Using Diskpart in Windows to Improve I/O Performance

I have successfully deployed OpenFiler as an iSCSI storage platform for many clients. Depending on the hardware utilized I would go as far to say that it is as good as any of the commercial based products available in the market. In my experience it is not as good as EqualLogic (now Dell), but for the price it cannot be beat.

Back to the subject...one of the problems with deployments of a SAN is that Microsoft's Disk Manager by default formats the disk LUN's incorrectly, which misaligns the partition in the storage subsystem, which in turn can cause unnecessary I/O load.

The solution is to use Microsoft's Diskpart.exe utiliy which comes with Windows 2K, XP, 2K3, Microsoft KB 929491 explains.

So for every implementation I run through the following steps to align the partitions before any data is stored.

C:\>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 5.2.3790.3959
Copyright (C) 1999-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: SILVERCUBE

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 93 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 93 GB 0 B
Disk 2 Online 98 GB 98 GB

DISKPART> select disk 2

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

There are no partitions on this disk to show.

DISKPART> create partition primary align=64

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> list partition

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
* Partition 1 Primary 98 GB 64 KB

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 21 GB Healthy System
Volume 1 E BACKUP NTFS Partition 72 GB Healthy
Volume 2 D CD-ROM 0 B Healthy
Volume 3 F DATA NTFS Partition 93 GB Healthy
* Volume 4 Partition 98 GB Healthy

DISKPART> select volume=4

Volume 4 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> assign letter=h

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 C NTFS Partition 21 GB Healthy System
Volume 1 E BACKUP NTFS Partition 72 GB Healthy
Volume 2 D CD-ROM 0 B Healthy
Volume 3 F DATA NTFS Partition 93 GB Healthy
* Volume 4 H RAW Partition 98 GB Healthy

DISKPART> exit

Once complete, use Disk Manager in MMC to format and label the partition.

Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

Interesting article on UK's Guardian website with Richard Stallman, founder of GNU and Free Software Foundation, and his comments about cloud computing.

"Web-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner."

Free software or open-source software has many advantages to small businesses, but it is not always free, integration is not always seamless, but neither is proprietary software...lets not forget the licensing fees that many internal employees of those vendors themselves do not understand and/or do not know what to sell.

How many have actually read an entire EULA?

We use quite a bit of open-source products internally and for our clients.

Great open-source solutions that we have success with:
pfsense - an enterprise grade firewall, we have replaced many old Cisco PIX, Sonicwall's, WatchGuard, Microsoft ISA units in favor of pfsense
openfiler - storage appliance - looking to deploy iSCSI without the heavy cost? It works well, very stable and is feature rich

There are more alternative solutions, contact me if you have questions...maybe we can help.

- Mark

Engate Technologies Announces Vista Computing as a Reseller Partner for Network-Level Anti-Spam Security

Leading Technology Consulting Firm Joins Engate’s Channel Partner Program to Deliver Preemptive Anti-Spam Security to Enterprise and Small to Mid-Size Businesses

San Jose, CA – February 18, 2008 — Engate Technology Corporation, a leading anti-spam supplier and pioneer of next generation network profiling and connection management security solutions, today announced a strategic channel partnership with Vista Computing, a leading technology consulting firm. Under the agreement, Vista Computing will market and support Engate’s network profiling anti-spam products for service providers, enterprises and businesses.

California-based Vista Computing provides strategic network and security services to its customers across several practices, from the cabling infrastructure of the LAN/WAN/VoIP/Wireless to secure firewalls, remote access software, desktop applications, and Anti-virus / Anti-Spam / Anti-Relay Design and implementation. The company will resell Engate’s flagship anti-spam product, Engate MailSentinel™, which stops spam and malicious attacks outside the customer‘s network with 99% accuracy -- resulting in significant savings in storage and bandwidth as well as increased efficiency in throughput and latency.

“We consider Engate to be an outstanding anti-spam solutions vendor and are impressed with the company’s superior technology, performance and support,” said Mark Kaishar, principal consultant, Vista Computing. “Having Engate as a partner now empowers us to eliminate the serious risks associated with spam by preemptively stopping known and unknown attacks from reaching our customer’s email gateway.”

"Vista Computing is a highly respected reseller with outstanding expertise in network and IT integration," said Al Powell, vice president of sales, Engate Technology. “By partnering with reputable resellers like Vista Computing, we are able to fuel our growth by reaching a broader base of customers who can benefit from Engate’s industry-leading anti-spam security solutions.”

Lower IT Costs and Improve Productivity
Powered by Engate™, Vista Computing offers both an appliance-based and hosted anti-spam solution that has proven effective in stopping over 99 percent of spam outside of the customer’s network – before the message is transmitted to the email gateway. This connection-level protection delivers immediate savings in capital and operating costs as a result of reduced bandwidth, storage and CPU cycles. Moreover, blocking spam at the network level improves employee and IT productivity by significantly reducing the time wasted dealing with spam, false positives, malicious attacks and phish scams.

Ensure Business Critical Email Delivery
Vista Computing leverages Engate’s intelligent GlobalRules™ technology which uniquely profiles entire offending networks and provides immediate detection of compromised hosts and botnets. The patented technology is highly accurate in blocking established and new threats before they get inside the customer’s network and compromise IT resources, slow down network performance, crash servers and invade privacy. As a result, eliminating high volumes of spam at the connection layer enable organizations to increase the throughput and latency of their messaging systems as much as ten-fold. Engate’s proprietary rules operate in real-time and cannot be forged or adapted by a spammer's present and future tactics, protecting customers from new and ever-changing spam techniques with virtually no false positives.

About Vista Computing
Vista Computing is a technology consulting and solutions company, providing a broad range of IT services and support to small and medium corporations throughout California. Specializing in building and maintaining efficient network and computing infrastructures, our primary focus is to achieve the highest level of service at all stages of the technology and business level. Commitment to service, combined with technical expertise, diverse knowledge and resources to solve problems is what enables us to consistently meet our clients' needs. For more information, contact by phone: (626) 606.8594, or visit the company’s website at www.vistacomputing.com.

About Engate Technology
Engate Technology Corporation is a leading anti-spam supplier and pioneer of next generation network profiling and connection management security solutions for service providers and enterprises, and can be licensed to anti-spam software, security appliance, router, firewall, and unified threat management vendors. The company‘s flagship product, Engate MailSentinel™, delivers preemptive SMTP connection level protection against established and new threats. Engate‘s Network Profiling Connection Management technology may be extensible to other protocols, such as Instant Messaging and Internet Telephony, delivering the best safeguard for today‘s and tomorrow‘s threats. For more information, contact Engate at 775.745.7151, info@engate.com, or visit the company’s website at www.engate.com.

Contact Info:
Engate Technology Corporation
Tony dellaBusa
tbusa@engate.com

# # #
Engate, the Engate logo, Engate MailSentinel, Engate ConnectionManager, Engate GlobalRules, PhishFilet and all Engate products are trademarks of Engate Technology Corporation or its subsidiaries and are used under license. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Engate – a leading supplier of anti-spam, SMTP connection management, network profiling, email security, connection level security, network level security, and protocol level security.

Vista Computing joins SpamTitan Channel Partner Program

Vista Computing joins SpamTitan Channel Partner Program; plans to offer an appliance and hosted antispam solution to small and medium size businesses.

Los Angeles, CA, September 29, 2008 - Leading Technology Consulting Firm Joins SpamTitan Channel Partner Program. SpamTitan antispam provides the most comprehensive solution to email threats on the market today, offering protection from Viruses, Spam, Malware, Phishing and unwanted content. The solution uses best of breed technologies to provide an easily installed, easily managed and highly secure solution.

Vista Computing provides strategic network and security services to its small and medium size customers across several practices, from Managed Services, System Administration, Network Integration to Virtualization and Data Consolidation. The company will resell SpamTitan's flagship antispam product and plans to offer an appliance based and hosted antispam solution to small and medium size businesses.

About Vista Computing
Vista Computing is a technology consulting and solutions company, providing a broad range of IT services and support to small and medium corporations throughout California. Specializing in building and maintaining efficient network and computing infrastructures, our primary focus is to achieve the highest level of service at all stages of the technology and business level. Commitment to service, combined with technical expertise, diverse knowledge and resources to solve problems is what enables us to consistently meet our clients' needs. For more information, contact by phone: (626) 606.8594, or visit the company’s website at www.vistacomputing.com.

About Copperfasten / SpamTitan
Copperfasten was founded in January 2000 by the original design team of the highly successful Alta Vista Firewall at Digital Equipment Corporation. Following the acquisition by Compaq and subsequent sale of the Alta Vista firewall to Raptor and then Symantec, the Galway based development team decided that it would pursue its own interests and formed Copperfasten Technologies.
For more information, contact by phone: +353 91 540054, or visit the company’s website at www.copperfasten.com / www.spamtitan.com.