Bladewatch.com

Got this by email, (I always enjoy getting emails from readers)

Martin,

Do you think I should swap the power supply in my DL380 G3, it says the power supply has failed, there are two of them but should I shut the server down first? I know it says it’s hot swap but I’ve never swapped a component before.

Thanks

Charles

This is my response:

Hi Charles,

Great to hear from you. If your DL380 G3 has two power supplies, you should be fine replacing a faulty one. The steps to take are:

1. Remove power cable from faulty power supply.
2. Remove faulty power supply.
3. Fit new power supply (I normally count to five) and then plug in the power cable.  The light on the back of the power supply should then go green and this should also update the IML (server) logs.

If in any doubt as with anything in the IT space, shut the server down and change the power supply, though I have swapped many faulty power supplies and I have yet to witness a server failing because of this activity.

Regards

Martin

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The British Airways Face–to–Face program is helping small businesses across America grow their organization by making connections and forming partnerships around the world. Last year, we awarded more than six hundred entrepreneurs with flights to London and beyond, enabling them to meet prospective clients and vendors, attend conferences, arrange partnerships and seal the deals in person. This year, British Airways continues to support small businesses with the Face of Opportunity contest. Over 250 companies will win a free flight to anywhere British Airways flies as well as exclusive access to events with some of the best and brightest minds in business. Watch the top 10 finalists as they make a pitch for a face-to-face meeting. The top three contestants, as determined by your votes, will be invited to present their pitches to a celebrity panel at our exclusive networking conference. The winner will receive airfare for 10 free business flights.

I flew with British Airways to the HP Bloggers event and one of the promotional videos they had on the in flight entertainment was about their Face-to-Face project, I love the concept. Maybe I could be accused of being old school, but even with video conferencing, with voice, chat, and with collaborative tools, there remains the issue that although they are all invaluable communication tools, but meeting face-to-face remains an effective way of breaking barriers, articulating your message, and resolving  issues, real or perceived. The videos were interesting, and the site has some good content regarding businesses that have benefited from the face of opportunity scheme. Do check it out.

So with no prior thought or planning, my face-to-face pitch would be to fly over and meet some vendors to discuss their products and services, their usp, what they’re bringing to the end user community. To better inform us and our readers as to what we could be missing not understanding, or failing to discuss so with that in mind, I would meet:

• IBM – let us talk iDataplex and how you see the converged infrastructure space
• Dell – the Cloud servers and what range of innovations they continue to bring the converged infrastructure and cloud space.
• HP – Performance Optimized data centers, the Scale out range of servers (SL) and how they see converged infrastructure innovating the possibilities
• Hardcore computing – how their unique blade technology might not only create opportunities for scaling out the data center for the cloud generation, but give me the  headroom I need to prepare my existing data center and IT space for the next generation infrastructure
• Cisco – how Cisco’s UCS is empowering infrastructure transformation, virtualization and preparation for the cloud space.
• Cirascale – how the changes within their organization with the improvements and re-alignment of their products can empower user opportunity and deploy cloud solutions
• Platform – how platform is responding to the needs of the ever changing enterprise, and providing the agility it needs to deliver transformation
• Tibco – talk about the expansion of grid and the cloud, the move to GridServer 6.0 and Tibco Silver, and how they are preparing for cloud both internal and external.
• VMware – how they see cloud transforming the marketplace, how VMware can continue to innovate their products and empower the end user to manage their remote virtual instances, managing capacity, agility and reporting.
• Citrix about application and server virtualization, streaming applications down the wire, how that creates opportunities across markets, across enterprises and devices – what that means for the cloud in terms of private and application data, on demand provisioning and right scoping end user requirements
• Universities, like Stanford, MIT, Caltch and the University of California,amongst others to ask – so how are you empowering your students, (young and old) to be ready for the next generation of the IT landscape, what innovations in teaching, in content and experience or preparation are you looking at? Can we change the IT course to be both academic, conceptual and of empowerment both technically, operationally and individually?

These are just a few of the vendors thinking out loud that I would speak too. Not only to discuss what they can offer our readers, my colleagues and the user community, but to offer end user feedback, the big issues and the small, with the recognition, that of course IT needs innovation and progress, that we need to continue moving with the times, though that it can be those nuts and bolts issues, those little things that hinder adoption and successful transformation with these tools. The more the vendors understand, the more we communicate, the more we can individually and as a community deploy the right range of technologies for me, for my business and my end user community….

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing and http://www.bladewatch.com/2010/11/07/in-cloud/

What do we mean by cloud, a topic we spoke about at the HP Bloggers event, and something that continues to play on my mind for a number of reasons.

Cloud means different things to different people, though the essence of it is platform and location independent computing, computing or capacity if you like down a wire. The major software and hardware vendors see this as the next strategy and opportunity for selling services and the underlying technology to power internal or external clouds.

In the enterprise space, we may see the adoption of internal clouds, for example a cloud email or storage platform, shared infrastructure, location independent but operated and provided by the company themselves rather than buying in that service or capacity.  In the SMB space or for that matter the home user, we might see external or public clouds, flickr, google, solutions through which I can buy capacity or service as required which is scalable and platform/location independent, again email, backup, storage or even applications like the office suite of applications, a word processor or spreadsheet, again down a wire.

Why the buzz?

A number of reasons, the SMB space is a large marketplace, it has diverse range of end users with a more flexible and open attitude to adopting new technology, there tends to be fewer instances of “that’s not how we do things here”. Also these businesses want the agility, the scope for the range of applications and services that might have previously been closed to them due to price or technical accessibility, combined with opportunity from being able to scale up or adjust capacity on demand. The concept that as a Small business, that I might be able to white label my services to different target markets leveraging the cloud to do so without necessarily deploying a range of technologies to do so, the deploy a server and a set of infrastructure in fifteen minutes without buying hardware and software.

The enterprises realize the opportunities that could be leveraged through using both internal and external clouds to achieve the agility and short or long term needs they have by procuring the capacity and services they need. To empower them to focus their core technology teams on revenue generation, and leverage cloud to assist with possibly commodity or business as usual services, email, even high performance compute or virtual capacity, where for example London could deploy a virtualization cloud which might host virtual machines whilst we refresh or upgrade other sites.

The other interesting thing with cloud is what it means for the range of technologies and services arising from this new opportunity and platform. Servers with more memory, more storage and network capacity, servers that are aimed at low cost, high volume or capacity to power cloud infrastructure have become more common place. Additionally, we have seen more tools, more software and platforms being built around the concept of cloud, which creates not only opportunities for end users to build more capacity or for their own innovation of cloud as a concept in their business, but also for businesses that might not have been possible without cloud. The online communities, the stores selling capacity or service, music or video and other rich media, somewhere to store your pictures or content and have it on dmeand.

I remain a split on the issue. I do of course fully support the cloud movement, the opportunities it creates for revenue, the innovation for software and hardware, crucially the opportunities for businesses to compete more effectively and to genuinely create services and solutions that might have been uneconomic or overly complicated without cloud. However, we need to abstract the cloud movement, the aura that surrounds it and encapsulates to each and every user, and as a user community, as a business owner, a worker and a user, establish what cloud means to me, what cloud opportunities present themselves to my organization and I, how cloud can fit within my business. Cloud is an important innovation, and an important space for enterprise and innovation, however, as well as onboarding users to cloud, both internal and external, large and small, we need to continue three fundamental concepts:

1. Improve accessibility of technology to the end user community
2. Continue innovating platforms and creating opportunity for the end user community and the vendors or service providers alike through communication and dialogue
3. Focus on meeting the business drivers, maintaining open standards and doing everything we can to empower end users, business users and IT to operate IT as they would their business, to establish their requirements, and make IT work around their business.

Achieving this though, means a transformation to running IT as a service, moving away from the silo scenario, towards one in which it is genuinely based on pay on use, on demand and in line with your service level agreements, applying a tier or value to the application and determining what is core to your business. IT can be made ready as can business users, but in order to move to next generation IT, cloud, agile business driven IT, some new rules of engagement of best practice, cost agregation and enterprise thinking rather than compartmentalized book value, silo’d one, again the concept of the greater good in many respects. Is it £4 million I want to pay for my calculation farm in data center space, hardware, software and running costs on an annual basis, or could I achieve the same level of service, by buying in compute capacity from a cloud or external capacity?

Cloud is one way forward, it is a solution which combined with managing IT as a business and focusing on the concept of total and not marginal cost, the big picture and not the component one, can deliver not only transformational IT service and costs, but one of true business empowerment, agility and opportunity. Some examples:

• A change in attitudes to the support contract- rip and replace – no longer do I fix components or servers, or desktops, when they fail, we replace even in some cases if it is in warranty as the marginal cost of doing so, combined with the improvements in performance and energy efficiency may make it cheaper to do so.
• The fixed cost application and infrastructure model in terms of a pay on use model, the cost per seat, for an end user is, and this includes…
• The transformation of the application to one which is in some respects virtual or stateless, running on the infrastructure, the platform that is the highest performance, most reliable and energy efficient at the operating costs we can afford.
• The commoditization of the application, through white-labelling, selling or white labelling the applications to clients,a portal through which I sell the right range of applications to the right customers in the format, with the branding and the service levels that meet that price point – the virtual enterprise. It’s such and such an organization but that is not how you as an end user perceive it to be – is it Bankname’s pricing platform or UncleMartin’s pricing? Does it matter?

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So FindmyFirmware as an application is now live on the iPhone Application store and we’re very pleased with it!

It is a very simple concept, you enter the server name and it then queries the Bladewatch database and tells you the current system firmware, manufacture date (which we averaged), and then a button to load you to the relevant specifications site on the support site within the application.

It’s very interesting to see which locations the application has been downloaded from, we’ll be updating the information within the application shortly, and we’re going to start work on adapting it for the iPad, so that it can be used on both platforms with the best user experience.

The application is live, but if you have any comments or suggestions do mail me: martin237@gmail.com

We’ve had 53 downloads including myself and it’s available here.

You can download the application from here, and we have our own sales page: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/findmyfirmware/id414225372?mt=8&ls=1

At this point our terms and conditions, our application information is here.

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I was thinking over the last few days about the HP Bloggers Event which I attended in Dallas and Houston Texas, it was great fun and a great way to learn more about what HP are working on, it also refreshed a few concepts on the platforms which is always useful to do. Anyway the highlights for me were:

Seeing HP’s Converged Infrastructure in action and understanding how it had not only transformed the IT operations but also created revenue generation and business empowerment – seeing how it all fitted together to deliver a solution for the customer.

Understanding and seeing the developments of HP’s Smart Grid, participating in the live demo and seeing it work in front of me – it looks like a very interesting solution and something which is easy to see the return on investment.

Walking around the HP Performance Optimized Data Centers, and speaking to their team working on the project and asking them about the technology, how the PODs are deployed and go over some scenarios that I had written about.

Sitting beside and learning about the new HP Proliant SL series which is their scale out rack based solution, I had read about them, talked with colleagues and even posted about them, it was great to see one and hear more about them from Daniel Bowers.

Seeing and tinkering with their HP Proliant MicroServer, something I have actually been thinking of buying to strip down, play with and blog about – I love the concept, the more we can create opportunity and welcome users to the server platform, the more accessible we create the platform and create opportunities for revenue and user empowerment alike.

Participating in a conversation about cloud and what it means, understand other views – it remains a concept that means different things to different people – something in my view that we need to embrace and work in a way that works for our business if it’s appropriate for where we are in the business and IT space.

Learning about ILO3 – I was actually very pleased they went through this as I have yet to play with ILO3 and it was great seeing it.

So what are we working on at Bladewatch these days? Well we have a lot of content to write up, so we will be doing that, we’re working on adapting our application for the iPad, more news/analysis and business as usual so to speak.  Oh one last thing, the Bladewatch server bundle, (we talked about it a few weeks ago), it’s complete and I’ll be uploading it at the end of the week.

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In today’s HP Bloggers Event 2011, I got to see and play with one of the new HP Proliant Microserver, I am a fan of the concept, anything we can do to make the technology more accessible or improve functionality at a price point has to be a good thing. There are more pictures from the event here.

If you haven’t heard about the Microserver or would like more information, check out this url, or read the quickspecs here.

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http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/remotemgmt.html

In a demonstration of the ILO3 (HP’s Integrated Lights Out), which allows remote systems administration independent of the operating system.

In summary of the top of my head, these are the updates to the ILO3 platform:

• Virtual media is 3.5 times faster than ILO2
• Remote console is 8 times faster than ILO2
• Also includes playback and collaborative working so that more than one person can see the screen at the same time for systems administration and support.

ILO3 looked like it presents useful features in this latest update of the HP lights out solution, I’ll need to read up more, any innovation in this space has to be a good thing.

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http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms11-jan.mspx

Bulletin ID Bulletin Title and Executive Summary Maximum Severity Rating and Vulnerability Impact Restart Requirement Affected Software

MS11-002 – Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Data Access Components Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2451910)

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Data Access Components. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Critical – Remote Code Execution – May require restart – Microsoft Windows

MS11-001 – Vulnerability in Windows Backup Manager Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2478935)

This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Windows Backup Manager. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a legitimate Windows Backup Manager file that is located in the same network directory as a specially crafted library file. For an attack to be successful, a user must visit an untrusted remote file system location or WebDAV share and open the legitimate file from that location, which in turn could cause Windows Backup Manager to load the specially crafted library file.

Important – Remote Code Execution – May require restart – Microsoft Windows

Microsoft have released their security patches for January, be sure to check them out and determine if they’re in scope in your infrastructure. As ever, do apply any patches to non customer facing or production systems to avoid unnecessary system or application issues resulting from applying the patches.

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At the HP site for day two of the HP Bloggers Event, there are a range of topics to be covered and I will be publishing them later today. It will be great to learn more about HP’s portfolio of products and services to empower infrastructure and business transformation and innovation.

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http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110110006027/en/Emmental-Regional-Hospital-Saves-Money-Consolidating-Storage

BURGDORF-LANGNAU, Switzerland–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Emmental Regional Hospital AG has successfully consolidated its IT data center into a virtualized infrastructure, powered by Microsoft Hyper-V and DataCore storage virtualization software. DataCore’s virtual infrastructure software for storage in combination with Microsoft server virtualization work together to make business processes significantly faster, more productive and lower in cost to implement. The hospital has leveraged its server and storage virtualization to achieve hardware independence enabling it to improve its purchasing power since it is no longer locked-in to any specific hardware supplier. Overall, Emmental has realized savings of up to 15 percent for hardware purchases and around 30 percent in on-going operational savings. Beyond the cost savings, DataCore has enabled a new level of high availability, increased resource utilization and greater flexibility in provisioning and managing storage.

An interesting article talking about how this hospital has achieved improved productivity and lower costs deploying virtualization, I was interested to see that they are using Microsoft Hyper-V and DataCore’s sotrage virtualization, I’m off to read up more.

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