1. XenServer Hardware Updates? Here's Your Answer!

    Published March 09 at 8:00 AM by David Shoffitt
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    NOTICE:   IF THESE STEPS ARE PERFORMED INCORRECTLY OR WITHOUT TESTING IT IS POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO WIPE OUT YOUR XENSERVER DATA LOSING ALL STORAGE REPOSITORIES.  TAKE GREAT CARE WHEN FOLLOWING THESE INSTRCUTIONS. Strickland Networks is not responsible for someone erasing their virtual disks by mistake.

    Now that that is over, let the fun begin!

    I was updating a 6 server XenServer Farm yesterday and came across a memory error.   It started out as a hardware (HW) error and then turned into a BIOS problem.  The Dell Engineer then began to search for the updates that I would need for my Server.  The Dell representative was very helpful and began putting together a list of updates that I would need...  I began to ponder the multitude of different servers that I had to update after I finished with these six.  I also know that I have a Windows update DVD that will update all the Dell hardware on my Windows Server plus the drivers. 

    I asked the question to the Dell Tech and he replied that yes there was a solution.  You need these two DVDs:

    DVD 1 (System Management Tools and Build - DVD):

    ftp://ftp.dell.com/secure/sysman/OM_6.3.0_SMTD_A00.iso.001

    ftp://ftp.dell.com/secure/sysman/OM_6.3.0_SMTD_A00.iso.002

    DVD 2 (BIOS and Firmware Images - Dual Layer DVD)

    ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/om631_suu_a00.iso.001

    ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/om631_suu_a00.iso.002

    ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/om631_suu_a00.iso.003

    ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/sysman/om631_suu_a00.iso.004

     

    This tool can join the files for you:

    http://www.treepad.net/download/hjsplit.zip

     

    Proceed down to see the process.

    It should be noted that this same process can be run on any Linux Server.  It is not recommended on Windows Servers due to possible driver incompatibilities.


     

    Entry Tags: Home Page, citrix, Dell, Virtualization, Linux

  2. Citrix High Availabilty

    Published October 16 at 3:53 PM by David Shoffitt
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    Some people will try to tell you that the only enterprise class virtualization out there is VM Ware, but I am here to tell you that Citrix is a contender.  Not only is it a contender but it is growing in features and in acceptance.  Citrix XenServer is actually the World's largest Internet Facing Virtualization environment, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).  Because the foundation of XenServer is built on the open source Xen, there is lots of opportunity for developers to to build upon the feautres and functionality of the product.  One such features is Everun by Marathon Technologies.  The product will allow you to even unplug the server that your primary node is running on and the transfer to the secondary server is so seemless that if you were running XenApp on the server your end users would never even know that they swicthed to a different server.

      http://www.marathontechnologies.com/high_availability_xenserver.html)

    Entry Tags: Home Page, operating systems, cool, cloud, cloud_computing, technology, citrix, Virtualization

  3. Strickland Networks - Total Storage SAN

    Published October 15 at 5:51 PM by David Shoffitt
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    There are many companies that can benefit from an iSCSI SAN but few can afford the entry level price of a DELL MD3000i with 30 Terabytes of Native Storage would cost roughly $14,000.  That is a good chunk of change to drop for a storage solution.

    We have been able to leverage some of our market contacts and now can deliver an entry level SAN solution with 32 Terabytes of Storage for around $8500.  To be fair, I chose both to have similar hardware and support options.  Sounds compelling, doesn't it?  Give us a call for this entry level solution and get your Virtualization, Cluster, or just storage environment off to a good start. 

    817-224-2100

     

    Entry Tags: Virtualization, Storage