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NetApp Flash Cache and 64 bit Aggregates

May 26, 2010 By mike View Comments

I was talking with a local NetApp SE the other day and the subject came up about the Flash Cache (formerly Performance Acceleration Module, or PAM) card and 64 bit aggregates in ONTAP 8.0  The issue, he told me, is that currently the Flash Cache cards are not compatible with 64 bit aggregates in ONTAP 8 – however they do work with 32 bit aggregates in ONTAP 8 and of course in ONTAP 7G.

I wasn’t able to find anything on the NOW site to confirm or deny this, he mentioned this only affected the newer PCIe based Flash Cache cards (256GB and 512GB)  the older, original PAM card (16GB) does work with 64bit aggregates.

The only thing I can find on the NOW site that talks about 64bit aggregates with PAM is from TR-3786:

10.6 PERFORMANCE ACCELERATION MODULE

A Performance Acceleration Module (PAM) can optimize the performance of your random read intensive workloads such as file services and messaging. PAM works with 64-bit aggregates as well as 32-bit aggregates and caches data that is coming from volumes located in both types of aggregates. PAM caches data based on data access regardless of the aggregate type.

The data cached in PAM while the system is in operation depends on the workload, and it can be a combination of data from volumes contained in different aggregates. There is no way to let PAM cache data only from a particular aggregate type. As noted in other sections of this document, 64-bit aggregates have a bigger address space and also take more memory for their metadata than 32-bit aggregates. This might reduce the total amount of effective data that can be cached in PAM when used with 64-bit aggregates present in the system.

However since they are referring to it as PAM and not Flash Cache I’m not sure if they are talking about the 16GB card that the NetApp SE said would still work or if this document is saying the newer card will work too and just hasn’t been updated to reflect the new product name.  Anyone out there able to shed some light on this?  I would love to know the details.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Filed Under: Featured, NetApp, ONTAP

VMware Announces “VMware Certified Advanced Professional” – VCAP

May 24, 2010 By mike View Comments

VMware announced a new certification today, the VMware Certified Advanced Professional this certification sits between the VCP and VCDX and is based on vSphere.  To achieve VCAP you need to pass two exams – the Datacenter Administration and the Datacenter Design (and currently have your VCP4).

The Datacenter Administration exam is available starting July 12th.

I’ll be posting my notes on the exam blueprints once they are available and hopefully will earn VCAP status!

More info from VMware’s site

Popularity: 5% [?]

Filed Under: Certification, VMware

VMware Data Recovery (vDR) for Home Lab

May 23, 2010 By mike View Comments

Overview

My goal was to backup my current VMware environment running on my NetApp FAS270 to a cheap 1TB SATA disk that is attached to the ESX host.  Space is at a premium on the NetApp so using NetApp backup tools isn’t an option.

vDR Documentation

vDR Download Link

Installation

vDR is pretty flexible with backup destinations – you can choose to back up VMs to a CIFS share, VMDK, or RDM.  As I mentioned before I wanted to have my backups on a 1TB SATA drive that I have connected into my whitebox ESX host.  What I liked about this approach is I can keep my “production” virtual machines on my NetApp FAS270 and the backups on the single 1TB SATA disk.  A few of the benefits of vDR:

  • Uses changed block tracking (if the VM hardware is version 7) to only send the changed data blocks to the backup destination
  • Ability to expand the storage destination on the fly (up to 2 1TB dedupe volumes per backup appliance)
  • Deduplication

My first step was to create a VMFS datastore on the 1TB SATA disk, knowing that you could have up to (2) 1TB dedupe volumes per backup appliance I formatted the datastore with a 4MB block size.

I ran into an issue creating a datastore on the SATA volume, it gave me an error that said “failed to get disk partition information” I found that the drive was using a GUID partition table and needed to resolve that (covered in a separate blog post).

At this point I had the datastore I wanted to use ready, and I had the ISO from VMware downloaded and mounted on my vCenter server (which is a VM).

Then click to install the Data Recovery Client Plug-In

After the install is completed open the vSphere Client and go to Manage Plug-Ins and make sure that VMware Data Recovery is enabled.

Now that the client is installed it’s time to install the vDR backup appliance, from the vSphere Client go to File –> Deploy OVF Template

Select the option to Deploy From File and click Browse

Browse to the VMware Data Recovery CD and go into the VMwareDataRecovery-ovf folder, select the VMwareDataRecovery_OVF10.ovf file and click Open.

Continue through selecting the default options, when you get to the IP Address Allocation screen you will have to leave it at DHCP – you can set a static IP address later through the vDR console after it boots up.

After it is done importing, edit the settings of the virtual machine and add another hard drive.  In my case this VMDK will reside on the backup datastore I created from my 1TB SATA disk.

Power on the vDR virtual machine and after it boots select Configure Network and assign the appropriate network information

Plug-In Configuration

From the vSphere Client select Solutions and Applications –> VMware Data Recovery.  Enter the IP address of the vDR and select Connect. Enter the appropriate username/password when prompted.

Backups

By default it will create Backup Job 1, click Edit on this job.  I needed to format the VMDK I gave the vDR appliance yet, after you format the volume it will automatically mount it as well.

On the next screen you can set your Backup Window times, see the note at the bottom of the post about backups that exceed backup window times.

On the next screen you can define your retention policy.

It automatically kicks off the first backup job, and I can see the backup when I click on the Restore tab

Notes

  • The default schedule for backups is Monday through Friday at night, as well as Saturday and Sunday.  vDR will attempt to backup the VM once per day, however if the backup does not complete during it’s backup window the backup will not continue – it will stop and resume during the next backup window.  Something to keep in mind if you are backing up a large amount of virtual machines (the maximum is 100)
  • Does not backup templates
  • vDR from what I have seen/read is not fully ready for large enterprise deployments.  Judging by some of the posts on the VMware communities site it may not even be ready for smaller deployments but since this is just a home lab I decided to give it a go and get more familiar with it.  I’m expecting to swap it out for something else at some point in the future.
  • This is a simple disk to disk based backup, it does not (by default) allow you to do disk to tape, although this document seems to go over the subject.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Filed Under: Backup, Data Recovery, VMware Tagged With: Backup, vDR, VMware, VMware Data Recovery

Configuring PIX 515 with Comcast

May 15, 2010 By mike View Comments

In my last blog post I was updating my PIX 515 software to a more recent version. My next step was to get it working on Comcast.

c515-1> enable
c515-1# conf t
Configure e0 (outside interface) to get DHCP address from Comcast
c515-1(config)# int e0
c515-1(config-if)# ip address dhcp setroute
c515-1(config-if)# no shut
Configure e1 (inside interface) as 10.0.10.1
c515-1(config-if)# int e1
c515-1(config-if)# ip address  10.0.10.1 255.255.255.0
Configure NAT (Perform NAT on all addresses in the 10.0.10.x subnet)
c515-1(config)# nat (inside) 1 10.0.10.0 255.255.255.0
Configure Global Address
c515-1(config)# global (outside) 1 interface

I still have a(n extremely) basic config, e0 is the interface connected to my cable modem which is receiving it’s IP address via DHCP from Comcast. My internal interface is e1 which is statically set to 10.0.10.1. Next I need to get DHCP configured on the 515, put my current wireless solution (Apple Airport Extreme) into bridge mode and eventually have it be replaced by a Cisco AP. I’ll also be adding different vlans into my network for separating some things out but for now I wanted to make blog posts on the individual steps.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Filed Under: Home Lab, Networking

How I’ve Used My iPad

May 9, 2010 By mike View Comments

I’ve had my iPad now since April 30th, and I have to say – I’m using it a lot more then I thought I would be.  It’s hardly out of my hands when I’m at home.  I had both a Kindle 2 and a Kindle DX but returned both as I wasn’t satisfied with the PDF support.  When I saw iAnnotate PDF for iPad I knew I’d be buying one.  I knew when I got it I’d be using it to read a lot (Instapaper, GoodReader etc, all things I do now with my iPhone) but I didn’t realize how much I’d use it for other things.

Apps I Use

  • Evernote: synchronize notes/recordings/screenshots with iPad/iPhone/Mac
  • iSSH: Allows me to SSH into my home lab, I like iSSH because it’s for both iPhone and iPad.  This is one app where not having arrow keys is a PITA.  I haven’t tried connecting an external keyboard yet (I have the older Apple Bluetooth keyboard which apparently is not supported) to see if the arrow keys work then.
  • Instapaper: LOVE this app, install a bookmarklet in your browser and it will convert it to a nice and easy to read version.  Also works on both iPhone/iPad
  • Wyse PocketCloud: Lets me connect to VMware View environments (as well as RDP).  Works much better then a lot of the other RDP apps I had tried, but it still takes 10x longer to do things then just using an actual computer
  • iAnnotate PDF: This was one of the apps I was most looking forward to, being able to highlight and make notes in PDF and them send them back to myself.  Unfortunately the interface isn’t really the best and I find myself just using GoodReader instead
  • GoodReader: Great PDF reader and supports connecting to Dropbox
  • NewsRack: RSS Reader that syncs with Google Reader.  I use Reeder on my iPhone which I love but unfortunately they don’t have an iPad version.  NewsRack is a good alternative (and has an iPhone version as well).
  • 1Password: Great for securely storing logins (work, personal, home lab), WIFI connection info, etc.  iPhone and iPad versions
  • Wolfram Alpha: I end up using this a lot as a calculator but it’s also nice to be able to do quick conversions with – downside of course is it requires internet access to use.  I wouldn’t consider this a must have but it’s a nice app.
  • SharePlus: I’m only using the free version but it works really nice for connecting to our corporate SharePoint site, I can view MS Office docs with it (although it was a little tricky to figure out how to do this!).  v2 Should have editing support as well.  Viewing SharePoint calendars does not work well at all, it just displays them in a large list and seems to be sorted by when the event was added to SharePoint, not when it actually occurs.
  • PaperDesk: I looked at quite a few note taking apps and kind of settled on this one, I wanted one that can do more then just write (eg Penultimate) and the latest update has the ability to use the VGA adapter and display the whiteboard on a projector.  I don’t like that you can’t just make text boxes wherever you want, you are stuck in a word processing mode (Sundry Notes can do this) which can be a pain if you use text notes and diagrams together.  Note:  I just started using Notetaker HD which deals with handwriting a little better in my opinion (there is an entry box at the bottom instead of writing directly on the page).
  • Videos: This is just the default app that comes with the iPad but I love that I can have all of my TrainSignal, VMworld, NetApp Insight etc videos on here.  I tried this with my iPhone but the screen is just too small for a lot of the presentations.

Apps I’d Like

  • Tweetie: Love this app on my iPhone but I personally don’t like any of the current native iPad Twitter clients.
  • Delicious: I use delicious.com quite a bit for my bookmarking and it’d be nice to see a native app for this too, for now I’ve just been using the web interface which can get the job done.
  • Skype: I use the iPhone version of it now but I’d love a native Skype (especially one that supports push notifications).  The microphone on the iPhone headphones works with the iPad (and it obviously has Bluetooth) which could make for a great VoIP solution – and just think if iPad v2 has a front facing camera
  • OmniOutliner: This app is on its way from what I read on their blog but I still can’t wait.  I use this app all the time on my MBP.
  • OmniFocus: Currently using the iPhone version of it but I’d love to get a more desktop like iPad version, I use OF pretty heavily with my GTD setup

Features I’d Like

  • Better support for getting data between apps, example:  GoodReader can tie into mail so I can open attachments in GoodReader which is great, however I wish I could then save it to Dropbox without needing to use my laptop.  I’d love to be able to save from iAnnotate PDF directly to my Dropbox account (and really this could be solved if Dropbox had an email address associated with your account similar to Evernote).

Accessories I Use

I had a hard time finding a case I liked, I purchased the Apple case but I personally am not a fan.  The edges are a little “odd” and I wanted something that could hold a few business cards, business receipts etc.  I finally found this case on Amazon and though I haven’t received it yet I think it will be what I’m looking for:

  • Zippered case so I don’t lose anything
  • Pockets for receipts and business cards
  • Spot to keep a Pogo Stylus

I didn’t go for any type of iPad specific dock or stand, instead I went with a study stand which seems to work just fine and cost around $5.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Filed Under: Apple, Featured, iPad Tagged With: Apple, iPad

Cisco PIX 515 for Home Lab

May 8, 2010 By mike View Comments

Installing a 3des License

3des license is now available for free from Cisco, and since my PIX didn’t have a 3des license I headed over to this link to get it for free.

Upgrading IOS to Latest Version

Memory Upgrade

Since I have a PIX 515 (not a 515e) I needed to upgrade the flash from monitor mode.  The current version on it was 6.3 and I wanted it to be at least v7 as I wanted to be able to use it as a transparent firewall.

The first step was to upgrade the memory as the 515 only had 32mb, so I added a PIX-515-MEM-32 to get to 64mb DRAM

IOS Upgrade

pix515# write net <tftp server ip>:pixconfig

Now reload the PIX and send a break to enter monitor mode

monitor> interface 1
monitor> address <ip address>
monitor> server <tftp server address>
monitor> file pix704.bin
monitor> tftp

Once the new PIX image is booted, run the following:

pix515> enable
pix515# copy tftp flash

After that I did the same exact process to get to version 8.0(4)

Popularity: 4% [?]

Filed Under: Home Lab, Networking Tagged With: cisco, Home Lab, pix 515