Tag Archive - myth

vmware labs

April 28, 2011 in , , , , , , , , , with 1 Comment

I’ve been working intensively with vmWARE products for the last couple of months.

I’ve already wrote about LabsPhoenix’s MYTH cluster entering phase 02 of its development – few months ahead of schedule. It is currently configured as a 3 nodes vSphere Enterprise+ cluster of very modest capacity (Resources: CPU 21GHz, Memory 48GB, Storage 4TB). Next phase is within 60days and will see those resources grow by another 66%. This ‘demo‘ has been so successful that we are already drafting plans for another cluster.

One of LabsPhoenix’s main client also asked me to re-factor its lab environment. Here, we are talking of a 4 nodes vSphere Enterprise cluster, built from scratch, with some very nice capacity (Resources: CPU 95Ghz, Memory 252GB, Storage 2TB).

I’m not throwing those numbers out there to poke anyone, its more of an offer: If anyone got some specific questions about vmWARE deployment, feel free to ping me. I’m often available for a quick chat. My cie, LabsPhoenix, also has some competent sysadmin if the problem get too large / if speed is of the essence.

Sometimes, we get hit by strange errors: Following an upgrade of the Cisco 3750 switches configuration to an higher MTU value (9000bits, to support jumbo frame on the attached iSCSI MSA); The VCENTER process started acting up on the management server. Quick restart of the process worked fined, but nothing in the log shows why the switch’s configuration reload broke that specific service.

Also, changing MTU value in a vmKernel interface is quite easy on vSphere 4.1 – it can even be done through the gui. You might search the option for quite some times though! It is hidden in Home>Inventory>Networking, in the distributed virtual switch configuration (right-click on it, edit setting). If your not using dvSwitch, then, your stuck through CLI commands.

Myth & my life.

February 8, 2011 in , , , with 15 Comments

Lots of stuff – as always.

A couple of days ago, phase 2 was completed for this client. 21.54ghz, 48gb . That’s not half bad for a small demo cluster.

Then, it went on with a new job (consulting) offer that I’ll have to seriously consider once this telecom contract reach ‘End-Of-Life’ phase (30 days to completion)

Then, while walking in Ottawa, fallen in love with this painting (so I’ve bought it to remember ‘Parc de la Gatineau’ when I’ll be moving out).

computerized procrastination

September 6, 2009 in , , , , , with 159 Comments

I have a lot of computers. Most of them are ‘throwaway‘ systems (no important data) that are destined to be used in any of the plethora of labs I am (through les Laboratoires Phoenix) conducting these days.

However, this week-end, I’ve been away from home and I’ve brought only one (nymph, my Thosiba Portege M200, tablet PC). The official reason is to work… but then, this is without counting my tendency to do a bit of procrastination with my coffee in the morning.

So:
* I now have Firefox 3.5.2 installed.
* My Debian (sid) system is up-to-date.
* My GIT server is getting re-designed.
* I’m currently waiting for my (new) kernel compilation linux-2.6.30.5…

Which bring me to the point of speaking about new options in the kernel. I had 2.6.24-1 (yeah, I know, old kernel) and I jumped to 2.6.30.5… and there is one nice feature that I really want to try!:
* Group CPU Scheduler (grouping tasks by user_id)