Vlogs

• Seeing Scalability @ work

  Tue. Jul. 01, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  A video showing the process of expanding a volume on a Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN. 

  Its amazingly simple:  First, you expand the volume in the management console, which automatically takes unused capacity from the free pool - including additional space you will need for snapshots. Then you go to the system side and expand the size of the file system. In this case, it shows using DISKPART in Windows.

  And without further ado......
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• HPs not leading, they're following IBM

  Thu. Jun. 12, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  I blew water out of my nose yesterday when I saw Todd Bradley's comments about how Dell is following HP by adopting the channel business and by redesiging its products.  I mean, that really is funny. On one hand they have people running around saying how we aren't serious about the channel and then there are guys like Bradley telling people that our channel business is copying theirs.  If they want to talk out of both sides of their face, that's fine with me.

  The design comment was good too. As if they own the design world.

  If any company is following any other it would be HP following IBM.

  I can't even remember an iSCSI SAN deal where HP was a threat. 

  And blades...  ahhh...  I like our own trajectory there too.  Here's a video you might find amusing.
  

   

   
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• Darren Thomas video on virtualization and matching storage

  Tue. Jun. 10, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  A video with Darren Thomas, General Manager of Storage at Dell,  talking about virtualization, especially live migration and its importance across all types of customers. 

  Darren doesn't explicitly talk about Dell EqualLogic storage, but that's what he's talking about when discussing virtualized storage to match virtual server functionality.

  Here's my favorite quotes:

  "It puts afterburners on your IT department"

  "What we really look for in a storage device in a virtualized environment is that load balancing, that adaptive tuning:  you've got to have the capabilities and the functionality to match."
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• Cleaning up in iSCSI

  Fri. Jun. 06, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  Dell = 27.7%     Netapp = 20.5%        EMC = 15%

  Everybody else = less than 4.7 % each

  As more people become familiar with the amazing value proposition of Dell EqualLogic storage arrays, this number is going to increase rapidly

   

  Format: flv Duration: 00:52

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• Ask Albert: Can’t we all get along?

  Mon. Jun. 02, 2008
  by Albert Esser- VP, Power & Infrastructure

  When I’m out talking to different audiences about the benefits of Green IT, one point I typically bring up is the somewhat sensitive relationship between an organization’s Facilities and IT departments. These are traditionally different departments with different objectives and different budgets. But when you’re tasked with implementing a Green IT strategy across your organization to help lower energy costs and CO2 output, both Facilities and IT can play a part.

  I believe that Green IT can be a catalyst to help bring together Facilities and IT managers to more effectively address energy efficiency as a holistic, joint challenge. Better alignment between these two departments can deliver new levels of optimization across a data center and drive stronger green results.

  When I was at the Uptime Institute Symposium recently, I was asked about suggestions for how a company’s Facilities and IT departments can work more collaboratively when addressing their power and cooling challenges. You can listen to one of my suggestions in the vlog below.

  Format: flv Duration: 3:36

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• StorageMojo dogpile

  Wed. May. 28, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  David Graves, my -co-worker here @ InsideIT noticed that Robin Harris of StorageMojo fame might have found the ultimate way to stir things up in the blogosphere:

  Suggesting that his readers contemplate a vacation @ Club Fed.

  Hmmm.... no wonder most of the comments were negatory.
  

   

  Format: flv Duration: 01:04

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• 2 or 4 socket servers for virtualization

  Tue. May. 27, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

   

  The team at the Dell TechCenter are having an online chat about the servers to use for virtualization:

  Today's discussion is about 2 or 4 socket technology.

  3:00 Central time today, Tuesday May 27. 

  Format: flv Duration: 00:29

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• What Fake Steve Jobs doesn't get about Dell

  Thu. May. 22, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  We have skeptics about our commitment to changing our business in significant ways, including our channel business.  Its not hard to understand why, after having been the main driver of the low-cost direct sales model for most of the history of the company.  But change is necessary and so we are going to change.  For me, I'm very happy to be with Dell, from EqualLogic - and being one of the agents of change here.  Sure, there will be times it seems like a struggle - for us and our channel partners, but that's the way of the world and no good things come without hard work and overcoming conflicts.  The things Fake Steve Jobs doesn't understand about Dell is the level of commitment to change and the fearlessness of the leadership here.  No fear. No fear to be open, no fear to be crticized, no fear to fail - just get back on the horse and ride. 

  And so we started our channel blog today.  Come and get it.
  

  Format: flv Duration: 01:14

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• Naughty Naughty! Cisco, EMC, Hulk and Maui

  Tue. May. 20, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  EMC World always stirs the storage pot, like yesterday's rumor that Cisco might acquire EMC or today's discussions where, as Storagemojo put it, Maui was "conspicuous by its absence."  I liked Beth Pariseau's article for the happy graphic.
  

  Format: flv Duration: 01:15

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• And the answer is........SRM supports linux too

  Mon. May. 19, 2008
  by Marc Farley, Inside IT Lead Blogger

  Got a great question last week from Tom Sightler on my blog posting about SRM:

  Does SRM support linux as a guest OS?
  

  Its interesting that there wasn't anything explicitly mentioned about linux on anything Tom or I could find.  So, I checked with our product team - and the answer is yes - the functions of SRM are independent of the guest OS.  It's what you would expect, but expectations aren't that useful in the real world. The video below was first posted on my Storage@Work site.

  Format: flv Duration: 01:34

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