DELL PowerEdge VRTX Has Potential Beyond ROBO As a Scale Out File Server...
The PowerEdge VRTX I went to have a chat with Dell at TechEd 2013 Europe in Madrid. The VRTX was launched during DELL Enterprise Forum early June 2013 this concept packs a punch and I encourage you to...
View ArticleStorage Spaces, Hyper-V VM Mobility & 10Gbps are Key Elements
At TechEd 2103 Europe I met some passionate people who’ve been working hard at deploying Storage Spaces on a large scale in their companies (many hundreds of TB). They have replaced their expensive...
View ArticleTeamed NIC Live Migrations Between Two Hosts In Windows Server 2012 Do Use...
Introduction Between this blog NIC Teaming in Windows Server 2012 Brings Simple, Affordable Traffic Reliability and Load Balancing to your Cloud Workloads which states “TCP/IP can recover from missing...
View ArticleAn Early Look At Live Migration Over TCP/IP & Multichannel In Windows Server...
Introduction With Windows Server 2012 R2 (Preview) we can Live Migrations over TCP/IP like before. That’s either using a single NIC or by teaming two or more NICs. We also have compression and...
View ArticlePreliminary Results With Live Migration Over RDMA Speed & Useful Number Of NICs
Introduction With Windows Server 2012 R2 (Preview) we can leverage SMB to do Live Migrations. That means we can now offload the process to the NIC if they support RDMA, save on CPU cycles and...
View ArticleVirtual Receive Side Scaling (vRSS) In Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V
What is it? One of the cool new features that takes scalability in Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V to a new level is virtual Receive Side Scaling (vRSS). While since In Windows Server 2012, Receive Side...
View ArticleAdventures In RDMA – The RoCE Path Over DCB To Windows Server 2012 R2 SMB 3.0...
Prologue On gloomy day, it was dark, grey and cold, we gave battle with RoCE & DCB (PFC/ETS). The fight was a long one, the battle field uncharted and we had only our veteran attitude towards...
View ArticlePreventing Live Migration Over SMB Starving CSV Traffic in Windows Server...
One of the big changes in Windows Server 2012 R2 is that all types of Live Migration can now leverage SMB 3.0 if the right conditions are met. That means that Multichannel & SMB Direct (RDMA) come...
View ArticleWindows Server 2012 R2 Virtual RSS (vRSS) In Action
The Need For Speed My clients or employers are normally into lots of data, large files & number crunching. That means they like CPU power, memory, bandwidth & IOPS. That doesn’t mean they...
View ArticleEnabling Jumbo Frames Inside Virtual Machines Enhances Throughput & Reduces...
Let’s play a bit with a Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V cluster with 2*10Gbps Intel X520 teamed switch independent and in dynamic mode, which is optimal for DVMQ. On these NICs we enabled Jumbo frames...
View ArticleLive Migration Can Benefit From Jumbo Frames
Does live migration benefit from Jumbo frames? This question always comes back so I’d just blog it hear again even if I have mentioned it as part of other blog posts. Yes it does! How do I know....
View ArticleDon’t Let Live Migration Settings Behavior Confuse You
Configuring live migration settings on a cluster In the cluster under Networks, Live Migration Settings you can select what networks are available for live migration and their order of preference....
View ArticleUse Cases For Fluid Cache For SAN With DELL Compellent In High Performance...
Fluid Cache For SAN At Dell World 2013 in Austin Texas I spent some time talking to engineers & managers about Fluid Cache For SAN. The demo in the keynote was enough to grab my distinct attention,...
View ArticleLive Migration over SMB Direct leaves more CPU cycles for Virtual RSS (vRSS)...
I recently (January 22nd 2014) gave a WebCast presentation for the Dutch Windows Management User Group (@WMUG_NL) in which I made the case for using SMB Direct with Live Migration to save CPU cycles...
View ArticleHot Iron, Cold Steel & Cables Are Still Paramount In The Era Of The Cloud
Cloud, virtualized, on premise, hosted … the people in the field offices need to connect to them and as such hardware is not dead yet . Commodities don’t mean obsolete or “in the cloud” only. Some nice...
View ArticleDELL Has Great Windows Server 2012 R2 Feature Support – Consistent Device...
The issue Plug ‘n Play enumeration of devices has been very useful for loading device drivers automatically but isn’t deterministic. As devices are enumerated in the order they are received it will be...
View ArticleLive Migration Speed Check List – Take It Easy To Speed It Up
When configuring live migrations it’s easy to go scrounge on all the features and capabilities we have in Windows Server 2012 R2. There is no one stopping you configuring 50 simultaneous live...
View Article10Gbps Cheap & Without Risk In Even The Smallest Environments
Over the last 18 months cheaper, commodity, small port count, but high quality 10Gbps switches have become available. NetGear is a prime example. This means 10Gbps networking is within reach for even...
View ArticleI Can’t Afford 10GBps For Hyper-V And Other Lies
You’re wrong There, I said it. Sure you can. Don’t think you need to be a big data center to make this happen. You just need to think and work outside the box a bit and when you’re not a large...
View ArticleHappy System Administrator Appreciation Day!
Yes, today is SysAdmin Day! http://sysadminday.com/ Why well read the information on the link. But I’ll put a quote here: Let’s face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is...
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