My Other Computer is a NonStop Server

Community Spotlight #communitymatters

September 28, 2021
Articles, Sept - Oct 2021, The Connection 0
From left to right Antranik, Hagop, Lucine, Angela and Gilda

I was born in Beirut Lebanon. I received my secondary education in Khanamirian High School.

I graduated as an electronic engineer from Polytechnical Institute, Yerevan Armenia, with a master’s degree. After graduation I returned to Lebanon and worked for different IT related companies. The last one was NonStop Customer, and I was the Technical and Operation Manager.

I joined HPE Riyadh Saudi Arabia in 2005, as a Technical Consultant for NonStop, I am still in the same position until now. I have more than 35 years of experience in the IT industry with 20 Years in NonStop.

We have five NonStop customers that I support in Saudi Arabia and all of them are banks. One of my customers upgraded their IP CLIMs , ProLiant DL380 Gen9 to ProLiant DL380 Gen10.

After the successful upgrade I got the idea to use these servers and learn how to setup vNS on VMware. I managed to get two of these eight servers for my home LAB with the CPUs, RAMs, HDDs and the NICs. The server components were not enough to build a vNS , according to the Hardware architecture guide for HPE Virtualized NonStop on VMware. I had to spend few thousand dollars to buy the missing components like Mellanox ConnectX-4 cards, upgrade RAMs, etc… I bought almost everything from eBay. Since I couldn’t afford to buy HPE FlexFabric 5940 or 5950 Switches I had to seek a unorthodox method by connecting point to point the Mellanox ConnectX-4 cards between the ESXi hosts using Mellanox DAC passive copper cables 56Gb/s QSFP. I independently started the long journey of building my vNS. Although I have attended VMware vSphere Install Configure Manage training, I didn’t have much expertise to setup VMware vSphere, vCenter and vRealize so this was a big challenge for me. Lots of readings, trial and errors and with Google’s help I succeeded to setup the VMware part of the job. The virtual NonStop part was challenging also. Reading the HPE Virtualized NonStop Deployment and Configuration Guide for VMware is not enough to setup vNS but I was lucky enough to have access to the HPE Solution Center in Alpharetta which helped me to learn how to setup vNS. After few more experimentations I succeeded in setting up my vNS home LAB. Currently it is running RVU L20.05 and soon I will upgrade to l21.06.01.

Initial Setup May 2020

Same hardware but upgraded VMware and NonStop OS. Changed system name and enhancements:

Author

  • Hagop Abousefian

    Technical Consultant HPE, Riyadh Saudi Arabia hagop.abousefian@hpe.com M +966505483266 Hagop Abousefian, was born in Beirut Lebanon in an Armenian family. His ancestors fled during the Genocide from western Armenia and settled in Lebanon. He was 12 years old when the Lebanese civil war started. He received his secondary education in Khanamirian High School and in 1983 was accepted to the university of Yerevan Polytechnical Institute. A few months after arriving to Armenia for his studies he lost his only sister in Lebanon, she died because of shelling during the civil war. He graduated as an Electronic Engineer from the Polytechnical Institute, with a master’s degree and with honors. After graduation he returned to Lebanon and got married with Miss Angela Avetissian. They have two daughters and a son. Hagop Abousefian , worked in Lebanon for different IT related companies. The last one was NonStop Customer, and he was the Technical and Operation Manager. He joined HPE Riyadh Saudi Arabia in 2005, as a Technical Consultant for NonStop, and he is still in the same position until now. He has more than 35 years of experience in the IT industry with 20 Years in NonStop.

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