Posts by DJUNIX

IBM snatches back SPC-1 benchmark crown

Its not so bad ...

We have an 6 node SVC cluster and its pretty easy to configure and setup. Most difficult part is having mutliple vendors arrays and different models under are SVC cluster. We use IBM, HDS, and HP arrays with about 1600 different disk under the SVC cluster (yeah I know, too many vendors).

So just having v7000's underneath the SVC cluster would be easy (and heck, the SVC and v7000 is the same GUI and CLI).

Regarding the SVC clustering, they had a 4 node cluster (8 SVC engines) so each vdisk (LUN) would be in one I/O group so two SVC engines would be serving the vdisk. So if one SVC has a hardware issue, all I/O in that I/O group is being served on one SVC engine.

Curious to see ...

Since it had a 4 node SVC cluster, It would be interesting to see the results with the 3PAR as the storage for the 4 node SVC cluster. That way you could compare the backend storage of 3PAR vs the v7000 (storwize boxes that has its own SVC code). It would also be fun just to mirror the vdisk between each vendors array and look at the latency between the two.

US judge rejects Oracle's fraud claim against HP

Itanium is dead

Well, at my shop anyways. Replaced all of our Alpha Servers with either Linux or AIX. HP could be right that Oracle was trying scare tatics for HP customers to replace HPUX w/ Solaris but majority I would imagine go with HP Intel Servers over Oracle boxes anyways. Also, Redhat and Microsoft latest versions will not run on Itanium so it shouldn't be a big surprise by HP that another software company insn't going to support Itanium going forward.

Sparc T4 chips: Oracle makes stealthy spec change

Thanks for the good laugh

Always love reading Kebabbert comments!! Possibly the new Mike Cox ... but for snoracle instead.

SAN vs NAS: Spelling out the differences

Your kidding ... right?

I like to see you put a EMR like Epic or Cerner on a NAS and come back and tell me its more reliable and more stable than a SAN (which for a EMR should be on a Tier 1 array).

Top CEOs agree: US is down the crapper

So how far do we go?

We need to spend money in our classrooms so that our children have the best tools and teachers available to them. I think everyone could agree on that. I think many times though we just spend money and not analyzing what works and what doesn't. I for one rather see some competition in the schools just like in the public sector. If you're not producing, you're gone, if you do produce, then you're rewarded.

So for those teachers who can inspire their students and innovate new ways of teaching, I rather see them get paid much more than some teacher just getting a pay check. Also, just like the pubic sector, if you aren't producing why should you be protected by the teacher unions? Instead the teacher unions should get the teachers not producing and help them find ways to improve. Those teachers who still can't get their students pointed to the right direction, will maybe the best solution is to help them find another field of work since I rather have new blood than a teacher who just has tenure and can't teach.

Also, I know its a hot button with many, but maybe school vouchers for children in school districts not performing is another solution. If its students scores are where they need to be, then I'm ok with it. Heck I'm ok with anything that gets results. If not school vouchers, then whatever works. I'm just tired of just spending to solve the problem since obviously it's not helping.

But that's my 2 cents ... better go and be productive today!!

HP at storage crossroads

Glad we only got one EVA

We purchased a EVA 6000 a few years back and were looking to purchase some more storage (work in healthcare so always buying storage). HP came out and did a dog and pony show (like every other vendor) and some management was convinced to go down that road. I liked some of its offerings but wasn't sure. In the end we decided to go with HDS as our storage vendor (we just picked up a couple of IBM XIV's though). So if we did purchase the EVA's, I wonder what their road map would be for us??

So IF there midrange is in disarray, maybe they should look at purchasing some smaller fish who could revive their storage products (maybe 3Par).

Sun shops unnerved by Oracle Alpha man

Basically did the same thing

We actually started to plan for the migration in late 2008 (our move was a good one considering a few months later Sun was looking for a buyer). We still have some Sun boxes left (a couple of T2's, M4k's, and M5k's) but the older Sun boxes are now gone. Most likely in a few years our Sun gear will be gone (need to get the ROI out of the boxes that still work fine).

We went with open source for some (either RedHat or CentOS) to replace the Solaris apps/infrastructure systems and AIX on our EMR and ERP. We even converted some of the old SUN app's to Windows (not a windows fan but for some apps it made sense) .

Anyways, not sure if we convert back to Oracle/SUN, but you never know. I remember back in mid 90's I was helping convert off of AIX to Solaris. Now some of it it's back the other way.

IBM reloads Sun poaching gun

Already had a migration plan

I work in Healthcare, and I could tell you that we were planning to move off of SUN over a year ago (we planned this before the news of SUN looking for any takers of its company ... the writing was on the wall).

So last year, we purchased some HP equipment to run some of the infrastructure pieces we have and some oracle databases (running Linux or windows). Our ERP was running on Sun, but now running on AIX. Also, we are in the process of implementing an EMR and went with AIX as well.

I admit I'm am bias towards Linux, but I think it was a no brainer!! Of course those who have something to loose on SUN side will think I’m wrong.

IBM's XIV roadmap includes multiple frames and InfiniBand

Get blasted when informing how it works

First off, I was informing those who never seen or touch one. I was trying to explain that how it works compared to the other storage arrays I administer and it seems that their is a bias opinion out there against it. If you don't like it fine, but wouldn't those who haven't touch one like to know how it performs?

Second, the DS8300 will be faster on many applications but might not be on other applications against the XIV. The hospital I work at has lots of unstructured data and it quite honestly does perform quite well with this type of data. Also, the DS8300 is like other traditional storage arrays and the one at my shop has 480 disk in 60 RAID groups (either RAID 5 or 10). I myself like to wide stripe LUN's but not on 480 disk of course. So there is still a potential to have hot spots in this array. But we monitor for this and when issues arrive we start moving LUN's around to different disk. With the XIV, it doesn't have any hot spots since 1 MB extents are written to all of the disk and so far the application teams and database admins like the performance they are getting.

Now, I myself compare the XIV to more of a higher Tier 2 array than a Tier 1 and it is true the EVA6000 is a few years old and to be fair I'm sure the latest version would perform comparable to the XIV. However, the HDS AMS1000 we have is only 6 months older than the XIV so I suppose that is a closer comparison, even though the AMS2500 is now out (we had to purchase the AMS1000 last December and couldn't wait for the AMS2500 release). We will be purchasing a AMS2500 soon as well, so maybe I could post my findings later.

Also, I have noticed where the XIV doesn't peform well and for those who do large sequential reads, better to stick with a traditional array. But for lots of random reads and writes (databases, VMs, medical records) it does quite well for a high end Tier 2.

performance is quite good

Performance is quite good in the XIV. It really depends on the type of workload comparing a Tier 1 with the XIV. For our transaction processing applications, our Tier 1 storage array (DS8300 ... 480 FC disk with 128 GB cache) is faster than on the XIV but it does fine. On unstructured data, the XIV is faster than our DS8300.

For our Tier 2, we have Hitachi AMS1000's and HP EVA's 6000's and on average the XIV is about 3 to 4 times faster. Now you maybe curious on how I know it is about 3 times faster or more. Most of the data on our AMS1000's and HP EVA's were migrated to the XIV.

Interface is awesome!!!

We have one already (love it) and going to be purchasing another one. Unfortunately I need to get one up and running by Feb 2010 so these new features most likely won't be in the one I purchase next.

The interface is awesome, and this is comming from a CLI guy. Heck, on my HDS arrays, I don't even use their interface but work directly with the SNM CLI. But with the XIV, they made things so easy and fast that I seldom use the XIV CLI. I only use my perl scripts to capture daily activity to post to a website and thats all.

One thing this article forgot to mention is they will be also offering more cache in the data and IO modules.

Glenn Beck loses and wins domain name case

need to defend your character

I don't care who it is, but if someone smears your character with no proof you have to defend yourself. I know, many say just do nothing and everyone knows its bogus anyways so why bother.

But if someone or group just made up a story with zero fact checking, I would be out there telling the world!! Also, to me, if you don't defend yourself maybe people think it is true so you got to defend yourself with allegations that are NOT true.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of bogus claims from ideologs. I think it is easier to smear someones name rather than defend your beliefs and it seems hard for these ideologs to respect others who have a different opinion.

Oracle, Sun speed-launch Exadata V2

RE:Scared to death

Or Scott K Handy is proud of the numbers and whats the whole world to know. Of course doing so makes a bigger target on your back for other vendors to take you down. So IBM maybe the leader today, but tomorrow (which could be awhile) it will be someone else. Heck, I remember when IBM sucked on the UNIX side (anybody remember AIX 3.2.x).

Sun's Sparc server roadmap revealed

Is it too late .. or just in time

Not sure if it is too late or not, but I suspect most Sun customers are looking at alternative plans while waiting to see what happens. The rock chip might of made the difference at the high end and I'm not sold on the Niagara chip to take them to the promise land (its fine on low end and to some extent to the mid range but not design for the high end). Besides, I know its not who has the best product and the best technology, but rather who has the best marketing.

So time will tell, but Sun does remind me a lot like DEC. Good products that people once bought but then faded into history. So Oracle can make Sun hardware better in time but I wonder if Larry is more interested in a quick buck or to take a chance and develop some good hardware!!