Category Storage

I know some of you have been waiting patiently for MBRAlign after finding out that your ESX Virtual Machines have been out of alignment all this time (A common trend which affects nearly everyone who uses ESX!)

Well, the wait is over! Now you can actually go and download MBRAlign directly from the NetApp toolchest, without having to wait for someone (like me;)) to give you a copy to download! (I do appreciate you asking, and am more than happy to provide you the tools in any event :))

If you’ve used the MBRScan tool before, in order to determine if your machines are aligned or not, that is still available as part of the VMware ESX Host Utilities Kit (v5)

And now you can download MBRAlign directly from the NetApp Toolchest! Hoorah!  I implore you to please read the mbralign.pdf first before you do anything!

For some additional information on this, I encourage you to check out the NetApp community article which echos a number of these statements.

UPDATE – mbralign is available from the ToolChest on the now.netapp.com website

So, check it out, let me know if you run into any problems or issues and I’ll see what I can do about em! ;)

NetApp CEO Dan Warmenhoven on the Cisco Unified DataCenter

Welcome to the Future! Strangely the future hasn’t ever felt so much like “Now” than ever before.    If you haven’t been following all of the chatter leading up to these major announcements we’re on the threshhold of these major breaking points like never before.

The Data center has spoken and it’s answer is True unification.

Cisco has had this same story with their Switch line and with the purely unified solution with the Nexus line and the future of FCoE.   This is not just another story of “Let’s produce another server” which is akin to the type of “battles” you tend to see occur between Dell, HP and IBM.  No this is something much more and much bigger.   So, while this definitely is an introduction of Blade Servers, this is more than just “another blade”.   This is an entirely new way to think about, to manage and to interoperate within your datacenter.

If you haven’t seen some of the snippets of the new blades coming, here are a few pictures.

This is more than just pretty pictures.  Never before have we had such a consolidated solution to a Network Fabric akin to the consolidated SAN solutions which NetApp has Pioneered and still stands unopposed in delivering.   Add to that the pure play with VMware and other virtualization and what we have here is a marriage of Servers with the Networks and the Storage; what you end up with an end-to-end virtualization and delivery solution which will comprehensively change the way the datacenter operates.

So, what does this mean for the future?   The landscape has gotten a bit wider and narrower at the same time.    Everyone will have their toe dipped in this pool, or wanting to be a part of it, but those who will stand strong are the ones who speak to this same story of Unity.   Doing more with less (Less Operating Systems, Less Platforms, Less Management required)

Even with the Cloud looming over our heads, the Datacenter isn’t getting any smaller, it is simply getting better at doing what it’s supposed to do.  Either you become better with it, or start working on that resume.

RamSan-20 highlights:

• 450GB Flash storage
• 120,000 IOPS
• 700 MB/s random sustained external throughput
• ECC and RAID
• Embedded CPU controller.

Wowza! this makes the Fusion-io solution seem like a ‘good try’ but Texas Memory Systems comes through again with amazing throughput and more!

Alright, crashing! but yowza! ;)

So seriously, if you haven’t seen this post by Steve or Val, well.. until things are released I cannot say much more than them! But once I can, you’ll get the motherload of it!

What can I say, which has already been said though…

For those of you who manage NetApp filers, you likely are familiar with the Command Line (CLI) or FilerView.   I’d like to say “Welcome to the change to that experience” and that change comes in the form of an MMC snap-in which looks a bit like this!

Believe me, if I didn’t fear for my own disclosure, I’d say more!

One of my favorite bits of this, is the fact that I can manage multiple filers from this single interface – Add them in and they’re ready to go.  The same can be said for multiple members of a cluster.  What? It knows who its cluster pairs are and can tell you about issues? no that’s far too cool to be true.

There’s so much more… which I look forward to disclosing when this officially launches, but just do know that it is really-cool and will improve your management experience even more-so than you currently have today!

I will say nothing more on this! :)