Tag Archives: DH2i

Random Short Take #83

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Welcome to Random Short Take #83. Quite a few press releases in this one, so let’s get random.

Random Short Take #81

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Welcome to Random Short Take #81. Last one for the year, because who really wants to read this stuff over the holiday season? Let’s get random.

Take care of yourselves and each other, and I’ll hopefully see you all on the line or in person next year.

Random Short Take #57

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Welcome to Random Short Take #57. Only one player has worn 57 in the NBA. So it looks like this particular bit is done. Let’s get random.

  • In the early part of my career I spent a lot of time tuning up old UNIX workstations. I remember lifting those SGI CRTs from desk to desk was never a whole lot of fun. This article about a Sun Ultra 1 project bought back a hint of nostalgia for those days (but not enough to really get into it again). Hat tip to Scott Lowe for the link.
  • As you get older, you realise that people talk a whole lot of rubbish most of the time. This article calling out audiophiles for the practice was great.
  • This article on the Backblaze blog about one company’s approach to building its streaming media capability on B2 made for interesting reading.
  • DH2i recently announced the general availability of DxEnterprise (DxE) for Containers, enabling cloud-native Microsoft SQL Server container Availability Groups outside and inside Kubernetes.
  • Speaking of press releases, Zerto has made a few promotions recently. You can keep up with that news here.
  • I’m terrible when it comes to information security, but if you’re looking to get started in the field, this article provides some excellent guidance on what you should be focussing on.
  • We all generally acknowledge that NTP is important, and most of us likely assume that it’s working. But have you been checking? This article from Tony does a good job of outlining some of the reasons you should be paying some more attention to NTP.
  • This is likely the most succinct article from John you’ll ever read, and it’s right on the money too.

Random Short Take #54

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Welcome to Random Short Take #54. A few players have worn 54 in the NBA, but my favourite was Horace Grant. Let’s get random.

  • This project looked like an enjoyable, and relatively accessible, home project – building your own NVMe-based storage server.
  • When I was younger I had nightmares based on horror movies and falling out of bed (sometimes with both happening at the same time). Now this is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night.
  • Speaking of disastrous situations, the OVH problem was a real problem for a lot of people. I wish them all the best with the recovery.
  • Tony has been doing things with vSAN in his lab and in production – worth checking out.
  • The folks at StorageOS have been hard at work improving their Kubernetes storage platform. You can read more about that here.
  • DH2i has a webinar coming up on SQL Server resilience that’s worth checking out. Details here.
  • We’re talking more about burnout in the tech industry, but probably not enough still. This article from Tom was insightful.

Random Short Take #44

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Welcome to Random Short Take #44. A few players have worn 44 in the NBA, including Danny Ainge and Pistol Pete, but my favourite from this list is Keith Van Horn.  A nice shooting touch and strong long sock game. Let’s get random.

  • ATMs are just computers built to give you money. And it’s scary to think of the platforms that are used to deliver that functionality. El Reg pointed out a recent problem with one spotted in the wild in Ngunnawal.
  • Speaking of computing at the edge, I found this piece from Keith interesting. As much as things change they stay the same. I think he’s spot on when he says “[m]anufacturers and technology companies must come together with modular solutions that enable software upgrades for these assets’ lives”. We need to be demanding more from the industry when it comes to some of this stuff.
  • Heard about Project Monterey at VMworld and wanted to know more? Pensando has you covered.
  • I enjoyed this article from Preston about the difference between bunkers and vaults – worth checking out even if you’re not a Dell EMC customer.
  • Cloud – it can be tough to know which way to go. And a whole bunch of people have an interest in you using their particular solution. This article from Chris Evans was particularly insightful.
  • DH2i has launched DxOdyssey for IoT – you can read more about that here.
  • Speaking of news, Retrospect recently announced Backup 17.5 too. There are some cloud improvements, and support for macOS Big Sur beta.
  • It’s the 30th anniversary of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby“, and like me you were probably looking for a comprehensive retrospective on Vanilla Ice’s career. Look no further than this article over at The Ringer.

Random Short Take #42

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Welcome to Random Short Take #42. A few players have worn 42 in the NBA, including Vin Baker, but my favourite from this list is Walt Williams.  A big man with a jumpshot and a great tube sock game. Let’s get random.

  • Datadobi has formed a partnership with Melillo Consulting to do more in the healthcare data management space. You can read the release here.
  • It’s that time of the year when Backblaze releases its quarterly hard drive statistics. It makes for some really interesting reading, and I’m a big fan of organisations that are willing to be as transparent as Backblaze is with the experience it’s having in the field. It has over 142000 drives in the field, across a variety of vendors, and the insights it delivers with this report are invaluable. In my opinion this is nothing but a good thing for customers and the industry in general. You can read more about the report here.
  • Was Airplay the reason you littered your house with Airport Express boxes? Same here. Have you been thinking it might be nice to replace the Airport Express with a Raspberry Pi since you’ve moved on to a different wireless access point technology? Same here. This article might just be the thing you’ve been looking for. I’m keen to try this out.
  • I’ve been trying to optimise my weblog, and turned on Cloudflare via my hosting provider. The website ran fine, but I had issues accessing the WordPress admin page after a while. This article got me sorted out.
  • I’ve been a bit loose with the security of my home infrastructure from time to time, but even I don’t use WPS. Check out this article if you’re thinking it might somehow be a good idea.
  • This article on caching versus tiering from Chris Evans made for some interesting reading.
  • This was a thorough review of the QNAP QSW-308-1C Unmanaged Switch, an 11 (!) port unmanaged switch boasting 3 10Gbps ports and 8 1Gbps ports. It’s an intriguing prospect, particularly given the price.
  • DH2i has announced it’s extending free access to DxOdyssey Work From Home (WFH) Software until December 31st. Read more about that here.

 

Random Short Take #34

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Welcome to Random Short Take #34. Some really good players have worn 34 in the NBA, including Ray Allen and Sir Charles. This one, though, goes out to my favourite enforcer, Charles Oakley. If it feels like it’s only been a week since the last post, that’s because it has.

  • I spoke to the folks at Rancher Labs a little while ago, and they’re doing some stuff around what they call “Edge Scalability” and have also announced Series D funding.
  • April Fool’s is always a bit of a trying time, what with a lot of the world being a few timezones removed from where I live. Invariably I stop checking news sites for a few days to be sure. Backblaze recognised that these are strange times, and decided to have some fun with their releases, rather than trying to fool people outright. I found the post on Catblaze Cloud Backup inspiring.
  • Hal Yaman announced the availability of version 2.6 of his Office 365 Backup sizing tool. Speaking of Veeam and handy utilities, the Veeam Extract utility is now available as a standalone tool. Cade talks about that here.
  • VMware vSphere 7 recently went GA. Here’s a handy article covering what it means for VMware cloud providers.
  • Speaking of VMware things, John Nicholson wrote a great article on SMB and vSAN (I can’t bring myself to write CIFS, even when I know why it’s being referred to that way).
  • Scale is infinite, until it isn’t. Azure had some minor issues recently, and Keith Townsend shared some thoughts on the situation.
  • StorMagic recently announced that it has acquired KeyNexus. It also announced the availability of SvKMS, a key management system for edge, DC, and cloud solutions.
  • Joey D’Antoni, in collaboration with DH2i, is delivering a webinar titled “Overcoming the HA/DR and Networking Challenges of SQL Server on Linux”. It’s being held on Wednesday 15th April at 11am Pacific Time. If that timezone works for you, you can find out more and register here.