Arriving at Insight I was astounded at the size of the event:

• 2000+ delegates
• 26,600 hours of Technical Learning
• 200+ breakout sessions

As expected, new storage hardware was discussed in detail with the new FAS2240 receiving a lot of attention.

The FAS2240 is aimed at the SME market and as such has a price to match. Perhaps the most impressive feature of this hardware is its scalability; capable of storing up to 432Tb with the ability to transform the FAS2240 into a standard disk shelf which can be incorporated without any data migration into a larger NetApp storage platform. This all fits in very nicely with the new “Start Right, Keep it Simple, Grow Smart” strategy.

Storage Efficiency technologies are an area that NetApp are very proud of. So much so that Dave Hitz (Founder and Vice President of NetApp worldwide) made it the topic for his breakout session and keynote speech. What was very impressive is some of the statistics that were covered:

Using FlashCache, SATA can be used instead of SAS to achieve the same performance meaning less than half the cost, power and rackspace. Oh and you get double the storage capacity!

Deduplication carried some very impressive figures, so far worldwide has saved NetApp customers over 5 Exabytes of data!! To put that into perspective that’s 5,000,000,000 Gb! The message with Deduplication was simple..

Just turn it on!

So what can we expect NetApp to bring over the next year or so?

Well, the term “infinite and immortal” has become more popular in recent months with NetApp folk, this is their vision of the future for their storage platforms. Infinitely scalable in both size and performance and immortal through hardware resiliency. Reflecting back on the breakout sessions I attended it’s clear to see that they’re on the right track.

With Data ONTAP 8.1 cluster-mode (due early 2012) linear scale-out performance can be achieved by simply adding another node which in turn adds to the overall reliability and resiliency of the storage cluster as a whole.

There is also a strong belief that ‘Big Data’ will be the cloud of 2012, with NetApp’s recent announcement of the e-Series aimed at High Performance Computing, Seismic data and full motion video data capture they may be ahead of the curve.

The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts opened in 1996 to forge a new approach to performing arts training. It was co-founded by our Lead Patron Sir Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty (LIPA’s Principal), and is housed in his old school, which underwent a multi-million pound renovation to transform it into a state-of-the-art performing arts higher education institution.

As high profile customers go for Gardner, we certainly don’t have one with a more famous patron!

So what’s that got to do with the title of this piece?…well to be fair nothing!…

However we started talking to LIPA mid 2010 regarding a resilience project for their production IT systems, they where interested in our ability to deliver some offsite and hosting solutions. What we found was a couple of interesting things, which has allowed us to deliver a solution, that not only addressed what they wanted to do, but also saved money and provided functionality that they may not otherwise of been able to achieve

LIPA as any good organisation would, had started looking at the benefits of consolidating their server infrastructure and had embarked on a process of virtualisation using VMware ESXi , they had consolidated the vast majority of their physical hosts down to three ESXi servers. However as is often the case, they had reached a stage where they knew that to continue to develop this, would need some major investment, in terms of Vsphere upgrades and SAN infrastructure, to allow them to deliver high availability, mobility and greater scalability to their core IT services.

When we first discussed this project with them, we looked at two solutions which we thought could deliver much greater value than what they had already looked at, as well as providing them with an option for a highly flexible approach to business continuity and disaster recovery.

So what did we suggest;

• Hyper-V and System Centre – because of the hugely Microsoft centric nature of their infrastructure and the lack of real need for some of the very clever high end Vsphere (don’t get me wrong this is in no way a slight on VMware’s capability – we have many happy VMware customers, but increasingly Hyper-V is fulfilling the need extremely well and often at a fraction of the cost) functionality we suggested that a mixture of Hyper-v and system centre would help to deliver the flexibility and resilience they desired, while saving them a good amount of money at the same time.

• NetApp storage – many of you will know that we supply NetApp storage here and have worked a long time with them, but this was another great example of how NetApp provide a solution, which in our opinion is second to none, for underpinning a virtualised dynamic IT infrastructure, the mixture of flexibility provided by the NetApp unified storage model and the efficient storage technologies included, with fast efficient snapshots, deduplication, thin provisioning and excellent application integration provide a great platform for a virtual infrastructure. Importantly for LIPA NetApp also deliver a simple model for easy IP based data replication, with the ability to replicate data to multiple locations, which helps provide the platform to fulfil phase two of this project and provide continuity and DR to the business.

The mix of these two solution sets have allowed us to provide LIPA with a robust solution that delivers exactly what they need, while in the mean time for LIPA, because we’ve been able to save them money in terms of software licencing, they could invest the money differently to give them an even better solution than they had planned for.

I mentioned this to our good friend over at Microsoft Matt McSpirit (if you want to learn about Microsoft’s virtualisation and management stack, Matt is definitely your man, check him out on his BLOG here… http://blogs.technet.com/b/mattmcspirit/) and he thought it was a good story…to the point where Microsoft thought it would make an interesting case study, so if you want a bit more detail on what we did and how it benefitted LIPA and find out what their IT manager Ben Faulkner thought, then check the Microsoft case study over at Microsoft.com by clicking here

So a pretty enjoyable project all in, for a really good team of people over at LIPA, great mix of technology and a solution that is working a treat, this was a tough to beat!

If you want to know more of the techie detail, feel free to drop me a line.

What’s to be included?

SP1 does not include any new features to the Windows 7 OS and will consist mostly of security patches and non-security fixes that have previously been made available through Windows Update.

Two features that will be included are RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory. Allowing companies to better leverage virtualisation technology with Windows Server 2008 R2.

RemoteFX

Microsoft say:

By leveraging the power of advanced codecs and virtualized graphics resources on the data center host, RemoteFX adds support for any application, including 3D, and rich media to a virtual desktop environment. In doing so, RemoteFX complements and extends the user experience enhancements of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services.

From a user perspective, things are going to look a whole lot nicer, Windows 7 Aero will be possible on thin clients. What this means from a business perspective is that the cost of client machines can be significantly reduced without having to compromise on graphical performance. Thin-clients can even do CAD design. Excellent!

For more info, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/rds-remotefx.aspx

DynamicMemory

Again, for use in Virtualised Infrastructures; Dynamic Memory is the ability to pool memory as a resource and use it where it is needed when it is needed. This ability to automatically shift RAM from one virtual machine to another whilst running increases RAM utilisation and can reduce overall equipment costs.

For more info. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff919570%28VS.85%29.aspx

Since then, the development of this Operating System has been relentless. Including a name change to Windows Small Business Server 2011, a simplified user interface and interaction with cloud based services.

Official SBS Website http://www.microsoft.com/sbs

Features of SBS 2011:

• Simplified IT Management
• Automatic daily backup of client machines and servers
• Access Business Information from Virtually Anywhere, Anytime
• Built-in Document Collaboration
• Designed and Priced for Small Businesses

Despite going through some changes, SBS 2011 still remains available in two editions:

Standard – supports up to 75 users

This, like previous versions of SBS is an entirely on premise solution including Email, File and Print features.

Essentials – supports up to 25 users

This edition contains a minimal number of inbuilt feature and relies on cloud based offerings to provide functionality such as email eg Exchange Hosted Services.

For more information see the Official SBS Website at www.microsoft.com/sbs

Ground-breaking two-socket server delivers outstanding performance, memory and storage

I have just finished a course on the x3690 X5 and to say it changes how 2 way processors delivers performance would be an understatement.

The x3690 X5 is a 2U platform with 16 drive bays SAS, or 24 1.8” SAS SSD drives. Combined with a staggering 1TB of memory capacity delivers Datacentre computing to medium size business.

IBM have released their fifth-generation X-Architecture (eX5) technology that helps the x3690 X5 to achieve four socket performance in a two socket Intel processor Xeon platform.  

The x3690 X5 can handle 12% more database transactions per minute than standard two socket servers, doesn’t sound much, but when you compare the cost of a four processor server with four database processor licenses; therefore 12% transaction per minute increase is a lot.

Memory Mezzanine

16-DIMM Internal Memory Expansion module can be installed to increase the DIMM slots available by16-DIMM; thus giving you 32 DIMMS within the x3690 X5 server.

MAX5

Connecting a MAX 5 memory module to the x3690 X5 system (three MAX5 modules are supported), adds 16-DIMM additional memory slots.  The MAX5 is connected to the server via the QIP ports and using the IBM cable kit. Additional MAX5 memory module trays are connected together using a MAX5 cable kit.  The QIP architecture delivers an impressive 6.4 GT/s between the MAX5 modules and the x3690 X5. 

Virtualising

If you are virtualising your existing environment, then the x3690 X5 can support more VM’s than any other two socket servers.  This is due to the high memory capacity and accelerated CPU performance delivered by IBM’s fifth generation X-Architecture technology. 

The following IBM YouTube has Andreas Groth, IBM Virtualisation Architect and Matt McSpirit, Microsoft Partner Technology Advisor.

Highlights:

• Achieve four-socket performance at a two-socket investment
• Grow to meet changing workload demands with superb memory expansion
• Own and operate your systems with less complexity and cost
• Get peace of mind with enterprise-class reliability and availability.

More Information:

Delivering database services or looking to virtualise? then you should be looking at the   IBM x3690 X5.

The IDC published a white paper entitled ‘The Value of Memory-Dense Servers: IBM’s System x MAX5 for its eX5 Server Family’ sponsored by IBM.

Visit IBM System x for more product information.

Welcome to Bootcamp

Lesson 1 – cloud and hosted services are the same thing, just called different things by different people.

Lesson 2- cloud computing is a concept

Lesson 3 – there are different types of clouds

Talking Clouds

The concept of cloud computing is simple, it looks at computing from a functional perspective and not that of the system builder or Administrator. For example cloud computing says “I want the ability to send email without paying for a server” or “I want the ability to backup my data without worrying about changing tapes”.

Most people aren’t concerned with how their services work, instead they are more concerned with the quality of service they receive. Cloud is all about consuming the facilities you need when you want, where you want and receiving a consistent service managed by someone else. This is provided via an Internet connection to the hosting company.

Nowadays, you can have a wide range of services provided to you via the Internet including:

• Office applications (word processing etc)
• Email
• Data Backup
• AntiVirus Protection and Systems Management
• Collaboration software
• Everything you need really.

So why is cloud important?

From a business perspective, less management and guaranteed levels of service for fixed monthly fees. With only paying what you need at the time you need it, businesses can reduce their costs dramatically.

Going forward, all major technology vendors including NetApp, IBM, Google, Microsoft have recognised cloud computing. Microsoft’s has even based its latest planned server OS for SME’s (SBS Aurora – blog post here) on cloud services to provide its core functionality – a big gamble? At the moment, possibly, cloud is new an misunderstood. In 3 years time when this OS is released, not at all because at that point cloud will be a well known platform.

So, SBS2008 has been around for 2 years now, as with other versions of SBS before, it is suitable for up to 75 users and contains the following:

1. MS Exchange Server
2. SharePoint site for collaboration
3. Remote Web Workplace
4. File and Print sharing

In short, all the things that businesses need to get going licensed as one product, installed on one server.

So, what does the new SBS contain I hear you ask….well, in short, nothing much. But, it is radically different from other versions of SBS previously released and contains 2 versions.

SBS7 (codename)

This version of the new SBS is an on premise solution, it runs on a single server and contains the usual MS Exchange, SharePoint, File and Print etc. This is likely to only contain product updated from previous versions of SBS. [more details here]

SBS Aurora (codename)

Now this is cool! With all the talk of cloud computing Microsoft have included it in the core functionality of this product. This does not contain MS Exchange, SharePoint or CRM out of the box but can provide them by consuming Microsoft’s BPOS services.

No worrying about backing up your Exchange, because Microsoft do it for you.

No worrying about losing emails if your server crashes, because Microsoft do it for you.

Great!

This product will reduce the outgoing cost for Small Businesses by allowing them to pay only for the services (Email, SharePoint, CRM) they need on a monthly basis whilst allowing Administrators to manage the system as if it is inhouse. [more details here]

We expect this to be a great product which will provide everything that an SME requires, nothing that it doesn’t. Watch this space!

We do a lot of work here with NetApp as a storage vendor and Microsoft as a solution vendor and over the last 18 months or so, we have seen the increased integration and development of NetApp’s value to the Microsoft virtualisation stack, we have seen some good success with our clients and have been involved in some excellent projects with them using these technologies.

However nice to see it backed by someone with Matt’s experience and someone who has no vested interest in NetApp storage above and beyond any other storage vendor, in fact in his role, he has to be agnostic.

Anyway enjoy the post… if you do want to know more about Matt or Microsoft’s virtualisation solutions then click here to check out his excellent BLOG

so here’s Matt’s BLOG, word for word…

I’ve been a big fan of NetApp technologies for ages, and I’ve worked closely with people like Steve Winfield, and Pete Mason, to produce a number of videos showcasing some of the collaborative work that’s gone on between Microsoft and NetApp, resulting in products like SnapManager for Hyper-V, SnapDrive 6.2 and more.  We’ve got some fantastic joint wins on the platform now too, at both small, and large customers, so it’s all good from that perspective.

I’m currently building out my team’s internal demo infrastructure, which currently consists of 1 Dell T605, with Hyper-V R2, and a number of System Center technologies virtualised on top, along with a cluster of 2 Dell R710’s, hooked up to a NetApp FAS3050c.  Now this FAS3050c isn’t the latest model, and it doesn’t have the most capacity in the world (my DS14 Disk shelf gives me around 570GB of usable space) but then it was kindly donated to me by NetApp, who were replacing some of their older kit, with newer kit for our Microsoft Technology Center, in Reading, UK.  The great thing for me is, I can still have the latest version of OnTap, it’ll work with the latest and greatest versions of SnapDrive, and SnapManager for Hyper-V, and it still gives me all the features I need, like the snapshotting, thin provisioning, and best of all, deduplication.  I’ll be honest with you right now.  I love dedupe.  I think it’s fantastically clever, streamlined, and because it’s at the block-level, rather than the file level, it’ll even dedupe stuff that you think, on the surface, has no chance of being deduped.  Crazy stuff.  Let me explain more.

Firstly, for those of you not sure what deduplication with NetApp is, and how it works, there’s a great explanation over at the Dr DeDupe blog.

As I said, my cluster environment is 2 Nodes, and to that cluster, I’m presenting 4 LUNs of storage, which in my NetApp environment, are in 4 separate Volumes.  You don’t have to do it like this, and who knows, maybe I’ll change it in the future, but right now, this is how it is:

As you can see, I’ve got a dedicated LUN for my witness disk, (I’m using Node and Disk Majority for my 2-node cluster), and 3 LUNs presented to the cluster, which have been selected to be Cluster Shared Volumes.  They aren’t huge, 100GB each for two of them, and a 25GB CSV that will hold the swap files of my key VMs (Each host only has 12GB RAM, so having 25GB for SWAP VHD’s is fine!)  You’ll see from the image above, that currently, I’m using around 51% of my CSV2.  It’s currently got a 40GB (ish) Fixed VHD with WS2008 R2 inside, but at the same time, CSV2 also has another Dynamic VHD, with Windows 7 x86 inside it, currently expanded to around 8GB.  Total consumption of that CSV is 51GB:

So, that means I’ll lose 51GB on my SAN, right?  Wrong!  We’re actually using a grand total of 17.5GB!

If we go over to NetApp System Manager, and take a look at this particular volume, you can see for yourself:

Just think about this for a minute.  Due to the fact that this is block-level deduplication, we can look inside the contents of the VHD files etc, and see where the blocks match, and deduplicate them, so in this case, we’ve saved a grand total of 37.62GB, which amounts to 60%.  Obviously Windows still thinks it’s using 51GB, even though, under the covers, the SAN hasn’t lost that space.  This is where Thin Provisioning starts to help, as you can make Windows think it has more storage available to it.

This use of deduplication hasn’t just been used on my CSV’s.  Oh no.  I’ve used it on the Witness disk, where, even though the whole volume is only 1GB, and the consumption was 50MB for the quorum information, deduplication still managed to save me 10mb, which is 20%.  What about my other savings?  Well, on my SCVMM Library, where I’m storing a couple of VHDs, but also some ISO files, I’ve saved a total of 15%, and on my actual backup store, being used by Data Protection Manager 2010, to protect Hyper-V and SQL so far, I’m saving just under 39GB, which equates to 58%.  These savings are real, and are enabling me to get even greater levels of consolidation on my SAN than I would have normally.  Brilliant stuff NetApp.

Now I just need to get ApplianceWatch PRO working…

Hi all, first blog post in a while (sorry!).

Just to remind all of you that were hot on the heels of downloading and installing Windows 7 RC (build 7100) – your time is almost up. Starting on 1st March 2010 users with this RC release will experience their machine shutting down every 2hrs, messages warning that the copy of Windows is not genuine.

On June 1, 2010, if you are still on the Windows 7 RC, your license will expire and the non-genuine experience will be triggered. Your wallpaper will be removed and "This copy of Windows is not genuine" will be displayed in the lower right corner of your desktop, above the taskbar. Starting on February 15, 2010, Windows 7 RC should actually start giving daily prompts to remind you about the expiration, but just in case two weeks’ notice isn’t enough, we’re letting you know a month in advance.

If you have enjoyed using Windows 7, upgrade to it! It’s brilliant!

Upgrade sooner rather than later to avoid issues in the future.

One thing that has changed has been how technology now allows business to continue to operate in lots of cases pretty much unhampered, amazing how many people can now simply “work from home”, so although it may be difficult for the UK to handle the big infrastructure things, such as transport for rare occurrences such as the snow we are currently getting, the technology available today makes it much easier for many businesses to deploy solutions that allow great flexibility for its staff to make work “an activity not a destination”. We’ve done that here and have been able to keep ticking over pretty easily regardless of whether our team are snowed in or in the office, so what are the technologies we’ve used and what could you use in your business.

· Broadband – one of the biggest changes to the IT world over the last 10 years has become the ubiquity of high speed broadband access, pretty much every home in the country and probably everyone in commuter belt country have access to speeds more than enough to operate your normal office apps.

· Mobile Broadband – a useful addition is the ability to get mobile broadband services, more limited that their landline equivalent, but the major conurbations have good wide ranging coverage.

· Wireless access – again the shift in attitude to use of laptops and wireless access around the house as well as public wireless/Internet access from Starbucks to McDonalds, means for many people that flicking open the laptop and it just connecting to the Internet is no longer “techie magic” and is just expected by everyone be they 7 or 70.

But how do these technologies allow business to continue and although we are talking about the effect of the snow, what we are actually talking about is a business continuity plan, that allows you to continue when access to your business has been affected by a major event…or 5 inches of snow!

So here’s what we have done with our systems to keep the business moving.

As a Microsoft partner, our business systems are based around their technology, so apologies if you don’t use Microsoft stuff, but of course there are other ways to do all of these, just the plus with most of the MS technology we use, is the functions are out of the box and included in the price, so no need for gateways or 3^rd party extra apps to deliver it.

One of the technology changes we have seen from Microsoft and other software companies as faster remote access has become the norm, is the realisation that applications have to take into account the new reality of how people work, that is flexibly and often remotely. Microsoft have responded to that, taking many applications and ensuring they work well over limited bandwidth. But not only technically they work, but more importantly that these work pretty much seamlessly for the users. That is one area we’ve seen a real good improvement, apps just working regardless of location.

· Email – with our Exchange Server we have used the excellent Outlook Anywhere facility that allows our Outlook clients to connect securely to Exchange, using encrypted ports and certificates to ensure security, the Outlook Client automatically connects based on whether local or remote and makes the decision for the user. The introduction of Outlook Cache mode also helps to enhance this experience, allowing users to continue working with Outlook data even without a connection the Exchange server.

· Outlook Web Access with secure document access – Outlook Web access was enhanced in Exchange 2007 not just to include a web email client, but also introduced document access, allowing users to connect to folders shares and SharePoint sites, directly from their OWA client, without the need for any other software. Lots of clients have loved this, some deploying Exchange 2007 just for this…and yes…still there in 2010.

· SharePoint – A great collaboration tool…and important in our day to day use, SharePoint can also be accessed securely from the Internet and allows document collaboration for our currently geographically spread staff! Also has the option to access it via Outlook and OWA.

· Outlook Mobile access – our staff armed with the Windows Phone and iPhones (as well as trialling some software which puts active sync on a Blackberry…allowing you to get email to it, without the need for unnecessary Blackberry costs and BES technical overhead!) have been able to pick up their email without the need to even access a laptop, great for those quick messages and triage of email.

That’s what we currently have used, but that’s not all, we are enhancing this, in 2010 by deploying some new Microsoft technology that has shipped in the Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 releases;

· Terminal Server remote App publishing – for some of our Apps that don’t work so well over slow links, Sage Accounts springs to mind, we’ve always been able to run this as a TS app…however the problem with that, is you end up logging on, getting a new desktop etc…remote app publishing will allow us to just publish SAGE as an app. That will still run in TS but to the user will look like a local desktop app… so the look and feel of been local…but the performance of been sat in the office. These can be securely web published, so still no need for VPN.

· Windows 7 Direct access – as we roll out Windows 7 to our users the new direct access feature will be implemented, similar to that discussed in Outlook anywhere, our users will be open their Windows 7 laptops and connect straight in to all internal resources (well those we allow) and access them, securely, again without separate VPN overhead and invisible to the users, true anywhere access to resources, going to be a feature that changes the way many people work!

· Office Communications Server – we are going to extend the use of our real time comms application to allow users presence, IM and voice so we can communicate easily irrelevant of geography.

The important thing with all of these is that they are all relatively easy to deploy, all as part of the applications and from the end user point of view pretty much seamless, with the user able to open their laptop, whether in the office or at home, wired or wireless and their software OS and Apps will make the decisions that allow them to connect to key business applications with the user just been able to concentrate on doing their work and not worrying about remote technologies.

And that’s key in any continuity solution, that users are quickly and easily able to access their key business apps, without needing to wait for the helpdesk or the technical team to speak to them because the continuity solution is convoluted and separate from the day to day running of the business.

That’s just an example of what we’ve done, that’s allowed us to keep moving regardless of the current bad weather.

Think it’s time to build a snowman!!!