OT: server virtualization

[King Crimson]

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This is a cool thread, and reminds me of how low level the IT stuff I do at work really is

Anyone feel like IT is more a young man's game? Now in my mid 30's I feel like I'm getting less and less technical and don't have the same drive to keep learning new stuff constantly, lol .

44 here grasshopper - been doing it since 92' and I'm still loving it. As long as new technology is still funneling into my present job, I’m good to go. Once they slack off, I'm hitting the pavement. I’ve been lucky so far.

 

[Shiny_Surface]

44 here grasshopper - been doing it since 92' and I'm still loving it. As long as new technology is still funneling into my present job, I’m good to go. Once they slack off, I'm hitting the pavement. I’ve been lucky so far.

So the new technology keeps you interested? That's cool.

I just don't seem to have as much drive to keep on top of technical things as I did in my 20's, I'm sort of lost in what direction I want to go at the moment.

 

[kannibul]

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So the new technology keeps you interested? That's cool.

I just don't seem to have as much drive to keep on top of technical things as I did in my 20's, I'm sort of lost in what direction I want to go at the moment.

Same here - except I stopped being hard-core about it when I was 25.

I used to have my own server and 3 systems at home. The one day it hit me, and I sold off most of the equipment - of course, all of it is long gone now...I was reading up on the latest CPU cores and chipsets, and in the end, I figured it didn't matter - around that time I started going Intel with all my home stuff, and I've not cared one bit about what AMD is doing.

Work is all HP products (contract), and I like it that way.

I just recently built our first server rack - that was fun, and a 'monument" to what I have done for the company I work for.

In July of 2000 when I was hired, they have a 486/66 and a P133 for "servers", running Novell 3.12
A few months later, they were moved to Novell 5, which they already had purchased the licensing and hardware for.
A 10/100 switch, and all the rest was 10mbit hubs (around 10 of them)
Finally, as of 2 weeks ago, I am finally migrating data off the #$*&@# Novell box, and onto a MS box - brand new server, and it's kickin' ass.
My Data volume on the Novell 5 box was 45GB formatted/Raid-5, the new one, 836GB formatted/Raid-5 (4x300GB) - I figure that'll last 5 years or so.

 

[King Crimson]

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So the new technology keeps you interested? That's cool.

I just don't seem to have as much drive to keep on top of technical things as I did in my 20's, I'm sort of lost in what direction I want to go at the moment.

Absofrickinlutely! My college back ground is in applied mathematics and computer science. If you leave me idle, I turn to petrified stone. I’ve had 4 IT positions in the past 15 years. I’ve left all of them because of shear boredom.

I’m in this for the excitement of technology, particularly new technology. I’ve always worked for companies that were IT driven and had deep pockets for new innovation. It’s my job to provide constant solutions so the company can thrive and grow.

I hear you though about the drive/burnout factor. I’ve seem IT wizbangs decide to give it up and become professional chefs, marketing geeks, actors, or complete drop-outs. IT is a tough business if you don’t posses the enthusiasm and exhilaration to prevail in a highly competitive career.

Either way, I’ve never had any problems moving onto another exciting job. Monster.com got me there every time.

 

[kannibul]

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Absofrickinlutely! My college back ground is in applied mathematics and computer science. If you leave me idle, I turn to petrified stone. I’ve had 4 IT positions in the past 15 years. I’ve left all of them because of shear boredom.

I’m in this for the excitement of technology, particularly new technology. I’ve always worked for companies that were IT driven and had deep pockets for new innovation. It’s my job to provide constant solutions so the company can thrive and grow.

I hear you though about the drive/burnout factor. I’ve seem IT wizbangs decide to give it up and become professional chefs, marketing geeks, actors, or complete drop-outs. IT is a tough business if you don’t posses the enthusiasm and exhilaration to prevail in a highly competitive career.

Either way, I’ve never had any problems moving onto another exciting job. Monster.com got me there every time.

The only problem I have with working in IT, is users that loose their ability to work through a simple problem because they can pickup a phone, or, dispite showing them and giving them instructions, they still don't do something right, or, they blame you because the numbers they put in don't match what they should be, or the older "will retire in less than 10 years" crowd that are convinced that they can do it their way and make it work, dispite your efforts to tell them otherwise, then the do it their way, it bombs, and then toss up their arms/hands and talk to you for 10 minutes on why they think it doesn't work right...

 

[King Crimson]

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The only problem I have with working in IT, is users that loose their ability to work through a simple problem because they can pickup a phone, or, dispite showing them and giving them instructions, they still don't do something right, or, they blame you because the numbers they put in don't match what they should be, or the older "will retire in less than 10 years" crowd that are convinced that they can do it their way and make it work, dispite your efforts to tell them otherwise, then the do it their way, it bombs, and then toss up their arms/hands and talk to you for 10 minutes on why they think it doesn't work right...

I don't do desktop support! :hide: :la:

 

[kannibul]

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I don't do desktop support! :hide: :la:

I do all of it. 180 users, 230 desktops, 29 locations. 50 desktops are "public internet access" machines....I take that back, 225 machines, since 5 got stolen over x-mas weekend...

Everyone else in the department is a programmer

 

[SeaDog]

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I do all of it. 180 users, 230 desktops, 29 locations. 50 desktops are "public internet access" machines....I take that back, 225 machines, since 5 got stolen over x-mas weekend...

Everyone else in the department is a programmer

Kannibul, the job starts to get better the higher up one goes. I'm the exact opposite of most of you guys - I got into IT at 25 because I was burned out being a musician. After eight years of teaching, playing professionally in cover bands and starving at the music store I jumped ship and took a six month course on programming which led to Network Engineering. I still love music, but the rewards of having things like a family, a house and money make up for anything I'm missing.

If you get bored easy, love a challenge and don't mind taking mindless certification tests, then it's the perfect job for you. Where else can you work up to a six figure salary without having an advanced degree? I only wish I didn't waste my early twenties playing in the band.

 

[King Crimson]

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If you get bored easy, love a challenge and don't mind taking mindless certification tests, then it's the perfect job for you. Where else can you work up to a six figure salary without having an advanced degree? I only wish I didn't waste my early twenties playing in the band.

I totally agree. However, my college education gave me more arsenal than any cert program could. I've got about 20 certs from Cisco to Netware to Microsoft. Typically I was correcting a majority of the instructors on many occasions because many of them where n00bs and hadn’t much experience in a Enterprise environment. They were merely instructors. Most of my certs are from Vortex Data Systems, EMC, HP and Cisco. Simply learning how to install, maintain, manage and configure a specific implementation doesn’t give you the goods to design and scope out the whole infrastructure in its entirety. However, obviously there are exceptions to the rule.

Technology changes so quickly those certs (outside of OS) are basically null and void after 12 months. I’ve been a network engineer and systems analyst for more than 10 years, in the field as a whole for 15. Everything from core infrastructure, Cisco kid, and server implementations in all areas.

I’m not saying that cert programs are a bad thing, but a solid college education in the IT/sciences field give you a much more broad perspective on the subject and its practical applications.

 

[shredhead666]

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I should have also mentioned that VMware only runs on x86 platform. That’s the beauty of VMware – mainframe technology on x86 platform.

BTW – I don’t know if you plan on hosting on a SAN (we do, EMC DMX3000 & DMX1000 for our DR site) and I don’t know whether you’re a Dell or HP shop or whatever. But a new Dell 2950 dual quad-core fully loaded with 32GB ram and 6x146GB-15K SAS drives lands in the neighborhood of $8500. I've attached is a typical quote for the server. You can get up to 32 VMs on this box. Do the math and you’ll be stunned at how much money you’ve just saved and the small footprint it takes.

Are you interviewing at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California? I'd give my little toe to work there. I have two freinds that work there now. One has two children and Google provides full child care, full meals for all employees and their family all day - FREE!

Good luck bro, study up! I've also attached some useful tips for your interview.

Well at the city government where I work, we're an HP shop. I think they run slightly higher prices than Dell, but not by much. Hell, we have a quad-core Xeon box that's only running our finance application at the moment. I'm thinking that machine is probably going to be a prime-candidate for doing some consolidation.

I appreciate the attachments too! I'm not in Cali, I'm interviewing for their datacenter in Atlanta. Apparently some of my friends are close w/ the people doing the interviewing and we all went to the same college, so I've at least got that going. I think I'll do okay. The pay @ Google is pretty comperable to what I'm making now, but like you said, it's all the extras that'd make it worth it I think. Plus hopefully there won't be as much red-tape, CYA, and assinine politics to deal with in the private sector as I've witnessed in gov't. work.

 

[kannibul]

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Well at the city government where I work, we're an HP shop. I think they run slightly higher prices than Dell, but not by much. Hell, we have a quad-core Xeon box that's only running our finance application at the moment. I'm thinking that machine is probably going to be a prime-candidate for doing some consolidation.

I appreciate the attachments too! I'm not in Cali, I'm interviewing for their datacenter in Atlanta. Apparently some of my friends are close w/ the people doing the interviewing and we all went to the same college, so I've at least got that going. I think I'll do okay. The pay @ Google is pretty comperable to what I'm making now, but like you said, it's all the extras that'd make it worth it I think. Plus hopefully there won't be as much red-tape, CYA, and assinine politics to deal with in the private sector as I've witnessed in gov't. work.

You might be in the same boat we're in - check into HP's WCSA Contract - your state might qualify for it.

Actually, WSCA is for IBM, HP, Dell and Gateway, but we are an HP Shop - though, prior to Compaq, but since the merger, we're HP...

I've been pretty happy with HP, and don't see any reason to switch - we even re-build out network backbone with procurve switches. mmm 52 port gigabit switch and poe switches...lol


Also, from what I've seen, public sector is just as bad as governement - just a different kind of bad...

Maybe it's just the place I work though - I don't have a boss that micromanages, I have my own office (with door!), and complete freedom to implement ideas as long as there is a budget for it and I can make a solid case for it. Given my tenure over the past 6.5 years, I have to say they are 100x "better" - they had P133's everywhere, running 95, unlicensed software everywhere...I got them cleaned up - but, I also had a boss that believed in me and what I can do - something I never had in public sector.

 

[King Crimson]

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Well at the city government where I work, we're an HP shop. I think they run slightly higher prices than Dell, but not by much. Hell, we have a quad-core Xeon box that's only running our finance application at the moment. I'm thinking that machine is probably going to be a prime-candidate for doing some consolidation.

I appreciate the attachments too! I'm not in Cali, I'm interviewing for their datacenter in Atlanta. Apparently some of my friends are close w/ the people doing the interviewing and we all went to the same college, so I've at least got that going. I think I'll do okay. The pay @ Google is pretty comperable to what I'm making now, but like you said, it's all the extras that'd make it worth it I think. Plus hopefully there won't be as much red-tape, CYA, and assinine politics to deal with in the private sector as I've witnessed in gov't. work.

HP's density line are great servers. I've worked on DLs for years. They're pretty much the same as Dell. Although Dell seems to have a few more bells and whistles, the baseboard technology is virtually (no pun intended) the same.

Right on, Paul. I wish you much luck on your new endeavor. Let me know how it unfolds.

 

[Shiny_Surface]

King Crimson, not to stray off topic too much but is there any resource online a total linux newbie who knows nothing (me) could get started on learning the basics? Sort of like a linux for dummies?

 

[King Crimson]

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King Crimson, not to stray off topic too much but is there any resource online a total linux newbie who knows nothing (me) could get started on learning the basics? Sort of like a linux for dummies?

Here's a good one that I reference. Some good basic stuff that will allow you to do much of the easy stuff you may do in a Windows environment.

For editing, if you're not familiar with VI, use NANO. It's like wordpad.

http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch03_:_Linux_Networking

EDIT: And BTW - the MAN (Manual) pages are your best freind in UNIX/Linux. At the prompt, ex. "[root@srvmware1 root]#man cp" will give you detailed information and sometimes examples of how to use the "copy" command.

 

[shredhead666]

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King Crimson, not to stray off topic too much but is there any resource online a total linux newbie who knows nothing (me) could get started on learning the basics? Sort of like a linux for dummies?

I think these might be a good place to start if you just want to read up -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/
http://www.linux-tutorial.info/
http://distrowatch.com/

The wiki entry is just to get a bit of background. The YoLinux site will tell you a LOT about how linux functions in nitty-gritty details. The tutorial site is a nice quick reference guide I think. DistroWatch is a good site for keeping tabs on the current distribution trends and may help you pick out a distribution that you like.

Don't let it all frighten you too much. There's probably a ton of terms/concepts that you'll come across that you might not be familiar with at first. And there's several things that if you're used to using Windows, you'll have to differentiate between. An example of this is that "C: drive" is NOT how they denote the root directory. The root directory is /, and everything branches off of that - /etc, /mnt, /proc, /usr, /bin, etc.... Your primary hard drive is usually mounted at /mnt/hda1/ for example. Most distributions don't let you run as an admin user (root) either. So often you'll have to temporarily become root to make a change to the main filesystem. Certain distros make this easier than others.

Just small things like that.

What I would probably do first is go download the Knoppix live CD and boot your PC with that. It won't change anything on your hard drive and gives you a fully funtional Linux desktop that runs all from the CD. That's how most people get their first taste of Linux. You can kind of explore around that for a while to get your bearings and not really worry about screwing anything up because it's all running from a read-only CD. There are several other GREAT live CDs as well (Ubuntu, Sabayon, STD, MEPIS, etc...) but Knoppix seems to be the most popular since it's the oldest/most stable.

If you're ready to take the plunge and install it on your hard drive, what I would do is probably stick with one of the more popular distributions (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora) just because they have the largest community-base and should you run into any difficulty, most likely you'll be able to get answers from them. Plus since they're tested by more people, chances are that many the bugs have been ironed out.

This will get you started using Linux on the Desktop. Now bear in mind while it's a GREAT Operating System for a desktop PC, it's most widely used with NO graphical interface on servers. If you want to do Linux server administration it's probably best that you learn a bit about how it functions on the desktop first just so you get a more user-friendly system to warm up to. Then once you're more comfortable with using it, and once you've learned more about the command line, try tackling a server install/configuration. You can of course put a Graphical desktop environment on a server, but most people don't just to save on the overhead.

There's a TON of great tutorials out there to help you get started and mostly the information is all free. Most of the bigger distributions of linux come with their own specific tutorials as well to help you along your way. Ubuntu is especially good with this - http://www.ubuntuguide.org/ (and they happen to be my current favorite distro next to Fedora)

 

[King Crimson]

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Sort of like a linux for dummies?

Don't be so sarcastic. That's probably not a bad idea for a Linux n00b.
http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Dummies-6th-Dee-Ann-LeBlanc/dp/0764579371

 

[shredhead666]

Dave, one more question...

Do you run an Active Directory domain for your Windows virtual servers? If so, does that work just like it would with physical servers? Group policy gets pushed out like normal? Adding new servers is simply a matter of joining the domain? Any other kind of "gotcha's" for this sort of setup? Also, if you do run an AD domain, are your DC's virtual machines as well, or physical machines?

 

[shredhead666]

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Don't be so sarcastic. That's probably not a bad idea for a Linux n00b.
http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Dummies-6th-Dee-Ann-LeBlanc/dp/0764579371

Good stuff there!

Hahaha! NICE! I might have to get that book.

 

[King Crimson]

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I think these might be a good place to start if you just want to read up -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/
http://www.linux-tutorial.info/
http://distrowatch.com/

The wiki entry is just to get a bit of background. The YoLinux site will tell you a LOT about how linux functions in nitty-gritty details. The tutorial site is a nice quick reference guide I think. DistroWatch is a good site for keeping tabs on the current distribution trends and may help you pick out a distribution that you like.

Don't let it all frighten you too much. There's probably a ton of terms/concepts that you'll come across that you might not be familiar with at first. And there's several things that if you're used to using Windows, you'll have to differentiate between. An example of this is that "C: drive" is NOT how they denote the root directory. The root directory is /, and everything branches off of that - /etc, /mnt, /proc, /usr, /bin, etc.... Your primary hard drive is usually mounted at /mnt/hda1/ for example. Most distributions don't let you run as an admin user (root) either. So often you'll have to temporarily become root to make a change to the main filesystem. Certain distros make this easier than others.

Just small things like that.

What I would probably do first is go download the Knoppix live CD and boot your PC with that. It won't change anything on your hard drive and gives you a fully funtional Linux desktop that runs all from the CD. That's how most people get their first taste of Linux. You can kind of explore around that for a while to get your bearings and not really worry about screwing anything up because it's all running from a read-only CD. There are several other GREAT live CDs as well (Ubuntu, Sabayon, STD, MEPIS, etc...) but Knoppix seems to be the most popular since it's the oldest/most stable.

If you're ready to take the plunge and install it on your hard drive, what I would do is probably stick with one of the more popular distributions (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora) just because they have the largest community-base and should you run into any difficulty, most likely you'll be able to get answers from them. Plus since they're tested by more people, chances are that many the bugs have been ironed out.

This will get you started using Linux on the Desktop. Now bear in mind while it's a GREAT Operating System for a desktop PC, it's most widely used with NO graphical interface on servers. If you want to do Linux server administration it's probably best that you learn a bit about how it functions on the desktop first just so you get a more user-friendly system to warm up to. Then once you're more comfortable with using it, and once you've learned more about the command line, try tackling a server install/configuration. You can of course put a Graphical desktop environment on a server, but most people don't just to save on the overhead.

There's a TON of great tutorials out there to help you get started and mostly the information is all free. Most of the bigger distributions of linux come with their own specific tutorials as well to help you along your way. Ubuntu is especially good with this - http://www.ubuntuguide.org/ (and they happen to be my current favorite distro next to Fedora)

Good stuff there!

 

[King Crimson]

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Dave, one more question...

Do you run an Active Directory domain for your Windows virtual servers? If so, does that work just like it would with physical servers? Group policy gets pushed out like normal? Adding new servers is simply a matter of joining the domain? Any other kind of "gotcha's" for this sort of setup? Also, if you do run an AD domain, are your DC's virtual machines as well, or physical machines?

Do you run an Active Directory domain for your Windows virtual servers?
We have a multi-forest multi-domain AD structure because of the many remote sites we have and manage in Canada, Geneva, Japan, Milwaukie, New York, Chicago, Boston and our large DR site/facility.

Although technically you could run a full on native AD environment in production on VMware, best practices dictates that you build out AD on dedicated physical servers. This is because of several things, but most importantly because you will want at the very least two separate physical DC servers in your AD environment for redundancy and replication of your global catalog distributed data repository. Outside of that, all your infrastructure servers (DNS, DHCP, WINS, etc) are perfect candidates for VMware. And what’s very nice is that it’s a cinch to clone off any VM for disaster recovery and bring it online in seconds.

However, to answer your question, it would be ideal for a lab environment setting, and I do this as we speak.

Remember that VMware is not meant to be a "total replacement" for physical servers, but used to consolidate 70-80% of your environment. If you run a capacity planning tool on your server infrastructure during peak production hours, I’ll bet that nearly 75% of your servers are running at a resource utilization of less than 15%. It's typically the database and "fat client" application servers that are being pegged and thus not a good candidate for VMware.

If so, does that work just like it would with physical servers?
Think of the VMs just like any other physical server. In a Windows environment you can run in a peer-to-peer network, in a flat NT4 domain structure, or in a full blown native Kerberos Active Directory Domain structure with all your FSMO roles and operations masters and replication and PDC emulator. Everything is the same when promoting or demoting and joining or removing from the domain.

Also, HA (high availability) is also easily accomplished with MSCS just as in the physical world.

Group policy gets pushed out like normal?
GPOs and local group polices all follow the same AD schema as in the real world.

Adding new servers is simply a matter of joining the domain?
Yep.

Any other kind of "gotcha's" for this sort of setup?
Always. What can happen, will happen. Always have good full and subsequent differential backups handy or at a reputable off-site facility.

Also, if you do run an AD domain, are your DC's virtual machines as well, or physical machines?
As I stated above.