6 core processors yield licensing questions

Hi folks! So now with 6 core processors readily available for servers, the questions about VMware and multi-core licensing are starting to crop up again.

Generally you license based on a certain amount of cores, and if you exceed that, you buy a license to upgrade you to more cores. However you cannot split cores in a license across multiple processors.

6 core processors are great for virtualization, and that coupled with the ability to put large amount of memory in servers these days will make for some very powerful virtual environments.

You can read more about VMware’s multi-core licensing policy here.

-RP

Common problems with Windows 7 Backup

Hi folks! So if you followed my last blog post, you took a look at Windows 7 backup. However, there are some common issues you need to be aware of.

You see sometimes people just turn Windows 7 Backup on and it fails and they are not sure why it doesn’t work. Here are some housekeeping items you need to be aware of before using Windows 7 backup.

First, make sure the disk you are backing up your data to is healthy. Run a chkdsk on the drive and make sure there are no bad sectors or some sort of corruption in the file system. If there is, the backup can fail.

Second, if you are backing up folders that contain files that might trigger your anti-virus software by mistake, this will cause the backup to fail. I have seen this happen multiple times with Microsoft Security Essentials. Just exclude the files in question from the anti-virus program and then the backup will run. Of course make sure these are legitimate files first before you do it.

Third, make sure system protection is turned on. You can do this by going into the System control panel and then clicking on system properties. Then you can enable system protection for the different drives in your computer.

-RP

Windows 7 Backup

Hi folks! So you want to regularly backup your home computer or small business workstation? What should you do? Well if you are using Windows 7, you are in luck! You can use Windows 7 backup!

Windows 7 backup comes with Windows 7 and not only allows you to do a backup, but you can have it redirect the backup easily to an external storage device. The first backup that runs will take some time to run as it does a “full” backup the first time around. But then after that, it will backup the changes and the backup window will shrink significantly.

I personally love using an external QNAP 459 Pro to send my backups to. More than enough storage, and redundancy built into the device. I can then take the data from there and copy it to an external drive for offsite storage as well.

You can read more about Windows 7 backup here.

-RP

Microsoft Security Essentials

Hi folks! So more often than not, I hear a lot of people ask about what they should do for anti-virus at home. They are concerned about it, but at the same time they don’t want to pay for it.

Well for you home users and small businesses out there, Microsoft has a solution for you. It’s called Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s Microsoft’s answer to anti-virus and it comes free of charge for home use. What’s really nice is Microsoft also allows you to use it in a small business on up to 10 computers.

What’s the down side? Well it’s not centrally managed and it’s feature set is quite limited compared to pay-for commercial products. However if you are going to make the choice between no protection, and some protection, you might as well try out Microsoft Security Essentials. I have used it in many environments and while not the best product out there, it’s not bad either!

-RP

Mark read app!

Hi folks! So for all you iPhone users out there. Have you ever wished you could just mark all your emails as read like you can in a BlackBerry?

Well you can! If you jailbreak your iPhone you can purchase the MarkRead app from the Cydia store. This app integrates into your mail application and allows you to mark all your unread emails as read.

Now this should be something Apple just included out of the box, but since they didn’t, and jailbreaking is legal now according to the courts, have at it!

-RP

Great program for PXE boot!

Hi folks! So sometimes you’ll find yourself in a situation where you want to image a lot of computers. Generally using a computer’s PXE boot feature is a good idea in this case. But how do you set this up?

Well using a combination of imaging software and tftp and dhcp you can make this happen. Now imaging software i’ll leave up to you, but you can use something called TFTPD which includes both a TFTP server to send the PXE image to your computer for boot, and also a DHCP server built into it to provide the necessary IP addresses along with the appropriate scope options.

TFTPD is free to use and can be downloaded here. Try it out, it works great!

-RP

There’s even an app for IP exhaustion!

Hi folks! So as I previously mentioned in my blogs, the age of IPv4 is quickly dying out. The exhaustion of the address space will probably happen some time in 2012 according to industry experts.

So how does one track this if they have an iPhone? Well of course, there’s an app for that! There’s an app called the IPv4 Exhaustion Counter that shows a countdown of the IP’s as they disappear.

So if you want to morbidly watch the clock tick away, you can download the app here.

-RP

Commenting configs

Hi folks! So I wanted to rant about one of my pet peeves. That is command line configs and people not commenting them properly!

You see, regardless of what CLI you are using, whether it’s Cisco or HP or some other vendor. Commenting your config so another administrator coming along can understand your thought process is always a helpful thing.

Don’t get me wrong. You can still figure things out without the comments, but if you take the time to do it, you can save an administrator valuable time when they are troubleshooting something in an emergency situation.

This can be just as simple as naming vlans and interfaces so people understand how traffic is flowing on your network when they are looking through the config. It can even help you if you haven’t read your own config for a very long period of time. It can help jog your memory.

So be a friendly administrator and comment those configs!

-RP

Battle of the storage!

Hi folks! So as you know there was an all out bidding war for 3PAR where HP and Dell were concerned.

Well now Dell has purchased Compellent. How much? Apparently to the tune of $820 million. This was a much cheaper deal than the 3PAR acquisition. The questions is, will they be able to leverage it as good as they could have 3PAR? It’s not secret to anyone that 3PAR was Dell’s first choice.

Compellent has a “compelling” solution, pardon the pun, but 3PAR with their storage offerings and HP backing them, will not take this battle lying down. It should be interesting to see how the storage battle plays out this year.

-RP

Storage failure?

Hi folks! In the world of storage, there is storage, and then their is redundant storage. The question is, what do you have?

I’ve always advocated purchasing storage that has redundancy built in with a lot of hot swappable parts. Otherwise you are just in for a whole lot of trouble when there is an outage. Also if you need to replace a failed part, does it require downing the system, or can you do it live?

Well HP’s EVA is a great example of a system where you can hot replace parts while the storage is still running. EVA is a great solution for a lot of businesses looking for great uptime. If you have a chance, check out the EVA4400 series, you won’t be dissapointed!

-RP