Time to Amp up our Streams

We are pretty busy over here right now and the time has come to up our bandwidth again.  I was just about to pull the trigger and bring another 100mbps server online at theplanet.com, when I decided to call them.

We have consistently been burning the 100Mbps on our 1 server and then we have been also been burning a bunch on the church network.

After my call with them today I found out that they can upgrade the 100mbps port to a 1gbps port, and it only cost $35 / month more than we are using now.

Right now they are re-provisioning my server into what they call a "Virtual Rack" that will provide us with a 1gbps server on the Internet.  This keeps my web streaming solution really simple, while still allowing us to grow.

I still have to deal the 2500GB of transfer / month, but I can always up that later!  If you are streaming and need more bandwidth, I don't mind sharing that we are doing all this at theplanet.com for < $250 / month.  It's a full server, full access, and awesome technical support!

Taking Overland SAN for a Test Drive

We received an Overland Ultimas 1200 about a week ago that our vendor is loaning us so we can take it for a test drive.  This 9TB beauty is pretty quick.

Initial Impressions:

• It was very quick and easy to setup.
• Has a "fully" redundant setup, dual power supplies, controllers, etc.
• It is easily expandible via SAS interconnect to additional chassis.
• Is Fiber Channel - some of you might not like that, I'm still on the fence.
• Supports all the normal SAN stuff (Online Expansion, Snapshots, etc)

Having worked with some higher end Fiber Channel SANS in the past, this one is quite easy to setup.  Disk groups and LUN configuration can be done very easily through the integrated web interface.

We have successfully connected 2 different LUNS to our VMWARE ESX server.  Since we currently are only running 1 ESX box I can't fully test VMOTION or the other high end capabilities, but the docs say that it is all there.

I will share more thoughts later.  Right now I am really pouring over the data... ISCSI or Fiber Channel???  I know many of you are die hard ISCSI people, but I have used both, and I loved the raw speed that is there in FC... I know I probably don't need it, and with 10Gb Ethernet on the horizon who knows.

 

Oh well more to come on the SAN Saga.

TS Fay Floods My World

  Well...  I am totally flooded in my house right now.  We have been flooded in since last night.  We still have power, but internet went down earlier today, as did cable.  I am writing this through my cell phone.

Here are some photos of my house and the neighborhood.  The blessing is that we have had no damage to our home yet.  We can't drive anywhere.  The road is about 18 inches deep in water.  Some parts of our neighborhood are knee high and higher water.

Here is the street and yes that is the sidewalk completely under water.

The great news is that my server room is up and running and there is no water damage at the church. 

Home From Nicaragua

I just got home this past wednesday from a 7 day mission trip to Nicaragua.  It was a blast.  The mission team did well, the weather was good, and you could just see the hand of God over all we did.  Our team was able to do a bunch of classic mission trip activities, and I was able to re-work a bunch of the wireless network while I was there.

 

Good to be home.