How to check what VM are components in your VxRail cluster.

Run the query command below from the command line in the VxRail Manager to see what VM's are a VxRail component that it manages.

psql -U postgres marvin -c "select * from virtual_machine"

It will output a list of VM.  Probably should note that not to make any changes on these VM's without going through VxRail Manager.


Note:  This command was tested on VxRail 4.5.x and 4.7.x

Create folders from a text file in Powershell with modified date.

$folders = import-csv C:\mycsvfile.csv
cd myfolder

foreach ($f in $folders)
{
     mkdir $f.name
     $path = "C:\myfolder\"+$f.name
     $temp = Get-Item $path
     $temp.LastWriteTime = $f.configvalue
}

Note:  the csv file has to have a column called 'name' to powershell to identify the column.

New Pearl Jam album arrives in the mail!

  

Vinyl and CD

Just got it in the mail today.  I had this pre-ordered a month in advance and it came after a week after the release.  The album packaging and artwork has always been carefully thought out on every Pearl Jam album.  Gigaton is no different.  The vinyl is a gatefold design with a booklet of pictures and liner notes.  The CD has the same content just a smaller design.  On both of them, the font of the name and the EKG design on the cover is embossed.  The vinyl is a 2 LP version and music on 3 sides.   The 4th side is left empty with some word etching that say "In The Midst Of The 6th".  After doing some research, there are several different types of etching so yours might be different.



More of my comments on the album itself here.
Pearl Jam's new album: Gigaton!

Inside Vinyl Gatefold

Outside Vinyl Cover Art Unfolded

COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic

Lining up to get into Trader Joe's

As we enter week 3 of a statewide lockdown of California to control the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, infections and death numbers continue to rise.  We're all asked to stay indoors unless for the essentials like grocery shopping or a trip to the bank or gas station.  All stores are closed and restaurants are open for take out or drive through only.  If we do have to go out, we're asked to keep a 'social distance' of 6ft apart of one another.  I don't ever remember a time that is quite like this being in the U.S. for over 35 years.  People are asked to work from home, and others are out without a job if their jobs require personal interaction with people.  I feel bad for them.   Luckily, in my line of work, telecommuting is an easy option.  Others are not so lucky.  As the economy plummets and a 900 point drop in the stock market in a day is starting to be a common sight these last couple of weeks, one has to wonder when is this all going to get back to normal. Tokyo 2020 summer olympics have been postponed, all sporting events have their season postponed, grocery stores have isles of empty shelves where they once stocked sanitizers, masks and toilet papers as the fear of the virus become immense as the news coverage on the number of cases infected and deaths continue to rise daily.  This whole ordeal started in early January in China and it's since spread worldwide to other countries.  Most flights shutdown for the foreseable future and definitely no incoming international flights to the U.S., these are drastic measures taken to prevent the spread.  We're not a the peak of this pandemic as declared by the WHO, and I am guessing this will last through spring and into the summer months.  Has China learned anything from this?  Probably not.  Maybe it has to happen a few more times for them to enforce laws and regulations?   Am I pissed off at China?  Of course.  It's unprecedented.

Pearl Jam's new album: Gigaton!

Pearl Jam will release their 11th studio album titled Gigaton on March 27, 2020.  Gigaton is a word for a unit of measurement.  It can mean a different variety of measurement but in Pearl Jam's case, with their political and environmental stance, it is likely that it means the measurement for the amount of Earth's ice that's melting due to climate change.

---

gigaton

[ gig-uh-tuhn, jig- ]

noun

a measurement of weight or capacity.  equivalent to one billion tons. Abbreviation: GT

---

It's been 7 years since Pearl Jam released Lightning Bolt and there were high anticipation from me and other fans on when the new album is going to come out and how its going to sound.   Pearl Jam fans knew there was an album in the works so we were all anxiously waiting.  In February, the band started dropping hints on Twitter on the name of the new album.  It wasn't long until fans learned of the new album is going to be named Gigaton.  Another twist to the band is the sound of the first single, Dance of the Clairvoyants.  There's some cool electronic sounds to it.  If you only recognize Pearl Jam by their early stuff, there's no way you'd think that this is a Pearl Jam song.   I think it's the bands intent not to be categorized in having a distinctive sound by having an ever changing feel of each album.  I went ahead and pre ordered both the vinyl and the cd version to add to my Pearl Jam collection.  Take my money now!  Can't wait to listen to the rest of the album.

Pearl Jam - Gigaton

Track listing:

     1.  Who Ever Said
     2.  Superblood Wolfmoon
     3.  Dance of the Clairvoyants
     4.  Quick Escape
     5.  Alright
     6.  Seven O’Clock
     7.  Never Destination
     8.  Take The Long Way
     9.  Buckle Up
    10. Come Then Goes
    11. Retrograde
    12. River Cross


Quick thoughts on the first two singles:

Dance of the Clairvoyants: 
The first single of the album.  This is a great choice as the first single.  It begins with some awesome catchy bass and electronic sound followed by the chorus, "Expecting perfection leaves a lot to ignore. When the past is the present and the future's no more. When every tomorrow is the same as before."  Sweet!  Stone Gossard plays lead bass on this and Mike McCready's guitar sounds is amazing.  Can't stop listening to it.

Superblood Wolfmoon:
The second single of the album.  This is a catchy, fast paced rock song.  I liked this song a lot.  One the first listen, I was hooked whereas the first single, Dance of the Clarivoyants, needed me a few listens for me to get its beauty.

Pearl Jam Ten Box Set!

Well, after almost 10 years I've finally picked up the Ten box set from Pearl Jam.  Released in 2009, this box set comes with the following:

Super Deluxe Edition (2-disc set plus DVD, 4 LPs and replica cassette in linen-covered, slip-cased clamshell box):

• LP #1: original Ten remastered for vinyl by Bob Ludwig
• LP #2: original Ten remastered for vinyl by Bob Ludwig and remixed by Brendan O’Brien
• LP #3 and 4: Drop in the Park – Live at Magnuson Park in Seattle on September 20, 1992 
• CD #1: original Ten digitally remastered (original mix)
• CD #2: original Ten digitally remastered and remixed 
• DVD of Pearl Jam’s 1992 MTV Unplugged
• Cassette: replica of original Pearl Jam demo cassette that Eddie sent to Jeff and Stone.
• Composition book with artwork.

This box set is definitely for hardcore fans.  Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the cost of this box set when it was released was $200.  Fast forward 10 years and I paid $350 on Ebay for a new copy.  The main reason I wanted this box set was the Drop in the Park LP.  This was a free concert in Seattle from the band in which attendees are encouraged to register to vote.  This box set is the only place you can get an official copy of this concert.  Check it out.  Awesome cover art wouldn't you say?  As a Pearl Jam fan, I'm very happy that I finally shelled out to get this box set.

Dell VxRail

Hyperconverged systems are a set of physical servers running in a cluster that provides compute, storage and networking all in one.  Over the past few years, hyperconverged system have been on the rise in popularity due to the highly scalable and ease of management with businesses.  It is backed by VMWare's vSAN technology.  IT administrators like it because these features are delivered by a single vendor but more importantly, the upgrade process is easy without much thought needing to research for firmware vs software and driver compatibility.  To scale the hyperconverged system (compute or storage), you can just add a new node/server to the cluster.

The VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance from Dell/EMC.  There are different versions of VxRails depending on your need for cpu, memory and size/number of disks.  The underlying hardware architecture are just their PowerEdge line of servers.  On the network side, it supports configurations of 1gb, 10gb or 25gb connecting to two top of rack switches for redundancy.  On the storage side, you can either go all Flash or Hybrid of SSD and HDD's.  But in order to do the minimum of FTT=1, at least 3 host is required.

VxRail Node Comparisons
	G Series	E Series	V Series	P Series	S Series
Form Factor	2U4N	1U1N	2U1N	2U1N	2U1N
Cores	4 - 56	4 - 56	8 - 56	8 - 56	4 - 56
Memory	64 GB - 2048 GB	64 GB - 3072 GB	128 GB - 3072 GB	64 GB - 3072 GB	64 GB - 3072 GB
Hybrid Storage Capacity	1.2 TB - 12 TB SAS	1.2 TB - 19.2 TB SAS	1.2 TB - 48 TB SAS	1.2 TB - 48 TB SAS	4 TB - 48 TB SAS
All-Flash Storage Capacity	1.92 TB - 19.2 TB SAS or 1.92 TB - 19.2 TB SATA	1.92 TB - 30.7 TB SAS or 1.92 TB - 30.7 TB SATA	1.92 TB - 76.8 TB SAS or 1.92 TB - 76.8 TB SATA	1.92 TB - 76.8 TB SAS or 1.92 TB - 76.8 TB SATA	Hybrid only
Use Cases	General-purpose for broad hyper-converged use cases	Basic for remote office, stretch cluster or entry workloads	Graphics-ready for uses such as high-end 2D/3D visualization	High-performance optimized for heavy workloads such as databases	Capacity-optimized with expanded storage for collaboration, data, and analytics

Deployment:

The deployment is done by Dell engineers with their Pro Deploy or Pro Deploy Plus package.  I don't believe you can purchase it without those packages.  On the technical side, the engineer will run their network assessment tool to determine if everything is accessible.  Any issues that come up on the network assessment tool will generally need to be resolved before moving forward with the install.  If everything passes, the idrac ip will be set up via a console connection for each host in your cluster by using the racadm tool.  Logging into the console on the first host, the management IP is configured and the VxRail Manager VM will be powered on.  Once the VxRail Manager is powered on, the engineer will go through the GUI which will ask a series of questions concerning IP, hostnames and passwords to your vCenter environment.  From that information, the rest of the hosts in your cluster will be deployed and configured automatically.

Licensing and Software:

-With each VxRail purchase, you get the following:

• VxRail Manager
• ESRS
• VMWare vCenter
• VMWare Log Insight
• EMC RecoverPoint

Upgrade process:

The upgrade process is rather simple.  This is done from the VxRail Manager.  You can either do an upgrade via the internet or a local upgrade for those who have slow internet access.  This is will download the new VxRail package, unzip it and prep it for upgrading.  Upgrading, of course, is not intrusive to the VM's in the cluster.  Each host is upgraded one at a time while your VM's vMotions off to another host during the process.  From my experience, each host takes about 40mins to upgrade depending what level of a jump you're moving to.

How to check what services are running in VCSA.

SSH into your VCSA and enter the shell.  Type in the following command.

service-control --status --all

To start a service type in the following command.

service-control --start <service name>

VxRail iDRAC cold reset

If you're experiencing weird issues with your iDRAC(i.e. reporting false hardware failure information) you might want to give it a reboot. From VxRail, SSH into the ESX host and do the following.

      cd /opt/vxrail/tools/
      ipmitools mc reset

The iDRAC will get disconnected and will reboot. This generally takes 3-4 mins. The server and its services will remain running.

Cohesity: Backup, Replication and Disaster Recovery.

I had the opportunity to test another backup and DR solution recently.  This time, its Rubrik's competitor Cohesity.  If you miss the Rubrik overview, you can search for 'Rubrik' in the search field located on the right.  From the looks of the hardware (model C2300), it looks similar as the Rubrik device we've evaluated from a standpoint of each having 4 nodes blades with (12) 3.5" disks condensed into a 2U device but with a different faceplate.  After having looked at Rubrik, I was excited in finding out what Cohesity has to offer.  My initial thoughts, without actually diving into it, was that these two units does the same thing in the same way.  After playing with it for a couple of days, I was correct.  There are a lot of similarities between the two and some minor differences that does not have anything to do with what it advertise for.  They both do backups based on taking a vSphere level VM snapshot.  For replication, Cohesity copies the snapshotted VM over to a second appliance.  And for DR recovery, it would just bring up a copy of the VM that got replicated to the second device.  As with Rubrik, one of their main selling point is that your can bring up a DR instance within seconds by the virtue of mounting the Cohesity device to our ESXi host as a datastore and powering on the VM from there without actually having to do any restores.  One thing that Cohesity is different than Rubrik is that Cohesity is job and policy based whereas Rubrik is SLA based.  I much prefer Cohesity's job and policy bases over the SLA base because I can see all the VM's failed in one job in a single pane of glass view.  Can't do this with Rubrik unless your run a report.  Cohesity does offer you to create seperate storage domain so you can see how much a job uses because the reporting is storage domain based.  By doing so, you get less deduplication as it does not dedupe across other storage domains.  Some people wouldn't like it to have multiple storage domains but I find it the only way to see how much a space a particular job with Cohesity.  Like Rubrik, Cohesity is very scalable.  If you need more storage, you would purchase another node and add it to the Cohesity cluster.  Done.   To go further into the backup realm, Cohesity has the ability to archive backups to a third party cloud, able to backup up a network folder, and SQL database level backup using an agent.   We found that the cost for purchasing Cohesity was suprisingly low.  For a C3400, which provides a usable capacity of ~40TB (don't exactly remember the actual number), the cost was less than $90k for 2 units, with 3 year maintenance contract.

C2000 series

     

4 node cluster

Pros:

• Can do VM backups, replication, DR and archive.
• Surprisingly low cost.
• Storage domains.
• Easy to scale.
• Job and policy based.
• Very granular retention policy.
• Can archive to third party cloud.
• Can back up network shares and SQL databases.
• Active directory integration.
• Good detailed audit logging.
• Easy upgrade process.
• Can mount itself as an ESXi datastore and run VM's off it making RTO time very low.
• REST API

Cons:

• vSphere level snapshot for backups.  Can be problematic for VM's with large disks depending on what application it is running.  
• Hardware based.  Will need to recycle hardware when it gets old.
• RBAC permissions didn't work too well.