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Celebrating 10 Years of Community: VMworld 2013, Help Us Contribute!

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:13:51 -0400

I won’t begin this post with, “Its that time of year again” as that is so cliche. But it is! With the advent of Spring and all the wonderful things it brings, the Call for VMworld 2013 Papers has landed. 2012 for me brought a wonderful experience to present at VMworld on Deploying Active/Active Datacenters with SRM5. Our attendees were great. VMware was great. My co-presenters, Mike Bailess and Greg Camp were beyond great.

This year however, after convincing myself that presenting in front of hundreds of tech starved individuals was not that scary, I decided to have at it again. This time with a twist. As we so adamantly tried to persuade you that our solution was Active/Active, Datacenters not Storage. This year we (Martin Valencia and I) will burn the path to all the great things that come with Active/Active Storage solutions. Particularly around the vMSC (vSphere Metro Storage Cluster) configuration using VPLEX that VMware supports. Having deployed several of these solutions, makes us qualified to get the word out. Our goal, is make the session dirty technical. I mean dirty. But you won’t know unless you vote, now will you? So head over to vmworld.com here, filter by Varrow (or dirty), look for our session and make it happen.

Need a little more encouragement, here’s what Mr. Sakac had to say on his “My Fav Picks” post here…

“Varrow has some of the best cross-domain experts I’ve seen at a VAR. They’ve had a lot of experiences with a lot of technology – so I would expect that this would be a very balanced and deep session.”

He’s right and we are. But how will you experience this technical dirtiness (yeah I said it) unless you vote? Do it.

Finally, unlike previous years where Varrow’s showing has been limited, we hope this year is different. The incredible technical talent at this company has been exposed. Bubbling through the round of first cuts, available for you to vote. Again filter by Varrow and make this a reality.

Thanks for the support, and here’s to 10 wonderful years of spreading the VMware way!

More info on the abstracts below…

5038 Achieving High Availability with vSphere Storage Metro Clusters and EMC VPLEX

Joe Kelly and Martin Valencia, Varrow

High Availability in todays datacenters stretch beyond a single or multi host failure. Increased visibility and mobility across datacenters is quickly becoming a must have for all workloads. With the introduction of Active/Active Storage solutions to the market, VMware has begun to support these SVD’s or Storage Virtualization Devices for qualified products. vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) is a configuration option that allows for stretched clusters between two synchronous joined datacenters. Providing these cluster capabilities, that are distributed in nature, allow for fluid VM mobility using vMotion between datacenters. This session will focus on the benefits and challenges of such a solution based on front line field experience using VPLEX 5.X and vSphere 5.X. Multi-site vSphere cluster designs just got better.

4809 SQL Virtualization – How to bring Tier 1 SQL workloads into an optimized vSphere environment

Tony Pittman and Kyle Quinby, Varrow

Drawing from real-world experiences, Kyle Quinby and Tony Pittman will be going through some accumulated knowledge on tips and tricks to squeak out every last bit of power of your SQL VMs. They will be focusing on how to lay a solid foundation for SQL for both performance and high availability.
Tier 1 Database workloads truly have a home in modern virtual infrastructure. Consolidation ratios are finally what they should be, and bookkeeping aspects such as licensing and backup/DR have finally become relatively simple to achieve.
This session will be appreciated by,
1. SQL admins or developers that are looking for insight into how their virtual admins can help them
2. Virtual infrastructure administrators, that are unsure what steps they should be taking for their SQL workloads
3. Long-term planners (architects/CIO) looking to get some “best practice” information to create a virtual SQL strategy

4969 Understanding vSphere Physical Connectivity - Deep Dive & Recommendations

Jason Nash, Varrow

This session will provide an in-depth look at your options for physically connecting vSphere hosts to the network. The discussion will focus on common question areas that come up during knowledge workshops and customer design sessions. Throughout the session videos and animations will be used to help attendees easily see the expected result from many of these configuration options. The presentation will focus heavily on the different hashing types and traffic control, especially the more advanced options such as Load-Based Teaming and Network I/O Control. Other areas of focus include physical separation of traffic, networks of differing security requirements such as DMZs, and suggested NIC configurations for both 1Gb and 10Gb environments. Finally, recommendations for physical switch configurations will also be covered. Throughout the session best practices, recommendations, and lessons learned from many production deployments will be shared. Attendees should expect to walk away with a deep understanding of the physical connectivity options available with vSphere, how they can be utilized in their environment, and the best methods for deploying them.

5053 Cloud Continuity: How does the Cloud fit into your Business Continuity Plan?

Tom Cornwell, Varrow

Today cloud is becoming ubiquitous. However, it can be utilized in many different ways. Whether you utilize cloud for your production environments or not, cloud can play a part in your business continuity plan. This session describes different business continuity strategies utilizing cloud. Topics include: cloud as a source, cloud as a target, and cloud to cloud DR. In addition, we will discuss mixed strategies and different types of cloud implementations including Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Storage-as-a-Service, and DR-as-a-Service.

5158 How High Point Regional deployed a secure, feature-rich resilient desktop to their users
Dave Lawrence, Varrow. Adam Flowers, High Point Regional Health System

Come hear how High Point Regional Health System implemented Horizon View using the latest technologies such as HTML Access, Persona Management, Imprivata OneSign, Trend Micro Deep Security and Zero and repurposed clients all on a vSphere Streched Cluster with EMC VPLEX. Come hear the lessons learned during this dynamic deployment and how to integrate all of these great solutions together.

5296 Hypervisor-Based Disaster Recovery: The Missing Link for Virtualizing Mission-Critical Applications
Jason Nash, Varrow. Shannon Snowden, Zerto.

Mission-critical, tier-1 applications such as database and transactional applications are often the last to be virtualized. Despite the many benefits of virtualizing these applications, some companies still question the ability to protect and recover these applications in virtualized environments. Most likely, each application is on a different type of storage, so having one solution across the environment is not possible – driving up complexity and costs. Traditional BC/DR technologies are built for physical environments, requiring manual and complex processes to utilize these systems for virtualized applications, and each type of hardware has its own type of replication – so there is no consistency.
New disaster recovery technologies are filling this gap for large and small enterprises alike, delivering all the flexibility customers expect from a virtualized environment, with the aggressive RPOs and RTOs that mission-critical applications require. In this session, we will show how hypervisor-based replication solves these critical DR issues, clearing all barriers to virtualize tier-1 applications.

5470 The seven things you need to look at in your environment BEFORE installing Horizon View!
Dave Lawrence, Varrow

Ready to install Horizon View? Have you checked your DHCP scope? Is your version of vSphere supported? Are you using Group Policy loopback processing mode? Should you? There are seven main components of your environment that you should review BEFORE installing Horizon View. Come to our session and find out what the seven components are and how to avoid the most common environmental pitfalls that our engineers have come across during hundreds of View deployments.

5553 Cloud Bursting: Strategies to overflow into the cloud
Tom Cornwell, Varrow

Cloud bursting is a concept that to many sounds like a pipe dream. However, by looking at IT from a service perspective rather than from an infrastructure perspective, the tools exist to adopt this radical idea. This session will discuss how tools from VMware can help you make the cloud bursting dream a reality.

VPLEX Failure Opportunities

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 07:29:00 -0400

VPLEX is quite a unique beast in that there are numerous failure opportunities (as I like to call them) a host can walk away from unscathed. There are also some it cannot. I have gotten this question a lot lately and sometimes to the bewilderment of the intended receiver. As magical as VPLEX is, in a lot of cases failover is not automated which implies why VMware SRM integration is in the not so distant future. Below I have gathered information from a few sources that speak on the topic so just maybe we can all get it straight in our head.

To preface that, I wanted to mention two types of volumes from a VPLEX Metro configuration, they are Distributed Virtual Device/Volumes and a Virtual Volumes with remote access. The two are very different. DVV’s as we’ll call them have two copies of the data, one leg at each site. The VV is only one copy of the data, at Site A or Site B, the remote access allows you to make visible that data to hosts at the opposite location to where the data lives. Meaning if you have a VV at Site A you can enable remote access so hosts at Site B can access that VV over the VPLEX transport. In this scenario, you could lose an entire array at Site B and still maintain host uptime because the data is being served up from Site A.

With DVV’s, hosts are actually accessing their local leg for data access, but its done at the head level for the DVV. Considering the two volumes that make up the DVV are mirrored and identical, you could lose either volume, one or the other, not both, and still maintain host connectivity. Where it gets squirrelly is at the loss of VPLEX itself. In single engine scenarios your SPoF is now that single engine. Yes there are two directors within each engine, but loss of a single engine would most likely cause data unavailability depending on what site it failed at. There are a few ways around that. As I mentioned earlier by zoning all hosts at Site A to Site B’s mirror leg and providing standby pathing access, you could survive the loss of a Site A VPLEX engine. Models like such get incredibly complex, especially from a zoning perspective, so be careful out there.

Consider the loss of each from the hosts POV, if there are other scenarios you would like clarification on let me know…

VPLEX IO Module Failure – Consider the modules themselves. Front End, Back End and WAN COM. Assuming you have zoned correctly and all paths are redundant. You could lose multiple IO modules in a director and still maintain host uptime.
VPLEX Director Failure – Two directors themselves. Again assuming you have zoned correctly and all paths are redundant, you could lose a director and still maintain host uptime.
VPLEX Engine Power and Fan Failure – Both are redundant and could sustain a single loss on a per engine basis.
VPLEX Engine Failure – If you’re running a single engine to which all local hosts are zoned to. You will sustain a host failure. There are ways around this in a Metro config, by zoning all your hosts to the secondary cluster and utilizing those paths as standby’s is an option.
VPLEX Management Server Failure – Loss of a management server will not interrupt services to those hosts attached to VPLEX.
VPLEX Cluster Failures – All DVOLs have a detach rule (Third site witness aside). If you lose a Cluster (meaning all engines at one site), the winning site (that to which your detach rules are set to) will remain read/write assuming the cluster that failed was not that site. The other site will detach and IO will suspend if that site is not set as the winning site. In another wards, the hosts utilizing VPLEX storage from a site who’s cluster fails will loose access to its storage unless it is zoned to the other clusters DVOL leg.
VPLEX Inter-cluster Link Failures (WAN COM) - Traditionally VPLEX has no way of distinguishing between a cluster failure or a inter-cluster communication issue, detach rules are limited. Therefore, the non-winning site would always suspend IO until inter-cluster communications was reestablished. VPLEX Witness can distinguish between both scenarios, by accessing both clusters from a third location. In this case it can automatically resume IO on the non-winning site depending on the failure that took place. Otherwise this is a manual process.

Bitchin’! Thank you to EMC (@mjbrender and all the...

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 20:20:50 -0500

Bitchin’! Thank you to EMC (@mjbrender and all the founding fathers) for recognizing my contributions from 2012. To me this represents nothing but teamwork. I’m able to do what I do, because of the individuals I surround myself with; those passionate 85+ men and woman at Varrow and our dedicated EMC partner team. So thank you all.

…and a special thanks to the selfless @TheJasonNash for his nomination. Always looking out for a brother, I owe you one or two my friend : )

1+1 can be...

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:23:00 -0500

On Saturday I made my way to the first TEDx event in the Wilmington area, dub as TEDxHampstead. Hampstead is a small community north of Wilmington, to which a few of the cofounders and board members live. TEDxWilmington happened to be taken (damn you Delaware), hence the name. What has always grabbed me about the TED(x) movement is the notion of life long learning. Its part of the human makeup. Being highly social and curious creatures, we have a thirst for knowledge. This thirst has no age limit, although you’ll see below, perhaps the younger generation needs a little push…

The general flow of the event was as follows below. There are number of guidelines the charter has to adhere to to be legit. I imagine this will be the same format in your area if you attend.

Introductory Remarks
TED Video
First Speaker
Break
Second Speaker
Third Speaker
Break
TED Video
Fourth Speak
Closing Remarks

The speakers themselves were very diverse which added to the appeal and interest. From a Communications Professor at UNCW to one of the cofounders of the Full Belly Project, all had a message and their experiences to bring. The audience, frankly, was sparse. Filled mostly with geriatrics, distinguished suits, a smattering of College ed’s and me (I certainly didn’t hit the crowd demographic) Maybe 30 to 40 with crew and speakers. After each speaker there was Q&A which rounded out each speech to around 20 to 25 minutes a piece.

Formality’s aside, what brought me there was the speaker David Pell. I somehow stumbled upon his communal contributions, of which he humbly calls a Taste of Guitar, a few months ago. Which in turn led me to TEDx. His vision is to create a forum for young musicians to showcase their talents. Beginning and advanced musicians must audition to perform, preferably solo, with several songs premiered. This free event brought together elder musicians in the area who provided sound equipment and mentorship. Also as part of the event was a guest artist, usually someone of stature and relevance in the music industry, who would play and teach.

So I guess at this point you are trying to make sense of the Subject of this post, “1+1 can be”. Pell’s speech was called “Being Creative” and drew upon his/this recipe for creativity. As a teacher, he explains, his students today are only interested in mimicking their musical idols. The creativity to create their own music seems..well distant, unobtainable. Its with this background that he created “1+1 can be”. The idea is simple, when you look at this (1+1) what do see? Do you see the number 2? Or do you see ||||, or 1 > 1 or 1 < 1. All at their root are 4 lines. Think about how many different patterns and variations there are with 4 lines. Its with this, he explains how every element, every song can be broken down into its core elements. Its from these elements, creativity is alive.

All in all, if you looking to have your soul stirred in this soul stew we call life, TEDx fits the bill. But if you are looking to be more creative, then focus on all the wonderful ways 1+1 can be…

What we can all learn from the DevOps Movement...

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:44:57 -0500

If you’re like me the word DevOps may seem quite foreign, although it shouldn’t. To simplify the explanation, its nothing more than tighter collaboration and communication between Development and Operations within an organization. With this tighter collaboration, comes greater efficiencies and reduction in risk when deploying software products and services. Development/Developers are paid change agents. Their job is to respond quickly to a businesses’ needs. Counter to that is Operations. Their job is to resist change for fear of instability. And their lies the problem. These different organizational structures, goals, mindsets and tools all lead to silos of frustration between both sides.

What really put this in perspective for me is this article by Damon Edwards at dev2ops.org. The name of the post says it all, “DevOps is not a technology problem. DevOps is a business problem”. Without proper collaboration between all business entities, the process of a taking an idea from inception, to market literally becomes an up hill battle. This the very essence of DevOps, business enablement. Without the business, we’re all nothing more than glorified hobbyists.

The 3 primary principles of DevOps as defined by Gene Kim, founder of the IT Revolution Press and Tripwire fame are as follows…

Approach the performance of the system holistically. Never pass defection downstream. Local optimization at the risk of global degradation is never allowed.
Instantiate right to left feedback loops.
The third way and I will quote is, “…about creating a culture that fosters at two things: continual experimentation, which requires taking risks and learning from success and failure; and understanding that repetition and practice is the prerequisite to mastery…The outcomes of the Third Way include allocating time for the improvement of daily work, creating rituals that reward the team for taking risks, and introducing faults into the system to increase resilience.”

Do you work in an environment where these principles are working?

Battle Ponderings - A Year in Review 2012

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:18:05 -0500

For the last two years I like to recap the year with events that have been instrumental in Varrow’s success. Although there are many, I document only what comes to me in my stream of consciousness (mostly recapping Varrow.com). Hope you enjoy, and have time to reflect on this whirling dervish we call Varrow…Here’s to a successful, and customer focused 2013!

Varrow Madness 2012 – Certainly the largest partner event in the Carolinas, #vm never disappoints. Labs, sessions, keynotes, beer and basketball, what’s not to like? Whats got me most excited about this year is more engineering participation for the sessions. I like to think ToT was a catalyst for this but maybe its the new blood pushing the old blood : )

Company Support of Home Labs – As eddy would say from Christmas Vacation, this truly is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s a fact engineers are naturally more hands on, to this point home labs have excelled the learning process here at Varrow. Investing in training has been a huge focus this year, and it shows. Engineers are more confident, customers are more comfortable, trust is built, lifers they become. Its that simple.

More vExperts added – VMware vExperts that is, and its VMware’s way of showing support for those in the community that contribute, promote and evangelize their products. Jason Nash and I were the lone rangers for the last two years but 2012 introduced Martin Valencia, Andrew Miller and Phillip Jones (by acquisition) to the list. Remember, anyone can apply, you can nominate yourself! Just contribute and be prepared to document. 2013 nominations will be here before you know it…

TrainSignal Exposure – I don’t know how he has time for it but Nash has produced both the vSphere Advanced Network Training and the soon to be released vCenter Operations Manager course over the last year. The latter of which I served as tech reviewer. Not only do you get to experience Jason’s witty knack for teaching but both are jammed pack with useful, practical and detailed technical goodies. Huge exposure for Jason and Varrow!

VMware View focused partner of the Year – For one that delivered the first View implementations at Varrow, I couldn’t be happy about this. VMware has provided funds to develop and grow our View business. For many years we were on the fence as to whether or not VDI would be core to growing our business. With these funds, the right leadership and engineers in place, we’ve shown that VDI indeed is a pillar of this organization.

EMC Velocity Services Quality Award again – This award from EMC is based on what every services organization should strive for, Customer Satisfaction. We’ve accomplished this year over year. Blood, sweat and tears, it ain’t easy but its what drives us to do better.

Top Storage Practice in Nation so says CRN and me : ) - I’m not even sure what this really means or what its based on, but CRN gave us an award for it. I always knew this, I’m glad others have recognized the overwhelming talent in this group.

4 Presenters at VMworld 2012 - Brian Boyd, Jason Nash, Greg Camp and Myself, if you didn’t know. This was a big deal for me, really pushing my comfort zone. But I learned a lot and realized the obvious. Public speaking is easy if you practice, have a mastery of your subject, and memorize your starting and ending statements. Everything in between is all you. And that is what everyone comes to see and listen to, you!

Inc 500 awarded number 447, CRN’s Fast Growth 100, #1 in Triad FAST 50 again, and CRN’s 2012 List of Tech Elite 250 – Yep there are more, these are but a few. These will come and go and ultimately are a byproduct of our rocket growth. At days end, the service quality awards are what gives our foundation.

2 office moves – GSO and CLT have moved entirely and the Raleigh office expanded. I, being 100% remote have not seen any of the spaces in person, but I understand this was a much needed expansion. Varrow has dressed up and taking it to a new level. I’m so proud of what we have built.

10’s of new faces – I’m not even sure how many Varrow-ites (39 it seems) we have added this year, but just remember I’m number 5 : ) And if I haven’t said it, Welcome!

Teachers of Tech (ToT) introduced – Really glad this is getting traction in 2012. My suspicions are that we were all thinking about this avenue. Sometimes it just takes someone to own it. I for one, look forward to many great sessions over 2013. For those outsiders, ToT is a weekly internal webinar on a particular process or technology that the engineers host. You simply sign up for a slot and speak for an hour on whatever “technical” topic you want. Their recorded and posted on online for those that can’t attend. We hope to expand this externally, so look for more info to come…

I can only imagine what we’ll accomplish together next year. 2012 was big, but 2013 will be bigger…

The 10,000 Year Clock

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:33:09 -0500

In 01989 Danny Hillis dreamed the flight of the 10,000 year clock. Seen as a symbol for long term thinking, it sparked the question, Are we being the best ancestral beings we can be? With this purpose in mind, Danny’s intent was “..to build a clock that ticks once a year.The century hand advances once every 100 years and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium..” Dissatisfied with society’s short term attention span, Danny with the help of Brian Eno, established The Long Now Foundation dedicated to seeding a “..long-term cultural institution”. The clock and their other symbols of innovation set out to promote what was once a passion of us humans. The future.

Approximately 200 feet in size, the clock itself is imbedded in the bowels of a mountain near Van Horn, TX. Funded both geographically (he owns the land) and monetarily, Jeff Bezo’s (Co-founder and CEO of Amazon) has also played an active role in seeing this come to light. The clock itself is designed to conserve energy, updating the face only when visitors, “wind” it via a winding station. Sunlight allowed in from the top of the mountain heats a chamber of air, powering a cylinder that keeps the pendulum moving. Ceramics, geneva wheels, dials, governors and titanium are among some of the other bits and pieces that encompass this clock. All were intimately architected and engineered with longevity in mind.

Besides my general interest in this project of which you can explore more here, it made me think how little I dream or ponder beyond say the next 100 years (ie. my lifetime and my kids lifetime). Perhaps its a sense of helplessness that my actions today won’t have any bearing on a world 10,000 years from now. And besides what do I care, I’ll be gone. But I argue we should care. The fact that most of us brought children into this world implies that we do in fact care. So my question to you is what are you doing now with the future in mind? What are you doing to promote and encourage long term thinking?

vCOPs - On Data Pruning and Kahadb

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:59:00 -0400

A couple of issues I ran into this week with vCOPs that are worth mentioning. One has to do with the infamous grey question mark. This replaces a badge when data collection is broke. The other has to do with pruning data collection in an environment where you are licensed for less per VM than what is being managed by a single vCenter instance. Yes a bit long winded, but let me explain…

First off the most noticeable tip off to vCOPs not collecting data is the grey question mark. In times of normalcy, each badge should be colored with a number indicating, visually and numerically, that it’s reading and making sense of the data. If it’s not there are a couple things that could contribute to this. First, disk space on the analytics VM, lack of..breaks ActiveMQ. VMware uses conservative guidelines as follows in regards to disk sizing, but keep in mind you can add disk space to the Analytics VM, albeit with a shutdown, at anytime.

A bit of background, ActiveMQ is an open source message broker that writes to a database called kahadb. Here it stores and forwards to other services. If the service can’t accept the messages, it writes it to this database. If the disk underflowth ActiveMQ is unable to write a complete file, there in potentially corrupting the database. To resolve this you can follow the steps in VMware KB 2013266. The process is pretty straight forward which haves you rename the kahadb and create a new one. However, it doesn’t state which default account to use to do so. I mistakenly used root (as opposed to admin) to make the changes which prevented the ActiveMQ service (which uses admin) from writing to the kahadb. Simply changing the permissions ( chown -R admin:admin /data/activemq/kahadb/)on the database resolved the issue.

Secondarily, unexpected shutdowns. As with any vApp make sure to shutdown, or restart the VM’s within the vApp at the vApp level. This will save you a lot of trouble down the line and keep that kahadb in working order.

Finally, data collection pruning is something I have heard numerous times from customers. How do I only report on 100 VM’s (because that is all I am licensed for) even though my vCenter instance see’s 300? Very simple. vCOPs collects data from vCenter using the vCenter enterprise adapter. Using the vCOPs admin UI, you establish this pull communication by registering vCOPs with your vCenter instance(s). Within this setup it asks for the IP address, Display name and the registration user for the vCenter plug-in. An optional setting is the collection user. This is the account it uses, based on its visibility within vCenter, to pull metrics. By default it will use the registration user. If you want to only collect on one datacenter or one cluster, for example, setup your collection user with just visibility to that datacenter or that cluster within vCenter. Perhaps in future versions this will be a little more stream lined, doable within the vSphere UI. But for now it’s the recommended way of pruning collections. Visit KB 1036195 for more information.

vCOPs - On Data Collection..

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:14:02 -0400

Understanding data collection in vCOPs tends to be a mind bender. There are multiple associated terms that are used to illustrate this process. Terms like attributes, metrics, super metrics, thresholds, and KPI’s is enough to make you question your own self worth. But with a few helpful explanations maybe we can break new ground together…

First off we all know what resources are in a data center environment. These are items such as datastores, VM’s, vSS’s, vDS’s, vCPU’s, pCPU’s, etc. They are items we consume or that have value. Data that is ingested within vCOPs has an associated attribute(s) for individual resources. By default vCOPs groups together multiple attributes for resources into attribute packages. By doing so you are telling vCOPs to collect only these attributes for this resource.

A metric is a point in time instance of an attribute. If a single metric doesn’t clearly convey what you are looking for, then perhaps a super metric would. A super metric takes this metric, that metric and that other metric applies a mathematical operation (formula) to give you a broader more scalable metric. For instance, if you wanted to capture the average CPU utilization across 50 web servers you would use a super metric to do so.

Thresholds mark the boundary between what’s normal and what’s abnormal for a single metric or super metric. When either boundary is crossed an anomaly is logged. Both hard and dynamic thresholds exist, with the latter being the default. Dynamic thresholds are new to vCOPS and are based on incoming and historical data. It formulates a pattern of normalcy, there in decreasing the number of alerts that are generated. Hard thresholds model themselves after vCenter thresholds. Static in nature, changing only when you change it.

Finally, KPI’s or Key Performance Indicators are attributes you deem important. By defining an upper and/or lower threshold violation on a attribute or super metric package, you are in essence establishing a KPI for those attributes. Once an attribute is defined as KPI, new rules are set forth in motion. For instance, alerting is treated differently than non-KPI attributes. But more importantly a feature called predictive alerting is utilized. Once a violation occurs on a KPI for a application or tier, vCOPs examines the events prior to the violation and marks that as a fingerprint. If it finds similar events in the future it can alert you prior to the thresholds being broken. How sick is that!

Here is an evolving graphic to illustrate the relationships. It’s not pretty, sorry…More to come…

Deploying an Active/Active Datacenter with VMware SRM 5 - VMworld 2012 Session Voting

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:43:07 -0400

There is nothing better than customer testimonials when it comes to preaching the power of cutting edge technology. So when Michael Bailess from American National Bank came to me with interest in presenting at VMworld 2012, I realized we had something special. Almost a year ago now Mike and I engaged on a journey to make their data center portable across their two locations. The business was looking to move workloads between sites at any given time but didn’t need the cost and complexity of a true active-active, “always up” distributed data centers. Down time was acceptable (off hours of course) to gracefully shutdown his almost 100% virtualized environment at Site A and move bits and pieces or all to Site B. So a few things came out of this design that are notable…

The ability to constantly test their DR plan. This is in affect a rolling DR plan, weekly and monthly. Simply not feasible without technologies like VMware Site Recovery Manager, EMC RecoverPoint and VNX.
For those company’s that can withstand minimal service interruptions, moving a VM from one site to another is as easy as a reboot. Not every environment needs vMotion capabilities between sites. Although sexy, you have other options, American National Bank is proof of that. Everything comes at a cost, ask yourself what is acceptable down time (if any) based on your business’s defined RPO’s and RTO’s. VM/DC portability is and has been here for years and its more affordable than you think.
Stretched layer 2 between both sites was accomplished with common Cisco Networking Technologies. That’s it. There was not one Nexus 7K on the PO, I promise : )
VMware SRM 5 is truly leaps and bounds over the 1.0 days and the spitfire behind this design. With the Planned Migration Recovery option data is safely synced, consistent and available before any VM’s are moved. This ensure’s your VM’s come up as they would during a normal reboot.

Interested? Of course you are. AMNB is continuing a new trend of simplicity and elegance. Through this engagement we have formed a great partnership and assimilated a simple highly functional design. The ability for AMNB to protect their business and properly utilize their resources, is what all companies should strive for. So please vote for our session below, Mike and I truly want to provide you with the right information to protect your business. We have done the groundwork so you don’t have to. Thanks for your vote!

Session: #1883 – Deploying an Active/Active Datacenter with SRM 5

Abstract: In this session we will discuss the challenges that face a single physical datacenter as well as how these challenges can be resolved with SRM 5. We will explain the design that we deployed at American National Bank which did not include more expensive technologies that would have been needed to run a stretched cluster environment. American National Bank has implemented their own private cloud that is not linked to any physical site. This solution saved American National Bank from long late night maintenance windows to correct facility issues, spread the load between to geographic regions, and created a DR plan that can be fully tested daily.

Other sessions brought to you by Varrow brethren are as follows, voting is key so show your support!

Brian Boyd (blog: http://www.thesangeek.com) submitted:

Session: #2239 Deciphering the Mystical World of Storage Performance

Abstract: An introduction to SAN and NAS attached volume types within VMware. The purpose of this presentation is to help VMware and Storage administrators that are new to the virtualization scene to appreciate the implications of RAID types, drive performance, throughput and bandwidth in an easy to understand and fun way.

This session will break down the differences between Network (iSCSI, NFS), and Fiber Channel storage but not be vendor specific. In addition the usage of certain drive types, what they are good for and what they are not good for will be discussed. Example production environments will be shown to include VM and Storage as a Service, archival, and application delivery.

Tom Cornwell (blog: http://blog.piratesjade.com/) submitted:

Session: #2848 Cloud Continuity: How Does the Cloud Fit into Your Business Continuity Plan?

Abstract: Today cloud is becoming ubiquitous. However, it can be utilized in many different was. Whether you utilize cloud for your production environments or not, cloud can play a part in your business continuity plan. This session describes different business continuity strategies utilizing cloud. Topics include: cloud as a source, cloud as a target, and cloud to cloud DR. In addition, we will discuss mixed strategies and different types of cloud implementations including Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Storage-as-a-Service, and DR-as-a-Service.

Jason Nash (blog: http://jasonnash.com/) submitted:

Session: #2181 – Cisco Nexus 1000v: Architecture, Deployment, and Management

Abstract: This session will walk attendees through the architecture, deployment, and management of the Cisco Nexus 1000v virtual distributed switch. The information in this session is based on experience with numerous production deployments of the Nexus 1000v and the audience will benefit from many lessons learned from the field. The session begins with a high-level overview of the 1000v’s design and components followed by several considerations and preparations that anyone looking to deploy this new distributed switch should consider. This includes items such as network design, existing network infrastructure, and overall integration in to the organization’s IT processes. Next, the focus will shift to technical details of the configuration process and several examples will be shown covering many of the common scenarios seen in the field. Day-to-day operations and management of the switch will be covered in detail and include routine items such as adds, moves, and changes, as well as upgrades and maintenance. Finally, a section on troubleshooting processes and information will give attendees the tools they need to support their new virtual switch.

Session: #2197 - A Deep Dive on Virtual Distributed Switching & Cisco Nexus 1000v

Abstract: This session will provide an in-depth look at the distributed virtual switching technologies available in VMware vSphere. The discussion will start with an overview of both the integrated Distributed Virtual Switch as well as Cisco’s Nexus 1000v. We will compare and contrast the options highlighting features, functionality, management, complexity, and operational considerations. Each available option provides its own set of features, functions, challenges, and design and deployment considerations. During the session the components, design and implementation considerations, as well as troubleshooting recommendations will be covered in depth. Attendees should expect to walk away with the knowledge they need to decide which of these technologies fit the requirements for their environment as well as the understanding to deploy them.

Session: #2207 - vSphere Distributed Switch – Technical Deep Dive

Abstract: While the vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) has been around since vSphere 4, vSphere 4.1 and 5.0 have added a number of enhancements. This session will provide a technical deep dive in to the vSphere Distributed Switch. This includes design and deployment considerations, configuration, migration steps, tuning, and troubleshooting. Special attention will be paid to migrating an existing production environment from the standard vSwitch to the vDS with no or very minimal disruption. Extended features such as Network I/O Control (NIOC), Network Resource Pools, and Load-Based Teaming (LBT) will be discussed in depth with use cases and recommendations given. Finally, methods and tools for troubleshooting network connectivity and performance problems will also be highlighted. The inclusion of accessing a live lab environment will make for a very interactive session.

Session: #2463 - vSphere Physical Connectivity – Deep Dive & Best Practices

Abstract: This session will provide an in-depth look at your options for physically connecting vSphere hosts to the network. The discussion will center around common question areas that come up during knowledge workshops and customer design sessions. Throughout the session videos and animations will be used to help attendees easily see the expected result from many of these configuration options. The presentation will focus heavily on the different hashing types and traffic control, especially the more advanced options such as Load-Based Teaming and Network I/O Control. Other areas of focus include physical separation of traffic, networks of differing security requirements such as DMZs, and suggested NIC configurations for both 1Gb and 10Gb environments. Finally, recommendations for physical switch configurations will also be covered. Throughout the session best practices, recommendations, and lessons learned from many production deployments will be shared. Attendees should expect to walk away with a deep understanding of the physical connectivity options available with vSphere, how they can be utilized in their environment, and the best methods for deploying them.

The Fall of the Mystics: RecoverPoint 3.5

Sun, 27 May 2012 09:23:31 -0400

Something I’ve enjoyed doing over the years is following the progression of EMC’s flagship replication product, RecoverPoint. Personally I have been installing and working with the product going on 3 years now. I have done my fair share of advocation both publicly and in customer shops across this great coast line. With every major release, a wall has tumbled and the customer ends up winning. With the latest release of RP, another wall has tumbled which is probably the most significant.

Its a fact write splitting is easier, less error prone, and cheaper when it is done from the array. While focusing on array splitting for the midrange arrays only, EMC for a while had neglected their roots. Now I say neglect for added effect, but its obvious the Symm world is a bit hesitant to change. I can only envision what went on behind closed doors convincing the “Symm Elders/Mystics” or “Stick in the Muds” as I like to call them, that RecoverPoint is a better long term cross platform solution.Regardless the writing was on the wall with the VMAXe supporting the RecoverPoint splitter at market introduction. And there being no physical constraint between the VMAX and the VMAXe it was only a matter of time before we reached this state.

So as of 3.5 we now have array based write splitting capabilities across the Symmetrix VMAX 40K/20K/10K, VPLEX Local and Metro and VNX/CX arrays. EMC’s entire block array line. Kudos to all those who fought those internal battles for the great good of your customers and partners.

Other changes worth noting, full list here…

FIPS 140-2 Level 1 Compliance
Gen 3 appliance support dropped
Simplified Licensing activation
New copy and replication management capabilities
Kutils replaced with KVSS (support for SQL and Exchange)
VMAX and CX/VNX LUNs in the same Consistency Group
Support for RP SRM SRA release 1.0 SP3 and SP2 P1

Top Ten Reasons Zerto VR Could Augment Your Current Replication Solution

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:12:00 -0400

Over the past week or so I have gotten a chance to get more down and dirty with Zerto’s Virtual Replication. Zerto is a company formed from stone and steel, care of the titans of CDP, the Kedem Brothers (Creators of Kashya, i.e. RecoverPoint). I keep mentioning that when I tell people about Zerto, as it’s hugely relevant. Understanding the past helps set the stage for the future. Now the brothers obviously ended up selling Kashya for $153 million to EMC back in 2006. So it’s anyone’s guess as to how they are positioning Zerto. But I wouldn’t let that hinder you from accepting the fact that “things” are better virtual. And that is exactly what Zerto is bringing to the masses, Virtual CDP replication, known collectively as Hypervisor based replication. So take RecoverPoint type technology, take VMware Site Recovery Manager type technology, collapse it together into a virtual only solution and you have ZVR. Interesting, for a few reasons, here are ten….

All x86 Virtual Solution. No physical appliances. No FC or Ethernet cabling needed (provided by way of ESXi). OVF format, virtual appliance you import into your existing virtual infrastructure.
Per VM replication. Yes we are comparing apples to apples. RP/SRM is a block based solution. You have a single VM you want to replicate? You’re replicating the entire LUN with the latter.
- Note: vSphere Replication (under SRM) does provide VM level replication but at a minimum RPO of 15 mins. Zerto is capable of an RPO of seconds.
Time to install is sexy. Literally it took me 1 hour to setup two ZVM (Zerto Virtual Manager) and two VRA’s (Virtual Replication Appliances). RecoverPoint and SRM realistically in smaller environments could take one or two days depending on the size.
Cost. Cheaper, remember apples to apples. I won’t get totally into numbers but consider the cost of SRM and particularly RP and you’ll understand how Zerto is winning.
Storage Agnostic. As an EMC partner I would love for you to continue buying EMC storage, to keep buying RecoverPoint. But know you have other options to meet different use cases in your environment. It’s ignorant to suggest that a single product addresses every problem.
SPoM (single point of management). Heard of vCenter?
Multi-tenant capable. Another wards integration with vCloud Director.
Multi-site capable. Replication from several different customers say in a DRaaS scenario serviced by one instance of ZVR. vCenter to vCloud replication. Perfect for on-boarding customers (using vCenter) into Varrow’s multi-tenant manage cloud solution of the future : )
Multi-App consistency. Through the use of VPG’s (virtual protection groups) you can collectively replicate and maintain write order across multiple VMs as is necessary in today’s distributed applications.

Don’t be mistaken, I’m still a huge fan of RP and SRM. But no matter how much you pull for or support a product/solution, doesn’t mean it’s right for every customer every use case. This is yet another option in the Disaster Recovery space. And in my opinion one worth exploring…

The High's and Low's of vSphere Replication

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:15:00 -0500

vSphere Replication is a feature of Site Recovery Manager 5 that allows you to, at a very granular level, replicate your vSphere environment on a per VM basis. What’s great about this product is gone are the days of old where multi-dollar replication solutions were needed to provide some level of off site recovery. This product operates irregardless of your storage platform, albeit NTAP, EMC, IBM, etc. and essentially replaces or augments your existing replication solution. Primary use cases are targeted at SMB customers, DRaaS potentially and again one off augmentation outside your existing replication solutions.

If we take a step forward and look at the components, you’ll notice this functionality is provided and manageable by virtual appliances. No shock there. The VRMS or vSphere Replication Management Server is utilized for setup and configuration. You’ll need one deployed at each site which will register with the local site vCenter to store your configuration. That configuration is stored in an separate database (outside of SRM and vCenter) of multiple flavors (SQL, DB2, and Oracle). This single piece was by far the most difficult portion of the install and the reasoning for this post (more on this in a moment). The VR or vSphere Replication appliance is utilized for delta grabbing at the remote site. If you’re only doing unidirectional replication (Prod to DR) then you only need a VR appliance at the DR site. If your utilizing bidirectional replication then you will need a VR appliance at each site. Of course you can have multiple VR appliances to distribute replication load. The implication here is you’re distributing across hosts and across pNIC’s. Furthermore, the VR appliance is the receiver in this conversation, the sender is the vSphere host itself. By way of a kernel agent and vSCSI filter all changed blocks are tracked and distributed to the VR appliance based on customer-tunable RPO’s (15min to 24hrs)

So back to the configuration…

A couple things. To use VR you have to enable it per say during the installation of SRM. Assuming you did that, you’ll have an entry under “Array Managers” within the configuration for SRM called “vSphere Replication”. Selecting this allows you to deploy the VRMS and VR appliances (which are in OVF format by the way), configure VRMS pairing between both sites and register the VR appliance to its local vCenter instance. Almost the entire configuration for VR is setup here with the exception of the “Configure VRMS” option. Selecting this takes you to a web interface (VAMI or virtual appliance management interface) for deeper configuration of the VRMS appliance. Items such as Database settings, SSL Certificates and vCenter registration are accomplished via this interface. Below is a mock up of the database settings and clearly the most muddied portion of the install. Please note the following..

You will need to configure mixed mode authentication within SQL
Contrary to popular belief Named and Default instances do work.
Only SQL authentication from the VRMS appliance works.
Follow these instructions for the Database Configuration:
- Create a database called VRMS (all caps). I doubt this actually makes a difference but what do you care just do it.
- Create a Login called VRMS. SQL Server Authentication. Type in the password. Uncheck the Enforce junk and user must change password at next login.
- Change the Default Database to VRMS
- Expand the VRMS database, expand the Security section.
- Right click on Users, create a New User call it VRMS. Map it to the VRMS login we created earlier. Set the schema to dbo for now.
- Go to Schema. Right click New Schema. Name the Schema VRMS. Map to user VRMS.
- Go to Permissions under Select a Page. Search and add VRMS as a user. Make sure to Grant all permissions to that user below.
- Go back to Security|Users|VRMS select Properties. Change the Schema to VRMS. Under “Schemas owned by this User” and “Database Role Membership” make sure all roles are checked except:
  - db_denydatareader
  - db_denydatawriter
  - guest
- That should do it. You can verify all of this by making a ODBC connection to just the IP of the SQL server using SQL Auth. Very helpful info here if you run into to issues.

Within the SQL Server Configuration Manager on the SQL instance that VRMS is connecting to, make sure the following is set:
- Navigate to SQL Server Network Configuration
- Navigate to Protocols for <your instance name>
- Make sure TCP/IP on the right is enabled
- Go to right click properties and navigate to the IP Addresses tab
- Scroll all the way down and make sure IPALL looks like the following. Minus the extensive DB configuration this seemed to be what fixed my issues. Defining the port 1433 on the active interface was not enough.

Use IP Address for SQL Server and the VRMS host
When deploying the VRMS appliance from vCenter make sure you only apply at most 2 DNS servers separated by commas. When I applied 3 none were applied within the VAMI. So I had to manually configure.
Use the FQDN for the vCenter address assuming you used the FQDN when configuring the SRM site pairing (which you should have). Otherwise use the IP address.
Use the Username only (domain is not needed) for the registration credentials.

The lack of detailed VMware documentation doesn’t help with the initial setup, which I hope will change. But I suppose that onus lies on the backs of our well educated community until then : )

Varrow Madness, 2000 nickels or a Kindle Touch...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:59:00 -0500

Look, every great marketing ploy has a gimmick. This is no different. Although the difference here is this is a gimmick with in a gimmick. Varrow Madness being centered around March Madness, mine being centered around 2000 nickels and a Kindle Touch. So here is what I propose..

You - Customer, Partner, Competitor - when registering for Varrow Madness make sure to add my name, Joe “Boom Boom” Kelly to the “How did you hear about Varrow Madness? (If someone from Varrow told you please list their name)” section. In doing so you will be entered into a drawing where you could win either…

A) A Kindle Touch (or)

B) A bag of 2000 nickels (in which VCDX #49 will sign each one - still in negotiations)

So what are the stipulations?

I need at least, and I repeat at least 40 people to participate. I don’t pretend to think I have a huge following, so exposure is everything. If 2 people register under my name then the drawing is a bust. If 39 people register under my name, then the drawing is a bust. If 40+ people register under my name then its go time. I will periodically, up until the event, tweet on the numbers.
If you win, I will hand deliver either prize if you are local (Raleigh/Durham) and buy you a “rhymes with revere” (not open to intrepretation) If you’re not, then I will ship the Touch anywhere in the US (will discuss if outside of this guideline). If you choose the 2000 nickels then you can receive your prize at Varrow Madness itself. I will not ship 2000 nickels to your home.

Disclosure: This is not sponsored or endorsed by Varrow (my employer). Its an attempt by me to have fun, to get you to register, and to ultimately get you to attend the most premier partner event in the Carolinas.

And for those that aren’t aware of Varrow Madness then crank up those listening receptors…

In its inaugural +1 year, Varrow Madness is pure technical. With multiple informative sessions, plenty of hands on labs (care of EMC vSpecialist’s), college ball, industry socialites/experts and more. You simply can’t afford to miss this. Last year was a huge success and this year will be even better. Here are some highlights for this year…

Chad Sakac, EMC

Technology and Trends – Where I see customers, EMC and VMware on our shared journey
David Davis, Train Signal -
Top 3 VMware Certs You Must Get and How to Pass The First Time
Jason Heinrich, Cisco - Enabling the Public and Private Cloud
Greg Pugh, Isilon - Big Data & OneFS Operating System
Chris Practico, Trend Micro - Consumerization and Cloud Security
Andy Whiteside, Citrix - Delivering the Best Desktop Solution for Each User
David Gadwah, EMC - VNX FAST and Fast Cache: How to Increase both Efficiency and Performance
Brian Tobia, RSA - The Journey To Secure Virtualization - How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Trust the Cloud

…And many, many more…

Now go, go register here. Follow the infographic I have provided. Shine those IT boots and charge those smart phones this will be a day of IT repentance. And if all else fails bring your bag of Happy Nickels to the Hour of adjectivity. Whatever the Hell that means : )

EMC VPLEX - Riding the back of a Giant

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:48:00 -0500

Over the past week I had the pleasure of attending VPLEX training in Milford MA at one of EMC’s training facilities. Obviously one of the benefits of attending these classes as a partner is the depth of information you receive. Certainly much more than the customer training. In most cases there is a nice mix of EMC internals and partners that naturally draws spirited debate. Given the amount of information thrown at you in such a short time, I thought it would be appropriate for me to focus on Planning and Design considerations. After all these areas contribute tremendously to the overall success of the project. Especially for VPLEX. By the way, my intent is to carry this out over several posts. The focus will be expressed in an advisory manner, everything doesn’t have to be so complex does it? Vendor documentation is built for technical depth. If something needs further explanation hit me up on the twitter and I can point you in the right direction.

So lets get started…

What and Why VPLEX?

In short VPLEX is the middle man between your storage array and your hosts. Today you would typically zone your hosts to a storage array for storage access (LUNs). With VPLEX in the mix, your storage is derived or pooled between one or many backend arrays (of various vendors or just EMC). Think of it as the hypervizor of storage virtualization. Zoning, at this point is directed to the VPLEX engines (directors more specifically) themselves. By doing this, you are virtualizing/abstracting the underlying storage. Why would you do this? The same reason you virtualize your servers. To free your data of physical constraints, opening up a world where the impossible comes possible. Features like active/active storage between geographically dispersed sites, Stretched VMware clusters that lend itself to Live VM migrations between sites, and eventually worldly data mobility. Now other use cases could include disaster avoidance, zero downtime maintenance, or even site load balancing. Use your imagination. Multiple copies of your data, Read/Write, accessed across the world (Access Anywhere), its a compelling story and one that companies are seriously considering. Although not without its set of challenges, VPLEX is the future of data mobility and a product we (as technologists) should all be familiar with. This is EMC’s vision of Virtual Storage…

VPLEX Flavors - Product family below, current state (I purposely left out global due to it’s lengthly time to market) with a bit of design consideration sprinkled in.

Local – Single Site/Data center. 1, 2 or 4 engines. By the way an engine handles or services all your front end and back end processing (I/O). Within the engine are 2 directors, Director B and A right to left. Each director has 5 I/O modules, so 10 total for a single engine. 1 (4 8G FC ports) module for FE connectivity, ie to which you would zone your hosts to. 1 (4 8G FC ports) module for BE connectivity, i.e. to which you would zone your arrays to. 1 for WAN COM (used exclusively for Metro and Geo configurations) in either a 4 8G FC port module or a 2 port 10G module for cross site communications. 1 module with 2 8G FC ports for intra cluster comm and finally 1 module for expansion or future use. With this configuration you can service or virtualize up to 8000 LUNs.

Metro – 2 sites. Synchronous distances, less than 5ms latency. 2 to 8 engines. Total of 16000 LUNs virtualize capable. Of note all WAN COM or intercluster communication is over FC. Typically this is over an extended fabric between sites (ISL’s)

Geo – 2 sites. Asynchronous distances, less that 50ms latency. 2 to 8 engines. Total of 1600 LUNs virtualize capable. Of note all WAN COM or intercluster communication is over IP (over 10G capable on VS2 HW, 1G on VS1 HW)

More to come on FE and BE recommendations and other must knows…

VMware Partner Exchange 2012: Locked and Loaded

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:27:28 -0500

On Feb. 13-16, VMware PEX 2012 will be on its way in Las Vegas. This being my first experience with PEX, I really have no expectations beyond lower technical intensity. Although based simply on the names of some of the presenters I am sure there will be enough technical filler to satisfy my thirst.

My intentions for the conference are to focus 50% on product (ie vCOPs, Chargeback, Service Manager, and vCO) and 50% on Methodology and Process. We at Varrow have a booming Managed Services business. My hope is to gain additional knowledge on cloud architectural direction (related to design, automation and process) to assist this area of the business. As well as think up knew and exciting offerings to increase our customers productivity, business value and ROI.

We have a large crew (about 8 of us) heading out to PEX. I can firmly say we at Varrow work hard but we also play hard. So please reach out via the twitters if you want to hang. We’re a fun bunch even if you don’t like all the evils of Vegas : )

EMC Technical Advisory: EMC282741: CLARiiON and VNX: Managing dual solid state drive (SSD) issues

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:04:34 -0500

There has been a technical advisory floating around that deserves a little more attention. First released I believe in December, the advisory focuses on SSD soft media issues. If you have a CX, VNX or NS with SSD drives in any configuration please take heed to this information below. Although remote, it needs to be addressed as soon as possible. So please reach out to the EMC support line to get scheduled. Here is more info on the issue…

EMC has become aware that there is a rare possibility that some solid state disk drives contained in your CLARiiON CX4, VNX and Celerra NS storage systems, including those used in mirrored FAST Cache applications, may experience media errors resulting in the following appearing in the Storage Processor (SP) event logs: “Date Stamp” “Time Stamp” Bus1 Enc1 Dsk0 820 Soft Media Error [Bad block] EMC’s CLARiiON CX4, VNX and Celerra NS products contain redundant solid state drives. This redundant design protects data in the event that a single drive becomes unavailable. In the very rare event that a second disk drive in the same RAID group were to encounter similar media events before the system automatically retires the first drive, a dual faulted RAID Group could occur resulting in data unavailability and potential data loss in RAID groups, Storage Pools, and in FAST Cache configurations. In order to mitigate risk of a dual failure, EMC is proactively installing a software patch on your CLARiiON CX4, VNX and Celerra NS storage systems. Further, please be aware that dual SSD events in a RAID group will necessitate engineering procedures to recover the system.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Straight from the...

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:35:13 -0500

A picture is worth a thousand words. Straight from the unsolicited whiteboard of one of our customers.

EMC FAST: Whether to File and/or Block Tier

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:39:00 -0500

Storage performance needs in today’s data center can change on a moment’s notice. Data that once needed the backing of a freight train today may only need the performance of a vespa tomorrow. Having the ability to react to the ever changing needs of one’s data in an automated fashion allows efficiencies never before seen in EMC’s midrange product line. Generally as data ages its importance lessens both from a business and usage perspective. Utilizing FAST allows EMC customers to place data on the appropriate storage tier based on application requirements and service levels. Choosing between cost (SATA/NL-SAS) and performance (EFD’s/SAS) is a thing of the past. Below are the what, when and why of EMC’s FAST. The intent is to help one make an informed decision based on the needs of their organization.

Block Tiering (What, When and Why)

The What: FAST for VNX/Clariion is an array based feature that utilizes Analyzer to move block based data (slices of LUNs). By capturing performance characteristics, it can intelligently make predictions on where that data will be best utilized. Data is moved at the sub LUN layer in 1G slices, eliminating the need and overhead with moving the full LUN. This could mean that portions of a LUN could exist on multiple disk types (FC, SATA , EFD) Migrations are seamless to the host and occur bidirectionally based on performance needs, ie. FC to SATA, FC to EFD, SATA to FC, SAS to NL-SAS, etc. FAST is utilized at the Storage Pool layer and not available within Traditional RAID Groups. To utilize FAST v2 (which is sub LUN tiering ) you must be at FLARE 30 or above (4.30.000.5.xxx), and have both Analyzer and FAST enabler installed on the array. Existing LUNs/Data can migrate seamlessly and non-disruptively into storage pools using the VNX/Clariion LUN migration feature. Additionally FAST operates with other Array based features such as Snapview, MirrorView, SAN Copy, RecoverPoint, etc, without issue. All FAST operations and scheduling is configurable through Unisphere.

The When: Automated tiering is a scheduled batch event and does not happen dynamically.

The Why: To better align your application service levels with the best storage type. Ease of management, as a requirement for FAST are storage pools. Storage pools allow for concise management and eased growth opportunities from one location. Individual RG and Meta LUNs management is not needed to obtain high end services levels with the use of SP’s and FAST. The idea going forth is to minimize disk purchasing requirements by moving hot and cold data to and fro disk types that meet specific service levels for that data. If data is accessed frequently then it makes sense that it lives on either EFD (enterprise FLASH drives) or FC/SAS. If data is not accessed frequently then it ideally should live on SATA/NL-SAS. By utilizing FAST in your environment, you are utilizing your Array in the most efficient manner while minimizing cap-ex costs.

File Tiering (What, When and Why)

The What: FAST for VNX File/Celerra utilizes the Cloud Tiering Appliance (or what was FMA, previously known as Rainfinity). The CTA utilizes a policy engine that allows movement of infrequently used files across different storage tiers based on last access times, modify times, size, filename, etc. As data is moved, the user perception is that the files still exist on primary storage. File retrieval (or recall) is initiated simply by clicking on the file, the file is then copied back to its original location. The appliance itself is available as a virtual appliance that can be imported into your existing VMware infrastructure via vCenter, or as a physical appliance (HW plus the software). Unlike FAST for VNX/CLARiiON, FAST for file allows you to tier across arrays (Celerra <-> VNX, Isilon or third party arrays) or cloud service providers (Atmos namely, other SP’s coming). The introduction of CTA to your environment is non-disruptive. All operations for CTA are configurable through the CTA GUI. In summary, CTA can be used as a Tiering engine, an archiving engine or a migration engine based on the requirements of your business. From an archiving perspective, CTA can utilize both Data Domain and Centera targets for long term enforced file level retention. As a migration engine, CTA can be utilized for permanent file moves from one array to another during technology refreshes or platform conversions. Note: CTA has no knowledge of the storage type, it simply moves files from one tier to another based on pre- defined criteria.

The When: Automated tiering is designed to running at scheduled intervals (in batches) and does not happen dynamically or continually I should say.

The Why: Unstructured data, data that exists outside of pre-defined data model such as SQL, is growing at an alarming rate. Think about how many word docs, excel spreadsheets, pictures, text files exist in your current NAS or general file-served environments. Out of that number what percentage hasn’t been touched since its initial creation? In that context, a fair assessment would be 50% of that data. A more accurate assessment would probably be 80% of your data. Archiving and Tiering via CTA simple allows for more efficient use of your high end and low end storage. If 80% of your data is not accessed or accessed infrequently it has no business being on fast spinning disk (FC or SAS). Ultimately this allows you to curb your future spending on pricey high end disk and focus more purchasing capacity for where your data should sit, on low end storage.

***Update***

As brought to my attention on the twitters (Thanks->@PBradz and @veverything), there is of course another option. Historically, data LUNs as used by the data movers for file specific data (CIFS, NFS) has only been supported on traditional RAID Group LUNs. With the introduction of the VNX, support has been extended to pool LUNs. This implies that you can utilize FAST block tiering for the data that encompasses those LUNs. A couple of things when designing and utilizing in this manner (more info here)…

The entire pool should be used by file only
Thick LUNs only within the pool
Same tiering policy for each pool LUN
Utilize compression and dedupe on the file side. Stay clear of block thin provisioning and compression.

There are of course numerous other recommendations that should be noted if you decide to go this route. Personally, its taken me a while to warm up to storage pools. Like any new technology it needs to gain my trust before I go all in on recommending it. Inherent bugs and inefficiencies early on have caused me to be somewhat cautious. Assuming you walk the line on how your pools are configured, this is a very viable means to file tier (so to speak) with the purchase of FAST block only. That being said there is still benefit to using the CTA for long term archiving primarily off array, as currently FAST Block is array bound only. Define the requirements up front so you’re not surprised on the backend as to what the technology can and can not do. If the partner you’re working with is worth their salt you’ll know all applicable options prior to that PO being cut…

Battle Ponderings: A Year in Review 2011

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:27:00 -0500

Once a year I attempt to recall the happenings (here to) of the last 12 months specifically in the VAR space. If I had an inkling of smarts I would start this post Jan 1st and work forward, contributing as the events occur. But more times than not my inner laggard wins the race pushing me to the end of year countdown to complete.

Suffice it to say, its been quite a year from our partners perspective. Advancements in data mobility and cloud management have pushed our customers and Varrow to look at IT differently. Our customers are coming to the realization that not all workloads can be serviced in house. Which is why we are seeing quite an interest stir in managed services, cloud offerings, and general trusted advisor type partnerships. With the ever thin IT staff whittling away and the increasing project demand, to stay nimble, our customers must have an IT service provider they can rely on. We are that provider.

So revel in the year, hold hands with our successes, there’s no stopping this train, this industry we are in. Here are but a few memories from the glorious 2011…

Varrow Managed Services - MS was derived out of customer need, point blank. Taking the skill and resourcefulness of our engineers, bundle it together with our VMC (Varrow Managed Cloud) and you have a packaged monthly operational expense. That of which you control or we control, internal or external to your data center. Mighty appealing to many. From full on data center management to Backup-As-A Service, were setting trends in not so obvious areas. Bring it.
VMware vSphere 5 released - Perhaps one of the most profound releases of the year, VMware released their latest flagship Cloud Infrastructure Suite, vSphere 5. Although not without its troubles, namely around licensing, VMware was quick to respond to the community in a fair manner. With over a 140 new features such as Storage Driven Profiles, Storage DRS, and Auto-Deploy, clearly VMware is the leader in a space that has no boundaries. With no lack of innovation and the social media presence to move it, its extremely easy to get fired up. Viva la VMware!!!
EMC VNX/VNXe released - A release close to my heart was that of the 5th generation midrange array from EMC, VNX/VNXe. From sub-10K up, this titan of tin brings the speeds and feeds to tackle the most demanding workloads. With a 4 channel 6G SAS backend and Intel Quad 5600 Processors this array has tipped the Law’s of Moore. Pair that with industry setting benchmarks and easy to bundle software suites and the winner is clear in this space.
Varrow Madness Augural Release - As far as I know this was one of the largest partner events in the area (Southeast). The brainchild of our marketing director, Varrow Madness brings together Tech, College Hoops, St Patty’s and community sharing pundits. Sure to be out done in 2012 (More Info Here), you’ll want to be at this event. Price? Free.
Accolades Galore - We aren’t much for bragging but there is something to be said for a company that continues to impress. Although we are not naive to the fact that rocket ship growth is not sustainable, we take all such awards in stride. But perhaps the award that makes us most proud is that of the EMC Services Quality Award. This is based on solicited customer feedback on the quality of the partners service engagement. We hold our own feet to the fire on the output of these surveys. It’s important to provide this level of interaction as it gives us the ammunition we need to constantly improve. It’s a win win for Varrow and for our customers.
- 2011 Tech 200 Designation
- Fastest Growing Company in 2011 (NCTA 21)
- CRN Fast Growth 100 List
- Triad Fast 50 Numero 1, year 2
- EMC Velocity Services Quality Award (ASN)
- Everything 500 VAR 500 List
- VMware Business Continuity Partner of the Year
- VMware VCDX and vExperts on staff (Jason Nash and Me)
Varrow Private Customer Community - Using enterprise microblogging client Yammer, Varrow has extended private invitations to their customers and partners. This means has allowed all to share in a closed community approach. Look at this great write-up here on how we are using this approach to further extend our value to our customers.
Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity - Big move in this space across the healthcare vertical specifically. Countless hours have been spent developing DR strategies namely around VMware’s Site Recovery Manager (did you see the VMware BC Partner of the year?) Although there is obviously more to this than a single product, focusing on dependencies and recovery process’ is key to your success and where we excel. We have a strong history in this space and would welcome the chance to assist.
Data Mobility - Frame lock is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Products like EMC RecoverPoint and VPLEX are enabling data mobility in a manner that is far from the data center of old. Whether its to address an approaching storm (Disaster Avoidance) or migration from aging hardware, both are tuned to addressing very different use cases. Varrow by far has excelled in this space. Don’t believe me? Check out the handy work of yours truly here.
EMC VMAX takes a foothold in Healthcare - Foreseeing our customers needs for top tier enterprise frames accelerated by the explosion of data growth in the healthcare industry, Varrow made significant investments in top tier VMAX talent. Whether your in need of a VMAX resident engineer to get the ball moving or design services to fit your business needs. We are there to help. With numerous implementations under our belt, the time is now to “frame ground” for the future.
Double Occupancy - I have no official count, but I dare to say we have grown our internal workforce times 2. From accounting to sales, to pre-sales to engineering, our roots have taken hold and we’re growing. But no matter how much we grow, our family remains tight and our passion runs deep. We’re at an acceptable cruising altitude and looking to take it to the next stratum. If you are exceptional at what you do around the space we operate in, we should talk! Although we love our partners (Cisco, EMC, VMware, Citrix) and celebrate their success, you CAN make a difference at a reseller : )

Well there you have it. Although far from comprehensive, I have offered you a quick view into the exciting world of a valuable reseller, that’s us Varrow! Thank you EMC, VMware, Cisco and Citrix for giving us the chance and means to grow. We hope our symbiotic relationship continues to blossom throughout 2012 and beyond.

And our customers, Thank You for trusting in our abilities, challenging us day to day, and allowing us to strengthening our relationships. You are the reason we are where we are. Happy Holidays my friends see you on the other side : )