Saturday, September 27, 2008
Dell PowerEdge R900 freezes / locks with Windows Server 2008
Microsoft came back saying that the megasas.sys is the problem, this driver is used for the Dell PERC 6/i to run the local hard disk in the server (we had a RAID 10 layout). The PERC is made for Dell by LSI Logic Corporation.
I have asked Microsoft to remove the Dell R900 for Windows 2008 from the Windows Server catalog.
We have spent many weeks working with Dell to fix this problem but they still have not come back with a fix. LSI has to rework the drivers. In the mean time Dell said to change the control but we have reinstalled under Windows Server 2003 and the servers are looking happy.
Photosynth Outside My Home In London
I am going to make a more complex one later, but you can check out my current one at http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=79245027-407b-40b8-85fb-fcd985a123f9
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Cisco Catalyst 4510 SUP V cant deal with iSCSI
So we plugged it all up and ran the stuff, running ok.. but when we doing a big SQL run the disk got disconnected. I could not belive it, I was thinking had to be a problem with the Dell Equallogic box.. I could understand it running slow, but disconnecting.
So we ordered in some Dell PowerConnect 5448 and they did the job and for a lot less then some new Cisco kit.
We started the final tests for upgrading from Microsoft Dynamics AX 4 to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009. I hope to have some numbers for everbody.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Barcelona just was not up for a fight
Being so late and talking about VM and 16cores ect ect... but now nobody cares..
I final blow came today for me with this news from VMmark.
"Our partners at Dell have published the first VMmark results using the new AMD quad-core Barcelona processors. Both the 2-socket (8-core) R805 platform and the 4-socket (16-core) R905 platform have been tested. You can find all of the details on the VMmark results page. If you do the math, you will see that Dell achieved an excellent 1.8x throughput scaling from the 2-socket system to the 4-socket system. Another thing I'd like to point out is that some of the VMmark workloads utilized AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI) technology to improve performance. VMware supports a wide range of virtualization techniques and is able to uniquely leverage both hardware and sofware virtualization technologies in order to provide optimal performance."
Intel (on Dell R900) 14.23@10 tiles
Amd (on Dell R905) 14.17@10 tiles
So who cares about " AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI) technology to improve performance" when Intel is about the same speed with a product that has been on sale 6months before yours.
I was really hoping that AMD was going to lunch and be shipping Barcelona with 16cores before Intel.. but some where, somthing went wrong and their is an other Itanium running around looking for a home.
I will have to wait to see the final price with discounts from Dell on AMD/Intel... but with many customers and my sell already having Intel Xeon 7300 and know that we cant Vmotion to any AMD Opteron and back their is no point.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Forget Vmotion go Xmotion from DELL
More info at
http://www.dell.com/xenserver
http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/Citrix+XenServer+Dell+Edition
Also some demo videos
Fast VM Cloning Demo
Hot Add/Remove Resources Demo
XenMotion Demo
you cannot Vmotion between Amd and Intel servers
Dell has a PDF giving more info about what you can and cant move from.
16cores and 80+GB of RAM on VM?
Any idears.. thanks
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Old to Some, New to Me.. Free Microsoft Software
DreamSpark is simple, it's all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools at no charge so you can chase your dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology - or just get a head start on your career.
"
https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/
Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Zelda .. in ART
I think the people behind music of computer games should get more awards for their work, as most gamers and other people will remmber their songs over a britney spears or 52cent any day.
Jump to 2mins if you cant watch it all.
Friday, May 23, 2008
If = 12, you got a problem
So on one of the products we was doing a beta in our live environment, and the upgrade was long but we got their. Come this morning we had 2 problems
The company had stopped supporting Windows 2000 for the software
But the 2nd was very odd, some user could not log in and I was thinking this problem might start to effect others.. After running around pulling people at the Vendor from all around the world we start to see what the problem was.
The e.g. user had the problem no matter what desktop they tried. E.g. user names
Xyeda.Xassan; Xusso.Xouros; Xelal.Xehmet; Xehmet.Xacet; Xonika.Xrasa; Xerdar.Xltun
We finally worked out if the user account was 12 Character only then they could not log in. More or Less then 12 is fine.. only 12 would not let them log in… a few hours later we have a fix.
What this really comes down to is badly written code and design. Where in the back end their might be logic for less then 12 and more then 12 (some one back in v1 of product had limit of the length of user name)
Fun time with Beta software
Live on Beta for Cisco Unified Contact Center Express 7.0
And its all good :-)
Thats all I am allowed to say
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 RTM 22nd May 2008
Microsoft Dynamics AX helps Xbox
Thursday, May 22, 2008
We Don't Need No Architects
"role of an architect in software development has come under attack of late. On software projects, the title Architect is often ambiguously defined and the value provided by architects is not easily quantifiable. The perception that architects live in an "ivory tower" disassociated from the realities of delivering a software solution contributes to some of the animosity toward those of us with the title."
I would check this one out
- Foreword
- We Don’t Need No Architects
- Becoming an Architect in a System Integrator
- Architecture Journal Profile: Paul Preiss
- The Open Group’s Architect Certification Programs
- The Need for an Architectural Body of Knowledge
- A Study of Architect Roles by IASA Sweden
- The Softer Side of the Architect
- An A-Z Guide to Being an Architect
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Old Cisco Logo
Friday, May 9, 2008
"World's 1st iSCSI optimized switch" Dell PowerConnect, Dell EqualLogic says NO
So we ordered two Dell EqualLogic boxs at huge cost, then we got to the point to order our dell's switch, at which point Dell turned around and said that’s not a good idea and we should order Cisco 3750 and that our current Cisco 4510 SUP V will not do the job.
So I got $200,000 of Dell SAN and $120,000 of Cisco switch. I don’t want to buy any more Cisco switch as so fed up with their products.
Any body got any ideas when Dell going to sort our their own product?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
THUS Plc has power cut at datacenter warrington
We use THUS Plc for our MPLS network. We worked out that their Warrington center is down.
We tried 10 times to ring their support number and was getting messages saying their to busy to pick up and call back. We got into their support que and waiting 50mins for some one to tell me, that they would fix the problem in 4 hours and they had a powercut.
How can you have a powercut at a teleco DATA CENTER ? Anybody body out their that has MPLS network in the UK with out any problems?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Support Issue 73 | Coldfusion On Google
language on Google App Engine.
Take Your Vote to http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=73
See the full list of issues at http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/list
behind the scenes, Love it
$120,000 of Cisco switching, but cant deal with iSCSI and numbers dont add up
So you can select diffrent Engines with this product and when I have this types of options I buy the BIGGEST. and I was thinking I was getting the best (Its Cisco its the best, its cost $120,000).
So I had my self Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Supervisor Engine V-10GE with 8 x 48 Port 1000mbits PoE line cards.
2/3 years later I find out..
a) the line cards have 48 x 1000mbits dont support Jumbo Frames (up to 9216 bytes) when I was thinking that Jumbo Frames was a Engine feature.
b) Per slot switching capacity is only 6 Gbps when the total for switch 136 Gbps. I have 10 slots... so why dont I have a min of 13.6 Gbps per slot? If I have a 48 Port line card I should be able to pump thu 48 Gbps.
c) Every 6 ports on 48 Port line card shares 1 Gbps. So I can only get 8 Gbps, but does not matter as the slot only supports 6 Gbps.
So I got 24u (1/2 a rack) of tin.. which cost $120,000.. and does nothing for iSCSI. I really think I have to review my want to buy Cisco. I think Cisco is amazing company but I really hoping for a lot more.
Plus this not the only product. If you played with Cisco Router 3640 it can support up to 8 E1 interfaces, but it can deal with more then 2 1/2 with H.323.
CBUS Network Install

All my lighting, heated floors, central heating and blinds come back into this boxs.
I have 28 Relay channels, 20 Dimmer channels and 80 control actions via the "light switch" (not really a light switch, just an addressable control). Thats 128 address, would been cool if they where IP Address.
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On this light switch you can see that I can put text or my own drawings. The top one is used to let the house know I am staying home. If this is switched on then the house will funcation diffrent to when I set the home to being away i.e. heated floors in the bathroom would start up at 6am.
Home Automation with Windows Vista Media Center ( with CBUS and Domia Harmony )
I am now able to access my lighting, headed floor, central heating, blinds, sound system via HTTP/Web/API's, Wall Switchs and Windows Vista Media Center.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A day doing nothing
SO had one them days when been trying to fix somthing and not knowing where the error is.
Was dealing with two Windows Mobile Data Synchronisation Problems
1 ) Error
“Initializing SQL Server Reconciler has failed”
Our Fix
Don’t use fully qualified DNS names e.g. sqlserver.mydomain.com\sqlname, should be sqlserver\ sqlname in your .net CF code
repl.Publisher = "DAVINCI-SQL\\SQL2005INSTANCE";
Only found this problem due to SQL DB and IIS Replication Server being in different domains
To find the correct name to use “ EXEC sp_helpdistpublisher 'DAVINCI-SQL\SQL2005INSTANCE “
Microsoft use this error way to many place and the internet is full of reasons for it.
2) Error
“The specified validation type is not supported by the Subscriber. The supported validation type is 'Rowcount only (No Checksum)'
Our Fix
Our development system did not have this problem and did not need it to be changed.. But to fix it on our live system we did the following.
On the Distributor Server > Replication > Distributor Properties > Agent Profiles – Profile Default > Merge Agent > Select rowcount validation profile
Dell in 2nd and last Place :) Is that what happens when you OEM?
I found this review "Diogenes Labs Storage Magazine Quality Survey" and it shows the following...
1. Compellent Storage Center
2. EqualLogic PS Series
3. Hitachi Data Systems Thunder 9500 V Series or AMS Series
4. Network Appliance FAS200/FAS900/FAS2000
5. Hp StorageWorks EVA
6. Sun StorageTek 6000
7. IBM FAStT and DS4000/DS6000
8. EMC Clariion CX
9. Dell CX Series
its funny how a company can have a 2nd place product and 9th place OEM product when the real version is 8th place.
I feel we have made the correct choice after reading this, I might have gone for Compellent but.. I dont know if the company will be around for next 5 years. One thing is for sure (well maybe) Dell should be around for the next 5 years.
Best In Class says Cisco Systems
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Dell EqualLogic faster then Dell MD3000i
So while we wait for MD3000i.. trying to pick Xen or VMWare.
The problem I have with VMware right now is that with out getting VMware Control Center all the cool stuff like creating a system in under 10mins gets way to complex and not easy for my dev guys.
So right now my system team checking out Xen (Microsoft was selling Xen hard at a windows 2008 session). Also Microsoft supports their software running on a Xen, but not on VMWare.
Once we made a choice with VMWare v Xen then get back to building our new cluster.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Itanium, EqualLogic, Dynamics AX 5 & Tigerton
I am going to be using this blog to document a project i am working on. Right now we are upgrading from Microsoft Dynamics AX 4 (formerly Axapta) to Microsoft Dynamics AX 5 (or AX 2009 as marketing would call it).
We are needing to buy new hardware as we can’t upgraded on our current platform as poor SQL 2005 does not have CPU, RAM or I/O to run our production AX4 and upgrade AX5 the same time.
So I had been given the green lights by management to moving away from our Intel Itanium 64bit server and moving to Tigerton from Intel aka 16core Xeon with Dell R900. I waited for AMD Barcelona for over 6 months.. still nothing to show for it.
Any how, while we where replacing our server looking at how much disks should I buy.. and working out we could get a whole new SAN then try put more into our EMC CX700... So we went way got our self’s Dell EqualLogic box and Dell MD3000i (MD3000i 4 time more cost effective per GB)
To add on top of all of this going to run Windows 2008 Cluster to achieve HA for SQL and iSCSI SAN replication between the two EqualLogic boxs over the WAN.
At the end of all of this going to have 3 IA 64bit boxs... anybody played with Xen VM with IA64?..
I will update you guys once the hardware starts getting shipped...