Archive for August, 2009
Emulex firmware and driver quick guide
Upgrading the driver/firmware on all you system components is just as important as the server itself. I put this together referencing a selection of Emulex cards with their firmware/boot code and latest driver versions. Please check the Emulex site for important install/upgrade information and check with your storage infrastructure team to ensure that what’s being [...]
Is it an inventory or list you want?
Chris told me this story, whilst I called him to see how Canary Wharf was these days: “Hi Danny, can you give me an audit/inventory of the Windows server estate?” Asked the head of IT. Chris had been asked to produce a report of all the Windows servers and he was telling me that their [...]
Interviewing a CIO (part 4 of the phased approach)
So we left our app guy, wanting to own his domain, what’s the CIO thinking about all this? Arnold, what’s going on in your space? Organizational change Discussions about green IT Doing more with less Virtualization – why we need it, why some people can’t use it Legacy kit and why we need to upgrade [...]
Interviewing an app guy (part 3 of a phased approach)
 So we left Chris with his BAU hard hat on and a Starbucks coffee in one hand, a Compaq screw driver in the other. So what does Johnny our application support/delivery manager want? We’ll need to see.. What are your core requirements, what’s on your mind? Improving performance and availability of our applications. Now [...]
Interviewing a server guy (part 2 of phased approach)
So we left Mike wanting to upgrade all the servers from Windows 2000 to Windows 2008 in order to keep everything up to date, to reduce support costs and stay in vendor support. Chris what we up and what are your priorities? Reduce call outs for on call Implement defragmentation on some key systems Upgrade [...]
Interviewing a Mike – the architect
So what are you working on? I’ve recently being trying to get approval to decommission all Windows 2000 servers, and combine with it, that servers that are not running Windows 2000 be replaced. Windows 2000 is shortly coming out of support and I want us to start replacing them with Windows 2008. What number of [...]
Projects, BAU and how IT all works really
I thought it would be interesting to have a series the ‘phased approach to IT’. You see, everyone has a different set of priorities. They all indirectly converge, but they are all equally different. It’s part of a series of posts that will follow over the next few days. The first is with ‘Mike’ who’s [...]
DOA – no just run the diagnostics (Part 3)
This post continues regarding Chris’ support issues. I’ve removed anything vendor/customer specific. Chris is very frustrated for a number of reasons. The support contract is vendor specific and it’s negotiated through a service provider who have no influence over the vendor (just like Chris, he’s one of the many thousands of **** server owners). (Saving [...]
DOA – no just run the diagnostics (Part 2)
This post continues regarding Chris’ support issues. I’ve removed anything vendor/customer specific. From Chris.Surname@largeenterprise.com To:vendor.support@largeservervendor.com Subject: Server wont power on. Hi Can I please log a call, my ********-***** wont power on. It’s just been delivered. We have tried reseating the components but it still does not work. Can we have an engineer visit and [...]
DOA you say no just run the diags (part 1)
I got a call from a rather emotional Chris (he’s still enjoying the view in his very nice office down in Canary Wharf at an organization that shall remain nameless). Anyway, they bought a new server (1 of 11 actually). A nice new impressive 2u ultra fast, ultra efficient (using the new Intel processor) server [...]
