ranj

I echo what most people are saying..... 10K just wont get you a solid storage solution for what you are running at the moment.... I would consider showing this thread to your senior management team to get them to understand the pitfalls of under specing a storage solution. Storage is absolute key in delivering the resources that your network community needs. NAS is good as a secondary storage solution that can work alongside a SAN, but for it to become your main storage solution I would think very carefully before you proceed. Anyways I have used previously NAS storage from Overland SNAP range and would recommend them highly. Not only is it an excellent NAS storage box but it can act as an ISCSI entry level SAN and I be honest with you it does work very well. I am questioning whether it would be suitable in your setup though but I would consider it in your situation... SnapServer N2000

Hi Was wondering if I could get some help on adding an additional host into our VMware HA/DRS cluster. We are not able to successfully get the host to see the datastores on the SAN. We have 2 IBM SAN24B-4 which I believe are rebranded Brocade fibre switches. We have setup the alias and zoning for the new host with the storage. It seems we do have connectivity through the switch as the switch can pick up the WWN for the host through the fibre gbit port it is configured on. The new host we have put in is a newer generation of IBM server host than the previous 3. This server has 8GBps fibre connectivity through the card and the gbit which goes into the switch is only a 4gbps, would this create an issue with connectivity. We do know for sure that we are getting connectivity to the host and we are getting a green light which I assume indicates the connectivity is ok. Both our fibre switches are running Fabric OS v6.1.1a and we have noticed that the latest version is v7.0.1, could it be that we need to upgrade the fibre switches to a recent version. Has anyone done upgrades on brocade switches? is it correct that you cannot do a straight firmware upgrade from one update to another? The fibre switches have dual connections from the SAN to the hosts for redundancy, would we be able to upgrade 1 switch first and then do the other or are we likely to encounter problems? If anyone has had experience with this, it would be good to hear back. Many thanks

Hi On my Mac, I am running Office 2011 with the latest patch (14.2.1) with Snow Leopard 10.6.8. My outlook is synced using imap with my google mail and my ISP provider account, both sync using IMAP as I want emails available both online and my Outlook. I have found an issue where for some reason on Outlook I cannot view older emails. I can see them in the list but if I click a message, there is no message body only the subject and who it was from. When I go online to check these same emails in their respective folders, the whole email body message is there with no issues. When I look at a pattern it seems to be older emails are now showing. I can confirm my outlook is saying it is sync successfully. I have tried putting outlook into offline mode. I have gone into each account in outlook and set it to download headers only Not seem to be having much look. Does anyone know why this could be? Many thanks

Found this article and thought I would share. It was an eye opener for me! Why all HDMI cables are the same | Crave - CNET Detailing why all HDMI cables are the same...

Hi We have a public mailbox which a number of users are required to check and retrieve emails from. Once they finish they are ordered to put them in the deleted items which they do very well but no one actually deletes the deleted items. The attachments that come through on email are quite big and this mailbox can grow very quickly. At the moment we need to check this account every week and manually empty the deleted items. Is there any way we can automate or schedule this so once a week it goes to this mailbox and empties the delete items? Thanks

Hi All Hoping someone could assist me with a question I have with my Exchange Global Address list. We use Active Directory on Windows server 2003 R2. I have been asked to extract some of the details of our users with emails (they are exchange users) which we can the export and send them to our HQ who can import them into their Active Directory. The sites are not connected via active directory, there are no trusts or AD integration between the 2. We have only site to site VPN. We dont share the same Exchange environment either. I understand I could use CSVDE and LDFDE to do extraction from our AD and HQ could use these same tools to import into their environment? Would this work.. The point of this is so some of their staff can email a bunch of back office staff at this location. Rather than someone manually typing the details in we felt it be better if we could just do an extraction which they can import into their AD. Is this possible? Any advice would be very helpful. I am currently using our test environment to test these changes. We have an uptodate DC in this environment as well. Thanks

Hi All I am investigating some performance issues we are having backing up to tape using BE 2010 R3. THe way our process works is we do a B2D2T we have a backup server where we have Veeam installed which we use to backup to disk. We then use BE 2010 R3 to backup the veeam file created (one large 1tb .vbk file). This veeam file is a file which Veeam creates when creating backups of our VMs in VMware. This file has already been compressed within Veeam. We then backup this 1 file to tape onto our IBM TS3200 tape library directly connected via 6GB SAS on the backup server. We recently upgraded the unit in here to LT0-5. We were using LT0-4 before but the performance we are getting is the same as LT0-4. Firmware upgrades on the tape library unit, server have all been done. BE is fully patched up on the server. Its running Windows 2008 32-bit with 4gb ram. We have tried numerous tests with buffer settings but still the same performance. We have turned encryption off and compression within BE only off. I am running out of ideas and am now thinking could it be that because this veeam file is already compressed. Is symantec just slowing down because its already compressed? Is there any advice on backing to tape changing settings within BE? I have tried numerous settings within BE. Currently the device is set as the following: Compression enabled block size (per device) - 64kb buffer size (per device) - 1mb buffer count - 10 high water count - 0 read single block mode - off write single block mode - off read scsi passthrough mode - off write scsi passthrough mode - on Thanks

Hi All We use Veeam to backup to disk and than use Backup Exec 2010 to backup this file to tape. This jobs are both scheduled so the veeam job starts at 8pm and normally finishes anytime between 1am - 3am. We have our BE job scheduled for 5am. What would be ideal is if I can run a post script or pre script job (I hear on the grapevyne it can be done) so that the BE job can start of straight away after the Veeam job. As our backups size are slowly increasing this I can see becoming more important we recently had our veeam job go over 5am (assumed it was because there were a lot of changes to server VMDK files causing processing those files to take longer) and I dont want to run into this issue again. Has anyone done a script which could perform this function? Anyone willing to share this or point me in the direction of what commands I need to script this? Many thanks

Hi All Needs a graphics specialist / dual/triple screen enthusiast on this one! At my workplace we have a director who needs the ability for an extra screen to view stats from the main call centre. Ideally he wants a new PC to show just these new stats. Ideally I don't want to do this as he's got a PC with a separate graphics card which has DVI, VGA and HDMI! A seperate PC would just be a waste and consume lots of room. Currently he has a dual screen setup utilizing the DVI and VGA port only. Rather than give him another PC just to run this separate application. I want to give him a 3rd screen and use the HDMI port on his graphics card. He's using Windows 7. Ideally this 3rd app I want it to run exclusively on this third screen. With a dual screen monitor the mouse goes from one screen to another but with a third screen I don't want the mouse to interact with the 3rd app if possible. Ideally I just want him to run it and leave it. If that is possible. Would a software app let me do this? This director is constantly on his PC so don't want the 3rd screen to effect his normal work. The 3rd screen I am thinking I would like to hang on the wall as we have a spare LCD lying round which would perfect for this. Looking for some workable solution, if you guys don't think this would work I am open to other solutions on this. Cheers

Hi I am currently investigating some performance issues we are having backing up to Disk using Veeam and then backing up to tape using Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3. We have recently added some more critical servers into our Veeam backup job and are now running into problems. We use a Physical Windows 2008 32bit server as our backup server. Single Quad core with 4GB RAM. This has direct 4gb fibre connection to a NexSAN SATABOY which has dual controllers which is our backup storage device. This is configured in RAID6 and has one 11TB Volume. The dual controllers on SATABOY support 4Gb and on the backup server we have 2 fibre cards which are 8GB. The solution is designed to be fault tolerant so any faults should be alleviated with alternative paths. We have approx 25 VMs which we backup using Veeam B&R v6. We have 1 Veeam job which kicks off at 8pm, we use the backup to SAN option but find the processing rate to be poor. It takes approx 40-50mb/s. On a good day this can get to about 65mb/s. All our VMs bar 2 have Change blocked tracking enabled so incremental backups should be faster. The backup server fibre plugs into 2 SAN fibre switches (with redundant paths) and the ESX hosts also connect into these fibre switches. When Veeam backups and restore it should be using the fibre connectivity to directly connect to the SAN eliminating any host involvement to get better performance. I am trying to understand why we are getting these bottlenecks because when we backup to tape we backup data which sits on the SATABoy which is directly connected to fibre to our Windows backup server and again we are getting poor performance from Backup Exec. The tape library is LTO-5 and we are using a 6GB SAS card which is in the backup server to connect to the tape library. We found when we upgraded from LTO-4 to LTO-5 the performance was exactly the same. Basically we are getting 4,300mb/s when with our design of our backup infrastructure we should be getting at least double this. Things we have tried • Copying the data we normally backup from the SATAboy to the backup server local disks which are 450GB SAS disks and find when we backup to tape from this location we are finding it’s a lot quicker takes half the time to backup to tape. The speed per minute doubles to about 8000 mb/s. • Copying a file/folder from the SATABOY to local disk on the backup server and getting approx 60mb/s (this is through fibre!!). As a test we unplugged the Ethernet to ensure it wasn’t using Ethernet to copy this file and when we plugged the cables out the copy carried on which proved it is using the fibre connection. • We have done a direct fibre connection from the SATABoy to the backup server and noticed a slight improvement but nowhere near what we expected. We basically achieved 115mb/s going directly with SAN Fibre switches. • We have also updated the server firmware, all drivers. It’s an IBM server so we have used updateXpress to update all components of the server. Things we are looking to try next • Upgrade the firmware on the SATABOY • Upgrade the firmware on the SAN fibre switches • Upgrading the server to 64-bit Windows 2008 R2, install approx another 16gb ram and maybe another processor but ideally don’t want to do this as it’s a massive piece of work and we don’t see what significant gain we will get by doing this. I am hoping someone who may have had similar problem like this can assist. I apoligise that in advance that its all not directly related to Veeam but believe if I can sort the issues out with Veeam and/or hardware, the rest will also get sorted. Thank you

Hi I have a bit of an issue and was wondering if anyone can help. I have a VM which was recent P2V from physical hardware. It is a SUSE linux VM and for some reason I am not able to mount either a CD-ROM drive from either my machine or from the ESX host where the VM is sitting on. I have installed the VMware tools successfully. As its SUSE I have gone into Yast and checked the hardware information and it does show a cd-rom with VMware as the vendor so I am assuming that the OS can see a cd-rom drive but for what ever reason the cd-rom cannot be seen when I mount. I have checked on the settings for the VM and ensured the device status is set to connected and connect at power on. I have tried client device, host device and even an ISO but when I ssh to the os I cannot see the CD-Rom or any of its files. Does anyone know what could be wrong. I have created brand new linux OS before but never had an issue, I am think maybe because its a P2V and I need to make some adjustments. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi All I am currently doing some testing with Domain controllers DHCP, DNS servers as well as 2 clients. I am using VM workstation 8. I have created a team as well as a LAN segment and connected the VMs to the LAN segment. I have set no options in the virtual network editor. My networking knowledge isn't that great so you will have to bear with me on this one. One of VMs is a windows 2008 R2 server with DHCP and DNS. This server I have given a static IP but I have 2 client workstations running WIndows XP which I need to connect and get an IP address from this internal DHCP VM but for some reason I cannot get it to work. Does anyone know why this is. I would have thought setting them all to the same LAN segment would then force the client VMS to look for a DHCP server. The client machines do not have static IPs address and are set to automatic so that it picks up from a DHCP server. What have I done wrong? Can anyone help? Thanks

Hi All Recently I have started to get more complaints about user's pc's being slow. When looking at the PC's though they dont seem to be overutilised. The memory seems to be about half in use and the CPU is normally sitting idle and may on occasions go up to 20-30%. It makes me think I may need to troubleshoot the network. Looking at our Virtualisation environment and core switches I dont think there is an issue there but not sure. I want to try to understand Wireshark but when I capture info I be honest and say I dont really understand what it's telling me. Does anyone suggest any other tools I could use which would make the process more easier. Any links on understanding wireshark would be great as well. Thanks

Just an update on this.. I purchased the devolo 1409 kit and it has worked brilliantly... Wifi is even better with the extended feature and now I have 3 Ethernet ports. Was so easy to setup

Like others who have mentioned, get rid of it. We had those models of projectors in my last place and had the same issues.

yeh I have already done this and the only alerts I can see are before we increased the limit to 75GB. We hit the 18gb limit about 18 months ago, we then did the registry setting to update it to 75gb. So far I can see no alerts for the 75gb limit but I would like to know where we currently at.... Is there a way I can find this out. I thought the exchange best practise analyser would tell me but it didnt.....

The extended support though is still till 2014 and that is the reason why are still on it. Apparantly I been told they would still support us as we are a business. Obviouslly we would have to pay the extended support costs!

Hi All I have a server which is running Exchange 2003 Standard with SP2 where the database files are: priv1.edb = 49 GB priv1.stm = 25 GB Can I just clarify the 75GB limit that is on the standard edition. Is that 75GB with both the edb and stm put together or is it seperate. We run the mailbox management process on a sunday evening. What exactly will happen once the limit has been reached? I know in the past we have had the store go offline. Is this all that will happen. I have had a look at our environment and email is now available to more users than ever. We have grown an extra 100 users in the space of 3 months. Currently this server is a VM inside an ESX4 cluster. Its a Windows Server 2003 Standard edition (32bit only) and I am concisious that exchange by defulat consumes all the memory which is has already done. I know I can't expand the memory unless 64 bit is installed but want to refrain from doing this as it would make more sense to upgrade. The issue is the cost of 100 or so licenses which are still 2003 licenses and would need to be upgraded. I also notice a lot of spikes on CPU usage which on occasions I have seen between 75% and 90%. I want any ammunitation you folks can give to make a case for us to upgrade to Exchange 2010. Any thoughts are welcome... Thanks

Can I ask whether you use this via a Virgin Media Super Hub? Have you encountered any issues with your wired devices getting an IP?

What I am thinking is I would like to buy a 4 port switch, buy one of those home plugs thingies. Use one of the existing ports in superhub, connect this to the home plug, insert other home plug downstairs and plug this into the switch. Would this work well and would it effectively extend the switch capacity? Or is the wireless bridge option better?

Hi All Have had Virgin for about 10 years since the Blueyonder days and I have now got to the point where I must have about 10 devices all trying to connect into my superhub either via wireless or wired. The superhub has 4 wired switch connections but the problem is these are now all used up with a PC, NAS box, Network printer and my Sonos Bridge. I am about to purchase an internet enabled TV and require an additonal ethernet port on that. I can use it on wireless but would rather use Ethernet. Mainly because its going to cost me extra and if I have to spend more money I would rather invest in a switch rather than a dongle. I need to understand whether the Superhub will support bridging with another wireless AP or router or would I be better of purchasing a switch and attaching this to the superhub. My issue is though if I did this I would need to purchase the ethernet over power and ideally dont want this option, it looks messy and I am just not very keen with it. Is this possible with the Superhub? I have got 30mb broadband with Virgin Media and I am using V5.5.2R30 of the Firmware. Does anyone have any other better suggestions to my dilemma. Also is there a limit on how many wireless devices I can connect to the SuperHub? Both my Superhub and Sonos Bridge are on Wireless channel 6. Thanks

Your telling me! When I first heard that we were getting a 3 phase UPS I just thought it just needed to be plugged into a mcb board which was 3 phase. Having done lots of reading and speaking to electrical contractors it's not as simple as that... Lol

Is it me or is twitter down??

Hi I Have a few questions on a UPS system we are about to purchase. We are in the process of purchasing a 3 phase APC SUVTP series UPS which basically is a UPS in a tall rack as well as an extended run enclosure (APC SUVTBXR6B6S) and I have just have a few questions on the commisioning and installation part of the UPS. When the UPS arrives it is my understanding that as part of it APC include a startup service included with that. A few questions I had were: Would the APC engineer connect the battery enclosure to the UPS? or do I need to get this done by electrical contractors? Would the input to the UPS normally be at 100amp three phase and neutral? Does it need to be lower than this e.g. 80 amps? ESX servers, a few physical servers, switches, firewalls, management appliances and storage devices would be connected to this UPS. If anyone is able to advise on any of these questions it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I dont understand what you mean by the adapter. Do you have a picture??