I spent a long time last night reworking my WordPress theme after trying a number of other themes that were either buggy or not very visually appealing.  I think the new look should work well, I was really tired of the red.  Please let me know what you think, there is a poll at the bottom of the page.

Also you may be wondering where to download the BackupPC virtual appliance from, well I have to figure out how I am going to host it.  I should have it up later today or tomorrow.

[tags]wordpress backuppc theme[/tags]

While I have been a bit quiet lately, I have been working on two new projects one is a BackupPC virtual appliance. An agentless backup and recovery system that also de-duplicates. There is a lot of discussion around technologies like Data Domain, Diligent, EMC/Avamar, and Asigra, this virtual appliance provides similar functionality for FREE. I am also working on a web based UI for this appliance to simplify setup and sync integration for replication.

Setup of the BackupPC virtual appliance is quite simple.

1. Start the BackupPC Virtual Appliance
2. The virtual appliance is setup to use bridged networking, it should receive a dhcp address on your network
3. Log into the BackupPC virtual appliance
   • Username: root
   • Password: backuppc
4. Identify network IP address
   • ifconfig -a
5. Open you desktop browser and point it to http://ip_address/cgi-bin/BackupPC_Admin
   • Username: admin
   • Password: password
6. Create a user “backuppc” on the windows hosts that you want to backup. Backups are performed via SMB so the “backuppc” user should have read access to the C$, etc… shares.
   • Note: Don’t forget to set the users password
7. vi /b2d_target/conf/config.pl
   • You will need to modify 3 variables in this file
     • $Conf{SmbShareName} = ‘C$’;
       • These are the shares that you want to backup
     • $Conf{SmbShareUserName} = ‘backuppc’;
     • $Conf{SmbSharePasswd} = ‘backuppc’;
       • The SmbShareUserName and SmbSharePasswd should match the username and password that you created on your windows host.
8. Add hosts to backup.
   • vi /b2d_target/conf/hosts
     • Follow the syntax in the file – the use of IP addresses is OK
9. Reload the backup configuration file from the web ui
   • Select “Admin Options” and “Reload Config”
10. You are now ready to start a backup

For detailed usage documentation see: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

NOTE: [THIS IS OPTIONAL]

Finally the virtual machine is configured with a 300GB backup target disk (/dev/hdb2). This is Hard Disk 2 (IDE 0:1), if you need more space you should follow the following procedure:

1. Shutdown the virtual machine
2. Remove Hard Disk 2 and add a new larger virtual disk – See vmware docs for more detail
3. Login as root
4. /etc/init.d/backuppc stop
5. mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdb1
6. mount -a
   • verify that the new device is mounted on /b2d_target
     • df -k
7. /etc/init.d/backuppc start

Please download and try this virtual machine, and let me know if you find any issues with the documentation. Enjoy!

[tags]virtual appliance backup recovery backuppc linux vmware windows agentless[/tags]

In the event that you have not noticed (BTW – the assumption here is that you read my blog in braille), I was tired of the old look and feel so I gave the page a facelift. Hope you enjoy.

The other day I was asked to comment on a few question with regard to the future of tape technology.  I thought the questions were good one so I though I would post my unedited responses.

Question:

Many analysts and storage observers have said that tape is becoming obsolete, yet I have spoken to Sun Microsystems and IBM and they both say that using tape for storage is fundamental to their business strategy and that they are experiencing growth in this area.

What are your thoughts about tape?s evolving role in storage and do you think for the longer term tape will survive and still be relevant to storage over the next year, five years or even a decade. What trends are you seeing in tape?s use?

Response:

First thought is 5 or 10 years is a lifetime in technology. While today I believe tape is still and integral part of most IT infrastructures the management, consumables and vaulting costs are prompting many organizations to investigate technologies with the hope of reducing their dependency on traditional tape technology and improving SLAs. Technologies such as virtual tape, data de-duplication and emerging technologies such as removable disk cartridges (e.g. – http://www.prostorsystems.com/products.php) and holographic storage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_storage) will change the way we approach backup and recovery.

Obviously IBM and Sun Microsystems (post STK acquisition) have thriving tape businesses that are fundamental to their business model and I would expect them to continue promote and evangelize the value of tape. As a technologist I think that it would be na?ve to assume that in the next 5 to 10 years there will not be game changing technologies that arise that will affect the need for traditional tape.

Question:

Do you use tape for storage? If so can you describe the response customers are giving you to its use? Is your business growing in this area, or is it dwindling?

Response:

Me do use a fair amount of tape but the amount of tape technology is declining due to the deployment of alternative technologies such as Snapshots, Virtual Tape, Content Addressable Storage, data de-duplication and enterprise wide archiving strategies. Our backup and recovery business is growing but the platform is no longer tape only.

Question:

What are the virtues of using tape? I understand that the popularity of virtual tape libraries are on the rise, but in general is tape a better form of storage that disk? What are tape?s advantages and what are the disadvantages?

Response:

This is like debating religion. Obviously today the biggest benefits of tape are portability, density and cost. The biggest drawback is management. Format incompatibility, possible reliability issues for long term retention, vaulting costs, the debate of iron vs. speed, etc?.

Question:

If you have any other thoughts on the use of Tape that my questions don?t address, (such as cost) etc., please feel free to give me your insights.

Response:

Often an overlooked component of tape infrastructure is the vaulting cost. The use of a solid archiving strategy and the use of emerging technologies such as data de-duplication will not only simplify management and improve SLAs but can also reduce Op-Ex dramatically.

Lastly I believe that there are some compelling events that prompt us to investigate technologies that augment the use of tape. These technologies will absolutely erode some of the tape market share. The cheese will move over the next 5 to 10 years, maybe the tape vendors will move it or maybe it will be a new innovator, the market players will react and those who do not will loose market share and may potentially fizzle out.

For more detail on the effects of archiving on the use of backup and recovery see: http://gotitsolutions.org//2006/08/22/the-simple-value-of-archiving.html

I am a fairly avid Blackberry user and the Got IT Solutions blog is hard to read on a mobile device so I have setup http://mobile.gotitsolutions.org to accommodate mobile users who are as interested in the Got IT Solutions content as I am :).

Microsoft is the target of another antitrust litigation, this time in an Iowa court.  This story has an interesting twist, read about it here.

Plaintiff’s Exhibit 7264 gave me a good little chuckle. Almost three years ago, on January 7, 2004, Jim Allchin, the senior executive at Microsoft, sent an E-mail to Microsoft’s top two executives, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, and the subject was losing our way.

Mr. Allchin says, I’m not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers, both business and home, the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems our customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that does not translate into great products. He goes on to say, I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.

I am sure Apple will capitalize on this – as well they should.  I only hope they do it in such a way that it is reminiscent of the 1984 Orwellian Macintosh commercial that Apple aired during the superbowl.  In my opinion the best commercial of all time.  I vote for this commercial to be a parody, Steve Carell would make a good Bill Gates 🙂

Last Wednesday, December 13th 2006 the world said goodbye to 76 year old Al Shugart, the father of the modern disk drive. Al Shugart founded Seagate Technology and without his contributions many of use would not have 10 thousand songs attached to our hip.

Watch a speech given by Al Shugart entitled Half a Century of Disk Drives and Philosophy: From IBM to Seagate.

“It is important to remember when starting and growing a new company that cash is more important than your mother.” – Al Shugart

This was a howto that I used to have on my website, it has to be at least 4 or 5 years old but I was doing some filesystem cleanup this weekend and I thought that I would post it.

The purpose of this post was to share my 802.11b homebrew wireless antenna parts list and experience. Today I have a Linksys WRT54G running the Sveasoft Talisman firmware but when I originally wrote this I was using a Linksys WAP11 access point. For a wireless card I use a Cabletron pcmcia wireless card.

The card that you use is very important important, internal wireless cards in my experience (if anyone know different please let me know) do not offer the ability to attach an external antenna. I recommend a card that uses the Prism/Prism2 chipset.

My research initially started with commercial antenna that were approx $120 to $150 for a 5dbi antenna (remember this was a few years ago and prices have come down). I then stumbled across the 802.11b Home Brew Wireless Shootout page. Since I originally wrote this I have upgraded to a commercial antenna, the thing is sick and if you never want to loose your signal I highly recommend it :). There are two important components, the antenna (in this case an omni-directional) and the amplifier.

For my homebrew antenna I choose the Flickenger coffee can waveguide design.

The hardest part of making the antenna was finding the proper parts. I have itemized the list of parts needed here:

(1) Coffe Can (36 oz, does not need to be a Yuban coffee can) – In my case it was a Maxwell House can – this happens to be what my parents drink. – $0

These parts I ordered from www.hyperlinktech.com. I would have included the direct links but they seem to change as the catalog changes.

(1) N-Female Panel Mount 4-Hole? 1 in. Flange Crimp Connector for Cable Types: RG58/141/142? Hyperlink CA195RW? WBC195? LMR195? Belden 8240/8219 – $32.90

(1) RP-TNC Plug to N-Male, 195-Series Cable – $20 (This allows connection of the antenna directly to the WAP device)

(1) ORiNOCO? AP-600/700/4000 Compatible to N-Male, 195R-Series Cable – $15 (The is for connecting the antenna directly to your pcmcia wireless card – great for war driving)

For additional instructions see Rob Flickenger’s web page on building the coffee can antenna. Happy homebrewing.
Good luck, I am in the process of doing some benchmarking on my coffee cantenna using netstumbler (http://www.netstumbler.com/). I should have the results posted after the holidays.

The storage technology market is definitely heating up.  Bankers are pushing IPOs and startups are capitalizing on valuations that are reminiscent of the dot.com era.

CommVault (CVLT) who priced their IPO at $14.50 a share raised 161 million and closed the trading day Friday at $19.65 a share.
Riverbed’s (RVBD) IPO was priced at $9.75 a share and they raised $86 million, Riverbed closed the day Friday trading at $29.79.

This week it was Isilon (ISLN) and Double-Take (DBTK).  Isilon priced their 8,350,000 shares $13 per share and closed the trading day on Friday at $23.10 per share.  Double-Take priced their IPO at $11 a share and closed the Friday at $12.66 a share.

Who’s next?  Companies like 3PAR, BlueArc, Compellent, EqualLogic, LeftHand Networks, Mellanox and Onaro are on deck.  To put this in perspective before the CommVault and Riverbed IPOs the last storage company to go public was Xryratex (XRTX) over two years ago.  It’s obvious that the market is hot and thirsting for aggressive, nimble technology companies. 

The days of consolidation where storage giants like EMC, NetApp, HDS, IBM, etc… gobble up smaller players with great technology are slowing and valuations are on the rise.  I think the post dot.bomb apprehension may have finally begun to fade away.