RAID monitoring is very helpful when administering servers or normal
systems with RAID volumes as it allows almost immediate notification of
errors as they happen, instead of finding out hours or even days later,
minimising the time that the system is without data redundancy.
While Intel does have built in email notification with their Rapid
Storage driver/application, it is not available when using a chipset
older than the newer Intel 6 series. This guide will show you how to
enable RAID email notifications to be sent using the task scheduler
built into Windows. The email on event feature is only available with
Windows Vista and newer; if you are using XP/2003, please see this guide
that uses third party software to achieve the same result.
Setup:
1) Go to the Start Menu>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Task Scheduler
2) Right-click ‘Task Scheduler’ at the top of the left pane and select ‘Create Task’
3) In the ‘General’ tab, fill in the Name of the task, “Intel RAID Volume Degraded” for example.
4) At the bottom of the page, select the ‘Run whether user is
logged on or not’ radio button and if necessary select ‘Change User or
Group’ and select someone with appropriate privileges; they will need to
have a password set.
5) Go to the ‘Triggers’ tab; click ‘New…’ at the bottom; in the
‘New Trigger’ window select ‘Custom’ and then click ‘New Event Filter’.
6) Fill in the details as seen in the below image. The start and stop events for the IAStor service use event ID one along with the volume degradation event. To stop from getting an email every time the server restarts we only select Warning, Error and Critical event levels.
7) Confirm the settings and then go to the ‘Actions’ tab.
Select ‘New...’ and in the new window select ‘Send an e-mail’ from the
drop down menu at the top.
8) Fill in the relevant email details, for the subject line;
put something similar to the image below so you know which system the
notification is coming from.
9) That should be all the configuration necessary, when you go
to close the ‘Create Task’ window it will prompt you for the password of
the user account that you selected to run the task under.
10) In the left pane of the main Task Scheduler window select
‘Task Scheduler Library’. In the main section right click the newly
created event and select ‘Run’ to send a test email.
If the test email is successfully received and if you are confident that you have set up the user account for the task successfully, it is fairly safe to assume that a warning email will be sent out if degradation occurs while no one is logged in.
RAID monitoring is very helpful when administering servers or normal systems with RAID volumes as it allows almost immediate notification of errors as they happen, instead of finding out hours or even days later, minimising the time that the system is without data redundancy.
With the new 6 series chipset, Intel has introduced the email notification feature into their RAID management application. Unfortunately, if you have an older chipset on your board, the email notification feature is not available at this time. Please see the article on Intel RAID notification using other applications.
Setup:
Email notification setup is rather straight forward now that it has been included in the Rapid Storage manager application.
1)Download and install the latest Intel Rapid Storage drivers.
2) Launch the management application from the taskbar or start menu.
3) Go the ‘Preferences’ tab.
4) Fill in the required details (example shown in the below image)
5) Send a test email to ensure the configuration is correct.
6) No more configuration should be necessary; notifications have been confirmed to work while a user is not logged on, even with the Intel RAID service set to ‘Delayed Start’.
It is recommended to select all types of events to prompt a notification. Only relevant ‘Information’ events prompt notifications so will you not receive a ‘service stopped’ and ‘service stopped’ notifications every time the system is restarted.
The PC industry has been on the decline since the turn of the millennium. In technology adoption cycle terms, we are in a late majority phase of the industry. If we are not the biggest shop in the main street, we would either be a boutique shop or a corner shop. Boutique shops are for leading edge fashion and solutions, and corner shops are for milk and convenience. Compucon has chosen the boutique approach. We have attempted to introduce FMG-II (firewall mail gateway with spam filtering) and AZUL 360 (all-in-one business database) and both were leading edge concepts if they were successful. They were not. It is because Compucon did not have the DNA for them. After years of searching, we found our DMA. DNA is hereditary and organic. DMA is too. DNA exhibits in behaviours. DMA exhibits in change management. DMA stands for Decision Making Abilities. It is a framework for a company to manage industry changes and grow the company. Some of our peers may think of E-myth (coined by Michael Gerber). The term stands for Entrepreneurial Myth and prescribes what a person with specialist skills and a lot of entrepreneurial spirits entering business should do. E-Myth is a good framework for the start up phase of a company. Compucon has practised its teachings such as a vigorous Quality Assurance system and this has helped us do well for the last 19 years (by 2011). E-Myth could not help us further such as in addressing the impact of laptops on desktops business for example. We need DMA. This is a small article to outline how DMA could help in case you are interested in organizational concepts.
A book entitled Healthy Organisation published in 2004 provides the original organizational concepts and the essence of the framework. It prescribes 7 levels of DMA, with 7 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. Most companies in New Zealand would have less than 3 levels, and a handful would have 6 or 7 levels. For example, a MacDonald's fast food shop on Glenfield Road has Level One and Two only. Level One pertains to daily operation and Level Two refers to the manager who makes decisions to solve operational issues. Fonterra would have a CEO on Level 7. He addresses a large multitude of issues including globalization, politics, economies, finance, and lines of products.
The image on the RHS shows 6 levels only. The dark blue triangle refers to strategies. The light blue triangle refers to operations.
Compucon New Zealand operated with 2 levels for the first 10 years which were easy years in the PC industry. A major decision was made in 1998 to keep the team size for 80% of the business only and to use contractors to completely fulfil our delivery obligations. This decision meant that the company was not intending to make a profit from the last 20% of business (as contractor fees are higher than staff wages) but would like to retain all customers. The decision was proven effective when the PC industry started the decline phase after Y2K. The decision is on Level 2.
The PC industry decline continued. We reduced the team size by attrition. This decision is still Level 2.
Then we introduced FMG and AZUL. The decision is Level 3 because both areas did not relate to our core business. We did not set up a business division to handle these foreign technologies but took the joint venture approach. The core expertise stayed outside of the core team. Our QA system was not able to cover them as they were outside Compucon. Both joint ventures were aborted.
The lessons were expensive and we have learned. When IPVS appeared on the horizon in 2007, we invested in it internally. This brought along the issue of “spreading the butter too thin” and the bread may taste awful. A higher level of decision making abilities was required. We took about 2 years to prepare our team and successfully won and completed our first IPVS project in December 2008.
The above is an attempt to explain the types of situations that require a different level of DMA. You may find the concept applicable to your own business management.
This academic project from Cornell University shows how they are using Kinect to try to figure out what you're doing. How can a computer know if you're taking a drink, brushing your teeth, etc? That's what this research is focusing on. Link to article(Last updated 27 July 2011)
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