Mar
08
2010

Reset the password on a Dell EqualLogic SAN

The last few months we where asked several times to reset a password set on the main account for Dell EqualLogic storage, also known as the grpadmin account.

If you really don’t know the password set on the grpadmin but still have physical access to it you can start a recovery procedure to reset the grpadmin account back to the default password: grpadmin.

Important: Because you must power-cycle one group member as part of the password reset procedure, volumes with data stored on that member will be unavailable and active iSCSI connections to those volumes will be lost until the member is restarted. You may want to warn users of any impending offline volumes and iSCSI disconnections before resetting the password.

To temporarily reset the grpadmin account password to the default factory-set password, follow these steps:

1.) On one group member, connect the appropriate serial cable to serial port 0 (the correct cable will be different on different models of the PS Array) on the active control module. The active control module is indicated by the green control module status LED labeled ACT. The status LEDs are located on the controllers sometimes on the left side or next to the serial port on other controllers.

2.) Turn off power to the member (if you have dual power supplies, turn off both power supplies). Volumes with data located on the member will be offline and iSCSI connections to those volumes will be lost until the member is restarted.

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Written by Edwin Weijdema in: Best Practices, Hardware, Support, Third party product(s) |Other posts by Edwin Weijdema| Tags: ,
Nov
16
2009

iSCSI Super Friends

Since last week I’ve got a new assignment which is a long way from home. Next to the downsides of traveling 5 hours a day and staying in hotels, it certainly has advantages.

During my 5 hour drive or when I’m staying in a hotel i have time to listen to the VMware Community Roundtable podcasts I put on my iPhone. For those of you who don’t know this. VMware Community Roundtable is a weekly conference call/chat for VMware enthusiasts. Every week there’s a different topic and this is your change to discuss these topics with the experts in the community. For those of you who don’t have time to attend, there’s the possibility to listen online or download the sessions as podcasts.

Last week I listened to a great topic which was called the ‘#66 – iSCSI Super Friends with EMC, NetApp, Dell, HP, VMware‘. This podcast was from September 30 so it was quite an old podcast but this was such a great session that I don’t want to keep it from you. This session discusses the multi vendor blog post by VMware (Andy Banta), EMC (Chad Sakac), NetApp (Vaughn Stewart), Dell/EqualLogic( Eric Schott), HP/Lefthand Networks (Adam Carter) on how to implement iSCSI with VMware VI3.5 and vSphere 4.

So for those of you who already heard it, sorry for the ‘old’ intel, for those of you who haven’t, this is a must read/hear.

iSCSIstorage

The mult vendor blog post discusses can be found here:

I really liked the conclusion that you can build iSCSI storage solutions which are as fast as fiber storage solutions and that tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 storage definitions should not be based on the technique used but on the service level agreement with your end user.

Personally I wonder what the future will bring. Will fiber channel disappear in favor of iSCSI? As discussed during this podcast, ethernet is ideal for storage connections, the questions is which protocol to use, NFS, iSCSI or FCoE. We will see ……

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/01/a-multivendor-post-to-help-our-mutual-iscsi-customers-using-vmware.html
Written by Erik Scholten in: ESX/ESXi, Infrastructure Design, VMware, vSphere |Other posts by Erik Scholten| Tags: , , , ,
Feb
26
2009

VMworld Europe 2009 – Interview with Rob Bloemendal (Dell EqualLogic)

Earlier we had an interview with Rob Bloemendal, Dell EqualLogic storage expert.

Rob knows a lot about storage, not only from Dell EqualLogic, but also from the other distributors in their marketplace.

You never hear Rob making negative comments about their competitors. The way he explains the difference between framework and frameless architecture is refreshing. He reconfirms that the discussion shouldn’t be on 8Gbit FC versus 3Gbit iSCSI, but about I/O per second and data characteristics.

Written by Anne Jan Elsinga in: VMware |Other posts by Anne Jan Elsinga| Tags: , , ,
Jan
27
2009

High throughput iSCSI with VMware: a multi-vendor post

One of the feeds in my RSS reader is the VMware feed. One of the posts that caught my attention was the ‘High Throughput iSCSI with VMware’

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Written by Anne Jan Elsinga in: VMware, vStorage VMFS/Storage |Other posts by Anne Jan Elsinga| Tags: ,
Oct
31
2008

Cisco and VMware networking

Looking for information about iSCSI, Cisco and VMware I stumbled onto a document which I want to share with all of you. Want to know about vswitches, portgroups, security, ether channels, scalability, security, performance, VLAN tagging, N-port ID virtualization, iSCSI implementations?

In ‘VMware Infrastructure 3 in a Cisco Network Environmentall ins and out of VMware networking are described. 90 pages of pure networking wisdom.

Another valueable document I found is the VMware iSCSI Design Considerations and Deployment Guide. When you are designing and /or implementing an iSCSI solution this is a document you should read.

Written by Erik Scholten in: Networking, VMware |Other posts by Erik Scholten| Tags: , , ,

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