Posts made by cakeis_not_alie

@StrongBad Not directly. That said, I simply add OneDrive to my NAS (so that everyone can access it, and I don't need it on everyone's individual machines), and then back that one drive folder up to Backblaze. Because I'm lazy.

@JaredBusch Well, personally, I tend to prefer open source backup solutions, but maybe this is the wrong crowd for such radical ideas.

@BRRABill Stupid question: if you have The Fear of losing your NAS, why not just use the built-in encryption on the NAS? Or post an NFS share to a file server VM that will store the data in an encrypted container of some sort?

https://www.synology.com/en-us/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/File_Sharing/How_to_encrypt_and_decrypt_shared_folders_on_my_Synology_NAS

Que?

@Dashrender Any old Synology that can use DSM 6 will do. I just prefer the ioSafe because it plugs a specific backup gap. If that gap doesn't worry you, go the cheaper route.

Apologies if this is a little bit "self promotion", but I may have a relevant article for this discussion: http://webreaktech.com/2016/10/03/archival-cloud-storage-can-be-an-affordable-backup-layer/

Cheers to all!

@scale Hyperconvergence is: buying servers + storage together and getting a resilient infrastructure that can run workloads.

Hyperconvergence lowers my floor cost. Instead of 2 servers + 2 storage devices I get 3 servers. Much cheaper, considering how much vendors charge for storage arrays! Scaling is also easier: add a node and get compute + storage.

Hyperconvergence isn't a private cloud. It is not "AWS in a can". At least, not yet. (I am personally kicking vendor asses in this direction, but you vendors have such large asses. They take muchos kicking.)

Marketing lingo dispensed with, hyperconergence is ease of use. It's IT infrastructure for people who don't have time to fuss over IT infrastructure. And by that definition, Scale has served me extremely well. So kudos to Scale...

...and long may the Scale Legion reign!

Hello ladies, gentlemen, and assorted honoured edge-case gendered individuals.

We're relaunching WeBreakTech with a brand new idea: actual content! As part of our evil plans to write things people want to read, we've taken on a new columnist, Katherine Gorham, a.k.a. "The Accidental Sysadmin". Her first column is here: http://webreaktech.com/2016/10/03/the-accidental-sysadmin/

I know that a lot of people on Mango Lassi are accidental sysadmins; folks who ended up in the role not because they sought out IT as a career, but because they "knew computers". Here's hoping Kat's writing helps those folks feel less alone.

Cheers, and have a great week to everyone!

@scottalanmiller Maybe. But bigger than I'm willing to worry about here. Specific issue was "is SimpliVity a bucket of assbutts". Answer: "no, they're not."

The rest of this is to existential to worry about for me right now.

@scottalanmiller Hey, I like definitions, that's great! I don't actually care whose terms are used, or why. All that I care about is that we're using the same terms, so that when we all argue, we're arguing about the same thing, and not past eachother.

"This is SMB" or "this is not SMB" is a really pointless bit of chest-thumping nonsense unless we're all using the same definitions of these extremely fluid-to-the-point-of-almost-meaninglessness terms.

@scottalanmiller Okay. shrug. This is your clique man. I've said my piece, I've defined my terms, and I've linked to the statistics and rationale behind choosing those terms. I don't care what anyone else in any of the other cliques wants to call things. Anyone who cares to consider what I have said can use the definitions as I have listed them to understand what I said. That's all that matters to me.

The rest is just ook, ook ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook

@scottalanmiller I should also point out here that in Canada, which is a fairly advanced economy, only %0.14 of businesses are larger than 500 employees. If your definition of the market is that SMB is < 500 seats, the midmarket is > 500 seats and the enterprise starts north of 1000 (or 5000) seats, then you're shrinking "enterprise" down below a fraction of a percent of all businesses.

Which, when you consider that basically every "thought leader", salesdroid, marketdroid and CEO dismisses non-enterprises as "irrelevant" makes me want to start punching things.

It's bad enough for only %0.14 of businesses to be "relevant". I am a strong advocate of not shrinking the number of "relevant" businesses, if possible. If only so that I don't feel even less like a mote of dust in an uncaring and actively hostile universe.

@scottalanmiller Which is my point: there is a massive disconnect between what vendors and pretty much anyone else means when they say "SMB", especially

1. If they ARE an small business
2. If they aren't American

Which is why I point to https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/02804.html as my definition of terms. Because it's an official source, with statistics that can be discussed and is relevant to me, personally, as a Canadian.

So based off of the definition of "small" contained in that source, I stand firm on my statement that SimpliVity doesn't have - and won't for quite some time - an SMB play. If you want to use an IBM definition of SMB, they sure they do.

But maybe, for the sake of sanity, we should all agree to the definition of terms if we're going to have a poo-flinging contest over who is priced right, or using the right pricing approaches for a given market segment.

Otherwise, we might as well just shred some dictionaries and throw the confetti at eachother whilst screeching incoherently and beating our chests.

Ook, ook, ooooooooooooooook!

@scottalanmiller Then SimpliVity needs to be kicked for it. Twenty lashes with a wet noodle and no internet for a week!

SME? Yes. SMB? No. SimpliVity doesn't play down at my level, except for my very largest clients.

Let me be perfectly clear: SimpliVity started with a MIDMARKET focus and moved up channel.

Now, we could have debates about what is SMB, what is Midmarket and what is Enterprise, but I have actual definitions to use for this: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/02804.html

The midmarket is defined by the Canadian government as 100+ employees. And that's about right for where SimpliVity starts to be a real consideration. I'm going to say whomever believes that is "SMB" is out of touch with the real mass market and what SMB means, especially outside the USA.

And maybe that's the kicker. US definitions and "pretty much the rest of the world" differ a lot here. Important to consider.

@Breffni-Potter Who says SimpliVity wants to enter the SMB space? Anyone telling you that is nuts.

SimpliVity are a midmarket and enterprise supplier. They don't have an SMB play worth mentioning. They aren't here to cater to the nickle-and-dime customers who cost more in support than the margins you'll make off them. They are making more than enough money playing the midmarket and higher spaces that they can - and from a purely business standpoint should - stay there for quite some time.

SimpliVity doesn't need to pander to the SMB market until the midmarket is so saturated that they need to go make a volume play. When they're ready to do that in earnest a lot of things will change in SimpliVity's approach.

Right now, SimpliVity makes their wins off of companies that have muchos big time branch offices and need a solution that lowers costs when compared to having to run basically a rack's worth of stuff at each branch location in order to squeeze the data through the tubes every night. They make money here and they're very, very good at squaring this circle.

For the poverty-tier folks - myself included - there are lots of other vendors. The really ghetto types can choose Starwind and <censored for legal reasons>. Or they can go use Nodeweaver from Cloudweavers if they want proper HCI that actually works, for as low as humanly possible.

A step up from that into a more expensive world is Scale Computing, and they're excellent, VMware's VSAN comes in around the same price for a different, but equal featureset.

You could go Nutanix, but their performance is made out of buttinase unless you devote WAY too much RAM to their VSA, and then you don't have room for workloads. Their SMB play is mostly brochureware.

Stepping up from the barest of bare bones and into the realm of the midmarket you start to see actual competition. Scale plays here. SimpliVity, Nutanix, Pivot3, many, many others...and they all have deltas between list and street that are significant.

Here, picking the right HCI vendor is about needs and featureset. And the purchasing cycle is usually months long and involves a POC. (Or ten.)

But if you are poverty tier like me, let me be perfectly, 100%, crystal clear: SimpliVity, and 99.999999999999999975% of vendors simply don't want to deal with you, because you cost more to acquire and support than you are worth.

In the realm of "caters to poverty tier clients" basically the only solution that anyone should trust is Nodeweaver, and I still don't understand why they're so damned cheap. Their stuff works, and they should be charging 2x-3x what they do for it. Eventually, I'm sure they will.

Everyone else who plays down at our level...well...Groucho Marx said it best:

I wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have me as a member.

If your whole beef with SimpliVity is that they aren't going to suck you a rapture for a bent copper, I'm sorry to say, but they - rightly - don't, won't and shouldn't care. Not for another 10 years or so, anyways.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a datacenter full of cobbled together whitebox servers and sadness that needs my tender care and attention...

@Nic To find out the how behind how SimpliVity does what they do, read this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/23/simplivity_storage_startups_new_tech_unique/

@virtualrick I'm neither a customer, nor an employee!

SimpliVity had paid me for some work, but not in the past 6 months, as marketing money has been redirected towards engineering, and mine was the first contract on the chopping block.

I'm too poor to be a customer, however, SimpliVity did help me out once by loaning me two nodes and allowing me to review them in production as I saved a customer from dying servers in a really odd situation where the servers went just months before the location was to be shut down.

Mostly, I know about SimpliVity because I am a tech journalist who writes about hyperconvergence, so they keep me up to date on changes. I have a few friends inside and this has meant that I get to be part of the NDA briefings, and go to SimpliVity conferences. This lets me meet many happy customers.

I have also met customers with problems. And I have served as their advocate to those higher up in SimpliVity. That customer advocacy role doesn't make me many friends, and I think it's safe to say a lot more people inside SimpliVity dislike me than like me.

That said...I have had the chance to really get to know the company, it's tech, it's customers...the whole thing. I'm the first person to poop all over companies that deserve it. And there are things I would - and do - poop on SimpliVity for.

...but the stuff in this thread just isn't what SimpliVity should be yelled at for. Some times I'm on the side of the mob, raising a pitchfork and demanding vendors stop being dumbasses. This time, I find myself having to side with a vendor and saying "guys...you're off the mark".

It's rare to find good vendors. SimpliVity does a thing (data efficiency) better than anyone else. They also have committed to customer support that goes above and beyond. Both are things that they should be applauded for, and which absolutely earn them a position at the top of the hyperconvergence pile, and which should earn them a seat at the negotiating table for anyone serious about buying hyperconvergence in the 4 node+ range.

So yeah, I'll stick my neck out for SimpliVity. Because, for all their quirks and faults...they've earned that from me. There aren't a whole lot of vendors who have.

Especially not vendors that I, personally, nor my clients, can afford.

Cheers.

Dear everyone in this thread:

SimpliVity are amazing, and I will punch anyone who disagrees in a sensitive body part.

Listen to me: you all know me. You know that I am both a very loud customer advocate and one of the loudest, most irritating voices for dropping prices. I need to say this very loudly and very clearly: SimpliVity are a fantastic company, with top notch service and a damned-near-impossible to beat product.

Like any company, they aren't going to meet every single niche need. They certainly aren't the cheapest on the market. They aren't trying to be all things to all people and they aren't trying to be the low cost supplier, so it's not shocking that they are neither.

What they are is the absolute best, full stop, at data efficiency. Nobody manages to do data efficiency as thoroughly as they do, at the speeds they do and with the WAN efficiency that they do. This is SimpliVity's schitck, and it has real world implications.

The first is the aforementioned WAN efficiency. The second is that highly similar workloads (such as VDI) absolutely scream on SimpliVity. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Does this make SimpliVity something of a "luxury car" for hyperconvergence? Absolutely. But it's not "a Lamborghini", it's more of a "Tesla Roadster". The price isn't about pointless flash; you get something different for your money, and different enough that it becomes addictive to those who can afford to use it. The money isn't spend on flash or brand name; they deliver actual value for it.

Now, I'd be the first to piss on them for overcharging or otherwise not living up to their promise. Everyone here should know that about me by now. I have, in fact, been in multiple meetings with their top brass where I am the loudest customer advocacy voice in the room, demanding they meet this need, or that requirement, and lower the price.

Despite that, they don't deserve to be pooped on. They aren't all things to all people, but they are absolutely untouchable at what they do.

Cheers.

Following up on this thread, the above information worked. Removing the "any" and replacing with "the external IP of the box into which you are currently logged in" solved the problem.

Roar! It sucks that "any" is in literally every other piece of configuration information about site-to-site VPNs for Ubiquiti! Hat's off to Jared Busch for his knowledge of edge cases, and a case of beer owed for my salvation.

Cheers to all who helped.

So here is the deal:

Executive Level Body purchased two Ubiquiti Edgemax devices. One for his network one for his office network. He demands that the site-to-site VPN be set up between them.

Unit on his end needs to be a NAT router for his home network(s). Unit on this end is only for his VPN access and nothing else.

No matter how this is set up, Executive Level Body must be able to use the UI on the routers (both of them) to change IPs of the VPN configuration and/or the shared secret and have it work.

No, he cannot use the command line. Any solution which requires ongoing configuration of the devices to use the command line is simply not acceptable for this situation.

The units are running EdgeRouter Lite 1.8.0.

I have absolutely no idea how to configure these things. I have attached a picture below to show what I have attempted. It is the same on both sides, with the exception of the target external IP (naturally) and the description.

I have no made changes to the firewall. There is a tickbox on the router that looks like it will do so, but no firewall rules appear to be created (at least in the UI).

Help!

Walruses. Walruses everywhere.