Best posts made by ntoxicator

It's been about 3 years total since I've worked with XenServer. Current setup and primary Xenserver node is running 6.0 (old...) early on, i really did not like the strangle-hold citrix had on the features and such, But I know later version are much better. I'm worried to upgrade to 6.1 - should i be? or should it be seemless and not break and Windows VM's ?

Anyways.. really looking into option for a new deployment and future build for current office needs... Already looked at Scale computing. Looks very good and pricing is subjective to the quality of product. nice!

I really like Xen Orchestra and features it presents for XenServer hosts. This was not available tool back when I first implemented xen server. Its really amazing the new tools available to us today....

Was thinking 2 Xen Server hosts with HA-Enabled (is this availble on FREE?) and using Xen Orchestra.

Local storage (SR) sounds nice on the hosts.. not sure if HA-Lizard (DRDB) is supported with Xen Orchestra.

So was thinking of a redundant HA-setup with some high-end Synology 2U units... using NFS storage as SR (rather than iSCSI). Due to storage visibility over network (ability to access actual storage VHD)

Would have a dedicated 10Gbe switch that would have servers connected(2 NIC interfaces - LACP) and also the NAS units.

And then the 2 servers directly connected with patch cable(s) for Xen Orchestra to work.

this is all conceptual....

We're just SPANNING away. Full speed ahead!
bahaha...

Well, this is about same time of year I go back to my home area for visit.. Yes, I grew up and lived in central new york (Syracuse area). Rochester was 1 hour from me.

I had the Synology NAS setup as Block Level storage for the Volume that serves out the ISCSI Luns. mehhhhh.

the complications! Lol.

This is why I was wanting to move to all new design and setup being that I already essentially have data on a centralized setup.

Could I get away with dual Synology 12-bay NAS units? (running in HA/replication).Probably

I was thinking about having 10Gbe backbone/interconnect for the NAS + The VM Node servers. So all that traffic rides on the 10GBE backbone and would not touch the 1Gbe switches.

Hello,

Unsure if anyone can help with this. I'm having an issue with grandstream phones and the PC port.

I have my network setup for LLDP, to automatically pass the voice VLAN to the phones upon boot-up (configured in router via DHCP). However, it appears that when I connect a computer to the PC-Port on the phone. The computer does not obtain an IP address. Almost as if the LAN & PC Port end up sharing the same voice VLAN. (Voice vlan is tagged).

If I reboot the phone, the computer gets an IP. but soon as the phone finishes booting and switches to the voice vlan, computer connected to PC port loses connectivity.

Phone works just fine though, It will boot-up and automatically switch to the Voice VLAN and have connectivity. But apparently locking out the PC Port (untagged data network)

Anyone have similar issue?

Router: MikroTIK
Switches: Cisco SG300's

Looking into some opinions here... Trying to get a customer of mine AWAY from dropbox, as they're essentially using it as distributed file system between their office locations.

They're building out a new office location which I'm taking care of the network setup and wifi and servers.

Recently went 100% MAC's as their locations (Real Estate).

The idea:

Setup 2015 Mac Mini (8GB, 256GB SSD). and run OSX Server.
Open Directory
All shares, etc.. the works..

Plan was to use Synology DiskStation 5-bay unit. 4-Disk RAID-10 array, 1-hot spare.

Volume1 - to pull down ALL their existing Dropbox data
Volume2 -- be large iSCSI LUN

Map iSCSI LUN to Mac Mini Server. (GlobalSAN iSCSI initiator)

use BOTH Thunderbolt connectors using TB to 1GBE adaptor. Directly connect to Synology NAS (LACP Bond) using IP address. So bypasses switch

Then NIC Card in Mac Mini connect to regular network using regular Data network subnet.

Create all data storage on the attached iSCSI Drive.

Use a regular dropbox or Google Drive account & install on the Mac Mini server. This would then point to the iSCSI Local drive and re-publish the data to dropbox or google drive

NOTE: This would be so another remote office or if needed, a windows client or Linux client access the company files via a dropbox or google drive account.

Right now they have ALL workstations running dropbox.... Dropbox kills CPU & Disk I/O and disk space.

had a webinar with Scale. Need to provide back assessment data before can see their proposal with cost. Will see.

Hey there,

This is a slight rant and frustration and looking for assistance. I'm sure it will be an absolute PISSING contest here on the current setup...

Issue:

Have windows 2008 R2 server with UNC File shares along with Roaming profiles

Company Size: over 100 employee's.

Recently CEO just leased new office space to move ~15 employee's to new location as our current building we're out of space for parking and growth...

I setup the network and all wiring at new office location.

IPSEC site-to-site tunnel between our primary office location & satellite office

Today, the CEO called me, then starting texting me blowing up my phone complained that the remote office users are not able to work at 'peak efficiency' due to the delay when accessing the company File Share network drive. Asked if we can put onsite server and backup. Asked if internet speed is issue or VPN is issue and asking how we are connected...
PS: Coax 100/10 connection.

I know the answer is to install a secondary domain controller at this Satellite office and setup DFS

issue:

Primary Domain Controller (main site) also does all the file sharing and GPO settings.

I would need to Setup DFS namespace and KEEP the SAME UNC paths. As we use Roaming profiles. Have about 1.5 TB of data. This consists of user profile data, and company file share data & client info.

Also note; we move employee's around the office ALOT. meaning employee's will get shifted around to different desks or departments at random times.

Employee's will 100% bitch that they're missing their sticky notes, or the time it takes for their Exchange email to download to local Outlook.... Employee's refuse to use and complain about the office365 webGUI. I essentially give them evil eye.. I would love to get rid of roaming profiles, but due to the way the workstations are used. it would be difficult. As users tend to save files to Documents or desktop... and we use 2X Application gateway server (Now Parallels Gateway server) to host client applications across network. So not have to install specific client software on each new employee computer.

We deal with medical claims & billing... as FYI. Lots of emails and bouncing around between applications.

Any idea's of how I can migrate from file shares to a DFS name space setup? From there I know I can deploy a smaller Windows 2008 R2 or 2012 server (Action pack Subscription), and then fire up the DFS...

NOTE: This leased office space we will only be there for about 1 year..... waiting on new 112,000 square foot office space to be finished.

Before he complained of budget......

Further to complicate. Wont spend the $$ needed for new infrastructure (servers). Want to move everything to Scale computing setup... Everything is 'eggs in one basket'. Constantly banging head against wall here. And they just posted 7m gross revenue for 2015yr

I want to run.

@scottalanmiller

That's 'jimmy johns' fast. Nice!

its just the auto-detect fields. Using Adobe Pro I presume?

Will need to manually add text box area's.

copy and paste is your friend, Be sure to rename the titles

This update KB3159398

can go F*** its self... breaks GPO policy's on machines.

Windows 2008 R2 domain controller
Windows 7 Pro Sp1 machines

Come into today, and a few workstations lost their Aero theme desktop (went to basic), and also GPO policy settings.... found this update is root cause.

Only applied to workstations that SOMEHOW windows updates still got applied. Even though have GPO policy forcing windows update features off on the workstations

WSUS server in my network does not work and never worked properly, even after multiple setup attempts. I think its because I GHOST the machines rather than use SysPrep

call me old school.. But sysprep is waste of time -- much faster to get baseline machine and create images...

/rant

Regardless of my clone or not. This update still fu* GPO policy. see to other issues. I just want to complain, bad day..

No -- i dont use sysPrep, call me lazy. But i've had issues with it and never got it to work. Having to copy the files and configure the settings/flat file?

I've slip streamed windows XP and Windows 7 easier than trying to get Windows built-in sysprep creator to work. I guess im a fucking noob.. i dont know. Its just annoying piece of functionality.

I just take a machine that has all company software, settings, updates loaded and named. (not on domain yet). Then created a ghost image using CloneZilla.

Then use CloneZilla to pull down image to new workstations, and then update hostname & join to domain. This has worked beautifully..... only thing I've not gotten to work is the WSUS server i've setup. I believe this all goes back to me not using sysprep...

meh, just feel like a beat dog today. dealing with some stupid issues from people all week. one of the sayings "cant fix stupid"

one of those "R YOU SERIOUS?!" have had that all week, lol.

But nonetheless. Uninstalling the update KB3159398 resolved the issue. Once removed and workstation restarted, GPO policies apply normally.

as I did gpresult option and reviewed the html file output. Was clearly showing the GPO policies were not applied when KB3159398 was installed. After the removal, the GPO policies were being shown as applied on gpresult.

Microsoft had just pushed out some very questionable patches/updates the past 2+ months. More so, dealing with them on consumer side. This one took the cake this morning in a SMB environment.

Luckily, Only effected a very small set of workstations.

So, company I work for has finally started to gather a budget. Although I'm director of IT (if want to call it that - wont go off on a rant). They've told me to go out and price servers that we need and new network equipment to sustain future growth
Right now at 120 employee's. Plans to add 30 more employee's within 2016. Afterwards growth to up over 400. (moving to new larger facility)
Right now I'm Virtualizing everything.
Current: SuperMicro Barebone 1U AMD 6220's server. Citrix Xen Server
Also have 3 - 1U Sun Sunfire X servers running HA Cluster with proxmox. This was a testing area for me on personal servers. Company VM's have been flooding on here because.... current single 1U server is at max capacity
Network: Synology NAS's. RAID-10.. etc. LACP link aggregation on 1GBe network...
Looking at new servers:
I'm 100% fanboy of the Oracle SunFire servers. Anyone have opinions?
Also looking at the LENOVO System X (IBM Line) of servers.
However, CISCO has their servers now.... But -- this brings back very bad memories for TAC Support and the website needs to die. Cant find shit on their website.
Plans are to use ProxMox VE for HA cluster for all the servers.
NAS in RAID-10 array (multiple) on 10GbE backbone.
10GbE PCi-e add-on cards for the servers 10Gbe interconnect 10Gbe on NAS servers.
1Gbe switching for local data.
ISCSI storage from one of the NAS servers to attach to a Windows VM for all Data storage.
NFS Storage pool for the HA ProxMox server cluster. This would ride on the 10Gbe backbone network.
Ofcourse. All iSCSI traffic & data traffic would be on seperate VLAN - Which already is.
Any server suggestions or NAS/SAN suggestions?
I've even pondered the thought of InfiniBand (Direct connect to servers)

Thank you everyone for all the information.

Still confused as to why local storage being recommended over centralized storage on a NAS?

I suppose I just gave up with Citrix Xen Server at 6.1(free) release. Was still bugs (windows drivers). Also any Linux VM's I install, there is no memory view and does not calculate total node memory usage correctly.

With NFS Storage -- I'm unaware of a practice of where I can attach a disk as LOCAL to a windows server. keep in mind. our primary domain controller has ALL! network shares that are viable to the company. This data rides on data within an iSCSI LUN which is attached to Citrix Xen Server and as a disk tied to the VM.

Might need to split this to a seperate thread on network storage and layout....

NOTE:

Just spoke with folks at Oracle sales, had a conference call to discuss X5-2 servers and specs. Awaiting pricing.

Also noticed ALOT of IBM server X on ebay.. newer ones at that. Not a good sign. Also relates back to how IBM didnt trust their own servers.

Also my goal was to migrate to NFS storage away from iSCSI

as dealing with the RAW image or .cow2 image file is hell of alot easier.

Hi there

I had a previous thread going on here about 1U Servers and then opened the world up to some storage issues and limitations I'm currently facing

Current:

Windows Server 2008 R2 running on Citrix Xen Server
Xen Server has storaged mapped to it via iSCSI LUN from a Synology NAS.

Disk is attached to Windows Server VM through Xen Server. This is nearly 2TB

I've been wanting to migrate ALL the DATA from the windows "D" Data drive. This is nearly 2TB. This has all the windows shares and permissions set from windows.

Wanted to migrate to another NAS unit we have which would be using NFS Shares attached to Citrix.

I already attached the new larger drive as a Disk to the Windows Server and is setup as different drive letter.

Issue comes in of using a copy method to transfer ALL data off the current drive, to the new Drive letter. Then once done, disconnect the original drive. And give the replacement (new) drive the original drive letter.

UPDATE

Oracle just got back to me on Pricing. Made me puke

10K PER server for a F*** simple 1U box? what f[moderated] is going on with this market, have I completely lost touch?

@Dashrender said:

But if I pass the ISCSI through ESXi, ESXi can't see what's on the disk at all, and instead Windows handles everything. In this case Windows formats the drive directly and places files directly on the drive.

This is how its handled with Xen Server.

With Xen Server, I can select the iSCSI LUN storage points. And it will show me the created disks and to which Virtual machines they're associated with.