StorageNerve

Symmetrix BIN file

Devang Panchigar — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:02:04 PST

EMC Symmetrix BIN file, largely an unknown topic in the storage industry and practically there is no available information related to it. This post is just an attempt to shed some light as to what a BIN file is, how it works, what’s in it and why is it essential with the Enginuity code.
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Some EMC folks have capitalized on the BIN file as to the personality it brings to the Symmetrix, while the EMC competition always uses it against them as it introduces complexities in the storage environment with management and change control.

Personally I feel a Symmetrix wouldn’t be a Symmetrix if the BIN file weren’t there. The personality, characteristics, robustness, compatibility, flexibility, integration with OS’s, etc wouldn’t be there if the BIN file didn’t exist.

With the total number of OS’s, device types, channel interfaces and flags it supports today, sort of making it one of the most compatible storage arrays in the market. The configuration and compatibility on the Symmetrix can be verified using the E-Lab navigator available on Powerlink.

So here are some facts about the BIN file

Only used with Symmetrix systems (Enginuity Code)
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BIN file stands for BINARY file.
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BIN file holds all information about the Symmetrix configuration
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One BIN file per system serial number is required.
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BIN file was used with Symmetrix Gen 1 in 1990 and is still used in 2010 with Symmetrix V-Max systems.
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BIN file holds information on SRDF configurations, total memory, memory in slots, serial number of the unit, number of directors, type of directors, director flags, engines, engine ports, front end ports, back end ports, drives on the loop, drives on the SCSI bus, number of drives per loop, drive types in the slots, drive speeds, volume addresses, volume types, meta’s, device flags and many more settings.
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The setup for host connection if the OS is Open Systems or Mainframe environments using FICON, ESCON, GbE, FC, RF, etc is all defined in the BIN file. Also director emulations, drive formats if OSD or CKD, format types, drive speeds, etc is all defined in the BIN file.
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BIN file is required to make a system active. It is created based on customer specifications and installed by EMC during the initial setup.
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Any ongoing changes in the environment related to hardware upgrades, defining devices, changing flags, etc is all accomplished using BIN file changes.
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BIN file changes can be accomplished 3 ways.
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BIN file change for hardware upgrades is typically performed by EMC only.
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BIN file change for other changes that are device, director, flags, meta’s, SRDF configurations etc is either performed through the SYMAPI infrastructure using SymCLI or ECC (Now Ionix) or SMC (Symmetrix Management Console) by the customer. (Edited based on the comments: Only some changes now require traditional BIN file change, typically others are performed using sys calls in enginuity environment)
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Solutions enabler is required on the Symcli, ECC, SMC management stations to enable SYMAPI infrastructure to operate.
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VCMDB needs to be setup on the Symmetrix for SymCLI, ECC, SMC related changes to work.
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Gatekeeper devices need to be setup on the Symmetrix front end ports for SymCLI, ECC, SMC changes to work
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For Symmetrix Optimizer to work in your environment, you need DRV devices setup on your Symmetrix.(EDITED based on comments: Only required until DMX platform. Going forward with DMX3/4 & V-Max platforms it uses sys calls to perform these Optimizer changes).

Back in the day

All and any BIN file changes on the Symmetrix 3.0, Symmetrix 4.0 used to be performed by EMC from the Service Processor. Over the years with introduction of SYMAPI and other layered software products, now seldom is EMC involved in the upgrade process.

Hardware upgrades

BIN File changes typically have to be initiated and performed by EMC, again these are the hardware upgrades. If the customer is looking at adding 32GB’s of Cache to the existing DMX-4 system or adding new Front End connectivity or upgrading 1200 drive system to 1920 drives, all these require BIN file changes initiated and performed by EMC. To my understanding the turn around time is just a few days with these changes, as it requires change control and other processes within EMC.

Customer initiated changes

Configuration changes around front end ports, creating volumes, creating meta’s, volume flags, host connectivity, configuration flags, SRDF volume configurations, SRDF replication configurations, etc can all be accomplished through the customer end using the SYMAPI infrastructure (with SymCLI or ECC or SMC).

Enginuity upgrade

Upgrading the microcode (Enginuity) on a DMX or a V-Max is not a BIN file change, but rather is a code upgrade. Back in the days, many upgrades were performed offline, but in this day and age, all changes are online and accomplished with minimum pains.

Today

So EMC has moved quite ahead with the Symmetrix architecture over the past 20 years, but the underlying BIN file change requirements haven’t changed over these 8 generations of Symmetrix.

Any and all BIN file changes are recommended to be done during quite times (less IOPS), at schedule change control times. Again these would include the ones that EMC is performing from a hardware perspective or the customer is performing for device/flag changes.

The process

During the process of a BIN file change, the configuration file typically ending with the name *.BIN is loaded to all the frontend directors, backend directors, including the global cache. After the upload, the system is refreshed with this new file in the global cache and the process makes the new configuration changes active. This process of refresh is called IML (Initial Memory Load) and the BIN file is typically called IMPL (Initial Memory Program Load) file.

A customer initiated BIN file works in a similar way, where the SYMAPI infrastructure that resides on the service processor allows the customer to interface with the Symmetrix to perform these changes. During this process, the scripts verify that the customer configurations are valid and then perform the changes and make the new configuration active.

To query the Symmetrix system for configuration details, reference the SymCLI guide. Some standard commands to query your system would include symcfg, symcli, symdev, symdisk, symdrv, symevent, symhost, symgate, syminq, symstat commands and will help you navigate and find all the necessary details related to your Symmetrix. Also similar information in a GUI can be obtained using ECC and SMC. Both will allow the customer to initiate SYMAPI changes.

Unless something has changed with the V-Max, typically to get an excel based representation of your BIN file, ask your EMC CE.

Issues

You cannot run two BIN files in a single system, though at times the system can end up in a state where you can have multiple BIN files on various directors. This phenomenon typically doesn’t happen to often, but an automated script when not finished properly can put the system in this state. At this point the Symmetrix will initiate a call home immediately and the PSE labs should typically be able to resolve these issues.

Additional software like Symmetrix Optimizer also uses the underlying BIN file infrastructure to make changes to the storage array to move hot and cold devices based on the required defined criteria. There have been quite a few known cases of Symmetrix Optimizer causing the above phenomenon of multiple BIN files. , Though many critics will disagree with that statement. (EDITED based on comments: Only required until DMX platform. Going forward with DMX3/4 & V-Max platforms it uses sys calls to perform these Optimizer changes).

NOTE: One piece of advice, never run SYMCLI or ECC scripts for BIN file changes through a VPN connected desktop or laptop. Always run all necessary SymCLI / SMC / ECC scripts for changes from a server in your local environment. Very highly recommend, never attempt to administer your Symmetrix system with an iPhone or a Blackberry.

Hope in your quest to get more information on BIN files, this serves as the starting point..

Cheers
@storagenerve

Symmetrix File System (SFS)

Devang Panchigar — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:53:41 PST

Very little is known about the Symmetrix File System largely known as SFS. Symmetrix File System is an EMC IP and practically only used within the Symmetrix environment for housekeeping, security, access control, stats collection, performance data, algorithm selection, etc.

If there are any facts about SFS that are known to you, please feel free to leave a comment. This post talks about the effects of SFS and not really the underlying file system architecture.

Some facts about the Symmetrix File System are highlighted below.

Symmetrix File System (SFS) resides on volumes that have specially been created for this purpose on the Symmetrix
SFS volumes are created during the initial Enginuity Operating Environment load (Initial install)
4 Volumes (2 Mirrored Pairs) are created during this process
SFS volumes were introduced with Symmetrix Series 8000, Enginuity 5567 and 5568

Characteristics

4 SFS volumes are spread across multiple Disk Directors (Backend Ports) for redundancy
SFS volumes are considered as reserved space and not available to use by the host
Symmetrix 8000 Series: 4 SFS volumes, 3GB each (cylinder size 6140). Reserved space is 3GB x 4 vols = 12 GB total
Symmetrix DMX/DMX-2: 4 SFS volumes, 3GB each (cylinder size 6140). Reserved space is 3GB x 4 vols = 12 GB total
Symmetrix DMX-3/DMX-4: 4 SFS volumes, 6GB each (cylinder size 6140). Reserved space is 6GB x 4 vols = 24 GB total, (It’s different how the GB is calculated based on cylinder size on a DMX/DMX-2 vs a DMX-3/DMX-4)
Symmetrix V-Max: 4 SFS volumes, 16GB each, Reserved space is 16GB x 4 vols = 64GB total
SFS volumes cannot reside on EFD (Enterprise Flash Drives)
SFS volumes cannot be moved using FAST v1 and/or FAST v2
SFS volumes cannot be moved using Symmetrix Optimizer
SFS volumes cannot reside on Vault Drives or Save Volumes
SFS volumes are specific to a Symmetrix (Serial Number) and do not need migration
SFS volumes are managed through Disk Directors (Backend Ports) only
SFS volumes cannot be mapped to Fiber Directors (now FE – Frontend Ports)

Effects

SFS volumes are write enabled but can only be interfaced and managed through the Disk directors (Backend Ports).
SFS volumes can go write disabled, which could cause issues around VCM DB. VCM DB issues can cause host path and disk access issues.
SFS volume corruption can cause hosts to lose access to disk volumes.
If SFS volumes get un-mounted on a Fiber Director (Frontend Port), can result into DU (Data Unavailable) situations.

Fixes

Since the SFS volumes are only interfaced through the Disk Directors (Backend Ports), the PSE lab will need to be involved in fixing any issues.
SFS volumes can be VTOC’ed (formatted) and some key information below will need to be restored upon completion. Again this function can only be performed by PSE lab.
SFS volumes can be formatted while the Symmetrix is running, but in a SCSI-3 PGR reservation environment it will cause a cluster outage and/or a split brain.
No Symmetrix software (Timefinder, SYMCLI, ECC, etc) will be able to interface the system while the SFS volumes are being formatted.
The security auditing / access control feature is disabled during the format of SFS volumes, causing any Symmetrix internal or external software to stop functioning.
Access Control Database and SRDF host components / group settings will need to be restored after the SFS format

Access / Use case

Any BIN file changes to map SFS volumes to host will fail.
SFS volumes cannot be managed through SYMCLI or the Service Processor without PSE help.
SYMAPI (infrastructure) works along with SYMMWIN and SFS volumes to obtain locks, etc during any SYMCLI / SYMMWIN / ECC activity (eg. Bin Changes).
Since FAST v1 and FAST v2 reside as a policy engine outside the Symmetrix, it uses the underlying SFS volumes for changes (locks, etc).
Performance data relating to FAST would be collected within the SFS volumes, which FAST policy engine uses to gauge performance.
Performance data relating to Symmetrix Optimizer would be collected within the SFS volumes, which Optimizer uses to gauge performance.
Other performance data collected for the DMSP (Dynamic Mirror Service Policy).
All Audit logs, security logs, access control database, ACL’s etc is all stored within the SFS volumes.
All SYMCLI, SYMAPI, Solutions enabler, host, interface, devices, access control related data is gathered on the SFS volumes.
With the DMX-4 and the V-Max, all service process access, service processor initiated actions, denied attempts; RSA logs, etc are all stored on SFS volumes.

Unknowns

SFS structure is unknown
SFS architecture is unknown
SFS garbage collection and discard policy is unknown
SFS records stored, indexing, etc is unknown
SFS inode structures, function calls, security settings, etc is unknown

As more information gets available, I will try to update this post. Hope this is useful with your research on SFS volumes…

Cheers

@storagenerve

HP Blades Day 2010: Paul Perez [CTO, Storageworks]

Devang Panchigar — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:36:34 PST

During HP Blades Day 2010, we had a 30 min chat with Paul Perez -- HP CTO, Storageworks Division.

Some of the highlights of the discussion with Paul are below

One master provisioning stack for all Storage
VDI solution from HP
Integration of IBRIX and Lefthand – Common Management Infrastructure
Proliant features of power management etc, to be passed onto the IBRIX and Lefthand with Convergence
Customer References
Bottlenecks in networking and storage today
Stranded pools of IP (Intellectual Property) within HP, Integration challenges
DataDomain
Integration of HP EVA teams with HP Unified Storage Division
Storage Tiering
“Memristor” – HP Labs
IBRIX SSD
Industry Consolidation, business models
Convergence is Next Gen

The Video – Paul Perez Unplugged

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

HP Blades Day 2010: HP POD Tour

Devang Panchigar — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:09:25 PST

As part of the HP Blades Day, HP showed us a demo of the mobile datacenters that HP manufacturers and sells as Performance Optimized Datacenters (POD).

Though we didn’t get to see the manufacturing of this POD, they showed one of these POD’s sitting in their parking lot.

This thing was massive, a size of a tractor trailer with its weight around 100,000 pounds. Though these datacenters are not very mobile, they are used for customers that may need additional computation power or has on-demand computing. I would think these are probably available to buy by a customer and possibly lease.

Here is the video of HP POD Tour that was given to us at HP Houston, TX facilities, quite an impressive setup. Unfortunately we were not able to go inside the POD, we took pictures and movies outside the POD.

The only thing that needs to be connected to these POD’s are electric connection for power and cooling. Additional resources would include network/fiber connections etc. Not just one POD, but you can have a warehouse full of POD’s used as datacenter.

These typically cost 60 to 70% of a regular brick built datacenter and is at least 40% more efficient.

Hope you enjoy the video…

Cheers

@storagenerve

Disclaimer: This event is sponsored by HP and hosted in Houston, TX. HP paid all the flight, living and mostly food expenses. This is a bloggers – invitation only event. No products have been given by HP.

HP Blades Day 2010: Final Thoughts

Devang Panchigar — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:58:15 PST

This is my 5^th consecutive post on HP Blades day. So far no videos have been uploaded, just the coverage of the event and pictures. This post primarily focuses on what I feel we saw at HP in terms of things that will help them, challenges in the market and where all this may go.

There has been at least 6 to 8 hours of video recording on my flip camera; starting tomorrow I will upload these videos only of the most interesting sessions on the blog.

Satellite View of HP Facilities in Houston, TX

The coverage of the event can also be found on Greg Knieriemen’s Infosmack Podcast on Storage Monkeys, here.

Positives

This event was a very smart move by HP and as far as I can see they have exceeded their expectations with this event. Though I felt the twitter activity with HP Tech Day (Storage, #hptechday) was much higher than what we saw with this event HP Blades Day (Blades, #hpbladesday). Though the after discussions have taken over the blogging, twitter and the Internet press by surprise with the number of tweets, blogs and press articles written about this event.

Clearly for me this was a good platform to learn, understand and share some visions and technologies related to HP Blade products. I have been a storage focused individual, but only with a shallow knowledge of the blades architecture and infrastructure. This was a great event for myself to understand the depth of these products and take a deep dive into the interworking of converged infrastructure. An Event like this helps understand and connect the dots together with future products and emerging technologies. As this was a non-NDA event, we didn’t have preview to the next generation of HP Blade products.

One thing that is pretty visible and positive is that HP has managed to mobilize resources in the direction of integrating internal resources relating to converged infrastructure. Though its obvious and again visible that at places, they have not been able to fulfill that dream entirely.

There were some awkward moments where the engineering teams were asked to not do a deep-dive on other vendor technologies. The marketing folks spoke about some strategy related to these technologies and painted an overall picture. The mix of people involved with the presentations and demos seem to accomplish the agenda. Marketing pitches by social media and marketing teams along with engineering details by the architecture teams seemed to accomplish their goals.

The highlight of the sessions were a 45 min talk with the CTO of StorageWorks, Paul Perez and the competitive intelligence session that was hosted my Gary Thome and his team to compare HP Blades products with Dell, IBM and Cisco UCS. Discussions around CEE and Virtual Connect were pretty interesting.

HP emphasized the 250 million dollar investment with Microsoft over and over during the HP Blades Day. This proves that they value this partnership heavily and possibly have a roadmap associated in the future with great integration with Microsoft products.

Challenges

HP emphasizes a lot on converged datacenters and the products it’s gearing for the next generation. But an integration vision from a convergence management was still lacking, a direction or a strategy on how these pieces of puzzle will be joined together and managed. HP clearly owns all the stacks of the next generation products, but again the orchestration and integration is one thing that is not very clear yet. Say too big and too much to manage!!!

With Networking products and the focus on Virtual Connect, HP seems to be moving in the right direction, but again when it comes to FCoE and CEE (Converged Enhanced Ethernet) the direction is pretty unknown. It’s sort of wait and watch as to where the market goes and drives demands, a lack of vision in real terms. HP clearly has a big competition from Cisco when it comes to the Networking stack.

With Storage products, HP clearly has a very big competition with already proven Vendors and their technologies like EMC, NetApp and IBM. Also technologies that are strong and emerging would largely cause market nuisance or focus disruption for HP.

With the Blade products, HP is a market leader, but truly considers Dell, IBM and Cisco as the biggest threats and sort of prepared to fight against it. Seems the next generation Rack and Blade products might seem to have a lot of integration with storage and networking.

The services story, with the acquisition of EDS, HP made a move in the right direction being the first in the market to do so. With the latest acquisitions from Dell of Perot Systems, from Oracle of SUN Microsystems and by Xerox of ACS, large vendors are all trying to fulfill the services gap. HP clearly has a big competition with IBM and Oracle in the space.

The VCE (VMware, Cisco, EMC) coalition: What are your thoughts. It’s pretty amazing to see HP not mention the word ‘cloud’ these two days. Focus has been virtualization and the partnership with VMware, but really no focus on moving toward utility market and integration of all next gen products for converged datacenters with the underlying virtualization layer. May be the Microsoft partnership may fulfill this.

VMware or Microsoft: They didn’t say this, but seems something is cooking. The partnership with Microsoft and the investment of 250 million dollars will create some friction with VMware, at least my guess. Next gen products may utilize Hyper-V as an underlying virtualization layer rather than using the default VMware Hypervisor.

HP still needs a very strong storage technology in the Enterprise space that is their own and not OEM’d. The truth is, eventually the HP – Hitachi relationship has to come to an end with HP’s new product that may compete in the same market space. This strategy will enable HP to be very unique in terms of the markets they serve, which may include their own in-house storage products for SMB, Midsize and Enterprise customers.

So other lacking things from HP were the Cloud Strategy (if they ever plan to enter that space), FCoE discussions, Procurve and Storage Management as it relates to Insight Software.

It may have been very hard to cover all these platforms in a day and a half with giving all the technology details behind it. Also remember this was a non-NDA session, so we were not preview to all the future products and technologies.

Summary

Overall HP did hammer us for 2 consecutive days with HP Blades Technology. Coming out of it, I can truly say, HP had so much focus on datacenter convergence. Their move to hire Dave Donatelli was a smart one many of his strategic moves and direction in the ESSN (Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking) are pretty visible now.

Apart from GestaltIT Techfield Day, HP is still the only OEM to arrange Bloggers Invite Only Event. The ratio of Bloggers to HP Personnel was 1:2, giving everyone a lot of attention.

Now the question is who will be next OEM to do a similar event and what will they do to prove themselves different. Already hearing some buzz in the industry about some the effects of HP Blades Day and some possible events from other OEMs.

But I clearly see an advantage of an event like this and the after effects of it, good move HP Marketing Team! Along with Ivy Worldwide!!

HP Blades Day 2010: Friday – Day 2

Devang Panchigar — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:00:24 PST

Again an early AM start today, with a busy schedule ahead at HPBladesday.

The day kicked off with some Q&A on the topics covered from the previous day. We all had full access to the team from yesterday to see if there were any questions.

Most of the questions were around FCoE, Convergence, Blades infrastructure and the discussion on the Tolly Report.

Tolly Report

Some discussions on this report by Stephen Foskett

Some discussions on this report by Kevin Houston

After the Q&A session, Joseph George took the stage with a presentation on Client Virtualization and HP product overview; covering the VDI solutions offered my HP. This was an insightful presentation on how the HP blades and software infrastructure can be used with VDI.

Joseph George

Kevin Houston, Rich Brambley, Simon Seagrave

Martin Macleod and the HP Team

After a demo of the Client Virtualization lab, we went for the Factory Express tour.

Chris Evans

The factory express tour was presented my Denise Herdman, Jean Brandau and Wade Vinson. We all got to see how the HP systems were assembled both the Servers and Storage in different factories. How they performed quality testing, how they were all packaged, etc. This was a great tour of the facilities giving us a full access to how supply chain works within HP from a customer entering an order to how the equipment is fulfilled. Quite an operation….

Greg - www.iknerd.com

After the factory express, we were given the HP pod (performance optimized datacenter) tour; think of this as a datacenter in a trailer. Wow…. it was impressive. Here are some pictures. These HP pod datacenters are 40% more efficient than the typical conventional datacenters.

Simon Seagrave in the POD

Systems inside a POD

The day was coming to an end. We were at the last destination of the day, at a Mexican restaurant having lunch. After the lunch headed back to the hotel. It was time for the final goodbyes to the Bloggers, HP and Ivy worldwide teams. But there were about 5 of us staying back that day.

Enjoyed the rest of the day, a bit of a relax, worked out at the gym, had a quite dinner, a drink and hitting the bed early to leave back home next morning.

Though both the blog posts from today and yesterday were just an overview of the activity we did at HP, some deepdive sessions and videos from the event are forthcoming.

Disclaimer: This event is sponsored by HP and hosted in Houston, TX. The flight, living and mostly food expenses were all paid by HP. This is a bloggers – invitation only event. No products have been given by HP.

HP Blades Day 2010 – Archives of #hpbladesday (hashtag) on Twitter

Devang Panchigar — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:28:41 PST

Here is the #hpbladesday (hashtag) on Twitter broken down based on activity dates. An archive of all activity on Twitter.

Archives available to download, with Pre-Event Tweets, Day 1 Tweets, Day 2 Tweets and Post Event Tweets.

HP-Blades-Day-(Post-Event)

HP-Blades-Day-(Day-2)

HP-Blades-Day-(Day-1)

HP-Blades-Day-(Pre-Event)

Feel free to download the links (in PDF Format)

Cheers
@storagenerve

HP Blades Day 2010: Thursday – Day 1

Devang Panchigar — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:12:25 PST

Today’s day started early for us, with early AM breakfast and then a shuttle to the HP facilities.

As this was my second “blogger event” at HP, I sort of expected some common things between the first #hptechday and than this #hpbladesday. Though the social media folks from HP and Ivyworldwide were all there, we saw a new team of folks from HP that manage and run the Blades Division.

The blades, storage and networking products infrastructure currently falls under a corporate umbrella ESSN (Enterprise Storage, Servers and Networking) headed by Dave Donatelli. Though this wasn’t a storage event, we all expected the primary theme of this event to be around Convergence.

HP Facilities

All Blogger Attending #HPBLADESDAY

The opening and the welcomes were done by Alyson Griffin (Director of Marketing for Blades and Infrastructure Software). She gave a view into where HP currently is with its blades and other business units and how different business segments were trending.

Gary Thome, the Chief Strategist and Chief Architect for the Blades platform took the stage. As expected Gary knows this business inside out and pretty much was the focal point of contact for any technical questions through out the entire event.

Gary Thome

To see all the Bloggers around the table, a video by Calvin Zito.

Our primary contact through this entire event has been Becca Taylor, Social Media Manager for HP. She was along with us at every lunch, dinner and attended all the events. Great host and really took care of all the logistics around this event.

Early morning we had a hiccup with the Internet. It seems like HP doesn’t allow or have Guest networks in the building where the bloggers were invited. They had arranged for Cradle point routers in the conference room, but as multiple people joined these cradle point routers, it just started acting bizarre and dropped everyone’s connections.

It took them a while to get the Internet situation resolved by providing us with AT&T based broadband connections. This news made it to the Twitter stream. Hope going forward with any HP events, we do not see an Internet issue.

Then HP brought in a partner Nth Generation from San Diego, CA and the President of Nth Generation Mark Gonzalez gave his opinions on how they manage to compete in the IT reseller/var market with there strong partnership with HP.

Look for the GESTALTIT's (G) in the presentation my Mark

Then Mike Kendall took the stage to talk about Virtual Connect technology and HP’s direction with it. It will be very hard to include that part of the presentation in this post; I will focus a separate blog post on where HP is going with its Virtual Connect technology.

Some highlights of the conversation were…

Network Convergence: FCoE and CEE (Lossless Ethernet).

CEE is also referenced as DCB (Data center Bridging). EVD (edge virtual bridging).

DCB + Traditional Ethernet = Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE)

EVB Standards (802.1Qbg)

Virtual Ethernet Bridge (VEB)

Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregation (VEPA)

Multichannel

Remote Replication

HP Virtual Connect Qualities: Simplified, Converged, Integrated, Reduced complexity

After lunch, Gary Thome and his team including James Singer took us to their demo lab for a presentation on HP Blade systems. This was really a hands-on-lab demo with us being able to photograph every component within the HP Blade servers.

Then we went to the HP Insight Software presentation and demo labs. Though this was quite interesting, the HP Insight software raises some very basic questions around convergence. It has one-way integration to receive alerts within Vmware Infrastructure Manager with HP blades. Other questions that we asked were around integration of Insight Software with Storage products.

As much as HP likes to talk about Convergence related to infrastructure, it almost seems at this point that HP basically lacks a single pane of glass view into these converged products. It uses Insight manager to manage server products but for storage products it uses different tools. Also the HP-HDS products do not fit into this mode today. Another observation was the Insight Software products are currently not compatible with its Enterprise Non-stop platform (S Series).

During this demo, HP spend quite a bit of time on the Power capping related to its blade systems. How HP uses power management and DPS in its products and manages efficiency with its blade systems. It was quite a good demo…

Then we were presented with the HP Matrix software demo. The above 3 demos were done my John Schmitz, Bryan Jacquot and Tom Turicchi.

Then we headed back to the Blades lab for some competitive analysis. Wow, these guys had every blade server in there from their competition. HP blades were compared to Dell Blades, Cisco UCS and IBM Blades. Quite an analysis of all different components and how these components affect the performance metrics. This presentation was done my Gary Thome and James Singer along with Mike Kendall. There were quite a few other folks that were present at this competitive analysis session. For the hands-on guys, this was one of the dream sessions to see everything upwards, backwards, inside, outside, questions, comparisons, analysis, etc….

The day was almost coming to an end, when we just found out, that Paul Perez, CTO of HP Storageworks was coming in for a 30 min talk with all the bloggers. I have to honestly say, given my background and interest in storage, this was one of the most interesting part of my day.

I should call this session Paul Perez Unplugged. Expect the video to be released on this blog sometime later this week. We had a very good session with Paul talking about HP’s storage strategy, vision, where it sees itself and where is it headed.

Paul Perez

Then we returned back to the hotel and were ready to leave for dinner sponsored my HP at the Mia Bella Restaurant in Houston. Food was good, had a nice time with other bloggers, HP and Ivyworldwide folks.

Headed back to the hotel. Someone just got an idea to go to a Karaoke bar that night. After a tired and long day, here we all hopped in a cab to head there. It was a very fun evening/night with Stephen Foskett, Greg Knieriemen, Frank Owen, Chris Evans, Halley Bass and Calvin Zito, I honestly have to say, these guys can sing.

After a long day and night, calling it off, hope we have an exciting day tomorrow.

HP Blades Tech Day 2010, Wednesday – Day 0

Devang Panchigar — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:00:32 PST

Day 0, full of travel and socializing with people..

So the travel started for all of us attending the HP Blades Tech Day today. As the afternoon rolled here, people from the UK arrived, people locally from the US arrived at this nice hotel in Houston, TX where HP has arranged for the Bloggers to stay.

Can’t complain about the weather in Houston, TX, though its in the 40’s, it feels so much better not to see snow on the ground. Living in NJ these days have almost become like living in the Arctic with snow covered roads and yards.., though I shouldn’t complain too much about the temperature in NJ.

After arriving here in Houston this afternoon, got to meet up with the folks attending the event and the IVY Worldwide team along with Becca Taylor, HP Social Media Manager. It was also very nice of Calvin Zito (HP Storage Blog) to travel to Houston for this event.

The fellow bloggers attending this event are..

Rich Brambley

Greg Knieriemen

Stephen Foskett

Chris Evans

Simon Seagrave

John Obeto

Frank Owen

Kevin Houston

Martin Macleod

Its always good to catch up with folks in the same industry we all are from, get to learn, talk and understand new directions and strategies that are ongoing in our market space.

I like these events, as much as they are about understanding technologies and deep dive sessions and marketing pitches, in the downtime, we all get to work and collaborate on various different topics and technologies which makes these events very unique in itself.

From the IVY Worldwide team, we have Halley Bass, Tom Augenthaler, Jeff Nielson. They are the ones that are arranging all the logistics, agenda and coordinating the entire event, amazing work guys….

Today’s dinner was at a place called Fusion Pizza. Lots of chat during the dinner hours, came back to the hotel to try some Nigerian Palm Juice that John Obeto brought in for the crew…it was great…a pungent smell to a nice tasting fermented palm juice.

Nigerian Palm Juice - Picture by Rich Brambley

Stay tuned for all the twitter activity, possibly a blog post about Day 1 later tomorrow….

As for some of the agenda tomorrow, we have key presentations from the Data Center folks regarding Virtual Connect, BladeSystem and Insight Manager Software. I would expect a mix of technology-focused discussions with some marketing presentations. There also seems to be an Infosmack Podcast scheduled for tomorrow evening, where some bloggers will be jumping on and describing their experience about HP Blades Day 2010.

As a welcome package, here are the things we received from HP this afternoon….

Welcome package from HP

I believe over the next few days, I will try to keep the blog post coming describing the daily events, but once back home, start looking at these technologies and write some deep-dive sessions on them…

After a long night of socializing with the fellow bloggers, calling off now…

Cheers

@storagenerve

Staying in touch while traveling abroad

Devang Panchigar — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:04:20 PST

Just an offbeat topic…nothing to do with storage or virtualization, but might come handy if you were traveling outside the US for business. This post may just help you do your business better, help you stay connected to people, give you means to collaborate and provide full access to your information (either corporate or personal) while traveling abroad.

The Pleasure of flying on the A380

Staying in touch

These days it has been quite easy to stay in touch with people here in the US while traveling abroad. Our dependencies are typically around mobile (smart) phones, Wi-Fi connections for laptops and being able to stay connected with family, friends, work and social media.

If you were traveling to the typical G20 nations, things may be easy with connecting back home, but it always presents a challenge. Traveling outside these countries may present a bigger challenge with being able to connect through your fingertips. Some of these challenges would be around finding Wi-Fi hotspots, making international phone calls, staying in touch with social media, etc.

Mobile Smart Phones

One of the best options at least based on what I have experienced in the past 3 years is being able to carry a Verizon Global Phone (e.g. a Blackberry 8830 or a Blackberry Tour or a Blackberry Storm) and subscribe to a Global Roaming plan (which typically includes Voice and Data) and works in about 160 countries around the globe.

With only a fractional addition to your current plan, you will be able to keep the same phone, same phone number, installed apps, address book, calendar, emails and connect back to your Blackberry corporate server, either from a CDMA or GSM network whether be North America or EMEA or Asia Pacific with constant access to your data and voice through your global roaming plan.

To get in touch with you by a person in the US or a person located overseas, its merely dialing your US phone number and all calls independent of where you are, will be forwarded to you through the global roaming capabilities. This feature comes quite handy when you are traveling and you will not need to give 2 or 3 different phone numbers to people that would typically try to get in touch with you.

Though at times in some countries inbound calls on your cell phone may not display the name and number of the caller and may show up as a private number or a blocked number, you are guaranteed to receive all calls.

These days I have also seen the iPhones (AT&T versions) being able to practically do the same with global roaming when it comes to voice, but data plans while traveling are super expensive, which means, you may not be able to upload or download any data to your phone, apps, emails, etc.

Typically with Verizon global phones, as you land at an airport and turn on your cell phone, you get a welcome txt message along with all the prefix numbers that you will need to initiate a call to the US and for any calls locally in country.

Verizon Wireless is able to provide these global roaming facilities through its 45% ownership by Vodaphone a UK based cellular giant.

Again if you have any other options (even outside of Verizon Wireless) to get a global roaming phone, I would highly recommend it. Its just a not very convenient thing to buy cell phones, buy SIM cards, getting them topped with minutes, at times not being able to make calls and foremost staying without a data plan while traveling.

Twitter and other social media apps

If you have an twitter app installed on your phone that allows you to stay in touch with your twitter followers, followings and friends, it should work just fine as you travel from countries to countries or continents to continents.

Other Apps you may want to have on your cell phone may include Weather, Facebook, Flickr, Maps, etc

Again anything that you are known to run on your phones locally in the US, should work while using the same phones overseas.

Question

Though I wonder with China’s Internet policies, would one still be able to browse the content on an international global roaming phone when that phone is locally using the Internet in China to connect to the world?

Skype

Not a bad idea to have your family and friends connect to you through Skype while traveling internationally, quite a bit of savings, amazing voice and video quality. So if the laptop you are carrying allows you to install Skype, go for it…

Also install Skype on your smart phones, which will help you make international calls very cost effectively. The latest word I hear as of couple of days ago, Verizon Wireless has given a node to have Skype on all the smart phones that are offered under its plan. That will enable people to make Skype calls locally and internationally.

Internet Connections

Finding free Wi-Fi connections to use in your hotel rooms or lobby is next to impossible. The cost of Internet (physical or Wi-Fi) connections is pretty high in rest of the world. There are times where it’s likely you will not get an Internet connection. Though I have found that staying with a US based hotel chain typically is a bit helpful when it comes to electronic communications.

If there are a few people that travel overseas from your organization at the same places, it may not be a bad idea to purchase a few USB broadband Internet connections for a monthly fee, which will enable broadband (wireless) access in those countries.

Chargers

Most of your electronic equipment will just survive fine with using power adapters (verify they are 100v-240v capable & 50/60 Hz capable, which most of them are these days). Best practice carry one adapter and one power extension cord (US) and that will enable you to plug all your US devices with just one international adapter.

Prepare before you leave

Make sure you have things prepared before you leave. For a casual traveler it may be second nature to travel within the US, but traveling internationally does present a few challenges. Verify you have power adapters, power extension cord, mobile global roaming, provisions for Internet connections, apps installed on your phone, etc before hand. It may not be very convenient to go hunting for these things the same day you land after a long flight.

Cost

Yea this is where it gets interesting, Internet connections for one day might range as much as 30 to 60 US dollars in some countries, again do not expect it to be free.

Regarding your cell phones, consider the cost of purchasing a new phone, topping the minutes on the SIM, purchasing a SIM card, paying a fee for international calling, not having full access to your contacts, emails, calendar, etc are just a few things to consider. Not having data plans typically hurt as well.

If you are carrying any cell phone and are not aware if it has global roaming, please refrain from using those, I have heard stories about people being charged USD 10K for using international roaming voice minutes and data kb thinking it was all covered because the phone was working.

Verify with your existing wireless subscriber as to what services are included as part of your global roaming and how they charge for each used minute and each used kb of data in the countries you plan to visit.

Demographics about the country

If you are going to a country for the first time, it may not be a bad idea to read up a few things about that country on Wikipedia or on CIA’s Demographics page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Demographics_by_country
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

Notes:

Sorry, this post is only talking about traveling from the US to other countries, I don’t think I would be able to think of everything that one needs to prepare to come to the US.

Though one thing I would absolutely say, if you are traveling from overseas to the US and need any electronic gadgets or computers etc, it may not be a bad idea to stop by at a FRY’s or BESTBUY or APPLE stores to see if you can purchase them cheaper here.

Disclaimer: I do not own any shares in Verizon Wireless or Vodaphone or FRY’s or BESTBUY or APPLE or Blackberry, neither have I received any free products from them. This blog post is purely based on my experience traveling internationally and what I find convenient to have and necessary to have.

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