Bladewatch.com

So I am officially in Texas at the moment, and in fact am blogging having just completed my visit to H-E-B to get some mineral water. I’ll be doing some research and blogging over the next few days so if there’s anything I should be aware off, do get in touch, I’m on my iPhone so drop me a mail and I’ll give you a call.

I was excited to see BLADE Network Technologies offering their DC powered switches, this is set to bring increased energy savings over comparable switches, granted DC switches, DC powered blades or technologies might not be something you look at implementing overnight and might not be for everyone, but for those green field sites, for those customers that are looking to realize energy efficiencies by combining fresh air cooling technologies, data center tiering and DC Power, it could be of real interest.

I sent an email around to colleagues working in different sectors for different organizations asking them to name four features that they would like on their lights out card:

Top of the list was the server name to be displayed prominently when logging in or using the card “I might be accessing five servers at a time when I’m building them and it can be confusing working out which one is which, that can make all the difference in rebooting or changing a setting on the wrong server.”

Making the java client more forgiving – said Mike “I’m tired of constantly playing with my java client because one vendors card uses one kind of java and the others uses another, you’d think this could be made easier”, “Also fix browser support, seriously is there a reason that I have to use a specific browser version these days?”

Online configuration – “preferably with some kind of online tool, where I fill in the details and press submit” – “it’s crazy that I have to bring down a production server to change the address on the lights out card “said Bill.

Integrate the array and system managements functions, “it would be nice if I could manage everything with the one screen, the one tool rather than having to log into different bits of software.” replied Jenny

Thank you to everyone who replied to my question, no doubt every user has their own view, but the more intuitive or easy to use we can make the server, the lights out or the management software the better for the end user community and innovation in the market place alike.

I got asked if I have a server move document to aid in the server move process by Norman, a Project Manager for a medium business in Wales, it’s actually something I’m working on and will publish shortly.

Norman is moving from their old data center to a new one, he has 170 mixed serves running unix and Windows and needed a document which he could issue to the engineers in the technical team.  Off the top of my head, the information I would need would be:

Server name – Accounts1

Asset number/serial number – 8KZ283TY8

Operating system – Windows 2003

Make and Model – HP DL380 G3

Current IP address – 10.11.101.13 / 255.255.255.0 / 10.11.101.254

New IP address – 10.22.110.11 / 255.255.255.0 / 10.22.110.254

Current Lights out IP – 100.11.234.25 / 255.255.255.254 / 10.11.234.245

New Lights out IP – 10.9.17.20  / 255.255.255.0 / 10.9.17.254

SAN Storage – Y/N – with World wide addresses if appropriate

Current cabinet – AJ11

New cabinet – A01

Anyway, I’ll put something together online shortly. We need to distinguish between the core information and an audit document for everything involving the move.

Dell.com

RACKNELL, United Kingdom, 16 February 2010 – Dell today introduced OpenManage Integration Suite for Microsoft System Center, a portfolio of software tools designed to help customers efficiently , securely, and cost-effectively utilise and manage standards-based IT resources.  Available at no charge to Dell customers with Microsoft System Center, these software tools enable large enterprises, public organisations and mid-size companies to gain visibility, control, and flexibility of their Windows-based IT environments.

Dell’s OpenManage Integration Suite for Microsoft System Center helps customers get IT assets up and running quickly by streamlining the most time consuming administrative tasks such as bare metal deployments, server provisioning, and BIOS driver and firmware updates.  In addition, these tools give businesses added flexibility in scheduling non-disruptive IT maintenance tasks and help IT staff allocate resources to projects that support business objectives.

“IT professionals continue to look for solutions that help them more easily manage their PCs using standardised tools,” said Bob O’Donnell, vice president for IDC. “Delivering an open, end-to-end solution makes it easier for customers to integrate, deploy, and manage their IT assets. An approach like this is very pragmatic and helps minimise software migration issues while making adoption of Microsoft computing architectures more accessible.”

The News

Dell is making available to its customers, at no charge, a comprehensive set of software tools that deliver hardware management functionality integrated with Microsoft System Center applications.  With Dell’s approach, IT administrators can select and download the management tools they need, helping optimise resource utilisation for their business.  Additionally, Dell has increased the storage capacity of its PowerEdge R510 server to offer an ideal platform for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and other data-intensive applications.

Faster Deployment and Provisioning

Through the integration of Dell Lifecycle Controller with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and the utilisation of Dell Server Deployment Pack, customers can increase productivity and operational cost savings through efficient, simple, and secure remote deployment and provisioning of servers.  This solution helps reduce time and expenses required to send IT personnel to remote sites for server install and deployments.  Additionally, the operating system deployment process is designed to install the correct drivers in the appropriate directory – saving time associated with preparing update packages.

End-to-End Management for Physical and Virtual IT Environments

Dell provides integration tools for Microsoft System Center Management applications that cover a large spectrum of Dell hardware devices including Dell PowerEdge™ blade, rack and tower servers, MD-series and EqualLogic™ storage products, business clients (Dell Precision™ workstations, Latitude laptops and OptiPlex™ desktops) and network printers. As a result, customers can efficiently and cost-effectively manage their heterogeneous computing environment with solutions that support flexibility, choice and value.

Hardware Optimisation for Microsoft Exchange 2010 Environments

Dell continually optimises performance across its PowerEdge server line to help ensure customers the most productivity out of the business applications they rely on most. Recent tests conducted by the research firm Principled Technologies determined that two PowerEdge R510 servers with eight hard drives and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 can support up to 10 times the mailbox size while delivering Exchange Mail Server performance equivalent to two legacy HP ProLiant DL385 servers with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003¹. Migrating to Microsoft Exchange 2010 on a Dell PowerEdge R510 solution can also save up to $24,000 in total cost of ownership (TCO) in a year over that same HP system¹.

Anything the vendors can do to reduce operational cost, systems management or agility has to be the way forward. Being able to manage drivers and firmware and use technologies to remotely deploy them can reduce the number of man days needed to keep the server estate up to date, to be more proactive than reactive. An interesting announcement, I’m off to read more.

Silicon

With IT budgets out of the doldrums and – perhaps – on the rise again, analysts have predicted which sectors will spend the most on tech this year.

According to a report by analysts Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), software and IT services spend across all sectors worldwide will grow to €625bn in 2010, an increase of one per cent over 2009, compared to the 2.7 per cent slump in IT spending that took place in 2009.

The public sector will be the biggest spender in 2010, shelling out €148bn, an increase of 3.3 per cent over 2009.

It will be interesting to see what combination of best practice, service improvement and investment are put together in order to meet business requirements for cost savings and improved service, do check out the article.

I was speaking with Andy, he was complaining. He is rather busy over in Canary Wharf. The IT team has created a new department to focus on the delivery of their virtualization solution, I was interested to know what was going on, what his issues were, so I did a below the radar question and answer session over coffee, resulting in the conversation below. Andy is a Windows Server Manager, the company is a multinational and all links that might identify him have been removed.

So what’s going on? I ask

They’ve created a new team to take over the virtualization activities and it’s rubbish. They suffer from big head syndrome.

Isn’t that a bit emotional, what do you mean? I reply.

Well we have a few communication issues.

By that I mean they have taken over the virtualization platform, and we’re fine with that, the issue is that they see the VMware and the Hyper-V environments as their layer, they support the virtual machine part but nothing else. So as a user and as a support team working along side, if we get a call for a virtual machine we have to speak to them, but they give us the industry standard statement, “your session is fine, the ESX server is fine, must be a Windows/Linux issue”.  Their list of what they do seems to be smaller than what they don’t, check out this email I got from them they do not look after the following:

• Upgrading or changing virtual machine configurations, including disk space, memory or CPU, that is the responsibility of the core operating system teams
• Decommissioning virtual servers, the application owner, business sponsor or core operating system team will handle the formal decommission and notify the virtualization team when it is time to delete the virtual slice
• Performance monitoring of individual virtual machines and managing system configurations in line with the core operating systems best practice
• On call support or fault identification and analysis will be handled by the core operating system teams and then escalated to the virtualization team once the issue has been identified
• Managing inventory of the virtual machines in terms of capacity and reporting – that is done by the core operating system teams (Windows/Unix)

They and I quote: “Build the ESX and Hyper-V environments, allocate new network and storage connectivity where required, continuing to develop the organizational virtualization strategy “or to the rest of the ‘core operating system team’ adopt the big head syndrome and only do what it is they choose which seems to change on a daily basis.

Are you and the team not being a bit emotional in what you say, any jealousy that you aren’t doing it?

It’s more frustration in terms of ownership. I want them to own the service that they provide, an issue isn’t always black and white, I can’t turn around to a business user and say your server pings therefore its not my problem, and I don’t expect an infrastructure team regardless of who they are to do what I perceive to be the same thing.

There seems to be a reluctance for the virtualization team to get involved in the mundane, the boring stuff, the stuff that in fact pays the bills and actually makes a difference to the end user.  As I look at our queue we have 37 requests for configuration changes to virtual machines. Is there a reason other than we don’t want to that they don’t do this work?

Would they not learn more about the server estate, speak with end users and get a sense of identity? Understand the issues involved and what requirements there might be in the virtual machine configuration? The initial specifications for Windows 2003 virtual machines were 512MB RAM and 10GB disk space for the operating system drive until we requested  more stating that this was not suitable as users were complaining about disk space and memory/performance.

The virtual infrastructure needs to be deployed and supported differently. Your ESX server might work, the network might be configured and the storage fine, but if my virtual machine does not work from an end user standpoint “it’s pants, and I don’t care what you say”. The fact that the team focuses on strategy and ESX server builds means that as a team they do not get involved in the day to day issues, they don’t interact with the end user means when an issue arises we have the same communication issues in which either a unix or windows guy will say this bit isn’t working, any advice, and the standard “ESX is fine, ALL IS WELL”. As a result when we do start having issues with virtual machines, the windows and the unix guys start seeing the virtual machines as high maintenance which feeds back directly to the business, “they said it looks fine… but it’s still broken”.

It’s an interesting conversation and one that I had recently with an IT Director working outside London for a medium enterprise, he had recently turned around to his server guys and said, “Windows/Unix/VMware, I want you to learn all of them, they are all an operating system, a platform that needs to be supported”. “I wanted to remove any concept of alignment to a single platform, there will be people that are best skilled at Windows, Unix or VMware but I don’t want people getting too comfortable, I want to be able to call anyone at 3am, and know that they have enough basic skills for fault analysis” he said.

The team should be looking at our virtualization platform, they know our operational issues, I want a platform that is based on an ideal with a degree of understanding what the issues are and what we can realistically achieve.

I will keep in touch with Andy and note any improvements or changes going forward, how you deliver a service internally or externally can make a huge difference as to its success both within IT and to your end user community, remember it’s only one department, one guy that can change the perception of your service from fine to rubbish, and negativity can become a self fulfilling circle which feeds around your IT, your service and your business – IT is rubbish we’ll never get that working here, so they never try, what revenue or business loss could we be loosing as a result.

Finextra

Don Callahan, Citi’s chief administrative administrative officer, told Computerworld UK that the bank was moving forcefully to hit targets of slashing $3 billion from operational and technology costs by 2011.

The pledge to butcher IT budgets was undertaken by Citi CEO Vikram Pandit in April 2008, as the bank faced up to massive losses from subprime debts. One of Pandit’s first moves was to centralise IT decisions in New York under Callahan.

Callahan told Computerworld that Citi was “well ahead of schedule” with the O&T savings. “We intend to be one of the most efficient operators in our industry, and we have made and continue to make significant progress against that goal.”

An article talking about how this bank is seeking to reduce its IT spend through centralization and improving efficiency, it’s interesting once you look at your costs to see where savings can be made, not just on the technology, but on the operations, the on call. We need to be looking at the way we do business so to speak to identify where our operational costs are, but from several levels for it to be effective, from the engineer to the architect through to the CIO, as all have valid opinions. It was the CIO that told me the story that he was looking through the order approvals and noted that the order included the standard CDROM drive £29 plus the optional DVD, when he asked he got told, it’s always been ike that, the server comes with a CDROM drive but the build is on DVD, so we have to order a DVD drive, fine, he asked, anyone ask if we can not have the CD? Oh I thought purchasing would have said was the reply, purchasing though only ever ordered what they got asked to quote for, the standard server quote included a CDROM. I always at this point quote that rhyme I was taught as a child:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

It can be so easily translated into your IT, in so many ways and so many levels. One example I was using the other day with an IT manager for a medium enterprise complaining about his on call costs and ‘stability’ of his server estate. I asked him, what proactive steps on your infrastructure do you take? What do you mean he replied, we respond to the alerts we get in MOM?

No proactive steps:

• Clearing down disk space – operating system and data drives, do we need the web logs from 2007 – can they be archived off or compressed, clearing the temp drive, the old hot fixes etc
• Security patching – this by the very nature of the activity forces a reboot, which clears down all the memory and ensures that the server is up to supported revisions
• Defragmentation of the file systems – this can make a big difference to system performance and end user experience – check though if you’re using thin provisioning
• Upgrading the system and component firmware – again forces a reboot and ensures that your system is operating as recommended by the vendor
• System configuration and fault analysis, are we logging failures and looking for patterns, adapting monitoring tools to suit on a per box basis?

Responding to alerts is fine, but you get what you put in, even a legacy server estate running NT4, Windows 2000, can be made to run very efficiently and with a degree of stability, what you need to do is focus on the core, the server platform, standardizing and bringing everything up to date, just doing this and combining with a “health check” (disk space, memory, configuration) can make a world of difference to your on call, to your support costs and your end user perception.

Registration

IDC research indicates that server virtualisation has become standard for many organisations and this trend will continue as the emphasis on improved datacentre management, application consolidation and cost reduction increases.

Many organisations are now exploring how virtualisation can be extended to other aspects of IT infrastructure, including the desktop. Desktop virtualisation can offer your organisation improved data security, streamlined application management and fewer errors in software deployment.

At VMware and IDC’s Desktop Virtualisation conference, we will be looking at topics including:

• How can you justify the cost of implementing a desktop virtualisation programme?
• Is the complexity involved in desktop virtualisation restrictive?

Check out this event which is talking about desktop virtualization, a topic I know many organizations are talking about or already deploying. It’s always great to go to these events to see what people are talking about and what ideas or best practice the vendors are discussing. It’s on Tuesday, 23 February, 2010 09:00 – 17:00.

Champion Solutions Group

It was a no-brainer, an obvious choice, when Champion Solutions Group spread its wings and launched the Champion Cloud Services practice, a new division offering consulting services to help companies leverage cloud computing to deliver IT services to end users.

And in just a month, the Boca Raton, Fla.-based solution provider, which focuses on IT services delivery, has already delivered cloud solutions to three customers — two existing clients and one new client. Champion’s early success with its fledgling Cloud Services division is a testament to the need for organizations to save the up-front costs of bulky hardware and migrate to the operational costs of the cloud.

Meanwhile, solution providers like Champion are also reaping the benefits, bringing in a new monthly revenue stream by offering their client bases a migration path into the burgeoning world of cloud services.

Chris Pyle, Champion Solutions Group’s president and CEO, said the new Cloud Services group evolved out of interest from customers. But despite the interest, Pyle said Champion launched its cloud division cautiously.

I spoke with Chris Pyle the other day, and it was great to hear his take on Cloud Computing and what opportunities they saw not only in terms of developing cloud services but also in meeting end user requirements using a more efficient delivery mechanism, particularly as organizations try to manage their organizational requirements (that IT works) with the available capex and opex costs. It’s only when we start looking at what it is we need from our IT, that we can decide what is core to our business, and what we could allow or afford to have someone else run, the backups, the email as a service or even on demand compute capacity or disaster recovery. It was great speaking with Chris and understanding his views about cloud and it generated some interesting thoughts. I remain a fan of cloud, the more services we can offer in an accessible and affordable, the more users we can potentially onboard, the more possibilities for revenue, innovation and business transformation that can be realized.