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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
###################################################################
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?

####################################################################

I’m a card-carrying member (so to speak) of BAARF, a little online group dedicated to dispelling the myth that RAID5, or any variant thereof, is a good compromise for capacity and fault tolerance. The reason I bring this up is that I had two hard drives fail earlier today (on separate machines), of which one was RAID5 (it’s not mine). The RAID5 box is still rebuilding, one hard drive failure away from data oblivion. Please, for the love of all that is sacred in storage, don’t trust your data to RAID5, or even RAID6, which is not a whole lot better.

Also, it makes me sad that someone would dedicate some very nice 15K RPM SAS drives to a RAID5 array, presumably to offset the characteristically low IOPS performance of any RAID3/4/5 variant. Listen folks: you can have good IOPS as well as high capacity with other RAID levels, namely RAID10, which offers the best compromise of both worlds. I won’t go into too many details here, the page linked below has a number of good reference write-ups, but the gist is that dedicating resources to parity management (the calculating, reading, and writing of parity data) is a practice that sucks and deserves a swift boot into tech obscurity along with floppy drives and modems.

You may join the fight, or not. Either way, enough is enough.

Join the discussion at the Open Cloud Manifesto site.

The headline at dailymail.co.uk read “April Fool’s Day computer virus is activated… but fails to cause internet chaos.”

I guess the rumors were unfounded. However, it’s important to note that the virus is still rampant and speculation on the potential uses of such a huge botnet are as well. Some surmise that it might be used to DDOS the crap out of some poor server(s). It might also be used to crack passwords or encryption. Check out http://downadup.org to read more and for removal tools. It’s also a good idea to prepare your network for the potentiality of attack. Don’t be a soft target.

Here’s a couple (read non-comprehensive) ideas on how to not be a soft target:

• Backup, backup, backup
  • Have systems ready to leap into action if necessary, and keep at least one form of backup offline in case of worst-case scenarios.
  • If you don’t already have a backup strategy in place, it’s time to implement one.
• Control access to your critical services
  • Enforce strong passwords – or better yet, employ multi-factor authentication. PPP is a strong candidate for the thrifty.
  • Audit your users – does that guy who quit last year still have an active user account? Do your non-administrative users have access to critical servers?
  • Use fail2ban or iptables to detect and drop password-guessing attacks – even with 10 million + IP’s to choose from, it’s not easy to crack a password/one-time password combination when you only get 3 tries per IP.
• Watch your traffic (not really a botnet vulnerability, but good practice in general):
  • Control your legacy services – seriously, it’s time to retire telnet and other services that transmit passwords in cleartext.
  • https > http – especially when it comes to passwords. Don’t allow users the ability to transmit passwords over http.
• etc…

I’ve hardly compiled a comprehensive list, and I welcome comments for other good practices, but the most important takeaway is to be cognizant of your security stance. Don’t make it easy for the bad guys.

This isn’t a news blog. I’m not so plugged in that I can write about things as they happen. That’s not my impetus. My impetus is to publish articles about ideas that I believe are sound principles when planning your systems architecture. One such principle is not betting the house on a single technology, and WHT was a prime example of the benefits of such planning. After suffering an attack like that, WHT is online and serving traffic. How? They had DVD backups. Try erasing that. Yes, they’ve only managed to restore up to October 2008, and that was likely a result of corrupted media or backup operator error, but their site isn’t down. It’s an arduous process, writing to permanent media. And it’s an arduous process restoring from it. But in a last-ditch scenario like this, it served WHT well. And it proves my point. Crossing architectural boundaries when backing up data is a necessity, and that means keeping at least one form of backup offline.

Would your business be able to take a hit like WHT’s and keep its doors open?

According to Tier1 Research’s A. Piraino, Azure suffered a 22 hour outage this weekend when a (speculatively) software related glitch caused instances to suddenly stop responding. While Microsoft is yet to release the results of a root cause analysis, one can envision a NOC with stacks of monitors displaying Blue Screen’s of Death. Or rather, Azure Screen’s of Death.

To be fair, Microsoft Azure is still in “Technology Preview,” which is to say, pre-production. And other cloud computing platforms have suffered similar outages in their infancy as well. Amazon Web Services suffered a seven hour outage in July from faulty load balancers. Google systems were brought down twice in the past six months.

The problem isn’t that the architecture doesn’t work as planned. The problem is that no amount of planning will cover every situation that can, and will, occur. Failures of critical components become huge issues in virtualized applications, because that many more (virtual) instances require the services of those components. Though a system can have n levels of redundancy built into it, ultimately, there is no such thing as a completely unbreakable system.

Folks tend to get excited about cloud computing because they envision a future of virtualized applications zipping around in a grid computing infrastructure, never failing, never dying. Even in more traditional environments, people get excited about centralized storage, and the joys of instant snapshots and multiple layers of redundancy. Though these technologies are exciting and brings with it new avenues for innovation, uniform architectures share uniform faults. Diversity in architecture is an important consideration when you’re building fault tolerance into your system.

Another important consideration is this: the more power we place in the hands of an administrator, the more damage he can do when he goofs. And he will goof. We all goof once in a while. Take, for example, Flexiscale, who ate a five-day outage because of one such goof. The more we consolidate technology, the more vulnerable we are if something that should never happen, happens.

The takeaway is simple. Take the promises of new technology with a grain of salt. And even if the skies are blue, pack an umbrella just in case.