Allow me to preface this by saying – This is one in a series of tips, tricks and step in order to stay true to your “new years resolutions” furthermore, I personally do not set ‘new years resolution’ myself.  Why?  Because, one year I set new years resolutions.  I had a few very specific and precise resolutions which were VERY tangible, and I blew them out of the water! We’re talking multitudes and ratings which cannot even be calculated upon! So I don’t resolve things.. I just solve things ;)

But a lot of people like to set resolutions, which are often intangible and hard to meet, reach and exceed – Here in the following series of blog posts will be real tangible ways to achieve you’re often intangible resolutions! To make them accountable, and moreso, to make YOU accountable to your resolutions! (Ever actually keep one of yours? Here’s how!)

One of the top resolutions people will set falls within the realm of “Health” which often has stipulations such as “I want to get fit” “I want to watch what I eat” “I want to drop x pounds” or even “I want to get x amount of sleep this year”  Well, other than the tangible and concrete ones, there is absolutely no accountability for ‘getting fit’ or what ‘watching what I eat’ means, nor any real means of tracking in the others (they’re nice to haves, often controlled by your rather inaccurate scale! :))

Well, now with the power of the internets, and technology… You could very well meet these objectives in a concrete and tangible fashion!

I want to watch what I eat track my calories activity weight and sleep

So, you’ve decided to watch (for a few days) what food you’re about to eat “I’ll eat this pasta, but not this cake” whereas behind the scenes the cake may have been more healthy than the pasta?! wtf?!  Damnit! I can’t keep track of all of this on my own!”

Allow me to introduce to you numerous options available at your disposal!

Our friends at FitBit, the makers of the FitBit offer a free dashboard for logging food, activity, weight and more!

• As you can see from this dashboard, it tracks some pretty cool stuff! Calories burned (You manually enter it, or with the FitBit device for $99)
• Calories eaten is controlled by you manually entering the food you eat on a regular basis, whether through meals or individual items
• And weight is tracked manually by you as well (Hey, it’s not gonna weigh you itself! Though that’d be nice a mass indexer.. ;))
• And lastly.. it’ll also track your sleep efficiency! (again, this requires the purchase of the device!)

So, you’re telling me there is a website where half the functionality isn’t available unless I buy some kind of device for $99?!@?  No. Not in the least bit.

I’m telling you there is a website where half the functionality IS available, that you usually have to pay for from other sites (which I’ll mention in a bit ;))

Let the record show I do not own one of the FitBit devices (though I’ll gladly take one to do a formal review and comparison! wink wink, psst :))

In the event the hint is not taken and I am not sent a free FitBit to review.. I had intended to buy one anyway to do a formal assault/assessment of the device and how it compares to other similar devices intended to help you keep track without burdening you with trying to keep yourself accountable on paper. (Formal review of all devices will be coming soon!)

Now, something I can talk about even further is an actual device that I DO wear! The GoWearFit – This helps give me accountability on whateverthehell I am doing, and lets me know that if I want to obtain some level of fitness… I have a tracking mechanism build into me practically! :)

Yes, that is my actual arm! I took that with a camera, OMFG?! And yes that is my little sensor I took a photo on my lenovo with.. :)

But the real key to this, is the (PAY) subscription where it tabulates all of this data online for you to work with! Take a look at the BodyMedia dashboard!

• Calories Burned is tracked from the unit on my arm – the target is defined by me either manually or by accepting a ‘default’ series
• Calories Consumed is tracked by filling in what you’ve eaten for a given day, from a comprehensive list or manually entering in details
• Calorie Balance is the difference of the two above (Jan 2nd was a busy day and I never entered my foods I ate for that day! :))
• Physical Activity is a tracking of any activity which usually falls in the 1-3 or 3-6 MET’s range, I defined my target as 60mins of Moderate daily activity
• Steps Taken is literally just that – every step you take! You should walk 10,000 steps a day! I usually walk around 5000, so my target is low ;)
• Sleep Duration is my FAVORITE Part! It inspired a whole series of conversations on Facebook on the subject! I’ll show you more on it!
• Weight (and waist size) are manually entered, if you want to track things over time!

I’m not gonna too deep in this, because I’m saving that for a separate deep dive post later on, but let me show you the sleep duration bit, because people love that ;)

So, you may look at this and say “Whoa, You didn’t meet your sleep target of 8hrs a day!” Well, first of all, let me put a few things straight.. 5 hours and 55 minutes of undisturbed sleep! totally rocks! I average 4-5 hours of undisturbed, no tossing, no turning, not evening moving, just flat out sleeping! (and lucid dreaming if I agree to it before I sleep ;))

And to further that defense.. when It’s the weekend or a day off.. and I don’t have somewhere to be in the morning (rare) I sleep until 2PM, but this only calculates until noon, so.. :)

It looks like I have poor efficiency from my lying down time vs sleep time, but I lay down a lot (with laptops on top of me) with no intention of sleeping :)

So, when it comes to saying “Man, I’m tired every day, why is that” I have a tangible and very concrete place to reference to see just how much sleep I’ve been getting, and whether I’m well rested at all “Wow, I thought I got 8hrs of sleep, but I only got 2?!?” Etc, so on and so forth :)

Also, there is another tool which is very similar to these other two, the BodyBugg which is extremely similar with various differences – I’ll go into depth on that later, as @skyyogastudio is using that tool, I’m using this one, and if FitBit sends us one to test, Both of us will test it out (and then probably give it away as a prize at Sky Yoga Studio hint hint :))

So, what is the moral of this story and resolution?  You have tools at your disposal whereby you don’t have to do anything and it’ll keep track of half or more of your health.  And if you do a little effort, you can also keep track of how many calories you burn – whether it be for free using the FitBit dashboard, or paying and using the other tools by BodyBugg or BodyMedia

You may remember my rocking consolidated blog posts for Symmetrix FAST and Celerra FAST – But here is something I didn’t even have to create myself! This is a pure total rocking consolidation for Avamar! Wowza is the first thing I’d say, and for what it’s worth, I’ve seen the internal version of the same site – Believe me when I say, the customer facing version you see below here is WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY better!  Seriously ! Check it out, and if you don’t think this is totally rocking, I’ll one-up it and do it even better! ;)

The link may require credentials on EMC’s PowerLink – so please keep that in mind when it comes to accessing the site!

So, check it out! This will be your best friend when it comes to working with Avamar, and solving your backup problems and other for the future! :)

Yea, I’ve been meaning to post this for many weeks, but better late than never for everyone who didn’t know about this!

I’m not sure whether this is good until Jan 22nd, or Jan 31st, it’s kind of contradicting itself… so good luck either way!

VMware “Upgrade” Promotion

PLEASE NOTE: In order to comply with VMware’s retake policy your initial VCP4 exam must be taken by January 22, 2010!

Notice: Due to overwhelming demand, existing VCP3 professionals will be able to obtain the VCP4 certification with no additional course requirement through January 31, 2010.

Dear VMware Certified Professionals,
First, let us say thank you for supporting VMware’s certification program! We appreciate our VCPs who have worked hard over the past few months to achieve our newest certification, the VCP on vSphere 4. In order to meet the December 31, 2009, deadline, many of you recently scheduled (and hopefully passed!) your exam with our testing partner. In fact, so many of you scheduled exams that some of our VCP professionals were unable to find a testing center with available seats prior to the December deadline.
In order to accommodate participants that, despite best efforts, were unable to schedule their exam prior to the deadline, VMware will continue accepting the VCP3 certification as a qualification to take the VCP4 exam without requiring attending the “What’s New” class through January 31, 2010. We fully expect that the additional four weeks will allow remaining participants ample time to find a testing center with available seating, and will NOT be extending the deadline any further, so please take advantage of this opportunity!
Regards,
The VMware Technical Certification Team

If you received an email from VMware regarding this promotion, below is how to redeem your VMware “Upgrade” exam (note: this is a two-part process):

Part I: Register for a VCP4 exam at full price using the Upgrade voucher number sent to you by email from VMware. Important: The unique voucher number needs to be entered during the registration process to establish your eligibility for a free retake exam if you fail the initial exam. This discount offer will not be available on VMware Certified Professional on vSphere™ 4 (VCP4) exams scheduled without an Upgrade voucher number.

Follow the steps below to enter the voucher number during the exam registration process:

1. Schedule an appointment for your VMware Certified Professional on vSphere™ 4 (VCP4) exam.
2. Once at the payment screen, scroll to the bottom of the page to access the “Voucher Number” field.
3. Enter your unique voucher number and click “Apply Voucher.” Note: The Total Due amount will not show any adjustment.

   Below is the screen you should see to enter and apply your voucher number:

   

4. Finally, click the “Next” button.

Part II: If you fail the exam that was scheduled with your unique voucher number, you may schedule a free retake by entering the promotion code: UPGRADE at the time of registration. Important: This discount will only be valid on retakes of exams that were initially scheduled using your unique voucher number.

Follow the steps below to enter your promotion code during the exam registration process:

1. Schedule an appointment for your VMware Certified Professional on vSphere™ 4 (VCP4) exam.
2. Once at the payment screen, scroll to the bottom of the page to access the “Promotion Code” field.
3. Enter the promotion code “Upgrade” and click “Apply Promo Code.”

   Below is the screen you should see to enter and apply the “Upgrade” promotion code:

   

4. Finally, click the “Next” button.

Both the full price and free “Upgrade” exams must be taken by January 31, 2010. Offer valid for the VMware Certified Professional on vSphere™ 4 (VCP4) exam only (exam code – VCP410). Only one (1) offer per person. Standard VMware retake policy rules apply.

Hey big datacenter, I think “booyah” is in order, with this almost stealth announcement of UIM for Ionix!  

Look at the big picture and see what this means for your datacenter!

So, out of box today UIM fully supports management of the whole Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) stack, with evolution to support the rest of the Vblock infrastructure!   Which means taking your Pain of glass you have today and truly turning it into a comprehensive datacenter wide pane of glass for managing the entire stack from a single interface.

What this can mean is consolidated views of your entire Vblock infrastructure..

In the first release your datacenter will be cooking with Service Profile Catalogs enabling a “recipe” for building services and the basis for truly delivering infrastructure as a service.  Yea I know it sounds like lip service but when was the last time you truly had this level of ‘cookie cutter’ capability to deploy what you want, where you want it without having to reinvent the wheel every single time – Service Profile Catalogs will be the answer to let you take control of your datacenter again.

Though, if you feel that even creating recipes is a recipe for disaster – Policy-based management helps keep your environment honest to ensure configuration policies are set and enforced to ensure system-wide compliance to avoid configuration drift.   Oh, did I mention this functionality is also fully supported in this release of UIM with Cisco UCS Network infrastructure, such as Nexus and MDS? I say sweet! :)

What helps to complete this story is Unified Provisioning, configuration, change management – and a simplified integration.

What I’m particularly floored by is the deployment, bare metal provisioning which includes automated provisioning of the disaster recovery site! (Whoa, he did not just say Automated DR!)

The story around provisioning, configuration and change management will be the foundation of your success in the datacenter of the future.   Think about it! unlimited revision history, fine-grained tracking, traceability, and reproducibility! This isn’t the datacenter of 2010! This sounds more like the datacenter of 2100!     Out the gate this first release of UIM will focus on the unified provisioning, configuration and change control of Cisco UCS and the related network infrastructure.

You aren’t going to get away so easily though! I did say simplified integration and I mean it!   UIM Element management integrates with your existing enterprise management solutions on the floor today, providing change and compliance events to help track critical changes.   Furthermore, it leverages Cisco UCS manager APIs and EMC storage management systems allowing you to take advantage of existing instrumentation and component configuration.

So, putting all the marketing jibber jabber aside what does this mean for you, the datacenter owner?   This means that old fashioned model of “Is UCS ready? WTF is this VCE thing? Why do I even need a simplified datacenter operation? What do you mean Private Cloud, it’s sunny outside!”  It means welcome to the future of your datacenter.   The days of silo provisioning, configuration, management and troubleshooting are over!   You know that the top of mind conversation for the 2010 datacenter and on ever C-class’s lips will be  datacenter virtualization, reshaping the data center, and enhanced security – Take a look at that Gartner list and you tell me that VCE isn’t the answer to 5 or more of them ;)

So, the future is most definitely here (hey, 14 days ahead of schedule! How can you go wrong?!)  So there’s no better time than the present to educate yourself about this opportunity and what the rest of the future lay in store.  if you’re looking to discuss the future of your datacenter, let me know because your priorities are my priorities!

I’ve taken the liberty to consolidate all of the Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager 1.0 documents here for your ease: (Powerlink credentials required)

? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Release Notes
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Data Sheet
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Installation Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Report Advisor User Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Backup and Recovery Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager System Management Console Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Regular Expressions User Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Infrastructure Driver Release Version Support Matrix
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Non-EMC Software Read Me
? EMC Ionix Device Services Engineering DASL Language Changes

I’d also like to thank Chad Sakac for this great YouTube Video and post More VCE Vblock Details including EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager and Storagezilla for their post Vblock and Ionix Unified Infrastructure Management

So for those of you who know me, you know I initially complained about a data reconstruction problem with my ix4-200d! I accidently pulled the power cable out (doh!) and then my system came up JUST fine, and said “Data reconstruction, 2%” Yea, it said that FOREVER – And it did nothing and got nowhere! Regardless of how many reboots I made! (Though my data access was fine!)

And even going to the “Update Device Software” tab, it always reported “The device software is up to date” Which I now know is a LIE! LIES I SAY! :)

I did a little searching and came across an updated firmware! (oh my!) however it didn’t say it’d do anything about data reconstruction problems! But hey, I always like to be running the latest/greatest, so I downloaded and installed the latest firmware! StorCenter ix4-200d Firmware Version 2.1.25.229: Read First (You’ll find this to be quick and painless!)

Well, some minutes passed and all of a sudden the system was all “DATA RECONSTRUCTION IS HAPPENING IN THE HIZZY!” Okay, not in those exact words.. but I don’t feel like pulling my power to try to reproduce the problem – needless to say, my data reconstruction resumed and finished in short order! Score one for the bucko! (dated reference much?!)

So I deep dove into the system to see what else had changed! (nothing consequential that I could find) but my journey to find a way to ssh this box had not ended! I was determined! I must.. I must.. I must increase my SSH ability! And while searching I came across not only this webpage SSH/Shell access to iomega StorCenter ix2 but that little gem of a webpage included this little link at the bottom! http://ip-of-nas/support.html – Which when you browse to it on your ix4, you end up seeing a page which looks like… this!

This has a few little gems, only two of which will I look at in any detail – Support Access and Recover Disks

Well, Support Access looks pretty damn straight forward! Check the box, reboot, and SSH will be enabled (permanently!)

The Storage Recovery Verification is a bit more interesting – my “guess” is that it allows you the ability to force the data reconstruction many of us complain of! Again, I have no intention of forcing the deal to try to see what happens if I fail my system – You simply let me know if this works for you – with data reconstruction woes :)

Sweet, eh! So, I feel comfortable sharing the process on how to do this.. because frankly, I had to find it from the outside looking in! So I definitely grant you good luck on solving your data reconstruction, firmware updating, and enabling SSH on your NAS!   Until I find an externally cited source though.. I cannot share with you my passwd I used to log in to my ix4 ;)

As promised!  Shell access to your ix2/ix4 exposed! “Get yer red hot ssh here!”

If you come across a site referencing it though, I’d be glad to add it to the mix!  Thanks for your patience.. and look forward to a future post around getting my ‘gigabit runs at 100mb’ problem :)