Sucky Airlines

A friend of mine recently commented on how awesome Southwest is, and how sucky the rest of the airlines are on his blog post here

Today, the WSJ had an article regarding Frequent Flyer miles and how easy it is to redeem them. Results are not surprising. Here's the link: "The Road to Redemption"

US Air & Delta were the suckiest of the lot. Southwest came up on top.

I hate almost all US based carriers, but United, Delta & US Air take top spots. For international travel, travelling by a US based carrier is like throwing away money to get tortured (atleast the few trips I've been on)

What have I been doing?

Well...the past few months have been grueling at work (and still continues to be). My friends keep telling me to take a break, and its high time I do, but unfortunately...I'm addicted to it (for now)...

So...what have I done / learnt this past few months (starting November) with work?

Well...designed, architected (with a colleague) and currently leading the build of a Highly available Geo Clustered Oracle RAC cluster with Weblogic running on Sun Blades.

Whats cool about it....well ..everything is :-)

1. Implementing virtualization with Sun LDOMs & Zones.

2. Implemented a Sun Cluster to provide highly available Network File Storage (I keep thinking this would have been incredibly useful at my previous job, since we used to only NFS mount our shared storage area) instead of spending tons of money on redundant NAS devices (filers as some people like to call them in the Sun world)

3. Created an infrastructure so that any new Solaris or Linux machines can be quickly imaged with Jumpstart.

4. Implemented Sun directory server for LDAP with replication.

5. Java memory troubleshooting....

and many more...but those are some of the highlights.

On the personal front though....

We celebrated our 6 year anniversary...

and ofcourse we announced that we're expecting another child due in September!

Sun Cluster 3.2 with LDOM 1.3

I had to get a Sun Cluster 3.2 to create a HA-NFS on LDOM 1.3. LDOM 1.3 and Sun Cluster 3.2 now fully support Sun Clusters on Guest Domains not just the I/O Domain. This makes it incredibly useful.

I faced plenty of issues, and hoping that this post will serve as a guide to those who need to do it.

Setup:

1. 2 Physical T-6340 blades.
2. Control Domain that also serves as our I/O Domain.
3. 1 Guest Domain on each Server for Sun Cluster.
3. EMC Powerpath installed on the Control Domain

Storage:

Managed by EMC Powerpath

The devices will be seen as : emcpowerXa

1 LUN for each Sun Cluster domain

1 Shared LUN between the 2 physical blades

I want to note STRONGLY that you should first try using the powerdevices for the LDOM & Sun Cluster, and only if that doesnt work use the cXtXdX devices. Each configuration may be different and you may have better luck or a patch that I did not have at the time of my trial.

powermt display dev= will give you the underlying cXtXdX number (in the I/O Domain).

Present all devices in MPGroups to the LDOM (even for boot disk since we'll be using SVM with Sun Cluster) as cXtXdX devices.

3 disks to be presented in this example

1. Boot Disk (mpgroup: bdskgroup)

2. Quorum Disk (mpgroup: quroumgroup)

3. Shared Disk for storage (mpgroup: cludskgroup)

(Make sure to give an id to each of the vdisks that are presented to the LDOM so that they always are presented in the same order even on a reboot)

For each Sun Cluster LDOM present the VNETs from the VSWs in the order they're cabled for the private interconnect. This is important.

I used cross over cables.

Jumpstart and boot up the LDOM.

If you've done everything correctly you should see 3 devices when you do "format".

Install the Sun Cluster software with the NFS packages. Patch it appropriately.

I used the below instructions to create the cluster, however, its far easier in 3.2. Just create the metadb by configuring the SVM (instructions in link below) and then run scinstall. Once thats done run clsetup and follow the instructions for the NFS Service.

http://napobo3.lk.net/sc/dual-node_HA_NFS_cluster_setup.html

Copied from the above link:
2 nodes (hostname: node1, node2) with installed Solaris 10 01/06, patches, Sun Cluster, NFS agent for Sun Cluster, VxFS
Both nodes are connected to the FC SAN storage, 8 storage LUNs are mapped to each node.

Configure SVM
On both nodes
Create the 25MB partition on the boot disk (s7)
Create the SVM database replica
metadb -afc 3 c0d0s7 (c0t0d0s7 on sparc)

On one node (node1)
- Create disk sets :
metaset -s nfs1 -a -h node1 node2
metaset -s nfs1 -t -f
metaset -s nfs1 -a /dev/did/rdsk/d2 /dev/did/rdsk/d3 /dev/did/rdsk/d4 /dev/did/rdsk/d5
metainit -s nfs1 d1 4 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d2s0 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d3s0 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d4s0 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d5s0
metastat -s nfs1 -p >> /etc/lvm/md.tab

metaset -s nfs2 -a -h node2 node1
metaset -s nfs2 -t -f
metaset -s nfs2 -a /dev/did/rdsk/d6 /dev/did/rdsk/d7 /dev/did/rdsk/d8 /dev/did/rdsk/d9
metainit -s nfs2 d1 4 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d6s0 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d7s0 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d8s0 1 /dev/did/rdsk/d9s0
metastat -s nfs2 -p >> /etc/lvm/md.tab
scp /etc/lvm/md.tab node2:/tmp/md.tab
ssh node2 'cat /tmp/md.tab >> /etc/lvm/md.tab'

- Create VxFS on shared devices -- I didnt do this.. I just did a newfs.
mkfs -F vxfs /dev/md/nfs1/rdsk/d1
mkfs -F vxfs /dev/md/nfs2/rdsk/d1

On both nodes
- Create the directories
mkdir -p /global/nfs1
mkdir -p /global/nfs2

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-0912/chapter1-1?l=en&a=view is the quick start guide, is some help as well (especially with the metadb setup), but they talk about LOCAL devices as HA-NFS, and that isn't want we're doing. :-)

iPad

Yaay...the new Tablet. The name sucks, seriously iPAD? Sounds like a feminine hygiene product (thats what everyone else is saying too :P )

Anyways...I read through the specs and I really wanted to think it was cool, but...
1. Wheres the USB port?

Why the hell would I want to connect to my computer for everything? If you're making a revolutionary and magical device, wouldn't you want people to use it even without a bloddy computer to get my files? So, if I am in class and the other guy has his documents on a USB drive, how is he supposed to magically send it to my iPad?

2. No Flash Support? If I want to have a full media web browser, then I certainly want flash! Heck, you can't even log an Oracle support ticket without flash now! LAME.

3. Lame resolution. 1024 x 768 makes it sound like an age old monitor. Bah.

Whats cool is the price point. If it had a USB port, I'd probably pre order it and find a hack to get flash working...but now I'm really thinking if I need the device, even though it would have been an awesome replacement for my dieing laptop.

Travel in the US

I recently had to travel to Toronto (after the Christmas day attempted attack) and boy do I hate the airlines even more. I also travelled to Las Vegas which was mildly better but not by much... Where do I start?

1. Charging for checking in bags? Totally blows. Why would people travel without their f'ing clothes?
2. Airport security -- WTF. Why is America so scared? I think it's more political than actual fact. Seriously....on the way back from Toronto I wasn't allowed to carry my laptop bag, had to check it in (it was a bloddy Swiss Backpack).
2.1 The security check at the gate (no not the first x-ray check, one more before all the gates that lead to ANY US bound flights). They were Canadians, so they atleast smiled. Took out every single thing from my pocket and double signed my boarding pass and then someone else checked the double signature....seriously???
3. I hate hate hate all the bloddy airlines for their lack of professional service. Just hate them. We really need a new airline.

I think the Republicans should shut the f**k up and not create a hysteria. Sure some idiot tried to set off a firecracker, but wtf, seriously. Just really dumb. Makes us appear more scared than brave.

Wow..2009 is over

With 2009 coming to an end, I thought i'd write a little on what went on this year. Perhaps for me to reflect in the coming years....

January marked the 5th Year of me being married. Time does fly. The days munged by to April where my Son turned 4 years old. We got him a bike to start off...



and he got plenty more gifts at his birthday party...His nanamma (grandmother) was here as well which made it all the more fun.

I changed jobs in October and then left for my holiday trip to India.
We had an exciting trip to India this time. We stopped over in Dubai on the way there. We spent 3 days, seeing the sights and sounds of Dubai. The iconic Burj Al Dubai:

The gold souk, the indoor ski place, all exciting stuff. Pranav had a blast as well. The one thing that sucked in Dubai was it's beach near the Hotel Atlantis. The water was all murky and pretty disgusting. It was surprising that a 7 star hotel had such a crappy beach, but I guess thats what you get when you over build. However, the city itself was excellent.

One of the displays at Dubai Gold Souk:


One thing that did catch me offguard was, you had to pay for water at the hotel. Most hotels, when you sit down, bring you a bottle of water, and at the end they put it on your bill as well. There is no concept of "free" water.

I also tasted an unbelievably tasty Chocolate Praline Cake. A small piece was about 25 Dhirams (~$6.5), but was amazing!

Dubai is known for it's malls. But, they're really trying to outdo one another there. The Dubai Mall has one of the best musical fountains in the world:



Not to forget, we also went for Dune bashing, followed by a Dune buggy ride & a belly dance with arabic food (was mostly Indian. The only Arabic dish there was Khoobs (bread) and Hummus)







Then our India trip was fun as well.
My Dad turned 60, and as tradition would have it, we celebrated by calling our near and dear friends & family along with the traditional rituals.

Following that we went to Tirpuati, Vijayanagram (the small town my dad is from, and met many of our relatives and some of his childhood friends) and my dad's aunt who pretty much brought him up. Then we went to Vizag, a beautiful coastal city, with a beautiful sea shore.




Then I spent Diwali with my in-laws, back to Chennai with my grandparents and then it was time for me to get back to work. Ofcourse, I probably gained about 5 lbs with all the eating (more like stuffing :) ) the delicious food back home.



Once I came back from India though work got really busy. We're bringing about 60 servers online for a very critical application and managing it all is as awesome as it's tiring. Yes I am a geek and I enjoy working on Sun / Oracle Hardware / Software :).


Somewhere along the way I did turn 31. My wife threw an awesome surprise Birthday bash for me.

Sixth Sense technology....AMAZING

Ok...I feel really bad that I haven't seen this video from TED for so long.

Pranav Mistry talk at TED

Please check it out. This is amazing.

"Why use a tablet computer, why not just a piece of paper"?
"Why get stuck to only paper, how about moving that to a computer for more work"?

All those and more answered....

Health Care bill

I just want to say a couple of quick things ...

In no particular order...

* Not a perfect bill by any means, but it's the right intention, and it'll turn out to be very good for the country.

* The Pharama industry shouldn't be taken out to a beating because of profits. They make profits because they risk a lot more (all those lawsuits over Vioxx?) Unfortunately it's viewed with the same glasses as Wall Street Bonuses but for Wall Street, its only during recessions. For the Pharama industry it's all the bloddy time. (Not that they dont have their own faults)

* The insurance industry really should be jumping up and down, because they just got about 20 million people paying them, without doing ANYTHING to market to them. Absolutely freaking nothing. This by far should have had a larger republican participation because of the insurance pay off than the Democrats.

And lastly
Republicans you suck. You Suck more than ever. Not a single one of you voted for the most historic thing in the US of A. Perhaps the OPT OUT would have been awesome for you guys, or perhaps they should say every senator or house rep who doesn't vote for it, should have their state automatically excluded. That would get all of you so much more in line.

Microsoft being sneaky (again!)

I never ever go to MSN.com, but read a comment on ZDNet that MSN was using it's home page to shore up Bing's results. I thought I'd check it out to see if it was true, and lo and behold it was!

Go to the MSN.com home page and see for yourself. Even news articles, that should be direct links, are somehow tied to a bing.com search.

So -- thats how they get "more" traffic! hehe!
Oh well.

E-bills & Comcast

When I put the word Comcast in the title, many of you may have already cringed. Anyways, here's my story.

I called Comcast this weekend (the 2nd time nonetheless in 3 days), to figure out why I didn't have an IP. The first time, they resolved it without any stupid questions. Here's how the second call went.

Me: xxx-xxxx is my account number. I can't connect to the internet
Comcast Lady: Can I have your name and address
Me: Sure.
Comcast Lady: For security purposes, can I have the account number.
Me: I don't know. I can't get to it, since I CANT connect to the internet.
Comcast Lady: Can you tell me the last amount you paid.
Me: Again, I dont know, I can't connect to the internet.
Comcast Lady: Can you tell me the date you paid the bill
Me: No I cannot. On second thoughts, I paid it in the month of November.

At this point she "helped" me.

Shows you why, we can't trust only E-bills. I like the comfort of getting everything online, but WTF, if you can't get online, you're screwed. Something to think about.

Redline Metro (Washington DC)

About 2 weeks ago there was an unfortunate accident on the Red line of the Washington DC Metro. A few people died including the train operator.

However, to put it in perspective 1000's of people travel on the redline every day (not to mention every trip during rush hour). Is it too much to ask that the Red line be brought back to normal service even after 2 weeks?

I was reading the examiner this morning when I read this article: Redline delays irk customersThere was a comment by the president of the Metro's largest union Jackie Jater:

But Jackie Jeter, president of Metro's largest union that represents train operators, did not have such kind words for disgruntled commuters.

"I understand that you want to get to work a little sooner," she said, but "everybody should back off that. ... At least you're alive."

That ticked me off. If you've traveled on the metro, and especially the red line, you'll probably already know, it's overcrowded most of the time. If you've traveled by metro anytime at all, you'll have encountered bad drivers, with absolutely no sense of customer service. I've personally witnessed a train driver letting a guy sweat it out after his bag got caught in the door. She saw him (it was the first door after next to her window), and when someone brought it up, she said "I know I know" with an expression " I want to teach him a lesson". I wanted to go up to her and tell her to DO HER JOB, but then, I didn't want to start a fight and have 1000 people on the line hate me!

These drivers, more often than not, are obnoxious (and increasingly the metro staff, because 3 yrs ago, I was pleasantly surprised at their courteousness) and don't care. They think they're doing the world a favor.

There was another article that mentioned that the drivers are scared to drive the trains after the accident (because of the system)! What BULLSHIT! I think, as a passenger, I'm more scared that the driver is driving the train and not an automated system.

I want to find out how much a train operator is paid and what benefits they get as compared to a different city and also compared to a cab driver on the DC streets. I would hazard a guess that they're paid significantly better than a cab driver (and work less hours than a cab driver).

So - Ms. Jackie Jeter, DO YOUR JOB. TELL YOUR PEOPLE TO DO THEIR JOB. The circuit as far as we understand was replaced about 5 days before BY YOUR OWN MEMBERS and it still malfunctioned! So, as passengers we probably should be MORE SCARED, that you guys show SO MUCH INCOMPETENCE after being in existence for over 30 years.

Perhaps its time for a large scale privatization of the metro and some large scale firings. I'm supposed to work hard and do my job well. Why the hell aren't you?

End of rant....

Planning, Enterpreunership

Some of you know, I've been trying to get an idea off the ground. We are a bunch of techie guys who believe in it, and are going forward. However, NONE of us has an actual business degree, so we kept trying to postpone the creation of a business plan. BAD IDEA.

I've come to realize, the Business plan, even though it may not be the most accurate or even come close to reality once things touch the ground, gives us a PLAN, or atleast something to refer to, to think about where we want to go. I believe it's extremely important to have a plan on where you want to go. You can't just start something and expect it to take off without a plan.

I guess it's time for me to dig up my plan which was written LONG LONG time ago, rethink it for the current scenario and move it forward. We've just internally released a pretty decent upgrade, and on a crusade to fix some bugs. Once thats done, and we a add a couple of features I really really want, I think we'll be ready for our much larger alpha! Yaay!

Ofcourse, I also have another idea, but can't seem to get the right people together for it! Damn it!

The other thing I've found is, you need a team of people who are all as enthusiastic about the product as you are. That core team is extremely important. I've found that 2 or 3 people tops for the core team is always good, and complementary skills is a must!

Its unfortunate that here in the US of A, unless you have globs of money to put into your startup, you're not allowed to legally start a company (as an immigrant) :(.

AP, India elections

While the Congress(I) is celebrating in India on winning the elections, it's a loss for the country. Even though they talk about a great democracy, the percentage of people that votes was laughable (about 40% in most places or less).

Andhra Pradesh which was earlier considered a laboratory for economic reforms (during Naidu's rule) became a laboratory for welfare schemes," said Rama Brahmam, a professor of political science at Hyderabad University.

That about sums it up for why the current administration in the state of Andhra Pradesh won.

If you care to read....the article is here

Its probably true in most parts of the state where the damn party won. I used to LOVE this Prime Minister (Dr. Manmohan Singh) and I was more than psyched when he became the PM the first time. But then when it all became giveaways, and corruption, it just felt such a big let down.

Rant: India Votes!

HOW STUPID CAN THE INDIAN PUBLIC GET!?! HOW COULD THEY VOTE BACK A NON PERFORMING CORRUPTION RIDDEN GOVERNMENT? Even in Andhra Pradesh, India's almost silicon valley, the worst party possible - the Congress(I) has gotten the most votes. Why? Probably because all those young adults who could vote, couldn't be bothered to go vote, and all the corrupt government employees whose bribes would be cut significantly went and voted. The TDP during their tenure drastically improved public services, roads, infrastructure etc. Whereas during the Congress rule that past years, all they did was rest on TDPs infrastructure, and ate as much money as they could.

I hope and pray that atleast in the next general elections, India will boot out these asses, but I dont have much hope. Until the young generation goes and votes, India will continue to be in a rut and led by the worst party of the nation - the Congress(I).

Newspaper industry....

People keep talking about the newspaper industry and how it's dieing. I am all against it -- especially because BLOGS aren't news, they're mostly written by people with (almost)NO JOURNALISTIC talent. I'd rather have professional journalists doing the real reporting even if they're skewed one way or another.

To revive it though - I'd say - once you give something free it's hard to take back. So why not some of the newspapers join together in a "online media partnership" and allow people access to content for a certain fee per month or year (plus ofcourse the ad revenue)? That should take care of atleast some of the revenue generation and people won't feel like crap to keep paying for individual papers. Perhaps some "Free" content and the rest can be paid.

I wouldn't go the extreme of what WSJ is doing and keep increasing prices willy nilly (but Murdoch is nuts), but I think some kind of an "all access pass" is long overdue!

Fannie Mae - You SUCK!

So - Mr President Obama has this ambitious plan to help all mortgage holders and encouraging all of us to refinance. However, he's forgetting that Fannie Mae SUCKS. They don't care if your house appraisal comes up about 100k over what they say your house is worth. They will WITHOUT any appraisal of the neighboring houses will set their price and not budge from it! So what can the home owner do? Refinance with a different lender - and put in money again (to make it 5%, 10% or 20%) or what not, and cannot take advantage of the Homeowner Affordability plan.

So in short - Mr President - your plan sucks!

Oracle buying Sun

Wow - now this is a pleasant surprise. I wonder what Larry Ellison is going to do to piss of Microsoft more? This should be good. I hope they are able to integrate absolutely well and make a great product.

As per my previous post - please fire the Sun sales staff. You'll get more value on day 1 than Sun ever did the past 5 years!

Rant: Why inject race into everything?

It's no surprise that the Metro doesn't have enough money to run its system and balance its budget. So they have to do what everyone else is doing - make cuts to service, layoff people etc.

So - today I was reading the Washington Examiner and I saw the following quote:

Furthermore, the proposal would affect only Metrobus, not Metrorail. The bus system already provides less consistent service, with one of every four buses arriving late. Many of the routes already have truncated schedules, running only during rush hours on weekdays. Meanwhile, transit agency statistics show that Metrorail serves a higher proportion of higher-income and white riders.

“We are balancing the budget on the backs of the low income and people of color,” Craig Simpson testified on behalf of the system’s largest union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689.

The last statement about balancing budget on the "people of color" totally PISSED ME OFF. Why does race have to factor into this? Then should I inject and say that in the 2 years I've been using the metro system, I've yet to come across a White train operator (I dont know if any of you have) or even at the station booths. Does that mean that Metro is favoring only African Americans at the expense of other MAJORITY folk? WTF.

Get off RACE people. It's only the color of the skin. Everything doesn't have to come down to RACE and people shouldn't use the fact that there was a racial divide about 50 years ago to take advantage of it today and get what they want. If you want to move away from racial difference, perhaps you should stop trying to use it to get what you want in life. Otherwise, you'll always be looked down upon BECAUSE YOU'RE LOOKING DOWN UPON YOURSELF!

Live Search Sucking....

As much as Steve Balmer wants to thump his chest and say they want to "acquire more traffic" and they can provide a great product, their product currently SUCKS. I don't know if it's the lack of traffic, but if Live.com can't find MICROSOFTs OWN PRODUCTS properly - how much is it going to find someone elses product better?

Scenario: I'm working on Operations Manager 2007 (aka System Center Ops Manager, Ops Manager 2007) and they have "Management Packs" which are downloadable from Microsoft.

Search Term: ops manager management packs

Live.com First Result: Windows Virtualization Team Blog

Google.com First Result: System Center Pack Catalog

Why would a sane person use live.com now?

IBM buying Sun......

There are talks that IBM may be buying Sun for $6.5 billion. I'm hoping this deal goes through. You may already know that I'm a huge fan of Sun hardware. However, their sales staff SUCK SUCK SUCK. You could find a still functioning team at Lehman Brothers probably better than Sun sales staff (I've dealt with them now in 2 states and a few times).

Why do I say that? I say it because
1. They never follow up with you.
2. You could call them - tell them I want to buy your hardware - and still not hear back with BASIC information that would allow you to finish pricing your stuff.
3. Even when they know you're going to buy their hardware if they give you information, they take their own sweet time with it.
4. If you start a sales call - they never bother to follow up on what happened or if you need more information or read 2.

(Yeah - all the above are almost the same - but I'm venting a little too )

So - with that said - IBM - I give you my blessing :-) Please fire the Sales staff - keep their techies, but please fire the Sun sales staff. You'd probably INCREASE your sales of Sun hardware after you've fired the sales staff!