This post is to provide the steps to replace the self-signed certificate of Cisco UCS Manager to the client signed CA certificate.
Cisco UCS Manager Client CA signed Certificate (Step by Step)
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Author Archives: Vincent Ran
Cisco MDS Fabric Merge Failure Case
We had ran a MDS fabric merge recently between MDS9509 and MDS9148 and met below two errors during the merging process. These errors could be avoided by configuring the correct setting which is detailed as below:
- Domain ID Configuration
Error Message: %FCDOMAIN-2-EPORT_ISOLATED: %$VSAN 10%$ Isolation of interface port-channel10 (reason: configured domain ID is different from runtime domain ID)
From the log information, it is clear stated that the Domain ID is mis-matched between running-config and local switch configuration. One of the major reasons is the “fcdomain restart” command is not executed after setting the Domain ID. The “fcdomain restart” command basically applies your changes to the runtime settings and align the configured ID and running ID.
DELL Server Firmware Upgrade by Utilizing DELL Repository Manager
There are multiple ways to upgrade DELL Server firmware. However, frankly speaking, DELL server upgrade is not easy enough comparing with HP or Cisco Servers. HP provides SPP and Cisco provide HUU/firmware pack for UCS system, which consolidate and align all the driver/firmware to be at the same level to make the upgrade workflow easier. In general, the recommended DELL upgrade workflow and available methods are detailed in the below document.
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/m/white_papers/20408841/download.aspx
In this post, we will utilize the DELL Repository Manager to upgrade the Dell Servers.
PowerCLI Script – VMware Storage vMotion Automation
I recently got a task to migrate more than 100 VMware virtual machine from one sets of datastores to another. In order to automate this process, I draft a simple PowerShell script to perform below tasks:
- Utilize CSV file as the input; and
- The maximum running parallel storage vMotion sessions can be controlled by input option, this is to avoid storage overhead and minimize the impact on the other running applications.
The script is as below:
NetApp SolidFire mNode and ActiveIQ Monitoring
This post is to outline the key steps to configure mNode and how to connect SolidFire storage to ActiveIQ site. This post is not intended to cover all the details in the NetApp SolidFire deploy guide, user guide documents or other NetApp official documents.
What is SolidFire mNode?
The NetApp SolidFire management node (mNode) is a virtual machine deployed in customer environment to provide below functions:
- SolidFire Element OS software upgrades;
- Remote alerting and historical data collection through Active IQ;
- Remote support tunneling for NetApp Support hands-on access; and
- Ancillary functions for NetApp SolidFire Plug-in for VMware® vCenter™ functionality and syslog aggregation.
Cisco UCS Jumbo Frame Configuration – The CoS Value Matters
I recently participated a technical trouble shooting regarding UCS jumbo frame setting to support NetApp SolidFire iSCSI storage. When the UCS MTU value in QoS setting is changed to 9216, the connection between UCS and NetApp SolidFire is lost. However, the new UCS QoS setting could be supported by the NetApp FAS iSCSI system in the same environment. A diagram as below illustrates the situation.
Unity File Replication – 3 things you need to know as a VNX/Celerra user
Although Unity has been in the market for more than a year, until recently, I got a chance to configure a pair of Unity with file replication. If you were a VNX/Celerra user, there are 3 points you need to be aware to configure the file system replication on Unity.
- File System replication is bundled with NAS server replication
When replicating existing File Systems or VMware NFS Datastores with asynchronous replication, you must first configure replication for the NAS Server it is mounted on. It is not supported to replicate file system to a different Unity NAS server at the remote site.
When deleting a NAS server, the related file system must be deleted as well.
Backing Up a 10TB SQL Server
I am recently working on an environment need to back up a 10TB SQL server by Networker and Data Domain. By utilizing DDBoost ans saveset “MSSQL:”, the backup job could be done in 13 hours for the daily full backup. This is not the worst result to backup a SQL server in 10TB, but we still can optimize it with some settings in Networker.
A Simple Example of EMC Networker Customized Backup Command
Recently I got a task to run a command or script to delete files in a given folder after a success backup. In general, there are two major ways, one way is to use PowerShell script and include Networker backup command, and the other way is to use EMC Networker customized backup command. I chose to use the second way because it is more closely integrated with Networker and easier to manage and monitor.
I follow the steps as below:
- Step 1: In the client host, create a file save001.bat under c:\Program Files\EMC NetWorker\nsr\bin.
- Step 2: Use txt editor to edit the Save001.bat with the script listed in the following post.
- Step 3: Login to NMC, in the Backup Command attribute of the Client resource, type the name of the backup script, save001.bat in our case.
EMC Avamar Data Domain Replication Performance Turning
I recently worked on a performance turning for the backup solution with below components:
- EMC Avamar as the backup server at DC1 and DC2;
- Data Domain as the backup target storages at DC1 and DC2; and
- Backup datasets are replicated between DC1 and DC2.
The backup client is Avamar NDMP node at both sites. The 50TB ISILON CIFS shares can be backed up in 2 hours by Avamar through NDMP. However, the replication of the daily backup to peer DC can take more than 24 hours.