Posts made by StorageNinja

@scottalanmiller said in Infrastructure Needed for Hypervisor Cluster:

3PAR makes it less likely to be redundant, rather than more, I would wager.

3PAR is Active/active symmetric architecture with a full fiber mesh between controllers. Most cases where I've seen issues were tied to firmware on SSD's (Specifically the ~4TB Samsung ones) and people making giant RAID 5 pools, or people trying to move the array while it's running (yes this is dumb).

One really nice thing with the array is it does offer pretty solid vVols support with vSphere so you can manage it as a object system in that regards (No need for VMFS).

@scottalanmiller said in Cost per user:

And a tiny business, say 2-5 users, has to spend a percentage higher than larger businesses. And enterprises can use scale to reduce the percentage.

The costs are a lot lower when you have enough users to get a 90% discount.

@jmoore said in Cost per user:

While also not a real answer so take it for what its worth. I feel like the IT department has to really understand how users make use of the software they have.

This is actually a core feature/function of our internal SSO broker and MDM tooling etc is that we have dashboards for what application usage looks like. IT should be able to run a report and know how many people are using xxx software, how much they use it etc.

@guyinpv said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

They hired some IT service provider for like $600+ a month to do random stuff we don't even need, but mostly be an IT backup phone if ever needed by the new guy. The dollar bills in my eyes are kinda saying, screw paying them $600, just pay me $600 retainer and I'll answer emails from the new guy and maybe do a few more advanced things like web dev. But that is contract rates, they would only get about 20-30 minutes of my time a day, max. Is that worth a retainer? Just for a few months or something? I suppose they can contract me just like any other client who comes calling. So I'm trying to decide whether I completely cut ties, or let them keep paying me to aid the new inexperienced person.
I know even if I try to cut ties, I will not escape the occasional communication, I just know it.

You are one person. They are a cross-function team with different skills you might not see, and also they have SOMEONE who can work 24/7 365. You occasionally might be at a wedding, or in Maui or just might not feel like picking up that day. There is a large premium on this.

@JaredBusch said in Dashrender why did you migrate to Hyper-V from XenServer:

The XCP-NG team is a team that had a horrible business model that they were trying to implement around XenServer (XOA). Great concept, poor business model.

I wish them well but they are fighting a few things...

1. Citrix couldn't make any real money even when they charged more and people were taking the product seriously.

2. Last time I checked they were just replacing some management components and packaging some storage stuff. They are not investing in upstream and there's a lot of... changes coming in hardware that are going to require non-trivial investments for hypervisors to remain relevant.

The real problem with Xen is upstream investment is drying up. Citrix has pulled back, Amazon and other cloud providers have moved on to KVM, SuSE doesn't even market virtualization (SAP HANA support, containers, OS is as close to bare metal as they get). Outside of some people in ARM/automotive virtualization I haven't seen anyone picking it up for net new projects. In the enterprise Oracle is the only champion of it these days. KVM won the open source hypervisor war (although at this point does anyone really care?)

@scottalanmiller said in KVM VM Replication:

No other platform has a thing called "platform replication".

vSphere Replication is most certainly a product/feature, and other ecosystem replication solutions out there like Recovery Point, RP4VM, Veeam Backup and Replication and Zerto. Couple things...

1. DRDB is a kernel driver. There's positives (It's low overhead) but also negatives vs stuff like VAIO that loopback to userspace (if it borks it takes down the host). For async you don't want WAN backups or other issues to cause problems, and how you deal with resume from the replication being borked without having something like CBT or WAN acceleration can change hugely how the stuff is operationally managed.

2. Compression/Deduplication/WAN efficiency. In theory I could run DRDB through a WAN optimizer, but this is a standard function in a number of replication products. If your on metered connections this can get expessive. (vSphere Replication uses LZFast for compression, Veeam lets you tune what compression you want etc). Honestly don't remember what compression Hyper-V uses other than that they do it.

3. Encryption. A lot of other async replication products/features support TLS encryption at the transport layer for this connection. In theory you could IPSEC DRDB.

4. Does the product support GFS retention of the async replica's? Can I keep snapshots on the other side and is merging them out to age out old ones a zero overhead operation.

5. Application and guest quiescence etc tied to recovery points. What does management for this look like?

6. Can I target 1 cluster to another cluster without having to manually pair hosts and volumes? (IE can I just target a resource pool etc on the other side, or am I manually deciding target hosts and volumes every time).

Some other nice to have's is something that manages orchestration of testing, failover, failback with full runbooks, replication of network firewall rules, handling BGP failover, network overlay stuff etc.

Saying "It's cool DRDB can do async replication" may be TECHNICALLY true, but there's a rabbit whole of features people tend to look for with async replication

@scottalanmiller said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

@JaredBusch said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

@scottalanmiller's recent example clearly shows that. I would be interested to know how many man hours @NTG sunk into restoring that. And it was a small typical SMB office. Not a huge SaaS provider.

Not done yet. But ~28 to mostly recovered.

I"ve seen everything from 1 billable hour of labor (kicking off Veeam restore of 4 VM's and coming back when it was done) to 200 hours (rebuild from scratch, and recovered core ERP database from a developer clone on someone's laptop).

@DustinB3403 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

Um. . . fire those experts and get someone in there who once you're are up to fix your systems, that meet real RTO and RPO objectives. . .

You realize that the consultants who get brought in to clean up these messes are almost never the same muppets who built this out, or let this happen?

@JaredBusch said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

But restoring an entire infrastructe is never a fast task.

Couple ways...

1. Snapshots plus an orchestration system that can recall and mount them (SRM, Veeam).
2. Not being a Muppet and keeping backup, and infrastructure management on a different domain (or just off the domain if some small shop and use local SSO database for vCenter, and local user accounts for Veeam/backup servers).
3. Use a DRaaS service provider that has immutable retention that can't be restored (A lot of Veeam partners will do this for you). Fairly certain this is an option from iLand and some others.

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

It's being hit by a bus that I'm talking about. Where the doctor has no choice.

Ahhh for that? EMR, as well as the service they are on should have had "rounds" where the team was briefed on the patients current steps. If it's private practice new person will do a full workup.

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@Dashrender there's also a value in providing a benefit, employee retention is an important metric which translates to dollars. And a car is so much more than a coffee machine.

Higher pay retains people too, and better I'd argue. I'll take pay over a car any day, in fact, I'd rather not have a car at all.

I have a car (Drive maybe 1800 miles a year on it?). I just use Uber for work (Have platinum status lol) for work. I earn the points and can take calls and get things done on the way to the meeting/airport etc.

The problem with a company car is I'm on the hook for maintaining it on some level more than likely (Unless you have fleet services), There are limits to how I use it (Can my kids ride in it?, Can I take it out of town?), the car might also be a car I don't like to drive (Ford Ranger, with no stereo) or really want.

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

How do they handle if doctors get sick or can't come in?

It's like a 30 day transition in theory but I"ve never heard of that being enforced. I suspect that has more to do with niche surgical practices.

Doctors can reach the EMR from home and put in notes. For in patient care whoever is coming off call on the weekend calls whoever is taking over and does a transfer of knowledge over the phone on top of the notes.

It's considered unethical in medicine to just "Dump" someone with an existing condition that you began treatment on without making sure someone else picks them up. Example.... can't set a central line and then as a practice not take it out.

@guyinpv said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

Instead they panicked that I was going to walk out and leave in a couple days. They rushed to find anybody with basic knowledge of a computer from the local staffing agency and threw them onto my lap with little consideration. Now I'm trying to train a person with no experience and fairly rudimentary knowledge. Plus they dumped all these demands for an encyclopedia worth of how-tos, procedures, vendor notes, troubleshooting guides, etc.

This is kinda hilariously common in SMB land, but did you stop and think that maybe, just maybe they don't know what it costs for the skills they need to hire for? What is the pay rate they a re paying for the job? If you are expecting someone who knows Sysadmin work, Networking, End user support, application troubleshooting, vendor management/bidding etc and they hired at 40K a year then you are going to get this no matter what. When I worked i n consulting many times I saw management want to fire/replace people and I had to get them to stop and realize that when you pay 1/2 the going rate, you get 1/10th the expected outcome. When a tenured employee is leaving for greener pastures that doesn't mean that for the same rate (or even a good bit more) they will get a perfect 100% drop in replacement quickly. You've described management as difficult to work with, and not placing value in IT.

1. Why would anyone good WANT to work for that person? (Might be a lot of candidates just nope their way out of the interview).

2. Why would that management pay the rate they need to?

I mean my dude, at a certain point you gotta ask yourself why you think this isn't the outcome that's going to happen.

FWIW I've seen people handcuffed to a job and it's done a lot differently.

1. Pay more than the going rate for the job and the rest of the market. (Shockingly this is the one thing Netflix does on staff management that no one talks about!).

2. Deferred compensation. If I left tomorrow. I would forfeit my bonus for the half, my outstanding RSU's, my unvested ESPP (well I'd get face value, but no gainz). This pile of loot is enough to make me think twice about leaving, demand a signing bonus to offset it (Making me less attractive to future employees trying to pick me up cheap), or at least force me to time my exit for maximum vestment on the way out. I've seen someone find a new job and take 6 months to leave for this reason.

3. Perc that are not standard like unlimited vacation, 6 months maternity/paternity etc.

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

That's a state level law and I'm pretty sure nowhere in the US makes you give notice. If they do, it's an extreme exception.

Doctors have this. xxx number of days, to make sure notes on patients are passed over. In reality this isn't really a big deal with modern EMR's, and in most practices.

@manxam said in I have $500 spare!:

Invest in TSX symbol WEED when it drops next and wait... ?
Up a little over $21k myself this year with very little invested initially.

WEED: 30 million USD in Revenue. Zero profit, market cap of 21.55B.

I'd have to ask "are you high?"

While Weed will be a big market I don't see it honestly being that hugely profitable for growers in the long run. Retail stores can stock whatever they want, competitors can use delivery to get around your capital investment in stores, strains are not being patented, growing technology does't have enough IP to differentiate, and given the shelf life to oils/waxes/concentrates over lose leaf, I don't see how even having a "fresh" supply chain that's consistent is even that much of an advantage. It's a product that anyone can produce their own supply reasonably easy (This isn't like making industrial amounts of beer/scotch that require lots of storage space, or huge amounts of capital).

Their primary expansion is on the retail side, and they are trading up because retail prices went up (7 to $8a gram). Their valuation is tied to expansion opportunities, and I just don't think they will be able to establish a dominate heavy weight position in EMEA or the US. Their medical business is down on shipments quite a bit.

They are a growth company but nothing excites me about their balance sheet other than having lots of cash to do stupid things with (and drag down the stock price).

$500 extra?

Lower my taxes now:

1. 401K are you matching the match?
2. HSA max it out
3. Max out pre-tax 401k contributions.

Lower my taxes later
4. Max Roth IRA, or do a backdoor conversion if you've hit the cutoff. It's prior to april so you can still have the $500 count towards 2018
5. In plan Megabackdoor Roth (if your 401K plan supports this).

Otherwise buy SPY etc.

@Dashrender said in 4th Ammendment:

@StorageNinja said in 4th Ammendment:

@scottalanmiller said in 4th Ammendment:

"The Supreme Court has clearly and repeatedly confirmed that the border search exception applies within 100 miles of the border of the United States as seen in cases such as United States v. Martinez-Fuerte where it was held that the Border Patrol's routine stopping of a vehicle at a permanent checkpoint located on a major highway away from the Mexican border for brief questioning of the vehicle's occupants is consistent with the Fourth Amendment."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte

I assume this is like the 4th amendment really doesn't apply much to game wardens for the purpose of looking in your freezer etc. Doesn't it only work for the purposes though of border enforcement, and only by border patrol?

Very likely - but meh, the cops will simply call in border patrol to do the searching, etc.

Couple things here..

that case involved a fixed internal checkpoint on a highway (Not my house, or an arbitrary checkpoint setup on my local street).

The court felt that any intrusion to motorists was a minimal one and that the government and public interest outweighed the constitutional rights of the individual - I don't see how searching my house is ever going to fall under this.

The court also ruled that the stops were Constitutional even if largely based on apparent Mexican ancestry - The courts cool with casual racial based policing when near a border.

one's expectation of privacy in an automobile and of freedom in its operation are significantly different from the traditional expectation of privacy and freedom in one's residence. United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 896 n. 2; see Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U. S. 583, 417 U. S. 590-591 (1974) Basically, again if it's in a car your expectations are a lot lower.

we hold that the stops and questioning at issue may be made in the absence of any individualized suspicion at reasonably located checkpoints - The checkpoint has be reasonable. I-35 North coming out of Larando? reasonable. I-35 north of San Antonio? yahhhh unlikely.

This isn't 100% removal of the 4th amendment within 100 miles of the border.
It IS still a questionable ruling.

@scottalanmiller said in 4th Ammendment:

"The Supreme Court has clearly and repeatedly confirmed that the border search exception applies within 100 miles of the border of the United States as seen in cases such as United States v. Martinez-Fuerte where it was held that the Border Patrol's routine stopping of a vehicle at a permanent checkpoint located on a major highway away from the Mexican border for brief questioning of the vehicle's occupants is consistent with the Fourth Amendment."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte

I assume this is like the 4th amendment really doesn't apply much to game wardens for the purpose of looking in your freezer etc. Doesn't it only work for the purposes though of border enforcement, and only by border patrol?

@scottalanmiller said in Never Give More than Two Weeks Notice:

I don't believe this. Maybe 50%. I'm used as a reference for a lot of people, and almost never get calls. People ask for references way more than they call them. And even if they call them, they have to also then turn someone down based on the responses. If the response is "we had to fire them for legal reasons", sure. But if it is "they didn't give ENOUGH notice on a contract we won't show you", what buffoon is going to not hire you for that? No one with a functional company, that's for sure.
And that's still assuming that you can't get a single good reference. No one needs twenty of them, no one checks every job. It is SO easy to get good references, there is no real fear in getting stuck with a bad one.

I was a manager for 8 employees and with churn had another 4-5 that would list me as a reference. I got calls on maybe 2 people ever. (Magnus and BizDPS). I prefer to leave a LinkedIn reference (A public one) when someone asks about it so they can point to that as an initial starting point. The biggest reference that matter is internal ones to the company you are going to (Like that one time I gave a reference at 3AM for John White lol). HR and managers trust people who know the companies expectations and culture.

@DustinB3403 said in Never Give More than Two Weeks Notice:

Very few positions are allowed to legally enforce a "exit announcement" at all, much less with any length of time attached to it.

Medicine is one. For Doctors, states can require as much as 30 day notice.