Five Tips to Cut Cloud Computing Costs

Enterprises can benefit from the Cloud solutions (IaaS, MaaS, DBaaS, XaaS etc…) only if they are disciplined and organized with the resources they consume in Cloud. For example, if an organization moves to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform without cleaning up and right-sizing their virtual machines, they might end up spending more than what they would spend on their existing on-premise platform. I know, the cost is not the only factor for organizations to consume the Cloud solutions but it’s

Server HBA Replacement Steps

This article outlines the steps required to replace Host Bus Adapter (HBA) cards on servers. In this example, the technologies involved are brocade fabric switch, Windows server/ VMware ESXi server and HP 3PAR storage but the same steps can be applied to other vendor technologies like Cisco MDS switch, EMC storage, Hyper-V host, IBM SAN etc…

HP MSA Storage Default Passwords

This article outlines the default credentials configured as part of the HP MSA storage array and HP StorageWorks P2000 G3 configuration and their functions. HP MSA refers to MSA 1040, MSA 1050, MSA 2050, MSA 2051, and MSA 2040 arrays in this article.

Information provided in this post is based on Storage Management Utility V3 (SMU V3, comes with GL200 and later firmware - the latest HP MSA 2040 firmware (GL200) can be downloaded from here)

Five Document Review Checks to Keep Your Customers

If you are in the consulting world (Professional Services) or review technical design documents for internal teams, this Review Checklist template is for you.  These five checks help you not to lose your customers by sending document without proper checks/ review.

Image courtesy of 89studio at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Technical document peer review checklist can be used as part of the process to sign off the design document or proposal to send it to the customer.

HP 3PAR Virtual Copy Explained

HP 3PAR virtual copy provides Point-In-Time thin-aware copy of base volume.

As part of the virtual copy process, HP 3PAR software uses allocate-on-write (or redirect-on-write) method which freezes the base volume and writes all new data on other disks (virtual copy disk).

VMware vSphere Multipathing policy best practices

Multipathing is the technique which helps ESXi hosts to have continuous connection to storage with the help of multiple storage paths.

This article talks about VMware ESXi multi-pathing best practices for various storage vendors (HP 3PAR StoreServ, MSA, IBM StorWize Family, EMC VNX etc...)

IBM StorWize Family -  Round Robin multi-pathing Policy

HP 3PAR StoreServ     -   Round Robin multi-pathing Policy
HP MSA 1040/2040 storage - Round Robin multi-pathing Policy

EMC VMAX and DMX Symmetrix Storage Array families - Round Robin multi-pathing Policy (Refer VMware article for more details) 

EMC VNX Family              -                              Round Robin multi-pathing Policy

Dell Compellent storage Family -             Round Robin multi-pathing Policy

NetApp FAS systems                      -              Round Robin multi-pathing Policy

In summary, Round Robin policy is the clear choice for all storage vendors.

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HP 3PAR SPOCC Menu explained

SPOCC ((Service Processor Onsite Customer Care) is a browser based management tool to support Inserv systems.

Note: Please read “HP 3PAR Service Processor (SP) explained” for more information about SP and all default passwords

SPOCC has following menu items (In bold) and their brief description is updated here.

HP 3PAR Service Processor (SP) explained

The Service Processor (SP) is one of the critical components of the HP 3PAR Storage systems which occupy 1RU in the standard rack. Virtual Service processor (OVF Appliance) is supported on HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 series and it can be deployed only on VMware vSphere hypervisor. As far as my knowledge, HP 3PAR Storage Processor is not supported to deploy on HyperV, XenServer etc.
I believe HP 3PAR Virtual Service Processor (VSP) download is not available online in general. You should be able to locate VSP DVD as part of the HP 3PAR shipment, if not contact HP Support for help.
UPDATE from a reader: With the latest release of HP 3PAR OS 3.1.3, Virtual Service Processor can be installed on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and Server 2012 in addition to VMware vSphere hypervisor.

Virtual Service processor is not supported on HP 3PAR StoreServ 10000 (V400 and V800), these models support only physical Storage processors (SP).

HP 3PAR SP does the following functions.

NetApp self-learn options

Having expertise on virtualisation, Citrix and storage is a great combination. It’s good to know as many storage technologies as possible but we can’t be expert in everything. In this article, I would like to write Hands-on lab options to self-learn NetApp technology.

Option 1: Lab on Demand