Eye on Blades: Trends in server blades and storage - All Comments

re: Shorty gets pimped

Jason Newton — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:20:43 GMT

Brajesh,

Please send me an email at jason.newton@hp.com so I can understand your requirements and location better. I'm sure I can find you someone in your area to help you with a quote.

jason

re: Shorty gets pimped

brajesh Chandra — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:10:50 GMT

Dear Sir,

I am looking for a server(database),which have a storage capacity of min 16 TB.So pls give me a quotation for product as per requirement.

Regards

Brajesh Chandra

re: Cook better with HP Virtual Connect

Gareth — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:53:04 GMT

Great doc. What about the same for the VC FC interconnects?

re: Games vendors play . . . with power efficiency claims

play games — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:32:06 GMT

Yes, even power to the cooling devices housed within the system should be part of the equation.

A thermoelectric fan housed to the outer casing connected to the heatsink may do the trick.

re: Even a Prius can run out gas

jim burrows — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:55:40 GMT

You are looking at a car that ran out of gas. the rest of your story is just that. Who knows how far he went and why.

re: Shorty for President?

Manoj Gurnani — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:44:20 GMT

Funkily funnilicious!

re: Blade Hacks: CLI Tips and Tricks

Anonymous-HPBLOGCS — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:20:23 GMT

Excellent topic! I live by some of the scripting abilities of the Onboard Administrator and the embedded HPONCFG command to interface with iLO. Just as in Steve’s post above, I execute these via telnet or SSH.

-------------------------

Disable blade auto power on after population

--------------------------

HPONCFG all << end_marker

<SERVER_INFO MODE="write">

<SERVER_AUTO_PWR VALUE="no" />

</SERVER_INFO>

</LOGIN>

</RIBCL>

end_marker

------------------------------

Clear iLO and Integrated Management Log

-----------------------------

Clear iLO / syslog

HPONCFG all << end_marker

<RIB_INFO MODE="write">

<CLEAR_EVENTLOG/>

</RIB_INFO>

<SERVER_INFO MODE="write">

<CLEAR_IML/>

</SERVER_INFO>

</LOGIN>

</RIBCL>

end_marker

---------------------------

Enable Remote Console Acquire

---------------------------

HPONCFG all << end_marker

<RIB_INFO MODE="write">

<MOD_GLOBAL_SETTINGS>

<REMOTE_CONSOLE_ACQUIRE value="Yes" />

</MOD_GLOBAL_SETTINGS>

</RIB_INFO>

</LOGIN>

</RIBCL>

end_marker

You can even point HPONCFG to a TFTP, FTP, HTTP or HTTPS URL to pull specific scripts for each blade. One example would be to force the hostname to appear in the device bay list instead of allowing the iLO driver to populate the field with the hostname.

hponcfg <Bay number> 10.10.10.1/Bayspecific.xml

Probably the last favorite script I use is to establish Single Sign-on trusts between my iLO management processors and HP Systems Insight Manager. You can download the iLO sample scripts, including the one for SSO at www.hp.com/go/ilo

re: Blade Hacks: CLI Tips and Tricks

Jason Newton — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:27:00 GMT

Here are some tips Steve McLean sent me via email:

----------------------------------------------------------

Simply telnet or SSH to the OA, login and copy / paste the appropriate statement into the CLI session. Each of these commands will take action against ALL iLOs within that enclosure. To effect a change on only 1 iLO, replace the work "ALL" (after HPONCFG) with the bay number of the server that needs modification.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Update iLO firmware to all blades in the enclosure - just update the location ip address and file name to point to your ftp server and fw update.

HPONCFG ALL << end_marker

<RIB_INFO MODE="write">

<UPDATE_RIB_FIRMWARE IMAGE_LOCATION="192.168.1.205/.../>

</RIB_INFO>

</LOGIN>

</RIBCL>

end_marker

Change iLO default password

HPONCFG all << end_marker

<USER_INFO MODE="write">

<MOD_USER USER_LOGIN="Administrator">

</MOD_USER>

</USER_INFO>

</LOGIN>

</RIBCL>

end_marker

---------------------------------

ADD User Account to iLO

---------------------------------

HPONCFG all << end_marker

<USER_INFO MODE="write">

<ADD_USER

USER_NAME="Stevem"

USER_LOGIN="Stevem"

PASSWORD="Compaq123">

<ADMIN_PRIV value ="Yes"/>

<REMOTE_CONS_PRIV value ="Yes"/>

<RESET_SERVER_PRIV value ="No"/>

<VIRTUAL_MEDIA_PRIV value ="Yes"/>

<CONFIG_ILO_PRIV value="Yes"/>

<!-- Privileges no longer supported in iLO firmware ver 1.40 and later.

<VIEW_LOGS_PRIV value="Yes"/>

<CLEAR_LOGS_PRIV value="Yes"/>

<EMS_PRIV value="Yes"/>

<UPDATE_ILO_PRIV value="Yes"/>

<CONFIG_RACK_PRIV value="Yes"/>

<DIAG_PRIV value="Yes"/>

-->

</ADD_USER>

</USER_INFO>

</LOGIN>

</RIBCL>

end_marker

-------------------------------------------------

Add License to iLO - relaced xx with a valid iLO license key, without the hyphens

--------------------------------------------------

HPONCFG all << end_marker

<RIB_INFO MODE="write">

</LICENSE>

</RIB_INFO>

</LOGIN>

</RIBCL>

end_marker

re: One million and counting

Phil Buckley-Mellor — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:17:31 GMT

Happy to help, we've had several hundred of them so far, can't imagine going anywhere else - there's literally no better choice, well done guys and keep the new stuff coming.

re: Cook better with HP Virtual Connect

Jason Newton — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:57:24 GMT

Great idea! This might explain why it's been hard to find ;-)

Our technical doc team is working on it now to get them loaded up.

For those not in the know on "BSC" - it's our Business Support Center. Tons of helpful info on EVERY HP product.

h20000.www2.hp.com/.../ProductRoot.jsp

Jason

re: Cook better with HP Virtual Connect

ux2000 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:02:22 GMT

Very good guide, thanks!

Perhaps you could link it in BSC with the VC Enet Module in the Manuals section, so more people can find it.

re: Even a Prius can run out gas

Stephanie Pounds — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:24:02 GMT

Good post, Jason!

As to running out of gas, I've always heard that if the Prius ran out of gas, the electric engine would keep going long enough (in most cases) to get you to a gas station. Now that I see it's not true, I'll pay better attention to my gas gauge.

re: Even a Prius can run out gas

Quincy — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:23:08 GMT

Some Prius owners wanted to see how far they can go on battery power alone after running out of gas (about 1-2 miles).

I think it is a stupid thing to do because deep-discharging the battery will shorten its life. As a rule I always hit a gas station to fill up when the fuel gauge is down to two tics in my Prius.

I can get about 400 miles out of a single 11-gallon tank of gas with 2 tics left to spare (2 gallons or so), averaging about 46mpg.

re: Even a Prius can run out gas

Anonymous-HPBLOGCS — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:53:58 GMT

Classic!

re: Virtualization in simple language

Jason Newton — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:56:27 GMT

Hi Barry,

I guess you can call it a shameless attempt to stir up readership and comments. (yeah, it worked!)

Seriously, I gave you solid credit for the effort because I understand what you were trying to do with the format of the presentation and I applaud it. It's really not that far off.

I also promised to show where it could be better, so here it goes.

In general, I think you let the format and style get in the way of the story. Even though you meant this for a non-technical audience, there are a few gaps that need to be filled for them to follow along.

Slides 1-8: Great. I was very hopeful at this point in the deck.

Slides 9 & 10: I would combine. The approach should be 1 idea per slide. Be careful with 1/2 an idea per slide, especially in a visual presentation like this. 11 was your punchline anyway so build toward that.

Slide 11: Good

It's at this point that you need a bridge - connect server energy use to cars and gasoline.

IDEAS:

Point out that servers use lots of energy. If you could give the equivalent of 1kWh or operation equals X% of gas/oil. Then point out that servers run 24x7 unlike your car.

MPG of a server would be a great point to make.

I'm not sure you would even need the $1 spent on servers = 50 cents spent on power/cooling.

General comment on 15-22: The "dollar bill" slides would have been 100x more effective if you simply added one, big number to support the visual. Very hard to count and to follow. You were getting too creative here.

Server sprawl section:

I was really dissappointed in this section b/c there are so many opportunties missed here to make server sprawl hit home. In evokes some great images but you didn't really make "server sprawl" hit home. In fact, you focused more on App Isolation but never connected the dots for us.

Slide 26: Like earlier, just add 1 more word "server" and it works so much better. Especially for the non-tech audience (most of whom don't know what a server looks like). The arrow isn't as effective. Make it huge or drop it. (there was a similar slide to this earlier where I'd say the same thing).

Slide 28: Clever - took me a second, and broke......... the............ flow. Add 1 more word - Fingerpointing.

29-33: I think you could streamline this better to create more momentum to your punchline on 34 of "41 million". Maybe you just say the common way today is 1 app for 1 server. This created server sprawl. (where was that great visual again? The EVIL SERVER SPRAWL!) Now there are 41 million of them. This would also be a good time to tie back to your 1st point - that's "x" amount of energy/oil needed every day!

34: I would have said "it is predicted that by 2010 "- Then put "41 million servers " on the next slide.

43: $140 Billion . . . what? per year, WW, Since when? Never put this into context.

46 & 47: Combine this. Put the dollar bill right side up. (in this case, you obviously don't need to say "1". In fact, if you did this throughout, emphasize the same big dollar, right-side-up, and added x2 or x4 or x8 in a big letter - it would be so much more impactful.

Slide 49 would improve greatly with this advice.

Slide 51: start with "that means" then take it home.

54: Add 1 word - cooling (or power/coolign or A/C, etc) Could also combine with 53.

55: Now you've gone over the deep-end - Is that $4,000 something dollars? Keep it simple here.1 dollar bill times your number. This would add a lot of consistency throughout the deck and keep you on the big idea - "the old way of servers is expensive".

59 to End: Now the wheels are completely off. A lot of new visuals and concepts. You just spent 58 slides making strong points about energy/sprawl/maintenance - use the same points and images to juxtapose how much better virtualization is in all 3 areas.

This last section is the fatal flaw and why I said it "stinks". What a bummer to start so well, get over creative and then never really drive the point home that the old way sucks and virtualization is so much better.

Barry, I hope this was constructive - it was meant to be. You may still have time to make some tweaks and win that competition!

Good Luck!

Jason