Varrow Blog

A blog about Virtualization, Storage, Disaster Recovery and Technology in general.

Author Archives: Brian Boyd

EMC VNX Fast Cache and Application Performance ; It’s not all Pancakes and Banana Sandwiches.

The issue we face as storage professionals is always going to be the age old question. “What I/O demand or pattern exists in your application?” This is a question that should always be asked. Sometimes application owners just don’t know … Continue reading
Posted in EMC, VNX | Comments closed

Varrow Madness Flashmob Video!

Shout out to Dance District for releasing this video from Varrow Madness a couple weeks back. We had a blast! Tweet
Posted in Conferences, varrow | Comments closed

VMAX, vSphere 5.x and Zombie Space Reclamation!

We have quite the group of customers that are currently using vSphere 5.x, VMAX and Fast VP. In previous versions of ESXi we saw some weirdness when it came to dead space reclamation, movement of data and general misbehaving in … Continue reading
Posted in Greater Good, vmax, VMware, vsphere | Comments closed

Madness, VMAX’s and a year’s gone by. Oh My.

It has been a year since the last time I posted about Varrow Madness back in 2011.  Since then quite a lot has changed in the form of my personal growth as an Engineer, growth of Varrow and all around … Continue reading
Posted in Conferences, isilon, vmax, VMware, VNX | Comments closed

Isilon, what is it?

Now that I am a recent Isilon Certified Storage Professional I am frequently asked: “So what is it?”, “Is it easy?”, “What does it do?”, “Is it right for me?” So what is it? Isilon is a cluster-based storage array … Continue reading
Posted in bigdata, HPC, isilon, reed solomon | Comments closed

Visual Lessons of Teamwork

903.  A number.  A number of wins.  A feat accomplished by a person who has a broad impact across so many people and lives. A family.  A basketball family.  Last week Mike Krzyzewski accomplished something in Men’s NCAA basketball.  He passed his … Continue reading
Posted in Greater Good | Comments closed

vSphere 5 Home Lab: Part 2 – Newegg Ordering Goodness (Node 1 – Mulder)

I love Newegg for decent prices….  After much debate I decided to go ahead and get started on Node 1 in which I will name “Mulder”.  ”Scully” is going to have to wait a couple weeks until after my Thanksgiving … Continue reading
Posted in configurations, VMware, vsphere | Comments closed

vSphere 5 Home Lab: Part 1 : Storage and Blue Lights!

Inspiration! It what brings us together to achieve great things. Home Labs! Great way to use resources and gain lab time on products while working on my own schedule! At Varrow yesterday we were given the inspiration and support to … Continue reading
Posted in configurations, vsphere | Comments closed

Veteran’s Day, 2011

As a US Army Vet myself, I sometimes look back and think of my time serving this great country.  I came across this video a few years back.  It is one of my favorites.  Please take 5 minutes to watch. … Continue reading
Posted in Greater Good | Comments closed

VMAX Hump Day – A discussion on SMC and GUI Design

Happy VMAX Hump Day!  I actually typed this last night, but I like the idea of publishing things on Wednesday to get you over the hump. Should I make this a series? I’ve noticed the lack of VMAX blogging out … Continue reading
Posted in Clariion, ease of use, gui, SMC, Unisphere, vmax, VMAX Hump Day, VNX | Comments closed

What do 80′s Rock Bands have to do with Competition?

In the IT service industry or specifically in the IT storage arena it is very clear to some what their biggest competitors are or are not.  If DL(Def Leppard) Inc. gets word that VHS(Van Halen Storage) inc. now supports RAID … Continue reading
Posted in competition, EMC, Greater Good, hitachi, hp, ibm, netapp, oracle, tribal leadership | Comments closed

Cache Flushing Toilet Flushing

Cache Flushing Toilet Flushing – An introduction to what controller cache does, in a way everyone can understand. The other day I wanted to explain to some people what forced cache flushing was and why it was a bad thing.  … Continue reading
Posted in cache, cache flushing, Clariion, dirty pages, random, toilet | Comments closed

What does the Antarctic have in common with a new job?

While I don’t claim to be an Arctic explorer, I do think that I am on the verge of something special, something in the era of Storage, Virtualization and Cloud Computing age that has not been found yet by many … Continue reading
Posted in antarctic, Events, history, job, Newsletter, varrow | Comments closed

When it comes to power, why are we stuck in the stone age?

I came across this awesome video that discusses energy production, how much energy we use and why it is important to invest in technologies that can power the world 30+ years from now. In short, there is a professor at … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Varrow Madness Pics (the gallery)

Here is the slideshow of all images taken (so you don’t have to bounce to flickr).  For you nerds out there, I used the Flickr API and a sweet WordPress plugin “slickr-flickr” for this.   Tweet
Posted in Conferences | Comments closed
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