Todd Myrick Web 2.0 Blog

First Impressions of XenClient and the Synchronizer

I didn’t get to attend Synergy this year but as soon as XenClient was available I did get to download it and install.

The XenClient install was very smooth on My Dell Latitude E6500.  It is on the HCL and the install instruction for disabling features in the BIOS worked like a champ.

I installed Windows 7 and gave it 2 GB of RAM and a 40gig partition.  The install went smooth as did installing the XenClient tools. 

Once Windows 7 was installed I did run into a few issues.  Nothing show stopping, but if you are the type that likes to hear gotcha’s

• Boot Times for the VM were a little longer then I expected.  Typical boots took about 3 minutes.
• When running Windows update for the first time it had a 0x80072EE2 error that required I disable windows update and clear out the cache.
• Also if the wireless adaptor was enabled but had no wireless connection, but the wired connection was connected, things like Anti-virus updates wouldn’t work right without disabling the wireless connection.

Otherwise the experience is about what you expect on a laptop.

The Synchronizer experience wasn’t as good.

Coping the file to the XenServer and launching it was easy.  The configuration screen was straight forward, but unfortunately the DHCP service didn’t work right on my network and I was forced to use the manual method to edit the files to specify a static IP address and DNS entries.

Even after doing that, the network connection didn’t work as expected.

My hope is the setup for this appliance improves over the next couple of months.

CITRIX has been releasing software at a rapid pace.  The competition between them and VMware is really benefiting us.

I look forward to the final release of XenServer & Provisioning Server 5.6 in two weeks, and my hope is that they bundle the advanced edition with XenApp and XenDesktop platinum subscriptions.

Is Cloud computing a force powering globalization?

In early 2002, I took a strategic management class where the instructor lectured on globalization and identified five elements that were powering the force of globalization.  Two of those elements were technology advances.

• Cheap Communications
• Personal Computers

Thomas Friedman’s best selling book The World is Flat outlined ten elements that have transformed the early part of the twenty-first century.  Simply put five of the ten forces outlined were technology advances in computer technology.

• Personal Computers
• Cheap communication systems
• Network applications
• Information Management through search
• Mobile and Wireless communication

Defining the term globalization is tough because of the number elements comprise it. 

Today virtualization innovation centered around building virtual datacenters and on demand IT is starting to catch on but is cloud computing driving globalization or is globalization driving the need for virtualization and clouds? 

To answer this question requires a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of technology innovation.

James M. Utterback’s book Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation outlines innovation occurring in three phases, with the emerging of a dominant design being a critical time to evaluate investing resources. 

Are we at the point where we can say there is a dominate design with regard to cloud computing?

Is cloud computing worthy of being defined as a force that is fueling globalization?

I plan to explore these questions over time and organize my thoughts here on my blog.

Please feel free to comment, question, and criticize my posts.

What happened to the revolution of 2009?

Readers of my blog might have noticed my tagline that said “The revolution will being at the NIH on July 4th 2009” has been changed to one about pearls of wisdom and observations about cloud computing.

At the beginning of 2009, I set the goal of changing the Web Interface used by my organization to launch enterprise applications to one that was more secure and had more function.

Over the past year and half this goal has lead my team on a journey way beyond anything we imagined.  We have learned a lot about authentication, security scanning, web customization, configuration of certificates, and our last hurdle will be integrating smart card authentication.

The revolution did begin on July 4th last year, but it wasn’t a shot heard round the world, it was more like a stealth attack (nothing nefarious).  The infrastructure is in place, and over the next year we will use a simple set of principles to expand how applications reach users securely.

I have learned from this experience that iterative review processes are important to executing large scale changes.  Ask a lot of questions and make sure there are no misunderstandings due to process or vernacular.  Reduce complexity and strive for simplicity in the architecture and design. 

And most importantly, constantly re-evaluate the situation and stay focused. 

If I had it to do over again, I would have added some consulting time to the acquisition.  

In the coming weeks I will post more about new application delivery platform and the lessons we learned.

Clustering CITRIX Licensing Server 11.6.1 Notes

Late last week I decided to stand-up the new CITRIX licensing service on a infrastructure cluster.  Normally we host our licensing server on a Virtual Machine but we are in the middle of a domain consolidation and going forward we want to reduce the number of servers we managed.

I was reading the CITRIX online documentation and discovered that it supported MSFT clustering, so talked it over with my tech lead and took the dive.

Nothing is ever easy though, and after a couple of tries I finally figured out the magic formula to get it to work they way I wanted.  Unfortunately my Google searches did not turn up what I needed so my post here is to fill that void. 

Note: This is a fresh install, and I also issued a new SA license for my XenAPP Farm in the process.

Licensing Server Notes

1.  The CITRIX documentation is very good.  The CLI examples and process is correct.

2.  In my environment we follow a best practice to limit the Default resource group to having the core Cluster Services, Cluster Name, Distributed Transaction Service, and Quorum Drive.  The installer places the CITRIX Licensing Service and support Services in the Default Resource Group. 

3.  I recommend that you have the default cluster resource group and target resource group that you want the service to run in be on the same cluster node for each node install.  Make sure to install the software on the a drive mapped to the target resource group and not the Q drive or default resource group. 

4.  One you have installed the software on both nodes and verified it is working you then need to move the services to the target resource group.  You can move individual services in a resource group.  (I discovered this today)  The services are installed with a dependency set for the Cluster Name for the default resource group.  In order to move the services you need to remove this dependency from all the two CITRIX Licensing Services and the WMI service.

5.  Once you locate the services to the target resource group, you need to set the dependencies again.  I normally give each additional resource group a network name (host name) when I setup new resource groups.  The default resource group has a service called Cluster Name.  In my environment the target cluster resource group had a network name service (Not a Cluster Name Service).  This is different then cluster name, so I set that as the dependency on each service.  Restarted the licensing service and checked the status and made sure the Cluster Name was reporting correctly.

6.  When I imported the CITRIX licensing file, the top portion of the report said it was successful, but the bottom part issued a warning about inconsistent names.  CITRIX support said they are aware of the issue and it will be addressed in the next version.  My licensees didn’t show up initially.  Restarting the web server fixed that issue.

Generating a License file from MyCITRIX.com

Generating a new CITRIX license via their website isn’t as intuitive as you would think.

Since i am a SA customer, CITRIX recommended that I create a new account on MyCITRIX.com by looking up the SA Org Code using the forgotten password link.  Choose the more options after selecting forgot my password to get the option for entering in the org code from your SA agreement.

When you generate your license, you need to enter in your SA License code.  When I entered my code and it listed 3 additional licenses that were part of the code.  In order to specify the licensing server and generate the XenAPP Licensing file, select the XenAPP license check box then select the top option to filter.  This will filter all the licenses to show he XenAPP Licenses with the option to specify a number, and License server NetBIOS Name.  Make sure to specify the network name for the resource group you want to run the licensing server on in CAPITAL Letters.

This KB article explains the process.

This concludes my tips for Clustering the CITRIX Licensing Server.  If you come across this doing a Google search, I hope you find it useful.

DLINK DNS-321 and CITRIX XENSERVER 5.5 Storage Repository Setup

This is my first technical post.

Back in February 2010 I decided I needed some hands-on outside of work to catch up to all the changes in the Virtualization world.

I am a regular reader on http://www.xenappblog.com so I used this post as a basis for building my home training lab.

Couple of notes:

• ASUS M4A78-EM is now out of stock.  I picked up 3 of these (One on Amazon as Used)
• AMD X4 9650 CPU is out of Stock so I picked up the  AMD X4 9750  (Note you need to also by a 92mm CPU FAN as well)
• Corsair 8GB (4×2GB) has jumped in price and is now $99.00 USD per 4GB
• I also added a larger Maxtor Internal Drive and DVD.

I also wanted to test XENMOTION and use Provisioning Server so I figured I would need a cheap NAS solution.  I reviewed several methods for standing up a old PC as a NAS, but determined I wanted something smaller with low power requirements.  

I already had a small Buffalo CIFS NAS so I set that up as a CIFS .ISO storage repository in XENCENTER (Note: I had to use the option to specify using different credentials and specify “Guest”) 

My initial research of cheap NAS solutions on Newegg lead me to believe the cheapest enclosure that supported NFS was the Patriot Valkyrie 2 . It was advertised sporting a fast processor, NFS support, lifetime warranty, and didn’t have any negative reviews.  It seemed better then any of the other NAS solutions at that price.  Once I got the device I discovered that the current firmware doesn’t have NFS or AFP support , the software has a number of issues reported on Patriot forums, and after running the drives for 24 hours discovered case doesn’t provide enough cooling for the drives (The drives were so hot, I could barely touch them).  You can read my review on Newegg for more information of the problems.  The device has potential, but the promised firmware hasn’t been released yet and I got tired of waiting.   I did some additional research and discovered the DLINK DNS-321 is a more mature cheap NAS solution, so I bought one and when I got it set it up and updated to the latest firmware so it would support my 2x2TB drives. 

My initial attempts to setup a NFS Storage Repository didn’t work through XENCENTER though. 

What I discovered after a lot of trial and research was that when setting up the NFS Share on the NAS, I needed to specify the host as 192.168.1.0/24 .  This will setup the etc/exports file to allow all nodes on my subnet access to the NAS.  Also you need to enable read and write access (of course). 

The other trick I learned about the DNS-321 is that the default Volume_1 is not the actual path.  I was specifying <NAS IP>:/Volume_1 as the path and scanning and it didn’t work.  While researching on CITRIX’s forums, I discovered some post related to the Error 32 in the XENCENTER Application log that recommended running Telnet or SSH against the device and then doing the ether of the following commands.

• CAT /etc/exports
• MORE /etc/exports

When one of these commands are ran, it will list the NFS shares.  This is what has to be entered on the Storage Repository path.  The problem is the DNS-321 doesn’t have TELNET or SSH enabled by default.  A little more research revealed that the device can be hacked pretty easily using Fun_Plug modifications.  Just download and copy over the Volume_1 the Fun_Plug file and Fun_Plug.tgz files and reboot SAN device.  After a few minutes you can TELNET into the host using Putty and run the commands at the top to list the NFS Shares.

The NFS Share for the DNS-321 is /mnt/HD_a2 .  So you really don’t need to Telnet or SSH though to figure that out since it is listed on the NFS Sharing page, it is just a little misleading.  I assume you can also modify the /etc/exports file on the NAS to specify different paths if you wanted to as well.  So messing around with Fun_Plug is not a bad thing.

Once I got NAS working, I created a 2008 Console Only VM, Installed the XENSERVER Tools manually, then did a XENMOTION.  It worked, but it took some time for it to complete and the XENCENTER Console lost communication with the XENSERVER initially in the process. 

Summary:

• DLINK DNS-321 with latest firmware works with XENSERVER 5.5
• Setting up NAS NFS Share specify Host as 192.168.1.0/24 and Make it R/W
• Setting up XENCENTER SR specify <SAN IP>:/mnt/HD_a2
• Troubleshooting XENCENTER [Error 32] TELNET or SSH into NAS and list the /etc/exports file to determine correct NFS share paths.

Haircut

So I went to get a haircut and take Scarlet to the lake yesterday.  Unfortunately when I got to the barber I noticed the temperature was 75 degrees.  I didn’t think it was safe to keep Scarlet in the car at that temperature, so was forced to bring her to the barber. 

I pondered what to do with her while getting my hair cut, and ultimately decided to just have her sit on my lap.  She did great, she squirmed a little, but she managed to just hang out and catch bits of hair that fell her way.

After the cut, we got a slice of Pizza and ended our outing with a walk around the lake.  I think Today I am going to see if I can walk to Lake Elkhorn from the trail we were on Friday.

Muddy Shoes

I took Scarlet for a walk yesterday and went by a stream near my house.  As I got to an area where there was construction, I thought I was going to be able to jump to a a paved but muddy part of the path… it turns out that “path” was a big pit of mud.  Poor Scarlet was up to her knees in it as well.  We managed to get back to path and head home, but along the way I remembered my first day of Kindergarten. 

My kindergarten class was in the afternoon and my mom worked the afternoon shift.  She got me ready then went off to get herself ready.  I went to the back yard and started to play near some rocks we had back there.  I started to hunt for worms, so I turned over the rocks and my shoes and pants got muddy in the process.

My poor mother had to then clean me up again, but unfortunately she didn’t have enough time to clean my shoes so I had to go to school with muddy shoes.

As I walked home with Scarlet I took joy having muddy shoes again.  Scarlet didn’t seem to care, she just enjoyed going for a long walk, and on the way home we detoured through a few more puddles… just cause we could!

When I arrived home, I gave Scarlet a nice warm bath, and then proceeded to clean my shoes… not too clean though… I wanted the memory of the first school day to last a bit longer.

A little while later, my mother called telling me she and my father made it to Florida and their friends place.   She requested that I keep her updated when Scarlet gets fixed on Monday.  I told her I loved her, but kept the experience to myself… until now.

Enjoy the beginning of Spring and get your shoes muddy!

 

My RSVP

In mid November, my girlfriend sent me a poem call “The Invitation” as I read it I reflected on the passages and decided to reply.  As you read my RSVP, you will probably detect a lot of popular axioms and pop culture references.  In my defense to those who view my words with criticism… I offer Pablo Picasso’s famous quote “Good artist copy, great artist steal.”  This is where I am at right now in my life.

What I ache for is to be loved unconditionally.... and through this love to help heal myself and the world around me.

I am motivated by doing what I think works, I think fortune favors the bold, and life rewards action.  I am not afraid to dream big, but I do temper my dreams into smaller achievements' in order to identify equable resolutions and learn through in-process discovery.  I am not afraid of my appearance, but I realize my energy comes from others, if I need to play the fool in order to motivate others I will, but if I need to project an image of confidence and strength, I have no problem assigning the role of the fool to the opposition of the dreams.

I have fallen down many times, been cut by the sharpest words, and stung worse by the actions of those I considered friends and allies, but I rarely if ever give up on peoples humanity or lost my hope.  I have been to the edge and thought to myself how easy it would be to just jump and end the sorrow I feel sometimes, but when all looked lost, it was my closest of friends who rescued me, and gave me the inspiration I needed to continue on my journey.

My mind plays tricks on me sometimes, especially when the pain I feel triggers wounds from my past.  I want to be supportive, encouraging, and loving, but if someone's actions draw too much pain, I find my unconscious defenses override my conscious desires and I draw upon my curse of vindictiveness to protect me.  Once again I rely on the council of others to act as external anchors, and to remind me of what is important.  I do take the responsibility to teach people how to treat me and I try to see people not as how I want them to be, but how they actually are.

I think that we make our own happiness and to be fully human is to share it with as many people as possible.  My happiness is fueled from my pursuit to develop character.  I think virtue is the path between two vices, and that forgiveness is necessary for the evolution of our souls.

One of my motto's is "It will probably be me".  My actions are sometimes motivate by the long term consequences.  I weigh the butterfly effect on important decisions, but I also live by the axiom, "Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right."  In the end the axiom "A man or woman does the best they can until their destiny is revealed" summarizes why I sometimes look and often times leap.  My soul is that of a revolutionary, I see myself as a modern day Thomas Jefferson who looks beyond the borders and sees opportunities, but sometimes realizes the wisdom is to hold the wolves back by their ears.  I have authored many declarations using a synthesis of ideas from others, fought hard to win puric victories but also suffered many honorable defeats.  Many times the causalities of these wars of the spirit were people I loved dearly who misunderstood my intentions, or who did not think or believe I could succeed.

I take great joy in positively influencing others, teaching when I have a class, learning when I am the pupil.  Failure is necessary in order to measure success accurately.  It is important to reward success, especially if the achievement is one of the spirit.

I do not have children, but I do have a team.  What I have learned from them is it isn't important who is right, but what is right.  When we fail we all fail and when we succeed we share the rewards.  If one of our members is weaken, he or she can rely on the others to strengthen them, but like a cartel, betrayal is dealt with harshly.  I measure my wealth by the quality of my closest friendships, and family.

I have stood alone on trial, been judged unfairly many times, and sentence to solitary confinement as a result of my choices.  I have done my time and swore I would never reoffend, but when I see injustice to someone close to me, I feel I have no choice but to break the laws of conformity, speak out, and stand by my friends and family in a time of need.

What sustains me is that I believe I exist for a reason.  This journey requires that I solve the puzzle of what that reason is and decode the riddle of "What does it all mean?".  Ultimately I am preparing for a test.  The test is of character, and it is graded on my actions in the darkness....  not in the light.

Have a good night,

<3 T

A Bold Epic Fail for Typepad blogging & other Blackberry Bold annoyances

It's Tuesday, with the Warcraft servers being down, I felt I needed a catchy title so that I could drive more readers to my blog :)

So it has been a week since I bought the Blackberry Bold, and I have to say, I like it a lot, but there are a few annoyances I discovered along the way to digital nirvana that I would like to share with my readers.  (All 4 of you... hi mom).

What I like about the Bold

• It replaces my Ipod Nano and with Blue-tooth support, I can listen to my tunes over my radio's FM channel.

• Wireless LAN and 3G coverage works great at work.  Other then my bosses office, the device works in the deepest bowls of the NIH Clinical Center.

• The plug-ins for Web 2.0 sites works pretty well (with one exception ... see annoyances).  I upload a lot of content to my Facebook page.  I might start using twitter, since it is NIH / Federal Government friendly.

• Games play pretty well, but cost $10.00 each if you want unlimited usage.  Not a huge selection, but it has Poker, Chess, Casino Games, and Civ 4... so I am covered.

What annoys me about the Blackberry Bold

• There was an annoying pop-up window when entering my device password.  If the password contains a number in it, after the 5 key-press it flashes a window telling you to press ! to make an Emergency Call.  Thus messing up the flow to the 6th character and causing a bad password entry.  Solution was easily found on the forums... just make sure our password doesn't have numbers and the message doesn't come up.

• When using the GPS, or watching a long video, the screen blanks out if there is no input on the keyboard.  I get the idea of extending battery life, but I would prefer that the keyboard just lock when using these two applications.  I am still messing around with the settings to identify a possible workaround... please comment if you have a solution.

• The built-in camera is great, but I find that I get a lot of shake when pressing the button to snap the photo.  I wish it had a timer so that I could steady the shots more.

• The Typepad application doesn't have an auto save option so if you mess-up on long posts, you lose all the text.  I wrote this article last week using the mobile blogging tool, but it wigged out during the post option and I lost the work.  That makes me a sad panda.

• It took many attempts to get my phone ported over to my device.  This isn't a device option, but AT&T and Verizon seem to not tell time the same, so don't count on them meeting any pressing deadlines.  It took over 72 hours for the number to be ported correctly.

• I couldn't look up other peoples wish-list on Amazon, just my own.

Overall, I am very pleased with the device, and I look forward to more enhancements as the device matures.

To Boldly go where I swear I wouldn't go before

So about 5 years ago I was eating lunch with my best friend Steve and we got into this heated discussion about the viability of Blackberry devices.

My rant went something like this, Blackberry devices cost us three times the money to support verses a standard email client... it is basically an executive toy, it is easily misused, and complicates peoples lives by extending the reach of work beyond the 8 hour a day job.  At that time, the Blackberry just started to offer phone service, it was black and white (Really just shades of gray), and the features were pretty much limited to text, and a crude cell phone.  Hell even the games sucked on the device.

Flash forward 5 years later, and I just purchased my first Blackberry.  Why you ask?  In my mind it is out of necessity.  5 years ago I purchased a new car as part of my divorce settlement.  I really wanted a navigation system, XM Radio, and bluetooth support.  I wasn't able to get these features in the car, so I opted out of them.  I spend about 2 to 3 hours in the car each day, so I really wanted to the option to listen to better audio programming, have access to a catalog of music and not carry around 100 CDs, and have a navigation system in the event I needed to locate a place.

So last year, I bought a Verizon Envy phone.  For the most part I got all the features I wanted except for the media.  I probably could have uploaded some music to the phone, but it wasn't the IPOD NANO replacement I was looking for.  On top of my personal cell phone needs, I also needed to carry my Blackberry more since I took over as the lead for the CITRIX team.  What I found though is that I pretty much couldn't use the phone & email features for either device inside of work as a result of a lack of cell coverage.

So at the end of the year I am carring three devices, personal phone, work Blackberry, and IPOD NANO and looking to converge.  None of the devices I own have all of the features I am looking for.  I never really considered an Iphone due to the lack of keyboard.  So when the new Blackberry 3G devices came out, I gave a serious look at them.  Long story short I chose the Blackberry Bold, and I am happy.

The reason for choosing the Bold was basically it supported WiFi, and offered the media support I wanted, and I was able to integrate the use within my current car without having to buy a new vehicle or look for a compatible radio.

So in the end, am I a sell out?  Probably, but I think my reasoning for acquiring the device doesn't make me such a hypocrite.

These are the features I weighed in on before making the bold step to acquire a Blackberry.

1.  WiFi & Bluetooth support
2.  SDcard support to expand & store more then the device physical memory.
3.  Good data plan.
4.  Good media support.

My co-worker Brad is weighing in on this topic, but is also keeping an eye on the new device features because he wants to a seamless transfer between our network and other peoples networks and UMA calling.

More to come...