Storage
Rejuvenate your old ReadyNAS Ultra with a new makeover!
I recently purchased another Synology NAS box and to populate it I ripped out the disks from 1 of the 2 Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4s I have. This then freed up the ReadyNAS I was thinking what to do with it. I remembered a blog article from a few years back about running Synology DSM on a ReadyNAS so I started to do some digging. I switched to Synology for its VMware vStorage VAAI support which the ReadyNAS didn’t have. The blog was by Migoo, but I knew it was some years old that I had to take his basic principal and update it. The hack is to use Xpenology to create a bootable USB disk, boot your ReadyNAS from USB and install Synology DSM on the ReadyNAS.
Want to find out how? Download this zip with a pdf and shell script needed for the process here > Rejuvenated ReadyNas (13324 downloads)
It works a treat. Just don’t try to update it using the normal method. Its all in the instructions.
VMworld 2018 Day 1 – Cohesity Blogger Session
On the first night of VMworld EU 2018, I attended a blogger reception for Cohesity organised by Patrick Rednap. I was trying to cadge a VIP ticket to the vRockstar party that evening. While there I met the who’s who in the blogger community, most people I knew for a long time.
But presenting was Rawlinson Rivera CTO for Cohesity. For me, I didn’t know much about them except they tagged themselves as secondary storage and usually, I avoid storage discussions and find them boring an old news.
Apart from Rawlinson’s big bravado and humour I wasn’t sure if I’d be even interested but It was worth the while. I found out a few interesting things about them. So this is what I picked up:
They abstract the data layer in their platform giving a consistent feel across private and public. So you get the same functionality in their services regardless of where you are sitting. Services like Data Protection, file&object and analytics. And its all API first… The problem they are trying to fix with this is Mass Data Fragmentation.
They’ve done some testing to prove they are Web-Scale up to 256 Nodes Tested ~5PB raw capacity showing Linear performance scaling using Sequential and random IO.
I asked the question are they doing dedupe client side and they claim to. They are doing Dedupe at every level – inline to Post job.
They acquired some tech called Helios and my understanding this is a manager of managers. Single UI for everything you need and offers some analytical functions.
One cool feature I found is they by default compress any video files, this is supposed to reduce backend storage needs like you wouldn’t believe. All policy driven.
One feature I’d have to research was a feature called Cloud Spin in which they are supposed to be able to help refactor applications by pushing data into a test/dev area without dragging along with it the whole OS etc…
Anyway, we had a bit of fun. Rawlinson a fun presenter and he caught our attention.
New Platinum Sponsor – Vembu – VM backup & DR
Please let me introduce our newest Platinum Sponsor – Vembu. Vembu develop Backup & DR tools for virtualization and cloud and as we all know this is right up my street.
Vembu’s own words “Vision of Vembu: “To make software and cloud services very affordable for the hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses worldwide”
Vembu’s flagship offering is the BDR Suite of products meant for on-premise, offsite, cloud backup and disaster recovery across diverse IT environments including physical, virtual, applications and endpoints. Since 2002, Vembu’s industry-recognized data protection solutions have delivered tangible value to more than 60,000 businesses worldwide through a network of 4000+ partners (MSPs/VARs & Resellers). With Data Centers of Small and Medium Businesses, Enterprise IT Administrator & Service Providers as its target audience, 70% of customers are from USA, 20% are from Europe and the remaining from APAC region.
Vembu BDR Suite:
The latest offering from Vembu, Vembu BDR Suite v3.5 is a comprehensive Backup & Disaster Recovery solution for heterogeneous and diverse IT environments. The products under Vembu BDR Suite v3.5 can be used by complex IT systems to a simple IT setup in small & midsize businesses. It is one of the most comprehensive solution in the market, serving environments like VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Windows, Linux and Mac and also providing flexible deployment options like offsite, cloud, on-premise and hybrid cloud.
Apart from products in the suite, Vembu also offers free products as below:
Free Vembu Universal Explorer Tool
Vembu offers add-on products as well:
Vembu OffsiteDR: Vembu OffsiteDR offers added data protection, allowing users to replicate data to their very own data center from backup server. With this option users can now restore data directly from the OffsiteDR server which is similar as restoring from backup server with minimalistic downtime.
Vembu CloudDR: Vembu CloudDR offers added data protection by allowing you to transfer data to Vembu’s Cloud. With this option you can now directly restore the data on our cloud with minimalistic downtime
Vembu BDR360: Vembu BDR360 is the centralized monitoring and management portal that provides end to end visibility to all your IT environment backed up using the Vembu BDR Suite products. BDR360 can be used both by data center IT administrators and service providers offering managed services.
You might be thinking “not another backup vendor” but if you have read my previous comparisons or attended any of my VMUG sessions on Tips for backing up VMs then you’ll know I believe there is a space for everyone and if the product meets your needs and is cost effective then why not.
Please keep watching this space for announcements and reviews on Vembu.
