The Comms Room

Dan

12:07

@RobM Haha

Reminds me of all the courses they made me go on while in proper edu. Same as @tombull89, I imagine - child protection etc

RobM

@dan yeah have to do that stuff. This was a course back when I worked at a university, a proper course on counselling that they hired someone to do in house for a whole bunch of support staff, for some reason.

And in fairness, some of what I learnt on it has served me well for managing people

Dan

@RobM Irregular!

tombull89

Yeah, I've had a couple of child protection courses as well. We've got a part-time student counseller but no staff one (that's called The Pub)

Dan

My old place used to be big on soft skills courses (Project management, negotiation etc). I must admit, I used to quite enjoy them

RobM

I think in about 5 or 10 mins I'm going to shut this helpdesk down and go and pour some soup down my throat until i can feel my legs again.

ewwhite

12:11

@growse Are you STILL using Smart Array controllers in Solaris?

tombull89

When the school moved to the new build they did a "Windows 7 basics" and "Promethean Board Basics" but no formal proper training related to my role.

Well, I've done a PAT course.

Dan

@tombull89 Urgh, my school tried to rope me into that crap. I rather resisted

RobM

@tombull89 we ran the same for our staff... and of course the people who said "i don't need that" and didn't turn up are the ones who continually need help now

Dan

I was there for the national job restructure - that was a mess

RobM

we never had that, luckily

tombull89

12:13

No proper IT Training though, or student support - i.e. dealing with a difficult/mouthy student.

Dan

@RobM It was a joke, though it did emerge I was being paid less than the new lowest pay scale so I got just under £3k in backpay which was very nice. But yeah, the original job descriptions they sent for IT may aswell have just said "everything"

RobM

yeah they don't do enough of that for support staff here. Or even for lecturers really.

Dan

If they had got their way, I'd have been invigilating exams, helping mark stuff and all sorts of shit

RobM

@dan that's what happens when jobs are evaluated by people who not only can't do the job, but don't even know how much they don't know.

Dan

@RobM Yeah, it did get mostly sorted in the end (By sorted I mean they half rewrote the description and my head teacher agreed to simply cross out most of it). I left at that point though (Coincidence, not because of it) so I don't really know the end conclusion

tombull89

12:16

@Dan I did 10 minutes of invigilation on my apprenticeship...dear god that was boring.

Dan

@tombull89 Haha, yeah, I did do a few as a favour and it's dull as fuck. I just really didn't want it on my job desc

RobM

invigilation is not fun at all

Cold T

afternoon all

RobM

hey @ColdT

Cold T

everyone enjoying the sub-zero weather in the UK?

RobM

12:24

yes, especially when the heating is buggered at work

Cold T

ahh even better then, grab a electric heater if you can, going to get colder

RobM

fantastic

Dan

@ColdT no.

RobM

it wasn't that cold this morning, there certainly wasn't any ice to scrape off my windows underneath the snow like there normally is

Cold T

@RobM you work for a college right?

RobM

12:26

yup

Cold T

how do you guys manage deployments?

RobM

SCCM / WDS for Windows machines, DeployStudio for macs. We also looked at FOG, which is good and used by a lot of schools

actually we also looked at the dell stuff... KACE. But decided we could get SCCM for much cheaper

tombull89

(UK Secondary) Also WDS and DeployStudio. Have used Altaris and CloneZilla in the past.

Cold T

planning to move from RM to vanilla so need to redesign everything from scratch, sccm is the ONLY decent integrated solution bearing in mind that our EES agreements makes it dirt cheap

tombull89

CC3 or 4?

RobM

12:34

SCCM will do it all, but will need investment in training. I'd suggest its way too complex to "just pick up" without training

Dan

@tombull89 Altiris is dead powerful, but I think SCCM is going to kill it for most

Cold T

@RobM have got my lab setup, i found it pretty easy to pick up. Unfortunately, the support guys will struggle and i need them to pick up the pace

RobM

SCCM has greatly improved our time to re-image all the machines in the site, that's for sure.

@coldt it's easy except for the edge cases, which aren't easy. And it's them that'll kill you.

Cold T

Hmm maybe training specifics to edge cases

RobM

thats been our experience anyway

Cold T

12:37

redesigning not an easy task, so i am asking NM in FE colleges 'what things would they improve or do differently'

RobM

yeah, it was a big job for us, no two ways about it

tombull89

Are you keeping the same hardware?

RobM

talking about this, I don't understand the fascination with creating new domains/forests for something like this that they have on edugeek.

Dan

@RobM I peruse EduGeek occasionally, but, and I'll say this quietly, I'm not convinced the level of technical knowledge is that great

And, in my opinion, that reflects the Education sector as a whole

RobM

@dan I absolutely agree with you. There's a lot of of "cargo cult knowledge" there. There's a few good people too, obviously, but its hard to tell who is the diamond and who is the sharp piece of broken glass.

tombull89

12:47

@Dan You do, generally, get what you pay for.

Dan

@RobM Yep

RobM

@dan I was once advising someone about how exchange server didn't work the way they wanted to and what to do instead to get the same results, when one of the people who runs edugeek butted in and essentially said "I don't know anything about exchange because I've never used it, but I'm sure you can do what you want to do so don't listen to (me)"

Told me all I needed to know about that person and anything that has him involved in it.

Dan

@tombull89 And this is the truth, I knew so little about Pro IT when I took my first job that it's not even funny really. As it happens, I did okay, but it was luck more than judgment and I made some cracking cock ups

RobM

@dan making mistakes and learning from them is the best way to learn

Dan

@RobM Heh, that doesn't really shock me

@RobM (And it also shows the level of interpersonal skill which is so rife, too. But that's definitely not just an Educational thing.)

RobM

12:50

tbh I just shrugged my shoulders and got on with my day. If the bloke I was talking to wanted to believe someone who self-admitted to being clueless about exchange over a Microsoft Exchange MVP then that's their problem

Dan

@RobM Yeah, but it's sadly typical. I probably spend most of my time looking clueless nowadays because I refuse to enter into debates unless it's critical to the success of my projects. Easier just to nod and carry on

RobM

yep.

We're all comfortable enough with our own abilities and respect one another here, which is why I like it

Dan

Mind you, I did spend a literal hour flat out arguing with someone over how their routing was configured

tombull89

Oh, Gumtree. Runescape account level 194 £75 London

Dan

Wound me up that did, all I wanted was them to change where a public IP address mapped to

@tombull89 Haha

Cold T

12:53

@RobM no point 'trying' to convince people you know what you're talking about, waste of time

RobM

@ColdT agreed. That's something you learn over the years. And as you become more experienced and more secure in yourself too I think.

Dan

@ColdT Besides, it's so much sweeter when you can just cruise in and fix one of their problems later on

ewwhite

I need some advice.

RobM

I've learnt to have fun letting people dash themselves to bits on the rocks of their own stupidity if they won't take advice from other people

Dan

@RobM Yep, that's true. As far as I'm concerned, the only person I have to 'prove myself' to is my boss, because he pays my wages. Everyone else can just deal with it

tombull89

12:55

@Dan Hey, I can do that now. Roll in, turn speakers on/up/plug in, roll out, job done to snickers from the students and a look of horror from the teacher.

Dan

@ewwhite Speak to the pharmacist, and apply cream

tombull89

Not quite the same, I grant you.

Dan

@tombull89 Hey, it works :D

tombull89

@ewwhite Still wondering what to do about this server data?

RobM

on that note, I need to get my ass to a meeting so I can "advise" our creative arts crayon wielding staff that we can't support a version of Final Cut Pro that Apple themselves have deep-sixed.

Dan

12:56

@tombull89 @ewwhite Ooh? Did I miss a critical plot point

ewwhite

@tombull89 No, haven't been on that for a bit...

tombull89

@Dan oh, maaaan.

Dan

@RobM Sure you can, you're just being obstructive

ewwhite

this is a new situation...

so I have a customer that strayed away from me...

while away, they were suckered into buying a ridiculous server solution.

and now they're back, but they need some major updates.

but want to make use of the equipment they already bought in order to minimize the sting...

That's a pic of their setup.

The bottom two items are what they bought on bad advice.

Dan

@ewwhite Single shelf MSA?

ewwhite

12:59

HP ProLiant DL580 G7 and an MSA2000 G2 SAN.

Iain

that's a lot of bad advice

ewwhite

They paid $60k+

Dan

Shiiite

Cold T

ouch!

ewwhite

so the DL580 G7 is a big server... it's full of 300GB disks. The MSA2000 G2 SAN below it is full of 146GB disks.

SmallClanger

13:00

@ewwhite what are they running on it?

ewwhite

they are connected via two SAS cables.

It's a Linux ERP application.

The CPUs are Intel X7550... 4 of them

Dan

So is the MSA just connected to the DL, or are they using FC with it too

SmallClanger

Fuck me.

ewwhite

64 cores, including hyperthreading.

Dan

Not bad

tombull89

13:01

4x 8 cores?

ewwhite

@Dan just direct-attach

tombull89

jesus

SmallClanger

Don't tell me, it has ~80 users...

ewwhite

and 64GB RAM.

Dan

@ewwhite Interesting design choice

So, go on then, what's it's do and how much?

ewwhite

13:02

Dan

HAhaahaha, oh that's hilarious

Chuck ESXi on it and at least make it work for a living?

ewwhite

tombull89

what.

ewwhite

So that's the issue... these CPU's are WORTHLESS.

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X7550 @ 2.00GHz

Dan

Doesn't mean much to me, sorry?

ewwhite

13:03

They're too slow... and the app can't take advantage of them.

Dan

Ah I'm with you

Too many cores for the app, not enough speed for virtualisation?

ewwhite

The server has 32 cores (HT disabled), and averages 1.2% utilization

tombull89

the whole server is OP

Iain

@ewwhite but it's not doing anything at all anyway ?

Cole

sup

pauska

13:04

worthless is bit of an stretch imho

Dan

Anyway, doesn't seem to be your problem @ewwhite?

pauska

modern xeons doesn't clock THAT much further...

ewwhite

the app running on it depends heavily on clock speed.

SmallClanger

Lot of single-threaded crunching going on?

ewwhite

So the 3.0GHz 8-socket Pentium 4 server that it replaced is actually faster

So what's the problem, you ask?

Well... the client needs VMWare infra.

BTW... the Pentium 4 box...

ProLiant DL740... 16GB RAM. 8 x 3.0GHz P4.

4 x 146GB disks.

Basil

13:08

morning

ewwhite

So the client needs new VMWare, but has a small budget because of spending so much on the above.

And I'm not sure what to spec. 3 x DL360's on modern CPU's is easy. Do I reuse the HP MSA 2000 SAN?

It's a SAS-attached SAN... but I can convert the controllers to iSCSI or Fibre.

SmallClanger

D2000 has modular connectivity, doesn't it?

ewwhite

Or does it make sense to dump the SAN.. pop the disks in a real JBOD and attach it to the DL580... load it all up as a single mega ESXi host?

tombull89

@ewwhite While it would be nice to stick it all on the DL580 that's a major SPOF so I'd say sell it and use the money to put towards the DL360s + SAN converter.

That's just me, though.

Dan

@ewwhite Could you get away with 2 DL360's?

You've also got SPOF with the SAN, though

Cole

13:14

sup @Basil

Basil

@Cole Normal monday morning. Which is to say, stupidly overworked.

You?

ewwhite

@tombull89 The DL580 server is worthless... it's 1.5 years old, but came right before the E7 CPU's...

so street value is ~$4k

Cole

@Basil did maintenance from 8-2pm yesterday and back at work today. ;_;

Tom O'Connor

Hey @cole

ewwhite

The SAN is the P2000 G2. There's a G3 which is a 6G SAS unit. This one is 3G SAS. The controllers to update the device are $6k total.

Basil

13:17

@Cole That sucks, but it's our lot in life. I got a call at 4:45 after going to bed at midnight, and had to work until 9 AM

at which point my kids were making sure I damned well stayed up :P

ewwhite

I have a $30k budget... I can get 3 DL360 G7 or Gen8

@Dan SPOF isn't much of an issue with a small business SAN like this... I only have ~ 600GB of real data.

Cole

@TomO'Connor sup

@Basil Yeah for sure lol.

pauska

@ewwhite why would you use JBOD??

ewwhite

@tombull89 Is there any way to make use of the old server?

Dan

@ewwhite Well, if you're sticking with the single node SAN, then I'd just stick with the single DL

@ewwhite Are the disks a decent speed to save some cash and distribute them into your new hosts

ewwhite

13:20

@pauska What we have here is a big server connected to a SAS SAN. The P2000 SAN has limitations about how many disks it can present in a single LUN, so the 24-bay enclosure has two 12-disk LUNS software striped at the Linux level

Tom O'Connor

@Cole so tired. haven't slept.. been working on the pdftribute.net site, and helping it go viral :D

Cole

@TomO'Connor oh snap!

pauska

@ewwhite I still don't see why you would use JBOD..

ewwhite

2

Q: HP MSA2000 SAN configuration concerns - setup critique (msa2324sa)

I'm working on a project with a client who recently had a large system replacement for a dedicated ERP application. I'm inheriting this hardware setup and want to understand what it means. The server is a ProLiant DL580 G7 (4 x 8-core CPUs, 64GB RAM). The customer has a set of ~500GB of data tha...

pauska

do they need the capacity of ALL the disks in a single datastore, if you're going the esxi route?

SmallClanger

13:21

@ewwhite Does it need that kind of I/O? Can you get away with fewer, bigger disks?

Cole

Thank you for the images. I am installing SQL Management Studio at the moment. I am still doubtful as a shared feature that could not be ticked out is 'Local DB', but I do need the tool. — cusco 13 mins ago

ewwhite

@pauska if I put the disks in a D2700, I could turn the big server into a ZFS box :)

Cole

-_-

pauska

do they need a ZFS box?..

Cole

THEN ACCEPT MY ANSWER TOO

ewwhite

13:22

@SmallClanger oh, there's very little I/O need...

the system averages 120 iops

and about 6 Megabytes/second

pauska

yeah

I'm finding it hard to believe that they would have any real usage for a SPOF ZFS box with 64 cores when they are using 120 IOPS

tombull89

@ewwhite I can't see them needing something that high spec (number of cores), I really can't.

Tom O'Connor

@Cole Need sleepz.

ewwhite

I'm just saying that the big server is too slow to run the main Linux App... too expensive to license for VMWare (4 sockets)... worth too little to sell...

Cole

@TomO'Connor me too, my cat has been wild for a few weeks now.

ewwhite

13:24

but they want a VMWare environment to run a new/forthcoming Windows environment

But they want to know if they can use the old SAN or server to make it happen

SmallClanger

Perhaps drop a couple of the CPUs and get a cheaper VMware license. They can be spares/upgrades if needed later.

ewwhite

@tombull89 WOuld you cut your losses? Sell it? Just tell them there's no way to incorporate it?

jscott

Anyone deploying JDK 7u11 this morning? Any issues besides the change of default security from medium to high?

ewwhite

@SmallClanger Which leaves them as being really slow, old CPUs

SmallClanger

True, it's fugly, but if their guests aren't particularly highly threaded or cpu intensive, it won't matter, will it?

ewwhite

13:28

Exchange server, Windows DC's... And you guys are all against the idea of making it a monster ESXi box?

because alone, the big server could run everything they need.

tombull89

@ewwhite I'd, personally, sell it. Get what you can for it and hopefully it will be a lesson to them to be more wise in the future.

ewwhite

nobody will buy it. Not even my HP scavenger dude.

pauska

I guess it's a matter of importance for the customer

SmallClanger

But for the SPOF aspects, I think it'd work as an ESXi box.

pauska

if the ERP app is basically unusuable then tell them that they have to sell it and get a loss

ewwhite

13:31

@pauska Customer is asking me what to do... I can't move forward with any projects until we figure out what to do with this. THey're admitting that they made a mistake

pauska

the problem with using such a large box for virtualisation is that you need atleast one more of the same box (or two dual socket servers) so that you always have a failover capacity

ewwhite

The ERP app is so-so... just can't take advantage of the RAM or CPU in the system

pauska

if they are going to need 64*3 logical CPU's down the road (in say - 3 years) then why not

err 64 + 32 + 32

ewwhite

@pauska They're not going to need more. This is the type of place that would run happily on a SAN and two dual-socket machines

pauska

that 580 plus two 360's with dual socket 8 cores would get them a long, long way...

ewwhite

13:33

We're talking maybe 6 or 8 VMs

WHy not a 580 and one 360?

pauska

oh, erm well

are they okay with SPOF?

or like a day or two of downtime while you fly to them with a used dl360 or whatever to connect to the SAN and get stuff up again?

ewwhite

they've lived with single big servers for many years... DL740's

Well, I want the SAN gone, too.. or modified. It's a multi-port SAS-attached SAN.

so a few VMWare features don't work with it

pauska

sure, the 580 + a 360 is fine as long as they limit themselves to not exceed 50% of the 360's capacity..

ewwhite

it's meant for things like DB clusters

pauska

vmware works just fine with SAS stuff, afaik?

ewwhite

13:35

Kinda, sorta...

tombull89

Run everything non-critical on the 580 (WDS, WSUS, maybe a DC) with something like a 120 as a primary DC and two 360s for the app?

ewwhite

The App would remain standalone... so on its own DL3XX server

pauska

I've installed a 380 with a MSA2000 once, worked just great with multipathing...

SAS

ewwhite

THis one doesn't because it's software striped at the OS.

lose one path...

pauska

what OS

the OS on the 580?

ewwhite

13:37

Linux

RHEL 5.7

tombull89

Ah, sorry, what would the other 360s run?

ewwhite

@tombull89 ESXi

pauska

yeah well, of course you would have to rebuild the SAN if they are going to use it for vmware

ewwhite

and they'd run the yet-to-be-built windows environment

@pauska I can swap the controllers in the SAN for 10GbE iSCSI, FC or 1GbE iSCSI

but then, this is a G2 SAN. ANd there's a G3 out there

a fully-stocked new G3 P2000 SAN is $9k

replacement contrllers for the G2 are $3k each

pauska

but why do anything at all with the SAN

except rebuilding the luns

ewwhite

13:39

because I think SAS-attached is limiting...

pauska

how?

ewwhite

in this case, it's only 3Gb... not 6Gb.. so heavily oversubscribed... and less flexibility with hosts.

pauska

3gbps SAS is way more than enough for many, many shops out there

the ERP is using 120 IOPS.. a 8-VM enviroment MAYBE the same.. so 300 IOPS

I think you're pretty safe

unless they are doing some heavy lifting in terms of big files and so on

ewwhite

I think it's the janky factor... already EOL product that's been eclipsed.

pauska

I'd rather tell them to keep the SAN until it's out of guarantee/support

Tom O'Connor

13:41

argh. busy. bbl guys.

ewwhite

@pauska 6 months

pauska

sounds like they are going to take a pretty big hit in terms of wasted investment already..

@ewwhite well that changes it

get a new MSA then

10 gig iSCSI is starting to get cheap

ewwhite

I'm exercising restraint by not pushing a ZFS box on them :)

Dan

@Iain I just saw your comment. I had an inbox notification for your comment, but I've not got anything else to my knowledge

ewwhite

@pauska would you keep the DL580?

knowing that I'm about $3k per DL360.

$10k gets them three new servers. another $9k gets a SAN... or maybe $4k for a new SAN chassis - move the disks.

pauska

13:45

@ewwhite no, not really.. too much in licensing

ewwhite

@pauska because that would eat up 2/3 of the licenses of an ESXi Essentials kit

pauska

get three 360's (two for virt, one for ERP) and a new MSA.. and be done with it

sell all the old shit.. including that ridicilous set up of remote boot/kvm

Cole

Sometimes, I wish I could kick my caffeine/coffee habit.

pauska

@ewwhite yep

ewwhite

@pauska makes the most sense.

The remote boot thing is there to handle remote reboot of the Multitech Fax MODEMS underneath it

MDMarra

13:46

'morning

Cole

@MDMarra sup G?

ewwhite

@MDMarra I'm planning your next Windows environment/install here with @pauska

49 mins ago, by ewwhite

pauska

@ewwhite hey.. why am I not getting the hours?

:)

ewwhite

@pauska @mdmarra is going to have to figure out how to approach their AD.

pauska

I can work while your customer is safe asleep.. :)

ewwhite

13:49

once I get the right infra in place.

Hmm, the market for used DL580 G7's is weak.

tombull89

I'll bid $20?

pauska

nice minecraft server. I bid $100!

tombull89

Either way it'll be tough to swallow considering how much they paid for it.

@pauska What I wanted it for - I raise to $101

Cole

lol swallow

2

ewwhite

@pauska I can't even think of a good use for big servers like that anymore

pauska

13:53

@ewwhite bare metal databases love them

ewwhite

@tombull89 that's a total example of BAD IT advice.

@pauska I wonder if I should take it as trade

donate it to some open source project.

Dan

@ewwhite You could store loads of porn on it

ewwhite

@Dan man, the pr0n industry is all into BIG data now.

tombull89

@ewwhite Don't HP do a trade-in program?

pauska

@Iain are you aware that the new about page uses a example question that's actually off topic (shopping)?

tombull89

13:55

@Dan Yeah, all those sexy, sexy cores...

ewwhite

@tombull89 scrap metal... The server is only worth its RAM and disks.

Dan

@ewwhite Feel free to donate it to my cause

MDMarra

@ewwhite wonderful

ewwhite

@MDMarra at least you won't have to go to Mexico.

tombull89

@Dan imagine the shipping cost to the UK for that.

pauska

13:56

@ewwhite perhaps your customer would like to donate it to some kind of nonprofit computing stuff.. those cancer research thingys and so on

MDMarra

Let me do the planning though, I don't trust those commie nordic people

:)

SmallClanger

@Dan Videos of the drives being slowly inserted to the sound of some wah-pedal guitar?

Dan

@tombull89 I could grab it when I'm in New York. I reckon i could get it on the plane with carry on

ewwhite

Should I publicly shame the company that sold this beast to the client?

Dan

@ewwhite Absolutely

tombull89

13:57

@Dan snerk think that might go over your baggage allowance.

Dan

@tombull89 I'll dress official and tell the check-in people it's part of the plane

tombull89

Co-locate it and use it to host something?

Use it as a bedroom heater?

ewwhite

@tombull89 costs too much to power

hmm...

hpasmcli> SHOW POWERMETER
Power Meter #1
        Power Reading  : 494

in Watts

tombull89

OUCH

pauska

f'ing hell

ewwhite

13:58

hpasmcli> SHOW POWERSUPPLY
Power supply #1
        Present  : Yes
        Redundant: Yes
        Condition: Ok
        Hotplug  : Supported
        Power    : 145 Watts
Power supply #2
        Present  : Yes
        Redundant: Yes
        Condition: Ok
        Hotplug  : Supported
        Power    : 145 Watts
Power supply #3
        Present  : Yes
        Redundant: Yes
        Condition: Ok
        Hotplug  : Supported
        Power    : 120 Watts
Power supply #4
        Present  : Yes
        Redundant: Yes

Chris S

@ewwhite I'm going to Mexico in less than two weeks. Time to escape the cold and lounge on the beach with some beers.

Dan

@ewwhite Sorry, I didn't see the portable power station in the rack.

MDMarra

@Dan When are you going to be in NY?

pauska

@ewwhite I'm pretty sure that you can get a lower power usage.. that looks like it's set to run all psu's at full speed

Cole

So to practice/get better at scripting - I even script some of the most basic things. Is that normal?

Transcript for