dropbox.com
I wanted to bring up Dropbox.com to your attention. I wanted to share what I thought was a fantastic company that’s basically taken the concept of JungleDisk and moved it one step further. How? Instead of really cheap (Jungledisk), dropbox is free for the first 2 gigs. This, combined with the below usability features, results in rapid growth in user adoption. As of January, the company has over 4 million users. That’s over 8 Petabytes of potential disk space usage if every user was a free 2GB plan.
All of the public infrastructure is hosted at AWS, and can thus scale with the userbase. As Amazon charges anywhere from $0.055 to $0.150 per GB (pricing structure), each free user consumes from $0.11 to $0.30 per month. Even with 6.25% utilization of 8 Petabytes, Dropbox.com pays the $0.105 per GB rate, Given their next paid upgrade is for 50 GB and costs $9.99/month, one paid customer can support the storage fees for up to ($9.99 − 50 clients × $0.105) ÷ $0.21 = 22 clients covered in the cost of a single paid user, at full utilization of each user. However, most users won’t be using their full utilization (think Google mail), and their business model becomes more lucrative.
Starting with dropbox is simple. Download the client, register your account, and a folder is created where you can drag and drop your data. All data in this folder is replicated to dropbox servers, and to all dropbox client nodes that you link to your account.
The application ships with an intuitive user interface (no S3 accounts to configure, as this is done for you), and a rich feature set that includes automatic versioning, automatic syncing, cross-platform compatibility, intuitive web publishing, and a simple pricing model.
The one feature that really stood out however, was how they garner feedback for this actively developed product. Users can navigate to https://www.dropbox.com/votebox, where they can submit suggestions that get voted on and commented upon. This popularity contest likely helps the company focus on what projects need developing next.
All in all, this is an exciting company to be a customer of, and I would recommend y’all take a look at it too, as this appears to be what proper execution of a good idea looks like.
Kudos dropbox.com on a product well done.
Setting up Hyper-V with NAT
This post was originally posted by me at http://forums.serverbeach.com/showthread.php?t=6411.
I’ve edited out the ServerBeach specific stuff and will post pictures…. soonish.
The following link has some great pictures not included here. http://sqlblog.com/blogs/john_paul_c…h-hyper-v.aspx
I’ll add some nice little pictures here once I get some screenshots together.
CONFIGURE HYPERV
1. Configure an “Internal” HyperV network
2. Set each Virtual Machine to use the Internal network and assign them and your HyperV host on the correct subnet (in this example 10.0.0.1 for the host and 10.0.0.10 for the VM).
ENABLE ROUTING AND REMOTE ACCESS ON THE HOST MACHINE
1. Click -> Start -> Administrative Tools -> Routing and Remote Access
2. Right Click on Server#### (local) -> Configure & Enable Routing & Remote Access
3. Click -> Next on Welcome Window
4. Select Custom Configuration Click -> Next
5. Select NAT Click -> Next
6. Select your public interface
7. Select your Internal HyperV interface
8. Select “I will set up name and address services later” Click -> Next
9. Click -> Finish
CONFIGURE ROUTING AND REMOTE ACCESS ON THE HOST MACHINE
1. Routing and Remote Access should be running on the server now
2. Expand out the Server
3. Expand out IP Routing
4. Select NAT/Basic Firewall
5. Right-click your public interface. Select properties
7. Network Address Translation Properties Window will open
8. Select Radio Button for “Public Interface Connected to the Internet”
9. Select the check box for both “Enable NAT on this interface”
10. Click on the Address Pool Tab
11. Click the Add button and add your secondary IP addresses. The “Start Address” and “End Address” will be the same in most cases.
*NOTE* You do not want the secondary IP address configured in the TCP/IP Properties of the Host machine.
12. Click the Reservations button and enter your static IP mappings. That is, specify that you want traffic on your secondary IP mapped to your VM’s internal IP.
13. In services.msc, make sure that RRAS is set to start automatically and Windows ICS is disabled.
NOTES #1
When configuring and experimenting with the RRAS firewall, create a batch file to stop the service in case you forget to allow RDC or otherwise render the system inaccessible.
Code:
net stop “remoteaccess”
Then add the batch file to the scheduler and have it run some time after you apply your changes.
NOTE #2
RRAS is really finicky about the interfaces installed on the server. If an interface is changed in any significant way, it’ll have to be disabled and reconfigured.
Hyper-V is also similarly finicky about its virtual networks. I can’t count the number of times I had to remove and recreate networks. Thankfully, this was rather painless with only one VM to propagate changes to.
If you should encounter any difficulties with adding your additional VMs to the server, try resetting HyperV networking, individual VM network binding (in the VM’s settings), confirming physical host interfaces, and then reconfiguring RRAS in this order.
NOTE #3
Those who have had HyperV configuration problems solved it by disabling TCP/Offload Engine. Symptoms include, RRAS just not working, or working sporadically. If in doubt, disable TCP/Offload Engine
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/…8-d22aca6154ee
http://support.microsoft.com/default…b;EN-US;904946
So if this applies to you, run on the host and on any 2008 VMs:
$ netsh int ip set global taskoffload=disabled
and add the following registry key to any 2003 VMs:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters\DisableTaskOffload
This is a DWORD entry that should have a value of 1.
Data Fail: Sidekick Phones
The Microsoft data store where T-Mobile Sidekick phones save their user data, such as contact info and pictures, has been reported to have been lost beyond repair.
On October 3, T-Mobile Chief Operations Officer, Jim Alling wrote the following post on the T-Mobile forum site:
Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:
I realize that for many of you, your T-Mobile Sidekick is how you stay in touch with your friends, family and others. I sincerely apologize for the impact the current disruption of data services may be having on you. I assure you that T-Mobile is working very closely with Danger/Microsoft to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. T-Mobile-supported services, such as voice calls and SMS/MMS, have not been affected and continue to be operational. Danger/Microsoft has been working, and will continue working through the week, to restore data functionality and other features.
I understand that this data service disruption is very frustrating to our valued Sidekick customers. For many years, the Sidekick has been, and continues to be, a cornerstone device for T-Mobile. And we believe Sidekick customers are among the most loyal customers anywhere. Recognizing that, and to address any inconvenience Sidekick data customers are experiencing, T-Mobile will automatically credit one month of data service to customers who subscribe to T-Mobile Sidekick data plans. There is nothing you need to do to get this credit – T-Mobile will post the credit to these accounts in the coming days.
We will continue to post the latest information and FAQs to these Forums. I appreciate you being a loyal T-Mobile customer, and appreciate your patience as everyone works hard to resolve the current issues. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Jim Alling, Chief Operations Officer, T-Mobile USA
Then, after a torrent of discussion on the forum site, the following update was provided earlier today:
Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:
We are thankful for your continued patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on preserving platform stability and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers. We have made significant progress this past weekend, restoring services to virtually every customer. Microsoft/Danger has teams of experts in place who are working around-the-clock to ensure this stability is maintained.
Regarding those of you who have lost personal content, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger continue to do all we can to recover and return any lost information. Recent efforts indicate the prospects of recovering some lost content may now be possible. We will continue to keep you updated on this front; we know how important this is to you.
In the event certain customers have experienced a significant and permanent loss of personal content, T-Mobile will be sending these customers a $100 customer appreciation card. This will be in addition to the free month of data service that already went to Sidekick data customers. This card can be used towards T-Mobile products and services, or a customer’s T-Mobile bill. For those who fall into this category, details will be sent out in the next 14 days – there is no action needed on the part of these customers. We however remain hopeful that for the majority of our customers, personal content can be recovered.
===
Dan
Moderator, T-Mobile Forums
At this time, neither Microsoft nor T-Mobile have confirmed conjecture that a SAN update caused the failure:
So yeah..
I would like to know what discounts are T-mobile going to give on a new Phone. I am probably going to move to the Moto Cliq, But I and other sidekick users should get a full phone discount not just a % of it.. (Microsoft should pay for it)
hmm Roz Ho haven’t you her of BACKUP…?
Quoting Hiptop3
“Currently the rumor with the most weight is as follows:
Microsoft was upgrading their SAN (Storage Area Network aka the thing that stores all your data) and had hired Hitachi to come in and do it for them. Typically in an upgrade like this, you are expected to make backups of your SAN before the upgrade happens. Microsoft failed to make these backups for some reason. We’re not sure if it was because of the amount of data that would be required, if they didn’t have time to do it, or if they simply forgot. Regardless of why, Microsoft should know better. So Hitachi worked on upgrading the SAN and something went wrong, resulting in it’s destruction. Currently the plan is to try to get the devices that still have personal data on them to sync back to the servers and at least keep the data that users have on their device saved. “
WOW.
Microsoft Do you understand that you are making yourself and T-mobile loose MONEY????
Also with me being a Sidekick owner I feel betrayed by Microsoft not T-mobile.
This outage I was all fine about at first but now it is just to much. We sidekick owners rely on Danger witch is now owned by Micro to keep are data stored on a secure server and that is why us users never backed up are data. I mean the sidekick does not even have a mass contact save Option. The user has to save them one by one. If I do stay with the sidekick I would like to see Options to save all on SD becuase a SIM can only hold around 250..
I have lost business and meetings from this outage and I am not happy.
So to everyone
It is not T-mobiles Fault so do not blame them. There customer service has been AWESOME
Also Danger and Microsoft do not comunicate with T-mobile as much that is why there is not much info.
“I wonder if we call Microsoft and bug them will they give us any info, they will probably say u have to call t-mobile. Well T-mobile is not the one who messed up,.they do not UPDATE THE SAN…..”
After a week of attempting to salvage the data, it would appear as though Microsoft was unsuccessful in doing so. If the SAN speculation is correct, then it was simply a failure of the data’s underlying SAN. The question is, why should a failing SAN bring with it the data of an entire customer base? I severely doubt that this would have occurred had this been a normal hardware breakdown. Well-designed storage solutions are built with the precondition of being able to survive a head failure, network failure, any sort of failure, really, without losing data. One would thus speculate that gross human error was at fault, and frankly, that means that management was not doing their job. Not enough layers of redundancy were built into this system, and not enough protective layers were written into policy to prevent this human error, or whatever it was, from cascading into a data-lost scenario. Data management is a big responsibility, and not enough resources go into its upkeep in many firms. It would thus appear that Microsoft appears to be one of the latter.
If you don’t have to host your own email server, why do it? In fact, if any web facing application on your site can be hosted by dedicated specialists with no real appreciable loss to availability, confidentiality, integrity, or other factor, don’t fall victim of the do-it-just-because-you-can mentality. The chief services I advise folks to outsource are e-mail (IMAP/POP/SMTP), and DNS. These critical services are often in better hands with the likes of Google Apps, with your registrar, or OpenDNS (not necessarily an endorsement as these names are just on the top of my head). These folks can dedicate a lot more fault-tolerant capacity than most, taking charge of security and systems management. On top of that, they sell it mostly likely because they’re good at it (there are no doubt exceptions, but not with the above two links). With configuration and maintenance out of your scope of responsibility, you don’t have to spend countless hours tracing emails or checking DNS proliferation. Get a quote and do an analysis. If the amount of time you save by outsourcing some services is worth the price you pay to do so, then it’s a no-brainer, really.
Note: Speaking of checking all that stuff: some neat online tools: MX Toolbox, DNSStuff, and IPTools are some handy websites in regards to mail or DNS.
Seagate HDD FAIL
Ran across these tidbits while scrubbing the Interweb. It’s a bit dated, but these drives are out there…
Not all of them are affected, and mostly the high capacity drives, but a couple of Seagate HDD’s have some sort of firmware bug. If you have any of thebelow models, you might want to update them.
##From http://fora.demonoid.com/index.php?topic=45223.0: ##########
To see the list of models touched by this bug:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/news.jsp?DocId=207931
To check your hard disk to determine its model, serial number, and
firmware version download Seagate’s Drive Detector (DriveDetect.exe)
from this web page:
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/news.jsp?DocId=207931
or use SeaTools for Windows that also can be downloaded from the Seagate
site, if you don’t have the Seagate CD.
The Seagate bug: hard disks with the bug will no longer be in working
order (bricked) when the hard drive has been powered “on” 320 times.
Patches will only work on Seagate hard drives that have not yet attained
the 320 “start” limit. Bricked Seagate hard drives by this bug will
require you to ask for an exchange.
Patches are specific to the models and associated firmware version. Do
not make an error in applying a patch that does not correspond to your
model and firmware version or the result will kill your Seagate hard
disk.
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From http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=8968 ###################################################################
-See here for a general rundown of current firmware issues
-Firmware Update for ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS, ST3640330AS,
ST3640530AS, ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS, ST31000340AS
-Firmware Update for ST31500341AS, ST31000333AS, ST3640323AS,
ST3640623AS, ST3320613AS, ST3320813AS, ST3160813AS
-Firmware Update for STM3500320AS, STM3750330AS, STM31000340AS
-Firmware Update for STM31000334AS, STM3640323AS, STM3320614AS,
STM3160813AS
-Firmware Update for ST3250310NS, ST3500320NS, ST3750330NS,
ST31000340NS
-For all other firmware questions, please see here – Does my drive need
a firmware update?
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