09-09-2008 Bulking up Dell Blades Web Chat

You've started with a single chassis, you've installed a few blades, now let's discuss how we can use the Dell management tools and solutions to bulk up your Dell blade deployment. We'll discuss how to leverage the management tools to deploy large quantities of blades.

View the chat transcript below. See this page to view all previous chat histories and transcripts

Technical Community - Background Reading


Previous Chat Sessions on Blade Topics

Chat Transcript


DELL-ScottH hello brennels
brennels hey Scott, I'm a little slow on the chat commands
DELL-ScottH it's pretty easy, just typing and pressing <return> :-)
DELL-ScottH what part of the world are you from ?
brennels I think I'm getting it :)
brennels The Double-take World out of Boston
DELL-ScottH we've got about an hour before the official chat begins. I like to come early because sometimes the timezones are confusing, and sometimes I just like to shoot the stuff
DELL-ScottH ahh double-take ... you be at vmworld ?
brennels Oh yea, you guys coming to our party at Ny, Ny
DELL-ScottH I got the invite in the mail yesterday, I'm sure Todd and I will go
DELL-ScottH I'm just trying to figure out when I can sleep
brennels Will you guys be in the Dell booth, hopefully I'll get a chance to meet you
brennels I just realized that this is Cst time, so I can come back in an hour
DELL-ScottH yeah, we are going to tweet from the show, so it will be easy to find us ... you familiar with twitter ?
DELL-ScottH ok, I'll still be here :-)
brennels Oh, yea, I think I'm following you on twitter... I'll have to check
DELL-ScottH yeah, i think so... you're name is looking familiar
DELL-ScottH yup, following you now too
DELL-ScottH it's all coming to me now ... Clusterfunk in the House !

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Rob_Dutkiewicz hey Brace.
DELL-ScottH hello rob
brennels Robby D, wassup
DELL-ScottH is this going to be the double-take show today ::biggrin
Rob_Dutkiewicz Just finished up with Ae and Tsr training in Nashville Sitting at Bna and saw on twitter you guys were in here so thought I woudl take a minute to stop by and say hi
Rob_Dutkiewicz yeah I prob wont be able to hang out for the offical chat
Rob_Dutkiewicz gotta catch a flight back home
DELL-ScottH cool, thanks for stopping by ... ::beer for you to sip on
Rob_Dutkiewicz gotta send some emails first then it is beer thirty, I learnd long ago dont drink and email (or twitter. . . espcially twitter)
DELL-ScottH true
Rob_Dutkiewicz Scott I have not had a chance to complement you on this site. Pretty cool. Did you have anything to do with the Dell Ideastorm? (also a neat site)
DELL-ScottH Thanks, Roger, Todd, and myself built it from ground up ..... we're a little renegade, nothing to do with Ideastorm ... love that site too

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DELL-ScottH been almost a year and the site is about at critical self-sustaining mass
thewizard813 Hello room!
DELL-ScottH the first few months it was just Roger, Todd and me talking to ourslves :-)
DELL-ScottH hello wiz !
Rob_Dutkiewicz Howdy.
thewizard813 Name is Bob, From the Faa in Atlanta, Ga
DELL-ScottH cool, rob is about to board a plane, so make sure it stays in the air
Rob_Dutkiewicz Well I have spread the word, I keep forgeting to mention it to the account teams when I meet with them, seems like something the Asg reps would really be into.
Rob_Dutkiewicz Lol
Rob_Dutkiewicz yeah Thank you for the job well don Bob!
Rob_Dutkiewicz gotta go Bna to Atl to Mdw
DELL-ScottH yeah, please spread the word, that's the only way we've grown
DELL-ScottH have a safe flight
Rob_Dutkiewicz I will, I meet with Asg account teams on a regurlar basis so will pass the word arround. Isrs and Aes prob wont use it much but Scs and Tsrs would eat the site up
DELL-ScottH bob, the official chat starts in about 15 mins, we are just hanging out cussing and discussing .... you have dell blades right now ?
DELL-ScottH thanks Rob, appreciate it
thewizard813 Oh yeah, I've got blade solution sitting in boxes waiting on power...
thewizard813 Chassis with 4 blades...
thewizard813 and a Md300i array
thewizard813 Md3000i array
DELL-ScottH good pairing md3000i and blades
thewizard813 Yes, that's what the Se I worked with said...
thewizard813 right now im wating power upgrade so we can install and plug it in...
thewizard813 Question...
DELL-ScottH shoot
thewizard813 Have any of you had had Pe 1950 or 2950's not able to read Cd/dvd in windows, but you can boot up off Cd/dvd all day long?
DELL-ScottH that's a very strange problem ... how many machines does it happen on
thewizard813 We bought 6 servers at the same time... 1950's and 2950's...
DELL-ScottH matter what the Cd/dvd is ? tried many different ones ?
thewizard813 oh yeah...
thewizard813 so far we have had the Mobo replaced in 1 1950 and it resolved the issue.

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DELL-ScottH mobo replacement ? .. that seems so far from the issue ... reseat all the cables ?
DELL-ToddM Hello Everybody!
DELL-ScottH hey todd
DELL-ScottH had a pretty good chat so far
thewizard813 yeah, but these are brand new servers... so why should I be opening them up... we have top level support...
thewizard813 and yes I have tried swapping Cd'dvd drive and still no go...
DELL-ScottH yeah I know, but if they all came off the line at the same point, and built by the same person, you never know what happens on the line
thewizard813 I can boot and runn the dell server admin cd just fine... it copies files just fine..
DELL-ScottH swapping from the same set of machines ? .... I mean the same set of initial 6 ?
DELL-ScottH you have other 1950's 2950's , or just these ?
thewizard813 But when you go into windows and put a Cd or Dvd it won't responds to it
thewizard813 just these...
thewizard813 our others are 1750 and 2850's...
DELL-ScottH device manager shows drive is fine ?
thewizard813 yep, that's the strange part...
thewizard813 I can use the Drac card and remote mount the Iso file...

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Rob_Dutkiewicz Scott can I make a shameless plug?
DELL-ScottH hello Bd
thewizard813 Support is working the issue at this tiem...
DELL-ScottH sure, $100 to paypal
Rob_Dutkiewicz lol
DELL-ScottH I'm assuming all the troubleshooting 101 .... bios/firmware ... firmware on the Cd driver .. etc has been done ... because that would have been part of a mobo swap .. latest versions

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Rob_Dutkiewicz Bob from Faa mentioned he is using Dell blades on Md3000i's we (double-take) just finished testing with the Md3000 and created a special feature just for the Md3000i that allows you to control/ iniatite the Md array based snapshots from Double-take
DELL-ScottH I haven't experienced that problem, but our 2950's 1950's we've had for awhile in the lab, not brought in new ones recently. I'd say you just have to keep escalating through support .. weird
DELL-ScottH link ?
DELL-ScottH welcome slbrown
slbrown Hello and congratulations Scott and team!
BDglobalTSR Rob, Link or document?

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DELL-ScottH ::blush
DELL-ScottH thanks !
DELL-ScottH Rob, how can you tease and then no link ?
Rob_Dutkiewicz lol it will be available as a download for exisiting customers from our support site http://support.doubletake.com
Rob_Dutkiewicz Docutmentation to follow next week at http://support.doubletake.com
DELL-ScottH Right click on links, or you'll get dumped from the chat

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DELL-ScottH hello roger
Dell-RogerF Afternoon.
thewizard813 so do we start now?

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DELL-ScottH hello ray
rayg hellow gents
DELL-ToddM Hey ray!
DELL-ScottH couple more minutes and we'll kick it off
thewizard813 ok
DELL-ScottH for the newcomers .. you can use "action" .. "recent room history" to see what we've been chatting about .... thewiz aka Bob has a weird problem with Cd drive in 1950/2950 ... view the history, maybe you have some ideads
DELL-ScottH or ideas

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DELL-ScottH hello doug
doug_wallingford Gday

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DELL-ToddM Hey doug - How goes it?
DELL-ScottH hello andy
doug_wallingford Great day @dell
DELL-ToddM What's up Andy?
DELL_AndyF hellow from switzerland
DELL-ScottH ahhh a most delicious place
doug_wallingford Guten Tag
DELL-ToddM Andy - Are you up past your bedtime for this chat?

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DELL-ScottH I like your dedication

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DELL-ScottH hello armando

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DELL-ScottH hello eric
DELL_AndyF can't get no sleep :-)
DELL-Eric_Reed Hi there!

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DELL-ScottH hello resadeealovord

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DELL-ScottH hello steve
DELL-ToddM Good to see you Armando!
Armando75 Hello
Steve_Williams Hi all
resadeealvord Hi All
DELL-ToddM Hey steve!

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Steve_Williams How's it going Todd?
DELL-ScottH alright, let's get this party started ..... Todd will tell the others how to catch up

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DELL-ScottH welcome all to the Tuesday chat session
DELL-ToddM Welcome gcga!
DELL-ScottH we have them every week at 3pm, this weeks topic is on Blades and how to manage larger deployment scenarios

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DELL-ToddM Welcome Dennis - We are just getting started!

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DELL-ScottH the chats are very informal , fell free to break in at any time and lead us in the direction that is right for you
DELL-ScottH we are very good at handling multiple streams of thought
DELL-ToddM Hey rradunz - Welcome
Dennis_S Thanks Todd looking forward to it.
rradunz thanks Todd
DELL-ScottH so I'd like to start with a few links to some background info on work we've already done ... and some introductions ...
DELL-ScottH for the weblinks, make sure you Right click on them, or the chat window will kick you out
DELL-ScottH Todd, Roger, and myself are the Dell Techcenter team .... we also have Armando joining us, who leads the Global marketing team for the Dell M1000e Blade and blades in the M1000e chassis
DELL-ScottH we've got a main page with links to existing work on the site -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/blades+tech+articles+%26+answers
DELL-ScottH thanks to Roger for updating it !
Dell-RogerF You're welcome.
DELL-ScottH and we'll keep updating in the next few weeks with more testing/demos/ and info as we elaborate on the blades topic

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DELL-Eric_Reed Thanks much. So I'm at my customer's site and we Just got an M1000e chassis out of the box at 1PM Cdt and had it running by 1:40...pretty exciting!

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DELL-ScottH that is awesome

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DELL-ScottH any gotchas or out of the box experiences you can share
thewizard813 Can you come to Atlanta and help me!

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DELL-ToddM Welcome Russ - we are just starting - You can click on Action - Recent room history to catch up
DELL-Eric_Reed hahaha...i'm in Memphis, so that might be a little jaunt
DELL-ScottH the wiz is waiting for power for his blade chassis

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resadeealvord we've just deployed 12 chassis here at Cornell...
thewizard813 Apc Symmetra Lx 16 Kva...
DELL-ToddM If you right click on links you won't exit from the chat - Today's Chat Tip
DELL-ScottH we've also got several demos on setting up the chassis if you're waiting for them to arrive or need to see how easy it is to set them up -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/poweredge+blade+demos
DELL-Eric_Reed Hey, one quick question though...we powered it up, the fans kicked on High for about a second before spinning down...then when we plugged the cat5 into the Cmcs, the fans spun up again...why?
DELL-ScottH 12 chassis at Cornell -- what is the app ?
resadeealvord 8 are running Hpc apps, Rhel5
resadeealvord fortran, c, etc
DELL-ScottH @eric .. did they spin back down ?
resadeealvord the other 4 are Windows - Microsoft Hpc clusters
DELL-ScottH ahh real apps :-) ... that's my old stomping ground ... clusters ...

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DELL-ScottH how are you managing the installs and images ?
resadeealvord Rhel5 - Rocks
doug_wallingford gosh, say hello to Resa Alvord for us
resadeealvord that's me
thewizard813 How are you supposed to manage the installs and images?
doug_wallingford Gosh; I see it now..
DELL-Eric_Reed they spun back down several seconds later
resadeealvord I have to say if I hadn't found the 10G Blades Cookbook on this site my M1000e experience would have been dreadful
DELL-ScottH it was hard for me to type when welcoming you :-) .. all those vowels strung together
resadeealvord so thanks guys for that cookbook
DELL-Eric_Reed but I was wondering what about plugging in two network cables caused it to suddenly sound like we were on the tarmac! Lol

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Armando75 Eric, never heard of that situation before
Rob_Dutkiewicz Gotta run and catch a flight, Talk to you guys latter (BNA to Atl to Mdw whoo hoo)
DELL-Eric_Reed have fun with that
DELL-ScottH @eric ... not sure, anytime the Cmc can't get good reading or is restarting, it defaults to lowest common denominator to be safe, that means fans at high speed ... as long as they spun back down, I'd say operating as expected
DELL-ScottH thanks for joining rob
doug_wallingford Single or Redundant Cmc? one or 2 net cables per Cmc?
DELL-ToddM You will be able to check out the transcript tomorrow
DELL-Eric_Reed ahhhh...gotcha.
DELL-Eric_Reed redundant

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DELL-Eric_Reed one net cbl per cmc
Armando75 I can run it by engineering if you would like
doug_wallingford One or 2 cables per Cmc?
doug_wallingford understood
DELL-ScottH fyi, the blades cookbook that resa mentioned is here -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/10g+blades+cookbook
DELL-Eric_Reed it's behaving now, so I'm not that concerned. was just curious. Oh...thanks for the link to the cookbook

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DELL-ScottH resa what whould you say is the biggest issue you encountered with a 12 chassis install ?

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thewizard813 make sure you have power...
resadeealvord well, figuring out how to get the Mac addressses... but then I found the cookbook
brennels Are you migrating any apps or data to the new Blades or is this net new?
DELL-ScottH ahh yes, Mac addresses are key for any mass deplyment solution
resadeealvord so... figuring out that telnet needed to be turned on first was key and that is all in the cook book
resadeealvord The cookbook link should ship with any new chassis!
DELL_AndyF how do you provision the Rh systems, Rh satellite server?

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DELL-ScottH we volunteered to spraypaint the boxes with the link, but they escorted us from the factory
DELL-ScottH welcome terry
thewizard813 What Os'es is recommened for the blades?
DELL-ToddM Again
ian_marks Get an operative in the factory to drop in box a slip of paper with the Url
DELL-ScottH ohhh my
resadeealvord no, we're using Rocks
DELL-ScottH ohh my Bob, why didn't you just ask if we like Ford or Chevy :-)
TDA-Terry Hi, thanks.
DELL-ScottH what application ? ... that really drives the Os choice
DELL-ScottH @ian ... lol , sounds like a plan to me
DELL-Eric_Reed Which factory? I only live about 15 miles from the Tn one... ;-)
DELL-ScottH so back a little on topic ... the first key to a good blade install , is to get a clear understanding of the architecture
DELL-ScottH the cookbook does a very good consise job of the explanation of the switch fabrics, the Cmc, and the idrac releationships

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DELL-ScottH once you have a clear understanding of that, it makes it easier to plan the networks and management networks
resadeealvord I agree!
resadeealvord Our chassis have teh Dell switch inside... I tried to find info for "best practice setup" but couldn't find much
DELL-ScottH and if the cookbook doesn't make it clear, there are two demos on the Cmc and the idrac -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/poweredge+blade+demos

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resadeealvord seems to be ok though, we obtained 65% of peak with linpack on gigabit ethernet
thewizard813 I've got the Cisco Modules for the Dell Chassis... 2 of them...
DELL-ToddM Glad to see you again depping
DELL-ScottH I'd say that's the #1 statement we hear .... with the integration of switches in the chassis, you are bringing two separate It groups together .... the network team, and the server team ... sometimes they don't each lunch together ... so the server team gets a crash course on networking switching , and it's a tough topic at times
depping yeah just noticed this chat on twitter... and I heard that if you attend 3 times you get a dell Mini Laptop :-)
DELL-ScottH where ?!? .. .sign me up !
DELL-Eric_Reed Me too!
thewizard813 Well I'm the Server Team and Network Team...
DELL_AndyF then you are a lucky one
DELL-Eric_Reed do you eat lunch together with you?
greyopz not when the 2 teams disagree
Armando75 should make the discussion pretty easy
resadeealvord I don't have a network junkie on my staff either
DELL-ScottH I feel for you ... I've been trying to get a grasp of advanced networking concepts for years, and it still eludes me
DELL_AndyF it' can even worse when the Fc switches belong to the storage team
doug_wallingford Reesa; do you require jumbo frames for your network?
DELL-Eric_Reed I've seen that, yeah...

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resadeealvord require? I don't think so, but we do turn them on...
DELL-ScottH we'll take that input and try to build out some networking topics on the site, especially around blades, but we'll need some help
resadeealvord some apps like them, some don't
doug_wallingford What is your max Mtu size? 9K?
resadeealvord 9252
doug_wallingford (generic 9K) Ok

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DELL-ScottH so when you see the pages go up, and you have some expertise in that area, please request writer access and we'll try to build ti together
DELL-ScottH welcome lhundt
doug_wallingford 9K enabled in the Eth driver and at the switch.. great. thank you
lhundt hey guys

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resadeealvord yes, indeed
DELL-ScottH welcome rurgiles
resadeealvord well, that's what our goal is
DELL-ToddM Welcome sofian and lhundt - Action - Recent room history will catch you up on the disucssion so far
DELL-ScottH so I think we've found some jewels in the cookbook .... we need some work on switch topics -- to make it easy to understand and deploy ... we've got some demos if you don't like reading .... what else can we help with ?
lhundt Has there been any discussion on the new full height blades?
DELL_AndyF is the M1000e already supported with altiris deployment?
DELL-ToddM No discusion yet today on the new full height blades
ian_marks I haven't seen much info anywhere, but is there anything out there with good info on the infiniband switches available for the m1000e?
DELL-ScottH @andy, I'm using it, but didn't check on official support ... being a lab and all :-)
thewizard813 our blades are going to be Vm hosts for Server consolidation...
DELL-ToddM Do you have anything specific you want to talk about with the full height blades?
DELL-ScottH @wiz, that's a great use especially with the Md3000i
lhundt Will there be intel ones coming out?
Steve_Williams Will you be using Xenserver for the virtualization?
thewizard813 Yep and we got the Cisco modules switche too...
Armando75 Yes, Intel is on the roadmap
DELL-ScottH many of these questions are good for ....
DELL-ScottH yep there he is :-)
thewizard813 Currently do not have a Vm Software envorinment...
resadeealvord I'm looking for Ib help too, I have one chassis coming in with Ib gear
thewizard813 Have been testing Ms Vm Server...
DELL-ToddM wiz - Ms Virtual Server 2005 or Hyper-v ?
Steve_Williams I think I can get you an eval version of Xenserver
thewizard813 looking at Hyper-v... have been running 2005 for a year or so...
Armando75 We have a couple of infinband whitpapaers out there, what specifically is your question?
thewizard813 The blades are to be the consolidation point...
DELL-ScottH @ian -- send an email to Sean Copp secopp@cisco.com and Roy Kim roy.kim@cisco.com for more details on the infiniband switch

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DELL-ScottH hello ew-fofitty
DELL-ToddM We had chats on Hyper-v previous two weeks...
Steve_Williams ok
depping look into Esxi, dell has got a great embedded version!
resadeealvord I prob won't know until I power it on... waiting for the cisco switch to arrive
depping one of the best on the martket.
Steve_Williams Xenserver is embedded too
brennels @ Wiz how are you consolidating your data to the new Vm's?
ian_marks So are the Ib switches mellanox products branded as cisco?
Armando75 We also offer hypervisors from Citrix and Hyperv as well
DELL-ScottH @depping -- said the man that works at Vmware :-)
depping :)
Armando75 Yes, Ian that is correct
thewizard813 Same here... wating for power... then need to install and assemble everything... Chassis, Md3000i, Cisco Modules...etc....
BDglobalTSR Is the Hyperv released yet, or is it on the roadmap/
BDglobalTSR As embedded
depping not yet
depping and "embedded" in this case is a weird description...
DELL-ToddM Ms announced yesterday that they will release a slimmed down version of Hyper-v as free download
DELL-ToddM http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/sep08/09-07getvirtualnowpr.mspx
depping I'm wondering what "slimmed down" means
brennels How much slimmer can it get:)
depping euuhm about 1900mb ?
depping :D
Steve_Williams Still need to buy the expensive part. Microsoft just dropped $28 to zero. Not a huge savings
thewizard813 I have the hardware, now I'm looking at the software side...consolidating data onto Vm's ... do you mean local storage in the Vm or via iscsi or Fc or other Storage Lan?
depping I would say check Netapp or Hp
depping Nah, just kidding.
DELL-ToddM The big difference with the slimmed down Hyper-v thing is that it will be like Esxi - you won't need anthing else
Steve_Williams kick that guy out of here
DELL-Eric_Reed /me was trying to figure out how to kick him out... Lol
DELL-ScottH depping, don't make me kick ban you ! :-)
brennels All the above provisioning, migrating or is this for new systems
depping Well slimmed down means it's less of Windows 2008 in there,
depping still it's like 70% of 2008 probably as far as I understood
Steve_Williams That is still huge compared to Xenserver
depping or compared to Esxi
DELL-ToddM wiz - iscsi has become more and more popular with our customers

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DELL-Eric_Reed 2008 Core? Or some other flavor?
DELL-ToddM And especially Equallogic with virtualization
DELL-ToddM welcome Matt!
DELL-ScottH hello matt ... use "action" ... "recent room hiostory" to catch up
matt0zan thx. just lurking 2day
thewizard813 We already have Nx1950 Storage Server Solution...
DELL-ToddM Opps - I think I misunderstood your last post - I thought you were asking for what kind of storage
DELL-ScottH yes I just put up some docs and webex demos on Vmworld Dell booth site for Equallogic -- http://www.vmworld.com/vmworld/community/exhibitors/dell
thewizard813 Already consolidated a lot of data to our Cluster Nx1950...

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brennels Hey Team, all good stuff but gotta run, see you next week hopefully, first round is on me - Brace Rennels
DELL-ScottH I'll take you up on that !
DELL-ScottH see you in vegas
thewizard813 The server consolidation will be app server, db servers, etc...
DELL-ToddM Hope to see you in vegas
thewizard813 The storage will be local but not File Share to the workstaitons...
DELL-ToddM Are you going to have enough capacity / performance wih the Nx1950?
DELL-ToddM How much consolidation are we talking about?
DELL-ScottH Todd's got some papers around Sql and Exchange on Vmware .... might be worth a broswe -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/vmware
thewizard813 Moving print server to Vm...
depping cool!
depping thanks for the links
thewizard813 moving Web hosting to Vm...

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thewizard813 Yep, got some Sql Db Servers....

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DELL-ToddM Are these heavy use Dbs? High Cpu / High Io?
thewizard813 There are a couple that are and they are on dedicated servers...
DELL-ToddM And dedicated storage/luns too I'm sure :)
brennels Ok, not quite gone, you might want to look into the Dt virtual recovery assistant to help with live migration and provisioning. It will keep your servers online during the process and your data current to minimize any downtime you might have with the typical migration paradigm.
DELL-ScottH With the M905 4 socket, you can keep them dedicated, and just physically migrate them to the chassis, if they aren't good consolidation candidates
thewizard813 Basically, we have about 20 Windows Server running local apps and we are looking to migrate over to vm's
brennels easy stuff.

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thewizard813 Some are web apps, some coldfusion...
DELL-ToddM Those are generally great candidates for virtualization
thewizard813 The utilization on these servers is low... like 20% or less...
DELL-ScottH you might be interested in this paper -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/power+savings+through+consolidation -- I wrote it for power comparison, but might be applicable

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DELL-ToddM Sounds like you are going to leave the heavy use Dbs on physical servers - which is probably the right thing to do
DELL-ScottH alright ... we are coming up on the end of the hour ... feel free to keep the conversation going .. we will be here .. just a few wrap up items ...

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DELL-ScottH Next week we will dive deeper into the new M805 and M905 blades -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/09-16-2008+dell+m805+and+m905+blades+web+chat

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thewizard813 Are there big gains with the new blades?
DELL-ScottH if you missed anything on this chat - or want to point people to a transcript -- it will be here in the morning -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/09-09-2008+bulking+up+dell+blades+web+chat
RURGILES How do you sizing a Blade Solution? (sorry my poor english)
DELL-ScottH Todd and I will be at Vmworld next week -- follow us on twitter for live tweets from the show -- http://www.twitter.com/delltechcenter
DELL-ToddM sshinnick - we are just finishing up - Anything specific you wanted to know before we all start to bug out?
thewizard813 My initial ides was to run 4 to 8 Vm's per blade.. and that would allow me around 16 Vm servers running across the 4 blades...
DELL-ScottH @rurgiles ... what is the solution ?
DELL-ToddM I think that is probably a conservative number of Vms per server - but I don't really know your apps

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thewizard813 If we need another server run a web app or special app, then we just turn up an new Vm...
DELL-ToddM You are right - the really nice thing about virtualization is that it is relatively easy to adjust as you go

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sshinnick oh no, I just found out that yall do this every Tue... thought I would pop in to see if there was anything interesting

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DELL-ScottH that's good and bad ... keep good practices, or you'll get vm sprawl , and managing more images is just the same as managing more machines
sshinnick thanks, i'll stop by again (hopefully sooner next time)!
thewizard813 Basically we will have some high end Db servers left on their 6850's... running Sql and Oracle...
DELL-ScottH thanks for popping in
DELL-ToddM Cool - Check out the trancscipt tomorrow (see link above) and we are having blades chats the next two weeks as well
thewizard813 Other Services like Wsus might could go on an Vm...
resadeealvord bye all, have to run to catch the bus home
DELL-ScottH thanks again to everyone for joining this week .... we'll around for a while longer
DELL-ScottH thanks resa !
DELL-ToddM Thanks Resa!

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thewizard813 Look forward to next week...
DELL-Eric_Reed thanks, guys!
sshinnick do you cover other topics besides blades?

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DELL-ScottH yes
DELL-ScottH I mean yes to sshinnick ... .wait for link
Dell-RogerF @sshinnick, yes we do. Check out past transcripts at http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/chat+topics+and+transcripts

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DELL-ScottH ahh , you beat me
DELL-ScottH hey lance
sshinnick ok great, thanks. we don't have any blades right now but, maybe in the future.
matt0zan Can I ask a quick newb question on server virtualization?
DELL-ScottH we're just finishing up, you can use "action" recent room history to read the entire chat
DELL-ScottH sure
DELL-ScottH $10 to paypal
DELL-ToddM matt - Fire awar!
DELL-ToddM away!
DELL-ScottH fire in the hole
matt0zan I'm getting two R300 servers, and want to run about six Vms on them as a cluster.
Lance Howdy, howdy
matt0zan Do I need an iscsi target to hold the vhds for these Vms and support failover?

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DELL-ScottH you need some type of shared storage
Lance sorry I'm late - been working a case on some M605s that are about to go production
DELL_AndyF matt: do you know already what kind of virtualisation solution you d'like to use?
DELL-ScottH iscsi is one option
DELL-ToddM What type of cluster?
matt0zan failover cluster
DELL-ToddM An Esx Vmware Ha failover type cluster? Or Ms Failover clusters between the Vms?
DELL-ToddM You will need to shared storage for either one
matt0zan Ah. Microsoft. I'll be using Vmm 2008
matt0zan I'm also getting an Nf500. Can I leverage that to host the vhds for these Vms?
DELL-ToddM System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (?)

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DELL-ToddM nf500 is Netapp?
matt0zan yes, Scvmm

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matt0zan Dell Powervault Nf500
DELL-ScottH powervault Nf500 nas
DELL-ToddM Ouch - I should keep up with our product line better :)
DELL-ScottH nas won't do it
matt0zan Everything I read about Ms failover clusters says "iscsi, iscsi..."
DELL-ScottH you need block level device
DELL-ScottH not a fileshare
ian_marks there is an optional iscsi target on the nf500.
matt0zan I ran across a product called Mysan from Nimbus that can create an iscsi target on a file level drive. Is that just asking for trouble?
DELL-ScottH ahhh
BDglobalTSR It can be an iscsi target
matt0zan http://www.nimbusdata.com/products/mysan.php
DELL-ScottH ian is on to something
DELL-ScottH adding more layers is not going to make it easier ... in general
matt0zan Aha! So maybe that's already built into the Nf500?
BDglobalTSR The Nf500 can be an iscsi target without additional software.
matt0zan sweet