Posts Tagged ‘HP’

HP R5500 UPS – Strange Flashing Lights.

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

On a customer site today and we are setting up two new HP R5500 Rack Mount UPS for the client.  The tech has installed them and we powered them up… but we have two lots of flashing LEDS on the front panel.  I downloaded the manual from the HP website here.  Ok – so a quick check of the manual shows that the two LEDs are the Utility LED which is flashing green and the Battery Fault LED which is flashing red.  The LED fault table shows each of these faults individually but not together.  So I started at the beginning again and found that the clients IT tech had not turned on the battery circuit breaker switch below.  He didn’t do this as it had a nice tidy cable tie around it and he thought he didn’t need to do it.  I cut the cable tie and flicked the switch.  That fixed the flashing red LED for us.  The flashing green LED was there because the UPS was in standby mode.  Once I powered the UPS up and it’s all good to go.

Tags: HP, UPS
Posted in Blog | No Comments »

HP Power Manager console shows empty information

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Working onsite today with one of my clients, they have a large number of servers across multiple sites.  One of the clients IT team asked me why two of their servers were displaying a very strange and empty page for the HP Power Manager console.  The HP Power Manager console is a web based interface that runs on the server and displays all the relevant information and normally has a login before you get to it.  On the affected servers however it goes straight to the page below.

Some investigation into this showed me that it was a devmanbe.exe process that was the actual web server.  Not knowing anything about that webserver meant we had to figure it out on the fly.  I noticed that in the folder where devmanbe.exe was, there was a devmanbe.ini file as well.  I opened up the devmanbe.ini file on the affected system and found it’s contents as below.  When I compared it to the working system, I realised that the working systems file was 2k in size but the problem system was only 1K.  I copied portions of the broken file into the good file, restarted the HP Power Manager service.

Once the service was restarted, I connected to the website, got the proper login prompt and was then able to see everything as planned.  I’m still not clear why it truncated the file in the way it did, or if it will happen again.

Tags: HP, Troubleshooting, UPS
Posted in Blog | 4 Comments »

iPad competitors coming out soon.

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Once again, it looks like Apple have a winner on their hands with the iPad. I say that not based on the huge worldwide sales (because there aren’t any outside the US just yet), but based on the fact that so many of the competition, like HP and Dell are leaking information on their own iPad competitors.  In a world where imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this can only be a good thing for the original iPad, even if the iPad does not do half of what the competitors do.

The iPad has known limitations right now such as the lack of Flash support, lack of USB or SD card readers, lack of any webcam facilities, and lack of ability to multitask.  The competitors seem to be drawing on those weaknesses to create something one step better than the iPad and therefore hopefully more functional.  The HP offering is called the Slate and is targeted for release later this year.  The Dell offering is called the Streak comes in two flavours, 7” and 10” display and will be a staggered release later this year also.

What remains to be seen however is how well these devices will solve business problems vs being just some cool new gadget that needs to be supported and have software installed on it and so on.  I’ll be holding off buying one myself however as I want to wait for the new Windows 7 Mobile phones also due for release later this year. I want to see how well it will satisfy my requirements first before investing in yet another toy.

What do you think? Do you think that these tablet/slate style devices offer something that is a real business tool or is it more of a gadget for geeks and executives to consume productive time?

Tags: Apple, Dell, Future Products, HP, iPad
Posted in Blog | 3 Comments »

Hyper-V for SMB Case Studies

Friday, April 16th, 2010

During today’s webcast with ThirdTier, I used the example of a client scenario that we (Correct Solutions) used technology to solve real world business problems.  The client was real, the scenario was real, and the solution was real.  That is what makes it more exciting.  It was not just some hypothetical solution, but something we deployed for this client (and similar to many we’ve done for other clients).

Microsoft did a video case study of it where Ryan Spillane (my business partner in Correct Solutions) got to be on camera and the client was able to clearly describe what this solution meant for them.  Here’s the link to it on Microsoft.com

HP were also pretty impressed with it as well and likewise did a case study – this one focused on the hardware side of things a little more, but still it helped to quantify the benefits and reasons why virtualisation was right for this customer.  Here’s the link to the HP Case Study.

We’ll post the recording of today’s webcast shortly and I’ll blog about it when it’s done.  Thanks for everyone who came along to the event and for the great feedback on it.

Tags: Business Focus, HP, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Training, Virtualisation
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »

How can I expand or migrate a RAID set on a HP RAID Controller?

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

I recently needed to expand a RAID array on my HP ML350 G5 test server from a 5 drives RAID 0 configuration to a 6 drive RAID 5 configuration so that I could have redundancy as well as performance.  My server has a HP P400 Smart Array Controller, but this process is pretty much the same on all HP RAID controllers used in the 300 series or higher servers. 

To expand or migration a RAID set on a HP RAID controller is a two step process.  Firstly you must expand the array to include the new drive.  The second phase is where you migrate the array to take advantage of the space on the new drive.  During this 2nd phase you have the option to also change the Stripe size and or the RAID type based on the number of drives you have installed in the system.  This procedure below shows you how to do this process.

1. Ensure you have a complete backup of all data on the RAID array you plan to expand.
2. Ensure that you perform the expansion and migration at a time of low system use, ideally have all users off the system if possible.
3. Install the additional drive into the HP servers drive bay
4. On the server itself, login as an administrator and then login to the HP Array Configuration Utility.
5. Ensure that the new drive is not part of any array.
6. Select the existing array you wish to expand and then “Expand the array”.
7. Select the new drive that you have added to the system and confirm that you wish to expand the array.
8. The array expansion process will now commence.  This will take time – anywhere from an hour to a few hours dependant on the size of the drives and the load on the system.
9. Once the array is expanded, close the HP Array Configuration Utility and reopen it – this is due to the fact that some information only refreshes correctly when you open the Array Configuration Utility.
10. Now navigate to the Array you wish to migrate, select the Array and then “Migrate Array” from the right hand menu.
11. You will select the applicable RAID type you wish to migrate the array to, ie RAID 5 in this instance, and also select the Stripe Size.  Do this and select “OK”. 
12. You will see a screen similar to the one below – note that is is “Transforming 0%”.  The Array will take some time to expand.  It is recommended that you do the expansion at a time that is low load on the system to ensure it does not interfere with normal system operations.  Performance during this time WILL BE SLOWER than normal due to the RAID expansion.
13. After the RAID expansion is complete, you will see the screen return to normal.
14. Close the Array Configuration Utility and reopen it.  Expand the Array and then select the Logical Drive.  Select the More Information button and you will see the screen below.  This is after around 8 hours.  The RAID migration is complete, and the background Parity Initialisation is in progress (it’s at 44% right now).  This means that the process is not complete and disk performance will still be adversely affected.  Wait a little longer.  
15. Your array expansion and migration is now complete.  All data should be in tact and things should be working as you expected them to be.
16. Close the Array Configuration Utility and enjoy your new, expanded and protected drive

Tags: HP, RAID
Posted in FAQs | 1 Comment »

How to check your HP systems warranty status online.

Friday, April 9th, 2010

I was onsite today checking out problems with a network printer that was causing a massive problem on the network.  It’s network card was jabbering so badly that it caused 90% packet loss to pings between systems on the network.  The printer is a HP Color Laser Jet 3800 DN and I have no idea when it was purchased or even if it was still under warranty.  I used a HP web site and entered the machines part number and serial number and it immediately told me if it was under warranty – how cool is that?

You can use the website located here to check the warranty status of most HP business level products.  Thanks to Mel in our office for letting me know about this little gem.

Tags: HP, Warranty
Posted in FAQs | 1 Comment »

Diagnosing Power issues with HP Servers

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Working onsite with a client this week, they asked why one of their new Hyper-V servers was rebooting.  I checked the event logs on the server and could not see anything obvious at all.  All the event logs showed was unscheduled reboots occurring around every two weeks at 11:53am in the morning.

Given that these servers are HP 300 series servers, they all have inbuilt iLo remote management.  Even if you don’t purchase any optional licenses for the Advanced features of the iLo you can still login to it and see a lot about what is going on with the server, and even power cycle it remotely.  Once I connected to the iLo I could see these in the servers hardware event logs…. it was indicating that power was being removed from the server and then restored.  Interesting as the servers (multiple of them) are all on the back of an APC 3KVA UPS.

I then checked other servers also on the same UPS and found the same issue… needless to say we believe we have a faulty UPS and have now reworked the power for these servers to another UPS while we get this one replaced.

The availability of things like these iLos are one of the reasons I love the HP server hardware – it made my life a lot easier this time round

Tags: HP, Troubleshooting
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »

HP Proliant ML110 G5 – Loud Fan Noise

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

I have a couple of HP ML 110 G5’s here in my office.  I was doing some maintenance and did BIOS upgrades to them to the latest version available here. Immediately AFTER the BIOS upgrade, I noticed that the fans in the system ran at full speed ALL the time… the noise was intense in my little office.  Like most of us however, I didn’t have time to dig into it and I left it be.

Over Christmas break I’ve been doing a little bit of work and finally the noise of these servers really got to me, so I decided to investigate.  The HP support forums are actually full of people talking about this problem.  Some have resolved it by downgrading their BIOS to an older version.  The real answer though is not in the BIOS at all, but the Systems Management Firmware.  You need to upgrade BOTH in order for the fans to slow down properly as they should.  You can get the latest Systems Management Firmware here. 

So buried in the release notes for the BIOS upgrade is a note as below.  It is the only suggestion that we should do BOTH at the same time.  In future I’ll be taking note of that tip!

When upgrading to BIOS version 2009.10.09 or later HP requires that the BMC version 3.11 or later is also installed on the system in order for proper server operation.

Now that I’ve done the upgrade to both, the loudest thing in my office is fan from the Netgear switch… hmmm must see about that too

Tags: Hardware I use, HP
Posted in Blog | 6 Comments »

HP Proliant ML330 G6

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Recently HP released the 6th generation of their product line. As part of that they released the ML330 G6.  This server is focused on the mid level SMB client and includes features that are designed to answer their business requirements.  I’ve been fortunate to have one of these servers for quite a few months now as I was beta testing it for HP.  During the beta I found that the server was 100% stable with no unexpected crashes – something I’ve come to expect from HP.

The ML330 G6 servers come with a range of CPUs all based on the Nehalem CPUs. The Nehalem CPUs are designed to cater specifically for higher workloads than previous generations CPUs.  They have some impressive performance optimisations around Virtualisation that I tested out myself with various configurations.  I loaded up the ML330 G6 with Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Hyper-V role.  I then installed SBS 2008 as a virtual machine in just over an hour. Wow that’s fast.  Whilst the system I had was in beta, I was certainly impressed with the performance and stability of the server.  OK down to the tech specs.

The ML 330 G6 supports up to 2 physical CPUs and is currently sold in speeds of 2.0Ghz up to 2.53Ghz.  There are factory configurations feature Quad Core CPUs across all models with either single or dual CPU standard which means loads of grunt for the workloads we’re likely to throw at them. What is particularly interesting here is that when you push the CPU hard for some tasks, it is designed to overclock itself a little in order to get that task done faster than before. It does this by shutting down one or two of the other cores of the CPU to ensure that it does not go over the thermal limits of the system.

Memory expansion is not something you’ll need to worry to much about. With up to 18 memory slots, you can take this system up to 144GB of DDR3 Registered RAM if you really need to.  One thing to note is that the Nehalm architecture requires that the memory configurations be balanced across the CPUs.  This means that you need to have equal amounts of RAM dedicated to each CPU.  This is one of the ways that Nehalm achieves it’s massive performance improvements over previous generations of process architecture.  You also need to keep in mind that there are two type of memory you can install into your HP G6 servers, DDR3 Registered and DDR3 Unbuffered. The two types of memory are actually incompatible memory types and you can’t mix the two.  It would seem strange then for HP to offer such configurations until you understand the logic behind it.  You can use the DDR3 Unbuffered RAM for configurations up to 24GB and it’s designed this way as a low cost method for small system configurations.  However if you are designing larger configurations with higher memory requirements then you need to consider using DDR3 Registered from the start to give you better overall growth paths.

In terms of the disk subsystem, the model I had came with an Smart Array 410 controller which is expandable to up to 512MB of Battery Backed Write Cache.  The standard server allows for up to 4 Internal Hot Pluggable or Non Hot Pluggable 3.5” SATA or SAS hard drives. There is an optional expansion chassis that will allow for a further 4 x 3.5” drives of either type if you need it.  This gives this low end system some serious potential in terms of disk capacity. The very entry level model comes with a low end Smart Array B110i controller which I’d recommend upgrading to the 410 with BBWC as soon as possible.  Whilst I’ve not tested this low end controller, I really think you will need the better disk throughput to keep up with the processing grunt this server has to offer.

Externally the server has 3 drive bays of which one is already filled with a DVD ROM as standard (about time too).  It has 8 USB Ports in total 2 on Front, 4 on Rear and 2 internal (1 for tape but I didn’t use this).  The system has 4 x PCI-Express slots internally of various configurations (x8 Gen 1, x16 Gen2 and x8 Gen 2).  The standard power supply is a 460w non hot pluggable/non redundant power supply. You can replace it with a hot pluggable unit and add a second for redundancy. This is another area that needs consideration as you have the option to “right-size” your power supply configuration therefore ensuring optimum efficiency in terms of power management.  Check out their guidance here.  There’s also the option for redundant fans in the system too if needed.

The server runs pretty quietly in my office and it will be a shame to have to give it back to them as I’ve grown somewhat attached to it. Overall I am impressed with the ML330 G6 server. It seems to have a fair degree of expandability without the high cost normally associated with it. My one down side (and this is common across most name brand servers right now) is that I’d like to see them have a couple of ESata ports on the rear for things like external disk backup devices. Given the world is moving this way I can only hope that the G7 series will accommodate this request as a standard feature.

You can find out more about the ML330 G6 here or buy one from my company here if you so desire.

Tags: Hardware I use, HP, Hyper-V, SBS 2008, Virtualisation
Posted in Reviews | 2 Comments »

Problems with HP?

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Tags: HP
Posted in Blog | 11 Comments »

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