hp

Living with a Chromebook

Aaron Dumbrow, , , , , Leave a comment

A few months ago I wrote about my HP Chromebook and some of it’s advantages and limitations.  It has been a bit and I have been doing more with it, and I thought it would be interesting to share my experiences.

So previously I was using Crouton to enable a full linux desktop, using LXDE as my preferred environment.  I have since changed to using gnome, I really like the minimalist interface it provides me.  For the most part though I was using the Chromebook for web browsing, quick lookups, watching netflix or hulu while I was working, or other basic things.  I would occasionally use the Linux desktop if I wanted to setup an eclipse environment to test something, but for the most part it was disposable.

A couple weeks ago, my work laptop bit the dust.  In it’s defense, I am not very easy on my equipment, I drive it to it’s max and expect it to perform, so it may have been me pushing it a little too hard, but come on this is what I do.  I was pretty ticked, but luckily it was a few days before I went on PTO, and I still had my iPad and Chromebook.  That got me thinking though, mostly because it took Corporate IT 1-2 business days to get me a replacement.  Now I know that is pretty good since I am a remote employee, and it had to come across the country, but in my world that is an eternity.  I mean overnight shipping is too slow, I want a stinkin replicator so I don’t have to wait.

I did a little digging, trying to find a way to make my life a little less dependent on windows, and to avoid buying yet another personal computer, which would not have gone well with my wife.  I found this article, http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/smb-technologist/connect-the-thunderbird-email-client-to-your-exchange-server/, which led me to install thunderbird and run my e-mail through that for about an hour, which was not a positive experience.  I just didn’t like the interface, and the lack of proper calendaring support was not good.  Then I realized that the same concept would hold true for evolution.  I did have to dig through some ubuntu posts to find out that ews has to be installed separately, but it worked like a charm.  Much better.

I have since removed xterm in favor of gnome terminal, added the Chrome web browser, and a couple other tweeks, but for the most part it is great.  I still switch back to the Chrome Desktop for basic browsing, it is just faster and easier, but that is a simple keystroke, no reboot.

All in all, I am pretty happy with this setup.  I love the new gnome interface and how clean it is.  I love that the system is faster than my windows PC, and I am very happy with the apps I have so far.  If I need windows Apps I just remote into my issued windows 8 laptop, but I am doing more and more work from my Chromebook.  Kudos to the HP and Google teams for the efforts they put into this, I am becoming more and more enamored with the simplicity of this setup, and with the ability to change as needed.  Let’s see where I am on this in a few more months.

 

 

Living with a Chromebook

The future of storage

Aaron Dumbrow, , Leave a comment

So in a previous post, VMware Fundamentals Part 3 I talked about VMware and storage, and made a case for a mixed protocol storage environment. While I stand behind what I said, I always think it is interesting to take a deeper look at the industry. Calvin Zito, the HP storage guy, made some very good points in his post, Block of File Based Storage for VMware which got me thinking a bit more. That coupled with the recent product releases from HP have inspired me to talk a little more about this topic.

Calvin points out some compelling points about how block gets the most attention on the development cycle from VMware, and at this point, with the software initiators, and the ease of use, it often makes more sense to simply use a block based protocol.

That being said, in many virtual environments, we often find that the traditional storage array doesn’t fit the bill. We are running a number of host servers, with internal storage that is going to waste. So how do we take advantage of this lost capacity, and how can we lower our costs while adding additional value?

A tough concept for many of us who came up through the ranks of storage administration to swallow is that storage is not king any more. It is certainly important, but gone are the days when I can walk into a company as a storage admin and name my price. Now certainly as a Storage Architect I can demand more, but even so, I am required to know more than just storage. The really tough part though is storage is no longer defined as a monolithic array. We have to start embracing the concept that storage, like everything else must be defined as software. This becomes more and more important when we look at the move toward ITaaS. Nicholas Carr drives this point home in his book, The Big Switch.

So the short answer to the question, what is the future of storage, much like compute, networking, and the rest of what we do, the future of storage is software. Whether it is open source or supported by a company such as HP, this is where we are headed.

The future of storage