– Get a Microtik RB1200 (10x1gb ports) and connect it to a fixed IP, ethernet upstream provider. (~500$)
– Use 2 ports in 802.3AD link aggregation to an iomega StorCenter IX4-200D (4TB raw, in a raid5 array: ~3TB usable) that can advertise CIFS & AFP. Also support iSCSI, rsync, ftp, time machine, etc. (~700$)
– Use 1 port to connect toward a Cisco E4200 which will advertise a secure-2.4ghz, secure-4ghz and a guest network. Each individually protected by a firewall. (~150$)
– Use 1 port to connect to a Soekris net6501-50 Board which will be a remote connection appliance (sshd) (/onsite presence & monitoring system). (~500).
– Use 2 ports in link aggregation toward a Cisco switch for the users.

There, you have a perfect remote office. It’s able to archive files, do some HTTP proxy, do site-to-site VPNs, on-site firewalls… In fact this is so much of a nice setup – and its a cheap commitment (about ~2k$), that it’s the new setup Labs Phoenix is deploying to all clients sites.

I’ve been suggesting, going as far a setting a demo system, that their document revision system be migrated from Rational ClearCase to GIT. The current setup support code (developers) and documentation (infrastructure, products, management teams).

Change rational: I don’t have anything specific against ClearCase, but their licences are ending and, as a corporate decision, they are looking into cutting recurring costs. Going for a widely deployed & supported open-source/free software solution looked like a safe bet. While not involved in the decision process, I suggested GIT as an alternative to whatever they could be thinking of. I’m that kind of ‘consultant’, always with an opinion on everything, hmm… computer related.

The bug is: Why the hell did I suggest GIT ? I’ve entered a weird mental pattern. Through the years, I’ve convinced myself that peoples would be supported by an outdated system (ie: CVS), then upgrade to a more recent one (ie: SVN), then change their ways to a true developer friendly revision control system (ie: GIT).

GIT and SVN aren’t the same type of product.

Sometimes, you DO need a central repository – mainly if all you are doing hard-to-merge binary file commit. Sometimes, you DO need a locking mechanism. Think of 10 employees working on different part of the same Visio document. A project complete and you get 10 ‘branch’ merge request ? You’ll want to kill yourself. At least with locking, they will fight amongst themselves!

But the GIT vs SVN vs ‘whatever‘ isn’t the point here. The problem was that I took a ready-made solution (that I deployed long ago) and went as far as proposed it ‘to the outside world’. That would have never happen while I was leading the infrastructure decisions of 5+ startup (and maintaining a lot more). I’m losing my edge. It’s time to start posting a bit more (on this blog) and bouncing ideas off my entourage.

All theses apps have a common trait: I’ve used them before getting an iPad. So, it’s only a new mobile medium to access services to which I already subscribe – nothing very interesting there – not worth making a blog post about it. However, there was one feature I wanted to test: the ability to use the iPad as a notebook.

Peoples around me knows I’ve always been carrying notebooks, normally some Moleskine as I like their paper and form factor… so switching to an application is kind of a big change, as the tactile experience is different – but I’ve been forcing myself to go through a full month before going back to pen & paper. Here is the process I’ve followed and the apps I’ve tried. YMMV.

3 notes applications

I’ve tried Bamboo Paper (free*), PenUltimate (1.99$) and Notes Plus (4.99$). The order is quite important, because otherwise, I might have ended with a different solution.

So Bamboo paper was the first. Installed in my first series of apps – it did the job as advertised. Nice sketching feedback, a bit imprecise for writing (so I bought a series of different Stylus) – it reminded me of my Toshiba Portege M200 Tablet PC… a few years back.

After 2 weeks, I’ve discovered that Bamboo Paper offered a multiple notebooks (up to 20) feature for 1.99$ ; It was too late, I already moved to PenUltimate – recommended by a colleague. The drawing experience of Bamboo Paper was the best of all apps, however, the initial lack of multiple notebooks (option is hard to see, its hidden inside the app.) and the fact that I really don’t see how I could manage a 200+ pages notebooks, with a mix of sections for clients, for blog post drafts, for quick notes… made me switch. However, I do plan to get the Bamboo Pen/Stylus as soon as it become available again.

PenUltimate, second best drawing apps, a bit harder to write with than bamboo paper (anti-aliasing isn’t as great), is an obvious upgrade for features list. Notebooks management is better (with ‘last opened page’ shown), native multiple notebooks support, inside a notebook you get thumbnails of all its pages… I used it for a week, until someone mentioned “Notes Plus”, which “I had to try” (I do have a good purchasing budget for business related apps – so 5$ is negligible).

Notes Plus doesn’t worth anything for drawing. Seriously. I’ve tried copying network schema I drafted in Bamboo Paper (awesome) and Penultimate (acceptable) – it was an utter failure. Add to that a very bad anti-aliasing applied AFTER you lift your tracing devices*, which make it weird, unnatural and a totally uninteresting experience. I almost ditched the app because of that.. but… the developer website spoke of an impending new version, so I decided to stick around a bit.

The, I tried it to take notes. Impressive. Very. I mean, writing a structured text, the application feature a perfectly designed auto-advancing magnifying glass. It takes all the negative aspect of using an imprecise stylus and output good looking text. Good looking enough to be able to use the “send page” feature to send it directly to a client.

Notes Plus text entry mode

So, for now, Notes Plus does worth the 5$. It is my main notes taking application for the last week and a new version with enhanced anti-aliasing is planned for end-of-month of July. So… It might be a keeper.

** Selection of the stylus/pen is the subject of another post, currently being drafted.

I’ve already wrote about LabsPhoenix’s MYTH cluster entering phase 02 of its development – few months ahead of schedule. It is currently configured as a 3 nodes vSphere Enterprise+ cluster of very modest capacity (Resources: CPU 21GHz, Memory 48GB, Storage 4TB). Next phase is within 60days and will see those resources grow by another 66%. This ‘demo‘ has been so successful that we are already drafting plans for another cluster.

One of LabsPhoenix’s main client also asked me to re-factor its lab environment. Here, we are talking of a 4 nodes vSphere Enterprise cluster, built from scratch, with some very nice capacity (Resources: CPU 95Ghz, Memory 252GB, Storage 2TB).

I’m not throwing those numbers out there to poke anyone, its more of an offer: If anyone got some specific questions about vmWARE deployment, feel free to ping me. I’m often available for a quick chat. My cie, LabsPhoenix, also has some competent sysadmin if the problem get too large / if speed is of the essence.

Sometimes, we get hit by strange errors: Following an upgrade of the Cisco 3750 switches configuration to an higher MTU value (9000bits, to support jumbo frame on the attached iSCSI MSA); The VCENTER process started acting up on the management server. Quick restart of the process worked fined, but nothing in the log shows why the switch’s configuration reload broke that specific service.

Also, changing MTU value in a vmKernel interface is quite easy on vSphere 4.1 – it can even be done through the gui. You might search the option for quite some times though! It is hidden in Home>Inventory>Networking, in the distributed virtual switch configuration (right-click on it, edit setting). If your not using dvSwitch, then, your stuck through CLI commands.

You have some great news and you refrain because your light might shine a bit to bright for some of your entourage. Your news are bad and you wonder if Internet really is the medium to tell / distribute them.

Well I’ve been blessed with good, bad and neutral news in such quantities for the last few weeks that it doesn’t matter much anymore.

From the farthest to the nearest of IT : I’ve sold my condo, bought an home, got very sick then got better. I now have an employee for Les LabsPhoenix and a second one in about a month. I’ve been selected to give a tutorial at Linux Symposium about LabsPhoenix theater system (Puppet + mCollective + DNSMasq + DHCP + tftpd + netboot + drbd + …) – and it should be pretty interesting. I’ve been offered 2 jobs at the same time, one as CTO, on as an Infrastructure Specialist at Nokia in Montreal.

I’ll be here way more often.

“Phase 1″ capacity of this multi-tenants (fully redundant) cluster is of 7.18 GHZ, 16GB Ram, 1TB. Phase 2 (next 2 weeks) will see it grow to 21.54ghz, 48gb rams and 10TB. End of February is the target date for the phase 3: 2x on each of those numbers. Everything in this cluster is already redundant – but getting bigger number is always fun.

Tonight, 3 systems get integrated (virtualized). It represent economy of about 600$/month for this client. He won’t need his half rack + bandwidth + power…

– Les Laboratoires Phoenix welcomes a new managed client, at the same time as I got my two first contractual employee (with enough job to drive them for years).
– I’ll be giving a talk at ConFoo, March 12th, called ‘Massive Scalability’. Be there, its going to be a pretty good one.
– I’ve been mandated to write another article for the European edition of Linux+DVD. Deadline is in a couples days.
– I’ve started dancing classes. (No comments please ;-))
– With the wedding happening soon, we are totally swamped with stuff to do. From food tasting to getting whatever I will wear, going through hotel reservation, decoration choices… By themself, each task is quite easy to manage, but add to that the fact we are doing most of it remotely and that Catherine schedule is just crazy.

At least, this morning, I’ve got a 20 minutes break, waiting for the bus thats going to take me to Montreal – on yet another ‘business trip’.