Jump to content

My IT Related Blog!

RJohnson91

By RJohnson91
in General Chat

 Share

Recommended Posts

RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
Posted

Morning!

 

So I decided to start up a blog that will basically cover a vast amount of work I do, and what I have done to overcome problems that i have faced, an informal computer blog :)

 

 

So I just wanted to give it a little publicity on here as you guys are the audience I want to have read and comment on my blog!

 

I am 21 years of age, and I started up the blog last night so the content is thin on the ground as it stands but! Don't fear! Because I shall be adding fresh content very soon!

 

So if your at a loose end (and I know us IT guys don't get a moment to ourselves most of the time!) then please pop in and have a read, maybe leave a comment, or email me a suggestion.

 

Many many thanks!

 

Ryan

 

Click here to view my blog!

gshaw

gshaw

Posted
Posted
Will keep an eye on this, doing a blog has been really useful for me as a) a technical showcase and b) a reminder for how I've done stuff and where I've put things (already re-downloaded some of my own Moodle themes 2-3 times since :p
  • Thanks 1
RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
Looks good, Looking forward to more posts. You are in a very similar position to me apart from I am still on the 'first step of the ladder'

 

 

Thanks, ill be updating it very soon, I hope that it will be an insightful blog, and i hope that you and other will enjoy it, I need to get a good 'base' of people reading it! :)

 

I know how you feel, I was incredibly lucky to be able to find the job I currently have. But once you get of that first step its easier to climb!

 

Will keep an eye on this, doing a blog has been really useful for me as a) a technical showcase and b) a reminder for how I've done stuff and where I've put things (already re-downloaded some of my own Moodle themes 2-3 times since :p

 

Thanks! Please leave comments where you see fit, I will be updating it very soon. That is one of the reasons I created the blog as well, its so hard to keep track of everything that we all do, but with a blog it makes it a whole lot easier !

 

Remember to follow me if your interested :) (I think you can follow blogs, im new to wordpress)

 

 

EDIT- Ahh I read your blog before I started mine! You were one of the reasons i started with wordpress and not other blogging websites, I liked the look and feel of yours.

Edited by RJohnson91
fiza

fiza

Posted
Posted
Will be interesting to see how your blog develops. Your School seem to be stepping into areas I have an interest in so will defo pop back to your blog.
  • Thanks 1
Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted
New blog post!

Great blog. Just a couple of comments...

 

all you have to do is create a ‘thin’ XP

Microsoft have a couple of stripped-down OSs designed for making fat clients less fat: Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (XP) and Windows Thin PC (Windows 7).

 

The 10zig boxes come with a very easy to set up ‘kiosk’ mode, and you can buy them ‘citrix’ ‘vmware’ ready etc.

Now I think these boxes range from £150 each onwards, and then there is a licensing fee for the kiosk software per machine

@jamesfed posted some prices for the 10zig thin clients and licenses in this thread. You may also be interested in his blog called My World of IT. :)

  • Thanks 1
RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Great blog. Just a couple of comments...

 

 

Microsoft have a couple of stripped-down OSs designed for making fat clients less fat: Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (XP) and Windows Thin PC (Windows 7).

 

 

@jamesfed posted some prices for the 10zig thin clients and licenses in this thread. You may also be interested in his blog called My World of IT. :)

 

Thank you very much, both for your kind words and also your pointers to prices etc.

 

Ironically i went to his VDI demo day only a few days ago! And i completely forgot that he was on Edugeek, which is horrendous memory because its here i heard about the demo day!

 

Anyway insanity and memory loss aside, i have now updated the post with prices and links to websites. thank you very much!

 

Ryan

jamesfed

jamesfed

Posted
Posted

Nice to see my spirit of information sharing is working :D

 

Guess I'm going to have to start upping the post count on my website to stay on top of things (although I do have some nice photos of some Lync phones going up soon).

  • Thanks 1
RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Great blog thanks for starting it - I'm looking forward to keeping up to date with it.

 

Cheers mate, i have changed the look of it, because a few people have said the previous 'theme' wasn't that great on the eyes.

 

Nice to see my spirit of information sharing is working :D

 

Guess I'm going to have to start upping the post count on my website to stay on top of things (although I do have some nice photos of some Lync phones going up soon).

 

It has! You inspired me, among other things, to start the blog about the virtual project.

 

I may get another page going for different updates, more 'personal IT' related. Hopefully when our school has got to some kind of standard with the virtual system, we can have other schools over for a demo day :D

 

Ryan

RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
  • Author
Posted
If you are looking at Thin Client and Remote Computing, you may want to keep an eye on mine too EduGeek.net - TheScarfedOne - Blogs where Ive talked about our setup - and there is a forthcoming post on the MS Schools Blog too at Microsoft UK Education - Blogs - Schools blog there are a few others there worth a look

 

Oh awesome, ill have a look at that, that may help us!

 

--------------------------------------------------------

 

New post!

 

Why we can't user HyperV... and is there an SSD that works for VMWare?

 

View my blog!

Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted
is there an SSD that works for VMware?

In addition to the really expensive (but nice) Fusion I/O PCIe SSDs, you may want to take a look at the Intel 910 Series (£1296.79 for 400GB, Review) and SanDisk Lightning SSA (more info). Both SSDs use an LSI SAS2008 PCIe to SAS bridge chip so they are supported out-of-the-box by pretty much every hypervisor and OS available, including VMware ESXi v4.x & v5.0. :)

 

The LSI WarpDrive SLP-300 also uses the same bridge chip, but due to the SLC NAND onboard is quite expensive (£6,300!!!).

  • Thanks 1
  • 1 month later...
RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Well alot has been going on, and alot has changed.

 

There is a new 'All About Me' page (Navigate on the left of my blog) which shows a picture of me (yay?) and a brief 'about me' paragraph.

 

Also there is a new main blog post!! :D

 

Please check it out ..

 

OH and use the new URL www.workingwithit.co.uk

davidbrg1

davidbrg1

Posted
Posted

Awesome! Way to go, we really do need good blogs with good information. Maybe in the future, a great site to reference for tech questions and new technologies would be Blog | ITNinja

 

We have excellent information and great topics for all things IT. Keep up the good work!

 

David Malmborg

I work with Dell

  • Thanks 1
RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Awesome! Way to go, we really do need good blogs with good information. Maybe in the future, a great site to reference for tech questions and new technologies would be Blog | ITNinja

 

We have excellent information and great topics for all things IT. Keep up the good work!

 

David Malmborg

I work with Dell

 

Ill take this comment as you have actually read my Blog and you're not just taking the opportunity to advertise :p

 

Thank you!! I will check out ITNinja, Are you an Admin or a Writer of the articles on that website?

 

If you feel my Blog is worth it, maybe a little mention in a post, I'm finding it difficult to 'promote' my blog. Only if you have the time / think it is worth the promotion.

 

Many thanks for any information / help you provide :)

 

Ryan

gshaw

gshaw

Posted
Posted (edited)

Interesting reading about those server SSDs, how much did they set you back?

 

Have been considering VDI for some time now but it all comes back to the crazy prices for the backend storage in order to get the IOPs we'd need for 50-100 Windows 7 desktops (design guides say 20 IOPS per machine so 20 x 100 = 2000 IOPS aka 10-11 15k SAS hard drives... ouch). A couple of SSDs would do the job perfectly with a couple of HDDs for state change data but so far the cost has been prohibitive :(

 

Btw the font size on your blog is a bit on the small side imo ;) One other personal preference is I'd go for a 2-column layout rather than 3, makes it easier to read the articles as you eyes aren't jumping down the lines so much.

Edited by gshaw
  • Thanks 1
jamesfed

jamesfed

Posted
Posted
Interesting reading about those server SSDs, how much did they set you back?

 

Have been considering VDI for some time now but it all comes back to the crazy prices for the backend storage in order to get the IOPs we'd need for 50-100 Windows 7 desktops (design guides say 20 IOPS per machine so 20 x 100 = 2000 IOPS aka 10-11 15k SAS hard drives... ouch). A couple of SSDs would do the job perfectly with a couple of HDDs for state change data but so far the cost has been prohibitive :(

 

Btw the font size on your blog is a bit on the small side imo ;) One other personal preference is I'd go for a 2-column layout rather than 3, makes it easier to read the articles as you eyes aren't jumping down the lines so much.

 

You may want to have a look at a string of posts I did here - Series: Virtual Desktops on PCI-E SSD « my world of IT

 

Are also working on a RDS farm that uses SSD as well - Series: Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm « my world of IT

  • Thanks 1
RJohnson91

RJohnson91

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
Interesting reading about those server SSDs, how much did they set you back?

 

Have been considering VDI for some time now but it all comes back to the crazy prices for the backend storage in order to get the IOPs we'd need for 50-100 Windows 7 desktops (design guides say 20 IOPS per machine so 20 x 100 = 2000 IOPS aka 10-11 15k SAS hard drives... ouch). A couple of SSDs would do the job perfectly with a couple of HDDs for state change data but so far the cost has been prohibitive :(

 

Btw the font size on your blog is a bit on the small side imo ;) One other personal preference is I'd go for a 2-column layout rather than 3, makes it easier to read the articles as you eyes aren't jumping down the lines so much.

 

 

The SSD's set us back around £1200 each, which is a mear drop in the ocean when you compare them to the fusions, that retail at around £5000 I believe?

(Spec of Intels here - Intel® Solid-State Drive 910 Series: Product Specification)

 

Yeah going virtual is not a cheap exercise, I don't think we will get much change out of £150,000 if we wanted to virtualise the whole school, but you can very nicely virtualise, say, 3 rooms... on 2 good £6000 Dell Poweredge racks, with 4 Intel SSD (Yet to be tested, but im sure they are supported by hypervisors) (and a sas or two, as you cant boot from the SSD), VDI in a box.. and the free xen server .... and you could be up and running extremely easily. Use the ESS microsoft licencing and you're laughing!!! (Microsoft UK Education - Types of Educational Licence - EES)

 

There are other cards, and the benefits of the SSD's are amazing compared to SAS ... Like James has said below, check out his videos, it gives a great over view of how fast they are!! Oh and cheers for information on the font and columns, i need a new layout, getting bored of that one :)

 

Ryan

 

EDIT- OH and thanks for reading the blog, please follow and check back for more!

Edited by RJohnson91
Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted
Have been considering VDI for some time now but it all comes back to the crazy prices for the backend storage in order to get the IOPs we'd need for 50-100 Windows 7 desktops (design guides say 20 IOPS per machine so 20 x 100 = 2000 IOPS aka 10-11 15k SAS hard drives... ouch).

Should be quite easy with SSDs. Eight 256GB Crucial M4's and an LSI MegaRAID 9207-8I will give you up to 350,000-369,000 IOPS for ~£1283! :eek: :)

 

http://i.imgur.com/q8Wvy.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/HFqdm.png

 

There's also the new Plextor M5 Pro which has around 86,000-94,000 IOPS (~£430 for 512GB).

  • Thanks 1
davidbrg1

davidbrg1

Posted
Posted

Ryan,

 

We are always looking to build relationships with good Tech blogs and forums. I'll try to get in touch with you via email if possible to discuss future possibilities.

 

David Malmborg

I work with Dell

  • Thanks 1

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing


×
×
  • Create New...