Dan Gillman

Senior System Administrator at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Has 10+ Years Of Experience

Badges

User Activity

Almost 8 years ago

Answered a question: What's the best way to trial all-flash solutions?

Depending on your situation, if your trial is to find out about the speed of applications and throughput then have the mfg provide a demo and move a host to the array. Preferably a test host and simulate your users. If however, your trial is more for reliability and fault…

Almost 9 years ago

Commented on The most valuable feature is the ability to backup over the dedicated Fiber Channel directly from SAN. There's no impact to the network or users.

We created a workflow using the Commvault Workflow and was able to automate a number of daily processes. It's a great tool and works as expected.

About 9 years ago

Commented on The most valuable feature is the ability to backup over the dedicated Fiber Channel directly from SAN. There's no impact to the network or users.

We found are DBA's a little reluctant to rewrite the many scripts they had for backup. I feel a better SQL interface is needed to help with the preexisting scripts most companies already have in production.

Over 9 years ago

Answered a question: When evaluating Storage Management, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

Data progression, compression, encryption at rest, expandability, GUI that is intuitive to use. Reporting is a huge benefit not just space but IOPs! All these features are critical when managing your storage environment.

Over 9 years ago

Contributed a review of HPE MSA: Data progression, volume draining and dual controllers are valuable features.

Almost 10 years ago

Contributed a review of Commvault Cloud: The most valuable feature is the ability to backup over the dedicated Fiber Channel directly from SAN. There's no impact to the network or users.

Over 10 years ago

Contributed a review of Acronis Cyber Protect: We have saved massive drive space and shortened data transfer time to offsite due to the 8:1 ratio of the de-duplication and changed block tracking, but MS Exchange and SQL backups are a little slow.

Over 10 years ago

Contributed a review of Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT [EOL]: We're able to shut down all servers and monitor both power consumption and stability from the building, but the GUI needs improvement.

Over 10 years ago

Answered a question: When evaluating backup and recovery software, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

Compatability with your company software. Such as Oracle. Without this you may find you don't really have a backup. Feature set that meets your requirements. Compression has proven to be another important feature as your data grows. Bare metal restore is a must and…

Almost 11 years ago

Commented on We needed to reduce the number of physical servers and maximize CPU usage.

Please tell us a little more information. The review is very general and doesnt tell us anything accept you really like the product. Are you using vmotion? Did you pool the resources and does it provide more CPU or memory for your applications? Is everything running on…

About 11 years ago

Answered a question: Do you have an RFP template for Backup Solutions which you can share?

We support small to medium business's and offer a few solutions based more on budget unfortunately then the high standards listed above. But we often come very close to those standards providing the same level of data protection without the the high cost of a mirror site…

Over 11 years ago

Answered a question: When evaluating Ethernet Switches, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

Depending on what your requirements are my opinion is throughput and functionality. Management is another consideration as it won't do you any good if you can't manage the switches purchased. As far as POE is concerned look at the wattage and make sure your devices are…

Over 11 years ago

Answered a question: Oracle VM vs. latest VMWare?

Both are similar in features however if this is for ODA appliance then you should know that currently no management is offered and everything is converted to VM via Oracles Virtual Box. Dan Gillman

Over 11 years ago

Answered a question: Moving from ESXi Essentials to plus: key install or a reinstall? What are my options for a redundant active passive san?

The bad block issue indeed was the SAN. After some chasing of mysterious corruption and appearing as if a bad query was being run, I finally recieved one hardware error from the LSI Raid card in the San. After researching the Hex code that seems almost unreadable I found a…

Almost 12 years ago

Commented on Comparison of VMware, Citrix and MS Hyper-V

@ctsanders I am always amused at what people say when they are corrected. The comment of being rude was still referring to the licenses of Microsoft. And unless you have been through a latest audit it's truly rude the way it's handled. As far as your questions and my…

Almost 12 years ago

Commented on Comparison of VMware, Citrix and MS Hyper-V

@ kapilmalik1983 My decision was budget based and VMWARE won hands down. And like I said above outperformed the others buy at least 30% . Our investment went to VMWare. I am starting true VDI testing next week with a pilot company that will be live in production with HP…

Almost 12 years ago

Commented on Comparison of VMware, Citrix and MS Hyper-V

@ctsanders I never said free or suggested to run on bogus licenses. I did say however that Hyper V and Citrix are a bit harder and can be down right rude to deal with. The real point is performance not the sale of additional licenses. Yes you must stay in compliance of…

Almost 12 years ago

Commented on Comparison of VMware, Citrix and MS Hyper-V

All the details and sales hype aside. I think you will find you VMWARE to be easier, more manageable, and able to truly utilize and monitor the hardware better than most anyone. And if your able to do a side by side comparison as I did the CPU usage for me with 13 servers…

Category Leaderboard Rank

Data Center Power Solutions (2nd)

Experience

Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT [EOL]

Other Skills

QNAP, Open E ISCSI SAN, Super Micro, WatchGuard UTM

Reviews

Over 9 years ago

HPE MSA

Data progression, volume draining and dual controllers are valuable features.

Almost 10 years ago

Commvault Cloud

The most valuable feature is the ability to backup over the dedicated Fiber Channel directly from SAN. There's no impact to the network or users.

Over 10 years ago

Acronis Cyber Protect

We have saved massive drive space and shortened data transfer time to offsite due to the 8:1 ratio of the de-duplication and changed block tracking, but MS Exchange and SQL backups are a little slow.

Over 10 years ago

Schneider Electric-APC Smart-UPS VT [EOL]

We're able to shut down all servers and monitor both power consumption and stability from the building, but the GUI needs improvement.

Answers

Almost 8 years ago

All-Flash Storage

What's the best way to trial all-flash solutions?

Over 9 years ago

Storage Management

When evaluating Storage Management, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

Over 10 years ago

Backup and Recovery

When evaluating backup and recovery software, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

About 11 years ago

Backup and Recovery

Do you have an RFP template for Backup Solutions which you can share?

Over 11 years ago

Ethernet Switches

When evaluating Ethernet Switches, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

Over 11 years ago