This document describes testing of Hitachi Data Instance Director (HDID) to protect a Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC V240 hyperconverged infrastructure running VMware vSphere. HDID provided agentless backups of VMs using VMware VADP and allowed cloning backups. Testing showed HDID can reduce backup windows and easily replicate backups within or outside the HC V240 chassis.
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX is an all-inclusive platform, suitable for rapid deployment of a virtual environment, such as Citrix XenDesktop 7.5. The integrated components of the VRTX means your business has a centralized management console for the necessary data center components that support VDI environments. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX and XenDesktop set up, configured, and deployed VDI users easily. The addition of Dell Wyse terminals demonstrates how your end-users can access your XenDesktop VDI environment with efficient hardware and little administrative effort. The combination of Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 can offer a unified, efficient, and simple enterprise-value VDI solution for your business, but without the resources and commitment need for supporting an enterprise data center.
Webinář: Provozujte datacentrum v kanceláři (Dell VRTX) / 5.9.2013Jaroslav Prodelal
Dokážete si představit, že byste provozovali své datacentrum v prostředí kanceláře? Ano, je to možné. Společnost Dell uvedla na trh novinku v podobě tzv. datacenter-in-a-box, které je optimalizované (odhlučnění, napájení) pro provoz i v kanceláři, samozřejmě jej můžete dát i do samostatné místnosti.
Dell VRTX v kombinuje v jedniném 5U šasí výpočetní výkon (až 4 2-CPU servery), diskové úložiště (až 24 HDD) a síť.
Ve webináři vás seznámíme s touto cenově velmi zajímavou novinkou a ukážeme rozdíl mezi tímto řešením a případnými alternativami v době samostaných serverů, diskového pole a síťových switchů.
Agenda:
------------
* co je Dell VRTX?
*segment zákazníků pro VRTX
* co VRTX nabízí
* řešení provozované na VRTX
* technické specifikace
* možná použití
* cena
* aktuální nabídky a promo akce
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2670 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a five-year-old legacy server and traditional SAN by offering twice as many VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $167.89 per user in hardware costs.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a legacy server and traditional SAN VSAN by offering 72 percent greater VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $176.52 per user.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
Virtualization products partition physical servers in multiple virtual machines. Each virtual machine represents a complete system, with processors, memory, networking, storage and BIOS.
Multiple virtual machines can share physical resources and run side by side on the same server.
Operating systems and applications can run unmodified in virtual machines.
When considering whether to upgrade to the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX or repurpose older hardware, the advantages of new hardware are clear. Not only do you get newer hardware that is faster and is better-equipped to handle the increasing demands of today’s business applications and workloads, but you also benefit from advances that make deployment and management easier than ever.
In our labs, we compared the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with four server nodes and shared storage and networking to a similar infrastructure using four legacy tower servers, external network switches, and an external SAN. Our testing revealed the following:
· PowerEdge VRTX took 78.5 percent less time and 150 fewer steps to configure and deploy out of the box compared to the legacy solution.
· PowerEdge VRTX It took less than 1 hour to unbox and configure into a highly available VMware vSphere cluster compared to over 4 hours on the legacy solution.
· Deploying the Dell PowerEdge VRTX used just a single management tool, the integrated Chassis Management Controller, whereas the tower solution required six separate management tools.
Choosing such a complete solution during your next server refresh can simplify infrastructure setup and configuration, boost performance through built-in high availability features, and potentially save your organization space and operating costs over the life of the hardware.
Offer faster access to critical data and achieve greater inline data reductio...Principled Technologies
Compared to a solution from another vendor (“Vendor B”), the PowerStore 7000T delivered a better inline data reduction ratio and better performance during simulated OLTP and other I/O workloads
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
The Dell PowerEdge VRTX is an all-inclusive platform, suitable for rapid deployment of a virtual environment, such as Citrix XenDesktop 7.5. The integrated components of the VRTX means your business has a centralized management console for the necessary data center components that support VDI environments. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX and XenDesktop set up, configured, and deployed VDI users easily. The addition of Dell Wyse terminals demonstrates how your end-users can access your XenDesktop VDI environment with efficient hardware and little administrative effort. The combination of Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 can offer a unified, efficient, and simple enterprise-value VDI solution for your business, but without the resources and commitment need for supporting an enterprise data center.
Webinář: Provozujte datacentrum v kanceláři (Dell VRTX) / 5.9.2013Jaroslav Prodelal
Dokážete si představit, že byste provozovali své datacentrum v prostředí kanceláře? Ano, je to možné. Společnost Dell uvedla na trh novinku v podobě tzv. datacenter-in-a-box, které je optimalizované (odhlučnění, napájení) pro provoz i v kanceláři, samozřejmě jej můžete dát i do samostatné místnosti.
Dell VRTX v kombinuje v jedniném 5U šasí výpočetní výkon (až 4 2-CPU servery), diskové úložiště (až 24 HDD) a síť.
Ve webináři vás seznámíme s touto cenově velmi zajímavou novinkou a ukážeme rozdíl mezi tímto řešením a případnými alternativami v době samostaných serverů, diskového pole a síťových switchů.
Agenda:
------------
* co je Dell VRTX?
*segment zákazníků pro VRTX
* co VRTX nabízí
* řešení provozované na VRTX
* technické specifikace
* možná použití
* cena
* aktuální nabídky a promo akce
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2670 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a five-year-old legacy server and traditional SAN by offering twice as many VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $167.89 per user in hardware costs.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
VDI performance comparison: Dell PowerEdge FX2 and FC430 servers with VMware ...Principled Technologies
Replacing your legacy VDI servers with a new Intel Xeon processor E5-2650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a great boon for your enterprise.
In the Principled Technologies (PT) labs, this space-efficient, affordable solution outperformed a legacy server and traditional SAN VSAN by offering 72 percent greater VDI users. Additionally, it achieved greater performance while using 91 percent less space and at a cost of only $176.52 per user.
By supporting more users, saving space, and its affordability, an upgrade to the Intel-powered Dell PowerEdge FX2 solution using VMware Virtual SAN can be a wise move when replacing your aging, older infrastructure.
Virtualization products partition physical servers in multiple virtual machines. Each virtual machine represents a complete system, with processors, memory, networking, storage and BIOS.
Multiple virtual machines can share physical resources and run side by side on the same server.
Operating systems and applications can run unmodified in virtual machines.
When considering whether to upgrade to the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX or repurpose older hardware, the advantages of new hardware are clear. Not only do you get newer hardware that is faster and is better-equipped to handle the increasing demands of today’s business applications and workloads, but you also benefit from advances that make deployment and management easier than ever.
In our labs, we compared the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with four server nodes and shared storage and networking to a similar infrastructure using four legacy tower servers, external network switches, and an external SAN. Our testing revealed the following:
· PowerEdge VRTX took 78.5 percent less time and 150 fewer steps to configure and deploy out of the box compared to the legacy solution.
· PowerEdge VRTX It took less than 1 hour to unbox and configure into a highly available VMware vSphere cluster compared to over 4 hours on the legacy solution.
· Deploying the Dell PowerEdge VRTX used just a single management tool, the integrated Chassis Management Controller, whereas the tower solution required six separate management tools.
Choosing such a complete solution during your next server refresh can simplify infrastructure setup and configuration, boost performance through built-in high availability features, and potentially save your organization space and operating costs over the life of the hardware.
Offer faster access to critical data and achieve greater inline data reductio...Principled Technologies
Compared to a solution from another vendor (“Vendor B”), the PowerStore 7000T delivered a better inline data reduction ratio and better performance during simulated OLTP and other I/O workloads
VMmark virtualization performance of Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SANPrincipled Technologies
The storage you use for your virtualization solution can be a significant factor in its performance and effectiveness. Two Dell PowerEdge R720 servers, paired with Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN, ran 10 VMmark tiles for a total of 80 running VMs and achieved a score of 12.05@10 tiles, making it the top score running VMware ESXi 5.5 of the 32-core server configurations. For enterprises that need excellent virtualization performance, this makes Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD-based SAN a wise investment.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
See how Dell works efficiently with VMware to provide innovative architectures that are scalable and flexible. Learn about servers, networking, storage, and comprehensive systems management
Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SS...Principled Technologies
If your organization runs critical, high-demand databases in environments such as Oracle Database, strong performance is not an option: it’s a must-have. Additionally, getting that necessary strong performance out of a single server can be essential for running a space and cost-efficient datacenter. In the Principled Technologies labs, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R930 offered strong performance for such transactional databases when configured with SATA SSDs. When we upgraded the servers to Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs, performance doubled, increasing by 2.17 times, or 117 percent. If your datacenter needs a new powerhouse server, purchasing your Dell PowerEdge R930 with Intel NVMe SSDs for a cost increase of only 18 percent can double the performance you get from each server. This increases what your infrastructure can do within the same amount of space and lets you ultimately save money that would otherwise be spent purchasing additional servers and software.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M...Principled Technologies
Keeping a legacy disparate hardware solution composed of nine older servers instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3 family may cost more than one would expect. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could do the work of nine legacy servers running email, database, and file/print server workloads. The VRTX ran all nine workloads in VMs, achieving a slight performance boost on the database and file/print workloads while using much less datacenter space and reducing power consumption by 38.4 percent.
The VRTX achieved these savings using 88.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices.
Despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could actually lower the total cost of ownership over five years by as much as 48.5 percent, delivering a solid return on investment in less than two years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 family could provide a compact solution to optimize application performance and reduce complexity at a lower lifetime cost than a legacy solution composed of nine older servers.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. legacy hardware solutionPrincipled Technologies
Keeping a legacy, disparate hardware solution instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX may cost you more than you realize. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX increased application performance over a legacy, disparate hardware solution across email, database, and file/print server simultaneous workloads while reducing power consumption by 19.8 percent. The VRTX did so in 70.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy, disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices. Finally, despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX could actually lower your total cost of ownership over years as much as 26.0 percent, delivering a solid return on your investment in less than three years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution could provide you with a compact solution to optimize application performance, reduce complexity, and even lower the total cost of your solution over its lifetime.
Database performance and memory capacity with the Intel Xeon processor E5-266...Principled Technologies
The Dell PowerEdge M620 offers 24 memory slots, 50 percent more than the 16 slots offered by the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, which enables the Dell solution to provide greater performance while delivering memory error protection. We found that the Dell PowerEdge M620 solution, built on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600v2 Series, delivered 182.2 percent more database performance and 92.0 percent faster response times than the previous version Intel Xeon E5-2640 processor-based HP ProLiant BL460c Gen 8 solution, while providing 12.5 percent more available memory and error protection. The additional memory capacity of the Dell solution allowed us to engage FRM technologies and still have more overall RAM capacity compared to the 16-slot HP server. The Dell PowerEdge M620 offered maximum memory capacity and protection with Fault Resilient Memory to keep your database workloads running strong and available for your business needs.
Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014: ...Principled Technologies
As this guide has shown, installing and configuring a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2014 powered by the Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases is a straightforward procedure. A key benefit from implementing DAAD 2.0 into your infrastructure is the ability to accelerate workloads without a complete storage area network redesign. This can be ideal for businesses that have snapshot and deduplication features within their software stack or are looking to improve database performance without investing in large storage solutions that may contain features they do not need. Consider DAAD 2.0 for your business—a storage acceleration solution that requires only 4U of rack space and can potentially give your database workloads a boost.
Database performance: Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD650Principled Technologies
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 users, take note. In our datacenter, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd server based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family with the Intel SSD DC S3610 Series handled up to 27.9 percent more orders per minute than the Lenovo ThinkServer RD650 did. With three times the SSDs, the PowerEdge R730xd delivered better response times—up to 24.6 percent for application latency and up to 93.1 percent for disk latency—than the ThinkServer RD650. Getting more performance per server and better response times means you can give customers a better, faster ecommerce experience. This can allow you to buy, store, and power fewer servers, helping stretch your IT budget further.
Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 vs. VMware View 5: User experience and bandwidth consum...Principled Technologies
The experience that virtual desktops provide for workers is critical. If a user’s desktop is sluggish, or worse, choppy and difficult to navigate, working becomes difficult. Choosing a virtual desktop solution that provides sluggish, choppy desktops to remote end-users in branch offices defeats the purpose of implementing such a solution in the first place.
In both the small and medium-sized branch office scenarios we tested, we found that Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 provided a better desktop experience for remote users than VMware View 5, and used as much as 37.1 percent less bandwidth delivering it. Using Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 with Citrix Branch Repeater provided an even better experience for remote users by optimizing bandwidth over the WAN and delivering local-like virtual desktop sessions in both our 10-and 100-user tests. When selecting a VDI solution to deploy virtual desktops over the WAN to users in remote offices, determining the type of user experience the solution provides is paramount.
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Dell PowerEdge M520 server solution: Energy efficiency and database performancePrincipled Technologies
As energy prices continue to rise, building a power-efficient data center that does not sacrifice performance is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down while keeping application performance high. Choosing servers that pair high performance with new power-efficient technologies helps you do so. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge M520 with Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 arrays outperformed the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server with HP StorageWorks D2200sb arrays by 113.5 percent in OPM. Not only did the Dell PowerEdge M520 blade server solution deliver higher overall performance, it also did so more efficiently, delivering 79.9 percent better database performance/watt than the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution.
Populating your data center with new, more powerful and energy efficient servers can deliver numerous benefits to your organization. By consolidating multiple older servers onto a new platform, you can save in the areas of data center space and port costs, management costs, and power and cooling costs.
In our tests, we found that the Lenovo ThinkServer RD630 could consolidate the workloads of three HP ProLiant DL385 G5 servers, while increasing overall performance by 82.6 percent and reducing power consumption by 58.8 percent, making the ThinkServer RD630 an excellent choice to reduce the costs associated with running your data center.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database: Benefits of upgrading with NVMe ...Principled Technologies
Strong server performance is essential to companies running Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R920 provides strong performance in its base configuration with 24 SAS hard disks, but this performance gets an enormous boost when running the configuration containing NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs. In our testing, the upgraded configuration of the Dell PowerEdge R920 delivered 14.9 times the database performance of the base configuration. In addition, in testing the raw I/O throughput of the NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs, we saw as much as 192.8 times the IOPS as compared to the base configuration. Given that the storage subsystem is critical in servers and specifically database applications, the performance improvements offered by NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs can lead to great service improvements for your customers, making this upgrade a very wise investment.
This document describes the steps to create a Vertica cluster on AWS. To run a Vertica
cluster on AWS requires creating Amazon Machine Instances (AMIs). The instructions in
this document apply to AMIs built with Vertica Version 7.2.x
The Vertica Community Edition is installed on the AMI. Community Edition is limited to
three nodes and up to 1 TB of data. Each AMI includes a Community Edition license.
Most of the remainder of this document describes the details of how to prepare your
AWS environment, launch AMI instances, and combine instances to create a cluster. To
set up your Vertica cluster on AWS, follow the detailed directions that follow, or use the
summarized set of tasks in Quick Start to Setting Up Vertica AWS
Operational costs and complexity can grow exponentially as storage capacity increases. In this session learn how Dell Storage SC automates the most common storage tasks, and Enterprise Manager™ software delivers centralized management of all local and remote Storage Center™ environments.
Comprehensive and Simplified Management for VMware vSphere Environments - now...Hitachi Vantara
Learn how to build out a robust private cloud infrastructure with the assurance that all the underlying server, storage, and network resources are in place and aligned to the appropriate service levels.
See how to achieve predictable reliability based on business needs in a robust, enterprise-class cloud platform – Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Pro for VMware vSphere.
We’ll take you through the latest updates to this industry-leading solution that is deeply integrated with vSphere, including HDS servers and storage, Brocade Fibre Channel, your choice of Cisco or Brocade Ethernet networking. We’ll also talk about software updates that include bare-metal support, improved monitoring and performance tuning, federated management, and non-disruptive firmware upgrades.
Minimizing licensing costs for enterprise applications is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down. When your applications use per-core licensing, choosing higher-performance servers with fewer cores dramatically reduces your software-related spending. The Dell PowerEdge M820 blade solution with Compellent storage could deliver up to $96,236 in savings as compared to a single HP ProLiant BL680c G7 solution, and if consolidating multiple workloads, could deliver even more savings in licensing costs when running Microsoft SQL Server in a virtualized scenario – all while maintaining or exceeding previous performance levels.
Setting up a failover cluster on the Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a straightforward process. In very little time, you can deploy Dell PowerEdge VRTX with up to four M-series servers, switches, and storage in a redundant configuration using Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. By setting up a failover cluster on your compact Dell PowerEdge VRTX, you can maximize server uptime to keep your business moving.
Resource balancing comparison: VMware vSphere 6 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtua...Principled Technologies
Having ample resources to handle user requests is a necessity of modern virtualization solutions. Allocating and distributing those resources evenly, however, is imperative to the success of your business’s virtualized environment. In our tests, after powering on the other two servers in our three-node cluster and adding resource management features, VMware vSphere 6 improved performance by 183 percent over its baseline configuration of one active server and no resource management features. RHEV 3.5, in contrast, delivered only a 79 percent increase over its baseline. As you design your business’s infrastructure and applications, improvements such as those offered by VMware vSphere 6 DRS and Storage DRS can play a critical role by offering your users better application experiences. Optimized and modern resource management provided by VMware DRS can also help to lower your IT purchase and maintenance costs by reducing the number of servers necessary to run your applications.
See how Dell works efficiently with VMware to provide innovative architectures that are scalable and flexible. Learn about servers, networking, storage, and comprehensive systems management
Maximizing Oracle Database performance with Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SS...Principled Technologies
If your organization runs critical, high-demand databases in environments such as Oracle Database, strong performance is not an option: it’s a must-have. Additionally, getting that necessary strong performance out of a single server can be essential for running a space and cost-efficient datacenter. In the Principled Technologies labs, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R930 offered strong performance for such transactional databases when configured with SATA SSDs. When we upgraded the servers to Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs, performance doubled, increasing by 2.17 times, or 117 percent. If your datacenter needs a new powerhouse server, purchasing your Dell PowerEdge R930 with Intel NVMe SSDs for a cost increase of only 18 percent can double the performance you get from each server. This increases what your infrastructure can do within the same amount of space and lets you ultimately save money that would otherwise be spent purchasing additional servers and software.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX with one Dell PowerEdge M...Principled Technologies
Keeping a legacy disparate hardware solution composed of nine older servers instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3 family may cost more than one would expect. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could do the work of nine legacy servers running email, database, and file/print server workloads. The VRTX ran all nine workloads in VMs, achieving a slight performance boost on the database and file/print workloads while using much less datacenter space and reducing power consumption by 38.4 percent.
The VRTX achieved these savings using 88.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices.
Despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with an Intel Xeon processor E5-4650 v3-powered Dell PowerEdge M830 server could actually lower the total cost of ownership over five years by as much as 48.5 percent, delivering a solid return on investment in less than two years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution powered by the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v3 family could provide a compact solution to optimize application performance and reduce complexity at a lower lifetime cost than a legacy solution composed of nine older servers.
Comparing performance and cost: Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. legacy hardware solutionPrincipled Technologies
Keeping a legacy, disparate hardware solution instead of choosing the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX may cost you more than you realize. We found that the Dell PowerEdge VRTX increased application performance over a legacy, disparate hardware solution across email, database, and file/print server simultaneous workloads while reducing power consumption by 19.8 percent. The VRTX did so in 70.6 percent less rack-equivalent space than the legacy, disparate hardware solution and with one-third as many cables, to reduce complexity and reduce the burden of space in small offices. Finally, despite a larger initial investment, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX could actually lower your total cost of ownership over years as much as 26.0 percent, delivering a solid return on your investment in less than three years.
As our test results show, investing in the Dell PowerEdge VRTX solution could provide you with a compact solution to optimize application performance, reduce complexity, and even lower the total cost of your solution over its lifetime.
Database performance and memory capacity with the Intel Xeon processor E5-266...Principled Technologies
The Dell PowerEdge M620 offers 24 memory slots, 50 percent more than the 16 slots offered by the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8, which enables the Dell solution to provide greater performance while delivering memory error protection. We found that the Dell PowerEdge M620 solution, built on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600v2 Series, delivered 182.2 percent more database performance and 92.0 percent faster response times than the previous version Intel Xeon E5-2640 processor-based HP ProLiant BL460c Gen 8 solution, while providing 12.5 percent more available memory and error protection. The additional memory capacity of the Dell solution allowed us to engage FRM technologies and still have more overall RAM capacity compared to the 16-slot HP server. The Dell PowerEdge M620 offered maximum memory capacity and protection with Fault Resilient Memory to keep your database workloads running strong and available for your business needs.
Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014: ...Principled Technologies
As this guide has shown, installing and configuring a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2014 powered by the Dell Acceleration Appliance for Databases is a straightforward procedure. A key benefit from implementing DAAD 2.0 into your infrastructure is the ability to accelerate workloads without a complete storage area network redesign. This can be ideal for businesses that have snapshot and deduplication features within their software stack or are looking to improve database performance without investing in large storage solutions that may contain features they do not need. Consider DAAD 2.0 for your business—a storage acceleration solution that requires only 4U of rack space and can potentially give your database workloads a boost.
Database performance: Dell PowerEdge R730xd vs. Lenovo ThinkServer RD650Principled Technologies
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 users, take note. In our datacenter, we found that the Dell PowerEdge R730xd server based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family with the Intel SSD DC S3610 Series handled up to 27.9 percent more orders per minute than the Lenovo ThinkServer RD650 did. With three times the SSDs, the PowerEdge R730xd delivered better response times—up to 24.6 percent for application latency and up to 93.1 percent for disk latency—than the ThinkServer RD650. Getting more performance per server and better response times means you can give customers a better, faster ecommerce experience. This can allow you to buy, store, and power fewer servers, helping stretch your IT budget further.
Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 vs. VMware View 5: User experience and bandwidth consum...Principled Technologies
The experience that virtual desktops provide for workers is critical. If a user’s desktop is sluggish, or worse, choppy and difficult to navigate, working becomes difficult. Choosing a virtual desktop solution that provides sluggish, choppy desktops to remote end-users in branch offices defeats the purpose of implementing such a solution in the first place.
In both the small and medium-sized branch office scenarios we tested, we found that Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 provided a better desktop experience for remote users than VMware View 5, and used as much as 37.1 percent less bandwidth delivering it. Using Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 with Citrix Branch Repeater provided an even better experience for remote users by optimizing bandwidth over the WAN and delivering local-like virtual desktop sessions in both our 10-and 100-user tests. When selecting a VDI solution to deploy virtual desktops over the WAN to users in remote offices, determining the type of user experience the solution provides is paramount.
Consolidate and upgrade: Dell PowerEdge VRTX and Microsoft SQL Server 2014Principled Technologies
Your growing business shouldn’t run on aging hardware and software until it fails. Adding memory and upgrading processors will not provide the same benefits to your infrastructure as a consolidation and upgrade can. Upgrading and consolidating your IT infrastructure to the Dell PowerEdge VRTX running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014 can improve performance while adding features such as high availability.
Based on our findings, a single Dell PowerEdge VRTX can replace four four-year-old dual-socket servers with VMs running heavy SQL database workloads. We found that consolidating four older servers onto a Dell PowerEdge VRTX and upgrading to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save up to $16,390 over three years, compared to keeping the four-year-old dual-socket servers and upgrading existing storage infrastructure. If your business runs older versions of Microsoft SQL Server on end-of-life dual-socket servers, the Dell PowerEdge VRTX with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and SQL Server 2014 could save your company these costs while delivering better performance than the aging hardware and software.
Dell PowerEdge M520 server solution: Energy efficiency and database performancePrincipled Technologies
As energy prices continue to rise, building a power-efficient data center that does not sacrifice performance is vital to organizations looking to keep costs down while keeping application performance high. Choosing servers that pair high performance with new power-efficient technologies helps you do so. In our tests, the Dell PowerEdge M520 with Dell EqualLogic PS-M4110 arrays outperformed the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 server with HP StorageWorks D2200sb arrays by 113.5 percent in OPM. Not only did the Dell PowerEdge M520 blade server solution deliver higher overall performance, it also did so more efficiently, delivering 79.9 percent better database performance/watt than the HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 solution.
Populating your data center with new, more powerful and energy efficient servers can deliver numerous benefits to your organization. By consolidating multiple older servers onto a new platform, you can save in the areas of data center space and port costs, management costs, and power and cooling costs.
In our tests, we found that the Lenovo ThinkServer RD630 could consolidate the workloads of three HP ProLiant DL385 G5 servers, while increasing overall performance by 82.6 percent and reducing power consumption by 58.8 percent, making the ThinkServer RD630 an excellent choice to reduce the costs associated with running your data center.
Dell PowerEdge R920 and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Migration and Benefits GuidePrincipled Technologies
The latest Dell PowerEdge R920 server is designed to provide highly scalable performance for large enterprises, with greater memory capacity, improved and expanded attached storage options, and processor architectures designed for high availability. Microsoft SQL Server 2014 is the perfect companion software to take advantage of the Dell PowerEdge R920’s impressive specifications. Upgrading has never looked more attractive, and with hardware/software upgrades must come data migration.
Migrating legacy database applications to the latest database technologies on newer Dell server platforms is a common task for businesses upgrading their hardware/software stack. As this guide shows, the process is straightforward and the cost benefits can be enormous. We calculated the savings attainable from multiple consolidation ratios, as well as how long it would take to pay off the replacement server. We found that a consolidation ratio of 13 to 1 could yield $531,725 in software savings, many times the cost of the replacement hardware itself. So not only will the business benefit from the massively-scalable current-generation Dell server technology paired with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 running SQL Server 2014, but you can save money in the process.
Dell PowerEdge R920 running Oracle Database: Benefits of upgrading with NVMe ...Principled Technologies
Strong server performance is essential to companies running Oracle Database. The new Dell PowerEdge R920 provides strong performance in its base configuration with 24 SAS hard disks, but this performance gets an enormous boost when running the configuration containing NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs. In our testing, the upgraded configuration of the Dell PowerEdge R920 delivered 14.9 times the database performance of the base configuration. In addition, in testing the raw I/O throughput of the NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs, we saw as much as 192.8 times the IOPS as compared to the base configuration. Given that the storage subsystem is critical in servers and specifically database applications, the performance improvements offered by NVMe Express Flash PCIe SSDs can lead to great service improvements for your customers, making this upgrade a very wise investment.
This document describes the steps to create a Vertica cluster on AWS. To run a Vertica
cluster on AWS requires creating Amazon Machine Instances (AMIs). The instructions in
this document apply to AMIs built with Vertica Version 7.2.x
The Vertica Community Edition is installed on the AMI. Community Edition is limited to
three nodes and up to 1 TB of data. Each AMI includes a Community Edition license.
Most of the remainder of this document describes the details of how to prepare your
AWS environment, launch AMI instances, and combine instances to create a cluster. To
set up your Vertica cluster on AWS, follow the detailed directions that follow, or use the
summarized set of tasks in Quick Start to Setting Up Vertica AWS
Operational costs and complexity can grow exponentially as storage capacity increases. In this session learn how Dell Storage SC automates the most common storage tasks, and Enterprise Manager™ software delivers centralized management of all local and remote Storage Center™ environments.
Comprehensive and Simplified Management for VMware vSphere Environments - now...Hitachi Vantara
Learn how to build out a robust private cloud infrastructure with the assurance that all the underlying server, storage, and network resources are in place and aligned to the appropriate service levels.
See how to achieve predictable reliability based on business needs in a robust, enterprise-class cloud platform – Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Pro for VMware vSphere.
We’ll take you through the latest updates to this industry-leading solution that is deeply integrated with vSphere, including HDS servers and storage, Brocade Fibre Channel, your choice of Cisco or Brocade Ethernet networking. We’ll also talk about software updates that include bare-metal support, improved monitoring and performance tuning, federated management, and non-disruptive firmware upgrades.
Boosting virtualization performance with Intel SSD DC Series P3600 NVMe SSDs ...Principled Technologies
When it comes time to make your server purchase or if you’re looking for an easy way to boost performance of existing infrastructure, consider upgrading your server’s internal storage. As our hands-on tests with a Dell EMC PowerEdge R630 environment running VMware Virtual SAN proved, Intel SSD DC P3600 Series NVMe SSDs could increase virtualized mixed-workload performance by as much as 59.9 percent compared to SATA SSDs while allowing you to run a large additional number of VMs. When you improve performance for your virtualized workloads, your employees and customers will benefit. By increasing performance with Intel NVMe SSDs on your Dell EMC PowerEdge R630 servers, you can potentially slash wait times and do more work on your servers without having to expand your infrastructure with additional storage arrays, which can translate to happier users and a more efficient infrastructure.
White paper: IBM FlashSystems in VMware EnvironmentsthinkASG
Drive performance in VMware environments with IBM FlashSystem. IBM flash storage delivers extreme, scalable performance for virtualized infrastructure.
Is Hyperconvergence right for you?
(Watch the show before you watch the workshop: https://youtu.be/BVMpcitCQcw)
As business and application needs change, the need for infrastructure to be equally responsive, agile, and scalable has become not just nice to have. It’s now a crucial necessity.
Do you have IT operational challenges?
Are you searching for ways to create a pay-as-you-go model for infrastructure?
Is granular scalability as important as ultimate scalability?
Cisco’s entry into hyperconverged infrastructure is the most advanced, complete, and compelling hyperconverged solution available today. Cisco HyperFlex systems will solve those challenges and set you up for success with easy deployment, management, and growth.
These are the slides. Catch the whole discussion live or in replay at : http://cs.co/9002BlCb4
VxRail Appliance - Modernize your infrastructure and accelerate IT transforma...Maichino Sepede
An overview of the VxRail Appliance, including what’s new with VxRail on the 14th generation PowerEdge server, and advancements in the VxRail 4.5 software.
With around 11 years of Information Technology experience, I am looking to work in dynamic and challenging environments where I can provide efficient and cost-effective solutions to business.
If your business is considering using a hyperconverged
computer/storage solution rather than disparate dedicated appliances, a Nutanix storage cluster powered by Dell XC630 appliances could bring many benefits. Thanks to its powerful Dell servers with Intel processors, this space-efficient solution was able to handle nine SQL Server 2014 OLTP workloads at over 420,000 OPM, 160 mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange 2013, and file/print and web server disk workloads; that’s enough to meet your present demands and still have room for future growth. With software-defined tiered storage, high availability, and a redundant network architecture, the hyperconverged solution based on Dell XC630 appliances can help your business get the job done.
VMworld 2013: IBM Solutions for VMware Virtual SAN VMworld
VMworld 2013
Eric Deadwyler, IBM
Joseph Russell, VMware
Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare
Microsoft Virtualization for VMware ProfessionalsEduardo Castro
Esta es la presentación utilizada en el WebCast de Semana de la Nube
https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=es-AR&EventID=1032491907&CountryCode=AR
En este evento encontrará una introducción a la virtualización con productos y soluciones Microsoft para los VMware Professionals.
VMmark 2.5.2 virtualization performance of the Dell Storage SC4020 arrayPrincipled Technologies
The Dell Storage SC4020 array, paired with a cluster of Dell PowerEdge M620 servers, ran 30 VMmark tiles totaling 240 running VMs, and achieved a score of 31.35@30 tiles. This performance, along with its value and ease of management, make the Dell Storage SC4020 array an excellent investment.
VMworld 2013
Christos Karamanolis, VMware
Kiran Madnani, VMware
James Streit, Thomson Reuters
Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare
Learn about Citrix XenDesktop on XenServer and IBM Hardware Sizing Baseline and Reference Configuration.The overall goal of this White paper is to provide sizing baselines for the deployment of Citrix XenDesktop on IBM BladeCenter Servers running Citrix XenServer. For more information on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, visit http://ibm.co/1b3H06k.
Material de la Charla de Virtualizacion de la Comunidad Windows del 10 de Setiembre del 2009
http://ecastrom.blogspot.com
http://comunidadwindows.org
ecastro@grupoasesor.net
Ing. Eduardo Castro Martinez, PhD
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
http://ecastrom.blogspot.com
http://mswindowscr.org
http://comunidadwindows.org
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
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/
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
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.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
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
1. May 2017
By Chetan Gabhane
Tech Note
Protect Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC
V240 with VMware vSphere and Hitachi Data
Instance Director
2. Feedback
Hitachi Data Systems welcomes your feedback. Please share your thoughts by sending an email message to
SolutionLab@hds.com. To assist the routing of this message, use the paper number in the subject and the title of this
white paper in the text.
Revision History
Revision Changes Date
AS-595-00 Initial release May 12, 2017
3. Table of Contents
Test Environment Configuration................................................................................................................................ 2
Key Hardware Components ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Key Software Components............................................................................................................................................. 4
Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC V240F Cluster Configuration ............................................................................. 5
Virtual Machine Storage Allocation................................................................................................................................. 6
Best Practices ................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Test Methodology ......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Test Virtual Machine Configuration and Workload ......................................................................................................... 7
Test Cases ...................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Analysis ............................................................................................................................................................................ 8
Test Results..................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Test Case 1 — VMware VADP Backup Using Hitachi Data Instance Director on VMware vSAN.................................. 9
Test Case 2 — Create a Cloned Virtual Machine From Hitachi Data Instance Director Backup ................................. 10
4. 1
1
Protect Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC V240 with
VMware vSphere and Hitachi Data Instance Director
Tech Note
This tech note demonstrates the use of Hitachi Data Instance Director (HDID) to protect Hitachi Unified Compute Platform
HC V240 (UCP HC V240) in a hyper converged infrastructure. The solution focuses on the VMware vStorage API for Data
Protection (VMware VADP) backup option for software-defined storage. Data Instance Director protects a VMware
vSphere environment as a 4-node chassis data solution with options for replicating data to outside the chassis.
Hitachi Data Instance Director provides business-defined data protection so you can modernize, simplify and unify your
operational recovery, disaster recovery, and long-tern retention operations. HDID provides storage-based protection of
the VMware vSphere environment.
Data Instance Director with VMware vStorage API for Data Protection provides the following:
Agentless backup using the VMware native API
Incremental backup that provides backup window reduction
Easy to implement and maintain for a virtualization environment
Easy to replicate backup data to other destinations or outside of chassis
This tech note does not provide information for the sizing of storage and virtual machines. However, it provides some
reference data points and expectations of Data Instance Director. This note only contains Data Instance Director
implementations with a 4-node Unified Compute Platform HC chassis.
This paper is intended for use by storage or data center administrators who are backing up data and recovering
information in a VMware vSphere environment.
Note — Testing of this configuration was done in a lab environment. Many factors affect production environments
beyond prediction or duplication in a lab environment. Follow the recommended practice of conducting proof-of-
concept testing for acceptable results in a non-production, isolated, test environment that matches your production
environment before your production implementation of this solution.
5. 2
2
Test Environment Configuration
These are the key components and storage configuration used to conduct testing.
Figure 1 shows the logical design for testing.
Figure 1
6. 3
3
Key Hardware Components
Table 1 describes the key hardware components used for testing.
TABLE 1. HARDWARE COMPONENTS
Hardware Description Version Quantity
Hitachi Unified
Compute
Platform HC
V240
4-node chassis
Intel Xeon processor @2.50 GHz, 12 cores (one
processor per host )
2 × 10 GbE NIC ports:
NIC options:
RJ-45 connections: Dual port 10 GbE Base-T Intel
X540 OCP mezzanine card
SFP+ connections: Dual port 10 GbE Intel
82599ES SFP+ OCP mezzanine card
1 × 10/100 Base-T RJ45 port for remote (out-of-
band) management 1 × 800GB SSD for Cache Tier
2 fully redundant power supplies
LSI SAS 3008 RAID controller mezzanine card
Fault-tolerant virtual SAN datastore
SSDs — 4 cache tier
HDDs — 9 capacity tier
BIOS Firmware: S2S_3A18
BMC: 3.36.00
1
Brocade
VDX6740
switch
Top-of-rack switch
10 GbE ports (at least 16 ports) VDX6740
nos 7.0.0.a 2
7. 4
4
Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC
Combining compute, storage, and virtualization into a hyperconverged infrastructure, Hitachi Unified Compute Platform
HC (UCP HC) answers challenges of growing demands of faster delivery of business services while facing rising costs
managing disparate technology resources. Using VMware Virtual SAN with software from Hitachi Data Systems, this
software-defined storage extends the agility and simplicity of the Hitachi Unified Compute Platform family.
Unified Compute Platform HC provides a comprehensive dashboard to view virtual machine. There are health monitors for
CPU, memory, storage, and virtual machine usage for the all clusters, including individual appliances and individual
nodes.
You need minimal IT experience to deploy, configure, and manage the Unified Compute Platform HC appliance.
Leveraging VMware’s core products, your administrators can apply existing VMware knowledge, best practices, and
processes.
Unified Compute Platform HC provides the following for your infrastructure:
Entry-level converged infrastructure solution.
Flexible, customizable with the ability to grow.
Pretested, preconfigured, and prebuilt to meet your converged infrastructure needs.
Key Software Components
Table 2 describes the key software components used for testing.
Hitachi Data Instance Director
Hitachi Data Instance Director provides a modern, holistic approach to data protection, recovery, and retention.
Data Instance Director has a unique workflow-based policy engine, presented in a whiteboard-style user interface. It helps
you to map copy data management processes to business priorities.
Data Instance Director includes a wide range of fully integrated storage-based and host-based incremental-forever data
capture capabilities. These can be combined into complex workflows to automate and simplify copy data management.
TABLE 2. SOFTWARE COMPONENTS
Software Components Version
Hitachi Data Instance Director 5.5.2
VMware vSphere 6.5a
VMware vCenter Server 6.5a
Microsoft® Windows Server® (workload virtual machines) 2012 R2
Microsoft SQL Server® (transaction load) 2014
VMware vSAN 6.5
8. 5
5
VMware vSAN
Seamlessly extending virtualization to storage with an integrated hyper-converged solution that works with your overall
VMware environment, VMware vSAN reduces the risk in digital transformation by using existing tools, skillsets, and
solutions.
Built by VMware, enjoy the best integration with VMware vSphere features with vSAN. Discover the flexibility to expand
with other VMware SDDC and multi-cloud offerings as your needs grow. Protect current storage infrastructure
investments with the only hyperconverged infrastructure solution built on policy-based management that extends per-
virtual machine policies and automated provisioning to modern SAN and NAS storage systems.
VMware vSAN pools on server-attached storage provides a highly resilient shared datastore suitable for any virtualized
workload. This includes business critical applications, virtual desktops, remote IT, disaster recovery, or a developmental
operations infrastructure.
Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC V240F Cluster Configuration
The compute nodes on Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC V240F were configured as follows:
Unified Compute Platform HC V240F Cluster — The test environment used all four VMware ESXi 6.5a nodes for
creating eight workload virtual machines by using VMware vSAN automated node with vSAN datastore size of 12.97
TB (Figure 2).
Hitachi Data Instance Director — The test environment placed management and administration components on a
separate infrastructure cluster.
Figure 2
9. 6
6
Virtual Machine Storage Allocation
For Hitachi Data Instance Director, the following two virtual machines running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 were
deployed on VMware vCenter in Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC.
HDID-Master — This machine controls the actions of all other nodes on the system.
4 vCPU
8 GB RAM
80 GB OS VMDK
HDID-Repo — This is a general-purpose system designated as the recipient of data in a replication configuration.
4 vCPU
16 GB RAM
80 GB OS VMDK, 4 TB repository VMDK
The VMDK repository can be on a different VMware vSAN datastore or on external-storage based datastore,
such as a Fibre Channel, NFS, or VVol-based.
Table 3 on page 6 lists the high level virtual machine storage allocation used during testing.
Best Practices
Consider the following best practices when you implement this VMware VADP solution with Hitachi Data Instance
Director:
Assign the Hitachi Data Instance Director server IP subnet to be the same as the target VMware ESXi hosts to
minimize network routing.
During the backup, the maximum throughput of 252 MB/s was observed for a single virtual machine. Consider the
following to help increase total throughput:
Use multiple concurrent backup streams.
On the Hitachi Data Instance Director repository server, add multiple VMDKs from multiple datastores to create
Hitachi Data Instance Director storage groups.
Make sure you have adequate backend disk spindles to support high sequential write I/O from the repository
server.
TABLE 3. VIRTUAL MACHINE STORAGE ALLOCATION
Virtual Machine Storage Allocation
HDID-Master Deployed on the separate vCenter infrastructure management datastore
HDID-Repo Deployed on the separate vCenter infrastructure management datastore
vSAN Test VMs OS and VMDKs both were deployed on a vSAN datastore
10. 7
7
High read I/O was observed on the source datastores during the backup.
This might impact your application workload.
Avoid scheduling backup operations during peak workload times.
Long initial full backup was observed.
Large virtual machines might require multiple recovery point objective (RPO) periods to complete the initial
backup.
While the full backup is only required once, plan this backup carefully.
Test Methodology
This is the test methodology used to observe the behavior of a Hitachi Data Instance Director environment on Hitachi
Unified Compute Platform HC. The environment performed a VMware VADP backup while running a moderate workload
of Microsoft SQL Server transactions..
Test Virtual Machine Configuration and Workload
The following virtual machine configuration was used to perform the test:
4 vCPU
16 GB RAM
40 GB OS VMDK Thin
200 GB DB VMDK
Provisioned as Eager Zeroed Thick for a VMware vSAN datastore, following best practice
60% of disk was filled with random data
20% of disk was actively accessed during the test
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system
Microsoft SQL Server
For each virtual machine, the Microsoft SQL Server workload listed in Table 4 was generated against DB VMDK.
With this workload, the data change rate became 2 GB hourly or 10% hourly. Eight virtual machines running this workload
were used for every backup test.
TABLE 4. WORKLOAD DEFINITION
Workload Block Size (KB) Read Percent Random Percent IOPS/Virtual Machine
Microsoft SQL Server 64 66% 100% 32
11. 8
8
Test Cases
For the VMware VADP backup test using Hitachi Data Instance Director, two policies were created to achieve two
concurrent backups to increase the backup efficiency.
If all eight virtual machines were set in one policy, it would result in only a single stream with eight sequential virtual
machine backups. The total backup time can be significantly longer with one policy.
Table 5 shows the scheduled backup settings.
Table 6 lists the test cases and their description.
Analysis
With Hitachi Data Instance Director, you can achieve broader data protection options on the VMware virtualized
environment. With VMware VADP CBT, the backup window for the incremental backup was relatively short and optimized.
TABLE 5. VMWARE VADP BACKUP POLICY SETTINGS IN HITACHI DATA INSTANCE DIRECTOR
Number of VADP Policies
2 policies with 4 virtual machines per policy
Frequency
Every 1 hour
Retention
Keep 1 day
TABLE 6. TEST CASES
Test Case Description
Test Case 1 — Measure the backup-
window and storage usage for the
VMware VADP backup using Hitachi
Data Instance Director on a VMware
vSAN datastore.
Deploy the eight virtual machine's DB VMDK evenly on two
VMware ESXi hosts with VMware vSAN datastores. The
workload runs for 36 hours during the backup test. Take the
measurement with both quiesce options enabled/disabled. This
backup is a full backup, with initial backup and a later
incremental backup.
Test Case 2 — Create a cloned virtual
machine from the Hitachi Data Instance
Director backup
Restore a virtual machine after taking a Hitachi Data Instance
Director backup. Measure the timestamp of the restore
operation.
12. 9
9
Test Results
These are the results of each test case.
Test Case 1 — VMware VADP Backup Using Hitachi Data Instance Director on
VMware vSAN
The initial backup for VMware VADP takes longer to complete because it requires copying the entire virtual machine data
to the repository.
Table 7 shows the time that it took to complete the initial full backup and the storage space used in the Hitachi Data
Instance Director repository.
The total storage space used for the virtual machines deployed on the VMware vSAN datastore was 1920 GB. It was
about 200 GB more consumption. This was because the eager zeroed thick format was used for the VMDKs provisioned
from vSAN , and the entire VMDK data was backed up.
VMware change block tracking (CBT) was utilized for the incremental backup. Table 8 shows the average incremental
backup time for the VMware vSAN datastore with the quiesce option enabled or disabled.
For eight virtual machines with two concurrent backup policies, it took about 2 to 5 minutes to complete hourly
incremental backups.
With the quiesce option on, it took 1 to 2 minutes longer when compared to setting the quiesce option to off. The average
storage space used for each backup was about 35 GB.
Each test was performed for 36 hours with hourly backups, and with a retention of 24 hours.
TABLE 7. INITIAL FULL BACKUP
Datastore Type Backup Time Storage Used
VMware vSAN 52 minutes 1920 GB
TABLE 8. INCREMENTAL BACKUP
Datastore Type Quiesce Backup Time Storage Used Per Backup
VMware vSAN ON 4 minutes 15 seconds 35.02 GB
VMware vSAN OFF 2 minutes 35 seconds 34.9 GB
13. 10
10
Figure 3 shows the total capacity used for eight virtual machines on VMware vSAN datastores. The capacity usage of the
backups from both vSAN datastores became flat after 24 hours because the backups older than 24 hours were deleted.
Figure 3
Test Case 2 — Create a Cloned Virtual Machine From Hitachi Data Instance Director
Backup
In this test, a virtual machine was restored to the original VMware vSAN datastore as a new clone from a Hitachi Data
Instance Director backup. The backups were performed from Test Case 1 with virtual machines deployed on VMware
vSAN.
Table 9 shows the time that it took to restore a virtual machine and the amount of data restored.
TABLE 9. RESTORE A VIRTUAL MACHINE FROM HITACHI DATA INSTANCE DIRECTOR BACKUPS
Datastore Type Restore Time Restored Data
VMware vSAN 22 minutes 15 seconds 213 GB
14. For More Information
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