@Pete-S said in VM replication vs vSAN on two hosts?:

So it would be an option to use vSAN as shared storage but without having the HA features in play?

This is a stupid idea. If you have vSphere HA available, enable it. It doesn't cause problems.

@Dashrender said in SpiceWorld 2019 Events, Plans, Meetups:

because that ticket price is nothing compared to the air line/hotel bill/food, etc.

I have a free ticket for life.

@Emad-R Eh, I got 6 of them with the maximum memory (4GB). Also looking to acquire some beefier ARM platforms that I can run experimental ESXi builds on. - https://shop.solid-run.com/product/SRM8040S00D16GE008S00CH/ has caught my eye, but there are a few other ARM packages that are also reasonably priced and have different capabilities (Jetson etc from Nvidia for CUDA etc). Was really hoping rancher would sort out a ARM install but egh, might end up running that on my Intel NUCs.

A few things...

1. Google and AWS don't bother running them on Baremetal. While some people do, they tend to be shops that like running lots of linux on bare-metal and for them, it's a OS/Platform choice rather than a Hypervisor vs. non-hypervisor choice. The majority of the containers in people's datacenters and in the cloud are in VMs.

2. VMware with the project pacific announcement at VMworld called out that they get better performance with their container runtime in a Virtual Machine, than bare metal Linux container hosts. (This makes sense, once you understand that the vSphere scheduler does a better job at packing with NUMA awareness than the Linux kernel. Kit explained this on my podcast last week if anyone cares to listen).

3. I run them on bare metal on my Pi4 cluster because I'm still waiting on drivers and EFI to be written for it so I can run a proper hypervisor on them.

I made this one minute video a while back to demonstrate SCSI UNMAP/TRIM reclaim. I'm curious how many of you are doing this (doesn't have to be on vSphere/VSAN) and if not what's stopping you from getting back dead/wasted space from deleted files?

Youtube Video

@scottalanmiller My bed in Houston. See y’all tomorrow

@scottalanmiller said in TPM module - what is it used for?:

That's the norm, yes. Anyone looking for data, that's what they do. That's always the fear in datacenters. A 2.5" drive is "easy" to steal. It is loose, and tiny, fits in a pocket or an arm pit. A server is essentially impossible to steal from any real location.

Running out of a DC with a DL380 doesn't happen. Someone bulk sells the server on eBay does.

Real encryption keeps the keys in a remote KIMP server (what you'll see for any DISA/STIG system etc).

Realistically you use a TPM for detecting supply chain attacks (validating firmware, validating boot loader, EFI VIBs etc) is what ESXi uses it for.

https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2018/04/vsphere-6-7-esxi-tpm-2-0.html

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam with NetApp?:

NetApp makes high cost, low performance NAS devices on double parity RAID 4 (basically RAID 6 but using older RAID 4 tech instead of RAID 5 based.) They could be talking about any NetApp product as that's basically what they all do. You just pick one based on size.

This isn't really true.
Netapp E-Series is the same as the old Dell MD36xxx or the LSI enginio code base (IBM also sold a similar low-end modular array). These things were wicked fast/cost-effective at streaming workloads (got used for Lustre clusters a lot as the DAS on the nodes). Dell's abandoned reselling them for Seagate (Dothill) but they still around.

Netapp also bought solidfire (Scale-out iSCSI storage system, originally positioned for service providers now offered as part of "Netapp HCI"). Best in class QoS, and also has vVols support.

The Netapp AFF is the new all-flash units. focused largely on data efficiency.

Veeam has API integration for arrays so that it can offload snapshots to the array. You'd still need something else to target.

@JaredBusch said in Cyber Liability Insurance:

What does the premium help you recover from?

They payout for cryptolocker for organizations too stupid/poor to have properly immutable/air-gapped backups.

@Obsolesce said in User's PC is unstable:

Like RemoteApp?
They'll need the licensing for it.

Streaming from O365 is bundled with a number of the licensing tiers (we have it, I use it to run the full version of Excel on my Mac). You also can run RDSH in trial mode for 90 days if memory serves.

Given it's been 10 years though, and the user (presumably has work to do in excel) having excel run somewhere else might just be a good way to move on to more important things even if it costs $100-200 (Unless Dash's time is free!)

@wrx7m said in User's PC is unstable:

There is a condenser for the IT AC unit right outside her office. I'm sure the power runs through the wall near where her computer sits. I moved the computer away from the outside wall a few years ago, requiring installing longer cables for monitors, keyboards, etc. Yet the problems continue, granted The computer only moved maybe 4 feet from that wall.

Move her to a streaming instance for excel (RemoteApp, Citrix, Horizon, 365 streaming app). see if it blows up when running on a server.

@Dashrender said in User's PC is unstable:

Spinrite wouldn't report any issues

Sooooo that hasn't been updated in over 10 years. Also, who the hell is using magnetic drives for boot/applications?!?!

I'd expect office to pause/stutter, that's known behavior for running it from magnetic media.

Couple thoughts..

I think 1/2 my trades are issued from my cell phone. (Generally when I"m selling vested RSU or ESPP). It's convenient as I've got my 2FA token on my phone. As others have noted actual trading doesn't drive much. A lot of traders (like the local energy trading floors) use thin clients.

This isn't stock trading which implies your roommate is a moron who should be putting money in a 401K, HSA, a Roth or maybe some index funds if he's feeling frisky and needs liquidity on a shorter time table.

quantumtrading is a dynamic currency risk indicator program for forex trading. My general viewpoint is only the absurdly well capitalized (triple comma club) have any business trading currency for anything other than hedging other positions (and even then there are other ways to hedge currency like JNUG, or just buying treasuries).

If your roommate is serious about YOLO currency trading using 1000x leverage, I might want to direct him to the best place for such degenerate gambling intelligent discussions, reddit.com/r/wsb/

@Obsolesce said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

Why not a credit card like all the real businesses?

Visa gift cards, and "cash cards" are common currency used by people who commit fraud. I've never been able to get a SIM without presenting my passport/ID.

@Skyetel said in I guess Skyetel doesn't want business:

We're not using it for 2FA - its just to verify the following:

Your in North America (Foreign cell phone numbers wont work)
You are actually a real human being (because you have to put it in)
You are not planning on committing fraud.

DING DING DING

Given how much VOIP fraud and spam is happening, telco's need to be able to have something that traces back to a person the FBI can lock up.
This (combined with shaken+Stir being deployed) is critical to saving the PSTN.

@EddieJennings said in Where IT Consultants fit between Vendors and Clients:

I don't recall saying consultant vs non-consultant, but the responses in the thread have addressed the question of who should interface with a vendor.

I feel like I should provide some context for how some vendors operate to get a better idea for the level of vendor involvement and who the vendor wants to work with.

Few things....

1. It depends on the vendor, and who the customer is. For instance, some vendors are 100% channel sales (Datto I think fell in here) and a customer outright can't buy them directly.

2. Most larger vendors DO NOT WANT to talk/sell to smaller customers directly (It's too expensive, as they pay too good of benefits, and too high of compensation to their salespeople to scale down to small accounts that because they only sell their products can't form a meaningful relationship). There typically are 4 "buckets" for products.

a. Retail sales for VERY low-value non-complicated sale items that a website can sell. These products don't require sizing assistance or are pretty simple. Think an ethernet patch cable.

b. More complicated items on smaller deals that intend to be 100% channeled in sales (You don't want this stuff sold by Amazon as the customer will likely buy the wrong SKU, or screw upsizing). Note, the vendor may offer a direct model but will often have "cannon fodder" class salespeople in this space, and generally will even charge more for going direct. A VAR is your best bet here. Think someone buying 3 servers, or 20 laptops, or a single palo alto firewall for a SMB. all services are going to be VAR partner led when possible beyond post-sales support escalations. Also in these smaller accounts it's expected that the VAR/MSP is more than likely going to know the needs potentially better than the customer does.

c. larger enterprise deals where the VAR is still involved but the vendor takes some leadership because the account is big enough to matter, or the vendor wants a strategic presence in this account. The paper may shift to being run by the vendor at the higher end of this, with a small revenue share back to the VAR who brought this deal to them for the life of this deal. Think ELA's, 100 site MLPS circuit deals etc. services might be delivered by either the partner or the vendor at this stage.

d. Direct only deals. These are sometimes called "named accounts" and the vendor will 100% run paper directly. A partner of record might get 3% of the deal if they are lucky, or be subcontracted if they are a marque support partner with tons of certifications.

Others can comment but sales teams tend to be organized around these different groups Example:

1. Commercial-1 Smallest accounts and people who haven't bought anything in 5 years from you. These are called "Whitespace accounts" and you basically have people trying to get a meeting with hundreds of these in a territory or verticle and seeing if they can find some gold and get people with a low priced entry solution. ALL sales will be inside teams at this scale with VAR's or MSPs type shops doing any in person meetings.

2. Commercial-2 Slightly larger accounts. Might have spent a few thousand, but there isn't a strategic or lucrative relationship. You might have a field team at this point but they will likely cover hundreds of accounts still.

Midsized Accounts - Still larger. They will likely have some clue who their account team is, but still rely on a VAR for most day to day stuff.

Large Enterprise - Big names you recognize. These accounts will have teams who might have only 5-10 customers. Alignment on this is going to be tied to geograhpy still more than likely.

Globals - Account teams will be in some cases 1:1, or if there is a specific industry (Say automakers, or oil gas) you might have a team in a city (like Houston) whose job is to wrangle these guys. The Cxx levels of the vendor likely have strong relationships with these accounts and for a software vendor these accounts could be spending 9 figures at a time, or for hardware companies 10.

@scottalanmiller said in HPE Supermicro?:

Basically all appliance makers use SuperMicro. SM is the appliance chassis provider to the world.

Quanta has a decent run rate also. SuperMicro offers more form factors than anyone. Their T41/42 platforms were used for VxRAIL prior to Dell buying EMC.

In this case, I think Apollo and their hyper scaler stuff came from SGI who might have OEM'd SM.

@DustinB3403 said in Infrastructure Needed for Hypervisor Cluster:

I suppose if you are going from a bunch of 1U servers with six 300GB 10 NL disks to two 1U servers with 2 disks and a SAN sitting behind it that it looks consolidated. . .

I'm more a fan of not using spinning drives for boot devices. Flash SATADOM, M.2 devices. Even USB/SD cards (Slower on boot, have to redirect logs) tend to have better thermal resistance to spinning disks.

@scottalanmiller said in Infrastructure Needed for Hypervisor Cluster:

Sort of, but it then begs the question of "Didn't SAN and VLAN already do that?" And they did, so it's not a great definitely all on its own.

VLAN's don't provide end to end transport across long distances (unless your that insane person who believes in running layer 2 between continents or data centers at the physical underlay, and want to risk the spanning tree gods destroying your data center). VLAN's don't provide portability of networks across sites. VLAN's don't provide consistent layer 3 and layer 7 security and edge services between hardware. Yes I know PVLAN's exist, and no they don't do all or really any of this (Just useful for guest to guest isolation). Microsegmentation, security service insertion, VxLAN gateways and overlays, policies that stick to VM's (or users of VM's) and follow them etc fall under modern networking virtualization services.

Hypervisors provided similar features to mainframes of old (LPAR) but did so on generic servers, without the need for proprietary hardware. SAN's typically ended up with proprietary disk arrays, and while storage virtualization is a thing, it's generally always tied to one proprietary platform that it hair-pinned through. SDS systems also exist, but your dedicating compute to these platforms while HCI is about being able to flex that pool of resources for storage, compute and networking functions.

Notice I saw generic servers and not just x86. ARM HCI is upon us

@DustinB3403 said in Infrastructure Needed for Hypervisor Cluster:

You take several smaller boxes and create a virtual, larger box out of the individual smaller boxes.

When you say that I think of LPAR combining servers (Bull, Hitachi).
HCI is just about doing for networking and storage what virtualization has already done for computing.