Author: Bob Martens

Categories
Technology

The Importance of HCLs

This is going to get a complete and total “DUH” from many of my system administrator friends out there, but I thought I would just share my experience as well … and why I should never just expect that a little extra work will be worth it in the end.

We run XenServer here on campus for our virtualization infrastructure and have been relatively pleased with how it has fit out needs. While updates should be trivial, a decision I made definitely complicated things far beyond what they needed to be.

For all other servers on campus we use Adaptec RAID controllers and have been very happy with them. We also used them in our storage boxes (running Ubuntu 12.04). They have been rock-solid and so I wanted to stick with what we know when it came to the XenServer host boxes as well.

The only problem is that Adaptec is not well-supported by XenServer. You can do it (and we did originally) by creating driver disks every time a new kernel is installed. That means that normal updates can cause headaches as you wait for the DDK to drop, then create the driver disk, and then hope that the driver installation works when you install the update. We did it a number of times and it worked fine, but it was not ideal.

It also caused an issue where we could not move from XenServer 6.1 to the new, open source, XenServer 6.2 at least in part because we were using Adaptec RAID controllers. That was enough. So I finally sat down with the HCLs for XenServer 6.0.2, XenServer 6.1, and XenServer 6.2 and worked to find a RAID card to help us with the upgrade to XenServer 6.2 and also push us into the future as well.

Needless to say, I found one, and I wish I would have done this sooner.

Working with a supported RAID controller has the following benefit, so far:

  • installation is faster because I do not need to install separate drivers for the RAID controllers
  • updates as faster because I do not need to have driver disks for each kernel update
  • upgrades are faster (and possible) because I can now do an upgrade to the XenServer pool without needing to do a fresh reinstall and migration of VMs
  • I have peace of mind because if something happens, I’m just a reinstall away from a working box again … regardless of whether I have the driver disks anymore or not

So I’ve learned my lesson. I am now going to pour over the HCL for a given software package before I go off making decisions. Fortunately we have use for the Adaptec cards I am replacing … and I am very happy to finally be rid of them soon in our XenServer host boxes.

Categories
Life Technology

Limiting The Future

Marco Arment posted some commentary to Matt Gemmell’s The Unacknowledged Compromise. While I’m not sure I disagree with much that was posted by the two gentlemen, the footnote added by Marco rubbed me the wrong way.

If you can’t afford both an iPad and a laptop, and you’re technically proficient enough to enjoy my site, you probably shouldn’t get an iPad at all.

You’d probably be better served getting a laptop (as your only computer) first, a smartphone second, and maybe an e-ink Kindle if you want a bigger screen for portable reading.

A lot of what he wrote is true, but I think it definitely underestimates just how much better something like an iPad can be for traveling.

It isn’t just the size of the device, or the fact that it doesn’t have a hinge, or the fact that the accessories are so much smaller for the iPad (compare a MacBook power adapter to the iPad charger). Those are all things in the iPad’s favor.

It is how you pack that changes when you move from a laptop to a tablet. A tablet is something you can add to any bag without needing to bring anything extra along. You limit the amount of stuff you need to bring along to be productive. I have my iPad mini in a case so, along with the power adapter, that’s all I need to bring along and I’m set. I can toss that into any bag that I might bring along on a trip or just carry it sans a bag.

That’s a big shift.

With a laptop I bring along a power adapter, an extension cord for the power adapter (because if you hang that power adapter on a wall it is going to take up too much space),  a mouse, an external hard drive with my “work”, another power adapter for my phone … you see where I’m going.

I had forgotten about that. The same charger for my iPad can double as a charger for my iPhone. That doesn’t even bring into account the idea that I can have LTE connectivity built into my iPad so that I am completely untethered. Those are big wins.

The reason we need laptops and desktops right now is because almost every single workflow we have right now is built around laptops, desktops, windowed operating systems, etc. OF COURSE they’d be easier to do on those devices, it only makes sense.

However, let’s not think that it will always be this way or even that it needs to be right now. Already email is easier for me to handle on an iPad or iPhone than on my desktop and media is easier to deal with on those devices as well. More and more we are going to see (here’s that word again) a stratification of tasks, workflows, and devices based on what they are best at.

I will state that we are not there yet and things are just STARTING to happen, but there is no way we are going to know what to do if we don’t try to push the boundaries a little bit. Pushing the boundaries can sometimes be annoying at first, but that is the only way to truly find the pain points.

This isn’t just about iPads and iPhones and MacBooks … but about the general tension between the mobile devices we are seeing now and the general computing devices many of us are used to from the past.

Categories
Business Technology

A Collegiate Opportunity

I wanted a good title, so this is what I came up with.

The rise of Apple, mobile devices, and the quandary Microsoft currently finds itself in with the uncertainty at CEO along with product issues (Windows Phone, Windows 8, etc.) is providing a unique opportunity for 3rd party software providers to get into colleges and universities by providing a better experience than Microsoft can offer with the influx of non-Microsoft devices.

Providing services for all platforms is where these 3rd parties need to be headed. While the “cloud” might sound all fluffy, there are concerns about security and control which need to be addressed but they need to be addressed in such a way that there is still flexibility as to what devices can be used and where. That is a weak point right now.

Apple isn’t going to provide it, and Google is going to keep it to themselves s (on their own servers and services) so it leaves an opening. Companies who have been pushed into the background would do well to take advantage of this unique opportunity.

I added Collegiate to the title because I see it where I work. Students no longer use the file server space we provision for them and even many faculty and staff members have gone outside to find the flexibility they crave. Providing a solution to provide flexibility along with appropriate amounts of control would go a long way to solving many issues.

When I entered college in 2005 it was still relatively rare for an undergraduate to have a laptop (at least where I went, a small private college in the midwest). Now, however, a single student will have three or four distinct devices attached to their name … and that doesn’t even count the ride of Xbox and Playstation as not just a staple for gaming entertainment, but entertainment in general. I spent the better part of a couple of days figuring out which headers our firewall was stripping from just the Playstation 3’s Netflix application because it was affecting enough students on campus for someone to finally contact me.

Those are huge changes and more are on the way. Just today a student showed up with a 7″ ASUS Windows tablet and was having issues connecting to WiFi on campus. Besides being an abysmal experience (I’m sorry, it just is for me), it is ANOTHER new type of device to try to take account of.

The pace of change means that IT departments are looking for ways to continue to provide tools to students and faculty. 3rd parties have a great opportunity right now to provide something, anything, to make this easier and/or better.

It won’t be there forever.

Categories
Business Technology

Mobile Parity

The phrase “mobile first” is tossed around quite a bit in technology circles and for good reason. Mobile devices (e.g. tablets, phones, etc.) are selling in ever greater numbers to ever more diverse people in more locations. For many people, a mobile device is now their primary device for accessing information via the internet and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

It really is a continuum when you think about it. I’ll try to lay it out as my mind perceives it here:

  • Mobile Only
  • Mobile First
  • Platform Parity
  • Desktop First
  • Desktop Only

For a long time we were at the Desktop Only side of things because, simply, desktops were the only things available. You didn’t need to worry about mobile devices because mobile devices didn’t exist.

Or at least not the extent we think of now.

We are now in a time where we have a multitude of different devices, form factors, and connection opportunities to be able to stratify products and services so that we can put them in the place they are most needed and will be the easiest to accomplish. There is no need to only support a single platform outside of resource constraints.

Also, don’t get me wrong, resource constraints are a huge issue.

However! In order to have the best experiences for your colleagues/users/customers you need to start asking the following question: where would this best be used? I’ll give an example.

Harvest is a wonderful web-based time-tracking and invoice-sending app. I’d dare to say they have the best interface for easily tracking invoices and time attached to work. I’ve used them a lot. They do have a mobile app but it is a focused mobile app (thinking specifically on iOS). You can’t do everything on the mobile app (yet), but you CAN track time and expenses attached to project.

Those are things you probably would want to be able to do while out and about with your iPhone.

It never needs to be an all-or-nothing endeavor. It doesn’t have to be mobile-only or desktop-only but you can pick and choose where tasks and services can best be used to provide the best and most flexible experience for everyone.

The proliferation of mobile devices isn’t killing the desktop or generalized computing but freeing generalized computing devices to be good at what they are good at … and allowing mobile devices to just be good at what they are good at.

There is going to be a lot of overlap, but also going to be unique use-cases as well. I don’t need picture-taking applications on my laptop or a full-blown IDE on my phone. Let’s stop trying to pit one-against-another and instead see what we can do when we let the constraints of different platforms guide us to unique and new decisions.

Categories
Technology

Why Novell

I’ve had some Novell posts creeping into my blog recently and you can expect that to continue.

I’m not even sure how many people have even heard of Novell anymore, but at one time they were a pioneer in networked computing. With NetWare and eDirectory (or Novell Directory Services) they were well ahead of Microsoft (and in some ways, still ahead of Microsoft) for networked enterprises.

With Microsoft now firmly in the “no one gets fired for using Microsoft” area of enterprise computing which IBM enjoyed back in the 80s and early 90s, Novell has steadily seen its star fall and in 2011 was consumed by the Attachmate Group and taken private, stripped of SUSE (now a separate entity within the Attachmate Group), divested of some other technologies (many of which were moved over to NetIQ, another Attachmate Group entity), and refocused on their core competencies.

At least that is how the story is being told now.

At Martin Luther College we still use Novell NetWare 6.5 as the backbone of both our networked file  and identity management/authentication services. Our main file server was put into production the summer I began working in Network Services … 2005. During that time it has been rock-solid. While you won’t find their name splashed across all of the latest IT websites nor talked about with excited tones around Twitter, the technology itself servers a vital purpose and is incredibly stable.

But why am I talking about a company who, admittedly, had its 15 minutes of fame 20+ years ago?

Old Technologies

While we might want to talk wistfully about all of the latest technologies and dream of a future where we can just beam everything back-and-forth without needing to kill trees, those days are not here yet and they might never be here either.

There is still a need for managed file serving, printing, directories, access management, etc. Those days are not behind us, they are here right now and the need to be able to handle all of those needs for differing groups of people still needs to be done. While we can’t ignore the future, we also can’t deny the present because you’ll end up with a lot of really ticked off people.

With iPrint, Open Enterprise Server, Identity Manager, and other “old” technologies you get some really compelling options to handle those needs. I’ll even admit that I want to spin up an instance of GroupWise just to see what it is like! In the rush to do away with the “old” maybe we’ve left some good things behind … or maybe those old things have been keeping up and we’ve been too jaded to see it!

New Technologies

Maybe even better than the old technologies is where Novell is heading with their new products. Filr is the one I really have my eyes on at the moment. The idea of adding Dropbox-like capabilities to our internal file servers is almost too much to pass up! With their iPrint Appliance, mobile printing is brought to our old, steady, stable of laser printers. Novell is offering the ability to take us from the past into the future of a mobile, collaborative technology without the need to completely rely on third party providers to do so.

I’ve had the privilege of sitting in on some TTP presentation recently and the roadmaps are looking good as well. I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of Novell and NetIQ and I think SUSE has really taken off recently. I’m watching what SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 is going to bring to the table.

More Options

Maybe most of all, I want Novell to succeed because they stand as an alternative to much larger, more entrenched players (namely Microsoft). Novell has a name which has been around since the very late 70s and has a rich history.

Their technologies also tend to “play nicely with others” better than their competitors. Open Enterprise Server has SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as its base operating system. Their appliances are all based off of SLES. They tend to try to accommodate Microsoft along with open source technologies. They want you to be able to use a piece of Novell technology, if you want to, with your own.

It is an irrational reason to cheer for a company. If Company A has great technology you shouldn’t necessarily cheer for Company B and Company C just to keep competitors in the market but that is what I want. I want a strong, vibrant market surrounding all sectors of information technology so that all of the players are being pressured or else we will end up with stagnant, terrible solutions to real problems we need to be solving.

Concluding Thoughts

So that is why I am talking about Novell. We are planning the rollout of more Novell technologies in the future and I hope to be able to continue to play around with what they offer along with their sister-companies.

I fully understand that the name “Novell” is essentially dead within the realm of the “it crowd”, but I implore people to come and take a look again and what Novell is offering and where the company is going. I think, right now, there is a lot to like and the future looks like there will be even more to come.