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How can GPUs help Solve Woes when Tableau Slows, keep Researchers from being Foes, or turn anyone into Work from Home Pros?

Nvidia’s annual GTC Conference has come and gone, and with it, some of the most amazing announcements ever packed into a single year. Nvidia and their technology partners have long since been just a gaming card company, and are now a key component in any future-ready datacenter in the Enterprise. In fact, Nvidia revenue has switched from gaming systems to datacenter products being the majority.

At the heart of all messaging were Nvidia’s latest technology release; the Ampere-based A100 GPU and DGX-A100 GPU server.

The DGX A100 is Nvidia’s one system for ALL AI Infrastructure. The 3rd Generation NVLink & NVSwitch interconnect between GPUs is 2x faster than previous generations at rates of 600GB/sec, and the new TF32 tensor cores are up to 20x faster than the previous generations Turing-based GPUs.

We at High Availability have seen the benefit of moderning datacenters with GPUs for the last decade, and have been honored to be one of a few partners in the country authorized as an Nvidia DGX Solution Provider. It’s always a great day when we see customers look beyond the legacy way of doing business, and step into products that will drive them towards the future. We hear lots of questions and concerns around GPUs / AI / ML and new technologies. We want to walk with you down the right path of proven software and technologies to make your business more productive, more proactive, and more profitable.

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My IoT Home Products – Raves & Reviews

I have an obnoxiously connected home, all built around a Gen1 SmartThings Hub.   I mix ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wifi and home-grown RPi or Arduino controlled devices.  Hopefully this post will show some of the available options out there, and some of my recommended products

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Now Available: Pumpkin Spice Machine Learning

Recently, High Availability was accepted as a Nvidia East Coast partner to sell and manage their Nvidia DGX-1 GPU platform, as well as reseller of PureStorage’s new ARIA (AI Ready Infrastructure) and the Cisco UCS 480 ML M5 GPU Server.  

When you think about PureStorage Orange, Winter time, and High Availability, what comes to mind?  Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Why not ‘Pumpkin Spice Machine Learning’?

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BSidesLV & DEFCON Conference Tips ** UPDATED 2018! **

Often before conferences, I tend to make a post for first timers. I never created one for BSidesLV or DEFCON before.

These are just my experiences and recommendations.

Do your own thing! Make the conference about what YOU want it to be about!

(That was tip #1)

I’ll be adding to this often as my brain remembers stuff.

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FYI: Cisco UCS doesn’t work with VVOLs oob

FYI, ran into an issue tonight working with VVOLs.

I had just upgraded my PureStorage array to Purity 5 GA release and wanted to jump into VVOLs on my lab.

Customers will not be able to use vvols unless they manually install FNIC driver 1.6.0.33 or higher.

VVOLs are not supported on any VICs with the drivers installed from the current Cisco-branded v6.5 and 6.5U1 ESXi ISOs.

This is Cisco bug CSCux64473 Specific cause is because included driver did not support “Secondary LUN IDs”.

If a customer tries, their Protocol Endpoint will just never show up.

https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCux64473/?referring_site=bugquickviewredir

Symptom: UCS server with VIC adapter does not support VMware Virtual Volume feature
Conditions: When attempting to access Virtual Volume from UCS servers installed with VIC card.
Workaround: Virtual volume is not supported on any the VIC cards / FNIC drv ( Their but report isn’t totally true, I tested 1.6.0.36 driver and it worked great!)

  1. Latest driver release does work:
    https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX60-CISCO-FNIC-16036&productId=491

 

Now, after updating the driver and rebooting my servers, VVOLs is working awesome!

PureStorage does VVOLS right!

 

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Big Data – A Need for Speed – Hello PureStorage FlashBlade!

Fast does not always mean high IOPs. Sometimes hundreds of thousands of IOPs just is not enough. Big data applications such as machine learning, real time data processing, and backups of big data workloads needs high throughput and massive scaleout. Enter PureStorage’s FlashBlade!

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#STBY – DellEMC DataDomain DDos 6.0 Deletes Valid Data

Got DataDomain? Got DD OS 6.0? Your #VALID data may be getting deleted and you don’t even know it!

UPGRADE TO DD OS 6.0.1.10 IMMEDIATELY!! (Or DD Virtual 3 Update 1)

Segments ingested while the unit is in a cleanup cycle may be deleted, as the unit incorrectly marks them as invalid. You would not know you lost these segments until you attempted to restore!

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#STBY – Intel Management Engine (Intel AMT) exploit in the wild CVE-2017-5689

Intel recently screwed us all with the Atom C2000 processors taking a massive crash and burn on end users, leading to all sorts of embedded devices turning into giant paperweights. This week, Intel blessed us with an exploit in the wild hitting their Advanced Management Technology (AMT).

AMT is their ability to remotely configure and control desktop and server systems via web service calls. Firewall off where ever possible ports 16992 and 16993, though if someone get’s inside, it’s a free for all. A Pseudo-Patch has been created. Apply it today!

https://www.ssh.com/vulnerability/intel-amt/

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#STBY – GitLab accidental deletion of data

GitLab certainly had a #SucksToBeYou week. Earlier this week, an admin at GitLab had the same thing happen. Too tired, rm -rf in the wrong location, but unfortunately they had poor backup practices.

Props to them for being upfront.
IF they had Netapp gear, or Cloud Ontap, they could have used SnapRestore or Single-File SnapRestore to pull back the deleted files from snapshots within seconds.

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#STBY – EMC Isilon OneFS failure/reboot after 248days

Just a heads up –  Isilon OneFS: Nodes containing Mellanox ConnectX-3 adapters may unexpectedly reboot after running for 248.5 consecutive days, which may result in data unavailability ( ETA 491747 )

https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-45083

This primarily hits systems with OneFS 7.2.1.

Reboot those nodes ahead of time or patch if possible!   Otherwise, it’ll #SucksToBeYou!

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