Many solutions exist from different vendors to manage different parts of your Dell PowerEdge Blade environment, ranging from monitoring, deployment, patch management, and others. These companies include, Altiris, Microsoft, BMC, LANDesk and others. Come join us in a discussion of how these vendor's products can assist and how best to architect a solution around these choices.

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Chat Transcript

	DELL-ScottH joined.
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DELL-ScottH	hey gkeller ! .. how's it going ?
DELL-ScottH	Is your first name Greg ? I used to know a Greg Keller in Dallas
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DELL-ScottH	hey todd
DELL-ToddM	Hey Scott
DELL-ToddM	What's up gkeller?
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DELL-ToddM	I think that the flexaddress chat next week is going to be cool!
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DELL-ToddM	Hello iheck
DELL-ScottH	yeah, too bad you are on vacation ... you should dial in from the pyramids !
DELL-ToddM	Hi Roger
iheck	hi
DELL-ScottH	hey roger, iheck
Dell-RogerF	Greetings
gkeller	Howdy All
DELL-ToddM	Salutations
gkeller	Scott, yes.. it's the formerly Dell Hpcc Greg Keller ;)
DELL-ScottH	ahhh
DELL-ScottH	how the heck have you been ?
gkeller	Pretty good... Busy as can be
DELL-ScottH	so who are you with now ?
DELL-ScottH	and it's also the former ibm greg keller too, right ?
gkeller	R Systems / R People. Selling Hpcc Cycles and support
gkeller	Nope, Never Ibm (that would be my parents :) )
DELL-ScottH	ahh ok ... hey they wear jeans there too now :-)
gkeller	geek is in the Dna I suppose
DELL-ScottH	ihekc, how about yourself ? whatcha do, where you from ?
iheck	I'm with Dell
iheck	Tsr
DELL-ScottH	ahh a lurker !
iheck	in Mid Market
iheck	lol...yup
DELL-ScottH	cool, glad to have you
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DELL-ScottH	waiting a few minutes to give others a chance to join
DELL-ScottH	hey rosalind !
DELL-ScottH	how goes it ?
rosalind_bell	good Scott, how are you?
DELL-ScottH	chillin like a villian
DELL-ScottH	just me and matt dillion
rosalind_bell	this is my first time on the chat, just join the techcenter last week
DELL-ScottH	Great to have you here ... what do you do ?
rosalind_bell	My goal is to do more work with Roger moving forward
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DELL-ScottH	forward is good
DELL-ScottH	hey greg !
ramseyg_dell	hello
DELL-ToddM	Hey greg
ramseyg_dell	Hey Todd - thanks for that info earlier on Hyper-v. .
rosalind_bell	My day job.....part of the Global Relationship Marketing Org, my specific role is planning, strategy and programs for relationship business in the Us....
DELL-ScottH	omg, we need a "simplify job description" plan :-)
DELL-ToddM	Hyper-v is the topic of the day for me - seems to be coming up more and more
DELL-ScottH	Well I have to tell everybody, we are going to take the bus off the road today .....
DELL-ScottH	we had planned on having some experts from Ms join us for a discussion around Ms System Center and blade deployment, but they had to cancel last minute .....
DELL-ToddM	I like going off road
DELL-ScottH	so in the spirit of our open discussion format, we want to open it up to Anything you want to talk about
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DELL-ScottH	we are always informal on the chats, if you can't tell by now :-)
DELL-ToddM	Hey - Kristoffer
Kristoffer	Hi guys
DELL-ScottH	ramseyg is with Dell It and does some Ms systems center stuff, so he could cover that ...
DELL-ScottH	I do a lot of systems managment, and just posted some more blade demos so I could talk about that
DELL-ScottH	Todd does a lot on virtualization , he could do that
DELL-ScottH	Roger also does systems managment stuff
DELL-ScottH	here's the latest blade demos I did -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/poweredge+blade+demos
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DELL-ScottH	some around idrac and web management
DELL-ScottH	lol
DELL-ScottH	got one !
DELL-ToddM	Opps - You need to right click on links to avoid dropping out of chat
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DELL-ScottH	inside joke -- if you click on a link you drop from chat
DELL-ScottH	lol
DELL-ScottH	got you iheck !
iheck	lol
iheck	nice
DELL-ToddM	It gets everybody at least once
DELL-ScottH	you have to right click on the link ... our running joke for noobs
iheck	::blush
DELL-ScottH	:-)
iheck	can you throw that link up again for the new guy please
DELL-ScottH	http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/poweredge+blade+demos -- but you can also click "action" .. "recent room history" ...
DELL-ScottH	and all is available in the chat transcripts
DELL-ScottH	greg must be writting a novel
iheck	thnx
gkeller	scheming to take over the world
DELL-ScottH	muhahahha
DELL-ToddM	kristoffer - How are are the new blades?
gkeller	ya...like that
ramseyg_dell	:) just tried to wait for a pause in the flow. . .
ramseyg_dell	I do have a hot tip if you're using Opsmgr. . .. . . if you're using the Dell Management Pack for Opsmgr 2007 (r-click the link) (http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?fileid=229201 ), Ms has a new hotfix for you.
ramseyg_dell	"The Root Management Server (rms) in System Center Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 becomes unstable or unusable after you import Dell Management Pack 3.1" http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=951526
DELL-ScottH	I'm ready to see you up in lights with the case study
Kristoffer	:)
DELL-ScottH	"unstable or unusable" ... that always looks good in writting :-)
Kristoffer	They are very nice - I especially like the idrac virtual media and console... works very well when compiling kernels that panic alot
gkeller	in practice are there many installations stacking the enet in the blade chassis?
DELL-ScottH	I haven't heard of any, but my sample size if very small
DELL-ScottH	@kristoffer, what distro are you using ?
Kristoffer	Debian, running xen
DELL-ToddM	kernel panic isn't good... Glad to hear idrac works great
DELL-ScottH	any feedback on the idrac on blades ?
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DELL-ScottH	it's kind of a loaded question
Kristoffer	have to reset the idrac console once in a while, as it sometimes goes blank screen...
DELL-ScottH	but I want to see if you have the same experience as some other cuswtomers and me in the lab
DELL-ToddM	Hi Kent
DELL-ScottH	hey kent
DELL-KentS	Good Afternnon
Kristoffer	other than that they work great
gkeller	I'm waiting for 1600mhz Fsb before I can seriously consider a blade deployment for anything other than small Poc stuff.
DELL-ScottH	gkeller, I'm not a network guru, but what would need stacking .. which apps ... is this hpcc specific thing ?
gkeller	nope... Stacking is great for cheapskates like me
gkeller	who want to avoid a massive core switch
Kristoffer	:)
Kristoffer	not me
gkeller	and have reasonably little Gbe loads at any instant heading out of the stack
gkeller	20gbe is good enough for a lot of nodes in my world... Ib handles the big stuff.
DELL-ScottH	ahhh we all cant afford the cisco 6509 :-)
gkeller	not when Ipmi is the primary traffic on it :)
DELL-ScottH	still lots of myrinet deployments in Hpcc ?
DELL-ToddM	The ethernet switch stacking to save switch swich ports has been one reason to use blades for virtualization
DELL-ScottH	or moving to Ib ?
gkeller	we have 19 Pc6248's, 2 stacks of 9 with a 10gbe core. Apart from a few bugs now fixed in new firmware it's worked fine.
gkeller	7 was not a lucky number
DELL-ToddM	You can eliminate the need for core switch ports for Vmotion if you keep the Vmotion traffic within the blades - for example
DELL-ToddM	within the blades chassis!
gkeller	with 24/48gb stacking backplane... in or out of the chassis shouldnt matter
DELL-ScottH	I'm liking our blades more and more, working with them in the lab, and I can't say much .....
DELL-ScottH	but did you notice ....
gkeller	unless you have 10's of systems migrating simultaneously
DELL-ScottH	that the chassis is kindof broken into "pods" ....
DELL-ScottH	of 4 blade units
DELL-ToddM	Going back a few minutes - why the need to wait for 1600mhz Fsb? 1333 isn't enough?
DELL-ScottH	getting back a little to discussion of "I'm ready for blades when 1600 Mhz Fsb is norm"
gkeller	not for Hpcc... many apps are Memory Bandwidth limited
gkeller	that's 20% is worth a lot
DELL-ToddM	What is currently 1600mhz Fsb?
gkeller	Most vendors have it, we are using a Dell Dcs 1U system for now
gkeller	but since those are only available in volume, we're pinched.
DELL-ToddM	Ah - I understand
gkeller	We like the Cabling reduction on the Blade Chassis.... but a premium price for a performance penalty makes it hard to justify.
gkeller	For typical Ms and App servers it isn't as important.
DELL-ScottH	chassis will come down in price , then might be option for you
DELL-ToddM	Does Amd Hypertransport perform better?
gkeller	but my scientists feel it.
DELL-ToddM	for these Hpcc workloads?
DELL-ScottH	yeah, hows the Hpcc world now wrt amd and intel
gkeller	Yes but no on Amd... Barcelona's still got some warts... and pre-barcelona couldn't keep up with intel's 4 Flops per cycle
gkeller	Don't get me wrong... Barcelona has some strong advantages but they freaked folks out with their stumble out of the gate
DELL-ScottH	what's the thoughts on dunnington with 6 cores ? -- in wikipedia, I'm not leaking anything :-)
gkeller	The trick is all in the Memory Bw and Cache config
gkeller	our Current Quad Cores, we only use 1 core per pair and idle the other
gkeller	if we use them both, the cache get's clobbered so bad it's a net performance loss.
DELL-ScottH	ahh , right
gkeller	Wolfdale/cloverton didn't have the same cache problem... probably because it had less cache
gkeller	but the Memory Bw per socket doesn't change. So we could use 3 of the 6 possibly
DELL-ScottH	I think those had nonshared cache, the later revs went to shared cache model
gkeller	the cache is shared in pairs on Intel
gkeller	Amd has it shared accross all 4 which is technically beautiful, but may not be great for me.
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gkeller	I'm curious what the bare-metal Mac capture options are on the Blades
DELL-ScottH	anybody else have questions across topics ? -- jump in, dive in, ...
gkeller	on 9G Drac would hand out a formated list (if you could wait 3 minutes for it )
DELL-ScottH	I can test that, I've got a chassis, I'm sure some omreport command will dump them
gkeller	Does Idrac have a similar table or would we have to collect it from the Enet switch?
gkeller	ya, but Omreport would have to pull from the Idrac directly, I need it bare metal.
DELL-ScottH	let me see what I get at the chassis level
gkeller	What's the real story on Power... what's the minimum number of supply's to have redundancy on a fully loaded chassis.
gkeller	(I keep hearing different counts)
DELL-ScottH	telnet/ssh to chassis -- type getmacaddress
gkeller	ok, so the same command exists.
DELL-ScottH	$ getmacaddress <name> <BMC Mac Address> <nic1 Mac Address> <nic2 Mac Address> chassis N/a 00:1a:a0:ff:f6:c0 00:1a:a0:ff:f6:c1 server-1 00:1c:23:cc:56:3d 00:1c:23:cc:56:39 00:1c:23:cc:56:3b server-2 00:1c:23:cc:56:42 00:1c:23:cc:56:3e 00:1c:23:cc:56:40 server-3 00:18:8b:ff:40:c0 00:1a:a0:ff:d7:e4 00:1a:a0:ff:d7:e6 server-4 00:18:8b:ff:42:28 00:18:8b:ff:9d:ea 00:18:8b:ff:9d:ec
gkeller	can racadm pull it
gkeller	?
DELL-ScottH	nice how the smileys came across
DELL-ScottH	that's from me just running it
gkeller	We script it so the Db is automagically updated.
gkeller	racadm will pull it too then I'm sure
gkeller	Thx
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DELL-ScottH	yes, works, just run same command through racadm
DELL-ScottH	just tested it
DELL-ScottH	diff levels of redundany for the chassis
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DELL-ScottH	Ac redundany level requires all 6
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DELL-ScottH	power supply redundancy can do with 4
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DELL-ScottH	must be java problems
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DELL-ScottH	what else is on anyones mind ?
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DELL-ScottH	We're leaked some info on the site, anyone found it yet ?
DELL-ScottH	There's a new feature in the blade chassis announcing in a few weeks, but we already posted some info on it
DELL-ScottH	Todd you don't count, no shirt for you
DELL-ToddM	If you "flex" yourself a bit - you will probably find it
DELL-ScottH	groan !
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DELL-ToddM	::wink
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DELL-ScottH	check out the topic for next week's chat and you'll find a doc attached to the page
DELL-ScottH	we'll have experts on next week to discuss it, even though it's not formally announced .... I'm inviting my mother to the chat for that week !
Kristoffer	:) sounds nice
DELL-ScottH	kristoffer, I'm assuming no issues with your chassis yet ?
Kristoffer	nope, not yet.. running happily on one powersupply right now... ;)
DELL-ScottH	how many blades ?
Kristoffer	only 3 powered on... ::huh
DELL-ScottH	how are you going to get to world domination with only 3 blades ? ::laugh
Kristoffer	I'm still waiting for the redundant chassis which will be loadbalancer/firewall, so not really in production yet...
DELL-ScottH	that's why you are compiling so many iterations of the kernel !
Kristoffer	of course word domination... maybe I'll tour a bit in the Us as well
Kristoffer	or world :)
gkeller	if they're like Blade in the movie, I'm backing him with 3.
DELL-ScottH	word domination would be Scrabble
Kristoffer	haha
DELL-ToddM	Wasnt' Kris Kristoffersen in the blades movies?
DELL-ScottH	hahahahaha Lol
DELL-ScottH	good one
Kristoffer	that could have been me...
Kristoffer	I'm not singing so well though...
DELL-ToddM	That's what I was thinking.....
Kristoffer	but neither is he
Kristoffer	;)
DELL-ScottH	Convoy ... now that dates me
DELL-ToddM	Very true
Kristoffer	sure... convoys of blades
DELL-ScottH	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077369/
DELL-ScottH	1978
DELL-ScottH	I was 9 .... my dad's favorite movie
DELL-ScottH	that and Terminator
DELL-ScottH	all right ... what other It topics do we have, it always seems to degenerate at the end of the hour
DELL-ScottH	Be sure to join us next week for the "sneak" peek new blade feature ... Roger is running the show .. .todd is being kidnapped by his wife, and I'm trekking off into the woods to get lost
DELL-ToddM	How about a shameless plug for my blog - http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/virtualization+frontier - Latest entry is on support of Ms in Vmware Vms
DELL-ScottH	thanks to Everyone for being part of the Techcenter .... we appreciate You ! .. tell your friends to join
DELL-ScottH	please paypal me $10 for shameless plug of your blog during my chat
DELL-ToddM	The check is in the mail
DELL-ScottH	(bounce bounce)
DELL-ScottH	see you all next week
Dell-RogerF	Bye
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DELL-ToddM	Thanks Scott
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DELL-ScottH	thanks everyone
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Stuart	: )
DELL-ScottH	you got to be kidding me !
Stuart	I guess i am late
DELL-ScottH	about 1.5 hours
DELL-ScottH	what time is it there ?
DELL-ScottH	still working on your migration ?
Stuart	hehe... 7:30am over here so I just started work..
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Stuart	Well..... the licence for the application on this server uses the Nic Mac address as a reference... so I am still trying to work out if I can Vm it.... I found an option to set a manual Mac address within the Vm settings... I will be testing this today/tomorrw...
DELL-ScottH	ahh so trying to keep the old licenses and just put the old mac of the server to the new Vm ?
Stuart	The default Mac address setting on our Vms is "automatic".... not sure what that means really.... we will re-licence the app, so that is not an issue... I am just unsure what will happen when we Vmotion the Vm to another host... I hope the manual setting means that the mac address will follow the Vm
DELL-ScottH	sounds def like something to test, let us know your findings
Stuart	The other issue is that the vendor is complaining about the use of Vms... but we are telling them to naf off.... the guys was trying to say the Vms aren't as "dependable" as seperate hardware devices... but he is wrong.... I think the vendor is about 8years behind the times... :)
DELL-ScottH	at least 8 years, I mean comon, this stuff is about to be used by my mother
DELL-ScottH	dependable ... haha, it's software that always causes the crashes !
DELL-ScottH	have a great day, see you next week maybe
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Stuart	bye everyone :)
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