As usual you will also get a bunch of tips for managing your Open-E software.

Here are some of the topics which were discussed this time:

• How to verify if the existing volume replication is consistent and why is it important?
• Activating Active-Active iSCSI Failover Feature Pack license key for two nodes
• Stopping failover and switching over to Active-Active set up
• What are the Ping Nodes and what role do they play in a failover setup?
• Managing volume replication tasks and Virtual IPs
• Preparing load balancing

Click on the button below to watch the webcast:

If you haven’t tried our software yet, you can download a free 60 day trial from our website now!

This follows a recent nomination for the Datacentre Storage Software Product of the Year, and proves that our efforts to provide versatile storage management software for every business are appreciated by users and the industry.

The nomination came from Storage Magazine, the UK’s number one in IT Storage, featuring storage news, product reviews, industry comments, case studies, supplier profiles etc.

The “Storries” are an important industry event, recognizing the achievements of key individuals and organizations within the storage sector. Last year’s awards saw over 8,500 readers voting for their favorite products, people and companies.

If you think Open-E DSS V7 deserved the treat, simply go to The Storries X website and pick our software in the category of “Storage Virtualisation Product of the Year”.
Voting closes on Monday, May 27, 2013.

The winners of The Storage Awards will be announced on June 6, 2013 at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London, and highlighted in a future issue of Storage Magazine.

Learn more about Storage Virtualization.

Try Open-E DSS V7 for free and download your 60 day Trial version now!

Check out the topics below, to get an idea of what are we going to talk about this time:

• Downloading ISO and ZIP image of Open-E DSS V7
• Showing the difference between ISO and ZIP
• Preparing bootable USB stick
• Configuring Boot menu
• Installing and configuring Open-E DSS V7 as a Virtual Machine on ESXi
• Tips for configuring network settings (VM)
• Configuring RAW device mapping (VM)
• Allocating space for host cache (VM)
• Executing disk performance test using system benchmark
• Creating iSCSI volume (block I/O) and mounting the iSCSI Target
• Creating NAS share and connecting to Active Directory Service

Enjoy watching our webcast here:

Together with our moderator, you will go through the process of configuring SSDs in a RAID 1 using the onboard RAID controller and installing our software into the RAID logical unit. You will also find out what happens if one of the disks in RAID fails.

Furthermore, our webinar will bring you some answers to the following questions:

• Which boot media can we use to install Open-E DSS V7?
• How to use logs to determine where Open-E DSS V7 has been installed?
• Is it a good idea to use large USB flash drive as a boot installer?
• Where to find release notes for the latest version of Open-E DSS V7?
• Are we limited to 60 days only with using TRIAL version?
• Where to find your Open-E DSS V7 product key anytime?
• How to activate your Open-E DSS V7 from the offline site?

Enjoy watching our webcast here:

The Data Centre Solutions Awards reward the products, projects and services as well as honor companies and teams operating in data center fields. Open-E DSS V7 has been recognized as one of the most stable and secure solutions on the market, helping businesses to implement high-performing and cost-effective storage systems.

Most importantly, our software delivers everything that is demanded by data center planners, not to mention excellent compatibility with industry standards, support for legacy and modern hardware and functionalities ensuring data protection and high availability such as iSCSI Active-Active Failover.

Now, it’s your turn to help us take the award home! You can pick us as your favorite until 9th May 2013 17:30 GMT. The winners will be announced at a gala evening event on May 23, 2013, at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel and Conference Centre in London Kensington.

Cast your vote here:

ISS 2013 gathers top Intel Providers with the highest Premier status.

This invitation-only event is a great opportunity for Intel Premier Providers to build or refresh relationships with Intel executives and industry leaders. Not to mention, it is a good occasion to explore the latest products and solutions available on the market.

At the event, Open-E will have a chance to present Open-E DSS V7 along with the Feature Pack iSCSI Active-Active Failover and show advantages of Intel Storage Systems powered by Open-E.

Why Open-E with Intel?

Here are a few good reasons for choosing Intel Storage Servers powered by Open-E:

• Intel Storage Systems powered by Open-E are ready for a variety of setups and purposes
• Money-saving combination of Open-E’s all-in-one software and Intel’s enterprise class hardware components
• User-friendly and intuitive administration
• 24/7 superior Technical Support offering fast reaction times
• Business Continuity and High-Availability ensured
• Overall performance boost and utilization of 100% of your hardware resources
• Great scalability – when storage needs increase, easily expand your storage capacity without disruption
• Virtualization made easy with VMware Ready certification and compatibility with Citrix and Hyper-V

For more details about the Intel Storage Servers certified by Open-E visit our website.

To give you an idea of what the Intel’s Solution Summit is about, check out the Video from the show hosted last month in Los Angeles, CA:

]]> http://blog.open-e.com/open-e-at-intel-solutions-summit-2013/feed/ 0 http://blog.open-e.com/get-the-most-out-of-your-storage-with-an-active-active-setup/ http://blog.open-e.com/get-the-most-out-of-your-storage-with-an-active-active-setup/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:15:29 +0000 Dominik Niewiadomy http://blog.open-e.com/?p=26673 Recent test comparison of Open-E DSS V7 iSCSI Active-Active and Active-Passive Failover proved, how beneficial for the storage system can be to apply the Active-Active configuration. Better throughput and faster switching time were among the main conclusions from the tests.

There is no room for complacency though, while our developers make their progress in improving our product for you, our testers evaluate it under new environments using different scenarios.

Wait, how fast?

Fresh test results delivered by Open-E QA Team, showed very promising results. It appears that in the specific environments, the Active-Active configuration can outperform the Active-Passive configuration even further.
The tests made with Iometer were conducted with higher number of volumes per node (4 targets and 4 logical volumes per target). Additionally, each Iometer worker was testing the separate volume of the storage (see test topology below).

What did the results show?

In the iSCSI Active-Active Failover configuration, read operations were performed 5-6 times faster with smaller block sizes (4-32 KB) and up to 2 times faster with bigger block sizes, reaching the maximum of 622 MB/s with 64 KB block size (to 306 MB/s with Active-Passive setup) (see table below).

As for the write operations, the results were better in general; apart from the smallest block sizes, the Active-Active cluster consistently performed up to 3 times faster than Active-Passive, reaching the maximum of 789 MB/s (to 247 MB/s with Active-Passive setup) (see table and a chart below).
 


Faster, better ..

What makes the difference with the Active-Active cluster? The main reason behind it, is the way the Active-Active Load Balancing Cluster works, utilizing 100% of your storage resources.
In the popular failover configuration represented by Active-Passive setup, one node may sometimes become a bottleneck, so its performance is reduced. This may happen in very demanding environments, where the data is more complex and causing greater I/O rates.

Balancing the workload not only prevents the storage overload, so the quality of service does not deteriorate, but also allows to achieve the maximum performance, so the cluster can process a high number of read and write operations even faster.

Such benefits provided by Active-Active setup makes it ideal for demanding virtualization environments, database applications or video surveillance systems. Among other criteria, those environments require:

• Optimal speed for data processing (both read and write)
• Maximum utilization of the storage space
• Storage overload prevention
• No Single Point of Failure

As proven by our test again, all of those requirements are assured by Open-E DSS V7 with iSCSI Active-Active Failover Feature Pack.

]]> http://blog.open-e.com/get-the-most-out-of-your-storage-with-an-active-active-setup/feed/ 0 http://blog.open-e.com/win-2-free-cebit-2013-tickets-for-you-and-a-friend/ http://blog.open-e.com/win-2-free-cebit-2013-tickets-for-you-and-a-friend/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2013 10:40:37 +0000 Kasia Kolodziej http://blog.open-e.com/?p=26243

In celebration of CeBIT 2013, we decided to give away 100 FREE tickets. All you have to do is enter our survey, answer four short questions and the ticket can be yours.

CeBIT is the only trade show which gives a total grasp of the fast-changing digital technology. Every year, since 1986, CeBIT provides a panoramic view of the world’s markets. This year it will be: IT, Telecommunications, Digital Media and Consumer Electronics.

Now, you have a chance to attend CeBIT for free! All winners will receive two tickets. Each ticket is valid for only one day and can be used on any given day from March 5, 2013 to March 9, 2013. The last day to enter the sweepstakes is March 3, 2013. Winners will be notified on the next day March 4, 2013. Read more in the Official Rules.

Enter by completing this SURVEY.

Remember to stop by our booth located in Hall 2, Stand A43!

]]> http://blog.open-e.com/win-2-free-cebit-2013-tickets-for-you-and-a-friend/feed/ 3 http://blog.open-e.com/open-e-dss-v7-declared-vmware-ready/ http://blog.open-e.com/open-e-dss-v7-declared-vmware-ready/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:51:05 +0000 Dominik Niewiadomy http://blog.open-e.com/?p=25643 Open-E is happy to announce its latest software release achieved the VMware Ready™ status.


The VMware Ready™ designation indicates that after a detailed validation process Open-E Data Storage Software Version 7 has achieved VMware’s highest level of endorsement, and can be found on the VMware Solution Exchange (VSX) at https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/
open-e-dss-v7-data-storage-software

“We are pleased that Open-E DSS V7 qualifies for the VMware Ready™ logo, signifying to customers that it has met specific VMware integration and interoperability standards and works effectively with VMware cloud infrastructure, which will speed time to value within customer environments.” said Sheryl Sage, director, Alliance Programs, VMware.

The VMware Ready program is a co-branding benefit of the Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program that makes it easy for customers to identify partner products certified to work with VMware cloud infrastructure.

“The certification of Open-E DSS V7 continues our partnership with VMware and proves the effectiveness of our software solution.
By using Open-E DSS V7 with VMware V-Sphere® 5.1 enterprises can easily achieve business continuity and high availability in a virtualized storage environment, thanks to functionalities like the Active-Active iSCSI Failover.”
Krzysztof Franek, CEO & President of Open-E

Customers can use these products and solutions to lower project risks and realize cost savings over custom built solutions. With thousands of members worldwide, the VMware TAP program includes best-of-breed technology partners with the shared commitment to bring the best expertise and business solution for each unique customer need.

> View full Press Release

> Visit Open-E profile on VMware website

VMware and VMware Ready are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.



]]> http://blog.open-e.com/open-e-dss-v7-declared-vmware-ready/feed/ 0 http://blog.open-e.com/how-to-monitor-your-open-e-dss-v7/ http://blog.open-e.com/how-to-monitor-your-open-e-dss-v7/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:36:00 +0000 Dominik Niewiadomy http://blog.open-e.com/?p=22523 System monitoring is an important part of daily administrative tasks. Following our recent webinars, showing the ways we can monitor our Open-E DSS V7, we decided to prepare a how-to instruction for you.

We will show you how to configure the necessary tools, update your Open-E DSS V7 and finally, access and use the monitoring interface.

What is Nagios, OMD and check_mk? 

Before we jump into a configuration process, you may need a quick introduction to the tools we will mention in this post.

Nagios is one of the most popular open-source monitoring software applications. It offers monitoring and alerting for servers, switches, applications and services.

OMD (Open Monitoring Distribution) bundles Nagios together with many important add-ons and can easily be installed on every major Linux distribution. Using it, we can avoid compiling and integrating Nagios add-ons manually.

Check_mk is a status GUI written in Python which supports user definable views and is able to display the status of several sites in one combined view. A very intuitive design and an easy operation are one of the strongest points of this tool.

The following instruction was made in Ubuntu. However, a similar configuration can be made in other Linux distributions.

Installing and configuring OMD

We start with the installation and configuration of OMD packages. Please follow the steps below:

1. From root level*, update and upgrade your distribution’s package index using the following commands:

   apt-get update

   apt-get upgrade

   In addition you can upgrade your distribution’s kernel:

   apt-get dist-upgrade

   *You may need to use “sudo su –” command, as Ubuntu do not login root by default.

2. In order to install the OMD package, go to OMD website and navigate to Downloads section.
3. Go to package repositories and choose the relevant version of the repository (in our case it will be “Ubuntu Precise 12.04”).
4. Install the relevant GPG key in Ubuntu.

gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys F8C1CA08A57B9ED7

gpg --armor --export F8C1CA08A57B9ED7 | apt-key add -

5. Next, we enable the stable release repository (in our case, it is the one dedicated to Ubuntu Precise 12.04):

echo 'deb http://labs.consol.de/OMD/ubuntu precise main' 
>> /etc/apt/sources.list

6. Following the installation, we run apt-get update to refresh our distribution repository:

   apt-get update

7. We then install the OMD:

apt-get install omd-0.56

Following the installation of OMD repository, we go to our Open-E DSS V7 server to perform an additional configuration and install a small update.

Applying the small update to Open-E DSS V7

Click here, to find out how to obtain small updates. Please note, it is always best to confirm with our technical support, before installing any updates to your system.

To install the necessary update, we need to log in to our Open-E DSS V7 GUI and do the following:

1. From the Maintenance tab, select System update and navigate to System software update.
2. Click Choose File to pick the small update upd_70139-DSS-V7.upd, then click on upload and apply.
   
   You will then need to manually restart the system.
3. Go to Maintenance tab, Shutdown, find System Restart and click on Restart button in order to reboot the server.

After the installation, the small update will be visible in the menu (it can be removed by clicking on the trash bin).




Enabling API in Open-E DSS V7

1. Go to Setup tab and Administrator settings, then navigate to CLI/API Configuration.
2. Tick the box to Use CLI/API, then specify port - 22223 and password.
   
3. In order to use the CLI/API functionality without password, you need to generate ssh key. You can do it by expanding show advanced menu and clicking on the generate and download button.
   
4. Save the file in the relevant location (in this example, we will call it “dss60.key”).
   To be able to use the ssh key in our Linux distribution, we may create a NAS share and then mount it in Ubuntu.
   Go to manual, to find out how to create a NAS volume and a NAS share in Open-E DSS V7.
5. After creating a NAS share, enable SMB with “Guest” access and NFS access (with default settings) for that share, so you will be able to use it under Ubuntu.
6. Connect to the created share (via IP address of your storage server e.g. Run -> \\192.168.232.60) and copy the ssh key to the “Test” share.
7. In Ubuntu, create directory /mnt/test:

   mkdir /mnt/test

8. Mount our Open-E DSS V7 share to that location:

   mount –t nfs 192.168.232.60:/test /mnt/test

9. Now, you can copy the file to the OMD folder (/opt/omd) – created during installation. You can use midnight commander to copy the file.
10. The next step is the creation of a new site (ours will be called “dssmonitor”)

    omd create dssmonitor

    What you get is:

    • • a site directory with preconfigured configuration files
    • • a new user “dssmonitor” and a new group “dssmonitor” (identical with the name of your site). The new user is also a member of the group omd, which is created during installation.
11. Then, we start the omd on our newly created site:

    omd start

    We are now ready to perform an additional configuration of OMD.

12. We edit the file “/opt/omd/sites/dssmonitor/etc/check_mk/main.mk” (we can use mcedit command for that purpose):

    mcedit /opt/omd/sites/dssmonitor/etc/check_mk/main.mk

13. In the relevant space, we insert the host’s IP and type of the protocol used:

    all_hosts = [‘192.168.232.60|ssh’]

14. Next, we append the following entries, to define commands that will be used to connect to API (see convention below):

    datasource_programs = [ (“ssh –p default port number – i  
    ssh key's location path –l username for API  + host IP + command 
    that will be run over API to DSS, [‘protocol used’] , 
    in which section our monitoring statuses will be shown), ]

    In our case, it will be:

    datasource_programs = [ (“ssh –p 22223 –i /omd/dss60.key –l 
    api 192.168.232.60 check_mk_agent”, [‘ssh’], ALL_HOSTS ), ]

15. Save changes to file.
16. The important part is to ensure the correct ownership (our OMD user) and access permission (read and execute for owner only) of our ssh key.
17. To change the owner of our ssh key file, we use the following command:

    chown dssmonitor /omd/dss60.key

18. To change access permission, so only the owner has read and execute rights, we use:

    chmod 500 /cmd/dss.key

19. Then, we log to OMD as dssmonitor using “su” command:

    su dssmonitor

20. To test the configuration, we can run “api” command:

    ssh –p 22223 –i /omd/dss60.key –l api 192.168.232.60 check_mk_agent

    When prompted to continue connecting type yes.
    The output will be returned in the terminal, which will later be interpreted in check_mk tool.

21. We need to run two more commands:
    First will do the following: retrieve data from our Open-E DSS V7, find all available services, and list them:

    check_mk -I

    The second, will reload the OMD configuration and validate that it is working properly:

    check_mk -O

Monitoring the Open-E DSS V7

1. In order to check the status of our Open-E DSS V7 in OMD, go to your internet browser and navigate to the following address: your Ubuntu IP*/name of your site – in our case it will be:

   192.168.232.58/dssmonitor

   *you can check the IP of your Ubuntu using the ifconfig command

2. When prompted for a username and password – the default credentials are:

   Username: omdadmin

   Password: omd

3. We will then be able to choose one of the available GUIs. In our example we will go for “Check_MK Multisite”
4. When in GUI, from available views, choose Hosts -> All hosts, and select the relevant host (see below).
   

You will then see the statuses of all available services (that are being monitored by the tool):


You will also have access to detailed statistics (including graphs) about each service:The services that you can monitor with the tool include:
• CPU load
• CPU utilization
• Disk IO Summary
• NI information
• Memory utilization
• TCP connections
• Uptime
• NAS Volume space taken
• and many more…

Check out the videos below and watch our engineers performing the same configuration (English and German version).

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
]]> http://blog.open-e.com/how-to-monitor-your-open-e-dss-v7/feed/ 5