During the past few months I have spend a considerable amount of time looking at various storage related topics. Among others I discussed Web Scale technology as part of converged and software defined architectures, with Nutanix being one of the main vendors, next I also took a, somewhat, deeper dive into the wondrous world of IOPS where I talked about some of their characteristics and ways to potentially enhance performance and the end user experience, which are still two of the main concerns when dealing with these bad boys. Throughout this article I want to take a closer look at some of the differences between block vs file level storage, the accompanying file systems, the different protocols used, potential block sizes and some of the characteristics of VMware VMFS in particular.
Control, or control not. There is no manage! Free VMworld Europe tickets!
What a great title for a blog post, don’t you agree? To bad I didn’t came up with it myself, my friends at VMTurbo did. You’ve probably heard of them, they are the ones that enable virtualization teams to control complex environments and at the same time enhance the performance of VMware, Hyper-V, RHEV and Citrix orientated architectures and deployments. The reason for this blog is twofold, first of all I would like to spend a few minutes briefly introducing VMTurbo, and secondly, as some of you might already know, they love to give a way free stuff, and I’m not talking about a baseball cap or a T-shirt, read on …
The ultimate IOPS cheat sheet!
Lately I’ve seen a lot of talk about IOPS, we need as many as possible and as such we are constantly on the look out for new ways to boost performance. No matter what kind of infrastructure we build, virtual or physical, or what ever products we use, in the end it all comes down to the end user experience. Topics often relate to flash like storage solutions, converged infrastructures, Citrix provisioning services, Machine Creation Services, or a combination of the above.
Citrix NetScaler (10.5) licensing. What’s new with Access Gateway!
Just a few days ago Citrix announced the NetScaler 10.5, again packed with lots of cool new and useful features, but that’s not all, they also decided it was time to simplify the NetScaler license structure just a tat. And although that sounds wonderful to some, unfortunately, it has a downside as well. I’ll first elaborate a bit more on the licensing structure as we know it today and take it from there.
Introducing Nutanix OS (NOS) 4.0… What’s new?!
Nutanix, founded in 2009, quickly became one of the rising startups to look out for. They were among the first to introduce a simple (converged) compute and storage infrastructure, combining resources, without the need for complex and expensive Storage Area Networks, or Network Attached Storage. They deliver the power of so called Web-Scale technology, which we all know from companies like Google, Amazon and facebook, to name a few, as a turnkey solution directly into your datacenter, basically reinventing the way in which IT services can be delivered. With being awarded the Best of VMworld Gold award and named on Gigaom’s Top 50 Cloud Innovators list, I think it’s safe to say that Nutanix is here to stay!
Planning your next XenDesktop deployment? Have a look at Citrix Project Accelerator
Have you ever used the Citrix project Accelerator? No? You should! At least have a look and see what you make of it, so did I. Currently there are over 12.500 projects (active and closed) known by Project Accelerator, I’ll get to the how and why in a minute. According to the release notes it has been online and available in beta since December 2012, but I assume they’re only referring to the (upgraded) XenDesktop 7.1 version, right?! For those of you unknown with the concept, I’ll try and explain what it’s about and how it’s done.