A blog about archives, storage and everything

Author: Mat X

Watchman Monitoring + Archiware P5
I’ve been a little busy lately. I’m working on some scripts for Watchman Monitoring that alert when Archiware P5 needs attention. It’s really much more exciting than it sounds. 🙂

Archiware P5 plugin (included with Watchman Client 6.6.0)

UPDATE: The Archiware P5 plugin is now included with the Watchman Monitoring client version 6.6.0

Use the link above to read up about Watchman Monitoring and the Archiware P5 plugin.

This plugin is now part of Watchman Monitoring thanks to Allen and his team! Of course, big thanks to a lot of help from Python magician and MacDevOps:YVR colleague, Wade Robson. I couldn’t have finished this plugin without his help. Merci, mon ami. (Early help to get started with this project is thanks to Scott Neal, automation expert and programming wizard. Thank you so much Scott, and thanks for the tasty Portland beer!).

Watchman Monitoring is a group of plugins that will warn when drives are failing, computers have restarted unexpectedly or backups are not running. All reporting goes to a beautiful web interface in the cloud which can keep a history of plugin issues. Watchman allows for integration with ticket systems and multiple users including clients and IT staff that can keep track of what’s up with their workstations, and servers.

Watchman Monitoring helps me keep tabs of major issues at all my clients before they become disasters. I even use it in discovery for new clients to see what issues exist but are ignored or unknown.

Since I set up a lot of SAN storage for my clients, and I use Archiware P5 for backups and archives I realized I needed to write a plugin for Watchman Monitoring that alerts me to issues. Instead of remoting in with VPN to each and every client every day to check on backups the only alternative is to automate it. These scripts watch the LTO tape drives and emails when they need cleaning, or warns when running jobs need tapes, if workstations haven’t backed up in a while or if tape pools need more tapes. And in Beta 2 we’ve added a check to see if the P5 maintenance support needs to be renewed to give you time to renew it before it expires. As well as better alerts for issues with running jobs, and lots of bug fixes.

We have it working on Mac servers running Archiware P5 and the next step is Linux, and the Unix family. Later on, Watchman will port it to Windows. The scripts are written in Python which is great for portability (except to Windows. Ha ha). And the P5 Watchman plugins should eventually run everywhere that Archiware P5 runs (OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Windows).

The best part of writing plugins for Watchman Monitoring is the great help that Allen and the whole team at Watchman have given us been throughout our development of these Archiware P5 plugins. And of course everyone at Archiware and Mike at PVT have been super helpful in explaining the use of the nsdchat cli for Archiware P5, even going so far as to add some features we needed to nsdchat when we explained how useful they’d be for this project. Mille mercis. Vielen danke.

Using GitHub to check code in, document business logic, write code, build a wiki and then track issues that need bug fixes or enhancement requests has been an adventure. It all starts with an problem that you want to be alerted for. It’s easy enough to add custom plugins to Watchman Monitoring you just need some ideas, a programmer (or two) and some time for testing, debugging, more testing and time. Did I mention you need lots of time? Ha ha

And now for a sneak peak of the Archiware P5 beta 2 plugins for Watchman Monitoring.
1. Watchman nicely lists the new warnings and expirations for quickly getting to the issues you need to see.
2. Expirations are tracked with Watchman. In this case we note the date when the maintenance for Archiware P5 needs to be renewed. Don’t want to miss that!
3. Server info is good to know. Uptime, port used, and what exactly is licensed.
4. The LTO tape drive is the heart of any tape library, and alerting when it needs cleaning is very important.
5. Other plugins watch the tape pools, running and completed jobs, as well as Backup2Go (workstation backup).
June 2, 2016
Best of 2015: VidiXplore

This is another great product of 2015 and when I found it, I thought VidiXplore proves that Media Asset Management could be done better and simpler. At the end of December 2015 they released version 1.0 with new some tricks, including some changes to make a migration from Final Cut Server a reality. Time to move some clients!!

To sum up VidiXplore, I’ll quote my tweet from Dec 21, 2015:

Finally the perfect solution for simple asset management! Keep proxies in the cloud, originals local. Search + share!

Working with video editors, animation and visual effects studios, I’ve come to realize that media asset management (MAM) systems can be complicated and painful. Changing workflow, oh no! Building a better pipeline is not easy, nor is it always welcome. Well, hello from the other side, we found the solution, or at least part of it.

With VidiXplore you have 3 steps:

Step 1. Manage your videos by keeping all the originals local. Use your own storage. Use your folder structure. Use your vids as you would normally. Don’t pay for cloud storage.

Step 2. Proxies (thumbnail vids) go into the cloud to be viewed by you and your team.

Step 3. Organize your videos and photos into collections, batch edit by adding tags to add metadata, search for particular assets and share them with colleagues and external clients.

That’s it. You’re already ahead of the game. We skipped right over step 4 which was “have a lot of meetings to debate proper metadata” and step 5 which was “convince everyone at the company to adopt a different workflow.”

With VidiXplore you switch to a monthly payment model, that is true. You don’t own the cloud platform, but what you gain is that you don’t pay a lot of money upfront to set up a large server (or many large server), nor do you need render farm for video transcoding nor for the databases you need to keep track of it all. Pay monthly. That’s the way for a lot of smaller companies. Lower up front starting cost. No extreme capital outlay in the beginning.

Honestly, VidiXplore is a refreshing and easy way for so many people to use asset management now, so why not try it? Harder to say that with a large system setup that costs a lot of money to set up, only to find that no one wants to use it. That’s not what anyone wants.

And now for something completely different…

Let’s take a quick look at VidiXplore. If you’ve installed the VidiXploreAgent-1.0 agent then you’ll have a nice “V” icon in your menu bar (Mac) or system tray (Windows). Use this to open the VidiXplore agent.

In the VidiXplore menu you can access the settings where can you set whether certain file types get a Cloud Copy uploaded by default or how many concurrent jobs can run at once.

When the agent is open you’ll see folders you’ve configured for media, and an option to go the website of your particular instance of VidiXplore.

For the first web login you’ll see an intro screen which allows you to upload additional media to VidiXplore (that is, in addition to any particular media folders you’ve configured in the agent) and the option to connect cloud storage such as S3, Azure or Dropbox. Lastly, there are also the installers for the agent.

Once logged into your website you see a basic layout with options to sort by files or collections, to specify all files or particular types, sort by location and bulk actions.

If we want we can sort the results and see only collections:

Or we can sort by files which have a cloud copy:

So many options to sort, search and find what we’re looking for. Of course, we want to also edit the metadata but not so much that we require weekly meetings to decide on the 500 important and required metadata fields. Just use tags. Of course, meetings are good, and so is process, but it is so quick to select bulk actions and add a tag to a group of objects. Done!

“Finally the perfect solution for simple asset management! Keep proxies in the cloud, originals local. Search + share!”

There’s so much more you can do with VidiXplore, and I’ll go into more detail in another blog post, but this was just a highlight for my best of 2015.

Check out their website for more information:

VidiXplore.com

January 29, 2016
Best of 2015: Archiware P5 Archive app
Announced late in 2015 the Archiware P5 Archive app is a revolution for editors who want to control the archive and restore process. No longer the job of the IT Admin, editors can select files or folders on their SAN volume (or anywhere) and send them to the tape archive.

The Archive app is a brilliantly simple app that allows the right-click services action in OS X, or in another words a it’s a GUI app that presents a contextual menu that knows to how to the talk to your P5 Archive server. When the files are safely on tape the original files on the filesystems are replaced with stub files that can be used to start the restore process.

Requirements: Archiware P5 server with the Archive module setup with an Archive plan. Add to that the P5 Archive App which is installed on the clients.

Note: At the moment all archiving goes over the LAN by default, so if you have a fast SAN then you set up the P5 Archive app client settings as “localhost” instead of their actual client name. That means that when it goes to archive the file, the server knows that the files exist on the SAN at a known path (which is the same on the client and the server).

And now for some detailed steps and screenshots.
1. Archiving completed projects
Choose the completed project folder and right-click. Select “Archive to P5”.

Note 1: If you want to restore files choose the folder that was archived and right-click. Choose “Restore from P5”.

Note 2: Restoring individual files that have been archived is possible by double-clicking the files with the “.p5a” extension, but it will be much faster to select an entire folder to restore than many individual files.

Note 3: For either archive or restore to work the P5 Archive app needs to be installed.

Note 4: To avoid having a services sub menu keep the contextual-menu items to four.

2. Archiving app status

When you are archiving or restoring files the Archive app will show you the status of your request. It will also show you the status of other jobs running on the P5 server. This is to let you know why perhaps your archive or restore is taking a long time (it’s possibly waiting for access to the tape drive and it currently busy backing up or archiving something else).

The P5 Archive app offers you three operations “cancel job”, “list items” and “get report”. The last two are great when you want to examine a completed job, for example. If you want to find out what files were archived in the particular job choose “list items”.

3. Restoring files

Archived files will have either one of or both of, 1) a”.p5a” file extension and 2) a P5 Archive app icon.

Folders and FCP X project bundles (which are folders) do not get the “.p5a” extension, but FCP X projects have the the icon.

Note 1: Files can also be restored by the admin through the P5 web interface. They can be restored in place or to any other location that is required.

Note 2: On the P5 server jobs that are sent to archive or restored from tape show up as “cli job” with the tapes in use. Actual files or folders involved need to be noted from the P5 Archive app not the P5 web admin console. Otherwise checking the P5 web restore tab will files actually archived (that can be restored).

That’s enough for the quick overview of this great new app. One of the best things in 2015.

For more information on Archiware’s new P5 Archive app check out their website:

P5 Archive app
January 29, 2016
2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog, but nobody wants to read no stinkin’ reports so let me just sum it all up: Xsan, Munki, Thunderbolt, Archives. Or is that all one word? Thunderbolt Xsan Munki Archives! That’s better.

Here’s an excerpt from the report that no one will read:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Surprisingly, or not, that opera would be about Xsan. Yes, Apple’s Xsan is still alive, and Apple even added new features with OS X 10.11 El Capitan. I’m still building Xsan shared storage SANs and upgrading old ones to new versions. That was one of the good news stories of 2015 for me.

You can build an Xsan with one or two Mac Minis and add your storage of choice. That used to mean more often than not the fibre channel storage from Promise. A great choice for larger deployments, the x30 Vtraks are solid.

But the real shocker for me in 2015 was stumbling upon the Accusys Thunderbolt SAN RAID, the A16T2-Share. For more than half off the price of a similar fibre channel storage RAID here’s a magical box powered by unicorns that has four (4) Thunderbolt connections. Plug one Thunderbolt cable into that Mac Mini, format the raid, setup Apple’s Xsan, and then plug the other three (3) Thunderbolt cables into iMacs, Mac Pro, MacBook Pros or any Xsan clients. Wow. Awesome.

Suddenly we have a game changer. An affordable SAN storage RAID for real block-level storage. Now more than ever we can afford to have true collaborative workflows for video editors and anyone in the creative. If you need to work together with fast connections to a shared pool then building an Xsan got much more attractive.

Disclaimer: I got a chance to test the Accusys A16T2-Share. And I would be crazy to recommend something without testing it thoroughly. This was used for several weeks by video editors in production. It was much faster than our 4GB fibre channel storage, of course, but it was also faster than our 8GB FC storage. Speed tests showed we got close to 1GB/sec, and even when it was 97% full we got 700MB/sec. Sa-weet.

I look forward to seeing what Accusys bring to NAB in 2016. What new box will they show up with? I hope for more than 4 client ports and faster Thunderbolt 3. Only 82 more sleeps till we all find out.

Apple’s Xsan and Accusys Thunderbolt storage A16T2-Share were big stars of 2015, but what else stood out? The two other bright shiny lights were Archiware’s new P5 Archive app, and Vidispine’s VidiXplore cloud based MAM. More on those in posts to follow. Both of these products have transformed workflows for editors. Stay tuned!

January 28, 2016
Hands on with Imagr
At the recent MacTech conference in Los Angeles I got a chance to sit in a workshop led by Graham Gilbert walking us through his open source imaging tool, Imagr.

This was a perfect follow-up to last year’s awesome demo by Pepijn Bruienne at last year’s MacTech where he demoed his BSDPy netboot replacement running in a Docker container net booting and imaging a new VM in VMWare. Amazing live netboot demo with bonus points for writing your own netboot replacement in Python, stuffing it into a Docker container!

This year, Graham Gilbert led us through setting up BSDPy Docker container, getting the link to VMware working and using his Imagr tool to image a new VM instance of OS X. Fun stuff.

Here are some screenshots:
1. VMWare booting up looking for NetBoot services
VMWare booting up

2. The lovely NetBoot globe spinning

NetBoot

3. Progress!

Booting up

4. Image NetBoot image booted

Netboot image booted, but there’s an issue with the plist I built by hand. Some of the keys and strings got mixed up when copying from the whiteboard. Thanks to Rich Trouton who was sitting next to me who helped me diff his plist with mine to find how I’d messed it up. Easy to fix, slightly tricky to find. Luckily you only have to edit this plist to do initial set up.

Image NetBoot image booted

5. Imagr start up

Imagr start up

6. Imagr starting, password first

Image password

7. Imagr restoring OS X image

Imagr restoring OS X image

8. Imgr completed workflow

Imgr completed workflow

9. Shutting docker down

docker down

Reference:

Graham Gilbert’s blog post with slides of the workshop.

http://grahamgilbert.com/blog/2015/11/12/mactech-2015-hands-on-with-imagr/

Pepijn Bruienne’s blog, Enterprise Mac

http://enterprisemac.bruienne.com
November 16, 2015
Thoughts on Documentation: What are we afraid of?

People are afraid of documentation… But mostly people just hate it. They don’t like it. They don’t want it. It shouldn’t exist. Fingers in ears. I can’t hear you.

This is about primal fear. And hate. I hate hate. But these are real emotions. Let’s deal with it. What is the reality? Why is documentation is ignored, abandoned, or resisted at all?

As a Sysadmin perhaps you don’t care about documentation, that is, sharing information with others (co workers / bosses), you want to keep it to yourself. But you care very much about building systems. But there’s perhaps no attempt to explain any of this to anyone else. Who else is there really? No one cares. No one is around that would understand if you explained it.

Lesson # 1 – Document for yourself.

Paranoia makes us set up redundant systems for backups. Layers upon layers. Custom scripts and disparate apps. Where was this explained? Documented? Nowhere. Bin dir. Maybe.

If you could replace all that now with one app that did it all then you would. Time is valuable. Easier to monitor. Easier for someone else to monitor and take over.

Lesson # 2 – document for your replacement (job change, bus hit)

Do it continuously. Automate. Or set up systems that work automatically.

Lesson # 3. DevOps.

Integrate systems. IT systems manage computer but maybe they also built Inventory. Automatically. Alert Systems report continuously. Living systems report on the state of everything. Documentation is easier when it is current and relevant.

Lesson # 4. Sustainability

Commercial vs OpenSource. Support vs excellent team, talent retention and documentation. Pro/Con. If your custom solution is not well documented that can be a big problem. If you code is not shared, peer-reviewed, or supported by anyone that could be an issue. If it makes sense to switch to commercial software that is supported then do it. If an OpenSource project or code is supported by a larger community perhaps that makes sense.

Lesson # 5. Improve. Grow. Get better.

Discovery and Documentation lead to suggestions for improvement. Make changes. Code and disparate systems that struggle to be documented make us think about how to replace them or better balance the risks vs cost.

Lesson # 6. Human problems don’t always tech solutions.

Code doesn’t fix broken workflows. Meetings are with people. Talking through systems helps people understand pain points. Don’t forget people want to do their job, meet deadlines, do stuff.

Let’s make their world and our world better.

Love not hate. Peace.

Documentation-MatX

November 8, 2015
Thunderbolt SAN talk at Mac Admin meet up

Big thanks to Ross at Ping Identity for organizing and Jamf for sponsoring the Mac Admin meetup on September 9, 2015.

We filled the tiny meeting room and we will have to expand to the larger conference room (or theatre) next time. It was a well attended meetup with much discussion of the earlier day’s Apple announcements, new OS X “El Capitan” and iOS 9 changes and how this affects management products like Casper which have had to move the binary because of the new SIP implementation in OS X.

I opened up the meet up with a presentation on Storage, SANs and the new Accusys Thunderbolt SAN A16T2-Share product.

The goal of my presentation was to give a quick overview of SAN technology as I’ve seen it change over the last 10 years: from Fibre Channel, to iSCSI to PCIe and Thunderbolt based. The last change to Thunderbolt based SANs is the most interesting for small video production workgroups or anyone that likes working on small scale shared projects but needs a decent bandwidth at an affordable price. Block level storage (SANs) is straight forward storage tech for users and applications to interact with without having to negotiate network protocols (AFP, SMB, or NFS). It’s never been quite that affordable until now.

Having built a lot of Fibre Channel based SANs for media and entertainment companies and post-production editors in corporate environments I know how awesome and fast and solid these SANs are. Lots of editors and clients can hit a large SAN and it won’t blink. Thirty or Sixty users is not unusual. But not everyone believes in fibre channel or the idea of pulling fibre cables. It is surprisingly a large stumbling block to building large SANs, “no, we don’t want fiber cables”. True, sometimes clients have objected to gigabit Ethernet too, but that’s another story.

I found that iSCSI, especially with the DDP units I’ve set up, has been a great alternative to fibre channel. Not fiber cables to pull. Just use the CAT6 cables already in place. Great Ethernet based SANs using 1 x or 2 x CAT6 cables per client, or even 10G. Works well. Very well indeed. It’s been great for smaller (and larger) clients who want a great Ethernet iSCSI SAN solution without needing fibre channel cables, switches, HBAs, Thunderbolt adapters, etc.

That’s why when I stumbled across the Accusys Thunderbolt storage I was kinda really excited. No fibre channel to Thunderbolt adapters. Just use Thunderbolt cables. Brilliant! Finally a solution for small workgroups. And there’s so many video groups sprouting out of every corporate office, or boutique VFX or post-production shops that have been struggling with small NAS solutions that were not meant for video production. Now you can get that SAN that you’ve wanted, you can really get that block-level storage at an affordable price. Instead of working locally and copying raw footage and finished products back and forth across slow network links they can work in a small video group with high speed storage. Sa-weet. (Can you tell I’m excited?).

I’ll include the presentation PDF here as a link if anyone is interested. I’ve added a link at the end from Accusys on how to build an Xsan with the A16T2-Share. Yes, Xsan from Apple still exists and is bundled with the OS for free. Building a SAN is pretty easy and everyone can do it. Don’t forget your backups though.

Lastly, anyone interested in attending any meetings for the upcoming MacDevOps:YVR (June 16-17, 2016) drop me a note. I added the email in the presentation document.

MatX_SAN_Accusys-Thunderbolt_2015

September 10, 2015
MacDevOps Manifesto

I was explaining Munki (and autopkg) to some colleagues when I hit on the idea of the MacDevOps manifesto.

Munki and friends (apps used to augment and extend Munki) are helpful automation tools. Setting up automation systems take time and must be maintained and grown but they pay big dividends. Freeing us to do Dev work or other tasks they automate and iterate and repeat and build our systems in the way we want.

No more 100 machines built in a hundred different ways (unless we want to). But now we can check at a glance in MunkiReport to verify that indeed the latest Adobe Flash patch is installed. That may make our lives better. Especially if we need to satisfy corporate IT or our bosses that we are up to date and patched as required.

The MacDevOps Manifesto Part 1: Munki and friends

Munki is at its core free software created by Greg Neagle at Disney Animation and used worldwide in many different ways but essentially to distribute apps and run scripts on client workstations. There are many ways to customize it and if fits many different workflows. The MacDevOps:YVR conference I ran last June turned out to be a Munki love-in and showed me the many awesome and varied ways organizations are using it.

With AutoPkg, another free Mac open source project, Munki can get the latest updates to any software that it has recipes for and by extension install them on clients immediately. This fits the workflow of having Flash, Java and web browsers (Chrome or FireFox) updated as soon as possible for security patches. Exploits on the Mac are coming from these entry points and if you need to use these apps or plugins then having the latest versions helps. For this feature alone I use Munki. In a few months you will see that Munki with AutoPkg has downloaded dozens of versions of each app and keeping up with this takes time away from other tasks. Automation of simple tasks frees up our time so we can focus on other things. That is MacDevOps.

I also use Munki for installation of any app that is needed everywhere. If I have to download or install one app for one client workstation I put it in Munki and it is ready for installation anywhere with a simple click by the user in a self service portal or automatically by choosing managed installs. Of course if there is an app you don’t want installed (flash or Skype or messenger, etc) add it to Munki and mark it as managed uninstall. Done.

Scripts and files and config Profiles (replacement for mcx, managed preference settings for OS X) can be imported and used to configure workstations to make deployment easy and flexible. Put everything in Munki and then you don’t have to use golden master builds anymore. Buy a new Mac and install the Munki client. Done.

Add to this Munki Report which gives an excellent dashboard for what is installed and a total inventory of your client Macs. Very useful info which will let you know if you 15 different versions of flash or Photoshop or any app you choose to look for.

Last but least I always install Watchman Monitoring which reports to a secure cloud (web portal) to automatically monitor for bad drives, Ram, backups not running etc. It’s a great 50ft overview of all your installs and it can alert you immediately when a machine is having issues that you need to deal with (drives 90% full or Xsan volume not mounted, etc).

I find this combination of Munki and Watchman great for helping me manage my clients and I want to share these ideas about MacDevOps inspired ways of automating systems with everyone. Jump in and get involved with all these projects. You’ll be writing recipes for AutoPkg and sharing cool Munki tips and tricks with all your friends. And maybe like me you will start writing plugins for Watchman to monitor your favourite apps (I’m working on Archiware P5 backup and archive monitoring scripts).

Good luck to everyone and hope to see you at the next MacDevOps:YVR conference in June 2016. If you can’t make it go to your nearest Mac Dev / IT conference or start your own meet up somewhere local.

August 28, 2015
Move over El Capitan, hello Yosemite!

With all this talk about El Capitan, Apple’s as of yet unreleased version 10.11 of OS X, and its wondrous new features in Xsan, I think it might be time to upgrade to last year’s breakthrough version of OS X, Yosemite. Sure, you might be excited by the press releases for the built-in DLC in El Capitan but seriously sane folks stay 1-year behind the bleeding nose upgrades provided by Apple. So if OS X 10.11 is all the rage before its released it must be time to seriously consider upgrading that working Xsan running OS X 10.8 or OS X 10.9.

In my case, I upgraded a working Xsan running on Mac Minis and OS X 10.8.5. Here are some screenshots from the process. As always think worked better than I could have expected, and it is a much easier process that one expects. But stay sharp kids, danger lurks when you wake the dreamer…. Upgrading a SAN is serious business and doing anything like this without proper backups is taking your life in your own hands. In my case, full disk backups on Promise Pegasus RAIDs and full tape backups using Archiware P5.

Download the Yosemite installer form the App Store. Install. Download the new Server.app from the App Store. Install. Now upgrade your Xsan. That’s it. You’re done. No surprises, aren’t you happy? Ha ha. I’m kidding. The fun is just getting started.

If you’re actually following along, this isn’t a step by step recipe. Go to Apple’s site and read this Kbase and check out the migration guide.

Restore Xsan

Step 1 is to launch the new Server.app, find Xsan Admin. Just kidding, it isn’t there. Enable Xsan, and choose to Restore a previous SAN configuration. That wasn’t hard. High five! Actually, we’re not done yet. Set up OD now. Go!

Step 2. Set up your Xsan controller as an Open Directory (OD) master. Does’t matter if it’s joined to another domain, Xsan keeps itself organized in OD, so you need it.

Set up OD

Step 3. Admire your upgraded SAN, “how lovely the flowers do smell…. life is good.”

Xsan list

Step 4. Where did my Xsan admin go? Where do I add clients? Where are my clients? Huh? What? Why did I upgrade a perfectly working SAN to this version? Ha ha.

Take it all in, take a good look at what you’ve done to your Xsan. What? Just so the editors could have the latest version of Final Cut Pro (v.10.2.1) which is only compatible with OS X 10.10.4. I see what you’ve done Apple, very clever indeed. Hmm…

Click on the “Save configuration profile” button and download the profile somewhere. Use this to set up the SAN on your clients. Distribute via Profile Manager or install it manually. Up to you. I haven’t gotten it to work with Munki quite yet. Installing it requires the admin password for the Xsan controller. How convenient.

When you client is configured you’ll see a Profile in System Preferences. Remove it and your client is un-configured. No more Xsan.prefpane to list volumes and mount or unmount them. Nope. That would be too easy. Learn to love “xsanctl”, as in “xsanctl mount Xsan”. Read some xsanctl tips in this Kbase

Step 5. Set up a backup Xsan controller. You have one of those, right? In my case, I had a client which I wanted to promote to be a controller. But first what to do about its status a client of the Xsan?

backup cannot be client

Open Server.app, enable Xsan, join current Xsan as a backup controller and set up a replica OD. Confirm, confirm, confirm. Think about what you’re doing, then do it!

confirm

Apple wizards are the best wizards, uh, i mean Setup Assistants. No wizards here…. So, you’ve setup a backup Xsan controller, and OD replica, and now look in Server.app. How amazing is that… wait, what? Where’d my Xsan volumes go? Huh? Where are the controllers? Weird. Very strange. Not comforting at all.

The Xsan window eventually shows the volumes and controllers, bur geez, almost gave me a heart attack. It’s not like I never seen Xsan go bad before. Xsan 1 nightmare still haunt me. They do. Backups. Need more backups. Archiware P5 Backups, do it now!

OK, you’ve survived the uncertainty of Xsan upgrades…. But wait more minute… cat the fsnameservers (no, it’s not the name of a band, it’s a command). Check it out. Holy smokes, batman. Xsan 4 by default will set your metatadata network to the public LAN, something that’d would be laughed at years ago, but they do it now by default. Of course, upgrading our SAN kept out metadata network the same. But strangely the Xsan backup controller is set to use the public for metadata when the primary controller is not. WTF.

Change your metadata network. Read the Kbase, and once again wield xsanctl like a boss.

July 29, 2015
Affordable Shared Storage: Accusys A16T2-Share Thunderbolt SAN

Accusys A16T2-Share Thunderbolt SAN storage

I’ve mentioned the Accusys A16T2-Share Thunderbolt SAN storage before. I first encountered it at NAB 2015 back in April. It was truly a magical find. A 16-drive RAID unit with 64TB raw storage and ready to be part of your Apple Xsan using Thunderbolt connectors. No Thunderbolt to fibre channel adapters necessary, nor is a fibre channel switch required. Just plugin a Mac Mini as your Xsan controller, and there’s room for 3 other clients to plugin with Thunderbolt. Pretty neat.

It’s not for everyone. There’s a limit to the length of Thunderbolt optical cables. And there’s only 3 clients possible using one last Thunderbolt connection for an Xsan controller. But this could work well for small work groups. The magical 4-seat SAN setup is finally here. Bob Kite, master SAN builder, would be happy.

I’ve just gotten word that this unit is available for sale now, as it was recently certified by both Apple and Intel. I believe the street price is approximately $9900 USD, but don’t quote me on that. Information is still emerging on this new product. I do hope to get my hands on one to do some real world application testing. Including testing resilience to failure (drive removals, raid rebuilds, etc).

If the reliability of the Accusys hardware is good, and backed up with solid support then this could be a great product.

Of course, it kinda goes without saying that all storage, including Shared SAN storage, needs solid backups. My preference where possible is a second tier disk (NAS/SAN/DAS) and tape. My preferred vendor is Archiware which makes the very excellent product P5.

With over 10 years of experience with Xsan and setting up storage systems I have learned to always setup excellent backups. Restoring files when a RAID or SAN fails is crucial. Using an a RAID, such as the Accusys Thunderbolt A16T2-Share, as a SAN would be come with a recommendation from me to all my clients to have a secondary Thunderbolt RAID unit of the same size to sync it daily and to use P5 Backup with LTO 6 tape drives (preferably in a tape library). You never can be too paranoid with a client’s data. That’s what my clients pay me for. To plan for failure. I love setting them with excellent SAN storage, but I must counsel them to build also an excellent backups system. Better safe than sorry.

The price point on this A16T2-Share Thunderbolt RAID is attractive, and when it is released many clients in small shops may very well consider it. At approximately $10K US for 64TB of shared storage with free Xsan 4 it is a pretty sweet deal. Add another $5-10K for a large backup RAID drive, and another $5K for a tape library and $2K for Archiware P5 Backup and the cost adds up. But having an affordable price for the main SAN storage makes this a very real possibility for some clients who have been struggling with editing video on NAS like QNAP, Synology or Drobo.

July 20, 2015