Storage

Hyperflex Sizer For All Flash and Edge

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Last year Hyperflex just got one configuration. Right now there are multiple different Hyperflex clusters, with their own limitations. I just updated my Hyperflex Sizing Tool on calculating # Capacity Nodes. Click the link for the Tool ! What’s new ? You can choose between a Replication Factor of 2 or 3. Hyperflex Still the same … Read more

What is Cisco Hyperflex Edge ?

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What if you are a company with lots of branch offices and those offices are to small for a Cisco Hyperflex cluster. Or you are just a small company who doesn’t need much compute, memory, iops and storage capacity for you office.  Think of offices where you just need and Active Directory Server, DNS, DHCP, … Read more

Hyperflex 2.0(1a) upgrade

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Everybody can upgrade a Hyperflex cluster ! Changes in Hyperflex 2.0(1a) To have the Hyperflex All Flash working, you will need the Hyperflex 2.0 Data platform. With a hybrid solution (Hyperflex with the 10k spinning disks) you can also upgrade to the 2.0 version. During the installation you can configure FC and iSCSI connections ! … Read more

Howto : Hyperflex 1.8 Cluster Expansion

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Expanding Cisco Hyperflex 1.8 Cluster Expanding a Cisco Hyperflex cluster (Hyper Converged Infrastructure) with a Cisco HX Server is very, very easy ! Make sure that you export the JSON file after the Hyperflex installation. This will makes life way easier ! Just use that file, fill in some credentials and wait about 30 minutes. … Read more

Top 5 reasons Why Cisco UCS with NVMe.

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Is the NVMe market growing ? According to IDC the NVME market is growing very fast in the next 3 years. SATA and SAS drives (Spinning disk and SSD) will be substantially less in the future. Why is it growing ? All hardware devices for storage relied on SCSI commands. These commands are processed sequential. … Read more

Storage is Dead! Long live Storage.

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We all need storage and we need a lot!
PBStorage

Back in the early days I started with WordPerfect 4.0 (1984). If you typed “Hello World!” it was about 80 bytes. If you now a days type “Hello World!” in Word 2016, it’s 12 Kb. This seems not much, but there is way more overhead in the file then 20+ years ago.

Files are getting bigger and bigger, 4K video is around the corner and we want to have data of every device we connect to the internet. Loads of Storage is also used for the visualized servers.
SAN, NAS are “old” technologies which a lot of companies are using for ages. Sometimes it can be complicated and that’s why there are “Storage Experts“.

Converged Infrastructure was the first step into a new direction. Compute, Network, Storage and hyper-visors have good adhesion between the vendors and most of the time it’s automated.

Hyper-convergence is not only a buzz-word since last year, it’s growing.

Here are 5 reasons to choose for a Hyper Converged Infrastructure :

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Howto Build Your Own Hyper-converged server with FreeNas in 7 steps!

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Hyper-converged systems are hot, but what is it ?

In short : It’s a server where you run VMWare vsphere and you’re using local storage for your NAS/SAN with some better functions than the standard local datastores of VMWare got.

Is it possible to create one for home/SMB purpose ? Well.. I saw the page FreeNas on VMWare ESXi 6.0 and I thought ; Let’s give it a try.

What do you need :

  • a x86 server with lots of memory (for deduplication)
  • Some harddisks.
  • Bootable USD/SDCard
  • Two raid controllers ! One for the disks you want to put in FreeNas. One other harddisk (non-usb or sdcard) for a local datastore for the FreeNas image.
  • VMWare vsphere software
  • FreeNas software.

Howto start :

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TOP 5 reasons to migrate to Cisco MDS SAN Switches

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Yes, I like the Cisco MDS Switches. Right now they got the perfect portfolio for every customer with SAN Switches. Including you ! Just have a peek at the TOP 5 reasons and maybe, just maybe, you like it like I do ! TOP 5 : 5 : Integrated Management. With the standard integrated Device … Read more

Cisco MDS 9396S. Don’t confuse it with Cisco 9396PX or TX!

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Today Cisco announed the new MDS 9396S. It’s a storage switch. Not a leaf switch for ACI like the Cisco 9396PX/9396TX. So please don’t confuse those type of switches. The MDS is for storage en the Nexus 9396 is for network switching. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/storage-networking/mds-9396s-16g-multilayer-fabric-switch/index.html The new Cisco MDS 9396S is a 16G fixed storage switch with … Read more