Having been evaluating a new platform for one of the major applications my group supports I've had the "pleasure" of sitting through numerous pitches by various vendors representing server, storage, and backup products. They have all been pushing their own version of virtualization. Virtualization has its place, but why does everything have to virtualized?
Virtual machines have been around for a long time. VMware certainly wasn't the first to do it, but they were quite innovative to do so on the x86 platform. But when you are talking hefty applications on big iron, introducing another layer of complexity doesn't solve my problem.
I don't need a gazillion little machines. I need a few that can support huge loads of I/O and all at once. I also need to not impact an application that runs the factory floor when I go to replace that failed NIC on a development web server. Don't get me wrong, squeezing more out of the hardware isn't a bad idea, I just don't like the idea of putting all my eggs in one basket. This is one thing that VMware managed to improve on by introducing load balancing and VM farms with ESX but it isn't without its caveats.
If I were to build a solution with all the virtulization techniques that all the vendors threw at us, I doubt any of it would work. Vendors need to do a better job at really figuring out how their virtualization options solve real world problems. None of the pitches I've heard convinced me they could fix my real world business or technical problems. Heck, I don't think any of them bothered to ask us about OUR problems before pushing virtualization.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
No really, backups are cool?
I have been blogging in one form or another in one forum or another for a while now. Normally the jist of any work related content is something along the lines of why my job is driving me crazy, but I've decided to start to write some technical content in hopes that someone will find it useful or interesting in some way. I can't promise non-technical content won't rear its ugly head nor will I promise what I write will make Mr. Ruchinski, my high school English teacher who inspired me to start writing in the first place, proud of my grasp of the English language.
Of course you probably want to know that I'm not just some recent newcomer to the technology sector who thinks he knows everything. I've been thinking I know everything for about 14 years now. 16 if you count the "computer stuff" I did before officially entering the workforce. The longer I go the more I learn and the more I realize I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I've never had a job where I didn't learn something, even if the job sucked. I like to learn and am glad I can work in IT. Like a lot of others I've spent more than half of my career as either a contractor or a consultant for some sort of outsourcing/"managed services" provider. Moving from job to job gave me a pretty wide base of experience and like to think I could pick up any new environment without much of a learning curve. My true passion though is backups. Most people hate backups. It is a chore. Tedious and laborious. But with the right software, hardware, and know how, you can create a system that works well more often than not.
Now I suppose that can go for any "system" one can design, but backups are something I've personally figured out how to do particularly well. I did it the hard way. It is through blood sweat and tears that I have the knowledge that I do. On the first day of my current job, it took me about 3 hours to come up with a list of 14 things wrong with the environment. By my second week on the job I probably identified another 14. Seven years prior I wouldn't have noticed any of them.
No really, backups are cool? Well, yeah. Backups are cool because they can save someones ass. Backups let me feel comfortable with letting a junior analyst loose with administrative privileges. Backups give you the ability to become a hero. And they are a heck of a lot more complicated than most people realize, even people who are typically tasked with maintaining the backups. It is a process that touches and sometimes even stresses out every piece of your datacenter. You have to have a firm grasp of all the pieces to do it right and do it better.
Alas, the "Backups Are Cool" moniker didn't come from my own mind. That credit goes to an Engineer from Datadomain. I don't recall his name, but he got quite excited about talking about backup optimization until he realized I was the only person there not giving him a weird look. Seriously dude, backups ARE cool.
Of course you probably want to know that I'm not just some recent newcomer to the technology sector who thinks he knows everything. I've been thinking I know everything for about 14 years now. 16 if you count the "computer stuff" I did before officially entering the workforce. The longer I go the more I learn and the more I realize I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I've never had a job where I didn't learn something, even if the job sucked. I like to learn and am glad I can work in IT. Like a lot of others I've spent more than half of my career as either a contractor or a consultant for some sort of outsourcing/"managed services" provider. Moving from job to job gave me a pretty wide base of experience and like to think I could pick up any new environment without much of a learning curve. My true passion though is backups. Most people hate backups. It is a chore. Tedious and laborious. But with the right software, hardware, and know how, you can create a system that works well more often than not.
Now I suppose that can go for any "system" one can design, but backups are something I've personally figured out how to do particularly well. I did it the hard way. It is through blood sweat and tears that I have the knowledge that I do. On the first day of my current job, it took me about 3 hours to come up with a list of 14 things wrong with the environment. By my second week on the job I probably identified another 14. Seven years prior I wouldn't have noticed any of them.
No really, backups are cool? Well, yeah. Backups are cool because they can save someones ass. Backups let me feel comfortable with letting a junior analyst loose with administrative privileges. Backups give you the ability to become a hero. And they are a heck of a lot more complicated than most people realize, even people who are typically tasked with maintaining the backups. It is a process that touches and sometimes even stresses out every piece of your datacenter. You have to have a firm grasp of all the pieces to do it right and do it better.
Alas, the "Backups Are Cool" moniker didn't come from my own mind. That credit goes to an Engineer from Datadomain. I don't recall his name, but he got quite excited about talking about backup optimization until he realized I was the only person there not giving him a weird look. Seriously dude, backups ARE cool.
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