Equallogic

Posted October 22, 2007 by jsdc
Categories: Equallogic

Tags:

Our Equallogic SAN arrived on Friday.

 It is much smaller than I expected so better not show the Finance Director as it does not look £XX,XXXs worth.

 Anyway, true to the promise, it arrived at 2pm.  We had it racked by 3pm.  Wired in (lots of Ethernet plus a cup of tea) by 3:30 and had a volume up and running on it by 4pm.

 Excellent piece of kit (so far!)

Going back to HP

Posted October 22, 2007 by jsdc
Categories: Uncategorized

Got all the Servers on order today.

Up until recently, we have been using Intel Chassis’ http://www.intel.com/products/server/chassis/index.htm?iid=serv_body+chassis

Being Cisco Callmanager users we have always had a few Compaq’s with Cisco badges on them.

 When we upgraded to Callmanager 5.1 we got some new HP DL380-G5s and we really liked them.

 Today we placed the order for 4 more DL380-G5s with dual quad core Xeons. 

VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Posted October 15, 2007 by jsdc
Categories: VMWare

Tags: ,

I’m responsible for around 400 PCs and around 100 Laptops.  The current “climate” is for reducing costs which includes power.  Is VDI the answer?

 http://www.vmware.com/solutions/desktop/vdi.html

It ticks so many boxes and I love the concept.  My only problem is how responsive will graphic intense application be over an RDP session?  This might be the Achilles heal.  We will certainly find out over the next few months as we begin putting together a proposal and do some live testing.

VDI

Posted October 14, 2007 by jsdc
Categories: VMWare

I have been researching VMWare’s VDI.

It ticks so many boxes it just has to be looked at as a future possibility – e.g. lower power consumption, disaster recovery etc etc.

 This is a really useful sizing URL.  http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vdi_sizing_vi3.pdf

Current (Interesting) Projects

Posted October 14, 2007 by jsdc
Categories: General

VMWARE 3i Installation and lots of PtoV.

VMWARE VDI.  Will it work for us?

Cisco Unity 4 to Unity 5 Upgrade (replacing Hardware)

Cisco Presence Server integration with Microsoft Office Communication Server

Exchange 2007 Installation/Migration

Cisco Callmanager version 5 to 6 upgrade

Welcome

Posted October 14, 2007 by jsdc
Categories: General

My job (which sometimes feels like my life) is IT Operations Manager for a Local Authority in the United Kingdom.

Basically I am responsible for everything with a plug on it (except for photocopiers and kettles).  I am also responsible for the majority of software installed.  The basic rule is if you would find the software in a private company then I am responsible for it.  e.g. Microsoft Exchange – Yes …. Council Tax – No.

The big advantage of working for my Local Authority is my team and I are trusted.  We are not awash with Consultants of various types.  We can decide the ICT Strategy ourselves and choose the technology we implement it with.  We do the majority of installation and configuration ourselves because that keeps the job interesting and we “own” the systems afterwards.

However, one of the things I am terrible at doing is keeping a note of all the different resources I use when installing or fixing computer systems and networks.

I therefore plan to post links/tips on the projects I am currently involved in primarily for my own benefit and if they help someone else then thats great.

On with the show!