DELL 13G servers with PERC H730 finally certified for VSAN

I'm reading and learning about VMware's VSAN a lot. I really believe there will be lot of use cases in the future for software defined distributed storage. However I don't see VSAN momentum right now because of several factors. Three most obvious factors are mentioned below:

• Maturity
• TCO
• Single point of support - if you compare it to traditional SAN based storage vendors support

That's the reason I didn't have a chance and time to play with VMware VSAN so far but I'm getting lot of questions from colleagues, DELL partners, customers and folks from VMware community about the right DELL storage controller for VSAN which can be used on the latest DELL server generation.

DELL 13th server generation was unveiled September 8, 2014. Since then, there was not any DELL storage controller for DELL 13G servers officially supported by VMware for VSAN.

Today I have got information that DELL PERC H730 is officially supported by DELL and VMware for VSAN. For more information look here.

This is really great info for VSAN early adapters planning to use DELL servers. One little advice to all VSAN enthusiasts ... If you are not going to use officially supported VSAN nodes or EVO:Rail appliance and you are designing your own VSAN cluster do it very carefully and don't forget to do PoC before or during design phase and perform design and operational validation tests (aka test plan) before putting VSAN into real production. Be sure you know something about queue depth of adapters (AQLEN) and disks (DQLEN).

If you build your own software defined storage then you are the storage architect with little bit higher risk and responsibility in comparison to classic storage system (this is my opinion). That's the risk of any modern (aka emerging) technology before it's become the commodity. On the other hand, this can be your added value to your customers and there are no doubts there are some benefits.

But never forget why "data centers" are so important and business critical? Because usually we have there very valuable data which must be always available with reasonable performance. Think about 99.999% storage up time with some reasonable response time (3-20ms) for expected IOPS workload.

I wish everybody lot of success with hyper converge systems like VSAN and leave a comment of your hopefully success stories and use cases. And I'm still looking forward for my first VSAN project  :-) 

Force10: How to prepare logs and configs for DELL tech support

The command show tech-support will show you all configurations and logs required for troubleshooting on the console. It is usually not  what you want because you have to transfer support file somewhere. Therefore you can simply save it to internal flash device as an file and transfer it via ftp, tftp or scp to some computer.

F10-S4810-A#show tech-support | save flash://tech-supp.2014-12-03
Start saving show command report .......

The file tech-supp.2014-12-03 is created in the flash device and you can list it.

F10-S4810-A#dir
Directory of flash:
  1  drwx       4096   Jan 01 1980 00:00:00 +00:00 .
  2  drwx       3072   Dec 04 2014 03:49:32 +00:00 ..
  3  drwx       4096   Mar 01 2004 21:28:04 +00:00 TRACE_LOG_DIR
  4  drwx       4096   Mar 01 2004 21:28:04 +00:00 CORE_DUMP_DIR
  5  d---       4096   Mar 01 2004 21:28:04 +00:00 ADMIN_DIR
  6  drwx       4096   Mar 01 2004 21:28:06 +00:00 RUNTIME_PATCH_DIR
  7  drwx       4096   Nov 04 2014 01:09:36 +00:00 CONFIG_TEMPLATE
  8  -rwx       6731   Dec 04 2014 01:46:00 +00:00 startup-config
  9  -rwx       6285   Nov 07 2013 04:41:32 +00:00 startup-config.bak
 10  -rwx   25614609   Feb 21 2013 17:24:22 +00:00 FTOS-SE-8.3.12.1.bin
 11  -rwx     524528   Feb 21 2013 17:40:42 +00:00 U-boot.1.2.0.2.bin
 12  -rwx       7202   Nov 07 2013 05:35:14 +00:00 david.pasek-config
 13  drwx       4096   May 07 2014 04:06:42 +00:00 CONFD_LOG_DIR
 14  -rwx       4094   Jul 18 2014 02:25:28 +00:00 inetd.conf
 15  -rwx          0   Jul 19 2014 00:14:56 +00:00 pdtrc.lo0
 16  -rwx       6125   Jul 15 2014 02:05:52 +00:00 backup-config.dp
 17  -rwx         80   Jul 18 2014 21:45:22 +00:00 memtrc.lo0
 18  -rwx     199770   Dec 04 2014 01:46:08 +00:00 confd_cdb.tar.gz
 19  -rwx          0   Jul 18 2014 21:44:52 +00:00 pdtrc3.lo0
 20  drwx       4096   Jul 19 2014 00:14:56 +00:00 bgp-trc
 21  -rwx       6058   Oct 25 2014 05:13:10 +00:00 config-vrf-no-vrrp
 22  -rwx       6110   Oct 25 2014 05:05:08 +00:00 config-vrf-vrrp
 23  -rwx     135698   Dec 04 2014 03:50:16 +00:00 tech-supp.2014-12-03

Now it is very easy to transfer this single file somewhere via ssh(scp), ftp or tftp. You can use command similar to 

copy tech-supp.2014-12-03 scp://

I don't anybody wish troubles but hope this helps with troubleshooting when needed ...

 

DELL FX2 is comming

Michael Dell announced FX2 yesterday at DellWorld 2014.

FX2 is new 2U flexible chassis for sleds. Sleds are basically hardware cartridges having one of three roles listed below

• flexible server (FC) - FC630, FC430, FC830
• flexible micro servers (FM) - FM120X4
• flexible disk enclosures  (FD) - FD332

You can look at FX2 overview video below. It is marketing video however it is nice illustration how revolutionary this platform is.


If you want more deeper FX2 review I would recommend to read  Kevin Houston's blog post "A First Look at Dell’s FX Architecture".

I personally really like this form factor as it is more granular and therefore more flexible then full blade chassis and still allow high density and simplified cable management. You can also use one or two low profile PCIe cards for FX servers. These PCIs cards are accessible from the rear of chassis. Anybody who works with servers for long times probably known that 2U form factor always was and still is the favorite compute form factor in datacenters.

FX2 Chassis leverages DELL PowerEdge FN IO Aggregator which is actually new version of blade DELL PowerEdge M1000e IO Aggregator  redesigned for FX2 form factor.Both these IO Aggregators are based on Force10 technology.


If you ask me I can see lot of nice use cases for this platform including classic VMware vSphere deployments with shared storage, VMware VSAN, EVO:Rail, Nutanix, etc.

What do you think about this hardware platform?
Share your opinions in comments.
And as always any comment is welcome.

iSCSI and Ethernet

Each manufacturer of Ethernet switch may implement features unique to their specific model. Below are some general tips to look for when implementing an iSCSI network infrastructure. Each tip may or may not apply to a specific installation. Be aware that this is list is inspired by DELL Compellent iSCSI bets practices and it is not an all-inclusive list.

• Bi-Directional Flow Control enabled for all Switch Ports that carry iSCSI traffic, including any inter switch links.
• Separate networks or VLANs from data.
• Separate iSCSI traffic multi-path traffic also.
• Unicast storm control disabled on every switch that handles iSCSI traffic.
• Multicast disabled at the switch level for any iSCSI VLANs - Multicast storm control enabled (if available) when multicast cannot disabled.
• Broadcast disabled at the switch level for any iSCSI VLANs - Broadcast storm control enabled (if available) when broadcast cannot disabled.
• Routing disabled between regular network and iSCSI VLANs - Use extreme caution if routing any storage traffic, performance of the network can be severely affected. This should only be done under controlled and monitored conditions.
• Disable Spanning Tree (STP or RSTP) on ports which connect directly to end nodes (the server or Dell Compellent controller's iSCSI ports.) You can do it by enabling PortFast or EdgePort option  on these ports so that they are configured as edge ports.
• Ensure that any switches used for iSCSI are of a non-blocking design.
• Hard set for all switch ports and server ports for Gigabit Full Duplex if applicable.
• When deciding which switches to use, remember that you are running SCSI traffic over it. Be sure to use a quality managed enterprise class networking equipment. It is not recommended to use SBHO (small business/home office) class equipment outside of lab/test environments.

Do you want configuration examples for DELL PowerConnect and DELL Force10 switches? Leave a comment with particular switch model and firmware version and I'll try my best to prepare it for you.

How to clear all jobs on DELL Lifecycle Controller via iDRAC

When you have problem with DELL Lifecycle Controller jobs you can delete all jobs by single iDRAC command. This command

racadm -r ip address -u user name -p password jobqueue delete -i JID_CLEARALL_FORCE

deletes all of the jobs plus the orphaned pending and restarts the data manager service on the iDRAC. It will take about 90-120 secs before the iDRAC is able to process another job.

Occasionally the iDRAC may need to be reset after issuing the above command due to other issues outside the job queue processing. In such case you can issue commands in the following order:

• racadm -r ip address -u user name -p password jobqueue delete -i JID_CLEARALL_FORCE
• Wait 120 secs
• racadm –r ip address –u user name –p password racreset

How social media and community sharing help entrprise customers

I'm always happy when someone finds my blog article or shared document useful. Here is one example of recent email communication from one DELL customer who Googled my DELL OME (Open Manage Essentials is basic system management for DELL hardware inforastructure) document explaining network communication flows among DELL Open Manage components.

All personal information are anonymized so customer real name is changed to Mr.Customer. 

DELL Force10 : Initial switch configuration

[ Previous | DELL Force10 : Series Introduction ]

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I assume you have serial console access to the switch unit to perform initial switch configuration. I guess it will not impressed you that to switch from read mode to configuration mode you  have to use command

conf

... before continue I would like to recap some important basic FTOS commands we will use later in this blog post. If you want to exit from configuration mode or even from deeper configuration hierarchy you can do it with one or several

exit 

commands which will jump to the upper level of configuration hierarchy and eventually exit conf mode. However the easiest way to leave configuration mode is to use command

end

which will exit configuration mode immediately.

The last but very important and very often used command is

write mem

which will write your running switch configuration to the flash and therefore configuration will survive the switch reload. You can do the same with more general command

copy running-config startup-config

If you want to display running configuration you can use command

show running-config

Whole configuration can be pretty long, so if you are interested only on some part of running configuration you can use following commands

show running-config interface managementethernet 0/0
show running-config interface gigabitethernet 0/2
show running-config spanning-tree rstp
show running-config boot

As you can see FTOS command line interface (cli) is very similar to CISCO.

Ok, so after basics let's start with initial configuration. Switch configuration usually begins with host name configuration. It is generally good practice to use unique host names because you know on which system you are logged in.

hostname f10-s60

As a next step I usually configure management IP settings and enable remote access. You have to decide if you will use in-band management leveraging normal IP settings usually configured on dedicated VLAN interface just for system management or you will leverage dedicated out-of-band management port. In example below you can see

• out-of-band management port for system management IP settings
• how to create admin user
• how to enable ssh to allow remote system management

interface ManagementEthernet 0/0
  ip address 192.168.42.101/24
  no shutdown
exit
management route 0.0.0.0/0 192.168.42.1

username admin password YourPassword privilege 15

ip ssh server enable

Now you have to decide if you want to enforce login for users connected via local console. By default there is no login required which can by security risk especially in environments without strict physical security rules. Below is configuration which enforce local login credentials when using serial console.

 aaa authentication login default local

At this point I would like to note that Force10 switch has all capabilities and features disabled in default factory configuration. That's the reason why for example each switch interface must be explicitly enabled before usage because all interfaces are in shutdown state by default.

Before you enable any switch interface it is good practice to enable spanning tree protocol as security mechanism against potential loops in the network. Once again, spanning tree feature is not enabled by default so you have to do it explicitly. Force10 FTOS has implemented all standard and even some non-standard (CISCO proprietary) spanning tree protocols like PVSTP+. On the latest FTOS version following spanning tree protocols are supported:

• STP (Spanning Tree Protocol)
• RSTP (Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol)
• MSTP (Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol)
• PVSTP+ (Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus)

Bellow is configuration example which enables standard rapid spanning tree protocol (aka RSTP) ...

protocol spanning-tree rstp
  no disable 

Another decision you have to do before implementation is the location from where do you want to boot your switch operating system. On some Force10 models (for example on S60) is default primary boot location TFTP server  ...

boot system stack-unit 0 primary tftp://192.168.128.1/FTOS-SC-8.3.3.7.bin
boot system stack-unit 0 secondary system: A:
boot system stack-unit 0 default system: B:
boot system gateway 192.168.128.1

You can see that primary boot location is TFTP server. If you don't have tens or hundreds of switches you usually don't want to load FTOS remotely from TFTP server but from internal flash in the switch. Although default switch configuration would work because if TFTP server boot fails switch boot sequence continue with secondary location  but it's better to configure the switch boot sequence explicitly base on your requirements. Below is typical boot sequence configuration.

boot system stack-unit 0 primary system: A:boot system stack-unit 0 secondary system: B:boot system stack-unit 0 default system: A: no boot system gateway

Next thing you should check is what FTOS version do you have. Below is the command how you can check it ...

f10-s60#show version
Dell Force10 Networks Real Time Operating System Software
Dell Force10 Operating System Version: 1.0
Dell Force10 Application Software Version: 8.3.3.7
Copyright (c) 1999-2011 by Dell Inc.
Build Time: Sat Nov 26 01:23:50 2011
Build Path: /sites/sjc/work/build/buildSpaces/build20/E8-3-3/SW/SRC
f10-s60 uptime is 4 minute(s)
System image file is "system://A"
System Type: S60
Control Processor: Freescale MPC8536E with 2147483648 bytes of memory.
128M bytes of boot flash memory.
  1 48-port E/FE/GE (SC)
 48 GigabitEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
  2 Ten GigabitEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)

You can see FTOS version 8.3.3.7 which is not the latest one as the latest FTOS version at the time of writing this article is 8.3.3.9 and boot loader 1.0.0.5. It is generally good practice to upgrade FTOS to the latest version before performing verification test and going into production. For the latest version you have to go to http://www.force10networks.com and sign in. If you don't have Force10 account you can register there. Please note that each Force10 switch model use different FTOS versions. So there can be FTOS 9.4.x for model S4810 and 8.3.x for S60.

Now I'll show you how to do FTOS and boot loader upgrade.
FTOS should be upgraded first and Boot Loader later ...

upgrade system tftp: A:
upgrade system stack-unit all A: (applicable only if you have stack configured)
upgrade boot ftp: (applicable only if  new bootloader compatible with FTOS code exists)
reload

You can check current FTOS version

show version

and if you want to know what FTOS version do you have on which boot bank you can 

show boot system stack-unit 0

By the way, have I told you there are two boot banks? Boot bank A: and boot bank B:so you can choose primary and secondary boot location. We have already covered boot configuration but here it is again ...

conf

  boot system stack-unit 0 primary system: A:
  boot system stack-unit 0 secondary system: B:

FTOS is loaded by boot loader and current Boot Loader can be displayed by command below

show system stack-unit 0

Hope this post is helpful for IT community. In case you have any question, suggestion or idea on improvements please share your thoughts in in the comments.

Stay tuned and wait for next article ...

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[ Next | DELL Force10 : Interface configuration and VLANs ]

DELL Force10 : Series Introduction

I have just decided to write dedicated blog post series about DELL Force10 networking. Why?

Who knows me in person is most probably aware that my primary professional focus is on VMware vSphere infrastructure and datacenter enterprise hardware. Sometimes I have discussion with infrastructure experts, managers and other IT folks what is the most important/complex/critical/expensive vSphere component. vSphere component is meant by compute (servers), storage and networking.  I thing it is needless discussion because all components are important and have to be integrated into single integrated system fulfilling all requirements, dealing with known constraints and mitigating all potential risks. Such integrated infrastructures are very often called POD which stands, as far as I know, for Performance Optimized Datacenter. These integrated systems are, from my point of view, new datacenter computers having dedicated but distributed computing, storage and networking components. I would prefer to call such equipment as "Optimized Infrastructure Block" or "Datacenter Computer" because it is not only about performance but also about reliability, capacity, availability, manageability, recoverability and security. We call these attributes infrastructure qualities and whole infrastructure block inherits qualities from sub-components. Older IT folks often compare this concept with main frame architectures however nowadays we usually use commodity x86 hardware "a little bit" optimized for enterprise workloads. 

By the way that's one of the reason I like current DELL datacenter product portfolio because DELL has everything I need to build POD - server, storage systems and now also networking so I'm able to design single vendor infrastructure block with unified support, warranty, etc. Maybe someone don't know but DELL acquired EqualLogic and Compellent storage vendors some time ago, but more importantly for this blog post, DELL also acquired well known (at least in US) datacenter networking producer Force10. For official acquisition details look here.

But back to the networking. Everybody would probably agree that networking is very important part of vSphere infrastructure because of several reasons. It provides interconnect between clustered components - think about vSphere networks like Management, vMotion, Fault Tolerance, VSAN, etc. It also routes network traffic to the outside world. And sometimes it even provides storage fabrics (iSCSI, FCoE, NFS). That's actually the reason why I'm going to write this series of blog posts about DELL Force10 networking - because of networking importance. However I don't want to write about  legacy networking but modern networking approach for next generation virtualized and software defined datacenters.

Modern physical networking is not only about hardware (burned intelligence in ASICs with high bandwidth, fast and low latency interfaces) but also in software. The main software sits inside DELL Force10 switches. It is switch firmware called FTOS - Force10 Operating System (see. for more general information about FTOS look here).  However, today it is not only about switch embedded firmwares but also about whole software ecosystem - managements, centralized control planes, virtual distributed switches, network overlays, etc.
 
In future articles I would like to deep dive into FTOS features, configuration examples and virtualization related integrations.

Next, actually first technical article in this series will be about about typical initial configuration of Force10 switch. I know it is not rocket science but we have to know basics before taking off. In the future I would like to write about more complex designs, capabilities and configurations like

• Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (aka MC-LAG). In Force10 terminology we call it VLT - Virtual Link Trunking.
• Virtual Routing and Forwarding (aka VRF). Some S-series Force10 models with FTOS 9.4 support VRF-lite.
• some Software Define Networking (aka SDN) capabilities like python/perl scripting inside the switch, REST API, VXLAN hardware VTEP, Integration with VMware Distributed Virtual Switch, Integration with VMware NSX, OpenFlow, etc.

If you prefer some topics please let me know in comments and I'll try to prioritize it. Otherwise I'll write future posts based on my preferences.   

So let's finish blog post series introduction and start some technical stuff and begin with deep dive into switch initial configuration! Just click next and below ...

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[ Next | DELL Force10 : Initial switch configuration ]

DELL official response to OpenSSL Heartbleed

The official Dell response to OpenSSL Heartbleed for our entire portfolio of products is listed here.

DELL Storage useful links

Shared storage is essential  and common component in today's era of modern virtualized datacenters. Sorry hyper-converged evangelists, that's how it is today :-) DELL has two very popular datacenter storage products EqualLogic and Compellent. Useful links for datacenter architects and/or administrators are listed below.
 

EqualLogic

• EqualLogic Compatibility Matrix
• EqualLogic Configuration Guide
• Rapid EqualLogic Configuration Portal
• EqualLogic Best Practices Whitepapers

Switch Configuration Guides for EqualLogic SANs provide step-by-step instructions for configuring Ethernet switches for use with EqualLogic PS Series storage using Dell Best Practices.

Another switch configuration guides are in "Rapid EqualLogic Configuration Portal by SIS"

Compellent

• Compellent Compatibility Matrix (this is DELL internal resource - ask your DELL representative)
• Compellent on Dell TechCenter

DELL NPAR and VMware vSphere

DELL NPAR is Network Partitioning of single 10Gb NIC or better to say 10Gb CNA (Converged Network Adapter). NPAR technology is implemented on modern Broadcom and QLogic CNAs which allows to split single physical NIC up to 4 logical NICs. More about NPAR can be found for example here or here.

Please be aware that

• NPAR is not implemented on Intel 10G NIC (X520, X540)
• NPAR is not SR-IOV. More about SR-IOV is here and here.

The biggest NPAR value propositions are

• More logical interfaces partitioned from single interface which appears in the OS as normal PCI-e adapter.
• Switch independent solution. I'll explain what does it mean in the minute.

I have seen several customers complaining about NPAR. NPAR is just another technology and each technology has to be used correctly with respect for what purpose it was invented and designed. I have depicted NPAR architecture in the drawing bellow.

Let's describe the picture. On the picture you can see one physical server with ESXi hypervisor and two CNAs. Each CNA is divided into four logical partitions where each partition act as independent NIC with unique MAC address. You can see two physical wires interconnecting CNA ports with switch ports. Inside each physical wire are four "virtual wires" interconnecting CNA logical interfaces with single physical switch port. That's important!!! Four virtual ports on CNA are connected into single switch port. You can imagine it like four connectors on one side of the wire and just single connector on the other side.

That's not common, right?
The benefit of this architecture is switch independence.
The drawback is that ethernet flows between NPAR interfaces on single CNA port will fail.

So with this information in the mind let's explain NPAR architecture behavior in bigger detail.

Physical switch will never forward Ethernet frame back to the port from which the frame is coming. So, if src-mac and  dst-mac is on the same physical port switch (these are entries in switch mac-address-table) the L2 communication will be broken. That’s standard Ethernet switch behavior.
So what happen in NPAR architecture where are 4 virtual cables (NPAR interfaces with independent MAC addresses) connected into single physical switch port? No communication.

It is shown on picture below.

That’s the reason CISCO has VN-TAG (802.1Qbh) and HP has multi-channel VEPA (802.1Qbg)
These solutions multiplex Ethernet on both sides of the wire.

Note:
I have hands-on experirence with CISCO VN-TAG so I can admit it works correctly but I have never tested HP VEPA.

NPAR is relatively good technology to separate and prioritize Storage and Ethernet traffic on unified (converged) ethernet networks. It can be also used to separate and prioritize L2 traffic. But it will not work if L2 communication between logical NPAR interfaces are required.

Problematic scenarios can be for example following configurations

• vCenter in VM <-> ESX vmkernel management port in the same L2 segment but different portgroups routed through separated NPAR interfaces (uplinks) as depicted above.
• Cisco Nexus 1000v VSM in VM <-> ESX VEM communicate over L2 protocol routed through separated NPAR interfaces.

Hope this helps DELL and VMware community.

Redirect DELL PowerEdge server serial port to iDRAC

Let's assume you use COM2 serial port for console access into your operating system. This is usually used on linux, freebsd or other *nix like systems. Administrator then can use serial terminal to work with OS. However it is useful only for local access. What if you want to access terminal console remotely? If you have DELL PowerEdge server with iDRAC 7 you can redirect serial communication to your iDRAC. You probably know you can ssh into iDRAC for remote server operations. When you are in the iDRAC you can use command "connect" which will connect you to your serial terminal.

To get it working a few steps have to be taken on Power Edge server.

1/ Configure iDRAC

• Go to Network & Serial
• Set IPMI’s Baud Rate for example 9.6 kbps (Serial Port Baud Rate)
• Apply Settings

2/ During boot enter the Server’s BIOS

• Go to “Serial Communication”
• Switch from “Off” to “On without Redirection”
• Switch Port Configuration from “Serial Device1=COM1;Serial Device2=COM2” to “Serial Device1=COM2;Serial Device2=COM1”
• Save Settings and Reboot Controller

After these steps the Server’s serial console is available via iDRAC:

Login to iDRAC using SSH and type “connect” at the prompt. After that the SSH session shows the serial console as if directly connected to the system’s serial port.

Introduction to the Dell S6000 Layer 2 Gateway for VMware NSX

On following video you can see DELL Force10 S6000 integration with VMware NSX. That's beginning of real and usable software defined networking (SDN) or network virtualization if you wish.

 I'm looking forward for hands-on experience in the future.

DELL is able to build CDN (Content Delivery Network) for telco providers

Are you surprised DELL is able to build CDN? Yes, that's true ... Dell, EdgeCast Shake Up Content Delivery Networks ...

"Every single teleco service provider globally is trying to build some kind of content delivery network," said Segil. The rapid expansion of the use of video, pictures, and multimedia text and graphics is putting a strain on network operators' capacity that would be relieved by effective use of a content delivery network. A film that is suddenly in demand from many parts of the world, for example, would be more effectively streamed from servers close to requestors than struggling to scale from one point.

... I know some people who cannot imagine DELL can help customers with CDN (Content Delivery Network). That's probably because DELL is well known as PC  & Laptop manufacturer. However it is not the right image of modern DELL anymore. DELL is manufacturing and delivering enterprise gear (servers, storage and network) almost 8 years and DELL GICS (Global Infrastructure Consulting Services) providing infrastructure consulting services. DELL has today all hardware components to build CDN. CDN is usually described as special virtual network (aka VPN, tunnel, overlay) on top of internet optimized to deliver digital content (aka digital objects). To be more specific DELL has a partnership with EdgeCast which has complete software solution leveraging commodity x86 hardware. Dell is producing a content delivery platform based on its PowerEdge servers and software from number-three content delivery network service supplier EdgeCast Networks. More information about DELL and EdgeCast CDN solution are here, here, here and here.

However it is worth to mention that before anybody is going to build their own CDN it is very important to gather business requirements, target users and content type for delivery. Conceptual and logical architecture has to be prepared based on specific requirements and constraints. Different CDN can be built for different purposes. And last but not least the technical architecture must be fully aligned with business model and the investor must fully believe that business forecast is achievable.

Out-of-band BIOS settings management

Today I did some troubleshooting with customer. We needed to verify what NUMA type is set in server's BIOS. In the past I posted more info about BIOS NUMA settings here. The customer sighed that he can not restart the server just to jump and look into BIOS screen. My answer was ...

... it is not necessary to reboot the server because you have modern gear which allows you to read BIOS settings via out-of-band management card.

In our case we had DELL rack server PowerEdge R620 with iDrac 7 management card. BIOS settings are not visible on iDRAC web interface and you have to use CLI (aka racadm). There are several methods how to use racadm cli but IMHO the simplest method is to SSH into iDRAC ip address and execute command:

 racadm get bios.MemSettings 

You should get result similar to the screenshot bellow. 

For more information look at DELL Tech Center.

OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter 2.0

OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter 2.0 is new generation of DELL vCenter Management Plugin targeted as plugin for vSphere 5.5 Web Client.

Looking forward to test it with vSphere 5.5 in my lab.

DELL OpenManage Essentials (OME)

OpenManage Essentials (OME) is a systems management console that provides simple, basic Dell hardware management and is available as a free download.

DELL OME can be downloaded at https://marketing.dell.com/dtc/ome-software?dgc=SM&cid=259733&lid=4682968

Patch 1.2.1 downloadable at
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/555/DriverDetails?driverId=P1D4C

For more information look at DELL Tech Center.

DELL Blade Chassis power consumption analytics in vCenter Log Insight

DELL Blade Chassis has a capability to send power consumption information via syslog messages. I have never understood  how to practically leverage this capability. When VMware released vCenter Log Insight I have immediately realized how to leverage this tool to visualize blade chassis power consumption.

I prepared short video how to create blade chassis power consumption graph in vCenter Log Insight. The video is located at http://youtu.be/fda1cLW8enA

DELL Open Manage Essentials 1.2 has been released

Dell OpenManage Essentials is a 'one to many' console used to monitor Dell Enterprise hardware. It can discover, inventory, and monitor the health of Dell Servers, Storage, and network devices. Essentials can also update the drivers and BIOS of your Dell PowerEdge Servers and allow you to run remote tasks. OME can increase system uptime, automate repetitive tasks, and prevent interruption in critical business operations.

It can be downloaded here.

Fixes & Enhancements
Fixes:

1. Multiple defect fixes and performance improvements

Enhancements:

1. Support for Discovery, Inventory and Map View for Dell PowerEdge VRTX devices. 
2. Addition of Microsoft Windows Server 2012 as a supported operating system for the management station.
3. Context sensitive Search functionality. 
4. Ability to configure OpenManage Essentials to send the warranty status of your devices through email at periodic intervals. 
5. Ability to configure OpenManage Essentials to generate a warranty scoreboard based on your preference and display a notification icon in the heading banner when the warranty scoreboard is available.
6. Enhanced support for Dell Compellent, Dell Force10 E-Series and C-Series, Dell PowerConnect 8100 series, Dell PowerVault FS7500, and PowerVault NX3500 devices. 
7. Support for installing OpenManage Essentials on the domain controller.
8. Device Group Permissions portal. 
9. Additional reports: Asset Acquisition Information, Asset Maintenance Information, Asset Support Information, and Licensing Information. 
10. Addition of a device group for Citrix XenServers and Dell PowerEdge C servers in the device tree. 
11. Availability of storage and controller information in the device inventory for the following client systems: Dell OptiPlex, Dell Latitude, and Dell Precision.
12. CLI support for discovery, inventory, status polling, and removal of devices from the device tree. 
13. Availability of sample command line remote tasks for uninstalling OpenManage Server Administrator and applying a server configuration on multiple managed nodes. 
14. Support for SUDO users in Linux for system updates and OMSA deploy tasks. 
15. Display of a notification icon in the heading banner to indicate the availability of a newer version of OpenManage Essentials. 
16. Support for enabling or disabling rebooting after system update for out-of band (iDRAC) system updates.
17. Support for re-running system update and OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA) deployment tasks.
18. Support for Single Sign-On (SSO) for iDRAC and CMC devices. 
19. Ability to log on as a different user.

DELL PowerConnect Time Configuration

Here is procedure how to setup it:

enable
configure
sntp unicast client enable
sntp server ntp.cesnet.cz
end

Here is how to verify:


console#show sntp configuration

Polling interval: 64 seconds
MD5 Authentication keys:
Authentication is not required for synchronization.
Trusted keys:
No trusted keys.
Unicast clients: Enable

Unicast servers:
Server          Key             Polling         Priority
---------       -----------     -----------     ----------
195.113.144.201 Disabled        Enabled         1
195.113.144.204 Disabled        Enabled         1

Here is how to check current time:


console#show clock

10:23:42 (UTC+0:00) Apr 29 2013
Time source is SNTP

Summary:

That's how to set time on DELL PowerConnect switches. Please note that time is in UTC +0:00 so when you want localize your time you can use "clock timezone" and "clock summer-time" command in conf mode but I don't like it. UTC time is better for troubleshooting.