I now say]. The new Start screen is pretty awful in my opinion and although its attractive, its lost lots of user-friendliness. My biggest complaint is that you have icons to easily identify applications, but the live tile concept replaces the icon with other content making it hard to find the app I’m looking for. Gladly, the Windows 8.1 operating system is not the default installed and HP is giving its users a choice with the Elitebook Folio 1040 – pre-installing Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.1 onto the device.

The biggest thing for a switcher has to be software. I have a lot of software I adore on the Mac that is Mac-only – titles like OmniOutliner which I use extensively for blogging outlines that simply aren’t available for PC. But most of my major vendor apps have gone to subscriptions – like Office 365 Home and Adobe Creative Cloud, which made adapting to the PC titles really easy for what I need. I have OneNote, Word and Excel along with Photoshop and Illustrator all by virtue of subscription. These make switching much easier. The cloud has really enabled a user like me to do a platform switch while keeping many of the services I use the same.

So, I am committed to blogging another post within one week where I will chronicle my week with the Elitebook Folio 1040. Off we go…

Disclaimer: HP provided the Elitebook Folio 1040 to me, free of charge, to evaluate, use and to blog about with no strings attached. HP in no way has influence or editorial control over what I blog about the Elitebook they provided. These viewpoints are my own.

May 10, 2014 1 comment

Compute Datacenter Software Storage Virtualization

HP announces OneView integration with vCenter Server

by Philip Sellers February 10, 2014

written by Philip Sellers

oneviewheader

Today at VMware Partner Exchange (PEX), HP announced vCenter Server integration for its HP OneView systems management package. Using REST API calls to HP OneView, the vCenter plugin is now able to initiate actions in HP OneView directly from the vSphere Web Client. HP OneView, introduced last September, is a central platform of the Converged Systems group and it is the glue that takes disparate components and makes them into a cohesive solution. The current version has support for HP BladeSystem, Virtual Connect and Gen8 ProLiant blades and rack-mount systems. Proliant G7 blades are also supported. It has a roadmap for adding support with HP networking and HP storage in the future. HP OneView provides both deployment, management and monitoring capabilities so that administrators can build out solutions and maintain solutions.

HP Grow Cluster - vCenter with OneView

As part of a demo of the integration, HP is showing off the ability to completely automate the build and deployment of ESXi nodes in a new cluster and into existing clusters. By utilizing OneView’s engine, a VMware administrator can kick off the orchestration of a new hardware build directly from vSphere Web Client using a simple “HP Grow Cluster” menu item (pictured above). The menu item kicks off a wizard drive workflow (at right) that calls the tasks in OneView via its REST API. The vCenter plugin allows the administrator to pick a reference server profile, create multiple server profiles from the template and then uses HP Server Provisioning to deploy an ESXi host build plan.

At the core of OneView is the software-defined model of IT – where the underlying hardware is abstracted from the software-based configuration and settings. The reference server profiles define a base level of hardware and combined with settings, including firmware levels, BIOS settings and the ProLiant server model and generation preferences. Once the reference profile is deployed, it becomes a server profile assigned to physical hardware. Like Virtual Connect server profiles, these are portable and can be migrated between physical hardware.

Customers who are familiar with HP’s Insight Control for vCenter will notice many similarities between the OneView integration and the Insight Control integration. The OneView plugin for vCenter shows network diagrams of port mappings and configuration as well as end-to-end storage mapping from the VM to the LUN and storage array. The current iteration of OneView relies on the same Insight Control for vCenter storage plugin. OneView has yet to adopt storage control and management directly into its platform, though it seems safe to expect its coming given HP’s direction.

The majority of this announcement is that VMware administrators can now kick off OneView tasks directly from the vSphere Web Client, monitor and view the progress and completion of the tasks it spawns. OneView is still in early in its life, but the interface is simple and intuitive. Its not overly complex at this time and its build with modern concepts, like search, deeply integrated into the core product. Extensions like the vCenter plugin are great enhancements for administrators who are accustomed to working in a native platform and gain access to the capabilities of OneView directly from a familiar console. This release continues on HP’s track record of delivering usable functionality directly to VMware administrators from vCenter.

The HP team has a video demonstration of the HP Grow Cluster feature in the vCenter Web Client posted at hp.com. It is definitely worth a watch to see the entire process orchestrated with just a few clicks and settings.

February 10, 2014 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Software Storage

HP shows off OneView, a consolidated platform for converged management

by Philip Sellers December 10, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

In September, HP introduced its OneView platform for converged management. When first introduced, many of my fellow bloggers and I saw it as an appropriate replacement for HP System Insight Manager (SIM), but what we found is that OneView aims to go further than SIM was ever capable and with a cleaner and easier to understand UI. With OneView, HP is looking to bring together disparate management into a centralized console which can handle computer, storage and networking in a unified approach.

This week at HP Discover, Tom Joyce, Senior Vice President and GM of Converged Systems talked with our group of bloggers and it was clear that within the HP Converged Systems space, OneView is going to be the common management plane for all of the infrastructure – both servers, storage and networking. It is a major component of the Converged Systems strategy and a component that HP is investing heavily in developing.

Interface & Support

In terms of UI, HP took a ‘radically simple’ approach to the interface. It is a massive contrast to the busy and complex interfaces HP has designed in the past and at first pass more closely resembles a solution like Dell/Quest’s Foglight dashboards. All of this is welcome change. By heavily summarizing data and getting critical alerts and problems in front of an administrator, the systems potential usefulness increases exponentially.

Not neglecting the need for detail, OneView has an integrated search feature throughout the UI meaning that the details needed are a quick search or drilldown away.

With the initial release, HP OneView supports HP BladeSystem deployments with G7 and Gen8 blades and Gen8 rack-mount ProLiants. Like Virtual Connect, OneView creates server profiles which can be applied to individual blades but takes the concept a step further by also offering the ability to set lower-level BIOS settings on a blade that Virtual Connect does not address. While the initial compatibility list is very limited, more components will be added over time, though no one should expect older generations of server since much of the capabilities relies on iLO4 and other recent HP innovations.

Offering Context

Building upon the ‘Sea of Sensors’ concept that it introduced three or four generations of ProLiants ago, HP is driving towards a unified view of the physical environment surrounding its servers in the datacenter. HP’s Gen8 ProLiants introduced new smart power adapters which assist with mapping and locating hardware within smart racks in a datacenter. OneView is capable of building maps of these smart racks and smart power in order to identify where equipment is located, to identify hot spots and heat issues, and beings to aggregate the data obtained by the sea of sensors and offer context to it.

OneView also offers context for the interconnections of infrastructure as well as the physical environment. OneView offers great overviews of connection points between the server, its enclosure, the network sets and interconnects. It is a logical next step to extend this to connected storage and networks in future iterations.

December 10, 2013 0 comments

Compute Datacenter Software Storage

HP Discover Barcelona: What to expect & how to follow online this week

by Philip Sellers December 8, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

I am currently sitting in Myrtle Beach airport waiting for my first of three flights that will ultimate bring me to Barcelona, Spain. I’ll be spending the next week attending HP Discover in Barcelona. It is one of HP’s two major conferences each year and it will be first visit to HP Discover in Europe and on a personal note, my first trip to Europe in thirteen years.

So what to expect from HP Discover?

Some of the usual highlights are expected – the keynote from CEO Meg Whitman to address customers directly and general sessions for HP executives to unpack their vision and product lines for customers and highlight some of the successes the company is achieving. There will be hundreds of breakout sessions for onsite attendees. The Discovery Zone is the place to visit with hundreds of HP’s top technical staff available to answer questions and explain solutions in detail. Unlike other conferences, HP staffs not just marketing folks in the booth, but also engineers and developers. But if you’re not onsite, keep reading – you can still follow the conference.

What else is expected?

Storage: Last year’s HP Discover brought major news with the introduction of the HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 series arrays. These ‘baby’ 3PAR arrays have been a big hit in the mid-market storage marketplace. Their introduction converted me and my employer into HP 3PAR users. I’ll be interested to hear what’s new in 3PAR. In June at Discover, HP announced the 3PAR StoreServ 7450 array – an all flash variant of the already successful 3PAR StoreServ 7400. But HP 3PAR is just part of the HP Storage story – and there will likely be other things going on around software-defined storage during the week.

Systems: HP created the HP Converged Systems group in May. This August, during VMworld, HP held a reception for bloggers and media where we were briefed by the newly formed group and the Converged Systems group is responsible for full system solutions made out of HP intellectual property, similar to VirtualSystem, CloudSystem and AppSystem solutions we’ve seen delivered to date. This will be their first chance to show fruit during the week.

Servers: HP Servers group was also announced in May as HP combined its Business Critical and Industry Standard Server groups. It will also be the first show for this group since their combination this year, since June’s HP Discover happened immediately after the announcement. In previous years, there have been a lot of bleedover between Business Critical and Industry Standard, back and forth. From the industry standard server side, HP ProLiant Gen8 continues to roll out models to complete its refresh cycle and some ProLiants are now in their second revision. HP Discover in June brought the announcement of the HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 which I have since had a chance to review in depth. Excited to see what’s new here…

Mobile: I’m also interested to see what more HP is doing in the mobile space. In the past year, HP has been toying with Android based hardware, Windows 8 based tablets and has other groups working on enterprise mobility solutions. One solution that I saw in June – called HP Anywhere – was in a early beta form. It allowed developers to have a secure platform and SDK for developing rich HTML5 applications for Enterprise. Mobile is a growing space and I am curious what HP has been developing in this space to help enterprise retain control of data, secure and enable users.

But I’m not there – how can I participate?

I know most people who read Techazine will not be on-site at HP Discover Barcelona. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t participate. Here are some opportunities for the next week for your to participate online:

HP Storage Press Event – Monday, 9am EST – http://hpstorage.me/1buyzV4 – Register online and attend for free to watch the announcements from HP Storage live.
HP Discover Opening Keynote featuring Meg Whitman, CEO, and Bill Veghte, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Group – Tuesday, 8am EST – http://bit.ly/1bQrhNz
HP Discover General Session featuring George Kadifa, Executive Vice President, HP Software; Mike Nefkens, Executive Vice President, Enterprise Services; and Dion Weisler, Executive Vice President, Printing and Personal Systems – Wednesday, 8am EST – http://bit.ly/1aLQfr9
Live and on-demand videos all throughout the week on a variety of topics – http://bit.ly/1fa5lf3
On Twitter, follow hashtag #HPDiscover
Follow @HPStorageGuy – Calvin Zito’s HP Discover Barca Bloggers list on Twitter – https://twitter.com/HPStorageGuy/lists/discover-barca-bloggers and talk with us – ask questions and interact.

Hope to hear from you!

December 8, 2013 0 comments

Datacenter Software

Resolving issues with SharePoint 2013 App Store running HTTPS/SSL with a web proxy

by Philip Sellers September 17, 2013

written by Philip Sellers

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about running the SharePoint 2013 App Store behind a web proxy. It went over the instructions on how to configure the SharePoint application to recognize and direct App Store traffic through your web proxy to make the App Store functionality work properly.

Now that we’ve moved from a test environment towards our production, the same fix applies, but in a production environment, it is a requirement for us to run our SharePoint 2013 over HTTPS. This threw an additional error when configuring the App Store for production. It seemed that the SSL traffic was breaking down with an error “Unable to connect to SharePoint Appstore please retry again later.”

We double and triple checked our configuration and the only difference between proof-of-concept and production is SSL/HTTPS enabled on the SharePoint farm. After working a case with Microsoft, it turns out our issue was an untrusted root certificate. Well now, if that sounds familiar, I ran into this same type of problem with VMware Update Manager last year when new certificates were issued. Although it was a different root certificate, it was the same basic problem.

Under Microsoft’s direction, we had to import the root certificate in the following screenshot.

missingrootcertificate

After importing the certificate, it resolved the issue. Windows Server 2008 includes the ability to autoupdate its trusted root certificate authorities, but this obviously doesn’t work correctly behind a proxy configuration. Microsoft recommends that you update and push the trusted root CA’s using Active Directory Group Policy in a domain environment.

There is an installer to update the root certificate authorities in disconnected environments, however, Microsoft says it is only for Windows XP – so please read on before using this on a server. Microsoft added a revision to KB931125 in January 2013 with a new warning:

The KB 931125 package that was posted to Windows Update and WSUS on December 11, 2012, was intended only for client SKUs. However, the package was also offered for server SKUs. Because some customers reported issues after they installed the package on servers, the KB 931125 updates for server SKUs were expired from Windows Update and WSUS. We recommend that you sync your WSUS server and approve the expiry.

However, it was provided to us by Microsoft support. So, mileage will vary and there is a link in KB931125 that helps to fix a problem if the update causes issues on a server.

September 17, 2013 0 comments