Tag Archives: SAN

2014 11 05 21 43 35

How to produce good documentation – Part 2 – Rack and Server Diagrams

Oh no, diagrams! But, but, I’m not creative!

So we covered the foundation an environment in part 1, which is that hated word, which is documentation,

But that means you need diagrams, which is something most people struggle with, especially using Visio.

You’re not alone, I was the same, my documentation in my early days was shocking, and then I took on a consultancy role, where I was implementing solutions and having to produce documentation for customer. I had a steep learning curve.

So I’m going to take you into the first steps on how to diagram your Racks and the servers in them.

Visio and your stencils

So your going to need Visio, preferably 2013, but 2010 will be fine. And you need stencils of the hardware you’re creating a diagram of.

The best place to get 90% of your Visio Stencils is VisioCafe.

For others that do not appear on there, its easy enough to just google the vendor name plus Visio ;).

Here’s the file for the Visio diagrams.

Creating a diagram of your rack

So this is something I do for most of my customers, creating a diagram of the rack, mainly to show the bits I’ve stuck in, and so the customer knows which server is which, and then can refer to the rest of the document for what that bit of kit does.

2014-11-05_19-52-45 Continue reading How to produce good documentation – Part 2 – Rack and Server Diagrams

Nimble Storage Array 660x495

Nimble Storage – How to configure a device from scratch (Using the CLI)

The other day, I posted about how to setup a volume on a Nimble Storage device, so this post is a bit backwards, as now we look at setting up a device from scratch using the CLI first rather than the Nimble Discovery tool. Lets get started;

1. Rack your device, cable it up, and power it on.

2. Connect the proprietary cable, and then your Null Modem cable to the serial port.

3. Putty or what have you using a baud of 115200

4. Login;

Username = admin

Password = admin

type “Setup” and enter to start the CLI based setup

2014-08-29_12-24-55

Continue reading Nimble Storage – How to configure a device from scratch (Using the CLI)