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Ask the Experts: Virtualization & Cloud Computing Questions Answeredby Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/17/2011 2:22 AM EST
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m.amitava - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkI work in India for a San Jose based Software Company
(one Steve Jobs doesn't like too much). Recently we have had a virtual lab service introduced which enables us to deploy virtual machines and carry out short term development and testing. Now I have a two pronged question
1) Will there be a day when all(or most ) of the development/testing work across platforms will be migrated to the cloud? Will it be secure enough and do you think the results will be consistent when compared to using actual physical PC's with a single OS?
2) What is the future of Mac OS X VM support? Our company at this point doesn't offer macs for the virtual lab Reply
L. - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link1) Yes and you don't really mind about the consistency between physical and virtual as long as you run full virtual (that may include end-user equipment, yes). Server-side can and should* be virtualized anyway so in this sense, you must see that it is much easier to replicate a production environment with virtualization, and therefore have the testing for cheaper and better (you can have a perfect 1:1 copy, which is impossible - read too expensive - in physical environments).
"Secure enough" ? If it's secure enough for production, it oughta be secure enough for dev. If your question is about test environments impacting production environments, you just need to make sure they run on separate pools / different hosts, including all the network / storage. (As in, if your test environment uses your production network and SAN, you may impact performance in production).
2) Google it, took me 2 minutes to have the answer. Reply
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Guspaz - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkThere is already limited support for Mac OS X as a guest VM... but only OS X Server, and only on an OS X host (that's a licensing requirement, not a technical requirement). It's technically possible to run any version of OS X on any host (such as OS X on Windows) using "OSx86" modifications, but that's a EULA violation.
As far as I know, the only virtualization solution that offers official support to do this is Parallels. Virtualbox also has experimental support for doing it. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, March 21, 2011 - linkI think we need to change the title:
"Ask the Experts, with answers by our expert readers!" :-) Reply
Virtuwiz - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkWhy can't you have a "showdown" between VMware and Microsofts HyperV tecnology.
MS have a compelling story and a great pricepoint but the marketshare and market history for VMware makes makes this a hard decision to make.
With all the reviews at ananadtech i think that i possibly could be the real first documentet and public Clash of the titans. Reply
duploxxx - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkThere are lots of aspects that you need to look at before you can state one has a more compelling offer then another. You can look technology wise, future wise, mngmnt wise, price wise, performance wise. Sure I think Anandtech could make a very compelling compare, but that will be one very high time consuming review that can only be brought into several pieces. Just out of experience.
Second to that there are always pro and contra for one and another. For example from a pricepoint it might look more interesting but you just compare it from a license perspective, but for example how many real life VM you can actually run on a physical box between vendors? You might be surprised ..... Reply
bmullan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkLet's not limit ourselves to just vmware or hyperV.
KVM is great technology and being built into the linux kernel takes advantage of developments from the linux community. kernel shared memory (KSM) is just one of many examples.
Many large company's are using kvm including IBM, Red Hat, Dell, HP, Intel. It is just one of several choices available.. but its free and open source code available.
My opinion is that KVM may become the leader in virtualization technology simply because of cost. Compare VMware licensing costs $$$$ to $0 for KVM ? That makes a huge difference in a large datacenter where someone is implementing their own private cloud but even more expensive for a large Cloud Service Provider with thousands of servers.
Let's also not forget that AWS is built on XEN.
As the acknowledged leader in Cloud that says a lot for XEN in itself. Reply
sor - Friday, March 18, 2011 - linkWhat's with people calling it "kernel shared memory" lately? I thought it was "kernel samepage merging".
I use KVM at work specifically because we can run paravirtualized and I don't have to worry about recompiling modules/installing software (vmware) or running special kernel builds (Xen) whenever we upgrade. We can use the same kernel we do on our hardware and everywhere else. Also, performance was all around better compared to ESX4.1 Reply
Calabros - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linka simple one: an Atom based server can be good as a VPN server?
we need to reduce the cost of Breaking Great Firewalls here Reply
Guspaz - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkThat doesn't really have anything to do with virtualization, though. And the answer is, no, not for a large amount of bandwidth. VPNs require encryption, and the Atom is not ideally suited to encrypting large amounts of data.
Besides, it's probably cheaper just to get a Linode; it'll cost less than a dedicated Atom would. Reply
Kissaki - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkWhat I see a lot is virtualization on blade chassis, the problem is that I'm not convinced this is the best way to go. more servers would mean more idle time in the end and more management.
I would like to know what hardware would be best to virtualize on. and then not what is better per server but what is better per X amount of money you spend over the 2/3 years you use the hardware. And better would probably mean something like faster / more reliable / power useage
After that is answered it would be great to have the same kind of insight into the storage part of virtualization. Reply
meorah - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkthere is no "best to virtualize on" until you get into specifics. For example, if you need to virtualize 100 servers, you already have a FC SAN, and you only have 10U of space for your CPU and memory in your data center, you'd better believe that a blade chassis will be the correct starting point.
On the other hand, if you just want to test/dev things on a new infrastructure and aren't sure how many servers you will need yet, any old poweredge 2800 with enough drives will do the trick just fine.
"what is better per X amount of money you spend over the 2/3 years you use the hardware"
If you're only going to use it for 2-3 years, don't buy it. It's probably cheaper if you rent it from a cloud or virtual hosting provider.
"And better would probably mean something like faster / more reliable / power useage"
Larger companies pay ridiculous sums of money to have people do this type of TCO calculation for them.
Most of the reliability is built into the software if you're virtualizing, so you actually try to get systems with less hardware redundancy... for example, you may choose a server with only one power supply instead of redundant power supplies if your design includes the ability for all the virtual machines on that physical host to transfer to other hosts in the event of a host failure.
The choice of faster vs power efficient depends on the applications you are delivering. If the apps are business critical, you choose fast. If the apps are just nice to haves but not critical to the business' success, you choose power efficient. The Xeon L series is the processor equivalent of "slower but more power efficient". Low voltage memory saves about 10% of power consumption over regular server memory.
If the project is large enough, you can spend extra on the performance virtualization farm for business critical apps and save more on the efficient virtualization farm for everything else.
As for shared storage, it's exactly the same. Different vendors with different products all aimed at different scenarios. Tiered storage, thin provisioning, high utilization, how many controllers per enclosure, how many LUNs per enclosure, DAS vs SAN vs NAS, FC vs iSCSI, FCoE vs 10GBE, SAS vs SATA vs SSD vs NLSAS... You just pick the ones you want based on how much budget you have versus how much performance they want. You explain the positives of some systems that are too expensive and the negatives of some systems that are under-budget and let the guys with the money choose their poison of preference. Reply
bmullan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkYou mentioned a lot of good points.
Others to consider regarding costs of buy vs rent from a Cloud provider:
Insurance costs for facilities, equipment, liability (in case of loss)
HVAC - its not just the power for the servers but the AC and more importantly the backup systems.
Staff and Staff expertise - can you hire and retain expert staff. What does that cost?
If you own - you pay for server maintenance agreements with the vendors
If you use the cloud - its built into the hourly costs
h/w renewal costs - if you own then you pay to upgrade h/w
If you use the cloud - it is their job and they get larger discounts and thus costs/rates because of Scale than you probably can get.
Utility company's typically give large discounts to big users of power. Microsoft or Amazon will get a huge discount from the rates a small company would pay for electricity.
Also, something often overlooked it the Cloud SP's can locate their Data Centers (DC's) almost anywhere that they can find the best deals for the power the DC would consume... which passes on those savings to the users of that DC/cloud SP.
As you stated many people realize this is a complicated question that has different answers depending on the company/situation involved. Reply
lunan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkSome virtualization company offer free virtualization such as VirtualBox and others like VMWare offer hefty pricing for Enterprise customer.
I am planning to start a small business in IT, and im wondering what benefits virtualization will bring to the organization, especially with small starting capital, i won't be able to afford hefty license (i mean i wont be using Corporate software such as SQL Server or Oracle but fall back into MYSQL or any other database). I also concerned because some of the license are GNU (which means any of the developed software must be GNU too --.--!)
With clients only numbered in tens (10-30), would it be better to buy high end server (Xeon comes to mind), then virtualize the heck of it, or separate small server (multiple Phenom II X6) designed to balance the load? or if the number client increased to 100+?
Database also comes to mind, i presume you have to put either router or switch to the database server connecting with the virtual server then?
Also how do you use virtualization properly anyway? with central server, it is quite easy to manage things there, just run some server software and you are done, with virtualization, how do you divide things? (i am really clueless...)
thanks for the answers everyone Reply
bothari - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkIn your case i would suggest getting 2 or 3 smaller servers and a storage (maybe something like this http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/prolian... because virtualization is meaningless witzhout shared storage. On servers you can then install hypervisor of your choice (all vendors have free editions), and start creating VMs. If you plan to use as much as opensource as possible I would recommend using ESXi (free VMWare hypervisor) because of it's wide range od OS support.
Don't know what your budget is but you could also consider licensing to get some features which will make you work and sleep easier - at VMware that would be "Essentials Plus Licence" (http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/small_b... while Microsoft offers System Center Essentials (http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/essent...
Hope this helps
GL in business waters Reply
duploxxx - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkI think you clearly need to investigate some time into the IT area before you should start anything.
You are mixing OS hosted virtualization with bare metal virtualization,
Consumer based systems with Servers.
New on he networking topology, not even mentioning the storage part.
lots of work to do.
So to start with, any virtualization vendor these days has free virtualization platforms to offer most on each part. (OS hosted or bare metal)
OS hosted virtualization is kids playground, you run dev/test on it if you want but production is out of the question (before the comments on this, definition of production off course...)
you need to know what storage sizing and features you need for your type of business, same for networking and what application communication you will have.
there are many tools to manage virtualization platforms, some are free some not, is really depending on the platform you intent to take. Reply
lunan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkThat's the thing,i know all about the hardware part, even storage service using NAS or Active Directory (depends on the system, on the last system i use Novell for some outsource job company that needed it). Network topology dont matter, but if you use a virtualized server (say 1 server with 10 LAN slot - PCIE), do you need to connect the main server LAN or every single LAN need to be connected to a switch or router to be able to function?
I have tried VMWare on home and apparently i can use my single LAN shared with the windows and virtual linux. Question is can i do this or should i install that?
I just dont see the benefit of virtualization....probably if you are webhosting, that would be great for every user can have their own Dedicated Virtual Hosting, but for normal companies...i still have no ideas.
using virtualization for testing is great, for development, i'll die before i do it. My partner already complain about the slowness of his workstation with intel quad core (core2), giving him virtualization just wont do it.
so to clarify my question, what do i benefit from virtualization? (cloud when mature i can see the point, but virtualization for organization i still in the dark)
PS:sorry for the lack of information on the above post, shoulda clarified im not exactly newbie, more or less, but only newb on virtualization... Reply
meorah - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link"I am planning to start a small business in IT, and im wondering what benefits virtualization will bring to the organization, especially with small starting capital"
You will have very few benefits up front, but if you expect to need 15+ servers in the first 3 years it can be a wise choice to start virtual so you can expand virtually.
The first benefit that small businesses realize with server virtualization is hardware consolidation. You can probably run 15 light use servers on a single C1100 for about $10k. Without virtualization, you'd be trying to find the cheapest servers possible and host each OSE on its own server. At about $1k per server, you'd be spending $15k to run the same number of servers and wasting lots of energy keeping them powered and cooled.
Later advantages are that you can leverage shared storage to thin provision your drive space so you don't have to take your servers off-line in the future to add storage. Another shared storage benefit is cheap cluster failover for your virtual compute systems. As the business grows, there are many other advantages you can use from ease of management to I/O shaping or I/O QoS.
"would it be better to buy high end server (Xeon comes to mind), then virtualize the heck of it, or separate small server (multiple Phenom II X6) designed to balance the load?"
Depends on the goal. If your goal is server consolidation, get the Xeon because you will be able to consolidate more systems per physical host. If your goal is business continuity through whatever method (clustering, load balancing, backup restores) then get the Phenoms.
"or if the number client increased to 100+?"
Number of clients is not a good way to measure your business' virtualization needs. You need to determine whether you would even need one extra server in your journey from 10 clients to 100 clients. If you decide that you won't need any extra systems, then the requirements are the same for both scenarios. Some companies will want to add extra capacity for various reasons. Other companies will try to slide by for as long as they can with what they have.
"Database also comes to mind, i presume you have to put either router or switch to the database server connecting with the virtual server then?"
Unless your virtualize the DB server, yes you will need a switch to connect them. If you do virtualize the DB server, the hypervisor's virtual switch will connect to the other virtual machines (and any physical machines).
"Also how do you use virtualization properly anyway? with central server, it is quite easy to manage things there, just run some server software and you are done, with virtualization, how do you divide things?"
you manage virtual servers with the management tools from the vendor you use. The system center stuff (SCCM, SCOM, VMM) for hyper-V, the xencenter stuff for xenserver, and the vcenter stuff for vmware.
I don't know what you mean by divide things, but I'm guessing you mean dividing computing resources. Each vendor has its own way of doing it, but dividing resources is the whole point. Also, any management software that you use to manage individual physical servers can still be used to manage virtual servers so no big difference from that perspective. Reply
lunan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkthis answer my question at the very least :D
so in effect, i could deploy Web Server, Novell Server, Repositories and Testing, even a File Server in a single server, divided by virtualization right? instead of dividing the server physically, i just consolidate the service, but install them in different VM.
got it, question half answered. :D
now i had replied with more detailed question though...so it's only half answered. but thanks man for enlighting me Reply
Guspaz - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkIf you're developing a purely hosted solution, the use of MySQL and other GPL'd software does not require you to GPL your solution. The GPL only covers distribution, and there's no distribution in a hosted scenario.
In fact, you can even distribute GPL'd software with your proprietary software without GPLing the entire thing as long as you're not directly linking. A client/server relationship (distributing and using MySQL, but connecting through a socket) would not be a problem. Similarly, a lot of libraries are licensed under the LGPL, which *does* allow linking LGPL'd software into non-LGPL software without LGPLing the whole thing. Reply
Jeff7181 - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkI think one of the main benefits of virtualization for a small company is disaster recovery. You can take snapshots of a machine's disks and store them off the box/network or even offsite so in the event of a major virus outbreak or some other system failure, restoring your equipment to a working state is as simple as copying the virtual disk images back to the host. Hell, you could even completely rebuild the host and as long as you have the virtual disk images, you can be right back to where you were previously in a matter of minutes.
You'll spend a bit more on the hardware, but the ease of recovering from something catastrophic will make you happy you spent it.
Currently, the VM hosts I work with are around $20,000. They're HP DL380's with two 6-core Xeons, 48 GB of RAM, 6 NIC's, two HBA's and I think these have 6 hard drives in RAID1+0 but not much local storage is used, all the virtual disks are on the SAN. However, you could easily get 6 disks in RAID1+0 to house your virtual disks locally. You could even step down to a DL360 and accomplish the same thing. Reply
hoverman - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkLunan - I started and owned an IT consulting company in the Raleigh NC area until was bought out by a slightly larger company in 2008, whom I now work for. Most of our clients are in the 10 to 300 users range. I currently maintain about 50 clients in the area. We virtualize all of our customers moving forward, even if they only have one physical server. We made it a company policy about two years ago.
Please feel free to contact me externally to this forum, and i will help you in any way I can. My company's name is Netsmart INC. My contact info is on our website. Just look at my handle and match it up with my contact info on the site. (I dont want to post any emails, etc. here)
Ever since I learned about virtualization, I have embraced it 100% and it has paid big dividends for our staff and our customers. Reply
handle.goes.here - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkThere are plenty of articles comparing servers (both discrete and blades), but what I haven't seen (or have I just missed them) are good reviews testing the various interconnect fabrics. For example, I can build a cluster with HP DL380s and Arista 10gig switches, or I can build a cluster with an HP c7000 blade chassis and its integrated switch. (Likewise, LSI's SAS switch vs the SAS switch available for the blade server.)
What are the performance tradeoffs between best of breed and an integrated solution? Reply
VMguy - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkDoes VMware plan to implement similar functionality to the recently introduced RemoteFX for their virtualization platform? With package-integrated GPUs, having tens of VMs with real GPU capacity doesn't seem too far-fetched.
Does VMware have a focus on any particular storage technology? It seems, from a functionality standpoint, that NFS is king. Going forward, would we be best served purchasing NFS-capable storage devices over block-level? Will block-level storage always be the performance king?
Thanks Reply
bmullan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkI don't know about Vmware but Amazon's AWS EC2 cloud already offers large GPU based VM Clusters.
Per AWS URL: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#instance
Cluster GPU Instances
Instances of this family provide general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) with proportionally high CPU and increased network performance for applications benefitting from highly parallelized processing, including HPC, rendering and media processing applications. While Cluster Compute Instances provide the ability to create clusters of instances connected by a low latency, high throughput network, Cluster GPU Instances provide an additional option for applications that can benefit from the efficiency gains of the parallel computing power of GPUs over what can be achieved with traditional processors. Learn more about use of this instance type for HPC applications.
Cluster GPU Quadruple Extra Large 22 GB memory, 33.5 EC2 Compute Units, 2 x NVIDIA Tesla "Fermi" M2050 GPUs, 1690 GB of local instance storage, 64-bit platform, 10 Gigabit Ethernet
EC2 Compute Unit (ECU) – One EC2 Compute Unit (ECU) provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor. Reply
ffakr - Friday, March 18, 2011 - linkI'm not sure I'm qualified to say whether VMWare has a "focus on any particular storage technology" but there are definitely advantages and disadvantages to various technologies.
In our case, we looked at 4Gb FibreChannel versus GigE iSCSI because we had both infrastructures in place. We opted for GigE because it allowed us to set up the hosts in a clustered, hot-failover configuration.
In our setup we've got Two dual-socket quad-core Xeons as the host servers and our storage resides on an Equalogic iSCSI SAN. We boot our VMs off the SAN and VMWare allows us to easily move running VMs from one head-node to another.. and to fail-over if one goes down.
With two Gig-E switches and port aggregation you can get quite a bit of bandwidth and still retain fail-over in the network fabric.
The problem with FC is that it's a point to point connection. The server wants to 'own' the storage and it just isn't well suited to a clustered front end. We could boot our VMs off a FC box, but the problem arrises when we try to give two different boxes access to the same storage pool.
We're currently running something like 15 servers on our system, with one 5000 series SATA Equalogic box on the back end and we're not seeing any bottle-necks. On the CPU side, we've got loads of spare cycles. We run file servers, mail, web.. Typical University Departmental loads (from chatty to OMG Spam Flood).
As for NFS, I'd certainly prefer an iSCSI SAN solution if you can afford it. Block Level all the way.
We're very happy with Equalogic, and we get a good discount in Edu. In fact, I'm lining up money to buy another device.
Promise just came out with a proper SAN but it's still pricy. The advantage there is that it appears to be a lot cheaper to expand and their storage boxes tend to be very inexpensive and they've proven well made to us. I've got a number of them with zero issues over several years. Whatever you do, check with VMWare's compatibility list for storage. Reply
marc1000 - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkin the news-story about Intel bringing atom to servers (published here a few days ago). in the comments, a certain link appeared. http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4213963/Ca...
and using the power numbers in that link, I've done a math that shows that a 2U server with 480 ARM cores will consume roughly the same amount of power that a 2U server with 4 quad(or six)-core xeons.
so, when you put LOTS of small cpus in the same space they end up consuming the same power as normal cpus. what is the advantage in using this hardware for cloud computing then? Reply
bmullan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkYou asked what are the advantages?
Cost of power is one huge one. HVAC is the largest operating expense of most datacenters. Its not just the power to run the servers but the AC to remove the heat they generate.
Well, its not advantageous for every "use case".
But remember that not every application/process requires an 3Ghz cpu core.
There are many applications where an ARM is more than powerful enough to accomplish things. On most home computers people only use 10% of their cpu as it is and they already think they have fast computers.
In today's world we are more I/O bound than CPU bound.
Run some linux OS on the ARMs, load balance them and you can do incredible computing.
Read this past AnandTech article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3768/seamicro-announ... Reply
bmullan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkI should have mentioned that I also thought ZT Systems 1RU 16 core ARM product sounds great.
Because it uses less than 80W of power it doesn't even require a fan for cooling so its totally silent.
I am not sure that their product is available yet but they had announced it a couple months ago. Reply
marc1000 - Friday, March 18, 2011 - linkI mean comparing servers that would have similar amounts of performance, but comparing fewer high-end CPUs versus a lot of low-end CPUs. like the 480 ARM-cores someone posted on that article i said.
But I agree that for 16 core servers, using ARM/Atom would make sense if you have a light load. but only if you have sure that your load will stay low for a very long time. If you need to add hundreds of CPUs to keep up with the increase in usage, then it doesn't make sense. Reply
docbones - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkAre there any updates, especially on the open source options, for support of 3d gaming in virtualized systems?
I know vmware workstation has some support for when using the same local machine - but when using the server based product it doesnt seem like there is much out there yet. Reply
hoverman - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkI spend a lot of time working with Citrix, and Citrix has some beta releases that support this using a couple of the Nvidia cards. It is coming, and citrix is THE leader in this type of technology. I figure by the end of this year we'll have something that is released from them. Reply
juhatus - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkwhat if you are going to thousands of wm's, say one per user. you could be talking ten's of thousands. what are the tools to handle that amount? Reply
Guspaz - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkThe higher-end enterprise solutions from companies like VMWare can address this sort of scenario.
VMWare Infrastructure, for example, can address up to 2000 guests running on up to 200 hosts. VMWare vCenter Server can address up to 3000 guests running on 300 hosts per instance. Beyond that, I'm not sure; VMWare's product lineup is insanely confusing. You can run multiple vCenter instances, but that's multiple clouds at that point.
Eventually, it makes sense just to outsource to a cloud provider like Linode or Amazon rather than trying to do it yourself in-house. These companies don't necessarily provide a centralized management solution (beyond, for example, being able to manage all guests from a single web interface), but they'll take care of the infrastructure for you, and let you scale up to as many guest instances as your imagination desires. Netflix has done a number of presentations about why they decided to abandon their own infrastructure and move everything over to AWS that are quite insightful. Personally, I'd have picked Linode over AWS, but Amazon does have the advantage of having a bunch of hosted solutions (SimpleDB, S3) while Linode has concentrated on the core service, affordable, reliable, performant VM instances. Reply
bmullan - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkre - VMWare Infrastructure, for example, can address up to 2000 guests running on up to 200 hosts. VMWare vCenter Server can address up to 3000 guests running on 300 hosts per instance.
I don't think there is any one such number anyone can quote.
We have to remember that those numbers are highly variable as it really depends on what kind of applications are being used, how cpu or disk i/o bound they are etc.
If its just webservers then you get oneset of performance/capacity number.
If its transaction Database servers then you'll get totally different performance/capacity number. Reply
James5mith - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkAs my company moves towards a virtualized network, we are looking to leverage infiniband, and its capability to transport multiple protocols to reduce clutter and increase throughput.
I can find tons of information on initiators, HBA's, etc. I can find almost zero information on infiniband targets (SANS, NAS, etc.)
The most useful information I've found so far is on zfsbuild.com and even that is limited. Any chance of a somewhat deep dive on infiniband and it's role in virtualization? Especially with the capability (and capacity if you use 40Gbps IB) to transport ALL protocols over a single (or redundant) link is very intriguing to me. Reply
Fleepo - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkWe're a relatively small credit union (150 employees). Because we're a credit union we don't use many cloud services (mostly due to percieved privacy concerns.)
We run our banking solution inhouse on AIX hardware; most of our other IT services are now virtualised on Xenserver + a basic SAN for our live site, and direct-attached storage at our DR site.
Contrary to a comment someone has made earlier, (eg Virtualisation without a SAN is unworkable) we've found it's been very useful on directly-attached storage to reduce the complexity and cost of our physical hardware, and setup and maintenance of our DR site has been simplified (eg, just copy the VM to the DR hardware and turn it on.)
One thing that was really noticeable (and to me, annoying) was the dominance of VMWare in the market, and the reaction from many solutions providers when they learnt we *weren't* using VMware for our virtualisation solution. We've also found it difficult to find hardware and software certified to work with anything but VMWare,and a vendor willing to consider Xenserver or Hyper-V as a viable alternative to VMWare.
So, my question is -
Do you see the dominance of VMWare in the market as an issue, especially in terms of industry expertise?
Do you consider virtualisation to be a realistic solution for smaller businesses? Again, some earlier commenters are suggesting you should just go cloud instead? (we're not doing this for various reasons, mostly political and regulatory)
By the way, I like VMWare, however we can't justify the cost, given there are cheaper alternative solutions like hyper-V and Xenserver in the market. VMWare's aggressive marketing put me off, too. Reply
HMTK - Friday, March 18, 2011 - linkDepends on what you call a SAN. Our customers are typically so small that going FC or 10Gb Ethernet would be a waste of resources. For those small customers we use HP MSA2000sa SAS SANs to which we connect up to 8 servers (or 4 dual path). No expensive switches necessary but still good shared storage. Reply
zephyrwind69 - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkHere's some perennial ideas I review from time to time and run into all the time. Keep in mind we're in our 2nd generation of virtualization on VMWare and run 90% virtualized, blades, and a big vendor's storage system which is three letters and doesn't start with I.
1) Simple Shared Storage Systems-Always comes up for DR and satellite offices. I'm talking about 2 SAS host arrays (e.g. Promise, etc.) or basic 2x host Fibre arrays. iSCSI @ 10Gb in a bake off for performance and features. You don't always need something from Data General.....Qualified vendor supported stuff.
2) Perennial MS vs VMWare. You've touched on performance below but things have changed and I'd like to see VSphere 4.1 in a really good performance bake off.
With CNAs in the picture:
3) CNA @ 10Gig review (ties into #1)-Setup ease of use, configuration, and performance from Emulex and Qlogic under Dell, IBM, HP. Lotsa vendor-supplied reviews out there, few unbiased.
4) Desktop Virtualization Round Up-Workstation class tools
5) Virtual Desktops-How big can I scale and what's it cost. RemoteFX vs. Teradici. That kinda stuff....it's in it's infancy and a good ROI study would be good. Sure if you listen to vendors it saves millions over a lifecycle but what's the real hardware requirements?!
BTW, I could care less about Xen but it's probably worth a token review :) When it catches up to the two big players I'll listen. I am a VMWare bigot though, it's good to have the rest and let everybody else chase you. You might need a Virtualization 101 based upon some of the feedback! Reply
HMTK - Friday, March 18, 2011 - linkAs another VMware bigot I couldn't agree more. Lots of interesting questions you asked. In the long rung I think Citrix has a problem. VMware is the market leader and currently has the best tech. Period. Microsoft however has deep, DEEP pockets and a great marketing machine and partner channel so they will become a very serious competitor to VMware. Citrix will be somewhere behind those two I think.
As for price, most people here seem to think Hyper-V is free. The VMware hypervisor ESXi is free. To run Hyper-V you need at least a Windows Server 2008 R2 license. Tha management tools for both VMware and Microsoft are definitely NOT free so you'd have to do a case by case comparison if price is the most important for you. For small outfits (3 hosts) VMware Essentials is very affordable and Essentials Plus offers HA and VMotion. I do hope though that they stop with limiting CPU cores in certain SKU's: this is simply stupid. Reply
bgoobaah - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - linkI know the hardware is just way too expensive, but there is so little data out there for it but....
UNIX Virtualization. Compare it against VMware/Linux features. HPVM and PowerVM are probably the two big players. I know HP machines came down a ton in price since the chipsets and memory are now the same as high end Xeons (blades only). I'm not sure about the IBM side. Maybe these options will become more important in the future. Maybe not if they cannot offer competitive features. Reply
intelliclint - Friday, March 18, 2011 - linkI am running 3 virtual servers at home. 2 Windows 2008 R2 servers and one Linux. They are all running on Hyper-V Core 2008 R2 stand-alone, which is free from MS. One server is Active Directory, the other Exchange, and the last is Firewall, VPN, Web Sever, and intrusion detection. I had little trouble setting up the MS servers, except that Exchange 2010 SP1 has to many pre-installations. The Linux server needed to have the drivers for the virtual NICs and hard drives to show up. You could use legacy but the virtual ones are faster.
My point is I went from 3 machines to 1, that is 5 power connecters as two had redundant power supplies, and the only thing I had to do was add more ram to the one to a total of 8GB. I am saving about 400 watts, which can really add up. Reply
HMTK - Friday, March 18, 2011 - linkNot only Hyper-V is free but also ESXi and XenServer. Whatever platform you use, you'll have to purchase the licenses for the OS's in the VMs and the management tools if you want to use the really interesting stuff.
Personally I wouldn't know what user Hyper-V server (the free stuff) is because you don't get a GUI which might be a plus. I run Hyper-V on my 2008 R2 desktop machine but without GUI I'd use ESXi or XenServer (I chose Hyper-V because of limited space). Thinner and better support for non-Microsoft OS's, especially on ESXi.
I also always wonder whether you need or do not need an antivirus on your Hyper-V server Reply
GullLars - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - linkMy question is what do the experts think of Fusion-IO's ioMemory and VSL (Virtual Storage Layer)? And how do they think this will effect virtualization and cloud computing in the short to medium timeframe, and long timeframe?
Fusion-IO has been around for a few years now, and have done an outstanding job accelerating servers. Since their architecture is super-scalar in highly parallell enviroments and optimized for latency and power-efficient IO's, i'd think they'd have a great future in virtualization. Reply
linesplice - Saturday, March 19, 2011 - linkThere is so much to talk about here on so many fronts, there probably needs to be some narrowing of topic and focus to occur. Some thoughts:
- If you haven't virtualized servers yet, you're probably a smaller company.
- Most jobs and economic growth occur through small/medium businesses (at least in the US - according to the department of labor). I'd recommend a focus on companies that don't have a hundred servers (and big budgets)
- Desktop virtualization is all the buzz. I've been through the manufacturers materials and due to license costs (VMWare and Citrix) desktop virtualization is still expensive compared to 1:1 physical endpoints. You don't do it to save money (despite vendor claims which are mostly bolstered by the assumption you'll eliminate employees). It makes sense for hospitals and retail, but outside that? You still need MS licenses for the desktop, even thin clients aren't much less expensive than low-end workstations, and desktop virtualization still doesn't really work for laptop travelers (think airplane or non-connected environment).
- Before someone says it - MSFT licenses. Frankly, unless you are a giant company and don't want to keep track of licenses info yourself, the only reason I can see to get an enterprise license or Software Assurance is because you want one license key to rule them all (or you already use every MSFT product ever made). We purchase OEM still because it's almost 50% less expensive, despite the need for us to track license info internally. I've yet to see an SA that saves anyone money since MSFT has historically released products on a longer than 3-year product cycle. Google apps isn't there yet for our company, but it might be in the next three years.
- I read VMWare has reported less than 40% of the virtualization software purchased is actually deployed. It's the after-you-purchase gotch-ya's that I suspect hold up projects. What are those items?
- Someone else mentioned it, but there is a lack of independent testing. Gartner, Aberdeen, Forrester and the like only offer information based on reviews from people who have done the work, and that's like playing the "telephone game". Isn't there some information somewhere that breaks down: a. difficulty to install (do I need a product-specific software expert in order to do it?), b. ease of management, c. complexity, d. cost, e. disaster recovery capabilities (and ease of doing so), f. gotch-ya's.
(for reference, our company network engineer learned how to do a hyper-v install in a day)
- I understand and appreciate all the Unix, Linux and Mac folks out there, but let's face it (if I stick with my SMB theme), most companies run Windows Server.
- Are there complexities or problems when virtualizing in production on a SAN and then having to migrate to DR with DAS (what about drive letters, targets, managing disk space, etc.)?
- Someone posted about NFS. Bleh. CIFS (like it or hate it) is more common.
- What's new with virtualization today, and does it only apply to mega-installs? What's new for next year. After that, I see a lack of relevance due to changing tech.
- Cloud computing...
- For a Small/Medium business, what makes the most sense to outsource. We look at this all the time and we just keep coming up with the same answers over and over. Because we already host all our application internally, it's difficult to move just one of them somewhere else. Why? Because then we need to massively increase bandwidth to keep the applications communicating without bottlnecks. That increases cost and eliminates it as a possibility. Our company is extremely cost conscious.
- Does cloudsourcing email make sense? It's much more expensive than doing it in-house for 1000 users. It's a no-brainer for a company of 25 or a 100 even.
- If you aren't performing research or transactional processing, does cloudsourcing make sense? If yes, then for what applications? I'd cross off file server or document management immediately because of connectivity/bandwidth costs.
There is probably more. Maybe a later post. Thanks! Reply
HMTK - Sunday, March 20, 2011 - link- our customers are all SMB's (50 - 100 employees) and typically the only server that is NOT virtualized is the backup server
- desktop virtualization is costly due to MS licensing and the need for more SAN storage. However, you save costs on deployment of new desktops. It works really well for laptop users. I manage a VMware View environment and the sales people take their VM along with them. XenDesktop works differently than View but it looks interesting as well.
- Microsoft licensing is more than an easy way to keep track of software. OEM is cheaper in price but the various licensing programs can be cost savers elsewhere. You should NEVER simply make a comparison of €€ or $$$ there.
I think you must be working with VERY small SMB's but even there virtualization makes sense. Current server hardware is way too powerful for many SMB workloads but a lot of SMBs have more than one server. Putting them all on a single host will save you money and make migration to other hardware later on a lot easier, even if you don't use the management servers like vCenter or SCVMM.
Small example, I've got a customer with about 20 users and they want to use Remote Desktop Services (they got Microsoft licenses nearly for free). I ordered a PowerEdge T710 (dual Xeon E5620, 24 GB RAM, 5 x 146 GB 10k SAS) which is perfectly fine for their new SBS 2011 and a RDS server virtualized on the free ESXi. 2 separate servers would have cost more, used more power and space.
I share your doubts about the usefulness of putting some (or all) your servers in an external cloud. For most small and medium companies, this doesn't make sense. Bandwith and guaranteed connections are way too expensive. Just keep it in house. Reply
erhardm - Sunday, March 20, 2011 - linkAs we all know, virtualization has only a point when there's a SAN in use. My question is, knowing that it is usually I/O bound, what kind of HDD are the best used in the SAN? Are they used few high I/O 15K/10K Harddrives or are they used a lot of 7200rpm drives? What's the best ratio between capacity and I/O performance in a virtualized environment? Reply
HMTK - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - linkYou don't need a SAN to virtualize in a useful way but if you want all the bells and whistles, you need that SAN.
Bulk storage/archiving/backup is typically fine on 7200 rpm drives but if you want several VM's on a single LUN, forget about those things. The difference between 7200 rpm and 10k rpm is considerable but if your budget allows, go for 15k. Those disks will have a longer useful life. 7200 rpm's are really way too slow. Most of our customers have 3.5" 300 GB 15k SAS drives in their arrays (RAID1, 5 or 10 depending on the purpose) and I'd like to keep enough free space for snapshots and moving things about. Usually we also have a mirror of high capacity 7200 rpm drives (1 TB+) to store ISO's, VM templates and other stuff that needs disk space but not performance.
The next SANs we're going to sell will most definitely be with 2.5" disks. More spindles = more iops. We recently bumped into serious performance issues on a VDI setup on a 3.5" SAN that had enough disk space but not enough spindles. VMware recommends about 20 virtual desktops per LUN so a SAN with a mere 12 disks cannot host that many machines. Reply
schuang74 - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - linkWhat you find is in more modern implementations of shared storage for VM's is that a lot of companies are drifting away from traditional "fast" shared storage like SAN / Fiber implementations and moving to iSCSi utilizing slower 7200 / 10K SAS or SATA based drives. The trade off is you have lager arrays adding a higher number of spindles which compensate for the loss of rotational access. SAN's are pricy if all you use them for is shared storage. The strengths and benefits in a SAN isn't just the performance but rather the software, replication, snapshots, and redundancy. Running VM's off of an iSCSi array with 7200 RPM SATA 2/3 or SAS drives works well for most applications and for the applications.
Newer storage products allow you to provide a hybrid of solutions allowing you to combine slower and faster storage cabinets that prioritize data utilization between the cabinets with the higher access pushed to the faster drives and the least accessed to the slower cabinets. Either way the long term maintenance and costs are much lower then the traditional SAN. Reply
lyeoh - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link1) What would be your advice on how to decide whether to roll your own "cloud computing" stuff or to use a 3rd party like Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine, etc.
2) What would the benefits and disadvantages be for moving a site like Anandtech to:
a) Amazon EC2
b) Microsoft Azure
c) Google App Engine
d) Some other cloud computing platform that you'd like to use as an example. Reply
lili75 - Monday, March 21, 2011 - linkwelcome Reply
lili94 - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - linkwelcome Reply
schuang74 - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - linkI think its a misconception to believe that larger companies have larger virtualized implementations. Especially in today's economy where big companies do not always equate to "big budgets" also in most cases those big budgets are their to maintain only as the cost of maintenance is usually over 50 percent of the average IT budget. Last year I sat in a room with other professionals representing various companies, some much larger than ours. When the question was proposed as to who had X% of their environment virtualized, it wasn't unusual to see that many of the larger companies had anywhere from 0 to 5% virtual. Most were just there to understand the concept. From my experience larger companies tend to move more methodically, its much harder to shift gears on a large infrastructure than a smaller one.
Virtualization and in this case Vsphere, is very compelling however it is definitely not for the gun shy. I had my team virtualize over 30% of our environment before I even let my CIO know we were doing it. I knew had he found out ahead of time he would have slowed us down. After converting several key systems and not hearing any complaints, I filled him in on what was going on. At that point he was very much for our endeavor. Granted I am not suggesting that everyone go out and do things in secret. its just that when Virtualization hits an environment I understand why some may feel cautious and thus not pull the trigger on a lot of their systems. I still refuse to virtualize Exchange, and only as a proof of concept have I virtualized a SQL 2008 server. Still even in that instance it is the only VM occupying a redundant host pair. The problem with HyperV? Overhead and management. Still immature compared to VMWare. Just virtualizing an OS isn't enough for a production environment. You need the ability to fail over, migrate, and expand and contract at will.
What I see is a convergence of higher level technologies. In the past topics like Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity as well as Security pretty much dominated public forums and marketing material. Security is a becoming a moot point (I know so un politically incorrect to say). Most companies spend an incredible amount of money annually to protect themselves from themselves. The human factor is the biggest cause of security problems. Missing backup tapes, stolen laptops, disgruntled employees downloading everything to a flash drive before they leave. Thats the most common forms of security problems companies face today. Granted there are ways to prevent all of that however once again, more money spent to protect your self from yourself. At the end of the day companies weigh what the truly are willing to risk and what is unacceptible, in the end most companies will risk more than they will prevent.
Today it's the "Cloud". Pushing all marketing BS aside, the true implementation of the cloud pretty much makes the previous era technology focus and pushes them back from the headliners to the feature list. Hosted storage, application virtualization, and hardware / OS agnosticism all hold DR, BC and Security features that businesses need and they come built in as "features" to a $50 a year per user product (Google Enterprise Apps) rather than hundreds of thousands of dollars of infrastructure along with hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for maintenance costs. The true argument in a business will be the psychological battle between freeing people from their Microsoft products and changing the way we distribute documents and collaborate. Unify the applications and products and make it accessible with a familiar interface find a alternative but intuitive method to collaborate and distribute documents and you pretty much eliminate the file format war.
IT's biggest fight comes in the form of the "invasion" of consumerism (ipads, Iphones, droids, zooms) which were designed to free the consumer but lack the controls IT departments require to maintain compliancy and information security. Virtualized application environments may solve that especially if they are hardware and OS agnostic. In this instance the application and files still exist in a cloud / data center environment with the device used only as the viewer. Thus devices that are traditionally consumer now become more acceptable in the work place.
Anyhow my brain dump. Reply
schuang74 - Thursday, March 24, 2011 - linkWow I just read my post above... i am really tired. In retrospect. Sorry for the grammatical and spelling errors ;) Reply
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2 1/2 Hours
10 minute drive from the Artisan Inn
Just minutes from Trinity, in Trinity East, Skerwink has been selected as one of the top 35 walks in North America and Europe (Aug 2003) of Travel and Leisure magazine World's Best Awards issue.
The trail is rated Moderate and takes approximately 2 hours to complete (longer if you are passionate about photography) and is a 5.3km coastal loop. At certain locations hikers may feel as though they are standing at the edge of the world. Steeper sections of the trail have been lined with stairs and board walks cover any boggy sections. Many lookouts have been built with benches allowing visitors to stop and enjoy the view.
Moose, foxes, bald eagles, whales, seabirds and icebergs are often spotted.
Guests of the Artisan Inn may borrow a hand carved walking stick to make the trek a little easier.
For a map of Skerwink Trail visit www.hikediscovery.com
Driving Directions from the Inn:
Leave the town of Trinity
Turn Right onto Route 239 towards Route 230
Turn Right on Route 230 towards Bonavista
Turn Right after large yellow gas station
Drive aprox 5 minutes until arriving at a parking lot, church and large sign with the map of the Skerwink Trail on your left hand side.
- Skerwink Trail rated "excellent"
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Maybe it was the unseasonably warm Manhattan weather and I felt unencumbered in just a sweater and jeans. Perhaps it was the joy I experienced riding the cross-town bus, iPod pumping Ryan Adams (Hell, I still love you, New York) while I watched the different flavors of city dwellers enter the rolling observatory on Second Avenue and exit on Fifth just before we cut through Central Park. Either way, I had great spring in my step when I entered the draped entrance to Barbao, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant where I was scheduled to meet my friend Christopher.
It was early and so was I, but I figured that I'd enjoy a well-needed drink at the empty bar. The bartender handed me a menu and I scanned it. The night before, some other friends had served me a fancy rum and, although I usually choose that spirit only when I'm sunburned and somewhere that pipes in reggae music, I figured—what the hell?—I'd let my freak flag fly. I found a drink that had rum as a major ingredient and before I knew it, I waved the bartender over and said, "I'll have the Jane Fonda."
He cocked his head and squinted his eyes slightly as if he misheard. Truth be told, I never in my life would have guessed that one day I'd be sitting in a restaurant with golden drapes ordering a drink named after the star of both Barbarella and her own Pregnancy, Birth and Recovery Workout tape. But I didn't flinch. I just nodded, trying to appear secure, although I have this sinking feeling that my smirk (and jowls) may have been more reminiscent of Richard Simmons than Richard Gere.
While the bartender was crushing exotic flowers into my tall frosted glass, an attractive young Vietnamese woman danced in wearing a charcoal evening dress and big DJ headphones over her ears. She elegantly slipped off the music cans and draped them over the strap of her leather handbag. As we were the only two at the bar, she glanced over and smiled. As I was summoning my facial muscles to do the same, my bartender said, "Here's your Jane Fonda!" loud enough that people on the street probably thought the actress was being summoned for her table. Before I had a chance to explain, the bartender slid down and asked the well-dressed hipster what she required.
"Bombay Sapphire, neat."
Come on. Who drinks gin straight? So here I was sipping a freaking Jane Fonda next to a 100-pound woman with a taste for gin and huge ass headphones while I had just grooved out to my dainty white iPod earbuds. I no longer felt free.
My friend Christopher walked in and I quickly caught him up. "Well then," he said, "I guess I should follow the man's lead." He lowered his voice and demanded Knob Creek bourbon, straight.
"Thanks very little," I said, sipping my floral concoction.
He laughed. "Did she see you drink from your lithe straw?"
I hadn't noticed, but he was right. If someone puts a tube in my liquid, I unconsciously suck. And then I remembered something my wife Lala pokes fun at: When I grab the plastic pole stuck in my bev, my pinkie automatically jets out like I'm at an English tea party.
Christopher must have seen me tucking in my little flesh kickstand. "I noticed the sad little pinkie thing too," he said, "but I thought mentioning that would have been far too cruel."
It should have come as no surprise that the host led us to the back where, instead of chairs, plush couches awaited. Everywhere around us were couples, including a white-haired foursome gumming their last meal.
"I think they sat us in the love nest," I told Christopher.
"We can thank you and your Jane Fonda for that," he said, grabbing his menu.
Robert Wilder's most recent book is Tales from the Teachers' Lounge. Daddy Needs a Drink appears the first Wednesday of each month in the Santa Fe Reporter.


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Dell XPS 410: Core 2 Duo for the Massesby Jarred Walton on 9/18/2006 12:20 PM EST
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OptimisTech - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkAnyone know how this differs from the Dimension 9200 in the Small Business division? It seems like the 9200 can be a little cheaper, but they seem identical. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkThe XPS 410 and the Dimension 9200 are the same basic system. The XPS simply comes with higher default components as well as some extra options in a few areas, while the 9200 has some lower end options that help to cut costs (i.e., by default it only ships with one DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive and an 80 GB hard drive, and DDR2-667 memory isn't listed as an upgrade). Also note that you do not get a higher level of technical support with the Dell dimension 9200 I think (though that might be wrong, as the 9200 is a business setup). Reply
Kougar - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
We'll discuss the display more in a separate review.
Definitely looking forward to it! 15" viewable is just not cutting it for me anymore...
If I may ask, what other monitors might be in the article featuring the 2407WFP review or others? I have seen a review of the relatively hard to find 24" BenQ FP241W, which outscored the 2407WFP, but as I know nothing of the site I'd very much like to see one of Anandtech's solid reviews comparing it to the Dell model. Just another suggestion, anyway... ;) Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkHonestly, a large part of LCD purchase decisions is going to come down to price, especially on 23/24" models. While a display may be twice as accurate, for everything but professional use that probably won't matter much. I've got both the old and new Dell 24" models (I bought the 2405FPW last year), a 23" Philips, as well as a few smaller, less-expensive displays in the 19-22" range. If the price is equal or close, get the better quality display of course, but there is very little to complain about with Dell's 24" LCDs in my experience. Reply
Kougar - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkThank you for your reply!
I didn't want to make a huge post, but a few things I probably should of pointed out that confuse the issue is that The BenQ is supposed to be cheaper, although at the moment it's about a little more in US dollars. In pounds it's a good deal cheaper though according to their review, which is partly why they scored it so well. But it's still pretty rare/new, so I figure prices will still be setlling on it.
According to Trusted Reviews it's £549.99 without VAT, much below the Dell which they say is £702.00 without VAT. And also according to them better quality, enough for a perfect score across the board. Naturally TrustedReviews didn't score the 2407WFP half as well, so I'm trying to figure out which is indeed better for gaming purposes in response timings and such. ;)
What you've said pretty much sums up what I've read about the Dell 2407WFP, which is mostly why I find their ratings of that BenQ and it's purported price to be so hard to believe! Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkI do have one BenQ LCD, but it's only a 19" model. I feel BenQ is a little cheaper on build quality, and I did have a 20" model for a bit that started emiting a high-pitched squeal at times. I haven't done the specific tests on the 19" model yet, but most 23/24" LCDs are very similar, as there aren't that many panel manufacturers. I'd be surprised if the BenQ is substantially better, but if you can find it for less money it's certainly worth considering. I'm trying to get a 24" Acer for review as well, as it's priced about $100 lower than the Dell 2407WFP. Reply
Kougar - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkYipe, those things can squeal? I would not feel comfortable sitting infront of any monitor that squealed!
Thank you again, I do aprpeciate your opinion and experiences with both company's line of displays.
And good luck getting that Acer, I'll add that one to my list! I'm planning on getting some kind of 22-24" widescreen display during the prime time sales season, but it really helps to have a good idea of what's out there already. Thanks again! Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkIt's usually a transistor or capacitor or something that causes the noise. A lot of motherboards do it as well in my experience, but the pitch and volume of the noise from this particular LCD was louder than most others that I've encountered. Reply
Sunrise089 - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkTop of page 5 reads "One final at them to talk about is the included TV tuner"
"At them" should = "item"
I couldn't figure out how you would have mistyped that, but then I remembered that speech-recognition software review you did. Looks like that still isn't a perfected system :) Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkI do have to be very thorough about proofreading my articles, but after being up all night finishing up this review I missed that one. When I go through and do the final read before posting an article, I often encounter several spots for a look at the words and think, "what on earth did I say to get Dragon NaturallySpeaking to write that!?"
Anyway, thanks for the correction. Hopefully that's the last one. :-) Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkThe real problem is that most of the time the speech recognition is so accurate that I don't properly read the words and make sure DNS put what I intended. For example, in that above post, "for a look" should have been "where I look".
Part of the solution is to learn to dictate very clearly and make sure you enunciate all of the words properly. Even with precise dictation, however, speech recognition is still going to make some mistakes. 95% accuracy is actually quite good, and I have learned to live within the limitations of the software. Reply
yyrkoon - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linksounds like you ned to incorporate a spell checker into your list of editing utilities :P Reply
yyrkoon - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkactually, I meant grammar utility, dahmed fingers . . . Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkGrammar checking utilities are notoriously bad. Half of the "errors" that they highlight are correct, but then they still miss a bunch of things that are incorrect. The best solution is just to proofread really thoroughly, but stuff still slips through at times. Reply
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkI am sure amy would reallly appreciate to make bigger tests such as printed magizines do.
The most writing should be on the ergonomics, case design, cooling, support, warranty and so on.
While providing only some reference numbers of the performance of the systems averyone to each other with 2 your systems(benchmarked more thoroughly) as a reference for comparison (i.e. Intel,AMD one).
Also some DIY system comparison won't hurt, It was a long time real system-to-system tests were done.
This way IMHO even some synergies would show up which remain normally undetectable if only-component specific tests are done.
Such test should also hugely go for real-life situations with tons of active background stuff like Google Desktop Search, radio, SETi.. running Reply
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkamy == many ;) Reply
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkAnd one special thing:
PLEASE do som HDD tests with HUGELY fragmented - this is the real situation, yet pretty much not tested at all...
i.e.: 500k scattered files on an 250G drive, half ogf it fragmented, then try moving copying some big file within such a drive.
That's the real wold stress test many drive have to endure daily... 1MBps is no exception then! Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkWindows Media Center by default is set to the fragment your hard drive during the night in order to keep performance optimized. If we were trying to do stress testing of hard drives to make them fail, I suppose such tests might be useful, but ideally we don't want to test performance in artificially handicapped situations.
As far as printed magazines, this review was over a thousand words in length. I can pretty much guarantee that no print magazine is going to publish a review that long about any computer system... at least not unless they get some massive advertising money from the manufacturer first. Reply
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkI reffered to print guys just because the TYPE of the review I mentioned reminded me their ways.
Not trying to compare.. they would get trashed most likely:)
That MCE thingie sounds nice. However most PC are OFF at night and it is not particularly welcome to have a system run defragment during my work on it.
Even so, I have observed that even with a huge amount of no-fragmented files scattered around the drive behaves the way as the fragmented one.
The reason I requested such tests was not to make the drives fail(hell they shouldn't) but to a hve a comparison how different ones compare in such a situation.
This is a common situation an an heavily run WS or light file-server after a year or so of running. Reply
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkAlmost forget. I am sure many guys appreciate you comming here to reply to our comments.
Thanks for that. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkNo problem - gotta do my job as author! :)
You might want to email Gary on the HDD stuff, as that's basically beyond the scope of system testing. He's handling HDD reviews, so maybe you can pass on your suggestions. I think he's covered HDD performance well, though getting repeatable results with real world tests is going to be somewhat difficult. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link^^ Er...
"defragment" not "the fragment"
*EIGHT* thousand words, not "a thousand".
LOL Stupid Dragon NaturallySpeaking! (Stupid editor for not proofing my post before hitting reply.) Reply
biggersteve - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkAn amazing story. XPS has a special support number 800-999-3355. We called this number and the guy in India was pretty efficient and helpful. XP had died with a reboot loop. Could not even safe boot. The guy advised us to use ctl-F11 to completely erase the HD and start over. We'd only had it a week so that was ok, though I suspect we could have done a roll-back, though we couldn't even safe boot. Anyway, all this happened after Microsoft helpfully installed 37 automatic updates. The guy at Dell said half the calls they're getting are because of this. (The other half must be the battery recall...) So he told us to turn off Windows Automatic Updates and never ever ever use it again. I only have one data point, but it looks like Microsoft released an automatic update that whacks all the XPS 410's out there and maybe more. So now we have a standoff where Dell is telling everyone to never use Microsoft automatic updates. Who wins? The virus and spyware writers. And Apple... since Apple controls the hardware and OS alike, they'd never release a cluster-fsck like this one. Reply
yyrkoon - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkwell, this should be obvious, but the person who told you to turn off windows automatic updates, and to 'never ever ever turn it on again' is an idiot. Sounds like either you had/ have spyware, or a virus, OR, you installed a hardware update from MS, instead using Dells drivers. I have personally run into 'MS certified drivers' issues with Dell systems in the past (more than once). I dont own a Dell myself, but the majority of our customers, that want a prebuilt in-expencive systems, we recommend to buy from Dell, so we do see our share of them.
My recommendation, would be to USE automatic updates, but instead of having it download, and install the updates for you, configure it to notify you only, then you can manually download, and install yourself. When installing the updates, make sure to choose 'custom', and read what each update is all about. 9 times out of 10, if it isnt a critical update, or a security fix, you dont need it. Reply
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkAgreed on the auto-off stuff.
However it is possible some MS priority update will not like some HW/drivers even WHQL-ed ones. Compatibility is the word. Windows world is simply too diverse to check all of the possibilities. Reply
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkExperienced such a story many times... SP2, .NET 2.0, specific "hot-fix" ...
Cynic would say "Welcome to the world of Windows!". ;( Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkInteresting. I did download and apply all of the currently available patches from Microsoft without any problems. Note that I downloaded these manually rather than letting Windows do the patch automatically during the night. I don't know if that would make a difference, but I don't particularly like having the automatic update process running all the time. Reply
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkMost of the times things work, the problem are the situations when they do not.
Not once have I had to spend a day installing a few updates a time, just to find out which one was incompatible .. so that some Windows feature would work. Reply
Pastuch - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkI am actually a Dell employee at their technical support centers in Ottawa Ontario Canada. I can say with all honesty that if you get anyone in north america youll probably get great support. The problem is that Dell phone support has a large number of different queues and our customers tend to get bounced around quite a bit. The company is really trying to improve their customer service which is why they have moved most of their tech support to Canada. If you know someone that isnt tech savy they have the option of buying a "Dell on Call" plan. This is an annual plan or single incident that provides support for pretty much anything. If you are going to get a Dell you can get a 30day trial of DOC (Dell on Call) support with your system. A typical DOC call will have the agent remotely connect to your computer and show you the basics of spyware/adware prevention, updates, system maintenance , etc. I have been an Anand reader for years and I think the type of people likely to buy this PC would benefit from Dell on Call software support. I actually worked in DOC for the last 6 months and was resently promoted to IT operations for the building here in Ottawa.
For the record: I've never bought a dell and I'll continue to build all my PCs from scratch and overclock the $hit out of them. Nothing like taking an Opteron 146 (2.0) to 2.8 on AIr!
P.S. In the next year you will be able to get almost any of our machines with AMD or Intel chips. I was one of the thousands of Dell employees that have been pushing for this for a long time. ;) Reply
regpfj - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkTo Jarred - great review, nice job. I liked the discussion of the case features and proprietary motherboard. It's fun to see a legacy-free setup, although serial and IDE have their place too. These unusual things make Dell stuff a bit more interesting to read about.
On to my question -
On page 9, the fps vs resolution graphs confused me a tiny bit. For all games except Bf2, performance is a bit lower at 1600 x 1200 than at 1680 x 1050. I think 16x12 is about 9% more pixels than 16.8 x 10.5, right? So is Bf2 just weird, or did the numbers get turned around a bit? Reply
Gary Key - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
On to my question - On page 9, the fps vs resolution graphs confused me a tiny bit. For all games except Bf2, performance is a bit lower at 1600 x 1200 than at 1680 x 1050. I think 16x12 is about 9% more pixels than 16.8 x 10.5, right? So is Bf2 just weird, or did the numbers get turned around a bit?
BF2 is just a bit weird with the benchmark results. Although our demo contains several minutes of intense action on the Daqing Oilfield map in a variety of vehicles and personnel assignments we typically find there is very little difference in the benchmarks between 1600x1200/1680x1050 or 1920x1200/1920x1440 resolutions with a decent video card. Also, with the latest video cards like the 7900GTX or X1900 there is no penalty now for 4xAA at 1280x1024 as an example. The benchmark will score the same as we are not GPU limited at that resolution with the Dell configuration as an example. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkBF2 also doesn't properly support WS formats except in demo playback. Go figure. So perhaps it isn't properly optimized for aspect ratios other than 1.333 (the standard for 4:3 displays). Reply
giantpandaman2 - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkThoroughly enjoyed it. :)
Again, only suggestion would be to add how long it took between ordering and receiving. Reply
bamacre - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkI've been telling everyone how well-designed these cases are, and how powerful the PSU's are. I stuck an X1900 XTX card in a precision 390 with a 375W PSU, and it ran great. People don't understand wattage isn't everything.
And, I totally agree, I wish case manufacturers would take a peek and learn a few things from the higher-end Dell cases.
Again, great job on the review. Reply
yyrkoon - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkDell cases suck, however thier cases work for thier systems very well. Dell has always(atleast for the last several years) had innovative ways of cooling thier systems, I'm a bit surprised I even saw a radiator in this system, because normally, with a normal heatsink, and thier exaust shroud, thier systems run pretty dahmed cool.
Anyhow, if you REALLY think thier cases are great, buy a Lian Li, then think on it again :) All it takes for me to realize it sucks, is to look at the back of the case, and notice how cheap it is.
Dell makes great computers for people who dont want to build thier own systems, however, for those of us who do build our own systems, I think all of us would agree, that nothing is better than a hand built system. You wont, however, be able to beat Dell prices (latest Dell catelog showed thier rock bottom system selling for $399 us, including a 17" LCD !) Reply
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkFor sinle C2D, 2sticks generi DDR2, single X1900XTX, dual HDD and dual optical ANY _properly_designed_ 350W PSU is sufficient.
The real issu is, these times 300W != 300W, thats the real issue.
As a fact wattage matters, however the real one, not the written one... Reply
kristof007 - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkI really enjoyed reading through the review. So I was wondering would you be able to take that supporting piece off the 7900 and snap it onto a gfx card you buy? Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkThe blue plastic is basically made to hold a GPU in place and it should work with any standard GPU. Some specialized cooling solutions won't fit most likely, but I did slot in an X1900XT card and it fit without problems. Reply
Homerboy - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkI'm so sick of the standard, anti-big-box-company rhetoric that's thrown aroung the Anantech Forums. Maybe this will quiet their tone.
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkIn the US, Absolutelly True.
Here, in Slovakia, Central Europe, NO.
Simply because the smaller the market, the more expensive the Dell and the worse the support.
We buy no pre-built ones since the for a price on an low-end pre-build I can have mid-to-high end custom build.
And local support -if knowledgeable- is FAR more effective and responsive that any DELL's. Not to mention cheaper, since most HW issues are warrantied even on customs. The real problem's are HW-SW and SW and most of these are not warrantied by anybody, so you are gonna solve them by yourself or pay huge sums for paid support.
Here the ~$200 per incident from big players is outrageous. Such can pay me 2-3 days of on-site professional's salary. And I need that professional no matter what.
Those Dell's prices are cute, if one forgets they ask $1000 here for the same machine sold at $500 in US... That puts thing a bit into the perspective.
Also to maintain an stable of a few hundred of those machines >3yrs often becomes a real pain.
Reason being 1GHz/512M Athlon/PIII from 2001 is still pretty sufficient for most of the tasks these days, also budgetary constriants are never predictable...
As of now, I simply buy 30% motherboards above the PC count and I'm pretty nicely covered for 5+yrs. 3yrs is warranty, and after that I have own spare parts stacked up nicely on the self.
Any other part is a comodity thingie, som almost no stockpile needed.
This way we can repair any HW failure within minutes of diagnose and if needed pretty comfortably operate for a few yers under seriosly limited budget.
So for me - screw the Dell's of this world :) Reply
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkOtherwise this machine is pretty solid, no question about it, ideal for making your average clueless kid an game addict.
One thing not reasonable is the lack of RS232, LPT, PS/2 and FW, that makes it unusable as far as I'm concerned.
Just wonder, will the ATX channel case builders ever actually LEARN how to make a proper AND cheapo case???
It is possible and pretty easy to do at the same time, yet they are like afraid to make a killer product... Reply
Bluestealth - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
One thing not reasonable is the lack of RS232, LPT, PS/2 and FW, that makes it unusable as far as I'm concerned.
Most mouses nowadays are usb
Keyboards also come in usb(although there are still a lot of PS/2 keyboards),
RS232... USB Serial Port?(I realize the network guys use these, but they are obsolete for the general person),
FW... I haven't run into something that "required" this for a while,
LPT... soon there won't be many LPT printers left surviving, and again there are USB adapters.
I wish my new motherboard didn't have RS232/LPT/PS/2, they just waste space.
It did however come with lots of USB and 2 FW ports, which is nice. Reply
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkPS/2 usually just works, USB works, OS loads up and USB mouse turns off.I had amny times such a situation.
That was just a single example..
I am OK with an no-legacy approach as along as it is meaningfull.
However to make legacy-free boards by removing all legacy stuff and not use the place for any other usage (i.e another 4-6 USB ports) is stupid.
Also 6 USB ports as a complete I/O ? that's a joke!
keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, monitor, RS232 adapter and you have not a single port left!
6 USB is nice if you have all that legacy - the big reason we use PS/2 KB and mouses is it frees up 2 USB ports.
As for RS232, there is s huge amount of various equipment _produced_ for RS232! Why? because it makes no sense to go (pretty complicated vs. RS232) USB for simple data-reporting tasks. Reply
Bluestealth - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkSome companies use a USB to serial chip (or emulation) to allow them to easily upgrade their products, and for something that was designed with USB in mind, which is ever increasing, it will cease to be a problem.
I currently have 1 USB Joystick, 1 Keyboard/Mouse Transceiver, 1 RF Remote. That is only 3 ports for me, I have 4 Rear USB ports, can add 4 more, a 4 port hub (plug stuff in on my desk easier), and have 2 front USB ports. For a majority of people 6 is NO PROBLEM, there are USB hubs for a reason though.
These computers are not designed for everyone, they are designed for most people, most people nowadays will not use the LPT/serial ports, while a lot still may still use PS/2 ports dell "provided" a USB keyboard and mouse. Most people have a mouse, keyboard, printer, and "maybe" something else such as a scanner.
It would be great if there were 8 USB ports on the back but I am assuming the last 2 went to that card reader. Intel decided on 10 USB ports, dell would have to add in card to support more, or add an additional chip to the board.
Monitor... did you not see the 2 DVI ports? (I don't know how you even justify listing this), RS232 is not required for most people.
Ok I did go on a rant, but this just screams of stupidly, USB is an expandable bus; it doesn't have a fixed number of ports, only devices which is 127(?) per controller.
Sure they are saving quite a bit of money on an I/O chip from winbond, but in the end it doesn't affect many people, so why not? Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - linkTwo USB on the front, six on back, two more to the flash reader I think. Keyboard+mouse takes one port (the keyboard has two extra ports on it). You've got printer, scanner, headphones, network, and maybe one or two other things that can go USB, but that still leaves one extra port for most people. An LPT/Serial card is an option if you want that (it will use a PCI slot). Most people don't need it, though. If they had put firewire in the extra rear space, that would have allowed the use of a PCI LPT/COM and still have the sound card and TV Tuner. Not sure about PhysX, though... need a PCI-E version I guess. Reply
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link"even on customs" => "even in the case of a custom setup" Reply
kmmatney - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkDells Suck!
Just kidding. When my Mom needed a new computer I had her buy a Dell. Its been trouble-free for several years. Reply
Jetster - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linki'm really impressed with the case design,especially the internal layout, excellent airflow. easily better than the most standared atx case you can buy on the market now. and AT's statement is so true: "It's almost a shame that most people that purchase an XPS 410 are unlikely to appreciate the ease with which the system can be upgraded."
BTW did Dell use the new video card design with the chipset on the other side? casue the hsf is facing upward, which is better imo Reply
Homerboy - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkyeap. They are designed well, implemented even better and can't be beat bang for the buck. Sure higher-end and performance PCs will never be an pre-builts bread and butter, but they do it perfectly fine for the masses who don't know how to do it themsleves.
And as far as their run-of-the-mill "workstations" and home PC are concerned. You simply can_not_beat a big-name manufacture on price and support.
(*please note I build all my own PCs, but family, friends, and workplace all get pre-builts... Dell's actually).
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - linkBTX motherboards have the slots flipped, so the case opens on the right instead of the left. That makes the GPU HSF face upward, as you can see. I didn't go into extreme detail on the BTX format, as I figure the images illustrate it well enough. :) Reply