This TechTuesday chat is open-topic discussion format. Bring your questions, comments, ideas, and expertise on any enterprise data center technology or subject you'd like to discuss with the group.

Technical Community - Background Reading

• OpenManage Systems Management
• Virtualization
• High-Performance Cluster Computing
• Dell EqualLogic Storage
• Data Center Power and Cooling

Chat Transcript

david	So when is the Deployment Pack for ConfigMgr going to be released?
DELL-ScottH	Deployment Pack was pushed just a little; that's why we pushed out the chats to next week. So any day now
david	Heard that at MMS last year :)
DELL-ScottH	Ah yes, like any big company, "any day now"
david	I know how that goes...
david	So the chat is not going to be until next week? I noticed the lists next week and today still
DELL-ScottH	Yes, the chat is still on for next week, so high confidence pack will release
DELL-ScottH	Today is just a generic chat. About to tweet it, maybe get some people in here
david	Okay. Sounds good
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DELL-ScottH	Hey Lynxbat…still rebooting VMs?
DELL-ScottH	:-)
lynxbat	Lol. No, now I am trying to prove a storage bottleneck
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lynxbat	I am kicking myself for not turning up Virtual Center metrics earlier last year
DELL-ScottH	3 drive RAID-5? :-)
lynxbat	Worse
DELL-ScottH	Depping can help with that
depping	Good evening
lynxbat	Hola
DELL-ScottH	Hello Depping
DELL-ScottH	Worse? Like one spindle TB drive?
DELL-ScottH	From Frys
lynxbat	Yeah that would be worse
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DELL-ScottH	Hola Termpmeister
DELL-ScottH	Geez, misspell your name and that's what I get?
terpmeister	Hola, browser freaked out. Lol :)
lynxbat	Hey Scott, so now that Cisco and Dell are in bed, what happens to PowerConnects?
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, I don't know yet...I think it all stays the same for right now and to keep them in check. Kind of like when we got EqualLogic...that helped a little with somebody else, which I probably shouldn't talk about in a public forum
lynxbat	Lol
DELL-ScottH	We should really have a tweetup and beers. That's when information really flows :-)
lynxbat	I am all in just for the beers
DELL-ScottH	You get any traffic off my blog post? Or is it still just me and my mom reading my blog? We can't all get rich off of it like Depping
terpmeister	Ditto, oh wait. You guys are in another state :(
DELL-ScottH	State of denial
terpmeister	Lol
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DELL-ScottH	So I don't have much this week; was supposed to be a chat on Deployment Pack for Microsoft ConfigMgr, but the pack pushed out a few weeks
DELL-ScottH	Hey Brace
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DELL-ScottH	So I decided to hang out here anyways
DELL-ScottH	Hey Astorrs
brennels	Hey Scott, how are you?
depping	Yes, I just bought a new BMW from my Adsense income
DELL-ScottH	doing great
DELL-ScottH	Lol
astorrs	Lol
DELL-ScottH	You are Internet rich!
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DELL-ScottH	I'm reinstalling XP Pro on my Mini 9
DELL-ScottH	Hey Roger
depping	Well, I did okay on Adsense yesterday... :)
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, how much per day?
astorrs	No, like Windows 7?
depping	Yesterday, 30 dollars.
terpmeister	XP, what happened with Windows 7?
depping	Usually average of around 5–7 dollars
DELL-ScottH	I got a USB TV tuner and no Windows 7 love
terpmeister	Doh!
Dell-RogerF	Afternoon
DELL-ScottH	Coolness, you are buying all the beers at VMworld Europe
depping	Good evening
terpmeister	Wonder if Vista drivers would work?
DELL-ScottH	Tried them
depping	You know I don't drink alcohol
DELL-ScottH	Didn't work
terpmeister	:(
astorrs	He didn't ask you to drink them, just buy them :p
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, you are not the one drinking, you are buying!
DELL-ScottH	:-)
depping	Same thing for me, alcohol = the devil ::tongue
terpmeister	Hear a bunch of IM and Skype no worky with Windows 7 as well
lynxbat	(Dell-scotth, you get any traffic off my blog post? Or is it still just me and my mom reading my blog)—Just you and your Mom; tell her I said hi
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, I'm sticking with XP until all the support for all my stuff comes out
DELL-ScottH	Lol @lynxbat
astorrs	Supposedly Vista works well (if you Vlite it first) on the Mini 9
DELL-ScottH	Vlite?
depping	Strip the OS
DELL-ScottH	Quick thing on MD3000i and drive firmware: www.delltechcenter.com/thread/2304110/md3000i%3a+seagate+barracuda+7200.11+inside%3f
astorrs	I have a ton of links I can send you on Vista on the Mini 9 if you want Scott, just e-mail me
astorrs	If mine would ever show up I could tell you how well it works (grrr—delayed again)
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, the XP and SP3 and all driver updates are just about done. I'm going to stick with it for a while
DELL-ScottH	Delayed again—geez, and all the parts you ordered after are just sitting there
astorrs	Yup, they arrived in about two days :)
DELL-ScottH	Oh, cool demo on Thursday
depping	Did you already get the chance to test the Mini 10?
DELL-ScottH	Shelley from our executive briefing center is doing DMC (Dell Management Console) demos every two weeks
lynxbat	Hey Depping, do you know good articles on how to analyze storage performance bottlenecks in VMware (VC)?
DELL-ScottH	Let me find the link
depping	VC?
lynxbat	Virtual Center
depping	Yes, I know
lynxbat	Performance tab
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DELL-ScottH	http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/systems_edge/archive/2009/01/26/dell-management-console-dmc-live-demo-this-week.aspx
Dave_Graham	Finally in!
astorrs	Hi Dave
DELL-ScottH	Hello Dave
lynxbat	In other words, not just esxtop
Dave_Graham	I see we have the usual suspects. ;)
DELL-ScottH	Got it to work I see :-)
lynxbat	Or is esxtop the way to go?
depping	But a command-line guy like you should be looking at esxtop
lynxbat	Lol
depping	Most definitely yes!
Dave_Graham	Firefox this time. No Chrome, Chromium, IE 7
DELL-ScottH	What's the storage in question?
lynxbat	Damn it, I knew you would say that
lynxbat	EMC CX3-20
DELL-ScottH	White box?
depping	You could dump the information to CSV if you want to
lynxbat	I got a development group that kept wanting more servers, and I kept warning them
Dave_Graham	Oh, CX3-20
astorrs	Better be co-branded "Dell/EMC” for this chat ;)
DELL-ScottH	Dave, can probably help too; he's from EMC
lynxbat	Actually it is
Dave_Graham	Dell black or purple…same difference ;)
lynxbat	Lol
depping	I would ditch it and start using Netapp ;)
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, just lie to me! :-)
lynxbat	Dell black
Dave_Graham	Better faceplates on the Dell boxes versus EMC
lynxbat	Matches the 2950 and R900s too :)
depping	What kind of problems are you experiencing?
lynxbat	I am not lying, I can send screenshots ;) 15 disk SATA DAE, 65 VMs :(
lynxbat	I warned them
Dave_Graham	On SATA?
lynxbat	Disk read latency is 100–150 average
lynxbat	Terrible
Dave_Graham	What RAID configuration?
DELL-ScottH	Wow, sounds a bit overloaded
lynxbat	5 and 9 standard at RAID-5
Dave_Graham	So no meta LUNs, right?
lynxbat	Nope
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DELL-ScottH	Hello Andy
Dave_Graham	You're getting creamed then. I/O rates there are ridiculous. Should get some NAR data to identify hotspots
lynxbat	I went forward with a Dell quote for new DAE to add, but they are balking
DELL_AndyF	Hello
lynxbat	NAR?
DELL-ScottH	So you need justification
lynxbat	I got the justification. Now they are talking about dropping unnecessary VMs. But they will have to cut very deep
Dave_Graham	Navisphere Analyzer Data
lynxbat	Ah
lynxbat	NA is an extra license
Dave_Graham	So, there's a way to pull it off the array if you don't have it enabled
lynxbat	Need to order
lynxbat	Really?
Dave_Graham	Definitely will help, as will Navisphere QoS Manager
lynxbat	I think NA runs 10 K with the CX3
lynxbat	Not too bad
Dave_Graham	Well, pulling it off as an encrypted file for Dell to read. ;)
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Dave_Graham	BTW, I'm from EMC (in case you didn't know)...so, I can work with Dell on this if you need help
Dave_Graham	;)
lynxbat	Very cool
DELL-ScottH	Hello Aaron
lynxbat	I am going to hit it with esxtop (depping is usually right) also
Dave_Graham	So, hope I didn't shanghai the conversation at all
DELL-ScottH	FYI, if anyone needs to catch up on the chat, use Action, Recent Room History
depping	Might be worth checking the vmkernel log
DELL-ScottH	Nope not at all; we are open lines, open chat, open clobber all over anyone today
depping	Are they also running snapshots?
lynxbat	Snaps in VM not SAN
Dave_Graham	Lol, good to know
lynxbat	Only a few servers
Dave_Graham	VMFS volumes correct? Not virtual/physical RDM?
lynxbat	Yup, straight VMFS
depping	Then I would suspect a whole bunch of SCSI reservation conflicts. Check the queues, and the queue depth
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lynxbat	Okay (taking notes)
Dave_Graham	Are you running NPIV at all?
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DELL-ScottH	Hello Karim, welcome
lynxbat	NPIV? No problem in Venice?
Karim	Evening all
DELL-ScottH	Hello Claude, welcome
Dave_Graham	Lol
depping	But in the end , that amount of VMs on a VMFS volume...brrr
Dave_Graham	N-port virtualization, basically "channeling" 4GB/S Fibre
lynxbat	Yeah, I know
DELL-ScottH	We're trying to solve Lynxbat's disk problem, which is really just an "I need a bunch more disks" problem
lynxbat	Lol
Karim	Lol
lynxbat	DG, never heard of it
Dave_Graham	64 VMs on a single VMFS volume (or even multiple VMFS volumes across SATA in general)...wow!
depping	More disks, more VMFS volumes, fewer snapshots, fewer VMs per volume :)
Dave_Graham	Lb, never mind then. Chances are no
lynxbat	It is always $$$
lynxbat	They will drop money for giving away TVs but not to buy DAEs
DELL-ScottH	Hard fight, especially now
Dave_Graham	Lol...I'll take a TV
lynxbat	Okay, enough about me. Someone else hijack. I came to listen, or read that is
DELL-ScottH	Well, I'd like to re-invite everyone to the DMC demo on Thursday: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/systems_edge/archive/2009/01/26/dell-management-console-dmc-live-demo-this-week.aspx
Dave_Graham	Scott, the M905s support 237x/238x processors, right?
DELL-ScottH	DMC is Dell's next version of one-to-many systems management
DELL-ScottH	Let me look
Karim	Basically the replacement for ITA, no?
Dave_Graham	Aka "Shanghai"
lynxbat	How big is the scope on DMC?
DELL_AndyF	Exactly
lynxbat	Is it just hardware involved?
DELL-ScottH	Yes, ITA follow on, but ITA gets one more revision
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Karim	What’s the Linux support with DMC? Last I looked it was pretty limited
depping	Could you ask the people that package OpenManage to create separate packages for each OS, Scott?
DELL-ScottH	DMC is based on Altriris Notification Server 7, so if you're familiar with that, that should define a scope for you
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DELL-ScottH	Uh, yeah on the Linux—maybe Roger can answer that one
depping	Really annoying—you visit the Web site, chose an OS, download the package, and end up with all operating systems included
Karim	Hmmm, if I remembered to burn a copy, could try it on my weeks away from the Glasgow site
DELL-ScottH	I will take that back, Depping
Karim	I think the original support site a year or two back had better OS-specific information
DELL-ScottH	@dave, yes, the M905s support Shanghai, the 838x processor
lynxbat	Okay. Scott, I will attend it
DELL-ScottH	Cookie for you
Dave_Graham	Scott, thanks. Means that Instanbul support will be there too. HT3 for the win!
DELL-ScottH	I'm going to hack HyperTansport 4 and skip 3
Dave_Graham	Lol
depping	Are you guys already actively testing the next version of ESX?
Dave_Graham	You read the HT3 manual at all?
DELL-ScottH	Nope, can you bullet some highlights for us?
Karim	Heh, the crash course :S
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, some speeds and feeds and what the estimated 3dmark05 score would be :-) Did you guys see the liquid hydrogen-and-nitrogen-cooled AMD to 6.5 Ghz break the record?
Dave_Graham	Yeah
Dave_Graham	Woo!
Karim	Nice
terpmeister	6.5 Ghz, wow!
DELL-ScottH	http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/01/65-ghz-overcloc.html
lynxbat	Cool, no pun intended
DELL-ScottH	Funny, all the legal disclaimers in the video
DELL-ScottH	The one at 6:26 is the best..."AMD does not recommend pouring liquid nitrogen on your head or your friend's head." They celebrate with a liquid nitrogen dumping on each other
Dave_Graham	That'd be a cool video by itself. ;)
Dave_Graham	Darwinism in action
DELL-ScottH	I wonder if you could snap off pieces of your hair. I gotta get some of that stuff. I remember fondly playing with mercury as a child
Dave_Graham	It shows. ;)
DELL-ScottH	Lol
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DELL-ScottH	Welcome a ...cool, the letter “a”
Dave_Graham	As in aardvark? ;)
DELL-ScottH	Apple
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DELL-ScottH	Good job, Dave :-)
Karim	Yikes, think you scared them
terpmeister	Or antidisestablishmentarianism
Dave_Graham	Me? Dude, I'm the friendliest guy in the bloody world!
DELL-ScottH	Yes, you are
Dave_Graham	Lol
DELL-ScottH	I appreciate everyone stopping by and taking time away from your tweets :-)
Dave_Graham	So, what else is kicking out there?
DELL-ScottH	Remember to join the DMC demo...you can get the link in the transcript tomorrow...same link that got you here
DELL-ScottH	And if you have MD3000i's, keep an eye out for a drive firmware update on 2/6. And other than that, we'll be back on a systems management topic next week and the week after
DELL-ScottH	You can find upcoming topics listed here: www.delltechcenter.com/page/chat+topics+and+transcripts
Dave_Graham	Nice
DELL-ScottH	Thanks again for stopping by; I think it is supposed to freeze here tonight—pretty quickly. Anyone else in Austin?
karim	It's freezing most nights here in Scotland
Dave_Graham	Lynxbat, if need be, feel free to contact me on twitter (davegraham) or via e-mail: Graham_dave@emc.com. Happy to help with diagnosing the CLARiiON activity
brennels	Nope 6–12 inches of snow in Boston. I would gladly trade that for Austin weather. Take care
Dave_Graham	6–12?
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, don't miss that
lynxbat	Thanks, Dave, I will do
Dave_Graham	Good lord, I've gotta get ready for that...shovel and ice melt. Grrr...I'm in Central MA. This is gonna suck
brennels	See ya guys
DELL-ScottH	Later
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lynxbat	@DG, followed
karim	Scott, I know some of the trainers here are going to go into a conference call about DMC, but it keeps getting put back
DELL-ScottH	@lynxbat <-- stalker
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DELL-ScottH	The training?
DELL-ScottH	Hey Mark
atxtraveler	Howdy all
lynxbat	@scott me? You RT more than me :)
atxtraveler	What's the latest enterprise news?
DELL-ScottH	Wrapping up and signing off here, but will hang out for you
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DELL-ScottH	Yeah :-)
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lynxbat	Bye all, I got a pointless meeting to go to
DELL-ScottH	Later
DELL-ScottH	gl
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atxtraveler	Boy, I need to use better deodorant; I show up, and everyone drops
DELL-ScottH	Yeah, you stink :-)
karim	/me moves away from atxtraveler— kidding
DELL-ScottH	How was the VMware meeting? Todd show up?
atxtraveler	@karim, thanks
DELL-ScottH	You kick out all that HP junk?
atxtraveler	Yes, Big Head Todd was there
DELL-ScottH	And Josh hist monster?
atxtraveler	HP is so 1998
DELL-ScottH	What was lunch?
atxtraveler	Jason's Deli
DELL-ScottH	Ugh
atxtraveler	And a chat about how awesome the CIM Smash data is out of VMware's API
atxtraveler	Nothing like managing your Dell environment from your preferred management suite!
DELL-ScottH	Yes
DELL-ScottH	Finally arriving on a set of standards that will work for everyone and that is not 1970s SNMP
atxtraveler	Move the MIBs over
karim	Yeah, but "most" people I talked to still work on SNMP or MOMs
atxtraveler	Because the alternatives were not always there
karim	Would be nice for something more standard
DELL-ScottH	Yup, “eubiquitous” (did I spell that right?)
karim	True
atxtraveler	Drop the "e"
DELL-ScottH	The “e” is silent. :-)
atxtraveler	SNMP—that still stands for slow Network management protocol, right?
DELL-ScottH	So what are you, Doug, and Kyle up to tonight? More trouble?
atxtraveler	I think it is third base for the Baylor Texas basketball game
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atxtraveler	You and all Dell TechCenter Chat members are welcome