VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘blades’

VIRTUMANIA happens for the 22nd time! Rick Vanover and I are joined by guests Kevin Houston, Brian Knudtson, and Jason Perlow for an epsiode about virualization with blade servers. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 22 – Virtualize On Blades Without A Pain In The Neck. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com host special guests and blade server experts Kevin Houston (@kevin_houston) of bladesmadesimple.com, Brian Knudtson (@bknudtson) of bknudt.net, and Jason Perlow (@jperlow) of the tech broiler blog. This week’s episode includes a discussion on the pros and cons of virtualization and server consolidation with blade servers that would make even Wesley Snipes proud. Don’t let a blade be your nemesis. Learn what to watch out for so you can become an immortal superhero in your data center! VIRTUMANIA ia an Infosmack Production.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

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Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

VMware employee Hany Michael has started an incredibly useful series of design posts and diagrams titled VMware vSphere On Blade Servers. His first post VMware vSphere on IBM BladeCenter H delivers a multi layer .PDF that provides a template design of 4 common vSphere deployments with HS22 and the HS22V Blades. 

I’m just highlighting the iSCSI design in this post, but be sure to get a copy of Hany’s full PDF for diagrams of FC and 10GE designs as well.

Here’s an image of the BladeCenter H iSCSI design taken from the Configuration 2 layer. Click the image for a larger view.

Some things to point out why I think this diagram is so useful:

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HP Blades Day ended for me with another opportunity to be a guest on an Infosmack podcast. Episode 40 was recorded mid afternoon on the last day of the event with an all-star lineup. Here’s the official podcast summary from the episode’s web page (linked above):

“Infosmack Podcast Episode 40 – HP Blades Day Wrap Up. Greg Knieriemen of Chi Corporation and Marc Farley of 3Par and StorageRap.comwith guests Rich Brambley of VM/ETC, Simon Seagrave of TechHead, Stephen Foskett of Gestalt IT, Chris M. Evans of The Storage Architect and Devang Panchigar of Storage Nerve. This week’s podcast is a special wrap up from the HP Blades Day in Houston, Texas.

Disclosure: The participants on this podcast were provided travel and accommodations by HP.”

Like when I’ve been on Infosmack before, here’s an embedded player to listen to the latest episode now.

For those wanting to know a little bit more about some of the most important topics we were discussing in Episode 40 check out the following links:

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The final day of HP Blades Day consisted of some quick morning sessions and then the Factory Express and HP Pod tour. The guided explanation of the HP server assembly process was clearly the pinnacle of 2 days that was already filled with many highlights.

Here’s a 30 second video of some of my photos from Friday.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

For more information about HP’s Factory Express program that let’s each customer “choose how your solution is built, tested, integrated, shipped and deployed” check out this video.

For more information about the HP POD “ship to order datacenter” check out this video.

If you’d like to see all my photos from Wednesday through Friday check out my full HP Blades Day photo album. I’ll eventually add the HP Blade Day photo album to my Photos page here on VM /ETC as well.

Disclosure – I toured the HP Houston, TX facilities during an all expenses paid blogging event hosted by HP.

VM /ETC readers will probably recall that I love to report on the NFL and it’s teams use of virtualization and blade centers. I must say, as a man born in Philadelphia who is a long time Atlanta Falcons season ticket holder, I had to “do what’s right” and publish this post. All rivalries aside, I find examples of popular events, teams, and venues such as Cowboys Stadium to be the most interesting real world virtualization implementations to reference.

Disclosure – I was introduced to this video during an all expenses paid blogging event at the HP Campus in Houston, TX.

HP Blades Day Day 1 was a busy day. Although there were some Internet connectivity challenges for me, I was surprised to find a good bit of conversation on twitter was available from other attendees. Today will be another day of more great content presented by HP. Look for posts with session information and opinion over the next few days.

Here’s a 30 second video of some of my photos from Day 1.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

The following is our agenda looks like for day 2:

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Wednesday night in Houston, TX was a great finish for a day of travel. By 6 PM all of the HP Blades Day attendees had made it to the hotel, checked in, and met in the lobby. After some general group socializing we ended up grabbing some pizza at a nearby restaurant called Pizza Fusion. It was a great evening with a great group of folks!

Here’s a 30 second video of some of my photos from last night.

Today we will get down to business at HP. Here’s what our agenda looks like:

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