Staying up to date on the updates is pretty critical for XO. They update things frequently. You'll be running this update script a lot.

That's that. You can use extremely limited (2) VMs for testing or development, nothing more. You VPS, no cloud computing. No multi-tenant. So that is why Apple has no VPS presence, it's not allowed. You can get PS, but not VPS.

@Dashrender said in XS 7 or HyperV 2016:

@FATeknollogee said in XS 7 or HyperV 2016:

@Dashrender said in XS 7 or HyperV 2016:

Wouldn't that mean exposing your XS to the internet? I suppose not if you lock the inbound ports to the IP of the XO, where ever it's hosted. So from a management point of view, that's great, but I don't think most would end up using the backup portion in that situation, soooo...

How is this different from using (as an example) the built-in replication tool in Hyper-V? Either way you still need the 'net?

I've never tested this, so I am working from an assumption. But upon the assumption here is my explanation.

You have a XS host in your office in Dallas, 100 Mb internet connection.

The MSP has a XO VM running in a hosted DC in Cali that's used to manage the XS host. How does the data flow to the backup target? Does it flow through the XO system then to the target? I know that Veeam works this way. Assuming it does flow through the XO box, the data would flow out the 100 Mb connection to the XO, and then to where ever the backup target is. Assuming that's at the customer site, that would also be on that single 100 Mb connection.

Again - I admit to an assumption here - if my assumption is wrong, please don't be an ass about it, just inform me, and the rest here.

So with that assumption, assuming you want your first backup target to be onsite, then you'd either need a separate backup solution, or another copy of XS locally that runs backups inside the network.

Actually, no, Veeam does not work that way.

By default, the paid version of Veeam installs proxy stuff on each host as well as the box that Veeam is installed on. When a backup job runs, it chooses the best place to run through each time unless you specify a specific option in the backup job.

No, those pics are from SuperDoctor 5, It's a 1:1 free Server management tool https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/SMS_SD5.cfm

@Kelly The available virtual cores you can assign to a particular VM match the number of logical threads(for hyperthreading) on the nodes. If you have identically spec'd nodes there will be no restrictions put in place beyond that for the number of virtual CPUs you can assign to a particular VM.

The limit of number of virtual cores to the smallest amount of logical threads is specifically to prevent issues with over-provisioning so there are automatic limits put in place to prevent issues that would cause VMs to not be stable.

I'm really glad to hear you are purchasing a cluster and we look forward to working with you.

@Dashrender said in Ease of the "Cloud", Without the "Cloud":

It surprises me that the costs could be lower. I would expect the economy of scale and lack of local IT support (or MSP/ITSP) requirements I would be allow prices to be driven lower. Of course you didn't say it would be lower, just said "often for much less cost."

Scale is what makes it viable at all. Elastic scalability is an insanely expensive feature to deliver. And neither solution requires a local MSP/ITSP, that's part of the comparison. These are "plug and play" level products. But in reality, using a service like Amazon where the scale is really good you run into a heavy technical barrier to use that HC does not have (normally.) So if anything, cloud makes you have more ITSP requirements compared to HC. Cloud has a lot of hidden costs that HC does not have.

@JaredBusch said in AD on top of something that depends on it:

No, JB would say, FFS stop conflating shit. A hypervisor is not a server or desktop OS.

LOL same difference 😛

A common option for small environments would be to simply include the driver package on a Windows SMB file share in a centrally accessible, read only folder that can be seen from each VM. Then just log into each VM and double click to update! Easy Peasy.

For larger environments, Group Policy will be the most common approach.

@John-Nicholson said in Cost Study: 3 Node Scale vs. 3 Node VMware VSAN:

@Dashrender said:

@scottalanmiller said in Cost Study: 3 Node Scale vs. 3 Node VMware VSAN:

VMware VSAN Support Cost: $25,440 ($1060 per CPU for each year after the first)

Wow - why even sell VSAN at that point - why don't they just do subscription and get over with it - wow that seems expensive. Is this in line with support contracts for other SAN products? I know it's hard to judge that because this is based on CPU (luckily not cores) where I'm assuming typical SAN support is more based upon capacity.

Because that's not what vSAN costs for a 3 node cluster. The capital cost is 15K List for a 3 node cluster. I'm guessing he's bundling the first 3 years of support in or something and putting zero discounting on the cost.

This cost study is also using 4TB SATA drives which vSAN doesn't certify. Also the only 1.9TB drive I"m familiar with that Dell sells (this could have changed) is a PM863 that gets awful write latency consistency and is only certified for capacity usage not write cache. Beyond that you would be better served by 2 smaller write intensive SSD's. This cost study ignores the HCL, the design and sizing guide.

Because there is no good way to an apples to apples comparison. Yes the cost of both has the support for the term built in. And the need for higher cost, lower density drives for vSAN would not be favourable to the vSAN solution - so while it could follow the HCL, it would look as if I was attempting to skew the numbers to make the vSAN look bad. Most importantly, this gives the best cost analysis advantage to the vSAN, even at the cost of not being officially on the HCL. If you want HCL'd hardware exclusively, then the cost is higher. As this is only a cost, not a design, comparison I felt that that was the more important attribute. Should have been noted, though.

@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:

@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:

@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:

I remember there was a previous thread about a USB stick, but that involved physically removing the stick & making a copy.
Whatever happened to having a "live" 2nd copy?

You can still make a copy of a SATA DOM to a USB stick.

Can you automate this ?

Not realistically, no.

Talking RAID and RAIN for SSD.

@Dashrender said in What is the Difference Between a Hypervisor and an Operating System:

@scottalanmiller said in What is the Difference Between a Hypervisor and an Operating System:

@DustinB3403 said in What is the Difference Between a Hypervisor and an Operating System:

@black3dynamite said in What is the Difference Between a Hypervisor and an Operating System:

What would you call Xbox One system, a hypervisor or OS?
http://wccftech.com/xbox-one-architecture-explained-runs-windows-8-virtually-indistinguishable/

If the article is accurate it would have to be a hypervisor. With a dom0 running an anorexic windows 8.

Sounds like they use the term RTOS as a code for hypervisor. They say it is an RTOS but then point out that it is not an OS (in that it doesn't run apps) and that it is a hypervisor (in that it hosts Windows 8.) So either their name is wrong, or their description is.

Ok, I didnt read the article, I commented based on things i heard from Paul Thurrott.

So I'll admit my understanding might have been wrong.

As a side note, Xbox one has been upgraded to Windows 10 now....

It's weird that the article claims it's a partition not a VM....

Partition and VM are not competing concepts. Lots of VMs are partitions. One thing (VM vs physical) is about how it runs. Partition vs. something else is just where it is stored. Nothing in saying it is a partition suggests that it is not a VM.

Now we only have the article to go on, but the article seems pretty clear that it is a VM. But what it really is, no idea.

@scottalanmiller I not quite at that max but pretty close at 56TB in a single volume local storage. Running Win 2012 R2 VM on Hyper-V 2012 R2 hypervisor. So far so good (2 yrs now). No issues other than that initial backup was a real b1tch but now that it's incremental, it's all good. No other caveats that I'm aware of.