My boss asked me today to provide a list of things I’ve done the past year for my upcoming performance review.  I typed up all I knew off the top of my head, but I decided to do a Google Search on my name to see what it comes back with.  To my surprise I found a interview that Gartner did of me a few months back in regards to virtualization and storage. What’s funny is that it feels like I did this years ago and that everything I mention is such old and outdated technology! 

Check it out for yourself, hope you enjoy it!  Here is the abstract and link to view it;

http://www.itbriefingcenter.com/programs/gartner_644_netapp.html

DataCenter Virtualization: Why You Need It and Best Practices for Success

In this program you will learn how server virtualization:

• Can save you money
• Help with server sprawl
• Free up data center space
• Support your x86 server architecture
• Enhance disaster recovery
• Provide dynamic flexibility
• Allow for rapid deployment

You will hear experts from featured analyst firm, Gartner, Inc., and industry experts from NetApp, and San Diego Data Processing Corporation discuss:

• The reasons your organization should choose server virtualization for storage.
• The benefits server virtualization can bring to your company.
• The objectives your company can achieve with server virtualization.

Plus you’ll have access to a number of case studies, white papers and other supporting materials, which will be interesting and useful to you as you make the move towards virtualization.

See for yourself. Check out this new program now and learn more.

Created on April 16, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under Backup & Recovery, NetApp, Storage.

This blog has 1,249 views and one response.

Tags: gartner, interview, NetApp, video

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I had a big problem Monday AM on one of my core SAP VM instances, that also happens to have a SQL DB server on it. Our VCB process finishes up on late Sunday night, if you’re not aware of how VCB works, it basically creates a snapshot of the Virtual Machine, then mounts the now readable VMDK parent to a proxy server where your backup agent resides. Once the backup is complete the snapshot is committed.  This wasn’t the case Monday AM — the VM crashed and I was paged. Snapshot didn’t commit, parent VMDK could not be found, had to manually set Parent CID in the delta VMDK file then finally when I got it back online the SQL DB was corrupt :( — luckily I had a full SQL backup from the night before.

This is where VMware KB 1007969 comes into the story…

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Created on April 14, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Storage.

This blog has 5,259 views and 6 responses.

Tags: CID, commit, esx, esxi, snapshot, vcb, vmdk

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Doing some speed tests of IP based storage gave me some good results. First I enabled Jumbo frames on my dedicated IP storage Ethernet card, then I set the MTU on the vSwitch and the VMKnic to 9000 (Scott Lowe has a great write-up on doing this on his website). I then mounted a NFS volume as Datastore and did a copy of a VMDK file which currently resides on a 7200rpm SATA 3 drive to the mounted NFS volume.

I copied the 8GB file in under 2 minutes and my average MbTX/s was around 525Mb (65MBps) – keep in mind, this was a copy from a local SATA disk (low IOPS) and I was able to get around 65MBps — not bad!

The biggest thing to remember, VMDK access needs low latency…not high throughput — this is why NFS has become so popular for VMDK storage.

Created on April 7, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under Networking, Storage.

This blog has 2,905 views and no responses.

Tags: nfs, speed, test, throughput, vmdk

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I’ve been quite busy the last couple weeks, so busy that I’ve neglected VMwareTips.com for far too long!  Today I’d like to tell you about an exciting upcoming release for IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) and NetApp SnapMirror users.

NetApp announced a couple weeks back the integration of NetApp SnapMirror to Tape and Snapshot technologies with IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) 6. As a result, NetApp and IBM customers using TSM 6 will experience enhanced backup capabilities for data stored on NetApp FAS storage devices.

TSM 6 leverages NetApp SnapMirror to Tape technology, enabling customers to use TSM Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) support to back up FAS volumes directly to tape or across the network to any tape device managed by TSM. This can be done without having to scan each volume to find new and changed files, helping reduce the amount of time customers need to back up their FAS systems, which can make the backup process up to 12 times faster.

TSM 6 also leverages NetApp Snapshot technology to reduce progressive incremental file backup time by comparing the current backup Snapshot copy with the previous backup Snapshot copy to identify new, changed, and deleted files. Traditional backup scans of large file systems can take hours. However, TSM 6, together with NetApp Snapshot technology, completes the identification of new, changed, and deleted files in seconds, drastically reducing the amount of time customers need to complete NetApp file system backups with TSM.

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Created on February 19, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under Backup & Recovery, NetApp, Storage.

This blog has 7,252 views and 7 responses.

Tags: fas, NetApp, smvi, snapmirror, tsm, vcb, VMware

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Most people have never heard about NetApp’s Rapid Cloning Utility (RCU) for VMware. This tool is the magic behind the famous YouTube video that show how NetApp can very quickly create and deploy a very large number of Virtual Desktops, while using very little disk space on the filer. With desktop virtualization being hot right now this is a great tool to get to know and use. The tool is available on the NOW tool chest (a free website for NetApp customers and partners).

In this video below, NetApp demonstrates the cost savings of their zero disk cost provisioning and data deduplication software. 5000 Virtual Desktops provisioned in minutes, while only taking a little over 10GB storage.

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Created on February 5, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Good Reading, NetApp, Storage, VMware.

This blog has 3,193 views and 5 responses.

Tags: desktops, NetApp, rapid cloning, rcu, vdi, VMware, vmware view

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Live Webcast Protect Your Virtualized Environment Automated Backup and Disaster Recovery Is Within Your Reach Join us for a live Webcast and hear Rick Scherer, San Diego Data Processing Corporation, discuss his team’s strategy for protecting over 300 virtual machines from system, storage, network, and facility failures. Register Now Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009 Time: 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Pacific 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Eastern Outlook Reminder Technical experts from NetApp and VMware will also discuss how you can use SnapManager® for Virtual Infrastructure and VMware® Site Recovery Manager to: Cost-effectively automate disaster recovery. Eliminate host-server bottlenecks with instantaneous virtual machine backups. Implement policy-based backups using Snapshot™ technology. Use 50% less storage with NetApp. Guaranteed.* Bonus Offer Virtual Protection Resource Kit Can’t Make It? Click here to register now and gain access to content and special offers after the event.

Created on February 5, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under Backup & Recovery, Conferences, NetApp, Storage, VMware.

This blog has 1,705 views and 2 responses.

Tags: NetApp, protection, Storage, VMware, webcast

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Idealstor, a leading developer of disk-to-disk backup solutions, announced today the release of iBac VIP for VMware Virtual Center.  iBac VIP for Virtual Center was created to simplify VMware backups by offering a single license that backs up every virtual machine regardless of how many ESX hosts have been implemented.

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Created on February 2, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under Backup & Recovery, Storage.

This blog has 2,360 views and no responses.

Tags: backup, esx, esxi, ibak, idealstor, vcb

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In a previous article I discuss how an ESX host can halt if LUN metadata updates are done the same time a LUN path fails.  Thankfully VMware has released a patch for this problem, along with a few others.  I strongly suggest you to upgrade if your running VMware ESX 3.5 U3 and block level storage.

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Created on February 2, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Storage.

This blog has 3,417 views and no responses.

Tags: esx, esxi, patch

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In the twitter queue today I heard a new VMware KB has been released in regards to a potential SAN failure (FibreChannel and iSCSI).  More information and the most recent updates can be found on the VMware KB.  I’ve included a breakdown of the issue and resolution, which can be found below.

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Created on January 12, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Storage.

This blog has 9,181 views and 7 responses.

Tags: esx, esxi, failure, fcp, fibre channel, hung, i/o, iscsi, Storage

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A customer of mine with a small ESX deployment ran into some major grief this week with their MSA1500.  Unfortunately for them, it took 3 days for them to pick up the phone and get hold of me. This isn’t the first time I’ve ran into a problem caused by an MSA1500, and it will not be the last.  Symptoms start out minimal, VMs appear to be running slow…systems unresponsive…then BOOM all out catastrophic failure!

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Created on January 9, 2009 by Rick Scherer

Posted under Storage.

This blog has 7,406 views and 15 responses.

Tags: errors, esx, fibre, hp, msa1500, reservation, scsi, Storage

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