Category NetApp

For those of you in the ESX space who are religious about your installation and deployment of Host Utility Kits (I hope you are!) 5.1 has just been announced! Hooray!

ESX Host Utilities 5.1 contain the following new features:

• Support for ESX 4.0 hosts.
• Support for role-based access control (RBAC) user names so that root access to storage controllers is not required.
• The mbralign program that fixes misaligned VMDK partitions.
• New timeout values added to config_hba to support software iSCSI initiators on 10 Gb Ethernet. Check the Interoperability Matrix for supported 10 Gb configurations.
• Updated SNIA API libraries for Emulex and QLogic adapters.
• An -expert option for the Host Utilities install command that installs the Host Utilities components but does not set timeouts or paths

And lots of other cool stuff, but these are the major high-lights, so get out there and download today! Hooray!

If there’s one thing about TechEd in my experience (Apparently, my experience isn’t everyones experience.. infact, I’m not sure ANYONE else experiences this ;)) is that it is a whirlwind adventure of constantly being on the run, on the go, and occasionally… getting heckled by the competition (Erk, can I call that ‘product’ competition? We don’t sell Laptops and Dell doesn’t sell storage [snicker ;)] :)

I like business cards, as they’re a good way to stay in touch with people you’ve met, definitely, right? Oh and Twitter, that’s good for it too.     But what if you don’t have any business cards? (ran out on the 1st day;)) I adopted the model of taking a photo of you and your badge.. Win?!

Because I wouldn’t want to publish anyone’s image and name without their permission, I’ll instead give you this one! (and this lovely story.. strangely retold many times throughout the show by others ;))

Meet mr Dell Guy, I didn’t catch his name (too blurry) but he definitely caught that I work for a competitor (Hey, I’m here as an attendee!) was my common response when assaulted! Even though I did have a number of lengthy and high quality NetApp related conversations, I had just as many good quality Education and Community conversations too.   But you don’t care about that! You care about the heckling! :)

Being at the front of the line, literally in the front as a drawing is called is always a good way to find out if you’re a winner, or… if you’re going to be publicly called out on.   Oh and a competitor being mic’d to a large crowd yelling out NetApp every other word, perhaps that is just good times. ;)

For what it is worth, I did not win the laptop they were giving away (Which mr Dell did say “You can’t win!”) as I scoff being a mere ‘attendee’ :)  Although if you’re interested I did win Flip Mino Ultra from Cisco (Notice Cisco in the background) – I’ll discuss that later in another story ;)

I wish I had more time to get around and enter into drawings or try to win mega-big prizes, but it was not in the cards.. I barely could pack all the swag I DID end up taking home, so no harm no foul! :)

Hey, are you going to TechEd? Stop by and visit NetApp (and me! :))

Join NetApp at Microsoft TechEd 2009

Booth 417

Join us at booth 417 to discover how you can do more and store less with NetApp. Guaranteed.* See how our comprehensive portfolio of storage and data management solutions can help you reduce costs, reach new levels of efficiency, and increase data protection in your Microsoft environment.

You’ll also have the opportunity to meet with our executives and technical experts. Together, we’ll look at how our innovative solutions for Microsoft Hyper-V™, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server®, and Microsoft SQL Server® can help your company go further, faster.

In addition to learning about NetApp® storage and data management solutions for Microsoft environments at the NetApp booth, you’ll get a free NetApp t-shirt and a chance to win an Amazon Kindle 2 and a $200 Amazon gift certificate in our daily raffle. You’ll also be entered to win our grand prize—a $5,000 AMEX gift card!

If you would like to get more in-depth information on our innovative storage and data management solutions for Microsoft environments while at TechEd, fill out the form to request a meeting with our executives or technical experts.

Furthermore, the kinds of things which will be covered?!

NetApp virtualization solutions for Hyper-V:  Enabling customers to realize the promise of a flexible, scalable, and efficient data center by eliminating common challenges with storage provisioning and data protection encountered when transitioning to a virtualized environment.
NetApp storage and data management solutions for Microsoft Exchange:  Helping customers reduce costs, increase availability and simplify management of their enterprise messaging systems.
NetApp storage and data management solutions for Microsoft SharePoint Server:  Helping customers reduce costs and improve availability by improving ways of managing and protecting their data in collaboration portals and document repositories across the enterprise.
NetApp solutions for Microsoft SQL Server: Enabling customers to reduce costs and increase availability using our highly efficient, scalable storage and data management solutions.

NetApp Birds-of-a-Feather session

NetApp will be hosting a Birds-of-a -Feather session, “Gaining Efficiencies with Virtualization” on Wednesday, May 13^th from8:00 pm – 9:00 pm.

So, come on down, and I’ll be there as well! Feel free to tweet me, or find me around!

So, if you haven’t seen my countless posts on the subject of “Getting on the Bus” I will be on the Bus, and I will be at TechEd this year :)

My official ‘announcement’ is finally up on the MSLCommunity Who’s on the Bus? Rider #9: Christopher Kusek (Atlanta to Los Angeles) and when on the road I will be doing constant updates on Twitter, Blogs (here and the MSLBlog) some live video on Ustream or BlogTV, and who knows what else! (I have no idea myself!)

I’ll be representing myself, the technology community, certification, education, learning, mentorship, and NetApp on this trip, so if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

So, if you happen to be in any of the cities we’re stopping, or the locations’ were visiting, I encourage you to come up and say hello! :)

Below is the (up to date as of today) itinerary of all of the places we shall be visiting!

My Goal: To meet (and make friends with? :)) 1000 people between the tour and the ride to TechEd, so help me meet that goal! :)

The Career Express tour, day by day:

Friday, May 1st: Atlanta, GA

• United States Army School of Information Technology, in Fort Gordon, GA, 8:30am – 11:00am
• Ask the Experts at New Horizons Atlanta 3:00pm – 6:00pm
• Book signing with Eric Griffin, author of the Microsoft Press book, “Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition Step by Step” at Barnes & Noble (Buckhead store), 7:00pm – 8:00pm

Saturday, May 2nd: Atlanta, GA to Greensboro, NC

• Gwinnett Technical College, Lawrenceville, GA, 9:00am – 12:00pm

Sunday, May 3rd: Greensboro, NC to Philadelphia, PA

• Philly TechFest 2009 sponsored by Springhouse Education and Consulting Services, 12:00pm – 4:00pm (featuring live rounds of “Are You Certifiable?” Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 previews, and more)
• Microsoft Career Express at Cheyney University (Center City campus), 6:00pm – 8:00pm (register here)

Monday, May 4th: Philadelphia, PA to Cincinnati, OH

• Philly TechFest 2009 at Springhouse, 8:00am – 10:00am
• Antonia Pantoja Charter School, 7:30am – 9:00am (private event)
• Edward W. Bok Technical High School, 10:45am – 12:00pm (private event)
• MCP “Tweet-up” in Columbus (be sure to follow us on Twitter for details!)

Tuesday, May 5th: Cincinnati, OH to Indianapolis, IN

• MAX Learning Luau at MAX Technical Training in Cincinnati, 11:00am – 1:00pm (featuring Windows 7 previews, lunch, drawings and more!)
• “Bring a Friend” Night at “LANTech Training, Indianapolis, 5:00pm – 7:00pm (bring a friend interested in starting a career in IT, and you both might win a TechNet Plus subscription (and your friend might win a laptop, too!))

Wednesday, May 6th: Indianapolis, IN to Kansas City, MO

• Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, 8:00am – 11:00am (featuring Windows 7 previews, IT Career guidance, and more—request info here)  (updated registration link)
• New Horizons Kansas City 12:00pm – 3:00pm (featuring Windows 7 previews, Windows Server 2008, .NET 3.5, SharePoint sessions and more—register here)
• Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, 6:00pm – 8:00pm (repeat of morning event)

Thursday, May 7th: Kansas City, MO to Denver, CO

• MCP Study Break, Red Rocks Community College, Lakewood, CO, 8:00am – 10:00am (featuring live rounds of “Are You Certifiable?” and Windows Server 2008 exam prep sessions)
• Ask the Experts at Ameriteach, Greenwood Village, CO, 4:30pm – 8:00pm (featuring live rounds of “Are you Certifiable?” sessions on Windows 7, SQL Server, OCS and more—delivered by stellar MCTs!)

Friday, May 8th: Denver, CO to Santa Fe, NM

• Get Off the Bus! Free day for our intrepid but tired riders—come join us as we explore Santa Fe (follow us on Twitter to see where we’ll be!)

Saturday, May 9th: Santa Fe, NM to Phoenix, AZ

• Glendale Community College, 8:30am – 10:30am (details coming next week)
• Microsoft Technology Round-Up, Training to You, Phoenix, 12:00pm – 3:00pm (featuring Windows 7 previews and Windows Server 2008 certification sessions) (registration link updated)

Sunday, May 10th: Phoenix, AZ to Las Vegas, NV

• “How to Thrive in Your IT Career” at Netcom, 2:00 – 3:30pm (featuring Windows 7 preview)

Monday, May 11th: Las Vegas, NV to Los Angeles, CA

• Greet the Bus at TechEd 2009, 9am

For those of you who manage filers via FilerView or the Command Line, you’ll find this interesting (I swear, I promise you will! :))

The following is what happens when you create a volume using the NSM and choose NAS

Language on volume nsm_nas changed to en_US
(This is the what gets set – The rest below are the values set)

(snap reserve)
Volume nsm_nas: current snapshot reserve is 20% or 4096 k-bytes.

(snap sched)
Volume nsm_nas: 0 2 6@8,12,14,16,20

(snap autodelete)
snapshot autodelete settings for nsm_nas:
state : off
commitment : try
trigger : volume
target_free_space : 20%
delete_order : oldest_first
defer_delete : user_created
prefix : (not specified)
destroy_list : none

(vol autosize)
Volume autosize is currently OFF for volume ‘nsm_nas’.

(vol options)
nosnap=off, nosnapdir=off, minra=off, no_atime_update=off, nvfail=off,
ignore_inconsistent=off, snapmirrored=off, create_ucode=on,
convert_ucode=on, maxdirsize=62914, schedsnapname=ordinal,
fs_size_fixed=off, compression=off, guarantee=volume, svo_enable=off,
svo_checksum=off, svo_allow_rman=off, svo_reject_errors=off,
no_i2p=off, fractional_reserve=100, extent=off, try_first=volume_grow,
read_realloc=off, snapshot_clone_dependency=off

This is the same you’d expect as when creating via the CLI or using FilerView!

Now, this is what happens when you do the same actions, but choose SAN

Language on volume nsm_san changed to en_US
Security style for /vol/nsm_san/ changed from ntfs to unix
The space management policy for vol nsm_san has changed: autosize state enabled.
The space management policy for vol nsm_san has changed: autodel state enabled.

(I did edit the words above to fit, but you get the point :) – here are the results)

(snap reserve)
Volume nsm_san: current snapshot reserve is 0% or 0 k-bytes. (Down from 20%)

(snap sched)
Volume nsm_san: 0 2 6@8,12,14,16,20  (Didn’t change)

(snap autodelete)
snapshot autodelete settings for nsm_san:
state                           : on (Turned on now)
commitment                      : try
trigger                         : volume
target_free_space               : 20%
delete_order                    : oldest_first
defer_delete                    : user_created
prefix                          : (not specified)
destroy_list                    : none

(vol autosize)
Volume autosize is currently ON for volume ‘nsm_san’. (Enabled now also)
The volume is set to grow to a maximum of 24 MB, in increments of 1 MB.

(vol options)
nosnap=on, nosnapdir=off, minra=off, no_atime_update=off, nvfail=off,
ignore_inconsistent=off, snapmirrored=off, create_ucode=on,
convert_ucode=on, maxdirsize=62914, schedsnapname=ordinal,
fs_size_fixed=off, compression=off, guarantee=volume, svo_enable=off,
svo_checksum=off, svo_allow_rman=off, svo_reject_errors=off, no_i2p=on,
fractional_reserve=0, extent=off, try_first=volume_grow,
read_realloc=off, snapshot_clone_dependency=off

So, I don’t know about you, but this is pretty damn cool! The coolest bits are – when  I want to create volumes and I don’t want to look up the Best Practices for Vol auto growth and snap auto-deletion, I don’t need to now! Hooray!