You can learn more about Liquid Cooling Services here.

What Is Liquid Cooling?

Calista: Hey there, I’m Calista Athans, and welcome to another edition of Ask The Engineer. Today we’re joined by Chris Carreiro, Chief Technology Officer at Park Place Technologies. Thanks for being here today Chris.

Chris: Hey Calista, thanks for having me.

Calista: Of course! So Chris, something we’re getting a lot of questions about recently is liquid cooling. What exactly is liquid cooling?

Chris: Liquid cooling comes in a few different forms. They are all involved in cooling servers with a fluid instead of traditional fans, air, and air conditioners.

Types of Liquid Cooling

Chris:In both types of liquid cooling, you’re taking water and moving it over the components of the server to cool off the system.

Direct-to-Chip Liquid Cooling

Chris: You have one form called Direct-to-Chip which move water across a heat sink, removing it from the CPU and different components within the system.

Immersion Liquid Cooling

Chris: Then, you have immersion cooling which also comes in two different forms. You actually immerse a server in a tank of oil.

Calista: Very interesting – just to clarify, with immersion cooling, the servers are submerged directly into the fluid?

Chris: Yes, it’s actually a dielectric fluid, so it’s not water or anything that’s conductive. So, you have a non-conductive fluid and the server is 100% submerged in a bath of this liquid. The immersion itself is about 1000x more cooling capacity than traditional air data centers.

Calista: That’s fantastic. Well, you’ve definitely given us a lot to think about here. Thanks again for joining us today, Chris. If you have a question for one of our experts, simply add it to the comments section of this post – and we’ll see you next time on Ask The Engineer!

You can learn more about IT infrastructure auditing here.

What Is an IT Infrastructure Audit?

Jack: Hi, guys. Jack here from Park Place and it’s time for Ask The Engineer. Joining me today is Director of Product Operations, Jordan MacPherson. Jordan, how’s it going?

Jordan: I’m living the dream, Jack.

Jack: Aren’t we all? Jordan, today’s question is concerning IT auditing to kick things off. What is an IT audit? Now this can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, but how would you perceive it?

Internal vs. External IT Auditing

Jordan: Yeah, I think that it starts with the idea of we’re trying to inspect what we expect, right? So that can either, be: do we have these things, or are we actually doing these processes? So whether that’s an inventory or a proof point. The other thing to keep in mind is there’s internal and external audits. So, some are done for different reasons.

When to Consider an IT Infra Audit

Jack: Yeah, absolutely. And when should one consider getting an IT audit?

Jordan: So I think that’s going to be driven by compliance and what’s required. Every business is different. When we think about internal IT infrastructure audits these are really going to be around IT maturity and and process improvement optimization. As you get into the external IT audits, those are going to be things for either third-party certificate or a regulatory requirements.

In the case of a third-party certificate you’re looking to prove you do things the right way so that customers can trust that you know you’re secure. Especially in this day and age, it’s really important for the regulatory IT auditing. It it’s things like HIPAA, PCI where you have a statute or something that dictates you must be compliant. And so that’s where the auditors will come in and and check you out from a frequency standpoint. Again, that’s going to depend on what you’re trying to accomplish. Some things you’re going to want to do monthly, others annually.

Jack: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Makes perfect sense. What is interesting is the different dynamics with internal and external audits there as well. Hopefully that should help some of those who are considering undertaking an IT infra audit. If you’d like to suggest a question to one of our engineers, please feel free to reach out to us! For now, we’ll see you next time on Ask The Engineer.

Para mais informações acesse:  http://www.parkplacetechnologies.com/pt-br/professional-services/it-asset-disposition/

Aparte de las múltiples ventajas que ofrece el mantenimiento y soporte por terceros de hardware, es importante destacar 3 aspectos clave:

Ahorro de costos en comparación con los proveedores originales (OEM).

Extensión de la vida útil de los equipos

Consolidación de todo el soporte con un único proveedor.

Para obtener más información sobre este tema, visita: http://www.parkplacetechnologies.com/es/third-party-maintenance/

Dúvidas ou sugestões para próximos temas, deixe seu comentário no vídeo.

Para mais informações acesse: http://www.parkplacetechnologies.com/pt-br/third-party-maintenance/

You can learn more about IT cost reduction strategies here.

4 Data Center Cost Reduction Tips

Jack: Hi, guys. Jack here, and it’s time for another episode of Ask the Engineer. Joining me today is Solutions Architect at Park Place Technologies, Rob Roberts. Rob, how are you doing today?

Rob: Great Jack. How about yourself?

Jack: Very well, thank you. Rob, many of our clients are looking to save money in the data center to invest elsewhere, despite budgets being flat. Do you have any advice on how IT professionals can free up funds in their data center?

1. Avoid Upgrade/Refresh FOMO

Rob: Yeah, I do. The first way to maximize would be to not give in to FOMO (fear of missing out). The gear that you have, that you’ve already bought, if it’s working fine and you’re not running out of resources – don’t upgrade or refresh your gear. Enterprise-grade gear is usually built to last, and will do so for years past even the end of life dates. Just because you’re told you’re not on the latest and greatest, you’re probably not really missing out.

2. Perform Regular IT Hardware Maintenance

A second way, it’s going to be mundane like checking the batteries in your smoke detector, even though it’s boring, doing regular service on hardware can save you thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Especially if critical systems stop working because you’re just ignoring the really small, “soft” errors – I always like to say, “whine now, but don’t cry later.”

3. Keep Track of Renewal Dates

The third is keeping track of and keeping on your renewal dates. It’s a costly mistake and can be a real headache when you realize the auditor is coming to the building, and even if it’s not for compliance reasons, a lot of OEMs or software companies charge you, not only a reinstatement fee, but they’ll even charge you late fees for while you were still using the service when you didn’t have an active contract. That can really add up.

See our EOSL library, and learn about EOL and EOSL dates today.

Jack: Yeah, absolutely. Those are three top tips to be more economical. They’re all coming from different perspectives as well. Do you happen to have any other suggestions on how IT professionals can save money in the data center?

4. Consider Preowned IT Gear

Rob: Yeah, the last tip I would say is, just like with a new car will lose value as soon as you take it off the lot, IT gear is a lot like that. It depreciates in value as time goes by. Older gear never really gets faster, but there’s so much inherent value with buying preowned or even just one generation prior data center gear. It’s just as useful, and it’s honestly instant value.

Jack: Yeah, absolutely. Rob, I think I counted four tips in total there. Great stuff, thank you for sharing lots of information on a topic that’s relevant for a lot of people out there.

That’s all for now guys; if you’d like to suggest a question to one of our engineers, please feel free to reach out to us. For now, we’ll see you next time on Ask the Engineer.

You can learn more about our IT infrastructure deployment services here.

Jack: Hi, guys. Jack here from Park Place, and it’s time for Ask the Engineer. Joining me today is Senior Solutions Architect for Professional Services, Steve Robertson. Steve, how are you doing?

Steve: Doing great. How are you, Jack?

Jack: Very well, thank you, Steve. Today’s question is regarding IT hardware deployments.

Top IT Deployment Challenge

Jack: What is the biggest challenge of a hardware deployment and implementation?

Steve: Yeah. So Jack, the biggest challenge I think is the logistics of the whole thing. The biggest part of logistics is the timing.

Logistics

Steve: When do you want to begin the project? How quickly do you want to complete the project? You know, has the hardware that’s going to be installed been ordered and what’s the timing for delivery?

How many locations do you have? Consider how many locations you have; how many you want to have done each week and when do you want to complete the project by? Project management is going to be important for that, and they’re really meant to coordinate the hardware, the on-site engineers, and remote engineering support.

DIY Technology Deployment vs. Finding a Partner

Jack: Well, thanks for the explanation. Certainly a lot to consider. Is this something you can handle yourself, or how do you determine when you may need a partner?

Steve: So the biggest challenge is the project management piece of this. If you’ve got a strong project management internally, you may be able to handle it yourself. But we really encourage people to engage a partner that has a strong project management team to help deliver this.

Jack: Yeah. Yeah, great. And of course that that only sounds natural. Well, great. Thank you Steve for sharing your knowledge on this topic. Hopefully that should help some of our viewers out there. If anyone out there would like to suggest a question to one of our engineers, please feel free to reach out to us. For now we’ll see you next time on our engineer.

Jack: Hi everyone and welcome back to Ask the Engineer. I’m pleased to welcome CTO, Chris Correro to this episode. Chris, how are you doing?

Chris: Great. Thanks Jack. Thanks for having me.

Jack: No problem at all Chris. Today’s question is regarding server faults. More specifically, what can be done to prevent the most common server faults when it comes to hard drives and motherboards?

Chris: Absolutely. Let’s go through each one of them.

First on the list would be hard drive failures. The most common hard drive failure probably be mechanical, electrical, even a logical disk failure.
These occur when they’re either dropped or exposed in an unfavorable environment, if there’s a voltage spike, overheating, even data corruption, improper registry changes, accidental drive formatting.

When a hard drive fails, admins use common tools like FSCK or check disk within Windows to check and repair those logical errors.

Building redundancies via RAID can also prevent these failures from becoming a real big issue.

Jack: Yeah, absolutely. And what about failures from motherboards?

Chris: So motherboard failures – those usually include overheating, electrical failures, or physical damage and sometimes even humidity problems.

Preventing these types of errors come from ensuring proper air flow to the device. Verify that the device is stored at the proper temperature.

A static charge, power surge or even electrical spikes can cause malfunction.

Be sure that if you’re performing a hot swap, you don’t accidentally contact the system.

Or leverage a surge protector in the environment.

Jack: Yeah, absolutely.

Chris: Moisture in the air and electronics don’t really mix well and can create corrosion in short circuit issues.

Jack: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it sounds like there’s a lot that could potentially go wrong with servers if you fail to take those preventative measures, right?

Chris, thank you so much for your time and sharing this helpful information with our listeners.

Remember guys, just reach out if you have a question for one of our engineers.

Until next time, we’ll see you on Ask the Engineer.

Jack: Hi, guys. Jack here from Park Place and welcome back to Ask the Engineer. Joining me today is senior advanced engineer, Jeff Korte. Jeff, how are you today?

Jeff: I’m doing great. Thank you.

What Is a Tape Drive Log Request?

Jack: That’s wonderful to hear. Jeff, someone wrote in asking about a log request for a tape drive. What does this mean?

Jeff: Yes, drive cleaning. Drive cleaning is basically two things: You’ve got a routine cleaning, and a required cleaning.

Routine is based on usage or you know or the number of hours that a drive’s been used.

Require cleaning; that’s when a drive detects that it needs to be cleaned and it notifies the software that I need to be clean now and I’m not going to be available to you for use until I am cleaned.

3 Types of Drive Cleaning

There’s there’s three types of of cleaning out there: There’s a manual cleaning, a library-managed cleaning, and an application managed cleaning.

Manual Drive Cleaning

Manual cleaning is just that, operator intervention. Someone’s going to have to physically load a tape to a drive to have it cleaned.

Library-Managed Drive Cleaning

Library-managed cleaning; the library is going to do all the cleaning. It’s automatically going to clean the drive when a drive requests to be cleaned.

Application Drive Cleaning

And the application; same thing as library in a sense, but the application is going to handle the cleaning and it will clean the drive when requested.

How Long Is a Cleaning Tape Good for?

Jack: OK, cool. Interesting stuff. How long is a cleaning tape good for and how is the cleaning tape identified?

Jeff: Yes, with the modern day tape technology (LTO, 3592, 9840s) cleaning tape is good for 50 cycles.

How to Identify a Cleaning Tape

Jack: And how is it identified?

Jeff: Well, it’s identified by on the cleaning tape itself, it’ll be marked as cleaning cartridge.

There’s also a barcode label that can be added to it. And the barcode label will start with a CLN, identify it as a cleaning cartridge.

Jack: Great. Thank you for your response Jeff. Some great insights there.

If any of our viewers would like to suggest a question to one of our engineers, please feel free to reach out to us by commenting below this post.

We’ll see you next time on Ask the Engineer.

Jack: Hi guys Jack here from Park Place and it’s time for ask the engineer. Joining me today is field service engineer, Yogen Balakrishnan. Yogen, how’s it going?

Yogen: Yeah I’m doing great.

What Does a RAID Controller Battery Do?

Jack: It’s great to hear, Yogen. Today’s question is regarding cache battery failures. It seems this is a common problem, but what is a cache battery failure and what are the ramifications?

Yogen: OK, so this is a very interesting question. So, the function of a RAID controller cache is to help increase IO write performance on a server (learn more about RAID groups in storage and IOps vs. throughput on our blog).

It temporarily caches data from the whole system until it gets successfully returned to the disk.

Impact of Controller Cache Battery Failure

So, without the cache the controller to stop the flow of data until the disk acknowledges that is ready to receive new data, and this slows down the data transfer process.

Now the function of the cache battery here is to actually hold or protect the data in the cache in case of any power failures.

This battery is capable of holding power for up to 72 hours. So, without a backup battery, the data in the cache will be permanently lost and this can lead to data corruption.

Hence, why it’s a protection feature when the battery failure has been detected by the controller. It actually disables the cache, so this avoids data loss from happening and when it gets disabled we start noticing that the IO operations on the server start to slow down since the cache has been disabled.

And, there was a study done on a lab environment where we could see the impact on the performance metrics by up to 70% with the right cache disabled.

How to Avoid RAID Controller Card Battery Failure

Jack: Yogen, how would you avoid a cache battery failure?

Yogen: So, in the field we often see cache battery failures, especially on the older generation servers.

The management software, actually fails to highlight these failures, so we actually miss it.

The cache battery lasts up to three years, so for all the servers I would recommend you periodically log into the servers to do a health check just to make sure that the battery is healthy, and the cache is enabled.

But alternatively, you can actually configure e-mail alerting via SMTP, or better still, use a monitoring solution to pick these faults up (like the Entuity fault management software).

So, there are many monitoring tools available in the market right now. They are capable of, proactively detecting these faults before they occur, and as they occur.

This gives us time to actually plan, the downtime and have the battery replaced to avoid any outage. That’s about it from my side.

Jack: Yeah, I mean great. Thank you again for parting with your knowledge on your topic. There’s some real interesting areas covered, I’m sure it’ll be useful for many out there.

If you’d like to just suggest a question to one of our engineers, please feel free to reach out to us.

We’ll see you next time on Ask the Engineer.

Jack: Hi guys Jack here from Park Place it’s time for another episode of Austin Engineer joining me is Solutions Architect Brandon Martin. Brandon. How’s it going?

Brandon: It’s going good Jack, happy to be here.

Jack: It’s great to hear and no problem. Alright Brandon, tonight’s question isregarding network hardware support. Many of our customers and prospects are spending a lot on network support.

Although they love the savings they get with the third party, they are unsure about what devices make sense for third party maintenance and which are good candidate candidates to remain with OEM support.

What are the key factors they should consider?

Brandon: Yeah, that’s a very good question; a very pressing question that we talk with a lot of customers about every day.

So when we’re looking at moving anything away from an OEM or a manufacturer over to a third party to reduce costs, there are several factors we need to look at to not put our customers at risk and save them some money and increase support.

So we’ll take Cisco for example. Obviously on network, the networking space that’s the main player. So in the Cisco world we look at three main factors.

First, where is that device in the customer’s environment? Is it their core data center? Is it connecting them to their cloud? Is it connecting them to remote sites or is it in a remote warehouse, say in the middle of nowhere collecting dust?

The second factor is where is it in the Cisco Milestone or Cisco lifecycle process? So that’s broken out into three categories.

So first of which is end of software, is it getting any iOS updates? End of vulnerability? Is it getting patches and updates on the security side?

And then LDoS – is Cisco even gonna bother with support, right?

The third factor that we look at: is publicly accessible software sticking to the software piece.

So can you get access to the software with or without a contract? That’s key.

Jack: And you mentioned software there other particular equipment models from Cisco concerning the software updates and patches?

Brandon: Yeah, absolutely.

So, the Cisco 2960s up through the Cisco 4500s in that edge category make their software publicly accessible, with or without a SmartNet contract.

And then also switching to the server side and the Cisco realm we look at UCS where the patches updates for more updates.

All that is publicly accessible as well, with or without a SmartNet contract. So Cisco could be charging you an exorbitant amount for access to those patches and updates when you could also get them for free and save money with a third party like Park Place on the hardware break fix side.

Jack: Interesting, plenty of great content there Brandon. Really appreciate you sharing your insight and certainly sure it will help those who are managing network hardware support, particularly where Cisco’s concerned.

If anyone has any follow up questions or something new to ask our engineers, you can do so by reaching out to us or commenting below this post.

In the meantime, we’ll see you soon on the next Ask the Engineer.

Jack: Hi guys it’s time for another episode of Ask the Engineer. Joining me today is network engineer at Park Place, Randall Greer. Randall, how’s it going?

Randall: Fantastic!

Difference Between Layer 2 and Layer 3 Switch

Jack: That’s great to hear. Randall, today’s question was submitted by one of our viewers, Graham, from Abbotsford Police Department in Canada. Now Graham is in the process of redesigning his network from the ground up and is considering layer 2 versus layer 3 inter-switch links between the distribution and access layer switches.

Randall from your experience, what are you seeing for the most part for medium sized businesses today?

Randall: You know I’m seeing that it there… There’s two aspects to it. The first is, you know, who’s going to be deploying it, what… what their skill level is. And, then what are the actual features and uptimes that you’re looking for.

What Is a Layer 2 Switch?

If you’re looking for something that’s relatively easy to set up and you don’t mind a convergence that will take more than a few seconds, then doing layer two is a fine choice.

• Easy to set up
• Convergence takes several seconds

What Is a Layer 3 Switch?

However, if you need more advanced features like equal cost multi-pathing, advanced QOS or you want to faster convergence, which we can get around about 50 milliseconds, then layer three would be the way to go. The caveat there–that layer three is a bit more complex to manage.

• Equal cost multi-pathing
• 50 millisecond convergence
• Complex to manage
• Advanced QOS

How Experience Effects Layer 2 vs. Layer 3 Switching

Jack: You mentioned experience that well, how can you tell me… Can you tell me a bit more about how experience comes into play?

Randall: Yeah, the there… There is some complexity in managing a layer three network. You have to manage a routing protocol on top of it. Whereas on the layer two network, that’s by default going to be managed by some flavor of spanning tree depending on what vendor you go with. But by and large, if you’re doing layer two, it’s mostly plug and play unless you turn on some advanced features for optimization, but you can just plug it in and it’ll work. Whereas if you want to layer three network, you really got to plan it out and know what you’re doing with regard to IP addressing, what routing protocol to use and whether or not you’re going to use advanced features like VFP.

Jack: We’ve had some great insights and wonderful comparisons between layer two and layer three. Thanks for parting with your knowledge there, Randall, And Graham, who submitted the question. We hope that helps. If anyone has any follow up questions or something new to ask our engineers, you can do so by reaching directly out to us. In the meantime, we’ll see you next time on Ask the Engineer.

Get Network Support All in One Place

Whether you need simple network hardware support and monitoring, comprehensive network management services, or IT infrastructure deployment services for a new or updated facility – Park Place Technologies is the partner you’ve been looking for! We’ve been in business for over 30 years, and have built the world’s largest on-the-ground engineering team to optimize your data center and networking Uptime and performance!

Contact us today to learn how we can relieve your IT headaches.

Jack: Hi there, Jack Kauter, Park Place Technologies here and welcome back to Ask the Engineer. For this week’s question I’m joined by Chris Menninger, Director of ITAD for Professional
Services at Park Place. How we doing Chris?

Chris: I’m great Jack how are you?

How to Determine the Best Time to Dispose of IT Assets

Jack: I’m very well thank you. Chris, the question I have for you is regarding disposal of assets. Given the supply chain constraints, how do I determine the best time to dispose of my current IT assets?

Chris: That’s a great and very relevant question Jack. What we’re seeing right now is customers struggling with the pricing in the market being as good as it’s ever been versus the supply chain constraints they’re experiencing in terms of getting new equipment.

Consider IT Sparing Needs

What we’re telling people is to look at what they have. Look at your environment, determine if you do in fact have enough sparing to keep going and sell what you can, because you’re going to get a premium return on your investment.

If you don’t, then you need to hold on to that equipment because it is very, very much constrained today.

Jack: In part of your answer there Chris, you mentioned sparing. How does one determine if they have enough sparing?

How to Calculate IT Sparing Needs

Chris: What we generally recommend is to look into your environment and determine approximately 10% of what your environment looks like and hold that for spares. It’s probably a little higher on the network side simply because the network is an even more constrained area right now, given all of the manufacturing constraints that the big network manufacturers like Cisco are seeing; they’re running almost a year behind right now.

Jack: Thanks, Chris. Great response to a topical question that we so often hear. I’m sure that will help a lot of our viewers out there.

We hope you found that insightful, and as always, please feel free to submit a question to our engineers by commenting below this post and we’ll see you next time on ask the engineer.

SNMP vs. NetFlow Video Script

The following script breaks down the difference between these two common types of network management protocol.

Jack: Hello everyone, I’m Jack Kauter at Park Place Technologies and welcome to Ask the Engineer. Joining us this week is Senior Solutions Architect, John Diamond. Welcome, John.

John: Great to see you, Jack.

Deciding Between SNMP and NetFlow

Jack: John, this week’s question is about monitoring protocol options. Specifically, what are the key issues a business should consider when deciding between SNMP and NetFlow when monitoring their network.

How Does SNMP Work?

John: Well, fundamentally, SNMP is a protocol that allows you to understand what the equipment you’re monitoring is. How it’s configured (using different SNMP versions), and then from a resource utilization standpoint, it will give you indications of how much processor and memory resources are being used, and at the interface level, not only their level of utilization, or percentage bandwidth utilization, but also the number of packet corruption and discards that you have that gives you a richer understanding of the good and the bad nature of the traffic.

Jack: Sure, and what about NetFlow?

How Does NetFlow Work?

John: Well, NetFlow really adds the other half of the equation. NetFlow allows you to understand the nature of the traffic flowing through the interfaces on the devices. It’ll give you an idea of the top conversations, the application mix, and where you’ve got an overloaded interface. It will allow you to work out whether all of that traffic is legitimate, or whether some of it possibly could be offloaded elsewhere on the network.

Jack: Very interesting, and John, would you say there’s a business case for both?

Using NetFlow and SNMP Together

John: Oh, absolutely. Without both, you’re really only seeing half of the picture. With the SNMP, you’re seeing the full resource utilization dimension of the device, both physical resources and also bandwidth utilization resources, and also errors on the interfaces. With NetFlow, you’re getting an indication of the nature of the traffic. But, don’t forget, it only tells you about the good traffic; It doesn’t tell you about the problems, and it won’t tell you about the resource utilization of the devices. So, they really do go hand in hand.

Jack: Thanks John, great insight and a brilliant comparison. If anyone has any follow-up questions, or different questions that you’d like to ask our engineer, please comment below this video, and we’ll see you next time on Ask the Engineer.

Contact Park Place today to learn how our enterprise network monitoring software can help improve the visibility of your network, enabling more strategic management!