The VMware Partner Exchange conference will host around 2,500 attendees from 45 countries!
Check out this article from CNN’s Money site:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0584704.htm#vmwarepex
The event actually doesn’t “officially” start until tomorrow, 2/9/10, but I’m starting to see more and more people show up with their badges around their neck. Guess we’ll see the turnout for the keynote tomorrow!
Rudd and I are attending the VMware Partner Exchange 2010 in Las Vegas this week. I’ll be blogging anything interesting (and can blog due to NDA) that I come across while here. EMC and Cisco put on a Super Bowl party last night, which had around 1,000 people in attendance and it was pretty fun. I wish I could get someone to give me one of the VMware bean-bag-chairs that were there, that’d be awesome, but I’m sure it’d be hard to bag check that on my flight home ;-) It should be a fun and informative week. We’ll keep you all posted! 
Simon over at www.TechHead.co.uk put together this useful chart describing the max memory (RAM) limits for Windows 2008 (x86 and x64) and Windows 2008 R2 x64 and thought it was very useful so I’m posting here for reference.
http://www.techhead.co.uk/microsoft-windows-server-2008-and-2008-r2-maximum-memory-limits
| Version | Maximum Memory Limit (x64 Only) |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter | 2TB |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise | 2TB |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium | 2TB |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation | 8GB |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard | 32GB |
| Windows Web Server 2008 R2 | 32GB |
| Version | Max Memory Limit (x32) | Max Memory Limit (x64) |
| Windows Server 2008 Datacenter | 64GB | 2TB |
| Windows Server 2008 Enterprise | 64GB | 2TB |
| Windows Server 2008 Standard | 4GB | 32GB |
| Windows Small Business Server 2008 | 4GB | 32GB |
| Windows Web Server 2008 | 4GB | 32GB |
MSDN blog article about RDS improvements in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.
Here is the link straight to the document that shows some of the bandwidth improvements that have been made and MULTI-MEDIA REDIRECTION in RDP 7.0. For LAN environments RDS is a usable protocol.
Remote Desktop Protocol Performance Improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7
I thought this was a really good checklist of items you should be doing on a day-to-day basis as a SQL DBA to keep your environment healthy. It also has some great notes on steps to take before upgrades, installation, and some security bullet points. A great list, check it out.
http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/database-administration/brads-sure-dba-checklist/
Great article that talks at length about how hardware architecture DOES impact virtualization. If you’re not familiar with NUMA this is a must read and in general a very well written article. It might also help you troubleshoot poor performance of a VM by helping to define some of the metrics you can monitor to measure percent of remote memory being used.
Sometimes automated telephone systems can be a real pain, especially for very large corporations like HP. Finding the right way to contact the right group of people that know what you’re talking about can sometimes be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
So here’s “the best way” it’s been communicated to us by HP to contact HP Lefthand Technical Support:
Technical Support Phone Number:
- Dial 800-633-3600
- Select option 1 for ‘hardware’ (select this option even if it’s a software case. This eliminates the need to enter an SAID number, plus all calls, hardware and software, end up with the correct team regardless)
- Then select option 2 for ‘other hardware’
- Then at the voice prompt, speak “LeftHand Solutions”.
Also remember that the SAN/iQ is no longer handled by support. If you need licensing help, call SAN/iQ Licensing: 800-326-0411
This has been a long standing complaint of mine when people bring up Hyper-V…memory overcommit. I have heard the arguments against this and I’d really rather be the one choosing rather than lacking a feature I think really helps reduce the cost of virtualization and help the ROI impact that server (and soon desktop) virtualization can make. Now we’ll see when this gets rolled out, which is my other complaint of Hyper-V…tying a hypervisor to a OS release schedule.
VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 was released over the weekend. Some notes from the email that I received is below.
We are pleased to inform you that VMware VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6 (English and localized) is generally available as of late night January 29, 2010.
VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 provides the following improvements:
For details regarding the new fixes and improvements, please refer to the release notes.
VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6 is available for download.
For details regarding compatibility, please view vSphere Compatibility Matrixes.
Netbackup 7 is now available for all customers under Support/Maintenance. This lesson will show some useful information on What’s New in NetBackup 7, as presented by the Symantec webinar on February 2nd, 2010. The notes presented under each slide were notes from the webinar presentation including questions and answers from that presentation.
NetBackup 7.0 GA code is also now available on FileConnect.
Reminder: The FA and GA bits are exactly the same.
Upgrade Portal http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/332137
7.0 Compatibility Lists http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/303344
7.0 Documentation Links http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/341274
7.0 Download Information http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/341272
7.0 Late Breaking News http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/341271
I encourage you to read “Top Seven Reasons to Move to Symantec NetBackup™ 7”
http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/341275
Puredisk technology now built into Media Server. Can point disk to commodity disk, this is the dedup target.
Client level dedup, built into the Netbackup 7 client. Push out upgrade to clients in order to use.
For customers that use Puredisk already, NBU 7 still works with it through backwards compatibility.
You can dedupe in NBU 7 and also send it to a PureDisk storage pool if that’s needed.
Newer limits, new limit of 32TB of deduplicated data behind each media server (Puredisk pools was 16TB).
Cost for deduplication is an additional license, licensed per front-end capacity (how much data are you protecting).
Improved recovery process through guided VM recovery. Recover single file from block level backup. No need to stage data for recovery. Integration with vStorage API allows NBU to identify unused blocks, allows to store ~30% less data (option that needs to be enabled on backup).
When using the vStorage API, no Backup Proxy server needed. Can perform block level incremental backup of VM’s, while enabling file level restores.
vStorage API can also backup previous versions of ESX 3.5, without proxy server.
Can recover entire VM from "Friday" with 1 step. Don’t need to rebuild each incremental in order to restore.
Example of Storage Lifecycle Policy. Copying data (duplicating or replicating) with different retention times. Can also use an OST aware device to store and replicate data.
Application consistant recovery point, from multiple locations. New features in NBU 7.
Customers can also use NBU RealTime to protect/replicate only the NetBackup Catalog to another location for no charge.
Optional software that is a replacement for Veritas Backup Reporter (VBR) and Netbackup Operations Manager (NOM).
No additional charge for OpsCenter. Included with NetBackup code.
There is a licensed option for advanced analytics, business reporting, 3rd party backup application reporting but the licensed feature is optional.
Simplified licensing for virtual environments, per physical host, no longer cares about O/S on that host.
Terabyte based licensing now also includes clients. Licensed per Front-end data, doesn’t matter how many media servers, tape devices, clients, etc.
NetBackup 7 is built on NetBackup 6.5.4 code base.
First Availability program had over 600 customers and partners. Lewan was one of these.
Please post any questions that you might have regarding NetBackup 7 on this thread! We’ll do our best to answer them or find an answer for you!
If you’re interested in viewing a NetBackup 7 demo or would like to discuss your plans on moving to NetBackup 7 with our Professional Services Team, please contact your Lewan IT Solutions Sales Representative!
