In the days before virtualization, migrating physical systems from one SAN to another was a time consuming and cumbersome process. First you had to connect the computer system in question to both SAN’s and then perform some form of data copy from one disk to the other, taking care to preserve permissions, modification dates, and other file meta data. One mangled permission or mod date could wreck havoc with business applications. Virtualization has certainly changed all of that. Now, entire computer systems are contained within a one or more virtual disks that can be easily moved from one SAN volume to another. Unfortunately, this still requires a downtime for that particular VM; or at least it did.

Through the use of Storage VMotion, included in Virtual Infrastructure 3, administrators now have the ability to move a running virtual machine from one volume to another without even the slightest disruption of service. Only there is yet another catch, the stock tools provided by VMware can only be used at the command-line and requires a whole lot of options. The end result is a process that is complicated and generally requires a good amount of trial and error. Fortunately, someone has created a nifty Virtual Infrastructure Client plugin that does a marvelous job of simplifying the task. The plugin is called “vip-svmotion” and you can find more information, as well as download links for it here.

I just installed the plugin, enabled it under the plugins menu and kicked off a test migration. Not only did the migration go exactly as advertised, I saw no external indicators that the system was being moved from one SAN to the other. The only hiccup I encountered was that the tool would not move a VM with snapshots. In most cases, I had no problem dropping the snapshots.

The plugin adds a context menu option for any given VM called “Migrate Storage…”. Once you right click on a VM and select this option, you’ll be created to a dialog that lists all of the data stores and the VM you wish to move. Simply drag the VM to the new data store and click apply. I’m serious, it really is that simple.

Now, the only thing that irks me about this plugin is that VMware didn’t build the functionality into the VI client themselves.

Until recently, the only downside I ever encountered was the occasional inconvenience caused during a VI3 wide outage. In those cases were a problem is currently impacting the entire VI3 environment, you are forced to perform your management by connecting directly to each ESX host in the cluster. Typically, I’ll zero in on the ESX node hosting the VC server and get that working first. Last night, I encountered my first problem with a virtual VirtualCenter server hosted on the cluster it manages.

Despite all their redundancy and fault-tolerance, storage area networks will occasionally go down; and for me that was last night. I was able to quickly identify the problem and get the SAN back online, but nearly all of the virtual machines crashed hard. Among the dead was the virtual VirtualCenter server. As usual, I zeroed in on the node with the VC server and tried to reset the VM. It was at this point that ESX informed me that it couldn’t do that for me because it couldn’t contact the license manager. This was puzzling because the individual ESX nodes are supposed to cache the licensing data for fourteen (14) days. Apparently, this wasn’t working for some reason. Until the nodes could see a valid license server, nothing was coming back online.

Ultimately my colleague downloaded the software and license from the VMware support pages and deployed a new license server on one of our physical systems on the network. Once complete, I pointed the ESX nodes to the new license server and we were golden. I think I’ll be building a new dedicated VC server on a DL380 and take the “virtual” out of the “virtual VirtualCenter server”.

Mid-Size businesses rarely have lots of dollars to throw at their IT infrastructure, so low cost solutions become the operative word. Given this simple fact of life, open source software seems like it should be a natural fit. As is typically the case in life, things are rarely as simple as they seem. The simple truth of the matter is that open source software can be cumbersome, complicated, and temperamental. All things that can often times be attributed to the people behind that software.

All of that being said, open source software, as a whole, has come a long way; or more accurately, some open source programs have. The biggest complaint I have with people who dismiss open source software is that they aren’t taking into consideration just how generic the term is. I wouldn’t dream of saying, “Commercial software is over-priced garbage.” The simple truth is that while some commercial software is most certainly garbage, the vast majority of it is of high quality and fairly priced. Regardless, the mission of this post is not to debate the merits of the two systems, but to merely point out some of the open source products I believe could help small to mid-size businesses lower their IT budgets without having to pass those savings on to high-priced IT pros.

To be clear about one thing, however I will not be focusing on things like web browsers, mail clients or IM clients. I’m looking for the big game, the things many businesses end up paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars for. So here we go:

The Backend Bits

CentOS

The days of actually debating whether or not Linux is “right” for the back-office is thing of the past. CentOS is a “no strings” free operating system based on its commercial cousin Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS has an extremely robust community and good Linux admins that know RHEL/CentOS aren’t that hard to find.

MySQL

My IT roots are in Oracle database administration and nothing saddens me more than to see businesses drop anywhere from ten to thirty thousand dollars on an Oracle database when MySQL would more than do the trick. This database system is wildly popular, a good performer, and a snap to manage when you use a tool like phpMyAdmin.

Nagios

If you would like to know if you’re IT components are down before your customers do, then you need to have Nagios running in your back office. Nagios is easily the most difficult to manage tool in this list and one that will require a skilled hand to manage. Installing the software has become significantly easier with each new release, but getting it setup “just right” for your environment is where the trouble lies.

Splunk

The free edition of Splunk is an exceptional log collection, analysis and search tool that is absolutely vital to any business faced with strict compliance requirements. Like Nagios, the product is relatively easy to install, but takes some time to master. Once up and running, however, the tool can be invaluable asset in meeting strict regulatory logging requirements.

Subversion

Subversion, or SVN, is a source code control repository that is absolute vital to any business that creates or maintains source code or complex configuration files. The product can be intimidating for new users, but is actually quite simple to deploy and use. I personally use SVN everyday for everything from config files, source code, and documents. If you’ve got more than one person maintaining any kind of file, than SVN can be the difference between chaos and order.

Asterisk

Asterisk is not a product I have had a lot of experience with, but what I do know is that it has the potential to save a business thousands of dollars on its telecommunications. Voice over IP is the next big thing in office telecommunications and an Asterisk based telephone system has many of the same features as many commercial systems at a fraction of the price.

Smoothwall Express

The express version of the SmoothWall line is plenty feature-rich for most mid-size businesses. In fact, I can think of a few larger organizations that could trash their high priced Cisco devices and get the same performance and not lose any of the features they currently use.

Scalix

I was never a big fan of Exchange/Outlook until I met Lotus Notes. Once Notes and I were properly introduced I realized why so many businesses had come to rely on Exchange. Until recently I had resigned myself to the simple fact that it really was the only game in town. Then I met Scalix. It is by and large all of the things you need in a mail/calendaring infrastructure at a fraction of the cost. Scalix works with Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, and virtually every calendaring and email client there is.

Up in the Front Office

SugarCRM

The open source customer relationship management market has seen a lot of activity in the past couple of years, but SugarCRM remains the gold standard of open source CRM solutions. I have setup a number of Sugar installations and while my knowledge of sales force automation this tool delivers and then some. The product simplifies the process of tracking leads, opportunities, and possess some robust forecasting features. I’m not a big fan of the document management, issue tracking, and project management features, but their integration makes Sugar a compelling one-stop solution for a number of business functions.

KnowledgeTree

I have yet to encounter a more feature rich document management system than KTDMS. This product easily competes and destroys many of its high-priced competitors. Even the commercial editions of KTDMS are a steal compared to some of the high-profile DMS systems out there. I ultimately decided to use SVN for my own DMS, but that was because I had very little need for the advanced indexing, workflow, and user management features. This product, like SugarCRM, is a poster child for open source software done right.

MediaWiki

Wikis are one of those things you either love or hate. I have yet to meet someone who didn’t have a strong opinion one way or another. The power of wikis is the ease with which you can create an extremely robust knowledge base that is easy to maintain. If you need a web site with a wealth of informal documentation on how to do things, then you need a wiki. The biggest mistake people make with wikis is try to use them as forums, portals, document management systems, or source control repositories. I know I’ve made a few of them myself.

WordPress

WordPress is not just for blogs. While Joomla and Drupal are excellent content management systems, they can be a little intimidating for some people. Given the relatively poor quality of most corporate web sites, sometimes simple really is better. A well designed WP based web site can greatly improve a company’s image yet still keep things simple and easy to manage.

What About …

Accounting

This seems to be one area where I just haven’t found anything I like. The applications that seem to have all of the right features have dreadful, ugly interfaces that make and already dreadful and ugly process that much worse. The applications that have nice, well thought out interfaces often times struggle to balance a checkbook let alone your general ledger. The search continues.

ERP

This is an area I know very little about and one I’m not really prepared to jump into right now. Abe Lincoln said it best when he said, “Better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

I’d love to here your thoughts, suggestions, and questions on what software you’d recommend for a mid-size business.

I’ve been itching to give OakandSmoke.com a facelift for the better part of six months, and I’ve finally done it. The catalyst for the design change was due in large part to my discovery of ElegantThemes.com (affiliate link) and their exceptional ColdStone theme. The design immediately struck me as a near perfect fit for the site.

Because the Photoshop design was included with the theme package, I knew I could make some subtle modifications to the overall look of the site without too much work. While I still have a few changes in mind, I did start with swapping out the concrete background for a subtle wood background. Free theme aficionados, may recognize it from Jason Schuller’s Charred theme.

I still have some category reorganizing to do as well as creating more thumbnails for some of the legacy posts, but overall the site is ready to go.

Ah, the promise of a new year. A chance to build upon the successes and mitigate the failures of the previous year. Every December 31st, we look to the dawning of a new calendar year as an opportunity to turn things around or continue our ascent ever upwards. For me, this year is no different. 2008 was very nearly a banner year for me and I can only hope to make 2009 even that much greater.

I’ve been inspired by a recent post by Brian Gardner and thought it might be a good thing to put down my ‘09 goals. I keep most of my short-term goals in a Remember the Milk list, but this is infinitely more permanent.

So here are my goals as a blogger, designer, and freelancer:

Blogger

• Maintain a weekly feature schedule for OakandSmoke.com, Dandyman.us, and here.
• Reach out to other bloggers in my various areas of interest and establish relationships.
• Stabilize and grow my advertising revenue for OakandSmoke.com and Dandyman.us.

Designer

• Create four original GPL WordPress themes for quarterly release on this web site.
• Continue to expand on my skills with Photoshop, XHTML, and WordPress.

Freelancer

• Formalize this enterprise through incorporating as an LLC.
• Reach my break-even by covering all of my labor, hosting, and other miscellaneous expenses.

I’ve currently got a couple of graphic design projects I am working on as well as new designs for some existing customers. The biggest task is to design CD artwork for a musician friend of mine and the artwork is coming along well. The other project is part learning opportunity and part ‘just for the fun of it’. Both projects are new ground for me as I expand my knowledge in print quality design.

On another note, I just signed up with Media Temple for web hosting and I am in the process of transferring all of the sites over to the new server. So far the transition has been quite smooth and (mt) support has been more than helpful in the transition.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to finish my Christmas list to Santa. I’m asking for a MacBook Pro and an iPhone this year.

The other day I was taking a look at the various themes on the RevolutionTwo web site when my wife saw the demo of the Revolution Album theme and declared that she wanted it for TheFarlands.Net. She was never as happy with the WordPress.Fun theme as I was and wanted something a little more elegant. The Revolution Album theme fits the bill nicely and I didn’t have to do very much to “customize” it.

The first order of business was getting the majority of the existing posts up to snuff. The theme requires the use of custom fields and the ‘more’ function, so I had a lot of post editing to do before the theme would like right. The developers were kind enough to include blank logo images so adding your own logo is a snap. I made it a point to create a new master PSD file with all of the color schemes and a couple of font choices so that I can make changes fairly rapidly. Eventually, I’ll try my hand at creating some new schemes, but for now the blue suits us fine.

Hats off to Brian Gardner and the crew at RevolutionTwo for another fine theme.

I love the fact that people are asking me questions on how to do ‘x’ or fix ‘y’ with their site, but lately the questions have been highly focused on fixing little issues here and there with the Revolution Office theme. Normally, I’d think nothing of helping these people, but I just can’t do it.

With Brian and Jason’s recent change in direction on the cost and support model for Revolution themes, any support I provide on a Rev theme is money I’m taking out of their back pocket. It is in my best interest to see that Jason and Brian are successful in the recent endeavor so that I may profit from their hard work as well. Therefore, I offer my sincerest apologies to anyone I cannot help with their Revolution theme issues. I really do want to help, but to do so would be wrong.

Now, I am currently running the unsupported (free) version of the Revolution Office theme here and while I don’t really need support from Brian and Jason, I will probably sign-up for Pro Plus support after the holidays. I strongly recommend anyone running a rev theme do the same. I can think of three reasons why I should already be signed up and not a one as to why I shouldn’t.

• I’ve spent a good deal of time figuring out how to clean up some little things here and there with the theme. Support would most likely have saved me some time.
• I can only imagine what neat little tidbits of information and tips are in those forums, and dammit I want in.
• I truly appreciate what Jason and Brian are doing for this community and those with the means are best served by ensuring that these guys succeed.

I would be happy to help with any basic WordPress questions, but please don’t be offended if politely decline to assist you with you Rev-centric questions.

Anyone who follows the WordPress community should be familiar with the recent development that Brian and Jason have teamed up and started creating GPL’d themes. They’ve set up shop over at RevolutionTwo.com and they already have a stunning collection of WP themes available. For the new Red Haven web site, I decided a little “Out with the old, in with the new” might be in order and grabbed a copy of the Office theme.

I’ve made a number of minor modifications, mostly in the color scheme and stylesheet, but I also had to clean up a couple of bugs here and there. There wasn’t anything really serious, just a couple of width and height issues I needed to adjust. There was also a bit of a learning curve on getting images to look just right and figuring out a good taxonomy for categories. The navigation menu above the showcase is completely driven off of categories and that required I change the way I normally use categories some.

Overall, I’m very happy with the theme and eternally grateful to Brian and Jason for the fundamental change to their operating model for quality WordPress themes.

I have just completed the initial mockup of my new Red Haven Internet Solutions business cards. I created the two-sided card in Photoshop and then popped them into another image to create the following mockup.

If you’d like to create your own business cards, I highly recommend the following tutorials over at PSDTuts.com.

• Making a Print-Ready Business Card Using Only Photoshop
• Using the Vanishing Point Filter to Mock up a Business Card

Be forewarned that the first tutorial uses metric dimensions. I went to UPrinting.com to get the proper dimensions in inches. As for the vanishing point filter, I just didn’t have the time to setup the surface portion of it.