A NEW RATING SYSTEM TO PREVENT DATA CENTERS FROM OUTAGES

October 30, 2012 By

Data centers have been mauled by outages very frequently over the past few months. Data centers have become the prime targets for defamatory allegations citing erroneous wastage of power and other resources. These unscrupulous outages have affected the likes of Level3, Telecity, Colo4, Amazon, and Equinix to an extent that it resulted in hundreds of businesses going offline. It not only affected the hosting companies but also the other companies that used the data centers for hosting and for connectivity. These are latest in the line of the several outages that have disrupted services in the hosting and colocation firms. If it was the power failure that caused disruptions in Level3 and Telecity, Colo4 experienced problems with the electrical equipments, and NTT felt the jolt with networking issues. In some cases, the situations were so worse that all the physical equipments were damaged. All this ultimately boils down to just one big question which is “Could this all be prevented?”

With the expansion of data centers worldwide and the ever increasing global infrastructure, global outages are also a part and parcel. Statistical reports have shown that most of these outages are the result of human error which can be prevented. Some of the recent high profile outages were caused by failure on the infrastructure side; all of these outages were avoidable. Today there are a large number of systems available that globally classify the infrastructure and resources of a facility and give them a suitable ranking. Unfortunately these ranking systems do not stress on individual and same components. Most of the ranking and evaluation systems rely on the mechanical and electrical infrastructure of a facility. The operations and maintenance which are equally important when compared to the infrastructure facilities. These along with the human error factor contribute to the continuous operation of the data centers.

Beyond the infrastructure layer lies the information technology layer. The perfect combination of these two layers contributes to the success of any organization. All these layers add to the organization’s business continuity and availability. Mere failure estimation and assessment of the mechanical and electrical infrastructure does not address all the variables. It in fact adds to the woes of risk assessment. It is important to primarily understand the levels of a data center, its purpose, capacity, and the type of services provided. Risk assessment procedures for a colocation data center are totally different from the regular hosting facility. A cloud enterprise requires different procedures.

A better understanding of the risk profiles and the fact that all data centers are not equal could have prevented the previous outages. Here is where the four Tier classification of data centers needs to change. These four levels of classification do not seem to fit into the present IT world where all the IT services are delivered through the cloud. With just four levels available to frame the most stringent procedures for a complete fail proof facility, it is necessary to deploy a more comprehensive method to better understand a data center’s resilience.

Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.

Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

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OPEN SHORTEST PATH FIRST (OSPF) – AN IGP PROTOCOL

December 8, 2011 By

KEYWORDS: OSPF , CCNA, CCNP , LSA, LSDB , Dijkstra , MPLS, DBD

 

Do you recall  Dijkstra’s algorithm, shortest path first algorithm in your engineering and CCNA preparation . Its time to know its one of the  interesting application .

OSPF is an interior gateway protocol that helps to facilitate the routing information in for the form of LSA (Link state Advertisement) within a single routing domain. It gathers LSA from available routers and constructs a topology map of the network.The same topology map is shared between all the devices with an Area .  OSPF was designed to support (VLSM) or (CIDR) addressing models.

OSPF senses changes in the state of the link , such as link failures, quickly and converges on a new loop-free routing structure. It uses the Dijkstra’s algorithm to find the shortest path tree for each route.

The link-state information is maintained on each router as a link-state database (LSDB) which is a tree-image of the entire network topology. Identical copies of the LSDB are periodically updated through flooding on all OSPF routers.

The best routes are selected by the OSPF by discovering the paths with the lowest cost to a destination. The route cost includes the cost which is configured on interface on which the Link State Advertisement is received by the OSPF and the cost configured on the outbound links operating between the destination network and the router.

A close look inside a OSPF packet suggests the field that constitutes the OSPF packet .

 

 

The fields on the OSPF header are as follows:

  • Version number – Version for IPv4 .I.E 2
  • Type –There are different types of ospsf packets (Hello, DBD, LSR, LSU, LSack)
  • Packet Length – length of the OSPF packet
  • Router ID – Router ID of source Router
  • Area ID – The OSPF area in which the packets originated
  • Check sum – Used in error detection.
  • Authentication Type – Describes either no authentication, cleartext passwords, or encrypted Message Digest 5 (MD5) for router authentication.
  • Authentication – Used with authentication type.
  • Data – Contains different information, depending on the OSPF packet type:
    • Hello – A list of known neighbors.
    • DBD – Summary of the LSDB, which includes all known router IDs and their last sequence number, among a number of other fields.
    • LSR - Contains the type of LSU needed and the router ID of the router that has the needed LSU
    • LSU – Contains the full LSA entries. Multiple LSA entries can fit in one OSPF update packet.
    • LSack – Empty.

 

 

How to Configure OSPF on Cisco Router?

Following commands should be entered in Router configuration mode on Cisco router to enable OSPF,

Router(config)# router ospf 1 (this command enables OSPF on router where 1 is the process ID)

Router(config-router)# network 10.1.1.1 0.0.0.255 area 0 (network specified in this command on which OSPF has to be enabled)

Router(config-router)# network 10.2.1.1 0.0.0.255 area 0 (network specified in this command on which OSPF has to be enabled)

OSPF Neighbor states in case of Adjacency

In order to determine the neighbor state of OSPF, you have to run the following command,

Rotuer# Show ip ospf neighbor

OSPF Multicast Address

OSPF routers sends and listens OSPF message on following multicast address .

  • 224.0.0.5 –all OSPF routers Multicast Address
  • 224.0.0.6 –the DR and BDR multicast Address

 

OSPF Challenges and Troueblshooting

Most of the engineers find it difficult to troubleshoot the OSPF if the goes down or is not coming up . Although from Practical expereince it is not difficult if you know how OSPF works and what happens of each stage.

 

 

OSPF Neighbor Adjacency States

  1. Down State – An OSPF intial process before any exchange of information starts .The exchange process begins when router sending a hello out each interface that is configured for OSPF. The hello packet is sent out multicast address 224.0.0.5.
  2. Init State –  An ospf speaking router receives a packet from another OSPF router . These routers will add the originating router to their list of neighbors. This state is the init state.
  3. Two-way State – When the originating router obtains the hello back from the neighbors as well, it notices that its ownRouter ID is included in the list of neighbors. At this point a two-way state is reached. They now have two way communication.
  4. On a broadcast link type, such as an Ethernet LAN and multi-access medium, a DR and BDR must be elected. The DR will form a bi-directional adjacency with each routers on the LAN link.
  • If a new router joins the broadcast network in which a DR and BDR already exist, it will get to the two-way state with all the routers, including the DR and BDR, and those that are DROTHER. The new router will form a bidirectional adjacency with only the DR and BDR.
  1. Every 10 seconds, the routers exchange hello packets to ensure there is still communication established.

 

  • The routers proceeds in the exstart state once the DR and BDR are elected. After that they exchange LSAs and populate the LSDBs.
  • Loading State – if the router finds that the DBD contains a more updated information, it sends an LSR to the other router. The process of sending the LSR is called the loading state.
  • The routers are considered synchronized and in full state once all LSRs have been received and updated.

 

From troubleshooting perspective you can run the command “ Sh ip ospf nei “ . it will show the the neighbor states and their status.

 

Wish you a happy learning !!!

 

For more updates on the Data Center world,visit Data Center Talk.

 

 

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What is MPLS and its Challenges

November 20, 2011 By

From some years customers are changing their legacy FR , ATM , X.25 , LL with Ethernet MPLS Point to Point and multipurpose circuits and MPLS IP VPN . Companies preference of WAN is decided by many factors like Applications , the number of sites , the amount of control on routing decisions , Capacity and one of most important factor is $$$ . Stats  from Telephotography Global Enterprise Networks Research Service propose that one of the main factor influencing an organization’s international network choice may simply be availability.

Biggest challenge to Deploying Right Strategies

One of the biggest challenges are deploying the right strategies and expertise to build , maintain and run an MPLS network . Ethernet VPN Circuits are cost effective than MPLS IP VPN circuits for capacity requirements above 100 Mbps. There is always a need for quick proactive and reactive approach whenever there is a problem in the MPLS network .

It is a good time to know how MPLS works and the troubleshooting . Its all mechanics and not magic , so we need to be good at logic and understanding . Lets help you out over here.

Mpls Ways of Working

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) mechanism is used in communication networks which deploys short labels instead of longest prefix match for switching network traffic, thus reducing switching delays. MPLS can be considered as layer 2.5 protocol of the standard OSI network model i.e., it operates below the IP layer and on top of the link layer. MPLS enables the transfer IP data over the non IP MPLS networks. Routers at the edges of the MPLS core are called Label Edge Router (LER) and the routers inside the MPLS network are called Label Switch Router (LSR). LERs are, ingress/egress (ingress refers to entrance into Label Switch Path (LSP) and egress refers to exit from the LSP) routers, responsible for attaching the labels to the packets entering the MPLS network and remove the label from the exiting packets. LSRs are the routers which do the traffic forwarding on the basis of label instead of logical 32 bit address.

MPLS, FR , ATM , X.25 , LL with Ethernet MPLS Point, multipurpose circuits, MPLS IP VPN, Data Center Auditing, data center, data center power, data center software, Data Center, power calculation, cooling system, fewer generator, Green Data Center, datacenter, data center services, data center management, about data centers, internet data centers, datacenter services, datacenter solutions Business continuity

In the following example R1 is ingress, R3 and R4 are egress LERs and R2 is LSR. In MPLS every router will share with its neighbor the label which has to be attached for a particular IP prefix. Following are the tables of the four routers shown in the figure. Routers R3 and R4 tell R2 that it has to attach a label of 27 for the traffic destined to reach 10.1.1 network and 33 for the traffic destined to reach 10.3.3 network. The “Interface” entry of the label in the forwarding tables shows the interface on which router will transmit the data. Likewise R2 also tells R1 to either append the label of 8 for 10.1.1 network bound traffic or the label of 9 for 10.3.3 network bound traffic. We notice that there is additional entry of “Remote Label” in the forwarding table of R2. Out of the two remote labels (27 & 33) one will be appended to the outgoing traffic depending upon the destination. Like wise R2 also advertises to R1 the labels (“Remote Label” entry in forwarding table of R1) which it should append to outgoing traffic depending upon the destination.

On R2

Label

Prefix

Interface

Remote Label

8

10.1.1

1

27

9

10.3.3

0

33

On R1

Prefix

Interface

Remote Label

10.1.1

0

8

10.3.3

0

9

On R3

Label

Prefix

Interface

27

10.1.1

0

On R4

Label

Prefix

Interface

33

10.3.3

0

 

So next time you face some issues in the forwarding be sure to check labels running in your Network .

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

 

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Storage Networking Certifications

November 15, 2011 By

Storage Networking Certifications

Storage Networking is escalating so obtaining a Data Center Certification in this area could prove to be very significant and could lead to a lucrative career. Storage requirements are on the increase with most business projecting an increase of at least 10% by the year 2012.

This increase is mainly due to people wanting to do more with videos and other files that obviously take up more space. As this trend continues more openings are sure to become available in both the data management and storage areas.

Below you will find detailed various data center certification programs that are highly beneficial.

EMC Proven Professional Certification

This company has introduced a certification program the EMC Proven Professional Cloud Architect. This course provides students with enough knowledge to manage storage, servers and networking environments into a virtual data center.

After completing the first course graduates can move on to EMC Cloud Architect. This allows IT professionals to use Cloud based as an IT service environment.

SNIA Certified Storage Professional (SCSP)

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has developed new training known as the Storage Networking Certification Program. Plus they have just released a new e-course the Storage Networking Foundations which combines the 4 day course into an 18 module course that can be accessed at your convenience. This course provides you with over 600 pages of material which can be referenced at any time.

In addition SNIA offers a Storage Network Management/Administration workshop which is also available as an e-course. You should note that this program does not cover the basics.

EMC and SNIA provide excellent storage certifications.

Resources: EMC Proven Professional Certification, SNIA Certified Storage Professional (SCSP)

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

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Cisco Data Center Training

November 15, 2011 By

Cisco  Data Center Training

Cisco is a leader in networking industry. They provide many networking certification courses, now they are started to provide Data Center Training as well.

5 levels of CISCO certification:

  •  Entry
  • Associate
  • Professional
  • Expert
  • Architect

8 paths of CISCO which you can follow:

  • Routing and Switching
  • Network Security
  • Service Provider
  • Service Provider Operations
  • Design
  • Wireless
  • Voice
  • Storage Networking

These certified programs offer job ready certification courses that allow the participant to be employed in a Data Center setting.  The current programs that are offered include:

Data Center Unified Computing

There are two courses currently available the Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Design Specialist and the Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Support Specialist.

Areas covered include the Cisco Unified Computing System B and C Series, Server virtualization software, Server operating systems and additional Cisco Data Center products

Data Center Networking Infrastructure

There are three courses which are available the Networking Infrastructure Design Specialist, Support Specialist and Sales Specialist.

Some of the areas of study in these courses include the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches Service Modules and Nexus 2000, 4000, 5000 and 7000.

Data Center Application Services

There are two courses available the Application Services Design Specialist and Support Specialist. The pre-requisite for these courses is the CCDA or any CCIE Certification.

This certification covers the features and benefits of the Cisco MDS 9000 Series Multilayer Director and Fabric Switches in designing storage networks. In addition, this certification covers the use of Cisco NX-OS and provides a technology overview of Cisco Unified Fabric, Cisco Nexus, and Cisco Unified Computing System products.

 Data Center Storage Networking

Under this category there are two courses offered the Networking Design Specialist and the Support Specialist. Storage networking is becoming an increasingly sought after product by many businesses today.

With respect to Data Center Training there are several courses offered as supplemental resources and these include.

Course Outline:

  • Implementing Cisco Nexus 100V
  • Implementing Cisco Nexus 5000 and 2000
  • Implementing Cisco Nexus 7000
  • Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Troubleshooting
  • Additional training on information and storage management

Please check their site for more info: CISCO Data Center Certifications

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

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Marist’s Institute for Data Center Professionals

November 15, 2011 By

This online training center was founded in 2004 with backing from the National Science Foundation.  They offer six data center certification programs which are taught by professionals.These currently are:

Systems and Software Certificates

There are two basic courses as well as the pre-requisite course Information and System Concepts.  The pre-requisite does not necessarily have to be taken first. But it must be taken before your data center certification can be awarded to you.

  • Introduction to Programming
  • Architecture of Hardware and Software

Facilities Management Certificate – this is a basic introduction to Facilities Management.

Networking Certificate

Two courses are offered here: Data Communication and Internet working.

Security Certificate

Topics covered for this certificate include Internet Security and System Administration and Management.

Operations and Process Management

The student will learn information on Managing IT Organizations, System Design and Analysis and Project Management.

Product Development and Financial Planning

This certificate program covers Project Management and Accounting for the Data Center.

For anyone who completes all six certificate programs they will be awarded the Certified Data Center Professional certificate (CDCP). In addition credits for these courses can then be applied to a Marist College Bachelor’s Degree.

You can check their website for more info:  Marist (IDCP) Data Center Education professionals

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

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PTS Data Center Solutions

November 15, 2011 By

PTS is well known as a manufacturer of data centers, as well as building them they know how to maintain a data center. PTS now offers training courses for data center certification.

PTS offers a Data Center Infrastructure Management program which consists of 8 learning modules and lasts for 3 days and is held in various locations throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Course Outline:

  • Fundamentals of Data Center Power
  • Fundamentals of Data Center Cooling
  • Data Center Management and Tools
  • Implementing IT Service Management Metrics
  • Energy Efficiency and Green Data Centers
  • Practical Steps to Implementing ITIL
  • Data Center Availability and Preventive Measures

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library is another course which lasts for 4 days. During this time the participants will learn what ITIL is and is not. How ITIL can help a business and how to actually perform ITIL.

You will also learn how to measure business needs and measure for IT capabilities. The cost of implementation is discussed along with how to create procedures and policy documents.  This first course covers the How to Get Started Aspect.  Once this is completed there are other courses available to your team.

V3 Foundation Courses

Additional courses for ITIL cover aspects such as Operational Support and Analysis, Service Operation, Service Strategy and v3 Foundation.  The v3 Foundation course is required before being allowed to take the final exam. These courses typically last a 3 – 5 day period.

Networking is also covered at PTS with several courses. These include:

  •  Understanding Networking Fundamentals
  • TCP/IP Networking
  • Telecom Architectures and Information Technologies
  • Voice over IP Foundations

If you would prefer customized training for your data center staff then this can also be arranged. PTS will come to your facility and assess your center and then customize your training to fit your needs.

Your other option is for PTS to come to your workplace and teach the subjects which you require and this can be done over a 2-3 day time period.

You can find more information on their website: http://www.ptsdcs.com/

PTS provides data center solutions A-Z.

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

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HP Data Center Training

November 15, 2011 By

The training provided at Hewlett Packard concentrates on all HP products but your education can be easily transferred to other available brands.  Data Center Certification Offered includes:

Optimized Data Center Simulations

There are two choices for this class either a 1/2 day or 1 full day program.

 Data Center Operations, Maintenance and Risk Reduction

This course lasts for 3 days and after successful completion of this course a student will have learned the following plus more:

  • What a Single Point of Failure is and why this is important
  • The student will have the ability to outline the key elements in an infrastructure which delivers a high availability data center performance
  • Develop an action plan that incorporates these key elements
  • Data Center Energy Environment Efficiency
  • Data Center Training Symposium from HP – covers keeping your data center healthy

Engineering a Data Center Staff – 3 hour training class

Data Center Fire Protection Systems – 1 hour training class

HP offers a virtual training environment so students can participate regardless of their location. Free overview sessions are held each Wednesday for 30 minutes from 12.15 – 12.45 EST. Visit HP Rail for more information

HP provides excellent courses for IT professionals. Please check out the following link for more information, HP Data Center Training

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

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Red Hat Certified Data Center – Specialist Training

November 15, 2011 By

Red Hat now offers a Red Hat Certified Data center Specialist training program which is only offered to those holding a Red Hat Certified Engineer certificate. To successfully pass this exam you must complete the following three sections:

  •  EX401 Deployment, Virtualization and Systems Management
  • EX436 Clustering and Storage Management
  • EX423 Directory Services and Authentication or EX318 Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

5 Days Course of Red Hat Certification

These courses can be completed in any order the participant desires. Courses last for 5 days and include hands on training. The fifth day is exam day and the exam lasts anywhere from 4 to 8 hours. Results are emailed within 5 days of taking the exam.

Any of the above mentioned courses will certainly help you get your career on the right track. It is important to keep up to date with all changes as they happen in the IT world.

Please visit Red Hat Certification bout this certificate. If you are a system admin, I would recommend you to take RedHat Data Center Specialist course. It covers variety of topics and it will boost your confident level and easy for you to troubleshoot some of the issues. At least, you can narrow down the problem very easily. Basically, you will gain infrastructure knowledge as well.

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

 

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Data Center University Certifications

November 15, 2011 By

This university offers data center certification courses in relation to power. These courses are particularly useful considering the state of our shrinking resources.  The Data Center offers a wide range of courses a few of which are highlighted below.

Data Center Planning: Standard Procedures – this course provides the student with a standardized predictable process which can then be adapted to suit individual needs.  This type of course will help a company eliminate down time and save costs when setting up and managing a data center.

Fundamentals of Power – this course is a basic level course aimed at teaching the student the basic needs and fundamentals of a data center. The basic power elements are discussed along with power problems which customers are facing today.

Battery Technology for Data Centers and Network Rooms – this course will look at the different types of batteries available and the planning and expected life cycle costs.

Determining Data Center User Requirements – this course is actually based upon a case study and focuses on the infrastructure of the data center. Aspects which are covered are foundation cooling, power racks and the security layers which are necessary. This is part one of a two part case study course.

Calculating Total Power Requirements – this course discusses how to assess the power requirements of the data center. Students will learn how to calculate power requirements and to determine the total power capacity which will be needed to support the data center.

Please visit Data Center University for more info, they have detail information about the courses.

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

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