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ProLiant servers getting RESTful API for management

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

ProLiant servers are getting some REST – a RESTful API.  One of the innovations HP is showing off on the HP Discover showroom floor is a new RESTful interface packaged as part of the iLO management chips on ProLiant servers.  With the RESTful API, HP hopes to deliver future generations of ProLiant that can be easily provisioned and controlled from tools like HP OneView.  RESTful interfaces are becoming the go-to standard within HP for interoperability between their products.

HP RESTful API is a management interface can be used to perform configuration, inventory, and monitoring.  The RESTful API is available on Gen8 and Gen9 hardware with iLO firmware 2.0 and greater.  On Gen9 and future hardware, the interface will be able to configure both BIOS and iLO settings on the server.  On Gen8 servers, the RESTful API will only expose the capabilities inside of the iLO.

According to HP, a REST client will send HTTPS operations to the iLO web server and there are three modes that can be used – command line interface, file based and JSON-formatted data.  The use of HTTPS is a big security plus versus many other remote management interfaces that are often

The folks at HP are working with other vendors in the market to establish a standard that they call the Redfish Specification.  Redfish is supposed to create a standardized interface for IP Management Interfaces on servers to allow uniform control and reporting across multi-vendor server environments. The standardization should allow the same management software to be able to manage heterogeneous servers.  Redfish is corporately sponsored by Dell, Intel, HP and Emerson.

For more information, see http://www.hp.com/go/restfulapi.

Disclaimer: HP invited and paid for my trip to attend HP Discover EMEA.  The views and opinions I’ve written were not dictated or approved by HP and are my own.  

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DatacenterStorage

HP brings native filer capabilities to the 3PAR line

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

3parstoreserv7000Today, HP announced new file and cloud object storage capabilities native to the 3PAR storage line.  The 3PAR File Persona software suite brings native file share and Object API file capabilities to the 3PAR arrays.  Powered by a new set of controllers, the File Persona is available on HP’s new 3PAR StoreServ 7200c, 7400c, 7440c and 7550c models.  The new ‘c’ designation is a sign of a new controller on the 3PAR arrays, still based on the same ASIC as the previous 7200 and 7400 models, but with increased cache to handle the File Persona’s demands.

The 3PAR StoreServ 7440c is a new hybrid array that features all the same performance as the all-flash 3PAR StoreServ 7450 array, including over 900,000 IOPS of performance.  The 7440c features 16Gb Fiber Channel capabilities and up to 3.5 Petabytes of storage in a combination of flash and spinning disk.

The 3PAR File Persona software suite allows CIFS, NFS and object storage natively within the 3PAR OS and no longer requires a separate server fronting the array to provide the file store capabilities.  File, block and object storage can all be managed from a unified management interface and from a single storage pool, offering advantages for customers over competitor’s arrays, according to David Scott, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Storage at HP.

From checking with HP folks, existing 3PAR 7000 customers will require new controllers or a new array to make use of the File Persona software suite.

Disclaimer: HP invited and paid for my trip to attend HP Discover EMEA.  The views and opinions I’ve written were not dictated or approved by HP and are my own.  

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DatacenterStorage

3PAR StoreServ gets new management console

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

HP is showing off a the new StoreServ Management Console (SSMC) this week at HP Discover EMEA.  The new management console is a complete rewrite of 3PAR management that adopts many of the UI concepts that HP OneView introduced.  It is HTML5 interface that is extremely responsive, but is a markedly different view for 3PAR administrators.  SSMC can connect to and manage up to 16 3PAR StoreServ arrays running at least 3.1.3 firmware, although the 3.2.1 firmware will provide the best experience.

First up, the SSMC has a high level dashboard view that intends to highlight problems and overall performance for an administrator in a quick, clean, graphical view, shown in the screenshot below.

StoreServ Management Console

Beyond the dashboard, all the normal administrative tasks are logically grouped by 3PAR Systems, Hosts, Virtual Volumes, and Virtual Volume Sets.  Existing objects display in a brief view that can be expanded to include additional information in list view.  Select any one of the objects and you get management and full reporting for the object.  All actions are organized under an Action button, matching OneView’s UI to allow for a cohesive management between products.

Even better than having to manually find what you’re looking for, the new 3PAR SSMC includes native search capabilities.  When you begin a search, it defaults to searching in the area you’re currently managing in the console (like search defaults to Virtual Volumes if you’re in the Virtual Volumes area) but allows you to toggle to an Everywhere search to find any object in the SSMC managed systems that matches your search term.  This allows you to quickly locate virtual volumes or a host no matter which 3PAR array it may be provisioned from.

Relationships between storage objects are important and the SSMC has a great maps view that highlight relationships between defined hosts and 3PAR systems and the virtual volumes and exports assigned to hosts.  The map views are powerful to quickly traverse objects in the 3PAR universe with the help of search.  If you find yourself on an export or snapshot, maps lets you quickly open management for the associated object you actually wanted in the map views.

SSMC gives System Reporter a major makeover, too.  SSMC relies heavily on the data stored in the 3PAR controllers and not an external database, in a change over the previous System Reporter software.  The existing reports are easily accessible from a Create Report button and the data of the reports is rendered quickly with the ability to highlight and drill into specific time frames and data points.  The UI of SSMC provides a big leap in usability for reports on your 3PAR arrays.

SSMC will be freely available in a few weeks to customers, according to HP employees on the show floor.  SSMC is installable on Windows or Linux and a virtual appliance seems to be a logical expectation, too.   SSMC may be used in simultaneously with the 3PAR Command Line Interface and the 3PAR InServ Management Console (IMC).

Unfortunately, the initial release of SSMC does not allow management of Peer Persistence configuration for 3PAR but will be included in a future release.

Disclaimer: HP invited and paid for my trip to HP Discover EMEA.  All viewpoints are my own and were not dictated by HP.  

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DatacenterStorage

HP announces new Flat Backup direct from 3PAR to StoreOnce

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Today, at HP Discover EMEA, HP announced new flat backup capabilities allowing 3PAR snapshots to be directly backed up to StoreOnce deduplicated backup arrays.  The new capability is called Express Protect and allows for direct backup without third party backup software for VMware vSphere deployments.  Snapshots taken on 3PAR arrays can be initially moved to StoreOnce for long term retention, eliminating several layers of software currently required to protect the same workloads.

To enable the feature, a virtual appliance called the StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central is deployed which connects to vCenter, StoreOnce and 3PAR arrays allowing for array-based snapshots with application aware consistency using Microsoft’s VSS technology.  Recovery Manager Central integrates directly with VMware vCenter allowing administrators to control flat backups from their familiar vCenter view.  In addition, administrators may also initiate flat backups from the StoreOnce RMC console.  StoreOnce RMC allows users to restore a snapshots stored on StoreOnce to the original or a third party 3PAR array.  The backups occur at the LUN level for the array and would backup all virtual machines in the LUN.

The StoreOnce RMC does not allow for file level restoration in the way that traditional backup software does, so it may not be a complete backup replacement, but it should allow for better and more flexible backups for VMware environments.  For static servers whose data is kept in a database, this solution may become a great fit by eliminating multiple layers of software currently used for the same protection.  Realistically, third party software and StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central will need to coexist to fully protect environments, but StoreOnce RMC may allow for faster protection on more frequent intervals than third party backups for many virtual machines.

StoreOnce RMC is licensed on a per rack basis with prices starting at $2500 for the VMware solution.  StoreOnce RMC also requires a Catalyst license on the StoreOnce arrays. (I incorrectly reported that StoreOnce RMC was freely available. I apologize for this error.)

In the initial release, the StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central is limited to VMware vSphere but the capability is planned to expand to other software in the future.

Disclaimer: HP invited and paid for my trip to attend HP Discover EMEA.  The views and opinions I’ve written were not dictated or approved by HP and are my own.  

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Printing

Officejet Pro X redefines the Inkjet Printer

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

The Officejet Pro X is to inkjet printers what the Prius is to traditional cars.  While it looks a lot like all of the cars before it, the Prius completely redefined the core drivetrain and its power source, inventing a new category of car – the hybrid.  In the same way, the Officejet Pro X completely redefines the core print system of an inkjet and its ink.  Like the Prius, the Officejet  Pro X defines a whole new class of printer in the marketplace.

It has been a little over a month of testing the Officejet Pro X576dw multifunction printer.  The results are really impressive.  First, this printer has lived up to the hype and marketing promises that it came with.  It’s ink is something completely different – something revolutionary – for an inkjet and it offers superior durability.  It prints with a speed comparable or better than laser printers in its class.  It offers better cost per page costs for its owners.  It delivers on features that enterprise will require and small business may not know to hope for.

Amazing Ink Durability

aka Prints You Just Can’t Destroy!

As I wrote in my introduction post, the Officejet Pro X features a new formula of ink that was developed by HP to be more durable than traditional inkjet ink.  The new inks have a formula with more pigment and less water, meaning that prints of the printer come out dry to the touch and resist smearing and running when the page comes in contact with water or a highlighter, which has been one of the major complaints of inkjet prints.  So, I decided to test the new ink in the worst possible ways I could imagine – by submerging printed pages and photos from the Officejet Pro X in the sink and seeing how the prints fared.  I had seen a demo of this last year at HP Discover, but I thought that there was no way a page could survive under a running faucet.  But I was absolutely wrong.  As a matter of fact, it was such an amazing test, that I had to recreate it and film it.  It is something you have to see with your own eyes.  So, take a look at this video below where I take regular copy paper, normal photo paper and a page of HP’s Premium Glossy Photo paper and test them in the sink.

So what did I learn from my water testing? I’d highlight 3 things:

  1. Prints on standard paper are extremely durable.  HP recommends ColorLok paper for superior color and clarity of prints, but even in my testing with the cheapest copy paper I could find on the shelf, the prints look fairly crisp and clear, but on cheap paper the prints do look dull.  The prints on ColorLok paper look fantastic.  HP ships about 20 pages worth of ColorLok paper for you to use and see the results.   ColorLok, by the way, is not an HP brand but rather a brand from International Paper, so its not to HP’s benefit in recommending ColorLok.
  2. Glossy presentation and photo paper lend to incredible looking prints.  The glossy page combined with the HP pigmented inks really stand out and the are very durable, surviving my intense water testing.  If I were in sales, I would be foaming at the mouth to have one of these for customer presentations and leave-behind materials.  For a small cost per page, you can produce incredible looking materials without the need for professional printing.  Talking with HP, they tell me that they’ve had a lot of success using the Officejet Pro X for on demand printed materials at conferences and events internally and customers are adopting the same.
  3. The durability of photo prints has a lot to do with the type of paper.  Semigloss and matte finishes tended not to endure my water test, however, the testing I did was pretty extreme.  Still, I’d stick with HP’s recommended papers listed on the HP website under the supplies for PageWide array printers.

One really interesting story that I was told was about a mining company in South America.  Where laser printers could not hold up in the damp and high humidity conditions of a mine, the HP Officejet Pro X is really doing well. While the printer wasn’t designed specifically for those operating conditions, its design along with the pigmented inks provide this mining company with a solution where laser printers had failed.  After running prints under streams of running water, I can see why.

The ink seems more akin to what you’d find from commercial printing companies, offering durability and resisting water unlike anything I’ve seen with a home, ink printer.  But that may be the only disappointment for the Officejet Pro X.  At this point, there aren’t color matching controls that would allow this printer to be used by graphic designers and agencies – not the type to ensure color matching to Pantone colors or swatches.  I really see that as a huge potential market and perhaps HP will bring these kinds of color matching to the line so that it can address the needs of graphics professionals.

Blistering Fast Print Speeds

One of the features that was most highly touted were the print speeds of this inkjet printer. Inkjets, generally work with a reciprocating print head that moved back and forth across the page, printing one line at a time. The OfficeJet Pro X uses a PageWide print head that had nozzles across a page width of area and can deliver blistering fast prints. In fact, there are a lot of black and white Laser printers that don’t print as fast as the OfficeJet Pro X when printing full color, normal prints.  Again, to illustrate this, I thought a video would be the best possible way to convey the results I found in testing.  I could write about it, but its really something you need to see to understand.

One of the things the HP team told me during my briefing on the product was that the General Office Mode prints were still a very high quality and that the development team worked hard to ensure that even the fast prints were still crisp and clear.  There is a bit more over-spray and jaggedness to the individual letters of printed documents in General Office Mode, but you have to get close to the page to really notice it.  The ability to achieve over 70 pages per minute in full color is incredible.

One other thing I noticed from a speed perspective is that even pages with lots of graphics print very quickly, usually without any noticeable delay, unlike laser printers.  Sometimes on a complex image, Laser printers will stop and process the image before printing the page, significantly slowing down the printing process.  The Officejet Pro X didn’t seem to suffer from the same issue.

There are actually even two more printing modes for the Officejet Pro X – Presentation mode and Maximum DPI mode.  To a normal user, I could not tell a difference between these two modes.  They were both extremely high quality prints and looked fantastic.  Maximum DPI mode seemed to be selectable in the driver when paired with HP Premium Photo paper as the media, while Presentation mode is available on plain paper as well as glossy presentation paper and other media.

In testing, I found that printing slows down when duplexing due to having to change paper path and print the other side.   The same goes for moving up to a higher quality of print.  As the video illustrates, one of my test documents was a 24 page text document with full color images on several pages and colored headings.  This document took just 23 seconds to print in General Office Mode and about 35 seconds to print in Professional mode (5 seconds until first page and then 30 seconds of print time).

Copies are slower than print jobs, also.  But the quality of the copies was excellent.  As a matter of fact, I put an original print and a copy side by side and if I didn’t know which was which, I would not have been able to tell a difference.  The automatic document feeder had a tendency to feed in pages slightly crooked.  It didn’t happen all the time, but the more pages in the document feeder, the more often this would happen.

At the same time, I have not experienced a single print misfeed while testing – which is a big thing.  With pages moving so quickly through the printer in General Office mode, I can’t believe that i have not had a single misfeed for the print path, but it hasn’t occurred.  That’s not to say it couldn’t, but in printing several reams of paper in testing, there hasn’t been a single print misfeed.

Other Functions of a Multifunction Printer

The Officejet Pro X line are all different variations of a multifunction printer.  The touch control panel is extremely responsive and responds well to touch commands including swipes to scroll between screens.  Handy shortcut icons lines the top of the home screen, including network settings and ink level buttons.  There is a shortcut for ECO settings that let you adjust screen brightness, set two-sided fax and copy prints, standby and sleep times for the printer.  There is a shortcut button for ePrint and for fax settings.  All of the same settings are available from the full Settings menu also.  The display is intuitive and easy to use.

Drivers

On Windows, the model specific HP software and drivers worked extremely well for scanning.  On Mac, the scanning integrated with Image Capture and worked well.  Apple’s automatic driver discovery downloaded the print drivers specifically for the Officejet Pro X and the printer also worked with AirPrint driver enabled.   The HP Universal print driver worked extremely well with the printer.  This is a huge plus for enterprise and business customers who don’t want to maintain lots of different driver versions and who want to avoid compatibility issues on their print servers.

Scanning

Scanning, both from the document feeder or flat bed, produces very clear scans.  The software on the computer, both PC and Mac, worked extremely well for initiating scans and controlling the settings of the capture.  Beyond scanning controls from the computer, the touch screen display also provides users with a lot of control from the printer itself.  This is particularly helpful in shared office environments where the printer may be around the corner.  Administrators can setup file share locations, computers and even email where scans may be routed with easy touch controls on the front panel.  The printer also features two USB ports (one below the touchscreen panel and one on the back of the printer) that can be used as a destination for scans also.   Configuration of network locations and computers to route scans is very simple from the web-based control panel or the HP utilities that ship with the printer.

Direct  & Secure Printing

In addition to writing to USB devices, the printer can print directly from USB for recognized formats using the “Plug and Print” option in the touch controls.  The USB port on the back of the printer is a USB 2.0 port and it can be used as a temporary location for confidential print jobs to be stored and then retrieved and printed once you’re standing at the printer.  This is a hugely popular feature for shared printers, because you never want your co-worker looking at your paystub when you print it to a shared printer (or some other situation like that).

One Touch Apps (News & Forms)

Also, while talking about the touch screen controls, you have to look at the Apps section of the controls.  This section allows you to select from a number of web services delivered through hpeprintcenter.com that allow you to print common forms, daily news or many other things directly from the web, all without a computer.   Need music paper or graph paper, the OfficeJet Pro X can print that without you ever needing to search and find a template.  The ForbesDaily or TimesDigest apps allows you to print the latest newspaper or even schedule a daily print of news delivered directly to the printer, just like your daily paper used to be delivered to your doorstep.  With the decline of newspaper, this is a really nifty use for printing your news on-demand.   Oh and the TimesDigest (from the New York Times) even includes the crossword…

Networking

Network configuration is straightforward and simple.  The touchscreen controls make it a breeze to join an existing WiFi network, even a password protected one.  Connecting Ethernet is even easier.  The printer will obtain and address from DHCP or you may specify a static IP address easily through the web control panel or HP Utility on the computer.

Consumables

Another huge plus is the number of pages you’ll get per cartridge.  The ink consumables of the Officejet Pro X are priced around $75 per color retail, but in all my thousands of pages of testing, I have barely moved the mark on any of the 4 ink wells, so in my experience, you’ll see thousands of pages per cartridge before needing to refill.

Disclaimer: HP provided the OfficeJet Pro X576dw MFP to me free of charge for review and a second unit to giveaway.  HP in no way influenced or had any editorial control over the views, opinions and conclusions that came to in the course of testing the printer.  

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ComputeDatacenterVirtualization

Stick to the recipe to keep ESXi on HP hardware cooking

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Back in September, I blogged about a potential problem between HP’s September software bundle for ESXi and ProLiant Gen8 blade servers with Emulex CNA’s.  Long story short, the issue was caused by a mismatch of firmware between Virtual Connect and the Emulex CNA’s.  The mismatch was induced by me, as the administrator, not keeping all my components on a tested firmware ‘recipe’ from HP.

A couple years ago, HP made a shift in the BladeSystem firmware that unified the individual components into a tested configuration and began publishing the firmware together as release sets.  This meant that if you installed a recipe of Onboard Administrator, Virtual Connect and iLO firmwares, they would be more stable since they had been tested together for interoperability.  About a year later, HP unified software drivers and firmware on all ProLiant systems in a similiar way with the release of the Service Pack for Proliant (SPP).  The Service Pack for ProLiant did the same thing for OS level drivers and hardware firmware that the earlier release sets did for BladeSystem firmware.  All components were tested together at specific levels and the SPP’s unified release made it easy for administrators to apply a blessed recipe of software across components.

HP also does a similar thing with its OEM version of ESXi, which includes additional software components that allow a Common Information Model (CIM) implementation within the OS to display hardware status among other things.  Because of the add-in software, HP maintains a recipe between this software and the SPP bundle and firmware levels required and tested on their hardware platforms.

The moral of the story is to stay with HP’s recipes and SPP releases.  When you deviate from these, having firmware older than recommended along with newer drivers or agents, problems can occur.  In my own experiences, when I have stayed with the recipe, I haven’t experienced major malfunctions.  As with any software, new releases fix different bugs and there are times when you want to move outside of a recipe, if a newer version fixes a specific issue you’re experiencing, but in general, the rule is stay in recipe.

The other great benefit that you receive as a customer is a guarantee of support.  Traditionally, HP support pointed to older firmware as the first course of action for many support calls.  Following the SPP and ESXi recipe models, you now get a year of support from the release date of a bundle.  With this, you can push back on support and say “I’m in a supported configuration, now support me.” if you’re ever asked to update firmware without troubleshooting first.  This is a great position for the customer.  Support can also point to specific resolutions in release notes if there is a problem resolved that requires you to move to newer release, but following HP’s guidelines ensures that all the separate components have been tested together for the best possible operational environment that you can have.

And that advice is based on years of struggle in the pre-release set world of HP hardware, experience with HP support and my own personal lapses in following my own advice…  Hope this helps you avoid my struggles…

Service Pack for ProLiant – http://www.hp.com/go/spp

VIBS Depot from HP – http://vibsdepot.hp.com

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DatacenterPrintingStorage

Is there such a thing as an Enterprise InkJet? HP’s OfficeJet Pro X thinks so…

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Laser printers and enterprise seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. But a little over a year ago, I was introduced to an enterprise inkjet printer line – the HP OfficeJet Pro X.   In many ways, it resembles an HP LaserJet printer in size and design.  It looks like an office printer – something substantial that could handle the demands of an office printing thousands of pages per month.  It looks like it belongs in an enterprise.  But everything I knew about inkjet said, there is no way this could work for enterprise.  Inkjets print slowly, I thought, one line at a time.  Inkjets are more expensive than laser, I thought, and ink smears.  But, the OfficeJet Pro X is not a traditional inkjet and what makes it enterprise ready is a long list of differences from what normally defines ink printing.  HP has rethought core inkjet technology in a way that makes it a viable enterprise solution for printing.

OfficjetProX

The OfficeJet Pro X Differences

A Whole Lot of Pigment and Less Water in the Ink

Sad Water DropletOne of the key differentiators of the OfficeJet Pro X line is the ink used for the printer.  According to Larry Tracy, a product manager for the Pro X, the inks have a heavier pigment load and less water than traditional inks.  Less water means the print dries faster as its moving through the device.  Unlike laser printers that use heat and a fuser to transfer the image to the page, the ink printers have no drying mechanism in them – no fans or heaters.  In addition, the durability of the print is much better, according to Tracy.  The print on the pages doesn’t smear or run.  You may use a highlighter over the print without smudging it and it has superior life versus other inkjet printers.  In fact, Tracy says that in their testing the paper will begin to degrade long before the print itself begins the break down.

The PageWide Print Bar

The OfficeJet Pro X features a stationary print bar that is the same width as the sheet of paper, something HP calls PageWide technology.   The PageWide print head features over 420,000 nozzles.  Unlike traditional inkjets where the ink well and nozzels are integrated into the print cartridge, the OfficeJet Pro X print head is not changed with every ink replacement.  This print head has monitoring built in to detect a misfiring nozzle and can allow surrounding nozzles to increase their volume to fill in.  In addition, there are spare nozzles that can be used in the event of a blockage or failure.

OfficejetProX_Printhead

 

Heavy Pigment Ink + Pagewide = Speed

An inkjet that prints up to 70 pages per minute is remarkable.  Demos that I have seen of the OfficeJet Pro X576dm during HP Discover and on a demo unit that HP has provided hold true to that speed.  70 pages per minute is available in what HP calls General Office mode, but don’t make the mistake of calling it draft mode like other printers offer.  Draft mode is a degraded quality print with less precision and crispness.  The OfficeJet Pro X’s General Office mode doesn’t significantly compromise the quality of the print.  The print is still very crisp and clean on the page.

LaserJet Cross-Pollenation

For enterprise, there is a second, higher-end line printers known as the OfficeJet Pro X Enterprise line that integrates HP Flow scanning and routing with other enterprise features.  Similiar the HP Flow models of LaserJet printers, these machines are meant to replace traditional copies and scanners with multi-function printers.  In addition, the HP Universal Print driver that allows businesses to use the same driver for many HP printer models also works with the OfficeJet Pro X line.

When talking with Larry Tracy, I also found out why the OfficeJet Pro X looks like a very close cousin to the HP LaserJet printers.  This printer was developed in Boise, ID, in the birthplace of the HP LaserJet.  A lot of enterprise features created in the LaserJet line are also in this OfficeJet Pro X Enterprise line of printers, including software for pin based secure printing, integration with HP’s Flow workflow and scanning software, and badge readers.

Lots of Traditional HP Printing Goodness

In many ways, the OfficeJet Pro X line is a departure from its ink predecessors.  But its not a complete departure from its heritage.  The OfficeJet Pro X includes many of the expected features like HP ePrint and AirPrint support, both wired and wireless connectivity, USB storage and print from USB thumb drive support, and a multi-page document fed and flatbed scanner integrated.  The OfficeJet Pro X also has faxing and copying capabilities from a touch-screen display and with a bit of configuration, the touch screen can be used to scan documents directly to a file share or HP software on a networked computer.  According to Tracy, a software update earlier this year allows for one of the two onboard USB ports on an OfficeJet Pro X to be used for persistent storage so that secure documents can be stored until accessed and printed by PIN code.  The OfficeJet Pro X printers will also duplex prints and copies automatically, which is a required business feature.

The OfficeJet Pro X Cost Advantage

As a consultant years ago, I performed printing studies for companies and comparing the cost of buying a personal or workgroup laser printer versus the cheap inkjet printers (think $50 big-box variety printers) I often found in their offices.  For a normal office workload, the inexpensive inkjet costs the company more in ink than an laser would cost per page.  Plus, buying the printer-du-jour from a big-box store means stocking multiple different ink refills, increasing costs and frustration.  Calculating the cost per page over the course of a year or several years, I would surprise each customer I worked with at how much they could reduce their printing costs by switching to workgroup or personal laser printers.  And while its been ten years since I was a consultant, many of the things I found then are still true today.  But the OfficeJet Pro X seems to be a very different animal.

When Buyers Lab, an independent testing institution, reviewed the OfficeJet Pro X printer, they found that the cost per page is about 1.1 cents per page for black and white and about 6.5 cents per full color page.  Those prices per page beat out all small laser multifunction printers Buyers Lab had tested.  Buyers Lab reported the average small workgroup laser MFP costs 2.4 cents per page in black and white and 11.5 center per page in full color.  But, the OfficeJet Pro X beat even the lowest cost per page laser multi-functions cost 1.5 cents per page black and white and 7.8 cents per page for color.   Buyers Lab defined the small laser multifunction printer as printers with duty cycle less than 5,000 pages per month.  When you move into a mid-size workgroup MFP, the results change a little with some higher-priced laser multifunction printers able to beat the OfficeJet Pro X’s cost per page, but the OfficeJet Pro X still slightly better than the average cost per page for this class of printers.

Printing and the Environmental Impact

When you think of printing, you think of paper and you may think of trees.  Boldly saying that a printer is eco-friendly may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but the fact remains that some documents must be printed, so when given a choice, choose a printer that uses less resources.

OfficeJetProXinkOne of the lesser talked about stories with the OfficeJet Pro X line is the eco-friendliness of this printer compared to lasers and other inkjets.  The OfficeJet Pro X printers produce less waste than other printers, both laser and inkjet.  Ink cartridges for the printer yield 9,200 pages from the black cartridge and 6,000 pages for each of the three color cartridges.  As a comparison, most laser printers in the same class yield 4,000 – 7,000 pages.  The Buyers Lab performed a study and pitted the OfficeJet Pro X against a Lexmark and found that the Lexmark required almost twice as many ink replacements to produce 150,000 pages.  HP has also worked hard to reduce the amount of waste associated with each ink replacement in terms of packaging and precious metals included with the ink wells.

The second major aspect of environmental friendliness for this printer is its power consumption.  Compared to Laser printers, the OfficeJet Pro X consumes about 8 to 10 times less power – which equates to using less power when printing than a Laser printer when sitting idle.  Many Laser printers do not completely power down the fuser because it would require extra time to before the first page is printed.  Keeping the fuser warm pulls more power than the OfficeJet Pro X when it is in full print mode.  The printer is Energy Star qualified.

But its not just HP’s word.  Marlene Orr, a senior analyst for printers and MFP’s for Buyers Lab, was quoted as saying “From an environmental perspective, these units also use significantly less energy and create less consumables waste than comparable small workgroup laser printers and MFPs recently tested.”

Any of these environmental features will benefit its owners from a total cost of ownership – aka “in the wallet.”  With less power consumption and cheaper cost per page in printing, these printers will save long-term for their owners.  Plus, from my perspective, I despise the throw-away printer mentality, with the uber-cheap printers whose ink refill costs more than the printer.  These are designed to be cheap and not last, which isn’t a good use of natural resources.  The OfficeJet Pro X is a system that’s built for a business level workload, with a duty cycle of up to 75,000 pages.

Next Steps…

My demo HP OfficeJet Pro X 576dw arrived a week ago and I’ve just started setting it up for evaluation.  My initial reaction is really positive.  To be completely transparent, I’m a big HP printing fan.  I made the choice a long time ago to stick with HP printers in my home office and advocate for the same at work.   I’ve attempted to help my former customers with printers of all makes and models, but when I came to my picks for my home, its always been an HP.  So, I will be the first to admit my bias, but it does come from years of experience dealing with issues from other printer brands – Epson, Lexmark (Dell) and Canon.

So, in a couple weeks, I’ll be posting a personal review from my experiences with the OfficeJet Pro X576dw.  And, look for an announcement for your chance to win an OfficeJet Pro X for your own environment.

Disclosure:  HP provided the Officejet Pro X576dw to me free of charge for review and testing.  All views and opinions in this blog post are my own, gathered from research and first hand information.  The views expressed were not dictated by HP.  

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ComputeDatacenterSoftwareStorageVirtualization

HP announces Hyper-Converged Systems based on StoreVirtual VSA

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

HP unveiled the HP Converged System 200-HC StoreVirtual based on HP ProLiant SL2500 series of scalable computing servers and the HP StoreVirtual VSA today at VMworld in Barcelona.  The CS 200-HC StoreVirtual features VMware vSphere 5, the HP StoreVirtual VSA, and HP OneView for management.  The CS 200-HC StoreVirtual line comes in two different models – one with all SAS for higher capacity and one with a mix of SSD and SAS drives for better performance.

Four nodes of compute fit into just 2U of rack space, with shared redundant power for the unit.  From a physical size standpoint, these nodes fit somewhere between a Moonshot card and a BladeSystem blade in terms of sizing.  While they more closely resemble a blade, there is no shared interconnect back-plane.  Each node comes with dedicated 10Gb Ethernet and 1Gb Ethernet network ports and has 6 dedicated disks.

A new addition to the software mix for the Converged System 200-HC line is HP OneView InstantOn  – a streamlined deployment utility that lets customers spin up vSphere with StoreVirtual VSA in a matter of minutes.  According to HP, all that a customer needs to provide is IP addresses and basic license information in order to have a fully working system delivered directly from the factory.

CS 200-HC

A comparison of the hardware configuration shows just a few differences between the two initial StoreVirtual models:

CS 240-HC StoreVirtual System

  • 4 nodes, each with
  • 2 sockets, 8 cores each socket at 2.0Ghz
  • 128GB of RAM each node
  • 2 x 10GbE and 2 x 1GbE NICs per node
  • 6 x 1.2TB SAS SFF drives per node

CS 242-HC StoreVirtual System

  • 4 nodes, each with
  • 2 sockets, 10 cores each socket at 2.8GHz
  • 256GB of RAM each node
  • 2 x 10GbE and 2 x 1GbE NICs per node
  • 4 x 1.2TB SAS SFF drives per node
  • 2 x 400GB SSDs per node

In terms of scale, up to 8 of the CS 240-HC line units can be coupled together to form up to 32-node clusters and not all of those nodes need to be in a single site because of StoreVirtual’s native replication and multi-site capabilities.

StoreVirtual VSA features Autonomic Optimization, a fancy name for storage sub-lun tiering that the CS 242-HC StoreVirtual is using.  This allows for more often accessed blocks of data to be moved from SAS onto SSD and less used to be moved from SSD down to SAS yeilding greater performance from the storage subsystem.  StoreVirtual also provides a wide range of interoperability options for customers who have already invested in dedicated StoreVirtual 4000 hardware solutions or who have existing StoreVirtual VSA deployments.  In addition, native replication is available to any other StoreVirtual, regardless of form factor, and StoreVirtual offers support for vSphere Metro Storage Clusters, offering the ability to create multi-datacenter replication solutions around the technology.  Beyond native replication, HP StoreVirtual also includes Peer Motion capabilities to allow movement of data from one StoreVirtual environment to another for easy migration.

The advantage to moving to a Converged System solution, according to HP, is easier management and a better support experience for the solution.  The solution is tested and supported together as a package, offering customers a single point of contact for their support.  The firmware, drivers and software are all tested together and the will receive recipe updates so that known good combinations of the software can be run on the platform.

Choice is always at the forefront of HP’s strategy for customers and the hyper-converged system announcement is no different.  The HP Converged System 200-HC models are available in both a StoreVirtual VSA and EVO:RAIL configuration.  The primary difference between the two configuration is the virtual storage appliance, with the EVO:RAIL configuration coming with VMware’s vSAN, though I cannot find any specifics of the EVO:RAIL hardware configuration at this time.

When I was in Houston, TX, for a Converged Systems Tech Day last month, HP staff talked with me about the overall Converged System strategy and there were several key points to the overall strategy.  With all Converged Systems, there is an accelerated deployment timeline with the solution.  Since it has been tested and integrated, the product should deploy quickly so that customers realize faster time to value.  The second point is easy procurement, with a single SKU for the entire solution.  The single SKU also provides single solution support, with a specialized team that supports the entire solution rather than the individual components.  Customers who have built their own solutions from ProLiant and HP Storage have probably experienced the piece-meal support experience, even while in a single vendor. HP’s Converged Systems eliminates that problem by sending all support to a dedicated support team to team to troubleshoot problems and that team understands the entire solution, not just an individual component.

The new Converged System 200-HC StoreVirtual models will be available for purchase in December.  The Converged System 200-HC EVO:RAIL configuration will be available first quarter of 2015.

For more information, check out Around the Storage Block post and video on the CS 200-HC StoreVirtual solution and go to www.hp.com/go/hyper-converge.

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ComputeDatacenterStorageVirtualization

HP’s Sept VMware driver bundle may cause issues with Eumlex CNA’s

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

Final Update (11/1/14):  The drivers and bundle in question work with newer Flex-10 interconnect firmware.  My configuration was out of the blessed recipe of firmware and driver versions and I had problems as a result.  According to HP and independent community feedback on Twitter and by email, I can safely say that if you are running within an HP recipe, you should not experience this issue.  Also, for anyone out of recipe compliance, running Virtual Connect Flex-10 4.10 firmware and Onboard Administrator 4.12 firmware with the September ESXi HP bundle, expect problems with ESXi 5.1, but ESX 5.5 will run without issues.  Downgrading to June seems to solve ESXi 5.1.

As a rule, stay within HP’s published recipes from vibsdepot.hp.com and you will avoid most problems.  

 

HP released a new set of vibs with drivers and HP software to run inside of ESXi last week.  As part of a support case due to a hardware issue, the updated drivers bundle was installed on two BL460c Gen8 blades with Emulex converged network adapters and caused the system to experience issues with the NIC.  Working with VMware support, I downgraded to the driver to the previous version I was running the problem disappeared.  This occurred with VMware ESXi 5.1 Update 2 as the operating system and I am not clear if it effects 5.5 versions or not.  The affected hardware are HP FlexFabric Emulex 10Gb 554FLB adapters.

Symptoms

After successfully installing the Device Drivers for HP Custom ESXi 5.1.0 Update 2 Image 5.68, the system comes back online and appears to be fine.  The first symptoms appear while trying to vMotion virtual machines onto the host.  The host goes offline from vCenter and the virtual machines that had successfully moved are also unreachable over the network.  No network traffic is passing into the host for management, virtual machines or vMotion.  Using the ESXi Shell for troubleshooting, the system appears very sluggish and unresponsive.  When examining the vmkernel.log, VMware noted NIC disconnects that were seen by ESXi.

Attempting to recreate the issue after reboot, leaving the system stays in maintenance mode with no virtual machines, it stays online.  Soon after one or more virtual machines is relocated to the host, the system will go unresponsive in vCenter and the virtual machines will be offline.  This was repeated several times on the two affected hosts.

One ESXi 5.1, the Emluex NIC driver that appears to be causing the issue is be2net version 10.2.293.0.  This version was released with the 5.68 Device Drivers for HP Custom ESXi on September 9, 2014.  Prior to loading this device driver bundle, I was running the next latest bundle from June 2014 on the system with no issues.  The be2net driver listed as current on the vibsdept.hp.com site for June 2014 is version 4.9.288.0, first included in the February 2014 bundle.

device_bundle

Workaround

The workaround that I implemented with VMware was to downgrade to the version of be2net driver available in the June 2014 bundle.  You can locate this at the HP VibsDepot website, http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/jun2014/esxi-510-devicedrivers/ or http://vibsdepot.hp.com/hpq/jun2014/esxi-510-drv-vibs/be2net/, and it is installed from ESXi command line either in ESXi Shell or over SSH using esxcli.  If you SFTP the vib file into /tmp on the host, you can install with the following command line.

[code]esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/Emulex_bootbank_net-be2net_4.9.288.0-1OEM.510.0.0.802205.vib[/code]

Followup

I tweeted about the potential problem last week and waited to hear back from HP Support before putting something out, but I didn’t want to wait any longer.  If you use the HP Custom ESXi and stay up to date, this is something to pay attention to.  It seems pretty specific to the Emulex converged network adapters and affects at least ESXi 5.1 Update 2.

I have an ongoing case with HP and as I find out more or see an advisory, I will update this post with new information.

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ComputeDatacenter

HP unwraps ProLiant Gen9 hardware, strategy for 25 more years of compute

by Philip Sellers
written by Philip Sellers

This morning, HP CEO Meg Whitman unwrapped a new generation of HP’s ProLiant servers and unpacked the company’s compute strategy the years ahead. HP first introduced the server to the world 25 years ago and in celebration of that milestone, HP is looking forward to the 25 years to come.  The strategy is wrapped around a focus on customer outcomes rather than the incremental tick and tock of hardware.

HP is responding to the increasing pressure being put onto IT shops due to the increase of data, data devices, apps and connections.   In its research, the growth curve of incremental change in server hardware and the curve of requirements for IT shops simply don’t match.  Incremental change won’t allow business to keep up with the increasing needs based on time, power or space.  So the focus for the future from HP is to orchestrate and reduce the manual steps required for administrators to accomplish their work.

HP ProLiant Gen9 Family

HP see the future of compute as an increasing amount of pooling for resources, dynamically re-alloacting and re-tasking resources based on changing needs throughout the day.  HP Helion and OpenStack will play a major role in the transformation of the future of compute.  Traditional applications just can’t meet business needs.

I had the chance to talk with Peter Evans, vice president of HP Servers Global Marketing, this morning and he told me that the ProLiant Gen9 hardware has a strong focus on increasing the performance per dollar, kilowatt and square foot.   HP has spent a lot of time working to reduce the number of manual processes and clicks that are required to perform the tasks that consume a lot of practitioner’s time.

While HP is talking about their vision for the next 25 years of compute, they’ve been delivering on this vision for the past 2 year with ProLiant Gen8.  A lot of the innovation that went into Gen8 aligns with the focus that HP has with this strategy.  HP has collected and aggregated data that it gleaned from the Insight Online data and diagnostics information, information provided back by their partners and based on the experiences of their professional services organization and system engineers.  All of this feedback and data has gone into the prioritization and decision making of what features get the precious attention of HP development cycles.  The focus is more focused customer outcomes and not just on the technology.

Evans unpacked 3 metrics of focus that HP is delivering with the Gen9 announcement.  The first is economics of the datacenter.  ProLiant Gen9 offers customers a 3x improvement in performance.  HP has performed comparative studies against its own G6, G7 and Gen8 systems as well as competitor’s servers.  The second area is time to service. It is all about optimizing the number of clicks and amount of time before customer are able to begin using a solution on the ProLiant server.  In some cases, Evans says that HP has reduced the number of clicks required from 480 to just 4 using iLO, OneView, Intelligent Provisioning and other methods.  The last is value of service.  In that, HP is focused on providing the best possible experiences for running particular applications, enabling better density and more productivity for its customers.

ProLiant Gen9 Enhancements

Among the new features are enhancements to the iLO including iLO Federation, UEFI BIOS, updates to the Intelligent Provisioning and improvements to SmartCache, array controllers and drives supported.

iLO gets an upgrade by adding a redesigned API interface with OneView integration in mind.  iLO will have a fully compliant RESTful API that OneView can use for orchestration.  OneView will also make use of the new iLO Federation feature that debuts with the Gen9 systems.  Althought new with Gen9  servers, iLO Federation is also available to Gen8 systems.

iLO Federation takes the standard iLO4 and allows it to multicast at boot and join other iLO on the network.  From there, administrators can form groups of servers to aid in management from the iLO.  The iLO Federation enables a new cascading firmware deployment method rather than sequentially and the ability to change and push settings across multiple systems easily versus making the changes 1 system at a time.

UEFI BIOS is another new feature for the Gen9 hardware. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is the extension of EFI firmware that Intel originally developed for Itanium processors back in the 90’s.  UEFI replace EFI and is a standard for low-level software between the OS and the hardware. It is meant to replace BIOS, which has limitations.  UEFI is programmable, allowing OEM’s like HP to put additional software in this low-level operating system.  UEFI allows HP to implement a new Secure Boot technology, though the specifics weren’t fully disclosed.

Intelligent Provisioning 2.0 will debut in the Gen9 hardware and will feature acceleration features aimed to get the server deployed and running a workload in less time and with less clicks.  One of the tidbits I heard from the StoreVirtual team is that the new Intelligent Provisioning 2.0 will include the ability to deploy a StoreVirtual VSA easily.  Intelligent Provisioning will go out and retrieve the latest version of the StoreVirtual VSA and deploy it onto the hardware with minimal interaction required.  In addition, HP has been giving away free 1TB StoreVirtual VSA licenses with new server purchases all throughout the Gen8 line and is likely to continue [I did not confirm], making this a free and easy SAN to deploy.

In terms of workload acceleration, HP has extended support for 12 Gb/s SAS Expander cards and 12 Gb/s Smart Array Controllers and 12 GB/s SSD Drives.  PCIe Workload Accelerators and HP SmartCache deliver additional performance bumps.  HP says that the 12Gb/s SSDs and SmartCache will deliver 4x performance improvement.

The ProLiant Gen9 systems continue the same industrial design as the Gen8 servers, according to the systems that were shown during the webcast, with the silver and black metal bezels.

Although a lot of discussion about compute, there was absolutely no word on the processors inside of the Gen9 servers.  HP did not disclose a time frame for the ProLiant Gen9 hardware to ship, either, but it did mention that the following systems would be the first to ship:

HP BladeSystem

  • HP ProLiant BL460c Gen9

Rack and tower servers

  • HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9
  • HP ProLiant DL180 Gen9
  • HP ProLiant ML350 Gen9
  • HP ProLiant DL360 Gen9
  • HP ProLiant DL380 Gen9

Solid Heritage

The ProLiant Gen9 builds on a solid platform of the ProLiant Gen8.  The last new ProLiant was introduced earlier this year, the DL580 Gen8, which brought the Gen8 features to the biggest x86 rack-mount server that HP offers.  The DL580 Gen8 also features the UEFI BIOS.

ProLiant Gen8 was announced back in March of 2012 and brought a lot of features directly aimed at easing administrator’s problems.  The Gen8 models introduced the iLO4 management processor, HP SmartMemory and SmartDrives.  iLO4 was a big step forward, moving monitoring capabilities that had been running inside of the system’s operating system into the management processor and removing the needs for hardware monitoring agents inside of the OS.  iLO4 also improved on the KVM and IP management experience for administrators.  At the same time, HP announced Insight Online, a system health portal that the iLO4 could report into that was hosted with HP.  In addition to automatically creating cases for hardware issues, the portal also collected system information and would allow HP to identify common problems across customers and address those based on the analytics from data submitted.

SmartMemory and SmartDrives were both innovations that were direct responses to customer requests.  SmartMemory provided proactive failure reporting for RAM and attempted to alleviate common memory failures.  SmartDrives added an indicator to the drive to show whether it was safe to pull the drive or not.  It had an illuminated warning light if the drive was in use and unsafe to remove.  From an administrator’s standpoint, that was a great innovation because pulling a mirrored drive is a common fail-back mechanism in the datacenter, but pulling the wrong drive or the right drive at the wrong time can lead to a system crash.

ProLiant Gen8 also brought location awareness to the platform.  Combined with smart racks, the server could identify back to HP management software where it was positioned in the datacenter and through the combination of the Sea of Sensors, HP’s software could help to identify hot spots and problems in the datacenter environment.  The new blue power adapters, indicated the Location Discovery Services capability of the hardware.   The feature was rolled out incrementally across the rack and blade servers in the Gen8 line.

Good Timing

The new generation of ProLiant is positioned at a great time in the industry.  An IDC report this week indicates that server sales may have turned the corner and showed 2.5 percent growth versus the previous year.  HP was still on top with over 25% of the revenue share.

Of all the servers that I have ever administered, HP ProLiant is my first choice.  iLO adds tremendous value to me as an administrator.  The Gen8 additions of drive indicators, pre-fail warnings, agentless hardware management have been time saving and welcome addtions as my server farms and responsibilities have grown.  The Support Pack for ProLiant and integrated testing of OS agents, drivers and firmware has brought a higher level of stability to the hardware platforms.  The addition of Intelligent Provisioning and on-the-board deployment services saved the time of having to download and burn and ISO for SmartStart to ease system deployment.  And ProLiant Gen9 extends upon that with easier Intelligent Provisioning features, iLO Federation and general performance improvements.  I’ll be excited when our first model rolls in…

More information is available at hp.com/go/compute and inside the official Press Kit at hp.com.

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