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December 2008 |
In the August CPD seminar, we discussed 2 candidates for Thunderbird Plus. One is based on nVidia nForce 750a chipset and one is based on nVidia GeForce 8200 chipset. We chose the first one for Thunderbird Plus for one simple factor- it has more PCI/e slots and thus provides more expansion options. The 2nd candidate is a close second and it is not lost. It will become the new Thunderbird in about a week or two replacing the incumbent model based on GeForce 7050PV.
GF8200 has higher graphics capabilities than 7050PV and this change will further consolidate the position of Thunderbird as a mainstream graphics station. It supports HDMI/HDCP, DirectX 10, Blu-ray/HD DVD playback, and hybrid SLI. Hybrid SLI means that the integrated VGA can join forces with a PCI-e VGA card for a stronger display under Windows Vista. It has GbE, 1394 port and Host SATA RAID. It has 1/1/2 PCI e16/e1/3.3 slots if you understand what the symbols are.
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December 2008 |
Intel has announced the release of a new family of chipsets for desktops for an October timeframe and servers for January. This new family is called Tylersburg. It has QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) in lieu of Front Side Bus (FSB) for connecting with the CPU, and the CPU corresponding to this new family has integrated memory controllers and talks directly with the memory modules as AMD processors have been doing for 5 years. Tylersburg is a big catch up and it will eventually arrive.
Our high end desktop was based on P35 chipset since May 2007 and it was a very stable and high performance platform. We intended to stay with P35 and move straight to Tylersburg (skipping P45) when Tylersburg arrives. Unfortunately, the supply of P35 motherboard suddenly dried up in the supply chain and Tylersburg is unlikely to appear within 4 weeks. This is a shock to our plan and we have to take up P45 to fill the gap.
P45 is newer than P35 but it offers nothing immediately more useful than P35. The consolation is that P45 is not more expensive and yet provides no less performance than P35. We can use it as if it is P35 for platform continuity although it is not P35 in terms of platform consistency. The new Superhawk Plus does not have wireless connectivity on board for its lower price. Otherwise it is all good flying.
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December 2008 |
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3:30pm – 4:30pm Global Industry Review (TN)
4:30pm – 5:30pm Compucon Roadmaps (TN)
5:30pm – 6:00pm Muffin Break
6:00pm – 7:00pm Peer Forum over Wine (Hamish)
Global Industry Review
As the year is coming to a close shortly, it is timely that we address the probable technology and market landscapes in 2009 as a preparation for business planning. Gartner (a market research company) publishes top 10 strategic technologies every year. Their list for 2009 consists of 6 repeaters and 4 new entrances. New guys are Cloud Computing, Business Intelligence, Blade & virtualization Eco-system and Heterogeneous System. Old guys are Green IT, Unified Communication, Mash Up, Web Platform, Mobile Web, and Social Software. We will address each of them with newly researched materials and assess how they will influence our markets. In terms of market landscape, it would be bad news for most industry players globally but some players will take advantage of the economic downturn to become stronger. Also, there are strong pockets of the market and we will identify them. We will make references to New Zealand situations.
Presentation: 2008-1210 IT Industry Review C.pdf (2.7MB)
Compucon Roadmaps
An issue that is not detected by the radar at Gartner or IDC is the phenomenon of ICT Cross Over. It is because those research companies are involved in the IT industry and not engineering. We first mentioned this observation in June based on our involvements in a Sydney Rail project. Recently we obtained some figures on Digital TV which show that crossing over is happening faster in some areas. We have certainly acquired industrial knowhow on IP Video Surveillance over the period and we will report on how we handled one such project for an apartment building in Auckland. System platform building is still our bread and butter. We have kept up with the play in most areas and maintained a strong reputation among a loyal clientele as supported by a strong peer group. Intel is the leader but not necessarily the best platform and we will explain why. Besides the effort for mastery of technologies, we have expended substantial effort on marketing over the last few months and we will share our experience with you. The outlook for 2009 can be summarised as cautiously positive.
Presentation: 2008-1210 TB Compucon Roadmaps.pdf (2.6MB)
Peer Forum
The Compucon Peer Group has become a source of competitive advantage if members care to take note of this situation. The Group met 11 times a year and each meeting covered a lot of technology development and deployment matters that underline the confidence of the day to day practice of most peer members. Most peers have commented that the forums are unique in the local PC industry for the quality and depth of content as well as the helpful attitude of members. The consensus is that we are on the right track. On this particular occasion, peer members will be invited to express their views on how members can do even better. The scope does not need to be in the confine of CPD (continuous professional development). We can discuss business management issues, marketing, and operational issues. Feel free to email
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of your views.
END
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December 2008 |
Your Adaptec Storage Manager service representative might ask you to send a support archive file to help analyse or diagnose any problem(s) with your system.
To create the archive file:
- Open ASM (Adaptec Storage Manager and log in with the Windows 'Administrator' account
- In the Enterprise View on the left hand side of the screen, click the local (or remote system) that you want to manage.
- In the menu bar select Actions and then click on 'Save support archive'. Choose your preferred location and file name.
The following files are included:
Controller 1 Config.txt (this is the configuration logfile of controller 1)
Controller 1 Logs.txt
Controller 1.xml
RaidAgnt.pps
RaidDP.log
RaidErrA.log
RaidEvt.log
RaidEvtA.log (this is the error message logfile)
RaidErr.log
To create the archive file with maxView Storage Manager:
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Underneath Enterprise view, select the host machine, for example localhost.yourdomain.com
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Under 'System' click on the save archive icon. Then select 'Save' and save the file to your harddrive.
In case that there is no operating system installed yet and the Storage
Manager application cannot be started, there is another way to create
the Support archive. For this, the local system needs to be started from the bootable RAID Installation CD that is included with the kit.
After the system booted successfully from the RAID Installation CD, there is a menu showing up:
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From the menu choose "Launch configuration utility to build and manage hardware". This will start the Storage Manager on CD.
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On the left hand of the screen, right click on "Localhost" and choose "Save support archive".
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You will then be asked to insert a diskette or a flashdrive into a USB port to save the Support.zip file.
To generate and capture controller log files using ARCCONF
To generate and capture the logs using ARCCONF versions prior to
v6.50.18570 you will run the "getlogs" command. To generate and capture
the logs in ARCCONF using version 6.50.18570 or later you will run the
"savesupportarchive" command.
1. ARCCONF GETLOGS
You can retrieve four types of logs:
- DEVICE - a log of any device errors the controller have encountered.
- DEAD - a log that records any occurrences of defunct devices.
- EVENT - a log of special events that may have occurred (e.g., rebuilds, LDMs, etc.).
- UART - most "recent" 2MB worth of the UART traces
Syntax:
ARCCONF GETLOGS <Controller#> <Type> [clear]
Parameters:
- Controller#
Is the controller number
- Type
Is one of the following types of log to retrieve:
DEVICE
DEAD
EVENT
UART
Example:
ARCCONF GETLOGS 1 DEVICE
If you put a greater-than sign (>) and a filename after any command,
the output of the command will be sent to that file. For instance, to
capture the output of the getlogs commands you can enter:
ARCCONF GETLOGS 1 UART > uart.log
2. ARCCONF SAVESUPPORTARCHIVE
Saved information includes (but is not limited to) device logs, drive
logs, event logs, error logs, controller logs, and SSD SMART statistics.
The SAVESUPPORTARCHIVE command is available with ARCCONF v6.50.18570
and later. To generate and capture the logs in ARCCONF versions prior to
v6.50.18570 you will run the "getlogs" command described above.
Syntax:
ARCCONF SAVESUPPORTARCHIVE
Parameters:
None
The log files are saved in the Support
folder in the standard logs directory for your operating system
(/var/log for Linux, the Adaptec Storage Manager install directory on
Windows, and so on).
Note: Unlike the Save Support Archive feature in Adaptec Storage Manager, this command does not create a zip ("archive") file. It simply saves the support files and logs in the Support folder.
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December 2008 |
Online Capacity Expansion allows to increase the storage capacity of RAID 0, 5, or 6 arrays by adding one or more drives to the array while your system remains online. As additional drives are added, the controller redistributes the data on the array, placing new space available at the end of the RAID array. Online Capacity Expansion lets you add the new drives to the array while the system is active and users are logged in and accessing data.
Requirements:
- Additional drives can be added to a RAID 0, 5, or 6 array only. Other RAID levels cannot be expanded. RAID 5 and/or RAID 6 may not be available on all the RAID Controllers listed.
- Under Windows all the partitions contained by the array must be NTFS (no FAT partitions).
- Drives being added to the array need to be the exact size or larger than the drives that are currently part of the array.
- The array must have Optimal status before beginning the expansion.
The expansion process will not make any changes to the current partitions and file system. It is needed to use operating system specific utilities to expand the current partition or create another partition / volume in the empty space that will become available by expanding the array.
Note: There will be a significant impact on system performance during array expansion.
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