I will be directly uploading video of the events and such at the Dell Storage Forums. It will be auto embedded into my blog, and you’ll see a auto twitter post. After the event, I will recap and add context to each video.
Right now I am at the house of blues, via dell.
Yesterday I wrote about the Dell Equallogic line of products. Today, I am going to give us a overview of the Dell Compellent Fluid Data Storage platform.
Comepellent has a nice white paper titled
Fluid Data Storage: Driving Flexibility in the Data Center
Dell Compellent takes a different approach to data than a traditional San. Dell Compellent is about Fluid Data Architecture, which includes the following. (taken from the above link)
Since I have some Dell Compellent experience, I will do my best to put each into context.
“Dell Compellent storage is enabled by a dynamic Fluid Data architecture that actively, intelligently manages data at the block level. Specific information about each block is captured in flight throughout the day to provide real-time intelligence for dynamically storing, migrating and recovering data. These use characteristics are gathered using minimal system overhead but can be extensive. Examples include the type of data stored, disk drive used, RAID level, time written, frequency of access and more.”
Basically, this manages data for you, by placing new data in faster locations and moving data that is just being read into a different tier, as a example. Which I will get into later.
“Managing data at the block level also enables Dell Compellent to virtualize storage at the disk level.
Storage is presented to servers simply as capacity, regardless of disk type,
RAID level or server connectivity.”
Within a Dell Compellent San, different disk types, speeds, and raids all are within the same Virtual storage. Volumes are mapped directly with ease. You can map volumes to single servers, or clusters, from the Storage Center management application, or even a VMware vSphere Client plugin.
“Dell Compellent significantly reduces the cost of storage by enabling you to purchase and manage fewer disk drives now and in the future.
Dell Compellent Thin Provisioning software, called Dynamic Capacity™, completely separates allocation from utilization, eliminating preallocated but unused capacity.”
With a Dell Compellent San, all storage is thin provisioned, allowing for huge pre allocation storage savings. The Dell Compellent Storage Center Management application gives you a great overview of current allocation of used space, along with estimates based on usage until full, per tier.
“To continue containing costs throughout the lifecycle of enterprise data, Dell Compellent leverages an innovative data movement engine that integrates intelligent tiering with advanced virtualization.”
Dell Compellent Data Progression movies data from Tier’s in order of the disk speeds in your array. New data is written within a Higher Tier and moved down in Tiers, and therefore disk speed.
Tier 1 > Tier 2 > Tier 3.
Data is also written on the outside of the disks if needed, to increase system performance.
Basically, as data ages, the idea is it is cheaper to have it on Sata disk, than SSD, or SAS. This technology will automatically do this. I have seen in work, and it works well.
“With Dell Compellent, snapshots are space efficient because Data Instant Replay™ software doesn’t require a full mirror image or subsequent full-volume clones. In fact, only changes in data since the last snapshot, or Replay, need to be captured, dramatically reducing the amount of disk space required.”
Dell Compellent does a great job of managing data at the block level, this makes snapshots fast. Enough said.
“Dell Compellent Thin Replication™ technology, Remote Instant Replay, provides affordable, verifiable and simplified multi-site data protection leveraging space-efficient Replays. Following initial site synchronization, only incremental changes in data need to be replicated.”
Since the Data in Managed on a block level, again it makes replication easier and faster. Dell Compellent doesn’t require same disk or storage protocol to be used on the replication partner. You can even use pre configured portable drives for initial replication.
“With Dell Compellent, there is no need for specialized skill sets or ongoing systems training. Wizards guide users through system setup and application configuration, making even advanced operations simple and straightforward.”
The Dell Comepellent Management interface is a easy to use, web management solution. In addition , Enterprise Manager, allows extensive reporting and trending of uage and or performance.
“Unlike systems that require you to rip and replace hardware as your business needs change, Dell Compellent supports the continual adoption of new technologies on a single, modular platform. This isa major departure from the status quo, which imposes artificial restrictions on everything from drive type to server interconnect.”
This allows for the same code set across the line of controllers, and by large the difference in controllers in cpu, cache, and I/O slots. The controller’s are Clustered, allowing for failover in a downtime , or planed event.
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Dell Compellent has detailed information on each of the above Here.
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Today the Compellent Storage Center 4.5 has the following technologies. Compellent SAN Technical Specifications * note, I will summarize to my best abilities. The following is taken from the above link/document.
“Fibre Channel and iSCSI server connectivityDrives, Enclosures• Supports any external interfaces and drives • SAS • FC • SSD • FCoE • iSCSINAS• Storage Center with NAS (boots from Compellent SAN)• zNAS (boots from Compellent SAN)”
Detailed Hardware information, included dedication pages with additional information can be found Here.
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Make sure to check out the CompellentCML’s Channel on youtube. Here are a few suggestions.
Compellent Live Volume Demo Part 1
Compellent Live Volume Demo Part 2
DEMO: Initial System Configuration
DEMO: Maximizing Storage Efficiency and Utilization with Compellent
DEMO: Establishing Remote Replication with Compellent
DEMO: Adding Storage on the Fly with Compellent
DEMO: Rapid Local Recovery with Compellent
DEMO: Intelligent Data Tiering
DEMO: True Thin Provisioning with Fluid Data storage from Compellent
I hope this gives you of you new to Dell Compellent a good understanding of the product.
Roger Lund
Next week, I will be traveling for Tech Talk to the HP Discover conference in Las Vegas. I have my agenda for the event in front of me now and I wanted to highlight some of the coverage that I’ll be providing from the event.
Live Blogging
Monday, June 6
10:00 am PDT – Live blogging the Converged Infrastructure Press Conference featuring David Donatelli
4:00 pm PDT – Live blogging the Opening General Session for HP Discover; Léo Apotheker & Bill McDermott speaking
Tuesday, June 7
8:00 am PDT – Live blogging the General Session with Ann Livermore, Bill Veghte & David Donatelli
4:30 pm PDT – Hopefully live blogging the Keynote, Extending HP Converged Infrastructure with HP’s new Virtualization Solutions with Tom Joyce; otherwise check my Twitter for updates
Thursday, June 9
2:00 pm PDT – Live blogging the General Session with Prith Banerjee & Tom Hogan
Other Sessions
Although I doubt that coverage will be real-time, I have a full schedule so sessions focused on Blade hardware, EVA storage and VMware for the week. I also have a scheduled session to investigate HP StoreOnce along with tape archival strategies (Session 3839) and how to integrate the two together, as well as learning more about how HP StoreOnce works (Session 3501).
Converged infrastructure appears to be the buzzword for HP Discover this year. As a whole, the industry appears to be moving to packaged solutions. See Oracle’s Sun aquisition and packaging of their databases with Oracle hardware and the VCE (VMware Cisco EMC) alliance vBlocks. It will be interesting to see what HP has created for integrated solutions. HP has the E5000 enterprise messaging solution as part of its converged infrastructure portfolio and I expect to see more of the same announced during the conference.
I am VMware heavy in my day-to-day jobs, so my scheduled sessions reflect this as well. Specific sessions of interest for me are concerning vSphere 4.1 running on Virtual Connect Flex-10 (Session 3996) and Tips and Tricks for building VMware ESX 4.1 on HP c-Class Blades (Session 3968).
One of the perks of attending the conference as a blogger is the access to the exclusive Bloggers Lounge. HP has scheduled some informal coffee talks during the week for bloggers to pick the minds and find out more information from HP staff.
All in all, I’m looking forward to a great week learning more about HP’s direction and solutions.
The Dell Equallogic line has be a increasingly popular Storage Platform. I wanted to do up a prep for those of you new to Equallogic, to give you a starting point; both if your attending Dell Storage Forum 2011, or just exploring Storage options. Equallogic Storage is all iSCSI based. Dell has a large area with lots of Resource, Here
The below image is from dell.com, and it is copy righted by Dell.
To start, take a look at the PS Seriries Overview Here Gives you a idea of the capabilities.
Some of those are as follows:
Peer technology, allowing ease of management
Auto Provisioning , self managing storage.
Simple San to San Tiering, and replication.
Snap shot technologies, both VMware / Hyper-v and Microsoft Application VSS.
VMware SRM compatibility.
There are a large number of different array’s to choose from today. If we look at them Here we can get a idea of some of the differences.
I’ll outline a few differences at a high level.
All units have two controllers.
If we start at the PS4000 series, we are looking at two gig interfaces , with a varied amount of total drive capacity. The configurations varie on maximum number of drives, and drive technologies , from SATA , SAS, or SSD.
The PS600x Series offers larger drive configurations and four gig connections per unit.
Next the 601x series, have two gig connections and like the above, but additionally have two 10GB iSCSI ports.
The beautiful thing about the over all solution is the software, and how the different storage model’s all work together. A total of 16 Array’s can be in one service group, including two PS4000 series array’s.
A little birdie told me that all of the software features, I talked about above, like VSS snaps, and replication are included with the hardware cost. ^^
Before to check out the Demo’s of the product , Here
I hope this overview gives those of new to Equallogic a new enlightenment in to one of Dell’s strongest product offerings.
I am trying this from my Ipad, so any feedback is welcome.
Roger Lund
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I am pleased to announce that I will be attending the Dell Storage Forum 2011. See Here for a copy of the customer agenda or Here for a copy of the partner agenda.
I’m not the first to write on this, I found this blog post, from check it out.
What does my schedule look like?
I am planning on hitting most of the comepellent sessions, and hope to do some strong networking also.
Please DM me or e-mail me if your attending and i’ll put you below. And the same go’s if you want to meet up.
I am thinking of getting a group together one night to talk comepellent, any interest?
Here is a list of twitter users that have communicated that they are attending.
Dell has created the following list and is updating it. http://twitter.com/list/DellSF/dellsf11#list/DellSF/dellsf11
*note* if you didn’t have your full name on your twitter page, I apologize, DM me and I’ll update this post.
Kristy Wilke http://twitter.com/#!/kwilkemn
Don’t forget to bring your event badge, and please share your Twitter handle when you get your ticket.
We look forward to seeing you there!”
I am looking forward to the event!
Roger Lund
Next Monday begins an exciting week for HP as its hosts its Discover 2011 conference in Las Vegas. I will be onsite and blogging from keynotes and sessions but you can participate too on Monday morning, live from wherever you are. Join HP’s Dave Donatelli as he presents some major breakthroughs in Converged Infrastructure. The event will begin at 10:30 am, Pacific. For more information or to register for the webcast online, see the release below from HP.
Are you ready for the age of the Instant-On Enterprise?
In the age of the Instant-On Enterprise, IT agility is essential. Your organization must be poised to react immediately to new customer expectations, new market opportunities, and new competitive threats. That can be a tough assignment when you consider today’s IT realities: Data center sprawl. Rigid, complex IT silos. An influx of mountains of data.
Consider these examples:
• 68 percent of IT project initiatives fail by being late, over budget, or lacking in important functionality.
• The typical construction timeline to build a traditional brick-and-mortar data center is 24-months.
• With skyrocketing demand for digital storage, the number of network-hosted storage subscribers in the U.S. will rise from 6.6 million in 2009 to 21.5 million in 2014.
Points like these underscore the need for new approaches to the data center—which brings us to the upcoming announcements. We hope you will join us June 6 for a firsthand look at HP Converged Infrastructure innovations that solve some of today’s most pressing IT challenges.
To reserve your seat, register today at www.hp.com/go/agileIT to attend our live webcast, or plan to catch a replay of the event announcement on hp.com.
I have started my conversion to SafeCopy backup today. In the past, I have used Mozy, but after searching online for alternatives, I found SafeCopy to be most compatible with what I wanted to protect. SafeCopy cost me $50 a year for 200GB of storage. You can backup from as many computers as you desire and it is only based on metered storage. SafeCopy has an iPhone app to search for files, share them and also a web interface for searching your files and sharing them (a la DropBox or iDisk).
Mozy, as you might recall, has changed its plans to a metered plan. My renewal with Mozy would have cost me $178 to cover what I currently have backed up (which isn’t everything I really want to backup, but most of it). Of course, that price doesn’t cover growth.
So, in addition to savings, I think SafeCopy will provide me with the best expectations of what I can expect — and what I can control — for online backup. I can prune my backups using their web interface, I can control what is backed up and I can anticipate additional cost more easily. My biggest beef with Mozy was the lack of tools to control my backups once they were in the cloud. Mozy’s iPhone app was lacking — in that if you used your own encryption key, you could not use their app. I hope they fix that. I liked Mozy. My account says I was a member since March of 2007. Sadly, they are losing me before my renwal hits my bank account in June. I am trying to get all my backups moved over before this time so that there isn’t any time when I don’t have a good offline backup available to me. So, here goes. More to come.
Its pretty easy to see where I stand on PowerCLI from the headline on this entry. Disclaimer, I haven’t used it extensively, but I can already see the why VMware has chosen to embrace PowerCLI for scripting. These are some of my initial thoughts after some light usage — in short, I think PowerCLI is extremely powerful.
Up until January, we had scripted everything for VMware in VI-Perl. I don’t begin to call myself a Perl programmer, but I can crawl in and modify a canned Perl script and I am able to make it do what I want. That said, it was always a pain to do it.
For our VMware environment, we have monitoring scripts that report low disk space for our guests, a daily snapshot report and what VM’s have been provisioned or deleted from the system. All of these were things I had to find scripts that had already been written in VI-Perl, and so we relegated scripting to simply monitoring in our environment. After we added the VMware Management Appliance to our network, we used it occasionally for Storage VMotion in the ESX 3.5 days, before it was added to the GUI.
With PowerCLI, however, we have moved into doing more actual configuration and changes — real work — using it. Because PowerShell support piping the objects between commands, we have quickly realized gains in efficiency by retrieving a list of targets and issuing a command against the group. Some things we have done manually in the past make much more sense in PowerShell. Performing a VMotion or Storage VMotion is a good example of this. Storage VMotion involves a number of steps (click, click, click, click, click) to perform in the GUI. In Powershell, its a simple, one-line and easy to understand command.
PowerCLI is much more user friendly to me than writing Perl. Soon, I plan on rewriting my management scripts using PowerCLI. There are some security related things I must figure out (haven’t even looked into them yet) – like signing PowerShell scripts with a certificate, which will be required for executing scripts on a schedule. (In our environment, we plan on making all of our PowerShell instances run in remote-signed execution policy to maintain security.
Today Xangati released a new release of their Xangati Dashboard.
Cupertino, CA – March 22, 2011 – Xangati, the recognized leader in infrastructure performance
management, today introduced the Xangati VDI Dashboard, the industry’s first solution designed
to comprehensively track all key infrastructure components that affect VDI performance, giving
administrators the confidence and ability to successfully implement large-scale VDI deployments.
Leveraging Xangati’s powerful real-time memory-based analytics engine architecture, the
Xangati VDI Dashboard tracks and continuously monitors activity of all VDI components within
the infrastructure without requiring any agents. The new dashboard also includes a performance
health engine that automatically and visually alerts administrators in real-time about the precise
location of performance issues.
I have had a chance to play with the new Xangati release, and I’ll say that the two new dashboards were an eye opener. I’m going to provide you with a couple boxed screen’s, and dive into more later.
First the VI dashboard, which gives you a customizable dashboard, allowing you to select your VM’s, Hosts, Servers, Host – Host paths, and Host-Network paths to monitor.
The VDI dashboard has a similar layout, only tailored to desktop’s.
Now, this is just the tip of the ice berg, as each dashboard has fancy reports, and monitoring views. I’ll dive into that next.
Here is the text about the new feature release form the Xangati source.
Xangati VDI Dashboard: Breakthrough Features
Real-time Performance Health Engine
The cornerstone of the Xangati VDI Dashboard is its patent-pending performance health engine
that analyzes the health of VDI in an unprecedented four microseconds. Relying on Xangati’s
memory-driven architecture, the performance health of the VDI is being continuously monitored
across a broad spectrum of performance metrics to the unrivaled scale of 250,000 objects (which
can include desktops and clients). In contrast, other performance management architectures are
database-driven and unable to keep apace of dynamic interactions to scale that are fundamental
to VDI.The output of Xangati’s performance health engine is a real-time health index that is linked to the
health of every client, desktop, network link, host, VDI protocol and IT server that can impact VDI
end–user experience. In real-time – as an object’s health shifts – the health index changes toreflect the urgency of the performance issue. Moreover, the performance shift will trigger a real-
time alert, which is uniquely paired with a DVR-recording.The DVR-recording will show exactly where the performance problem stems from and present
contextual insights about what is driving the sub-optimal performance. For instance, a specific
user community is seeing obvious delays in screen presentation due to a high latency network
link. These DVR recordings capture issues that are often outside of a VDI vendor’s software
framework and can be passed to the appropriate IT function, e.g. to the storage team when
storage latency is at the heart of the performance issue.All VDI Operations in a Single Pane of Glass
For the very first time, a VDI team can see in one pane of glass all the critical components that
sustain the VDI, as well as the desktops and their clients. Through this structure, the Xangati
solution is the only purpose-built dashboard framed to replicate how a VDI administrator seeks
to run their operations. Additionally, the VDI dashboard incorporates Xangati’s visual trouble
ticketing model that allows end-users to initiate DVR recordings when they are experiencing
issues. In this manner, the VDI administrator can see, for example, that a user’s poor VDI
experience on an iPAD is due to a highly congested WiFi network.In contrast to other solutions marketed as VDI-focused, the Xangati solution can populate itself
with incredibly rich data without requiring guest software agents. It is this agent-free model that
allows Xangati to be deployed rapidly, even during proof of concept phases, as well as when an
enterprise wishes to scale their virtual desktops into the thousands or tens of thousands.
More information on Xangati : http://xangati.com/VDI_dashboard
http://www.xangati.com
I came home Tuesday to find a surprise waiting next to my door. There was a generic UPS package delivered and I could not figure out what I had ordered. I certainly wasn’t waiting or expecting a package. I opened up the box to find another generic box inside, still wondering, “What is this?” in my mind. I turned over the interior box to find purple grafitti on the package and then I realized that I’d just received a CR-48 Chrome notebook from Google as part of Chrome OS pilot program.
I have since read that others have had this same surprise as their notebooks have arrived. There was no advanced notification to expect the notebook and no emails with tracking information, etc. So, the surprise factor just makes the entire experience all the more exciting.
