Projects

BPI

Submitted: Sat, Aug 25, 2007 @ 04:53:10 AM CDT

Updated: Tue, Aug 28, 2007 @ 12:37:05 AM CDT

I'm actively developing an open-source web Content Management System in Perl called BPI. I know, you're thinking "oh, another CMS, how... eh... useful," and you know, you're probably right. Here are the goals of my project:

  • Create a light-weight, object-oriented system without the cruft and extra obfuscation of other CMS's
  • Have it be usable by anyone, complete with a WYSIWYG content editor
  • Have a very small codebase with infinite object expandability


If you like, you can check out the latest SVN tree for the BPI project. [ Link ]

As always, you can view all of my current projects via WebSVN. [ Link ]

Update:
I've split the project into four parts:
BPI - The main application files [ Link ]
BPI-LIB - All of the object classes [ Link ]
BPI-SQL - The SQL schema files [ Link ]
BPI-TEMPLATE - The default BPI templates [ Link ]

HP AiO1200 NAS Upgrade Project

Submitted: Sat, Sep 1, 2007 @ 12:40:11 AM CDT

Updated: Mon, Sep 3, 2007 @ 03:08:15 AM CDT

Tomorrow (ok, well, later today), I'm going to have to go into work (on a Saturday!).

But, it's not such a big deal, however, because the project I'm working on is very exciting to me.

My predecesor at work decided it would be a great idea to take a whitebox (basically, a no-brand, "home-built" server) and make a mission-critical storage server out of it. I can see why he did it, as it was a great deal more cost effective than doing it "the right way(tm)." However, we're starting to have some serious problems with the hardware, and we have no commercial support, and no local retailers have stock of spare parts (which is critical for a storage server, especially).

The solution, you ask? Well, currently we're using this whitebox, which has roughly 4TB of storage. That 4TB is almost to the point of expansion anyway (as any IT person can tell you, 80% utilization is the magic number to start planning upgrades). We've decided to replace it with a 9TB HP AiO1200 [ Link ] unit for active data storage, with (2) Hitachi WMS100 iSCSI SANs [ Link ] stringed up to it for disk backup, with roughly 5TB of usable storage space each. Not only that, but we also decided to get an HP StorageWorks MSL2024 tape backup library [ Link ] with an LTO-4 Ultrium 1840 drive and (48) LTO-4 tapes (800GB capacity each).

Now, the great thing about using this setup, is that it moves away from the whole "whitebox" setup, to a (very well) commercially supported platform. Although the (hardware) costs were much higher than building a replacement platform in-house, we'll never again have to worry about a certain part being available if it fails 3 or 4 years down the line. Since this platform also offers extremely better data protection, we'll also be able to sleep better at night, knowing that our data is well protected.

Slowly but surely, I'm getting them moved off of such whitebox setups like this, and on to highly reliable HP platforms. And while I'm not a huge fan of working on a Saturday, this project will help me be even more satisfied with my work.

UPDATE:
The HP AiO1200 did not ship out in time to make it to our office by Saturday, so that project has been pushed out a little. Fortunately, I did manage to get the whitebox back up to normal operation, at least for now. I still feel it's on it's last leg.