Sep 24, 2020

Mission accomplished: OpenHack: Migrating Microsoft Workloads to Azure

 After three days of hard work i got my first OPENHACK badge:


Authorized by Microsoft

Here the details from Microsoft:

Earners of the OpenHack: Migration badge understand how to execute an end-to-end migration through optimization. They have shown that they can utilize Azure Migrate to migrate virtual machines to Microsoft Azure and can modernize legacy applications by migrating to PaaS services such as Azure SQL Database and Azure App Service. They have also have a foundational understanding of Azure identity, including hybrid identity with Azure AD and how to leverage Azure RBAC to govern and secure workloads.

It was really a great challenge to discuss and implement all the goals. Thanks to the excellent coaches and for providing the infrastructure!

Sep 5, 2020

Cloning my dual boot ubuntu to a larger SSD

 After working a while with my laptop i reached the disk limit with my SSD (256GB). First impression: Oh no - how to migrate onto a new, larger SDD...

But the prices have dropped so i bought a 1TB SSD and an external SSD box:

Now i was thinking about copying the partitions with dd from the original disk to the other - or better doing a dd for the complete disk?

A friend offered me to use acronis, but the software refused to start on my laptop...

I googled a bit around and found the following solution (inspired by http://www.geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-clone-hard-drive-to-smaller-drive/):

clonzilla.org

And this worked excellent.
After cloning my old ssd to the new one i removed the CD with clonzilla and my laptop immediately bootet from the new SSD which was still inside the SSD box.

Really cool!

I checked windows without replacing the SSD inside my laptop and this worked as well as the Ubuntu.

Next step was to boot with an GPARTED iso (can be found here) and resize the linux partition up to the new limits.

So last step was to open up my laptop and insert the 1TB SSD...

(Totally amazing that i did not have to run grub or change the uefi settings.)

Sep 4, 2020

Review: Container Storage for Dummies

After reading Running Containers in Production for Dummies this book fell into my hands:


 
 

Container Storage for Dummies is promoted by RedHat and consists of 5 chapters with 35 pages. 

The first chapter gives a short summary about containers. I liked this statement very much: "For example, a VM is like a heavy hammer. It assumes you’re running a server and that the server can host multiple applications. [...] And the container can run just about anywhere, even on a bare metal machine or in a VM — the container doesn’t care." The chapter ends with a motivation why containers need persistent storage: ephemeral containers are transient....
Chapter 2 has the title "Looking at Storage for and in Containers". The key argument here is: "Software-defined storage (SDS) separates storage hardware from storage controller software, enabling seamless portability across multiple forms of storage hardware. You can’t slice and dice storage using appliances or typical SAN/NAS as easily, readily, or quickly as you can with SDS." Both terms (Storage for Containers + Storage in Containers) are given a defintion (just take a look inside the book ;-)).
In chapter 3 the authors want to convince the reader about the coolness of container-native storage with phrases like "Container-Native Storage Is the Next Sliced Bread". I think the main argument in this section is, that RedHat contributes a substantial parts to open source Kubernetes so that RedHats Openshift container storage fits easily in there. And this is done by introducing the Container Storage Interface which can be used by all storage providers.
Chapter 4 motivates why developers like Container-Native storage: because it can be easily managed without SAN administrators....
The last chapter closes with ten reasons to move to Cantainer-Native storage: simplified management, more automation, scalibility, ....

As summary i think, this book is a nice starting point about the problems and possible solutions with storage for containers. It is a little bit disappointing, that openshift is not really explained - but within only 35 pages this is really impossible.
If you are working or starting to work with containers i require you to read this booklet - it is a good start into the container world!