Monday 27 April 2020

Free Online Courses to learn during lockdwon - COVID19


Harvard university 



Harvard University is offering 67 courses for free during this pandemic. You may share the link with anyone who wants to spend their time learning something new. 




Redhat


Because of COVID-19 Situation, RedHat provides free courses for 30Days durations. Get the benefits as much as you can. These all are worth more than ₹10-₹15k at RedHat. Here, I'm attaching all the links of free courses.

Complimentary Technical Overviews:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Technical Overview (RH024) -

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/rh024-red-hat-linux-technical-overview


Ansible Essentials: Simplicity in Automation Technical Overview (DO007) -

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/do007-ansible-essentials-simplicity-automation-technical-overview



Virtualization and Infrastructure Migration Technical Overview (RH018) - 

https://www.redhat.com/en/services/training/rh018-virtualization-and-infrastructure-migration-technical-overview



Oracle

I would like to inform you that for the next 45 days, all OCI certifications and Oracle Autonomous Database certifications can be taken for free by anyone!

Please share this with your teams and coverage partners. 

Starting now, any user, including developers, technical professionals, architects, students and professors, will have quick and easy access to more than 50 hours of online training and 6 certification exams. 
• Oracle Autonomous Database Specialist
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Foundations Associate
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Operations Associate
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Developer Associate
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Architect Associate
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Architect Professional

Please share this blog post, and the e-blast below with your contacts. 




TCS



TCS is offering 15 days course Free of cost so that students can utilize the lockdown period productively to sharpen their skills.

This course comprises the following modules:

DAY 1: Communicate to Impress
DAY 2: Deliver Presentations with Impact
DAY 3: Develop Soft Skills for the Workplace
DAY 4: Gain Guidance from Career Gurus
DAY 5: Write a Winning Resume and Cover Letter
DAY 6: Stay Ahead in Group Discussions
DAY 7: Ace Corporate Interviews
DAY 8: Learn Corporate Etiquette
DAY 9: Write Effective Emails
DAY 10: Learn Corporate Telephone Etiquette
DAY 11: Understand Accounting Fundamentals
DAY 12: Gain Foundational Skills in IT
DAY 13: Understand Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Part 1
DAY 14: Understand Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Part 2

DAY 15: Assessment


Stay Home, Stay Safe

Pls share with Fresh Graduates


MICROSOFT


Azure Fundamentals Free Training and Exam Voucher...
-------------------------------------------------------------

Join us online Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Day: Fundamentals on June 15th for comprehensive training on cloud concepts, including high availability, scalability, elasticity, agility, fault tolerance, and disaster recovery.

You will learn:

Common cloud concepts
Benefits of Azure
Strategies for transitioning to the Azure cloud
Azure computing, networking, storage, and security basics
Attendees will also receive a FREE EXAM voucher* to take the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification exam and officially get Azure certified.

Space is limited—reserve your seat today.

*Do note that attendees will receive details on the free exams vouchers within 5 - 7 business days after the event and the vouchers are only applicable to attendees who attend both sessions. For issues with voucher redemption, please email techskillssupport@Microsoft.com.

Azure Fundamentals Training Days are open to the public and offered at no cost. Attendees will be offered a voucher which allows them to sit in an examination at no charge. Prior to registering for this training, government employees must check with their employers to ensure their participation is permitted and in accordance with applicable policies and laws.

Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Day: Fundamentals
Date: Monday, June 15, 2020
Time: 09:00 – 16:00

Register here: 



Official mail from Microsoft...Use it who are all interested to learn Azure...It is a very basic cloud concept paper.


NUTANIX

Nutanix Certified Professional (NCP) certification validates your skills and abilities deploying, administering, and troubleshooting Nutanix AOS in the datacenter.

How can I help you become Nutanix Certified Professionals (NCPs)?
Use my code at checkout: NTX07G20

Anyone who uses this code by September 30 will get a FREE NCP certification exam.


Tuesday 30 April 2019

Jet Airways shutdown and have Multiple Sources of Income

Have Multiple Sources of Income

Jet_Airways.... 20000 employees lost their job due to sudden shut down of the company.


Impact: 1. Many Employees would have EMIs Running for Personal Loans, Home Loans and so on. 2. Few might be struggling with meeting the ends in life. And have to Join whatever job they get even with low salary and low level. 3. Many Women employees or Men Employees wife might be Pregnant and will be terrified with this. And they have to find the second Job in Quick time. 4. Many wouldn't have enough savings to survive until they find the new Job. 5. Many people might have planned so many things for the bright future. But you know what? One such incident and you are nowhere!! You literally feel sucked!!

Learnings: 1. Never ever depend on Single Source of Income or Company. Or I would say never ever depend on just 1 thing in Life. Have Multiple Sources of Income. 2. Always work towards Building Yourself. Invest money in Making Yourself Irreplaceable. Make yourself such that it's difficult to replace you. 3. Do not feel secure at Job. Job is always a Rented House. Rented House is good till the time you Buy your Own. hashtagjob hashtagsecured hashtagbuildyourself hashtagupgrade

Wednesday 27 March 2019

How to make online of unconfigure good disk in Megaraid CLI


MegaRAID - unconfigure good disk in MegaCLI



List the available disk and find out the firmware state.


[07:23:12] test:~ # /opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli/MegaCli64 -PDList -aALL

Adapter #0

Enclosure Device ID: 252
Slot Number: 0
Enclosure position: 0
Device Id: 12
WWN: 500000E118589901
Sequence Number: 1
Media Error Count: 0
Other Error Count: 0
Predictive Failure Count: 0
Last Predictive Failure Event Seq Number: 0
PD Type: SAS
Raw Size: 136.731 GB [0x11176d60 Sectors]
Non Coerced Size: 136.231 GB [0x11076d60 Sectors]
Coerced Size: 135.972 GB [0x10ff2000 Sectors]
Firmware state: Unconfigured(good), Spun Up
Device Firmware Level: SC17
Shield Counter: 0
Successful diagnostics completion on :  N/A
SAS Address(0): 0x500000e118589902
SAS Address(1): 0x0
Connected Port Number: 1(path0)
Inquiry Data: IBM-ESXSMBE2147RC       SC17D300G6K5SC17SC17SC17
IBM FRU/CRU: 42D0668
FDE Enable: Disable
Secured: Unsecured
Locked: Unlocked
Needs EKM Attention: No
Foreign State: Foreign
Foreign Secure: Drive is not secured by a foreign lock key
Device Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Link Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Media Type: Hard Disk Device
Drive Temperature :28C (82.40 F)
PI Eligibility:  No
Drive is formatted for PI information:  No
PI: No PI
Drive's write cache : Disabled
Port-0 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: 6.0Gb/s
Port-1 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: Unknown
Drive has flagged a S.M.A.R.T alert : No

Enclosure Device ID: 252
Slot Number: 1
Drive's postion: DiskGroup: 0, Span: 0, Arm: 1
Enclosure position: 0
Device Id: 9
WWN: 500003950809D34D
Sequence Number: 2
Media Error Count: 132
Other Error Count: 0
Predictive Failure Count: 0
Last Predictive Failure Event Seq Number: 0
PD Type: SAS
Raw Size: 136.731 GB [0x11176d60 Sectors]
Non Coerced Size: 136.231 GB [0x11076d60 Sectors]
Coerced Size: 135.972 GB [0x10ff2000 Sectors]
Firmware state: Online, Spun Up
Device Firmware Level: SC29
Shield Counter: 0
Successful diagnostics completion on :  N/A
SAS Address(0): 0x500003950809d34e
SAS Address(1): 0x0
Connected Port Number: 0(path0)
Inquiry Data: IBM-ESXSMK1401GRRB      SC2993706J93SC29SC29SC29
IBM FRU/CRU: 42D0678
FDE Enable: Disable
Secured: Unsecured
Locked: Unlocked
Needs EKM Attention: No
Foreign State: None
Device Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Link Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Media Type: Hard Disk Device
Drive Temperature :27C (80.60 F)
PI Eligibility:  No
Drive is formatted for PI information:  No
PI: No PI
Drive's write cache : Disabled
Port-0 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: 6.0Gb/s
Port-1 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: Unknown
Drive has flagged a S.M.A.R.T alert : No
Exit Code: 0x00


-- Then List if any foreign configuration.


[07:26:46] test:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -CfgForeign -Scan -a0
There are 1 foreign configuration(s) on controller 0.
Exit Code: 0x00

-- Clear the foreign configuration.

[07:27:43] test:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -CfgForeign -Clear -a0
Foreign configuration 0 is cleared on controller 0.
Exit Code: 0x00



-- Confirm the configuration is successfully cleared.


[07:27:45] test:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -CfgForeign -Scan -a0
There is no foreign configuration on controller 0.
Exit Code: 0x00


-- Display the current configuration

[07:35:22] test:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -CfgDsply -a0

==============================================================================
Adapter: 0
Product Name: ServeRAID M5014 SAS/SATA Controller
Memory: 256MB
BBU: Absent
Serial No: SV33021667
==============================================================================
Number of DISK GROUPS: 1

DISK GROUP: 0
Number of Spans: 1
SPAN: 0
Span Reference: 0x00
Number of PDs: 2
Number of VDs: 1
Number of dedicated Hotspares: 0
Virtual Drive Information:
Virtual Drive: 0 (Target Id: 0)
Name                :
RAID Level          : Primary-1, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-0
Size                : 135.972 GB
Mirror Data         : 135.972 GB
State               : Degraded
Strip Size          : 128 KB
Number Of Drives    : 2
Span Depth          : 1
Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU
Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU
Default Access Policy: Read/Write
Current Access Policy: Read/Write
Disk Cache Policy   : Disabled
Encryption Type     : None
Is VD Cached: No
Physical Disk Information:
Physical Disk: 0



Physical Disk: 1
Enclosure Device ID: 252
Slot Number: 1
Drive's postion: DiskGroup: 0, Span: 0, Arm: 1
Enclosure position: 0
Device Id: 9
WWN: 500003950809D34D
Sequence Number: 2
Media Error Count: 132
Other Error Count: 0
Predictive Failure Count: 0
Last Predictive Failure Event Seq Number: 0
PD Type: SAS
Raw Size: 136.731 GB [0x11176d60 Sectors]
Non Coerced Size: 136.231 GB [0x11076d60 Sectors]
Coerced Size: 135.972 GB [0x10ff2000 Sectors]
Firmware state: Online, Spun Up
Device Firmware Level: SC29
Shield Counter: 0
Successful diagnostics completion on :  N/A
SAS Address(0): 0x500003950809d34e
SAS Address(1): 0x0
Connected Port Number: 0(path0)
Inquiry Data: IBM-ESXSMK1401GRRB      SC2993706J93SC29SC29SC29
IBM FRU/CRU: 42D0678
FDE Enable: Disable
Secured: Unsecured
Locked: Unlocked
Needs EKM Attention: No
Foreign State: None
Device Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Link Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Media Type: Hard Disk Device
Drive Temperature :27C (80.60 F)
PI Eligibility:  No
Drive is formatted for PI information:  No
PI: No PI
Drive's write cache : Disabled
Port-0 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: 6.0Gb/s
Port-1 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: Unknown
Drive has flagged a S.M.A.R.T alert : No
Exit Code: 0x00



-- Then replace the missing PD.

[07:42:20] test:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -PdReplaceMissing -PhysDrv[252:0]] -array0 -row0 -a0
Adapter: 0: Missing PD at Array 0, Row 0 is replaced.
Exit Code: 0x00

-- Once the PD replaced, start the rebuild

[07:43:01] test:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -PDRbld -Start -PhysDrv[252:0] -a0
Started rebuild progress on device(Encl-252 Slot-0)
Exit Code: 0x00

--To check the progress

[08:43:01] test:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -PDRbld -ShowProg -PhysDrv[252:0] -aALL

Rebuild Progress on Device at Enclosure 252, Slot 0 Completed 44% in 60 Minutes.


Exit Code: 0x00


--The disk will be online once rebuild is complete.

[08:45:37] cse-cds2n2:/opt/MegaRAID/MegaCli # ./MegaCli64 -CfgDsply -a0

==============================================================================
Adapter: 0
Product Name: ServeRAID M5014 SAS/SATA Controller
Memory: 256MB
BBU: Absent
Serial No: SV33021667
==============================================================================
Number of DISK GROUPS: 1

DISK GROUP: 0
Number of Spans: 1
SPAN: 0
Span Reference: 0x00
Number of PDs: 2
Number of VDs: 1
Number of dedicated Hotspares: 0
Virtual Drive Information:
Virtual Drive: 0 (Target Id: 0)
Name                :
RAID Level          : Primary-1, Secondary-0, RAID Level Qualifier-0
Size                : 135.972 GB
Mirror Data         : 135.972 GB
State               : Optimal
Strip Size          : 128 KB
Number Of Drives    : 2
Span Depth          : 1
Default Cache Policy: WriteBack, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU
Current Cache Policy: WriteThrough, ReadAheadNone, Direct, No Write Cache if Bad BBU
Default Access Policy: Read/Write
Current Access Policy: Read/Write
Disk Cache Policy   : Disabled
Encryption Type     : None
Is VD Cached: No
Physical Disk Information:
Physical Disk: 0
Enclosure Device ID: 252
Slot Number: 0
Drive's postion: DiskGroup: 0, Span: 0, Arm: 0
Enclosure position: 0
Device Id: 12
WWN: 500000E118589901
Sequence Number: 2
Media Error Count: 0
Other Error Count: 0
Predictive Failure Count: 0
Last Predictive Failure Event Seq Number: 0
PD Type: SAS
Raw Size: 136.731 GB [0x11176d60 Sectors]
Non Coerced Size: 136.231 GB [0x11076d60 Sectors]
Coerced Size: 135.972 GB [0x10ff2000 Sectors]
Firmware state: Online, Spun Up
Device Firmware Level: SC17
Shield Counter: 0
Successful diagnostics completion on :  N/A
SAS Address(0): 0x500000e118589902
SAS Address(1): 0x0
Connected Port Number: 1(path0)
Inquiry Data: IBM-ESXSMBE2147RC       SC17D300G6K5SC17SC17SC17
IBM FRU/CRU: 42D0668
FDE Enable: Disable
Secured: Unsecured
Locked: Unlocked
Needs EKM Attention: No
Foreign State: None
Device Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Link Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Media Type: Hard Disk Device
Drive Temperature :29C (84.20 F)
PI Eligibility:  No
Drive is formatted for PI information:  No
PI: No PI
Drive's write cache : Disabled
Port-0 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: 6.0Gb/s
Port-1 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: Unknown
Drive has flagged a S.M.A.R.T alert : No



Physical Disk: 1
Enclosure Device ID: 252
Slot Number: 1
Drive's postion: DiskGroup: 0, Span: 0, Arm: 1
Enclosure position: 0
Device Id: 9
WWN: 500003950809D34D
Sequence Number: 2
Media Error Count: 24
Other Error Count: 0
Predictive Failure Count: 0
Last Predictive Failure Event Seq Number: 0
PD Type: SAS
Raw Size: 136.731 GB [0x11176d60 Sectors]
Non Coerced Size: 136.231 GB [0x11076d60 Sectors]
Coerced Size: 135.972 GB [0x10ff2000 Sectors]
Firmware state: Online, Spun Up
Device Firmware Level: SC29
Shield Counter: 0
Successful diagnostics completion on :  N/A
SAS Address(0): 0x500003950809d34e
SAS Address(1): 0x0
Connected Port Number: 0(path0)
Inquiry Data: IBM-ESXSMK1401GRRB      SC2993706J93SC29SC29SC29
IBM FRU/CRU: 42D0678
FDE Enable: Disable
Secured: Unsecured
Locked: Unlocked
Needs EKM Attention: No
Foreign State: None
Device Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Link Speed: 6.0Gb/s
Media Type: Hard Disk Device
Drive Temperature :28C (82.40 F)
PI Eligibility:  No
Drive is formatted for PI information:  No
PI: No PI
Drive's write cache : Disabled
Port-0 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: 6.0Gb/s
Port-1 :
Port status: Active
Port's Linkspeed: Unknown
Drive has flagged a S.M.A.R.T alert : No




Tuesday 26 February 2019

5 Questions I Ask Every Customer about their VMware Backup Strategy


 VMware Backup Strategy

I can’t remember of a technology platform that provided better APIs than VMware’s VADP API framework. While it has had annoying bugs periodically, overall the APIs made it extremely simple, easy, and efficient for VMware VM backups.

It’s no wonder, there are a huge amount of backup product vendors that all claim features like application consistent and incremental forever backup (using VMware Change Block Tracking (CBT)) and instant recovery of VMs. There really is very little competitive differences now between these products! All 25+ vendors are all calling the same library for CBT capture.

But what really matters in terms of costs and RTO is where and how you store that backup data and metadata. In this cloud era, it’s hard not to consider the cloud as a target to store backups and reduce data center footprint and costs for backup and DR.

Here are 5 simple questions I ask all of my current and prospective customers to think about when thinking about their VMware backup strategy.


1. Why have local on-premises backup copies? Why not back it up directly to the Cloud?

Not all data is born equal.

Multiple studies have shown that it’s important to tier your VMs and then apply backup and retention policies. So for all the Tier-2 VMs, which typically constitute anywhere between 40% to 70%, what if you could eliminate the local copy and backup directly to cloud object storage like AWS S3, S3IA, Azure Blob, Google Nearline, IBM COS?

They all offer 11 x 9s of durability in three availability zones. It costs less. There is no capacity management as you don’t have to scramble for storage when you add the next 100 Tier-2 VMs for backups. There is zero operational burden's with this approach.

Obviously, this is not an ‘all or none’ approach. For your Tier-1 VMs, you might still have a requirement or bandwidth constraint so you can choose to have a local cache/backup copy in your data center, and also have a second backup copy in such a cloud object storage.



2. How long are your restores taking today?

Is that acceptable as your data grows…

Obviously, if you like the approach of leveraging cloud object storage, your next thought would be “What about the recovery time objective (RTO)?”

Most backup products, unfortunately, take a long time to recover from their deduplicated backups stored in cloud object storage. The catch cry for some reason is still around the “backup industry”, but I’ve been calling out that the priority is wrong, it should be called a “recovery industry”. We backup so we can recover! That is what a business is really after when it invests in a backup solution, and more often they can’t afford to wait days and hours to get their critical data back from a dedup engine or tape.

Object storage can really help solve two pain points there, it’s infinite in scale, and yet very quick to mount the data back. Couple it with a next-generation backup product that writes the data in its native application format, and you’re starting to fix a lot of the legacy issues from a backup mindset, versus a recovery mindset! Recovering that 10TB VM or SQL/Oracle Database is just a few minutes away now, It’s a game changer people… seriously!



3. If you are restoring VMs from the cloud, are you concerned about the egress costs?


Optimize every bit that moves. One of the concerns enterprises express is the egress charges from the cloud back to on-premises. Let’s explore, with an example, of how much would it cost you on a monthly basis.

Let’s assume you have 1000 VMs that are being protected. Let’s assume, on an average 20 restore jobs for files/folders are performed per week, i.e. 80 restore jobs a month. Assume that on an average 100 MB of files are restored in each job. This translates to 80 x 100 MB = 8GB of total data restored from the cloud.

Assuming you use AWS S3 IAS (Infrequent Access Storage), it charges $0.01 per GB. The data retrieval charges = $0.08 per month. AWS also charges for the data that leaves AWS cloud at a rate of $0.09 per GB. This translates to $0.72 per month. Thus total costs = $0.08+$0.72 = $0.80 per month, which obviously is very low.

Now let’s look at a scenario where 20 VMs are recovered from cloud object storage back to on-premises. Assume average VM size = 200GB. Thus total data transferred = 20 x 200GB = 4,000 GB. Thus total data transfer charges = ($0.01+$0.09)*4000GB = $400 for the entire month.

The good news is that even this small monetary amount can be reduced further. Consider a next-generation approach, where not all data needs to be recovered if it’s already on-premises. Features like “delta block differencing” technology will lookup its metadata to compare which blocks already exist in the local backup cache on-premises and transfer only those blocks from the cloud which don’t already exist on-premises. So in the above example, if you assume 40% of the blocks already exist on-premises, only 2,400 GB will be copied from the cloud, thus reducing the data transfer costs to $240.



4. Do you require any data immutability capability at the software and cloud storage layer?

Was it a fat-finger or a rogue internal user?

One of the legit concerns enterprises have is that of a rogue or malicious user who could potentially delete backups.

What if at the software layer, an admin can apply a data immutability lock on backups of specific VMs. Once this is applied, even an admin can not expire or purge the backups for those specific VMs.

You can still manage the TCO for disk by setting an expiration date for the backup data, as per the original required policy, or elect to never expire it, yet not be concerned about a rogue admin or a fat finger.



5. Do you like buying hardware appliances? Why not software only, or a SaaS platform?

“The world we have created is a process of our thinking. It can not be changed without changing our thinking.” — Einstein

Many enterprises are getting used to “as-a-Service” consumption model with exposure to GSuite, Office 365, Salesforce, Github, AWS RDS & Redshift and the likes of VMware Cloud in AWS.

So they are also questioning the idea of purchasing hardware appliances for everything, not only backup appliances but also minimizing their production compute platforms too. Why not consider a VMware Backup SaaS platform? Why not consume VMware backup and recovery to cloud in a simple per VM subscription pricing model?

In my earlier days at Actifio, we only sold a hardware solution, and many customers pushed back, asking for a software appliance version. We responded to those customers and launched Sky into the marketplace, and it’s been very successful to say the least. But we’re now going one step further and offering a SaaS version for VMware backup to AWS/Azure/Google/IBM cloud. Check out more details here at ActifioGo.com. The only consideration to factor in is some good bandwidth to your local cloud and you can be off and running in a few minutes.


Every few years, technology advances enable new capabilities which enable us to question some of the existing practices/assumptions and adjust appropriately. Examples like API-driven IaaS and PaaS were deemed too complex and resource intensive to automate. But the IT world has shifted, and enterprises are all looking at the benefits of cost optimization, automation, and orchestration across their entire stack. I’d highly recommend you consider asking yourself the 5 questions above, and see how you can benefit from the likes of a next-generation platform combined with object storage, with 11 x 9s of durability, almost infinite capacity, and pay-as-you-grow models, which simplifies your life and lets you focus on other important tasks.


Check out this short 3-minute video by my good mate Chandra Reddy which compares architectures to leverage cloud object storage effectively. It’s well worth the time.