Charter Manufacturing migrated their entire IT infrastructure from traditional blade servers and SAN storage to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud to simplify management and improve efficiencies. They first deployed Nutanix successfully at a remote site and then consolidated all workloads except a few specialized uses onto Nutanix when migrating their primary data center during an office relocation. The migration took less than four hours and ongoing management is greatly simplified with features like one-click upgrades and automation. Charter Manufacturing now benefits from a streamlined multi-cloud environment with reduced costs and improved reliability.
Power the Creation of Great Work Solution ProfileHitachi Vantara
This solution discusses how quality and speed are critical in solving storage and data management bottlenecks, delivering cost-effective solutions that are highly scalable for post-production tasks. Whether CGI animation, rendering, or transcoding, Hitachi Data Systems powers digital workflows, enabling extraordinary creative and business achievements with HUS and HNAS infrastructure offerings. For more information on Hitachi Unified Storage and Hitachi NAS Platform 4000 Series please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/network-attached-storage/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_hnasp
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Data Warehouse on Hitachi Converged PlatformHitachi Vantara
Accelerate breakthrough insights across your organization with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Data Warehouse running on the mission-critical and ready-to-deploy Hitachi server-storage-networking platform, Hitachi Unified Compute Platform. Amplify infrastructure performance with Hitachi and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse xVelocity in-memory technologies. Learn how your organization can extract 100 million+ records in 2 or 3 seconds versus the 30 minutes required previously. With SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse and Hitachi software, your organization will be able to leverage a data platform that processes any data anywhere. View this webcast and learn:How to reduce deployment time with ready-to-deploy solutions that have been engineered and pre-configured by Hitachi and validated by the Microsoft Fast Track Data Warehouse program. How Hitachi and Microsoft have optimized performance for your data warehouse requirements. How your organization can realize immediate ROI from your data warehouse investment. For more information on Hitachi Unified Compute Platform please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/hitachi-unified-compute-platform/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_ucp
VDI with Dell EqualLogic hybrid arrays: A comparative study with the industry...Principled Technologies
Building a VDI environment requires a solid storage system capable of meeting the demands of a large number of users. Being able to support all your users with an attractively priced storage solution is ideal.
We found the Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS to be simple to set up and manage during the course of testing, and it provided significantly higher usable capacity, at 9.1 TB versus 6.7 TB for the competing similarly configured, industry-leading NAS solution.
The Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS also was more power efficient, requiring 68.6 percent less power, while providing comparable performance to the industry-leading competitor. In addition, the solution also saved roughly 51.6 percent on the initial investment in hardware, software, and support, at a cost of $102 per desktop versus $210 for the competitor. The ease of setup and management, performance capabilities, and potential savings with the Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS show that it has the potential to power your VDI environment while helping your bottom line.
Simplify Data Center Monitoring With a Single-Pane ViewHitachi Vantara
Keeping IT systems up and well tuned requires constant attention, but the task is too often complicated by separate monitoring tools required to watch applications, servers, networks and storage. This white paper discusses how system administrators can consolidate oversight of these components, particularly where DataCore SANsymphony V storage hypervisor virtualizes the storage resources. Such visibility is made possible through the integration of SANsymphony-V with Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer.
Power the Creation of Great Work Solution ProfileHitachi Vantara
This solution discusses how quality and speed are critical in solving storage and data management bottlenecks, delivering cost-effective solutions that are highly scalable for post-production tasks. Whether CGI animation, rendering, or transcoding, Hitachi Data Systems powers digital workflows, enabling extraordinary creative and business achievements with HUS and HNAS infrastructure offerings. For more information on Hitachi Unified Storage and Hitachi NAS Platform 4000 Series please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/network-attached-storage/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_hnasp
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Data Warehouse on Hitachi Converged PlatformHitachi Vantara
Accelerate breakthrough insights across your organization with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Data Warehouse running on the mission-critical and ready-to-deploy Hitachi server-storage-networking platform, Hitachi Unified Compute Platform. Amplify infrastructure performance with Hitachi and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse xVelocity in-memory technologies. Learn how your organization can extract 100 million+ records in 2 or 3 seconds versus the 30 minutes required previously. With SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse and Hitachi software, your organization will be able to leverage a data platform that processes any data anywhere. View this webcast and learn:How to reduce deployment time with ready-to-deploy solutions that have been engineered and pre-configured by Hitachi and validated by the Microsoft Fast Track Data Warehouse program. How Hitachi and Microsoft have optimized performance for your data warehouse requirements. How your organization can realize immediate ROI from your data warehouse investment. For more information on Hitachi Unified Compute Platform please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/hitachi-unified-compute-platform/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_ucp
VDI with Dell EqualLogic hybrid arrays: A comparative study with the industry...Principled Technologies
Building a VDI environment requires a solid storage system capable of meeting the demands of a large number of users. Being able to support all your users with an attractively priced storage solution is ideal.
We found the Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS to be simple to set up and manage during the course of testing, and it provided significantly higher usable capacity, at 9.1 TB versus 6.7 TB for the competing similarly configured, industry-leading NAS solution.
The Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS also was more power efficient, requiring 68.6 percent less power, while providing comparable performance to the industry-leading competitor. In addition, the solution also saved roughly 51.6 percent on the initial investment in hardware, software, and support, at a cost of $102 per desktop versus $210 for the competitor. The ease of setup and management, performance capabilities, and potential savings with the Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS show that it has the potential to power your VDI environment while helping your bottom line.
Simplify Data Center Monitoring With a Single-Pane ViewHitachi Vantara
Keeping IT systems up and well tuned requires constant attention, but the task is too often complicated by separate monitoring tools required to watch applications, servers, networks and storage. This white paper discusses how system administrators can consolidate oversight of these components, particularly where DataCore SANsymphony V storage hypervisor virtualizes the storage resources. Such visibility is made possible through the integration of SANsymphony-V with Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer.
Bilcare Cost Effectively Scales For Business GrowthBilcare Research
Bilcare Research Cost-Effectively Scales for Business Growth with Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Integrated Virtualization. For More log on to White Papers http://www.bilcare.com/
Build the Optimal Mainframe Storage ArchitectureHitachi Vantara
White Paper which discusses the advantages of FICON networked storage. The paper focuses specifically on Hitachi VSP and Brocade 8510. It discusses why networked FICON and describes the Hitachi VSP enterprise storage and the Brocade 8510 director.
For more information on HDS and Brocade Solutions please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/networking/fibrechannel/brocade.html
A-B-C Strategies for File and Content BrochureHitachi Vantara
Explains each strategy, including archive 1st, back up less, consolidate more, distributed IT efficiency, enable e-discovery and compliance, and facilitate cloud. For more information on Unstructured Data Management Solutions by HDS please visit: http://www.hds.com/solutions/it-strategies/unstructured-data-management.html?WT.ac=us_mg_sol_udm
Face Data Challenges of Life Science Organizations With Next-Generation Hitac...Hitachi Vantara
Hitachi Unified Storage 100 family drives efficiency at reduced costs and improves the discovery-to-market cycle for life sciences organizations. For more information on Hitachi Unified Storage and Hitachi NAS Platform 4000 series please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/network-attached-storage/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_hnasp
Enterprise data-centers are straining to keep pace with dynamic business demands, as well as to incorporate advanced technologies and architectures that aim to improve infrastructure performance
MT12 - SAP solutions from Dell – from your Datacenter to the CloudDell EMC World
SAP HANA has accelerated the pace of innovation – an in-memory platform that runs analytics applications smarter, business processes faster, and data infrastructures simpler. Join this session to learn how Dell EMC offers the broadest solutions for SAP HANA for any sized customer with the best performance and the most customer choices- from on-premise to hybrid to cloud.
Storage Analytics: Transform Storage Infrastructure Into a Business EnablerHitachi Vantara
View this webinar session to learn how you can transform your storage infrastructure into a business enabler. You will learn: Tips and tricks to streamline storage performance monitoring across your Hitachi environment. How to define and enforce performance and capacity objectives for key business applications by establishing storage service level management. How to create storage service level management reports that satisfy the needs of multiple IT stakeholders (that is, CIO, architect, administrator). For more information on controlling costs of sprawling storage with storage analytics white paper: http://www.hds.com/assets/pdf/hitachi-white-paper-control-costs-and-sprawling-storage-with-storage-analytics.pdf
Dear Reader,
We are a leading system integrator and IT solutions provider in Mumbai for automating your enterprise needs with reliable solutions since 30 years.
Read more on how Batlivala & Karani Securities migrates from traditional IT to Hyper-Converged Infrastructure with Galaxy as Implementation Partner.
We have helped 100+ companies in last 30 years for various IT Solutions. For such interesting updates follow our linkedIn Company page on:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/galaxy-office-automation-pvt--ltd-/
DataCore’s Fifth Annual State of Software-Defined Storage (SDS) Survey Reveals Surprising Lack of Spending on Big Data, Object Storage and OpenStack. In contrast, more than half of organizations polled (52 percent) look to extend the life of existing storage assets and future-proof their IT infrastructure with SDS in 2015.
On the other hand, this year’s report reveals several major business drivers for implementing Software-Defined Storage. 52 percent of respondents expect SDS will extend the life of existing storage assets and future-proof their storage infrastructure, enabling them to easily absorb new technologies. Close to half of respondents look to SDS to avoid hardware lock-in from storage manufacturers, while lowering hardware costs by allowing them to shop among several competing suppliers. Operationally, they see SDS simplifying management of different classes of storage by automating frequent or complex operations. This is notable in comparison with earlier surveys, as these results portray a sharp increase in the recognition of the economic benefits generated by SDS (reduced CAPEX), complementing the OPEX savings referenced in prior years.
Other surprises include: while flash technology penetration expanded it is still absent in 28 percent of the cases and 16 percent reported that it did not meet application acceleration expectations. Also interesting is that 21 percent reported that highly touted hyper-converged systems did not perform as required or did not integrate well within their infrastructure. On the other hand, Software-Defined Storage and storage virtualization are deemed very urgent now, with 72 percent of organizations making important investments in these technologies throughout 2015. 81 percent also expect similar levels of spending on Software-Defined Storage technologies that will be incorporated within server SANs / virtual SANs and converged storage solutions.
Explains how backup-free storage reduces cost and complexity; provides benefits of Hitachi Content Platform; includes brief HDS backup use cases.
For more information on our Unstructured Data Management Solutions please check: http://www.hds.com/go/hitachi-abc-ebook-managing-data/
Reduce Costs and Complexity with Backup-Free StorageHitachi Vantara
The growth in unstructured data stresses traditional backup and restore operations. Numerous, disparate systems with large numbers of files and duplicate copies of data increase backup and restore times and hurt the performance and availability of production systems. Cost and complexity rise, with more backup instances to buy and manage, more care and handling of an increasing numbers of tapes, and more management of offsite storage. In addition, you may need to support analytics, a compliance audit, or legal action that needs information that is stored offsite. By tiering data to an archive, you can reduce total backup volume by at least 30%. By extending that core archive to the edges of your business, your potential gains are worth investigating. View this webcast to learn how to: Lower capital expenses (hardware, software, licensing, and so on). Control maintenance costs. Simplify management complexity. Reduce backup volume, time cost, and time and administrative effort. For more information on Hitachi Data Systems File and Content Solutions please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_filecont
Bilcare Cost Effectively Scales For Business GrowthBilcare Research
Bilcare Research Cost-Effectively Scales for Business Growth with Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Integrated Virtualization. For More log on to White Papers http://www.bilcare.com/
Build the Optimal Mainframe Storage ArchitectureHitachi Vantara
White Paper which discusses the advantages of FICON networked storage. The paper focuses specifically on Hitachi VSP and Brocade 8510. It discusses why networked FICON and describes the Hitachi VSP enterprise storage and the Brocade 8510 director.
For more information on HDS and Brocade Solutions please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/networking/fibrechannel/brocade.html
A-B-C Strategies for File and Content BrochureHitachi Vantara
Explains each strategy, including archive 1st, back up less, consolidate more, distributed IT efficiency, enable e-discovery and compliance, and facilitate cloud. For more information on Unstructured Data Management Solutions by HDS please visit: http://www.hds.com/solutions/it-strategies/unstructured-data-management.html?WT.ac=us_mg_sol_udm
Face Data Challenges of Life Science Organizations With Next-Generation Hitac...Hitachi Vantara
Hitachi Unified Storage 100 family drives efficiency at reduced costs and improves the discovery-to-market cycle for life sciences organizations. For more information on Hitachi Unified Storage and Hitachi NAS Platform 4000 series please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/network-attached-storage/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_hnasp
Enterprise data-centers are straining to keep pace with dynamic business demands, as well as to incorporate advanced technologies and architectures that aim to improve infrastructure performance
MT12 - SAP solutions from Dell – from your Datacenter to the CloudDell EMC World
SAP HANA has accelerated the pace of innovation – an in-memory platform that runs analytics applications smarter, business processes faster, and data infrastructures simpler. Join this session to learn how Dell EMC offers the broadest solutions for SAP HANA for any sized customer with the best performance and the most customer choices- from on-premise to hybrid to cloud.
Storage Analytics: Transform Storage Infrastructure Into a Business EnablerHitachi Vantara
View this webinar session to learn how you can transform your storage infrastructure into a business enabler. You will learn: Tips and tricks to streamline storage performance monitoring across your Hitachi environment. How to define and enforce performance and capacity objectives for key business applications by establishing storage service level management. How to create storage service level management reports that satisfy the needs of multiple IT stakeholders (that is, CIO, architect, administrator). For more information on controlling costs of sprawling storage with storage analytics white paper: http://www.hds.com/assets/pdf/hitachi-white-paper-control-costs-and-sprawling-storage-with-storage-analytics.pdf
Dear Reader,
We are a leading system integrator and IT solutions provider in Mumbai for automating your enterprise needs with reliable solutions since 30 years.
Read more on how Batlivala & Karani Securities migrates from traditional IT to Hyper-Converged Infrastructure with Galaxy as Implementation Partner.
We have helped 100+ companies in last 30 years for various IT Solutions. For such interesting updates follow our linkedIn Company page on:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/galaxy-office-automation-pvt--ltd-/
DataCore’s Fifth Annual State of Software-Defined Storage (SDS) Survey Reveals Surprising Lack of Spending on Big Data, Object Storage and OpenStack. In contrast, more than half of organizations polled (52 percent) look to extend the life of existing storage assets and future-proof their IT infrastructure with SDS in 2015.
On the other hand, this year’s report reveals several major business drivers for implementing Software-Defined Storage. 52 percent of respondents expect SDS will extend the life of existing storage assets and future-proof their storage infrastructure, enabling them to easily absorb new technologies. Close to half of respondents look to SDS to avoid hardware lock-in from storage manufacturers, while lowering hardware costs by allowing them to shop among several competing suppliers. Operationally, they see SDS simplifying management of different classes of storage by automating frequent or complex operations. This is notable in comparison with earlier surveys, as these results portray a sharp increase in the recognition of the economic benefits generated by SDS (reduced CAPEX), complementing the OPEX savings referenced in prior years.
Other surprises include: while flash technology penetration expanded it is still absent in 28 percent of the cases and 16 percent reported that it did not meet application acceleration expectations. Also interesting is that 21 percent reported that highly touted hyper-converged systems did not perform as required or did not integrate well within their infrastructure. On the other hand, Software-Defined Storage and storage virtualization are deemed very urgent now, with 72 percent of organizations making important investments in these technologies throughout 2015. 81 percent also expect similar levels of spending on Software-Defined Storage technologies that will be incorporated within server SANs / virtual SANs and converged storage solutions.
Explains how backup-free storage reduces cost and complexity; provides benefits of Hitachi Content Platform; includes brief HDS backup use cases.
For more information on our Unstructured Data Management Solutions please check: http://www.hds.com/go/hitachi-abc-ebook-managing-data/
Reduce Costs and Complexity with Backup-Free StorageHitachi Vantara
The growth in unstructured data stresses traditional backup and restore operations. Numerous, disparate systems with large numbers of files and duplicate copies of data increase backup and restore times and hurt the performance and availability of production systems. Cost and complexity rise, with more backup instances to buy and manage, more care and handling of an increasing numbers of tapes, and more management of offsite storage. In addition, you may need to support analytics, a compliance audit, or legal action that needs information that is stored offsite. By tiering data to an archive, you can reduce total backup volume by at least 30%. By extending that core archive to the edges of your business, your potential gains are worth investigating. View this webcast to learn how to: Lower capital expenses (hardware, software, licensing, and so on). Control maintenance costs. Simplify management complexity. Reduce backup volume, time cost, and time and administrative effort. For more information on Hitachi Data Systems File and Content Solutions please visit: http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/?WT.ac=us_mg_pro_filecont
Richardson Eyres provide datacentre technology infrastructure solutions and services that solve complex business challenges for corporate clients in the UK and Europe.
It works with its customers to provide a combination of customised solutions and services which free up time, resources and ultimately save its customers’ money.
Richardson Eyres develops long-term and mutually beneficial relationships working with its customers to ensure that it provides bespoke solutions and services to help their business run efficiently, effectively and above all, profitably.
It has partnerships with HP and VMware, and is one of a small number of ServiceONE Expert partners in the UK. It also provides solutions for companies globally, from their offices in the UK.
With over 27 years IT consultancy experience and some of the most qualified technical consultants in the UK Richardson Eyres has extensive technical knowledge and the know-how to apply this knowledge to help organisations get the most from their IT. Established in 1986, the company is privately owned and its headquarters is in Chesham, Buckinghamshire.
Andmekeskuste töökindlusele ja kiirusele esitatavate nõuetega koos on kasvanud süsteemide keerukus. Uue põlvkonna konvergentsilahendused lihtsustavad arhitektuuri, vähendavad halduskoormust ja suurendavad seejuures süsteemi üldist töökindlust. Kuidas SimpliVity selle saavutab ja mida veel silmas pidada.
Global data is on the rise, in terms of scale, complexity & functionality, paving a way for data centers to be more intuitive, coherent, holistic, & easily accessible.
The capabilities DataCore delivers have recently been significantly uplifted and streamlined further for virtualized server environments in its latest SANsymphony-V release. For brevity, it’s hard to beat DataCore’s press release which points out that “SANsymphony offers a flexible, open software platform from which to provision, share, reconfigure, migrate, replicate, expand and upgrade storage without slowdowns or downtime.” The product is agnostic with regard to the underlying storage hardware and can essentially breathe life and operational value into whatever is on a user’s floor. It is robust, flexible, and responsive and it can deliver value in terms of, for instance, better economics, improved response times, high availability (HA), and easy management administration.
This white paper will examine SANsymphony-V's place in the Software-Defined Storage marketplace and review it's core features and capabilities.
SDDC – a term that still dwells in the futuristic sense of things, is perhaps the next major milestone in a cloud-centric world that can entirely change the way data is stored and managed.
Jump-Start the Enterprise Journey to the CloudLindaWatson19
In the pre-1880 era onsite power generation was the norm for factories. When the central power stations were built, these factories outsourced their power generation. Cloud infrastructure presents a similar opportunity for organizations wishing to outsource their IT infrastructure.
Similar to Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi-cloud environment with Nutanix Report (20)
Investing in GenAI: Cost‑benefit analysis of Dell on‑premises deployments vs....Principled Technologies
Conclusion
Diving into the world of GenAI has the potential to yield a great many benefits for your organization, but it first requires consideration for how best to implement those GenAI workloads. Whether your AI goals are to create a chatbot for online visitors, generate marketing materials, aid troubleshooting, or something else, implementing an AI solution requires careful planning and decision-making. A major decision is whether to host GenAI in the cloud or keep your data on premises. Traditional on-premises solutions can provide superior security and control, a substantial concern when dealing with large amounts of potentially sensitive data. But will supporting a GenAI solution on site be a drain on an organization’s IT budget?
In our research, we found that the value proposition is just the opposite: Hosting GenAI workloads on premises, either in a traditional Dell solution or using a managed Dell APEX pay-per-use solution, could significantly lower your GenAI costs over 3 years compared to hosting these workloads in the cloud. In fact, we found that a comparable AWS SageMaker solution would cost up to 3.8 times as much and an Azure ML solution would cost up to 3.6 times as much as GenAI on a Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. These results show that organizations looking to implement GenAI and reap the business benefits to come can find many advantages in an on-premises Dell solution, whether they opt to purchase and manage it themselves or choose a subscription-based Dell APEX pay-per-use solution. Choosing an on-premises Dell solution could save your organization significantly over hosting GenAI in the cloud, while giving you control over the security and privacy of your data as well as any updates and changes to the environment, and while ensuring your environment is managed consistently.
Workstations powered by Intel can play a vital role in CPU-intensive AI devel...Principled Technologies
In three AI development workflows, Intel processor-powered workstations delivered strong performance, without using their GPUs, making them a good choice for this part of the AI process
Conclusion
We executed three AI development workflows on tower workstations and mobile workstations from three vendors, with each workflow utilizing only the Intel CPU cores, and found that these platforms were suitable for carrying out various AI tasks. For two of the workflows, we learned that completing the tasks on the tower workstations took roughly half as much time as on the mobile workstations. This supports the idea that the tower workstations would be appropriate for a development environment for more complex models with a greater volume of data and that the mobile workstations would be well-suited for data scientists fine-tuning simpler models. In the third workflow, we explored tower workstation performance with different precision levels and learned that using 16-bit floating point precision allowed the workstations to execute the workflow in less time and also reduced memory usage dramatically. For all three AI workflows we executed, we consider the time the workstations needed to complete the tasks to be acceptable, and believe that these workstations can be appropriate, cost-effective choices for these kinds of activities.
Enable security features with no impact to OLTP performance with Dell PowerEd...Principled Technologies
Get comparable online transaction processing (OLTP) performance with or without enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization - Encrypted State
Conclusion
You’ve likely already implemented many security measures for your servers, which may include physical security for the data center, hardware-level security, and software-level security. With the cost of data breaches high and still growing, however, wise IT teams will consider what additional security measures they may be able to implement.
AMD SME and SEV-ES are technologies that are already available within your AMD processor-powered 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers—and in our testing, we saw that they can offer extra layers of security without affecting performance. We compared the online transaction processing performance of a Dell PowerEdge R7625 server, powered by AMD EPYC 9274F processors, with and without these two security features enabled. We found that enabling AMD Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Encrypted State did not impact performance at all.
If your team is assessing areas where you might be able to enhance security—without paying a large performance cost—consider enabling AME SME and AMD SEV-ES in your Dell PowerEdge servers.
Improving energy efficiency in the data center: Endure higher temperatures wi...Principled Technologies
In high-temperature test scenarios, a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server continued running an intensive workload without component warnings or failures, while a Supermicro SYS‑621C-TN12R server failed
Conclusion: Remain resilient in high temperatures with the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 to help increase efficiency
Increasing your data center’s temperature can help your organization make strides in energy efficiency and cooling cost savings. With servers that can hold up to these higher everyday temperatures—as well as high temperatures due to unforeseen circumstances—your business can continue to deliver the performance your apps and clients require.
When we ran an intensive floating-point workload on a Dell PowerEdge HS5620 and a Supermicro SYS-621CTN12R in three scenario types simulating typical operations at 25°C, a fan failure, and an HVAC malfunction, the Dell server experienced no component warnings or failures. In contrast, the Supermicro server experienced warnings in all three scenario types and experienced component failures in the latter two tests, rendering the system unusable. When we inspected and analyzed each system, we found that the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 server’s motherboard layout, fans, and chassis offered cooling design advantages.
For businesses aiming to meet sustainability goals by running hotter data centers, as well as those concerned with server cooling design, the Dell PowerEdge HS5620 is a strong contender to take on higher temperatures during day-to-day operations and unexpected malfunctions.
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a Kubernetes container-based generative AI workload effectively
Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift: An easily deployable and powe...Principled Technologies
The 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor‑powered solution deployed in less than two hours and ran a generative AI workload effectively
Conclusion
The appeal of incorporating GenAI into your organization’s operations is likely great. Getting started with an efficient solution for your next LLM workload or application can seem daunting because of the changing hardware and software landscape, but Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors could provide the solution you need. We started with a Dell Validated Design as a reference, and then went on to modify the deployment as necessary for our Llama 2 workload. The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift solution worked well for our LLM, and by using this deployment guide in conjunction with numerous Dell documents and some flexibility, you could be well on your way to innovating your next GenAI breakthrough.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
For organizations running clusters of moderately configured, older Dell PowerEdge servers with a previous version of VCF, upgrading to better-configured modern servers can provide a significant performance boost and more.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Realize 2.1X the performance with 20% less power with AMD EPYC processor-back...Principled Technologies
Three AMD EPYC processor-based two-processor solutions outshined comparable Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based solutions by handling more Redis workload transactions and requests while consuming less power
Conclusion
Performance and energy efficiency are significant factors in processor selection for servers running data-intensive workloads, such as Redis. We compared the Redis performance and energy consumption of a server cluster in three AMD EPYC two-processor configurations against that of a server cluster in two Intel Xeon Scalable two-processor configurations. In each of our three test scenarios, the server cluster backed by AMD EPYC processors outperformed the server cluster backed by Intel Xeon Scalable processors. In addition, one of the AMD EPYC processor-based clusters consumed 20 percent less power than its Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based counterpart. Combining these measurements gave us power efficiency metrics that demonstrate how valuable AMD EPYC processor-based servers could be—you could see better performance per watt with these AMD EPYC processor-based server clusters and potentially get more from your Redis or other data intensive applications and workloads while reducing data center power costs.
Improve performance and gain room to grow by easily migrating to a modern Ope...Principled Technologies
We deployed this modern environment, then migrated database VMs from legacy servers and saw performance improvements that support consolidation
Conclusion
If your organization’s transactional databases are running on gear that is several years old, you have much to gain by upgrading to modern servers with new processors and networking components and an OpenShift environment. In our testing, a modern OpenShift environment with a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7615 servers with 4th Generation AMD EPYC processors and high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs outperformed a legacy environment with MySQL VMs running on a cluster of three Dell PowerEdge R7515 servers with 3rd Generation AMD EPYC processors and 25Gb Broadcom NICs. We also easily migrated a VM from the legacy environment to the modern environment, with only a few steps required to set up and less than ten minutes of hands-on time. The performance advantage of the modern servers would allow a company to reduce the number of servers necessary to perform a given amount of database work, thus lowering operational expenditures such as power and cooling and IT staff time for maintenance. The high-speed 100Gb Broadcom NICs in this solution also give companies better network performance and networking capacity to grow as they embrace emerging technologies such as AI that put great demands on networks.
Boost PC performance: How more available memory can improve productivityPrincipled Technologies
With more memory available, system performance of three Dell devices increased, which can translate to a better user experience
Conclusion
When your system has plenty of RAM to meet your needs, you can efficiently access the applications and data you need to finish projects and to-do lists without sacrificing time and focus. Our test results show that with more memory available, three Dell PCs delivered better performance and took less time to complete the Procyon Office Productivity benchmark. These advantages translate to users being able to complete workflows more quickly and multitask more easily. Whether you need the mobility of the Latitude 5440, the creative capabilities of the Precision 3470, or the high performance of the OptiPlex Tower Plus 7010, configuring your system with more RAM can help keep processes running smoothly, enabling you to do more without compromising performance.
Deploy with confidence: VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdg...Principled Technologies
A Principled Technologies deployment guide
Conclusion
Deploying VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 on next gen Dell PowerEdge servers brings together critical virtualization capabilities and high-performing hardware infrastructure. Relying on our hands-on experience, this deployment guide offers a comprehensive roadmap that can guide your organization through the seamless integration of advanced VMware cloud solutions with the performance and reliability of Dell PowerEdge servers. In addition to the deployment efficiency, the Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge solution delivered strong performance while running a MySQL database workload. By leveraging VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 and PowerEdge servers, you could help your organization embrace cloud computing with confidence, potentially unlocking a new level of agility, scalability, and efficiency in your data center operations.
Upgrade your cloud infrastructure with Dell PowerEdge R760 servers and VMware...Principled Technologies
Compared to a cluster of PowerEdge R750 servers running VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5
Conclusion
If your company is struggling with underperforming infrastructure, upgrading to 16th Generation Dell PowerEdge servers running VCF 5.1 could be just what you need to handle more database throughput and reduce vSAN latencies. We found that a Dell PowerEdge R760 server cluster running VCF 5.1 processed over 78 percent more TPM and 79 percent more NOPM than a Dell PowerEdge R750 server cluster running VCF 4.5. It’s also worth noting that the PowerEdge R750 cluster bottlenecked on vSAN storage, with max write latency at 8.9ms. For reference, the PowerEdge R760 cluster clocked in at 3.8ms max write latency. This higher latency is due in part to the single disk group per host on the moderately configured PowerEdge R750 cluster, while the better-configured PowerEdge R760 cluster supported four disk groups per host. As an additional benefit to IT admins, we also found that the embedded VMware Aria Operation adapter provided useful infrastructure insights.
Based on our research using publicly available materials, it appears that Dell supports nine of the ten PC security features we investigated, HP supports six of them, and Lenovo supports three features.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Increase security, sustainability, and efficiency with robust Dell server man...Principled Technologies
Compared to the Supermicro management portfolio
Conclusion
Choosing a vendor for server purchases is about more than just the hardware platform. Decision-makers must also consider more long-term concerns, including system/data security, energy efficiency, and ease of management. These concerns make the systems management tools a vendor offers as important as the hardware.
We investigated the features and capabilities of server management tools from Dell and Supermicro, comparing Dell iDRAC9 against Supermicro IPMI for embedded server management and Dell OpenManage Enterprise and CloudIQ against Supermicro Server Manager for one-to-many device and console management and monitoring. We found that the Dell management tools provided more comprehensive security, sustainability, and management/monitoring features and capabilities than Supermicro servers did. In addition, Dell tools automated more tasks to ease server management, resulting in significant time savings for administrators versus having to do the same tasks manually with Supermicro tools.
When making a server purchase, a vendor’s associated management products are critical to protect data, support a more sustainable environment, and to ease the maintenance of systems. Our tests and research showed that the Dell management portfolio for PowerEdge servers offered more features to help organizations meet these goals than the comparable Supermicro management products.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS ...Principled Technologies
In our tests, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS outperformed similarly configured solutions from Vendor A, achieving more IOPS, better throughput, and more consistent performance on both NVMe-supported configurations and configurations backed by Elastic Block Store (EBS) alone.
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS supports a full NVMe backed configuration, but Vendor A doesn’t—its solution uses EBS for storage capacity and NVMe as an extended read cache—which means APEX Block Storage for AWS can deliver faster storage performance.
Scale up your storage with higher-performing Dell APEX Block Storage for AWSPrincipled Technologies
Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger and more consistent storage performance for better business agility than a Vendor A solution
Conclusion
Enterprises desiring the flexibility and convenience of the cloud for their block storage workloads can find fast-performing solutions with the enterprise storage features they’re used to in on-premises infrastructure by selecting Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS.
Our hands-on tests showed that compared to the Vendor A solution, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered stronger, more consistent storage performance in both NVMe-supported and EBS-backed configurations. Using NVMe-supported configurations, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS achieved 4.7x the random read IOPS and 5.1x the throughput on sequential read operations per node vs. Vendor A. In our EBS-backed comparison, Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS offered 2.2x the throughput per node on sequential read operations vs. Vendor A.
Plus, the ability to scale beyond three nodes—up to 512 storage nodes with capacity of up to 8 PBs—enables Dell APEX Block Storage for AWS to help ensure performance and capacity as your team plans for the future.
Get in and stay in the productivity zone with the HP Z2 G9 Tower WorkstationPrincipled Technologies
We compared CPU performance and noise output of an HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation in High Performance Mode to Dell Precision 3660 and 5860 tower workstations in optimized performance modes
Conclusion
HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users can change the BIOS settings to dial in the performance mode that best suits their needs: High Performance Mode, Performance Mode, or Quiet Mode. In good
news for both creative and technical professionals, we found that an Intel Core i9-13900 processor-powered HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation set to High Performance mode received higher CPU-based benchmark scores than both a similarly configured Dell Precision 3660 and a Dell Precision 5860 equipped with an Intel Xeon w5-2455x processor. Plus, the HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation was quieter while running CPU-intensive Cinebench 2024 and SPECapc for Solidworks 2022 workloads than both Dell Precision tower workstations. This means HP Z2 G9 Tower Workstation users who prize performance over everything else can do so without sacrificing a quiet workspace.
Open up new possibilities with higher transactional database performance from...Principled Technologies
In our PostgreSQL tests, R7i instances boosted performance over R6i instances with previous-gen processors
If you use the open-source PostgreSQL database to run your critical business operations, you have many cloud options from which to choose. While many of these instances can do the job, some can deliver stronger performance, which can mean getting a greater return on your cloud investment.
We conducted hands-on testing with the HammerDB TPROC-C benchmark to see how the PostgreSQL performance of Amazon EC2 R7i instances, enabled by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, stacked up to that of R6i instances with previous-generation processors. We learned that small, medium-sized, and large R7i instances with the newer processors delivered better OLTP performance, with improvements as high as 13.8 percent. By choosing the R7i instances, your organization has the potential to support more users, deliver a better experience to those users, and even lower your cloud operating expenditures by requiring fewer instances to get the job done.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Search and Society: Reimagining Information Access for Radical FuturesBhaskar Mitra
The field of Information retrieval (IR) is currently undergoing a transformative shift, at least partly due to the emerging applications of generative AI to information access. In this talk, we will deliberate on the sociotechnical implications of generative AI for information access. We will argue that there is both a critical necessity and an exciting opportunity for the IR community to re-center our research agendas on societal needs while dismantling the artificial separation between the work on fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in IR and the rest of IR research. Instead of adopting a reactionary strategy of trying to mitigate potential social harms from emerging technologies, the community should aim to proactively set the research agenda for the kinds of systems we should build inspired by diverse explicitly stated sociotechnical imaginaries. The sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin the design and development of information access technologies needs to be explicitly articulated, and we need to develop theories of change in context of these diverse perspectives. Our guiding future imaginaries must be informed by other academic fields, such as democratic theory and critical theory, and should be co-developed with social science scholars, legal scholars, civil rights and social justice activists, and artists, among others.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Let's dive deeper into the world of ODC! Ricardo Alves (OutSystems) will join us to tell all about the new Data Fabric. After that, Sezen de Bruijn (OutSystems) will get into the details on how to best design a sturdy architecture within ODC.
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi-cloud environment with Nutanix Report
1. Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a
multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix
Nutanix Enterprise Cloud improves efficiencies at a family of
manufacturing companies serving customers around the world
A few years ago, Charter Manufacturing, a large steel and iron production and manufacturing
company, was moving their corporate location to a larger building. It was the perfect
opportunity for another kind of move: from traditional blade servers to a hyperconverged
infrastructure that could simplify and consolidate the company’s enterprise resource planning,
supply chain logistics, and virtualized infrastructure. The infrastructure of choice? The Nutanix®
Enterprise Cloud Platform™
.
In August 2018, our analysts at Principled Technologies set out to learn what the company’s
IT team thinks about the hyperconverged infrastructure. We talked with the IT Infrastructure
Director at Charter Manufacturing, who walked us through his team’s Nutanix Enterprise
Cloud deployment and ongoing management experience.
This document delves into our conversation about the realities of day-to-day user experience
with Nutanix Enterprise Cloud in a multi-location production and manufacturing environment.
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019
A Principled Technologies interview report: In-depth explorations of real-world value.
2. Table of contents
Executive summary......................................................................................................................3
Reasons for shifting away from a traditional architecture...........................................................3
Remote site challenges...........................................................................................................................................4
Primary data center challenges...............................................................................................................................4
The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud journey........................................................................................5
Benefits of hyperconverged architecture................................................................................................................6
Deploying Nutanix Enterprise Cloud..........................................................................................6
Pre-deployment......................................................................................................................................................6
Deployment and migration.....................................................................................................................................7
Site evacuation........................................................................................................................................................7
Hypervisors, virtual servers, and applications.........................................................................................................9
Best practices........................................................................................................................................................10
Networking details................................................................................................................................................10
Performance and speed improvements................................................................................................................10
Smaller footprint...................................................................................................................................................10
Ongoing management...............................................................................................................11
Automation...........................................................................................................................................................11
Data protection and disaster recovery..................................................................................................................12
Technical support and online resources................................................................................................................12
Advanced functionality..............................................................................................................12
Spotlight on Nutanix Capacity Advisor.................................................................................................................12
Current evaluations and future plans........................................................................................13
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................13
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 2
3. Executive summary
The relatively small IT server infrastructure team (five people) at
Charter Manufacturing wanted to simplify and consolidate their
disparate management processes for enterprise resource planning
(ERP), supply chain logistics, and virtualized infrastructure. With
24/7 manufacturing uptime requirements and no prolonged outage
windows available, they were struggling with common maintenance
tasks (like providing driver and firmware updates, managing
capacity and storage, and fine-tuning for iSCSI) on their traditional
hardware solutions.
Previously, they had successfully deployed a small Nutanix
Enterprise Cloud cluster in a newly acquired remote division
with a few hundred users. Now, with a site evacuation coming
up, they decided to migrate their entire operation to Nutanix
Enterprise Cloud.
Configuring the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud solution at the primary data center took under four hours—and that
included racking. With the exception of a few purpose-built use cases, all their primary data center and remote
offices now run on Nutanix.
In our interview, the IT Infrastructure Director revealed that the team has benefited from a significant decrease in
management tasks and complexity since making the switch. The Nutanix solution has enabled them to efficiently
consolidate their infrastructure including day two operations, run ERP and other mission-critical applications,
streamline system maintenance, replace various software tools with native built-in management, and make
improvements that add resiliency to their disaster recovery strategies through built-in features.
Reasons for shifting away from a traditional architecture
Before the move to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, the server infrastructure team at Charter Manufacturing ran a large
mix of workloads on a variety of hardware setups. They had to deal with everything from traditional server and
SAN storage solutions in their primary data center, to isolated server deployments in remote offices, including:
• Virtualized workloads running on VMware®
• An ERP software solution
• Supply chain and logistics solutions
• Data warehouse analytics
• Microsoft Windows workloads:
yy Infrastructure (Active Directory, IIS)
yy Database
yy File and print services
yy Optical character recognition (OCR)
yy Workflow tools
yy Remote desktop services applications
• Middleware and integration systems
• Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
“Given the success of our smaller
Nutanix implementations, we realized
right away that as hardware came up
for refresh, we would move all of those
workloads onto Nutanix. That worked
out tremendously.”
—IT Infrastructure Director
According to Charter Manufacturing,
“Charter Manufacturing is a fourth-
generation family owned business with a
deep history of innovation, entrepreneurial
spirit and determination to grow which
has made them a market leader in metals
manufacturing. Comprised of four distinct
businesses including Charter Steel, Charter
Wire, Charter Automotive and Charter Dura-
Bar, the Company has been on a journey to
continuously improve in areas of technology,
security and user experience.” To learn more,
visit their website:
https://www.chartermfg.com
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 3
4. The move to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud not only consolidated and simplified the infrastructure, it also streamlined
infrastructure maintenance and provided a rich feature set that simplified and consolidated management
processes. The IT Infrastructure Director estimates the time spent managing their Nutanix Enterprise
Cloud solutions is in the realm of one-tenth the amount of effort they spent maintaining the traditional
legacy environment.
Remote site challenges
About five years ago, the Charter Manufacturing IT server
infrastructure team realized they needed a hardware refresh in a
newly-acquired remote division. But refreshing with a traditional
blade server architecture with SAN and dedicated iSCSI networking,
like the one they used at their primary data center, was overkill for
this mid-sized location of around 250 users.
Primary data center challenges
Meanwhile, maintaining Charter Manufacturing’s primary data center had become very labor intensive. The
five-person IT team struggled to keep up with common maintenance tasks across the traditional blade server
platform. Meanwhile, iSCSI SAN deployments required significant planning to ensure availability, forcing the
team to bring in third-party specialists to help. But, even with outside help, full execution and resolution could
take several months because of production and manufacturing demands.
The IT server infrastructure team had to keep various virtualization software components running and up-to-
date—an increasingly onerous task as the hardware aged. When component failures or outages arose, the team
had to update all drivers and firmware before they could even begin to address and ultimately resolve the issue.
Legacy IT pain points included:
• Sluggish performance due to aging hardware, increased production, and growing business
• Insufficient on-site IT management resources
• Administrative overhead from time- and cost-heavy traditional deployments
Remote site legacy IT
• Traditional servers and storage
• No shared storage
• Virtualized using standalone
VMware deployment
Primary data center legacy IT
• Traditional blade servers/enclosures
• iSCSI SAN storage and
dedicated switching
• Virtualized and managed using
VMware tools
yy vSphere®
(vCenter, ESXi, Platform
Services Controller™
, etc.)
yy vRealize®
Orchestrator™
yy Site Recovery Manager™
“There were many times where we’d
call support for a goofy performance
problem or outage. And their first
response was ‘Update all your drivers
and firmware.’ With Nutanix, we don’t
have to worry about that anymore.
Anyone in a complex environment will
understand the value of the one-click
upgrade process. It’s tremendous.”
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 4
5. The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud journey
The Charter Manufacturing IT server infrastructure team took a slow and steady approach to their deployment of
the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud across their entire company. First, they researched hyperconverged solutions. Then
they selected a small Nutanix Enterprise Cloud cluster to replace the standalone VMware servers at a remote site
with aging hardware. The team chose Nutanix Enterprise Cloud hyperconverged infrastructure because Nutanix
addressed three key issues:
• They needed a compact solution appropriate for a mid-sized remote site with a few hundred users.
• This solution needed to provide advanced features and enable full hypervisor functionality through shared
storage vs. standalone instances for workload mobility/flexibility.
• They wanted to avoid the administrative overhead that would come with deploying a feature-equivalent
traditional infrastructure.
After a successful proof of concept at the remote site, the IT team discovered that the
Nutanix Enterprise Cloud is:
• Easy to maintain and manage, which could save administrator costs.
• Independent and HTML-based—this means it’s not dependent on a specific hypervisor.
• Convenient, because it allows administrators to issue commands through the API.
• Adaptable—it offers flexible hypervisor options, allowing IT teams to choose what fits their workloads best.
• Fully featured and delivers robust storage performance in addition to storage efficiency features and
integrations, reducing the need for additional software tools.
Even better, when the time came to deploy and migrate the remote site’s standalone servers to the Nutanix
Enterprise Cloud, Charter Manufacturing didn’t need to contract the work out—the process required little
planning, and deployment was seamless.
The IT Infrastructure Director also told us that downtime was minimal, involving only the amount of time it
required to migrate the VM file system from the old servers to the new Nutanix cluster using vMotion®
and
reboot the virtual machines on the Nutanix cluster.
After they worked with the Nutanix architecture for about six months at the new site, they noticed there were
even more key advantages that could apply to their entire organization when the time came to refresh.
When it was time to replace the traditional blade
server and iSCSI SAN storage in their primary data
center the five-person IT server infrastructure team
at Charter Manufacturing agreed that the Nutanix
Enterprise Cloud was the logical choice.
“The Nutanix architecture is far better
than and more reliable than what we
had in our main data centers. So, as the
hardware supporting lower-criticality
workloads in our main data centers
started to age, we would replace them
with Nutanix.”
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 5
6. Benefits of hyperconverged architecture
According to our interviewee, there are many benefits
to switching to hyperconverged architecture. Here are
five of them:
• Workload mobility: Hyperconverged
infrastructures are software-defined, not
hardware-defined like traditional solutions. This
minimizes downtime through workload mobility,
increases IT productivity by consolidating
management tools, and speeds application and
resource provisioning.
• Reliability: Nutanix hyperconverged architecture is more reliable than the traditional infrastructure in
legacy data centers.
• Disaster recovery: Snapshot-based replication means that companies that deploy Nutanix in multiple
locations can attain better availability and resiliency from a disaster recovery standpoint.
• Learning curve: The switch from traditional architecture to hyperconverged is not significant for
experienced engineers. Nutanix also includes ample documentation minimizing administrator costs for
education and training.
• Automation: Teams can use Nutanix APIs, data protection features, and built-in management tools that
simplify day 2 operations as opposed to purchasing and using unnecessary additional tools.
Deploying Nutanix Enterprise Cloud
Pre-deployment
Once the team at Charter Manufacturing decided to refresh to
Nutanix Enterprise Cloud throughout their entire organization, they
planned and accounted for:
• Workload compatibility: The team determined which virtual
servers and workloads were ready for migration, which were
running on legacy operating systems and needed upgrades,
and which ones were custom-built applications or operating
systems that needed to stay on dedicated hardware.
• Hypervisor compatibility: When considering which hypervisor
to deploy on each cluster, the Charter Manufacturing team
chose to keep some Nutanix implementations on VMware
vSphere for appliances, and deployed Nutanix AHV on others.
Nutanix proof-of-concept cluster
deployment and migration*
1. Initialize the Nutanix cluster.
2. Create a container and connect it to the
hosts via NFS, one at a time.
3. Perform storage vMotion to migrate
workloads to the Nutanix cluster.
4. Shut down virtual machines and use
vMotion to migrate them over.
5. Power them up on the Nutanix cluster.
6. Install any applicable new tools
or updates.
*The IT Infrastructure Director at Charter Manufacturing
described this process. Principled Technologies did not
deploy a cluster.
“We were wary about extending our
traditional model because it was causing
a lot of administrative overhead. We
reached out to one of our partners and
they suggested hyperconverged options.
So, we checked it out.”
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 6
7. Deployment and migration
The Charter Manufacturing IT server infrastructure team aimed to be methodical and systematic in their refresh
approach. Their first deployment in the primary data center was a small Nutanix cluster. After migrating less
critical workloads, they took advantage of a data center site move to refresh the business-critical applications.
Then, they refreshed the test-dev environment and the remaining remote sites with small Nutanix clusters. Right
now, the IT team is in the process of implementing a multi-location disaster recovery solution.
Migrating VMware workloads onto the Nutanix clusters took approximately one month, in part because
the legacy servers were slower and the team needed to schedule maintenance windows to meet business
service requirements.
Site evacuation
The Charter Manufacturing team decided to migrate
the business-critical Tier 1 production workloads
because Charter Manufacturing was moving their
corporate location to a larger building.
For the site evacuation, the team temporarily
staged the applications onto existing Nutanix
implementations from the traditional blade/iSCSI
SAN hardware in the original data center. They
deployed the Nutanix infrastructure in the new data
center as the permanent home for these business-
critical production applications. Then they used data
protection, snapshots, and replication to move the
workloads over.
The Charter team orchestrated the majority of the
data center move for their production environment
using Nutanix tools and features. The team was relieved to find that, once the workloads had been staged onto
the Nutanix implementation in the old data center, racking, deploying, and migrating the production workloads
took under four hours.
Recently, they refreshed the remaining test-dev
hardware and are in the process of deploying
additional disaster recovery now. According to our
interviewee, except for a few very specific use cases
(IP-enabled cameras, etc.), Charter manufacturing is
essentially an all-Nutanix deployment.
“We had to evacuate our main data
center because we bought a new site.
That’s when we decided to replace the
existing Tier 1 application hardware with
Nutanix. First, we staged our existing
Tier 1 applications to the Nutanix that
we had in our old data center. Then, we
used data protection, snapshots, and
replication to move workloads over to
the new data center.”
“We don’t have long outage windows
where we can take everything down for
a couple of days and do everything and
make sure everything works. So, we have
to do it in a very controlled and careful
way, sometimes shuffling things around
in the process so that they can remain
available. And that was very difficult to
do under the old architecture.”
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 7
8. Business-critical
apps (ERP, logistics,
Microsoft, other)
Server virtualization
(ROBO)
Production
environment
(non-critical
apps)
Test/dev
environment
(business-critical
apps)
Legend
Midsize Nutanix cluster
(5-7 nodes)
Large Nutanix cluster
(8+ nodes)
Small Nutanix cluster
(3-4 nodes)
Headquarters
Business unit 1
Server virtualization
(ROBO)
Business unit 3
VDI (Citrix) Production
environment
(manufacturing
execution systems)
Server virtualization
(various)
Disaster recovery
for HQ
Business unit 5
Server virtualization
(ROBO)
Business unit 4
Server virtualization
(ROBO)
Business unit 2
Internet
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 8
9. Hypervisors, virtual servers, and applications
Charter Manufacturing runs a mixture of both Nutanix AHV™
and VMware vSphere hypervisors. Currently,
their production environment runs on VMware (approximately 60 percent), and test-dev clusters and remote
offices run on Nutanix AHV (approximately 40 percent). Certain applications only support VMware (e.g., OVA
appliances), so a mixed environment is appropriate.
As far as virtualized workloads go, Charter runs approximately 800VMs across their entire environment, with
10 VMs in the small ROBOs, 75 VMs in the mid-size clusters, 550 VMs in the main data center, and 165 VMs
devoted to disaster recovery. Most workloads run on either Windows (2012R2 or higher) or Red Hat Linux
derivative operating systems.
Their workload mix includes:
• ERP software solution
• Supply chain and logistics solutions
• Data warehouse analytics
• Microsoft Windows-based workloads:
yy Infrastructure (Active Directory, IIS)
yy Database
yy File & print services
yy Optical character recognition (OCR)
yy Workflow tools
yy Remote desktop services applications
• Middleware and integration systems
• Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
“From a resourcing and team standpoint, the number one biggest benefit
that we get out of this is that we don’t have to spend time and effort and
energy trying to make all these disparate components talk and making sure
that they’re updated and adhere to best practices. We focus on the workloads.
We focus on designing data protection. We focus on disaster recovery and
performance. So, we’ve been able to shift a lot of our focus towards that and
towards automation and improvement rather than just babysitting.”
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 9
10. Best practices
When deploying applications, the Charter Manufacturing IT server infrastructure team follows standard best
practices. And, as the IT Infrastructure Director told us, it’s easy to find standard best practices documentation for
running most common workloads on Nutanix Enterprise Cloud.
Specific best practices recommended by our interviewee included using APIs to orchestrate and automate
reporting tasks. He also recommended scripting and running regular snapshots directly from the systems
themselves for supported applications. For example, a script running on a database application server can place
the database in hot backup mode and initiate the snapshot through Nutanix tools. The Charter Manufacturing
team found this to be an efficient way of capturing snapshots—it takes only a few seconds—and the database
can return to normal mode quickly. Finally, the Charter team is beginning to use automation to efficiently clone
application VMs, such as databases, from one environment to another.
Networking details
For their primary data center, remote sites, and disaster recovery site, Charter manufacturing deployed Cisco
Nexus switches throughout. All sites are interconnected using Cisco software-defined networking in a wide area
network (SD-WAN) with a dedicated E-line for Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and an Internet connection
as backup. Additionally, the primary and disaster recovery sites have 1Gb Layer 3 Internet Protocol Virtual Private
Network (IP VPN) connections for replication traffic.
The Nutanix advantage
Performance and speed improvements
The Charter Manufacturing group has noticed an overall storage performance improvement after switching
to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud. Additionally, they have benefited from time savings while deploying these data
protection features: snapshot-based cloning for dozens of VMs, cloning VMs from a template, or restoring VMs
from snapshots. According to the IT Infrastructure Director, these Nutanix features take a matter of seconds.
Smaller footprint
The infrastructure server team was able to consolidate and achieve significant space savings, both in their
primary data center and in their remote sites. Replacing their traditional SAN and blade server architecture in
their primary data center with 1U Nutanix nodes resulted in a two-thirds reduction of rack space requirements –
they were able to consolidate over three racks of hardware down to 1-1.5 racks. They also achieved significant
consolidation going from stand-alone VMware servers to the small Nutanix clusters in their remote sites.
According to the IT Infrastructure Director, the space savings resulted from both the greater density of Nutanix
hyperconverged architecture and its deduplication and compression features.
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11. Ongoing management
The IT server infrastructure team at Charter Manufacturing had grown accustomed to having to maintain
disparate hardware and software components, with extended engagements that sometimes involved bringing
in additional contracted specialists just to be able to patch and update their legacy infrastructure. This included
tasks such as:
• Fine-tuning network drivers for iSCSI
• Maintaining drivers and firmware
• Confirming adherence to best practices
between the multiple hardware vendors
• Ensuring disparate hardware components were
working properly together
• Troubleshooting performance issues or outage
blips, which often included contacting vendor
technical support and updating all drivers and
firmware before being able to proceed with
solving the actual issue
From a day-to-day management perspective, Nutanix Enterprise Cloud solved the technical hurdles the team
was facing with the legacy hardware. The Charter team immediately noticed a decrease in management tasks
and complexity. Built-in management tools, including a robust HTML5 interface, allow for streamlined, efficient
processes. The interviewee also noted that the hyperconverged model, by design, requires little time and
effort compared to their legacy blade server solution—which, because of its many disparate servers and siloed
components required more effort.
The IT Infrastructure Director estimates the time spent managing their Nutanix Enterprise Cloud solution is in
the realm of one-tenth the amount of effort they spent maintaining the traditional legacy environment. Charter
admins now have more time to focus on new strategic initiatives that include improving workload performance,
automation, data protection, and disaster recovery.
Automation
Nutanix Enterprise Cloud has provided significant management time savings for the IT team through its
automation capabilities. Nutanix documentation,
along with REST APIs, provides the how-to and tools
the team needs to orchestrate one-click hardware
updates through Nutanix. This means maintenance
can occur non-disruptively across the nodes in the
various clusters. Charter admins can also orchestrate
VMware hypervisor updates through Nutanix.
These one-click upgrades function reliably and save
significant time.
“You know, when a salesperson comes in
and tells you, ‘Hey this is going to be low
maintenance and you really won’t have
to do much.’? In this case, it’s true. There
just isn’t much to do anymore. You create
containers, you set the kind of storage
efficiencies you want in a container, and
deploy VMs. That’s about it.”
“All the one-click upgrades have always
worked. You know, there’s just not much
there for us to do.”
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12. Data protection and disaster recovery
The IT Infrastructure Director revealed that the Charter IT team was able to simplify their data protection strategy
after migrating to Nutanix. Since Nutanix includes data protection, they were able to use the built-in tools as
opposed to having to run VMware Site Recovery Manager. The built-in tools provide them with significant data
protection features, such as snapshots and rapid cloning of VMs, cross-data center replications (using data
protection domains and snapshots between remote sites and their primary data center), and system recovery
through data protection domains.
Since migrating to Nutanix architecture, the team at Charter has also replaced their traditional backup software
with Cohesity. This new and improved backup and business continuity model not only integrated seamlessly into
Nutanix—it also doubled as a hyperconverged backup and secondary data management platform.
Technical support and online resources
The Charter Manufacturing team has found Nutanix support to be responsive, helpful, and very knowledgeable
when they’ve had to reach out for assistance. In their experience, technical support has been able to help them
resolves issues within a day. They also found many of the online tools, documentation, and training resources to
meet their needs.
Advanced functionality
The IT team has benefited from having additional features and functionality available to the team. The company
itself has also realized a substantial cost savings from not having to buy additional capacity management,
automation, and planning tools.
Spotlight on Nutanix Capacity Advisor
Charter Manufacturing is in the planning and budgeting stages of adding storage-only nodes to their Nutanix
environment, and for this they are relying on Nutanix Capacity Advisor. Their plan:
• Let the cluster reach a steady state after significant events, such as workload migrations
• Allow Nutanix Capacity Advisor to establish a baseline
• Nutanix Capacity Advisor will provide information to help admins plan for future upgrades
Charter Manufacturing reaps the benefits of a multi‑cloud environment with Nutanix February 2019 | 12
13. Principled Technologies is a registered trademark of Principled Technologies, Inc.
All other product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES; LIMITATION OF LIABILITY:
Principled Technologies, Inc. has made reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy and validity of its testing, however, Principled Technologies, Inc. specifically disclaims
any warranty, expressed or implied, relating to the test results and analysis, their accuracy, completeness or quality, including any implied warranty of fitness for any
particular purpose. All persons or entities relying on the results of any testing do so at their own risk, and agree that Principled Technologies, Inc., its employees and its
subcontractors shall have no liability whatsoever from any claim of loss or damage on account of any alleged error or defect in any testing procedure or result.
In no event shall Principled Technologies, Inc. be liable for indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages in connection with its testing, even if advised of the
possibility of such damages. In no event shall Principled Technologies, Inc.’s liability, including for direct damages, exceed the amounts paid in connection with Principled
Technologies, Inc.’s testing. Customer’s sole and exclusive remedies are as set forth herein.
This project was commissioned by Nutanix.
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Current evaluations and future plans
The Charter IT team is in the process of implementing a new disaster recovery location, which will add a large
cluster to their hardware environment. Even though they have mixed VMware and AHV hypervisor environments,
this will be the first time the team has performed cross-hypervisor replication onto a new cluster.
Aside from this, current evaluations and future plans focuses primarily on making the most of the platform they
already have implemented. This includes:
• Deploying synchronous/asynchronous replication to improve upon the current disaster recovery design
• Using Nutanix to help migrate lower-impact workloads to the cloud
• Using Acropolis file services where applicable
• Evaluating possible workload performance improvements from adding NVMe into their environment
Conclusion
After talking with the IT Infrastructure Director at Charter Manufacturing, we can conclude that migrating their
entire operation to Nutanix Enterprise Cloud simplified and consolidated disparate systems spread across
many Charter Manufacturing locations. According to our interviewee, the Charter IT server infrastructure team
has benefited from a significant decrease in management tasks and complexity since making the switch. They
can now more efficiently perform system maintenance, replace various software tools with native built-in
management, and make improvements that add resiliency to their disaster recovery strategies.
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