Technology
ACP Thin Manager deployment
Hi have been working on ACP Thin Manger for quite some time now. You can find information of their products at www.thinmanager.com. This is a great solution for production companies who work in the manufacturing sector and use custom applications to control all of their on site hardware.
The solution is based around Thin Client architecture and uses services like Microsoft RDS as its core and hops onto these terminal connections managing each session to provide a better experience for these custom apps.
It is an all in one PXE, DHCP and imaging solution. The thin clients boot from an image over a network and do not require a hard disk because everything is loaded in memory. You can then push terminal sessions to thin clients or to Windows machines running WinTMC (which is an application provided by ACP) that connect to the Thin Manager server and download their RDS configuration and then connect into the RDS infrastructure.
I am going to roll this out now to a company so that they have a central approach to desktops out in the manufacturing plants. This also means if a thin client fails, they just replace it with a new one.
Simple
Broadcom + Hyper-V + VMQ’s
There have been a lot of posts on the internet discussing VMQ’s. Microsoft had published this LINK to ensure that the best performance was experienced on Virtual machines. VMQ is supposed to offer an intelligent buffer, whereby virtual machines benefit from network cards which can offload and prioritise virtual machine traffic. The fact is that the Broadcom cards cause high latency issues, and inconsistency with network traffic.
I tried a few tests:
1.5 GB file:
- Copying from Physical Machine to Physical Machine: <10 seconds
- Copying from Virtual machine to Physical Machine: 34 Seconds
- Copying from Virtual to Virtual machine: >1 minute
This pointed me to the settings within Hyper-V for the Networking interface and the iSCSI disk layer. I first checked the disks, and the IOPS on the SAN was hitting a maximum of 600 IOPS which is less than average throughput for the SAN, considering there are 24 virtual machines on the SAN volume. Then I tried the network throughput by using a few linux tools, and this proved that the Network interface was at fault. The strangest thing was that the throughput would hit about 200MB/sec and then drop off to about 15K/sec and then spike back up again. I then looked at the network interface and disabled the following setting within the network adapter:
Once this was completed then performance of the virtual machines suddenly increased. They are now running as fast as the Physical ones.
Now its time to change to intel cards.
Its been a busy time with IT Implementations
I have been busy over the last month doing a lot of work for different companies in the UK. This work is helping business along their challenging path to implement successful IT solutions. Here is a list of some of stuff I have been doing:
- Installation of Dell Equallogic Storage system and implementing into a brand new Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V Cluster
- Installation of 6 Kemp Load Balanced and Geo clusters to provide a UK Load Balanced solution for Microsoft Exchange 2013
- Migration of an old Exchange 2007 platform into Office 365 Mid Size business plan.
- Implementing upstream and downstream WSUS deployments
This has been exiting work really and I really enjoy working with this IT sector. I have managed to deploy the Kemp solution quite easy after having a vast background with Citrix Netscaler. Although the products are different to each other in terms of service offering, the Kemp provides a standard load balancing feature that is easy to implement and works very well with Microsoft Solutions.
I have also been brushing up on my Dell storage knowledge now version 7 of the Equallogic software is out. Working in many different Hypervisor environments, this solution was easy to implement and migrate from an old SAN and Hyper-V cluster. This counts towards a large disaster IT infrastructure for small businesses. This is something I have used for my business and something I plan to stick with. I also recommend other companies to move into this if possible and carry out their migrations for them.
In terms of Microsoft core services that are offered within the Windows Server 2012 R2 platform, I have had a lot of experience with Hyper-V, RDS, VDI, Failover Clustering, File and Print Services and WSUS. WSUS is a tool which is very good if you want to distribute patches and software updates from Microsoft to your servers. If you have a slow internet connection or are restricted in terms of contention or even download capacity, you can use WSUS to download once and then distribute to many internally. I have had to do this, because the company I work with only has a limited MPLS connection which has limited bandwidth, so I enabled this as an upstream and downstream service.
Now its time to plan for next year, and I am always on the lookout for other work in all these areas.
Case Study – IT deployment for a Global Manufacturer
A Global Manufacturer who have offices in the UK, were faced with a major challenge. They have recently received notice that they were undergoing a buyout from a new parent company. They embarked on the journey of re-aligning their IT infrastructure so that the company transition to the new IT services was as smooth as possible.
To ensure that this was carried out successfully, Worton Tech assisted the IT Partner with the transition of IT Services for the client.
The Challenge
The Client had proved that the daily operational tasks in the business, and delivery of the migration to the new Microsoft Active Directory domain at the same time were too much for the IT team to carry out. To enable to them to achieve this in a short time span, Worton Tech provided professional resource to assist with the Active Directory migration.
The Technology
The migration included a complete Microsoft Active Directory Forest migration which incorporated, Microsoft Server technologies such as Microsoft Hyper-V migration, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft File Services, PowerShell scripting, DNS, DHCP, and other services that included Citrix Xen Server and Citrix Xen App.
Also, a total assessment and redeployment of user permissions by using Role Based Access methods that complied with new IT policies was carried out ensuring that the client adopt the standards and policies laid before them by their parent company. This included meetings with stakeholders, design principals and demonstrations.
Enhancement
During this migration a number of additional services that were identified by the client were included in the work stream. Firstly, implementation of Cisco switches that provided a greater resiliency for network services and offered a higher level of throughput provided for the client with the core network stack they needed for further enhancing their IT infrastructure. Users of the system had noted the performance of the network was greatly increased and fed this back to the IT Manager once the infrastructure had been deployed.
The Future
With users happy, the migration was successful and the client are now operating on their new infrastructure. This now gives opportunity to the client to further enhance their IT infrastructure by deploying modern technology to ensure the business operate efficiently. This includes new storage services and enhanced disaster recovery.
PC Specialist Ultranote 2 14inch Review
Introduction
I eventually took the plunge into starting my own business and I was on the lookout for a new laptop for this. I had come from using an old Dell laptop which was long past its sell by date and was failing at certain tasks which I had thrown at it in my day to day working environment. I wanted a new machine, which was portable and relatively lightweight. The graphics and game play side of the computer was not important as this requirement was purely a performance machine for Microsoft Windows, Office, Web based applications, video tasks, programming and general day to day usage.
I opted to purchase the PC Specialist Ultranote II 14 inch laptop. I did this for a number of reasons.
- The configuration was flexible
- The price was better than anywhere else I had seen at £720.00 all in
- The performance seemed to be acceptable with what I was looking for
- There had been some good reviews on many of the other builds which they had on offer
Specification
Chassis & Display UltraNote: 14″ Glossy HD LED Backlit Widescreen (1366×768)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4712MQ (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card INTEL® HD GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR 4600
Memory – Hard Disk 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive UltraNote Series: 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ULTIMATE N-6300 (450Mbps)
USB Options 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery UltraNote Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH) (Up to 7 Hours)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 65W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 8.1 Professional 64 Bit – inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Professional DVD with paper sleeve
Keyboard Language ULTRANOTE SERIES UK KEYBOARD
Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Initial Build Quality
I had agreed to wait 4 weeks for the laptop to be built and tested. This was delivered within the timescale which I was promised. Upon receiving my laptop I took a variety of pictures which hopefully explains the delivery packing and build quality.
The laptop came in the regular packing, which was well padded.
The contents of the packaging included the laptop, manual, power adapter, DVD’s for drives and Operating System and finally the manual delivered from PC Specialist.
The laptop was provided with a plastic wrap around the screen which had been carefully placed to protect the back lid of the laptop and the screen. The laptop has a “brushed” effect to the body which gives it a unique feel. This is a brushed plastic which might mean that the laptop is suited to less rugged environments but does provide an acceptable type of case for the laptop for what I need.
The battery is a Li Ion type which fits nicely into the back and does not stick out at the back offering a nice finish to the back of the laptop. The battery is quite small in comparison to other vendors on the market which offers to the reduce the weight of the laptop.
The laptop on the one side has 2 USB 3 ports, HDMI, VGA + Ethernet. These are placed in a nice area, splitting the USB by having 2 on the left hand side and 1 on the right hand side. The HDMI and VGA port are completely separated on the side which might provide some flexibility when plugging in multiple devices and not getting caught up with cables when doing a presentation.
On the other side the laptop lock port, DVD Drive, a single USB 2 drive and the audio jack/microphone ports. To offer more portability in the future, the laptop could be build without a DVD ROM drive or maybe provide a DVD blanking plate to reduce the weight further. As it stand however, the placement of the USB port at the front is easily accessible which is the same to be said for the audio ports.
The keyboard is a nice simple keyboard which i very comfortable to type on. The keys are not heavy but do have a solid feel to them and they are very good for typing.
Here you can see the laptop with the case closed and a close up on the brushed effect of the laptop. The total height of the laptop is about average compared to other vendors on the market. However the price of the laptop makes this model come out on top for office based performance.
The laptop lid closed. The laptop is quite light in respect to the specification and very portable. The design has a solid feel to it and here you can see the brushed effect of the laptop.
Here is the laptop in size compared to my hand. A lovely size to work with I believe and a nice small piece of technology to carry to/from work.
How does it compare?
I have a Dell Latitude E6410 which is now a number of years old and comes with an i7 and 8gb of RAM. I placed the laptops together to gauge the size difference of the 2 computers.
Clearly you can see the Ultranote II on the left is nearly half the height of the Dell laptop. You can also see how streamlined the port design is on the laptop compared to the Dell. For example, there are 2 USB ports on top of each other on the Dell laptop which is generally a nightmare trying to plug in USB ports when you are in a rush.
Here you can see the battery sticks out on the Dell, but on the PC Specialist Ultranote II it is nicely level and does not stick out anywhere providing a flush finish.
Here you can see the width of the new laptop is slightly larger in size (maybe due to the widescreen option).
Finally I wanted to know if the new laptop weighs less than the old laptop. The result was: YES IT DOES!! The total weight difference is 301 grams. That is quite a lot really and considering the Dell laptop with the power supply and the cables I have to carry actually broke my laptop. With the power supplies in the machines too, the weight different increases to 353 grams. That is well on the way to half a kilo.
Performance
I did a few tests to see what the real world performance was like.
In and out of Standby
Just to paint a picture, I can put my Dell in standby with about 5 applications open which are Outlook (2.5GB cache), Excel(50MB spreadsheet, Word(200 page document with pictures and videos), Chrome(5 HTML 5 videos open within it) and IE (google maps open). Then I can take it out of standby, go for a coffee then come back and it will be ready to use.
However the PC specialist Ultranote II is responsive fast, and in about 2 seconds everything has resumed as normal with no latency.
Disk Performance Random RW
I compared this to my Desktop PC which has the following spec:
Intel-i5 3750 Ivy
32GB 667mhz RAM
Asus z87 Pro motherboard
Asus DirectCU II Nvidia 680 GTX
Corsair Force GS SSD
Desktop PC Performance
Ultranote II Performance
The disk in the laptop is blisteringly fast. The Samsung SSD is twice as fast as my desktop SSD in Sequential Writes. Not only that, look at the small file (4k) performance. That’s over 3x faster! The Ultranote II beats my desktop PC hands down in every disk test passed to it.
PC Mark
Finally a general test of PC performance which uses CPU, Graphics and Memory to find the performance. Although not relational to real world applications, it gives a good indication of what your PC can do as an all round workhorse.
Desktop PC: 5874
Ultranote II: 3449
Understandably the desktop machine is much better for gaming and general graphics applications than the laptop. However for general performance, the i7 stands up well against the i5 3750 which is a very good processor.
The only time where the laptop struggled was rendering DirectX graphics and when trying to run through the image manipulation process. However, the 680GTX flew through these – but it was once considered a High End card, so its going to 🙂 The rendering time on the Intel HD 4600 was fine, running about 30fps in the DirectX sections and the image switches were noticeably slower.
Considering I want to use this for work and IT Consultancy doing the general office based tasks then this performance is more than enough for me. Knowing that the disk is fast, I dont need fast graphics and I am not going to be using photoshop then I was happy with the result.
Summary
If you are after a laptop for work or home the Ultranote hits the mark for general use and office based work. Although this is not a work horse by any stretch of the imagination, it does make up in its portability points, lightweight and disk performance. The i7 draws about 40w of power when under load and performs very well and very efficiently. The laptop is responsive and well built. I will be using this for work mainly and managing the infrastructures I have to look after.
If you want a gaming machine which plays all the latest games then get something designed to do this such as a 17 inch laptop which can take the 770 GTX. But if you are really not that bothered about games and all you want to do is Web site design, image editing, data copying, edit java based applications, pick up your emails, edit spreadsheets, write documents and manage Microsoft Server systems, VMware and Citrix then this will be the laptop for you.
Worton Tech 