07-27-10 Open Mic Chat with Dell TechCenter

The latest issue of Dell Power Solutions Magazine has emerged from a "no pixel left unscathed" metamorphosis -- We want to know what you think!

Technical Community - Background Reading

Chat Transcript

rolltidega	I have been using Dell servers for at least 10 years now. How long have all of you been using Dell stuff?
Dell-ScottH	3.5 years. :-)
Dell-KongY	10 years as well.
8bits1byte	Lol.
Emptyone	Started with Dell servers about 8 years ago.
Dell-DennisS	About 6 years.
Dell-KongY	I joined Dell when the 4G servers were coming out—PowerEdge1400, 2400, 2450.
erson	I switched from HP to Dell when I was System Administrator at the Student Union at university, about 7 years ago.
rolltidega	I have definitely seen great improvements over the years.
kwb	Don't remember, but started with 4 Dell PowerConnect 6200 servers. Last non-Dell was an Intel Pentium 133.
rolltidega	Is there a Dell office in the Atlanta area?
Dell-d_glynn	Define office? I'm sure we have some sales guys around there.
mjuergens	8bit Dell KACE has saved me a ton of time imaging laptops and desktops. It will image a Dell Latitude E6410 in less than 5 minutes.
Dell-ScottH	@roll: Not sure—there are likely people there.
rolltidega	Yeah, I am sure there are sales guys around. I was just wondering if there was some sort of corporate presence here.
Dell-ScottH	That's one thing I need to start playing with: Dell KACE boxes.
rolltidega	I know EMC has a big office here.
mjuergens	I'm still in my Dell KACE trial period, but I'm really impressed.
erson	It's a special day when Dell is releasing something ahead of time --> "The Dell EqualLogic PS6000XVS and Dell EqualLogic PS6010XVS will be available in early August."
Dell-ScottH	@MJ: What links have been most helpful for learning the DSell KACE boxes? Any resources you can point me to? (I know, weird that the Dell guy is asking.) :-)
rolltidega	I would love to see the Dell blades. I am getting in a lab setting to see how to set all of it up, especially the network side of it.
rolltidega	That is why I was asking about the Dell office.
mjuergens	Scott: I've been Webexing with a Dell KACE engineer.
mjuergens	The initial learning curve is definitely there. But once you get over there it’s nice. You barely need to touch the boxes once they are configured. I will be rolling out a KACE K1000 and KACE K2000.
erson	Buying Ocarina Networks and incorporating their Tech with Dell EqualLogic sounds very promising.
Dell-ScottH	@mj: Nothing like a Webex with the people that know it—guess I could get that setup.
mjuergens	My company runs on 600+ Dell Servers. We are just starting to receive our initial shipments of Dell PowerEdge R905s.
8bits1byte	@MJ, @scott: I agree. Count me in for a Webex.
Dell-ScottH	You guys AMD all the way?
mjuergens	It's a big mix.
Dell-ScottH	Intel/AMD: What drives the decision in your company?
mjuergens	The Dell PowerEdge R905s will be database servers. Supporting 1TB of RAM helps.
Dell-ScottH	Ahh yes, memory.
erson	We're Intel all the way. Easier to go with one manufacturer virtualization-wise.
erson	Dell PowerEdge R910 supports 1TB of ram as well.
mjuergens	When things start to get slow, we are fortunate enough to be able to just throw money at the problem.
Dell-ScottH	Yeah, did you guys compare the Dell PowerEdge R910 and Dell PowerEdge R905 to each other?
Dell-DennisS	We’re still waiting on that 1TB update for our Dell PowerEdge R910. :)
Dell-ScottH	That's a nice problem to have.
Dell-KongY	@erson: On the Ocarina Network acquisition, it does add intellectual property to our solution stack.
Dell-ScottH	What do you run on all those servers?
mjuergens	CentOS.
Dell-ScottH	Challenges with systems management or no?
mjuergens	Very few challenges. We have a great site-ops team.
mjuergens	I'm just starting to learn the ropes of major systems management.
Dell-ScottH	Well thank you for buying all the servers, if nobody has told you so.
erson	Dell PowerEdge R905 doesn't support AMD Opteron 6100 either I think if it's not upgradeable. So no 12-core either. Dell PowerEdge R910 with two 8-core probably wins over four AMD 6-core in the Dell PowerEdge R905.
erson	Linux people seem to often favor AMD.
Dell-ScottH	Seems so, I think the underdog thing is in play.
mjuergens	I've got two Dell PowerEdge R910s as well waiting to be racked. It's not easy to rack a 125lb server.
mjuergens	Especially as you get closer to the top of the cabinets .
Dell-ScottH	So since this is kind of open chat, I'm going to splatter the chat with some links of recent content on the site.
mjuergens	Especially how big and unbalanced the Dell PowerEdge R910s are.
Dell-ScottH	http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/cluster+performance%3a+it%27s+not+just+about+clock+rate+anymore.
Dell-ScottH	Actually, I have some really smart people doing the HPC (High Performance Computing) side of our site. Even if you're not into HPC, you should read some of the articles - good stuff. http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/hpc+at+dell
Dell-ScottH	Kong, I saw you updating the Power Cooling side - anything good there?
Dell-ScottH	Dennis - what's the video of the week?
Dell-KongY	Well, there's a new link to the Dell UPS Configurator tool.
Dell-KongY	And an updated Fresh Air Outbound Deck by Dell Reliability Engineering.
Dell-KongY	Also like to mention our good friend, @virtualmerlin, has put up the VMWareTech page on the Dell TechCenter.
Dell-DennisS	Video of the week this week was Dell EqualLogic Vstorage Demo at Interop 2010.
Dell-KongY	Any Dell VMWare related questions/concerns can be posted there.
Dell-DennisS	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3y5icqhwie&feature=player_embedded
Dell-KongY	http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/vmware+tech
Dell-DennisS	Or on the blog here: http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/enterprise/b/tech-center/archive/2010/07/22/featured-video-of-the-week-equallogic-vstorage-integration-demo-at-interop-2010.aspx
Dell-ScottH	You guys even made a redirect: http://www.dell.com/vmwaretech
Dell-KongY	Thanks for making the connection on that one Scott.
Dell-ScottH	You making it to the Dell EqualLogic user conference?
JasonPowell	Dell EqualLogic user conference ... not looking promising for me. :(
Dell-KongY	Before I forget, Dell TechCenter is going to do a Fantasy Football Live Auction League.
Dell-KongY	@jason: Why is that?
Dell-ScottH	Likely money and travel I bet.
Dell-ScottH	San Diego is nice.
erson	Denniss: Is the Dell EqualLogic call home feature actually being used? The Dell EqualLogic support personal told me to e-mail them the diagnostic logs. When you generate diagnostic logs in the GUI it will be automatically sent to Dell EqualLogic. Seems a bit redundant for me to also send them as files to the support.
JasonPowell	Hard to convince the boss to attend 2 in one year. :-)
Dell-DennisS	@erson: Not sure, but I can find out. :)
erson	Denniss: The overall support experience was very nice, but seems they could utilize those two features to make it even better.
JasonPowell	Need to inquire from Dylan or other Dell EqualLogic peeps if the idea is doing the user conference x2 each year.
Emptyone	Any news when Dell EqualLogic will support CSV (Clustered Shared Volume) fully?
erson	Twice a year sounds like a lot.
Dell-DennisS	@erson: I know some the Dell EqualLogic support guys here...I'll ask and pass that along.
JasonPowell	I ordered a new Dell EqualLogic PS6000E for GCC yesterday. :-)
erson	Kongy: I'm awaiting a direct message about RTW date for Dell PowerEdge M610x and Dell PowerEdge M710HD. I need some new hardware porn to look at and read about.
erson	Hmm, you guys aren't calling it RTW or?
erson	Remember you used another acronym.
Dell-ScottH	You could get d_glynn to wake up and address the call home feature
Dell-ScottH	D-glynn !!!!
Dell-d_glynn	Dennis is on the hook for that. I've plenty of other buses to jump in front of!
Dell-KongY	@erson: The Dell PowerEdge M610x is available today. :)
JasonPowell	Now to plan best way to migrate VOLs from our old Dell EqualLogics PS100E's to new Dell EqualLogic PS6000E.
Dell-d_glynn	Easy Jason.
JasonPowell	Join it into pool then evacuate the others one at a time. Sounds like the no brainer.
Dell-KongY	http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/enterprise/b/tech-center/archive/2010/07/27/introducing-the-dell-poweredge-m610x-gpu-acceleration-in-blade-environments.aspx
Dell-d_glynn	Bring them to the same firmware rev -> join Dell EqualLogic PS6000 to existing group -> Wait -> evict ye oldie Dell EqualLogic PS100 -> take Dell EqualLogic PS100 home for sandbox lab.
JasonPowell	We have two Dell EqualLogic PS100E's. :)
JasonPowell	One will be sold, the other will be for some sort of extra backup space or such.
erson	Have the DTC tried to update to latest lifecycle controller yet?
Dell-ScottH	I have not, my PowerEdge R710's are still back rev.
erson	Are you also awaiting the CPLD (Complex Programmable Logic Device)?
Dell-ScottH	You still experiencing weirdness on yours?
Dell-ScottH	CPLD still not out?
Dell-ScottH	I hadn't checked.
Dell-ScottH	Let me follow up on that.
erson	I got the Dell PowerEdge M710 / R710 / M1000E updates on RSS and it hasn't popped up there yet, at least.
JasonPowell	D_glynn: I've actually had an Dell EqualLogic array at home in our dining room. http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/2008/05/honey-theres-a.html
Dell-ScottH	@erson: E-mail sent on the CPLD.
erson	The Dell PowerEdge M610 apparently uses the same CPLD-version and that has been released. Couldn't use that on the Dell PowerEdge M710 though.
erson	It's a shame the one-to-many CMC feature didn't make it.
Dell-ScottH	Yes, agreed - Roger had me pull all the demos off the Internet.
erson	It could update everything that the platform update could update, right?
erson	Could you say something about the reason for it being pulled?
Dell-d_glynn	So e-mail home.
Dell-d_glynn	E-mail home only sends critical events, no diagnostics.
Dell-ScottH	I didn't ask him exactly - they might have not been able to close all the defects on it in time.
Dell-d_glynn	As creating diagnostics is intensive.
Dell-ScottH	And I know we've been redirecting developers to another important project.
erson	d_glynn: Yes, I know that. But is it used in any way? They could actually call the customer?
Dell-d_glynn	Can you clarify erson?
erson	Why is it calling home if it's not being used?
erson	How impressed would the customer not be if Dell’s EqualLogic supported called them and said "Hey, you got a failed drive.” But maybe you couldn't come to that conclusion with the call home e-mail? Same error message if the customer just pulled a drive maybe?
Dell-d_glynn	As in, "Why is it not emailing home diagnostics?"
erson	When you generate diagnostics in the GUI, it is also automatically e-mailing them to Dell EqualLogic support.
Dell-d_glynn	I don't believe it is - but I am open to correction on that. I believe they are only e-mailed to the configured customer e-mail.
Dell-ScottH	Appreciate everyone joining the chat today.
Emptyone	No comments on the CSV part? :)
erson	d_glynn: When you click diagnostic reports in the tools section, you get a popup where you choose member and two check boxes. The first one is if you want to send the diagnostics to your "support provides" and the second one has a field where you could enter up to two e-mail addresses.
Emptyone	Any news when Dell EqualLogic will support CSV fully?
erson	When Hyper-V will be a big enough player?
Dell-d_glynn	I can't comment.......future stuff, it is being worked on.
erson	Feels like Dell EqualLogic is somewhat behind on supporting Hyper-V compared to for example NetApp.
erson	If you’re using Hyper-V, you want CSV. And if Dell EqualLogic has crappy support, then Hyper-V users won't buy Dell EqualLogic. Or buy it and then be pissed about it.
Emptyone	Yep.
JasonPowell	CSV?
erson	And no guidance on backing up Hyper-V VMS with System Center Data Protection Manager 2010, which should be a huge use case if you want to sell large Dell EqualLogic Arrays.
Dell-ScottH	Cluster Shared Volumes.
erson	Jasonpowell: Technology, which makes NTFS suitable for clustering VM’s.
erson	Many nodes can use the same volume simultaneously.
Dell-ScottH	Which is why NetApp is full bore with.
JasonPowell	Sounds like Apple Xsan.
erson	If you're not using CSV, you're pretty much limited to one VM per LUN if you want to be able to move VMs around your nodes.
mjuergens	Yeah sounds like Xsan, but Xsan is a huge disaster.
erson	CSV was released with Hyper-V R2, which made everyone using Hyper-V to quickly switch to Hyper-V R2.
erson	CSV works fine, would just be nice if was better supported by Dell EqualLogic.
Dell-ScottH	Yeah, VMWare people were quick to point out that one VM per LUN was pretty limiting just to get vMotion-like functionality.
erson	The best thing about CSV is that nothing changes, it just extends NTFS.
erson	Scotth: Yeah, but with R1 you could only quick migrate. With R2, CSV and Live Migration was released and everything works fine.
Dell-ScottH	Yes.
erson	Nice to have a free Hyper-V Server R2 as well with full cluster support, CSV and vMotion (live migration in MS speak).
Dell-ScottH	It's a great solution.
erson	Runs a lot of Linux distributions, and Microsoft fully supports (something which VMWare doesn’t to my knowledge) SUSE and RHEL.
JasonPowell	I know many places using Apple Xsan with great results.
Emptyone	Really like it, but don't like that Dell EqualLogic doesn't support it fully yet.
Emptyone	We got three Hyper-V clusters running towards Dell EqualLogic, and all running great.
erson	It’s still a V2 product from Microsoft though. Looks like they are cooking up some great features for Windows 8. Client virtualization seems to finally be happening.
Emptyone	But backup is a little pain at the moment.
erson	How many VMWare clusters are DTC running?
erson	And the obvious question, how many Hyper-V clusters?
Dell-ScottH	We have anywhere from 8-12 VMWare things going on at any one time.
mjuergens	What do you guys think of Citrix XenServer?
erson	Scotth: Suggestion for lifecycle controller (maybe it's in the latest version). ftp://ftp.dell.com is the default configuration of platform update, but won't work unless you put "catalog" in the "catalog location" box. Why not have those per default?
Dell-ScottH	With Hyper-V sometimes all the hardware is appropriated elsewhere – sometimes one to two instances up.
Dell-ScottH	Will feed back.
Dell-ScottH	Why didn't you apply for one of our openings? Get some balance in here.
Dell-KongY	@erson: Have you seen the latest Dell VRD RA w/ XenDesktop 4 and Hyper-V?http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/business~solutions~flexible-computing~en/documents~dell-virtual-remote-desktop.pdf.aspx
Dell-KongY	@erson: Second what Scott said. :)
mjuergens	We are strictly running Citrix XenServer here, and the performance is incredible.
erson	Kongy: Yes, I've read it. Excellent piece of work.
erson	I'm not saying that you don't do Hyper-V-related stuff, I'm just saying it should be justified to do more.
erson	Kongy: So, any chances for Dell PowerEdge M710HD to appear this week?
Dell-KongY	@erson: Not likely.
erson	Seems like FlexMem-like technology is only available from Dell. Pretty awesome. I though that HP and IBM would definitely pick up on that.
Dell-KongY	@erson: Dell IP on FlexMem.
Dell-KongY	Next week is Juniper and Networking.
erson	d_glynn: About initiating diagnostics from GUI and choosing to e-mail them to support provider—when doing that they get sent to "eqlx_diagnostics@equallogic.com."
erson	Anyway, would be awesome if those two features could be used more to further enhance the support process.
erson	Would be awesome if Dell called and said, "Hey, one of the drives in your Dell EqualLogic array just died. How do you want us to send the new one?"
Dell-d_glynn	Erson: Can you put it all in an e-mail to me? And I'll send it along to development.
erson	Yes.
Dell-d_glynn	Thanks.
erson	Bye all.

cb_blanco	Latest page update: made by cb_blanco , Jul 28 2010, 3:00 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Edited by cb_blanco 2505 words added view changes - complete history)
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