Blade movement from 1 Frame to another in a linked Frames

Good day All,

Welcome back!!! we had a recent requirement to move a Blade from 1 Frame to another on a Linked Frame of 4 and following steps was performed

Pre-plan:
1. Note ILO IP details
2.If you have to create new Profile then all the NIC's VLAN information needs to be noted.
3.Blade to be verified if its using VC assigned NIC's,WWW N's or Server default and MAC address and WWW N's needs to be noted.
4.Need to make sure VLAN's been used in current Frame, same is already in palace on New frame which means need to verify Ethernet Networks for same VLAN in place.
4. SAN Fabric if present then need to make sure same is present in new frame we well.

Steps Performed:
Note:
Our Frames are old setup that is SAN connected to a MDS Fiber switch to 2 VC modules on Bay 3,4. For starters this setup is  like a physical Server connected to a external Fabric switches just that its internal that's it.
Also the VC profile was setup to use Blade MAC and WWW N's.

1. Source Server was powered down
2. Existing Profile was unassigned
3. ILO IP was unchecked in old frame and assigned in new frame in OA
4. After the move , as the frames are linked assigned the existing profile pointing to new Blade location in the new Frame.
5.Before powering on network NIC's VLAN was changed so that all the NIC's use new Frame to upload or connectivity
6.After changing Server was powered on
7. NIC's MAC address for the blade didn't change and all the IP's etc was intact.
8.Blade had a Qlogic MEZ card attached to a MDS Fiber switch and WWW N's was intact when we moved to new Frame and no re-zoning was required.
9.Post validation was done.

Hopefully this helps someone and until next one you all have a good day!!!

Cloud - what i understood- System Admin what we need to look at????

Good day All,

Welcome back!!! i started to spend time look at Cloud so thought to share what i understood Cloud and as a System Admin where we will fall and what we need to look at.

This is how i think Cloud evolved

We had our own data centers : ex for lay man terms its like your own backyard in your independent house.

Adv:
1. Full control
2. Very felixable
3.You own your own equipment

Dis:
1. Lot of resource like money,current,security etc..
2. Lot of investment

Next came is third party data centers:

Adv:
1. No more my head ache for security, resource, space, electricity etc
2.You own your own equipment
3. total privacy to you allocated space.

Dis:
1. Away from your site
2. No major control
3. Lot of tenants

well for a lay man i would say a Apartment in big complex with lot of other tenants living.

Next came is third party data-centers with fully furnished:

What that would mean is you don't bring anything we will take care of every thing

Adv:
1. No hassles
2. Nothing to own or keeping track of equipment's

Dis:
1. Not enough customization. Let's say you requirement is to have a single Server in 1 GB of RAM and 20 GB harddisk but as they have Servers with stand capacity you need to pay what ever it is even though its over provisioned.

With Virtualization playing a key role thirdy party data-centers started to think if we are going to give Client fully furnished kind of Apartment why not customize it according to there needs..

Lets say 1 need 1 server 1GB RAM great here you go.. tomorrow i come i tell same server i need to add couple of more memory for sometime and then i don't need it .. well that can be done..

So data-centers started to stack lot high hardware with Virtualization and they started to provision any kind of requirement to end users across the globe.

So any cloud provider if he able to fulfill the above criteria then i would they say they are providing Services in cloud

Types of Cloud:

Examples of each Cloud Services:
1. SAAS : Hotmail,Gmail.Office365

2. PAAS: example would be let says a developer needs a Server for sometime and he says he needs IIS and SQL database with Windows 2012 OS installed.So we can bundle all these 3 things and create as VM and give to developer.He doesn't need to know how to request for a VM,how to get OS,how to install all the software etc.. all he can do now is to start work and stop worrying about procurement.

3. IAAS: this is where we has a System Administrators come into picture when users say that i need a Virtual Machine and i need full control of it.

So as a System Admin you will feel Cloud as a remote data center and using the tools like Vi client,Vcenter,Hyper V we connect and Provision Servers the same way we will have to use cloud tools to create Virtual machines and connecting would like how we do remote data-centers through VPN same concept nothing changes,only thing is that we are responsible for hardware monitoring, hardware issues now but in cloud that part is no more our responsibility and also the underlying concept if Virtualization so hardware failures you will have Virtual machines getting seamless migrating to another host so you would hard see any hardware issues .

If you System Admins its very important that we understand what is Cloud how this is going to change our support models. I am not saying this would wipe out small data-centers but this will like lets say when Virtualization came it brought lot of benefits and people started to implement so Cloud is going to be the same way it has benefits and companies will look into cloud so we need to start understand where we fall and start gathering which cloud provides give what Services and what benefits they bring along so that we are prepared when been asked to.

I am not a cloud expert just started to play around so sharing what i understood to others so that this article may be a stepping stone for System Admins to do a deep dive.


Hopefully this helps someone until next one you all have a good day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Schedule Task in Citrix

Good day All,

Welcome back!!!! recently we had a request to add schedule task in Citrix and request was  that user should see only the schedule task he is authorized to execute.

Following Steps was performed:

1. Schedule task was published in the Citrix
2. As we didn't want to load balance Schedule task we made sure only 1 server is published
3. Now go to C:\windows\System32\tasks, search for the schedule job file and go to properties and under security add the user who would need access and give him full permission.
4.Asked the user to test it.


well this was easy, hopefully this helps someone until next one you all have a good day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!