Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 29/04/11

Research and found some resource regarding redundancy on topic 3: Designing the Data Center Infrastructure. Full version of e-learning material had completed and uploaded to skydrive under the share folder "completed edited files."

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 28/04/11

Completed topic 1: Overview of Data Center & Virtualization by discussing with yeeheng on the contents. Edited the slides format for each powerpoint files. Will re-check those powerpoint files and upload as a whole to skydrive tomorrow with weekly report.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 28 April 2011

Was discussing and reviewing all the e-learning materials with kin leong, and we completed and finish the 1st completed draft. We also done the contents page, standardised the fonts and background.
We will still be doing another round of reviewing before submitting it tomorrow.

Recommended list of books to read

Here's my compiled list of good books to read up.

Virtualization:


http://www.amazon.com/Virtualization-Cornerstone-Techniques-Successfully-Implementing/dp/1742445888/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293441966&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Virtualization-Cornerstone-Techniques-Successfully-Implementing/dp/1742445888/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293441966&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/VCP4-Exam-Cram-Certified-Professional/dp/0789740567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442094&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/VMware-Certified-Professional-vSphere-Review/dp/0470639288/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442094&sr=1-4

http://www.amazon.com/VMware-Certified-Professional-vSphere-Study/dp/0470569611/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442094&sr=1-7

http://www.amazon.com/Maximum-vSphere-How-Tos-Practices-Working/dp/0137044747/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442094&sr=1-6

http://www.amazon.com/VCP4-Exam-Cram-Certified-Professional/dp/0789740567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442094&sr=1-1


Data Centre:

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Virtual-Data-Center/dp/1420086669/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442319&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Build-Best-Center-Facility-Business/dp/1587051826/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442319&sr=1-9

http://www.amazon.com/Grow-Greener-Center-Douglas-Alger/dp/1587058138/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442319&sr=1-10


ITIL:

http://www.amazon.com/ITIL-Lifecycle-Publication-Suite-Books/dp/0113310501/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1293430485&sr=8-6

http://www.amazon.com/Service-Offerings-Agreements-Intermediate-Capability/dp/0113312709/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442444&sr=1-12

http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Service-Management-Unofficial-ebook/dp/B004CLYELY/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442444&sr=1-10

http://www.amazon.com/Configuration-Management-Guidance-Managers-Practitioners/dp/1906124582/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293442516&sr=1-17

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 27 April 2011

Had a discussion meetng this morning, and got the e-learning materials settled.
And we edited the slides contents, the design and the fonts. Including the content page for the last two topics, topic 13,14 as i started doing from the back.

Will continue on the next remaining topics tommorrow.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 27/04/11

About to complete Topic 5: Integrating Security into the infrastructure. But encounter a problem on finding management network in security zones and Redundancy for Topic 3. Tomorrow will carry on research on that subtopic. Will upload all completed files to skydrive by tomorrow of friday the latest.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 26 April 2011

Installed ESXi in VMware workstation on my laptop this morning in school.
As kin leong's laptop is having problems installing it.
We took down screenshots of the whole installation process, which will be used to create the guide or lab practical.

Did some research on link redundancy but the result is not successful, will continue editing other topics tomorrow.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 26/04/11

About to complete with topic 3: "Designing the data center infrastructure" but only left one subtopic which is the link redundancy. Having doubt on whether the link redundancy I've researched is correct. Start doing some of the lab practical guide on installing ESXi

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 25 April 2011

Over the weekends, i have installed VMware and Windows 2008, wrote down with screenshots on the installation. Topic 12: Server Virtualization Concept was completed as well, but Fabic Extenders i still could not find any good informations.
So today, when back to sch to fill up the missing sub-topics in the topics( topic 10 & 12), managed to got some informations and edited it with picture and better explanations.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 25/04/11

Tried to install VMware ESXi host on my personal laptop over the weekend but encounter an error. It stated that my personal laptop doesn't meet the requirement to install. Came back school and discuss with yeeheng, and will try to install Window Server 2008 instead.

Regarding the e-learning topic 5: Integrating Security into the Infrastructure. I'm still encounter some problems on "Campus Core", "Implementing Traffic Rate Limiting", "Management network" and "Deploying Stateful firewall".

Meanwhile will focus on topic 3: Designing the Data Center Infrastructure and installing Window Server 2008.

Making sense of VMWare vSphere

To me, vSphere is the environment which allows virtualization using VMWare products. In fact, according to its online documentations, vSphere is the foundation for a virtual data center and consists of 3 portions to allow things to start working in tandem:

1. The vCenter Suite: a command-and-control central point to configure, provision and manage the virtualized environment. Of cos, it does not work across other vendors' platforms like Citrix or Red Hat KVM. And i think it will remain this way for obvious reasons.

2. Infrastructure Services: The hosts (ESXi or the older ESX... in other words, the hypervisor), virtual networks and shared storage, etc.

3. Application Services: Those Services that gives scalability, availability and security. Of cos, Security when implemented is still a big challenge for many virtualized IT projects.... for many reasons.

* The above is just my self-study notes. You may use it freely by just providing a link back to here.

And yes, if you like me to write more on such articles, u could either 'like' or comment on this articie, as well as provide a link back to here. This way, I would know how useful these sort of articles are to you and well try to write more despite my heavy weekend schedules (currently, almost 1/2 of it used up by my lovely infant). No promise. :)

Source: http://www.vmware.com/

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 21 April 2011

Continue from where i stopped yesterday, which is Topic 12: Server Virtualization Concepts
Suppose to be researching and finding out what is "Fabric Extenders" but i could not find a proper one with the needed explanation that i am looking for,
so i skipped this and went on finding for "Vntag" and "VN-Link" , managed to got the information and half of this topic is done. Will proceed onto the next half of it over the weekends.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 21/04/11

Resume doing research and create required subtopics in "Integrating Security into the Infrastructure". Having some issue on finding resource on "Campus Core, "Management Network" and "Traffic rate limiting".

Will start installing VMware ESXi 4.1 on personal laptop over this coming weekend. Meanwhile rush to find those resources on the necessary subtopics.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 20/04/11

Half completed Topic 5 "Integrating Security Into The Infrastructure", which is a new topic and i need to start from sketch. Some of the subtopics yet to complete, such as "Deploying Antispoofing Filtering", "Using uRPF", "Implementing Traffic Rate Limiting" and "Campus Core". Will resume doing this topic and try to complete by tomorrow.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 20 April 2011

Started on the new topic, " Server Virtualization Concepts " . This is a new topic, so everything got to start from scratch including the research. Been spending much of the time in finding the informations, The Port extenders and Fabric extenders were the tough area cause the information were limited.
Only managed to complete up to this area and was stucked for the time being.

Will continue on this topic and hope to complete it by tommorrow.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 19 April 2011

Completed Topic 14: Green Data Center today.
As the previous group's work was not detailed enough, so i intend to start over a new one instead of continue from where they have stopped.
Had to research for more information over the web and manged to got some information noted down, and placed them into slides.
This topic would have more pictures and tables to elaborate some of the contents.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 19/04/11

Completed Chapter 11 "Storage Virtualization". By getting some resources from the previous group file. Added those subtopic on Fiber Channel, FCoE Initialization Protocol, FCoE and Virtualization and iSCSI. Resource on Fiber Channel, FCoE and iSCSI provided by web is quite sufficient. But "FCoE Initialization" and "FCoE and Virtualization" will be more harder to research on.

FCoE and Virtualization
http://www.t11.org/ftp/tll/pub/fc/bb-5/07-693v0.pdf

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 18/04/11

Started on my topic "Designing the data center infrastructure". As this topic doesn't have any resource to read through, I've to research from the web. Basically i have some doubts on some of the resource i found.

• Switching Paths


• Link Redundancy & Load Distribution

All this subtopics must research base on data center or any other type of network like server or workstation?

I did some research and found few pdf files related to data center infrastructure.

http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/netsol/ns107/c649/ccmigration_09186a008073377d.pdf

And few pdf files downloaded.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 18 April 2011

Have been doing on the e-learning materials, today have completed Topic 10: Network Virtualization Technologies. This topic is very big and is a brand new piece of work as this is a new topic added in, previous group have not done anything also.
So i have to collect the required informations over the weekend and complied them into slides today in the lab.

After completing the e-learning material, i have change the slides background with page numbers, so with this is easier to locate the slides, but i would have to one by one apply the changes to all the previous completed topics too. Only managed to completed 2 topics.

Cisco IPP Task

had been task to configure Cisco Aironet 1130 AG Series (1131AG wireless access point), from lightweight back to autonomous, setup SSID and DHCP http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6087/index.html Upgrading Autonomous Cisco Aironet Access Points to Lightweight Mode or downgrade to autonomous http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/access_point/conversion/lwapp/upgrade/guide/lwapnote.html configure IP address for AP http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/access_point/1300/quick/guide/br13qsg.html#wp18157 DHCP http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/access_point/12.4_3g_JA/configuration/guide/s43adm.html#wp1090319 WAP/WAP2 config http://networking-newbie.blogspot.com/2008/11/configuring-wpa-and-wpa2-on-cisco.html

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 14 April 2011

Did not managed to accomplish much today, as there were a seminar that we need to attend from 1pm to 5pm. but we browse through some research before that. The 1st half of the seminar was about "Cloud Computing".
It is related to our project, so i managed to took down some notes based on the speaker's powerpoint slides and from the explanation he explained to us.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 14/04/11

Does not able to complete much works today as the morning part i spent some time on researching on virtualization components. On the afternoon, all fyp-ians have to attend a seminar. There's two presenters sharing their knowledges on cloud computing and we get to know more about it.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 13/04/11

Completed editing e-learning material on "Introduction of Virtualization" topic. Started to do some research and reading on hypervisor, virtualization management, VMware vCenter, VMware vSphere and both VMware ESX/ESXi. Is a new topic and we doesn't have the base to do editing, so we need to start from sketch and more research and reading needed.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 13 April 2011

Went throught the research material that i have, or given and from the internet, about the next topic we are going to do. Which is on Hypervisor, ESX & ESXi , and virtualization management.
Got some informations and the related materials that we need. And we proceed on in doing the slides for this new topic, and we have alraqdy done half of it.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 12/04/11

Completed e-learning contents after discussed with yeeheng and uploaded to skydrive. Which located in a folder created by me (Completed Edited Files). Continues on one of the topic which is introduction of virtualization. Base on the previous group powerpoint slides, i've added in those topics we had discussed on monday. Subtopic such as basic virtualization, benefit of virtualization, vSphere components and Virtual machine.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 12 April 2011

Was doing on the new topic, Topic 3: Data Center Management
As the previous group did not touch on this topic. I got to start from scratch, cause at the starting weeks of this FYPJ, i have already done the research regarding this topic. So i am able to start and complete it.

After which we proceed to the next topic, which is "Introducing to Virtualisation"
as i helped leong with this, helping him to look through the contents and we discuss what is needed and what should be added or removed.
We managed to do it according to the specifications we have listed out, and were near completion for this topic.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 11 April 2011

Was preparing the list of topics that is needed to bring out during the discussion session later on in the afternoon with supervisor with kin leong.
meanwhile before lunch break, was reading up on the properties of virtualization.

After lunch break, went for the discussion session and we got the topics for the e-learning material all listed out and the topics/sub-topics. We did it for the Hands-on practical also. 
When we were back, helped kin leong abit with the filling up of the details of the objectives for each topic.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 11/04/11

Edited the topic on introduction of virtualization using previous group file. Added in some subtopic like how virtualization works and why virtualize. Meanwhile research on VMware website for more resources. After discussion on the contents of our e-learning materials. Have a better idea on what are we going to do next. Straight after discussion, start to discuss with yeeheng on the subtopic and the objectives on each topic in the content table.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 8 April 2011

Finalized on Topic 6: Power Factor & Overloading, this chapter is completed
i complete my weekly report and filled in the details, after which we discussed about the next topic.
Which will be "Vitualization", we looked through the contents and went online to get its defination and a suitable diagram to explain the basic concept of this topic.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 08/04/11

Research on virtualization from vmware website and started to edit the contents of the previous group powerpoints file. Went to server room with cheehau to have more understanding by physically hand-on to the machine teach by cheehau. Finalised topic 6 (power factor & overloading). Uploaded those complete edited powerpoints to skydrive, included the word documents on the content table.

Daily research on Cisco solution 07/04/2011

Week 5 Day 4 while doing vCenter Server Networking Practical, i had discover some obstruction that stop me from moving on. it is confirm that HA,DRS, Vmotion, creating host in cluster and vNetwork Distributed switch need license, i had fail to do cold migration as there a error msg the object or item referred could not be found and i am sure about whether it had to do with license again . from early testing this morning i had also confirm that vCenter Server cannot be installed in a domain controller as they are using the same port (389). i had also revise on the window server 2008 about FTP, DHCP, setup domain controller, group policy

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 07/04/11

After done research on Power Factor topic and started to enhance on the powerpoint slides. Overloading of UPS is still quite unclear and resources in the web are somehow similar. Most of the resource are from APC web. But managed to add in overloading protection as to increase the objective of this topic. As Discussed with chee hau on the ESXi software and cleared some doubts with him. But having one doubt, which is whether our personal equipment(laptop) able to support the requirement needed for the whole practical.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 7 April 2011

Started doing on Topic 5: Power Factor & Overloading,
looked through the slides and made some plans in what to edit and to be change.
Did further research to elaborate more on "Power Factor" as previously was not detailed enough.
This topic is near completion as i think the portion about overloading can be further enhanced.
we had a small discussion with cheehau about issue regarding the lab practical, got to know the result of the softwares and also what to take note while doing it.

Daily research on Cisco solution 06/04/2011

Week 5 Day 3 had successfully installed vCenter server on Vmware workstation window server 2008. Solve this problem by install 64bit window server 2008 instead of 32 bit. from internet, i come across a website that said if we want to install vCenter server, the window server cannot be a domain controller but i had not test it out yet, will try out tmr to found out whether it is true. While playing with Vcenter server, i am able to add 3 host. some fact that i had found out as far, when i install a OS(XP) in a host. i disconnected that host and change it IP address, after changing the IP i connected that host back to Vcenter server but the VM(XP) does not appear in the inventory anymore, i could still see the XP file in that host, but in order to access it i had to create a new VM again and use the XP file, this result in wastage of some space as some new file are created to link the file together. I had also created a cluster but i can't add a host in it as a error msg keeping poping up when ever i try to add a new host(some thing about license not valid), not sure whether it because of the free trial that i am using. some thing i plan to test out tmr, Vmotion(live migration), cold migration, resource pool and setting alarm. will try out VMware distributed resource and VMware high availability if i can get the cluster working VMware distributed resource is to balance workload within a cluster and VMware high availability, when a host fail or down, all associted virtual machine are immediately on the other within a cluster

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 6 April 2011

Done with mid term presentation.
Went on by looking through the topic about "Power Factor", read through the resource file and the work done by the previous group.
discussed with kin leong about what we should be doing after this mid term and also about the upcoming topic "Power Factor".

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 06/04/11

As after the mid-term presentation, i've discussed with yeeheng on the topic (Power Factor) and see if power factor calculation will be needed to add on to this topic. By reading those files done by the previous group, power factor is a new topic for me to understand, and i need couple days to research on it. Read through the resources on power factor and overload pdf file. But it will take me sometime to understand and digest.

Daily research on Cisco solution 08/04/2011

Week 5 Day 5 reviewing cisco contract and manpower form this morning and had demo how basic vCenter server function work to kin leong. lastly i had reviewed android tutorial this afternoon.

Daily research on Cisco solution 05/04/2011

Week 5 Day 2 had installed vCenter Server on Window server 2008 and ESXi host on hardware machine, after some testing i was able to install a OS window Xp on the ESxi host. the testing was done through using cross cable. on the other hand i had tested to access ESXi host though internet for the Virtual machine part and it is successful.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 5 April 2011

Preparing the mid term presentation slides for tomorrow,
went to have a trial presentation with supervisor and have edited the contents with his pointers.
And we finalised the powerpoint slides when we got back.

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 05/04/11

Finalize the presentation slides for tomorrow presentation. Read through resources on virtualization. Intel Data Center Solutions: http://download.intel.com/it/pdf/Data_Center_Strategy_Infrastructure.pdf ftp://download.intel.com/technology/EEP/data-center-efficiency/state-of-date-center-cooling.pdf http://www.intelraid.com/pdf/Intel_RAID_Solutions_for_Data_Center_Applications.pdf This are the few website/pdf files i research today.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 4 April 2011

Preparing for wednesday mid term presentation, read up the documents regarding the project to try to understand and be prepared.
Went throught the draft powerpoint slides which we will edit a finalise mid term presentation slides tommorrow.

Daily research on Cisco solutions 04/04/2011

Week 5 Day 1 had research on vcenter server today and i had found link with almost all infomation of ESXi and vcenter 4.1 http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pages/vsp_pubs_esxi41_i_vc41.html while i had download droiddraw and had finish the school pratical regrading of droiddraw

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 04/04/11

Preparation for wednesday presentation. Read through the powerpoint slides that we've edited and looked through the pdf files on virtual machine downloaded from the skydrive. Enhancing the draft powerpoint slides tomorrow after discussion with yeeheng and add in necessary information. Meanwhile will focus reading more about virtualization.

Daily Research Report For FYPJ @ 1 April 2011

Was preparing the draft mid term presentation powerpoint slides with kin leong.
It is just a brief idea and more can be added in.
After lunch break, we went throught the work we have done so far to double confirm the work,
and lastly is the weekly report.

Daily research on Cisco solutions 01/04/2011

Week 4 Day 5 Had been stuck on the Android menu tutorial, had try different version of eclipse still can't figure out the problem. eventually i try to source new tutorial and got one on youtube and IT 3783 Mobile Application Developent tutorial from a FYPJ mate http://www.youtube.com/user/CornboyzAndroid had decided to try on the school tutorial as time is running out

Daily Report on Reseach for FYPJ: 01/04/11

Discussed with yeeheng on the mid-term presentation powerpoint slides. Roughly wrote down the progress on what had been done by us. The powerpoint file is uploaded on skyline (Week 6 presentation folder created). Read through the existing powerpoint file on the virtualization and read through those resources file on introduction of virtualization. Due to virtualization topic is too wide as what previous batch has down. It should take us some time to read and enhance on the powerpoint slides.