Hi community,

E2EVC is a small but one of the most important virtualization events in Germany, if not even in Europe. Many well known experts will attend that event, amongst them a handful of Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP).

I will attend E2EVC, which will take place 02. – 04. November 2012 in Hamburg (Germany) and I will meet some of the MVPs in person and interview them. You will find these interviews in this sequential order at the DELL TechCenter after the event.

In case you are not familiar with E2EVC Virtualisation Conference, the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional program or both, please find below some key facts below.

So first, what is E2EVC?

E2EVC Virtualisation Conference is a non-commercial,virtualization community Event.
Our main goal is to bring the best virtualization experts together to exchange knowledge and to establish new connections. E2EVC is a weekend crammed with presentations, Master Classes and discussions delivered by both virtualization vendors product teams and independent experts.
Started in 2003 with just 4 people and after 16 successful events grown to a well-recognized event with over 120 attendees. Our conference has taken place in cities such as Munich, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt, Dublin, Paris, Munich, Nice, Lisbon and Vienna. The next conference will take place in Hamburg, Germany.

Source: www.e2evc.de

Which MVPs will I meet in Hamburg?

Carsten Rachfahl, Didier van Hoye, Thomas Maurer, Aidan Finn and Hans Vredevoort confirmed they will give me an opportunity to interview them during the event. All of them are well known Microsoft MVPs and great guys.

Who is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)?

According to Microsoft, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award is given to "exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others." The awarded are people who "actively share their ... technical expertise with the different technology communities related directly or indirectly to Microsoft". An MVP is awarded for contributions over the previous year.

The MVP program grew out of the software developer community, as the initial MVPs were some of the most active on the online peer support communities such as Usenet and CompuServe. It has since grown to include other types of products, and other avenues of contribution. Steve Ballmer spoke to a group of Microsoft MVP's about XP and Vista.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Most_Valuable_Professional

So, whom am I going to interview? 

Let me introduce them to.you one by one:

Carsten Rachfahl

Consultant and Architect, Rachfahl IT-Solutions
Carsten Rachfahl started his IT career in 1988, working as a developer on porting X-Windows to an OS called OS/9. In 1991, he founded his own company in Germany and is self-employed since these ancient days. Starting 2001 with Citrix/Terminalserver, his focus is on the virtualization space till nowadays. When Microsoft finally created a “real” Hypervisor and brought that to the market, he was all in. His Blog www.hyper-v-server.de is highly recognized and appreciated within the virtualization community. The Blog features tutorials, articles, screencasts, video interviews and podcasts focusing on the Microsoft Private Cloud. Being MCT, he teaches various Microsoft virtualization-, and his own “Hyper-V Powerkurs” course. As co-founder of the German Hyper-V Community he regularly organizes events and he has received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for Virtual Machine in the year 2011 and 2012.

Didier van Hoye

Didier Van Hoye has been earning a living in IT since 1996. Currently he's the Microsoft Infrastructure Architect at the Flemish Geographical Information Agency. In his day job he's involved with Windows Infrastructures amongst which Exchange Servers, SQL Servers & the System Center Suite. Didier uses Hyper-V, failover clustering, NLB, and Storage Area Networks in creative attempts to give his demanding user base both good & cost effective solutions to sometimes very challenging needs.

Thomas Maurer

Microsoft MVP for Virtual Machine. Work as a Private Cloud Architect for itnetx gmbh, a consulting and engineering company located in Bern/Switzerland. We are focussed on Microsoft Technologies, especially Microsoft Private Cloud Solutions, Microsoft System Center and Microsoft Virtualization.

Aidan Finn

Aidan Finn is the Infrastructure Team Lead with System Dynamics, a consulting services company located in Dublin that provides IT infrastructure and business intelligence expertise. He has been working in IT since 1996 and has specialised in working with Microsoft infrastructure solutions including Server, desktop, System Center and virtualisation. Aidan is an MCSE and a Microsoft MVP in Virtualization. Aidan co-wrote Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2 (Sybex), is the lead author of Mastering Hyper-V Deployment (Sybex), and is contributing to Mastering Windows 7 Deployment (Sybex).

Hans Vredevoort

Hans Vredevoort is Consultant, Inovativ in the Netherlands, Microsoft MVP (Hyper-V), Microsoft vTSP Datacenter Solutions. He has a been an MVP (Cluster, Hyper-V) since 2009 and has a strong focus on Private Clouds built on top of Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center. He helped to kick-start the Hyper-V community and blogs/presents for www.hyper-v.nu as well as on numerous other occasions. Hans wrote the fabric chapters of Microsoft Private Cloud Computing, was the technical editor for Aidan Finn’s book Mastering Hyper-V Deployment and is now editing a new book project centering on Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012. After a long career with a system integrator in the Netherlands, he joined the System Center focused company Inovativ last year, where he is one of eight MVP’s that are working for this company. Vredevoort has assisted countless companies with architecting and building high available ‘cloud’ infrastructures using Windows virtualization, blade servers and shared storage.

So Say SMEs in Virtualization & Cloud

In Episode 44, Kong Yang and Todd Muirhead talk about tablets and ecosystems. We welcome your thoughts and feedback. 

Please click below to view the video.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Hi community,

last week Dell Quest TEC 2012 took place in Barcelona. We were pleased to welcome some very special guests, amongst them Aidan Finn, Hans Vredevoort, Didier van Hoye and Carsten Rachfahl. All of them are well known Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals). During this event they created a video to promote their The Great Big Hyper-V Survey.

(Please visit the site to view this video)  

This survey is conducted jointly by Adain Finn (Virtual Machine), Hans Vredevoort (Virtual Machine), Damian Flynn (System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management) and we are happily supporting this initiative.

What's the aim of the survey?

The aim of The Great Big Hyper-V Survey is to understand how Hyper-V is being deployed, used, and managed.  This means that we ask questions about lots of subjects including the deployment project, the design of Hyper-V, the implementation of Hyper-V, how you manage it, and the private cloud.  This information is gathered and shared, free of cost, so we can all get a better understanding of how we all are implementing Microsoft virtualisation technology.

Source: http://greatbighypervsurvey.com/index.php/about/

Who should participate in this survey ... and why?

In brief: Anyone working with Hyper-V including Microsoft customers, partners as well as members of the Hyper-V community should take time to complete the survey. Your answers on Hyper-V usage will help improve the product, detect issues before they show up and enhance Microsoft and community support with guides, blogs and how to's. The survey is anonymous and no private data will be transmitted to Microsoft or any other vendor. The survey's initiators are recognized by Microsoft as a Most Valuable Professional (MVP) but they all are completely independent experts (which, by the way, makes their contributions so valuable). All findings from the survey will be published at http://greatbighypervsurvey.com. Please go to The Great Big Hyper-V Survey webpage if you want to learn more about the survey; alternatively you can go straight to the survey. Thank you very much in advance for your support!

I am happy to present you the first Dell Open Source Ecosystem Digest which from now on is going to be released every Friday. Consider this first issue a "public beta": It's a collection of relevant techincal content such as blogs and announcements around OpenStack and Hadoop authored by Dell as well our partners. As of now, Mirantis (OpenStack) and Datameer (Hadoop) are kindly contributing to this digest; expect the contributors base to constantly expand in the upcoming issues. If you have any suggestions, questions or if you'd like to contribute to this digest, feel free to contact me (see contact data below).

OpenStack

Mirantis: "Making the most of your application performance on OpenStack Cloud" (by Piotr Siwczak)
http://www.mirantis.com/blog/making-most-of-openstack-compute-performance/

Mirantis: "To get OpenStack Cloud, get this: developers want Serverless Computing" (by David M. Fishman)
http://www.mirantis.com/blog/openstack-cloud-serverless-computing-developers/

Mirantis. "As Nimbula joins OpenStack, a look at their cloud orchestration" (by Lee Xie)
http://www.mirantis.com/blog/nimbula-cloud-orchestration-director-openstack/

Hadoop

Datameer: "Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend" (by Stefan Groschupf)
http://www.datameer.com/blog/announcements/time-is-the-most-valuable-thing-a-man-can-spend.html

Datameer: "Analytics App Market" (infomercial)
http://vimeo.com/51822540 

Dell

Ultimate Hadoop flexibility with the C8000 Series (by Armando Acosta & Mike Pittaro)
http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/enterprise/b/inside-enterprise-it/archive/2012/10/22/ultimate-hadoop-flexibility-with-the-c8000-series.aspx

Dell Extends ARM-based Server Ecosystem Enablement with Open Source Development for the Apache Community (press release)
http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/secure/2012-10-24-dell-arm-server-open-source-apache.aspx?ref=rss 

Quest Software Expands its Big Data Solution with new Hadoop-centric Software Capabilities for Business Analytics
http://www.quest.com/news-release/quest-software-expands-its-big-data-solution-with-new-hadoop-ce-102012-818658.aspx 

Contributors

Datameer was founded in 2009 by some of the original contributors to Apache Hadoop, Datameer has grown to a global team, advancing big data analytics. Datameer is headquatered in San Mateo, California, with offices in New York and Halle (Salle) in Germany. Company website: www.datameer.com

Mirantis delivers OpenStack cloud and open source application infrastructure. With the largest pool of OpenStack engineering expertise on the market, Mirantis helps service providers, SaaS vendors and enterprises build and run robust OpenStack cloud infrastructure, powered by the full force of open source innovation. Its focus: vendor-independent cloud implementation uncompromised by opaque hooks or proprietary packaging. The company has a unique cost-effective delivery model, founded on years of deep software engineering experience for demanding Fortune 1000 companies. Customers include Cisco, Dell, GE, Agilent, NASA, The Gap, Axcient and Nexenta. Mirantis is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with engineering centers in Russia and Ukraine. Company website: www.mirantis.com

Contact

Twitter: @RafaelKnuth
Email: rafael_knuth@dellteam.com

Hello EQL Family,

While 10Gb Ethernet continues to grow and many EqualLogic
environments are transitioning from 1GbE to 10GbE infrastructures,
there is a need to understand the Physical Layer (PHY) components.

It is also critical that we understand what are the physical layer options 
and which ones will meet our needs.

The question becomes:

Why do we select one type over another and what criteria
should we use when selecting the type of Physical Layer (PHY)
components that will meet or requirements?

Just posted a wiki page that outlines the Fiber Optic and Copper Options,
when implementing the Physical Layer (PHY) components.

This is part 2 in a series on 10Gb Ethernet Physical ( PHY ) standards.

In part 2 of the series we will discuss the Optical Fiber and Copper options
for 10Gb Ethernet implementations

In the article we will discuss the classes of Optical Fiber, the copper
options for 10G Ethernet, and the types of copper implementations.

We will briefly discuss the use of backplane applications, such as
blade servers, and the 802.3ap implementations that are required to
operate in environments consisting of copper printed circuit boards.

See Part 2 of the series at the link below:

PHYSICAL LAYER (PHY) STANDARDS FOR 10Gb ETHERNET – PART 2

 
As the standards continue to evolve, the price of 10GbE ports continue to
decrease, and the number of 10GbE ports continue to grow, there will be a
need to understand the underlying cabling options and how they
relate to your solution.

Start Part 2 of the series by clicking the link below:

PHYSICAL LAYER (PHY) STANDARDS FOR 10Gb ETHERNET – PART 2

Until Next Time,

Twitter:    @GuyAtDell
Email:      guy_westbrook@dell.com
Chatter:  @ EQL Tech Enablement

Guy

Click the link below to access our four most useful reference documents:

•  EqualLogic Compatibility Matrix ( ECM )
•  EqualLogic Configuration Guide ( ECG)
• Rapid EqualLogic Configuration Portal ( RED )
• SAN Switch Reference Architectures ( SwRA )

If you use Dell’s Linux repositories from http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware (and we know many of you do), you’ve had the option of managing these repositories with Red Hat’s Network Satellite, Spacewalk or SUSE Manager by using the dell-satellite-sync tool to import the yum repositories into these system management applications. Yum repositories are imported as channels, which allow you greater flexibility in managing your environment.

With dell-satellite-sync you can specify what repositories you want to import by selecting only the OS distributions and PowerEdge systems available in your environment, saving you time, effort and disk space. You can also use this tool to automatically subscribe your registered systems to their corresponding repo channels, which will save you even more time and effort.

If you’re already using dell-satellite-sync, we’d like to let you know of some recent updates we’ve made which should make it easier to use. If you haven’t used it before, we’d like to invite you to try it out by visiting http://linux.dell.com/dell-satellite-sync.

Please note that dell-satellite-sync is provided as-is, but if you have any questions or suggestions (or perhaps even a patch?), you can write to our mailing list Linux-PowerEdge. We welcome your participation and feedback.

This blog post is written by Amit Sharma, Shiva Katta and Krishnaprasad K from Dell Hypervisor Engineering team.

What is SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization)?

SR-IOV is the specification created and maintained by PCI SIG. It allows a single PCIe device to appear to be as multiple separate PCIe devices.  SR-IOV introduces the idea of physical functions and virtual functions. Physical functions (PFs) are full-featured PCIe functions; virtual functions (VFs) are “lightweight” functions that lack configuration resources.  SR-IOV requires support from BIOS, adapter, processors and Operating system. PFs have full configuration resources as it is possible to configure or control the PCIe device via the PF, and the PF has full ability to move data in and out of the device. VFs lack configuration resources; they only have the ability to move data in and out.

Support matrix of SR-IOV from Dell w.r.t VMware ESXi

Dell PowerEdge Server support

• Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation servers support SR-IOV.
• Below is a list of Dell 11^th Generation platforms that support the SR-IOV feature: 
  • R910, R210 II, T110 II
• The following platforms are also supported and must be an 11G Generation II server: 
  • T410, R410, R510, R610, T610, R710, T710

Network Controllers support

• • Intel X520 10GB Ethernet adapters
  • Intel X540 10GB Ethernet adapters

NOTE 1: The above support list is not finite. The list will be extended as and when applicable.

NOTE 2: SR-IOV is supported from Intel Xeon 56xx series processor onwards.

Enabling SR-IOV

The support for SR-IOV for VMware ESXi starts from 5.1 onwards. Enabling SR-IOV for VMware ESXi 5.1 is a two-step process. The first step involves enabling the necessary BIOS tokens and checking the compatibility from the hardware perspective. The second step is enabling the NIC driver for IO Virtualization.

Step1

            The first step talks about the settings to be done from the hardware level to enable SR-IOV.

• • Make sure that you have the latest BIOS installed from Dell support.
  • Enable SR-IOV BIOS token (SR-IOV Global Enable) by traversing to Integrated Devices section in BIOS as below.                           

Step2

Step 2 talks about enabling SR-IOV from VMware ESXi 5.1. The below steps detail about enabling this feature from Intel driver.

• 1. Enable virtual functions for Intel ixgbe driver as below.

 ~# esxcfg-module –s  ixgbe “max_vfs=8”

Here max_vfs is the parameter passed to the driver ‘ixgbe’. This parameter is used to enable the virtual functions from the driver. If the network controller used is a dual port card, the virtual functions for both ports can be enabled by passing the parameter max_vfs=8, 8

NOTE: The maximum virtual functions supported in VMware ESXi 5.1 are 32. So make sure that the total number of virtual functions enabled combining all ports is less than or equal to 32. Refer VMware configuration maximums guide . 

2. Reboot host to re-load the driver with VFs enabled.

3. Connect host from vCenter server/ client. Navigate to ‘Configuration --> Advanced Settings’ tab to see the virtual functions enabled as below:-

4. Edit the VM settings and assign the Virtual functions as a PCI device similar to PCI passthrough feature.
5. Once the VFs are assigned to the VM, the guest OS driver enables it to be available for the virtual machines.

NOTE: You may have to install the required drivers from Guest OS to make the virtual functions visible. RHEL 6.3 already contains a native driver ‘ixgbevf’.

Disabling SR-IOV

This section talks about disabling SR-IOV from Intel 'ixgbe' driver.

1. First step is to understand the total number of VFs enabled /port using the below command

~# esxcfg-module –g ixgbe

This command shows the max_vfs parameter which shows the number of ports and number of virtual functions already enabled.

2. Disable SR-IOV for the specific port by executing the below command

~# esxcfg-module –s ixgbe max_vfs=0, 0 # Assuming that VFs were enabled for two ports.

3. Reboot the system to take this in to effect.

It’s one thing for blade server vendors to claim their blades have better power efficiency, and another thing entirely to prove it.  Since the launch of our 12^th generation blade servers, Dell has published SPECpower results on all our newest blade servers.  Meanwhile, HP hasn’t published any SPECpower results for any model of Gen8 blade server; likewise, Cisco hasn’t published SPECpower results for any of their M3 blades.

To understand how the vendors stack up against each other for blade power efficiency in this generation, we assembled solutions based on similar blades from each vendor: the Dell PowerEdge M620, the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, and the Cisco UCS B200 M3.  Each solution consisted of eight blades, that vendor’s blade enclosure, and a 10GbE internal IO module.

The solutions were tested using the industry standard SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark, which produces an overall score for each setup based on its performance per watt ratio. 

This graph shows the results of this comparison, which measured power for just the blades and internal chassis components.  This comparison results in a decisive win for the Dell setup, with the Cisco solution scoring 16% lower and the HP solution scoring 24% lower.

We also compared the power efficiency of each blade solution with its vendor’s external 10GbE top-of-rack switch included in the power measurements.  For the Dell solution, we used the Force10 S4810 switch; for the Cisco solution, the Nexus 5020; and for the HP solution, the ProCurve 5900 switch.

This graph shows the Dell solution again with a significant power efficiency advantage over the competition.  Its overall SPECpower score is 26% higher than HP’s solution, and 45% higher than the Cisco solution with its Nexus 5020 switch and required Fabric Interconnect module.

I’ve just published a whitepaper with full details of the configurations and the test methodology here.  I hope that when customers are making their purchasing decisions, this blade solution power efficiency comparison will help those looking to get the most performance out of every watt they buy to run their datacenter.

One of the recent and most featured announcements from Microsoft is the launch of Windows 8. For corporates intending to upgrade from Win 7 to Win 8 may choose to enable secure boot in BIOS to increase security in their systems,  this will be considerable effort if done manually for IT administrators to upgrade the systems.

The UEFI specification adds a feature known as Secure boot, which can secure the boot process by preventing the loading of drivers or OS loaders that are not signed with an acceptable digital signature. For more information on UEFI and secure boot kindly refer the following : http://www.uefi.org/home/

With the release of Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation (OMCI) 8.1.1, this effort has been made a lot easier. The OMCI offers support for Microsoft Win 8 OS and It also supports enabling of  Secure Boot feature in BIOS .

Hence now the IT administrator sitting in the remote location can easily enable Secure Boot on the system. Kindly refer to the OMCI documentation at the below URL for more information about the product

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/systems-management/w/wiki/1773.openmanage-client-instrumentation-omci.aspx

The procedure to update secure boot is as follow :

1. First download and install the latest BIOS from the dell support site.
2. Ensure that the system is rebooted so that the new BIOS is loaded. After the BIOS update you will see that the boot mode is default legacy and secure boot is disabled.
3. Once the system is rebooted, Run the below VB Script (attached with the blog - kindly remove the .txt extension from the file)

'**********************************************************************

'*** Name:SampleSecureBoot.vbs

'*** Purpose: To enable Secure Boot.

'*** Usage: cscript.exe //nologo SampleSecureBoot.vbs <systemname>

'***

'*** This sample script is provided as an example only, and has not been

'*** tested, nor is warranted in any way by Dell; Dell disclaims any

'*** liability in connection therewith. Dell provides no technical

'*** support with regard to such scripting. For more information on WMI

'*** scripting, refer to applicable Microsoft documentation.

'*** NOTE: Replace <Password> in line 53 (inside the quotes)

'*** with the desired values if there is any password set in the system.

'*** If both passwords(Admin and Boot) are set please replace it with Admin Password.

'*** If there is no password set in the system please leave it as empty.

'**********************************************************************

Option Explicit

'*** Declare variables

Dim strNameSpace

Dim strComputerName

Dim strClassName

Dim strKeyValue

Dim objInstance

Dim strPropName

Dim strPropValue

Dim oInParams

Dim objWMIService

Dim returnValue

Dim ColSystem

Dim strAttributeName(2)

Dim strAttributeValue(2)

Dim strAuthorizationToken 

'*** Check that the right executable was used to run the script

'*** and that all parameters were passed

If (LCase(Right(WScript.FullName, 11)) = "wscript.exe" ) Or _

   (Wscript.Arguments.Count < 1) Then

             Call Usage()

             WScript.Quit

End If 

'*** Initialize variables

strNameSpace = "root/dcim/sysman"

strComputerName = WScript.Arguments(0)

strClassName = "DCIM_BIOSService"

strAttributeName(0) = "Secure Boot"

'*** All possible values for Secure Boot are as follows:

'*** 2 = Enable

strAttributeValue(0) = "2"

strAuthorizationToken = "<Password>"

returnValue = 0

'*** Retrieve the instance of DCIM_BIOSService class

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate," &_

                                  "AuthenticationLevel=pktprivacy}\\" & strComputerName & "\" &_

                                  strNameSpace)

Set ColSystem=objWMIService.execquery ("Select * from " &strClassName)

For each objInstance in ColSystem

    Set oInParams= objInstance.Methods_("SetBIOSAttributes").InParameters.SpawnInstance_

    oInParams.AttributeName = strAttributeName

    oInParams.AttributeValue = strAttributeValue

    oInParams.AuthorizationToken = strAuthorizationToken

    Set returnValue = objInstance.ExecMethod_("SetBIOSAttributes", oInParams)

Next

'*** If any errors occurred, let the user know

If Err.Number <> 0 Then

       WScript.Echo "Enabling Secure Boot failed."

End If

'*** Sub used to display the correct usage of the script

Sub Usage()

        Dim strMessage

        strMessage = "incorrect syntax. You should run: " & vbCRLF & _

                              "cscript.exe /nologo SampleSecureBoot.vbs <systemname>"

        WScript.Echo strMessage

End Sub

'**********************************************************************

       4. This script will enable secure boot on your system and will also set the boot options to UEFI and disable legacy option ROM feature.

       5. At this stage, you will be able to boot into your current OS only if it has been installed with UEFI support.

       6. You will now have to install the new Win 8 OS through the CD-DVD/PXE.

Note: Factory delivered Windows 8 systems will have default Secure Boot enabled in BIOS configuration.

CLOUD PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Xangati is the recognized leader in performance management solutions for cloud and virtualization. Our solutions automatically track contention storms impacting the performance of applications running in this dynamic, shared infrastructure. We focus on:

• Instant - second-by-second precision powered by an in-memory performance management engine
• Interactions - cross-silo awareness explaining what activity is driving contention overwhelming your shared resources
• Interface - fast & contextual dashboards for all key stakeholders-deployed without agents or adapters

I spoke with David Messina to learn more about Xangati and their products…

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Time                Question

0.00                 Introduction
0.49                 Tell us about Xangati – History
1.54                 General idea of Performance Management for the Cloud
3.54                 Performance Storms Defined
4.22                 Is this a competitive solution or is this unique?
8.33                 How is Xangati’s product sold?
10.21               Upcoming Events

BIO: David Messina, VP Marketing

Background: Product Marketing and Product Management Executive Positions for CoSine Communications and Bay Networks (acquired by Nortel Networks).
Education: B.S., Economics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

This post was written by Rob Cox of the Dell OpenManage Essentials team

OME Team,

Just this past February we released OpenManage Essentials 1.0.1 along with the launch of our new PowerEdge 12G servers.  Together, they brought datacenter management to the next level in terms of usability and features.  The positive feedback has been overwhelming and we are grateful to you for using our product and taking time to provide feedback and suggestions.

We kept the pedal down on OME in order to bring you the next exciting set of features as quickly as possible.  With OME 1.1 the complete agent-free management story that was introduced in our first release is now realized.  Full discovery, inventory, health monitoring, alerting and system updates are supported without having to install additional agents.  If you are using Dell PowerEdge 11G or 12G servers, be sure to review this tremendous feature set.

In addition, we’ve taken a lot of feedback that you have provided us on this forum and through our account teams and incorporated it into this new release.  You should see a lot of subtle changes that improve the usability of an already great product.  We are also refreshing and launching a number of new whitepapers today on Dell TechCenter.  We have around twenty whitepapers today dedicated to OME and expect to have closer to thirty by years-end.

Here is a list of some of the new features to look for in OpenManage Essentials 1.1:

• Agent-free hardware inventory for Dell 11G and 12G servers
• Agent-free system updates (e.g., BIOS, firmware) for Dell 11G and 12G servers
• Dell SupportAssist extension for proactive “phone home” hardware issue resolution
• Discover, Inventory, monitor health, and view logs of Dell clients (i.e., desktops, portables)
• Discover, Inventory, and monitor health of Dell Force 10 Switches, Dell PDU and UPS devices
• Discover and collect limited inventory  Linux servers via SSH
• Enhanced hardware inventory for ESXi servers with Server Administrator (OMSA)
• Alerts for hardware health status changes (not just when a hardware trap is sent)
• Ability to forward alerts in original format to support tiered event management
• A new command line interface (CLI) for automation of server discovery and grouping
• Calendar style task schedule view
• Group filtering on portal pages
• More configurable portal pages
• Grouped discovery ranges for common protocol settings
• Custom URL launch points to allow user-defined right-click actions on devices
• …and many more...

Again, thanks for all of your feedback.  Please continue to post on the forum and keep those suggestions coming.  We will have an online tech chat on Tuesday, October 30th at 3PM Central so we can get your feedback and answer your questions on the release.

To find links to the OME 1.1 download and for the latest information on the product, visit the Dell TechCenter page on OpenManage Essentials.  

Thanks,

Rob

Blog written by Lee Burnette (@Lee4Dell) from DellTechCenter.com

As a tech fan, it's always exciting to await new releases of HDTV's, the latest smart phone and honestly, most any tech gadget peaks my interest. When I started hearing about the new line of Dell tablets that were in development, that excitement turned to an intense curiosity.

See, many of my friends and business associates had already jumped on the tablet train. There were more and more options coming out every month, yet it seemed to me that while we did have an initial line of tablet devices, Dell remained relatively quiet and low-key in this space. Until now.

With a brand new line of Dell tablets, Ultrabook, Ultrabook Convertibles and Touch All-in-Ones, I couldn't wait to get my hands on these devices to get an idea of whether or not we had hit the mark and are offering products that people will actually WANT and get excited about. Now just because I work for Dell doesn't mean I will promote everything we do as the best thing since the invention of microwave popcorn. I think to be truthful and open about anything in business will gain you more credibility over time. So I went to the internal Dell launch of these products with an open mind, yet slightly sceptical.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

My main question going in was why Windows 8? The success of the Apple product is well documented, the Android OS has been gaining more and more momentum the past few years, so why did Dell choose to launch all of these products on the new Windows 8 platform? More importantly, why would customers choose this option over the competition?

As I talked with many industry experts both inside and outside of Dell, a few things became very clear quite quickly. First of all, organizations of all sizes are faced with the same challenge. With all these new tablet and mobile devices being brought into the workplace by their employees, how do they manage them? How do they maintain the secure IT environment without compromising their data integrity?

Let's answer these questions by starting with Windows 8. This OS is the biggest departure from it's predecessor since Windows 95. The "metro" touch interface is made up of large tiles that feed you your data and notifications live and offers a new visual experience. This is beneficial especially on tablets and mobile devices as everything has moved to more of a touch experience. But what about when you are docked or sitting at a standard notebook or desktop? The great thing about that is if you have an All-in-One Touch desktop, you still have the touch interface of Windows 8. However, if you still prefer a standard keyboard and mouse, that still works seamlessly.

I have heard a few comments about the interface being nothing more than a slick GUI that just gets in the way of productivity. I have to say, after using it for a while and getting used to it, its a great way to get around the OS and get to the information you need quickly and in a smooth way. If that interface is not something you want to use, with the touch of the screen (or click of a mouse) you can easily get to a standard desktop that you are used to seeing and all of your legacy applications can run on it no matter which interface you choose. Be sure to watch the video demo of Windows 8 to see how easy it is to use as well as the new features that are built into it.

Now let's talk for a minute about how organizations can integrate it into their environments. The most important thing to understand here is that while Windows 8 is running on a tablet like the Dell Latitude 10, it is a fully functional version of Windows running on X86 architechture. That means you can join it to a corporate domain, you can manage it with your SCCM, LanDesk or Altiris and you can secure it because to your IT department, it has all of the functionality of a PC with the benefits of a touch tablet.

As Dell has transformed to a complete end-to-end solutions provider over the past few years from Storage & Networking to Services & Client devices, Windows 8 and the new line of Dell products running it are positioned to give customers exciting options in this space while maintaining the security and productivity that they have come to expect from Dell. For more information on any of the products mentioned in this blog visit either of the two links below:

Products on Dell.com: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/touch-screen-laptops-and-desktops?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&ref=hp1

Information on DellTechCenter.com: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/w/wiki/3501.microsoft-windows-8-and-dell.aspx

OME Team,

It has been a pretty busy week with the release of the new version of OpenManage Essentials.  Be sure to look at this blog entry to get the scoop on all the great new features.

One new feature that a lot of people have asked for is the ability to support Dell’s business client machines.  So with OME 1.1, we’ve taken a small first step at this.  With our new release you can discover, inventory, monitor the health, and pull hardware logs for Dell Optiplex, Latitude, and Precision. 

OME retrieves client device hardware information using the WMI protocol and can do so with or without Dell OpenManage Client Instrumentation (OMCI) being present on the remote device. OME requires OMCI to show the device health, hardware logs, and to perform specific operations on multiple devices using the generic command line task framework.

Discovery and device classification works without OMCI installed on the remote device.

We’ve written a whitepaper to go into all the details you need to know on this great new feature.  Be sure to download the OpenManage Client Devices Support whitepaper and give this great new feature a try.

Thanks!

Rob

www.delltechcenter.com/OME

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 deployments vary from small to large, depending on several factors, such as number of concurrent users, content database size, and the workload usage profile. Administrators should consider a combination of all these factors when planning for SharePoint farm deployment.

The Dell Global Solutions Engineering team helps our customers plan their SharePoint deployments for various farm sizes and recommends deployment best practices that include the complete solution infrastructure required for SharePoint farm deployment – including servers, storage, networking, and the SharePoint application itself.

We recently released a set of reference configurations for deploying SharePoint 2010 for small, medium, and large organizations, with a range of options from, physical to virtualized to partially-virtualized reference configurations.

Four configurations for different customer scenarios are available in a reference architecture booklet, which includes:

• Rack Server configuration: Up to 2,500 users in a SharePoint collaboration usage profile
• Virtualized Rack Server configuration: Up to 3,500 users in a SharePoint collaboration usage profile
• Converged M1000e blade configuration: Up to 10,000 users in a SharePoint collaboration usage profile
• Partially virtualized, converged M1000e blade configuration:  Up to 10,000 users in a SharePoint mixed usage profile

Expanding remote and mobile workforces are bringing a gigantic wave of personal devices into the workplace. As the demand for a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy intensifies, many IT organizations are considering virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployment. VDI allows organizations to nimbly and cost-effectively support a mobile workforce while extending the efficiency of server virtualization to the desktop environment.

However, cost and management associated with storage for VDI deployments can be a significant challenge. VDI storage requires the capacity to store not only desktop virtual machines, but also the associated end-user application data. Storage for VDI should also deliver the performance necessary for handling utilization spikes of short duration—I/O storms—such as those generated when large numbers of virtual desktops are booted simultaneously or hundreds of end users log in or log off at the same time.

Dell EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI hybrid arrays are designed to minimize the cost and complexity of storage and are well suited for VDI environments. These hybrid arrays combine both solid-state drives (SSDs) and traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) in the same chassis and include features such as automated data tiering and centralized management tools to support efficient VDI deployments.

Combining SSDs and HDDs in a single Dell EqualLogic PS Series hybrid array enclosure helps optimize performance, capacity, and scalability for the multi-tiered workloads that characterize VDI deployments. Intelligent EqualLogic PS Series software with automated tiering capabilities places the frequently accessed base desktop virtual machine image on low-latency, high-performance SSD storage to help ensure maximum performance. Less frequently accessed data such as end-user application files are placed on low-cost, capacity-optimized HDDs, enabling organizations to meet VDI performance demands without costly over-provisioning.

Dell performs rigorous testing to create reference architectures for VDI platforms to provide organizations with guidelines regarding sizing and best practices for VDI deployments. To that effect, we have recently published a technical white paper providing storage sizing guidance and best practices for designing and deploying VMware View 5.1 based VDI environments using the EqualLogic PS6100XS array.

The paper demonstrates how an 830 task worker virtual desktop environment can be deployed in the chosen VDI infrastructure while leveraging a single PS6100XS array. Details are provided for the storage I/O characteristics under various VDI workload scenarios like boot and login storms along with performance characteristics throughout the VDI stack (ESXi server performance and user experience as determined by Liquidware Labs Stratusphere UX). 

In the test environment, the PS6100XS array delivered approximately 14,500 IOPS during a boot storm with a read/write ratio of about 76% / 24%. More detailed capacity and sizing guidelines can be found in the paper.

Figure 1: PS6100XS performance during boot storm due to simultaneous restart of 830 desktops

One final note: In View 5.1, VMware introduced View Storage Accelerator, which optimizes storage load and improves performance by caching common disk blocks while reading virtual desktop images. View Storage Accelerator uses the VMware vSphere platform feature called Content based Read Cache (CBRC) implemented inside the ESXi hypervisor.

We conducted tests to determine the impact of View Storage Accelerator on an 800 desktop deployment with CBRC enabled and disabled. The tests indicated 68% read IOPS reduction for this environment, leading to a better desktop density in the EqualLogic hybrid array. The paper has a detailed analysis on the resulting reduced of cost per desktop.

Figure 2: CBRC effects on VDI workload

Check out the paper here for all the findings, guidelines and recommendations for VDI storage.

So Say SMEs in Virtualization & Cloud

In Episode 45, Kong Yang and Todd Muirhead talk about Round Rock Donuts, Dell Customized Bits for VMware ESXi 5.1 and the latest VMware KB announcing support for View on ESXi 5.1. We welcome your thoughts and feedback. 

Please click below to view the video.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Welcome to the second issue of the Dell Open Source Ecosystem Digest. For those who missed the first issue last Friday: It's a collection of relevant techincal content such as blogs, white papers and announcements around OpenStack and Hadoop authored by Dell as well our partners.

As initially announced, I will constantly expand the list of contributors. With this edition, I am adding enStratus publications as well as OpenStack Foundation content. Also, I am very excited that all (!) our key people at Dell in charge of our OpenStack and Hadoop activities allowed me to list their private blogs.

Consider the Dell Open Source Ecosystem Digest work in progress: It’s constantly evolving and changing. I appreciate your feedback on the digest as well as your contributions (if you have something to share with the Dell TechCenter Community … please let me know) - you can find my contact data at the bottom of the digest. Enjoy reading and watch out for the upcoming issue next Friday!

OpenStack

enStratus: “Hybrid Cloud Computing: Managing the Reality of Enterprise Cloud Computing.” (White Paper) http://www.enstratus.com/page/1/hybrid-cloud-wp-form.jsp

Mirantis: “Video: How Cisco Webex deploys OpenStack Private Cloud into Production.” by David Fishman http://www.mirantis.com/blog/cisco-webex-mirantis-openstack-private-cloud-production/

Mirantis: “Mirantis brings OpenStack Cloud to Open Storage Summit 2012.” by David Fishman http://www.mirantis.com/blog/mirantis-brings-openstack-cloud-to-open-storage-summit-2012/

Mirantis: “Making the most of your application performance on OpenStack Cloud.” by Piotr Siwczak http://www.mirantis.com/blog/making-most-of-openstack-compute-performance/

OpenStack Foundation: “Grizzly Release Schedule Published.” http://wiki.openstack.org/GrizzlyReleaseSchedule

OpenStack Foundation: “OpenStack Summit Videos are now Online.”
http://www.openstack.org/summit/san-diego-2012/openstack-summit-sessions/

Hadoop

Datameer: “New Business Insights with Hadoop Analytics.” Webinar 7th November 10am PT / 1pm ET http://info.datameer.com/Analytics-and-Hadoop-New-Business-Insights.html


Dell

“One Million Reasons to Celebrate – DCS Ships its One Millionth Server.” Tracy Davis, VP / GM Dell DCS Team
http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2012/10/29/one-million-reasons-to-celebrate-dcs-ships-its-one-millionth-server.aspx

“One Miiiiiiiilion Cloud Servers.” by Barton George - Private Blog
http://bartongeorge.net/2012/10/30/one-miiiiiiiiiiiiillion-cloud-servers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bartongeorge%2FnMQw+%28A+Blueprint+for+the+Cloud%29

“HADOOP WEBINAR: ‘New Business Insights with Hadoop Analytics.’” by Joseph B. George - Private Blog
http://jbgeorge.net/2012/11/01/hadoop-webinar-new-business-insights-with-hadoop-analytics/

“Crowbar 2.0 Planning.” by Rob Hirschfeld - Private Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbm95BdP4cU&feature=youtube_gdata

“Videos and Pictures from the OpenStack Summit San Diego.” by Kamesh Pemmaraju - Private Blog http://www.cloudel.com/videos-and-pictures-from-the-openstack-summit-san-diego/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=videos-and-pictures-from-the-openstack-summit-san-diego

“Open Source Community Competition.” by Stephen Spector - Private Blog http://spectorintexas.com/2012/10/24/open-source-community-competition/

Contributors - Dell Partners

Datameer was founded in 2009 by some of the original contributors to Apache Hadoop, Datameer has grown to a global team, advancing big data analytics. Datameer is headquatered in San Mateo, California, with offices in New York and Halle (Salle) in Germany. Company website: www.datameer.com

enStratus is a cloud infrastructure management solution for deploying and managing enterprise-class applications in public, private and hybrid clouds. Where cloud services software (i.e. Eucalyptus, Joyent and Citrix CloudStack) target the delivery of cloud as a service, enStratus is focused on the consumption of one or more cloud services from a single, consistent management platform. Think of enStratus as the enterprise console to the world of cloud computing. Company website: www.enstratus.com

Mirantis delivers OpenStack cloud and open source application infrastructure. With the largest pool of OpenStack engineering expertise on the market, Mirantis helps service providers, SaaS vendors and enterprises build and run robust OpenStack cloud infrastructure, powered by the full force of open source innovation. Its focus: vendor-independent cloud implementation uncompromised by opaque hooks or proprietary packaging. The company has a unique cost-effective delivery model, founded on years of deep software engineering experience for demanding Fortune 1000 companies. Customers include Cisco, Dell, GE, Agilent, NASA, The Gap, Axcient and Nexenta. Mirantis is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with engineering centers in Russia and Ukraine. Company website:www.mirantis.com

OpenStack Foundation is an independent body providing shared resources to help achieve the OpenStack Mission by Protecting, Empowering, and Promoting OpenStack software and the community around it, including users, developers and the entire ecosystem. Foundation website: www.openstack.org

Contributors - Dell Employees’ Private Blogs

Barton George Director of Marketing, Web Vertical at Dell. Private Blog: http://bartongeorge.net/

Joseph B. George Director, Product Strategy and Marketing, Cloud and Big Data Solutions at Dell. Private Blog: http://jbgeorge.net/

Rob Hirschfeld Software Development Principal Engineer at Dell. Private Blog: http://robhirschfeld.com/ and Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/rollingwoodcitizen

Kamesh Pemmaraju Senior Product Manager Cloud Solutions at Dell. Private Blog: http://www.cloudel.com

Stephen Spector Cloud Evangelist at Dell. Private Blog: http://spectorintexas.com/ and Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/xenuser

Contact

Twitter: @RafaelKnuth
Email: rafael_knuth@dellteam.com

This week Dell India will hold a IT Executive Summit, which is a premier annual event for C-level IT decision from across India. 200 of the top IT leaders from enterprise across India connect with Dell’s senior leadership, global CIO's and analysts to learn not only how to address key issues they are facing but also master the key forces shaping IT today.

Please watch these Videos by CIO's. They are very excited about this event.

The Summit will be held Wednesday 7 – Friday 9 November 2012, This week , at the Venetian Macao-Resort Hotel.

Experience the power of transformation – Live, Online!

You can also experience the Exclusive summit Live from your Desk. Register Now to watch this event Live Online.

While Dell TechCenter's readers live all over the world, some of our best TechCenter members live right here in the backyard of Dell headquarters in Round Rock,Texas.  

Dustin Hedges, a Dell TechCenter Rockstar based out of Austin, is an IT professional who specializes in Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) and Operating systems deployment. On TechCenter, he's been active in the Enterprise Client forum helping answer other community members' questions and helping to share best practices.

Dustin also contributes to the larger IT community.  He writes his own blog about OS Deployment related topics and participates in both the Central Texas Systems Management Users Group and myITforum. 

Because we appreciate him giving back to TechCenter and helping other IT professionals, we recently interviewed Dustin to get to know him better:

Please tell us about yourself. What is your current role and where do you work? Do you specialize in any particular IT technology?

I am currently a Sr. Systems Engineer on the Global Client Engineering team at eBay Inc.  My primary focus is on Enterprise OS Deployment leveraging SCCM + MDT.  As part of this role I manage ~45 different models (mostly Dell) and am responsible for driver management, hardware certification, image creation and am one of 3 OSD (OS Deployment) Engineers that handle OSD Customization Engineering.

As part of my role, I also tend to adopt newer technologies as quickly as possible so I am also in the process of testing out and certifying Windows 8.

How did you get your start in the IT industry? 

I’ve always been drawn to technology and in the 5^th grade I wanted to be a Systems Analyst (had no idea what that actually meant at the time).  I built my first PC during high school (Windows 98 baby) and got an Associates in Computer Networking while working for the University of Nebraska at Lincoln as a desktop technician.  That was my first real IT job just prior to being brought into eBay Inc.

What are your biggest IT challenges on a day to day basis? 

Some of the challenges I face is simply the pace at which technology changes and the demands of our end users.  The “Consumerization of IT” has been a hot topic pretty much everywhere and adapting our processes to meet the demands of the users, while still conforming to our security and operating policies has been quite a challenge.

What aspects about Dell TechCenter do you find helpful in your role? 

Dell TechCenter is a great place to not only interface with like-minded people dealing with the same technologies that I do, but it’s a place to find a ton of information about Dell’s products and services.  Whether you just want to find an updated driver or figure out how to use OMCI or CCTK to do something, or things are more involved where you need to ask people “How’d you do that?”, you can find it all (quickly) at Dell TechCenter. 

What would you like to see on Dell TechCenter in the future? 

While Dell TechCenter is great in its current format, I think a stronger focus on social interaction (actually getting people more engaged and talking to each other) would be a huge help.  I (luckily) have a closer relationship with many members of Dell IT and the Dell TechCenter crew primarly because I am located in Austin and have the opportunity to meet them face to face and speak in real time.  While not everyone get that experience, being more engaged in the community (and offering up help in addition to asking for it) builds those relationship. 

The only other thing I would like to see is an easier way to find what you are looking for leveraging better search technologies.  And having a “suggestion” or “request” section so if something isn’t there, you can ask for it to be added (and others can see that and either submit the content, or vote it higher).

To keep up with Dustin, follow him on Twitter @dhedges01

Click here to meet all of our featured contributors on Dell TechCenter

Hello EQL Family,

Deployments of 10Gb Ethernet networks has not only increased, but
has moved beyond the data center and into the entire infrastructure. 

It’s time we talk about the minimal requirements needed for support of
the Physical Layer (PHY) components, issues and concerns, and
recommended practices for 10Gb SAN deployments.

Just posted the third and final piece in a three part series that
outlines the Physical Layer (PHY) standards for 10Gb Ethernet.

In part 1 of the series, we discussed The Physical Layer (PHY) Standards
for 10Gb Ethernet.

In part 2 of the series, we discussed Optical Fiber and Copper Options.

In this series, Part 3, we will discuss:

• The minimum requirements for PHYs to be supported within
  an EqualLogic environment
  
  
• What are some issues to be aware of with mixed-vendor solutions
  
  
• What are recommendations when selecting PHY layer components

See Part 3 of the series at the link below:

PHYSICAL LAYER (PHY) STANDARDS FOR 10Gb ETHERNET – PART 3

As successful 10Gb Ethernet deployments continue to expand, there will be a
need to understand the necessary requirements, issues with mixed vendors,
and recommendations for EqualLogic SANs.

Start Part 3 of the series by clicking the link below:

PHYSICAL LAYER (PHY) STANDARDS FOR 10Gb ETHERNET – PART 3

Until Next Time,

Twitter:    @GuyAtDell
Email:      guy_westbrook@dell.com
Chatter:  @ EQL Tech Enablement

Guy

Click the link below to access our four most useful reference documents:

•           EqualLogic Compatibility Matrix ( ECM )

 •          EqualLogic Configuration Guide ( ECG )

•           Rapid EqualLogic Configuration Portal ( RED )

•           SAN Switch Reference Architectures ( SwRA )