Boca Raton

In 2007 my good friend Dave Damery moved to Boca Raton. Five years later I was able to travel to Boca Raton and meet up with him.

The beach life has done Dave well, but he still works too many hours and doesn't take care of himself. A second thrill for me was to stand on the inlet for the seaway that leads into Boca Lake. I have watched this webcam for years and never imagined being able to actually stand on it!

I Visited the Mother Ship

I just returned from my visit to the mother ship: The Thomson Reuters office in Eagan MN.

Home Office

It has been a long journey but the home office is now complete. The follow picture looks at the back corner of the office through the construction

Smart House

We have all heard about the smart house of the future. We will arrive home to a house that says "welcome home!" when we leave the house will remind us to take the garbage out and warn us that it might rain today. It will prepare our coffee, cook our dinner, and automatically notify a host of service professionals to perform maintenance and repairs.

I don't live in a smart house, but sometimes it feels like it. While most people are dropping their traditional land telephone lines and strictly using cell phones, we have taken a different approach. Each of us can be contacted directly via our cell phone number - a number provided only to close contacts. We have given our house a phone number too - the land line. That number is provided to everyone else. Most of those calls go directly to our answering machine.

The house's answer machine provides announcements loud enough to be heard throughout the house. "CVS Pharamacy is calling" followed by "This is CVS Pharmacy calling to tell you your prescription is ready for pick up." A few moments later the house announces "Doan Dodge is calling" followed by "This is Doan Dodge calling to remind you about your car appointment on Monday." Throughout the day the house tells us about doctor appointments, service status, reminders, and more.

I recently visited a Time Warner store and found a display for the Time Warner Security System. There is a door sensor that looks at the time of day to make different pre-recorded announcements. For example, when my son walks through the door after school the system could say "Welcome home Mark. Get started on your homework right away."

I don't live in the house of the future. But as I listen to my house throughout the day I believe the Smart House is within reach!

Kitchen project day 2

The old floor section was cut out and the subfloor replaced. Next? The flooring will be patched.

Our kitchen project

Why is our kitchen wrapped in plastic?

We don't have a storm door on our back door. As a result water has penetrated under the door and entered the house. Unknown to us, the water has gotten under the vinyl floor. Our house is only 9 years old and we estimate this water damage has been happening for most of those 9 years. It has caused not only the underlayment to rot but caused the 5/8" subfloor (guaranteed for 50 years) to rot too!

The home builder is coming to cut away a large portion of the kitchen floor. He will cut it all the way to the rafters below! Then he will surgically replace the subfloor and brace the subfloor from underneath.

Then a flooring company will come to replace underlayment and replace the vinyl flooring using a nearly invisible seam material.

That is why my kitchen is wrapped in plastic - to try to avoid getting all the saw dust on our food and dishes.

I am a Google Maps Star

I was working from home on Friday and decided to go for a run for lunch. On the run I was passed by the Google Maps car! That means that once the picture get updated, you'll be able to see me running down the road. As you go down the road you'll pass by me on the right-hand side of the road. I don't know when the new pictures will get uploaded, so, check back often!



https://maps.google.com/maps?q=508+Hamlin+Parma+Townline+Road,+Hilton,+NY&hl=en&ll=43.302311,-77.825869&spn=0.000004,0.001961&sll=43.323804,-77.822814&sspn=0.02329,0.031371&hnear=508+Clarkson+Parma+Town+Line+Rd,+Hilton,+New+York+14468&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=43.3024,-77.825829&panoid=X_D0T7HQjGAjplxIhJuxrA&cbp=12,191.3,,0,0

Abiquo

Abiquo: More than a cloud veneer 

It appears Abiquo has all the pre-requsit features one would expect from a cloud veneer. It sits infront of a virtual environment and provides self-provisioning cloud features to customers.  As you would expect from such a product, it supports many hypervisors: VMWARE, XEN, XenServer, KVM, Hyper-V, and Virtual Box. It has a service catalog with standard templates, shared/community templates, and customer owned templates. It has resource limits controlling how much any one customer is allowed to consume. It has LDAP integration for authentication. It includes the ability to create private networks and allows customer branding. It seems to have nailed the basics.  But what makes Abiquo stand out?

The ease of implementation provides an interesting argument for Abiquo.  During installation, Abiquo will scan an address range and look for hosts. It will add the hosts it finds to its console. It will then scan the hosts for virtual machines and allow the installer to easily add those virtual machines to the console too. This allows Abiquo to be installed quickly into an existing virtual environment.

Abiquo has detailed resource limits that can implement controls down to the number of CPU’s, amount of memory, number of public IP Addresses, and more.  In addition to providing storage from the virtual environment for cloud consumption, Abiquo can use Netapp API’s to provide Storage As A Service and tiered storage (with different pricing per tier). Abiquo uses rules and algorithms to determine virtual machine placement. And finally, Albiquo comes with built-in V2V so that virtual machines may be moved between competing hypervisors.

In the end, Abiquo is a step ahead of other products in its class (such as Cloudstack and Openstack), and can serve as a low cost replacement for vCloud Director.

Tintri VMStore Flash Based Storage Array

Flash storage, deployed in solid state drives (SSD) can be 400 times faster than disk. However, SSD is expensive. A cottage industry of companies like Tintri are trying different approaches to using SSD in new ways.

Traditional Storage Arrays implement SSD as read/write cache. Traditional Storage Arrays attempts to predict what will be needed based upon current activity and will move items onto SSD to improve performance. Tintri VMStore takes a different approach. They use SSD as primary storage for “hot” data, and then offloads “cold” data to sata. It determines what data is hot based upon performance information gathered at the VM’s disks. Tintri believes that gathering information at this level provides better efficiency than gathering the information at a LUN level because caching often guesses wrong leaving idle data sitting in the cache. Because Tintri looks at VM’s disks, it is easier to identify I/O bottleknecks.
Since Tintri is determining which data is on SSD versus SATA, they argue that administrators no longer need to be concerned about storage tiers. I argue that unless you have enough Tintri storage to meet your needs, you’ll still contend with storage tiers.

Since SSD is expensive it must be used as efficiently as possible. Tintri accomplishes this by first de-duping data, and then compressing it. Wouldn’t this take a performance hit? Remember, SSD can be 400 times faster when compared to traditional disk – the performance hit would be insignificant compared to the faster drive.

SSD use Multi-Level-Cells to hold data. These cells can be overwritten only 5000 to 10000 times before the wear out. If your cache wears out – who cares? Just replace it. But if your primary storage wears out? You have a big problem! Tintri combats this by trying to efficiently use SSD via dedup and compression; and to add error checking and RAID 6 for when the SSD wears out.
Since SSD can be 400 times faster than disk, you can do some creative inefficient things and still be faster. Such as de-dup, compression, and data integrity checking. With error checking and parity, the system will ‘heal itself’ from disk problems on the fly. It also uses a Non-Volatile NVRAM as a write buffer so that if the Tintri mid-stream, the last write can still be constructed: The hypervisor decides to write data; the data goes to the primary NVRAM; the data is copied to secondary NVRAM; then the hypervisor is told the data was written; Tintri confirms the NVRAM data is complete; finally the NVRAM is written to SDD. Again… you would think this might slow things down, but not when you are working 400 times faster than traditional disk.

Another nice item: Trintri does automatic disk alignment for virtual machines.

Much of the Trintri literature compares how much faster SSD is versus disk,  how more efficient their vmware-aware performance monitoring is compared to caching, and how Trintri takes advantage of the faster SSD to add efficiency and redundancy for high availability.

On The Move

I have been at Thomson Reuters for two months and I'm already on the move: getting a new desk! This one is in the shape of a right triangle (I'm standing in one corner of the triangle for this picture) and is larger than my current. It has a window, whiteboard, shelves, etc. The window overlooks the Broadsteet Aquaduct Bridge. They have to move everyone out of my current area because they are turning it into a general purpose war room or something.  Thomson Reuters is great - I actually got to pick this location! To my friends in Eagan: I don't get the perks of working at the Mother Ship, but I do get a triangle cubical. I'm moving-in Thursday morning (tomorrow).

Office/Studio Update

Work on the office/studio has been stalled because I've developed Bronchitis. The doctor says I actually have signs of pneumonia but not enough to make him change his treatment. Until I can get these lungs working better I don't want to sand dry wall.

Tether Baseball

New edition to the fort: Tether Baseball. Mike hits the baseball with a bat, the ball winds itself around the pole, when it unwinds he hits it again. He can practice batting all day long!

Office/Studio Update: Drawing

Scale drawing of the Home Office/Podcast Recording Studio showing the attached server room. There can't be a door to the server room because that would violate ingress/egress (two ways out of every room). The plan is for the wall to block out most of the noise.

Office/Studio: First use

OK, it is a little pathetic, but, this marks the first evening I am working in my new office. I promise: it'll only get better from here!

Office/Studio Update: The Closet

This weekend's work: the 5x4 closet is framed, drywalled, taped, and the first layer of mud is on it. Within is a 19" rack that holds AV and computer gear for the room.

Office/studio update: I hate drywall

I hate to tape and mud drywall!

Office/Studio Update: Built-in shelves ready for paint and prime

Last Supper Reenactment

We did a renactment of the last supper for Maundy Thursday. I broadcasted it live on St Paul TV and I posted the video it at:
http://stpaulhilton.org/videos.php
Check it out! (you should fast forward to 10 minutes into the video)

Lunch Time Walk

When the weather is nice I try to walk during lunch. I walk south down the Genesee River. This picture is a shot looking back at the city.

Office/Studio update: Drywall done

The drywall is hung!

Cloud Partner Security

As a podcast junkie, I have to give the Virtualization Security Round Table #74 a lot of credit for a great topic and good arguments. They brought up an excellent point. Suppose you are working with a cloud provider who claims to be completely secured and has the industry certifications to prove it. And then you put a cloud management engine or interface in front of that provider: perhaps Rightscale, Ylastic, Cloudsmart, or any other tool that requires you to provide your cloud credentials. You might have just negated all that great cloud provider security! You have allowed an 'unknown' to have keys to the front door. If that provider gets hacked, the hacker can own everything in your cloud and could use that as an attack vector into your company. Leason: put third party tool providers under the same scrutiny that you place cloud providers.

The Nano Watch

Have you heard about the Apple Ipod Nano watch? Neither had I until it was mentioned on the vChat Podcast #22 so I decided to check it out. Sure enough, it is an MP3 player with a clock face that you wear like a watch! If you aren't familiar with the Nano, it is like a small iphone without the cell phone capabilities. You can watch video, listen to FM radio, use Nike+ and more. There are dozens of different watch faces you can choose from. The Nano starts at $129 and watch bands are $30-80.

Office/Studio Update

This was a productive weekend. First, I finished framing the heat duct and then hung fire rated drywall around it.

Then I started the mold and moisture resistant drywall on the walls. There are tons of electrical boxes and each one needed to be cut out.

I finished around half of the drywall.

The Micro Server

Everyone knows I am a podcast junkie. I listen to many podcasts and I make many podcasts. In the vChat podcast #22 they talked about creating home computer labs using the HP Proliant MicroServer, so, I thought I would check it out. The microserver costs around $250-350 and can support up to 8GB RAM. It uses the Turion Neo Dual-core processor from AMD, and allows RAID across its SATA drives. HP positions the server for small offices, but the price is ideal if you are an IT professional in need of a home lab.

Cloud Security

I am a podcast junkie. I like listening to and creating podcasts. I listen to many podcasts on many different topics.

The Virtual Security Round Table #74 provides great arguments around cloud security. They argue that cloud providers can claim they have all the industry security certifications in the world, but they won't divulge the details and scope of those certifications. There is no way to tell whether the scope of, say, the PCI certification matches your needs or plugs into your processes. The podcast producers would like to see providers settle on the Cloud Security Alliance certification, which provides transparency and visibility into those certifications.

Imagine that you have deployed company assets into the cloud and then get hacked. You have no way of knowing whether you did something wrong or whether the cloud provider left a vulnerability open. Customers can not see the audit logs. When signing up for service, customers sign-away all responsibility the cloud provider may have. You have been hacked, you have lost data, and you are responsible for that loss even if it isn't your fault and even if you have no way of performing root cause analysis. You might have no way of determining whether the exploit is fixed or if you'll get hacked again tomorrow.

Suppose the cloud provider makes a configuration mistake and allows another client onto your virtually secured private subnet. You would have almost no way of knowing, almost no way of proving the problem, and probably no way to seek damages from the cloud provider.

To make matters worse, you are responsible for securing your cloud deployment, but most cloud providers will not permit you to run a scan (such as a Nessus scan) in the cloud. Therefore, you have limited means by which to determine whether or not the cloud implementation is secure.

This has created a no-win security scenario for customers. Customers can't see the details of cloud certifications. They can't see into logs and configurations that would assure proper security. They can't perform root cause analysis against security problems. They can't perform security scans that make sure their implements are safe. Yet the customer is fully responsible for security.

Office/Studio update: Drywall

$200 in mold resistant and fire resistant drywall: purchased, transported, and moved into the basement.

St. Patrick's Day

To Celebrate St. Patrick's Day: the night before we had Hibachi. It was very warm on Saturday so for the first time ever we ventured into the city to watch the parade. After the parade we had some incredible Chicken Parm at an Italian restaurant. Irish, Japaneese, and Italian all in one weekend.

Erie Canal

Construction of the Erie Canal begain in 1817. It is believed the canal is the most important works of civil engineering in North America. Originally, the canal provided a water way through the wilderness to points west. The canal connected Lake Erie to the Hudson river, thus providing the Great Lakes with a water route to the Atlantic Ocean. It helped turn New York City into a huge port because New York City connects the Hudson River to the Atlantic Ocean. Fright moved on the canal until about 1951 when cheaper alternatives were put to use. In 1990 New York State turned the 524 mile corridor into a recreational area.

I lived on the canal when I owned a house in Albion. I have walked it, driven over it on bridges, explored it, taken dinner cruises on it, and today I work in the Aquaduct Building where the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee River. Most people in this region have no appreciation for the canal and take it as granted - to them it is just a river with narrow bridges. It is hard to believe the canal is nearly 200 years old!

Phone Books

I came home from work and found this sitting at my front door. Do people still use these?

Office/studio update: High Voltage

The office's closet is now framed. All of the high voltage cable is ran. Next? Install 16 outlets.

Office/Studio Update: Low Voltage

1300 feet of low voltage cable ran to 20 electric boxes - done!

Lunch Time View

This is a view from the cafeteria windows at work. The park located in the bottom left of the picture is owned by Thomson Reuters.

School Board

Last night Mike, my youngest, gave a presentation to the school board on Hilton's reading program.

Office/Studio: Covering the ducts

Running through the center of the room are two heating ducts: one hot and one return duct. My plan is to construct a ladder on each side of the ducts and cover with fire rated dry wall. My concern is that it spans 3.5 feet. Will the 4 foot wide dry wall sag in the middle?

Office/Studio Update: Boxes Hung

All the electrical boxes are installed. Second door is hung. cable paths through the studs are drilled. Now it is time to run some cable!

Office/Studio update: Walls are frames

I finished framing the home office/podcast recording studio's walls and hung one of the two doors. Next comes the high and low voltage electrical boxes. Since this is also a recording studio there are 40 boxes to be installed!

Past Construction Projects

The home office/recording studio construction project isn't my first construction project. I try to do something every year.

2003 - My house was built. I worked with the architect, the general contractor, and ran the low voltage cabling. The house is in a "L" shape with a colonial-style front and a ranch-style side.

2003 - Built a 250sqft server room in the basement of the house.

2004 - Built a swing set for the kids in the back yard built from a kit.

2004 - Put a marble rock garden in the front of the house and along the garage. Doubled the width of the driveway.

2005 - Built a 300sqft toy room in the basement

2005 - Built a raise flower bed that wraps around the front porch

2006 - Installed a water fountain in the rock garden

2007 - Built a home gym in the basement

2008 - Attached a fort to the swing set. The fort was not a kit.

2009 - Installed a ceiling into the home gym

2010 - Re-graded the entire yard to get proper rain water run off.

2010 - Built a deck on the back of the house.

2010 - Built a stone patio around the deck.
2011 - Built a flower bed for the patio and re-did the living room.

2012 - Building the Home Office/Podcast Recording Studio.

Goodbye Switch

This was a center piece of my home server room for 8 years but I don't have room for it anymore so it must go! You are looking at a switch with 16 100mbps ports, 12 10mbps ports, and 9 100mbps fiber ports. Once upon a time this was state of the art!

Office/Studio Update: Back up sump pump

My sump pump runs every five minutes for 6 months out of the year. If that pump ever died it wouldn't take long for the basement to fill with water. Today I had a plumber install a $650 backup water powered sump pump. If the power goes out or my sump dies, the backup will use municiple water as means to pump water out of my basement.

In addition to a plumber I arranged for the cable company to come out and redo the house cable terminations and distrubtion that goes through the construction area.

Office/Studio Update: First wall

The first 8' section of wall is framed. Got three more sections to do and then hang a door.

Happy Birthday to Me!

When I turned 30 the entire day passed without anyone saying Happy Birthday. After that I decided that it wasn't up to other people to make a birthday special, it was up to me. Ever since that day I take off on my birthday and do things I enjoy. Saturday was my birthday and I filled it with the things I like to do: gym, hardware store, cleaned up my car, coffee shop, a great lunch, and a couple of movies. I finished the day, as always, with a great dinner with the family.

Olive Garden for Birthdays

The family went to Olive Garden to celebrate the February birthdays (both my daughter and I). Since when did burnt chicken parm, uncooked spaghetti, empty drink glasses, dirty dishes, and the never full bread sticks cost $110 for 5 people? Olive Garden says they aren't doing very well anymore. I can see why!

Office/Studio Update: Floor is done

The office/studio's moisture barrier and subfloor are done. Now I need some walls!

Office/Studio Update: Floor is framed

The office/recording floor is finally framed! Next comes the moisture barrier and then the subfloor.

View from my window

Great first day at Thomson Reuters. I share a 20x60 office area with 6 other people who each work in the office 1 day per week. This is the view out my window. That is the Genesee river and the old Erie Canal aqueduct/broad street bridge.

Office/Studio Update: Getting started

When I built my house I ended up with an 1800sqft basement. In it I put a 250sqft server room to support my business (Computer Network Builders) and my hobbies (Computer Network Builders). My electric bill was through the roof! After several years, I virtualized the server room to cut down on the electric bills. Then last year I moved almost everything to the cloud. I no longer need a 250sqft server room in my basement. I have cut the server room down to 160sqft to accommodate the larger office/recording studio.

Working on the office/podcast recording studio today. I have no one to help me with this project. Every step is a one man show!