Dell Crowbar is an open source cloud deployment framework developed by Dell to support Dell's OpenStack and Hadoop powered solutions.  Today we announce that SUSE Cloud will also leverage the Crowbar framework.  In the following guest post, Michael Miller, VP, Global Alliances & Marketing at SUSE explains why SUSE cloud and Dell Crowbar work better together. 

A couple of weeks ago I announced our SUSE Cloud private beta program, which is the next step in creating the industry’s first enterprise-ready private cloud infrastructure solution built on OpenStack and SUSE technologies. As promised then, here's some more insight into SUSE's newest offering.

We understand “the cloud” isn't a simple, stand-alone system wrapped up in a neat little box. Private cloud solutions are made up of multiple parts which, at times, can be complex to pull together, install and manage. To streamline and simplify installation, a simple to use but robust provisioning framework is needed. After evaluating our options for this important aspect of SUSE Cloud, we chose to go with Crowbar, an open source software framework developed by Dell. Crowbar is a fresh approach to cloud tooling and its practical and accessible model is attracting a great cross-industry community we're excited to join and engage with.

In collaboration with the Dell team, we've integrated Crowbar into our existing tooling to deliver a very streamlined enterprise user experience for the deployment of SUSE Cloud. We are now pushing our contributions back upstream and working with the Crowbar project team to make them part of the core code base so others can leverage the joint Dell/SUSE results.

“SUSE Cloud on OpenStack with Dell Crowbar” might be a bit much for a product name, so forgive us if we don't use it in our marketing materials as such, but it does make for a pretty compelling cloud offering. And as strongly as we believe in OpenStack, we also see Crowbar as technology critical to enabling enterprise-class cloud infrastructure deployment.

I again encourage you to start building an interoperable, manageable and open-standards based cloud. Contact us to join the beta program by sending an email to cloud@suse.com.

And for more on SUSE and Dell Crowbar, see the blog post by Rob Hirschfeld, Senior Cloud Solutions Architect at Dell.

You can also find this Cloud / Crowbar announcement mirrored on the SUSE blog.

At CloudExpo 2012 in NY, I spoke to Jim Mlodgenski, CEO and founder of StormDB, about his unique approach to Database-As-A-Service offering. From the website:

StormDB is a fully managed relational database service that provides reliable performance with seamless scalability. Unlike typical cloud databases, StormDB takes a different approach to storing your data in the cloud. Instead of running a database inside of a virtual machine, losing performance and reliability, StormDB is a Database Cloud. Like similar Storage Clouds, there is no virtualization. Everything is running directly on bare metal giving you performance, scalability, and reliability.

A typical cloud database is limited by scaling up to the size of the virtual instance it uses, but StormDB automatically shards data across a cluster of servers specifically tuned for the unique requirements of a database. There is no need to setup complex replication solutions or give up the consistency of your data to scale your database in the cloud. By sharding data across the StormDB Cloud, queries can also leverage the power of massively parallel processing (MPP) and return the results of complex queries across large datasets in a fraction of the time of the typical cloud database.

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This is posted on behalf of Shyam Iyer, an engineer on Dell's Linux Engineering Team

Dell Servers ship with Broadcom Nic adapters that support iSCSI offload by plugging a hardware key into the motherboard.

If the key is present in the motherboard the Linux open-iscsi initiator can create iSCSI sessions using the offload interface provided by the Nic.

This has the advantage of using the Nic's iSCSI offload stack for I/O path while freeing the CPU for other tasks.

Since the offload interface uses a different MAC address than the NIC interface, using the offload iSCSI stack has the advantage of creating different profiles in the intermediate switch using MAC addresses.

One of the frequent problems in using the offload stack is figuring out which servers have the hardware key in their motherboard. Sure you could maintain a database of servers you bought with the hardware key in it. Worse you could open up each server and take an inventory of the servers that have the Hardware Key plugged in.

What if you could use a tool to find out if the specific server has a key in it without opening the motherboard in it?

Would such a tool be of interest ?

Would you like such a tool distributed independently by Dell?

http://linux.dell.com/git/

Would you like such a tool to be distributed with the Linux open-iscsi initiator ?

http://open-iscsi.org/

Would you like such a tool to be distributed with a tool like libsmbios?

http://linux.dell.com/libsmbios/main/index.html

Would you like this in a tool like the HIT tool that is a set of host based tools to Manage Dell EqualLogic PS series arrays?

http://www.dellstorage.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=1229

Posted on behalf of Gireesha US from Dell Linux Engineering team

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) 3.0 is supported on shipping PowerEdge 11th generation and 12th generation servers (2-socket and 4-socket servers). It has been validated and certified on the list of supported Dell PowerEdge Servers  to ensure our customers 100% compatibility and stability.

For instance, Dell's 12^th Generation server R820 provides an excellent option to customers to stack up a single server with 1.5TB of memory, which is one of the major requirements for hypervisor to run more VMs . Also this will enable RHEV to satisfy customers who want high end Virtual machines to be spawned with large memory configuration. Please refer the knowledge base and important information guide for more information about Dell Hardware Platforms support with RHEV 3.0.

RHEV 3.0 has been released from Red Hat in the month of Jan 2012 . Some of the notable features included in the relesase are : 

• Increase virtual machine resource allocations, live migration, and increased operational efficiency. 
• The RHEV Manager (RHEV-M), used to manage all hypervisors, storage and VMs, is now a Java application, so it can be run on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) system. In RHEV 2.2, RHEV-M must run on a Windows 2008 Server R2 system.
• The KVM hypervisor is based on the latest RHEL 6 release.
• Local storage on the hypervisors can now be used for VM and templates.
• Added scalability levels, including support for 160 Cores(Up from 96) and 2TB memory for hosts.
• RHEV Manager able to manage up to 200 host servers (Up from 100)

RHEV 3.0 is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.2 kernel. All the peripherals which has native support in RHEL 6.2, will have native support in RHEV-H (Hypervisor) . New add-on drivers or Red Hat DUP (Driver update Package) will not be supported on RHEV-H (RHEV 3.0). Customers can use RHEL 6.2 as hypervisor for add-on drivers on peripherals without native support.

RHEL 6.2 can also be converted to act as an hypervisor by installing a few additional RHEV packages. Please refer the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization documentation for more information.

To enable Dell OpenManage support on RHEV environment, customer need to install RHEL 6.2 OS  and additional hypervisor packages in the same order. Because add-on drivers, packages and DUPs will be not be installed directly on RHEV-H.

With the set of security features packed into 12^th Generation server iDRAC  (like Built in hidden root key feature, TPM etc.)  RHEV/Red Hat customers can be rest assured about the safety and security of their hypervisor hosts from malicious attacks (Refer to link: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20095301/download.aspx)

Few community blogs about RHEV support on Dell PowerEdge Servers:

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/software/b/software/archive/2012/03/05/redhatannouncesreleaseofrhev3.0.aspx
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2011/10/05/red-hat-enterprise-virtualization-3-0-beta-available.aspx

Starting June, 2012, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 will have Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 7.1 support and will be offered from Dell Factory on all the supported Dell PowerEdge Servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 has native support for hardware shipping with Dell’s 12th generation servers (including but not limited to Intel 82599 10Gb controllers, Broadcom 57800S/57810S 10Gb CNA controllers).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 has been extensively validated on supported Dell PowerEdge servers. Please refer to the important information guide for the complete list of issues fixed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 on Dell PowerEdge servers.

General availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 was announced from Red Hat on December 6th, 2011. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 includes driver updates, bug fixes and support for new hardware, refer to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 release notes for more info.

Starting June, 2012, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 will have Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 7.1 support and will be offered from Dell on all the supported Dell PowerEdge Servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 has native support for hardware shipping with Dell’s 12th generation servers (including but not limited to Intel 82599 Dual Port 10Gb controllers, Broadcom 57800S/57810S 10Gb CNA controllers). Please refer the blog for detailed list of natively supported hardware and driver updates.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 has been extensively validated on supported Dell PowerEdge servers. Please refer to the important information guide for the complete list of issues fixed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 on Dell PowerEdge servers.

General availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 was announced from Red Hat on Feb 21, 2012. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 includes driver updates, bug fixes and support for new hardware, refer to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 release notes for more info.

This post was written by Paul Marquardt, Dell OS Engineer 

When a new generation of server comes out, many people discover a need to update drivers inside their Windows image files (WIM). The required updates can include your boot.wim file for WindowsPE, or the boot.wim and install.wim file on your installation images from the Windows install DVD or a bootable USB thumb drive. You may also need to update your Windows Deployment Services (WDS).

Go here for more information on WDS.

To quickly and easily update the drivers in your WIM files, you will need the following:

• Boot.wim (sources directory of your installation media)
• Install.wim (sources directory of your installation media)
• An empty folder to mount your WIM image using the Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool (DISM) which is part of the operating system utilities installed with the operating system.
• All of the Dell drivers for your particular needs (network, PERC, etc.) in a single location
  Note: Go here for more information on DISM. 

To make things a little quicker, you can insert all the drivers in a single step:

1. Download the drivers for your specific platform from http://support.dell.com and save them into a folder. (i.e. C:\Users\paul_marquardt\Downloads\Drivers\12G\M620)

2. Change the file extensions from .exe to .zip on each of the executable files you saved, as pictured in the snippet.

3. Extract the files into their respective folders.

4. Open an administrative command prompt by right clicking Command Prompt from the Start menu (or Start à Accessories) and selecting Run as Administrator from the Context menu.

5. Mount your WIM file using DISM.

6. The folder structure of the WIM file is loaded into the location you defined. (i.e. C:\Test)

 Note: Do not open this folder before you mount the image or you will receive an error stating the folder is in use. You can also load additional files and folders into the image in this location.

7. Add drivers to the WIM file using DISM with the /image, /add-driver and /recurse switches.

Note: Regardless of what driver packages have been downloaded, DISM will recurse the subfolders for the correct type of.inf files for your platform type and load the drivers into the WIM file for you in a single step.

8. Unmount your WIM file using DISM.

 You can update the drivers for any WIM file you have using DISM. Just remember to make sure you are using the same drivers in your boot.wim and install.wim files to avoid issues with driver incompatibility between Windows PE versions during setup.

Note: This is especially important if you are using the iSCSI boot capability of the newest PowerEdge servers and Broadcom iSCSI boot capable devices. For additional information on this issue see this article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974072

In 'So Say SMEs in Virtualization & Cloud' Episode 31, Kong Yang and Todd Muirhead talk about the importance of clearly defining your goals in order to succeed and continue to grow. In Episode 32, we cover the recent Cloud outages that took place with Amazon and Salesforce.com.

Please click below to view Episode 31. And don't forget to let us know what you think.

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Please click below to view Episode 32. And don't forget to let us know what you think.

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This post was written by Dianne Roman, Dell Enterprise Customer Loyalty

Addressing customers’ need for right information at the right time is a top priority for Enterprise Customer Loyalty.  While 90% of customers are satisfied with our products, one of the top complaints regularly cited in our surveys and customer research is the ease of access to and availability of information online; specifically, product-related information to educate and enable customers to become self-sufficient to troubleshoot issues.

The Experience Design Group (EDG) developed the Quick Resource Locator (QRL) on the 12^th Generation of PowerEdge servers to do just that! The QRL feature provides customers with instant access to extensive system information and comprehensive how-to videos by utilizing their smartphone and a model specific QR (Quick Response) code. 

Some key service information provided by the PowerEdge QRL includes: 

• 240 How-To videos – concise and detailed step-by-step component specific videos, each less than 90 sec
• Reference materials  - owner’s manual, LCD diagnostics, electrical overview, and icon legend
• Service tag look up –hardware configuration and warranty information
• Contact Dell – direct links to Technical Support and Sales

Since launching the PowerEdge 12^th Generation servers, user access and activity on the QRL site has shown a steady upward trajectory:

• 15,000+ site visits from users across 73 countries
• 5,000+ application downloads
• 50 downloads / day
• 17,000+ videos viewed
  
  

The ability of the QRL to educate and enable customers is clearly evident in its growing popularity and the feedback we have received from customers. 

“Instant access to all the documentation you need”
“This is a very good educational tool in general”
“So simple yet so smart and practical”

EDG continues to look for ways to differentiate Dell and support customers through innovation. The group is currently working to integrate additional Sales and Support features into the QRL to create a key channel of communication with our customers. 

So tell us what you think! We understand that a good knowledge base is a “must-have” for our customers so share your ideas on how we can better leverage QR codes to help address your technical challenges. 

Special thanks to Kevin Terwilliger (QRL Project Lead, Experience Design Group) who contributed information to this article.

For more on Dell QRL and a quick preview of how the Dell QRL code works, check out Kevin’s blog “The Power To Do More – At Your Fingertips” .

In our recent chat we talked about Cloud Optimized Dell Servers & Blades. Our upcoming chat will be dedicated to our Dell Rack Servers specifically build for Hadoop. As always, lead engineers will be co-hosting that chat both from Dell as well as from the Hadoop community.

We will happily welcome you at 26th July 2012, 4.00 – 5.00 pm CDT (9.00 - 10.00 am CST). Please check the exact time in your timezone at The World Clock. If you are not able to attend, watch out for the wrap up blog post we usually publish a few days after the chat. Also, if you have any questions prior to the chat or suggestions, feel free to reach out to Stephen, to Flo or to me. We launched our chat series just four months ago and we are still in the middle of an intense iteration process. Help us get better and better with every chat we host! Our upcoming chat will be co-hosted by:

Jim Hunt, Senior Engineering Manager and Mayuresh Gogate, System Engineering Lead for Dell PowerEdge R720xd rack servers. You can find detailed information here.

Mark Kerzner, Big Data & Hadoop Architect. You can find further information about Mark here and about Hadoop here.

In order to attend the chat, go to delltechcenter.adobeconnect.com/chat No registration is required. If you have any questions prior to the chat, please contact florian_klaffenbach@dell.com. Looking forward to see you there!

Chat Hosts
Stephen Spector, Cloud Evangelist at Dell (Twitter: @SpectorAtDell)
Florian “Flo” Klaffenbach, Solution Expert – Microsoft & Cloud Computing at Dell (Twitter: @FloKlaffenbach)
Rafael Knuth, Social Media Manager at Dell (Twitter: @RafaelKnuth)

UPDATE: 07/31/2012 - we have now reached the recruitment goals of our usability study.  Thanks for your interest! Unfortunately we aren't taking any more applicants.

Thank you all for being valued members of the Dell Tech Center community over the years.  Those who have been with us for a while have seen the site improve over the years, and now we are looking to make the site even better.

In 2 weeks, we will run a study to gather your feedback and insights on the Dell TechCenter site through one-on-one interviews conducted online.  This is an open study and if you would like to take part simply visit the following link and fill out the survey to see if you qualify:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3L3PG5N

Information about the usability study:

• Online interviews will take place Tues-Thurs, August 14-16, 2012 at various times throughout the day (Austin time) 
• Interviews will last only one hour
• As an added incentive participants will be given a $150 honorarium
• All you need to participate is high-speed Internet access 

 Thanks in advance for participating in this paid survey that will enable us to serve you better.

Authored by Harsha Yalagach & Sandeep Karandikar

Dell continues its commitment in helping you manage Dell Client systems by releasing Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 (DCIP) for "Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager".

DCIP 3.0 is not backward compatible with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM 2007). If you need DCIP compatible with SCCM 2007, then use DCIP 2.0.

DCIP allows you to:

• Easily consume the Driver Packs released by Dell for Optiplex, Latitude & Precision range of systems,
• Collect Warranty Information for Dell Systems, and
• Manage Dell Client systems using Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) through Out-of-Band Management.

New features and enhancements in Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 include:

• Supports Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager only.
• Simplified steps to Distribute Content to Distribution Points in all the Import Wizards by reducing 14 steps to 1.
• Improved Performance in Warranty Utility. An improvement of around 92% is seen while retrieving warranty information from Dell servers under ideal test conditions.
• Standalone installation of Warranty Utility. Warranty Utility now can be installed on any system that has .Net Client Profile installed.

You can download Dell Client Integration Pack 3.0 from here.

By Sandeep Karandikar and Warren Byle

Overview

The Dell AMT vPRO Plugin for Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials is an easy-to-use application that provides an out-of-band management solution for select Latitude, Optiplex and Precision Systems. The application allows you to remotely manage client systems regardless of the state, the system power, or operating system is in. You can use Intel AMT vPRO Plugin management utility to perform the following tasks:

• USB Provisioning
• Perform client configuration like–
  • Configuring power profile
  • Configuring the boot order
  • Configuring the BIOS settings
  • Configuring BIOS passwords•
• Perform remote operations like
  • Perform KVM sessions
  • Remotely manage power settings
• Generate reports for Hardware Inventory, Battery information, Out-of-band Manageability, and system provisioned.
• Monitor task progress and details

Screenshot:

Download the Plugin today!

This blog is posted on behalf of Wendy Chen from the Dell Oracle Database Solutions team.

Migrating Oracle databases presents many unique challenges for IT administrators; such as the complexity, data integrity requirements, and 24x7 availability requirements of critical database applications.  To address these challenges, Dell offers a near zero downtime migration strategy in this whitepaper, which can help customers move Oracle databases into a new infrastructure with near zero downtime impact.  This methodology has been proven to be reliable and repeatable with the adoption by Dell IT for a large scale Oracle database migration project.  This methodology brings out the best of Dell Compellent storage features like thin provisioning and a well tested reference architecture using the latest generation Dell PowerEdge servers.             

The migration methodology provided in the whitepaper is developed based on the reference configuration shown below.

The Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) database is migrated from the source system to the target system.  The target Oracle database system consists of not only the latest hardware including the Dell PowerEdge 12^th Generation servers, Dell Compellent storage systems, and SAN switches, but also newer operating system releases on the database servers.

Complete details on the migration methodology can be found in the Oracle Database Migration to Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation Servers and Dell Compellent Storage Systems whitepaper.

This blog post was originally written by Michael Schroeder.

Comments are welcome! To suggest a blog topic or make other comments, contact WinServerBlogs@dell.com.

With the announcement of the Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate, we explored some of the changes on the server side and looked at how to launch some of the common administrative tasks within the new Windows Metro style user interface. We’ll provide a few tips to help you quickly navigate to the management task that you’re looking for.     

First, a look at the current release. With Windows Server 2008 R2, it’s common to left-click the Start button to bring up the Start menu to select Administrative Tools, Control Panel or maybe use the search option to get to the management window of your choice to perform some particular task on your server.

With Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate, by hovering the mouse over the lower left corner of the screen a Start screen thumbnail will appear; you can right-click on the Start screen to bring up a context menu of administrative options. This new menu provides you with a toolbox of the most commonly used management functions to quickly get to your task at hand. For my testing, the addition of the Computer Management and Device Manager options have been very helpful in everyday work. Of course, you still have the old faithful Run dialog box which is the portal to any tool if you know the tool’s run command. This new menu gives you a direct launch point for the majority of the tools you’re looking for when managing your servers.

A side-by-side comparison of Windows Server 2008 R2 (left) and Windows Server 2012 RC (right) Start options.

When using remote management cards like the iDRAC7 on 12^th Generation Dell servers, there is a built-in macro (Ctrl-Esc) provided that can be used to quickly open the Start screen on Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate.

After selecting the Ctrl-Esc macro from the iDRAC menu the Start screen opens:

These tips can help save you time when you need to quickly get to a particular tool or application for everyday IT operations. In addition to the above, the new Server Manager has a large number of administrative options available for local or multi-machine management.    

For additional helpful resources, check out the Windows Server blogs.

Because Windows Server 2012 RC is a pre-release product, features are subject to change. Dell does not provide any support for this pre-release software and it is not recommended for use in a production environment. Feel free to check out the new features of the RC release on your test servers and let us know what you think. Stay tuned for more blogs from the Dell OS Engineering team.

Posted on behalf of Kai Yu.

The Dell PowerEdge Express Flash PCIe SSD is an enterprise class high performance storage device designed for applications that require low latency and high IOs Per Second (IOPs) operation. It is built with SLC NAND flash and can be used as an internal storage of Dell PowerEdge servers.  This not only removes the performance bottleneck posted by the mechanical parts of conventional HDDs, also improves the storage IO performance by eliminating the latency and performance bottleneck between the server and the external storage. OLTP database workloads which require very low storage IO latency with many small random read/write IO operations are the ideal cases to use Dell Express Flash PCIe SSDs to improve the performance. To understand how PCIe SSDs improve OLTP database performance, several performance studies have been conducted on a single node Oracle 11g R2 database as well as a two node 11gR2 Oracle Real Application clusters (RAC) database running on Dell PowerEdge R720 servers  with Oracle Linux 6.2 (Redhat Compatible Kernel) platform.

The published whitepaper explores the following three use cases of using PCIe SSDs to optimize Oracle database:
1) Use PCIe SSDs as the primary database storage
2) Use PCIe SSDs as a part of tiered storage combining with conventional hard disk storage
3) Use PCIe SSDs as an extension of database cache with the Oracle database smart flash cache feature.

For more details on the different configurations, use cases and their comparative performance results please refer to the technical whitepaper posted at the following link:
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-solutions/m/oracle_db_gallery/20154176.aspx 

About the Author:

Kai Yu, Senior System Engineer, Dell Oracle Solutions Engineering

• 17 years with Oracle Technology: DBA, Apps DBA, Engineer/Architect
• Oracle ACE Director, author and presenter
• 2011 OAUG Innovator of the Year Award Winner
• Oracle Blog: http://kyuoracleblog.wordpress.com

Episode 2 of Data Center Chic podcast is now live and available for download or subscription.  Listen to host Lance Boley talk with Warren Byle, Dell Product Marketing Manager Client Systems, as they talk about the new XPS line of laptops and how to deploy these systems.  We also talk about BYOD and how that is changing the landscape and deployment methods.  Links to drivers and cabs can always be found on Dell TechCenter and follow us on twitter for updates and questions.

This blog post was written by Dell System Principal Engineer, Alaa Yousif

Microsoft for a long time relied on vendors to create teaming and VLAN networks on the host OS. In Windows Server 2012 Microsoft introduces native OS network teaming, and a module for PowerShell to make it easy for System Administrators to team network interfaces on a network adapter and create sub-networks with VLAN IDs. 

Many Dell solutions rely heavily on the concept of NIC teaming and separation of network traffic using VLANs. As an example, Dell vStart solutions require the creation of several VLAN networks to support and enable best practices for network traffic isolation, performance, and security. When implementing the solution with Windows Server 2008 R2, vendor specific tools like BACS (Broadcom Advanced Control Suite) are required to team network interfaces and create VLANs that Hyper-V can leverage.

With the new support from Microsoft, it is now possible to team NICs and create VLAN networks without relying on vendor tools like BACS. Simple commands within PowerShell like New-NetLbfoTeam    and Add-NetLbfoTeamNic  can now be used.

NIC Teaming, also known as load balancing/failover (LBFO) allows multiple network interfaces to be placed into a team for the purpose of bandwidth aggregation and/or failover to prevent connectivity loss.    Teaming is required to create a network with VLAN IDs. A minimum of one NIC interface is needed to create a team and then assign a VLAN ID. To create a failover network, a minimum of two NICs are required.

All Dell vStart solutions are designed to support failure protection. To build a failover network, two Ethernet ports are teamed together and then several sub-networks are created for different purposes.  If one port goes down in a team then traffic automatically will go through the second port. 

Below are sample PowerShell commands that can be used to team two Ethernet ports on PowerEdge servers, and then create four different VLAN interfaces. The four VLANs will have VLAN ID 10, 11, 12, 13. The commands assume a network adaptor with four ports that are named “Ethernet, Ethernet1, Ethernet2, Ehernet3” by the operating system. The commands shown in Example 1 below will team the first and third ports together, and then create appropriate VLANs.

• New-NetLbfoTeam -Name "Lan Team" -TeamMembers Ethernet,Ethernet2 –TeamingMode SwitchIndependent
• Add-NetLbfoTeamNic  -Team "Lan Team"  -vLanID  10 -Name "Management VLAN"
• Add-NetLbfoTeamNic  -Team "Lan Team"  -vLanID  11 -Name "Live Migration VLAN"
• Add-NetLbfoTeamNic  -Team "Lan Team"  -vLanID  12 -Name "Cluster Network VLAN"
• Add-NetLbfoTeamNic  -Team "Lan Team"  -vLanID  13 -Name "HyperV Swtich VLAN"

Once the teams and VLANs are created, Hyper-V can then be configured to use the teams for network traffic like Management or Live Migration.  By taking advantage of the new network team features in Server 2012 and PowerShell, Systems Administrators and Dell Services Engineers can automate what was a more manual, time consuming, and potentially error-prone process in the past.

In case you haven’t seen this video, I’m broadcasting it here.

For a few months now, Dell has been shipping its 12th generation of PowerEdge servers that come equipped with powerful new features that allow you to do more in the datacenter.

The video post here focuses on iDRAC7 with Lifecycle Controller which ships standard on 12th generation PowerEdge servers. Learn how it empowers you to get management tasks done faster, increase overall server availability, reduce your IT operational expenses and make the job of managing servers more simple. Check this out - without the need for OS drivers or agents, you get comprehensive remote systems management that is secure, standards based and scriptable.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Learn more about Lifecycle Controller. Plus Sample Scripts when you're ready to try things out.

Learn more about iDRAC7 and a full list of features.

Learn more about embedded server management in PowerEdge.

Learn more about 12th Generation PowerEdge servers.

If you use WS-MAN on Ubuntu, you may have noticed the lack of a wsmancli .deb package. Now, there is one. For now, you can grab it from my Launchpad PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~jared-dominguez/+archive/wsmancli/

The version packaged at this moment is wsmancli 2.2.6 in order to leverage the openwsman libraries currently available in Ubuntu. It is also currently only packaged for Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise), although it probably works with Ubuntu 11.04 and later. If you are running Ubuntu 12.04, you can use the following steps to install the package:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jared-dominguez/wsmancli

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install wsmancli

Note that this package is not supported by Dell. For any help or feedback, join us on the linux-poweredge@lists.us.dell.com mailing list. You can sign up at <https://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge>.